Kryptonite

Like all home computer mainframes, the World Federal Government's mainframe had its own cooling fan, only on a far grander scale. Its rapidly spinning blades covered the top of the mainframe like a gigantic pot lid, while the supercomputer's servers were hidden in the room beneath them.

But the cooling fan did not always spin so quickly. It slowed down according to a certain cycle and even stopped at times. Helena did not have the time or patience to wait for it to stop completely. She secured her grappling gun to the ceiling, judged when the blades had slowed enough, and jumped from a height of twenty meters toward the gradually slowing fan.

The maneuver was already incredibly dangerous. Her calculations were precise enough that she dropped between two blades at the exact instant one had just passed. The grappling gun's cable helped her land safely, only to be severed cleanly at the middle two seconds later by the exhaust fan's sharp metal blades. It had truly been a close call.

The mainframe's temperature had probably already exceeded sixty degrees, and with its resources heavily occupied, it was still rising. Helena felt as though she had jumped into an enormous oven in the middle of heating up. Within seconds, sweat had soaked through her entire uniform. She did not think she could stay here long. She had to finish as soon as possible.

"I'm in." As Helena spoke, she moved swiftly through the rows of mainframe cabinets and quickly found the server core. "I'm about to connect now. Are you ready over there?"

"Anytime." Barbara cracked her knuckles.

Helena crouched beside the cabinet and watched as Barbara took control of the terminal computer on her wrist. All kinds of code began racing across the screen. "Try to be quick, Oracle. I don't think I can hold out here much longer."

At that moment, New York.

As Mongor revealed a Kryptonite dagger and approached step by step with a savage grin, Jay involuntarily backed up two steps. Yes, he was afraid, and he did not think that was shameful. It was a living creature's natural instinct when facing death. DC Comics had countless parallel universes and countless worlds, but for nearly every version of Superman, Kryptonite was the eternal, absolute bane. Simply remaining within its radiation caused Kryptonian cells to wither away on their own, rapidly weakening every miraculous superpower until they became frailer than ordinary people.

"I believe I see fear in your eyes, boy." Mongor grinned smugly as he slowly approached. "But if you're regretting this now, it's too late. I won't let you die too quickly. No, of course not. You can still be of use in the arena. But before that, I will make you suffer terribly. I will make you beg me to kill you."

He laughed loudly, then abruptly accelerated. The moment he kicked off, the ground behind him exploded and cracked apart. Jay's pupils contracted as he watched the crystalline dagger sweep toward him in a beautiful yet lethal trail of green light. He actually forgot to dodge at first, only hastily pulling back when it reached his face and barely evading the strike.

Seeing his panic, Mongor could not help grinning viciously as he slashed with the Kryptonite dagger like a raging storm. Jay gritted his teeth and dodged miserably. Finally, on the fifth strike, there was nowhere left to evade. Instinctively, he raised his arm to block it, but that was not a wise choice—Mongor's dagger would most likely chop off his entire arm.

Yet that did not happen. Or rather, what happened next exceeded both of their expectations.

The green-glowing Kryptonite dagger came crashing down on Jay's arm with Mongor's immense strength behind it, producing a crisp sound like a heavy blow striking steel. Then the dagger was forcibly snapped in two by his muscles. The finely crafted tip spun away, leaving a long trail of green dust in the air.

Not only Mongor, but even Jay himself stood frozen in confusion, completely unable to understand what had happened.

Was he not a Kryptonian? Why was Kryptonite ineffective against him? But if he was not a Kryptonian, why could the suit Superman had left behind recognize his Kryptonian Gene?

That made no sense.

"No." Mongor stared at the half of the Kryptonite dagger left in his hand, so shocked he forgot to continue attacking. "No, no, that's impossible! Kryptonite's suppression is absolute. How could—"

"Who knows?" Jay shrugged and raised his fist again. "Maybe you forgot to check your horoscope before leaving home today."

His full-strength punch slammed into Mongor's face before he had recovered from his shock, sending his entire body flying like a cannonball. The giant's body snapped an elevated rail in half at the middle, then crashed into a corner grocery store and brought it down in a clattering heap of bricks and rubble.

Mongor burst from the ruins, his rage beyond measure, though it was more like the final struggle of a beast trapped in a desperate situation. He threw aside the now-useless half of the Kryptonite dagger and lunged forward with a roar. Jay rose into the air, a ring of milky-white vapor bursting around him as he charged straight at Mongor with thunderous force.

Both afterimages suddenly accelerated, airwaves surging as everything around them blurred into indistinct illusions. Both sides gathered incomparable momentum, preparing for the most violent collision.

But at that lightning-fast instant, the three circling fighter jets dove low once again. Six missiles, two from each jet, screamed through the air trailing brilliant fire as they shot straight for Mongor. Mongor, charging at full speed and already midway there, had no way to evade them. A fraction of a second later, he collided head-on with all six missiles. The explosions released searing shockwaves that canceled most of his momentum. Mongor stumbled out of the thick smoke, only to slam directly into Jay's fist.

The brutal monarch felt his body completely slip beyond his control. Like a kite with its string cut, he drifted helplessly through the air, tore through a bank lobby, and embedded himself heavily in the massive vault door. He had only just staggered to his feet when the Kryptonian Kid flashed before him again, followed immediately by another punch that blasted him out through the bank's ceiling.

Mongor had already lost count of how many more punches he took, just as he could no longer tell how far he had been sent flying. Each of Jay's punches made his consciousness blur a little more. When he was finally punched down from a hundred meters in the air into a human-shaped crater in Times Square, he completely lost the strength to stand again.

Jay landed lightly before him and shouted, "It's over, Mongor."

Yet Mongor, already at the end of his strength, burst into laughter instead.

