A What-if Tale Featuring The Girl of Steel, Lana Lang

 

I am the Wise Watcher and it is my intent to enlighten those on the myriad realities that exist between the dimensions. In one previously observed reality, we saw the young man who would be Superman, Clark Kent, lose his powers while subsequently trying to save the life of his friend Lana Lang. Little did Clark realize that his powers would not be gone, but instead, transferred to his sweetheart Lana.

Thinking that her powers were a result of the meteor shower of radioactive rocks that took her parent’s lives, she vowed on their graves to use these amazing powers in secret to protect the innocents of Smallville. Lana recently saved the life of a dog which belonged to a small family living in town. As payment for their gratitude, they offered Lana a necklace with a small red jewel which she reluctantly accepts. What no one realizes is that this red necklace happens to be a mutated fragment of Clark’s home world of Krypton. When exposed to this particular fragment, it liberates the id’s of their psyches, making Kryptonians behave resentful and evil. When Kryptonians are on earth, they receive powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. Thankfully a powerless Clark Kent was exposed to this jewel briefly but had he had his powers, the results could have been disastrous. No one could even think of the unique consequences that would result from when a Kryptonian’s amazing powers on Earth would be transferred to a human. Except for The Wise Watcher, so that is why we ask …

 

What if Lana Was Exposed to Red Kryptonite?

 

The red light from Lana’s eyes fade as a wicked smile comes to her face. She gets up from her bed and ponders. Usually, the sweet small town girl thinks about what to wear, what time school is, or tune’s in with her super-hearing to hear if anyone in town is in trouble. This, however, is not the same Lana Lang that the world knows as she goes to her mirror and says: “Mmmmm, I feel wonderful. It’s like looking at the world with a new set of eyes. And that’s pretty cool because I can see all the way to Metropolis with MY vision. I don’t know why I’m spending all of this time sleeping when I should be out doing whatever I please. After all, with powers like these …”

Lana quickly rushes to her closet at super speed, changes, does her makeup and hair and rushes back to the mirror one second later to say “who on Earth can stop me.”

 

The scene switches to the Smallville branch of Kansas State Savings and Loan. All is calm in this branch in the center of town usually but not on this night. Tonight, there is an unusual transaction taking place on this night, with the amount being every single dollar in the bank. There are three figures bustling in the shadows, looking for a way to crack open the safe.

One of them, Mike, breaks the silence to ask “Hey, Jake, did that access code you get work?”

“No man, looks like they change it every night or something.” Jake replies.

Tom then quips “guess they didn’t tell you that in your little internship didn’t they?”

“Shut up Tom, it just means we have to find another way. Lets see if there’s something in those file cabinets that has the answer.”

The three run through each desk of the bank looking for a possible answer as to how to open the safe. Tom, who rummages through one desk by the wall, looks up to notice that there is a camera right above him to which he asks “Hey Jake, did you remember to take out the cameras.”

He replies with “Well I thought I got all of them but …”

Jake removes a revolver from underneath his shirt and shoots the camera.

BANG

Mike yells “JAKE, WHAT THE F*** IS THAT!!!!”

He answers with “Just a little insurance in case we ran into problems. Mike, we’re robbing a bank here, don’t tell me you’re not expecting to run into problems? That’s why I brought my dad’s old revolver, cause I knew you two would be too scared to do whatever it takes.”

There is a moment of awkward silence before they start rummaging again. Finally it’s broken as Mike finds the log of daily code changes. “Hey, I think I found something”

They all proceed towards the Vice-President’s office where they analyze Mike’s findings.

Jake yells “What good is this gonna do us, this thing only tells what time they change the code, not what the code is … shit, Mr. Thomas must keep the code memorized or something.”

A voice from outside the room begins to say: “Well, well, well, it looks like I’m not the only one that needs a little cash this late at night.”

 

The boys rush out to the door to find Lana standing in the middle of the bank. Tom and Mike are stunned at the sight of this beautiful girl stumbling upon their attempted robbery.

Jake answers with “Hey babe, what’s goin' on, you go out on a date with a soon to be rich man!”

Tom and Mike pull Jake back whispering between them “JAKE, what are you doing, we should get her out of here or at least tie her up, we don’t want her to squeal to the cops”

“Would you guys relax, it’s obvious she wants a piece of the action otherwise she would have done just that” Jake whispers to them.

