"Huh?"
David stared in the direction the figure had disappeared for several seconds, a sense of shock in his heart.
How could there be a metahuman in town with a speed close to Clark's?
"The direction that guy came from is... Avery's house?"
His expression shifted rapidly, and he suddenly thought of a bizarre possibility: Clark's powers might not have disappeared temporarily.
"Let's go, Clark."
David pulled a confused Clark and they quickly arrived in front of Avery's house.
The front door was shattered, as if hit by a rocket, fragments scattered across the lawn in front of the house.
Sad cries of a woman could be heard from the Avery family's home.
"This is bad!"
Clark, worried, rushed into the house.
Their geography teacher, Regan, was being helped to sit on the sofa, a gash on his forehead. He looked lost and dejected. Avery's mother, Beth, was crying sadly, leaning against her husband, like a mother who had lost her child, heartbroken.
Seeing that they were not seriously injured, Clark breathed a sigh of relief.
"Auntie Beth, what happened?"
David glanced at the wooden door fragments in front of the house, frowned, and followed them inside, asking.
"Avery has been like a different person since he came back yesterday."
Auntie Beth's eyes were red.
"He just tried to run away from home, and his father tried to stop him, but he was thrown away..."
Avery casually flicked his wrist, and Regan flew past the dining table, landing on the sofa about seven or eight meters away. If it weren't for the sofa, he might have broken bones and been hospitalized.
After that, their son Avery kicked the front door open and disappeared in an instant amidst a burst of sound and a gust of wind.
Regan was filled with confusion, wondering how his son could have such immense strength.
"Ran away from home? Where did he go?"
Clark, who was behind them, quickly asked.
He needed to find Avery before he did something irreversible in his obviously unstable emotional state.
"Wait a moment, Clark."
After listening to Beth's account, David became even more certain of the guess in his heart. He pulled Clark back and stepped away toward the doorway.
"Don't you think Auntie Beth's description sounds familiar?"
He frowned, lost in thought, and said in a low voice.
"Defenses that can withstand lightning strikes, immense strength, and incredible speed that the naked eye cannot capture. Avery might not have gained his powers through mutation."
"Not mutation?"
Clark didn't understand his brother's meaning, even though these abilities were astonishing.
But Gregg last time also fit this description.
"Just now, a figure left the town at tens of times the speed of sound from this direction."
David's eyes flickered, and he said in a deep voice, stating what he had just seen.
"I doubt it's that coincidental."
He paused and retorted.
"You lost your powers, and Avery coincidentally mutated to gain powers comparable to yours?"
"What?"
Clark was stunned, his mouth agape.
"You... you mean my powers were transferred to Avery by the lightning and the meteorite?"
Before David could nod.
He rushed back to the couple and urgently asked where Avery had gone.
"Auntie Beth, Avery is in a very dangerous state right now. Where did he go?"
"I don't know."
Beth wiped her tears, terrified by her son's sudden change, her voice choked with sobs.
"Avery said this place made him uncomfortable. He's going to a paradise for the strong.
There are no laws to restrain them, and many numb people are waiting to be conquered..."
"It's not far, because he'll come back. When he returns, he'll come to this town and erase everything that makes him uncomfortable."
She cried as she recounted the words her son had left behind before he departed.
"He can do whatever he wants then, and nothing in the world can stop him."
"Do whatever he wants?"
David sneered.
Last time, Gregg felt he had evolved, believing he was superior to anyone else in the world, like Superman. This time, Avery gained Kryptonian abilities and wants to be like Homelander?
"A paradise for the powerful? Without laws to govern them?"
The string of words was confusing, and Clark couldn't figure out where it was.
Where was it? Some war-torn region?
David turned his head to look into the distance, in the direction where the incredibly fast figure had disappeared, his gaze distant.
"The answer to the question is simple—Gotham."
"Gotham?"
Clark's expression changed.
...
It was very close to Metropolis, where laws were mere decorations for the powerful, and people lived numbly. Besides that simple and honest place, where else could it be?
He hurriedly comforted the Regans with a few words.
David and Clark quickly returned home to recount what they had seen and his conjectures.
"You're saying Clark's abilities were transferred to Avery by lightning?"
After hearing the news brought back by his two sons, his father, Jonathan, was shocked and then frowned.
If that were truly the case, it would be no good for his son to lose his abilities.
"Gotham, that place..."
Martha felt a little uneasy.
"If Avery runs away from home and goes bad, using these abilities to do evil."
She and Jonathan knew how much power Clark possessed and had patiently guided their son, teaching him not to misuse his talent. Normally, he would at most use this strength to help the farm save on a few hands.
Avery, having suddenly gained such abilities, might not be able to maintain his composure, especially going to Gotham, a place rumored to be rampant with sin and have one of the highest crime rates in America.
"That's the crux of the issue."
David nodded.
"It's clear Avery doesn't intend to use this power to fix a fence or plow a field.
He has quite extraordinary plans for his future."
A cold smile flickered in his eyes.
Avery had said he would return, and when he did, he would bring people to eliminate anything that made him uncomfortable, and then nothing would be able to stop him.
It made one suspect that guy might have discovered that the meteorite was his weakness.
"We must chase Avery down before he causes massive destruction with my abilities."
Clark's face was grim, and he clenched his fists.
He couldn't accept that someone would get hurt or even die because of his abilities.
"But..."
Martha hesitated, wanting to say something, but stopped. How could they stop him?
"I might have to go on a long trip, Mom and Dad."
After a few seconds of thought, David looked up at Jonathan and Martha, coughed a couple of times, and said seriously.
"Help Clark clean up this mess and bring Avery back."
He didn't believe that as the future Superman, Clark would permanently lose his abilities. Since the abilities could be transferred away unexpectedly, they could also be transferred back.
"David?"
Hearing David's tone, which was different from usual, Clark looked at his brother, his eyes widening slightly, vaguely guessing what he intended to do.
But revealing it now, seeing his strange appearance, wouldn't their parents worry even more?
[Surprise from Clark +1.5, Worry +1.6...]
In fact, it wasn't just to help Clark get his abilities back; David's eyes flickered.
After Clark lost his abilities, the provided emotional points had shrunk by more than twenty times.
"The main source of emotional points, a gold mine, has disappeared, and the ability fusion speed has also dropped more than tenfold."
If the fusion speed was a bicycle before, it was now a turtle crawling, and he had just gained new abilities.
"But how are you going to do it, son?"
Jonathan's face was full of doubt. It was good that his son wasn't afraid of danger.
"Use the meteorite."
David pulled a thumb-sized meteorite from his pocket.
"Don't..."
Seeing the deadly meteorite, Clark instinctively raised his hands to block the light, but the meteorite didn't emit green light, only a faint green fluorescence invisible in daylight.
Without feeling any weakness or discomfort, he touched himself in surprise.
"I... I'm okay?"
David wasn't surprised that Clark didn't have the expected reaction.
On the way back, he had tested this piece of Kryptonite on Clark behind his back without him knowing.
"Avery not only has a physique similar to Clark's.
He should also have the same weakness."
"But... but it's still very dangerous."
Martha couldn't agree to let her younger son take such a risk.
She was already worried about her younger son traveling alone to Gotham, a place overrun with criminals, let alone going to subdue Avery, who now possessed super strength and super speed.
"Don't rush, son."
Jonathan patted his younger son's shoulder and advised him.
"Let's sit down and think of a solution first."
It was too reckless for his younger son to go to Gotham with a meteorite like that.
"Actually, Mom and Dad... you don't need to worry about me."
Facing his parents' worried eyes, David opened his mouth.
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