[Eclipsed] Chapter 12 - A Desperate Battle

A short and slightly chubby young woman, seemingly in her late teens, sat on the couch together with an old couple and watched TV. Had Naruto been there to see her, he would have recognised her right away: she was none other than Kara Zor-El, his first girlfriend. 

Due to NASA’s collaboration with the Justice League and their exchange of technology and information, a massive asteroid was discovered just leaving Saturn’s orbit and heading towards the Earth. Considering its speed, scientists predict that the asteroid will reach the Earth in 18 days [...]

The news anchor proceeded to describe succinctly the devastating consequences of such a large asteroid hitting the Earth before the scene was switched to a press conference held inside the White House. 

“Kal will take care of it, I’m sure,” the girl said and took a bite out of a crepe. “Ohh, this is delicious! What is this?? I’ve never eaten anything like it before!”

“It’s strawberry jam,” said the old lady, smiling. “Eat all you can. There’s more where that came from.”

Kara nodded eagerly and wolfed it down in a second before reaching for another. Then another. And another. In less than a minute, she licked the plate clean, making Martha and Jonathan start laughing. 

“Thanks, Ma, it was delicious,” she said shyly.

She had been living with the Kents for more than three months now, so she should have gotten familiar with them already, but sometimes, she could not help feeling that she was a burden to them.

“Leave the dishes to me, dear; you don’t have to—” Martha began to say, but Kara had already stood up and started collecting the plates and glasses on the coffee table. 

“It’s the least I could do.”

With her Kryptonian super speed, she could have finished washing everything in less than three minutes. Unfortunately, she was not allowed to use her powers. The doctors from Star Labs forbid her from doing so. 

As minutes passed, Kara’s thoughts inadvertently drifted off to many different things. However, even after more than 3 months, the girl could not stop thinking about the blond-haired young man from Apokolips.

He had been the first to accept her. He had taken her under his wing when Granny Goodness and her Furies made her life miserable. He had been her first friend and her first lover, too. 

A smile surfaced on her face as she remembered how she had blown up a huge chunk of Darkseid’s fortress while Naruto taught her how to pilot a Destroyer ship. Then, there were their racing competitions and training sessions. A pink hue coloured her cheeks when she recalled one such moment from their training when her bralette snapped.

‘I can’t believe I did that!’ she thought, bringing her hands to her cheeks.

She burnt with embarrassment when she remembered how she had seduced Naruto and how they had made love for the first time out in the open, in the wilds, in the middle of a dusty, rocky canyon. 

But those beautiful, happy memories were always darkened whenever she remembered what happened to him in the end. Desaad had boom-tubed him away from Apokolips, somewhere in the deep space of the vast, boundless universe. 

She had wanted to go back to Apokolips to search for him and squeeze the truth out of Desaad, but the Justice League had not allowed her. She did not have a boom tube to sneak out by herself either. 

“But now, I wouldn’t be able to go there even if they allowed me to,” she murmured in a quiet voice.

Outside of her own volition, tears started falling from her eyes, seemingly out of nowhere. These strange and abrupt swings in her mood had become increasingly frequent for her ever since she returned to Earth.

She quickly wiped her cheeks. It wouldn’t do to make Superman’s adoptive parents worry about her. They were already babying her as though she were made of porcelain. 

She took extra time washing the dishes, letting the redness in her face and eyes fade. After that, she went to the bathroom to wash her face again and make sure there was no sign she had been crying. Only then did she go back to the living room.

⁂

NASA and the nations of the Earth did not possess the necessary technology to intercept such a large asteroid in such a short period of time. First of all, there were no spaceships capable of launching on such short notice. Second, Earth’s spaceships took a long time to achieve maximum speed, and even after doing so, the fastest rocket was still significantly slower than the speed at which the asteroid was heading toward Earth. Third, Earth’s nukes were not powerful enough to pulverise an asteroid of 5 kilometres in diameter. It was simply impossible with the available technology.

Fortunately, Kara’s claim that Superman would take care of the incoming asteroid turned out to be true. The Justice League’s technology was not limited to that of Earth. 

The second day after the press conference, Superman and Green Martian took a Javelin and made a trip to Saturn to intercept the enormous asteroid. 

Needing to spend a longer period of time in the vacuum of space, the two of them were wearing high-tech space suits. As the massive object came into view, they increased their flying speed to the point where they were fast enough to keep up with it and land on it. Thanks to the lack of friction in space, they were flying at a speed over 70 times faster than the speed of sound.

