Clark Kent—the Wolf Superman—had built a reputation strong enough to rank him among the most respected portrayals of Superman in live action.
Yet what made him remarkable wasn't just his feats of power, but his heart. In his daily life, he was a patient father, gentle and understanding with his children. In battle, he rarely struck first. Whether facing ordinary criminals or Kryptonian warlords, he almost always absorbed the first blow, taking the punishment before unleashing his true strength.
It was never weakness, but control.
And his power was undeniable. While other versions of Superman faltered when exposed to Kryptonite—Batman once bested one with nothing more than a Kryptonite mist—this Clark could endure shards of the toxic mineral piercing his flesh and still fly, still burn through enemies with his heat vision. Decades of soaking in the Sun had tempered him, not only making him more compassionate but also endlessly stronger.
As Malrick studied him, Tony filled in the introductions.
"That's right. Superman brought me here to track you down. You know him—Clark Kent. And that's John, one of his closest allies."
They exchanged nods, no time for more than mutual recognition. The void around them was too unstable for small talk.
Tony broke the silence first, his tone tinged with regret. "I was thinking… after you knocked out Ally, maybe we could have used her body as a stabilizer. A reverse-engineering fulcrum, push the two merging worlds apart. But… she's gone."
Malrick shook his head. "I considered the same. If I'd captured her instead of destroying her, maybe we could've forced an end to this. But I didn't expect her body to be so fragile."
The blunt honesty of his words made both Clark and John exchange uneasy looks. Neither of them had been able to get close to Ally without being overwhelmed, yet Malrick had dismissed her with a single punch—and was now lamenting that she wasn't strong enough.
Tony tapped his chin inside his helmet. "What about your spring water? Can't it revive her? Bring her back so we can use her?"
"No." Malrick's voice was firm.
"That spring's revival properties only work because it contains life force. Ally's case is different." He gestured toward her remains. The headless corpse had already split apart, separating into two distinct bodies—the fractured forms of her positive-world and anti-world selves.
"When she died, the balance collapsed. Without the pendant, even if she were revived, she couldn't fuse again. She's lost the ability to merge worlds entirely."
Tony's brow furrowed, frustration audible even through the mask. "That complicates things."
But he was never one to sit idle. If one plan failed, he quickly shifted to the next. "What about the Space Stone? Can we use it to separate the universes?"
Malrick drew the gemstone from the pocket dimension within his ring. Once radiant with cosmic brilliance, the stone now glimmered only faintly, its light faded like an ember on the edge of dying out.
"It won't work," Malrick said quietly. "The Space Stone has no authority here. It only functions in our own universe."
The two men stood in silence, weighing dwindling options. Clark and John listened, unable to contribute, though Clark's eyes lit with sudden recognition at the mention of the stone.
Marvel.
It confirmed his suspicion. Malrick and Tony weren't from his Earth, nor from any universe he'd known. They belonged to the Marvel universe. Even with the end of his world hanging over him, Clark couldn't help but feel a spark of awe. He and his sons had spent nights watching Marvel stories unfold on screen. And now, standing before him, were living pieces of that mythology.
His eyes drifted to Malrick's chest, noting the S-like crest. Could he be Sentinel? Or something else?
While Clark pondered, Malrick and Tony shifted to the next plan.
"Then I'll try brute force," Malrick said at last. His tone carried no pride, only the weariness of someone accepting a burden that shouldn't exist. "If I can push the two worlds apart, maybe I can buy us time."
He shot forward, his body streaking toward the unstable heart of the collision. Extending his senses, he reached out to feel the fabric of both universes—and his heart sank.
The situation was worse than he feared.
Because of Ally's manipulation, the bubble of the Anti-World had drawn dangerously close to that of the Positive World. At their centers, Earth itself had begun to overlap. Originally, Ally's power had been the fulcrum forcing the merge. With her gone, the merging halted. But momentum carried forward. The two universes were no longer blending, but colliding—on a path to catastrophic impact.
A collision of worlds.
And if it wasn't stopped, in mere hours both universes would annihilate one another.
Malrick hovered in Ally's last position, his mind racing. "Damn it. I came here to save the world, and instead I've just accelerated its destruction. I've become a Stark after all—creating bigger problems by trying to fix them."
The thought was bitter, but true. Even without him, John and Clark's brother would have tried to fight Ally. They wouldn't have succeeded, but their resistance wouldn't have doomed everything so quickly.
The weight of responsibility pressed on him.
He clenched his fists, running through his options. His clones, the Blood Sea and Blacklight strains, were useless against a disaster of this scale. A memory flashed in his mind—Clark's victories, the way this Superman bore impossible burdens and still found a way.
Malrick spread his arms wide. One palm reached toward the Anti-World, the other toward the Positive World. Golden energy began to spark across his skin, flaring brighter with every heartbeat.
In seconds, his entire body blazed like a star gone nova.
A torrent of power poured from his hands, slamming into the fabric of the colliding universes. Energy so vast it could have birthed suns roared outward, the power of one hundred thousand stars channeled through his Kryptonian-forged body.
He became a conduit, a living reactor, his form cracked open under the strain. Golden fissures split across his skin, molten light leaking out instead of blood. To Clark, John, and Tony, the sight was overwhelming—the void itself transformed into a sanctuary of light, the darkness erased by Malrick's burning radiance.
"It's slowing down!" Tony's voice was exhilarated. Jarvis's readings confirmed it. "The collision is decelerating! He's buying us time!"
Clark's fists clenched, hope flooding through him. He wanted to shout, to give voice to the surge of gratitude and admiration, but words stuck in his throat.
And then—darkness.
The light vanished all at once, as if the universe itself had snuffed out its last flame. The brilliance faded, leaving only the emptiness of the void.
Malrick was gone.
Tony froze, his triumph replaced by dread. "Why… why did it stop? Where's Malrick?"
Panic gripped him. His chest tightened, his thoughts spinning. For the first time in a long while, the genius inventor felt powerless. Memories of Malrick's presence—their victories, their arguments, their fleeting camaraderie—flashed like fragments of a dream, only sharpening the ache of loss.
But then, the impossible happened.
From the ashes of his own destruction, Malrick returned. Reborn through his Blood Sea Clone, he materialized in the same position he had vanished, his body whole once more.
Tony's jaw dropped. "What the hell…?"
Malrick shook himself, as if adjusting to the new form. Then, in the blink of an eye, he appeared before them, his expression grim.
"The merge has stopped," he said. "But now the two worlds are colliding head-on. I bought us time, but not nearly enough. Hours, maybe. Not days."
He remembered his brief transformation. The way the stellar energy had consumed him, turning him into a living sun. It was similar to when Superman soared into the Sun itself to emerge stronger, more radiant. But Malrick knew the truth. He hadn't transcended, hadn't ascended into some higher dimension like the myths suggested.
He had simply been a converter, channeling raw power through sheer will.
A true Superman could have shaped that power, bent it, turned it into something greater than raw destruction. They could have used it to ascend, perhaps even touch the fifth dimension. Malrick was not that man.
He was strong, but not idealistic enough.
"Can you do it again?" Tony asked, his voice sharp, betraying the anxiety beneath. "Or did something… bad just happen to you out there?"
Malrick's eyes narrowed. He didn't answer immediately.
Because he knew Tony was right.
What he had just done had killed him once. Doing it again might not leave a way back.
____
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