He Couldn't Tear It Apart

At the summit of Mount Olympus in northern Greece, between the administrative regions of Thessaly and Macedonia.

Shane, Superman, and Shazam hovered high above the summit.

Superman's strong hand rested on Shane's shoulder, his eyes full of concern.

"Are you sure you can handle this alone?"

"This was Batman's plan too, wasn't it?"

Shane shot the big blue guy a sidelong glance, making his meaning obvious.

If you don't think I can do it, you can always go talk to Batman.

Superman gave an awkward smile and moved his hand away.

Shazam's attention, meanwhile, was focused on a completely different and rather odd matter.

"Buddy, I'm not criticizing your fashion sense, but that outfit doesn't exactly look suited for a fight."

Shazam's expressive gaze fell on the obviously oversized gray hoodie Shane was wearing.

Tom had dug it out of his closet for Shane during the first few days after he arrived on Earth.

It had been worn for who knew how many years and washed who knew how many times. The elbows and other angular, high-friction areas were even fraying into rough, ragged edges.

It was winter in the Mediterranean climate, and they were hundreds of meters above the mountaintop. Damp, cold winds swept through the gaps between the three of them, making Shane's hood flap behind him.

Shazam's eyes followed the hood as it fluttered up and down.

"Your hood looks like it's about to fly off any second."

Superman had also noticed that Shane's outfit was out of place. He turned slightly toward the Arctic.

"My Fortress of Solitude can design suits. If you need one, I can make you one right now. It won't take long to go there and back."

"And then I'd have to strip naked hundreds of meters above Mount Olympus and change into a skintight suit?"

Shane could barely hold it together.

"Not a bad idea. We wouldn't even need to open the entrance to the Divine Realm ourselves. The gods would definitely rush out and beat us up."

Shane shook his head at Superman, crossed his arms, and lifted the gray hoodie from his waist, taking it off completely.

Wearing a black-and-gray Viltrumite suit, Shane handed the hoodie to Superman.

"Hold on to this for me. I don't have many everyday clothes on Earth."

Shazam's gaze slid strangely toward the black battle skirt extending down from Shane's waist.

"So Superman's cape hangs behind him, mine hangs over my left shoulder, and yours hangs from your waist. I thought your lower half was just covered by an extra-long black T-shirt. People who dress hip-hop wear those all the time."

For once, Shane felt his face grow warm. He'd actually wanted to reject the design when he was young, but the Viltrumites, who cared a great deal about tradition, obviously hadn't approved of his taste.

Strictly speaking, if Shane hadn't managed to escape back then, once he reached a certain age, he would have had to grow a line of hair above his upper lip too. That was another Viltrumite tradition.

Superman, on the other hand, seemed far more open-minded about fashion. He made no comment about the codpiece, only praising the color scheme.

"The dark colors look cool."

Shane ran his fingers over the Viltrumite emblem on his chest, which the people of Luo Star had deliberately obscured with a thicker coating of paint. He shook his head and said nothing.

That color represented only the last of the Luo Star people's blood feud.

A jet-black Batwing sat quietly in a meadow not far from Mount Olympus.

Batman's low voice came through the earpieces and reached all three of them.

"Ten seconds until the time Cyborg calculated. I hope you're all ready."

Superman carefully folded Shane's hoodie, nodded to the other two, and flew some distance away.

Shazam gazed up at the sky, taking several deep breaths in a row. His hands kept shaking as he tried to loosen up.

"Try to relax. I don't want to hit you with lightning."

Shane said nothing more and simply stared ahead.

Cyborg's electronic voice began counting down the final seconds.

"5."

"4."

"3."

Shazam raised both hands toward the sky and drew in a deep breath.

"2."

The Batwing's nose-mounted cannon rose, firing a beam of blue energy that tore through space and shot toward the sky above the mountain.

"Now!" "Shazam!!!"

A huge bolt of lightning appeared out of nowhere at the same time as the blue beam, and the two intertwined in front of Shane.

Zeus's magical lightning linked with the hidden divine power inside Shane. In the blink of an eye, the three forces formed a deep spatial vortex.

The next moment, Shane's eyes lost all sense of color.

After several seconds of darkness and dizzying disorientation, a fresh, grassy scent suddenly reached his nose.

He opened his eyes. The ground was made of smooth, mirrorlike gray-white stone slabs.

