"He… he's in that room."
Carmine Falcone pointed toward another building in the manor grounds, his face stiff with tension.
The room he indicated had originally been his own bedroom. Now the window had been blasted apart, smoke drifting out into the night as if it had just been attacked.
Falcone couldn't understand what had happened to the world lately. For decades his manor had been a place that made grown men tremble in fear. Now powerful intruders seemed to treat it like a public amusement park.
One monster after another was simply walking in.
"Batman?"
Victor Kent narrowed his eyes slightly when he saw the gliding figure descending outside.
But almost immediately his attention shifted elsewhere.
Standing beside the shattered window above was another figure. The young man's upper body was bare, his expression dark and irritated as he waved away the choking smoke drifting around him. His eyes followed the escaping glider below with cold contempt, like a predator watching an insect that had nowhere to run.
Avery.
Victor glanced briefly back at Falcone.
It was obvious what had happened. Batman must have come looking for Falcone, but instead he had stumbled into something far worse.
From Bruce Wayne's perspective, the situation had unfolded very differently.
When he broke into Falcone's manor earlier that night, he expected to confront an aging crime boss surrounded by armed thugs. What he found instead was a young man whose skin even a batarang couldn't pierce.
Whoosh!
Wind roared past Bruce's ears as he glided through the air. His electrically charged cape had stiffened into bat-like wings, allowing him to descend across the courtyard.
Inside his mask, Bruce's expression was grim.
Gotham was overflowing with criminals, gangs, and corrupt officials. Bruce had decided to begin his war by targeting several of the city's most notorious figures. Falcone was at the top of that list.
His plan had been simple.
Break into the manor, beat Falcone unconscious, and drag him out as a warning to the entire underworld. Bruce had even imagined tying the crime boss to a spotlight high above the city so that every criminal in Gotham would see the consequences.
But the moment Bruce entered Falcone's bedroom, everything changed.
The young man inside moved faster than he could see.
Bruce barely had time to open his mouth before the stranger appeared in front of him and lifted him off the ground with one hand around his throat. The grip was unbelievably strong, easily surpassing the strength of an elephant.
Bruce had instinctively slashed at the man's neck with a knife hidden in his glove.
The blade struck skin that felt like dense rubber. The recoil nearly numbed his hand.
Without hesitation Bruce fired the tear-gas launcher from his utility belt directly into the man's face. Smoke exploded outward, filling the room instantly.
Then Bruce jumped through the window to escape.
As he fell, he threw a magnetic batarang behind him. The device contained a small explosive charge strong enough to blast open reinforced doors.
It detonated against the young man's body.
And did absolutely nothing.
Now, gliding toward the ground below, Bruce scanned the courtyard desperately for any sign of injury on the attacker.
There was none.
Then suddenly—
The figure vanished.
Bruce's heart tightened.
One moment the young man had been standing above the broken window. The next moment he simply disappeared, as if a frame had been removed from reality.
"Where did he go?"
Bruce landed on the ground and rolled to absorb the impact. His muscles tensed immediately as he prepared to retreat.
He still had crucial information to uncover tonight, including the identity of that terrifying stranger.
But before he could move—
A figure appeared directly in front of him like a ghost.
A hand clamped around his throat and lifted him into the air.
Avery's voice carried open disdain.
"Where do you think you're running, freak?"
The grip tightened slowly.
Bruce's lungs burned as his face flushed red from lack of air. He reached toward his belt, but Avery moved even faster.
The tear-gas launcher was ripped away instantly.
Avery held Bruce suspended with one hand while examining the device curiously with the other. He turned it over like a toy before grinning mockingly.
"You're planning to use the same trick twice?"
Bruce's vision began to blur.
Bang!
A heavy impact echoed across the courtyard.
Both men turned instinctively.
A figure had just dropped from the fifth floor of the building above without slowing down at all. The stone pavement cracked beneath the impact, gravel scattering outward as dust billowed into the air.
Avery frowned.
"How?"
Since gaining his powers, smoke could no longer obscure his vision.
Through the drifting dust he saw a tall figure standing upright.
The man's physique was lean and perfectly balanced, muscles defined beneath his clothing. Despite falling from such height, he looked completely unharmed.
Searchlights mounted on the manor's rooftops suddenly flickered on after the earlier explosions. The bright beams illuminated the courtyard as if it were daylight.
The silhouette standing inside the smoke looked strangely familiar to Bruce.
"Who are you?" Bruce asked hoarsely.
As the dust cleared, Victor's face appeared.
Bruce's eyes widened slightly.
"So it's you."
Apparently Gotham had begun attracting far too many predators.
Avery and Victor were classmates from the same school. Avery should have recognized him immediately, yet the Victor standing there now looked completely different.
