Sizzle!
Adrian's Heat Vision flashed across the room.
Twin crimson beams instantly struck the gang members standing between Adrian and Ashley. The attack was swift and merciless.
Blood splattered across the floor as the men protecting the gang boss dropped one after another.
Dead.
With nothing more than a single burst of Heat Vision, Adrian eliminated every bodyguard in the room.
Ashley stared in disbelief.
His eyes widened as he stumbled backward, his mind struggling to process what he had just witnessed.
How was that even possible?
Until recently, Ashley believed that Alicia, the girl who could teleport, was already something extraordinary, a rare anomaly in the world.
But the man standing in front of him now was something far beyond that.
Far more brutal.
Far more powerful.
The bodies of the men cut down by the searing beams collapsed heavily onto the floor.
Thud.
Thud.
The metallic smell of blood quickly filled the bar, thick and suffocating. Ashley felt bile rising in his throat.
He fought down the urge to vomit and swallowed hard.
"No... don't kill me!" Ashley shouted, panic flooding his voice. "I can give you anything you want!"
Ashley had spent years surviving in the criminal underworld. Even now, facing death, his instincts pushed him to negotiate.
"I can help you," he continued quickly. "As long as we cooperate, anything can be yours. Money, power, women, whatever you want."
Adrian tilted his head slightly.
"Anything?"
The red glow faded from his eyes as he stopped the Heat Vision.
"Yes, anything you desire!" Ashley said hurriedly.
Seeing Adrian pause gave him hope.
Ashley leaned forward slightly, speaking faster.
"Look at the world around us. It's always been controlled by people with power. Wealth, resources, influence. People like us will eventually control everything."
Adrian looked at him for a moment.
Then he slowly shook his head.
"There is some truth in what you said," Adrian replied calmly. "But you got one thing wrong."
His eyes hardened.
"You and I were never the same kind of people."
In the next instant Adrian disappeared.
His Super Speed activated in a blur.
Before Ashley could react, Adrian was already in front of him.
A hand shot forward and grabbed Ashley by the throat.
Ashley was lifted off the ground as if he weighed nothing.
His feet dangled helplessly in the air.
The pressure around his neck tightened instantly, cutting off his breathing. Pain exploded through his throat as he clawed desperately at Adrian's arm.
Every breath became impossible.
Before Ashley could even try to speak again, the red light returned.
Heat Vision erupted from Adrian's eyes.
The beams struck directly into Ashley's eye sockets.
The heat was overwhelming.
Half of Ashley's head melted almost instantly under the intense energy.
The flesh around his eyes shriveled and burned away, leaving scorched hollows where his eyes had been.
Ashley never even had time to scream.
His body went limp.
Dead.
Adrian released his grip.
Thud.
Ashley's body hit the floor, blood spreading across the ground beneath him.
Adrian looked down at the corpse for a brief moment.
No emotion crossed his face.
Then he turned and walked out of the bar.
Outside, the cool night air filled the street.
Neon lights flickered above the entrance of the once luxurious nightclub, one of the Blood Gang's most profitable operations in Metropolis.
Adrian stopped on the sidewalk and looked back at the building.
The red glow slowly returned to his eyes.
Sizzle!
Heat Vision burst forward again.
The beams slammed into the front of the bar.
Flames erupted instantly.
Fire spread through the structure in seconds as walls, furniture, and support beams ignited under the intense heat.
Sections of the building collapsed as easily as butter melting under a hot knife.
Cracks split through the structure.
Glass shattered.
The roar of flames and collapsing debris echoed down the street.
Within moments the once glamorous bar was nothing more than a burning ruin swallowed by fire.
Adrian watched the flames rise into the night sky.
In the distance, sirens began to wail.
Fire trucks.
Police cars.
Their flashing lights approached quickly.
Adrian did not stay to watch.
With a sudden burst of Super Speed, he vanished from the street.
Gone in an instant.
Far away.
On the rooftop of a tall building overlooking the city, Clark Kent stood silently.
He had seen everything.
From the moment Adrian entered the bar to the moment he disappeared.
Clark let out a quiet sigh.
He could have stopped it.
He knew that.
But he had not moved.
His hand slowly reached into his pocket, touching the ring Alicia had given him earlier.
Clark stared out at the burning building in the distance, the fire reflecting in his eyes as he fell deep into thought.
Maybe the reason he did nothing was simple.
He wanted revenge.
The anger and pain inside his heart had been growing stronger with each passing day.
If those emotions had no outlet, they might consume him entirely.
Perhaps Adrian understood that.
