Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted material contained herein. They are the rightful property of their respective creators and associated companies. I make no money off of this whatsoever and have no intention of changing that within my lifetime. I write fanfics because it is fun and because there are those who enjoy reading my work. Therefore if you are considering filing a lawsuit against me I would recommend against it because whatever money you get from me won't cover even half your legal fees.

The Top of the Kent Farm Driveway, Thirty Minutes Later, Willow's P.O.V

Where's Sunnydale denial syndrome when you need it?! Willow thought as she walked down the dirt road with a backpack full of schoolbooks.

She never thought she'd be wishing for the mental fog that had kept so many people back home from seeing and accepting the supernatural. Now, though, with all that had happened, she wanted it if only to make keeping her own skills in the arcane arts a secret that much easier. Back home she'd been able to practice just about anywhere with a bit of discretion but now… now the only place she dared do anything magical was in her bedroom when her Aunt Nell was out. She'd found a hidey hole for her books the very day that they arrived in the mail and it was in such an inconspicuous area of her room that the only way they'd be found was if she screwed up somehow.

She was extra careful in making sure that didn't happen.

However other people couldn't keep their unique nature a secret so easily. She'd already seen three people who'd had their physical bodies changed by the gas and she'd seen how those who hadn't been touched by the gas had looked at those that had. So far she'd seen a guy with completely green skin and hair with what she thought were fangs occasionally sticking out of his lower jaw, a guy with silver skin as well as solid white eyes and a girl with silver skin along with ink black hair. All the ones she'd been able to spot had done their best to wear concealing clothes but, in a town like Smallville, that just made them stand out more. School would be starting up again from what she'd heard and, unless they were planning on springing it on the student body tomorrow morning, there weren't any new rules about those that'd gained powers. She guessed that, for the time being, the Smallville school board was going to try and let things go on like normal.

She doubted it'd last.

One of the side benefits of being the daughter of a pair of psychologists was that she had a better idea of how people thought than most girls her age. It'd only be a matter of time before prejudice and bigotry started influence both the students as well as their parents. The students would probably fire words like 'freak' or 'mutie' at them and those changed would either scurry away or retaliate. The parents would probably buy into the hype the media often had on or they'd hear questionable tales from their kids. In the end, unless something was done to convince everyone that the two groups could co-exist, it'd be segregation all over again. She'd be able to keep her magic a secret easily enough since there weren't any easy spells that she could accidentally fire off if someone startled her. Xander, on the other hand…

He'll probably want to play superhero every chance he gets, she thought, fighting the urge to roll her eyes.

It'd been a serious surprise when she'd paid an unannounced visit to the Kent Farm and seen her friend blurring from one end to the other faster than her eyes could follow. She wasn't a complete stranger to superhuman speed, given how she'd seen Buffy move while fighting vampires but, compared to how fast Xander had been going, the blonde Slayer might as well have been standing still. She'd been shocked speechless until her best friend and his Uncle noticed her but then she might very well have broken her old record for most words spoken in a minute. It'd taken a while for her to calm down but she'd gotten the whole story and heard Xander's theory about what he was.

A mutant.

It certainly fit with what she knew and nothing else she could think of fit with the super speed he'd been moving at when she'd arrived. She'd found it odd that he hadn't gotten his powers sooner since, according to some of the more objective articles she'd read, a mutant's powers often activated when under significant emotional distress. Considering what they'd been doing since Buffy first arrived, she'd have thought that his super speed would have popped up after Jesse died or Xander's first encounter with a vampire. She'd been puzzling over the conundrum ever since but the best she could figure was that the demonic energy that the Hellmouth gave off somehow kept the chemical reaction that would have activated the powers in check. Now that they were both away from Sunnydale, whatever impediment had been in place must have worn off and the stress of the bank robbery must have been the trigger.

That was her theory at the moment and, until she came across something better, she'd stick to it.

