Zaora Returns

by GeekSeven

Zaora Hu-Ul awoke. She relished the unfamiliar sensation; during her countless years as a prisoner in the Phantom Zone, she had never once slept. She opened her eyes and took in her surroundings. She was on her back, chained to a cold metal table with glowing green restraints. Where the strange green metal touched her wrists and ankles, she felt a sharp pain. Pain was something else she had not felt while she had been in the Phantom Zone. She did not care for it. She tested her chains and discovered that they were more than solid enough to restrain her. For decades, she had dreamed of being free of the insubstantial horror of exile to the Phantom Zone. She had never once thought that she would be freed from one prison, only to end up in another.

The room she was in appeared to be some kind of laboratory. She was surrounded by instruments and machinery that looked primitive compared to the science of her home planet. There were no windows and only a single door. The walls and ceiling were lined with metal that had been polished to a mirror-like sheen. She looked straight up and examined her reflection. She looked exactly as she had on the day that she had been banished to the Phantom Zone. She was a tall, slender, young woman with reddish brown hair cut into a bob. Her features were beautiful, if severe. Her physique was fit and toned. She wore her favorite skintight, green and purple bodysuit.

The metal door swung open and a fat, bald man entered. Zaora despised all men, but she had a particular dislike for ones that did not keep themselves in good physical condition.

“Zaora, my dear,” said the man. “You are awake. Good.”

The man spoke in a strange language that it took Zaora a moment to recognize: English. She was on Earth; that raised certain intriguing possibilities. Earth was one of the planets that she had spied upon while she had been exiled to the Phantom Zone. It was the adopted home of Kal-El, the last male survivor of her home planet, Krypton. From observing Superman, as he styled himself, she knew that the yellow sun and weak gravity of this planet would give her incredible powers.

“Who are you?” demanded Zaora. “Why have you detained me?”

“How rude of me. I am so used to being recognized that it did not occur to me to introduce myself. I am Lex Luthor. I am the man whose genius has made it possible for you to be released from the Phantom Zone. Unfortunately for you, I am also the man whose genius will allow me to kill you.”

“No mere man can kill me!”

Luthor smiled. “The stories of your insane hatred of men were correct, then. I wasn't sure if that was just Krytonian propaganda.”

“I am not insane. I merely recognize the innate superiority of females and I am committed to enforcing that superiority.”

The “crimes” which the people of Krypton claimed that Zaora had committed had all been justified by her theories of female supremacy. She had captured and enslaved hundreds of men in her prison camp. The men had been worked to death, or experimented on until they expired in the name of science. She had been unable to convince the authorities that her actions were justified by the innate weakness of males.

Luthor shrugged. “I do not care one way or the other. You will not leave this room alive to continue your campaign against men.” He gestured towards a particularly complex piece of machinery. “This is my greatest invention: the Transferatron.”

“Terrible name,” said Zaora.

“Hmph. Nonetheless, it is a great invention. It will transfer your Kryptonian powers into my body, finally giving me the strength to match that meddling imbecile, Superman.”

“I have an alternative suggestion. Instead of using your primitive device to try and steal my powers, which may not even work, why not release me and I will kill Superman for you?”

“You think I would trust a Kryptonian to do my dirty work for me? Pah! As soon as you were done with Superman, assuming you could defeat him, you would turn on me. My plans require that the Kryptonian infestation of Earth be eradicated once and for all.”

Zaora shrugged. Luthor was right, of course. If he was foolish enough to release her, then she would follow her own agenda. She took stock of her situation. The chains that held her to the table must have been forged from an alloy of green Kryptonite. They were simultaneously keeping her weak and restrained. If she was able to get away from their influence, then she would have powers beyond her imagination.

Luthor began fiddling with the machinery. He took a metallic mesh cap and placed it over Zaora's head. He placed a similar cap on his own head. He pressed a large red button and turned a dial. Zaora felt the cap on her head begin to pulse with a strange energy. She saw the cap on Luthor's head glow blue.

“Ha ha!” shouted Luthor, in triumph. “It's working! I already feel stronger.”

Zaora panicked. The cap was causing her intense pain, on top of the pain she felt from the green kryptonite shackles. She strained against her chains, but found them to be no more yielding than they had earlier. She tried to calm herself and think of a way out of this situation. It was intolerable to imagine that she could be captured and killed by a mere human male. Waves of pain flowed through her entire body. It was almost enough to make her wish she was back in the Phantom Zone.

