Pantheon Chapter Five
poster by hottietom, Dolly and The Satyr Icon
Title: Pantheon
Author: The Satyr Icon
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Set in Icon AU; Freshman Year
Classification: Smallville; Chloe/Clark
Disclaimer: All characters, references, and other things pertaining to 'Smallville' are property of the WB, DC Comics, Tollin-Robins, Al Gough & Miles Millar, and J. Siegal & J. Shuster; I am just writing for fun, and if I owned them, all would be good and clean in the World.
Summary: KWIZ's Billy Batson follows a story to Smallville and teams up with Chloe....Captain Marvel and Clark team up as well...
Word Count: WIP; so far:
Written: Start: 1/30/05 Finished: ???
Chapter Four
http://the-satyr-icon.livejournal.com/64505.html
~Pantheon~
~Chapter Five~
Rain was usually a good thing to the farmers in Smallville. But this year, the rainy season hit early and hard and caused some flooding that swamped some homes in the basin and mudslides in the hilly areas. It was serious trouble. For the Kents, it was no different. The farmland they owned had plenty of hills and dales and all that land and all the livestock created huge plots of mud. The poor animals, be it the cows or bulls to the chickens that escaped the hen house were stranded on lumps of softening land or, sadly, drowned.
Right after he got home from school, Jonathan and Clark went out back into the rain. They repaired what the rainstorm wrecked and waited for the skies to darken even more. Under the heavy rain and darkness of dusk, it was safe for Clark to use his super-strength and speed to get the cattle to safer group. Jonathan clapped his son on the back after each rescue, proud and grateful that he had a son capable of carrying a heifer or Bobo, the longhorn bull.
But there was sadness too for the Kent men, and they both shared moments of silence and reflection when Clark carried back a dead animal. Yes, some were livestock, but to Jon and Martha and Clark, many of the animals were more than that, they were furry or feathered friends. Clark solemnly buried the dead, and Jon wiped his eyes; maybe it was rain, maybe it was tears.
“That's the last one,” Clark said after he washed the mud from his hands in a puddle and stood up. He walked and stood by his father.
“Wait...where's Bessie?” Jon said, and looked around. Bessie was the Kent's oldest, and most beloved cow; she was older than Jon, and always gave milk easily. Clark, too, was concerned (he learned how to milk a cow with her and whereas Chloe had a yellow rubber ducky to confide in, Bessie was Clark's confidant when he couldn't tell Pete secrets) and he scanned through the surrounding trees and through the hills.
“Dad! The fence went down...and Bessie is wrapped up in the barb wire!” Clark sped off while Jon cursed himself for not getting the cattle to safer ground earlier.
Clark ran as fast as the terrain let him; he was usually sure-footed but the mud made him skid and skip, and when he made it over the rise, the ground gave away, and Clark felt woozy, like when he was near the meteor rocks. He looked back to father but his see-through vision was gone.
“Dad,” Clark murmured and slipped into the mud, and rushed down the hill with the dirty sludge and rain water. He kept rolling down the hill, too weak to gather his senses. Clark was shocked and scared; there wasn't any k-rocks on their land...was there? But the shock of possible k-rock on the farm was nothing compared to shock of the barbs hooking into his skin.
“Dad!” Clark yelled out, or thought he did. He was wrapped up in the wires, the barbs cutting up his jeans, jacket, tee shirt and flannel. He looked at Bessie and she mooed softly, more in pain than in greeting, and Clark's blood mixed with Bessie's in the muddy water.
Each movement, no matter how slight, hurt Clark. He normally didn't feel pain; nothing really could hurt him expect for...meteor rocks. But while he tried not to move, tried not to shake from the pain of the razor-edged barbs cutting into him even more, his mind raced. 'There's no rocks here...me and dad checked...," he thought and screamed again, but the mud on the hill gave a little more and the teen rolled again, tangling him up more in the razor-wire. Bessie bellowed out; she slid, too.
Clark's scanned for anything glowing green. The only thing he saw was the blades of grass; his vision- power wasn't working. He tried to gently tug at the wire, but that caused a barb to dig into his back even more. He reacted to that, and suddenly there were flashes of pain everywhere on his body. He forced himself to stay still. But it hurt so much.
Innocent droplets of rain hit the wire, sending shivers of agony into Clark. Was it the rain? Oh God. It happened right here, he thought. He closed his eyes. He remembered back to when he was twelve...
Summertime, and the sky was azure and not a single cloud to upset it. The temperature was high nineties and the scene was perfect for a Kent barbecue. Ribs and hamburgers were devoured and Pop Shoppe pop (the kids) and beer (some of the adults) were guzzled down. Family, friends and their kids were invited: Pete, of course made it to the party with his family, Lana and her aunt, Nell, and a few others. The Kents made it a point to invite the Toms and their daughter, Amanda; they were new to Smallville. Clark was eager to see Amanda; when their families first met, the two youngsters liked each other. Amanda thought Clark was cute, and he thought she was a hottie.
