House of El: Reforged

Undisclosed Location — Kansas

Task Force X Blacksite 17 – Sublevel Omega

1:49 PM

The containment chamber creaked like it was breathing.

No alarms yet. Just a tension so thick you could staple it to the wall.

Then—

CRACK.

A hairline fracture jagged its way across the viewing glass, snaking like a spiderweb under pressure.

Rick Flagg Sr. didn't wait. "You seeing that?" he asked, one hand already dropping to his sidearm.

"I'm not blind, Rick," Amanda Waller replied coolly, arms crossed, voice low and venom-laced. "And I don't need a play-by-play from Captain PTSD."

Another crack. Then a twitch from the thing inside.

Joshua Walker—at least, what was left of him—twitched against his restraints. Not a convulsion. A deliberate shift of mass. Bones popped. Ligaments stretched. His chest heaved like a war drum starting up.

His eyes—what were once plain hazel—now gleamed red. Not glowing. Burning.

Waller didn't even blink as the tech shouted, "Containment integrity down to 70%! Spinal elongation detected. He's… he's not human anymore!"

Rick snorted. "No shit, Einstein. That's what happens when you pump a jarhead full of Doomsday like it's goddamn pre-workout."

Waller just sipped her coffee. Calm. Deadly.

"Phase Three initiated," she murmured.

"You skipped Phase Two!" Rick snapped. "You always skip the middle, Amanda. Why? So you can sit in the ashes later and pretend it was all inevitable?"

Inside the pod, Joshua began to change. Skin split. Bones tore outward like they were trying to escape his body. Blood sprayed in arterial arcs across the reinforced walls. His jaw cracked wide open—not dislocated, replaced. Fangs punched down through the gums like someone had forged them from obsidian.

And then—he laughed.

It was garbled. Wet. Wrong. Like a blender full of teeth.

"Sync rate: 81%," the tech whimpered. "He's integrating the Doomsday DNA, not rejecting it. Full-scale ossification underway."

Joshua's back erupted in jagged, ivory plates. His arms thickened. Nails became claws. Something sharp burst through his ribs—and kept growing.

Rick cursed under his breath. "Jesus, Waller, you turned a goddamn marine into a walking war crime."

Amanda Waller turned to him, her voice clipped and brutal.

"He volunteered."

Rick stepped closer, voice low and raw. "He trusted you."

"He trusted his country," Waller corrected, eyes sharp. "I just gave him a purpose."

BOOM.

The glass exploded, not just shattered—detonated. Shrapnel burst into the observation room. A tech was caught mid-scream—then mid-air—his chest torn open as a jagged shard sliced through him.

Rick tackled the surviving tech behind a console. "Stay down!"

Joshua stepped through the smoking wreckage, dripping gore and grinning with teeth that could chew steel. His armor was no longer forming—it was finished. Bone fused with sinew. A walking anatomy lesson from Hell.

"You all made me," Joshua rasped, voice deep and bubbling like magma beneath stone. "So guess what?"

He raised one monstrous hand and smashed it into the reinforced floor.

BOOM.

The entire room lurched.

"I'm gonna make you better."

Rick popped up and fired—two shots to the face, one to the chest. The bullets sparked off bone like spitballs off a tank.

Joshua didn't even flinch.

"Yeah," Rick muttered. "That's about what I expected."

Waller tapped her comms with perfect composure. "Omega Protocol. Lock the facility. Seal Sublevels One through Four. Deny all surface access."

"Wait—what?" the remaining tech gasped.

"You're locking us in?" Rick roared.

"No," Waller said, already walking away, heels clicking like a countdown. "I'm locking him in. You're just… collateral."

Joshua lunged.

Rick dove left as claws ripped through the console behind him, spraying sparks. The tech wasn't fast enough—his scream was short. Wet. And final.

Rick rolled, came up crouching, drew his knife. "Alright, ugly. Let's see if bonehead DNA comes with a god complex."

Joshua chuckled again. "You're still breathing, Flagg."

"And you still talk too much," Rick snapped, lunging for the carotid.

He stabbed—blade met bone. Sparks flew. Joshua snarled and swatted him across the room.

Rick crashed into a wall hard enough to crack the paneling.

Joshua turned toward Waller's retreating back.

She didn't even pause.

"You're not done," she said without turning. "Not until I say so."

Joshua charged.

CRASH.

