Lex Luthor Robs a Bank?

"You're still alive?" Gregg, trembling with pain, couldn't believe his eyes when he saw Clark—dirty but nearly unscathed.

"Or should we leave it to the law?"

David knew what Clark was about to say.

"We can't cross that line." Clark's expression was stern. They couldn't do anything that would disappoint their parents.

"And let him tell the whole town there's a pair of freak brothers with super strength?" David pressed on.

"I..." Clark hesitated at those words.

He didn't want to bring trouble to his family, but letting David pull the same trick again?

Absolutely not. Clark instinctively recoiled from the idea.

Maybe talk it over with Gregg? Even he knew that was too naive.

"What do we do?"

Shwip!

Suddenly, Gregg—who should have been too hurt to even stand—bolted up and fled like the wind, kicking up dust as he raced toward the forest below the highway.

David narrowed his eyes, his sharp vision locking on. From Gregg's running posture, his arms had fully healed.

"Tenacious vitality, like a bug's?"

"Clark, aren't you chasing?" He glanced at Clark, who had been blocking his view a moment ago.

Snapping back to reality, Clark realized that regardless of how to handle this later, if Gregg escaped and went after their parents, it would be a disaster.

This time, he held nothing back. With a blur, he caught up to Gregg, who was moving near the speed of sound, and blocked his path.

"Gregg, I can't let you go and hurt anyone else."

Clark could guess why Gregg had attacked him.

They'd barely crossed paths before. The only recent connection was Lana.

"How are you so fast?"

Just as he was about to reach the forest, Gregg's vision blurred, and a figure appeared in front of him. He slammed on the brakes, staring at Clark in shock.

At the same time, a stone flew out of his raised leather jacket pocket.

He turned his head again.

David had already walked over, somehow now just a dozen meters behind him.

One brother had boundless strength; the other was faster than a rocket.

Gregg suddenly regretted coming to eliminate these rivals before finding his dream girl to sire offspring.

Regret from Gregg +0.13, +0.09...

"Ngh..."

Suddenly, Clark grunted, his strength draining away as if sucked dry. He collapsed to his knees, glancing at the stone that had landed a few meters away.

Its gray-black exterior glowed with green crystal inside.

"The same meteorite as Lana's necklace." His face darkened.

But it was over ten times larger than the crystal on Lana's necklace.

"Huh?"

Gregg, who had thought he was trapped between two foes with no escape, was astonished to discover that the meteorite—which he'd suspected was linked to his own mutation—was actually a weakness for Clark, who moved like lightning.

He wanted to grab the stone to use against Clark, but remembering David behind him, he quickly abandoned the idea and fled.

Fear from Gregg +0.22...

"What a waste."

Picking up a stone from the ground, David squinted, aimed at Gregg's retreating back, and hurled it with all his might.

Fwoosh!

With a sharp sonic boom, the stone carried more force than an armor-piercing sniper round, striking Gregg's head with pinpoint accuracy.

Bang!

Gregg had just excitedly dashed into the forest when his head exploded like a watermelon. The shockwave scattered leaves, splattering red and white everywhere.

Watching a man die before his eyes, Clark's eyes went wide as he stared at his brother.

"David?!"

"I had no choice."

With no more emotion points and the man clearly dead—it seemed Gregg's regeneration wasn't strong enough to revive from death—David shrugged helplessly.

"If he didn't have that healing ability, I wouldn't have killed him."

If possible, he'd have preferred to keep another human-shaped emotion-point generator alive.

Madness from Jeremy +0.15, Hatred +0.11...

He didn't know what it felt like to be a vegetable—conscious but trapped in darkness—but it couldn't be pleasant.

Because in just two days, Jeremy's emotions had grown more extreme and intense, feeding him more and more emotional points.

"You killed him, David."

Clark's voice was a strained whisper.

"You could've caught up. Or you could've moved the meteorite and let me catch him."

He should've been more careful. If he hadn't been hit, he could've stopped David.

Regret from Clark +16, anxiety +15, worry +13...

"And then?"

David countered, unhurried.

"What then? Catch him and what? Do you have a better way to handle him?"

He stepped forward, picked up the meteorite, and turned to leave.

"I'll wait for you to come up with a better idea and tell me, Clark."

"But is there one?"

With the Kryptonite radiation gone, Clark regained his strength. He looked at the headless corpse, regret twisting his face as he clenched his fists.

By the time David had driven the car back onto the highway, Clark returned, hands caked with dirt, a hint of dejection in his step.

"What did you do?"