Before the barbecue, calls were made among the kids, and they followed Pete's idea, and the plan was simple: everyone bring a bucket of water balloons. The parents made sure that they stayed well away and the kids went to the hills. Clark carried his bucket, so did Pete. Lana forgot her pail, and decided to watch, especially since she was wearing wearing a white polo shirt and mint green pleated shorts. But Amanda wanted to catch Clark's eye, and wore simple black halter top, cut off shorts, and flip flops. That did get Clark's attention, and the ire of Lana; no one upstaged her. Lana sat on the grass to watch the water fight, waved to the boys, and hoped Amanda sprained an ankle.
Clark kept his distance from Lana (she wore a piece of meteor rock that killed her parents on her necklace, and besides THAT weirding Clark out, the rock's properties made him ill) and walked up the hill with Amanda. The kids split up into boys versus girls groups, and the parents and Aunt Nell heard shrieks of laughter coming from the hill.
But the old adage would come true: it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt.
There is still controversy about what happened; one of the kids saw it but the aftermath to the rest was unmistakable in their minds: Clark got beat down.
"Ready...One...Two...Three...Go!" Pete yelled and everyone scattered, tossing the water balloons. Amanda grinned at Clark and ran down the hill. He took the jailbait and followed after her cut-offs. The slope of the hill was moderately steep and Amanda barely kept her balance running. By the time she made it to the bottom, Clark was right behind her.
She stepped in closer and faked a throw.
Clark was tall, skinny, and still not used to being so close to a girl, especially one dressed like Amanda. The only girl that he did try to get close to, Lana, made him spasmodic. He wasn't spasmodic around Amanda. But he was still a good-looking nerd. He got all excited and flung his water-balloon too hard at Amanda. He missed judged everything: his nascent super-strength, where to hit, windage, elevation, and the fact that she was smiling up at him didn't help him. He popped her in the eye. The white balloon's fragile covering burst on her eyeball.
Since she was three years old, Lana Lang had a re-occurring nightmare, about watching her parents getting incinerated in "The Great Meteor Shower of 1989". She'd wake up shaking and afraid. The sound that came from behind the hill would give her nightmares as well: Amanda let loose a prodigious scream.
"ARRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!"
The scream caused a chain reaction: Birds flew away...the horses were spooked...dogs whelped...Martha spilled her drink on Nell...Jon dropped his cowhide-silkscreened mug of beer...Alicia Baker sort of disappeared...Jodi Melville ran to the bathroom to eat and Sasha Woodman would complain later that her ears were buzzing. Pete, though, knew instinctively that Clark somehow screwed things up with that new girl, like step on her or something like that, and ran to see what happened to cause that scream.
Amanda kept screaming non-stop at Clark, who stood stunned. He tried to apologize but he was being drowned out by the continuous noise. The girl finally stopped and reached into her pail. The Tom's new home was newly built, and on land that was saturated with meteor rock. Their water pipes were so close the rocks that the piping was penetrated by the radiation contained within the rocks. One pipe rubbed against a meteor chunk lead to a faucet outside the house that lead to a hose that Amanda used to fill up the balloons. She reared back and threw her balloon and hit Clark square on his chest. He thought she was back in the game, until he felt the k-rock laced water touch his skin. He wobbled. She snarled and ran up to him, slamming another balloon into his chest hard. "See how you like it!"
Clark didn't like it. He hated it. The feeling of weakness was surpassed by nausea and that was passed to pain and terror. The bundle of cuteness in front of him wasn't stopping; she kept popping her balloons on him. He dropped to his knees, out of breath, body racked with pain.
"Quit making fun of me!" Amanda yelled. "Quit being a wuss! Stop faking it!"
He wasn't a wuss. He wasn't faking. He was dying.
Amanda dropped to her knees and with both hands slammed the last of her balloons on Clark. Pete ran down the hill and saw his best friend getting clobbered. He was going to joke about Clark's smooth ways with the ladies, but he saw how his friend was...squirming and shuddering. Something was very wrong.
"Stop!" Pete pushed Amanda aside. She fell back, and hit her head on a stone. She felt the back of head, felt stickiness and saw blood on her fingertips.
"You cracked my skull!" She screamed ...and passed out. Pete yelled out to Lana to get the parents to get help. Clark knew he needed to just get out of the wet clothes. For Amanda, it was a trip to the surprisingly busy Smallville Medical Center.
Thanks to the water balloon incident the barbecue was a bust with these net results: the kids, except Pete, thought Clark was Lord of the Wussies, Clark was afraid to shower for a week and Amanda had to wear a protective day-glo orange helmet with the optional reflectors into the new school year and the next one, too. Even today...Clark and Amanda look at each other warily in the school hallways...one thinking of pain from the attack, the other...of payback for having to wear a helmet.
Clark whimpered at the memory, wished Pete was here, not at the game, wished his father would walk over the rise, looked at the rain falling. The rainwater wasn't the cause of the pain; the cause was not above him, but below, wiggling in the mud and dirt.
CHAPTER SIX LINK:
http://the-satyr-icon.livejournal.com/65003.html#cutid2