Chapter 72: Whitney's Abilities (Two-in-One)
Whitney's expression was cold as he blocked David and Clark's path.
"Whitney, what do you want?"
Blocked at his doorstep, Clark's expression was guarded and filled with suspicion.
"Isn't it obvious? He can't beat you in the war for Lana, so he's planning to use some other methods."
David didn't understand Clark's shy and honest nature, he barely understood romance. Whitney was a typical handsome blonde; he hadn't lost much in terms of appearance, and with their existing emotional foundation, it was quite a failure that he still couldn't compete with Clark.
"Clark, I warned you.
You can't blame me for what happens today."
Taking his hands out of his pockets, Whitney clenched his fists, making them crackle. He gritted his teeth coldly, like a beast about to attack.
"Whitney, what gives you the nerve to show up at my door like this?"
Ignoring Whitney's aggressive stance, David looked him up and down, his tone laced with confusion.
David had easily beaten him and several other football players at the bar before. After that, Whitney undeniably developed a slight fear of David, but that was in the past.
"I admit you're a good fighter, but you can't even touch a hair on my head now."
Whitney sneered, rolling up his sleeves to reveal a glowing tattoo hidden beneath his clothes.
Since joining that team, this tattoo had given him strength and abilities beyond those of ordinary people.
"Whitney, even if you beat me up, it won't change anything."
Under the unique radiation of the meteorite, Clark's Kryptonian super strength rapidly dissipated. His legs felt weak, and he felt uncomfortable as he tried to persuade Whitney.
"This way of solving things is exactly what Lana dislikes."
"I'll beat you first, then we'll talk."
Clark's words were like pouring fuel on the fire. A deep jealousy flashed in Whitney's eyes, and he threw a punch at Clark, who was inexplicably weak.
David shifted to block, intending to take the punch for Clark, which for him wouldn't even feel like a tickle.
"Let me show you my power.
See how I teach your disobedient brother a lesson right in front of you!"
Whitney smiled contemptuously, raising his fist. His body moved like an illusion, passing straight through David, and he punched towards Clark's head.
"Huh?"
David turned back with a frown. Whitney's rapid movements seemed to slow down more than tenfold in his eyes, like a silent film.
His body flickered and disappeared from his original spot, taking Clark with him twenty to thirty meters away in the blink of an eye.
Whitney's intended punch hit nothing. The two brothers had vanished before his eyes, appearing in the distance like ghosts.
His expression changed, and he took a deep breath, wondering if he was hallucinating.
"How... how did you do that?"
"Whitney, your body?..."
Away from the Kryptonite-infused tattoo, Clark had recovered some strength. He remembered the moment Whitney seemed to phase through his brother like a phantom and was equally shocked.
"Are you okay, David?" he quickly turned to ask David, who had been phased through, if he felt any discomfort.
"I'm fine."
David replied briefly, then looked at the stunned Whitney in the distance and raised an eyebrow.
Whitney had also gained abilities from the meteorite.
This wasn't particularly surprising.
"Everyone else in town could gain abilities from the meteorite. How could Clark, this rival of the Son of DC, be ordinary and not be caught up in fate?
And Whitney's abilities seem to have a unique advantage!"
"You have superpowers too? Do you have a tattoo as well?"
The weakened Clark was completely ignored. Whitney stared at David, a mixture of shock and anger on his face.
He remembered how this kid with special abilities had beaten him and his teammates before, causing him to lose face in front of everyone.
"I finally understand how you beat us back then!"
Whitney believed that some tattoo had given him his abilities.
"Don't think of me the same way as you meteorite freaks."
David glanced at the tattoo on Whitney's wrist, his eyes shifting slightly.
"Did someone discover the fluorescent effect of Kryptonite and ingeniously develop special tattoos based on it?"
How many people had been tattooed? Hadn't a whole bunch of new metahumans appeared in the town now?
"After I beat you down, let's see if you can still maintain that superior attitude!"
Whitney roared like an enraged bull and charged forward rapidly.
Whoosh!
David kicked a pebble at his feet.
The pebble shot out like a bullet on the road, but it passed straight through Whitney's body, causing no damage. Whitney sneered and continued to charge.
"It's useless, you can't hurt me at all!"
"Is it precise control of your ability to let the pebble pass through? Or do you not need control at all?"
His eyelids flickered, and he instantly appeared behind Whitney, slashing down with a hand blade.
Whitney had no way to react to the speed David used. The result was like slashing through a projection, completely insubstantial.
Whoosh!
A sharp sound.
After David finished his move, Whitney belatedly realized what had happened. He suddenly turned his head and saw David behind him. His eyes widened in anger as he threw a punch, only to miss again.
Effortlessly, David flickered dozens of meters away, observing Whitney at leisure.
Whitney felt like a monkey being toyed with, and he let out an angry growl.
"If you have the guts, stand still. What kind of skill is it to keep dodging?"
