Whitney stood in front of the Kent farmhouse with a cold expression, blocking the path of the two brothers as they returned home. His posture was rigid and confrontational, as if he had been waiting there for a long time just to intercept them. Clark stopped a few steps away and looked at him cautiously, his brows knitting together with suspicion.
"Whitney, what do you want?" Clark asked, his voice tense. Being confronted right outside his own home immediately put him on guard.
"It's pretty obvious," Victor said calmly beside him. His tone carried a trace of dry amusement as he looked Whitney up and down. "He can't beat you in the competition over Lana, so he's decided to try another method."
Clark blinked awkwardly at the blunt statement. Romance had always been something he handled with a mix of sincerity and confusion, and he had never been particularly good at recognizing rivalries like this. Whitney, on the other hand, had always been the confident, handsome football star with a history with Lana, so the tension between them had been inevitable.
"Clark, I warned you," Whitney said through clenched teeth as he pulled his hands out of his pockets. His fists tightened slowly, like a predator about to spring. "What happened today isn't my fault."
Victor ignored the threatening posture and studied him instead. "Whitney, where exactly did you get the courage to come stand in front of my house like this?"
The casual question seemed to irritate him even more.
In the past, Victor had knocked Whitney down in a bar fight along with several other football players without much effort. That encounter had left a lingering fear in Whitney's mind, even if he refused to admit it. But tonight, the arrogance in his expression made it clear he believed things had changed.
"I admit you can fight," Whitney sneered as he rolled up his sleeve. A faint fluorescent tattoo glowed on his wrist, something that had been hidden beneath his clothes before. "But now you can't even touch a single hair on my head."
Clark's eyes widened when he saw the glow.
"Whitney, even if you beat me up, it won't change anything," Clark said hurriedly. The radiation from the meteorite in Whitney's tattoo immediately weakened him, draining the strength from his Kryptonian body. His legs felt unsteady, but he still tried to reason with him. "Doing this is exactly the kind of thing Lana hates."
"I'll fight first," Whitney snapped. "We can talk afterward."
Clark's words only fueled his anger. Jealousy flashed across Whitney's face as he suddenly threw a punch at Clark.
Victor stepped forward and casually blocked the strike. The blow that could knock out an ordinary person felt less than a tickle to him.
Whitney laughed harshly.
"Let me show you what real power looks like," he said with contempt. "Watch carefully while I teach your annoying brother a lesson right in front of you."
He raised his fist again and lunged forward.
But instead of colliding with Victor, Whitney's body passed straight through him like a phantom and continued forward, aiming directly at Clark's head.
Victor frowned.
In his perception, Whitney's movements looked like a silent film slowed down to a tenth of its normal speed. Before the punch could land, Victor vanished in a blur and reappeared dozens of meters away with Clark.
Whitney's punch cut through empty air.
Both brothers had disappeared.
Whitney froze where he stood, his expression twisting in confusion as he stared around him.
"Did I just hallucinate?" he muttered under his breath.
Clark looked equally stunned once they stopped at a safe distance.
"You… how did you do that?" he asked Victor. Then his expression shifted with sudden worry. "Wait, Whitney passed right through you earlier. Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Victor replied simply.
He looked back toward Whitney with raised brows.
Another meteorite-powered ability user.
That wasn't particularly surprising in a town like this.
"If meteorites can give ordinary people powers," Victor thought quietly, "then it would be strange if Clark's romantic rival stayed completely normal."
Whitney's ability, however, clearly had some unique advantages.
Clark, still weak from the kryptonite radiation, was ignored completely as Whitney stared at Victor with disbelief.
"You've got powers too?" Whitney demanded angrily. "Do you have a tattoo like this?"
Victor glanced briefly at the glowing mark on Whitney's wrist.
"Don't lump me together with you meteorite mutants," he said flatly.
His eyes lingered on the fluorescent lines of the tattoo.
"Someone discovered the radiation properties of kryptonite and turned it into tattoo ink," Victor realized. "How many people have already been given these abilities?"
Whitney, furious at the calm analysis, charged like an enraged bull.
Victor casually kicked a small stone from the ground.
The rock shot forward like a bullet.
It passed straight through Whitney's body without causing the slightest damage.
Whitney laughed mockingly as he kept running.
"Useless! You can't hurt me!"
Victor disappeared again and appeared behind him in a blink, chopping down with his hand.
The strike passed through Whitney just as easily as the stone had.
Whitney turned around a second later and swung angrily, but Victor had already moved dozens of meters away.
Whitney's rage boiled over.
"Stop running around like a coward!" he shouted. "What's the point of hiding everywhere?"
Victor ignored him completely.
"So it's passive," he murmured thoughtfully.
Whitney's strength and speed were still within normal human limits, far weaker than many meteorite mutants Victor had encountered before.
But defensively…
Victor narrowed his eyes.
