While Constantine was still getting chills from the pronouns that angel had used, on the other side of the city, the one person he had now begun to fear deeply, Ian, finally arrived at the gym he had been thinking about for the past two days.
The glow of the setting sun spilled across the neon sign of Titan Gym, its pink-and-purple lights looking especially suggestive in the evening mist. Honestly, it probably should not have been in Metropolis at all. It belonged in England.
His hometown from before crossing over.
That gloriously fruity country could have used a gym like this too.
"That color scheme is aggressively homoerotic. The fact that Jonathan likes coming to a place like this really leaves too much room for misunderstanding."
Ian stood at the entrance with his hands in his pockets, staring up at the gym's sign.
He had no intention of going inside and flexing his physical abilities in public. Some bragging simply was not worth doing. A mature show-off only showed off when there was real satisfaction in it.
"So where are the dealers hiding?"
Even though he already had his own chemistry teacher from hell, Ian still wanted to meet one of the legendary dragons as soon as possible. After all, even if the chemistry teacher could make dragons, Ian still had to get the raw materials himself.
And as a law-abiding, top-tier student of Metropolis, he naturally had no channels for that sort of thing.
While he was still wondering if he should ask around, he spotted a hooded Black guy in a sweatshirt walking toward him.
"Hey, brother, I can tell you need help. Want to hear about the fast-track secret to getting in shape?"
The guy flashed the kind of dazzling white smile that could have landed him a toothpaste ad on the spot.
"Swim lessons and personal training? Sorry, I don't need them."
Ian assumed he had run into one of those coaches who camped outside gyms trying to sell training packages. Those NPCs spawned here all the time.
"Brother, I ain't a trainer. I'm a chemist."
The young man glanced around, then lowered his voice.
"Latest formula, results in three weeks, and science can get you a powerful body."
"Trust me, once you've got a body full of muscle, girls won't be able to walk past you."
The Black guy's tone was deeply seductive. He clearly knew exactly what teenage boys were after.
Ian, however, was not buying it.
"You mean a body like this?"
He lifted up the shirt under his school uniform, revealing a perfectly sculpted set of abs, then pointed at his still-somewhat-boyish face.
"What I need isn't girls freezing up when they see me. What I need is the ability to protect myself when I face girls."
His words were completely sincere, and even the Black guy had to admit they made some sense.
"Okay, fair. I'll admit it. You've got that annoyingly perfect Hollywood face."
The guy spoke the truth, then swung open his Nike backpack a little.
"Maybe I misjudged you. You're not a beginner. But trust me, brother, you've definitely never tried my product. No side effects, great results."
"You can get even bigger. Believe in yourself. Believe in science."
He was doing his best to exploit the greed common to gym bros and push his science potion.
"Have you used it yourself?"
Ian asked the question almost every newbie would ask.
The Black guy answered instantly.
"I don't need science. My muscles are pure natural talent... though I do use a little science sometimes."
The answer came with complete conviction, the kind of confidence that arrived before the brain had time to check anything.
"Yeah, I can see that. Arnold of Metropolis."
Ian nodded.
"You saying I look like Arnold Schwarzenegger? Man, you've got good taste!"
The Black guy immediately brightened up.
"Just for that level of insight, I'll give you ten percent off today."
"Three hundred bucks a bottle. I recommend starting with ten bottles to see how it works. Ten percent off makes it twenty-six hundred."
He really put effort into doing the math, which meant the math was the result of real effort.
Whether it was correct or not was secondary.
At the very least, it was consistent with the average educational performance of Black Americans in Metropolis.
"I'm still a minor. Is this really okay?"
Ian pulled out the student ID he had somehow recovered, which had most likely reappeared thanks to his old man's intervention in the drawer.
The Black guy did not even look at it.
"That's exactly why it's important not to lose at the starting line. You know Superman, right? Nobody doesn't know Superman. He grew up on my family's science."
Blatant nonsense was, after all, one of the time-honored traditional skills of Black brothers.
