Clark, You Saved Lex Luthor?

Shwoosh!

Time seemed to slow down.

For a moment, the rippling water inside the school bus, the flying hair of the unsteady female students, the spit spraying from the mouths of terrified boys as they screamed, the floating cups drifting on the surface—everything seemed a hundred times slower.

David assessed the situation and unhurriedly broke the window beside him.

With a sweep of his arms, he shot through the water like a torpedo, arriving in front of the school bus.

The bus's front end was tall, and inside, everyone was panicking and screaming, none of them noticing him.

Underwater, David didn't hold his breath. His expression was relaxed.

"The Thanos Eternal race physique doesn't need to eat, drink, or even breathe. It can survive in the vacuum of space at temperatures below minus two hundred degrees Celsius."

Let alone a mere riverbed.

His knobby hand pressed against the bus's front. David pushed with one hand as casually as shoving aside someone in his way.

In the surging river, the ten-ton school bus, comparable to a mid-sized coach, flew backward like a cannonball launched by explosive force, breaking through the water's surface. With a booming splash, it hurtled toward the shore.

Thud!

Arcing over a dozen meters across the river, the school bus slammed heavily onto the grassy bank. Its thick rubber tires splattered mud everywhere, and the impact of the landing bounced the entire vehicle.

The glass windows shattered, fragments scattering.

"Ah!"

Inside the bus, everyone stumbled forward and backward, clutching their heads in fear.

"What happened?"

After a moment, when the glass shards had settled, they stood dumbfounded, unable to believe their eyes as they looked outside. Just moments ago, they had been in the dark, turbulent riverbed, their lives hanging by a thread. Now, in the blink of an eye, they were on a sunny shore, with birds chirping in the woods—so vivid and beautiful.

"Are... are we dreaming?" they stammered, exchanging stunned glances.

"Oh my God!"

The God-fearing School Bus Driver snatched off his hat, his face shocked, his eyes scanning the river as if searching for some angelic figure.

"You okay, Chloe?"

A voice came from beside her. Chloe, pale from her narrow escape, turned her head.

David was just as soaked as she was, but his expression was calm. There wasn't a trace of fear on his sharply defined face.

Did the Kents all have nerves of steel?

"I'm... I'm fine."

Having brushed past death, Chloe still couldn't snap out of the miraculous scene. She murmured blankly, "I thought the next time I'd see light or breathe air would be when grieving people called in a crane to haul our corpse-filled bus out of the river."

"What really happened?"

That was the question on everyone's mind inside the bus, except for David. "Who saved us? Did God hear our prayers?"

"Let's get off the bus. Get out of here." The School Bus Driver, slightly recovering his wits, shouted loudly.

The bank was slippery. If the bus slid back into the river, it would be a fatal joke.

Splash, splash.

Their clothes clung wetly to their skin. David wrung out his shirt, calmly leaving the bus that had nearly become their coffin, alongside the others still shaken.

"It feels like something rammed us out of the river?!"

Staring in shock at the dented front of the bus—a mark like it had been head-butted by an Asian elephant—the burly School Bus Driver gaped, his mouth hanging open.

"Is there a water monster in the river?"

The students, still trembling, buzzed with chatter and amazement.

"Did our bus hit it on the head, and it flung us out?"

They looked back at the raging river, feeling as if a giant beast lurked beneath its surface.

Glancing at the mark he'd left, David casually looked away.

Thanos—a mutant of the Eternal race—possessed unimaginable strength and endurance, far superior recovery and agility, and skin nearly indestructible, especially against cold, heat, electricity, radiation, poison, aging, and disease.

His body was tougher than Vibranium, with terrifying power capable of slaying gods.

"Though I've only fused a little over eighty percent of the template so far."

He still didn't know his own upper limits.

A Pickup truck, a boulder... lifting anything felt weightless.

By David's estimate, he could easily catch a falling airliner like Superman, pull a steel warship weighing thousands of tons, or lift a residential building a dozen stories high.

"But without a universal bio-field, most of those things would probably crumble apart."

The School Bus Driver joking that something had head-butted the bus out of the river was just that—a joke.

At the bottom of the river, David didn't even dare push too hard with his hand, afraid of sending these people to meet God before they could suffer the agony of suffocation.

The crowd moved away from the riverbank and sat to the side, waiting for rescuers and parents to arrive.

The school bus had plunged into the river once, then been hurled onto the bank with a violent jolt, leaving many people bruised, broken, and bleeding...

