Chapter 30
Clark was moving his stuff over to the Kent farm two days later.
"I'm glad your parents are letting me stay with you," Clark said to Lana. "Man it feels weird, them not being my parents. How'd you manage to convince them to let me move in anyway?"
"Actually I never even had to ask," Lana replied. "They heard about your situation from someone else and when I got who they asked me how I felt about you moving in."
"That sounds like something they would do," Clark smiled.
"I don't think this will help things with Chloe though," Lana said glumly.
She and Chloe had been avoiding each other for most of the week, and when they did speak it was usually a brief argument that often ended with Chloe storming off and Lana with not knowing just what had happened. Things with Clark were actually worse; Chloe was not even willing to speak to him. She was cordial with Pete but she was using him as a messenger if she did want to say something to Clark and it was starting to bother him.
"Maybe it's just a phase," Clark suggested. "I'd hate to think we'd lose Chloe as a friend."
"I hope so," Lana said. "I really think that we both should go and talk to her, together."
"Well she's probably at the Torch," Clark suggested. "We might be able to catch her."
"Alright, I'll race you," Lana said.
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As they arrived at the Torch, Chloe was just getting ready to leave.
"Chloe, we need to talk," Lana said.
"In case you didn't know I'm not exactly on good terms with you and you can tell Clark that I'm not speaking to him." Chloe said angrily.
"Chloe, don't you think you're being a little bit childish?" Lana asked.
Chloe took a deep breath to calm herself down. "You're right," she said. "I'm a civilized person; I can deal with this in a civilized manner."
Lana didn't really like how Chloe said that only she was civilized, but she wasn't about to start another argument between the two of them again. "So can we go somewhere to talk?" Lana asked. "The Talon perhaps?"
"Fine," Chloe agreed. "I could use a coffee anyway."
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"So what did you want to talk to me about?" Chloe asked.
"Well you've probably heard that Clark's aunt is moving out of town," Lana said. "And well so he can stay in Smallville my parents asked Clark to move in with us."
"We didn't want you to take it the wrong way by hearing from someone else," Clark added. "So we decided to come tell you ourselves. In light everything that's happened recently."
There was a silence as they waited for Chloe to say something. She kept looking between Lana and Clark, and odd look on her face. Lana wished she was psychic so that she could know what was going on in Chloe's head.
"I can't believe you two," Chloe said. "You just keep getting worse."
"What?" Clark and Lana both asked in unison and surprise.
"I can't believe you. You set this up so you could rub it in more." Chloe said as she got up and left.
"Chloe no, it's nothing like that at all," Lana said as she stood up and tried to stop Chloe from leaving.
"I'm sick of you lying to me all the time Lana," Chloe cut her off as she was almost in tears. "I don't want to talk to you, ever again."
With that Chloe stormed out of the Talon, everybody watched her go with curiosity; except for Clark and Lana. Lana watched her friend leave with complete and utter shock etched on her face. She then sat back down dejected beside Clark.
"What did we do wrong?" Lana asked as the tears began to flow.
"I don't know," Clark said. "I just, don't know."
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Unfortunately the situation with Chloe did not improve; in fact it got a little worse when she kept trying to get Pete involved in some nasty scheme she thought up against Clark and Lana. Fortunately Pete was a loyal friend to both Clark and Lana and he didn't go along, even though it meant that he also was no longer on speaking terms with Chloe. However, despite the unpleasant situation with Chloe, Smallville was relatively normal. That is, until Lex Luthor's company made an interesting discovery.
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"So what exactly did you find that's so interesting?" Lex asked.
He was being led through a series of caves by the foreman of the construction crew that was recently hired to build a new office complex. However during the construction they had discovered something and the foreman felt that Lex should see it.
"I don't really know what it is myself, Mister Luthor," the foreman said. "But I'm almost certain that you'd want to see it yourself."
They rounded a corner to a slightly more open area of the cave. The foreman shone his flash light on the walls. Lex looked about; all over the walls were paintings. At first glance they looked like your standard Native American cave paintings, if such things could be considered standard. However, these paintings were different. There was clearly something different about these. One of them seemed to depict a spaceship coming to earth in a meteor shower, the others depicted strange creatures. They were not the normal animal pictures that one would have expected to see.
"There's something even more interesting," the foreman said.
He led Lex over to another section of the cave wall. This section had a bunch of strange symbols carved into it. Lex found this rather odd. The natives of this area had never developed a written language, so it couldn't be that. It appeared very similar to hieroglyphics, but something about it seemed more advanced. However the most interesting part was a strange engraving in the middle of the wall. It was octagonal in shape and about a quarter inch deep with sides that measure approximately an inch each.
"You're right," Lex said. "I did want to see this."
"So are we going to cancel the construction Mister Luthor?" the foreman asked.
"No," Lex replied. "No. But we're not going to be building here. I'll arrange to have the construction moved a little further away from here."
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Lana was at the Luthor mansion. She wanted to pay Lex a visit, she wasn't keen on losing another friend and she also was curious about what was going on with Lex's recent construction project.
"Lana," Lex said when she entered his office. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Can't a friend just stop by to say hi and have a friendly chat?" Lana asked.
"You'll have to forgive me," Lex apologized. "I don't really have a lot of that in my life. Comes with being a Luthor."
"So what's new with you Lex?" Lana inquired.
"Well guess I can tell you this since the secret will be out soon. The construction crew that was building that office complex made the most remarkable discovery," Lex replied.
"Oh? What sort of discovery?" Lana asked.
"Well it was a set of caves." Lex replied. "But I don't really know how to describe what's in there. It's sort of something that you need to see first hand."
"Well can you show me?" Lana asked.
"Certainly," Lex replied. "Give me a few minutes to make a few business calls first and then I'll take you out there."
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Please Read Over:
Well now the plot is thickening. Lex seems well intentioned though. It will be interesting to see what happens won't it. Although it might not turn out as expected. That's the fun of it, to keep you guessing.
Just another one of the usual reminders that if you want to talk to me about the story or Smallville in general. Go on IRC to the otherside servers, irc. (Port 7000), irc. (Port 7000), or irc. (Port 6667), then go to channel #smallville. Hope to see some people there. If you're looking for an IRC client I would recommend X-Chat although there are many other options out there. Really, please go there to discuss any questions answers will be a lot more direct. That and it gets kind of boring talking to the same two people all the time, I need fresh opinions. And if that doesn't work for you, look for the Smallville Revised Forum in the Smallville section of forums. Look forward to seeing some of you in either place.