Did Avery Go to Gotham?

"Hmm?"

David stared for several seconds at the direction the figure had vanished in, suspicion and shock filling his mind.

How could there be a Metahuman in this small town whose speed rivaled Clark's?

"That guy came from... Avery's house?"

His expression shifted rapidly several times before he suddenly thought of an absurd possibility. Perhaps Clark's abilities had not disappeared temporarily.

"Come on, Clark."

David grabbed the confused Clark and quickly headed to Avery's neighborhood.

The front door had been shattered as if it had been struck by a rocket, its fragments scattered across the lawn.

A woman's heartbroken sobs came from inside Avery's house.

"Oh no!"

Worried, Clark rushed inside.

Their geography teacher, Regan, was being supported on the sofa. His forehead was split open, and he looked utterly dazed. Avery's mother, Beth, wept sorrowfully against her husband's side, like a mother who had lost her child and was crushed by grief.

Seeing that neither of them was seriously hurt, Clark let out a breath of relief.

"Aunt Beth, what happened?"

David glanced at the splintered wooden door outside, frowned, and followed them in.

"Avery has been like a different person ever since he came back yesterday."

Aunt Beth's eyes were red-rimmed.

"Just now, he wanted to run away from home. His father tried to stop him, but Avery threw him aside..."

With a casual fling of Avery's arm, Regan had flown over the dining table and crashed onto the sofa seven or eight meters away. If not for the sofa, he might have suffered broken bones and serious injuries requiring hospitalization.

Afterward, their son Avery had kicked the door apart. A violent gust erupted with a boom, and he vanished in the blink of an eye.

Regan was full of confusion. How could his son possess such terrifying strength?

"Run away from home? Where did he go?"

Clark hurriedly asked from behind them.

They had to find Avery before his clearly unstable emotions drove him to do something irreversible.

"Wait, Clark."

After hearing Beth's account, David became even more certain of his suspicion. He pulled Clark back toward the doorway.

"Don't you think Aunt Beth's description sounds especially familiar?"

His brow furrowed as he lowered his voice thoughtfully.

"Defense strong enough to withstand lightning strikes, immense strength, and speed so fast the human eye can't follow. Avery might not have gained his powers through mutation."

"Not mutation?"

Clark did not understand what his brother meant, although those powers did sound astonishing.

But Gregg from last time had fit that description too.

"Just now, a figure left town from this direction at dozens of times the speed of sound."

David's eyes flickered as he solemnly revealed what he had seen.

"I'm afraid it isn't such a coincidence."

He paused, then asked in return.

"You lost your powers, and Avery just happened to mutate and gain abilities equal to yours?"

"What?"

Clark froze, his mouth falling open.

"You... you mean my powers were transferred to Avery by the lightning and the meteorite?"

Before David could nod,

Clark rushed back to the couple and asked again where Avery had gone.

"Aunt Beth, Avery is in a dangerous state right now. Where did he go?"

"I don't know."

Beth wiped her tears. Her son's sudden change had terrified her, and her voice choked with sobs.

"Avery said this place made him uncomfortable. He said he was going somewhere that was a paradise for the powerful.

"There, no laws could restrain anyone. Countless numb people were waiting to be conquered..."

"It isn't far away, because he said he would come back. When he does, he'll return to this town and erase everything that makes him uncomfortable."

Through tears, she recounted the words her son had left behind.

"Then he can do whatever he wants. Nothing in this world will be able to stop him anymore."

"Do whatever he wants?"

David sneered.

Last time, Gregg had thought his evolution had begun and believed himself to be a Superman beyond anyone else in the world. This time, Avery had gained a Kryptonian's abilities and wanted to become Homelander?

"A paradise for the powerful? No laws to restrain anyone?"

The string of clues left Clark confused, and he could not immediately think of where it might be.

Where was that? Some war-torn region?

David turned to look into the distance, toward the direction that incredibly fast figure had disappeared. His gaze was dark.