But David completely ignored him.
"It's not an ability that requires constant adaptation and maintenance, but a passive one?" David's eyes showed a trace of thought.
Whitney had gained an ability. Although he didn't have the speed and strength of previous ability users, he wasn't much stronger than an ordinary person.
"But in terms of defense, he's incredibly gifted!"
He could directly turn into an afterimage, passing through all solid objects, immune to physical attacks!
Even Superman would find it difficult to deal with.
David's eyes narrowed slightly.
"Whitney, calm down."
Seeing that David's speed far surpassed his own, Whitney swung his fist at Clark. But Clark wasn't foolish enough to stand still and wait to be hit. Especially since his arm was emitting a Kryptonite glow, he retreated dozens of meters.
"You have an ability too?
That's right, you're brothers!"
Shocked by Clark's spectral speed, Whitney looked at one, then the other. Facing the two brothers he couldn't even touch the hem of their clothes, he roared with wide eyes.
"If you have the guts, don't dodge! Fight me head-on like a man!"
Just now, he had said he wouldn't let David touch a single hair on his head. Now, he himself was like a clown, even more pathetic.
"If I don't dodge, what can you do?"
With a guess about Whitney's ability, David, his expressionless face, flickered in front of Whitney.
Bang!
Whitney threw a punch that hit David's chest fiercely. With a formidable punching power of nearly nine hundred pounds, it didn't even tickle. It felt like hitting a steel plate. He clutched his aching hand and retreated: "Why is your body so hard? My hand!"
Ignoring Whitney's groan, David frowned and looked at his palm.
"I thought Whitney's ability would at least restore his hand to its solid form when he attacked someone."
Within the millisecond of being hit by the painless attack on his chest, he tried to swat away, but his hand passed through.
However, the speed was too great, and Whitney didn't notice at all.
"Even when attacking others, his body is still an afterimage?"
He can hit others, but others can't hit him? Is his body in a superimposed state between solid and ethereal?
"Your ability is quite good, but unfortunately, your strength and speed are too weak."
Looking up, David exclaimed with a hint of surprise.
With such an ability, he was almost invincible. If he had just a little super strength and speed, even a fully grown Clark would find him very troublesome.
"If I hadn't held back just now, you would already be lying on the ground in unbearable pain, instead of still having the energy to mock me here."
With a burning pain, Whitney gritted his teeth and growled, covering his bruised hand.
He shouldn't have held back; he should have taught this arrogant guy a lesson he'd never forget!
"Oh? How are you going to deal with me?"
David asked, wanting to hear him out.
Unlike Clark, he didn't have the weakness of Kryptonite. Facing Whitney, he could only stand far away and not dare to get close.
"I'll pass directly through your flesh and bone and punch your heart!"
Whitney didn't believe that David could still mock him so calmly after taking a heavy punch to his fragile organs and intestines.
"You'll be kneeling on the ground, knowing what hellish pain is!"
He said, throwing another punch.
"That's it?"
David had expected some other ability. He dodged easily.
With his physical strength, even if his fragile internal organs were hit by a missile, it wouldn't be a problem. But he wasn't interested in standing still and taking another attack from Whitney, whose abilities he'd figured out.
"Go home, Whitney."
Clark flashed closer, grabbing David and standing between them, his expression serious as he persuaded Whitney to go home.
"This matter ends here. You were just acting out of impulse, don't go down the path of crime."
He knew his brother's personality well. David could brush off the previous attack, but that punch aimed directly at his internal organs had definitely struck a nerve.
"You're already too late."
Whitney recalled the incident, a cold, angry smile appearing on his face.
"What do you think this tattoo is from?"
"What do you mean?" Clark's expression changed. Had Whitney already used this ability to do something bad?
"A bank robbery? Was it you and others?"
David remembered the bank heist from the noon news. The vault door and the ground were undamaged, but the jewels and gold bars were gone.
"I was almost there with Lana changing her mind, and it's all your fault!"
Ignoring their questions, Whitney threw a punch at Clark again.
In just a few days of extra training with the football team, Clark had stolen Lana away from him. When he went to find Lana again, she had gently said not to bother her anymore.
"She doesn't want others to misunderstand that we're still together.
Tell me who that 'other person' is, Clark!"
But they had moved dozens of feet away in unison. Feeling humiliated, as if he'd been toyed with, Whitney clenched his fists, his eyes burning with rage.
It was obvious who it was. Afterwards, he went drinking at a bar and met a group of people by chance. Someone there had seen his baseball games and thought he was a strong prospect, pulling him into their team.
"All it takes is mixing meteorite solution with a bit of tattoo ink, and people can gain phasing abilities, allowing them to enter and exit bank vaults as if they were nothing.
But I never expected that I and others could so easily toy with the police, and now I can't even teach you a simple lesson."
