So I guess I am in a good mood today, so I decided to post the COMPLETED first chapter. It is beta'd and looks much better now that Dollybigmomma fixed all my mistakes!

A lot of you were wondering where Lois was and I guess now you can find out. I was going to wait to start posting this chapter until I had at least 10 chapters finished first, but I love you all too much to do that!

Disclaimer: I don't own Smallville; and Steve Alten owns the rights to the Meg series, I'm just tweaking it!

Without further ado:

Chapter 1

The Scripps Institute

La Jolla, California

Taking a long look at the nearly eight hundred people crammed into the auditorium, I swallowed a quick drink of water out of the bottle on the podium. I couldn't believe I had allowed the institute to talk me into giving a lecture tonight. There were so many other things, fun things I could have been doing right now. Heading up North along the coast was exactly what I'd had planned, but of course, my best-laid plans got tossed to the wayside much too often. If it wasn't for the fact that the institute was paying me so damned much money, and that I was hoping to drag this lecture out so I didn't have to escort my wife to her fucking awards banquet, I would have told them to kiss my lily-white ass.

Don't get me wrong, I was enthralled with the focus of my research; I would just much rather have done only the research part. If it wasn't for the fact that by giving lectures, it helped me secure grant money, I would never have stepped foot into these situations. I didn't mind public speaking; I was by no means shy. I just hated speaking in front of a crowd full of skeptics. The majority of the people in the audience thought I was nuts because of my theories on the prehistoric shark, carcharodon megalodon.

Oh well, I better get this over with. I took a deep breath and continued to speak.

"Here's a sobering thing to think about; many of you have seen firsthand, or at the very least on TV, how big a Great White shark can be. Now, its ancestor, carcharodon megalodon, could grow in excess of fifty to seventy feet and weigh close to thirty-five tons, or seventy thousand pounds. Many things on this planet can make a person feel insignificant, but coming face-to-face with one of these behemoths would change a person's whole outlook on life. Could you imagine?"

I took a brief pause to allow the audience to mull over my words. I also quickly brought up a slide on the projection screen that illustrated the massive size difference between a six-foot-tall human, a sixteen-foot-long Great White shark, and a sixty-foot-long megalodon.

"As you can see from the diagram I've just pulled up, there are enormous size differences between carcharodon carcharias, or Great White, and humans; not to mention the unbelievable differences between those two and the megalodon. I find it difficult to imagine at times that any creature could be so large. The fact of the matter is that since we cannot actually study a deceased megalodon, we've had to guesstimate their size based off of their teeth.

"If you picture the sheer size of these beasts, it's hard to imagine them moving through the water and being such amazing killing machines. Of course, since they're an ancestor to our modern day Great Whites, it does give us some idea how they moved. The way the Great White's body is streamlined and is perfect for allowing it to easily maneuver through the water.

"I myself have swum with Great Whites on numerous occasions, but if anyone was unlucky enough to be caught in the water with a Meg, the only thing you could do is kiss your ass goodbye!"

My last sentence caused quite a few chuckles and even more scoffs to erupt from the crowd. After giving lectures for the past two years, I had stopped giving a shit what people thought and quit censoring my language. Hell, the places I spoke at even started adding a warning that the subject matter was not for those easily offended and it had nothing to do with the topic, just my preferred use of the English language. If people didn't want to see the real me, they shouldn't come because I wasn't exactly considered the norm for a doctor of paleontology.

At twenty-eight years old, I stood 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighed two hundred twenty-five pounds, was hugely muscled, and had tattoos completely covering my arms and back. My hobbies weren't exactly what most people would consider leisurely, either. I was a huge adrenalin junkie; the more dangerous the better was how I saw it. Surfing, sky diving, mountain climbing, hang gliding, swimming with sharks, and driving anything with wheels extremely fast were my hobbies.

The thing that got me was not many people took me seriously because of my age. They didn't care that I was a certifiable genius and frankly, I couldn't give two-shits about what they thought about me. Why did it matter how old I was if I knew damn near everything there was to know about Megs?

Looking at my watch, I realized it was only a quarter after six and Lana's fucking awards banquet started in forty-five minutes. Fuck! I was almost done with my lecture. Hopefully, there would be a lot of questions at the end.

Don't get me wrong, I loved my wife. Hah! Damn, I couldn't even think that with a straight face. I hated that bitch more than anything in the world, and if I could divorce her without her taking me to the cleaners, I would gladly do so. Talk of my wonderful life with her was best left for another time, I could spend hours ranting and bitching about that woman.

There was only one woman I wanted to see, yesterday, today, and tomorrow, and she was the most beautiful woman in the world; not to mention we were absolutely perfect for each other. She was the love of my life, the beautiful…

"Dr. Kent!"

I was pulled out of my thoughts by a gentleman in the front row, standing and waving his arms. What a douche!

"Yes...?" I was hoping the moron would at least give me his name so I could know who I was soon to be making fun of.

