A What-If Tale Featuring the New Lana Lang of Smallville

I am the Wise Watcher and it is my purpose to enlighten those on the alternate realities that live throughout the planet Earth. Earth has always been fascinating because of it’s many superheroes, particularly The Last Son of Krypton, Superman. In one previously observed reality, we saw the young man that would be Superman, Clark Kent attempt to save the life of his childhood sweetheart Lana Lang. Lana was in danger of falling from a bridge while holding a bag of green kryptonite, a radioactive fragment of Clark’s home world of Krypton which weakens the otherwise super-powerful young man. With a probability of a million to one, a lightening bolt struck Clark in the chest and because of the bag of kryptonite between them; all of Clark’s amazing abilities were transferred to Lana.

Oblivious to each other’s plight, Clark and Lana went through interesting changes over the next several months. Clark learned about the frailties of being a human being while being rid of the burden of his amazing abilities. Lana on the other hand, was empowered to a degree not humanly possible and revels in the chance to use her amazing new powers to help those in need and avoid them from being the victim she perceives herself to have been throughout most of her life. With both Clark and Lana beginning to become comfortable with their new roles, they still have yet to fathom the other changes which might have resulted from that unexpected transfer of Clark’s awesome powers to Lana, so that is why The Wise Watcher asks …

What If Lana Continued Being the Protector of Smallville?

'It is absolutely beautiful today.' Those are the thoughts of Lana Lang as she rides her horse, Byron, out of the stable and out into the rural countryside of Smallville. This was the first time she was able to ride her horse since her amazing transformation from normal Midwestern teenager to superhuman powerhouse. Life changed for the better after she was granted these amazing powers. When she first received them, she was puzzled as to why, but after the weird happenings in Smallville since the meteor shower, she just figured it was only a matter of time before what was happening to a lot of people had happened to her.

No matter what the reason, she certainly did not take these abilities for granted. She always had to deal with the responsibilities of being a normal high school student in addition to being the manager of The Talon coffeehouse in the center of town. But now, she is like an unseen superhero, like out of some kind of comic book. She was at the forefront of the rescue party to help survivors of the vicious tornado that passed through the town two months ago by secretly using her x-ray vision to locate survivors trapped within the rubble. And when members of the school baseball team received amazing strength from a school experiment, she had to use a combination of her speed and strength to foil their plans to steal from others. Add to all this the plights of small town folk here and there and that definitely makes her more busier than your average teenager. Riding her horse is the first leisurely thing that she has been able to do in weeks.

Even though she was capable of traveling many times faster on her own, moving at such a slow pace allows her to use her amazing senses to note the beauty of Smallville. She was able to feel and identify the breeze falling on her skin. She was able to smell the scent of wildflowers growing from the Smallville gardens five miles away. She was able to hear the little boy cry for help …

'Little boy crying for help???' Lana broke her concentration and stopped Byron for a moment as she tuned in even further with her super-hearing. Once she was able to pick up the direction from which it was coming from, she noticed that the boy was crying that he had lost his dog in the wheat fields. She used her microscopic vision to find that the dog was sleeping in the middle of the field and there was a plowing machine heading right for him. Noticing that she only has a few seconds before he’s killed, she dismounts from Byron and tells him to stay. After that, she runs faster than a lightening bolt to reach the dog before the plowing machine kills him

She moves like a pink and blue blur, just in time to reach the dog before the machine comes over him. She runs at super-speed to just outside of the wheat field, behind the troubled little boy.

“Excuse me little boy, I think I found something that belongs to you” she says with a slight smile forming on her face.

The boy turns around to find a beautiful young woman holding his dog, her face basking in the beautiful sunlight. “Wow, you're pretty. Are you an angel??” he asks politely.

“That’s so sweet, but no, I just heard you were crying and tried to help” she says.

“Then you must be an angel because my dad used to tell me that angels always hear when you are in trouble and try there best to help good people, like my dog.”

Lana compassionately looks at him and says “That’s beautiful, but I’m no angel sweetheart, my name’s Lana, Lana Lang.”

“My names’s Cody, and thank you for finding my dog Ms. Lana, I don’t know where I would be without him”

“Well, even though it’s a beautiful day for playing with your dog, you should still be careful, there are all types of machines around. You never know what could happen to your dog.”

Looking at the dog cradled in her arms, she concentrates on the dog and uses her x-ray vision, to find that the dog just fell sick from some of the pesticides that were sprayed on the wheat. “You know Cody, I remember when my dog would be all sad like this, it was because of something he ate in the fields, it’d be really good if you took him to a doctor.”