Landing on the asteroid, Superman inserted a long metallic pole into the ground. It was a probe designed to analyse the composition of the asteroid. 

“32% Ion Oxide. 21% carbon [...]” 

As Martian Manhunter started listing the composition of the asteroid, Superman activated his comms.

“Are you getting us, Hawkgirl?”

“As if you’re in the next room,” Hawkgirl replied. 

The Thanagarian woman was at the Watchtower in the Earth’s orbit, while Superman and J’onn J’onzz were close to Saturn, but thanks to the Justice League’s extremely advanced technology, they could achieve instant communication; for reference, with the technology of the humans of Earth, one would need to wait nearly 90 minutes to receive an answer through radio waves over such a long distance.

“It’s 5 kilometres across. . . Can you imagine what would happen if it hit the Earth?”

The asteroid that had wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago had been 10 kilometres in diameter. Although this asteroid was only half as big, it was still more than enough to cause another global catastrophe. It would lead to the extinction of many species of plants and animals, most likely kill millions of people, and plunge the planet into an ice age.

“It’s not going to happen,” Superman said while he and Martian Manhunter brought two large exploding charges and stabbed them into the asteroid. “That's what we came here for: to stop it from reaching the Earth.”

The two of them pushed the levers of their charges, initiating the countdown to detonate the bombs.

“Ready for the fireworks?” he asked while flying a fair distance away from the asteroid but still keeping up with its speed. 

“Ready,” the Martian replied in his usual, serious voice. 

Six seconds into the countdown, the probe that was still on the asteroid sent an alarming signal to Hawkgirl. 

“Oh, no! Superman, I just got a reading that there are high reserves of hydrogen trapped inside the asteroid! Get away from there before—”

Hawkgirl did not get to finish her words because the countdown of the charges came to an end, and they were detonated. 

The two charges alone were powerful enough to destroy a 5 km asteroid, far surpassing human nukes. But when the asteroid's vast hydrogen reserves were also ignited, the explosion became dozens of times stronger than the Tsar Bomba. Superman’s and Martian Manhunter’s sight went white, and then they knew no more. 

⁂

The next time that Superman woke up, he found himself inside a spacious, underground prison. Chains as thick as a man’s forearm bound his wrists to the wall. 

‘This can't be the Earth,’ he thought when he took in the sights around him.

All sorts of strange-looking aliens were chained to walls or pillars, just like he was. Whereas he looked like a human, the others had vastly different appearances. Green-skinned, grey-skinned, blue-skinned, with four arms, animalistic features, tentacles, and so on. Some of them did not even have a humanoid shape. People and creatures from all over the galaxy had been imprisoned there. 



‘How did I get here? And where is J’onn?’

The last thing he remembered was hearing Hawkgirl’s warning, and then an explosion greater than anything he had ever seen knocked him out cold. 

Standing up, he let out a short grunt and suddenly yanked his arms away from the wall, making the thick chains shatter into countless pieces. 

“Hey! Big guy! Free us as well!”

“Don’t escape by yourself!”

“Hey!”

However, Superman could not, in good conscience, free up the other inmates because he did not know whether they were criminals or not. First of all, he had to find J’onn J’onzz. Then, he had to get some information about the place he was in.

Smashing open the cell’s old, metallic door, Superman walked outside and used his X-ray vision to scan the entire place, searching for his partner. Eventually, he found him.

“J’onn!” he said in surprise, becoming little more than a blur as he rushed to him. 

Martian Manhunter was lying unconscious on the edge of a dirty, slimy canal where numerous corpses lay. The reason for the Man of Steel’s rush was the enormous, whale-sized crocodile that suddenly burst out of the dirty, green water and started swallowing the corpses whole.



Superman was not aware of it, but that was the place where all the gladiators in the arena on Warworld ended up once they were killed, becoming nothing more than crocodile feed. 

⁂

On another side of the arena of Warworld, a man suddenly rose out of the concrete floor like a phantom. It was a simple technique named “Hiding in Rock Jutsu,” an ability that allowed shinobi to move through the ground unobstructed. It was just a C-rank technique that any shinobi and kunoichi worth their salt could perform, with the more experienced ones being able to adjust it for any sort of environment: hiding in water, soil, wood, walls, and so on. 