In any case, she focused her mind on the reason why she was there and that was to give her best friend an academic kick in the pants before classes resumed. He'd been lucky so far with their first few days being meet-and-greet and then the days following being spent either in the hospital or doing chores for the Kents. Unless something big happened in the next while, it'd be normal classes with tests and assignments every few weeks. While she'd had no trouble with schoolwork, she knew Xander wasn't the most dedicated student and often, without some prodding from her, he'd be satisfied with barely passing grades. While that might be fine for such a laid back person as Xander, she didn't want her best friend to be stuck with a minimum wage job while living out of a barely sanitary closet of an apartment. In order to prevent that, she'd committed herself to pushing him to apply himself to his studies whenever she could spare the time from her own. She'd already looked through the first six chapters of each of her text books and felt she had a strong enough grasp of the material that she'd need no more than a refresher to pass any of the tests.

She was almost at the house when she heard the sounds of a truck turning onto the road. Turning around, she was a little surprised to see Xander and Mr. Kent driving up the dirt road in their red pickup truck. According to what Xan said on the phone last night, he only had a few chores and some deliveries to make before he'd be free for whatever she wanted to do. He should have been back an hour ago.

I wonder what held him up?

It wasn't until they were almost at a stop before she got a clear look at them inside the car and then she knew something had happened. Xander had a look on his face that he only showed whenever he'd let something slip that he hadn't meant to. A secret he wouldn't want to talk to anyone but her about but that was only secrets that involved… his adoptive parents. She sighed as she realized the funk her friend would be in now and probably would be in the mood for studying any time soon. She could try to cheer him up but she figured the best cure for him right that moment would be some time to himself. With that in mind she moved to intercept Mr. Kent. who looked like he was about ready to prod some answers out of his nephew.

"Xander! Wait!" Mr. Kent said before breaking off as she got in his way, "Willow? Wha—?"

"I know you have questions. Mr. Kent. but right now Xander needs his space." she said firmly, her resolve face on.

The farmer looked like he'd argue the point but eventually he proved to everyone just how much like Xander he was by caving under her glare. She waited until a couple of minutes had passed and she was sure that Xander had enough lead time that his Uncle wouldn't have an easy time guessing where he was. Stepping out of the older man's path, she decided that it'd probably be best if she went back to Nell's place until later on in the day. He'd be better by then and perhaps a little more receptive to her academic prodding.

Before she left, though, she'd give Mr. Kent a small hint of what was bothering Xander to act as an extra incentive to leave her friend alone.

"The only thing I can tell you is this: Xander's made a promise to himself to be a better man than Tony Harris could ever hope to be."

She hoped Mr. and Mrs. Kent would give him his space until he was ready to tell them the whole story about the Harris household. Or maybe he wouldn't tell them ever.

She was fine with that too.

Smallville High School, Mr. Brand's Biology Class, First Period, Xander's P.O.V

Well isn't this a cheerful classroom! Xander thought sarcastically as he looked about the room filled with looks of fear, anxiety or prejudice.

It was the first day of classes since the 'Big Bang' incident and it was his first class of the day, but already it felt like a powder keg that had a lit match dangling over it. He'd had a faint hope that he'd be able to go back to classes as though nothing had happened but, if the first class was any indication, uncertainty was about to become the key word of the entire school year. In a move that hadn't really surprised him, the school had apparently decided to allow the students that had been changed by the gas to attend classes like normal. There were only three in his class that he could spot and he didn't think there'd be too many elsewhere, considering the high fatality rate of those who'd been exposed, but those that did exist were in for a rough time. Looking about, he decided he'd best mark out who the changed people were since they might wind up in the same boat if someone spotted him using his super speed. The first was a gray skinned girl with ink black hair who seemed to have a goth schoolgirl look going on and was doing her best not to make it obvious she was being watchful for hostile movement. He could even spot little bits of energy occasionally rising in and out of her hands but it looked like she always managed to force them back under her skin when they got too noticeable. He was glad that she'd been able to gain some control over her abilities in the short time since she'd gotten them. That control probably wouldn't hold up if she got too agitated but hopefully the rest of the student body would have brains enough to know when to back off.

