(Photo by Pixabay)

Ash fell like snow, covering everything in a thick blanket for as far as the eye could see. A few shattered trunks of trees poked up through the ash, as well as the remnants of a few structures. A twisted steel girder was all that was still anchored to the ground of a once impressive skyscraper. The rest of the landscape looked like a boulder field, comprised of all the broken pieces of concrete and asphalt.

“We will rebuild!” the triumphant, hated voice screamed. “Our enemies are laid low and now we will take what has always been ours!”

A solitary figure sat in the midst of what had once been a city. They were unharmed, physically, but they shook with heavy sobs as tears and ash stained their face.

“I’m sorry,” they cried, running their hands through the ash and remembering the millions of people who used to live here. The people who were now running through their fingers. “I’m sorry.”

“Pretender!” the angry voice shouted. “You may have survived the onslaught but there is nothing left for you here. LEAVE!”

The Pretender looked up, finally, and their eyes locked onto the hovering ship barely a hundred feet above the ground.

“Why?” they cried out. “You’ve poisoned the entire world now. Now none of you will survive.”

“We will rebuild,” came the reply.

“With what? It’ll take decades, maybe centuries before anything can grow. You’ve sterilized the world.”

“We can outlast the fallout in our shelters.”

“And eat what? Drink what? Do you have enough stockpiled to last you and your army for the rest of your lives, then the rest of the lives of your children, and their children, and their children’s children?”

There was no response at first and then a missile shot from the ship and struck The Pretender. The explosion didn’t even shift them but it did stir up the debris around them.

“You couldn’t stop me before,” the voice from the ship said, albeit with some discomfort, “I won’t let your lies intimidate me now.”

“I’m just one person,” they said, more to themselves than to the ship. “I could never stop armies.”

For decades they had fought to protect people, using their incredible strength, speed, and other powers to stop those who would hurt the innocent. Once, there had been others who fought along side The Pretender, but that was long ago. Heroes could battle villains but once armies got involved it was an entirely different situation. Most of them died within the first few months of the conflict.

The faint sound of metal sliding against metal caught The Pretender’s attention and they looked back up at the ship. The bay door was opening and inside the ship stood three people. The Pretender knew who they were instantly. How could they not? Those were the three who started it all. They were also, as far as The Pretender knew, the only other enhanced beings on the planet. One by one, they stepped out of the ship and fell to the earth.

The Pretender felt the ground shake with each impact and then watched blankly as the three strode over to them.

“Pretender,” The First said, nodding their head in greeting.

“Pretender,” The Second said, giving a mock bow.

“Pretender,” The Third said, and threw a rock at their forehead.

The Pretender didn’t even try to dodge and let the rock smash into their face. They didn’t flinch as the rock was pulverized.

The three people looked puzzled by that. As if to prove it was a fluke, The Second picked up a length of splintered rebar and concrete and swung it into The Pretender so fast that it broke the sound barrier. The resultant crash was followed almost immediately by a sonic boom. When the dust cleared, The Pretender was still sitting exactly where they had been before. The three stepped back this time, clearly in shock. They’d fought The Pretender before, and while they’d never been able to truly defeat them, they’d never had their attacks be so blatantly ineffective.

“You want to know my greatest secret?” The Pretender asked.

The three remained silent.

“All those times we fought,” The Pretender explained, “I’d pretend to be hurt when you hit me. I let you knock me around, send me tumbling through the air. I did it to lure you away from civilians and infrastructure. I wouldn’t fight back until we were a safe enough distance away.”

“Yeah, you were always so worried we might hurt someone you loved?” The First mocked them.

“No,” The Pretender said as they finally got to their feet. “I was worried I would hit you too hard and hurt someone else by accident.”

That actually got a laugh from all three.

“I’m sorry, Pretender,” The First said, “but I’ve been hit by you before and, uh, you’re not exactly the strongest hitter out there. Now get–

The Pretender made a flicking motion towards The First and his head exploded. The shock wave blew The Second and Third flying, the sides of their bodies that had been towards The First were torn and ragged already. There was no longer any debris around The Pretender as the shock wave had sent it all flying as well.

Both The Second and Third recovered quickly and shot back to their feet. Only then did they realize they were now standing in a new crater.

“My left eye’s blind!” cried The Second who had been standing closest to The First.

“I could have killed you all,” The Pretender said as they walked towards The Second and Third. “The problem was that it would have caused too much destruction. Now, I guess it doesn’t matter.” They picked up another bit of rubble, a tiny rock from the looks of it, and flicked it at The Second. Both tried to dodge out of the way but it didn’t matter. The Second was torn in half and The Third was once again sent flying.

“How are you doing this?” he cried while scrambling back up and turning to run for it.

Of the three, The Third was by far the fastest. It didn’t matter. The Pretender caught him before he could take more than a dozen steps. They pinned him to the ground, breaking his bones as they pressed him deeper and deeper into the already compressed earth.

“I’ve always been able to do this,” The Pretender said through gritted teeth and tears. “Your world is like paper to me. The whole time I’ve been here I’ve had to hold back.”

They dug their free hand through the ground like it was water, clawing through rocks without any sign of resistance and came out with a stone the size of a melon. Above them, the ship was already flying away at incredible speed.

“That…rock…will never…penetrate the…armor,” gasped The Third.

“It doesn’t need to,” they replied, standing back up and leaving The Third where he lay.

The Pretender cocked their arm, ready to throw, but didn’t bother aiming at the distant ship. Aim wasn’t required for this. They they threw the stone. Light and heat burst in an instant as The Pretender accelerated their arm to a significant fraction of the speed of light. As they did, both the stone and their air they were moving through began to collide. The collisions were so energetic that they resulted in nuclear fusion. The stone might only have weighed a few dozen kilograms, but that much mass undergoing nuclear fusion released so much energy that not only was The Third instantly vaporized, but the ship, the awaiting army, and even a few low orbit satellites were destroyed.

The Pretender was deaf and blind for a few seconds and their skin itched from what looked like a minor sun burn. When they could see and hear again, there was no sign of their enemies. There was no sign of any one.

“What a depressing world,” they said as the atmosphere returned after being forced back by the explosion.

They’d thought they could make a difference here, but in the end it hadn’t mattered. One more world had torn itself apart. Now it was time to return home and give their report. Was this failure their fault? Could they have prevented this outcome by doing things differently? Was it wrong to reveal that they weren’t from this world? The Pretender didn’t think so. This world had been on a path of self destruction long before they’d come here. That was, in fact, why The Pretender had been sent in the first place.

“Sometimes you can’t save them,” they muttered and looked up to the sky as they rose higher and higher. The strange stars that had become familiar over the decades were a welcome sight as the blue and gray atmosphere faded away behind them. Soon, they would see the old constellations above their true home and, for a time, rest. Perhaps when they finished crying they would be ready to seek out another world and see if they could make a difference there.