Falcone pointed toward the far bedroom with a stiff expression, his finger trembling slightly as he indicated the wrecked doorway. "He… he's in that room."
The room had once been Falcone's private bedroom, a luxurious suite meant for quiet nights and secret meetings. Now it looked like a war zone. Furniture had been smashed apart, fragments of glass littered the floor, and the walls were scarred as if something violent had torn through them. Falcone couldn't make sense of it anymore. He didn't understand when the world had changed, or why monsters seemed to appear everywhere. The headquarters of Gotham's most feared crime family had turned into something closer to an amusement park for superhuman disasters.
"Batman?"
The gliding silhouette outside caught David's attention immediately, and his eyes narrowed slightly. But before he could focus on the caped figure, something else pulled his gaze aside. Near the shattered window stood another man—bare-chested, tall, and radiating hostility. Smoke from a tear gas grenade drifted in front of him, and he waved it away impatiently as if it were nothing more than an annoying fog. His eyes followed the fleeing figure below with cold contempt, like a predator watching prey that had nowhere left to run.
It was Avery.
David glanced back at Falcone briefly. The situation suddenly made more sense. Batman had clearly come here looking for Falcone, intending to deal with the infamous mob boss. Instead, he had stumbled straight into Avery's territory—and now he had the misfortune of facing the wrong monster.
"Suddenly I realized something," Bruce thought grimly as he descended through the night air. "The man inside that room wasn't an old, fragile crime boss. He was something far worse—something even a batarang couldn't pierce."
The wind screamed past his ears as he glided downward. His cape, made from memory-cloth material, spread wide like a pair of bat wings after receiving a small electrical charge. The glider system worked perfectly, allowing him to descend smoothly through the darkness. Behind the bat mask, Bruce Wayne's eyes were sharp and solemn as he looked back toward the manor.
Gotham City was crawling with criminals and lunatics. If he wanted to slow the rot consuming the city, he needed to strike at the biggest threats first. Tonight's mission had been simple. Carmine Falcone was one of Gotham's most powerful mob bosses, and Batman had intended to break into his manor, beat him senseless, and drag him outside for the world to see. The plan was to strip him down to his underwear, tie him to a floodlight like a living warning, and let every thug in Gotham understand the message.
But now there was a problem.
"Why is there a stranger in Falcone's bedroom?"
Batman frowned slightly, confusion tightening his chest. His throat still ached faintly from the encounter. Just moments ago, when he had tried to question the mysterious young man in the room, the man had moved faster than he could react. In the blink of an eye, the stranger had crossed the distance between them, grabbed him by the neck, and lifted him off the ground as if he weighed nothing.
The strength had been terrifying.
Bruce had struck back instinctively, driving the edge of his gauntlet toward the man's neck like a knife strike. Instead of flesh and bone, it felt like hitting a wall of dense rubber. The shock traveled straight back through his arm, leaving his hand throbbing painfully.
When the stranger demanded to know who he was, Bruce had reacted instantly. A tear-gas launcher built into his utility belt fired at point-blank range, flooding the room with choking smoke. Then he dove through the broken window and escaped into the night.
As he leapt away, he had thrown a magnetic batarang packed with a small explosive charge. Normally, the device could blow open reinforced doors or crack concrete walls.
It did nothing.
As Bruce's glide slowed and he prepared to land, he looked back toward the manor, scanning the man's body for any sign of injury. There was none.
Then the bare-chested figure suddenly vanished.
One moment the man was standing there clearly in his sight. The next moment it was as if someone had removed him from reality, like a frame cut out of a film.
"Where did he go?"
Bruce's heart tightened. He dropped toward the ground quickly, hitting the pavement and rolling forward to absorb the impact before rising again. His instincts told him to retreat immediately. There was still important information hidden here—especially the identity of that mysterious young man.
But before he could escape, something appeared in front of him like a ghost.
A powerful hand seized his throat and lifted him off the ground.
"Where do you think you're running, freak?"
Avery's voice carried pure disdain. His grip tightened slowly, crushing Bruce's windpipe and making it impossible to breathe. Bruce's face turned red as he struggled for air, his hand instinctively reaching toward his belt.
But Avery was faster.
With lightning speed, Avery snatched away the tear-gas sprayer from Batman's belt. Holding Bruce suspended in the air with one hand, he casually examined the nozzle-shaped device in the other, a mocking smile spreading across his face.
"You think you can use the same trick on me twice?"
Bang!
A thunderous crash suddenly echoed across the manor grounds.
Both of them turned their heads.
A figure had fallen straight down from the fifth floor without any attempt to slow the impact. The body struck the stone courtyard like a meteorite. The ground shattered beneath the impact, cracks spreading through the stone tiles while fragments of gravel exploded outward in a cloud of dust.
"How is that possible?"
Avery frowned deeply.
Ever since he had gained his powers, smoke and darkness meant nothing to him. His vision could cut straight through it.
Within the swirling dust, a tall, slender silhouette slowly straightened. Lean muscles clung tightly to the frame of the figure's body, every movement calm and steady. Despite jumping from the fifth floor, he looked completely unharmed.
Lights across the manor suddenly switched on. Security lamps mounted on the building roofs flared to life like giant searchlights, flooding the courtyard with bright white illumination and turning night into day.
The smoke cleared.
Bruce's eyes widened slightly.
The scene felt strangely familiar.
"Who are you?" he asked.
As the last wisps of dust drifted away, David stepped forward into the light.
"So it's really you," Bruce muttered quietly.
Gotham City was already dangerous enough. It didn't need two monsters like this appearing at the same time.