"I don't know what method you used to overcome Kryptonite's weakness," he said, "but do you think that means you've won? Do you think this is a problem you can solve with your fists? No, you haven't changed anything. Just wait a little longer, until Warworld descends upon Earth—"

But he could not even finish his arrogant declaration before swallowing the rest of it. The blue beam shooting from the government building into the sky abruptly cut off. Countless particles lost their core and scattered into the air, the rift beyond the atmosphere gradually closed, and Warworld's enormous shadow moved away from Earth once more.

"No!" Mongor struggled to raise his head and roared unwillingly, "Why!?"

Helena. Jay could not help smiling faintly as the words "best partner" surfaced in his mind again.

"Sorry, but it looks like we really did win this time. As for you..." Jay walked over, gripping Mongor by the neck with his left hand and lifting the exhausted giant into the air. His right hand clenched into a fist, filled with strength unlike anything before.

Jay clenched his teeth and threw his right fist, its power surpassing every previous blow as though it would tear space apart. The instant his fist collided with Mongor's jaw, the blast wave became visible ripples that surged outward like an overwhelming tide. The ground split apart with the two of them at the center, and the violently shifting air pressure sucked several wrecked cars up beside them before they fell back amid a rain of debris.

Mongor, who had long since lost the strength to resist, let the force of the punch strike him without obstruction. His entire body shot upward like a rocket, accelerating in an instant to a speed too fast for the naked eye to follow as he streaked into the sky. The atmosphere was suddenly torn open by a massive gap. The alien king blasted out into space with scarcely any loss of speed, vanishing without a trace in the blink of an eye.

Jay shook his slightly numb hand. "Have a pleasant interstellar journey."

He let out a long breath and looked around at the devastated streets, still finding it unbelievable in retrospect. Nearly a third of New York had been destroyed in their brief battle. Collapsed buildings and wrecked vehicles lay everywhere he looked, while geysers of water sprayed high from ruptured underground pipes, making it seem as if it were raining.

Jay hovered in the air, basking in the golden sunlight. He increasingly felt that everything he had experienced so far was as unbelievable as a dream. But thankfully, it was all over. At last, he could take a long-awaited rest, go home, and think about nothing—

At that instant, he heard a heartbeat. One he knew incredibly well, but one that was rapidly weakening. It came from that government building.

Jay's expression changed sharply. Without another thought, he shot into the air with a sonic boom and rocketed toward the iron-black building. The blue afterimage streaked across the ruins like an invisible blade, sending rubble flying.

Government building, main server room, ninety degrees.

Helena sat leaning against a mainframe cabinet, sweat streaming down her forehead. The instant it hit the scorching floor, it evaporated into vapor with a horrifying hiss. The server room was like a steamer, completely sealed beneath the enormous exhaust fan without even a single window. The heat generated by the mainframe's high-load operation far exceeded the limit humans could endure.

Helena knew she was dehydrated. The intense heat was already making her hallucinate, and Oracle's calls through her headset became increasingly faint, as though she were a hundred thousand miles away. She struggled to draw the scorching air into her lungs. After several futile attempts, she finally gave up trying to stand.

She struggled to glance at the screen of the terminal on her wrist. It displayed the words "Transmission Complete," which meant she had at least completed her mission. She only hoped it was not a hallucination caused by dehydration.

She sat quietly and said softly, "Oracle, I don't think I can get out of here."

"Don't talk nonsense, Helena." Barbara's voice turned stern through the headset. "We just stopped a mobile fortress loaded with strategic weapons from invading, and you're telling me you can't defeat dehydration?"

Helena ignored her and continued, "You know? I've thought a lot more about what you said afterward, about how I should repair my relationship with Dad. I think maybe you were right. I want you to help me tell Dad that I'm sorry I never went to talk to him, that I don't blame him for what happened to Mom—"

"Then tell him yourself, Helena," Barbara shouted.

But Helena did not respond again. Oracle's voice through the headset seemed to grow farther and farther away until it was soon almost inaudible. Sweat ran down her long eyelashes, making her vision even hazier. She could not help thinking of many things about her father, of when Mom was still around, of when she herself was still little. That distant life had seemed so simple and happy.

She had almost given up hope.

But then he came—the still-wet-behind-the-ears Kryptonian Kid. Like a blue bullet, he forcefully burst into the building that not even a mosquito could fly into. Amid the terrified cries of the aliens, he smashed through wall after wall with his body and appeared in the main server room on a cool gust of wind. Without explanation, he scooped the barely conscious Helena into a princess carry and shot straight into the sky.

The cold wind a hundred meters above the ground quickly helped her regain a little awareness. She heavily opened her eyelids, and when she saw Jay's face so close to hers, she smiled dazedly. "You came."

Jay held her in the crook of his arm as he flew toward the hospital—thankfully, the city hospital had not been destroyed in the battle just now. He smiled. "Yeah, I came. Don't talk. I'm taking you to the hospital now."

Helena panted lightly twice and actually obediently stopped talking, but it was soon proven that was only because she had not fully regained consciousness. Half a minute later, she seemed to recover her wits and abruptly asked, "Am I lying in your arms?"

"Uh, yes. Why?"

"Put me down!" She seemed to regain all her sharpness in an instant, shouting in a tone that allowed no argument.

"Huh? But—"

"I said put me down! Now!"

Jay had no choice but to obediently land. Watching Helena's legs go weak the moment she touched down, nearly unable to stand steady, he could not help silently complaining that this strange temperament was practically inherited from Batman's family. Father and daughter were exactly alike.

(Thanks to reader Camthalion for the 500 Qidian Coins donation, and reader A Bottle of Plum Wine for the 100 Qidian Coins donation!)