FicWad

The smell of smoke had faded from the barn and been replaced once again by the sweet aroma of fresh-cut hay. Lana didn't notice. Sitting alone in an abandoned stall, she hugged her knees to her chest and cried. An hour had gone by and she hadn't moved.

Lionel Luthor has Clark! That was all that had been going through her head in all that time. She hadn't even made it to the house to tell the Kents, she was in so much shock. The heavy guilt of her betrayal had eased when she overheard the two men talk about the truth serum, but it hadn't left completely.

Now, as she sat here, she recalled her conversation with Clark earlier that morning. They'd talked about a lot of things. He'd described for her the pain that the meteor rocks inflicted on him. The hundreds of fragments in the back of the van rose foremost in her memory, and she winced at the thought of the torment they would bring.

A burning sensation began at the back of her eyes. Blinking rapidly several times and rubbing her eyelids, she noticed that her eyes were relatively dry. The tears had evaporated.

Another thought rose to her mind. What if he actually /dies this time?/ This new scenario sent her into a fresh state of panic. A warm sensation flashed through her body and settled in her temples. Again, her eyes began to burn. She squeezed them shut, but that just made it worse, so she opened them again. A new sense of shock and panic presented itself in the form of the seemingly spontaneous combustion of the straw bedding right in front of her. The flames quickly climbed and increased in intensity. Quickly getting to her feet, she soon realized that she was trapped. The fire blocked the entrance to the stall.

The sound of a voice drifted in over the crackling of burning hay. "Jonathan, the barn's on fire!" It was Martha Kent.

"Well, where's Clark?" her husband asked.

Lana took this opportunity to make her presence known. "Mr. and Mrs. Kent! Help!"

Martha heard the screams coming from inside the barn. "Lana? Lana, where are you?"

"In the barn. I'm trapped!"

The Kents ran in, cautious of the building flames, and found Lana standing isolated in the abandoned stall, surrounded by a bright orange conflagration of burning hay and straw.

"Lana, where's Clark?" Jonathan asked, yelling to be heard over the noise.

"He... he's been kidnapped," she sobbed in reply. "Please get me out!"

Jonathan seemed lost for words for a moment. "You're, uh... You're practically standing in it already, Lana."

Looking down, she caught sight of the fire that had spread to the pile of straw she'd been standing in. She hadn't even felt the heat. With a piercing scream, she jumped clear, right into another spot of burning debris. Breath quickening, she glanced around her, suddenly deciding to take the chance and leaping through the wall of flames that stood between her and the safety beyond. She landed hard and fell into Martha's arms, sobbing.

The older woman held her close, calming her while Jonathan ran for water with which to put out the fire. When the last of it had been quenched, the three of them started back to the house.

"Lana, how did that fire start?" Jonathan asked gently.

There was a moment of silence before he got an answer. "I'm not sure," she replied slowly, still a bit shaken herself. "I was... I was just sitting there, and my..." Realization dawned on her and she slowed to a stop. Her voice gained a little volume as she continued. "My eyes started to burn. Before I knew it, the hay had caught fire."

"Wait a minute. Are you trying to say that you set the barn on fire?"

"Mr. Kent, the men that took Clark brought me here from the Talon. They had me in the back of a van with a bunch of meteor rocks. It is very likely that Clark and I became... connected in some way... or something."

"And now you think you have Clark's powers?"

"I'm not sure. Chloe was always better at this kind of thing."

Martha came quickly to the girl's defense. "Well, if she does have Clark's abilities, we should probably work on getting them under control before we do anything else. Clark's going to need help, and soon."

"That's another thing, Lana. Do you have any idea how those men found out about Clark's secret?"

Lana's gaze dropped instantly to the ground. "It's my fault, Mr. Kent. The man I had an interview with this afternoon was on some kind of experimental truth serum from LuthorCorp." Tears began to fall once more as she lifted her eyes to meet those of the farmer, her voice taking on a pleading tone. "I didn't mean to, Mr. Kent, really. He dragged the answers out of me before I even knew I was speaking. There was nothing I could do. You have to believe me!"

The desperation in her voice moved Jonathan. Pulling her close, he whispered softly to her. "It's... it's all right, Lana. We believe you. Don't worry, we believe you. Everything's going to be fine."

After a few minutes in his fatherly embrace, she began to feel a little better about the whole situation. Thoughts of Clark in the back of the van with all those meteor rocks ventured to haunt her once more. "Clark," she said suddenly, breaking away and moving once more in the direction of the house. "We have to help him!"

The burning sensation returned, bringing her to a halt. Fear gripped at her and planted her feet where they were. Unable to move, she simply stood there, waiting.

This time she saw it. Two thin beams of shimmering heat shot out in front of her toward the gravel drive. Finding nothing substantial to ignite, they ended at the ground in two slender flames that eventually sizzled out as the heat died down. Shocked and a good deal shaken, not to mention a little sore in the head, Lana remained where she was, staring at the same spot.

Martha was the first to find her voice. "Well, we know she has the heat vision."