“Okay Ms. Lana, I will do that right away.” Lana then gently hands back the tiny dog to Cody, to which he says “It was nice to meet you!!!”

“It was nice to meet you too Cody.”

Lana notices Cody turn and take off and she watches on. She was amazed at herself that she could cover such a large distance in such a short amount of time. Although there were times where she just wants to cut loose and have some fun with them but in her heart she felt that would be irresponsible and dangerous. Prying herself from her moral dilemma for a moment, she looks at her watch and notices she is 2 minutes away from the first bell at school and she is twenty miles away.

“Boy, I hope I am as fast to get to class this morning.” With that being said she takes a quick glance up at the sun, basks in it’s rays for a moment and runs off towards Smallville High like a human rocket.

Rushing to Smallville High she hears the bell ringing as she is about one mile away from school, she sees the front door about to close as she rushes through the door just in time and stops in the empty hallway, just outside of her classroom door. She then normally walks inside and sits down at her usual seat in her psychology class.

Mr. Hastings goes through the attendance and then talks to the class about chapter 7 in their text, the human subconscious. “Class, today we are going to discuss the human psyche and it’s many levels. Freud analyzed the human mind where there are three levels of human consciousness. The first is the id, which is part of the psyche which deals with the instinctive human impulses. The ego is the second part which deals with our perception of the outside world. The third part of the human psyche is the super-ego, which deal with a person’s desire for an ideal self.”

The lesson plan of Mr. Hastings is lost on Lana after he mentioned the word super-ego. She thinks back over what she has done with her powers. She remembered the time she saved Renee at The Talon. Or the time she ran into the heart of a burning building in order to save an elderly woman. And then there was when she went off on her own to search for victims of the hurricane and lifted up an entire barn to find an unconscious family. Her mind was racing with all of these amazing memories of her doing extraordinarily powerful things. She reveled in the chance to use these amazing gifts and yearned to fully test herself. But she was always worried about the repercussions of doing such a thing. As she went on with her own subconscious, thinking about what she should do, Mr. Hastings became a little agitated over the lack of class participation this morning, so he goes on to ask …

“If you all read the assigned chapter, can anyone tell me as to what year did Dr. Freud present his structural model on id, ego and superego?” He notices Lana daydreaming at her seat, walks up to her desk and asks “Lana, do you have the answer?”

The rest of the class was baffled; they didn’t seem to have time to read the chapter and was expecting her to answer wrong. She snapped out of her daydreaming and noticed that the professor was right in front of her. “Well, I’m waiting Lana, what’s the answer?”

She was a little embarrassed that she was daydreaming so heavily, but she composed herself and calmly said “He unveiled it at a convention here in the United States in 1923 Mr. Hastings”

“Correct, nice job Miss Lang, at least someone read the chapter.” Little did Mr. Hastings realize that she read the chapter at super-speed just before entering the classroom!

The rest of the school day went by relatively very slowly for Lana. She felt like a bird in a gilded cage all day. It gnawed at her a lot these last few days that she was sitting there with all of these amazing powers and she was cooped up in doors and not able to use them. When the final bell rang, she ran outside of school normally as fast as she can. The minute she turned the corner away from the school she checked to see no one was around and ran so fast, the tar road beneath her feet had caught on fire. She was grinning from ear to ear. It was too bad that she couldn’t do this all day because of her shift at the Talon.

Lana ran like a blur all the way to the back of the Talon where there was a rusted metal door. She normally carries a key which opens this back door but in all the commotion of rushing to the barn this morning she must have forgotten it. Since she didn’t really have much time to run back to Chloe’s house before her shift started, she took her hand and squeezed it in between the door and the door frame. She then proceeded to peel the metal door out of the frame as if it was the skin of an onion. She thought to herself that she had to fix her little mess later, while fighting back the glee on her face.

Lana was able to lose herself in the business of The Talon this afternoon. For the last several months since the tornado, it has been a frequent of many people in town because of it’s pivotal role as a triage during times of disaster. She was helping so many people that her tray was beyond full, making it impossible for other waitresses to hold, yet unbeknownst to everyone, the tray seemed like the weight of a feather to her.

She was manning the counter, attending to the coffee, which at one point was so hot, if not for her invulnerability, would has scalded her horribly. She thinks to herself that she is glad nobody saw that until one minute later when she hears “Excuse me miss, you’re Lana Lang right?”

To which she replies “Uhmmm, yes I am, how can I help you?”

“I need to talk to you about something, can we sit down?”

“Sure thing” Lana says.

As the two sits down, being the consummate host, Lana asks “Can I offer you a cup of coffee?”

