CHAPTER FORTY-ONE - REBECCA

Rebecca had always understood power.

She had spent her life measuring it—her own, others’, the forces that shaped the world. She had stood beside titans, fought in battles where survival alone was victory, endured where others had crumbled.

But she had never allowed herself the luxury of hope.

Not in years. Not since she had grasped the hidden truth of the world—the inescapable cycle of devastation that bound them all in chains. Scion. The Endbringers. The slow, inevitable march toward total extinction.

Hope had no place in that reality. It was a lie, a delusion, a fragile thing crushed beneath immutable truths. She had seen too many heroes break themselves against the tide, too many bright flames gutter out, their names added to the long list of the dead.

The Endbringers could not be stopped—only stalled, only survived at impossible cost.

Scion could not be fought—only placated, only worked around, only feared in the quiet moments when the truth of him became too much to ignore.

So she had abandoned hope long ago. Replaced it with pragmatism, with ruthlessness, with an acceptance of the world as it was. She had become what was necessary, shouldering the burdens no one else could bear, making the choices no one else could stomach.

Because hope was useless. Hope was a weakness. Hope was for those who didn’t understand the reality of their situation.

And then—

Superman did the impossible. Again.

Behemoth was dead.

Gone. Just like Leviathan.

But something else had drawn her attention.

In the final moments of Behemoth’s death, as the city burned and the sky seared white-hot, she found herself looking away from the destruction. Away from the unscathed figure standing amidst the devastation.

She had looked up.

And she had seen him.

Scion.

Drifting above it all, golden and silent, his expression unreadable as always. Watching.

The thought unsettled her.

Scion had never been passive. When he appeared, it was with purpose, with intent. He answered cries for help, annihilated threats with indifferent ease, moved through the world as something inevitable.

But today—he had done nothing.

It had been only a moment, barely a breath in the midst of devastation, but she had felt the weight of his presence, the sheer unknowability of his thoughts.

And then, without a word, he had vanished.

That should have reassured her. It didn’t.

If anything, it terrified her.

Because before, Scion had been predictable. If he considered something a threat, he acted. If he wanted to enforce his will, he did. That was how he worked. That was how he had always worked.

So why hadn’t he?

Why had he simply watched?

Alexandria had spent too long looking for meaning, for patterns, in something that defied them. She had built her life around understanding threats, controlling variables, winning—even when winning meant nothing more than surviving another day.

But seeing the golden man simply floating there, she had felt something she despised.

Powerlessness.

Not fear. Fear was something she could contain, something she could channel into action. 

This was different.

Because if Scion was truly indifferent to Superman, that meant nothing had changed. That even this, even this, wasn’t enough to shake him. That their second greatest victory was still insignificant in the face of whatever governed his mind.

And if he wasn’t indifferent—if something had shifted behind those vacant eyes—then she had no idea what came next.

That was worse—the awful, inescapable realization. 

Was she cursed to forever be at the mercy of forces beyond her control?

Forced to wait for someone to save her from the inevitable?

Like Doctor Mother had done.

Like Contessa did every day.

Like Superman now.

She crushed the thought before it could take root. Forced herself to push it down beneath layers of discipline and purpose. To focus. 

The why didn’t matter. Not now.

The potential implications didn't matter. Neither did whatever came next. 

It didn’t even matter how she felt.

Powerlessness. Hope. Fear.

These things were useless.

What mattered was what she—Cauldron—would do.

She had spent years preparing for the inevitable—the day Scion shifted from passive force to active destroyer. She knew it was coming, and had accepted that there would be no stopping him when it did. Even Cauldron, for all its carefully laid plans, had never found a way to kill him.

But now…

If the rules had changed, if the game had shifted, then she would find a way to adapt.

Because the world had already placed its hope in Superman.

She just had to make sure he didn’t become another shattered ideal—

Another name on a list of failures too great to bear.