High in the skies above Metropolis, Superman was concerned. Lex Luthor had been keeping a low profile for a couple of months and that was always worrying; it meant that Lex was planning something big to make Superman's life miserable. Superman now had some idea of what that plan might be. A few hours ago, an alarm had been activated inside the Fortress of Solitude, an alarm that Superman had not even been aware of until it had gone off. The alarm was linked to the Phantom Zone, the insubstantial realm to which the worst Kryptonian criminals had been sentenced. One of the criminals had escaped, or more likely had been broken out by Lex Luthor.

Zaora Hu-Ul was not quite the worst of the inmates of the Phantom Zone, but she was close. Her 300-year sentence was the second-longest ever handed down and the longest given to a woman. Superman was relieved that it was only a Kryptonian woman he would have to fight. The thought of facing some of the bruisers that were in the Phantom Zone, like Quex-Ul, or General Zod, gave him cold sweats, but facing down a single woman should be no problem for the man of steel.

He flew above and around the headquarters building of LexCorp, where most of Luthor's plans originated. To the rest of the world, Lex Luthor presented a respectable, law-abiding face. Only Superman and his allies knew that the corpulent corporate baron was one of the most evil, power-hungry men on the planet. And now this man had released one of the most dangerous people in the universe to aid him in his evil schemes. There was no point in using his X-Ray vision to find Lex or Zaora; the building was riddled with lead plating thick enough to foil Superman's keen eyes. He would have to go inside.

When Zaora's thoughts turned to the Phantom Zone, she felt an unusual tingling in her body. She did not know exactly how Luthor had managed to release her from her dimensional prison, but she began to wonder if there were some side-effects from the process. She pictured the Phantom Zone in her mind and concentrated on how it felt to be as insubstantial as a ghost. Her limbs began to feel light and airy.

“What is happening?” said Luthor. “No, no, no! You cannot return to the Phantom Zone. I am not done with you yet.”

Zaora's body was now completely immaterial. She floated up and away from the table, leaving her chains and the metal cap of Luthor's 'Transferatron' behind. She righted herself and floated across the room so that she was standing in front of Luthor. She concentrated on becoming solid again and found that it was easy to do so. Now that she was free of the green kryptonite shackles, Zaora felt herself becoming stronger, stronger than she had ever felt in her life.

“I have no intention of returning to the Phantom Zone. I'm here to stay.”

Luthor turned and ran towards the door. Zaora was too fast for him; she raced past him and blocked his exit. She stood with her hands on her hips, smirking.

“Too slow, little fat man,” she said. She grabbed his shoulders and pushed him to his knees. Luthor's legs buckled under the intense pressure.

“We can still make a deal,” he said, looking up at her. “You and me. We can team up against Superman. With my brains and your strength, we can make that idiot wish that he had never been born.”

Zaora laughed. “What makes you think that I need a man to help me defeat Superman?”

“Well, you're a woman,” said Luthor. “Surely Superman is stronger than you?”

Zaora raised her hands and held them on either side of Lex Luthor's head. She brought them together with a gentle clapping motion. His head exploded in a shower of blood, shattered bones, and aerosolized brains. His headless corpse toppled to the ground.

“No man is stronger than me,” said Zaora.

Above the LexCorp building, Superman heard the thunderclap sound of Zaora's hands smashing Lex Luthor's head into nothingness. He did not know what the sound was, but he did not like it one bit. Without pausing for thought, he dove down into the building and headed for the basement laboratory, smashing through the floors of the skyscraper.

When he arrived in the laboratory, he found Luthor's headless body lying on the floor. Moments later, a group of guards arrived, clutching their guns, nervously. They looked at Superman and then looked at Luthor's body.

“Call the police,” said the lead guard. “Superman just killed Lex Luthor.”

While Superman had been flying down through the LexCorp building, Zaora had been flying up. She flew through the solid concrete, steel, lead and glass with ease, pulverizing the materials of the skyscraper against her newly-invulnerable body. The flood of sensations was intoxicating to Zaora, after decades spent in the Phantom Zone, which was without any physical sensation whatsoever. She was flying. She was smashing her way through a building as if it were made of tissue paper.

Zaora knew that the powers she now had came from a combination of low gravity and the energizing rays of Earth's yellow sun. Before she confronted Superman, she wanted to be sure that she was at full power, so she headed up and out of Earth's atmosphere and towards the sun. As she flew closer to the yellow star, she felt her powers grow in potency.

As she flew through the hard vacuum of space, Zaora briefly considered leaving Earth for good. She was free of the Phantom Zone. She had incredible powers, as long as she stayed away from any solar system containing a red star. She could go wherever she wanted to and do whatever she wanted to. The only things waiting for her on Earth were a confrontation with Kal-El and a countless mass of weak humans.

