Zod walks out onto the balcony of his newly constructed palace in the city once called Metropolis, but now called New Kandor. He looks out as the humans on the ground below cheer, chanting “Hail Zod! Hail Zod! Hail Zod!”. He allows himself to briefly smile.
Today, New Krypton. Soon, The New Kryptonian Empire. All will kneel before Zod.
At his right stands Ursa, regal and severe, her eyes roaming over the kneeling masses as if judging livestock. At his left waits Faora, posture rigid, every inch the loyal blade of Krypton. Behind them towers Non, silent, huge, a siege engine waiting for release.
Zod steps to the edge. The city below was once humanity’s proudest monument. Now it is a trophy. Human banners torn down. Human streets patrolled beneath the sigil of Krypton. Above them rises New Kandor, sharp and immaculate, built in the image of a dead world.
For a moment, Zod says nothing. He simply looks out over his victory and remembers the Phantom Zone. The stillness. The insult. The humiliation of exile. Krypton had cast him aside for seeing clearly. For understanding what weak fools never could: survival does not belong to the moral or compassionate. It belongs to the strong. Now Krypton is ash, its council dust, its laws extinct… while he still stands.
Zod: “Look at them.”
His voice is calm, but it carries over the square below like a blade being drawn.
Zod: “An entire species brought to heel.”
Ursa: “Not heel. Submission.”
The corner of Zod’s mouth lifts.
Zod: “Yes. Better.”
Faora: “The final resistance cells have been crushed, my General. The outer territories are secured. The last military holdouts surrendered before dawn.”
Zod: “Surrender? No. They were instructed in reality.”
The chant rises again from below, louder now, a mixture of terror and desperate instinct.
“Hail Zod! Hail Zod! Hail Zod!”
Non gives a low approving grunt. Zod folds his hands behind his back, cape shifting in the high wind, and fixes his gaze on the skyline as though Earth itself is already too small for him.
Zod: “Krypton was not destroyed by its enemies. It was destroyed by weakness. By councils. By cowards who mistook indecision for wisdom and law for strength.”*
Ursa: “And now they are gone.”
Zod: “As all weak things are meant to be.”
He turns, black cape dragging over pale stone, and even that movement is enough to make the guards along the balcony lower their eyes.
Zod: “This world is not our destination. It is our beginning. Here, upon the ruins of mankind’s arrogance, we lay the foundation of a reborn empire. Not the decayed corpse of old Krypton, strangled by chambers and doctrine, but a living dominion forged by warriors, expanded by conquest, & ruled by blood worthy of the stars.”
He raises one hand. The square falls silent. Thousands bow their heads lower.
Zod: “People of New Kandor… you breathe because I permit it. You kneel because you have learned your place. Forget your flags. Forget your nations. Forget the lie that this world ever belonged to you.”
His eyes narrow, hard and pitiless.
Zod: “From this day forward, Earth serves Krypton. Your cities, your labor, your children, your future… all of it now belongs to the House of Zod.”
Ursa smiles with cold pride. Faora bows her head. Non slams a fist against his chest with a boom like artillery.
Non: “Zod.”
The chant begins again, no longer a cry, but a condition of survival.
Zod closes his eyes and breathes it in. Vindication. At last. The House of El failed. Krypton’s rulers failed. But he endured alone. He, Ursa, Faora, Non, & the loyalists they cast into oblivion have returned not as prisoners… but as architects of a new order. When he opens his eyes again, they are no longer on the city below, but on the heavens above it. Earth’s yellow sun fueling his Kryptonian physiology (freeze breath etc)
Zod: “Today, New Krypton. Tomorrow, the stars”
Then he smiles; small, cruel, absolute.
Zod: “All will kneel before Zod.”