The reinforced observation screen shattered in his wake.

Red emergency lights bathed everything in hell-glow. Sirens shrieked. Somewhere above, a door slammed like the world had just been buried.

Rick coughed, pulled himself up, blood in his mouth.

"Still think this was a good idea, Amanda?" he muttered.

No response.

Just the distant, steady echo of Waller's footsteps.

—

The corridor trembled like it was holding its breath.

Gunfire coughed behind her. Screams rose, sharp and brief—popcorn bursts of dying men in flak vests. Amanda Waller didn't look back.

Her heels clicked steadily on reinforced steel flooring, a quiet, methodical countdown. The kind that meant something biblical was about to happen—and she had written the scripture.

She reached the wall-mounted panel at the end of the hallway. The biometric pad blinked red.

She pressed her palm against it. It beeped once, then again, louder.

ACCESS GRANTED: DIRECTOR A. WALLER

With a hydraulic hiss, a hidden door slid open. Inside, the chamber was dead-silent, cold, sterile. A lone titanium pedestal stood at the center, its embedded terminal glowing faintly.

This was Sublevel Omega-Red.

The Kill Switch Room.

Waller stepped inside, removed a matte-black capsule from her jacket pocket, and slotted it into the terminal's encrypted port.

"Computer," she said, her voice like a guillotine on autopilot, "initiate Protocol K-113. Authorization: Waller-zero-zero-alpha-black."

The system hummed.

**> Verifying biometric lock...

Cross-referencing Doomsday genome tags with Project Rebirth mutations... Compiling detonation path: Neural Spinal Latch → Hypothalamic burst charge → Core Fusion Disruptor... READY TO EXECUTE.**

Waller exhaled slowly. No ceremony. No hesitation.

"Do it."

> Command confirmed.

Lethal Override Engaged.

Target: J. Walker.

Executing neural spinal cascade—

The lights flickered.

Then the terminal twitched. A static buzz hissed from the speakers like a radio trying to scream.

The screen glitched—once, twice—then went red.

> ERROR. ERROR. NEURAL CASCADE INTERRUPTED. HOST NEURAL PATHWAY OVERRIDDEN. TARGET HAS SEVERED KILL SWITCH TETHER. DOOMSDAY PROTOCOL... DENIED.

Waller didn't blink. But something beneath her jaw tightened.

"…He rewired himself."

Behind her, the reinforced wall thudded. Once.

Twice.

Then it cracked down the middle like a dry wishbone.

Concrete split and metal buckled as a claw, the size of a riot shield and twice as sharp, punched through. Sparks exploded outward. A chunk of rebar skittered across the floor.

Then came the voice.

"You really thought I wouldn't hear it?"

The concrete tore wide, and he stepped through—shoulders hunched, bone plates splitting from his spine like a blooming death flower.

Joshua Walker was gone.

In his place was something leaner than Doomsday, but crueler. Smarter. Designed. His skull was semi-humanoid, cheekbones split by jagged ridges. The flesh around his jaw peeled back in a parody of a smile—one that never ended.

"You whispered your little kill switch, Amanda," he rasped, voice wet and personal, like it belonged in your ear while you bled out. "But I heard it. I felt it. And then I broke it."

Waller turned. Her eyes locked on his glowing pits of molten red.

"I don't fail," she said, calm as static.

Joshua tilted his head. "Then what's this?"

He shoved a twitching length of bio-cable through the hole—still dripping with cerebral fluid and neural nodes.

"This is evolution."

He lunged.

Waller moved. Not like a soldier. Like a cobra. She dropped low as a claw slashed overhead, raking a trench in the ceiling.

Sirens howled—long, low, and mournful, like they were screaming in slow motion.

Waller rolled, came up behind the terminal, and yanked open a hidden panel. Her fingers found the emergency incineration switch.

Too slow.

Joshua grabbed her wrist.

He didn't squeeze.

He twisted.

CRACK.

The bone snapped like a dry twig. Waller let out a sharp breath—but no scream. Just a grimace. Her good hand fumbled for a sidearm she knew wouldn't help.

Joshua leaned close.

"I was gonna save you," he whispered. "Keep you for when the world burned. You were special. But now... now I'm thinking you get buried first."

A gunshot rang out.

Joshua jerked as a bullet pinged off his temple.