Avery stared at David carefully. They were technically classmates at school, but the person standing here looked nothing like the quiet student he remembered.
"How did you do it?"
Realizing that David's physical abilities seemed far beyond human limits, Avery's expression darkened. He casually tossed Batman aside like garbage.
"My back…"
Bruce crashed into the edge of a flowerbed and groaned as pain shot through his spine. Clutching his back, he forced himself to stand upright again, struggling to maintain balance.
"Capture him."
Avery gave the order lazily, pointing at Batman while gang enforcers rushed in from every direction. But his attention quickly returned to David. Compared to the strange man dressed like a bat, the person standing before him now was far more interesting.
"You have the same kind of power as me," Avery said slowly, his voice heavy with suspicion. "How did you get it?"
David let out a cold laugh.
"Well, it definitely didn't come from getting struck by lightning."
"How do you know that?"
Avery's expression shifted instantly.
This was his greatest secret. No one should have known about it. Yet the stranger standing in front of him had spoken the truth casually, as if it were common knowledge.
Was it possible that lightning had given powers to more than one person?
Meanwhile, chaos erupted across the courtyard.
"Woof! Woof!"
Gunshots echoed as Batman struggled against the gang enforcers and attack dogs swarming toward him. Though he was injured and surrounded on all sides, he continued fighting with sharp, efficient movements. Dodging left and right, striking where he could, he forced himself to endure.
This was the Gotham he knew—violent, chaotic, but still understandable.
Those two monsters in the courtyard felt like something from another world entirely.
"You stole someone else's power and used it however you wanted."
David's voice cut through the night like icy wind sweeping down from snow-covered mountains. Avery stood before him like a king in his fortress, surrounded by loyal thugs and living comfortably in a massive castle.
"And I even had to come all the way here just to find you."
David's eyes hardened.
"If you weren't still useful… I would've ended you right here."
He still needed Avery alive. There was a chance the stolen power could be transferred back to Clark. Otherwise, killing him would have been far easier.
Crunch!
A horrible metallic tearing sound rang out.
"What did you just say?"
Avery's anger exploded. With a violent motion, he ripped a street lamp straight out of the ground beside him and hurled it toward David.
"This power belongs to me!"
The heavy steel pole shot forward like a missile, tearing through the air with a deafening sonic boom.
David didn't even move his hands.
A sharp sound sliced through the air.
Two beams of concentrated energy shot out from David's eyes. The heat vision struck the flying street lamp mid-air, instantly melting half of it into glowing molten metal that splashed down onto the pavement. The remaining half spun wildly past David and smashed into the castle wall behind him, collapsing part of the structure.
David remained perfectly still, as if a gentle breeze had passed him by.
Then his eyes flashed again.
A thicker, brighter beam erupted forward, cutting through the air with terrifying power. In an instant, the blazing laser reached Avery.
Buzz!
Avery's expression changed dramatically. Crossing his arms in front of his face, he tried to block the attack. The force drove him backward across the ground like a bulldozer pushing through soil. His feet carved two deep trenches in the stone courtyard as he struggled to hold his position.
Ever since gaining his powers, Avery had believed nothing on Earth could truly hurt him. Aside from strange meteorites, he had assumed he was invincible.
Now he realized he was wrong.
The heat from the beam warped the surrounding air. The temperature climbed higher and higher as the energy continued pouring forward. After several seconds, Avery felt a burning pain spreading across his arms.
"AAAAHHH!"
The sensation was like being splashed with molten sparks.
Panicking, Avery suddenly twisted away and fled from the beam's path.
For the first time since gaining his abilities, fear crept into his mind. The man standing before him could actually injure him. Instinct told him to run—but as he moved, he noticed something.
David's head hadn't followed his movement fast enough.
Avery stopped dozens of meters away, turning to face David again with a vicious grin.
"You're powerful," Avery said slowly. "But not powerful enough."
His eyes gleamed with triumph.
"I found your weakness."
"Oh?"
David smiled faintly.
"And what exactly is my weakness?"
"You're too slow!"
Time itself seemed to slow down as Avery activated his full speed. The wind across the entire world appeared to crawl like thick liquid. In less than one hundredth of a normal blink, he crossed the distance between them.
His fist rocketed forward.
"Speed is power!"
Even if David was strong, Avery's greatest weapon was velocity. A punch thrown at dozens of times the speed of sound carried unimaginable destructive force.
Avery was absolutely certain that even several meters of solid steel would tear apart like paper under such an attack.
The air compressed violently around his fist, turning into rolling white shockwaves.
But at that exact moment, David raised his hand.
Cosmic energy surged through his body as his fist shot forward to meet Avery's punch.
Bang!
The ground collapsed beneath them as if struck by a falling meteor. Massive cracks tore through the courtyard, stretching more than ten meters in every direction.
The entire manor trembled violently.
Shockwaves rolled outward like ocean tides crashing against the shore. Windows across the castle shattered instantly. Upstairs, Falcone and several others standing near the windows were blown backward by the force, tumbling across the floor.
Across the courtyard, gang members and attack dogs fighting Batman were thrown through the air like pieces of paper caught in a hurricane.
Seeing the disaster unfold, Batman reacted instantly. He fired his grappling hook toward a nearby street lamp and yanked himself behind a stone flowerbed just before the shockwave reached him.
Under the impact of the purple cosmic energy surge, Avery's body was launched backward through the air. His skin turned red as if boiling oil had been poured over him. He flew dozens of meters before crashing violently onto the ground.
Clutching his chest, he stared at the figure still standing calmly in the courtyard.
"This… this is impossible!"
....
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