Invincible // Superman

Chapter Thirty-Six: Terminated

The hallway narrowed and two locked doors stood out against the metal and ice. They were made of wood, as if they had been pulled from someones home and placed there. "What's in there?" Silvia asked curiously, running her fingers along one of the chipped doors.

"I don't know." Hal stated simply. "No one's allowed in there. Kal-el forbids it."

"Kal-el..." Silvia muttered. "Have you always called him that?... I mean, in this world, was he ever Clark?"

"It doesn't matter. He goes by Kal-el now, that's all you need to know."

Silvia started following him again, letting her hand fall away from the door. "If I'm going to be here for a while I think I need to know a lot more than that... Starting with the question you avoided before. Hal, why are you Sinestro corps? You use to tell me that yellow was the colour of cowardice..."

"I came to the realisation that fear is more effective than willpower." He said as if the answer were obvious. "Just look at Superman, fear has lowered the crime rate to almost zero and gotten him a plethora of followers."

Silvia's eyes lowered sadly. "Fear gets you followers... but not loyalty."

Silence erupted between the two of them. Hal kept his gaze straight ahead but was visibly tensing. Silvia just looked blank and maybe that was because her mind was working in overdrive.

"We're here." Hal's voice brought her back to the present but she wished that it hadn't. It only reminded her of the situation she was in.

They were standing in front of a massive door, possibly one of the biggest in the Fortress. It had Superman's 'S' symbol carved onto its surface.

"Thanks..." She replied quietly, chewing on her bottom lip and forcing herself to look back up at Hal. "Look, I'm sorry. I wouldn't like someone poking around in my life either, but in my world you were one of my closest friends... One of my only friends. I don't know what our relationship was like in this universe but it bothers me that you've given up on everything you believed in so easily."

"Beliefs change. You of all people should know that." Hal said sternly, though she thought she heard a waver in his voice that suggested otherwise. "You may look like her but you'll never be Silvia. She'd understand why we had to do this."

"Are you sure?" She replied with uncertainty. "If you and Clark accepted her before all of this then she mustn't be too different to me. I can't imagine that the person that Clark once loved would understand any of this..."

Hal's face scrunched up but he said nothing. Maybe he had thought the exact same thing before...

Silvia sighed. "Still, it sounds like you were close to her... umm me?... Other Silvia? Damn, dude. This whole other universe shit is fucking confusing."

Something twitched onto Hal's face... It resembled a smile but with none of the positive vibes the Hal she knew would set off. She'd take what she could get though, at least he hadn't forgotten how to smile...

"You definitely act like her, for what it's worth." Hal said, his tone a little lighter than it had been since she arrived. "Close is a bit of an understatement though. We met before her and Clark started dating and... we got to know one another fairly quickly."