(TSSFH) CHAPTER FORTY-SIX - MULTI POV

Reconstruction teams had just finished stabilizing the northwest wing of the ruined high school. Hard hats glinted under the overcast sky. Welders disengaged their torches, their work temporarily paused. The skeletal frame of the building loomed behind them—blackened brick, rusted beams, broken glass—a reminder of what had been. A crane creaked as it maneuvered a steel beam into position. 

Behind temporary barricades, a small crowd had gathered at a safe distance. Some were local residents. Others, construction supervisors or families of the workers. Most held phones. A few just watched in silence. Off to one side, a news crew adjusted a camera tripod, the reporter speaking softly into a mic about Brockton Bay’s slow crawl toward recovery.

Then, Eidolon arrived.

He appeared midair, without sound or spectacle, his cape fluttering in the wind behind him. He hovered there, high above the crowd, before descending slowly to face the man already waiting on the asphalt.

Superman.

The workers saw it. The civilians saw it. And the camera, already rolling, captured everything.

Superman didn’t raise his voice. “Then you don’t need to fight me. You need to remember who you are. What you’re fighting for.”

The space around Eidolon rippled. A shifting shimmer wrapped itself around him like armor. And light refracted oddly as energy laced between his fingers, bright and volatile. 

Even with the mask, his exhaustion showed. In the way he held himself. In the silence between breaths. And beneath it all: anger. The dangerous kind. The kind that didn’t care about witnesses.

“I need to know.” Eidolon screamed. The distortion warped his voice into something fragmented and raw.

Superman’s eyes flicked to the reconstruction crews, to the people behind the barricades. His voice lowered.

“I won’t strike first,” he said. “But if you endanger anyone here, I’ll stop you. This city’s suffered enough.”

Eidolon struck.

The wind howled as Eidolon launched forward, space twisting in his wake. Superman braced—just in time for the blow. A concussive blast of focused kinetic force, enough to send tanks tumbling like dice. The street cratered open, the air cracking like thunder. Nearby scaffolding buckled and groaned.

Superman slid back half a foot, body straining, muscles tensed. Behind him, a makeshift retaining wall collapsed—but no one was hurt.

He turned back, eyes narrowing. “Eidolon. Someone might have been hurt.”

“Good!” Eidolon roared. “Let them see! Let them see what it takes to try to matter next to you!”

His shard responded to the frustration curling behind his teeth—grudgingly, haltingly. Energy projection remained active, his personal forcefield reinforced itself, but now something more delicate formed: time dilation. Around Eidolon, seconds stretched into near-eternity, warping perception itself. Raindrops veered mid-fall, their trajectories curving subtly as if confused by the passage of time. Light bent along impossible angles, shadows flickering where they shouldn’t exist. Within that field, Superman almost stilled.

He struck again.

A beam of annihilation—raw, unfiltered cosmic entropy—lanced through the air toward Superman’s chest.

Superman’s eyes narrowed and he moved. Not dodging—intercepting. Heat vision surged forth, red clashing with sickly-green. The energies collided and air molecules tore themselves apart under the pressure, melting nearby objects.

The resulting detonation shattered windows across three blocks, powers were knocked out across three blocks, and the reconstruction zone erupted into chaos. Construction workers dropped tools and ran. Cameras flew backward on damaged tripods. Civilians screamed and scattered, some shielding others, others with their phones still raised, livestreams catching every second.

A steel frame collapsed.

A woman was trapped.

Superman blurred.

He was there, lifting the steel like it weighed nothing, and cradling her in his arms as a secondary explosion ruptured the crane overhead. The beam came down—and he caught that too.

And still, he didn’t strike back.

Eidolon came again, fists glowing with stored kinetic pulses. He hit Superman hard—one blow, then two, each one backed by momentum stolen from different vectors and focused into brutal, condensed forces. Buildings trembled. Further cracks ran like spiderwebs through the shattered street.

Superman stumbled back a step.

One step.

Then caught Eidolon’s wrist.

“Eidolon,” he said, calm, but hard-edged. “Stop this.”

Eidolon snarled, vanished in a flash of spatial inversion, and reappeared ten meters away with his hands burning blue. He unleashed a storm of attacks: plasma bombs, micro-singularities, chemical acids, incinerating beams. Enough to destroy city blocks

Superman blurred again, intercepting every shot.

And then—

He was behind Eidolon.

A hand rested lightly on the man’s shoulder.

“Stop.”

Eidolon flinched. Spun and lashed out. “Don’t tell me what to do!”

His powers surged, scrambling to appease him. Probability layering unfolded—threading fate itself into favorable patterns. Every strike should land. Every attack should bypass defenses. Victory should be inevitable.

“I’ve fought monsters,” Eidolon shouted. “I’ve held back the Endbringers many times! And still—still—the world looks at you like you’re the answer! You, who didn’t suffer for them!”

Superman didn’t flinch. Didn’t attack.

But he looked at him—not with pity, but with something more dangerous.

Understanding.

And that made it worse.

Eidolon struck again, faster, harder—enhanced blows that should have found the cracks in even Scion. But Superman blocked each one—not perfectly, but easily. Yet he didn't counter. Or escalate. Only defended himself and the civilians.

“You’re holding back,” Eidolon hissed. Furious. Ashamed. Afraid.

Superman met his eyes. “So are you.”

The words hit harder than any punch. And worse, they were true. He was holding back—not by choice, but because his power had become hesitant. Less potent. Less obedient. It was listening to his fear, not his need.

The voice in the back of his mind, once so confident—You are the strongest—had gone quiet.

Superman floated forward. No longer passive, but not aggressive yet.

“You’re not obsolete,” he said. “But you’re lost. And this? This isn’t the way back.”

Panic seized Eidolon. He pulled everything he could, even powers he hadn’t used in years due to dwindling potency—corrosive blasts, matter disintegration, quantum blades—unfocused, control fraying. Dangerous.

He couldn’t stop.

He had to know.

And so he screamed, a sound of desperation wrapped in rage, and unleashed a final, devastating barrage: everything he could output condensed into an omnidirectional burst of annihilation.

The blast lit the sky, visible from half the city. Shockwaves knocked down streetlights. Cars flipped. Glass shattered for blocks. 

And when the dust settled—

Superman still stood.

Cloak torn to shreds.

Suit scorched. 

Bleeding as he had done his best to contain the attack. 

But standing.

And behind him—the few remaining civilians were still alive, though on the ground in various stages of agony. 

Eidolon staggered to the ground. His forcefields flickered, unstable. Breathing ragged.

His mask was cracked.

It was an impossible sight. 

Eidolon had fought beings of considerable power. But it seemed Superman was something else.

Not a god.

But not a man either.

Something more. 

“I have to be the strongest,” Eidolon said, more to himself than to Superman. “That’s why they kept me. That’s the only reason I mattered.”

He could feel his power cycling, seeking a countermeasure. Invulnerability, phasing, precognition. Anything.

But nothing felt sufficient.

Superman didn’t raise his voice. “You won’t hurt anyone again.” 

It wasn't a threat, but a promise.

Then he moved.

A single punch—not enough to kill, just enough to hurt—caught Eidolon in the chest. He was sent flying backwards. Through three ruined buildings. Into the hull of a half-sunken cargo ship at the bay’s edge.

He coughed, gasping. Tried to rise.

Superman was already there.