“YOU’RE HALF RIGHT” Lana says as the would-be robbers are confused as to how she heard their whispering. She continues with “It’s just that I don’t want a piece of anything … I’m gonna take it all, and there’s not a thing you boys can do to stop me.”

Mike and Tom begin to laugh as Jake then answers “Sorry babe, we did all the planning, we’re taking all the risk, and since you’ve seen all of our faces, you’ve just become a liability, let’s tie her up guys.”

Mike and Tom rush to grab her until, suddenly, Lana is gone in the blink of an eye and reappears leaning in the doorway of the Vice-President’s office. “Here I am guys.”

The robbers appear puzzled as to how she can get all the way over there without them noticing but shaking that feeling off they attempt to try and catch her again. Suddenly she is gone and appears at the front door “Or am I here?”

The guys begin to worry as they can’t believe their eyes.

“Or could it be that I’m …”

There is a pause and then a split second later “… right behind you.”

Mike and Tom feel something tapping on their shoulder as they turn around they see Lana. She gives them a gentle nudge on each of their chests at once and they go flying into file cabinets lined along the wall behind them.

Lana coyly says “This is your captain speaking, please buckle your seatbelts as we will be experiencing turbulence.” as she turns around to face Jake, she is met with a barrage of bullets from Jake’s gun.

Jake proceeds to pull the trigger almost unmercifully expecting Lana to fall from the bullets but to his shock and horror she stands right there with an evil smirk on her face. The firing stops as Jake runs out of bullets with the gun still smoking.

“I hate guns” Lana says as her shimmering brown eyes turn red and the gun becomes too hot for Jake to hold, dropping it in pain.

Before the gun drops to the floor Lana is already in front of Jake with the piping hot gun in front of her.

“Who are you” Jake mutters while nursing his hand.

“Someone who you’d better not be seeing ever again unless you want to end up like this.”

With a smug look of confidence she gives it a slight squeeze and the gun crinkles into a mess of metal right in front of his face.

With that, Jake runs towards his unconscious friends and tries to help them up until he hears: “This is the Police, we know you’re in there, come out with your hands up!”

It fazes Jake as he looks at his two friends and scurries out the back door so at least one of them will be free in order to aid the other two out of jail later.

 

The arrival of the police doesn’t seem to faze Lana as she stands in front of the vault. She balls up her right hand into a fist and punches the door of the bank’s vault, resulting in a clanging sound. The sound is so loud that it mobilizes the police to get ready to storm the bank.

Lana looks at the vault door and there is a huge impression of her fist banging the door in, but it didn’t give way.

“Well, apparently there’s a limit to how strong a punch I can throw. I can’t break a steel door … but I know I can break holes through CONCRETE.” Saying that, Lana takes two steps to her left and in one punch, punches a 6 foot tall hole in the wall beside the safe.

She immediately sees a large deposit bag on the floor and at super speed fills the bag full of money, almost all the money in the bank. She continues to fill money until she detects with her hearing that the police has stormed the front door and upon entering, detect two of the attempting robbers on the floor.

Some of the officers attend to them while the rest continue to investigate the bank. Lana then jets off at super speed past the officers and through the front door. The resulting gust of wind knocks papers all through the wind while a gentle, but evil, laugh reverberates through the night air.

 

Hours pass as the police seal the crime scene. However, because she is a childhood friend of the current deputy, Chloe Sullivan is able to cajole her way into the crime scene in order to compile enough facts for a story.

Thinking to herself, she ponders: “This is definitely 'Wall of Weird' material. It looks like someone had some kind of super-powers, which enabled them to come into the bank, disable the cameras, take out the would-be robbers, smash a hole through the wall and walk away with almost all the money in town.”

Surreptitiously taking out her camera, she begins taking photos of the crime scene. She analyzes key areas of the robbery and is transfixed on the pictures, not realizing where she is stepping until …

“What the?!?” Chloe notices something on the floor. At first she looks over it to make sure it is just what it is, but once she is sure she leans over to pick up the item and put it in her pocket. Upon doing so, she continues to take pictures while formulating theories about this robbery in her mind.

