Reforged in the Sun: Clark Kent Reborn SI

November 5, 2002

The halls of Smallville High buzzed with energy. Students hurried to class, the faint scent of floor polish mixing with the warm aroma of coffee from the teacher's lounge. Lockers slammed shut, and snippets of conversations floated through the air—complaints about upcoming exams, excitement for the winter formal, and, of course, the never-ending gossip about who liked who.

It was all so normal, so mundane. And for the first time in days, I realized how much I'd missed it.

I made my way down the hall, adjusting the strap of my backpack. Pete waved at me from his locker, and Chloe darted by with her laptop open in one hand, muttering something about a breaking lead for "The Torch." A small smile tugged at my lips. Being back at school, surrounded by my friends, felt like stepping into another world—a simpler one where I wasn't constantly fighting Kryptonian threats or uncovering dangerous artifacts.

But that simpler world was quickly slipping through my fingers.

In chemistry class, the smell of sulfur and vinegar filled the air as the teacher demonstrated an experiment involving acids and bases. I was paired with Lana, which should've made it easy to focus, but my thoughts kept drifting back to the bunker—and the core.

"Clark?" Lana's voice broke through my thoughts.

I blinked, realizing she was holding a beaker out to me, her eyebrows raised in amusement. "You okay?"

"Yeah," I said quickly, taking the beaker. "Just… distracted."

She smiled faintly, her hazel eyes studying me. "You've been distracted a lot lately. Is everything okay?"

I hesitated, glancing down at the bubbling liquid in the beaker. I wanted to tell her the truth—about the beacon, the bunker, everything. But how could I? Lana was the one person who'd always tried to see the best in me, and I wasn't sure how she'd handle knowing just how different I really was.

"Just a lot going on at the farm," I said finally.

She nodded, but the concern in her eyes didn't fade. "If you ever need to talk…"

"I know," I said softly, meeting her gaze.

For a moment, the rest of the class faded away. But before I could say anything else, the teacher clapped his hands. "All right, everyone, focus! This experiment isn't going to run itself!"

Lana turned back to the lab table, and I forced myself to focus on the task at hand. But as I measured out the next solution, I felt it—a faint tingling at the edge of my senses, like static electricity crawling over my skin.

I glanced around, trying to pinpoint the source. It wasn't Kryptonite—I would've felt the weakness immediately. This was something else, something subtle.

The feeling stayed with me for the rest of the day.

By the time the final bell rang, I couldn't shake the sense that something was… wrong. The tingling sensation I'd felt in chemistry class had grown stronger as the day went on, pulling at me like a magnetic force.

After making sure no one was watching, I slipped into the basement. The dimly lit corridors were lined with old pipes and storage rooms filled with outdated textbooks and broken desks. The air was colder down here, damp with the faint smell of mildew.

The sensation grew stronger as I moved deeper into the basement, guiding me like an unseen hand. My heart pounded as I reached the far end of the corridor, where a rusted metal door stood slightly ajar.

Pushing it open, I stepped into a small, empty storage room. At first glance, there was nothing unusual about it—just cracked walls and a flickering fluorescent light. But as I moved closer to the center of the room, I saw it.

A faint blue glow emanated from beneath the floorboards.

I knelt, pulling up one of the loose boards. Beneath it was a small, crystalline object, embedded in the dirt. It looked like a shard of the beacon's core, but smaller—no larger than a thumb.

As I touched it, a surge of energy coursed through me, and my vision blurred.

In an instant, I was somewhere else.

A Kryptonian outpost, hidden deep beneath Earth's surface. Its walls were smooth and metallic, glowing faintly with energy. Figures in silver robes moved through the corridors, their faces blurred but their purpose clear. They were building something—constructing technology I couldn't begin to understand.

But the vision shifted, and the outpost wasn't bustling anymore. It was empty. Abandoned. And in the center of the main chamber stood a pedestal, atop which rested an object that pulsed with faint green light.

The vision ended as quickly as it began, and I found myself back in the storage room, gasping for air.

The shard in my hand pulsed faintly, as if responding to my thoughts.

Lex sat in his study, surrounded by glowing holograms and scattered documents. The dim light from the fireplace reflected off the sleek, modern surfaces of his desk, where a laptop displayed the same map he'd been studying for days.

Red markers dotted the map, each representing a potential Kryptonian artifact. But tonight, his focus was on a single location: a remote stretch of farmland just outside Smallville.

The data from the beacon had been fragmented, but one thing was clear—there was something buried beneath Smallville. Something powerful.

Lex leaned back in his chair, swirling a glass of scotch in his hand. His sharp blue eyes were locked on the map, but his thoughts were far away.

"You've been quiet, Lex," said a voice from the doorway.

He turned to see Va-Ra standing there, his silver eyes glinting in the firelight. The Kryptonian scientist moved with the same calm, predatory grace that had unnerved Lex since the moment they'd met.

"Thinking," Lex said simply.

Va-Ra stepped closer, his gaze drifting to the map. "You believe Kal-El has hidden something here?"

Lex's lips curved into a faint smile. "I believe there's more to Smallville than meets the eye. And if Clark Kent is involved, you can bet it's important."

Va-Ra studied the map for a moment, then turned to Lex. "Do not underestimate Kal-El. His strength is greater than you realize."

"Strength means nothing without direction," Lex said, his voice sharp. "And Clark—Kal-El—has no idea what to do with his."

Va-Ra tilted his head, his expression unreadable. "Perhaps. But his strength is not the only thing you should fear."

Lex didn't respond, but his grip on the glass tightened.

Back in the bunker, the shard from the storage room sat on the workbench, its faint blue glow illuminating the dark steel walls.

I stood over it, my hands resting on the table as I tried to make sense of the vision. The outpost. The pedestal. The object.

"What are you trying to show me?" I muttered under my breath.

The orb pulsed faintly beside me, and Jor-El's voice filled the room.

"Kal-El," he said, his tone calm but heavy. "The shard you have found is a fragment of Kryptonian memory technology. It contains an echo of our people's final days. But it is incomplete."

"Incomplete?" I repeated, glancing at the shard.

"There are others," Jor-El said. "Fragments scattered across this world. Only when they are reunited will the full memory be revealed."

I nodded, my fists clenching. "Then I'll find them. All of them."

The weight of what lay ahead pressed down on me, but I didn't falter. The bunker was growing, the artifacts were calling, and somewhere out there, Lex was circling closer.

But I wasn't going to let Krypton's legacy fall into the wrong hands.