"I buried Gregg deep in the Forest."

"By the law, that's tampering with evidence of the murder I committed. Makes you an accomplice. You'd be convicted too." David chuckled lightly.

"Right."

Clark lifted his head, earnest. "But you're my only brother."

"..."

David shook his head.

"If you'd said that without looking at me like a reform school counselor staring down a repeat juvenile offender, Clark—

maybe I'd have been moved for a second or two."

David hadn't planned to deal with the mutated Gregg.

But the guy came after Clark on his own, and tried to take him out too.

No surprise—it was probably because of Lana.

"Like an insect's primal instinct. To win a mate, eliminate all rivals."

With a healing factor, he couldn't become an emotional point generator. Had to kill him. A pity.

Still, earlier, Clark had started to think maybe there wouldn't be another case like Jeremy's, that he could keep a close eye on David. After that day, his worry for David had gradually faded.

But after David killed Gregg, Clark's fear that he was slipping down a dark path flared up again, stronger than ever.

Worry from Clark +19, +20...

Ignoring Clark's brooding silence at the wheel, David sat in the passenger seat, idly watching the scenery.

After the two drove off.

From the Forest, a White Giant Wolf with fur as sleek as silk slowly emerged, staring in the direction they'd gone. A flicker of confusion lingered in its eyes, as if it were pondering something.

On the way, they secretly got the paint touched up. David used his ridiculous lung capacity and breath to blow-dry the paint in record time.

Clark decided not to tell his parents about this for now. He didn't want them worrying.

Dealing with Gregg hadn't taken David long.

He hauled a truckload of fruit back to the market in under an hour.

Lex Luthor was still there, chatting with Jonathan and Martha under the pretense of wanting to understand how the fruit and vegetable business worked in Smallville.

Martha thought that if Luthor decided to go into produce wholesaling, it might be good news for the town's farmers and orchard owners. So she wasn't as cold to him as her husband.

"Hey."

David greeted Chloe and Pete, who were helping out.

The fruit stand wasn't busy. There wasn't much for them to do anyway.

"Lex, are our fruits really that interesting to you?"

Seeing Luthor still hanging around, Clark cracked a joke.

Luthor studied him—he seemed a bit down—then glanced at David, whose expression was as casual as if he'd just come back from a stroll. He turned back to Clark.

"What happened, Clark?"

He probed softly with a low voice.

"You look like you're running into some trouble."

An unnatural flicker passed through Clark's eyes. "It's nothing."

"Clark, when I was a kid, I was a bit mischievous."

This was a good chance to build rapport. Luthor's eyes glinted as he smiled.

"So I got sent to the counseling office a lot. To keep people from reading me, I picked up a bit of psychology..."

"Mr. Luthor, my son's got some teenage worries. He can handle them himself."

Noticing the two, Jonathan stepped forward and draped an arm over Clark's shoulder, cutting him off. "No need for you to play therapist."

"Besides—getting sent to the counseling office probably takes more than just being mischievous, doesn't it?"

David watched from the side, knowing his father Jonathan probably thought Clark was still hung up on this morning's floating incident and didn't want Luthor prying.

"I was just..."

Luthor smiled, about to say more.

Suddenly, a few armed police officers pushed through the crowd, flashing their badges and an arrest warrant. The onlookers immediately scattered, forming a circle to see what was happening.

"Mr. Lex Luthor, we're with the Smallville Police Department."

"We suspect you're connected to a bank robbery. Please come with us to assist in the investigation."

"Robbery?"

Luthor paused.

"Multiple eyewitnesses saw you rob the town bank with a gun half an hour ago, taking a hundred thousand dollars. You may have been wearing a bulletproof vest under your clothes—you escaped after being shot twice by the security guard on duty."

The officer said.

"I risked getting shot to rob a town bank? For a hundred thousand dollars?"

Interrupted by these cops at a critical moment, Luthor wondered if he'd heard wrong, then let out a bitter laugh.

"Officer, the factory under my name donates more than a hundred thousand dollars every year to the town's schools, police station, and fire department."

Jonathan and Martha frowned, exchanging a glance.

Rob a bank?

The crowd was shocked and confused. They'd all heard the name Lex Luthor—if anything, buying the bank seemed more likely.

Luthor's eyes shifted, glancing back at Clark and David.

"I've been right here for the past hour. The Kent family can vouch for me."

In an instant, all eyes—police and onlookers alike—turned to them.

"I..."

Jonathan faltered.

A bit late on the update, added an extra thousand words.

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