The next was a guy… or at least he thought it was a guy, but it was kind of hard to tell for certain considering that he was bundled up in such a way to hide his face completely. Since he'd entered the room, he'd only caught glimpses of green skin and maybe some green hair but that was about it. If he ever got the chance, though, he'd have to tell the guy that he was probably doing the opposite of what he'd intended, which was to hide his changes. By doing everything he could to conceal his changes, he was pretty much telling everyone that he was one of the ones to be physically changed in such a way so as to stand out in a crowd. Then again, if the changes were severe, even some slapped on face paint and hair dye wouldn't be enough to keep people from staring.

The last person that he could identify as being native American, female, and in no way bothered by the opinions of others if the look on her face was anything to go by. According to the roll call that Mr. Brand just called, her name was Sarah Rainmaker and, according to rumors, she'd been in town visiting relatives at the local Kawatche tribe reservation when the gas hit. The tribe itself hadn't been touched but Sarah had been driving into town on an errand and had been caught up in the cloud before losing control and driving into the ditch. He wasn't sure of the details about why she was still in the Smallville but there were any number of good and bad reasons out there. He didn't quite know what her powers were but he had suspicions that it had something to do with electricity considering the black spots on her metal bracelet.

If there were any others, they were likely human in appearance and had powers that were more subtle than anything that could be perceived with the naked eye.

"Principal Kwan has asked me to make a few things clear to you before we begin the class. The rest of the school is getting the same speech," Mr. Brand said in a firm voice that would not tolerate inattention. "As I'm sure most of you are aware some of your fellow classmates as well as a few people passing through were exposed to the gas cloud that came from the direction of the highway. Many died but we are fortunate that many survived. Those that lived apparently now possess varying powers much like mutants.

"HOWEVER let me make it clear that they are not mutants. Unlike mutants, they do not possess the x-gene that is the source of the powers mutants like the terrorist Magneto," Mr. Brand explained while looking firmly at a few normal students in the room. "Their powers are nothing more than the random result of the gas' interaction with their bodies' unique body chemistry. They could have just as easily died. They are also the same people they were before where it counts. Therefore Principal Kwan wants to make it clear that any student reported behaving in a prejudiced or racist manner towards the affected students will be disciplined. How severely will depend on the nature of the incident reported. There will be no exceptions."

This was met with mixed reactions but the scales were definitely tilted in favor of the normal students, who didn't like that they would be watched from this day forward.

"So basically what you're saying is that we have to 'play nice' with the freaks?" asked one student wearing a jock letter jacket.

There's one idiot in every crowd! he thought as mutterings with similar sentiments began to rise among the other students.

"I am asking you to be aware that there will be consequences to your actions," Mr. Brand said sounding displeased at the name calling. "You're all entitled to your opinions about mutants and those with superhuman abilities but any attempt to harass or harm students at this school because of them will not be tolerated. Not by me and not by Principal Kwan. Now let's get on with today's lesson. Please open your text books to chapter three."

With that his fellow classmates seemed to quiet down for the most part and things settled into something resembling a normal class. He still caught a few cases of some jocks to social elite giving dirty looks to the three empowered people but those people seemed reluctant to do more in Mr. Brand's presence. Whether they'd have the sense to wait until they were off school property before trying anything was another matter. Personally he foresaw many bathroom or locker room ambushes in the future, so he made a mental note to be more observant in the hallways. While he didn't want his own powers to become widely known, he wasn't about to let certain athletic assholes or bitchy beauties have their way with the newly empowered students. He'd try to talk them into breaking up whatever they wind up trying to do but if that failed… he'd take whatever hits he had to in order to protect an innocent.

The rest of the classes up until lunch hour went pretty much the same, with only one more empowered person being spotted by his eyes, and he knew this guy would be trouble. His name was Chris Carter and while he didn't have a good enough handle on the guy's powers, they seem to be energy based. He could see occasional bursts of green energy from the asshole's fingers and eyes as the bastard tried to spook the students around him, as well as the teacher. However he didn't know whether the energy could be used to destroy or manipulate the world around Chris but he had a feeling that the jerk's control was only basic at best. If the idiot got angry or decided to bite off more than he could safely handle, things could become seriously complicated in Smallville. He'd be one helluva hand grenade to deal with.

