Superlana Chapter 1 by The Wise Watcher --------------------------------------------- DOWNLOADED FROM http://www.superwomenmania.com/storybank --------------------------------------------- What if Clark’s Powers Were Transferred to Lana? I am The Wise Watcher and for countless years I have observed your planet Earth for it’s many heroes. The greatest hero of your world is a being named Kal-el that is known to the entire world as Superman. As an infant, Kal-el was rocketed from the doomed planet of Krypton. Upon it’s explosion, fragments of his planet followed him on his arrival to Earth’s Smallville, Kansas. Here he would be raised as Clark Kent and grow up to have amazing abilities that he would use to save others in his youth in Smallville en route to becoming Superman. One such case is where he goes out to save a young outcast named Eric Summers, who precariously stands on top of a ledge during a thunderstorm while holding a bag of meteor rocks, which are fragment meteorites of Clark’s home planet. With the weather pushing him over the edge Clark intuitively reaches for the bag and through a twist of fate, a bolt of lightning strikes Clark and causes the bag to transfer all of his amazing powers to Eric. Noticing that Eric uses Clark’s powers recklessly, Clark locks himself in a battle where he gets his powers back and teaches himself a valuable lesson about the responsible use of his abilities. However, what would’ve happen if Clark’s powers were transferred to someone else that day as we ask… What if Clark’s Powers Were Transferred to Lana? Lana Lang really didn’t want to be on this field trip. She was still pretty depressed after recently losing her boyfriend Whitney in combat while he was stationed in Cambodia. On top of that, she also saw her aunt Nell, her caretaker, move to Metropolis with her fiancée Gill. Luckily she was able to stay with Chloe, whom she has recently become good friends with. She originally wasn’t going to go on Mr. Summers’s geology trip but Clark talked her into it in order to get her mind off of her recent troubles. Clark even asked Mr. Summers to pair them together so they can work on the assignment and hopefully comfort her in her time of need. While digging for samples of the meteor rocks that ravaged Smallville sixteen years ago, she bumps into Eric. Eric has always been an outcast because of his father being an unpopular teacher and no one wanting to associate with him because of his father’s unsavory attitude towards students. What makes this ironic is that because of Mr. Summers, Eric makes no friends at school AND mistreats Eric at home by always belittling him. It seems that Lana is the only person that notices he’s alive. “Hey Eric, what are you doing?” she asks. “Oh, uh, nothing Lana, just looking for igneous rocks for my dad’s assignment” “Igneous? Shouldn’t you try finding meteor fragments? Those can be pretty hard to find ‘cause of how deep they’re buried.” “Nah, for me it was really easy, I knew a great spot to find them” after an odd moment of silence between the two of them he breaks it by saying “…..Hey…. I’m really sorry to hear about Whitney, Everyone at school loved him and knew how serious you two were getting” She looks at him sympathetically for a moment and follows with “thanks…..that’s really sweet of you” (Lana thinks of how miserable Whitney used to treat him but is touched how Eric still shows kindness to Whitney’s ex-girlfriend) After looking over Lana’s shoulder, Eric notices his father giving him a disapproving look, causing him to look back at Lana and say “listen, I had better get back to the assignment, but if you ever want to talk about anything…” “Thank you, I’ll remember that,” she answers. As Eric leaves with his bag of meteor rocks, it makes it safe for Clark to approach Lana and talk to her. “Hey Lana, how’re you holding up with your end of the assignment?” “I’m doing okay Clark (she turns to look at Eric) I was just taking a minute to talk to Eric, nobody really pays attention to him because of his dad. From what I saw, I don’t think his dad really appreciates him. It’s a shame that he has a father and they can’t be happy. And still through all his problems, he was still nice enough to say he was sorry about Whitney…..She forms a look on her face as if she were almost about to cry but then Clark tries breaking it up with “Hey Lana, don’t cry, just remember that me, Chloe, Pete…we’re here for you. How about after school today, we go back to the farm and go horseback riding. When was the last time you took Donatello out for a ride? Fighting the tears away, she says under her breath “It’s been a long time, but yea, that would be nice.” Throughout the remainder of the assignment, Clark and Lana talk while looking for all of the minerals on the assignment sheet. Through all of the fun they were having being with one another, she never really noticed that it was the first time that Lana was able to lose herself in something other than her problems. She thinks that Clark is really sweet for trying to help her. She still found it amazing that when they split up to look for rocks, Clark was able to come up with almost all of the rocks for the assignment. Little did Lana know that because Clark is an alien from the planet Krypton, he is granted powers that separate him from normal human beings because of Earth’s yellow sun. This gives Clark a variety of amazing powers which he uses to secretly aid those in need. But even though Clark was physically different from other human beings, his heart was almost too human since it was given to Lana obliviously at their first meeting. To Clark, there are a number of reasons to love Lana. She was compassionate, intelligent, dedicated and not to mention the most beautiful woman that he had ever seen. With all the fun they were having, they