Disclaimer: See previous chapter for full details!
A/N: SORRY THAT I HAVEN'T REALLY BEEN UPDATING THAT MUCH (WRITER'S BLOCK), SO HOPEFULLY THE SEASON FINALE WILL MAKE UP FOR IT!
Li Residence
The place was cold and still as Daniel, who was wearing his red-blue outfit, wandered around the empty, barren land.
"HELLO!" his voice echoed as he called for someone nearby- anyone at all that could tell him where he was at the moment.
"Daniel?" a female voice said behind him, making him suddenly face her.
"Rene, is that you?" Daniel asked incredulously at the image of his girlfriend, who was wearing a flowering sunshine yellow apron and carrying a tray of newly-made chocolate chip and blueberry muffins.
He then noticed that he was standing in the middle of his kitchen back home. It was incredibly bright and warm outside by the looks of it.
"Of course it is, honey," Rene giggled happily and placed the tray of muffins on the counter, giving him a small peck on the cheek. "I made you some of your favourite muffins."
"Favourite muffins?" Daniel repeated dumbfounded. "But I don't like blueberries; I've told you that before, didn't I?"
It was her turn to look shocked and surprised now.
"Don't be silly, honey. You absolutely LOVE blueberries."
"As if! Daniel here can't STAND them and since you're his wife there, you should know already," another female voice scoffed, or rather sneered at her.
Rene's joyful face expression was almost instantely replaced with a frown at this other voice as she looked at the woman behind him, which made him do the same as well, only to see a blur of red and white streak past him and out of the house.
"I hate that stupid bitch!" Rene cursed furiously and then, all of sudden she started to sob heavily in rage. "Why did you choose her over ME? Why, tell me!"
"Wait, why would I choose her, I don't even KNOW who she is and I love-"
"See you later, Smallville," the other female voice echoed and whispered seductively: "I'll be waiting."
(BOOM!)
Daniel woke with a start, his upper body drenched in sweat from the nightmare.
"Not again," he murmured, sitting up to wipe his forehead and then fall back down on his bed again, since it was only four in the morning.
Lost Son…
At this deep eerie voice, Daniel's eyes snapped open and glanced at his surroundings. No-one was there as he could see, but that still did not calm him down.
The voice was nothing like AI Jor-El's, who had a loud and booming voice. No, this voice had a slight cold edge to it and sounded somewhat… robotic?
After a few more minutes of complete silence, he hesitantly fell back to sleep again, the voice repeatedly echoing in his mind.
Smallville: The 'Lost' Son of Krypton (Newsboys- Stay Strong)
(Music)
This race can be won (5seconds held)!
We gotta…
Stay Strong, you are not lost. (2)
Daniel Li
C'mon and fix your eyes ahead.
Rene Smith
Our Father's Dawn will light our day (3), our day
Ben O'Conner
Come on and… Stay strong!
Lorraine Evans
His grip is sure (3)
Ian Holmes
And his patience still endures
Warren Li
We've come too far lose our way (4), no way…
Janine Li
(Ending music)
Li Residence- (07:00)
The sun rose peacefully as Daniel trudged downstairs, the voice and nightmare from yesterday night still haunting his mind. Today, he decided to wear his brown plaid jacket that was actually bright red on the inside, his red-chequered flannel shirt, which covered his light blue House of El t-shirt, a pair of casual jeans and brown work boots.
"Morning," his parents called out to him, once they saw him.
"Morning," Daniel mumbled, which didn't go unnoticed by them.
"What's the matter, son?" Warren asked seriously.
"Nothing," Daniel lied hastily, although it didn't fool them.
"Honey, you can tell us anything, you know that," Janine reassured her son. "Is it about the Spring Formal?"
"I wish," Daniel frowned and all three of them quietly ate breakfast, until someone knocked on the door.
"I'll get it," Janine said and opened the door to reveal Joseph standing there with a smile on his face.
"Ah, Janine," he said unusually happily, which made Warren walk over to the door next to his wife. "May I please come in?"
Both of them exchanged a glance and reluctantly opened the door for him, to which he smiled gratefully and strode into the sitting room.