He did his best to put Carter out of his mind so he could focus on what the teacher was saying but it was clear that the brunette bastard wanted to be the center of attention.

It was a small mercy when the bell for lunch came and everyone went to do whatever they usually during the lunch period. He, of course, went to his locker to get his homemade lunch before heading to the usual picnic table that he and Willow had claimed as their table. While it was true that Smallville High School did have a library, he somehow doubted that there'd be a stuffy Brit librarian there and it just wouldn't seem right spending time there without one.

He had taken his first step outside the building when he spotted something that just screamed trouble.

Standing not far from the picnic table that he usually used with Willow was one Whitney Fordman but across from him, leaning up against a tree, was Chris Carter, looking as cocky as he had in class minutes ago. He couldn't hear everything that was going on but it was looking like a fight between egos that'd turn real ugly since he doubted that either of them would care about the consequences to laying their opponent completely out. Normally he wouldn't mind seeing two testosterone-crazed idiots go at it but, with Carter involved, there was a high chance that things would get messy. The sane thing to do at this point would be to go get a teacher to try and break things up but the time it might take to do so could be enough time for things to take a turn for the worse.

There was only one thing that might work out.

Looks like I'm going to be sent back to the hospital in the near future, he thought with a roll of his eyes as he walked towards the two cavemen. Sometimes I wonder just how long a life I'm going to live with this damned White Knight complex of mine!

He was halfway there when he began to hear the conversation between the two dickheads and his concerns about an impending throw down was quickly justified.

"What's your problem, Carter?!" asked Whitney, who sounded quite irritated at the moment.

"Oh, nothing much, jock," Chris replied with an irritating level of nonchalance. "Just wondering what you'll be doing once I've knocked you down to the bottom of the social ladder here at Smallville High. After all, why would anyone want to hang with you when they can spend time with the next Big Man in School."

"Damn freak! You think that just 'cause you got some flashy powers you can just do whatever you want!" Fordman growled as he took a step forward, "No fuckin' chance!"

"Oh? And just what do you plan on doing about it?" Carter asked, letting some green energy flash in his eyes. "I could kill you in a second and be long gone before anyone could so much as lecture me."

"Try it!" Whitney challenged with his right hand clenching into a fist, no doubt in preparation to deliver a punch.

"Let's not and say we did," he said as he got between the two cavemen. "I'm about to eat my lunch and blood really spoils my appetite. Can't have that with a delicious ham and cheese sandwich waiting for me."

"Butt out of this, Harris!" Whitney said grabbing the tenant of the Kent Farm by the shirt. "This doesn't concern you!"

Reaching up he grabbed the man's hand by the fingers and firmly pulled them off his shirt.

At least that was his intention but instead he watched as Whitney almost cried out in pain at the strength of the grip and this fact immediately caused him to release the hand. Not knowing what was going on but knowing he had to come up with some reason for it before people started coming up with their own.

"I take my clothes very seriously, Fordman," he said in a no nonsense tone of voice that hopefully implied that he'd put all his strength into pulling the offending hand free. "And like I said: blood ruins the meal. So why don't you two just go find a more civilized way to deal with your issues."

With a bit of luck Whitney and everyone else will just assume that he used the maximum of normal human strength to free himself and wouldn't suspect the truth that he was beginning to suspect. He had barely put any real strength into his hand when he'd grabbed Whitney's, nothing more than he'd use to turn a doorknob, but it'd looked like he'd been trying to break the jock's fingers with one hand. He knew from his soldier memories that it was possible to snap those bones just using one hand but he didn't have the brute strength necessary for such a thing.

Or at least he thought he didn't.

"Yeah, I guess that would be the smart thing to do," Carter said, sounding like the idea of pounding on Whitney had lost its appeal. "So I think I'll see if the cafeteria has anything edible to eat. See you around, car man!"

With that the arrogant asshole strode away like he was king of the castle and wanted everyone to know it.

That guy's definitely going to be trouble, he thought as he resumed his walk to the picnic table without looking in Whitney's direction.

