The gray fog receded like a tide pulling back from shore.
Ethan opened his eyes to the familiar ceiling of his bedroom in the Kent farmhouse. Moonlight spilled through the window, painting silver rectangles across the hardwood floor. The clock on his nightstand read 3:47 AM.
He lay on his bed for a few minutes and recalled the conversation he had with his other selfs. Door becoming a Speedstar, Red Priest planning on overthrowing a monarchy. Paragon laughing like a mad man over discovering something he refused to fully explain
*Focus*, Ethan told himself. *You can think about the others later. Right now, you have your own problems.*
He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. The farmhouse creaked softly around him, the old structure settling into the cool of the predawn hours.
The vampire from the alley kept surfacing in his memory. The black eyes. The wet sound of detachment from the victim's throat. The way its skin had smoldered under his purification beam.
But it wasn't the vampire itself that occupied his thoughts now. It was what came after.
For three days he had been thinking about what he could do for the future that's going to come. About how he can avoid it and hopefully not have to deal with the apocalypse. Despite the food problem disappearing he still wished to not deal with the apocalypse and all of it lead to one thought that could solve this problem and that was
Evil Detection.
With this he can detect undeads, evil and Vampires who lit up like bonfires.
After that night he had checked metropolis for vampires in the morning just last day and he found four vampires
Hidden among the population. Perfectly integrated. Sipping coffee behind tinted windows and running restaurants and living in quiet residential neighborhoods. None of them predators in obvious ways. All of them absolutely, unmistakably, catastrophically vampires.
Counting the one from the alley, that made five confirmed vampires in Metropolis alone.
The infiltration was already happening. The DC vs. Vampires storyline was actively unfolding beneath the surface of a city that didn't know what was coming.
And Ethan possessed the perfect ability to combat it.
But he couldn't tell Clark the truth about how he'd gotten that ability. Couldn't explain Sequences, potions, pathways, the entire intricate mythology of Lord of the Mysteries. The LOTM system was fundamentally alien to this universe, and revealing its existence carried risks he wasn't prepared to accept.
Better to keep the truth compartmentalized.
Better to give Clark a story that explained the results without exposing the mechanics.
*You gain new abilities by helping people.*
It was almost true, in a sense. Advancement required acting on the pathway. Acting on the Sun pathway required helping people, purifying evil, guiding others toward light. So yes—in the broadest possible interpretation—his powers grew through service to others.
Just not for the reasons Clark would assume.
Ethan picked up his phone and dialed.
---
It rang twice.
"Ethan?" Clark's voice was alert despite the hour. "It's almost four in the morning. Is everything alright?"
"I need to talk to you. In person. Can you come to the farm?"
A pause. "Is this urgent?"
"Yes. It's about the vampire situation."
"I'll be there in three minutes."
The line went dead. Ethan pulled on a jacket and headed downstairs, stepping out onto the porch just as a familiar blur of motion resolved into Clark landing soundlessly on the front lawn.
He was in civilian clothes—jeans, a dark jacket, the kind of understated outfit that made Clark Kent look like any other tall, handsome man rather than the most powerful being on the planet. His glasses were absent, which meant he was operating in Superman mode despite the casual attire.
"Talk to me," Clark said, joining Ethan on the porch steps.
Ethan sat down, letting out a slow breath. The night air carried the scent of wheat and distant rain. Crickets chirped their endless chorus from the fields beyond the house.
"After the vampire encounter," Ethan began, "something changed for me. I developed a new ability."
Clark's attention sharpened. "What kind of ability?"
"Detection. I can sense vampires now. Within a certain range—1 kilometer, maybe more depending on conditions—I can feel their presence regardless of how well they're hiding. It doesn't matter if they look completely human, doesn't matter if they're behaving normally, doesn't matter what disguises they use. To me, they light up like signal fires." [A/N: The range will increase to 6 kilometers when he finishes Sequence 8]
Clark went very still.
"You can detect vampires."
"Yes."
"Reliably? Passively? Without them being aware of the scan?"
"As far as I can tell, yes to all three. It's not something I actively do—it's just a sense I have now. Like hearing or smell. If a vampire is within my range, I know."
Clark's expression cycled through several emotions in rapid succession. Shock. Calculation. Something that looked almost like awe. He was silent for a long moment, processing implications that were probably branching in a dozen different directions.
"You said the ability manifested after the vampire encounter," he finally said. "Just... appeared. Because of what happened in that alley."
