INTERLUDE

Eidolon drifted above the ruined city, silent, unnoticed. The fires still smoldered below, curling thick, black smoke into the sky, choking out the light. Buildings lay shattered, their steel frames twisted and broken, concrete reduced to heaps of rubble. Craters scarred the streets where Behemoth’s last moments had carved deep wounds into the earth. The scent of scorched metal and ozone lingered, mingling with something worse—the acrid, unmistakable stench of death.

Far from the irradiated zones of destruction, survivors were emerging, stumbling free from the wreckage. Some dragged the wounded with them, others simply stood, staring in dazed disbelief at the city that had once been their home. They clung to one another, to anything solid in a world that had nearly been torn apart. But when their eyes turned upward, they did not look at him.

They looked past him.

Toward the man who had done the impossible. Again. 

Superman.

The name was already spreading, a hushed scripture woven into every breathless whisper, carried on the trembling gasps of those who had survived the nightmare. It was reverent, awed, disbelieving. A name that meant hope. Not because he inspired it, not because it was his. 

Not because of the world’s supposed greatest hero.

Not because of Eidolon. 

But because of him. 

The alien.

Eidolon closed his eyes.

It had been a blur. The battle had lasted mere minutes, a fraction of the time it had taken to drive Behemoth off in past encounters. After all, the Endbringers were supposed to be wars unto themselves, fought over hours, battles of attrition where survival was the closest thing to victory, and even that came at an unbearable cost. But this? This had been something else. Superman had ended it in minutes—less time than it had taken to mount a proper counteroffensive in any past encounter.

Eidolon had fought, of course. He had tried. He had summoned his strongest powers, pushed his abilities to their rapidly dwindling limits. And yet, next to Superman, what had he truly accomplished? Behemoth had adapted, as he always did. Had shrugged off Eidolon’s strikes, had endured every attempt to stop him.

But against Superman, he had died.

The Endbringer’s remains were gone now, reduced to nothing in the wake of that final, blinding explosion of heat. There was no great carcass, no lingering battle to be won. Just Superman, moving among the farthest ruins, doing what needed to be done.

Eidolon opened his eyes. He watched as the alien flew, unhurried but never slow, lifting slabs of broken concrete as if they weighed nothing, pulling survivors from the depths of collapsed buildings. A mother sobbed as she clutched her child, pulled free from what should have been their tomb. A man stared in disbelief at the hero before him, lips moving in silent thanks. And Superman…

Superman smiled.

It wasn’t a performative thing. There was no struggle in it, no burdened grimace, no exhaustion peeking through a facade. It was steady. Warm. Genuine. 

A hero, in the purest, truest sense. 

It should have been him.

It had always been him.

Hadn’t it?

Eidolon looked down at his hands. Hands that had held the line against the worst threats the world had ever known. Hands that had been raised against Endbringers time and time again. Hands that had never been enough.

Because what if this—this effortless power, this certainty, this strength—was what a real hero was supposed to be?

What if he had been fooling himself all along?

His gaze was drawn back to Superman below. The red of his cape caught the wind as he knelt, offering a few soft words to a child too young to understand what had just happened. His voice was low, gentle—reassuring.

Eidolon had spent his life chasing the ideal of heroism. Striving, struggling, desperate to be what the world needed him to be. He had always thought the Endbringers were his greatest test—the figures against which he measured himself, the forces that pushed him to be stronger.

But now?

Eidolon looked down at his hands again. They were steady, but for the first time, he wondered if they deserved to be.

Because now he realized the truth.

It wasn’t the Endbringers that made him feel small.

It was Superman.