Witness to Greatness Chapter 3
Lana was terrified; once again one of the meteor rock infested denizens of Smallville was bearing down on her for the kill. It looked at her with a mad gleam in its eyes and it began to reach for her. Lana first instinct was to cringe away in fear but she thought better of it. She was too strong and had been attacked way too many times to cower away from these things anymore.
"Get the hell away from me", she snarled and with that she punched the freak right in his ugly face. Sending him to the ground where he curled up into a fetal position and began to moan. Lana timidly approached the fallen freak when it began to move again.
"Your gonna pay for that", the meteor freak moaned out as it slowly began getting back on its feet
Lana slammed her fist into the freak's face again sending him back to the ground
"Fine", she said", here's what I owe you', the she finished him off with a roundhouse kick", and you can keep the change".
The meteor freak didn't move again.
Lana backed away and began to catch her breath. Safe from the freak chasing her she finally decided to take in her surroundings; odd that she hadn't done that before. My god she was in the old Luthor mansion; but it was still in the pristine condition of her youth and in no way resembled the run down building it had become after Lionel had abandoned it; and what was she wearing, Pink? She hadn't worn pink since her junior year of high school. Lana looked back at the unconscious meteor freak and had to wonder what was going through this freaks mind to make him kidnap her in the middle of the night, take her to the Luthor mansion for she had no memory of being brought her, refurbishing the manor and finally dressing her up in a pink outfit reminiscent of her high school days. In the end she decided his motives weren't really her main concern, they were usually just nuts anyway, and getting out of here was.
"Going somewhere Lana"?
Lana turned around and addressed the speaker", Lex Luthor I should have know you were behind this you bastard". Suddenly the concept of a meteor freak dragging her to the mansion made perfect sense. This was just another one of Lex Luthor's sick games.
"Now Lana is that anyway to talk to your husband and the father of your child".
A shiver ran up Lana's spine at Lex's mention of Ricky." Ricky is my child and mine alone, he's a good boy, always thinking about others even when their giving him a hard time he's nothing like you, you monster, you BASTARD".
"You're talking big Lana but I know the truth your afraid of me, afraid of what I'll do, afraid that I'll take MY son away that I'll demand, you take your rightful place at my side". As Lex said this he approached her with a confident and smug air until he was standing right in front of her.
"No", Lana then looked at Lex with imploring eyes, "take me with you if you want but leave Ricky alone, please", the thought of her son in the hands of this madman both sickening her and firing up every protective maternal instinct in her body.
"Are you afraid of me taking your child Lana Lang, do you fear it, you fear me don't you lesser creature"?
Lana took a step back in trepidation, "Zod"? It was Zod now, this made no sense, yes they at one time shared a body but still there were distinct differences between Lex and Zod that Lana had discerned while she had been his captive. Lana knew without a doubt that it had been Lex that Lana had been conversing with just a few minutes earlier but somehow during their conversation Lex had become Zod. What was happening?
"What else do you fear creature", Lana took a step back; she might have been willing to go a few rounds with a meteor freak but she was no fool, she didn't have a chance against one of these terrible Krpytonians.
"Yes you fear many things don't you", Zod approached Lana at a speed so fast she couldn't even see him move, quickly eliminating the distance she had made between them.
"I think you also fear this," and with that said Zod reached out and touched Lana's forehead. She felt a surge of energy rip through her and then her body wasn't hers anymore.
Isobel.
"Indeed General I think Lana Lang fears me as well', Isobel said in a sneering confident tone. She then reached over and wrapped her arms around the general and kissed him passionately.
Trapped inside her own body, feeling her consciousness fading Lana cried out for help, not with her voice but with her soul.
"Lana" cried out a familiar voice.
And with that one word Lana felt the evil presence of Isobel recede back into nothingness. As this happened Lex also collapsed to the floor and then some kind of spirit began emerging from his body.
The spirit looked like it was about to attack when it became encased inside some kind of glass square that started soaring away into nothingness. Before it was gone however the specter screamed from its prison.
"The son of Jor-El has only given you a respite. I shall be back, I shall return aaaaarrrrggggghhhhh", then it was gone.
Lana then turned to the person who had saved her by just uttering a word, Clark.
He stood before her in his familiar blue clothes and tacky but comforting red jacket. Lana stopped for a second, Clark in blue and red why was that tugging at something in the back of her mind. She almost had it and then it was gone, she didn't think it was important right now, Clark was here, Clark had come.