She dismissed the idea with a shake of her head. She had to prove to herself and to the universe that she was more powerful than Superman. She had to prove her theories of female superiority once and for all by crushing the last Kryptonian male. Once she had done that, Earth would become her playground. She could crown herself Empress, or simply destroy the planet and there would be nothing that the squabbling, patriarchal humans could do about it.

Superman believed in truth, justice, and the American way. Right now, the principles of truth and justice were at loggerheads. Nobody believed his story that Luthor had been killed by another Kryptonian, who had then flown away. He knew that the truth would eventually come to light, but in the meantime, he had no choice but to allow justice to take its course. It seemed ridiculous to allow himself to be imprisoned, but he could not claim to support the law while putting himself above it.

A special cage, forged from steel blended with 2% green Kryptonite was constructed in the Metropolis County Jail, and Superman allowed himself to be incarcerated inside until he could be brought to trial. He wondered where Zaora had gone to and whether she would return. If she came back to Earth, then there was no telling how much damage she would cause, but it would also be the best chance of proving his innocence.

Out in space, Zaora was practicing with her new super-powers. She had every confidence that she was a better fighter than Superman, even if she could not match his brute strength. She had spied on his adventures from the Phantom Zone and she knew that he was unskilled in hand-to-hand combat; he had never had a need to develop a skilled fighting style, since he had always been stronger and faster than his opponents. In contrast, Zaora was a highly-skilled martial artist with over twenty years of experience.

Apart from raw strength, the one area where Superman had a potential advantage was his experience with super-powers. He had grown up with super-speed and heat-vision, and he would instinctively knew how to use them to his advantage. Zaora had only gained super-powers that day. Her best chance of victory was to keep the fight at close quarters, but she also needed to be able to use her full array of powers if needed.

She flew away from the sun and towards the asteroid belt, where she spent a couple of hours destroying asteroids with her heat vision. She marveled at her ability to project an intense beam of red energy from her eyes, which was capable of disintegrating solid rock in a matter of moments. She thought about using her heat vision to kill a man and felt a tingle of glorious anticipation.

When she was confident in her ability to control her heat vision, she practiced dodging and weaving at super-speed. Her invulnerable body was able to survive extreme acceleration with no ill-effects whatsoever, which meant that she could go from motionless to a significant fraction of the speed of light in less than a second. She could stop in an instant, she could turn on a dime. She wondered what it would be like to use her super-speed to kill a man by simply passing through him. Again, she felt a warm feeling as she imagined men's bodies exploding into fragments as she rammed through them so fast that they never saw her coming.

Zaora had one special power that Superman lacked: the ability to make herself insubstantial at will. That could give her a significant advantage if she was able to control it as well as her other super-powers. She practiced phasing in and out of reality to see how fast she could do it.

Finally, she felt as ready as she could be to face down the so-called man of steel. She oriented herself towards Earth and flew towards the planet at top speed. She adjusted her course to aim for the eastern seaboard of the United States, for the city of Metropolis, and for the building that housed the Daily Planet.

Through the bars of his prison cell, using his super-vision, Superman could make out the globe at the top of the Daily Planet building. He looked at it, forlornly, wondering what Lois Lane and his friends at the newspaper were doing. It was only a matter of time before Lois figured out that the imprisonment of Superman and the mysterious disappearance of Clark Kent were probably linked in some way. He sighed and wondered again if he had done the right thing by surrendering to the authorities and trusting that the legal system would eventually clear him of the murder of Lex Luthor.

Suddenly, the Daily Planet globe exploded. It shattered into a million pieces, which rained down onto the streets of Metropolis. Superman was the only person who could have seen the green and purple blur that preceded the impact. Zaora had returned to Metropolis. She had not stopped with the globe atop the Daily Planet building. She must have continued to plunge down into the structure itself, burrowing down through the vintage bricks and steel until she reached the foundations. Superman watched with horror as the Daily Planet building toppled over and collapsed. He hoped against hope that Lois and his friends had not been inside. He gripped the bars of his cage and roared with pain as the green Kryptonite alloy burned his skin.

Zaora stood in the middle of the street and watched the results of her handiwork with pleasure. The Daily Planet building crumbled to the ground in a cloud of debris. She examined the rubble with her X-Ray vision, hunting for survivors. Perry White, the editor-in-chief, was buried in the wreckage, still clinging to life. She used her heat vision to burn through the wreckage and incinerate him. There was no sign of Lois Lane, Superman's idiot girlfriend, who must have been out on assignment. That was a shame, thought Zaora.

