Thanks to Clark, the Crows got to have the chance to play in the upcoming championship game.

However, the victory was not on Clark's mind. He had accidently tripped during the game, something that had never happened to him in his entire life without kryptonite, and broken an opponent's collarbone. Now he was suspected of using steroids. He wasn't, of course, but if he didn't figure out what made him trip soon, he wouldn't be able to play in the championship, and the Crows would have a really hard time winning without their quarterback.

While all that was going on, Chloe, who was a little less upset about Clark/Lionel's actions, was writing an article on bookies and gambling.

Their newest foreign-exchange student, Mikhail, was the source she used for research seeing as he was Smallville's latest bookie.

"Please do not tell me you are falling for him," Emmeline sighed.

Chloe laughed lightly. "I mean, he is cute, but I'm not really into gamblers. And from the looks of his grades, he won't be getting into Ivy League anytime soon."

"You hacked into his reports?"

"Come on, a foreign-exchange student comes to Smallville and you think I'm not going to research him?"

"Good point. But wait, I thought he was here because he got that scholarship from the Luthors. Isn't that only for people who basically have a 4.0 GPA?"

"Yeah, that's what makes him so interesting. Why would the Luthors overlook the hundreds of straight-A students for someone who is barely making Cs?"

"Wall of Weird material?"

"No, but I'm not ready to take my blinders off just yet."


The next day, Chloe and Emmeline walked into the Torch office to find Clark watching a re-run of the last football game the Crows won. Particularly the part where he tripped and crashed into the other player.

He paused the video when the two girls walked in.

"It's all right, Clark," Chloe told him. "You can stay."

"I thought you had some self-imposed restraining order against me," Clark said awkwardly. "Does this mean you're talking to me again?"

"No, this just means that I'm willing to take a chance on getting your Dr. Jekyll side today." She looked at the TV and noticed what he was watching. "What's up with the self-flogging?"

"I'm watching the sports editor's tape of the game, trying to figure out what happened, but…it's like I had no control, like my mind was sending one message, but—"

"But your body was getting another."

"Yeah."

"It's Mikhail."

"The foreign exchange kid? Mix-uh…"

"Mxyzptlk. Say that three times fast. He's our new resident puppet master." She paused and looked away from him. "This is kind of embarrassing, but he made me kiss him."

Emmeline and Clark both raised their eyebrows in surprise.

"Made you," Clark said doubtfully.

"Yeah," Chloe told him, a bit distressed that he didn't believe her. "It was just like how you explained your trip. It was like someone else was controlling me."

"Okay, but why would he want me to throw the game?"

Chloe went over and sat down in front of her computer. "Clark, he is the biggest bookie in the school."

"The power to control the odds."

"Let me do a search on his name." When she typed his last name into the search bar, no results showed. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Mxyzptlk didn't bring anything up."

Clark came up behind her. "What's that?"

Chloe looked under the search bar and words popped up that read 'Did you mean Kltpzyxm?' "It's Mikhail's name backwards."

She clicked on 'Yes', and a creepy painting appeared on the screen. A large black cat walked down a path while a village burned in the background. People on the sides ran around in a panic.

"It looks like a nursery rhyme gone bad," Clark remarked.

"Yeah. It's some legend from the Piatore region in the Balkans. That's near where Mikhail's from."

Chloe stood up and Clark took her place at the computer. "It says the region has been terrorized for centuries by a bloodline of people who have…who can control the hand of luck."

"It's not exactly luck if they're controlling people. What does it say about the backwards name?"

"The family changed their name a century ago and fled the area to escape the stigma after the village mysteriously burned to the ground."

"Looks like Mikhail's still running from his heritage." She came back over to him. "It doesn't exactly say how to stop the kissing bandit, does it? Oh, here. According to the legend, the only thing that stopped them was a plague of locusts."

"There may be one other force they didn't count on. Think about it. Who brought him here in the first place?"

"Lex," Emmeline answered. "You think he could send Mikhail back to where he's from?"

"It's worth asking. If he brought him here, he could easily deport him."


Emmeline walked up the stairs to Clark's loft. "Hey."

"Hi, Em. How's your mom?"

"It's tough, but we've accepted it. Now we're just trying to help her do everything she wants to do while she can."

