Under the bright desk lamp in his bedroom,
Ian remained deep in thought after hanging up.
"An experimental physicist... I need to figure out how to scam him and all his friends over here to be my Pals. No, not scam. Lure."
Ian reached into his pocket.
He pulled out the tiny arc reactor, no bigger than his thumb. It had once powered the stitched-together Homelander, which meant it could probably be put to very wide use in all kinds of fields.
"Next time I need to pray to Tony, God of Machinery again and ask him for full blueprints for inventions like this. Hopefully he'll like Jordan's hidden magazine stash."
Ian understood the concept of give and take. He would get connections, and his second brother would get better physical and mental health. How was that not a win-win?
Knock knock knock.
Sometimes life really did answer your thoughts far too quickly.
"Ian."
Jordan's voice came from outside the door, along with another knock.
"It's unlocked."
Ian answered.
So,
the door opened.
Only,
Jordan still couldn't get into the room.
"What's with the wardrobe? I know you probably found some new toy, but do you really need to be this careful..."
Jordan muttered as he shoved the wardrobe aside with effort.
"It and the door lock were both part of a gamble. Clearly, I won, but not completely."
Ian turned the tiny arc reactor over in his hand.
"What does that even mean?"
Jordan couldn't make sense of it at all.
"Forget that. I won, and that's what matters. You didn't come this late because you're interested in one of my toys, right?"
Ian looked at his second brother with visible suspicion.
...
Jordan's expression turned awkward.
"Of course not!"
He hesitated for a long while before finally forcing out the words.
"Can you lend me some money? I... have a little... hard-to-explain issue and might need to see a doctor."
That statement was so shocking it left Ian staring.
"You bought a secondhand Noble Phantasm?"
He really couldn't imagine items like that still circulating in the used market.
"What? No! Of course not!"
Jordan's whole face turned red.
"It's just my eyes!" He hurriedly tried to explain. "What I was doing in my room just now... isn't really the important part."
"The important part is that there might be something wrong with my eyes. Sometimes they turn red. Like ten minutes ago, while I was... busy, I saw in the mirror that they turned red again."
Jordan looked incredibly pitiful trying to cover for himself.
"Hm?"
Ian immediately realized something was off.
Meanwhile, Jordan was still panicking, his voice full of apocalyptic despair.
"I looked it up online. The mildest possibility is definitely cancer. Or maybe the beginning of some zombie mutation."
He sounded like he was on the verge of tears. Maybe because he had no idea how to explain the full story to their parents, this high school boy had ended up coming to the richest man in the house for help.
...
Even Ian fell silent this time.
The room went quiet.
All that remained was the lingering sadness of a Kryptonian in his post-enlightenment state, filled with regret for the human world.
Ian really couldn't stand the miserable look in his brother's eyes.
Click.
He opened his drawer and pulled out a metal box with Smaug painted on it. It was only logical for a dragon to guard treasure. Inside, naturally, was Ian's hard-earned fortune.
"One, two, three, four, five..."
Ian counted out a thousand dollars and handed it to his still-despairing brother.
"You don't have to pay me back. Think of it as an advance on your actor's fee."
He sounded firm.
"Actor's fee?"
Jordan looked lost.
"My comic is obviously going to be adapted into a movie one day, and if you're not cast as the absolute lead, I'm not selling the rights."
Ian was sincerely filled with admiration for his brother.
If he had the time, he would absolutely write a title like My Puberty-Stage Kryptonian Brother Doesn't Know That Jerking Off Can Trigger a Superpower Diagnosis.
"Huh? Acting?"
Jordan looked even more confused.
"I've never studied acting. And weren't you only writing novels?"
His understanding of Ian was clearly still several versions behind.
"You have to keep up with the times, big brother."
Ian firmly slapped the thousand dollars into Jordan's hand.
Money had warmth.
"Thanks, Ian. You really are the superhero of this family."
Jordan was genuinely moved. He even borrowed one of Ian's usual phrases.