"Is that so."
Ian pretended to believe him.
"Then I'll take one case. No, two."
After thinking it over, he made a guess about how much stock the guy might be carrying. Hearing that, the Black guy actually twitched.
"You sure?"
He looked Ian up and down, assessing his clothes.
"If you've got enough money, no problem. I'm just a businessman."
The implication was crystal clear. He was already trying to distance himself from whatever happened if Ian ended up ascending to the happy planet.
"Yeah."
Ian nodded.
So the Black guy led him into one of Metropolis's countless unmanned alleys, where an old Ford was parked. He used a plain old key to unlock the trunk, which had been bound shut with chains.
There were more than ten chains.
More than ten keys.
A place with no cameras.
The Black guy knew exactly what he could trust, and it definitely was not the other brothers on this street.
"Eight grand a case. Ten percent off makes it sixty-nine hundred."
His math remained impressively consistent. Perhaps because sixty-nine looked vaguely close to ninety percent in his mind.
Ian, for his part, did not care.
After all, he was a superhero.
And it was time for him to fulfill his duty in one of those occasional bursts.
"Look! Up there! Wonder Woman! She's naked!"
This trick worked especially well on Black guys.
While the guy reflexively turned his head toward the sky,
"Don't sell illegal substances to minors, asshole. You have failed this city!"
Ian lowered his voice dramatically into a gritty little rasp and threw a punch before the man could react.
Right to the skull.
It was not even a deliberate finishing blow, but with Ian's strength, punching through ten Ip Mans probably would not have been an issue, so the well-built brother rolled his eyes back and dropped instantly.
"Another day of protecting the innocent minors of Metropolis."
Ian pulled out the half-finished Coke he had been carrying and emptied the now-flat contents into the trash can.
"Human! You go too far!"
The trash can's complaint was brief.
Ian held the empty bottle and poured in one small vial after another.
Whether bacterial contamination was an issue did not matter. At most, that was just an extra buff.
Three cases of science potion.
Perfectly enough to fill one Coke bottle.
He took a sip.
The taste was not bad.
So he decided he would use the trash can as a test subject first and see how effective the stuff was via intramuscular injection.
Demons had muscles too.
"Where's the phone..."
Ian used the Black guy's chains to tie the man to a streetlamp, then, through sheer talent and instinct, searched him and found his phone.
"Hello, is this Officer Kate Beckett?"
He called the female cop who had taken him home after the convenience store incident.
"This is innocent citizen Ian Kent. You know, the Ian you gave your private number to because you said I had a highly punchable face and would probably end up in danger the second I walked outside."
"No, I haven't been stabbed. I haven't been murdered. My corpse has not yet learned how to dial emergency services."
"I just ran into another criminal. Luckily, I was saved by Stocking Superman, who prefers not to reveal his identity and is deeply opposed to illegal substances, which he will be taking away for safe disposal."
Sometimes Ian needed to maintain his presence in the public eye.
An Independent NPC feared being ignored.
It also feared being too popular.
The trick was finding the right middle ground.
"No, not Supergirl in stockings. A new member of the Superman family. He said he's only been training for two and a half days. What did he look like? I have no idea why I completely couldn't see his face."
"I'm telling the truth. I don't lie. I just tell the occasional tiny lie. Huh, wow, this stuff works fast. Nothing, I'm just drinking a brand-new version of Coca-Cola."
After finishing the report, Ian turned his head to look at the Black guy tied beneath the streetlamp.
"One hundred, two hundred, three hundred."
Ian counted out three hundred dollars, then checked the call duration on the phone and added three cents in coins before stuffing them all into the unconscious man's pocket.
An honest transaction.
The agreement had been three hundred dollars a bottle.
Ian naturally respected market prices.
After all, he was a law-abiding American citizen.
He did not even like taking advantage of small discounts.
A moral quality this noble.
There probably were not many people left in Metropolis who could match it.
(End of Chapter)
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