[National City Airspace — July 2017, 8:47 AM]
The city was burning.
Not from bombardment—Lar Gand had stopped that, at least temporarily—but from the ground invasion. Fires raged in the industrial district. Smoke columns rose from downtown. Emergency vehicles threaded through debris-strewn streets, their sirens a constant wail beneath the chaos.
Mon-El hovered above it all, his father's ring clutched in one hand, his mind trying and failing to process everything that had happened. The trial. The betrayal. The murder. Sixteen hours until Rhea finished what she'd started.
Kara floated beside him, her expression torn between grief and determination. "Mon-El. We need to focus."
"He came for me." The words felt hollow. "He fought through his own people to save me. And I couldn't—"
"You couldn't have known. None of us could have." She moved closer, her hand finding his. "But we can still stop her. We can make sure his sacrifice means something."
"How?" Mon-El looked at the burning city, at the fleet still visible in the upper atmosphere. "Even if we assault the ship again, she'll be ready. And the ground forces are still fighting. We're losing on every front."
"Then we need a different approach."
His communicator crackled—J'onn's voice, strained but alive. "Mon-El. Kara. Status report?"
"We're alive." Kara answered. "The automatic bombardment was stopped. Mon-El's father—" She hesitated. "He died stopping it."
Silence on the channel. Then: "I'm sorry."
"Sixteen hours," Mon-El said flatly. "That's how long we have before Rhea restarts the attack manually. We need a way to neutralize the entire fleet at once."
"That's..." J'onn paused. "That's not possible with conventional weapons. We don't have anything that can—"
"The lead device."
Everyone went quiet. Mon-El had spoken the words without fully processing them, but now they crystallized in his mind. Lena's project. The atmospheric dispersal system designed to spread lead particles across the globe.
It would kill every Daxamite on Earth. Every soldier. Every officer. Every member of the fleet if they didn't flee fast enough.
Including him.
"Mon-El," Kara's voice was careful. "You'd be—"
"I've been adapting." He turned to face her. "The tests with Winn. Stage four-point-five resistance, maybe higher. There's a chance I could survive."
"A chance. Not a certainty."
"There are no certainties." He looked at the fleet—dozens of ships still holding formation, weapons systems that could devastate the planet once Rhea finished her manual overrides. "But if we do nothing, millions die. Maybe billions. If we activate the device, the invasion ends. The fleet retreats or dies. Earth survives."
"And you?"
"I don't know." The honest answer. The only answer he could give. "But I'd rather die trying to save everyone than live knowing I could have stopped it and didn't."
Kara's eyes glistened. "That's not your choice alone to make."
"It's my people killing yours." Mon-El squeezed her hand. "My mother commanding the genocide. My heritage that built those weapons." He met her gaze. "If anyone should take this risk, it's me."
For a long moment, she just looked at him—studying his face, reading something in his expression that he couldn't name. Then she pulled him close, her arms wrapping around him with desperate strength.
"If you die," she whispered against his shoulder, "I'm going to be so angry with you."
"I know."
"I mean it. I'll find a way to bring you back just so I can yell at you properly."
Despite everything, he almost smiled. "I'll keep that in mind."
She pulled back, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "Let's do this, then. Before I change my mind and lock you in a lead-lined cell for your own good."
---
[L-Corp Tower — July 2017, 9:15 AM]
Lena Luthor looked like she hadn't slept in days.
She met them on the roof, the city's chaos visible in every direction, her expression mixing exhaustion and determination. The transmatter portal loomed behind her—the device Rhea had manipulated her into building, now repurposed for something entirely different.
"You want me to activate the lead device." Her voice was flat. "The one Cadmus designed to kill every alien on Earth."
"Modified," Mon-El said. "Targeted for Daxamite biology specifically. Winn sent you the specifications."
"I saw them." Lena's jaw tightened. "You realize I'd be helping commit mass murder. Thousands of Daxamites killed by a device I built."
"Thousands of invaders," Kara said gently. "Who are currently killing civilians and plan to enslave or exterminate everyone on this planet."