They tentatively approached each other and as they did Lex's mansion disappeared and they found themselves in a new setting. They were under a tree; their tree. Clark wrapped his arms around her in a gentle, loving embrace.
"Clark thank you for rescuing me".
"Of course I rescued you Lana, I love you and despite everything that's happened between us I'll always love you, you're my heart, my very soul.
"Clark, I've missed you so much".
"I've missed you".
"You left again Clark; before we could truly heal any of the rifts we made between us that last year".
"I know Lana but I had my reasons, maybe someday you'll know what they were".
"Clark, I want to be with you so much, can't we make it work this time".
"Lana, if it's destined to happen it'll happen even if takes awhile, even if we get distracted by other people and any other bump in the road".
Then Clark let her go and started to walk away.
Clark can't you stay around, for me," and then she added with a small voice", for Ricky"?
Clark then turned around and looked at her with his green eyes and his beautiful black hair and said," I'm always around Lana".
It was then that Lana awoke; she looked around and saw that she was in her room, her body covered in sweat and her breathing was sporadic; it had been a dream. It took her a minute to recover, both from the fear and the arousal her dream had brought her.
"It was a dream", both relief and disappointment evident in her voice.
Too wired to go back to sleep Lana got out of her bed and went to the kitchen completely unaware of two things. The first was that the symbol of Isobel flashed very quickly on her lower back before it again faded away and secondly that a familiar young man who lived in Metropolis also awoke just then covered in sweat.
-Later-
It was still just a little before dawn and Lana was sitting at her kitchen table. On it were a dozen different newspapers. Lana gazed at some of the headlines of the papers she had been collecting since his unbelievable appearance.
It Flies
Blue Bomb Buzzes Metropolis
Caped Wonder Stuns City
Look Ma No Wires
Lana had a wry grin on her face. This unnamed hero seemed to have captured everyone's heart in only a matter of days. Already he was Ricky's hero and Lana had to admit that she too was a bit awed by him.
He definitely had been a busy hero. Saving Lois hadn't been the only thing he had done that night. He had also stopped an intense police shootout on the docks. He apprehended the famous "Spider-Man" cat burglar. Named so for his affinity of climbing walls during his burglaries who had been robbing Metropolis for years. Speaking of cats he has also gotten one out of a tree, for some odd reason that was Lana's favorite. Oh and lets not forget that he saved the president and everyone aboard Air Force One last night.
After the years in Smallville when the only people she knew that had super powers used them for purely selfish reasons it was refreshing to at last see someone use them for the benefit of others.
Just then Lana heard a WHUMP against her front door and realized it was the morning paper. Lana hurried to the door to see if the morning paper had anything new to ay about this new figure that was soaring above them. After all things this exciting didn't happen everyday, not even in Smallville.
Lana retrieved her paper and took it back to the kitchen table. Eagerly she opened the morning edition of the Daily Planet and was greeted with the Headline.
I Spent the Night with SUPERMAN by Lois Lane
"Superman", Lana let the name slide off her tongue. She had to give Lois credit, considering what she had heard about him the name definitely fit.
Next to the headline was a close up of the hero. Lana looked at the picture with excitement. All previous pictures of him had only been shot with a telescope lens.
Lana looked at the picture long and hard unable to look away. She didn't know where but she could have sworn she'd seen him before somewhere. It was an odd thought that seemed to originate from the back of her brain. Try as she might she just couldn't place his face. Eventually she shrugged it off; maybe she had just seen him in a dream or something.
Lana continued to read the article and had to suppress a chuckle. She could tell that Lois was both smitten and a little star struck and it showed in her article.
Lana continued reading until she reached a point that really piqued her interest. According to Superman he had been on Earth for an unspecified amount of time before revealing himself to the world and had on more then one occasion used his powers to try and help people.
Could it be? Could all of those unexplained rescues that had mysteriously happened in Smallville have been the work of this Superman? I man sure Clark had done his rescues too from time to time back then but she had definitely seen things; the aliens, Zod, Milton Fine that a farm boy from Kansas could never have overcome no matter how brave he was.
All Lana knew is that all three of those threats had just, in the end, quietly disappeared without explanation.
Lana continued to read the article until she reached the point where Superman talked about his powers. These powers were not new to her. The Lana read the part where Superman explained his origins, Krypton, and her blood ran cold.
"Oh god, he's one of them".