 

The scene now shifts to the afternoon following the robbery. The Talon is busy with it’s afternoon regulars. Students are out of school for the day, going about their “normal” lives in Smallville.

Renee Fontana has been hard at work trying to serve every customer possible in The Talon, and considers it a reprieve to be able to go to the kitchen for a short break. Amazed, she walks into the kitchen to find Lana Lang leaning over the counter, fast asleep.

“Lana. Lana. Wake up Lana” she says while nudging her.

“Hmm. Oh hey Renee. Sorry, I guess I’m more tired than I thought. And that’s pretty weird considering the fact that I slept so (yawn) early” Lana just matters to say.

“Well, that’s weird, over the past couple of months you’ve been a big ol’ ball of energy. Why don’t you have some coffee and then step out to the front, I need to step out with my cell and make a phone call.” Renee says while getting her phone out of her bag.

“Thanks Renee, what would I do without you?” Lana says.

She then begins to think as to how she could be so tired. Ever since she got her powers, she really didn’t know what tired was. Lana places a pot of coffee in the coffee maker and then looks at herself in the mirror. She fixes her face, then her hair, and then finally her lovely necklace. She plays with it with her two fingers, fixated on how it shines a beautiful shade of red. She couldn’t get over how much she loved it on her. She admires it for another minute or two until she realizes the coffee is about to boil over. The coffee spills on her and she wouldn’t notice because of her invulnerability. She then cleans up the mess and steps out of the kitchen to see if anyone needs a refill.

Lana greets the old Anderson couple, who just celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary last week. She then takes a few orders until she reaches the corner of the Talon where a young man is on his cell phone talking to someone. Noticing that he has his cup at the edge of the table she prepares to pour him a refill. She doesn’t pay much attention to his conversation until the end, where he slams his cell phone shut in frustration. In order to comfort him in her own small town way, she

says “Aww cheer up, it can’t be that bad, maybe another cup of coffee will cheer you up.”

The man, almost puzzled, turns around to face Lana. He sits there for a moment transfixed on her face. Even though Lana didn’t know him, he most definitely knew her as he says “You!”

Lana stands there stunned. She doesn’t know this man but when their eyes meet, she appears startled and touches her necklace with her palm. She stares at his face and recalls fleeting images that pass through her mind. Images that she can barely understand since they flash through her mind at a pace even she couldn’t keep up with. She almost begins to sort out the last of the bizarre pictures until the man quickly gets up and runs out of the Talon.

Lana still stands there stupefied thinking about just what is it that happened until Clark Kent snaps her out of her apparent trance.

“Lana, are you okay?” he politely asks.

“Hey Clark, how are you?” she asks with her mind still trying to work out those fleeting images.

“I’m okay, just wanted to say hi, I hadn’t really had a change to speak with you at all since that day at the Douglas’s farm.” Clark thinks back to that weird feeling he had when touching Lana’s necklace.

He didn’t know why, but he has this distinct feeling that he should be apologizing. He almost spits it out before Renee interrupts: “Okay, I’m back boss lady, you can take off now.”

With that Lana asks Renee if she can close up again tonight because she wanted to get home, she wasn’t feeling well. Renee agrees since she can use the overtime.

“Hey Lana, why don’t I drop you off so you can spare yourself the trouble of driving.” Clark asks.

She really didn’t need to since she could have ran home at super-speed but decided she should since she has been neglecting Clark these last few weeks since she has been the town’s clandestine protector.

They walk to Clark’s truck together and they drive away. When they pull away, the man from the Talon, who scurried away steps out of the shadows, examining just what has gone on. Once completely removed from the alley’s shadow, it appears that man was Jake, the unsuccessful bank robber from the other night, whom is trying to put two and two together.

 

Lana manages to get home and figures that since it’s almost sundown, a small nap wouldn’t really hurt her before she goes out to patrol Smallville since it’s so quiet. She sprawls over her bead and closes her eyes and engages in a deep sleep. Almost twenty minutes after that, the sun goes down. All is dark in Lana’s room until a supple red light illuminates everything in sight. The images that flashed before Lana’s mind at the Talon become easier to see as she sees images of her using her

powers for rampant destruction rather than to help others. These images of freedom bring an evil smile to her face as she opens her eyes and the red glow from them gradually fades.