"Let her go!" barked Rick Flagg, silhouetted in the shattered doorway. His left eye was swollen shut. His ribs moved wrong when he breathed. And he was still on his feet.

Joshua chuckled without turning. "Still breathing, Flagg? You're like a cockroach someone respects just enough to flinch at."

Rick stepped forward, cocked the hammer.

"Yeah, well... cockroaches built this country. Right before assholes like you burned it down."

He yanked a frag grenade from his webbing, pulled the pin with his teeth, and hurled the entire belt at Joshua's chest.

"Happy Fourth of July, motherfucker."

BOOM.

The chamber lit up like a foundry eruption. Waller hit the ground behind a console as flames roared overhead.

Joshua's scream cut through the fire like a bone saw. Not of agony. Of irritation.

When the smoke cleared, he was still standing.

Charred. Smoldering. Laughing.

Half of his face hung in shreds. His right eye socket was exposed. But it was healing.

"You ever stop smiling?" Rick muttered, aiming again.

Joshua turned to him, his voice now boiling gravel.

"Only when I start killing."

He charged.

Rick dove left as claws demolished the console behind him, shrapnel slicing through steel and skin alike.

Waller kicked a service hatch open and rolled in sideways, cradling her broken arm.

"You're not done," she spat, loud enough to echo.

Joshua paused—just long enough to hear it.

She was gone.

Rick was not.

He rose from behind a terminal, bleeding from a dozen new places, and spit blood.

"You wanna evolve, fine. Let's see how fast you adapt to a knife in the brainstem."

Joshua grinned wide and rushed.

And the lights went out.

—

Sublevel Gamma – Blacksite 17

2:06 PM

Gamma was a coffin disguised as a fortress.

Three-foot-thick steel plates. Magnetic lockdowns wired into every goddamn inch. Nitrogen flood vents poised like traps, ready to drown the living or freeze the screaming dead.

Rick Flagg jogged in like he owned the place — blood smeared on his face, ribs aching like they were on fire, but his eyes? Still sharp, still burning with the kind of madness only a soldier with a death sentence knows.

He slammed his bloody fingers on the panel.

Thunk. The doors slammed shut behind him. The whole corridor blinked red — an ominous heartbeat that screamed containment breach.

"Alright, you ugly bastard," Rick muttered, licking blood from his cracked lips. "Show me what kind of monster you are."

He rifled through the emergency locker — shaking hands like a junkie hunting his last fix.

Inside:

— Two syringes of Compound V2-Delta. Adrenaline on steroids with a side of suicide pact.

— One Psy-Null Baton, its handle chewed and battered like a dog's favorite chew toy.

— Three shaped charges stamped in Cyrillic—probably stolen from a Russian armory or a dead commie's bad day.

— And a machete. Rusted, chipped, heavy as hell.

Rick's grin split his face, cracked but genuine — the kind of grin you get when you're staring death in the eye and flipping it the bird.

"Let's dance."

The steel behind him groaned — once, twice — then detonated in a shower of molten slag and ripping metal.

Joshua emerged — no longer just Joshua Walker. The transformation was grotesque. His body writhed under sprouting bone armor like some cursed vine choking a dying tree. His jaw cracked open, splitting in jagged shards that caught the dim light like shattered glass. His gait was wrong — more predator dragging its claws across fresh pavement than man walking a hallway.

Rick's smile didn't falter.

Without hesitation, he ripped a syringe from the pack and plunged it into his own neck.

Fire ignited in his veins. His heartbeat slammed into overdrive. The world slowed — pain became a distant rumor.

He charged.

The machete screamed against bone. Joshua caught the blade mid-swing, fingers tightening like steel cables. Their eyes locked — Rick's bloodshot, wild; Joshua's molten red and empty.

"You keep trying," Joshua rasped, voice like dry leaves scraping concrete. "I keep learning."

Rick spat, "Yeah? Well, I'm teaching lessons in pain today."

Without warning, Rick yanked a rusted pipe from the wall and shoved it deep into Joshua's ribs. A sickening crunch echoed.

Joshua snarled, swatting Rick away like an annoying fly.

Rick went flying — slammed into the wall with a wet crack of broken bones. He coughed, spat a molar, and wiped blood from his mouth.

Joshua stalked him — claws scraping the floor in a hideous symphony of torture.

"I've outgrown your leash, Rick. Time for the masters to learn their place."

