The Metropolis skyline burned orange in the late afternoon. Traffic hummed, the air thick with exhaust, when the sirens split the streets open. Superman was already there, hovering above the glass facade of First Federal. The vault had been breached in minutes, alarms still wailing like frightened children.
He landed with a crack of displaced air. The bank doors swung wide—henchmen in ski masks froze mid-grab, duffel bags still unzipped.
“Put it down,” Superman’s voice rumbled, deep enough to make the marble floor vibrate.
Most dropped their weapons instantly, nerves collapsing under his presence. Some tried to fire; bullets pinged off his chest like brittle rain. He disarmed them with the patience of a weary parent—wrists snapped, guns bent into paperweights. The robbery was over before it began.
But then he saw him.
At the far end of the lobby, one man didn’t run. He was still, sweating, his eyes locked on Superman as if hypnotized. Chains of necklaces gleamed around his neck, dozens of them—crosses, stars, crescents, wooden beads, tarnished medallions of saints and gods from every corner of the earth.
“Finally,” the man whispered, his voice reverent. “The Creator walks among us.”
Superman frowned, taking a cautious step forward. “It’s over. Drop your weapon.”
The man smiled, cracked lips peeling back. “You don’t understand. I’ve prayed to so many. They never answered. But you… you came. You stand where no man can. You’re the proof. You’re Him.”
Superman shook his head. “I’m no god. I’m here to help. That’s all.”
The man’s hands trembled as he reached beneath his coat. For a moment, the room braced for a pistol. But when he opened his coat, the world seemed to lurch.
Strapped to his chest was a vest lined not just with bricks of C4 but jagged shards glowing sickly green. Kryptonite. Embedded like nails in a coffin.
Superman’s stomach turned to stone.
“You feel it, don’t you?” the man said, stepping closer, each pace unhurried. “The weight of divinity. The fragility of flesh. If you die, then you were mortal all along. And if you survive… then every prayer was worth it.”
The Kryptonite already gnawed at Superman’s veins, weakening his legs, his skin paling. His breath came ragged. He tried to lunge, but the man’s thumb hovered over the detonator, and the fanatic only smiled wider.
The hostages screamed as Superman staggered, his cape dragging like a dead flag. He reached out, one last desperate plea:
“You don’t have to do this—”
The click echoed louder than a gunshot.
The explosion ripped through the lobby like the voice of God itself. Fire, shrapnel, and green light burst outward, glass and bone spraying into the street. The Kryptonite shards carved through him, embedding in his flesh, burning from the inside out. His roar was half agony, half fury—then silence.
The world slowed. Smoke choked the air. The marble floor was a crater of blood and flame. A crucifix necklace clattered to the ground, warped and blackened.
And in the middle of it, Superman knelt, body scorched, his suit torn open, Kryptonite glowing beneath his skin like poison veins. His eyes burned red, not with heat vision, but with rage. He was alive—but broken.
The fanatic was gone, nothing left but ash and twisted metal. Yet his voice seemed to linger in the smoke, a whisper carried on the ruin:
“Even gods must prove themselves.”
Metropolis would never forget that day—the day faith turned into fire, and Superman, for the first time in years, looked less like a savior and more like a man.