"That doesn't make it easier." Lena turned away, staring at the smoking skyline. "I became an engineer to build things. To create. Not to design weapons of mass destruction."
"You didn't design this," Mon-El said. "Cadmus did. You're just... redirecting their hatred into something that saves lives instead of destroying them."
"Semantic gymnastics."
"Maybe." He stepped closer. "But semantics are all we have right now. In fifteen hours, my mother's fleet will resume bombardment. Billions will die. Earth will become a colony world for refugees who see humans as inferior species." A breath. "Or you press a button, and we stop them. Permanently."
Lena's hands clenched at her sides. "You'll die too."
"Possibly."
"Not possibly. Almost certainly." She finally turned to face him, her eyes sharp despite the exhaustion. "I ran the numbers while you were flying here. Even with the adaptation Winn documented, the concentration required to affect an entire fleet... you'd need to be exposed to levels that would kill any normal Daxamite in seconds."
"I'm not a normal Daxamite."
"No. You're a slightly more resistant Daxamite. The difference between drowning in ten feet of water versus fifteen." Her voice cracked. "I won't have your death on my conscience."
"Then put Earth's survival on it instead." Mon-El met her gaze steadily. "Every civilian who doesn't die in bombardment. Every child who grows up in a free world. Every moment of peace that comes after we stop this." He pulled his father's ring from his pocket, held it up. "My father gave his life to buy us sixteen hours. Don't let his sacrifice be meaningless."
Silence stretched between them. Wind carried the sound of distant sirens, distant screams, distant explosions.
"I don't know you very well," Lena said finally. "But Kara trusts you. And right now, that's enough." She turned toward the portal device. "I'll need twenty minutes to reconfigure the dispersal pattern. The original Medusa variant was too broad-spectrum—we need to narrow it to Daxamite-specific markers."
"Do it."
Kara moved to help, her technical knowledge from Krypton meshing with Lena's Earth engineering. They worked in focused silence, adapting systems, redirecting power, transforming a weapon of terror into something that might save the world.
Mon-El stood at the roof's edge, watching the city burn below. His ribs ached from the trial combat. His arms felt heavy from holding his father's body. Exhaustion pressed against his eyes, demanding rest he couldn't afford.
This might be it, he thought. The last thing I ever do.
He thought about the show—the version of this story he'd watched in his previous life. Mon-El had survived the lead device in that version, barely, and been sent into space in a pod. A dramatic exit designed to create tension for future seasons.
But this wasn't a television show. There were no writers ensuring his survival for narrative purposes. There was only him, and Kara, and a device that would flood the atmosphere with poison.
Stage four-point-five might not be enough.
The thought should have terrified him. Instead, it felt... peaceful. If he died, he'd die doing what he'd promised. Protecting Earth. Protecting Kara. Being someone his father could be proud of.
That was enough.
"Mon-El." Kara's voice pulled him from his thoughts. "It's ready."
He turned to face her—his partner, his love, the woman who'd shown him what life could be. She looked beautiful even now, even exhausted and grief-stricken and terrified. Maybe especially now.
"Whatever happens," he said, "this was worth it. You were worth it."
"Don't." She crossed the distance between them, grabbed his face with both hands. "Don't say goodbye. Don't make this a farewell."
"It might be."
"Then make it a see-you-later." Her forehead pressed against his. "Promise me. Promise you'll fight. Promise you won't just... accept it."
"I promise."
"Say it. Say you'll survive."
"I'll survive." The words felt hollow even as he spoke them—promises he might not be able to keep. But she needed to hear them. And he needed to say them.
She kissed him. Fierce. Desperate. Everything they felt compressed into a single moment of connection.
When they pulled apart, Lena was waiting at the control panel, her finger hovering over the activation switch.
"Sixty seconds once I trigger it," she said. "The particles will reach effective concentration in that time. After that..."
"After that, we'll know."
Mon-El stepped back from Kara, forcing himself to release her hand. The sky stretched above them—blue and smoke-gray, beautiful despite everything.
"Do it," he said.
Lena pressed the switch.
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