Perhaps Adrian saw through his hesitation and chose to act first.
Clark clenched his fist.
The fire continued burning across the skyline of Metropolis.
Taking a slow breath, Clark bent his knees and launched himself into the sky.
Boom!
A shockwave exploded beneath him as he broke the sound barrier.
Boom!
Another sonic boom followed as his speed increased.
Clark accelerated higher and higher until the clouds disappeared beneath him.
Soon he passed through the atmosphere and entered the silent darkness of space.
Yet he kept flying.
Straight toward the sun.
Golden sunlight washed over his body.
Warm.
Powerful.
The radiation from the sun filled every cell of his Kryptonian physiology with energy.
His wounds healed.
His strength increased.
Clark closed his eyes and spread his arms wide, floating in the light.
For a moment the pain in his heart felt distant.
As if the sun itself could burn away the darkness.
The next morning.
Sunlight streamed through a hospital window.
Warm golden rays spilled across the room.
But the patient lying in the hospital bed did not feel comfort.
Instead the light only made her injuries ache more.
The room was located in Metropolis Medical Center.
Betty slowly opened her eyes.
Her entire body was wrapped in thick bandages, leaving her feeling stiff and immobile, like a human mummy.
Even the smallest movement caused sharp waves of pain to spread through her body.
She raised one hand to block the sunlight from her face.
After her eyes adjusted to the room, she turned her head slightly.
Sitting beside her bed was Hanna.
Hanna had been watching quietly.
The moment Betty moved, Hanna leaned forward.
"Careful," she said quickly. "Your arm is fractured. If you move too much it could get worse."
"W... what happened to me?" Betty asked weakly.
Her voice sounded hoarse and confused.
Hanna looked at her with a strange expression.
"You really don't remember?"
"I remember some things," Betty said slowly, rubbing her forehead. "But it's strange. It felt like someone else was controlling my body."
She paused, trying to recall the experience.
"It was like I was just watching everything happen from inside my own head, like I was trapped in the passenger seat of my own life."
Hanna adjusted the black framed glasses she had recently started wearing.
"I suspected something like that," she said thoughtfully. "You might have been possessed."
"Possessed?"
Betty took a slow breath.
Her mind began piecing fragments together.
"I remember using a fire axe to break through a wall," she said. "There was a body hidden inside."
"A woman's body."
"Maybe that was when it started."
"And what else do you remember?" Hanna asked.
"My memories are blurry," Betty admitted. "But I know who that woman was. I saw how she died."
Her voice trembled slightly.
"It was like the scene of her death replayed in my mind."
"I even know who killed her."
Hanna's eyes widened.
"You know the murderer?"
"Her landlord," Betty said coldly. "A twisted psychopath."
Her breathing became uneven as pain shot through her body again.
"I can't go back to that apartment," she continued weakly. "Can you call my roommate? And the police."
She paused, struggling to stay conscious.
"I'm afraid something might happen to her."
"Alright," Hanna said gently.
She took out her phone and made the calls.
After finishing, she looked back at Betty.
"Do you know how the spirit that possessed you disappeared?" Hanna asked.
Betty closed her eyes for a moment.
"I remember light," she whispered.
"Like sunlight."
"I was sinking into darkness, like falling into a black vortex. Then a beam of sunlight appeared."
Her voice softened.
"It showed me the way out."
Hanna turned toward the window.
The morning sun shone brightly outside.
"Do you think Adrian did it?" she asked quietly.
She had once feared Adrian Kent, thinking he might become some unstoppable force of destruction.
But now she wasn't sure what to believe.
Betty opened her eyes and looked at the sun.
"I'm not certain," she said.
"But when that light appeared... I could feel something familiar."
"A trace of Adrian."
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"Is he an angel or a devil?"
Hanna shrugged.
She did not dwell on the question.
As the president of the Adrian Kent Fan Club, especially after the chaos surrounding the Lex assassination incident, she had stopped questioning Adrian's nature entirely.
Instead her curiosity only grew stronger.
"No need to think so hard about it," Hanna said lightly.
"You are known as the Queen of Deduction after all."
"And now you're part of the Adrian Kent Fan Club."
She smiled.
"You'll have plenty of time to study Adrian in the future."
Betty sighed weakly.
"I feel like I dug a hole and buried myself in it."
She muttered quietly.
"How long is plenty of time..."
One year later.
Metropolis University.
Inside an American Literature classroom, Adrian sat quietly among dozens of students.
The professor stood at the front of the lecture hall, pacing slowly while speaking.
"So," the professor said, looking around the room, "who can explain some aspects of cosmopolitanism?"