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This story is Episode Three of the Smallville Virtual Season.  That is, we're a group of amature writers who are writing our own version of Season Two of Smallville.

Two other stories came before this one.  It isn't necessary to read the first two stories in order for this one to make sense, but there are bits and peices that would help this one out.  Like how Lex got Clark's adoption papers and that kind of thing. 

If you want to read the other two which came before this one, you can email me Camster900@aol.com, and I'll send you the links for them.  I've tried three times to put up the address, but for some reason this sight deleted them both times.  I just hope it doesn't delete email addresses too.  If it does, click my name and you'll find my email there.

Summary:  In an Alternate Universe there's a ghost on the loose that seeks out the young men of Smallville.  The ghost's goal is to possess the boys, but it's targets are the young women.  Chloe and Clark get close to the truth, but before the final peice falls into place Clark is possessed.

Timeline:  This story takes place in Clark's sophomore year at about the time of the Homecoming Game which is usually held around Halloween.

Disclaimer:  I'm ain't making no money here.

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PsychoGenesis

By

Tayoni and the SVS Team

~*~ SATURDAY AFTERNOON ~*~

A well dressed man in his late thirties was standing in Lex Luthor's mansion office.  Despite the daylight streaming in through stained glass windows, the office retained a church-like dimness. Without moving from his place, a few feet away from the desk, he studied every object in the room carefully. His sharp glittering eyes didn't miss anything. 

Lex came down a narrow stairwell and entered the office.  "Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Louvain."  He said as he crossed to room to his desk.

The man made eye contact with Lex.  "What is it I can do for you, Mr. Luthor?"

"I want you to look into something for me."  Lex said.  He sat down behind his desk, unlocked a drawer and pulled out a file folder.  He dropped it on the desk-top and looked up at Louvain.

Louvain stayed where he was--three steps away from Lex's desk.  His face was expressionless.  Years of experience had taught him to touch nothing until he saw some hint of permission to do so.

"This is extremely confidential."  Lex said, leaned forward in his chair.  "I don't want anyone to know anything about this investigation.  You're to make no contact with the family."

"Understood."

"Is it?"  Lex asked darkly.

"No one will know anything about this investigation."  Louvain said in an icy tone.  "What's this about?"

"The adoption of a kid by the name of Clark Kent."  Lex said and motioned at the folder.

Louvain stepped closer to the desk and opened the file.  He scanned the papers quickly.  "You want me to find his real parents?"

"His adoption is a fake."  Lex said softly.  "I want to know why."

"I've been a Private Investigator for ten years."  Louvain said quietly.  "I've handled cases like this one before.  Usually the kid in question turns out to be the result of some forbidden affair.  Small towns like this have a habit of keeping dirty little secrets."

Lex smirked very tightly.  "Mr. Louvain, Clark's parentage isn't what concerns me, although that obviously is an important factor.  There's something more going on here, and I want to know what it is."

Louvain nodded.

Lex dropped a yellow envelope on top of the file folder.  "For your expenses."

Louvain picked up the folder and the envelope.

"Contact me when you find something worth my time."  Lex ordered.

Louvain nodded his head and walked out of the office.

~*~ SATURDAY EVENING ~*~

Lana Lang was sitting on her heals in front of her parent's gravestone, talking to them quietly.  "I was kind of hoping that Clark would ask me to the dance tonight, but he asked Chloe..."  Lana told the gravestone.

A presence hovered yards away from her, too far off to hear that private and one-sided conversation.  It looked at her from one side of a Sycamore tree.  Lana's voice carried, but her words were unclear to the listener.

A car went by on the road a half mile away, and Lana lifted her head to look at it.  She could only see a pair of red tail lights fading off into the darkness, but she knew it was Chloe's car.

There was a noise of rushing wind to her left.  When she looked in that direction, there was nothing more than a Sycamore tree standing there.