"Yes, yes, exactly like that. Just play yourself. I know you'll nail it."
Ian suddenly had even more faith in his brother. At last he understood why drawing Homelander had come so naturally to him.
"Uh..."
Jordan still didn't understand, but he didn't press further. He just scratched his head and said with unusual seriousness,
"If I die from this, everything in my room goes to you."
It sounded uncannily like he was leaving a will. His eyes were full of reluctant attachment to the world.
"Don't worry. If you die, I promise I'll post your whole stash and all your account info online."
Ian thumped his chest as he made the solemn promise.
"????"
Jordan froze on the spot.
"Shouldn't the promise be that you won't post me online?"
He seriously wondered if he'd heard wrong.
However,
"Of course I have to post it online. We're brothers. Even at the very end, I'd still have to gamble on the chance that you'd resurrect because of it."
Ian still remembered that their dad had once pulled off a comeback from apparent death.
If the circumstances were dramatic enough,
a Kryptonian might really just resurrect out of pure stubbornness.
That perfect logic, however, clearly failed to convince Jordan.
This adolescent Kryptonian looked touched, but also deeply disturbed.
"Uh... either way, thanks. If I don't die and they can treat it, I'll wash cars and pay you back."
Jordan made the promise with great solemnity.
"It's your actor's fee! I told you, it's your actor's fee!"
Ian had no interest in getting his Franklin back.
He didn't need it.
Still,
watching Jordan head toward the door, Ian decided he should set a few boundaries.
"By the way, Jordan, don't use that money to fund any illegal activity, okay?"
"Our family only spreads positive energy. No plum energy, no AIDS energy. I'll ask Miss Susan, Aunt Mary, Aunt Lisa, and Grandma Grace about it."
Ian casually listed the four illegal workers who had recently appeared around the neighborhood.
"????"
Jordan stumbled so hard he nearly smacked into the doorframe.
"What the hell? Even the police don't know the area this well, do they?"
He turned back to look at his youngest brother, his face full of the kind of suspicion older brothers only get in prime-time soap operas.
Clearly,
he was projecting again.
Ian obviously wasn't doing anything illegal like that.
"Please. We live in Metropolis. The police only need to worry about whether the death benefits are high enough. But ordinary citizens like us have way too many other things to think about."
Ian spoke with complete righteousness and absolute confidence.
"If you don't know the situation around your own home, then when something big happens, you won't even know how to run for your life."
"You'd die ridiculously fast." There had been a time when Ian hadn't slept nearly this peacefully. Knowing the area like this was one of the basic pillars of his personal sense of security.
...
Jordan didn't really know how to answer that.
"May God protect you, my brother..."
That was all he could say, silently hoping Ian's psychological issues would recover soon. He left with three backward glances, full of worry and reluctance.
The door shut.
"My foolish brother. God's very busy. Real cost-effective faith means trusting in Father God. Once I make it big, I'll found the real Church of Superman."
"But I won't be the pope. Jordan can do it. He owes me."
Ian set the arc reactor he'd been playing with down on the desk and spent a moment recalling Sentry's origin.
Then,
he started writing furiously again.
This time it really was serious work.
He mostly still remembered Sentry's origin story. Ian, whose thoughts were completely occupied by Sentry's powers, seemed destined to pull an all-nighter.
"Comfort is for the dead. Time to grind."
Ian drew with incredible focus.
After all, being able to unleash his talent however he pleased really was wonderful.
Time passed minute by minute.
Sometimes effort really did produce unexpected rewards.
[Writer Lv.1 (1/10)]
No prerequisite quest.
No warning whatsoever.
A new class appeared on Ian's panel without a sound.
Sentry's image came alive on the paper, and it almost seemed as though a faint light were already crawling toward the next blank page.
Maybe,
at this moment, even the boy himself couldn't predict that those histories which had already been destroyed and forgotten would one day quietly begin to revive through the ink of his pen.
Becoming vivid once more.
(End of Chapter)
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