David, What's Wrong With Your Body?

Chapter 12: David, What's Wrong With Your Body?

A figure he knew all too well, yet one that had no reason to be here.

Footsteps echoed as David slowly stepped out from the darkness beneath the streetlamp.

"David, what did you say?"

Clark stared at David's sudden appearance, caught between confusion and shock.

"How did you get here? I deliberately ran him out of town to this spot. Even by car, there's no way you could've made it from school this fast."

And if he'd heard right—his own brother was telling him to kill someone?

"I said kill him, Clark."

Ignoring Clark's bewilderment, David glanced at Jeremy, planted his feet, and repeated himself with a grave expression.

From Jeremy: Anger +0.02, Killing Intent +0.02...

Unexpectedly, this man could also provide emotion points—though pitifully few compared to Clark.

"If you won't do it, I will."

"No, we can't just kill people!"

Clark, raised under Martha's kind teachings, was stunned. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. His brother felt like a stranger.

"He's killed more than one person. He's a madman, a man who deserves to die—doesn't he?"

David had heard everything said earlier.

And just by looking at the man, he could tell Jeremy had lost his mind, ready to kill a hundred people without blinking.

"We can't take the law into our own hands."

Clark's face tightened. He softened his voice, rejecting the idea before offering an alternative.

"There's the law. We can hand him over to the police. He'll be sentenced and get the punishment he deserves."

He didn't deny that Jeremy deserved the death penalty. But no one should place themselves above the law or life itself.

"He saw your face."

David stopped wasting words and walked toward Jeremy, who had just struggled to his feet.

"My face?"

"Do you think an ordinary prison can hold him? And when he gets out, do you think he won't come after you?"

David wasn't worried about Clark's thick skin, but revenge could also target the people close to him. He shot back.

"If he follows you back to our home..."

At the mention of their parents, Clark's expression shifted. He suddenly remembered something he'd overlooked the entire time.

Now he understood why his brother had insisted on killing him from the start.

Clark touched his face. In his haste, he'd forgotten to hide his identity.

Shiiing!

Jeremy hadn't been afraid of Clark at all. But when David approached with an icy aura, an inexplicable unease crept into his heart. It was the difference between a gentle elephant and a deadly lion.

He could see it in David's deathly cold eyes—David wasn't just talking when he said he'd kill him.

And someone who had witnessed his power yet still confidently came to kill him—could he be an ordinary man?

Crackle!

Electricity burst forth. Before Jeremy could even raise his hand to strike, David vanished from where he stood without blinking.

Thanos's abilities didn't include Super Speed; his speed was only close to the speed of sound.

But that was enough.

"To nip this in the bud, your death sentence has to come early."

David's voice arrived with him as he appeared before a startled Jeremy. One hand clamped around his throat, lifting him into the air as easily as grabbing a chick.

Like a steel vise around his neck, Jeremy couldn't breathe. His face turned purple, legs kicking uselessly in the air.

"You... what kind of monster are you?"

Staring at David's purple skin, his eyes widened in terror. Both hands clawed at David's grip as he desperately activated his power under the shadow of death.

"Let... let me go!"

Crackle!

Horrifying electricity lashed against David's hand, only reducing his sleeve to ash. It didn't budge his long, steel-like body an inch.

"David, your appearance?"

Caught between his parents and the act of killing, Clark was already torn. When he saw his brother's form suddenly change, he froze in shock, mouth hanging open.

"How did you end up like this?"

"You're not the only one with secrets, Clark."

Glancing at Clark, David replied.

He could snap Jeremy's neck at any moment, but deliberately held back—he had a hunch.

Clark quickly realized that wasn't the priority now.

He left an afterimage in his wake, blurring forward to grab David's wrist.

"Let him go, little brother."

He rushed to stop David.

But to his shock, no matter how hard he pulled, he couldn't pry David's grip loose.

From a force strong enough to make an ordinary person let go, to one that could bend steel bars as thick as an arm—the road beneath his feet cracked under the strain of his exertion.

David stood like an unshakable mountain, utterly still.

"How are you doing this? Are you really David?"

Startled, Clark dared not push harder, afraid of hurting the brother who suddenly seemed so mysterious to him.

"Listen, David, you can't kill him.

Some lines, once crossed, can't be uncrossed. If Mom and Dad were here, they wouldn't agree with this either."

Then his expression turned serious. He locked eyes with his brother and earnestly begged him to put the man down.

Clark bitterly regretted not thinking things through.

But he didn't want his brother to pay for this with murder.

"Think about what Mom and Dad would think if they found out, David."

One second, two seconds... they stared at each other.

"Fine. I won't kill him."

At the mention of their parents, David seemed to waver. He set Jeremy down.

"But I'm taking a precaution, just in case."

Bam!

With that, he struck Jeremy's skull with a palm—not too hard.

It felt like a baseball bat slamming into the back of his head. Before he could react, Jeremy collapsed face-first onto the cold, hard asphalt, eyes shut, motionless.

"You killed him?"

Clark rushed to check. Jeremy was still breathing, but no amount of shaking or calling could wake him.

"I turned him into a vegetable. So he can't cause trouble again."

"What?"

Hearing his brother's casual tone, Clark looked up in disbelief. "David, you..."

"Are you going to say this is also vigilante justice? That it's not allowed either?"

David raised an eyebrow, countering immediately.

"I..."

Clark honestly thought so.

Beating a man into a vegetative state to prevent retaliation—that was too cold.

But remembering this whole mess started with his own negligence, and that his brother had listened to him and spared the man's life, could he really scold him further?

Clark was left speechless.

"This ends here. Drop him off somewhere that can take care of him, and don't get involved anymore."

David glanced at the freshly minted vegetable on the ground, then turned and walked away.

Fear from Jeremy +0.04, Anger +0.03, Hatred +0.004...

A steady stream of emotion points rolled in.

"Sure enough, even if he can't wake up, his brain is still conscious."

This was more beneficial to him than killing Jeremy outright.

"I left him at the town hospital entrance."

Hoisting Jeremy over his shoulder, Clark vanished. Barely a second later, before David had gone far, he reappeared, his voice heavy.

"Now let's get back to school, before anyone notices we're missing."

David glanced at Clark, whose movement had been so fast he could only track a blur earlier, and said, "My strength and defense definitely surpass Clark's right now, but in speed, he has a clear edge over me."

He was curious—if he didn't use Kryptonite, who would win in a fight between him and Clark as he was now?

"David, what's going on with you?"

Catching up to his brother, Clark's expression was complicated. He had a flood of questions. David had revealed too much today, and Clark suddenly realized he didn't really know his brother all that well.