Lana turned her head the other way, and stared in the direction of the road.  She felt certain that something had just left the graveyard and gone in the same direction as Chloe's car.  "I better go get ready.  I didn't know it was this late."  She told her parents and rushed to get home.

~*~

Chloe's car whooshed past a street sign, and a few seconds later, a rushing sound of a small wind could have been heard in the same place.  The sign rattled, but nothing could be seen that might have hit it.

~*~

Inside the car, it was warm.  Chloe was driving and talking to Clark who was in the passenger seat.  She was nervous about trying to go to another dance with him.  Rather than acting that way, she released her tension by cracking jokes.  "...and then Pete sneezed so I called him a pig."

Clark listened to every word she said very intently, but he was too nervous to really concentrate.  He stared at the road, then glanced at Chloe.  Why had she called Pete a pig?

"You're not laughing."  Chloe said, looking away from the road just long enough to glance at him.

"If he sneezed, you should have said bless you."  He said looking at her innocently.  "I don't get it."

Chloe glanced at him again, scowled and then burst out laughing.  How could he not get that?  It was so simple!  "You're not supposed to get it, Clark.  There's nothing to get!  It was a joke!"

"But...jokes have a punch line."  He whined at her.

"Some jokes are punch lines."  Chloe laughed at him.

~*~

A racing spirit chased Chloe's vehicle.  The distance closed and the spirit slowed down as it approached the rear window.   For a few seconds it matched the speed of the car, following very closely.  Then, it focused on the barrier of the window, and forced itself into the car.  The impact of the spirit's passing through the rear windshield made the car bounce violently on its shocks.

~*~

Inside the car Clark gasped as it rocked, and he turned around to look into the back seat.

"Thought someone got out here and fixed the potholes on this road.  You okay?"  Chloe asked, but watched the road as she turned.

"Yeah.  Fine."  He said in a shaky voice.

"That's not a convincing tone, Clark."  She said, and glanced at him, looked again at a very pale face and wide open nervous eyes.  "My driving bugging you?"

"No!  Not at all.  Just...nervous about the dance." 

"Afraid you might ditch me again and I'll beat you over the head with my laptop?"  She wondered in a jovial voice, but there was really nothing funny going on in her head.

Clark turned his head and gave her a wide eyed nervous look.  Maybe he'd detected a tiny note of roughness in her tone which she hadn't meant to put there.

Chloe grinned and then looked over at him.

Clark smiled back, relaxed into his seat and then looked at the road through the windshield.  "Nah.  You wouldn't hit me with your laptop Chloe."

"True.  I wouldn't want to break it.  I'd just borrow one of Lex's cars and run you over, then reverse to make sure I'd done the job right." 

Clark's eyes popped open wide and he turned his head to stare at her.

"Relax, Clark!  You take everything too seriously.  I was kidding!"

He laughed hollowly, cleared his throat and peaked backwards, and gulped because he felt something looking back at him.

Chloe glanced away from the road at him, and saw him looking backwards again.  That was the third time she'd noticed him doing that.  Was he that nervous?  "What?  You think the Sheriff's chasing me?"

"Uh...no..."  He said and snapped his head around to look at the road again.

"Right.  Sheriff chasing me."  Chloe smiled brightly.  "We'll jump a gorge, shout out a Yee-haa, and leave him in a tree when he tries it, right?"

"Ha-ha."  Clark said, and he didn't let himself look in the backseat again.  He could feel something looking at the back of his head.

~*~

The school's parking lot was lit up brightly, and a banner was stretched between two light poles.  Music drifted over the loudspeakers all around the grounds.  Gangly boys dressed handsomely in dark tuxedos, and starry eyed girls in colorful flowing dresses meandered uncertainly toward the school's main entrance. 

A powder blue car with a ripped fender and rust spots marring the paint job squeaked to a halt in a parking space, and groaned as the engine stopped.  A young man with a lot of pimples got out of the driver's side, rushed around to help his date out of the passenger seat.  He got the door open just fine, but when he reached his hand out to help her, he accidentally hit her in the head.