The arena had an impressive energy shield powered by the numerous reactors of Warworld, so breaking through it headfirst would be foolish. But, as was often the case with these energy shields, they did not extend too deeply underground. Sneaking in undetected had been a piece of cake for Naruto. Once he was out of the ground, Naruto cast the Chameleon Jutsu, turning himself invisible.

During their numerous scouting operations over the past few weeks, other than the enormous arena and Mongul’s luxurious palace, Naruto’s clones had discovered the existence of many secret facilities underground. Hundreds of them. 

‘Some of them are entire miles underneath the surface,’ he thought. 

It really drove home the point that Warworld was not a natural planet but a man-made warship the size of a planet. He couldn’t even begin to imagine just what sort of technology the ancient beings who had created Warworld must have had.

With that being said, however, most of the underground facilities that he had discovered were in a state of disrepair and not accessible. Of those who were accessible, the majority were used as hiding spots and safehouses by the organised crime of Warworld. 

Through a process of elimination, Naruto came to the conclusion that the Psion must be hiding underneath Warworld. Unlike the rest of the underground facilities he had infiltrated beforehand, he could not sneak into this one as easily. There were sensors and cameras at every step. Furthermore, electricity ran through the outer walls of the facility, preventing most infiltration attempts from beings such as the Martians who could phase through objects. . . and preventing Naruto from travelling through it with his Hiding in Surface jutsu too. Therefore, he had to use traditional methods of sneaking in, such as kidnapping an employee, taking their security chip, and disguising himself to look like them. 

And Naruto did just that. Knocking out one of the red-skinned humanoid people who seemed to have a close relationship with Mongul in their quality as his retainers, Naruto henged himself to look like him, and after stealing his security chip, he walked into the facility as though he belonged there. 

On his way to the elevator that was going to take him to the lower levels, his ears picked up the sound of a great disturbance, and he noticed a large group of robots flying through the air. 

‘A prisoner must be trying to escape again.’

It was not a rare occurrence. Considering that many of the people and creatures captured by Mongul’s slavers were powerful, formidable individuals, it made sense that, once in a while, some of them would manage to break out of their holding cells and escape. 

A blue and green blur flashed in the distance, and if he weren’t in the middle of an important mission, he would have definitely wanted to check it out. Regrettably, at the moment, he did not have the leisure to do so.

‘Besides, they won’t get past the energy shield for sure,’ he thought.

The force field around Warworld’s arena was not just the perfect way of stopping any gladiators from escaping, but it also served as an unbreakable barrier against any would-be rebellions from the distraught population. It was one of the main reasons why Mongul did not fear a potential uprising among his subjects. 

Not wasting a second longer, Naruto scanned the stolen security chip at the entrance and stepped inside.

⁂

As Naruto had predicted, not knowing about the force field surrounding the arena, Superman slammed head-first into it. Somehow, despite how weakened he felt, Martian Manhunter managed to slip past it, but the Man of Steel was not as lucky. 

Not only had he been unable to pass through, but a second later, dozens of robots carrying laser rifles ganged up on him. 

In the present, two levitating robots dragged an unconscious Superman to Mongul’s throne room, interrupting his meeting with his prime minister, the thin, bald, blue-skinned man wearing long, black, and red robes.

“What’s this?” Mongul asked at the sight of it. 

“It’s the Kryptonian the slavers brought today. He tried to escape,” the minister answered. 

Mongul stood up from his throne and walked to the robots, studying Superman intently. 

“Weren’t Kryptonians supposed to be extinct? I heard they died out 30 years ago or so.”

“That should have been the case, indeed. But it seems like one of them survived. The slavers found him and a green Martian in the Sol System of the Milky Way.”

Mongul raised Superman’s head, looking at his face for a bit before letting out a sigh. 

“A pity. I was planning on building him up with some preliminary matches like I did with Drega. But now I’ll have to make an example out of him. Feed him to that savage from Tamaran.”

“The Fire Princess?”

“Who else? How many gladiators from Tamaran do we have?”

“Ah, right, sire, my apologies,” said the minister hurriedly and ordered the robots to take him away. 

⁂

As was often the case whenever he introduced an opponent that looked like it would give Starfire a hard fight, Mongul was excited about the fight too.

“Today, the Fire Princess meets her greatest foe: an unparalleled warrior hailing from a distant galaxy! A godlike fighter under the yellow sun! Everyone, give it up for the Man from Krypton!”

Mongul’s introduction worked wonders because the crowd exploded into thunderous roars when Superman was brought onto the stage.