"How are you?"

"Well…I finally told Chloe and Lana, so they know. I guess I know that it's not going to do me any good moping about something I can't change. I'm upset and I know that I'm really going to miss her, but I'm also going to make sure that I really enjoy the time I have left with her."

"I can't imagine what this must be like."

"It's hard. But…it helps to know that even when she's gone, I won't be alone."

She gave him a small smile, an action Clark returned.

She kept forgetting how much she liked his smile…

"Oh, look," a voice said, cutting them both out of the moment. "A real live American football superhero."

They both turned to find Mikhail walked up the steps.

"What are you doing here?" Clark demanded, taking a small step forward so Emmeline was behind him.

"I came here to thank you for ratting me out to Lex. It wasn't hard to figure out. I knew Chloe would squeal, just not to him. She's too proud. You seem to be the common denominator, so you forget games are my business. So if you don't know the players, you cannot guess the outcome."

"I thought you'd be halfway back to the Village from Hell by now."

Mikhail smirked. "I'm not cursed, Clark. I am lucky. And on Saturday, the championship game, I'm going to be very lucky."

"If you think I'm gonna throw that game for you—"

"If? When there is an 'if' there are odds, and I always beat the odds."

Clark opened his mouth to argue with him.

"Choke."

Clark suddenly clutched his throat and collapsed to the floor of the loft, unable to breathe.

"Clark!" Emmeline exclaimed as she knelt down next to him. "Stop it, you'll kill him!"

Mikhail came down to their eye level. "For example, the odds in the championship are based on your playing. If you don't go out on the field, then my profit margin takes an unfortunate turn. That is why you're not going to tell anyone else about me and you are going to be on that field…unless you want to see more of your buddies in the hospital." He smirked over at Emmeline. "Like this beautiful one right here."

He reached out to touch her face, but she swatted his hand away. For a moment, she feared he was going to use his powers on her. But he just smirked again and got up to walk towards the stairs.

She frantically turned back to Clark who was starting to turn red from lack of oxygen. She didn't know what she was supposed to do for him. The Heimlich? CPR? How could she use that when he was choking on nothing?

Mikhail turned to look at them. "Breathe."

Clark inhaled sharply as his breath returned to him. Emmeline sighed in relief and watched as Mikhail took off out of the loft.


Chloe and Emmeline stepped out of the Torch office just as Clark passed by.

"Chloe," he said as he touched her arm.

"Hey," Chloe said.

Coach Teague walked in between them. "Clark, warm up in 15 minutes."

Clark looked back at Chloe. "I sure hope you had better luck with the locusts than I did with Lex."

They all began to walk down the hall. "The last time I checked, they weren't selling biblical plagues on Amazon, but since every legend is born in the seed of truth, I did look up our favorite apocalyptic critters."

"Besides eating crops in a single bound, what else can they do?"

Chloe handed the file in her hand to him. "Well, when locusts swarm, they emit an energy wave to avoid crashing into each other. Maybe Mikhail's commands operate on a similar frequency, you know, like a radio signal."

"Or a dog whistle. The sound travels, but the human ear doesn't pick it up."

"Yeah. Now, what's interesting is that once locusts' signals are jammed, they can't fly anymore without running into each other. It's permanent."

"Well, maybe all we have to do is find something that will jam Mikhail's frequency for good."

"And I think I know just where to find that. So now we just have to find him."

"Well, in his quest for the great American dream, he's got a lot of bets riding on this game. He'll be here."

"Okay."

"I gotta go." He quickly handed her back the file.

"Good luck."

"Thanks."

Emmeline looked over at her best friend. "Are you sure this will work?"

"No, but this is all I've got."

"I hope it does. You didn't see Clark last night when Mikhail went after him. He only had to say one word and it almost killed him."

Chloe sighed heavily. "Even the all-mighty Mr. Kent doesn't have a chance against him. Come on."

The two girls walked down a long hallway near the locker rooms. They came to a small room that housed many electronics and wires. Using Chloe's techno knowledge that Emmeline still didn't fully understand after all this time, she hooked a frequency device up to one of the electronic boxes.