"What do you want from us, Joseph?" Warren questioned suspiciously and slightly angrily.
"Warren, what makes you think I want anything from you?" Joseph asked with an innocent tone. "I just wanted to see an old friend again."
This caused Warren to glare at him menacingly, knowing that his old friend was probably planning something.
"Hey mom dad, what's going on?" Daniel asked his parents, but found his answer as soon as he saw Joseph standing there looking unusually happy.
"Hello, Daniel," Joseph said, putting out his hand to shake, but he just looked at it suspiciously.
"Why are you here, Mr. O'Connor?" Daniel glared furiously.
Unbeknownst to them all, his eyes momentarily flashed pure red for a brief moment.
"As I said to your father, I'm here to visit an old friend," Joseph explained and added: "You can call me, Joseph."
"Fine then, Joseph, why are you here?" he repeated, his arms folded against his chest.
Joseph sighed and admitted:
"You caught me; I was going to interest you in some green meteor rock, so that you can sell it for your mortgage."
He pulled out some green kryptonite earrings, a necklace and a bracelet, which started to glow brightly and make Daniel wince in pain and start to stumble slightly on the spot.
"What's the matter?" Joseph asked calmly. "You don't like meteor rocks."
Daniel huffed furiously as the agony of the kryptonite started to slowly and gradually increase by the minute.
"GET OUT OF MY HOUSE, JOSEPH!" Warren yelled in a rage and forcefully led him to the door, leading him very satisfactory about his results.
Looks like I was right after all.
"Daniel, are you alright?" Janine asked with concern in her voice.
"I am now," he told her as he regained his strength again.
"That… that…" Warren muttered furiously and began to curse under his breath at what Joseph did.
"Do you think he knows about me?" Daniel asked his parents.
"I don't know," Janine shook her head. "But, if he does, we're in real trouble."
Suddenly, someone knocked on the door.
"Who is it?" Daniel asked cautiously, since it might be Joseph again.
"It's me, Rene," she said and he opened the door in relief.
She was standing there with a grin on her face and was wearing a white silk blouse, a pair of skinny jeans and a pair of black five inch high heels.
"Hey, Rene," Daniel said cheerfully at the sight of her and then noticed his parents were watching them with knowing looks. "Can we talk outside?"
She nodded and both of them strolled together peacefully as the morning sun shone onto their faces.
"What did you want to t-?
She was interrupted when he suddenly kissed her full on the lips in such passion that she felt as if she weighed like a feather.
Daniel placed his arms around her waist as he kissed her, feeling the electric spark between them that he felt the first time he kissed her and once he stopped, he smiled to her and she did the same.
"What was that for?" she asked.
"Nothing," he lied. "I'm just REALLY happy that I have someone like you."
Rene blushed at the compliment, even though that wasn't really the reason why he kissed her.
(Daniel): I still feel the spark between us. Nothing's going to happen. I do LOVE, Rene.
He grasped her hand and they both continued to stroll across the entire farm as Warren and Janine watched them through a window with a smile on their faces.
"C'mon, we gotta go and meet up with Ian and Lorraine," Daniel reminded her and both of them clambered into her car with his tuxedo and her dress in the back seat to Lorraine's house.
O' Connor Mansion
Ben stood there in his study room as a tailor watched him put on his white tuxedo for the Spring Formal.
"You look absolutely splendid in that, Mr. O'Connor," the tailor complimented in a posh voice. "Is there anything else that you need for tonight, sir?"
"No and thank you for the tuxedo," Ben said and the tailor exited the room, only to walk right past Joseph, who came into the room in his long expensive black coat and still in his usually happy mood from earlier with also a twinge of anxiety as well.
"Son," he smiled and gave Ben a hug to which his son only received. "Are you nervous?"
"No," Ben stated confidently and added, noticing his father's twinge of anxiety: "But you seemed to be."
Joseph's smile disappeared.
"Well of course I'm nervous. This is my first time chaperoning an event at the school."
"Yeah, about that; why did you suddenly decided to chaperone the Spring Formal?" Ben questioned his father suspiciously. "You've never taken any particular interest in any of the school's activities before, so why now?"