Next to him, a tall and athletic woman with long, flaming hair and orange skin stood stoically, carrying a sword and a shield in her hands. 

“Are you ready, Kryptonian?” Mongul asked while one of his robots flew to the Man of Steel, handing him a big, two-handed axe. 

“I won’t fight for your amusement, Mongul,” Superman said, and, under the crowd’s disbelieving eyes, he smashed the handle of the axe into his knee, breaking it in half before throwing the pieces away.

The crowd in the stands let out a cry of surprise at his defiance, but Mongul did not lose his cool. 

“A bold move,” he said calmly. “But let’s see how long his idealism lasts on Warworld.”

Mongul’s subordinate fired his raygun, and Starfire was the first to be teleported to the battlefield. 

Superman waited for the raygun to hit him, too. With his superhuman speed and reaction time, he could have easily evaded it, but for now, he had no choice but to obey. Until Martian Manhunter found a solution from outside the arena, all he could do was bide his time. 

The very moment he arrived at the ruined city serving as their battlefield, the red-haired woman lunged at him, slashing his sword diagonally to behead him. It was pure instinct that made Superman step back, just barely dodging her slash. The tip of her sword, however, left a slash mark on his suit, on the chest. 

“Wait! You don’t have to do this!” Superman said, raising his hands to show that he did not have any fighting intent. “There’s no need for us to fight!”

Starfire did not relax her stance. 

“It’s not personal. I simply don’t have a choice. Neither of us does.”

Saying that, Starfire flew at him and swung her sword down with all her strength. 

Superman caught her sword between his palms, stopping the blade mere centimetres away from his face before yanking the weapon out of her grasp.

He didn’t have time to celebrate his success because right after he disarmed her of her sword, Starfire smashed the edge of her round shield into his face.

A sound like that of a loud, deep gong was heard, and the Kryptonian was sent flying as though he had been hit by a truck. But his kind was a tough breed. Despite her violent shield bash, Superman was not knocked out. 

He righted himself in the air and flew away, trying to put some distance between them, but Starfire chased after him and grabbed him by his red cloak before he could get away. 

Mongul calling Starfire a "savage from Tamaran" was not just to insult her. Her fighting style was truly violent. Once she grabbed Superman by the cloak, she slammed him into the ground like a ragdoll three times before hurling him into the ruins of a tall abandoned building. 

A loud sound boomed as the entire skyscraper collapsed, burying Superman underneath.

But when it looked like everything was over, the mountain of debris shook, and an enormous block of concrete started floating in the air, seemingly by itself. It was not floating, though. Superman was lifting it. He appeared to be pissed.

Starfire braced herself behind her shield, and it was just in time because the Man of Steel threw the immense block at her. 

The girl let out a battle cry and charged at the building-sized piece of debris, blasting it to smithereens with her shield bash. However, Superman had flown towards her right after throwing that chunk of the building; Starfire didn’t even have time to react before he slammed his punch into her shield.

Her trusty shield was shattered like glass, and she got blasted downwards like a bullet. A massive crater appeared in the ground, and Starfire coughed a mouthful of blood from the terrible impact. Superman didn’t wait; he followed up right away, flying down with his fist in front of him, intent on smashing her to a pulp. 

But Starfire quickly rolled away, making him crash into the ground, deepening the crater even more. Before he could get out, her hands lit up with her famous green Starbolts, and an intense jet of energy smashed into Superman’s side, setting his cape and suit on fire.

After the initial grunt of pain, Superman raised his hands in front of him, tanking her beam of energy with his palms as he started slowly walking towards her. 

Realising that the attack wasn’t working, Starfire stopped and threw a Starbolt into the ground, raising a dense cloud of dust in the air.

Unfortunately for her, the smokescreen she created didn’t do anything to impede Superman’s sight due to his X-ray vision. Hence, when she lunged at him, thinking that he wouldn’t know from which direction she was going to attack him, Starfire was startled to see him turn towards her and throw a punch at her.

Thankfully, her reaction time was quick enough to tilt her head and avoid his wild swing before counterattacking with a quick jab, nailing him in the nose. 

Superman wasn’t fazed by her hit and punched at her again. The strength behind his fist was such that it generated a shockwave that blew the cloud of dust away, and upon smashing into Starfire’s guard, the girl was slammed back despite blocking the hit. She was sent flying over 30 meters, only stopping after crashing into the outer wall of a ruined building. 