Then she pushed the dial up and a red LED light moved up the small screen as the frequency emitted out onto the field.

Through the window in the room, the two girls could see the game. From what it looked like, no unexplained actions happened and it seemed that their trick had worked. Mikhail was powerless.

"Fancy toy!"

They both looked up and saw Mikhail storming into the room. He angrily ripped the wire out of the frequency device.

Chloe pulled her fist back to punch him.

"Stop," he commanded.

Chloe punched him anyway. Emmeline smiled.

"Looks like someone's been broken," Chloe taunted him. "Kind of sucks when you have to play fair, doesn't it?"

Mikhail grabbed her by the coat and slammed her up against the wall. "Yes, well, in my country, you do not survive if you cannot adapt to the unexpected."

He pulled out a switchblade and switched it open right under Chloe's face.

Well, in America, we expect the unexpected, freak, Emmeline thought.

She quickly kicked the switchblade out of his hand and punched him hard in the face. Then she delivered a spin-kick to his stomach.

While he was down, Mikhail retrieved his switchblade before kicking Emmeline in the gut. He pushed her back against the wall hard enough for her to hit her head. She slumped against the wall unconscious.


So far, the championship game was going great. The Crows just needed one more touchdown to win.

Clark hadn't had any more unplanned trips so whatever Chloe's plan was, it must've worked.

That is until he heard his name called.

His heart sank as he turned and saw Mikhail behind him. "What are you doing here?"

Mikhail held up Chloe's press pass and Clark felt his stomach flip. "Here's how the last play in my game works. If the Crows score another touchdown, Chloe and Emmeline are dead. If you don't go back out on the field right now and lose the game, Chloe and Emmeline are dead."

Mikhail walked away from him as Clark's mind raced, frantically trying to figure out what to do in the next two minutes. If he lost this game, he let his teammates and Smallville down. Everyone was counting on them to win.

If he didn't, Mikhail would kill his two best friends.

Clark walked back onto the field and started the next play.

He threw the ball towards his teammate just as someone on the opposing team ran to tackle him.

Then he began to super-speed to the sound control room where Mikhail was holding Chloe and Emmeline captive.

Clark pushed Mikhail, who was ready to stab Chloe, away from his friend. Then he broke the chains to the handcuffs on Chloe. Emmeline was unconscious and he swore that if Mikhail had hurt her, he would make him pay.

He quickly sped back to his place on the field where everything resumed as if he had never left.

He allowed the opponent to tackle him, but his fellow player caught the ball he had thrown and scored a touchdown.

The Crows won.


Back inside the sound control room, Chloe furrowed her eyebrows together. Her chains were undone and Mikhail had been thrown across the room.

When had that happened?

She quickly went over to her unconscious friend. "Em? Hey. Em."

Emmeline's eyes fluttered open.

"Are you okay?"

She groaned and put her hand to the back of her head. "I'm going to be feeling this for a while." She looked around her and noticed that Mikhail was knocked out on the other side of the room. "What happened?"

Chloe looked at the broken handcuffs. "I have no idea."


That night, Chloe and Emmeline showed up at the Kent home and knocked on the door before entering.

"I don't know what it is with you, but no matter how many times I put you in the penalty box, it never sticks," Chloe smiled.

"That's because it's not possible to stay angry at someone like Clark Kent," Emmeline laughed.

"We hear you're quite the hero tonight"

"Yeah, well, if it wasn't for you, we wouldn't have won the game," Clark told her.

"Yeah, well, you can thank Uncle Sam for that." When she noticed Clark's confused expression, she quickly added, "My Uncle Sam. It's amazing the access a three-star general has to cool toys. And you never know when a jamming device for stealth fighters will come in handy at a football game."

"Because of that jamming device, Mikhail can't control anyone anymore."

"Awesome." She pulled herself up to sit on the counter. "But what I don't understand is how I miraculously came untied."

Clark paused for a moment. "And what I don't understand is how you get sucked into anything besides anonymous tips."

"Well, we all have our weaknesses, I guess. Except for you of course."

"Oh, he has a weakness, all right," Emmeline smirked as she playfully nudged him. "And its name is Lana Lang."

Clark laughed uncomfortably. If only she knew that he had a much bigger weakness to worry about…