Avery Went to Gotham?

Chapter 49: Avery Went to Gotham?

"Huh?"

David stared at the spot where the figure had vanished for several seconds, shock and doubt churning in his mind.

How could there be a Metahuman in a small town who could match Clark's speed?

"The direction that guy came from... is Avery's house?"

His expression flickered rapidly several times, then a bizarre possibility struck him—maybe Clark's powers hadn't just temporarily disappeared.

"Let's go, Clark."

David pulled the confused Clark along and quickly arrived at the block in front of Avery's house.

The front door was shattered, as if hit by a rocket, its fragments scattered across the lawn.

From inside the Avery family's home came the sound of a woman crying in grief.

"Not good!"

Clark rushed into the house in concern.

Their geography teacher, Regan, was being helped onto the sofa, a gash on his forehead, looking dazed and lost. Avery's mother, Beth, was sobbing heartbrokenly, clinging to her husband like a mother who had lost her child, utterly devastated.

Seeing that neither of them was seriously hurt, Clark breathed a sigh of relief.

"Aunt Beth, what happened?"

David glanced at the wooden door fragments, frowned, and followed him inside to ask.

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

Aunt Beth's eyes were red-rimmed.

"Just now, he tried to run away from home. His father tried to stop him, and he threw him off..."

With a casual shove from Avery, Regan flew straight across the dining table, sailing seven or eight meters before crashing onto the sofa. If not for the sofa, he might have broken bones and ended up seriously injured in the hospital.

After that, their son Avery kicked the door to pieces, kicked up a gale in a burst of sonic booms, and vanished in the blink of an eye.

Regan was filled with confusion—how could his own son have such tremendous strength?

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

Clark pressed from behind, eager to find Avery before he did something irreversible in his clearly unstable state.

"Hold on, Clark."

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

"Doesn't Aunt Beth's description sound awfully familiar?"

He frowned, speaking in a low, thoughtful voice.

"Invulnerable to lightning strikes, superhuman strength, incredible speed that the human eye can't track—Avery probably didn't mutate and gain powers."

"Not mutation?"

Clark didn't understand what his brother meant, even though those abilities were somewhat astonishing.

But Gregg from last time fit that description too.

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

David's eyes flickered as he spoke gravely about what he had just seen.

"It probably isn't a coincidence."

He paused, then asked in return.

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

"What?"

Clark was stunned, his mouth falling open.

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

Before David could nod.

He hurried back to the couple and pressed them again about 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, terrified by her son's sudden transformation, her voice choked with sobs.

"Avery said this place made him uncomfortable. He said he was going to a paradise for the strong.

A place with no laws, where plenty of numb people are waiting to be conquered..."

"It's not far, because he said he'd come back. When he returns to this town, he'll erase everything that makes him uncomfortable."

She wept as she recounted the words her son had left behind before leaving.

"Then he'll do whatever he wants, and nothing in the world will be able to stop him."

"Do whatever he wants?"

David sneered.

Last time, Gregg thought he'd triggered evolution, believing himself a Superman ahead of everyone in the world. This time, Avery gets a Kryptonian's powers and wants to be Homelander?

"A tyrant's paradise? No laws to restrain him?"

The string of words left Clark puzzled; he couldn't place where that was for a moment.

Where was that? Some war-torn zone?

David turned his head to look into the distance, toward the direction where that lightning-fast figure had vanished, his gaze dark.

"The answer's simple—Gotham."

"Gotham?"

Clark's expression shifted.

Close to Metropolis, where laws are just decorations for the powerful, where people live numbly. Where else but that place with its quaint local customs?

He offered a few hasty words of comfort to Regan and his wife.

David and Clark quickly returned home, recounting what they'd seen and his suspicions.

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

Hearing the news his two sons brought back, their father Jonathan was stunned, then furrowed his brow.

If that were really the case, his own son losing his powers was hardly a good thing.

"Gotham, that place..."

Martha looked uneasy.

"If Avery runs away from home and goes bad, using those powers to do evil."

She and Jonathan knew just how much strength Clark had. They'd patiently taught their son not to abuse his gift, usually only using that power to save a few hands on the Farms.

Avery suddenly getting that kind of power—he might not keep his head on straight, especially going to Gotham, a place notorious for rampant crime and one of the highest crime rates in all of America.

"That's the problem."

David nodded.

"Avery clearly doesn't plan to use that power for fixing fences or plowing fields.

He's got a pretty grand plan for his future."

A cold smirk flickered in his eyes.

Avery said he'd come back, and when he did, he'd bring people to wipe out everything that bothered him, and then nothing could stop him.

It made you wonder if that guy had already figured out the meteorite was his weakness.

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

Clark's face darkened, his fists clenched.

He couldn't accept someone getting hurt or even dying because of his abilities.

"But..."

Martha hesitated. How would they stop him?

"I might need to take a trip, Mom, Dad."

After a few seconds of thought, David looked up at Jonathan and Martha, coughed twice, and spoke seriously.

"To clean up this mess for Clark and bring Avery back."

He didn't believe that Clark, the future Superman, would lose his powers forever. If the abilities could be accidentally transferred away, they could be transferred back.

"David?"

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

But showing it now, with his strange appearance—was he sure Mom and Dad wouldn't worry even more?

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

In truth, it wasn't just about getting Clark's powers back. David's eyes flickered.

Ever since Clark lost his abilities, the Emotion Points he provided had shrunk by more than twenty times.

"My main source of Emotion Points, a gold mine, vanished. The ability fusion rate dropped by over ten times."

If the fusion speed was a bicycle before, now it was a turtle's crawl. He'd only just gotten a new ability.

"But how will you do it, son?"

It was good that his son wasn't afraid of danger, but Jonathan was full of doubt.

"With 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 stone emitted no green glow—only a faint green fluorescence invisible during the day.

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

"I... I'm fine?"

Clark didn't react as expected, and David wasn't surprised.

Because on the way back, he had already tested this Kryptonite on Clark from behind without his knowledge.

"Avery not only has a physique similar to Clark's.

He probably shares the same weakness too."

"But... but it's still too dangerous."

Martha couldn't agree to her youngest son taking such a risk.

She wasn't even comfortable with him traveling alone to Gotham, a city crawling with criminals, let alone trying to subdue someone with Super Strength and Super Speed.

"Don't rush, son."

Jonathan patted his youngest son's shoulder and advised.

"Let's sit down and think of a plan first."

His youngest son heading to Gotham with just a meteorite seemed far too reckless.

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

Facing his parents' anxious eyes, David opened his mouth.