Henry had once thought that bullying at school would have nothing to do with him in this world.
He had never attended school himself. As for Sky, a girl who had lived on the streets, spent time in New York's underground world, and trained in martial arts under Thena—if she wasn't bullying the other kids, then those schoolchildren ought to be thanking their lucky stars. How could she possibly be the one getting bullied?
As it turned out, the Kryptonian had been far too optimistic.
Unless someone had a physique like Arnold Schwarzenegger's, with broad shoulders, a thick waist, and a face covered in intimidating slabs of muscle that immediately screamed "don't mess with me," there would always be some troublemaker willing to test the waters.
The saying "you won't cry until you see the coffin" apparently applied just as well in this foreign land.
When the tracker Henry had secretly placed on the little girl sent out an alert, he found an excuse to leave and went to see what was happening to Sky. What he found was the girl cornered in an alley by a group of thugs.
There were seven or eight teenagers. Although they were all quite young, they looked like they were from a different age group than Sky. Black and white, their clothes made them look like street gang kids. Basically, the American version of yellow-haired punks.
Sky was alone, and she didn't look like she was protecting anyone. But she didn't seem like the one who had deliberately started trouble, either. Apart from when she was willing to bare her claws at Henry, the girl was actually quite timid outside, with a very strong survivalist instinct.
There were also two or three unlucky bastards rolling around on the ground. Had they already been beaten down? The girl herself had merely been forced into a corner, which showed that training with Thena had at least produced some results.
"Well, what's going on here? Can someone explain it to me?"
A stranger had come to interrupt them, and someone immediately stepped forward to chase him away.
"Hey, buddy. This ain't your business. If you don't want to get hurt, get lost."
When the little girl trapped in the alley saw Henry, her face lit up with pleasant surprise. She seemed about to call out to him, but for some reason, the words caught in her throat. At one point, she almost made the Kryptonian decide to turn around and leave.
Still, Henry pulled out his phone and dialed emergency services.
"Hello, 911? There's a fight happening here. It's at..."
Before he could finish the call, one of the youths slapped the phone out of his hand. One of the Black kids even pulled out a gun and pressed it against Henry's head.
"Motherfucker, don't call the cops, you white piece of trash! You wanna die? You believe I'll put you in the ground right now, and nobody'll even dare come collect your body?"
"Don't call the police. Seriously?"
Henry widened his eyes as he listened to this peculiar demand.
"Goddamn piece of shit, why the hell are you calling the cops? I suggest you call the hospital morgue and reserve yourself a bed. Aah—!"
The Black kid's scream came from Henry gripping the hand holding the gun. He hadn't been particularly brutal about it, either. The injury was merely a complicated fracture that an ordinary hospital could treat, although the kid would probably be wearing a cast for quite some time.
The gun crushed together with his hand was naturally ruined as well. Henry had taken special care with the barrel. Its obvious bend was enough for anyone experienced with firearms to know that the weapon was finished. It would definitely explode if fired.
Henry smiled cheerfully at the astonished group.
"I'll agree not to call the police. Likewise, you guys aren't allowed to call them either."
The Black kid whose hand Henry had crushed was already kneeling on the ground in agony. His accomplices who also had guns raised them and started firing wildly.
Henry walked forward as though nothing had happened. The kinetic energy of those bullets wasn't even enough to make him take a step backward.
He gave each of them one resounding slap, and every last one of them promptly went to sleep.
Henry didn't care about the surroundings at all. One by one, they slept quite soundly, although their positions were less than dignified. A few particularly obnoxious ones might even need to have their jaws repaired, followed by a period of surviving on liquid food.
Looking at the fate of these youths, the Kryptonian felt that he had truly been incredibly merciful. They had actually fired guns at him, yet they had only suffered minor injuries that could be treated.
He really was a good person.
"Sky, who are these people? Do you know them?"
Although the American yellow-haired punks weren't all unconscious, nobody dared stand in Henry's way anymore. The same was true around Sky. They hadn't been able to restrain her when they had the advantage of numbers, so there was even less they could do now that their numbers had dwindled.
Like a child reporting to an adult, the girl pointed at a white kid who had fallen onto his backside and wet himself in fright.
"That guy is my classmate. I didn't want anything to do with him, but he kept secretly following me. Then he got a bunch of people to ambush me on the way. I don't know what they wanted."
Henry stepped past the others, completely unconcerned about whether anyone was standing behind him, and walked directly over to the boy Sky had identified. He squatted down and looked him straight in the eye.
"Now then, young classmate, why don't you tell me what our Sky did to offend you? Why did you need to get a bunch of street thugs and dropouts to surround her?
"I thought Standard High School was a good school. I figured the students would be more focused on studying and wouldn't associate with these street punks. Do you have a relative among them?"
The terrified boy was obviously incapable of answering properly. Henry immediately barked, "Speak!"
"No, sir, Sky didn't offend anyone. Ah, no, I don't know who Sky offended either. Someone told me to identify which one was Sky and bring her out. Then I'd get twenty dollars."
"Do you realize that makes you an accomplice to kidnapping? Even though you're a minor, that's not a crime you can walk away from with a little community service. Did you ever think about what might happen if things took a bad turn?"
"I... I don't know, sir. Can you please not call the police?" the boy begged tearfully.
"Don't worry. I said I wouldn't call the police, so I won't. But you have to keep your end of the bargain too. Don't call them either. If you don't know who wanted Sky captured, you can at least identify the person who came to hire you."
"It was Andy."
The white kid pointed out one of the Black youths who had pulled a gun earlier. At the moment, the boy's butt was sticking high in the air, his cheek pressed into the muddy water as he slept completely unconscious.
"Good. Sit there. Just in case I still have some questions for you."
Henry walked over to the Black kid and stepped on his uninjured hand, applying exactly the right amount of pressure. Sure enough, the Black youth couldn't continue sleeping peacefully. He screamed in pain and woke up.
"Motherfu—"
Henry kindly placed his foot on the boy's hand again, then shifted it onto the back of his head and pressed him back into the muddy water.
"I ask the questions, you answer them. Understand?"
With his face in the mud, the Black kid babbled incoherently. Nobody could make out what he was saying. So Henry lifted his foot, crouched down, and asked, "Did you understand what I just said?"
"Yes, yes. Damn it, what did I do wrong for you to treat me like this?"
Hmm.
Had Henry misunderstood these people?
Well, considering they had gotten into a physical confrontation with Sky, pulled out a gun, and then immediately pulled the trigger at him without a second thought, believing this entire "invitation" had been made in good faith would have been an insult to the judgment of the Super Brain.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For 40 advanced chapters, visit my Patreon:
Patreon - Twilight_scribe1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~