Just one more thing added to the plate of problems he had to deal with.

Kent Farm, After School, The Back Field, Martha Kent's P.O.V

He's been at it for an hour already. Martha thought as she looked in the same direction she'd seen Xander go after he dropped his book bag off on the front porch. What could he be doing?

It was something that she'd been thinking about but hadn't been able to come up with anything beyond wild theories or speculation. Whatever the case she was beginning to worry about what the truth could be so with one final look at tonight's supper she decided to put an end to the question. Walking out the back door she made her way at a leisurely place she kept her eyes open for any sign of her nephew while part of her mind kept track of anything that might need fixing. It took about fifteen minutes but eventually she spotted the messy head of black hair near the area where Jonathan usually piled up most of the larger pieces of trash that the farm produced before having it taken to the landfill. Broken pieces of wood, old engine parts and rocks that were discovered in the fields made up the majority of it. She wondered what he could be doing with junk so she picked up the pace a bit to see what was going on. She wasn't much more than five feet from him before she got her first clue in the form of a pile of crushed rock.

Was he angry for some reason and needed something to smash?

Looking up at his face, she could see no sign of anger or anything that would give rise to violence. In fact, it looked as though he was trying to figure something difficult out but kept making mistakes. Was he trying to figure out how to keep his super speed a secret with all of the new students at school with super powers? It would be considerably harder since everyone there would now be paying more attention to the odd things happening around Smallville High and looking at the people around them for signs that they weren't normal. So long as he made sure that she was far enough away from others before he used his speed it shouldn't be too hard. However she had a feeling it was something more than that. Xander wasn't the sort to get all worked up over such things so it had to be something else. Seeing him pick up a rock the size of a baseball she decided that it was useless to simply wonder and decided to ask him straight out.

"Xander? Is there something wrong?" she asked reaching up and placing a hand on his shoulder.

There was the sound that reached her ears as Xander's hand clenched automatically in surprise, crushing the rock in his hands like it was made from sand. This surprised her completely, enough to make her let go of the shoulder and take a step back. Xander turned around and she could see that he was trying to come up with some sort of way to explain what had happened without alarming her even more.

"Guess what I found out today?" Xander asked, presumably rhetorically, as he scratched the back of his head with nervous energy. "Looks like super speed isn't the only thing I have."

"What happened?" she asked as the debris on the ground took on a new significance.

Xander regaled her with how school went but, when it came to what happened during lunch, she saw the reason for his concern. He had tried to remove Whitney's hand gently but wound up nearly breaking it. Her nephew had come to the conclusion that he now possessed a degree of super strength to go with his super speed and had come out to the junk pile to get control of his new power. He wanted to learn to condition himself to just use enough strength to pass for normal rather than have to explain numerous accidents and destroyed property. She could see the reason in that since she could easily envision the different ways that super strength could lead to trouble during the run of a normal teenager's day.

"This is going to be a lot harder than super speed," Xander stated with some displeasure at the amount of work ahead of him. "Not running fast is easy compared to trying not to break someone's hand. How the hell am I going to learn control without taking a few days off from school!?"

"Xander! Language!" she reprimanded before thinking on the dilemma he was faced with. "We've got a couple of hours before supper and then the evening to work with. I'm sure if we work hard you can learn enough control to keep the number of accidents to a minimum."

"I hope so. I've seen some seriously bad attitudes in school so far and, if things flare up like they've done on TV, I don't want to be responsible for something like that happening in Smallville," Xander said a serious look appearing on his face. "I don't want anyone I know to get into trouble because of me."

While she wanted to reassure him that that wouldn't happen, she couldn't dismiss the possibility. She'd seen the same sort of news broadcasts and newspaper headlines about mutants, as well as how they were supposedly a 'menace to society'. Not that the media didn't have reasons for thinking that mutants were dangerous with the terrorists that existed, like that Magneto fellow, but they also had a habit of painting all mutants with the same brush. Instead of only pointing out those that had committed crimes, they were portraying every mutant as being a threat to ordinary people. Personally it reminded her of how people used to treat African Americans back when she was Xander's age. She had been against such behavior back then and she didn't like it now that it was being directed at people who were different through a fluke of genetics. In her mind it was the individual person who was good or evil not the powers themselves. Xander was proof in her mind that just being a mutant didn't automatically turn you into a menace to society or a 'Child of Satan', like that mutant hate group often called mutants.

