The sun hung high over the dry Nevada desert, its heat distorting the air like melted glass. I faced him, Superman, arms crossed over his chest, cape fluttering in the parched wind.
He had chosen the site. Isolated. Safe. No civilians. Only sand, stone, and the far-off buzz of Watchtower drones in silent mode, watching everything.
"This is just a test," Clark said, his voice steady, his eyes hard. "Not a battle. Not a dominance play."
I nodded slightly. "No necessity for dominance since I already have an idea of my limits."
His eyes flicked into narrowed slits. "That's what I fear."
We attacked simultaneously.
The earth cracked under my feet when I kicked off, and Clark greeted me halfway through the jump, the shockwave from our impact leveling a three-mile area. He struck first, quick, accurate, but I wasn't behind. My forearm deflected his attack and sent it crashing into the sky. A sonic boom shook above when his deflected punch exploded a cloud complex.
I responded with a spiraling elbow, low-targeting. He blocked with his thigh, flipped in mid-air, and fired twin heat beams from his eyes. I deflected them with a wrist flick tech augmented gauntlet glowing and struck back with a cosmic pulse directly to his chest.
He slammed into the sand like a meteor. But he was grinning as he stood.
"Not bad," he grunted.
"I wasn't even trying."
He returned faster, harder. This time, he did not hold anything back. Fists blurred. Kinetic waves ripped across the desert. Every blow we struck was capable of leveling cities, but we kept it contained barely.
He was challenging me, testing me. Not just my strength. My control.
And I knew it.
I looped around him, clutched his cape, and flung him upwards. He corrected immediately, blazed downwards like a scarlet missile, but I grabbed him in mid-dive and slammed him into a forcefield I created off the top of my head. The entire terrain strobed, sand became glass, and the Watchtower sensors began shrieking.
We floated above the crater, both panting harder, but neither really out of breath. His eyes flashed. Mine bristled with power, the universe murmuring behind my eyes.
Clark hovered, glaring at me. "You're not human."
"No," I said. "Not anymore."
"And yet. You didn't throw everything at me."
"So did you."
He breathed slowly. "I needed to know. You're quicker than I in the quantum bands. More powerful in some bursts. And your energy output." He looked out toward the still-rippled horizon. "I don't know where it stops."
"It doesn't. I control it."
Clark's jaw tightened. "That's what scares me."
I floated down, feet on the ground again. "So what now, Boy Scout? You figure I'm too hazardous to have around?"
No," he said. "I choose to trust you to keep this world safe when I'm not able to."
I was taken aback.
He landed next to me, extending a hand.
"We're not competitors. We're guardians," he said. "But never forget when the time arrives, someone's going to have to hold you responsible. Even if you do save the world."
I took the hand. "And what if no one's left to hold you accountable?
He smiled weakly. "That's why I invited you out here."
Our handshake crackled with pent-up power, cosmic meeting kryptonian. Neither of us blinked.
The wind began to blow again. The desert, battered by our confrontation, was quiet now—except for the slight change in tone between us.
Respect. Won in combat. Not in speech.
As we flew back towards the Watchtower, neither of us said another word.
We didn't need to.