American comic book: My Father is Superman, am I just an NPC?

Chapter 261 When you are away from home, your identity is given by yourself!

Suburbs.

A cool night breeze blew, and the distant crater glowed faintly red, as if some unspeakable rage was brewing deep within the earth. The Flash, Barry Allen, stood on the edge of a scorched earth, panting, his suit still stained with ash from the blow Doomsday had thrown him. He had just arrived from Central City—or rather, from the absurd unfolding of Reverse-Flash.

Standing beside him at this moment was the legendary Amazon warrior, Olympian demigod, and a founding member of the Justice League—Diana Prince.

That is, the Wonder Woman known to the world.

Wonder Woman Diana stared intently at the three-headed, six-armed figure in the distance and voiced her suspicions, which were based on "divine perception" but were actually a mental breakdown.

"Such chaos, such belligerence, treating order and life as mere playthings... This aura is familiar to me. He could very well be Ares, the ancient Olympian god who instigated war and chaos!"

Wonder Woman's voice was firm and resolute, carrying a sense of certainty.

“Ares?” Upon hearing this, Barry Allen, the Flash, nearly choked on his own saliva. He turned his head and looked at Diana with the eyes of someone looking at a rare animal, his tone filled with disbelief. “Madam, are you…are you alright? Did you just come from Gotham Arkham?”

"Ares is a character from Greek mythology! That's mythology! A story!" Clearly, the Flash suspects that Wonder Woman isn't quite right in the head and might have some mental issues.

He really is somewhat like a miracle doctor.

The judgment was truly accurate.

In reality, very few heroes in the Justice League aren't mentally ill. Of course, they won't admit it. For example, upon hearing this, Diana's striking eyebrows shot up, clearly displeased with Barry's questioning: "Mortal, are you questioning the judgment of an Amazonian princess?"

"I am the daughter of Zeus, from Paradise Island! Mythology is the history of my civilization!" Normally, Wonder Woman doesn't like to talk about her background. Mainly, it was the Flash's suspicious look that was truly infuriating. How could Wonder Woman not know what Arkham was?
These past few days, she's been battling with Gotham's Batman over evidence of Lex Luthor's crimes against humanity. At a recent party, Batman, posing as a billionaire, stole a confidential document from Luthor, which Wonder Woman, attending the party as a socialite, then conveniently acquired after Batman left.

The two sides made initial contact and there were some clashes and frictions.

"Zeus's daughter?! Wait, you're saying you're a child of a god?" The Flash, Barry Allen, widened his eyes, feeling that the amount of information he received today was more surreal than all the information he had received in the past year combined.

He sized up Diana. Although she was simply beautiful, her armor, the Lasso of Truth, and the powerful aura she exuded were indeed somewhat unusual.

If there are unreasonable carbon-based life forms like Superman in the world, then perhaps the powerful gods in ancient myths are also carbon-based life forms like Superman?

The Flash began to have some faith in his heart.

"Yes, that's right."

Wonder Woman gave a definitive response.

"And you, who are you?"

Wonder Woman vividly remembered the Flash's speed; his speed was so incredible that even her own eyesight couldn't keep up with it, which truly struck her as unbelievable.

There are so many superhuman beings in the world.

"Me? I'm The Flash..." After hesitating for a moment, The Flash first asked his partner to help him search for information about the woman in front of him.

Then, he decided to engage in less suspicious communication with the other superhumans, since they might have to cooperate later, and it would always be good to get to know each other better.

"I was originally an ordinary person, but one day..." Of course, the Flash was still cautious and did not reveal his real name.

He simply told his story honestly.

Wonder Woman was speechless.

"You're saying... your speed isn't a gift from the gods? A single bolt of lightning can create a mortal faster than Hermes?" Wonder Woman was astonished by the Flash's creation.

Just like the Flash being astonished to encounter a demigod. The two, one from a mythical island isolated from the world, and the other from a modern city that believes in science, are like two "pure" college students who have accidentally discovered a new continent, beginning a frank exchange that transcends cultural barriers.

“It’s not ordinary lightning,” Barry tried to explain, but when it came to the nature of the Speed ​​Force, he himself only had a superficial understanding of it.

"It's... a cosmic force called the 'Speed ​​Force.' The particle accelerator explosion, combined with lightning and some... well, a unique constitution, connected me to it."

Barry tried his best to make his points understandable.

only.

He underestimated the Wild Princess's level of education. Of course, this is not to say that Wonder Woman is uneducated; she is indeed very educated. It's just that there is a significant difference between science and humanities students.

As someone with magical abilities, Wonder Woman is certainly not a science student.

"Speed ​​Force? What is that? Is it that powerful?" Diana pondered this unfamiliar term, which was clearly not within the Olympian divine power system.