didn’t even notice that a storm was beginning to brew over Smallville. They run through the checklist and find that they are short only one mineral, meteor rocks. Even though Clark was able to see from a distance where they were, how could he tell Lana that he can see through the ground? He can’t begin to explain to her that exposure to this rock makes him very sick and long-term exposure would probably kill him. While Clark thinks about his predicament, Lana interrupts him with “Wait, I know where we can get some meteor rocks! We can ask Eric!, maybe he can tell us where he got some of his.” They go to Pete and ask him where was the last place that he saw Eric and he says that he saw Eric take off for the condemned bridge over the Smallville River. Clark quickly answers with “maybe we can ask someone else if they know a good spot?” Concerned about Eric’s safety, Lana says, “that area is real dangerous Clark, I lost a friend there when I was young. I’d better go look for him” Lana says in a determined voice. With Lana set on finding him, Clark decides it is best to aid her. The trail is easy for him to follow, which he chalks up to educated guesses so Lana doesn’t get suspicious. They make their way a little over two miles away from the research site, where they find Eric standing on the top of the barricade of the bridge, overlooking the ominous storm that seems to be starting at any moment. The wind and the thunder immediately begin to blow but Eric would never know because of the P.O.D CD that he’s blasting on his headphones. She yells Eric’s name a few times as Clark stands behind her so he doesn’t get immediate sickness because of the Kryptonite stones in Eric’s bag. Eric finally notices and says “hey Lana, I guess you found my special place. Whenever the world begins to get me down, I just come up on this bridge and feel like I’m on top of the world. Come a lil closer, the view is pretty amazing.” Reluctantly she comes closer to peer over the bridge’s barricade, where she says, “it’s beautiful. (she looks up at him and says)….Eric, we came because we were concerned about you, with this storm coming, it’s not safe, let’s get back to the site”. Clark interjects with “I really think we should start getting back before Mr. Summers gives us detention.” Even the sound of hearing his father’s name begins to faze Eric as he takes his backpack off of his shoulder and looks down. Noting the pain in his eyes, Lana tugs at his bag gently and is about to offer words to hopefully comfort him. Suddenly, a crackle of thunder and a strong gust of wind shifts Eric off of balance and he falls off the bridge. Noticing this, Lana holds onto the bag to try and save him but she too ends up falling over, both of them are holding a strap of the bag that contains the kryptonite. Before they can begin plummeting down the one thousand foot drop towards the bedrock below, Clark moves at super-speed to grab the top of the bag, already beginning to feel weaker because of the kryptonite. “HOLD ON” Clark yells. Lana looks to Clark frantically while thinking to herself, too frozen to speak. Eric begins to panic as he slowly looks below and notices how fatal the drop could be. With the wind blowing fully and the clouds motioning in the sky, Clark begins to pull them up. Normally, this task would be a breeze for him, but with the kryptonite in the bag weakening him by the second, it takes every ounce of his amazing strength to pull them up. One-quarter of the way up, a large bolt of lightening hits a pillar of the dilapidated iron bridge twenty feet away. This flash distracts Eric and causes him to lose his grip. Lana and Clark both yell “ERIC!!!!!!!” but he falls right before their eyes and watch helplessly as he dies. For a moment, they remain fixed on his dead body before Lana begins to really panic until Clark yells “LANA I DON”T WANT TO LOSE YOU….. HOLD ON” Clutching the bag full of kryptonite with one hand, he reaches for Lana with her other hand. He almost reaches her before… KRAKA-BOOM A bolt of lightening comes out of the sky and hits Clark right in the chest. With the constant flashing of lightening, the two of them do not notice a quick flash of light that comes over Clark and passes from the bag and finally onto Lana. Lana experiences a feeling so physiologically intense that she passes out while Clark, who suddenly feels very tired, finishes getting her to safety. Clark checks to see if she is okay but upon touching her smoking jacket, he gets a feeling he has never felt before. That feeling is the pain of being burnt. He is awestruck but barely has time to register it since Lana wakes up dazed and in a muttering voice and asks “Clark, What happened?” he hastily answers “you’re going to be okay Lana, come on, we need to get some help fast.” He helps her up as she aimlessly says “Eric, I’m so sorry, if only I cou………..” she passes out again this time with Clark holding on so she doesn’t fall. He takes her into his arms, and begins to take notice that she feels heavy. Clark has never really known what heavy is since he can usually lift things ten times heavier than Lana without even breaking a sweat. He glances over to make sure she is unconscious and then tries to move at super-speed to get them back to the research site. He notices immediately that he’s not moving as fast while he says to himself “my speed…..it’s….gone?!?” Clark then runs as fast as he can to get them back as soon as possible. The next thing that Lana sees as she awakens is her room in Chloe Sullivan’s house, wearing sleeping shorts and a t-shirt. She gets out of bed a little befuddled at first but then all of a sudden she feels fine. She finds that odd because sometimes after waking up, her left knee hurts from a riding accident she had when she was seven. She looks befuddled