As he vented his immense resentment, a trace of ferocity gradually appeared in Whitney's eyes.
"Clark, David, I wonder if your parents have abilities like yours!"
He thought of a way to force them to come closer.
"Enough, stop this."
Watching Whitney turn and walk towards the farmhouse, Clark's face was shocked. He flashed in front of Whitney, blocking his path, and said in a low voice, "You've changed, Whitney!"
He couldn't understand. Although they had always been rivals for Lana, the old Whitney was just a bit arrogant, rude, and proud, but he would never have done something like this.
"Jealousy is one of humanity's original sins. It's hard to be good..."
Not interested in how Whitney had become this way, David's voice turned cold when he heard Whitney intended to harm his parents, and his eyes lit up with a purple glow. "It's easy to turn bad!"
*BANG!*
A purple energy beam shot past Whitney's legs, hitting the ground at his feet. Like a missile strike, dirt flew, and a deep crater over two meters high suddenly appeared. Whitney wasn't injured, but the ground beneath him vanished, and he fell in.
"You can actually shoot lasers from your eyes like a robot. David, you've opened my eyes."
David flashed to the edge of the crater. Whitney stood up from the bottom, his eyelids twitching, unable to hide his shock as he looked up at David.
"But you think this can stop me?"
Clenching his fist, Whitney smugly used his phased body to walk into the soil, as if crossing a river and stepping on the riverbed, he walked step by step.
"The power to collapse tall buildings can't even scratch you. Your ability is very strange, phasing."
Seeing this, David's face showed no emotion as he slowly said, "I just wonder if you've noticed, you're still breathing."
Breathing is such a natural thing that many people overlook it subconsciously, but David hadn't. Whitney's human nature hadn't fundamentally changed; he couldn't fly, couldn't counteract gravity, and the most fatal point—he needed to breathe!
*Snap!*
Whitney's steps faltered. He looked at David's expressionless face, his heart sinking with a bad premonition, but he sneered.
"So what? Can you trap me in a box and suffocate me?"
"What can possibly contain me?"
He paused, his tone laced with mockery, and lunged forward, intending to plunge his hands into David's chest and seize his heart, but as expected, he missed.
"Or do you want to suck all the air out of the room in one go?"
Everyone needs to breathe; this hardly counts as a weakness.
"I don't have that ability."
David flashed several meters away, controlling cosmic energy to fire high-temperature rays, sweeping the surroundings.
Hiss!
"Mmm..."
The intense heat vaporized the air within dozens of meters, thinning it. Whitney, having just 'emerged' from the ground, couldn't breathe properly after only a few steps. He collapsed, clutching his throat as if poisoned, his face turning a deep red.
"But I have another way to achieve the same effect." He paused, then continued calmly.
"I... I can't breathe, help... help me!"
Scrambling on the ground, desperately trying to escape the thin air, Whitney's face turned blue and purple. His expression pleaded, and the fear of death surged over him like a tide. He trembled involuntarily, reaching out a hand to the two of them with great effort.
"David?"
Almost accustomed to his brother's cruel methods, Clark rushed forward, attempting to help Whitney, who was suffocating.
However, as soon as he approached Whitney, the Kryptonite solution tattoo repelled him, reverting him to a normal human, or even less than that. Instead, he began to lose consciousness due to weakness and oxygen deprivation.
A few seconds later, David turned and carried the unconscious Clark away. As for the near-dead Whitney, he glanced at the tattoo on his wrist, then indifferently averted his gaze.
"Amalgamation of reality, tattoos..."
"I... I don't want to die."
His vision darkened, and under the pain of suffocation, Whitney's consciousness gradually blurred. His last sight was David's cold face.
He suddenly regretted deeply that he shouldn't have come to discipline the two brothers, but unfortunately, it was too late.
Bang.
The hand extended in surrender and plea fell limply to the ground. Whitney gradually stopped breathing.
...
"Why, why is this happening!"
The bright mirror was smashed to the ground with great force. The antique bronze mirror shattered the floor, disappearing deep into the ground.
Behind the desk, Agnes roared like a shrew, her voice hoarse and extremely unpleasant.
Even though she now possessed immense strength, incredible speed, and a body so durable that steel blades and guns were like toys, making her seem like a true deity, it couldn't compensate for what she had lost.
"This is completely wrong!"
In the study, decorated in an ancient and elegant style, Luthor stood by her side like a devoted servant, his love deeper than the ocean. It was as if he wouldn't hesitate to offer his heart if Agnes asked, even now.
Even though Agnes's face was now incredibly ugly, her body bloated, her skin rough like sandpaper, and her voice as unpleasant as a vulture's screech, like a monster that could make children cry.
She tightly gripped the stone in her hand, her eyes filled with urgency.
"Is this the wish the Wishing Stone granted me?
No, I can't accept this. I want to make another wish!"
"Wait, no."
Agnes suddenly thought of something.
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