"I'm Richard Risibly, everything you've told us tonight has been quite interesting, but I'm sure we'd all like to hear your theories on why the megalodons died out."

Well, I did hope this would last longer, but now I had to get into the part of my lecture that most people didn't believe. Oh well, at least he didn't ask a stupid question.

"Okay, you want my theory on why we don't see these monsters anymore, and I'll tell you. When the Earth entered its last Ice Age, the dropping ocean temperatures killed off many of the ocean's inhabitants. The freezing temperatures would not have bothered the Megs, however; if there was no food, then they would eventually die. I believe that the sharks decided to take up a new residence, though.

"Along the bottom of the Mariana Trench are hydrothermal vents. These vents secrete nutrients that feed a plethora of different creatures. The waters coming out of these vents are also extremely hot, so as the water goes up in the ocean, it eventually levels off, giving us a hydrothermal plane.

"I've always liked to theorize why a particular species might still exist. After a research vessel found a megalodon tooth at the bottom of the trench when they were dredging, that started to support my theory that the Megs may have just followed the food down to warmer waters."

"Dr. Kent, are you saying that you actually believe these sharks are still alive in the Mariana Trench? That seems to be a little far-fetched." I knew that voice, but I couldn't see where it was coming from. No one on the planet could get me so easily fired up with such a harmless question, no one but that woman.

"Actually, Miss, the tooth we found was dated and it was a measly ten thousand years old. If these predators were alive such a short time ago, what's to say there aren't still more of them down there?"

The audience let out an audible gasp at the news of how old the tooth was. I was about to go further in depth as to why the megs would not ever be seen by humans, but a loud throat clearing at the back of the room caught my attention. I slowly turned my head to the sound and honestly wished a Meg would come flying through the room at this very moment. My wonderfully bitchy wife, Lana Lang, was standing at the back of the auditorium, tapping her foot and pointing at her wrist. I guess that was my cue to wrap things up. The last thing I needed was for her to throw a shit fit in front of all these people.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry to have to cut this short, but I have another engagement I must attend. I'd like to thank you all for coming and if any of you have any further questions, please feel free to e-mail me, or you may find the answers you're looking for in my book. Again, thank you all for coming. Goodnight."

I started collecting all the things I had set out on the stage by the podium, not waiting for the audience to even start clearing out.

"Professor Kent, could you answer just one more question before you leave?" I turned to look towards the voice and noticed a middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair and bushy eyebrows standing in the aisle.

"I guess that would be okay, what is it you'd like to know?" I was getting some strange vibes from this man and I could only hope that his question was an easy one and didn't require me going into much detail.

"Is it true that when you were twenty-four, you made a series of dives for the Navy?" His voice held a cocky tone to it that made it seem as if he knew something he shouldn't.

"Yes, I made numerous dives for the Navy during my four-year stint with them."

"I was actually referring to three specific dives, Professor. Dives you took into the Mariana Trench, to be exact. Rumor has it you went all the way to the bottom of the Trench, freaked out, and killed two men and almost died yourself. Is that true? If so, what was the Navy doing down there?" Bushy-eyebrows asked.

If I didn't have such a good poker face, I might have actually given something away when he asked me those questions. Those dives I had done were top-secret; no one should have been privy to that information.

"Listen, Sir, I don't know where you got your information from, but I've never been down in the Mariana Trench. I don't deny doing multiple dives while I was in the Navy, but none of them were ever anywhere near that location," I replied in the most even tone I could muster.

"Oh, well then I must have been mistaken, I'm terribly sorry to bother you." He gave me a shit-eating grin before turning around and walking out the doors.

The bad feeling I'd gotten earlier when that guy spoke up came back to me with a vengeance. I was not sure what he was playing at asking me that question in front of all these people, but I just knew I had better keep an eye peeled for him.

Finally getting all of my stuff loaded back into my bag, I hopped off the stage and headed towards the back of the auditorium and the devil herself. Just as I was about to reach her, a woman stepped in front of me, blocking my path.

"Hello, Clark!"

Holy shit! What was she doing here? I must have been having shitty luck tonight, because Lois fucking Lane had just popped out of nowhere.

"What are you doing here?" I asked with as much venom in my voice as I could.

"Are you not happy to see me? Well, the feeling is mutual. We need to talk, it's important," she huffed. "Before you even ask, it wasn't my idea. My father needs to see you and he sent me to get you."

"You know, today has just gone to hell in a hand-basket. First, I didn't want to do this damn lecture because Whitney and I had plans to head up North along the coast to see someone. Second, I have to go to a stupid fucking awards banquet for the media with the heinous bitch standing behind you. Now, you show up. I guess if what you need to talk to me about is so important, you can find me later and fill me in."

I side-stepped her and walked over to Lana, but before I reached her, I felt Lois stick something in the pocket of my pants. I didn't acknowledge that I noticed she had done it and just kept going.

Tonight was sure to be one I wouldn't soon forget. I was just not sure yet if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

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