before walking past the full length mirror in her room and notices the scar from that accident seems to have disappeared. Puzzled still, she glances at her knee from different angles until she realizes “wait a minute, none of the lights are on, how am I seeing in the dark?” She walks across the room just to make sure and in every corner she sees just as fine as if the lights were on. She sits down on her bed, wondering how her eyesight could have improved so vastly when she says all of a sudden “Come in Chloe!” Chloe enters, and in her own sarcastic way says, “I can see that someone is part wolf!” Examining the room being dark she turns on the light and says “AND part owl! I tried not to disturb you, but when I thought I heard footsteps upstairs, I tried to be as quiet as possible to check up on you. Looks like being asleep for three days hasn’t affected your sense of hearing” With Lana facing her back to her she turns toward her and says “yea that’s weird, for some strange reason, I was able to tell that you were there, almost like I could hear your…wait a minute! You’re saying I was asleep for THREE days!?!” Chloe follows with, “Yea, you were out cold, but Dr. Nathan made a house call and she gave you a clean bill of health. Surviving near death experiences must be a specialty of yours! Lana’s head was swirling for a moment because of what Chloe was telling her. How could she have been asleep for so long. Her mind went back to her last memory of how she was at the bridge, Clark, the only thing separating her from the same fate of Eric, all of a sudden a flash of light overwhelms her last memory as she suddenly says “ERIC…oh my god Chloe….he died right in front of us.” She said as she covered her eyes with her hands. Fighting off her cynical journalistic instincts, Chloe looks at Lana sympathetically. “I’m really sorry Lana. It’s a horrible thing when anyone passes away. Still it’s amazing that even though he wasn’t that popular, half of the school showed up for his funeral this morning.” Lana thinks to how that poor boy fell to his death and she couldn’t do a thing about it. The last thing she ever remembers him saying to her was his kind words to her. She was taking it pretty hard but being the sympathetic person she always is asks, “Where’s Clark? I know he must feel terrible also, seeing as how he’s always helpful. Lana stands up and paces around her room while Chloe’s attention is lost for a moment; she then answers “Eric’s funeral is the first time I’ve seen them in a few days. Pete told me Clark is spending a lot of time researching something in those ancient Indian caves that they discovered a few months back. But everyday he was checking on you and asking if you were feeling better” Lana answers back “That’s sweet, but the real one to worry about is Eric’s fami……Chloe why are you looking at me like that?” Chloe stares at Lana for a moment and says, “not to sound totally insensitive in the middle of all this but you seem…..different somehow” Lana asks “What?” Chloe answers “it’s like you look….. healthier or something. Maybe I’ve been drinking too many lattes, forget it. Now that I know you’re okay, I can get back to work on my expose on the break-in at Smallville Savings & Loans last month. I’m gonna head back to The Torch, compile my research on the story, and I’ll call my dad and let him know you are okay. If you need anything, there’s takeout on the kitchen counter.” She gives Lana a hug and says “I’m glad your up, if you need anything, call me.” With Chloe leaving, Lana sits back down and looks at herself in the mirror. Even though she was asleep for three days, she really wasn’t that hungry or thirsty right now. She was just overwhelmed at the course of events in the last few days. She needed a way to put things into perspective. With that being thought, she said “Donatello”. She got dressed and headed to her car to drive down to Smallville Stables. Usually Lana and Clark go to pick up Donatello to take him back to the Kent farm. Tonight she decides not to bother Clark and ride her horse on the stable grounds. None of the farmhands are around this time of night so Lana has to prepare her horse herself. She took Donatello and gently trotted along the edge of the grounds. All of her problems with family, love, and school, all disappear when riding her horse! A small smirk forms over her face. She feels happy for a moment before remembering what transpired the last few days. She gently stops Donatello and looks outward for no reason until she feels rain gently start to come down. She rides her horse back to the stable to lock him in. Lightening and thunder start as all of the horses within the stalls awaken and start bustling. As Donatello panics, she calms him down and leads him to his old stall where she settles him in and locks the door. Lana walks away from her horses’ stall to the open doorway of the stable. She watches the storm start to build as she examines the last few months of her life. She thinks to herself “How many crazy things can a girl go through? It seems like I get attacked, kidnapped or taken advantage of every week! Something weird always seems to happen to me. It usually seems to end with someone I know dying. This town has been getting bizarre problems since the day of the meteor shower. God…I only hope you spare people from the type of things that I’ve had to go through.” Lana looks up at the sky and it suddenly thunders very loud. The sudden noise startles Sebastian, the prized bronco of the stable, locked in the stable she is near. The horse suddenly stands on its hind legs and kicks the support beam on its right. This causes all of the things stored overhead to come falling down. In fear of things hitting her, Lana trips over her own feet and falls to the floor before they do so. Four large bags of