The first authorities on the scene were the police and the fire department. Zaora picked off the would-be rescuers with her heat vision, using short bursts of the intense energy to disintegrate the firemen. The police took cover behind their primitive ground vehicles and opened fire on Zaora with their guns.

Zaora had never been shot before and she was surprised at how pleasurable the sensation was. The bullets hit her chest and deformed against her invulnerable skin, melting and splitting apart into a hundred red-hot fragments. She felt the impacts, but they did not hurt, they were more like a series of gentle caresses. She allowed the police officers to empty their useless guns before killing them. When she did move against them, she used her super-speed to tear them apart, flying through their soft bodies with her own diamond-hard form. Just as she had anticipated, pulverizing humans into clouds of pink matter was a joy.

Once the police had been dealt with, Zaora returned to the task of demolishing Metropolis. The best way to get Superman's attention was to destroy his favorite city. She brought skyscrapers plunging to the ground with a single, well-placed punch. She ignited underground gas lines with her heat vision, turning whole blocks of the city into infernos; the intense heat did not bother her at all as she walked through the flames, watching with pleasure as humans were burned alive.

Three fighter aircraft announced their arrival with a series of sonic booms. They launched missiles at Zaora. The missiles flew towards her at hypersonic speed, but to Zaora's enhanced senses, they might as well have been crawling towards her. She examined them with her X-Ray vision and discovered that they were packed with conventional explosives. She saw no harm in letting them explode against her; it would prove to the humans just how useless their most advanced weapons were. The explosions washed over her body. The sensation was something like a full-body massage.

Zaora flew up to intercept the fighters. She easily matched velocity with the first plane and grabbed onto its left wing. She swung her arms around and the wing snapped off. The plane spun out of control and collided with one of the other fighters; the two aircraft were consumed in a large explosion. Zaora flew over to the remaining fighter. She stood on the nose of the aircraft with her hands on her hips, laughing as the pilot put his aircraft through a series of intense maneuvers, desperately trying to shake her loose. Even when the plane was upside down, she just stood with her feet on the nose of the plane, looking straight into the eyes of the pilot. Tiring of the game, she reached forward and flipped the canopy away from the plane. She reached in and grabbed the pilot by his flight suit. She pulled back her fist and punched the man's head, pulverizing it into a splatter of red and pink. She tossed the body over her shoulder and flew away, letting the pilot-less plane spin into an apartment building.

Zaora continued to demolish downtown Metropolis. The National Guard arrived. Soldiers scrambled over the ruins of city blocks and took up positions with small arms and anti-tank rockets. None of their weaponry was able to even scratch Zaora. She could have easily dodged the rockets and bullets if she had wanted to, but she let them hit her. Humanity would have to learn the futility of attempting to fight her, and what better way to show that than for them to see their most powerful weaponry unable to penetrate her skin? A pair of main battle tanks lumbered onto the scene. They opened fire with their huge main guns. Zaora held up her hand and swatted the shells away to one side.

Inside Metropolis County Jail, Superman was pleading with his captors to be released. “Warden Jones, you have to set me free. I'm the only one who can defeat the monster that is destroying Metropolis.”

“I don't know, Superman,” said the warden. “For all we know, you could be in league with this other Kryptonian. You're both from the same planet, after all.”

“If I were in league with her, why would I have allowed myself to be imprisoned in this Kryptonite cage?”

The warden stroked his chin, pensively. “You make a good point. Okay, I'll release you, but you have to return here as soon as you're done.” He unlocked the cage.

“I'll be back in no time,” said Superman. “And I'll bring Zaora with me, as my prisoner!” The man of steel launched himself into the sky and headed for downtown Metropolis. The fate of the world rested on his broad shoulders, as it had so many times before.

The fight between Superman and Zaora would be discussed and analyzed for years. From the beginning, Zaora stalked Superman like a sleek predator. Zaora fought like a machine, without a trace of emotion or remorse. Superman fought with the heart and courage that were his trademarks. It was a classic battle of technique against raw strength. Superman had a slight advantage in strength, weight and reach. Zaora had a significant advantage in fighting skill.

Zaora stood in the ruins of Metropolis City plaza, laughing as a hail of bullets ricocheted off of her invulnerable body. She sensed Superman's approach. He swooped in and tried to grab her around the middle, but she deftly stepped aside. Superman smashed into the ground. He sprang to his feet in an apparent attempt to preserve his dignity.

“Zaora Hu-Ul,” he said, “you have not completed your term of imprisonment in the Phantom Zone. It is my solemn duty to take you into custody.” He flexed his enormous biceps. “I suggest that you make it easy on yourself and give up, now.”

“Idiotic male! Did you really think I would simply surrender when you turned up and started posturing?”