Still, she could see how he'd be worried about sparking an anti-mutant incident at school.

"That won't happen. Xander, in the time that's passed since Jonathan and I took you into our home, you've proven yourself to be a kind and selfless young man," she said, trying to reassure the teenager. "Don't blame yourself for the ignorance and bigotry of others."

"I don't but I would blame myself if someone got hurt in all the commotion." Xander said, taking on a slightly more assertive position.

"If something like that does happen, then you'll just have to do your best to make sure no one gets hurt, won't you?" she asked rhetorically with a reassuring smile on her face.

"I guess so." Xander said with his own unique grin.

"Well, you keep practicing. I've got to get back to the house and check on supper," she said as she began to walk back to the house. "We'll work on your new power after that, okay?"

"Sure thing, Aunt Martha." Xander replied with a nod.

She turned fully towards the house and hoped that nothing had burned in her absence. Even if it did, though, it'd be for a good reason. Doing something for the sake of family was always the right thing to do.

Luthor Mansion, Outside of Smallville, That Evening, Lex Luthor's P.O.V

This is turning out to be more interesting than I'd thought, Lex thought from his seat behind his desk as he sipped his drink.

When his father had first told him about what he'd be doing in Smallville, he'd seen it as the Lionel Luthor equivalent of making him sit in a corner for an hour. After all, he was Lex Luthor, son and heir of Lionel Luthor, so being put in charge of a fertilizer plant along with a dormitory for people with super powers really was beneath him. As far as he was concerned, if he wasn't the man running an important subsidiary of Luthor Corp, it wasn't a job fit for him. That was how he'd looked at the situation.

Now, though, he was beginning to find life in Smallville to be quite interesting especially the people who lived here.

A little over two thirds of the people that his father had extended invitations to had arrived at the mansion and had settled in. He'd met most of them but others would have to wait as the nature of their powers currently made them incapable of speech. The best example of that was one Cessily Kincaid, who was in a specialized lab/infirmary that his father had installed to see to the needs of the residents. According to the file he'd read, she'd been travelling along the highway when the gas cloud enveloped her vehicle, exposing she and her parents to its effects. Her mother and father hadn't survived and it was only with a bit of luck that the federal agents had noticed signs of intelligence in the mass of liquid metal in the back seat. The government agents had tried to help the former human girl into reassuming a more humanoid shape, as well as the ability to speak, but had only managed to loosely defined face and short sentences. His father had managed to put pressure on some parts of the government to get her transferred over to his custody and that had led to her being delivered, for want of a better word, to the mansion. He left the girl in the care of the three specialists that his father had hired for the specific purpose of caring for and developing the super powered teenagers. The first was Dr. Irene Adler, a psychologist and licensed therapist, who for obvious reasons was in charge of the mental wellbeing of the residents. It was the aged woman's opinion that the source of Cessily's in ability to take on a human form was more psychological than a flaw in the powers themselves. His geneticist and resident scientist was Dr. Jerry McGee and, while the man was determined to be thorough to the point of annoying, he hadn't yet been able to come up with a scientific reason for the girl's difficulties. Lastly the doctor for the mansion was one Dr. Anissa Pierce, who was a qualified surgeon but was skilled at handling less serious situations as well. With the three working together, he was confident that Miss Kincaid would be female formed and acting her age before too much longer. Dr. Adler projected at least a month, perhaps two, before any serious signs of progress would appear and then a session every other day to finish the job.

Not an unreasonable amount of time, although I doubt my father would agree, he thought as he considered what sort of timeline Lionel Luthor would consider acceptable. It'd be hard enough to get used to the idea of having super powers without having to deal with survivors guilt and a body that was about as far from being human as one could get.

He couldn't even imagine what it was like for the young lady so the best he could do was trust the opinions of the specialists and follow their advice.

