The Blood of a Kryptonian

When Chloe saw Clark arrive, she hurried over to him. Her concern quickly gave way to intense curiosity. For instance...

"Clark, you said you took a shortcut to school. Which shortcut was it? A black hole?"

The question left the simple-minded young Superman completely baffled. He could only steel himself and say, "My dad drove me."

But Dilos knew that Clark's adoptive father, Jonathan Kent, had gone out of town to pick up a shipment yesterday. There was no way he could have driven Clark to school.

Since Dilos knew this, Chloe, who was always with Clark, naturally knew it too.

Seeing that his little sister seemed ready to keep asking, Dilos walked over and ruffled her hair.

"It's a little thing. Don't ask about it. He wouldn't lie to you. Class is about to start, so let's go."

With that, he led his still-conflicted sister away from Clark.

"Hey, Dilos."

"Dilos, did you have a fun vacation?"

On the way, plenty of girls greeted Dilos. Some of the prettier ones giggled at him, and a few even gave him flirtatious winks. Dilos had long since gotten used to this, having adapted to America's open culture.

His skin was fairly fair, and softer and more delicate than most people's, with an almost Eastern quality. Yet his features still had a healthy, masculine ruggedness. Add his tall, muscular build, neat blond curls, and the sunny smile he flashed from time to time, and he had an unusual charm in the eyes of these hormone-fueled teenage girls.

"They must be hoping you'll ask them to the homecoming dance," Chloe said in a strangely suggestive tone. "I've heard them discussing how to get you to notice them several times. Seriously, Dilos, as one of Smallville High School's two most popular boys, aren't you going to get a girlfriend?"

Dilos rolled his eyes. "I'll leave it to fate. Besides, my heart isn't in that right now. You know I'm going to try for that internship interview at Osborn Corp once I get my work permit. It's the best pharmaceutical company in the country, and tons of brilliant biologists work there. I'd have a better future there."

Seeing that Chloe still wanted to say something, Dilos quickly added, "Speaking of the homecoming dance, aren't you going to ask Clark to be your date? The dance is only a few days away."

Chloe sighed, and her dazzling blond hair seemed to lose some of its shine.

"He only has eyes for Lana now."

"Then you could ask someone else. Like Pete Ross. You two have been friends since you were little, haven't you?" Dilos still wanted Chloe to give up on Superman, that magnet for trouble. But...

"I can't." Chloe held her forehead. "I can tell Pete has special feelings for me. You know, I think he's fallen for me. But I only see him as a friend, a buddy. If I went to the dance with him, I'd spend the whole time watching Clark. I'd hurt him so badly we couldn't even stay friends."

Chloe looked at Dilos helplessly. "Don't look at me like that. I can't control how I feel..."

"You're hopeless." Dilos's mouth twitched, and he was utterly speechless. Weren't young people supposed to be impatient with love and unable to stick with it? Especially here in America, where people of either sex changed partners about as often as a woman got her period. So why were all the people he knew stuck in first loves and secret crushes, holding on for years without giving up...

Dilos didn't dislike loyalty, perseverance, patience, or understanding in a relationship. On the contrary, he supported and admired those qualities. But if things went nowhere for so long, he would have given up ages ago. It was simply too painful.

Classes ended quickly that day, but Dilos didn't ride the school bus home with Chloe. He had his eye on Clark, who rarely skipped the bus.

Clark Kent was a survivor from Krypton, whose Kryptonian name was Kal-El. His cells could absorb the light and radiation of stars, especially yellow-spectrum light and radiation. His Kryptonian body constantly absorbed and stored energy from Earth's yellow sun, granting him incredible abilities: immense strength, superhearing, X-ray vision, super speed, lung capacity powerful enough to cause natural disasters, skin impervious to bullets and blades, extraordinary healing, and even the ability to defy gravity and fly.

A Kryptonian as powerful as him could rightly be called God on Earth! But Clark was still too young, and his powers hadn't fully developed. After testing and following him on and off over the years, Dilos had learned that, aside from super strength, super speed, and an invulnerable body, the current Superman had none of the other abilities—not even a hint. Even the powers he did possess were limited.