"Not exactly." Ethan chose his words carefully. "The abilities I have—all of them—they come from the same source. And that source grows through what I do. The more I help people, the more darkness I fight, the more corruption I purify... the more capabilities I develop over time. The vampire encounter was significant because it was a genuine confrontation with the kind of evil that my abilities are designed to oppose. It accelerated something that was already building."
"You're saying that as long as you keep doing what you've been doing—helping people, protecting the vulnerable, fighting the things that prey on innocents—you'll continue to gain new abilities."
"That's the pattern, yes."
Clark stared at him.
For a long moment, Superman said absolutely nothing. His face was carefully composed, but Ethan had known this brother—or a version of him—long enough to recognize the storm behind the calm. Something was happening inside Clark's head. Some internal recalibration. Some fundamental reassessment.
"Clark?" Ethan asked cautiously.
"I'm sorry," Clark said.
Ethan blinked. "What?"
"I'm sorry. I owe you an apology. A real one."
"For what?"
Clark shook his head slowly. "It doesn't matter. Not right now. What matters is—" He paused, visibly composing himself. "What matters is that you've just told me something that changes everything. Not just about the vampire situation. About you. About what you are."
"Clark, I don't understand. What are you apologizing for?"
"It's not important. Really." Clark's voice was firm but gentle. "Please, just accept the apology and let me move on to what actually matters."
Ethan studied his face for several seconds. Whatever Clark wasn't saying, he clearly wasn't going to say it. The set of his jaw, the resolute quality of his expression—these were the same tells that Ethan's original Clark had displayed when he'd decided a topic was closed.
"Okay," Ethan said quietly. "I won't push."
"Thank you."
But he was already piecing it together in his own mind.
Clark had been suspicious. Reasonably, understandably suspicious. A stranger claiming to be his brother from another universe, developing mysterious abilities, keeping secrets about the nature of his powers—of course Clark had wondered whether Ethan might eventually become a threat. Of course a hero like Superman had needed to consider the possibility that this newfound family member was hiding something dangerous.
And now, based on nothing more than Ethan's simple statement that his powers grew through helping people, Clark had decided that those suspicions had been wrong.
The trust was almost overwhelming.
Ethan felt a pang of guilt for the deception. The framing wasn't a lie, exactly—but it wasn't the full truth either. Clark deserved better than half-truths from someone he was choosing to trust so completely.
But the alternative was worse. Revealing the LOTM system carried risks that extended far beyond Ethan himself. He owed loyalty to the other twenty-one clones as well. Their collective survival depended on maintaining the secrecy of what they truly were.
Half-truths would have to be enough.
"Alright," Clark said, his voice returning to something closer to professional focus. "Let's talk about what you can do with this ability."
"I've already used it. Just last day, I swept across Metropolis as much as I can."
"And?"
"I found four more vampires. Beyond the one from the alley."
Clark's expression darkened. "Four?"
"Four confirmed vampires hiding among the civilian population. A woman in the financial district. A man working at a restaurant near the waterfront. Two others in residential neighborhoods on the west side. All of them perfectly integrated. None of them drawing attention."
"They're embedded."
"Deep. This isn't random predation, Clark. These vampires aren't rogues or outcasts. They're positioned. Established. Living lives that would withstand casual scrutiny. Whatever's happening, it's organized."
Clark was already reaching for his phone.
"I've been in contact with the League since the alley incident. Bruce has been running parallel investigations." He paused with the phone in his hand. "You should know—it's not just Metropolis. Every League member who conducted local sweeps in their patrol areas found evidence of vampire activity. Gotham has at least six confirmed incidents of predation in the last month alone. Central City has three. Star City, four. And those are just the ones they've been able to identify through conventional detection methods."
"Which are slow and unreliable against vampires who know how to cover their tracks."
"Exactly. Which is why what you just told me changes everything." Clark's voice carried the particular intensity that meant Superman's brain was operating at speeds normal humans couldn't match. "If you can identify vampires reliably—if you can walk through a city and pick out every predator hiding in plain sight—you become the most valuable asset the League has in this investigation."
"I had a feeling you'd say that."
"Bruce needs to know. The whole League needs to know. This isn't a Metropolis problem anymore. It's global." Clark's thumb hovered over his phone screen. "Are you willing to help? Not just here—everywhere. Willing to work with the League on this?"
"Yes."
