Thursday…
The Bridge
It happened on a quiet Thursday afternoon.
Alex was running his usual route along Loeb Bridge Road…
a lonely stretch of asphalt that cut directly through endless farmland before crossing the deep river at Loeb Bridge.
It was one of his preferred training routes.
Light traffic.
Excellent sight lines.
And the towering bridge itself offered a useful, visible landmark for measuring distance.
He was exactly a quarter mile from the bridge when he heard it.
The piercing screech of tires.
Then the sickening, explosive crunch of metal on metal…
the distinct sound of a car hitting something it absolutely shouldn’t have been able to hit at highway speed, and surviving.
It was followed immediately by the agonizing groan of the bridge’s steel guardrail completely giving way, and finally, the heavy splash of a vehicle breaking the river’s surface.
Alex broke into a dead sprint.
He crested the slight rise just before the bridge and took in the chaotic scene in a single glance.
A sleek silver Porsche had blown completely through the guardrail on the left side of Loeb Bridge.
The gap in the thick metal railing was jagged and violently wide.
Deep skid marks heavily scarred the road surface…
long, frantic black arcs that clearly told the story of a driver who had swerved incredibly hard, hit something, and lost control completely.
Standing right at the absolute edge of the broken railing, staring down at the churning water with an expression of bewildered shock, was Clark Kent.
There was no wound.
No blood.
Not a single scratch on him, despite the undeniable fact that the front bumper of the Porsche was crumpled inward in a shape that perfectly matched a human body.
The Porsche had hit Clark.
And Clark had literally walked away from it without a mark.
But Clark wasn’t looking at himself.
He was staring intensely at the river where the car had quickly sunk, and his expression was rapidly shifting from shock to something far more dangerous…
sheer determination.
Alex knew exactly what was about to happen.
Clark would dive in.
He would reach the car.
And in his desperate panic to save the drowning driver, he would tear the metal roof entirely off with his bare hands…
a blatant act of impossible, inhuman strength that would leave unmistakable physical evidence.
Evidence that a clever, obsessively paranoid young man like Lex Luthor would spend months actively trying to explain.
Unless someone conveniently gave him an alternative explanation.
Alex didn’t hesitate.
He reached the bridge at a full sprint, cleanly vaulted over a section of intact railing, and threw himself headfirst into the rushing river.
The water hit him like a solid wall of ice.
The Elbow River was spring-fed, and even in early September, it was numbingly cold.
Alex’s vision went completely white for a split second as the physical shock tore through his system.
Then, his rigorous training kicked in…
the disciplined breath control he had tirelessly drilled into this body over six weeks of preparation…
and he forced his eyes open underwater.
The heavy Porsche was sinking fast.
It had landed nose-first and was descending at a steep angle, with the driver’s side door facing somewhat upward.
Through the dark, murky water, Alex could clearly see a figure slumped limply behind the steering wheel.
Young.
Bald.
Completely unconscious. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
Lex Luthor.
Alex kicked forcefully downward, driving himself toward the descending car.
His lungs burned.
The freezing cold sapped his strength with every passing second.
He felt Clark powerfully hit the water right behind him…
a physical displacement so massive it created a strong current that pushed Alex forward like a tidal wave.
Clark was already past him, shooting through the murky water with impossible, torpedo-like speed, his hands desperately reaching for the roof of the sinking car.
Alex swiftly stretched out his right hand toward the driver’s side door.
The timing had to be absolutely perfect.
Clark’s fingers securely closed on the edge of the roof.
His broad shoulders bunched.
Alex could literally see the thick tendons in Clark’s forearms strain as he prepared to effortlessly tear through solid metal like wet tissue paper.
“Alohomora.”
The word was barely even a thought…
just a highly focused pulse of pure intent channeled cleanly through his outstretched fingers.
The single spell cost him nearly a quarter of his total mana reserves.
Underwater, with completely frozen fingers and burning lungs, it was easily the hardest casting he had attempted since arriving in this universe.
The Porsche’s driver-side door lock sharply clicked open.
The door swung outward against the heavy water pressure.
Not all the way, but enough…
enough to create a viable opening, enough to provide a totally logical explanation for what happened next.
Clark’s hands immediately shifted.
Instead of violently tearing through the roof, he securely grabbed the edge of the now-open door and pulled it wide.
He reached inside, quickly unbuckled Lex’s seatbelt, and hauled the man out in a single, fluid motion.
