Smallville: Amazons & Slayers

by Antonio Cabañas

Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Smallville, Superman, Wonder Woman and all related characters are trademarks of DC Comics, which is owned by Warner Bros. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and all related characters were created and are owned by Joss Whedon.

E-mail: borg31de777yahoo.es.

Spoilers: Smallville second season until "Rosetta", and the entire Buffy the Vampire Slayer series

I wish to thank my beta-reader Carycomix for his help and support

Answer to reviewers:

Bunny-Butler: Well, the name is Artemis Stevens, they are mother and daughter, and the daughter prefers to be called Arty. Both comes from my own imagination (well, not quite, there was a rogue amazon called Artemis in Wonder Woman comic-books, but she is unlike any of the Artemis Stevens). I don't need to say who is Diana Prince (although in this story, she isn't yet, she is only scouting for the mission that she will start in a few years, not too long after Clark becomes Superman).

King Henry the V: Maybe, but I never go to the easy way

Summary: A mysterious woman comes to Smallville, jealousies in the Smallville High Athletic Team take a odd turn, a mystery from the past reappears and Clark become involved in all of that.

The Talon

"Hello, I'm Lex Luthor, co-owner of the Talon. And you are...? " said Lex.

"Diana Prince. " answered the young woman.

"A beautiful name for a beautiful woman. " commented Lex in a flattering tone. "Ah, but I am engaged, miss Prince. "

"A natural born flatterer, I see. " answered Diana, smiling

"Diana came here to find a relative that worked in the Talon some years ago. " said Lana

"An aunt, to be precise. But Lana said me that on Fridays she returns very late, so until tomorrow... And I have to find a place to stay tonight. "

"I'd offer my house, but Helen, my fiancée, wouldn't be very pleased. "

"And don't forget Lionel. " commented Lana

"My father is now in Coast City, making a business deal with Ferris Aircraft. "

"Hello. " said Clark who had just arrived. " I see that you have found the waitress that you needed. "

"Diana, this is my friend Clark Kent. Clark, this is Diana Prince. She is going to help me with the Talon this weekend. "

Clark offered his hand, and Diana shook it.

"Curious, a friend of my mother wears the same type of bracelets. " said Clark when he saw Diana's wrists.

"If she is Artemis Stevens, she is the aunt that I have come to find. "

"Oh. "

"Clark, Diana needs a place to stay tonight. " said Lana.

"We have a guestroom, if you don't mind waking up at dawn. "

Buffy's plane

"I just can't believe it! And nobody has noticed all of that? It's crazy! " said Buffy when she finished reading the files that the Watchers had about Smallville.

"Said by the Vampire Slayer, who lived more than seven years in a city built over the gates of hell, and whose sister is in reality a mystical energy source known as the Key. Ah, she loved an ensouled vampire, and her best friend is a lesbian witch who, before outing, dated a werewolf, and was on the brink of destroying the world almost two years ago. " said Dawn

"Ok, ok. I shouldn't have said that. " said Buffy, smiling " Have you seen all of this? I agree with Xander, I think that in Smallville has a helluva Hellmouth "

"I don't think so, Buffy. If you have read the files, at least the ones that pre-date the destruction of the Council, you would have noticed that most of the incidents seem to be connected to the green crystals that came in the meteor storm. " said Willow. "I have used my laptop to search about those crystals, and I have found very few things. Apparently the crystals are radioactive..." seeing the look of alarm in the eyes of the others, she quickly explained. "The radiation level is very low, and seems mostly harmless, at least to human beings. "

"But with some of the things that ocurred in that town, even Sunnydale would have appeared on the national TV. "

"Maybe, but I would bet that some of the officials in town are filling their pockets with Luthorcorp money. Apparently Luthorcorp has done a lot of secret research about the crystals, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of that research was made in the pesticide plant. One report mentions that a former employee of that plant said that there was some mysterious 'level 3', connected to some research with the meteorites. "

"Hey! Wait a minute!. Now that I thought about it, I remember that Smallville made the news one time. Didn't a former clerk of that plant take some hostages a year ago? "

"He was the employee that I mentioned earlier. The report was being processed when the Council blew up, and after the report about the employee, there are only some extracts from the press, telling the conclusion of the story. "

Metropolis

"Hello, John. How is the business going? " asked Maggie sawyer to her old friend, an ex-cop that now worked as a P.I.