The answer came without hesitation. It was, after all, exactly what Ethan needed. Working with the League would provide him with vampire encounters at a scale he couldn't achieve alone. Every hidden nest identified, every embedded predator exposed, every life saved through early detection—all of it would advance his digestion of the Sequence 8 potion. Duty and self-interest aligned perfectly.
Plus, if this was truly the DC vs. Vampires timeline, then he needed the League as much as they needed him. His Sun pathway abilities were powerful against vampires specifically, but he was still only Sequence 8. When the actual outbreak came, when the coordinated attack finally launched, he would need allies with the raw power to hold the line while he did the specialized work.
"Give me a minute," Clark said. "I need to call Bruce."
---
Clark stepped off the porch to make the call. He didn't go far—barely twenty feet—but Ethan gave him the privacy of not actively listening. Not that he could have eavesdropped on a conversation between Superman and Batman even if he'd tried. Clark's voice dropped to frequencies that normal human ears couldn't register.
But he caught fragments. Clark's side, at least. Enough to reconstruct the exchange.
"Bruce. It's Clark. I know what time it is. This can't wait."
A pause. Whatever Batman said on the other end was too compressed for Ethan to hear.
"My brother. The one from the parallel Earth. He's developed a new ability. Directly relevant to the vampire situation." Another pause. "He can detect them. Passively. Within range, regardless of disguise or integration level. He's already found four more in Metropolis that we didn't know about."
A longer pause this time. Ethan could imagine Batman's response—rapid-fire questions delivered in that flat, analytical monotone that treated every piece of information like evidence at a crime scene.
"He explained the source. His abilities are tied to something he hasn't fully described to me, but the pattern is clear—the more he helps people, the more capabilities he develops. Detection came after the alley encounter." Clark's voice tightened slightly. "Yes. I've verified. His heartbeat is clean. His body language is consistent. He believes everything he's telling me and I believe him."
Another extended pause. Batman was apparently asking detailed questions.
"He's been operating in Metropolis for three months as Light. You've seen the reports. No incidents. No collateral damage. He genuinely helps people—not just stops crimes but addresses underlying causes. He healed a sick child in the Suicide Slum district last month. Purified contaminated water in a tenement building the month before. His track record speaks for itself."
A shorter pause.
"I agree. The scope is larger than we initially assessed. If every League member is finding evidence in their patrol areas, this is coordinated. Organized on a scale we haven't seen from vampires before. And if he can scan cities systematically, we can map the entire infiltration in a fraction of the time conventional investigation would require."
The final pause was longest of all. When Clark spoke again, his voice carried the weight of a decision being made.
"Understood. I'll bring him in. We'll be there within the hour."
He ended the call and stood motionless for a moment, staring at the Kansas sky.
Then he walked back to the porch.
"Bruce agreed?" Ethan asked.
"Bruce agreed. Grudgingly. He wants to conduct his own verification—run tests to confirm your detection capability under controlled conditions—but he's willing to bring you into the investigation officially." Clark sat down beside him. "That's a significant step for him. He doesn't trust easily, and he especially doesn't trust unknown power sources. The fact that he's willing to work with you tells me how seriously the League is taking this situation."
"When does he want to start?"
"Now."
Ethan blinked. "Now as in this moment? It's four in the morning."
"Bruce doesn't sleep."
"Fair point."
"The entire League is being assembled. Emergency session. They'll want to hear about your ability directly, discuss deployment strategies, coordinate a global response." Clark's expression was grim. "This is happening fast, Ethan. Are you ready for it?"
Ethan looked out at the Kansas fields. The wheat moved in the predawn breeze, silver under starlight, stretching toward horizons he couldn't see. Somewhere beneath those horizons, in cities across the planet, vampires were feeding. Hiding. Preparing for something that would eventually consume this world if nobody stopped it.
He couldn't stop it alone. Probably couldn't stop it at all, even with the League's help. But he could try. Could use the Sun pathway's gifts to illuminate what lurked in the shadows. Could give this world's greatest heroes the intelligence they needed to fight back.
"Yeah," Ethan said, standing up. "Let's go."
Clark nodded.
"Hold on tight," Clark said.
Then they were airborne, the Kansas farmhouse shrinking to a point of light below them
----------
A/N: Give "The true creator in Hogwarts" a try. I haven't yet read it and I can't add it in authors thought for some reason but maybe it will be good so give it a try.
Disclaimer: It ain't mine. It's one of my reader who said he gained inspiration after reading my fanfic. So of course I have to show off