sand fall on her, pinning down her legs and torso. Before she can register anything at all, she notices that an anvil is teetering on the ledge of the overhead compartment. She sees it tilt forward, backward and finally forward again heading straight for her. She closes her eyes and covers her head with her arms just before the anvil reaches her. A muffled klanging sound resonates throughout the stable as the anvil hits Lana’s right forearm, followed immediately by a dull thud as the anvil hits the floor. Still lying on the stable floor, Lana slowly opens her eyes. She looks at the anvil which now lays at her right. She rolls up her right sleeve and surveys her right side to find that she’s unharmed. “What happened?!? That anvil was heading right for me, but I’m not bleeding, or even bruised!!!.” She then notices the four bags of sand laying on her. She pushes them off her and then gets up to examine the anvil. She walks around it until she finds a dent in the side of it. She surveys the dented area with her fingers. She then knocks at it gently at first. To reaffirm herself she knocks a little harder and causes a dent with her fingers in the steel. She sighs and says “Thank god…. it’s defective, that’s why it has this dent! Well, I can at least be grateful for the luck I’ve had with near-death experiences. Now if only I can use some of that luck to help me cleanup this mess.” Rainfall can begin to be heard pouring over the roof of the stable as Lana dusts herself off. She walks over to the sand bags that were laying on her just a moment ago. She looks over at the gate of the horse that caused this mess, noticing a plaque with its name on the door. “Well….Sebastian” she says smiling while leaning over ever so slightly to pick up a bag…..”Looks like I have another long night ahead of me huh?” The horse can be heard breathing heavily as Lana picks up the bag with her left hand. She walks over toward the end of the stable thinking to herself “I could’ve sworn these bags were heavier.” She looks over and is startled to find that she’s not lifting a bag of sand. She’s lifting all four of them because they are tied together! “What the..?!?” She lifts the bags up higher….and higher…and higher until they are up to her face. The bag directly in front of her turns over and on the front is printed Dubois & Sons, Co. She notices the emblem of the company on the middle, and on the bottom of the bag in red print is 100 lb. Noticing that she’s carrying four of the same bag with her left hand, she drops them immediately with a shocked look on her face. Lana looks back at the anvil which she is beginning to think was not quite defective after all. She thinks “This is impossible. I must be going crazy or something. Then again, I’ve experienced a lot of crazy things living in Smallville. There’s only one way to know for sure.” She sees an old tractor that has been in an empty stall for longer than she can remember. She walks over to the driver side determined to prove her theory wrong. She kneels down and says “Okay Lana, you’re either going to prove that you’re incredibly silly or……….whatever, here it goes.” She places her small hands underneath the base of the tractor. She takes a deep breath and counts “1…….2……………..3” She begins to stand up and concentrates on raising her arms up. Lana begins to hear a loud metallic sound. That snaps her concentration and makes her look to her side. Her eyes grow wide as she realizes that the tractor rises as she moves her arms upward. She raises her hands higher and higher until the wheels of the giant machine are above her head. Lana looks at the massive wheels of the tractor on her left and her right with her mouth wide open. She manages to stammer “I……I….don’t BELIEVE this.” Fear of this newfound power come over her as she unconsciously lets go of the tractor. The decommissioned John Deere then falls back down to the ground slamming on Lana’s right foot. The sudden noise upsets Sebastian as he then bursts free of his stall. The unruly horse begins flailing around but “I…..didn’t even feel that?!!!!” is all that Lana says as she stares at her foot caught underneath the weight of the machine. Sebastian bursts through the partially open door of the stable and begins to make his way through the rain filled night. The noise from the door alerts Lana as to what’s happening around her. She notices Sebastian has left the stable and remembers that her foot is still caught underneath the tractor. Giving the tractor a nudge, it rolls ten feet away. Lana rushes to the door to see that Sebastian is almost by the exit of the grounds already. Instinctively, she runs out of the stable and into the rain. She runs as hard as she can until something odd begins to happen. She notices that the rain begins to slow down around her. The rain gets slower and slower until it looks like it’s standing still. In the meantime, the distance between her and the horse gets smaller and smaller until she suddenly finds herself close enough to grab its reins. Where it sometimes takes two farmhands to coral the horse, she holds the reins with her left hand. Her powerful grip is easily able to force Sebastian to stop his tantrum. She calms the horse down and starts walking him back to the stable. While walking with Sebastian, Lana says “that was weird!!! How was I able to catch up to you like that! It’s as if I were faster than you!!!!!” She locks the horse in his stable and then looks back at the trail. She looks outside to the end of the ranch to a fence that is miles away. “I wonder.” Lana runs again but this time she immediately takes off like a rocket causing a gust of dirt to blow through the stable. She moves like a blur through the ranch, going from one end to the other. Huge gusts of dirt follow behind her as she covers miles in just seconds. She