As he expected from his father, Joseph chuckled and shook his head.
"I've realized that I've done you wrong all these years, especially ever since your mother died, so this is a way to make it up to me only son."
Ben did not seem convinced, but nonetheless exited the room and headed towards the limo waiting for him outside to send him to Smallville High.
This made Joseph sigh for a brief moment, before he shook his head to snap him out of his ridiculous thoughts and patted the chest pocket off his long expensive black coat, which contained the Crystal of Water inside it.
Lorraine's house (08:50)
"C'mon," Ian groaned, knocking at his date's bedroom door. "You two have been in there for over an hour and a half. The Spring Formal is going to start in less than an hour!"
"We're almost done!" Rene called out, who was also changing into her dress with Lorraine.
"Girls," Ian huffed in frustration and Daniel nodded as they waited outside her bedroom.
After another ten minutes or so, the door finally opened and they entered with a sigh inside Lorraine's bedroom, which was a complete mess with clothes scattered everywhere on the floor.
(Daniel): How long does it honestly take to wear a dress?
Both of them sat on the bed, facing the massive closet in which Rene and Lorraine were still putting on their dresses, make-up etc, until at last the girls came out to face them, making Daniel and Ian's mouth's drop at their appearances.
Rene was wearing a strapless orange silk dress and matching four inch heels, while Lorraine wore an olive green dress with a matching pair of three inch heels and sapphire-coloured purse. To the guys, they both looked extremely beautiful.
"Whoa," was all both of the guys could say and the girls giggled.
"You look," Daniel stood up from the bed, admiring Rene. "Really, really beautiful."
Rene beamed happily and so did Lorraine as Ian also complimented her, albeit not as smoothly as Daniel did.
"Now that you've seen what we're going to wear at the Spring Formal, let's see what you're going to wear," Lorraine told them and Ian gulped nervously.
"Its okay, Ian; besides you look awesome in our tuxedos," Daniel reassured his best friend, who sighed and both of them grabbed their tuxedos from the bed to change into in the closet.
However, a sudden high pitched noise filled his ears, so he pressed his hands against them and gritted his teeth, which did not go unnoticed by Ian.
"Daniel, what's wrong?" he asked, concerned for his best friend.
"Nothing," Daniel lied, albeit too quickly, causing Ian to frown in suspicion.
(Ian): Okay, something is definetly up with Daniel lately. Maybe he's a meteor freak, but that would mean that he should be like the other meteor freaks: insane, psychotic etc. This doesn't make any sense.
"Whatever you say, Daniel," Ian shrugged and both of them continued changing into their tuxedos. "Whatever you say."
Smallville High- (09:50)
Daniel and Ian escorted their respective dates as they waited patiently at the end of an extremely long line of students that were also waiting to get inside the school as fast as possible.
"Names?" one of the teachers, who had a great, bushy beard asked in a gruff voice, once the four of them were right in front of him.
"I'm Daniel Li," he indicated to himself. "That's Rene Smith, Ian Holmes and Lorraine Evans."
The bearded teacher nodded and let them inside the highly decorated auditorium, where various colours of lights, balloons and banners were hung near/against the walls, especially one big sign that read: 'SPRING FORMAL 2012' in bold, purple letters and a popular school band was performing music on the stage to which everyone seemed to enjoy.
"Wow," Daniel only managed to say, since this was his first time at the Spring Formal with an actual date.
"C'mon," Rene grabbed onto his hand and playfully dragged Daniel to the dance floor where many other students were dancing with their dates and having tones of fun.
"After you," Ian said to Lorraine, which made her grin like mad in joy and both of them started to dance.
Everyone was now dancing on the dance floor, even the teachers, except for Ben, who was leaning against one of the punch tables with his date, a pretty brunette girl, who looked extremely bored, due to the fact that he wouldn't at least try to dance with her.
"Are you even going to ask me to dance or not?" she asked incredusly and then stormed off angrily when Ben just ignored her completely.