The ability allowed Whitney to become intangible, phasing through all matter and ignoring physical attacks entirely.
Even someone as powerful as Superman would struggle against something like that.
"Whitney, calm down," Clark said urgently.
Whitney ignored him and tried to attack Clark instead, but Clark retreated quickly. Even weakened by kryptonite, he wasn't foolish enough to stand still and get hit.
Whitney stared between the two brothers in disbelief.
"You both have powers?" he shouted. "Of course you do. You're brothers!"
Unable to touch either of them, his frustration erupted.
"If you're real men, stop hiding and fight me!"
Victor stepped forward calmly.
"If I don't hide," he said, "what exactly can you do?"
Whitney swung immediately.
His fist slammed into Victor's chest with nearly a thousand pounds of force.
The impact felt like hitting a steel wall.
Whitney staggered back, clutching his injured hand with a grimace.
"Why is your body so hard?" he hissed.
Victor looked down at his palm thoughtfully.
"When Whitney attacks someone," he analyzed silently, "his body should return to a physical state for that moment."
But earlier, when Victor tried to intercept the punch, the result had been different.
Whitney seemed to exist in a strange overlap between physical and intangible states.
"You can strike others," Victor said slowly, "but others can't strike you."
Whitney glared at him.
Victor sighed faintly.
"It's a very impressive ability," he admitted. "But unfortunately your strength and speed are too weak."
Whitney's face darkened.
"If I hadn't held back just now," he growled, "you'd already be on the ground screaming in pain."
Victor tilted his head.
"Oh? And how exactly were you planning to deal with me?"
Whitney's eyes flashed with cruelty.
"I'll reach right through your body and crush your heart!"
He threw another punch.
Victor dodged effortlessly.
"That's it?" he asked.
Clark stepped between them.
"That's enough," he said firmly. "Whitney, go home. This ends here."
Whitney's expression twisted.
"Too late," he sneered.
"Where do you think I got this tattoo?"
Clark's expression changed.
"The bank robbery… that was you?" Victor said quietly.
Whitney laughed bitterly.
"I was already about to win Lana back," he said, glaring at Clark. "And then you showed up and ruined everything!"
His anger burned uncontrollably.
"And now," he continued, voice dropping to something darker, "I'm wondering if your parents have powers like you do."
Clark's face went pale as Whitney suddenly turned toward the farmhouse.
"That's enough," Victor said.
His voice turned ice cold.
Purple light ignited in his eyes.
A beam of energy blasted into the ground at Whitney's feet.
The earth exploded violently, leaving a deep crater that swallowed Whitney's footing and sent him tumbling down.
Victor appeared at the edge of the pit instantly.
Whitney climbed up slowly from below, trying to hide his shock.
"You can shoot lasers from your eyes?" he said with forced laughter. "You're really full of surprises."
"But that won't stop me."
His body phased into the earth as he began walking forward underground like someone wading through water.
Victor watched calmly.
"Your power really is extraordinary," he said. "But there's something you overlooked."
Whitney scoffed.
"Oh? What's that?"
Victor's eyes remained emotionless.
"You still need to breathe."
Whitney froze.
Then he sneered.
"So what?" he said. "Are you going to trap me in a box and suffocate me?"
Victor said nothing.
Instead, he released a sweeping wave of scorching heat vision across the surrounding area.
The air evaporated rapidly.
Within seconds, the oxygen around them became dangerously thin.
Whitney stumbled out of the soil and immediately dropped to his knees.
He clawed at his throat, his face turning red as he gasped desperately.
"I… I can't breathe… help…"
Victor watched silently.
Clark rushed forward instinctively to help him, but the moment he approached Whitney the kryptonite tattoo weakened him again. His vision blurred and he collapsed from the sudden loss of strength.
Victor grabbed Clark and carried him away.
He glanced once at Whitney, who was crawling helplessly on the ground.
Reality and illusion overlapping.
Meteorite tattoos.
Victor turned away.
Whitney's vision darkened.
"I… don't want to die…"
His last sight was Victor's indifferent face.
Then his outstretched hand fell limp onto the ground.
Whitney stopped breathing.
…
"Why? Why did it turn out like this!"
The bright mirror smashed against the floor with a deafening crash. The antique copper frame shattered the ground before sinking into the floorboards.
Inside the study, Akins screamed hysterically, her voice hoarse with rage.
Despite the immense power flowing through her body, it couldn't compensate for what she had lost.
"This isn't right!"
Behind her desk, Luther stood silently like a devoted servant, watching her with unwavering devotion.
Even though her appearance had become grotesque—her skin rough, her body swollen, her voice harsh like a vulture's cry—his eyes were still filled with adoration.
Akins clutched the glowing stone tightly.
"Is this really the wish the stone granted me?" she muttered sharply. "No. I refuse to accept it. I'll make another wish."
Then she suddenly paused.
"Wait… something's wrong."
....
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