Lana rises from the bed and stretches while she says: “Sigh, it’s like a bird being freed from a cage. It seems that during the day I’m some kinda goody-goody, while at night I get to do whatever it is I want. It doesn’t seem that I remember what I do at night but I do remember what I want to do during the day. Ah, the power of being the id of little Lana’s psyche.”

Moving towards the mirror to admire herself, she says: “It seems that Clark is still really interested in me. I should give him a real thrill.”

Looking at herself, she concentrates on her clothes with a disapproving look “But this is never gonna do, I deserve much better than this.”

Looking at an upscale fashion magazine on her dressing table, she eyes an outfit worn by the movie star on the cover which retails for $6,000. “I think I can make it to Metropolis before the stores close, after all …”

She moves at super-speed to a tree four miles down from the Sullivans' house where she nudges the tree over slightly to reveal the bag of money from the robbery.

“… I have the power AND money now to do anything I want.”

 

While Lana embarks on her shopping spree, we go to the Keewachi caves where we find Clark Kent hard at work looking for answers.

“I know the answers to my origin are here somewhere, but what’s the connection. And if I do find whatever I find, will it help me get my powers back?”

Concentrating further, he finds an octagonal shape in the wall that is similar in size to that which is on the ship that brought him to this planet. He eyes it for a while and then is about to touch it. Before he can do so, he hears: “This is a pretty weird way for a guy to spend his time. What’s the matter, your girlfriend not willing to keep you company down here.”

Clark turns around to find Jake, the bank robber standing about fifteen feet behind him. “Who are you?” Clark asks.

“Just someone who wants to get even with your friend.” Saying that, he pulls his gun out and points it towards Clark.

“Who, Lana?” Clark asks in a puzzled manner. “She wouldn’t hurt a fly, what do want with her?”

“Payback for what she did to my friends, and our plans.” Upon saying that, Jake pistol whips Clark, knocking him out.

 

Minutes later, Lana Lang arrives at the caves looking for Clark since that’s where he spends most of his time.

“Oh Claaaaaark?” she calls in a provocative manner “It’s Lana, and do I have a surprise for you” she tosses her hair back nonchalantly and progresses deeper into the heart of the cave until she notices Clark, tied up and passed out underneath the weird octagonal shape in the wall.

“What the!?” Lana walks towards him until she turns around and says: “Do you really think you can hide from me, your heartbeat is louder than a rock concert to MY hearing!”

Jake emerges from the shadows, half enraged, half terrified, he has yet to decide which he is more of until he says “So, how does it feel to see your friends hurt?”

With a slight smirk, she says “I guess you’re a slow learner” with that she moves at super speed, and comes closer to his face.

“Looks like I made a mistake not dealing with you like I did your little friends didn’t I? ”

While she is saying that, Jake looks to get his gun out of the back of his jeans until he notices that it isn’t there.

“Looking for this?” Lana says as she brandishes it in her left hand before tossing it away and melts it with her heat vision when it hits the ground.

“As you can see, there isn’t a damn thing YOU, or ANYONE ELSE can do to stop me from getting what I want.”

He delivers a right hook to Lana’s face which results in a cracking sound. Jake yells in pain and examines his hand to find it full of his own blood and possible bone fractures.

“Oh that’s really cute” Lana says mockingly

Jake yells: “You freak, I’ll kill you for getting in MY way.”

He then charges her but she casually smacks him away with him landing just before Clark.

Disoriented, he struggles to his feet and sees Lana walk towards him. With a determined look on her face, she feels she has had her fill of this insect that may cause her more problems in the future. She raises her fist and is about to administer the final blow.

Before she can do so however, Jake passes out and falls to the floor. Before she can stop her punch, Lana’s fist plunges into the octagonal shape and an eerie white light consumes her.

 

Even with her enhanced senses all she sees is endless white. She doesn’t know what to make of it until she hears: “I am Jor-El, leader of the house of El. I have been awakened in order to guide the one who will propagate the legacy of Krypton throughout the cosmos.”

The voice resonates with a resonating echo through her head until Lana quips “What the heck are you talking about? Jor-who of what? And what the heck is Krypton”

“The planet Krypton is light years from the star system Sol. Exploding eons ago, there exists but a single vestige of that planet’s great legacy. My son … Kal-El. His bio-signature is on this planet. However, there is an anomaly.”