runs back into the stable, barely wet from the subsiding storm outside. With a look of awe on her face, Lana looks down at her hands and utters “……………what’s happened to me????” A little over an hour goes by as the storm over Smallville passes, leaving clear evening skies. Lana Lang had used that time to clean up the mess made by her presence. She is now in the middle of conducting a most bizarre experiment. Lana stands there gripping a cattle prod at it’s end with both hands. Her face shows that she is struggling to do what her mind tells her what she should not. She overcomes that fear, closes her eyes, and hits her head with the metal rod as hard as she can. A loud clanging sound can be heard throughout the stable. Lana slowly opens her eyes to find that there is a small dent in the rod. She examines it carefully to verify the results. With a frustrated look, she then holds the cattle prod at both ends and slowly bends it into a downward u- shape. With a look of bewilderment, she tosses the mangled metal over her shoulder to lie with the rest of her “successful” tests on herself. She sits down on the floor leaning against the sleeping Donatello’s stall. “Well…..that pretty much proves it. I’m officially NOT crazy. What I don’t get is where all this came from. I’ve been near the brink of death before and nothing like this ever happened.” Leaning her head back, she thinks about the last time she felt this awkward. It was when she first entered high school. She was just starting to become comfortable with her body after all the changes it went through. Puberty had transformed her into an atypical cheerleader that was approachable, yet never was because of her beauty. She remembered how isolated she used to feel at school. It was around that time when she met Whitney. They were both freshmen. He was the sweet guy who was also the burgeoning football star of Smallville High. She remembered how he used to hold her when she felt so alone. He knew just how to comfort her. Even though she was alone for most of her life, when she was with him, Lana felt like they were the only two people in the world. Thinking back to those days made Lana feel flush. Her body started getting all tingly as she remembered their second date. She thought back as to how they were walking along the prairies of Smallville on the night of a full moon. Whitney held her tightly as they kissed for the first time. Lana snapped out of her recollection as she took a deep breath and sighed. Suddenly the warm sensations throughout her body were getting all the more warmer. She was beginning to feel flush as the feeling was drawing itself from all over her body and rushing to her head. She covered her forehead with her hands as the warm sensation gradually increased in intensity which caused her to take a deep breath and lean forward. Her hands trembling, she dropped them to her side as her pretty brown eyes suddenly flashed a vibrant yellow-reddish color as two beams of intense heat burst from her eyes and shot into the loose stack of hay in front of her, causing a fire. Lana saw the beams come out of her eyes as she suddenly shrieked. She forcefully closed her eyes, covered them with her hands and tried through sheer force of will to stop the beams. She stood in a crouched position for a moment. She carefully opened her eyes to realize that the beams had stopped. However, Lana didn’t have much time to be relieved as she then had to grab one of the feeding buckets full of water and douse the fire she inadvertently caused. After putting out the fire, Lana had just about had enough. She felt like a cruel victim of fate, now saddling her with this awesome responsibility. Now she felt like she had to worry about the possibility of killing someone just by looking at them. Pent up rage built up within her which she suddenly needed to release. The formerly defective anvil caught her eye and she kicked it so hard that she almost dented it in half. The anvil absorbed enough of the powerful blow to go flying ten feet, knocking into a support banister causing her things to fall to the floor. Lana is then snapped out of her tempest of emotion by the sound of………….. “Plink………” It was her car keys falling out of her jacket. She took a deep breath and sighed on the way to go pick them up. She caught a glance of the photo on her keychain. It was a picture of Lana and her parents just days before they had died. They were both hugging Lana as they were at her first gymnastics meet. It was then that it dawned on her. Lana figured that the discipline and dedication she learned from gymnastics, horseback riding and other aspects of her life would aid her with her new problem. With a determined look, she turns around and says” These powers ARE unexpected. But it doesn’t mean I can’t learn to control them.” Then, for the remainder of the evening and well into the next morning, Lana would learn to use her newfound powers. For those eight hours, she would tirelessly work on controlling her new abilities so she could become more adept at using them. Amidst tirelessly practicing, she realized that she had to be at The Talon in an hour. Feeling that she had enough practice for the day, she then walked to her car. She got in and tried to start it. She cranked the engine once, twice and a third time before she realized the check engine light was on. “Never fails” she says as she gets out of the car and dials AAA. She is on hold waiting for the next available operator, thinking how she is going to get to work today. As if struck with an idea of pure genius, she smiles……. “Hello AAA, can I help you? Hello? Hel..” Click She walks over to her car and makes sure all the doors and windows are locked and then walks towards the middle of the road. She stands there for just a moment with a cute smile on her