"So... you suspect that the guy with three heads and six arms, who is most likely named Ian, is actually Ares, the God of War?" Barry didn't want to continue talking about his origins.

He steered the conversation back on track, his tone filled with disbelief, "That...the Greek god of war? The god of slaughter? The one in armor riding a warhorse?"

Diana nodded, her expression serious: "His words and actions, his fanaticism for war, even that unsettling sense of oppression... are exactly like the Ares I remember."

She is still having an episode.

Fortunately, the Flash was still relatively normal.

"But if what you're saying is true, as a war god, to gain greater power, he would definitely have to start a war, but he doesn't seem like he wants to start a war."

"Moreover, I have very definite information that that person comes from the future, and is a future speedster." Compared to Diana's guess based solely on a woman's intuition without any evidence, the Flash is naturally more willing to believe the information his future self is giving him, even though he doesn't know whether his future self wants Ian to die in the past or not.

"Forehead……"

Diana was stumped by the Flash's question.

She also felt somewhat conflicted.

The figure was fighting another monster that looked even more evil. If it really was Ares, he should have wanted to let this monster cause even more chaos.

But if that figure is a good guy, what good guy would first knock down Superman, the embodiment of justice, and then hold him like a toy and pose him in various ways?
Diana was caught in a mental dilemma.

And beside her.

The Flash, on the other hand, was thinking outside the box.

He realized that Ian was a speedster from the future who called himself the God of Speed, and that there seemed to be a similar being in the civilization where Wonder Woman existed.

"Hermes, the ancient god you mentioned who couldn't run as fast as me, was he one of the earliest speedsters?" The Flash attempted to explain the myth with science.

"I do not know."

Diana gave a truthful response.

"It's very possible. For speedsters, time isn't a linear structure. If someone could travel from the future back to our time and call themselves the God of Speed."

"Then it's also possible that there are speedsters who could run from the future or the present to the past and become the fastest god in a certain pantheon!"

The more Barry thought about it, the more reasonable it seemed. Just as he began to let his mind wander and try to connect mythology with science, the battle between Ian and Doomsday in the distance entered a new phase.

Under Ian's deliberate "balanced" feeding, Doomsday evolved at an astonishing speed, like a super fruit being prematurely ripened.

Its size has become even larger, and its body is covered with extremely thick and ferocious armor that looks like a mixture of biological and mineral materials. Sharp bone blades protrude from its joints, and even terrifying bony wings made of energy and bone extend from its back, like the wings of a demon.

At this moment, Doomsday is no longer the same as it was at the beginning. The energy fluctuations emanating from it made Barry and Diana, who were several kilometers away, feel uneasy.

Ian, however, showed no concern about this.

Instead, all three heads revealed expressions of satisfaction, as if they thought the boy was teachable. Gray-white lightning surged around him as he spoke in a haughty tone, as if he were a tyrant of the highest heavens. "An ant gazing at the sky, how can it know the vastness of the universe? A mayfly trying to shake a tree, how can it understand the infinity of time and space? His evolution is all under my control; all the changes are just illusions."

This was to appease the increasingly uneasy Superman.

However, the reassurance effect was not very good.

On the contrary, it had a very provocative effect on Doomsday.

Although Doomsday cannot speak, its intelligence, based on its destructive instincts and desire for evolution, is fully capable of understanding the undisguised contempt and mockery in Ian's words.

Its dark blue body began to glow with an abnormal red light due to extreme rage, and energy surged wildly within it, like a volcano about to erupt!

"Roar--!!!"

The ultimate red-hot doomsday roared, tearing at the ears. It flapped its tattered energy wings, its massive body hurtling towards Ian like a meteor at unprecedented speed! Dark red destructive energy condensed at its fist, determined to blast this being that had repeatedly humiliated it into elementary particles!
"Ha, at the pinnacle of heroism, reigning supreme in the world, Ian came first... You didn't hear anything." Ian almost let slip, and hurriedly shook Superman's head vigorously in hopes of bringing up this memory.

"What I mean is, first there was me, the God of Speed, and then there was the heavens." Ian changed his tune after seeing Superman shaken by his 50,000-second speed, rolling his eyes and blowing bubbles.

An attempt to reintroduce Superman with the correct memories.

Five of his six arms began forming various complex hand seals, drawing upon the gray-white lightning around him to construct a defense. The remaining arm, however, was still holding Superman by the back of the neck.

That's why they say Ian is the king of creative ideas in Metropolis.

He was actually using the Speed ​​Force as a Restraining Force, which did slow Doomsday down considerably, but since it wasn't a genuine Restraining Force, it couldn't truly stop Doomsday.

"Roar!"

Doomsday was shining brightly.