“What kind of anomaly?” she asks

“When exposed to your sun, Kryptonians are imbued with powers that make them more powerful than anything your planet has ever seen. These powers seem present … in you.”

“Wrong answer there Jor-whatever, because my powers are a result of the meteor rocks all over this good for nothing town.”

“These fragments are pieces of the planet Krypton. This … Kryptonite, traveled here upon the explosion of our once great planet.

“Wait a minute, you mean to tell me that my parents’ death is because of space junk flying smack into this town.” Lana says

“It would seem that my son is not capable of enforcing the will of Krypton upon your planet. He is incomplete. With that being so, Earth must have a complete example of the perfection that is Krypton.”

 

With that being said, the endless light surrounding Lana gradually fades.

She notices that Clark is unconscious and Jake is gone, before she can comprehend what just happened, the cave writings around the octagon begin to move and a sharp light hits Lana causing her intense pain. Because the pain is so great, she does not notice that Clark is also hit by a separate beam of light emanating from the same place. The fury and intensity of this light is so great that it knocks Lana’s necklace off of her chest. Her head swirling, she becomes worried until the light fades.

Moments later, she opens her eyes to find herself lying on the floor. Her mind was now abreast to the events of the last few days.

“Oh my god, ever since I got that necklace, I was doing such horrible things. I can’t believe what I’ve … CLARK.”

She notices that Clark is still unconscious as she moves over to him. Still subdued by the ropes, she unties him and wakes him into consciousness.

His eyes open and he smiles at her while muttering “Lana … I was so worried about you, that guy …”

“That’s not important right now Clark. What is important right now is getting you to a doctor to check out all those bruises.” she says with her usual affectionate tone.

She helps him up and they walk out of the cave together towards Clark’s car. Both of them relieved that the other is all right but to lighten the mood as they leave, Clark tells her “Nice outfit”.

 

The next day Lana tried to make amends for the damage that she caused by returning all the things she bought and placed a giant bag of money in front of the bank at super-speed. She also helped the Douglas’s as much as she can with the restoration of their barn but careful not to reveal her powers. But last night was leaving her with far more questions than answers.

Where is it that Jake went? What did Jor-El mean about Kal-El? Was he some kind of alien menace waiting to threaten the world? What did he mean by making a complete Kryptonian?

While Lana was trying to figure that all out, she held the red jeweled necklace by the chain. She admired it and thought about all she had done with it. In some ways she admired the exhilarating freedom that she had when she wore it. She hears Chloe’s voice calling her from the next room: “Lana can you come here a second”

She took a moment to look at it, but then with a serious look she placed the necklace in the lead jewelry box that Clark gave her months ago and closed the lid.

“Be right there Chloe” she says as she walks toward her room.

She finds Chloe Sullivan hard at work on her computer with her latest story. “Hey, this is the first I’ve gotten to see you all day Lana, where’ve you been?”

To which she answers “I had a lot of commitments that I had to catch up with today.

Chloe answers “Always the busy body. Anyways, I asked you here for something. I’ve been doing some research since the day of the bank robbery. I got to take a few pictures of the crime scene cause I knew the deputy. So I was looking around and I found something that would help me crack the case. I knew I shouldn’t have, but I took evidence from the crime scene because I thought that this could be just the exclusive that I needed to get that Jr. Reporter’s job at the Daily Planet in Metropolis.”

Lana asks with fear in the back of her mind “What is it that you found?”

“THIS.” Chloe pulls out an earring from her bag. “I had to think about it for a minute, but remember that field trip that the junior class took to Gotham City last semester. Remember how a bunch of us stopped by that cool store downtown where they were selling these great earrings. I remember a lot of us buying them that day cause we never get a lot of styles like these in Smallville …”

While Chloe is explaining the story, Lana’s mind flashes back to when Jake was firing his gun at her. She didn’t notice it while rampaging through the bank under the influence of the red Kryptonite, but a ricochet hit her invulnerable body and went into her earring causing it to fall off. Waving that memory off, she is noticing that Chloe is near the story’s completion as she says: “So after having you remember all that, what I’m trying to ask you is …”