face. It was all of a sudden that she took off in a burst of speed heading for downtown Smallville to make her shift at The Talon. While probably appearing as nothing more than a blur to others, Lana noticed the speed of everything around her seemed to be near motionless. Whether it be water coming from a fountain, motorists down a freeway or planes traveling through the sky, she somehow knew. She knew that they weren’t going slow, she was traveling incredibly fast. Within minutes, she had already traveled from the outskirts of town into downtown Smallville; quickly dodging all cars, buses and pedestrians with perfect agility while racing towards work While speeding down Jebidiah Small St., Lana passed a white van with the LuthorCorp Name and logo on the side. “Damn, I almost FORGOT.” She began thinking to herself while not breaking stride. “The electricians have an appointment to check out the Talon this morning.” She remembers that the appointment was for 7 AM; checking her watch while running, she noticed it was 6:58. She then looks forward and strives to get there before they arrive. Lana ran down Binkys Ave. and cut through the alleyway leading to the back of the Talon. Halting abruptly in front of the backdoor as the electricians pulled up the front door, she rummaged her pant pockets and her jacket pockets for the keys and couldn’t find them. “I must have left them in the car!!!!!” saying under her breath. Thinking she doesn’t have a lot of time left, she grasps the padlock of the door with her hand, and with a slight twist of her wrist, the lock tears the lock apart. If Lana weren’t in such a rush, she would have marveled in the feat of her opening this usually heavy steel door with a slight tug of her arm. The electricians have gathered their equipment and are proceeding to the door as Lana speeds through the back door, past the kitchen, around the counter, through the dining area and finally to the door where she opens it JUST before one of them were about knock on the door. She greets them with a hearty smile and introduces herself “Hi, I’m Lana; I’m the Talon’s manager. You two are the electricians that Lex sent over right?” The senior electrician answers “Good morning ma’am, my name’s Jerry, Mr. Luthor asked me personally to come and check out the problem that you’re having with the stove.” She replies “Please, come in…..it’s past the counter through the doors and directly in front.” They picked up their equipment as Jerry quickly made his way inside. The electrician behind him however, took his time getting in and was slowly walking through the coffeehouse, examining the layout. Lana breaks his concentration by asking “can I get you guys anything?” Jerry, a burly man whom Lana thinks looks a little like Santa Claus, beams and says “Coffee would be great ma’am thank you. He then walks into the kitchen and yells “ How ‘bout you…….what did you say your name was again?!?” The other electrician turns towards the kitchen and yells “JOE”. Jerry yells back “SORRY ROOKIE, WON”T HAPPEN AGAIN.” Joe then turns to Lana and looks at her in a leering way which almost feels like forever. He breaks silence with a smirk and mutters “coffee’s good.” Jerry yells from the kitchen “HEY JOE, CAN YOU GIVE ME A HAND WITH THIS THING!?!” With a disapproving look, he grabs his tool kit and walks into the kitchen. Thinking nothing more of it, Lana walks over to the counter and reaches for an empty coffee pot before noticing that there is a full one left over from last night. “hmm, practice time”. Looking down at the pot of coffee she begins to concentrate. Thinking back to what she remembered at the stables, an intense look comes on her face. Her body gets warmer and warmer until her brown eyes flash a brilliant red. Suddenly, two beams of heat emanate from her eyes and into the coffee pot. She does this for just a moment until the coffee boils profusely. Quickly stopping, she pours three cups, the last which she takes a sip of with a smug look on her face. Hours pass as the Talon becomes much busier than had been for a while. Even though it was only her and another waitress, Lana was doing most of everything. She was running around in the hot weather not even breaking a bead of sweat while others where coming in sweltering. Many patrons were impressed when they saw how she was not only delegating, but serving every customer and not even getting winded for a moment. She was walking to the counter and while doing so, observed the other waitress, Renee. Renee’s body showed her penchant for sports and exercise since she was in such great shape. However, on this humid day, she was getting winded and fatigued. While at the counter, Lana began to think. “Hmmm, everyone around here seems tired because of the heat, except for me. Even Renee and she’s in amazing shape. I guess my stamina is another thing that’s been enhanced………………….” “Hey Clark” she suddenly says nonchalantly. That shocked Lana after she said it because she was able to acknowledge his presence from across the room, with her back turned! Walking up to her he asks….. “Hey Lana. I talked to Chloe at the Torch last night, she said you woke up! How’re you feeling?” She turns to him and jestingly says “Oh, I’m feeling……………..SUPER Clark, thanks!” to which afterward she flashes a smile. Almost getting lost in how beautiful she is, he manages to ask “You must have been pretty wired after being asleep for so long, what you were up to last night? I tried calling Chloe’s to see if you wanted some company but no one picked up” She took a moment and then answered “Yea, Chloe was busy writing some expose about the recent string of bank robberies and her dad is out of town for a few days on business.” “What about you, where were you?” Clark asks. Lana hesitates for a moment. Since she’s known Clark, she’s known