Rick coughed, a laugh bubbling up through cracked lips.

"Masters? You're just a pissed-off science experiment with a god complex."

He struggled to his feet, blood dripping from fresh cuts, and pressed a detonator hidden behind his back.

"Welcome to obedience school, fucker."

Three shaped charges erupted, ripping the floor open like a shark tearing through a sailboat. Fire and steel exploded in a deafening roar, alarms screaming over the chaos.

Joshua screamed — a horrifying, guttural sound. But it wasn't pain. It was entertainment.

When the smoke cleared, Rick was on one knee, machete buried like a cane. His body was wreckage, but his spirit? Still unbroken.

Joshua stepped out, charred but healing, bone plates falling away and reforming faster than before. Horns twisted from his shoulders, and his voice was a cold, echoing growl.

"You can't kill me."

Rick coughed, blood trickling down his chin. He raised the blade.

"Wasn't trying to."

He pointed behind Joshua.

The blast had cracked open the containment vault — a Quantum Nullifier coil flickered, its field humming louder, shrieking like a banshee.

Joshua staggered. His monstrous form spasmed, bone plates cracking and crumbling. For a split second, the monster's mask fell away, and Rick caught a glimpse of Joshua's eyes — human, terrified.

Then the coil overloaded. The vault blew inward in a violent blast.

The corridor went black..

—

Surface Exit Bunker – Level 1 Evac Zone

2:11 PM

The fluorescent lights flickered like they were holding back the abyss.

Waller limped forward, each step a deliberate thud on the cold concrete. Her arm hung useless in a makeshift sling—blood darkening the fabric, mixing with the grime on her lapel. The sidearm under her coat was the closest thing she had to comfort.

Her breath was steady but sharp—like a warning. Patience had left the building hours ago.

"Director! We're locked out of the launch corridor," a young tech blurted, eyes wide enough to swallow a crow. "Omega Lock's engaged. No override."

Waller stopped and fixed him with a look that could peel paint off the walls.

"Of course it is," she said, voice low and deadly, the kind of growl that made grown men wish they'd stayed in bed. "I locked it."

She moved to the console with the quiet menace of a storm ready to break. Fingers danced across the keypad, tapping override codes. The screen blinked—then spit out a cold, unyielding message:

ACCESS DENIED

USER DEAUTHORIZED

REASON: INTERNAL NEURAL COMPROMISE FLAG DETECTED

Waller's eyes narrowed, cutting sharper than any blade.

"He hacked me."

A murmur rippled through the room like a funeral dirge.

Outside the door, security bots stood shoulder to shoulder, statues of lethal steel—motionless, watching, waiting. Their red optical sensors flickered, hungry for a threat.

Waller took a slow breath. The weight of it settled like iron in her chest.

"Looks like the system thinks I'm the threat now."

Her lips twisted into a grim smile—half-bitter, half-defiant.

"Guess that makes me a walking biohazard. Liability."

She pulled her phone from the inside pocket of her coat. The screen was cracked, but the line was buried deep, coded tight.

"This is Waller," she said, voice clipped, authoritative. "Activate BLACK STAMPEDE. Burn it all down."

There was hesitation. A breath held in a throat.

"Ma'am—Flagg is still inside."

Waller's stare hardened, steel grinding against stone.

"He knew the risks. We don't get to play heroes anymore."

She ended the call.

The bots stepped forward, weapons humming softly, the sound like death calling in Morse code.

Waller turned away from the console, pain radiating from her broken arm, but her spine straightened like a blade being drawn.

"Let's see how many bones this place breaks before it falls," she muttered, voice heavy with cold promise.

Behind her, somewhere deep in the bowels of Blacksite 17, the screams of fire and fury started to rise.

—

Gamma Ruins — 2:14 PM

The vault was nothing but a crater, ripped open like a can of rotten meat.

Doomsday—the monster that had once been Joshua—was gone. But his shadow lingered, thick in the ruined air.

Rick Flagg lay pinned beneath a twisted web of mangled steel beams. His chest heaved ragged breaths, each one a war cry against death. The machete he'd thrown at Doomsday was jammed deep into the cracked concrete beside him, bent at a ridiculous angle.

Blood pooled beneath him, a dark, sticky mirror reflecting the shattered ceiling.

His eyelids fluttered, slow and heavy. Then a cough—raw, rasping, like gravel scraping a tombstone. And then another.