The woman replies “Sure, but to be honest the coffee is not why I came to see you. I was told of something you did and I just wanted to thank you”

Lana stood there silent for a moment thinking to herself if the woman saw her use her powers. She really wasn’t prepared to deal with anyone finding out about them just yet. She was worried that she might be exposed and that might lead to all kinds of problems for her and those in her life. The woman breaks the brief moment of silence by saying …

“Oh, I am so sorry, I forgot to introduce myself, my name is Helen, Helen Michaels. You’ve never met me, but my son Cody told me you saved our dog, Lucky, today in the wheat fields outside of town. He said a girl by the name of Lana Lang helped our dog and told him to take him to the vet. I asked around to see if anyone knew a girl by your name and told me to come here. Thanks to you I was able to save our dog; I just wanted to thank you in person”

Relieved, Lana replies, “There is no need to thank me, Mrs. Michaels I was in the area and just helped him look that’s all.”

“Maybe you think so Lana, but I don’t. You see, a few years ago, I had lost my husband in combat. He was a member of the armed forces. One of the very few things we did as a family before he died was he gave Lucky to Cody. It’s one of the few memories we have left of him since the hurricane. If we had lost him, I don’t know what we would have done. That’s why I am really grateful to you and want to give you this.”

Mrs. Michaels takes out a skinny black case which she hands to Lana. Lana opens it to find a golden necklace with a red jewel attached to it. “It’s beautiful” Lana manages to stammer out.

“My sister makes jewelry just outside of town where Cody was playing. She had given it to me but because of what you have done for me today, I want you to have it.”

“Oh, I couldn’t do that” Lana immediately says.

Mrs. Michaels interjects “Please Lana, it would really mean a lot to me if you keep it.”

At first Lana is reluctant but she looks at how beautiful it is and she reluctantly accepts her offer. Mrs. Michaels gets out of her chair as Lana rolls her hair up to allow Mrs. Michaels to put it on her. Once done, Lana looks down to admire it and smiles.

“Thank you Mrs. Michaels, it’s wonderful.”

“Thank you Lana, now I have to get going, it’s almost 5 o’clock and I have to get Lucky and Cody home; it was really nice to meet you.”

“Likewise” Lana adds as she notices her leaving. She goes to a mirror and admires the necklace on her and becomes very happy.

The day quickly gives way to late evening as Smallville is engulfed in the calm that is night. On the edge of town, there is the Douglas family barn, which has land that stretches farther than the eye could see. Barely anything moves in the day time let alone the night. However, noise begins to stir in the largest of the barns on the property. The noises becomes louder and louder until the barn explodes in a gust of fire. The calm of night is suddenly ablaze with the sounds of animals panicking and the lights of emergency vehicle sirens. Truly on this night, there was nothing small happening in Smallville.

The next morning, Lana gets to enjoy a rare Saturday to herself by running through the fields of Smallville with a rooster tail of dirt following immediately in back of her. She notices with her acute senses that there is commotion just near the Douglas farm as she stops just fifty feet away.

She is almost oblivious to the emergency workers that are at the farm because of the carnage that she happens upon. Crops and fields burnt beyond recognition. Animals so scared, they dare not move let alone, produce food or milk. Tractors, trucks and pieces of the barn are scattered all over the farm. She was trying to make sense of all this until she notices Clark, Pete and Chloe in the main barn and walks up to Chloe to ask her …

“What on Earth happened, it’s like a bomb went off here.”

“There was some kind of disturbance at this barn last night. It’s totally weird, whatever happened here, the destruction that occurred here in such a short amount of time makes it seem like there had to be a group of people here. It must have been because there was said to have been voices coming from different parts of the farm at almost the same time. I really don’t know as to whether it’s 'wall of weird' worthy or just some bunch of guys who got drunk and were looking for a good time. But my journalistic sense tells me that it’s still a good story to follow.”

While Chloe is talking, Lana looks to specific areas of the farm with her microscopic vision and to her amazement, she can’t find a clue. Whichever group of people did this, they were really careful but at the same time chaotic. She was wondering why she couldn’t hear any of this carnage across town yesterday while Chloe says …

“Earth to Lana, hello!! Everytime you have that look on your face, it’s like you’re on another world.”

“Sorry” Lana mutters “it’s just that I am surprised that no one was able to see who did any of this.”