that he’s been keeping a secret from her but never gave it much thought to ask him. She’s now going through something she just can’t describe to anyone since she knows so little herself. She thinks to herself that she’ll keep things a secret from everyone for the time being. That way she can learn more about where her powers came from and just what it is she can…..or in this case can’t…..do. “Oh, me?!? I went back to bed; guess I was still a little tired from the last few days” With a sympathetic look, Clark responds “yea I guess that’s been goin around lately”. It made Clark think about just how tired he gets doing all the chores that used to be a breeze for him. Before Clark can ask his next question, Pete enters and yells, “Hey Lana, feelin better?” She replies “MUCH better Pete. What do you have there?” “Just some books I checked out of the library” Clark interjects immediately with “…Pete and I are working on a report for school. Why don’t you come by the barn later and I’ll give you the assignments you missed from the last few days”. Smiling, Lana says “thanks Clark you’re a life saver. Now if you guys will excuse me, table seven looks like they need me for something.” Clark and Pete exit The Talon, where Pete asks Clark “what was that all about?” where he replies, “I wanted to see how she was doing. Ever since that day I saved her from falling, all my powers are gone. It’s great for my peace of mind, but I was wondering if anything weird was going on with her. She seems different somehow.” To which Pete asks “really, how?” “I’m not sure at this point. Let’s head back to the caves and see if we can pick up any clues from these books.” It’s now eleven o’clock and Lana locked the door for the evening. Standing behind the counter, she yells to Renee in the kitchen that she should start cleaning up back there and she will take care of everything else. Looking around, the floor is full of scuffmarks, the chairs are all out of sorts and the counter was filthy; The Talon was just an overall mess. Glancing towards the kitchen, she notices the coast is clear. She looks out at the clock on the wall then takes off at super- speed. Picking up a mop, she moves across the room and lifts each table with one hand and mops underneath them with the other, following by placing each chair upside down on the table. Immediately after that, she takes a sponge and wipes the entire counter, then opens the register and counts each bill to prepare for depositing. She finishes up and then takes a look at the clock and says “six” out loud. It took her only six seconds to do all of that work!.” Not bad!” she beams as she makes her way back to the door with a sponge. While wiping, Lana asks “How are things going back there Renee?” She gets no answer. “You back there? Renee?!?” she asks again worryingly. Puzzlingly, she looks back at the kitchen. A funny feeling comes over her eyes. Not the same as when she used her heat vision, this feeling was unfamiliar as it began to make her eyes tingle. She stood there amazed as the section of the wall that she was looking at began to disintegrate. It would become less and less until she received a clear view of the kitchen. She begins to HEAR a hissing noise. “What the hell is that sound?” she asks herself. She concentrates and tries to listen for where the noise is coming from. She can hear it come from the wall behind the stove as she looks through that wall as well. Lana says under her breathe “the gas line has a hole in……” !!!!!!!!!!!!!! “cough, cough, h…hel….help.” Lana hears as it breaks her focus on the gas line. It was Renee’s voice, she was sure of it. Looking towards the other end of the kitchen, she found Renee on the floor coughing. She was struggling until she suddenly collapsed and lied there motionless. This snapped Lana out of the use of her newly discovered powers. She hollers “Renee!!!” Like a pink tornado, she bursts through the door at super-speed and runs right to Renee. She first picked up Renee in her arms and took her to safety. Even though Renee was taller and heavier than her, she felt like she was the weight of a feather to Lana. Who rushes her at super-speed through the back door and laid her down on the floor in the alley. Lana then rushes back inside to deal with the hole in the valve. She figured the best thing to do would be to shut the gas off completely by heading to the basement. In a burst of speed, she bursts through the basement door and runs down the stairs directly in front of the main valve. Overzealously, she grabs the control lever and begins to turn it but not realizing how much force she’s exerting, rips the valve clear off. Looking at the mangled valve in her bare hand she thinks “not a good time to lose control Lana” She looks at the main pipe where the gas is dispensed through the building. The gauge on the front of it said it was reaching two hundred degrees. That didn’t phase Lana one bit as she wraps her right hand around the pipe and squeezes. The steel pipe makes a creaking noise, surrendering itself to her super-powerful grip and closes shut. With the situation resolved, she calls an ambulance and then runs back to check on Renee. Before she heads back home to Chloe’s, Lana gets a phone call from Clark asking to bring him something. She makes a pit stop and then makes it to his house in her unique way. When making it to the Kent’s farm, she stops short of the door to Clark’s barn. Lana enters and walks up the stairs to find Clark looking at the stars through his telescope. “It’s some view out tonight isn’t it?” She asks Clark thinks “it’s a gotten even better now that you’re here” What Clark SAYS is…… “yea…..it sure is. I’m glad you came by, I wanted to catch up and make sure that you’re okay.” Their eyes meet for a moment. The history.....or rather non history between