For all his strength, he still had weaknesses: the legendary force of magic, and fragments of Krypton.

Green Kryptonite caused Kryptonian cells to rapidly deteriorate, leaving them weaker than ordinary humans. Blue Kryptonite prevented Kryptonians from using their powers within its range, making them as vulnerable as ordinary people.

As far as Dilos knew, the meteor shower twelve years ago had been formed from fragments left by Krypton's destruction. That was why enormous quantities of Kryptonite lay buried beneath Smallville.

The meteor disaster had also drawn the attention of many scientists and organizations. Unfortunately, to modern scientists, the meteorites were no different from ordinary rocks. They had failed to discover anything, and the stones were worth no more than any others. Otherwise, the residents would have been driven out by the major organizations long ago.

For a time, many of the meteorites that had been found were used to make fake gemstones. So even though blue meteorites were rare, Dilos had still managed to find several.

What was Dilos after? It was simple: Kryptonian blood. This was too rare an opportunity to get blood by getting close to Clark. Just thinking about the value of that blood, and what it could do for him, made his heart race uncontrollably!

Clark was so caught up in his thoughts that he never noticed Dilos following at a distance. When he was about halfway home, he stopped and leaned against a bridge, lost in thought.

From what Dilos knew, Clark was still pining over Lana. But that didn't matter to Dilos. What mattered was that this was a good chance to get close to him!

"Hey, Clark, what are you thinking about?" Clark had been feeling down after seeing his crush, Lana, show affection with her boyfriend. Then he suddenly heard Dilos's voice.

"Dilos?" Clark looked at him, puzzled. "Didn't you take the bus home with Chloe?"

"I had a report to finish, so I got out late and had to walk," Dilos said with a shrug and a smile, lying so smoothly it sounded true.

"What about you? Why the long face?" Dilos raised an eyebrow. "Is it because of Lana?"

Clark froze, then lowered his head, his expression dimming. He had his answer.

"Love is complicated. It all comes down to fate," Dilos said, leaning against the railing like a kind older neighbor.

"If you miss your chance, there's nothing you can do. It just wasn't meant to be. Besides, there are plenty of other sweet girls with great personalities out there. You have to learn to move on..."

Dilos kept talking and, as if without thinking, rested a hand on Clark's shoulder. Clark listened, nodding along, but his thoughts were elsewhere. It was obvious that none of Dilos's words were getting through. Looking at the guy's vacant, lovesick-prince expression, Dilos couldn't help twitching the corner of his mouth.

How could my beautiful little sister fall for a goofy blockhead like you? Dilos grumbled inwardly as he quietly activated a mist anesthetic near Clark.

Dilos had formulated the anesthetic himself. It numbed the nerves. He carried blue meteorite with him, and within its range Clark's body was no different from an ordinary person's, so he easily inhaled the mist.

The anesthetic took a while to work. To speed it up, Dilos used Guoshu pressure-point techniques, discreetly pressing several points on Clark's body while keeping his hand on Clark's shoulder. That made the anesthetic take effect faster.

The anesthetic didn't make a person lose consciousness; it only prevented them from feeling pain when injured. No one would notice at first, but if too much time passed, they would inevitably catch on. So once the drug took effect, while Clark's eyes were fixed on him, Dilos smoothly slipped a large syringe from his sleeve, stuck it into Clark's exposed arm, and began drawing blood.

In just a few seconds, the syringe was half full of Clark's blood! That was enough, though. Anything longer could cause trouble.

Dilos pulled out the needle and used a few Guoshu force techniques to flick it back into his sleeve. His technique was so deft that Clark didn't even bleed.

Then Dilos pretended his limbs had grown stiff and said he needed to stretch. He quickly moved more than three meters away from Clark. Now outside the blue Kryptonite's radiation range, Clark's powers returned at once. His recovery was as fast as a rocket, and the anesthetic wore off completely within a second or two.