The bus falling into the river and then inexplicably being rammed ashore by some unknown creature was undoubtedly a bizarre event, enough to leave biologists and scientists scratching their heads in confusion.

"But in this town, while it's not exactly commonplace, it's far from enough to shatter anyone's worldview."

Ever since that meteor shower over a decade ago, strange occurrences had been cropping up in this town nonstop.

Things like a long-time coma patient suddenly waking up and vanishing into thin air, a wolf bigger than a tiger spotted prowling in the dark woods at night, a little girl clutching a teddy bear in a silent cemetery at midnight who disappears when you turn around...

Monsters with freakish speed and immense strength roaring as they chisel through mountains in the dead of night...

The list went on and on.

Hearing that their kids had been in trouble and nearly died at the bottom of the river, worried parents soon rushed over in a panic.

Seeing his mother Martha pull up in the car and stop by the roadside, David walked over with some confusion.

"David, are you okay?" Martha was frantic, her face etched with worry as she ran over, turning him this way and that to check for injuries.

"Does your leg hurt? What about your chest? Did you choke on water?"

"I'm fine, Mother."

After patiently showing her over and over that he was unharmed, he finally managed to calm her down. David grabbed his mother's hand—colder than his own—and smiled. "Why are you here? Where's Dad?"

He'd actually thought about revealing his abilities to his parents before.

But unlike Clark, when he used his strength, his skin turned purple and stripes appeared on his jaw—a clear sign of genetic mutation, making him look more like an alien than a Kryptonian. He didn't want Jonathan and Martha to worry.

"The police just called. Your brother got into a car accident on another bridge and ended up in the river. Your father went to see him."

Martha's expression was a mix of worry and confusion.

Strange, she thought—both her sons had gotten into trouble on the same day at noon. One's school bus skidded into the river, the other was knocked into the river by a car.

"Car accident? Did he wreck someone else's car?" David asked, puzzled.

"Is the driver okay? We're not going to have to pay for it, are we?"

The school bus falling into the river—this plot felt familiar. How did Clark still end up in the river even after dodging it? Was this the power of fate?

"David, Clark is your brother."

Hearing her younger son say that, Martha sighed with some exasperation.

"I know.

But his body—even a truck can't smash it, right?" David shrugged.

Even if it did get wrecked, as long as he wasn't dead, a little sunbathing would fix him right up.

"See you later, Chloe."

After chatting with his mother for a bit, he said goodbye to Chloe, and the two of them turned to walk toward the car. They climbed into the old pickup truck that had served the Kent family for over a decade and drove off.

After David left, Chloe, wrapped in a blanket handed out by the rescuers, was shivering from the cold.

Suddenly, she noticed a footprint not far away, with a crushed piece of bright green waterweed underneath it.

"Huh?"

A flicker of doubt crossed Chloe's eyes as she looked around.

Whose footprint was this? Everyone had been stuck in the bus until it got ashore—they hadn't even broken the windows to escape. So why was there waterweed here?

Aside from a few injured students and a couple who saw it as a good excuse to fake an injury and stay home to play, classes went on as usual that afternoon and the next day, nothing interrupted.

David couldn't help but marvel at the thick skin and adaptability of the townsfolk.

"Guess getting hit by a meteor shower really changes you."

The next day, at dusk.

David and Clark came home from school.

On the farm, by the small yard gate, a brand-new red pickup truck sat quietly, its shiny paint reflecting the glow of the sunset. A bow was tied around it, like a gift.

"Whose truck is that?" Clark walked up with a smile, seeing his mother just coming out of the barn after finishing her chores.

"Mom, are we finally getting a new car?"

"This is your truck, Clark."

"Mine?"

"You saved Lex Luthor, and he gave you a car."

Martha frowned, pulled out a thank-you letter, and handed it to Clark.

David had heard yesterday that Clark was knocked off a bridge by a runaway silver coupe. He came out fine, but the car's owner nearly drowned in the river.

Clark fished him out and saved his life. The man was astonished by Clark's physique.

"Dear Clark: Drive carefully, don't end up like me..."

At those words, Clark tore open the letter and read aloud with quiet excitement, "Grateful for yesterday—Lex Luthor."

He'd already pictured driving that sleek pickup to school, sure to catch Lana's attention.

David, who hadn't thought much of it, heard the name, glanced at the thank-you letter, raised an eyebrow, and wore a strange expression.

"Hold on, Clark. You saved Lex Luthor?"

"Yeah, what's wrong?" The young Superman looked up, puzzled by his brother's reaction.