the two of them is all they need to use as they both feel the same thing. Almost simultaneously, they say “you seem different” to which both of them smile but are secretly worried. Focusing on Clark for the moment, she smiles at him and says “You seem in a good mood. You normally look like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders. I’m glad to see that you’re more relaxed.” Clark was thinking to himself that that was the problem. For the last few days he and Pete have been in the Keewachi caves researching an explanation as to his powers disappearance. He has been doing a lot of soul searching as to whether he wants them back or not. But for the time being, Clark feels relaxed that he doesn’t have such a huge burden to carry. In his own vague way, he speaks as he thinks and says “I’ve just been going through changes recently Lana. For the first time in a real long time, I’m at peace with nothing really holding me back from going after what I want. I’m gonna start reorganizing the priorities in my life. I just want you to know that building on our friendship is one of them because I know in the past I had a problem of being there. I just want you to know that the days of that are over and that I really do care about you.” Clark looks into Lana’s eyes and smiles. She looks at him and playfully says” Clark Kent opening himself up….that’s a first!” Clark smiles back and asks “What about you, you’ve had a big smile on your face all day. What’s brought about the sudden feeling of euphoria?” Lana knows why she’s so happy. She has had to deal with all kinds of tragedies in her life. From the deaths of her parents, Whitney and Eric. To Aunt Nelle’s leaving for Metropolis, to the dangerous super powered freaks of Smallville. She’s always felt like a victim with pain always seeming to seek her out. By having these amazing new powers, she is given the security that she has wanted since her childhood that nothing can ever hurt her again. Lana doesn’t hesitate speaking from her heart when saying “well….. I’ve just been able to put things in perspective Clark. For the first time, I feel in control of my life and it feels wonderful!” They look at each other and before Clark could get hopelessly lost in Lana’s beauty yet again, he snaps back to reality. He walks to his book bag and pulls out a bunch of papers. “Here are the assignments from all your classes. I explained the situation to your teachers and they said you can take all the time that you need to finish.” “Thanks Clark and before I forget…..” Lana walks to the stairway of the second floor of Clark’s barn and grabs a small light blue paper bag. She pulls out a black lead jewelry box. “I think my old necklace is somewhere in this box. You can use that to finish you’re half of Mr. Summer’s project. Now if you’ll excuse me Clark (she looks at the stack of papers she’s been given and then looks back) I have quite a bit of work to catch up on, goodnight.” They hug and he says “Goodnight Lana” and watches her leave his barn. Later, we find Lana at the local cemetery to see her parents. She brushes away at the dirt on their tombstones with her hand. She kneels at their graves and says: “Mom….Dad. ….The day the meteor shower came was the last day that we would ever be together. It was the beginning of the roller coaster ride that is my life. The very next day after your deaths, I remember how Mr. White came to town. He used me as the poster child for a tragedy that won him a Pulitzer. He capitalized on my sorrow in order to gain notoriety. That was the first time I ever remember being taken advantage of. Being a victim!” “The same thing that took you from me seems to be the same thing that gives people amazing powers. The craziest thing about that is………………I think I’m one of those people now. All I keep thinking about as I use them is why couldn’t I have had them when the meteors struck Smallville? A lot of people seem to want to harm others in some way when they get these abilities. To me, that’s like a constant reminder of how you two were taken from me because of it.” “So that’s why I’ve made a decision. I’m going to use these powers I have to help others and stop those people that would misuse the abilities gained by these meteors. But seeing how there are a lot of Perry White’s in the world, I don’t want to make it known. The last thing I need is for someone to want to exploit me or study me for science. I just want to live my life and use these powers to help others live theirs. I hope you two will be proud of me. I love you.” With that, she kisses each of their graves and goes back home to prepare for a new day as Smallville’s champion. Epilogue Clark Kent just saw Lana Lang leave his barn. He had to make sure she was gone after giving him what it is he requested from her over the phone. Inside this jewelry box is a piece of kryptonite. It is a fragment of Clark’s home world of Krypton. When exposed to it, he becomes very ill and runs the risk of dying with long term exposure to the element. “It’s risky, but I have to know for sure.” He says as he sits down on the couch with the box sitting on the table in front of him. His hand treads cautiously over the box. Taking a deep breath, he closes his eyes and quickly opens the box. With a wince on his face, he expects sensations of nausea, internal bleeding, extreme fatigue and a variety of other pains to wash over him. He waits…………and waits…………..and waits…………until he slowly opens his eyes. He looks to see a heaping pile of jewelry in the lead box and combs through it until he finds what he was looking for. Clark holds the necklace by the strands and brings it up to eye level. “Nothing………….I’m normal” He ponders what he just said over and over in his mind. Finally, under his breathe, he manages to utter…….”I’m free”. End Chapter One