The other residents had their own special needs but none of them were in situations quite as dire as Miss Kincaid's.

A young fourteen year old Garfield Logan was probably adjusting the slowest of the rest of the people living in the mansion at the moment but that was mostly due to his completely green body. While some body paint and a bit of caution would normally be enough to fix that, it was the true change to who he'd been that made such a solution futile. He'd only witnessed it personally once but the child of Mark and Marie Logan had the ability to shapeshift into a variety of animal forms with varying degrees of accuracy. In one case the young man had transformed into an eagle and, if it weren't for the feathers being different shades of green, he doubted anyone would be able to distinguish him from the real thing. Gar, as the kid asked to be called, could only hold the alternate shapes for ten minutes at most before he snapped back into human form. It was the basic consensus among the specialists that, with practice, the green teen could extend this period of time and perhaps retain an alternate form for a full hour. First, though, Dr. Adler would have to help Garfield overcome his self-loathing and desire to become a normal human again. Dr. McGee had theorized that it might be possible to reverse the effects of the gas in the future but that it would likely take years or decades of research for it to be done safely.

Next was Antonia Monetti, who quite frankly looked like a character from an old black and white film except with more silver than white. She was a little less shy when it came to her new appearance but she didn't advertise it in such a way that it'd provoke those who didn't have powers. Fifteen years old and, with her energy based abilities, she was showing signs of being able to form solid objects with the power she possessed. They were crude and unstable at the moment but were at times solid enough to touch, feeling no less real than his desk or car. According to camera's placed at strategic points throughout the mansion and on the surrounding grounds, she was practicing with her powers away from prying eyes.

Or so she thought.

There were a total of seven newly empowered teenagers living at the mansion with him and the specialists, with three more expected to arrive within the week, assuming they didn't find some way to escape his father's clutches. It wasn't impossible to do, as he'd learned himself, from time to time but it did usually require something of a hat trick.

The sort of hat trick one might find in a being capable of saving half of a small town, perhaps, he thought as he clicked a few commands on his laptop to replay the video file his sources managed to sneak away from an Agent Sharon Carter.

It wasn't much, just a grid of four cameras from four separate security cameras scattered around the part of Smallville closest to the main highway. When someone first took a look at it, nothing could be seen but a cloud of gas seemingly moving out of the town of its own accord. However when you enhanced it and then looked at it frame by frame, you saw something completely different.

A blurred humanoid form moving so fast that, even with cutting edge technology, nothing could determine the identity of the person. Not their gender, their age or their ethnicity. The only things that they could determine was a rough estimate of the person's height and perhaps build but that was nowhere near enough. Still, it was his belief that, because Smallville was the first place this person chose to reveal him or herself, they must be a local resident. How long they were a resident he didn't know but it gave him a place to start and, with a little luck, the mysterious hero would make more appearances allowing him to gain more clues in the process. Once he determined who it was, he would do his best to form an alliance with that person and together they would have enough strength to make anything his father tried futile.

Futile enough that maybe he could finally step out of his father's shadow and forge his own path rather than walk down the one his father had laid out for him the day he was born.

A dream, perhaps, but one I'm willing to do whatever I have to in order to make it a reality. Lex smiled and took another sip of the liquid painkiller in his glass.

Abandoned Meat Packing Plant, Outside of Smallville, Two Days Later

Not what I would have picked but I ain't complaining, thought the young man as he experiment with the powers that random chance had provided him with.

Watching as one of the four elements respond to his will, he couldn't help but feel a certain degree of pride in what he'd become. He already had the mind of a criminal thanks to his father but now… now he had the chance to not only to make his father proud but also to surpass him in the field of crime. However he wasn't a fool like some punks. He wasn't about to make his big debut until he was satisfied that he could control his newfound power with respectable skill. After all, everything had to be perfect and screw ups could not be tolerated no matter what.

He was not going back to Juvie!

He was going to make this the beginning of his new life, one where he soared to newfound heights, and death would follow in his wake.

Death for all those that had ever crossed him and those who'd dare to in the future.

And he knew just where to start.