In a dream, you normally do not realize that you are dreaming. So when Clark felt the cold lab table beneath him and wondered if this was another nightmare, he knew that he must be awake. Where am I? How did I get here? How long have I been here? He couldn't remember. Everything was such a blur. Lana leaving the farm was the last thing he remembered.

The single door opened with a clang that caused him to start. Mind racing, his nightmares rose to his memory. /Lex/. A deep voice echoed across the small space, but with relief he realized it was not his friend's.

It was Lionel Luthor's. "Good morning, Clark. Glad to see that you have survived your first night here at LuthorCorp Labs." Clark tried to turn and see the face of his captor, but, as in his dreams, he couldn't move.

This was soon amended as Lionel strode across the room and put himself in Clark's line of sight. "Oh, I wouldn't try to move too much, Clark. I don't know if you remember, but you had a pretty bad turn last night, thrashing around like you did. You wouldn't want to be making yourself sick again, now would you?"

"What have you done to me?" The sound of his own voice startled him. It was thick, low, and raspy. His throat burned when he spoke.

"Now, don't go getting yourself all worked up. You're a dying breed, Clark, the only one of your kind in known existence. I brought you here so that I could help you."

"I don't believe that."

"Well, believe what you want, you're not getting out. I think he's ready for another injection."

A short, oriental-looking young woman stepped into view next to Lionel. In her hand, she held a syringe and a vial of green liquid. Upon seeing this, Clark went into a panic. "And, Dr. Teng," Lionel added before turning to leave. "Make it quick."


Chloe knew she'd been speeding, and she figured that she had probably scared Pete out of his wits with her driving, but it was imperative that she reach the Kents' as soon as humanly possible. The phone call she'd received from Martha had her so frenzied she could hardly speak.

As far as she knew, Clark had been kidnapped by Lionel Luthor, and Lana needed their help with something. Yes, Lana was okay. No, Mrs. Kent could not give her a better explanation. This was something she would have to see for herself.

As she neared the barn, she threw the car into park and jumped out, glancing quickly around while waiting for Pete to follow suit. It seemed like forever before he was finally standing next to her. "There's no sign of Lana or the Kents out here," she said briskly, moving toward the house and motioning for him to follow.

The loud crack of a gun being fired close by brought them both to an abrupt stop. The sound had come from the field on the other side of the house. Exchanging a worried glance, the two took off at a run in the direction of the sound.

They found Lana and the Kents huddled together, examining something. As they drew closer, Lana noticed them and smiled. "Chloe! Thank goodness you're here."

"Hey, it was no problem. I sounded like an emergency. What's going on?"

There was a pause as Lana braced herself for what she was about to say. "Ok, you're going to think this is really strange..."

"Lana, we live in Smallville. 'Strange' is the normality around here."

"Not like this. Chloe, I've been affected by the meteor rocks. I have Clark's powers." As if to demonstrate, she held up several tiny metal disks which might have been bullets at one point. Chloe then noticed that Jonathan had been carrying his shotgun.

"Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. You mean to tell me that... Clark's powers have been transferred to you?"

"I don't know. It's either that, or... or we've somehow become connected. I'm not sure exactly what happened."

"Well, let's backtrack, then. Tell me what was going on at the time, where you where, where the meteors were, what kind of contact you had with them, and what seems to be triggering these abilities. Once we get all that information, it should be a bit easier to figure out what happened."


When Clark woke up again, he was lying on the floor in a pitch-black room. It took a few moments for his senses to clear, but when they did, he wished they hadn't. His mind was flooded with a hundred different thoughts and sensations as his surroundings became more or less defined. His entire body ached from the injection he'd been given. He felt dizzy and weak. The floor beneath him was hard and cold against his bare back. They'd left him his jeans. His head was throbbing. He squeezed his eyes shut against the torrent and wished he could slip back into unconsciousness.

The sound of harsh breathing alerted him to another presence in the room. Opening his eyes slowly, he searched in vain for the other occupant of his prison. "Who's there?" he called weakly into the darkness.

Something scraped across the floor nearby as whoever-it-was shifted in response. There was a faint gleam, too brief to really be noticeable. "You're awake," came the reply. It was a man's voice, as weak and shaky as his own. Age could not accurately be estimated, but Clark guessed he was fairly young. "I was afraid you wouldn't wake up," the voice went on. "If you die, I'm as good as dead myself."

"What do you mean?"

"You're the alien they've been looking for, aren't you?" Clark's back stiffened at the words, but he didn't respond. "They thought I was the alien. I tried to tell them I wasn't, but they locked me in here anyway. Away from the sun..." The voice trailed off as a fit of coughing replaced it. Drawing a stuttering breath, it went on. "They're killing me. They don't know it, but they are. You have to get me out, please..."

A door slammed open suddenly, bathing the room in blinding artificial light from outside. Clark blinked several times while his eyes tried to focus. Two men were dragging a starved, disheveled figure out of the room. The man was screaming over his shoulder. "You have to get us out! You're the only one who can get us out! Please! Please, you have to..." With that, the door slammed shut, and Clark was once again left in the dark. This time, though, he was alone.