"The answer is simple—Gotham."

"Gotham?"

Clark's expression changed.

It was close to Metropolis. Laws were mere decoration to the powerful, people lived numb lives, and aside from that place with its famously wholesome local culture, where else could it be?

After briefly comforting Regan and Beth,

David and Clark quickly returned home and told their parents what they had seen and what David suspected.

"You're saying Clark's powers were transferred to Avery by lightning?"

After hearing the news brought back by his two sons, their father Jonathan frowned in astonishment.

If that was true, then Clark losing his powers was not a good thing.

"Gotham, that place..."

Martha looked uneasy.

"If Avery goes bad after running away and uses those powers to commit crimes..."

She and Jonathan knew exactly how much strength Clark possessed. They had always patiently taught their son not to abuse his gifts, and normally he used that strength only to help the farms save the labor of a few workers.

Avery had suddenly gained that kind of power. He might not be able to keep a steady mindset, especially after going to Gotham, a place rumored to be overrun by evil and to have one of the highest crime rates in the United States.

"That's the problem."

David nodded.

"Avery obviously does not intend to use that power to repair fences or plow fields.

"He has some rather grand plans for his future."

A cold smile flashed in his eyes.

Avery had said he would return, and when he did, he would bring people to erase everything that made him uncomfortable. By then, nothing would be able to stop him.

It was hard not to suspect that Avery might already have discovered that the meteorite was his weakness.

"We have to bring Avery back before he causes massive destruction with my powers."

Clark's face darkened, and he clenched his fists.

He could not accept someone being injured or even killed because of his powers.

"But..."

Martha hesitated. How were they supposed to stop him?

"I may need to take a long trip, Mom and Dad."

After thinking for several seconds, David looked up at Jonathan and Martha, coughed twice, and spoke seriously.

"I'll clean up this mess for Clark and bring Avery back."

He did not believe Clark, the future Superman, would permanently lose his powers. Since they could be transferred away by accident, they could also be transferred back.

"David?"

Hearing a different tone from David than usual, Clark looked at his brother, his eyes widening slightly as he vaguely guessed what David intended to do.

But if he revealed it now, and their parents saw his strange appearance, would they not worry even more?

Surprise from Clark +1.5, worry +1.6...

In truth, it was not only to help Clark regain his powers that David's eyes shifted slightly.

After Clark lost his powers, the Emotion Points he provided had immediately shrunk by more than twentyfold.

"The main source of Emotion Points, a gold mine, has vanished. The speed of ability fusion has dropped more than tenfold along with it."

If the previous fusion speed had been a bicycle, now it was a crawling turtle. And he had only just gained a new ability.

"But how are you going to do it, son?"

It was good that his son was not afraid of danger, but Jonathan was full of doubt.

"With the meteorite."

David pulled a thumb-sized meteorite from his pocket.

"Don't..."

At the sight of the deadly meteorite, Clark instinctively raised both hands to block its light. But the meteorite did not emit any green glow, only a faint green fluorescence invisible in daylight.

Feeling no weakness or discomfort at all, he touched himself in surprise.

"I... I'm fine?"

Clark did not display the reaction he should have, and David was not surprised in the slightest.

Because on the way back, David had tested Clark with this piece of Kryptonite from behind without Clark knowing.

"Avery did not just gain a physique similar to Clark's.

"He should have gained the same weakness too."

"B-but... it's still too dangerous."

Martha could not agree to let her younger son take such a risk.

She was already worried about her younger son traveling alone to Gotham, a place crawling with criminals. Let alone going there to subdue Avery, who now possessed Super Strength and Super Speed.

"Don't rush into this, son."

Jonathan patted his younger son on the shoulder and tried to persuade him.

Going to Gotham with nothing but a meteorite was far too reckless.

"Actually, Mom, Dad... you don't need to worry about me."

Facing the worry in his parents' eyes, David opened his mouth.