“Old-man Douglas was the only one to catch a glimpse of everything as it happened. Although I hope the police don’t count on him to be a great eye witness. He didn’t have his glasses on and was kinda far away. He was even saying he heard one of their voices. He said it was a girl. He was about to put his glasses on and when he finally did he said they were all gone. And get this, he said that all he heard when they were all gone was the sound of that girl’s laughter. Isn’t that creepy”

Lana stands there transfixed thinking to herself that maybe her super-hearing is not working. To test it, she sees Clark and Pete standing one hundred feet away. She brushes her hair from her left ear and concentrates; she can hear their heartbeats, which means her hearing was fine. But why is it she couldn’t …

Chloe continues with “Anyways, what was up with you, after you came home from the Talon in the afternoon, you said you weren’t feeling well.”

“Yea, I went straight to bed” Lana thought to herself as she was feeling sick sometime right before sundown, which is why she called Renee in to close so she could run home at super-speed. It was all around the time after she got the necklace, she thinks to herself as she grasps it between her two fingers.

“Hey that’s beautiful, where did you get it from?” as Chloe notices Lana with it.

“This lady gave it to me since I helped her find her dog. I didn’t want to take it but it reminded me so much of the one with green stone on it that Whitney lost last year.” Lana clutches the jewel in her hand as she looks down, with Chloe consoling her with typical sarcastic charm.

Clark and Pete look further into the fields to find the possible cause of all this destruction. Pete says “So what’s your best guess as to the how and why?”

Clark says “I don’t know. But it just reemphasizes my point that with all the things that go on in this town, there has to be someone to help.”

“I know you feel it’s your fault for everything bad happening in this town Clark, but forget about it. You have no control over it anymore, your powers are gone remember?”

“Yea Pete and that’s just the problem. At first I thought they were a nuisance because I couldn’t live a normal life with them. Since they’ve been gone, I have been able to do all the things normal kids do. Hang out, play sports; I even got a spot on the football team as starting QB. But through all of this, in the back of my mind, I feel as though I shouldn’t be enjoying myself. Weird things still go on here every day. Luckily they turn out all right for some weird reason in the end but what if they didn’t.?”

Pete answers back with “But Clark, it wasn’t your fault. Look, my dad keeps telling me that in life, things just happen and that it’s up to you to make the most with the cards your dealt. Look at all of the good that’s come of you losing them. Those voices you used to hear in your head are gone. You got on the school team; you are more popular because people can see you as you really are. You don’t even have to worry about Chloe and Lana getting to close anymore. If not for the way you get around those green rocks, you would be your average earth-born teenager.”

Clark shuffles around for a moment, turns away, ponders and says “you know, in a way, you’re right. I know I’m fussing about things that are out of my control but for the safety of everyone in this town, I think we should concentrate on finding out who these people are and if we can find a way to stop them.”

Clark and Pete walk back towards Lana and Chloe where Clark and Pete notice that Lana has a new necklace. Pete says “Hey Lana, cool necklace” he holds it in his palm, “Don’t you think so Clark?”

When Clark touches the necklace, he feels a little flush, but all of a sudden that feeling is replaced. He looks straight into Lana’s eyes and then motions with his eyes directly onto her chest, to a point where Lana notices and says, “I … think I had better get going. I just remembered that there was something that I needed to do. With that Lana takes off and heads for Gibson stables.” and once safely away, runs off a super-speed through the golden wheat fields of Kansas.

Clark then holds the side of his head, confused as to what just happened. When Chloe departs to get pictures, Clark tells Pete “I felt really weird right now touching that thing.”

“Aww common Clark, being that close to Lana, I know what it does to you. Common, lets go into town and see if anyone might have heard anything to give us a clue.”

And with that, Clark gets into Pete’s car as they drive away.

Lana spends the rest of the day with a smile on her face, practicing with her senses at Gibson Stables. She finds that her hearing and vision are still as sharp as they ever were but deep down ponders why her super-hearing wasn’t working last night. She thought that maybe if she wasn’t under the weather yesterday, that the Douglas’s barn would still be here. As the sun is about to go down, Lana gets that same nauseating feeling she had yesterday. With that, she quickly dismounts and puts Byron away so she can go back home.

“Thank goodness I don’t have to work today; I don’t think I could make it.”

With that, Lana changes into her pajamas and undoes her hair but forgets to take her necklace off. Amongst all her fuss to get into bed, the sickness, the cramping and the nausea all make her not realize this is the first time she had ever even gotten ill or felt pain since she got her powers. She has little time to realize that as she sleeps directly through the rest of the daylight until something peculiar happens. As sunlight fades from the night sky Lana begins to uneasily motion from her sleep. She tosses and turns until her head is facing the roof and opens her eyes. Her eyes quickly come open as the necklace begins to glow a deep red. A warm light emanates from the jewel and encompasses Lana’s entire body. The light then concentrates itself in her eyes. As it passes, a sinister smile comes to her face.