His presence felt heavier. Stronger.
"How did you do that?" Avery demanded.
His face darkened as he threw Bruce aside casually.
Bruce slammed into the edge of a flowerbed.
"My back…" he groaned, forcing himself upright while clutching the pain in his spine.
Avery didn't even look at him again.
"Capture him," Avery ordered the gang members gathering nearby.
The criminals rushed forward to surround Batman while Avery kept his attention fixed entirely on Victor.
"You have abilities just like mine," Avery said slowly. "Where did they come from?"
Victor let out a cold laugh.
"They didn't come from lightning."
Avery froze.
"How do you know that?"
Something about this stranger felt strangely familiar. Avery studied him carefully, unease creeping into his chest.
The lightning strike was his greatest secret.
How could this man know about it?
Unless—
Was he not the only person who had gained powers that way?
Nearby, chaos erupted.
Growling guard dogs lunged forward while armed gang members swarmed toward Batman. Despite his injuries, Bruce moved quickly through the attackers, dodging strikes and countering with brutal efficiency.
The smell of gunpowder and sweat filled the air.
For Bruce, this chaotic street-level fight felt almost comforting.
This was the Gotham he understood.
The two monsters standing in the courtyard, however, looked like they belonged to another world entirely.
"You stole someone else's power and came here to play king," Victor said coldly.
His gaze swept across the manor grounds.
Avery lived in a private castle, surrounded by loyal criminals and living a life of luxury.
Victor's voice carried the chill of a winter storm.
"I had to chase you all the way here."
If Avery's ability had not still been useful, Victor might have simply ended everything right here.
Crack!
Metal screamed as it tore free.
"What are you talking about?" Avery snapped.
Anger surged through him. With a violent motion he ripped an entire streetlamp from the ground and hurled it toward Victor.
"This power belongs to me!"
The metal pole flew through the air with explosive speed, its movement producing a sonic boom.
Victor didn't move.
Sss—
Two narrow beams of blazing energy shot from his eyes.
The streetlamp melted instantly, half of it dissolving into molten metal before reaching him. The remaining section whirled past his body and smashed into the castle wall behind him.
Victor stood completely still.
As if a gentle breeze had passed him.
Then his eyes flashed again.
A thicker beam of scorching energy erupted forward, burning the air itself as it shot toward Avery.
The beam was several times wider than before, radiating terrifying heat.
Buzz!
Avery's face changed dramatically.
He crossed his arms in front of his face just as the blast struck him.
The force pushed him backward across the ground like a bulldozer, his feet carving deep trenches in the stone.
Ever since gaining his powers, Avery had believed nothing on Earth could harm him except meteorites.
Now he realized he had been wrong.
The air around him warped under the intense heat. Within seconds the burning pain in his arms became unbearable.
"AHHH!"
The sensation felt like molten sparks pouring onto his skin.
Avery twisted away and retreated instantly, escaping the beam's path.
For the first time since gaining his powers, fear touched his mind.
This man could actually hurt him.
But then Avery noticed something.
Victor's head had not turned to follow him quickly enough.
A slow reaction.
Avery suddenly stopped several dozen meters away and looked back with a ferocious grin.
"You're strong," he said. "But not strong enough."
"I've found your weakness."
Victor tilted his head slightly.
"Oh?"
"And what weakness is that?"
Avery's smile widened.
"You're too slow."
Time seemed to stretch.
Avery activated his extreme speed.
The wind itself slowed to a crawl around him. In less than one-hundredth of the time it would take an ordinary person to blink, Avery crossed the distance between them.
His fist shot forward toward Victor's face.
"Speed is power!"
Although Avery already possessed tremendous strength, a punch delivered at dozens of times the speed of sound was his most devastating attack.
He was confident the strike could tear through meters of solid steel.
The compressed air around the punch formed rolling white shockwaves.
Victor raised his fist calmly.
Cosmic energy surged through his arm.
Bang!
The collision shook the entire manor.
The ground collapsed beneath them as if struck by a meteorite. Cracks spread across the courtyard for more than ten meters.
The shockwave blasted outward like a raging storm.
Windows shattered across several buildings. Inside the castle above, Falcone and his men were thrown backward violently by the impact.
Throughout the courtyard, gang members and guard dogs were blown away like weightless scraps of paper.
Batman reacted instantly.
He fired a grappling hook into a nearby streetlamp and swung himself behind a flowerbed just as the violent energy wave passed overhead.
Even so, the blast nearly tore him from his grip.
At the center of the collision, Avery was launched backward.
His entire body flushed red as if scalded by boiling oil.
He flew dozens of meters through the air before crashing heavily to the ground. Clutching his chest, he stared at Victor in disbelief.
"This is impossible!"
....
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