Alex kicked desperately toward the surface, his vision going rapidly grey at the edges.
He broke through the water just as Clark surfaced three feet away, one arm wrapped tightly around Lex Luthor’s chest, powerfully pulling him toward the muddy bank.
Alex swam to the riverbank and weakly hauled himself up onto the wet mud.
He lay there for a long moment, violently coughing up water, feeling the deep cold settle permanently into his bones.
His mana reserves were dangerously low…
much lower than they had been since his very first week in this new body.
The Alohomora had cost him dearly.
But it had worked.
Clark dragged Lex fully onto the bank and immediately began CPR.
His movements were frantic, desperately panicked…
he was a fifteen-year-old farm boy who had absolutely no idea how strong he truly was, forcefully pressing on the chest of a man he had never met with enough power to easily crack ribs if he wasn’t incredibly careful.
Alex crawled over and placed a firm hand on Clark’s wet shoulder.
“Easier,” he instructed hoarsely.
“You’re pressing far too hard. Let me.”
Clark looked at him with wild, terrified eyes.
For a tense moment, Alex thought the boy would stubbornly refuse…
pure adrenaline and fear made people irrational.
But something in Alex’s totally calm, steady gaze managed to cut right through Clark’s panic.
Clark shifted aside.
Alex carefully positioned his hands on Lex’s sternum and performed the compressions…
measured, rhythmic, precise.
He had done this many times before.
Not in this specific body, but in others.
The deeply ingrained muscle memory of three lifetimes translated surprisingly well.
On the fourth compression, Lex violently convulsed.
River water poured from his mouth and nose.
He coughed…
a wet, ragged, horrible sound…
and his eyes finally flew open. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
For a long moment, Lex Luthor just stared up at the cloudy sky with the blank, total confusion of a man who had just died and suddenly come back.
Then, his gaze slowly focused on Clark, who was kneeling right beside him, completely soaking wet and breathing hard.
“I could have sworn I hit you,” Lex croaked.
His voice was raw.
Deeply bewildered.
Clark’s face rapidly went through about six different expressions in two seconds…
surprise, fear, denial, guilt, more fear, and finally, the blank mask of innocent confusion that Alex would soon come to recognize as Clark Kent’s default defensive mechanism.
“I was standing up on the bridge,” Clark lied quickly.
“You swerved. Your car went over the rail. We jumped in right after you.”
“We?”
Lex slowly turned his head and saw Alex for the very first time.
Soaking wet.
Mildly shivering.
A dangerously lean teenager with dark brown eyes that held far too much composure for someone who had just physically pulled a drowning man from a freezing river.
“Alex Carter,” Alex provided.
He didn’t bother extending his hand.
They were both far too wet and cold for pleasant formalities.
“Clark and I were both jogging on the bridge when your car went over. Clark spotted you first. I managed to get the door open. He pulled you out.”
It was a perfectly simple story.
Entirely believable.
Two teenage boys on a bridge witness a terrible accident and heroically jump in to help.
The door was opened by hand…
stuck, but not locked.
Clark’s impossible strength was totally irrelevant because the door had already been ajar.
Lex studied Alex with a sharp intensity that surprised him.
Even half-drowned, with dirty river water still dripping from his scalp, Lex Luthor’s mind was clearly working at full speed.
His eyes…
sharp, grey, and endlessly calculating…
moved slowly from Alex to Clark, and then back again.
“You got the door open,” Lex repeated carefully.
“The lock must have popped on impact,” Alex replied evenly, holding the man’s gaze.
“Lucky break.”
Lex held his gaze for a beat slightly longer than necessary.
Then, he coughed wetly again and let his head fall back heavily against the mud.
“Lucky break,” he echoed softly.
And smiled.
It was the specific smile of a man who absolutely didn’t believe in lucky breaks, but was perfectly willing to casually table the question for now.
In the far distance, sirens began to wail.
Someone on the main road had obviously seen the broken guardrail and called 911.
Clark looked over at Alex.
There was something highly complex in his expression…
deep relief, genuine gratitude, and underneath it all, a faint flicker of something that might have been suspicion.
Clark Kent wasn’t stupid.
He knew perfectly well that the door shouldn’t have been that easy to force open underwater.
He knew that Alex had gotten down there impossibly fast and he lied for him.
But he also knew that Alex’s timely presence had kept him from doing something that would have been very, very difficult to explain.
“Thanks,” Clark said quietly.
“Don’t mention it,” Alex replied.
He meant it literally.