Chapter 46 : New Supe
At JFK Airport, Runway 4L had been completely cleared for the emergency arrival of Flight 37.
Emergency vehicles lined both sides of the tarmac. Fire trucks sat ready with lights flashing while ambulances waited nearby in case the passengers needed immediate medical attention after the hijacking.
Airport security had sealed off large sections of the terminal, but that hadn’t stopped the media from showing up.
Dozens of reporters crowded behind barricades with cameras pointed toward the runway. Most of them were expecting footage of Homelander and Queen Maeve escorting a damaged aircraft to safety.
After all, that’s how these stories usually ended.
Inside the control tower, air traffic controllers monitored the approaching transponder signals.
Flight 37 was finally approaching New York.
A collective sense of relief spread through the room.
The aircraft had vanished from communication for long stretches of time. Reports of a hijacking had already reached federal agencies. Nobody had been certain whether the plane would even make it this far.
Then one of the controllers frowned.
"Do we have visual confirmation yet?"
Another controller raised a pair of binoculars toward the horizon.
A few seconds later he froze.
"What the hell..."
Nearby controllers immediately looked toward him.
Outside, reporters and camera crews were already zooming their lenses toward the approaching aircraft.
Then one cameraman slowly lowered his equipment, staring at the horizon before raising it again and adjusting the focus ring. "I think my lens is screwed up."
"Just look," he said.
Several people turned. Conversations dropped off one by one as more cameras zoomed in.
The aircraft wasn’t approaching normally. The entire plane was wrapped in a faint blue glow, descending at an angle no commercial jet managed on its own.
"Am I seeing that right?" somebody asked. Nobody answered.
"Zoom in on the front," a cameraman said.
The moment the image sharpened, several people lowered their cameras entirely.
There was someone ahead of the aircraft — a man with white hair and glowing blue eyes, one arm extended toward the jet, blue energy moving across both him and the plane like a current.
A commercial airliner weighed hundreds of tons. The image on their screens looked like someone setting down a paper cup.
"Oh my God." One reporter said it before she realized she’d spoken.
"Who is that?" "Never seen him before." "Is he a new supe?"
"Forget that," someone cut in. "Are we watching someone carry a passenger jet?"
The media area erupted. Producers shouted into headsets, reporters called their stations, camera operators pushed for better angles.
"Keep recording." "We are." "Then don’t stop."
One producer jabbed a finger at the monitor. "Every second of this gets saved. Every network in America will be fighting for this footage within the hour."
As Flight 37 drew closer, disbelief quietly gave way to something harder to shake. The footage was too clear, too consistent, unfolding in real time in front of hundreds of witnesses. He wasn’t flying beside the aircraft or escorting it in.
The aircraft descended the final stretch toward the runway.
Mark carefully lowered the plane until the landing gear touched the asphalt with a heavy screech. The jet bounced once before settling, rolling down the runway wrapped in blue energy until it finally came to a stop.
Mark let out a long breath.
Thank fuck.
Inside the cabin, there was a moment of complete silence.
Then it broke all at once.
"We’re alive — oh my God, we’re actually alive—"
"YEAH!" somebody screamed from the back.
Clapping erupted through the entire cabin, passengers turning to grab whoever was sitting nearest to them — strangers, family members, people they hadn’t even spoken to during the flight.
"I need to call my wife — someone let me call my wife—"
"We made it, we made it, we actually made it—"
The cabin speakers crackled.
"Well, ladies and gentlemen, this is Mark, your emergency replacement pilot speaking."
The cheering dropped just slightly.
"Thank you for choosing to fly with us today. Please remember to leave a five-star review."
The cabin lost it completely.
"FIVE STARS, ABSOLUTELY FIVE STARS—"
"TEN STARS—"
"I’m naming my kid after this guy—"
Even the passengers who’d been crying a moment ago were laughing now, the kind of uncontrollable laughter that only came after genuine terror finally let go.
Mark grinned. Good enough.
Outside, reporters and airport staff were still standing exactly where they’d been, most of them not yet moving, still processing what they’d watched happen in real time.
Mark glanced toward the terminal. Through the glass he could see cameras pointed directly at him from every angle.
He gave them a casual wink.
Several reporters nearly lost their minds.
Before anyone could reach him, blue energy flared around his body and a gust of wind swept hard across the runway.
Then he was gone — straight up into the sky, leaving behind a plane full of cheering passengers and a crowd that would be talking about what they’d just seen for years.
***
Mark landed on the roof of a building and sat down on the ledge, cracking open an energy drink.
He downed half of it in one go.
From the outside, carrying the plane had looked effortless.
It wasn’t.
Limitless wasn’t raw strength. At its core, it was the manipulation of space itself.
Keeping an entire passenger jet airborne meant extending that control across hundreds of tons of moving metal while constantly compensating for wind currents, shifting weight, and every tiny change in the aircraft’s movement during the descent.
Even with the Six Eyes, it wasn’t something you could do indefinitely.
A dull ache pulsed behind his eyes as he leaned back against the ledge. The Six Eyes had done the heavy lifting, but sustaining that level of control for so long had still left its mark.
"I really need to master the Reverse Cursed technique fast."
*****
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👉 /Mark841
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