"Quiet, Maggie. But fortunately I'm not a man given to extravagant expenses. " answered the detective.

Maggie nodded, remembering the stark flat that he owned, and that she had visited when she tried to convince him to stay in the Police. If any man was able to live with the meager pay that the Metropolis cops had, that was her friend.

"John, did you hear about the incident last week? The woman beating a gang? "

"Yes. A very odd case. "

"I have received some info that suggests that the woman could be part of a sect, searching for a member that abandoned the cult. My chief have passed a note to the sheriff 's office in the town where the woman lives, but I'm worried. "

"And you want me to watch the woman discreetly. "

"Bingo! The woman is Artemis Stevens, and lives in Smallville. "

"Smallville, do you say? I was there fifteen years ago, helping clean up after the meteor storm." he paused for a moment. "I'll help you.""

"Thanks, John" said Maggie Sawyer. "Well, goodbye, John."

"Bye, Maggie."

Sawyer was passing besides the door when she turned and said:

"John, why 'Manhunter' instead of 'P. I.' on the door? "

For the first time, John smiled. It was a sad smile, however.

"Something from my past, Maggie. "

Smallville

Meg Rawlings had been rummaging through the debris-filled room that had once been Dr. Hamilton's lab for almost an hour and she hadn't found what she was searching. She had found several small vials filled with a greenish liquid in a drawer of a desk, and a lot of broken lab equipment, but that was all. She closed her eyes, trying to remember exactly what had happened that day, not too long before the disappearance of Dr. Hamilton.

Hamilton had been earning a few bucks giving science classes to some of the high school students, Meg Rawlings and Arty Stevens between them. One day, she had come earlier than usual, and was sneaking through Hamilton's house when she saw him opening a portable safe and placing a medicine flask inside. The medicine was the reason why she was there, as she had recognized the medicine that Arty's father had been taking them after that damned accident at the Luthor plant. What interested her was that the medicine contained steroids. She would slide the flask into Arty's sports bag, and the rest would be easy, a word to the right person and the career of Arty Stevens in Athletics would be finished. Now, if she could remember where Hamilton had put the safe... There! she thought, suddenly remembering. After cleaning the debris, she found the black safe, which had been covered by the debris produced by the fall of part of the roof.

She didn't know that Hamilton also kept inside the hermetic safe several bottles of dangerous chemical substances, and with the fall, the bottles had broken, the substances had mixed and reacted, consuming the oxygen inside and forming a mass of gas that only needed a bit of oxygen to explode. When Meg Rawlings opened the safe, the explosion sent her against the nearby desk that she had examined before, hitting her head and leaving her unconscious. From one of the drawers of the desk small drops of a greenish liquid began to fall over her head, including the wound.

After nightfall...

On a Kansas road

After they landed, in another private airfield near Topeka, they rented a car and took the road to Smallville. Using her cellphone, Willow learned that, due to a festival this weekend, there wasn't a vacancy left at any of the motels of the town. Finally, one of the managers said that his brother had a summer residence in Smallville, and that he could rent it to them, if they were so desperate as they seemed. Lacking any other option they accepted.

Smallville

Lex had agreed to give Diana and Clark a lift to the Kent's farm.

"Where did you say that you were from? " asked Lex to Diana, in an offhand tone.

"I haven't said it. " answered Diana. "The truth is that just now, I'm from nowhere. Last week I was in Metropolis, after being some time in Gateway City, and before that I was in Boston. "

"I could have sworn that you were European, judging by your accent. " commented Lex, hitting the brake as they had arrived at the front gate of the Kent farm.

"Well, my mother and a lot of the people with whom I grew up were from Greece. " said Diana, while stepping out of the car.

"Must be that. " said Lex, clearly unconvinced. "See you tomorrow. " he said while maneuvering the car to get it back to the road.

"Is your friend always so inquisitive? " asked Diana to Clark, while walking to his home.

"Lex can't stand an unsolved mystery. " said Clark, chuckling.

"You seem to speak from your own experience. "

"We met when his car lost control and fell in the river, and I rescued him. Lex became obsessed with the accident for a long time. "

In the car Lex was already marking a number on his cell phone.