“Please don’t get up,” Superman said. 

He had tried to hold back against her, but she was so violent and unhinged that he felt forced to use his real strength to deal with her. 

“I don’t want to hurt you any more than this,” he said in a pleading voice. “We don’t have to do this. We don’t have to fight for that madman’s amusement.”

Starfire gritted her teeth as she got back up to her feet. Her left arm was pulsating with pain. His punch had fractured her forearm.

“You think I have a choice?” she shouted at him. “You think I’ve been fighting in this arena for months because I want to?”

⁂

If not for fear of dispelling himself, Clone Naruto would have started biting his nails the moment he saw the Kryptonian being brought onto the stage in the middle of the arena.

He recognised him right away—how could he not? He was one of the Justice League members who had come to rescue Kara from Apokolips. He also knew him as one of Darkseid’s strongest foes. 

‘How did Superman get here, of all places?’

His surprise at seeing him on Warworld was surpassed only by his surprise at seeing him being forced to fight in the arena. It was hard to think that a Kryptonian would be so easily captured.

‘He should be even stronger than Kara, and she was already crazy powerful.’

Momentarily, clone Naruto didn’t know what to do.

‘Should I stop the fight? Should I attack Mongul now?’

But he dismissed that thought right away. He may have been a clone, but he was not stupid.

‘No, I can’t do that. I can’t make my move until Boss finds the Psion and kills him.’

Knowing that both Mongul and the Psion were in possession of a remote control that could detonate the chip in Starfire's neck any time they wished, clone Naruto was forced to wait because even if he were to attack Mongul now, it would amount to nothing if the Psion killed Starfire all the same. 

He clenched his fists in anxiety.

He did not want to watch Starfire's fight against Superman. He had no doubts that the princess was a formidable warrior, but having trained Supergirl for nearly a month, Naruto was deeply familiar with a Kryptonian’s abilities and physiology. Other than being vulnerable to magic, they were nigh-impervious to most types of damage. Furthermore, their overwhelming speed and physical strength made them almost godlike. Their heat vision and ice breath were like the icing on the cake. 

Naruto’s fears proved to be right on the money. In spite of the fact that Starfire put up a decent fight and even seemed to dominate in the very beginning, things quickly took a turn. The blond was on the edge of his seat, his nails white from how hard he was clenching his hands on the rail. 

‘Don’t give up, Kori. You can’t lose now.’

Over the past month, Starfire had been like a ray of hope for him. In his darkest time, when he thought he had no reason left to live, Starfire was there for him. She took his mind away from those thoughts. She had brought colour again into his bleak life. 

‘You can’t die on me now.’

‘Not when we’re about to get out of here.’

⁂

“You think I have a choice?” she shouted at him. “You think I’ve been fighting in this arena for months because I want to?”

“There’s always a choice-”

His idealistic words made her explode with anger:

“What do you know about having a choice or not?” she shouted at him. “What choice did I have when I was sold off into slavery as a child and tortured every day for a whole decade? What choice do I have but to fight when there’s a chip in my neck ready to blow my head up the moment I make a wrong step?” 

As her anger grew, yellow and red flames engulfed her crimson hair entirely, and her eyes started glowing with a bright green light. She did not wait for him to come up with an answer. She threw herself at him with a scream, her entire body engulfed in fire. 

Unlike the previous times they clashed against each other, this time, Starfire was not pushed back by his monstrous physical strength. A powerful shockwave exploded, and the robot filming their fight from a distance lost its balance and fell to the ground when the two godlike aliens collided. 

Previously on the verge of defeat, the Fire Princess got a second wind seemingly out of nowhere. 

'What is happening?' Superman thought in confusion as Starfire ducked another one of his wild swings and smashed her left punch into his gut.

He remembered vividly that he had broken her forearm not even a minute ago. He had seen it with his X-ray vision. Not only had she used that arm to punch him, but her hit was so powerful that it knocked the wind out of him!

As he involuntarily bent down from pain, Starfire grabbed him in a move resembling a Thai clinch and kneed him in the face.

Filled with anger and determination, Starfire unleashed a devastating series of attacks. 

But Superman wasn’t just a punching bag. He gave back as much as he got.

The crowd in the stands stared at the large screen in the middle of the arena, stupefied as they watched the two warriors demolish the battlefield beyond recognition. Mongul himself was watching the fight wide-eyed, never before having witnessed anything of that magnitude. He had not known that the Fire Princess was so powerful either.