Rick's lips curled into a grin—half pain, half defiance.

"Didn't kill him…" he muttered through cracked teeth, voice low and dry like desert dust.

"…but I slowed the bastard down."

His hand twitched toward the knife. Fingers scraped against the cold metal, clawing for leverage.

Above, silence stretched—a brief, pregnant pause in the storm.

Then the ground trembled. A low, guttural growl split the air, thick and awful.

From the wreckage, a monstrous shape began to stir—bone plates clicking like a death knell, sinew knitting together with brutal speed. The thing that was Joshua was gone.

This was Doomsday—pure, primal, unhinged.

Its triple-jawed maw flexed, teeth like jagged shards of obsidian catching the flickering light. Horns spiraled from shoulders and skull like blackened crowns of destruction.

With a guttural roar that cracked the concrete beneath its feet, Doomsday rose to full, terrifying height.

Rick's grin flickered—equal parts respect and hatred.

"Yeah, yeah. You're the big bad now," he rasped, voice laced with venom and sweat. "Enjoy it while it lasts."

Without another sound, Doomsday crouched low—muscles coiled like artillery.

And then, with a cataclysmic boom, it launched itself through the shattered roof in a single, earth-shaking leap.

The bunker trembled beneath the force, dust and debris raining down like blood from the sky.

Rick coughed out a laugh, bitter but alive.

"Son of a bitch's got wings now."

—

Smallville Outskirts — 2:18 PM

The sky was that nasty late-afternoon gray that didn't just hint at rain but screamed it — the kind of storm that claws at your skin before it even arrives.

Then Doomsday landed.

Not with a whisper, not with a tiptoe — with the crushing inevitability of a freight train. Each step shattered asphalt like brittle eggshells. Trees snapped and splintered, falling in a symphony of destruction, their limbs whipping the air like savage whips.

The earth groaned and cracked beneath him — fractured rock and splintered hope scattering in his wake.

Cars screeched in a panicked chorus, tires burning rubber as drivers floored it, desperate to outrun the nightmare wearing flesh. Birds exploded from trees overhead, flapping and squawking like chaos incarnate, their screams swallowed by the deep, grinding growl emanating from the beast.

Doomsday's triple-jawed maw flexed open, revealing rows of jagged, dripping teeth — like a broken cave filled with hungry razors. A guttural roar rolled out, a sound so primal it vibrated every glass pane in town, turning windows into trembling shards.

His horns scraped against streetlights, bending and snapping them like discarded toys beneath a toddler's rage.

A squad car came screeching to a halt, tires locking up in a desperate skid. Officers spilled out like ants disturbed — weapons raised, voices sharp and shaking.

"Evacuate! Now!" one officer barked, voice cracking under pressure. "Get civilians out! We don't have time to play hero!"

But Doomsday didn't give a damn about police protocol.

With a savage swipe that cleaved steel and shattered glass, he tore through the cruiser like it was tissue paper. Metal crumpled, glass exploded into glittering rain, and the world filled with the horrified screams of the trapped.

Behind a shattered storefront window, a woman's scream clawed the air raw. Children clung together, frozen, eyes wide with silent terror, while frantic parents grabbed and dragged them out of the monster's path.

Yet beneath the carnage — beneath the bone and fury — there was something else. A flicker. A broken, buried spark of something human.

Doomsday's molten, hellfire eyes flicked toward the familiar silhouette of Smallville's water tower — a beacon, a promise of what was lost and what might yet be saved.

He turned, a mountain of death crashing through Main Street. Concrete splintered beneath his thunderous steps; screams tore the air apart.

He walked. Unstoppable. Unforgiving.

—

Blacksite 17 — Surface Evacuation Zone

Waller's phone buzzed on the chipped concrete table, its encrypted messages flooding in like a tidal wave of bad news. The command center around her was a warzone — lights flickering, radios bleeding static, agents running ragged, but she was a rock.

Her gaze cut through the storm of chaos, cold and calculating.

Rain spat down in angry bursts, sizzling as it hit cracked concrete like a thousand tiny betrayals.

"We lose that monster out here," Waller said, voice hard as obsidian, "it's not just Smallville getting fucked. It's every damn city within a hundred miles. And we'll all be lucky if it stops there."

Her broken arm throbbed viciously, a dull, relentless hammer. She didn't flinch.