“Not really, but I had to ask.”

Zaora waited for Superman to make the first move. He approached her with a confident swagger. He launched a powerful swing with his right fist at Zaora's right shoulder, and Zaora calmly swung to one side, avoiding the blow. Superman looked shocked. Clearly he was not used to having his attacks dodged. He swung again, aiming for Zaroa's left side. Again, Zaora moved to one side.

She now had a clearer idea of Superman's strengths and weaknesses. He was physically powerful; Zaora did not want to think about how painful it would have been if he had connected with his fist. However, he was slow, compared to her, and he telegraphed his punches. Nonetheless, his right hook was a powerful weapon, and it would be to her advantage to neutralize it as soon as possible. She calmly waited for Superman to swing again. When he did, she dodged the blow as she had before. However, this time, she grabbed a hold of his arm as it flew past her. She moved behind him, twisting his arm as she did, allowing the strength of his attack to work against him. There was a deafening crack as the bones in Superman's forearm shattered. Zaora released her grip on his arm and kicked him firmly in the back, pushing him to the ground.

“You are pathetic,” said Zaora. “The last son of Krypton is a weak fool.”

Superman got to his feet, holding his shattered arm. He looked shaken. Zaora wondered how long it had been since the man had last felt any significant pain. He stared at Zaora; twin beams of heat vision shot from his eyes. Zaora had read his intentions and had already moved out of the way. Instinctively, she shot back. Her beams grazed the top of his head, burning away a wide swath of his hair and badly scalding his exposed scalp. The man of steel roared with pain.

“I have all of your powers, Kal-El,” said Zaora. “And I'm a much better fighter than you are.”

Superman grunted. “We'll see about that, criminal.”

Superman charged at Zaora, moving so fast that to human eyes he would have appeared as nothing more than a blue and red blur. Zaora met his charge with a swift, vicious jab to the stomach. She felt a pair of ribs snap. Then she rolled underneath Superman and threw him, adding her strength to his speed and sending him flying into and through the ruins of Metropolis City Hall. Zaora turned and flew after Superman. She fired her heat vision at him, catching him in the chest as he struggled to his feet. The 'S' symbol that had, for years, stood as an icon of freedom and strength burned away as if it was nothing.

Zaora circled Superman like a big jungle cat toying with its prey. Her opponent was wounded, but still dangerous. She decided to go on the offensive. She closed with Superman and assaulted him with a flurry of rapid punches to the chest and throat. She moved too fast for him to evade. When he put up his arm to block her blows, she responded with a high kick that came in under his arm and struck him in the throat. Superman choked and wheezed as he staggered back.

Zaora pressed home her advantage. She charged at Superman and bowled him over. She pinned him to the ground face-down with one of her favorite holds. He struggled to free himself, but she had the advantage of leverage and all he did was to cause himself more pain. Zaora increased the pressure on Superman's legs and roared with triumph when she heard his kneecaps shatter.

With Superman helpless and nearly broken in her grasp, Zaora made her first mistake. She wanted to see Superman's face as she defeated him. She released her hold on him and flipped him over. To her astonishment, Superman's left fist came barreling towards her. She had not figured him to have the presence of mind to launch an attack. Instinctively, Zaora used her power to become insubstantial. Instead of smashing against her face, Superman's fist went straight through her ghostlike form, doing her no damage whatsoever.

Before Superman could recover, Zaora made herself solid again and pinned Superman to the ground once more. This time, he was face up, so she could see the look on his face as she beat him to a pulp. Not wanting a repeat of his last assault, she carefully dislocated his left shoulder. Zaora began to rain punches down onto Superman's face and chest, each one harder than the last. Soon the handsome man of steel's face was a mess of cuts and bruises. The bones in his chest broke and shattered. She pulled back her fist for a final blow that would crack his head like an egg.

“Please,” slurred Superman, “have mercy on me. It can't end like this.”

“You're right, Kal-el. This is a very undignified end to your pathetic career.”

Zaora released her hold on Superman and got to her feet. She reached down and grabbed him by his ragged uniform and dragged him to his feet. Mustering all of her strength, she punched into his chest and grabbed his heart. She gripped the beating organ tightly and then pulled her hand out, bringing Superman's heart with her. Superman looked at her with an expression of complete shock as he expired. Zaora let the man of steel's corpse fall at her feet and she held his heart above her head in triumph.

“People of Earth!” she shouted, her voice so loud that it carried for nearly a hundred miles. “Your freedom ends today. I have killed your so-called champion. From this point on, you will serve me, or you will die. Empress Zaora proclaims it!”