But that was because none of her previous opponents had pushed her to such a degree. He did not know that, as a Tamaranean, Starfire’s emotions played an enormous role in her strength. 

“Enough!” Superman roared and tackled Starfire, flying with her through six buildings, demolishing them all. 

But then, a massive Nova Blast erupted from Starfire’s body, and Superman screamed in pure agony for the first time as the explosion burnt his flesh and blasted him away like a broken kite.

That was Starfire’s ultimate attack, the strongest move in her arsenal, something that she could only do once a day by releasing all the solar radiation stored in her body. She was barely standing on her feet now.

Unfortunately for her, even her last resort attack had not been enough to put him away for good. The Man of Steel stood up from the place where he had collapsed like a zombie, and his burnt skin started healing like a miracle under the effects of the yellow sun. 

‘I promised Naruto that I’d win.’

For the first time in her life, Koriand’r had fallen in love with someone. 

For the first time since she was enslaved by Mongul and forced to fight a never-ending life-and-death battle in the arena, Starfire had been truly happy.

‘I can’t die here. I won’t die here!’

‘We promised that we’d see each other after this fight.’

Through sheer willpower alone, Starfire broke into a run towards Superman, who was still in the midst of regenerating himself. 

‘He promised that we would be together forever!’

She had only known Naruto for one month, but for her, he was already the most important person in her life. 

Passion burnt inside her like a smouldering volcano. The nearly dead embers of powers still left inside her roared, and the girl suddenly broke the sound barrier as she charged at the Kryptonian, tackling him to the ground.

Superman tried pushing her away with both hands, but she was like a vice. Moreover, as someone who had been trained since early childhood by the Warlords of Okaara, Starfire’s understanding of grappling and balance was far superior to that of Superman, who had not received any formal martial arts training. 

In no time, the girl took his back and snaked her right arm around his neck, catching him in a rear-naked choke. 

Superman shouted and grunted as he tried to pry her arms open, but she would not give in. Fuelled by her emotions and on the verge of dying, Starfire put her life on the line to choke him.

Left with no choice, Superman suddenly flew up, and after getting 50 meters of altitude, he flew towards the ground again, but with his back first, with Starfire towards the ground. 

The princess let out a pained groan as she was smashed into the ground violently, but she did not let go. Instead, she tightened her choke even further.

“Stop this before it’s too late!” Superman shouted, becoming desperate now.

It was not his own safety that he was afraid for, but hers. He did not want to kill her, but she was so strong that she was not giving him any other way of stopping her. 

He flew up again and then slammed himself with Starfire first into the ground with even more strength than before, creating a huge crater. 

Superman rose in the air for a third time and crashed into the ground from a height of 100 metres. 

However… …something unthinkable happened this time. 

As they crashed into the ground for the third time, Superman let out a scream of pain even louder than that of Starfire. 

Unbeknownst to him, the entire time she had held him in a rear-naked choke, Koriand’r had been syphoning out the solar radiation stored inside his body.

Superman tried to unwrap her arms from around his neck one more time, but a sudden feeling of vertigo made it hard for him to even keep his eyes open. 

He attempted to fly a fourth time, but his body was not listening to him. 

With next to no solar radiation left inside his body, Superman’s durability dropped to that of a regular human, and Starfire’s choke finally came into effect. Ten seconds later, the Man of Steel closed his eyes, falling unconscious. 

Sensing his body slumping, Starfire unwrapped her arms from around his neck and pushed him off her. . . or at least she tried to. 

She did not have the strength to even raise her arm to confirm her victory, much less push his body off her. Furthermore, Starfire's entire body was one big bruise. The back of her head was cracked and bleeding from how many times she had been slammed into the ground and through buildings, her left forearm was broken, and so were half a dozen of her ribs too. She was in a terrible condition.

Not even four seconds after Superman fell unconscious, Starfire’s body shut down as well. She had long since reached her limits. 

⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂

AN: All the abilities that Starfire had used in this chapter are canon, including the sudden strength increase due to anger and the solar radiation absorption. She had depowered other Kryptonians in this manner in the comics. That being said, Superman is still more powerful.

Starfire managed to fight him to a draw in this chapter because Superman had been holding back for half of the fight and due to her ability to drain the solar radiation from Superman's body. In a second fight, Starfire would not have as much success as she did here.

Hope you enjoyed the chapter. I sank so many hours into writing this. I hope that it delivered. Until next time!