"OW!  YOU IDIOT!"  She hollered and rubbed the spot on her head.

"I'm sorry!"  He whined, and his face turned bright red.  He made a forward move to help her.

"Back off nerd-boy!  I'll get out by myself!"  she ordered and glared at him.

He backed up too fast and almost fell over backwards.  "I'm really sorry, Heather!"  He whined at her again.

She got of the car, and this time, he just stayed out of the way.  The door was left open, and he closed it.  His date marched across the parking lot, and he jogged after her.

The girl he followed was a strawberry blond beauty in sparkling pastel green, but her attitude was sickening.  She touched the arm of a dark haired girl in a pink dress.

The girl in pink turned around, put her hands on her hips and glared at Heather.  "What?"  She demanded. 

"You have got to be playing a trick on me!  I cannot be seen with this acne infested, micro-chip chomping dork!"  Heather said in a scalding tone and motioned at her date.

The boy stiffened, backed up, turned around, and walked away.  He didn't hear anything else the girls said to each other.

~*~

"We had a deal."  The girl in pink said darkly to Heather.

Heather glared at her, and watched the girl in pink put a hand on the arm of her own date.  He was a big husky boy with a square head and a brush cut, far from handsome.  At least he wasn't a dork, Heather thought.

Patty scowled at her, and the look turned her pretty face, ugly.  "You want to stay in my popularity club then you do what I say.  Go get him before he leaves!"

Heather exhaled furiously, but went off to find her acne infested date.  She spotted him walking dumbly across the parking lot, and she didn't think he was paying attention to what he was doing.  A car was coming!  She cringed and almost screamed, certain it would hit him.  But then the horn blared and scared him.  She thought he did some kind of stupid looking--dorkified, leaping--convulsing--heart attack maneuver to get out of the way.  At least he didn't fall in the mud, she thought, and rolled her eyes and walked toward him very slowly.

~*~

The boy felt like a complete moron because he couldn't even leave this miserable night behind in a dignified fashion.  A car almost hit him when he started to cross the lot, the horn blared, and it scared the hell out of him.  He jumped to get of the way and into a safe space between two parked cars.  He leaned against the antique red car, which belonged to Chloe Sullivan, and felt grateful for his life even if it was miserable.

~*~

Something inside of the car that could not be seen by human eyes was looking at the kid.  It rose upwards, focusing on its intended target, and then glided through the closed window.  The window rattled.

~*~

The boy shuddered and inhaled deeply as the spirit penetrated his body.  For a second his body and eyes glowed a soft shade of blue.  When the glowing stopped, he breathed and blinked as though clearing his head after sleep.  He turned around and bent to look at himself in the car's window, touched one of about a hundred huge zits on his face.  "Now here's a square if I ever saw one."  He said, then looked just to the right and saw a strawberry blond girl coming his way.  His left eyebrow lifted and the right side of his mouth grinned.  "What the heck?"  He looked back at his reflection, noted the bow tie was all-wrong, pulled it apart and fixed it.

He was giving it a final tug when the girl approached him, walked by him, and kept going.  "Let's go, Drew!"

He caught her hand before she was two strides away from him, tugged her close, and spoke in a voice that wasn't whiny at all.  "What's you're hurry, gorgeous?"

Heather raised her brows.  "Can we please just get this over with?"

He grinned suavely, and lifted her hand in his, locked his eyes to hers.

She couldn't help but to stare back at him.  Something was very different about him.

"We're here, and we're dressed and you're a beautiful lady.  This night will never happen again.  Let's have a good time, okay?"  Drew said in a warm tone.

"uh..."  She stammered, suddenly feeling nervous.  "Sure."

Eyes still locked on hers, Drew pulled her hand into the crook of his elbow, and walked her slowly toward the school's main entrance.