The transition from the Arctic to the lunar orbit was a journey of minutes that felt like lifetimes. Lex’s private shuttle—a vessel built with salvaged Kryptonian tech and refined by Earth’s desperation—held the command team: Lois, Martha, Bernie, and Lex. They sat in heavy silence, strapped into their seats as the g-force pressed them back, watching the telemetry screens that tracked the dark streak moving ahead of them.
Kal-El didn't need the ship. He moved through the vacuum with a silent, terrifying grace. In the unfiltered radiation of the sun, his matte-black suit was almost invisible against the void, save for the way it seemed to drink the light around it. He was no longer just a man; he was a battery at maximum capacity, his cells thrumming with enough energy to crack a continent. To the team watching the screens, the man who had been a friendly, unassuming presence at their side so recently was now a terrifying reminder of what his people truly were. Unforgiving, cruel gods should they choose.
"We are entering the lunar gravity well," Bernie’s voice crackled through the shuttle’s comms and into Kal-El’s suit. "Nightfall is three minutes from the intercept point. Kal-El, do you see the anchor site?"
"I see it," Kal-El replied. The voice was the same—quiet, steady—and it broke the spell of the monitors. Friend, ally, not conqueror.
Below him, the lunar surface was a desolate expanse of grey dust and ancient craters. He descended toward the Mare Imbrium, the vast basaltic plain he had chosen from the travelers’ logs. He landed, his feet kicking up a plume of fine regolith that settled instantly in the low gravity. He turned toward the Earth—a fragile blue and green marble hanging in the blackness—and then toward the horizon, where a jagged, dark mountain was growing larger by the second.
Nightfall.
"It’s massive," Martha whispered from the shuttle. On the monitors, the asteroid wasn't just a rock; it was a jagged spear of iron and silicate, tumbling with a violent, erratic momentum.
As Kal-El stood his ground, the camera on the exterior of the shuttle caught him in profile. Against the stark grey of the moon, the dark, utilitarian suit looked like a shadow made flesh. Unwittingly garbed like his clone, resolute in his determination, it was as though his evil twin stood there. The silhouette was identical to the monster that had broken their world, but the posture was entirely different—instead of a throne, he was seeking a foothold.
"Kal-El, you need to plant," Bernie commanded, his voice tight. "If you don't anchor your mass into the bedrock, the impact won't move the asteroid—it’ll just drive you through the moon like a nail."
Kal-El didn't hesitate. He drove his arms into the lunar surface, his fingers clawing through the dust until they found the ancient, frozen basalt beneath. He braced his legs, the dark fabric of his suit straining against the sudden, massive tension. He wasn't just standing; he was becoming part of the moon’s mass.
"I am anchored," Kal-El reported. His eyes began to glow, the thermal energy he had absorbed in the Arctic flaring as he prepared for the transfer of kinetic force.
"Intercept in ten... nine... eight..." Bernie counted down.
Lois watched the screen, her breath hitching. The visual was haunting—the man who's exact double had tormented her, standing as the only thing between Earth and total annihilation. But as the countdown hit zero, she saw the sheer, grim focus in his eyes. This was the restitution.
"Three... two... one... IMPACT."
The silence of the vacuum made the collision more haunting. There was no roar, only the visual of the massive asteroid slamming into Kal-El’s outstretched palms. For a terrifying second, the lunar surface beneath him buckled. A massive spiderweb of cracks radiated out from his feet, the bedrock groaning under the impossible pressure.
Kal-El’s head snapped back, his teeth bared in a silent scream of agony as the momentum of Nightfall tried to crush his spine. He felt the moon’s gravity pulling at him, the "lunar anchor" the Clarks had described. He wasn't just pushing; he was a bridge between two celestial bodies.
"The friction is melting the basalt!" Bernie yelled, watching the heat sensors spike. "He's losing his purchase!"
"Hold it, Kal-El!" Lois shouted into the comms. "Don't you dare let go!"
Kal-El heard her. Through the white-hot pain and the screaming of his own muscles, he heard the woman who had survived his doppelgänger. He dug deeper, his fingers white-hot as they fused with the lunar rock. He adjusted his torque, shifting his weight just a fraction of a degree—applying the "intuition" he had taken from the travelers’ data.
The tumbling slowed. The jagged spear of Nightfall began to groan as its trajectory shifted, the relentless push of the Kryptonian finally overcoming its billions of tons of momentum.
"It’s moving!" Martha cried out. "The vector is shifting! Six degrees... nine degrees..."
With a final, explosive burst of energy, Kal-El shoved. The asteroid didn't shatter; it slid across the invisible plane of his force, diverted away from the Earth’s gravity well and toward the empty dark of the outer system.
Kal-El collapsed into the lunar dust, the heat from his hands turning the regolith into glass. He lay there, gasping for breath in his suit, watching the giant rock dwindle into a harmless star. The comms were filled with the sound of cheering from the shuttle, a raw, hysterical relief. But through it all, Lois was the only one who spoke directly to him.
"Kal? Kal-El, talk to me."
He groaned, rolling onto his back to look at the Earth. "It is... gone, Lois."
"We see it," she whispered, her voice thick with tears. "You did it. You really did it."
"The anchor held," he murmured, his eyes closing in exhaustion.
He stayed there for a long time—a dark figure on a grey world.