"Son, you really should go off and have a good time with you're fellow students," Joseph advised him with a glass of recently grabbed punch in his right hand.
"No," Ben said simply, gazing at the numerous students and teachers having fun on the dance floor as the school band played a now slower song. "I don't want to leave you out of my sights."
Joseph mentally huffed at that, but kept a straight face, so not to create further suspicion. Then spotted Daniel dancing with Rene and smiled cunningly at them.
It's time to execute my plan.
He discreetly pulled out a walkie-talkie and ordered:
"Now."
Suddenly, dozens of smoke bombs were thrown into the auditorium from all of the windows and filled the place with quite a thick layer of smoke that obscured everyone's view, except for Daniel's.
"Rene!" Daniel called out to his date and luckily quickly found her among a number of panicking students who were all hurrying for the exits, despite all of the teachers' futile attempts to calm them all down again.
"Daniel!" he heard Lorraine's voice shout loudly and dashed to her at a slightly faster than human speed.
"Lorraine! Are you hurt?" Daniel asked her urgently, checking for any injuries to which she shook her head. "C'mon, we have to find them!"
Both of them started to desperately search through the now thicker smoke, which was pretty easy for Daniel, but quite difficult for Lorraine, who occasionally stumbled slightly.
"Rene!" Lorraine cried out in relief, when she saw a figure that looked like her at the end of the auditorium and began to run towards the blurred figure.
Daniel grinned in relief, until he looked at the place where Lorraine had looked and to his horror, he saw Joseph standing there with a pistol in his left hand at the ready.
"Lorraine, no!" Daniel chased after her as fast as he could, without being caught, but it was too late and Joseph's other arm was now wrapped tightly around Lorraine's neck as the pistol arm was aiming right at him.
"Daniel," Joseph began in a calm voice. "We can do this the hard way, or the easy way; I personally prefer the easy way."
Lorraine tried to struggle frantically under his grip, but was unsuccessful of getting free from it.
"Joseph," Daniel called out, standing a fair distance away from him as he walked slowly and cautiously towards him. "This is between you and me. Leave her out of this."
Joseph chuckled menacingly and aimed the pistol at Lorraine's temple.
"I tried being nice to you. Where are the other two crystals?"
Daniel stood there frozen, for he could stop the bullet with his super speed, but that would mean that both Lorraine and Joseph would find out about his abilities and even more trouble would ensue, so he continued to stand there, while glaring furiously at him.
Ian's P.O.V
I groggily got up from the floor and squinted as I realized that the whole auditorium was covered in a thick layer of smoke.
I then heard a few familiar voices that belonged to Daniel, Joseph and Lorraine, but what troubled me the most was that it sounded as if Lorraine was struggling to breathe or something, so carefully I began to walk to the source of the sound, whilst at the same time making sure I couldn't be heard by Joseph.
Once I reached the source of their voices, I came across a scene that both infuriated and shocked me, because from what it looked like; Joseph was threatening Daniel with the use of Lorraine and a pistol.
I growled silently to myself and tightened by hands into fists, preparing to tackle Joseph, so that Daniel could at least get the pistol away from him.
1, 2, 3!
Third Person P.O.V
Ian tackled Joseph's feet, which caused the middle-aged man to fall onto the floor and his pistol to slide a few feet away from him.
"Daniel! Get the pistol!" Ian shouted as he tried to restrain the struggling Joseph on the floor.
Daniel ran to the pistol and picked it up, but was found that it was actually empty.
"You didn't think that I would come with a spare, did you?" Joseph smirked evilly as he pointed a fully-loaded gun about a few inches from Ian's temple. "I repeat, where are the other two crystals?"
(Ian): Other two crystals? What is this guy on about?
"I don't know," Daniel lied smoothly, but Joseph didn't seem convinced.
"Where are they?" he demanded in a rage and accidentally pulled the trigger.
"NO!" Lorraine cried.
*Daniel instantely reacted to this, despite there being three people near him and ran to where the bullet was travelling slowly to the wide-eyed Ian. He then grabbed the bullet just as it was about to touch his temple, threw it and the gun aside and pushed Joseph away from them.*
"D-Daniel h-how did you-?" Ian stuttered in surprise, trying to think on how his friend could have reached him that fast.