"Get the extraction teams prepped. I want snipers, drones, bombers — everything with a damn trigger finger," she barked. "And I want eyes inside Smallville, now. Satellite feeds, thermal scans, whatever the hell you've got."

Her phone crackled — the line went dead.

She snarled, slamming the device down on the table, glass cracking beneath her palm.

"Fine. Then we burn it all down."

Her voice was cold steel, cutting through the room like a blade.

Her eyes gleamed as she added, voice low and lethal: "If it comes to that? I want that monster dead before it leaves town. No heroics, no mercy."

—

Meanwhile — Smallville, Main Street

The air was thick with the scent of smoke, wet asphalt, and freshly spilled blood.

Doomsday's claws raked across a parked van, gouging deep, hot furrows. The metal screeched and peeled like wet paper. The driver inside didn't stand a chance — the engine exploded into a fireball, glass raining down in molten shards.

He roared again, a savage, grinding sound that shook the bones of everyone unfortunate enough to hear it.

A man stumbled from a nearby alley — police tactical gear, face smeared with dirt and blood.

"Hey, monster!" he yelled, weapon raised but trembling. "Over here! Come get some!"

Doomsday's three jaws snapped open like a predator savoring the hunt. His glowing eyes locked on the man.

The beast charged.

The officer barely had time to scream.

The ground shattered as Doomsday collided with him, crushing bone and armor with horrifying ease. Blood sprayed in a crimson arc, mixing with the rain — chunks of flesh torn free, the sickening squelch of muscle and sinew ripping.

The officer's body collapsed, twitching, barely more than a ragdoll.

Doomsday turned, molten eyes scanning for the next morsel of destruction.

—

Back at Blacksite 17

Waller's lips curled into a grim, humorless smile.

"Well," she said, voice dripping with venom, "looks like it's my kind of party."

She pulled out a radio.

"Delta teams, green light. Get your boots wet. I don't want that monster anywhere near a population center. Contain. Neutralize. Terminate. Understand?"

A cold chorus of acknowledgments crackled back.

Waller glanced out the rain-streaked window toward the distant lights of Smallville.

"Time to show the world what real containment looks like."

—

Smallville Ledger — Main Office, Downtown

The windows rattled.

Not from thunder.

Not from wind.

From something alive.

Lilly Kent paused mid-edit, her red pen hovering over a headline she'd been arguing with all morning. Her brow furrowed. Then the glass in the front window trembled. The kind of tremble that wasn't caused by weather or passing trucks — the kind that made your molars hum and your spine consider other employment options.

"Clark?" she called, eyes narrowing, voice too calm to be casual. "Tell me that's not what I think it is."

Across the room, Clark Kent — all six-foot-something of corn-fed calm — looked up from the layout board. His glasses slid a fraction down his nose. His pupils were already beginning to glow faintly beneath the lenses.

Then came the scream.

It wasn't human.

It wasn't animal.

It was the sound of extinction.

Clark didn't blink.

"It's him."

Lilly moved to the window, heels clicking against the hardwood as she crossed the newsroom floor. She arrived just in time to see the Farmer's Market pavilion get torn in half. One clean sweep. Canvas, wood, rebar — all shredded like wet tissue. A dozen people sprinted. One… didn't.

She stared. Her lips parted.

"But we— We sent him into the sun. You said he couldn't—"

"I hoped he couldn't," Clark said quietly, his voice graveled with guilt. "Hope doesn't kill Doomsday."

Outside, a food truck spun end over end through the sky like a paper football. It slammed into a lamppost. Fire bloomed across the intersection in orange-bright agony.

Lilly's jaw clenched.

"Office lockdown. Now," she said sharply. Her hand reached under her desk and slammed a hidden panel. Steel shutters slammed down over the front windows like guillotines. "No one leaves this building. No one dies on our watch. Not this time."

Clark was already pulling the curtain closed. His voice was calm, but urgent. "Get your suit."

"I'll get mine if you don't forget yours this time," she muttered, already stripping off her denim jacket to reveal the black weave of her underarmor.

"I wore the one without holes," he said. "You're welcome."

She rolled her eyes, striding toward the concealed back panel in her office. "You say that like it's a favor. Last time, you came home looking like someone had fed you through a woodchipper."

"That's not fair," he called after her. "Most of my internal organs stayed inside."

"Not your spleen."

