"What Kryptonian?"
Superman had been tossed into a pocket dimension like a piece of luggage, then yanked back out by Thea—two short-range teleports in quick succession. He was still dizzy, and had missed most of what was said. But he'd caught Kryptonian.
"That's right." Thea pointed at the attacker's chest. "Look at the logo. Somebody carved an inverted triangle with an S insignia—clearly a blade job. By the looks of it, this guy's a devoted... admirer of the House of El." She'd been about to say lapdog, but swapped it out at the last second.
"There are more El survivors?" Batman's voice carried from a distance, slightly distorted.
Not that his surprise was unreasonable. The planet exploded, and yet the House of El kept producing stragglers—Superman, Supergirl, the family dog Krypto, and now this guy. You Els are really something, you know that?
If Thea could have read Batman's mind, she'd have told him: Superman's father was actually alive and well, and in the original timeline, Supergirl's father—Superman's uncle—had survived too. Whether he was alive in this timeline was anyone's guess.
Either way, calling the House of El Krypton's most absurdly overpowered family was probably accurate.
While they'd been talking, the attacker had finished off the Daxamite fleet. The resistance had been fierce, but against a Kryptonian of this caliber, it hadn't mattered much—fighting back or surrendering, the result was the same. When the last pair, who appeared to be the fleet's commanders, were obliterated along with their warship, the distant armada was gone entirely.
Whatever they'd originally come for—invasion, study, cultural exchange, something else—they'd been turned to ash in fire and ruin.
The attacker was ruthless. He hadn't left a single survivor.
"Who's going in?" Thea asked, hands in her pockets, watching with casual interest. "Or are you going to go introduce yourself? Might be a relative of yours."
The attacker approached them. His gaze settled on Superman.
"I am H'El. Your father was the man I respected most—my teacher. You look exactly like him." He touched the mark on his chest. "I wear this with pride. I crossed the stars to find you. You are Krypton's hope."
"You're not the first person to say that to me." Superman's expression tightened. General Zod came to mind. He didn't lower his guard. "I've given my answer before, and it hasn't changed. Krypton is gone."
"Krypton was a great civilization. It could have guided the development of the entire universe. Together, we can correct that mistake. Help me." H'El spoke with quiet certainty, as though the outcome were already settled—but beneath the calm, there was a faint flicker of pain in his eyes.
His words sounded sincere. And yet Superman saw something unsteady in that gaze. He shook his head without hesitation.
For a moment it seemed like the whole thing might dissolve into a standoff. Then, without warning, H'El's palms began emitting faint traces of pale green energy. He seemed to vanish into thin air.
Before anyone could process what that meant, Thea heard a rush of air at her back.
He was attacking her from behind?
How amusing.
She dropped the smirk and moved. Pivoting at the waist, she spun and threw a high kick—meeting H'El's incoming fist head-on.
Two entirely different forces collided. His strike was pure, brutal physicality—raw power pushed to its absolute limit. Thea had been caught off-guard, unable to draw on her full strength in time. The exchange was dead even.
Superman was furious. His supposed kinsman had spent all that time invoking Jor-El's name, and this was what Jor-El had taught him? A sucker punch? That was a desecration.
He charged forward with a shout.
Diana was faster. The Warrior Princess didn't bother with her lasso or shield—she drew both swords and slashed.
H'El had anticipated it. Before Diana even cleared her blades, he was already moving—one hand shot out, snatching her mid-motion, and he hurled her sideways.
Kyle Rayner had just raised his ring when Diana crashed into him and sent him tumbling.
Strange. Thea frowned. H'El wasn't particularly fast—not by her standards—but he'd neutralized Diana in a single move. That was harder than it looked.
She'd recently crossed the threshold of the death domain, and it had amplified her necromantic abilities a hundredfold. She could end this quickly. But with Superman watching, she held back.
No time to think. She thrust out her left hand and summoned an enormous spectral hand above H'El's head—a crushing force that blotted out the sky as it came down.
H'El didn't panic. He spread both hands and, with visible effort, tore open a seam in the air above him. The moment the gap appeared, Thea's fist hit—and the two forces collided with uncanny precision, as though they'd rehearsed it.
"Impossible." Her first thought was telepathy. She dismissed it almost immediately. She was half-step death goddess—even a greater demon on the level of the Three-Palace Demon couldn't read her mind through her defenses.
Precognition, then? But she'd already exchanged three moves with him, and every time he'd acted first—neutralizing her attacks before they could land. Nobody maintained perfect predictive accuracy in live combat. That was essentially omniscience. And if he had that, he'd have ended her in one move, not dragged it out.
Once the most obvious answers were eliminated, only the implausible one remained.
"You've been through all of this before." Her voice went quiet. "What's happening right now isn't your first time. You can anticipate our every move because you've lived it. Your timeline is wrong."
H'El said nothing. His silence confirmed it.
Thea felt the picture settle into place. He'd almost certainly been thrown out of his original timeline when the antimatter cannon punched a hole through it—one of the "variables" it had scattered. Without some backing, she didn't think H'El could beat her.
"So I was right." She let her presence begin to rise, steady and cold. "Somewhere in your past—my present—you and I have already fought. So what exactly gave you the nerve to stand in front of me a third time?"
Sure enough: she fired off three spells in quick succession. H'El deflected two. The third he hadn't seen before—he couldn't anticipate it—but he used Superman as a shield and managed to weather it.
His counterattacks were sharp. Diana could hold her own against him directly, but Superman and Kyle Rayner were thrown completely on the defensive. Thea found herself constantly pulling them out of trouble, and the entire engagement became frustratingly messy.
"Your Majesty, Goddess." H'El spoke to her for the first time, and in the same breath identified her true level of existence. "This is the third time we've fought. I know your attack patterns far better than you think."