Despite the Speed ​​Force's entanglement, he broke free from its blockade, his eyes fixed on the pure obsession of smashing Ian. Just as Doomsday's massive punch was about to land, Ian, for some unknown reason—perhaps nervous because he'd just let something slip—wanted to once again clear Superman's head of the words he shouldn't have heard.

He instinctively swung the Superman figure he was holding like a human weapon at Doomsday!
“???!!!!!!”

Superman has just recovered from his shock.

I feel like I'd rather not have recovered at all.

He didn't even have time to curse.

"boom--!!!"

There was a muffled sound.

Superman's head made intimate contact with Doomsday's bio-armored fist. Doomsday's charge was slightly halted, while Superman felt a sudden darkness before his eyes, as if a planet had hit him on the head, and a large, visible bump instantly swelled up on his forehead!

Well, these days, young superheroes are physically weak.

"Uh...sorry, sorry!" Ian quickly steadied the Superman who was seeing stars, and the middle head showed a slightly apologetic expression.

"It was subconscious, purely an instinctive reaction! You don't know, the weapons I used to use really did look almost exactly like yours." Ian was absolutely telling the truth.

However, this statement was actually harder for Clark to believe than a lie.

Whose weapon looks just like Superman's?!

Why do I feel like this weird thing does this... with a kind of natural ease and practiced skill? Is it just a habit of using other people as weapons?!

"..." High in the sky, Superman, with a huge bump on his head and his appearance completely ruined, looked at Doomsday, who had been temporarily knocked back by his own head and fell into the crater of a volcano below that was beginning to erupt due to the aftershocks of the battle. He no longer wanted to comment on Ian's outrageous behavior.

"You're waiting for it to get stronger, why?" Superman, rubbing the bump on his forehead and fighting off the dizziness, asked again in a deep voice. He had to figure out what this mysterious man was thinking.

"Because masters are lonely?"

Ian shook the arm he had just used to swing Superman, as if trying to relieve a non-existent soreness. Seeing that Superman didn't believe him at all, he could only respond honestly once again.

"As I said before, I did this to see if I could deceive history and see if I could come up with something new in the established history that 'Doomsday will be defeated tonight'."

"At the same time, it's also to make the most efficient use of this... well, you, our Kryptonian ancient biological weapon, to test its limits and cook a feast for ourselves."

talking.

Ian felt like he was about to drool again.

"An ancient biological weapon from Krypton?" Superman caught the key phrase, his pupils shrinking slightly. "This monster called Doomsday...is from Krypton?"

He gradually pieced together a number of facts from Ian's rambling remarks.

“That’s right, that’s the situation.” Ian nodded and began to act as the narrator, “Doomsday, a failed product of genetic engineering in Krypton’s ancient times.”

"Lex Luthor somehow got hold of a sample of it, combined it with the Kryptonian technology he stole from you—oh, right, he's also been secretly researching Kryptonian ships and your genes—and cobbled together this thing. The purpose, well, is probably to prove the old cliché of mortals being able to kill gods."

Ian knows Lex Luthor better than Superman does now.

Superman's face instantly turned extremely ugly. He muttered under his breath, "This madman! He's a complete and utter madman! Even those who are addicted to fentanyl aren't as crazy as him!"

By using Krypton's legacy to create this monster, Luthor has crossed a line.

However, now was not the time to settle scores with Luther. He then remembered Ian's earlier words, his eyes narrowed, and he asked again in a low voice.

“Wait…didn’t you say before that Luther stole ‘your’ technology?” He couldn’t look Ian in the eye with his head tilted to the side, and could only stare intently at Ian, who was still scratching the back of his neck, with his superhuman peripheral vision.

Ian's three heads froze simultaneously. He realized he still wasn't good at weaving long, elaborate lies. However, with three heads combined, his skin was definitely thick enough.

“Don’t I look like a Kryptonian?” Ian immediately offered a forced explanation without changing his expression, even addressing Clark by name in Kryptonian.

Carl El.

Before Superman could even react, [they did not wait for him to realize what was happening].

He raised the middle head and spoke in a weathered tone.

"I am an Old God of Krypton, slumbering since time immemorial. It was the destruction of Krypton, a catastrophe that engulfed the entire galaxy, that awakened me from my eternal slumber."

Ian stole the script from the ancient sun god.

These words made Superman's heart skip a beat.

I feel inexplicably weak.

The destruction of Krypton has always been a deep scar in his heart. To some extent, as the last Kryptonian to be sent away, he does indeed bear the psychological burden of being a "traitor."

"Could he really be... some ancient Kryptonian being?" Clark couldn't help but wonder, clearly being misled by Ian.

The poor old father.

Still too young.

Of course, the reason he felt guilty was not only because of Ian's combat performance, but also because the large bump on his head had caused a concussion in the Kryptonians.

(End of this chapter)