However, before Daniel could answer his question with a lie, Joseph charged at them in fury, but Ian, who just had enough of the man, grabbed the gun on the floor and shot him near his chest pocket where unbeknownst to them, the Crystal of Water to which the bullet pierced, but fell onto the floor below as a bright sapphire light started to glow from Joseph's coat's bullet hole.
"Argh!" he yelled in agony as his body started to spasm as he stood there on the spot and the bright sapphire light glowed even brighter to which all three of them could only stare in horror at the scene.
Finally, in one brief moment in time, the bright sapphire light erupted from his chest pocket and flung Joseph into one of the punch tables, which broke completely upon impact, leaving him with blank white eyes and muttering incoherent, alien-like words, whilst occasionally twitching on the floor.
"Is he dead?" Lorraine asked, still shivering in fear.
"No, just out cold, probably catatonic," Daniel said, eyeing the still twitching body.
Ian dropped the gun in his hand and fell onto his knees, his body shivering even more violently then Lorraine's, due to what he just did to a human being, even if the human being was someone like Joseph O' Connor.
"It's okay," Lorraine comforted, pulling Ian into a hug to which Ian gladly accepted.
Daniel however, had finally had enough of this.
I need to end this.
He then swiftly snatched the Crystal of Water from Joseph's chest pocket, which now had a bullet-sized hole in the middle of it, along with a few cracks and super sped in a blur to his loft.
"Daniel, we need to-" Lorraine stated as she pulled out of the hug, but found that he was gone.
(Ian): He's been doing that lately, I need to find out why.
Ian stood up and despite Lorraine's protests for them to go see a doctor, sprinted out of the auditorium and towards the Li Farm as fast as he possibly could at the moment.
Li Residence- The Loft
Daniel arrived up in the loft and wasted no time in replacing his tuxedo with his bright red plaid jacket, his blue House of El t-shirt, jeans and work boots.
Once he did finish changing in less than about two seconds, he went to his desk and pulled out a small-worn out wooden box from his drawer and pulled out the Crystal of Fire and Air from it.
He then stuffed the three crystals into one of his jacket pockets and turned around, only to see Ian come up the stairs with sweat evident on his forehead.
"Ian! What are you doing here?" Daniel asked him. This seriously wasn't the time.
"I could ask you the same question," Ian contradicted, folding his arms seriously.
"I have to go somewhere," Daniel told him in an equally serious tone of voice and walked past Ian, who turned him around to face him again, anger on his face.
"Daniel, what's up with you lately?" he demanded, angry that his friend was lying to him almost everyday now.
"Ian, listen to me, I can't tell you, I wish I could, but I can't," Daniel said through gritted teeth, but sighed: "I'm sorry, to all of you. Tell Rene that I love her."
With that, Daniel rushed past the bewildered Ian and just when he was a fair distance away from his, super sped to the Kawatche Caves.
Kawatche Caves
Daniel stormed into the caves, determined that nothing could get in his way and activated the wall that lead to the cave room that held the white glowing tablet that in turn would combine the three crystals into one: The Crystal of Knowledge.
He sighed as he first pulled out the Crystal of Fire and placed it within the centre of the tablet in the part of the slot where it was meant to be in, then the Crystal of Air and at last he put in the damaged Crystal of Water, hoping that it would still work, despite the fact that it had a bullet hole and a few cracks in the middle of it.
Fortunately, it still it and as soon as he put the Crystal of Water firmly in the slot, it immediately started to react with the other two Crystals of Power and glowed in a bright blue light as it fixed itself again, leaving only the dark sea blue glow of the transference mark on it.
"Yes," Daniel smiled in satisfaction as the sapphire blue Crystal of Knowledge levitated from the slot in front of him to his eye level.
Just outside the cave room
Ian crept into the caves and searched around the place for his best friend. He almost gave up as well, until he spotted a glowing crack in one of the cave walls, which he almost instantely discovered was actually a small doorway to another smaller cave room.
Daniel, what have you been from us?