She keyed her magic signature into the hidden panel. A soft click. The wall slid open to reveal her armor — sleek, scarlet, gold-trimmed, humming softly with spell-bound energy. The air around it tasted like ozone and danger.

Scarlett was coming out to play.

The bodysuit clung like second skin, woven from spellthread, reinforced by celestial kevlar and sealed with blood magic. Black underarmor hugged her joints, barely audible as she began sliding the pieces into place. Her hair, red as fire and just as stubborn, fell over one eye as she adjusted her bracers.

Clark entered quietly behind her, now shirtless, peeling off his work shirt to reveal the deep blue of his Kryptonian suit folded and ready inside the adjacent compartment.

She glanced at him in the mirror.

"Still mad I caved?"

He smiled — that slow, quiet smile of his that made hearts stutter and planets feel safe.

"Still surprised you caved. The Great Sorceress Scarlett, wearing the crest of the House of El on her chest?"

"The kids wore me down," she said, cinching the final strap with a sharp click. "They pulled the puppy-dog-eye gambit. It was a war crime."

Clark chuckled. "Roslyn practiced in the mirror. She even choreographed the sniffle."

"She weaponized the sniffle," Lilly muttered. "I trained her better than I thought."

Across her chest, the sigil of El gleamed bright — forged in enchanted orichalcum, etched with protective runes, and hovering just above her heart.

Clark stepped into his suit with practiced ease. The blue fabric tightened across his frame as he adjusted the crimson cape behind him. "We'll ground them later."

"After we kill the thing that killed you," she snapped, gaze sharp.

He gave her a look.

"Almost killed me."

"You were flatlining, Clark. I had to restart your heart and teleport the world's angriest science experiment into the heart of a sun."

"Well," he said, brushing a bit of dust off her shoulder plate, "you've always been good at multitasking."

She raised an eyebrow. "Are you flirting with me while we're prepping for a suicide mission?"

"It's a coping mechanism."

"I married a disaster," she said, but her voice was softer now. She touched his cheek. "But he's my disaster."

He caught her hand, kissed her palm, then let it go as the gauntlets on both of them sealed into place.

Lilly flicked her wrist. Glyphs along her arms surged to life — red and gold energy running through her veins like fire given purpose. Her fingers crackled with arcane power.

Clark's boots hit the ground with a solid thud. His cape rippled. The air around him buzzed with Kryptonian power.

He looked at her.

"Ready?"

Lilly flexed her fingers. Sparks danced between them like tiny, angry suns.

"I was born ready."

They opened the back door and stepped into the storm.

Wind lashed at them. Rain like glass. The air screamed.

And so did Doomsday.

Twenty yards away, he turned.

Triple jaws flexed open. Those hellfire eyes burned — not with rage, but recognition. The thing buried deep in his fractured psyche remembered them. Remembered pain.

Lilly smiled, her voice low and laced with venom.

"Aw. He remembers me."

"Let's jog his memory," Clark said, his feet lifting off the ground.

She floated up beside him, her palms blazing.

"Think he'll like the sequel?"

"Doubt it."

He shot forward, heat vision primed.

She followed, cloaked in scarlet lightning.

Doomsday roared — and the sky split open.

Round two had begun.

---

Hey fellow fanfic enthusiasts!

I hope you're enjoying the fanfiction so far! I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Whether you loved it, hated it, or have some constructive criticism, your feedback is super important to me. Feel free to drop a comment or send me a message with your thoughts. Can't wait to hear from you!

If you're passionate about fanfiction and love discussing stories, characters, and plot twists, then you're in the right place! I've created a Discord server dedicated to diving deep into the world of fanfiction, especially my own stories. Whether you're a reader, a writer, or just someone who enjoys a good tale, I welcome you to join us for lively discussions, feedback sessions, and maybe even some sneak peeks into upcoming chapters, along with artwork related to the stories. Let's nerd out together over our favorite fandoms and explore the endless possibilities of storytelling!

Click the link below to join the conversation:

https://discord.com/invite/HHHwRsB6wd

Can't wait to see you there!

If you appreciate my work and want to support me, consider buying me a cup of coffee. Your support helps me keep writing and bringing more stories to you. You can do so via PayPal here:

https://www.paypal.me/VikrantUtekar007

Or through my Buy Me a Coffee page:

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/vikired001s

Thank you for your support!