The sirens of the Smallville Sheriff's department were drowned out by the sound of tearing metal.
Outside the main entrance of Smallville High, the afternoon had turned into a theater of the impossible. Eric Summers stood in the center of the parking lot, his breathing heavy, his eyes wide with a manic, terrifying glassiness. He had just flipped his father's sedan over like a discarded toy, the glass shattering in a rhythmic spray that mirrored his jagged temper.
From the steps of the school, students watched in frozen horror. Among them was Lex Luthor, leaning against the hood of his porsche, a digital recorder in one hand and a look of clinical fascination on his face. He wasn't calling for help; he was taking notes.
…
"Eric! Stop!"
The voice wasn't loud, but it had a gravity that made Eric freeze. Clark Kent pushed through the crowd of panicked students. He wasn't blurring. He wasn't leaping. He was just walking—his gait slightly uneven, his shoulder still stiff from the lightning strike.
"Stay back, Clark!" Eric roared, his voice vibrating with a power he didn't know how to throttle. He grabbed a nearby bike rack and twisted the heavy steel into a pretzel. "You don't understand! I'm not the 'nobody' anymore! I'm the one who decides what happens now!"
Lex's eyes narrowed, his gaze shifting from Eric to the boy approaching him. He watched Clark with a detached curiosity. Go on, Clark, Lex thought, his fingers tightening on his recorder. Show me what a 'good man' does when he's outmatched.
"I do understand, Eric," Clark said, stopping just ten feet away. He felt the heat radiating off the asphalt, the cold wind biting at his skin—sensations that used to be irrelevant. Now, they were warnings. "I know how it feels to have the world feel like it's made of cardboard. But you're hurting people. You're hurting your father."
"My father wants me to be perfect!" Eric screamed, reaching down and ripping a chunk of pavement from the ground. "Well, look at me now! I'm more than perfect! I'm a god!"
Eric lunged. It wasn't a calculated move; it was a tantrum backed by tons of force. He swung the slab of asphalt with terrifying speed.
A week ago, Clark would have caught it with one hand and crumbled it to dust.
Now, Clark had to dive. He hit the gravel hard, the breath leaving his lungs in a painful wheeze. He rolled, his jeans tearing, his skin scraping against the sharp stones. He felt the hot, stinging bite of pain—a sensation that would have sent a normal person into shock, but for Clark, it was a secondary concern.
"Is that it, Clark?" Eric mocked, stalking toward him. "You're just a farm boy. You're nothing!"
Lex stepped forward, his eyes locked on the scene. "Remarkable," he whispered. He saw the way Clark struggled to find his footing, the way his breath came in jagged hitches. He really is human, Lex realized with a final, crushing certainty. There's no secret left. Just a boy about to be crushed by a miracle.
Clark stood up. He was bleeding from a cut on his temple, and his left arm hung heavy at his side, but his eyes stayed fixed on Eric. He didn't look like a victim; he looked like a wall.
"You're right, Eric," Clark said, his voice steady despite the pain. "I'm just a guy. And I'm bleeding. And I'm tired. But I'm still standing here. Because being a Superman isn't about being indestructible. It's about being the one who doesn't walk away when things get hard."
Jeremy stood in the shadows of the school's brick archway, his hand resting on the Refined Shard in his pocket. He could end this in a heartbeat—a pulse of static to scramble Eric's nervous system, a surge of energy to knock him cold. But he waited. He wanted to see if the "Man of Steel" could survive without the steel.
Eric raised his fist, his face contorted in a mask of rage. "Then die like a man!"
He swung. It was a haymaker that could have decapitated a normal man.
Clark didn't try to block it. He leaned into the strike, moving with the force rather than against it, using Eric's own momentum to trip him. It was a human move—a desperate, tactical gamble. Clark took a glancing blow to the ribs that sent him spiraling into the side of a bus, the metal denting under the impact of his human body.
The world went grey for a second. Clark slumped to the ground, coughing.
…
The silence that followed Clark's words was more deafening than the tearing metal had been.
Eric stood over him, his chest heaving, his shadow stretching long and jagged across the pavement. He looked down at the broken, bleeding boy at his feet—a boy who should have been groveling, who should have been dead. Instead, Clark was looking up through a haze of pain with a steady, uncompromising clarity.
There was no glow in Eric's hands. No crackle of electricity. Just the raw, terrifying density of muscle and bone that shouldn't belong to a teenager. He looked at his own fist, then back at the crimson smear on the side of the bus where Clark's ribs had hit.
The "god" was looking at a "man" who refused to break, and for the first time, Eric felt a flicker of genuine, human fear.
"Why won't you just stay down?" Eric's voice cracked, the god-like thunder replaced by the waver of a terrified child. He raised his hand again, but the weight of it seemed to double. "I can break every bone in your body, Clark! I can end this right now!"
"I know you can," Clark whispered, his voice wet and strained. He used the dented metal of the bus to pull himself up, his boots scraping weakly against the asphalt. Every movement was a symphony of agony, a reminder of the fragility he had never known. "But then what, Eric? You kill me, and you're still just the kid who's afraid of his father. You're still the kid who thinks he needs to be a monster to be noticed."
Lex watched from the hood of his car, his breath hitching. He saw the way Clark's legs shook, the way he clutched his side to keep his internal organs from shifting. It's suicide, Lex thought, a strange, cold lump forming in his throat. He's literally standing there waiting for the blow that kills him. Is he insane, or is he something I don't have a word for yet?
"Shut up!" Eric lunged, grabbing Clark by the collar of his jacket and hoisting him off the ground with one hand.
Clark's feet dangled, his head lolling back. He was completely helpless, a doll in the grip of a titan. But as Eric drew back his other fist for the final, crushing strike, Clark didn't flinch. He just looked Eric in the eye, a single tear tracking through the dust and blood on his cheek.
"I'm not... your enemy, Eric," Clark gasped, the air leaving his lungs. "I'm the only one... who knows what it's like. Please. Don't do this."
Eric's fist stayed cocked. He looked at the crowd—at Chloe, who was sobbing; at Lana, whose face was a mask of horror; and finally at his father, Mr. Summers, who was standing by the flipped car, looking at his son with a mixture of terror and disgust.
The power was surging through Eric's veins, but the silence of the schoolyard—and the weight of Clark's unwavering gaze—was becoming louder than the blood-rush in his head. The adrenaline was curdling into shame.