Daniel, who was too busy staring at the levitating Crystal of Knowledge, failed to notice Ian coming closer to the entrance of the cave room and instinctively grabbed onto the crystal with his left hand.
"Urgh!" he screamed as the crystal glowed brighter through the gaps in his fingers.
Ian reacted to his friend's scream and dashed to his aid to see his friend holding something that was steadily glowing brighter in his hand by the second.
"What the hell-?"
Suddenly, the light erupted from Daniel's hand, knocking Ian off his feet and transported both of them.
Somewhere in the Arctic
Daniel opened his eyes and stood up hastily from the snow-covered ground, gazing at the clear blue sky above him and looking far ahead in front of him, not knowing that Ian was only a few feet away and slowly gaining consciousness.
"Here goes nothing," he said to himself, staring down at the crystal in his hand and threw it as hard and far as he could away from him, in which it landed in the snow.
For a few seconds or so, it seemed like nothing had happened as only silence could be heard, but that silence was immediately replaced with the sound of gigantic crystals rising from the snow-covered ground to form a fortress of pure, clear crystals.
"Whoa," Daniel breathed in awe and super sped inside the newly-constructed 'Fortress of Solitude'.
"It's even better than I imagined it would be," he commented as he turned examined the extremely high and seemingly endless ceiling, whilst slowly turning on the spot.
"Hello, Daniel," AI Jor-El greeted his biological nephew proudly.
"Hello, Uncle Jor-El," Daniel smiled, looking at the batch of smaller crystals near one of the gigantic crystal pillars.
"I cannot tell you how proud I am of you for succeeding in your task of assembling the Fortress of Solitude, BEFORE it went into the wrong hands," AI Jor-El stated in a still very proud voice.
Daniel grinned at the appraisal from his AI uncle.
"But, an issue still needs to be resolved," AI Jor-El stated.
"What issue?" Daniel asked puzzled at what the AI was talking about.
"You still have no kryptonian name," AI Jor-El reminded him.
"Oh," Daniel said lamely, scratching his chin lightly with thought, until he finally came up with something. "Hey, Uncle Jor-El?"
"Yes, my nephew?" the AI said, wondering what he was going to ask, yet at the same time having quite a strong hunch at what it could be.
"I've been thinking for a while about this and I thought of a kryptonian name," Daniel told him.
"Then by all means, tell me," AI Jor-El assured his nephew.
"How about: Dux-El?" Daniel suggested with a smile. "The word 'Dux' means 'leader' in Latin and since I thought that's what I'm practically going to be-"
But AI Jor-El silenced him kindly and with his loud booming voice, he announced proudly:
"Dux-El, the 'Lost' Son of Krypton- has FINALLY been found at last."
Unbeknownst to either of them, a shiny black and oily substance slowly and creepily leaked out from the glowing violet-coloured symbol of the transference mark that randomly appeared on one of the clear crystal pillars where the Crystal of Knowledge transformed into the fortress, making its way out of the place and into the bitterly cold North Pole…
Kawatche Caves
Multiple arcs of electricity sparked in the caves for a few minutes, until suddenly a pale woman with long and wavy bright red hair appeared wearing no clothes appeared kneeling on the floor like in the Terminator movies. She then stood up and glanced around her.
"Great," the woman huffed at the fact that she was completely naked and then said: "I've got to find, Smallville. He'll probably know what to do."
She carefully and silently walked out of the caves, having a vague idea on where she was at the moment.
That's time travel for you.
A/N: AGAIN, I AM SO VERY SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING IN A LONG TIME. HOPEFULLY YOU THE CHAPTER AND IF YOU DIDN'T, THE NEXT SEASON WILL INCLUDE THINGS LIKE PARADOXES, THE SCARECROW, POISON IVY MORE KRYPTONITE AND MUCH MORE. MY WRITER'S BLOCK IS FINALLY CLEARING UP, SO I'LL BE ABLE TO UPDATE MORE FREQUENTLY AGAIN FOR 'SMALLVILLE SEASON 2: THE MECHANICAL FLESH', BUT UNTIL THEN, BYE!