The road was wide enough for more than a dozen warhorses to ride abreast, stretching into the depths of the mist.

Rows of white marble pillars stood along both sides of the road. Their shafts were carved with intricate curling patterns, with half-open silver lotuses and ivy twined among the crossing vines.

"Please, follow me."

A clear, emotionless voice rang out. Shane turned around and saw a figure standing some distance away.

The figure wore a short, silver-gray robe cinched at the waist, with a belt set with sapphires.

Most striking were the long boots, each side decorated with a tiny golden wing that trembled gently.

Shane looked up at the figure's eyes, hoping to gauge the Divine Realm's attitude from its messenger.

But all he saw when he looked up was an unfathomable abyss of ink-black, without a trace of white.

There was no way to discern any emotion. Only stillness.

"Heh. I thought I'd be struck by lightning the moment I got in."

The other figure didn't respond. It turned and headed deeper down the stone road, as if certain Shane would follow.

Shane focused for a moment. All unnecessary emotion vanished from his eyes in the blink of an eye, his pupils widening slightly as his expression turned into the detached look of a Viltrumite.

He didn't know this world's Greek Divine Realm, but this wasn't his first time venturing deep into an alien civilization's territory.

He followed the messenger, his strength gradually stirring with every step.

The two walked in silence. The golden lines inlaid in the cracks between the stone slabs grew denser the farther they went.

Before long, a massive temple came into view.

Its curved dome was carved with the sun, moon, and stars.

A broad plaza stretched in front of the temple. At its center stood a massive statue, stern-faced and holding a scepter of thunder.

Twelve enormous stone pillars lined either side of the plaza, with just three figures scattered among them.

The figure at the front wore black thorn-covered armor, and the aura of slaughter surrounding him was more familiar to Shane than anything.

Ten meters to the left, a woman with shoulder-length flaxen curls studied Shane with a cold gaze.

She wore a rose-red dress embroidered with golden olive branches along the hem and openwork gold bracers.

On the other side stood a hulking, inhuman giant, three meters tall. His upper body was bare, his arms like flowing lava, and he gripped a huge, long-handled hammer.

He was so tall that the clouds and mist obscured his features and expression.

The messenger's figure silently faded into transparency.

And to the left of the temple, Diana was bound tightly to a stone pillar with the Lasso of Truth.

When she saw Shane appear there alone, surprise and concern flashed through Diana's eyes.

"Wretched mortal! You dare steal the Golden Apple!"

The man in thorn-covered armor stepped forward first, his voice full of fury.

"You've profaned the authority of the gods. Today is the day you die!"

Shane completely ignored the angry tirade. Instead, he tilted his head and looked past the speaker, carefully checking Diana's condition.

She looked like a bound prisoner, and some kind of spell had been placed on her throat to keep her from speaking.

But not a single strand of her hair was out of place.

So Batman had been right. The Divine Realm had some other motive?

Interesting. How had that guy figured it out?

After being ignored outright, the God of War seemed thoroughly enraged. His scarlet gaze locked onto Shane through the slits in his helmet.

"How dare you show me such contempt?"

Shane slowly straightened his head and met those scarlet eyes.

"Mortal! You—"

A punch he'd been charging up the whole way slammed into Ares, sending him flying with a boom before he could finish his sentence.

The goddess in the rose-red dress stared, dumbfounded, as Ares blasted through four consecutive sound barriers and vanished into the distance. Her hand instinctively summoned a spear and shield, but Shane had already rushed to Diana's side.

"Don't worry."

A deep, rumbling voice boomed from the three-meter giant.

"I know that lasso well. Even Superman can't pull it apart—"

Shane didn't even touch the glittering golden lasso. He simply wrapped his arms around the stone pillar, his fingers digging into it like steel nails.

He sank his weight, braced himself, and with a crackling roar tore up the entire pillar with Diana still bound to it. Then his feet gouged two huge craters into the ground. His thigh muscles swelled as he compressed his strength to the limit in a fraction of a second.

"Here you go!"

Shane's muffled shout came through the Batwing's communicator. Cyborg immediately pulled up thousands of data points on the computer screen.

Superman and Shazam stared intently at the spot where Shane had vanished.

Shazam's expression still carried a trace of horrified disbelief.

"That fast?"