"Sam?... It's me, Lex... Yes, the usual fees... I want you to run a background check on a woman called Diana Prince... No, I don't know where she is from, but apparently last week she was in Metropolis, and before that in Gateway and Boston... No, I don't know if the data is real... Her description? Caucasian, black straight hair, blue eyes, age around twenty, five-foot-ten in height... Oh! I almost forgot. She speaks English with a European accent and had mentioned that her mother was Greek... If you can have something tomorrow morning, you'll have a few bucks extra in your account... Bye. "

Metropolis

Artemis Stevens concluded her last self-defense class of the day. It hadn't been a great day for her pupils, as the news that the policewoman had brought had distracted her all that evening. Even if she hadn't wanted to reveal it to Sawyer, she was troubled by the possibility that her sisters, her former sisters she corrected herself, could have sent somebody after her. There had been very harsh words almost twenty years ago...

She finally decided to call home, as Arty would have already returned from her training in the athletic team. That way she could have some peace.

Smallville

Arty Stevens was in the shower when the phone rang. After hurrying with the towel hastily wrapped around, she managed to answer when her mother was about to hang it.

"Stevens resi.. Ah, hello, mom... I have beaten my best mark today... Yes, mom, the coach spoke to me about that, and I'm going to work in my grades... No, nobody had come asking for you... Ok, if somebody that I don't know comes I'll tell whoever it is that you aren't at home and if she can wait until tomorrow... No, I'm going to bed early, tomorrow we have training early in the morning... Yes, the coach is still of the opinion that 'you never train enough'... Bye, mom. "

A Smallville motel

"Yes? " said the gruff-looking man behind the reception desk of the motel. He squinted his myopic eyes at the dark-haired man that had just appeared.

"I'm Kevin Kilmer. I reserved a room for this week. "

"One moment, please. " the man checked the reservation book, nodded, took a key and tossed it to the man in dark clothes. "Room 27. "

"Thanks. " answered the man while the receptionist went back to his TV.

Some hours later...

Artemis Stevens paid the taxi driver that had carried her back to Smallville, as she had never learned to drive, and walked to the door of her home. She was thinking while entering the house, since the death of her husband, a few years ago, she had tried to keep herself busy hence her work at the gym and the self-defense class that she gave in Metropolis. But sometimes she missed her former life, before meeting a handsome Navy pilot. She dismissed that train of thought, as she knew where it would end, and went to the bedroom of her daughter.

Arty was sleeping, and she looked like an image of innocence when she was in the arms of Morpheus. Obeying an impulse she went besides the bed and kissed her daughter on the forehead.

"Sleep well, my little princess. " she said as she retired from the room.

She went to the bedroom that she had shared with her husband and sat on the bed. She was going to change into her nightgown when she had an idea. Atop the bedspread she had a small trunk that hadn't been opened in almost twenty years. She put it over the bed and took a small key that she always had on her keyring and opened it. Inside it were two bracelets very similar to the ones that she wore around her wrists. 'Tomorrow, when she gets back from the training I'll tell her all the truth about us.' she thought.

A house in Smallville, Buffy's temporary HQ

It was clear that the house had been empty since the last summer, as they had to spend hours cleaning it. After this, they agreed to wait until the next day, because even Buffy was tired. Buffy, Dawn and Willow would each sleep in one of the three unpstairs bedse, and Xander would sleep on the sofa.

Kent's farm

Martha Kent was tired of staring at the ceiling or the walls, as she seemed unable to sleep that night. She got up and went to the kitchen, where she almost collided with their guest.

"What are you doing awake so late? "

"Sorry, Mrs. Kent... Err, I'm a wicca, you see, and this night is full moon..."

"Ah, you need to do some ritual. And why haven't you said it openly, instead of trying to do it as a burglar in the night?. "

"I suppose that I think that you weren't going to understand it, sorry. I have all that I need for the ritual, if you could tell me a place where I could have a good view of the moon. "

"Go behind the barn. It's the better place for that. "

"Thank you very much, Mrs. Kent "

Martha shook her head in amazement while the young woman exited the building.

Diana completed the ritual in honor of Selene and blew out the candles that she had used. She looked around, and saw that there were no lights on in the farmhouse. Then from the same bag where she had kept the material for the ritual she produced a cellphone and called to a number in the other end. When a woman answered in the other end, they spoke in a language that only some scholars would have understood.

Hamilton's lab

At Hamilton's lab, Meg Rawlings moaned and opened her eyes. Eyes which had gone from deep brown to a unearthly bright green.
TO BE CONTINUED.....