The gains from getting himself smashed into a pile of broken bones were honestly incredible. Even as Ian bared his teeth in pain, he felt deeply comforted inside. Lying on the ground, he activated Regenerative Surge.
This skill really was as useful as ever. In an instant, a scorching force pumped from his heart through all four limbs and every part of his body. His broken bones gave off a faint series of cracking sounds.
The snapped blood vessels and fractured bones reconnected like sprouting vines.
It was as if countless healing factors were moving through his marrow, piecing every fragment back together. Muscle fibers writhed like living things, and torn tendons were woven and stitched back into place by invisible hands.
Other than feeling hungrier and hungrier, Ian only felt that he had returned to peak condition. If there had not been so many people in the hospital, he would have gone right back upstairs and jumped a few more times.
A few more rounds of that and his Berserker level would shoot right up.
"I'm telling you, the DC Universe really needs its own Deadpool!"
Ian became even more obsessed with getting a long-term blessing. Or curse. He just did not know what kind of price it would take to buy that kind of happiness.
"I'm all lively again. Heh."
Very soon,
Ian was springing back to his feet like nothing had happened. Under the shocked cries of the surrounding onlookers, his newly healed legs kicked into motion like a V8 engine and shot him straight toward the hospital entrance.
There was no helping it.
He had to run.
Ian knew himself well. This was not even a joke. He understood perfectly clearly that if the doctors caught him, then as far as the psychiatric evaluation department was concerned, he was probably, maybe, almost definitely not getting through in one piece.
"It's all because I got contaminated by that evil spirit!"
Ian was starving.
He glanced around.
There was still time.
Even though he had paused midway to stuff two fingerprint-covered dollars into a kid's hand and snatch the kid's chocolate, by the time the doctors and nurses came down in the elevator, they still had not even caught a whiff of him.
By the time the group rushed out of the building,
Ian had already vanished onto the street outside the hospital.
Fast as lightning.
That was the only way to describe his speed.
"Where are the organs... I mean, where did that boy go?"
The doctors and nurses stared at the flattened landscaping outside, their ears filled with people discussing the miracle they had just witnessed.
"That kid twitched on the ground a few times, then got back up like a zombie and just ran off! Maybe the apocalypse is really coming, and he already turned into some kind of original zombie!"
That came from a gamer.
"He fell from the sixth floor! I saw him fall from the sixth floor with my own eyes! I don't know who pushed him, but thank God! A miracle saved that poor child!"
There was even a man dressed like a priest trying to turn it into an opportunity for preaching.
"Doctor, that big brother wouldn't happen to be some secret bio-engineered super soldier you made, would he? He stole my chocolate, but he actually paid me for it! I was so moved I didn't even dare move!"
The little boy speaking next was still clutching the two dollars in his hand, suspicious that they might be fake.
"??????"
What exactly was going on?
The doctors and nurses could maybe tell what a miracle looked like now, but medicine? Where was the medicine in any of this?
The doctors and nurses looked at one another in stunned silence.
Then, very soon,
in the middle of all that confusion and absurdity, they saw the familiar boy come running back.
"He's really alive!"
The nurses and doctors were all stunned.
They stood there frozen,
watching Ian, who had survived like a miracle, no, to be precise, had come back from the dead, run straight past them carrying a hammer and rush back into the hospital.
He looked very busy, as if he had something urgent to do.
"Is he going back in to get revenge on whoever pushed him?"
Everyone wanted to follow and see what would happen. Someone voiced the guess aloud. But none of the doctors or nurses dared say a word, because they were afraid that if they told the truth that Ian had jumped on his own, nobody would believe them.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
The sound of something being smashed over and over echoed out.
Before the doctors and nurses, whose brains had practically shut down, could figure out what was happening, Ian came running back out again in tattered clothes, smashing a pile of surveillance hard drives with the hammer as he went.
Security guards were chasing after him.
Pop pop pop.
Even though Ian was not some special limited-edition skin, armed security guards really did draw guns, and they really did fire. But Ian dodged and twisted through it all like a slippery eel, and his speed did not slow in the slightest.
"Superboy! He has to be a metahuman!"
"My God, what am I looking at?!"
"Father, please take your hand off my son's butt first!"
...
While everyone stood there dumbfounded, Ian had already burst out through the hospital doors again, leaving the doctors and nurses staring after him in total disbelief.
After a long while,
"He came back to destroy the evidence. That kid is thorough. Really thorough!"
Someone finally voiced the realization from the bottom of their heart. Only then did everyone understand why Ian had returned.
That was right.
Ian had come back specifically to erase the surveillance footage he had left behind there. Honestly, even if he did get exposed as being unusual, being dragged into a lab for experiments was probably not the kind of fate that was waiting for him anyway.
After all, his father was Superman.
If Superman was not being nerfed, then he was the god of the human world. And if he was being nerfed, then there was no point talking about it.
On his mother's side, he also had a general for a grandfather, which more or less qualified as being as American as it got.
Of course, with World Recognition hanging over his head like a sword, nothing could ever be taken for granted. If there was a place where he needed to be cautious, then cautious he had to be. That was why Ian had come back after buying the hammer.
"That awful woman. That fake Tessa. She really screwed me over."
Ian knew exactly who should be paying for today's mess. Of course, that was only something he dared think in his head.
Settle accounts with that woman?
Even a Berserker was not supposed to throw his life away for free.
Ian knew exactly how much or how little he was capable of. All he could do was make sure Metropolis General Hospital would not come after him later demanding compensation for all the property damage.
...
Time passed.
By afternoon,
inside a certain apartment building,
Kara was coming home with a paper bag in her hand, enjoying one of her rare days off. Inside the bag was exactly what she had been craving all day: fried chicken and fries.
"Catching up on a show while eating juicy fried chicken and fries. Now this is what a holiday should feel like."
Kara was in a fairly good mood thanks to her day off.
Unfortunately,
that good mood lasted only until she stepped into the apartment lobby.
The moment she entered, a boy with holes in his clothes and dead leaves stuck in his hair came dashing out from the stairwell and immediately tried to snatch the paper bag of food out of her hands.
"Don't think being a girl makes me easy to bully. Trying to rob me in broad daylight?"
Kara dodged the sneak attack and shot him a sharp glare.
Faced with a food bandit, she might have to admit that the boy was fast, but Kara was much faster. Every movement he made looked like slow motion to her.
"I'm seriously starving. If those hospital security geezers hadn't blasted away my funds, I definitely would've supported myself honestly."
The boy held out his pocket, showing the tears and holes in it.
Then he immediately reached for the food again.
"Hospital security attacked you?"
Kara dodged him again. At first she had thought she had run into some handsome teenage delinquent and was even considering going easy on him because of how good-looking he was.
However,
"Aunt Kara, just let me have one bite. Just one."
The moment the boy spoke, Kara, who privately considered herself the second strongest person on Earth, froze on the spot as if she had taken a direct critical hit.
Instant defeat.
"Who's your Aunt Kara?!"
Dazed, Kara felt her head buzzing.
And with that, Ian seized the opening and successfully stole the food from her hands. The facts proved that a Kryptonian super-brain was still no match for Ian's brain running a little bit.
Of course,
even Ian's wisdom had its natural enemy.
"Ugh, ugh. Penguin Cola? Gotham wastewater!"
He was terrified that if he drank Gotham's water, he would become one of Gotham's ghosts. Who knew whether something like Joker toxin existed or not?
(End of Chapter)
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