Nine years later…
“Good morning, Clark.
How was your weekend?
We couldn’t come over to play because we were a bit busy…” John said as a greeting while joining him on the path, and Brandon also raised a hand to greet Clark with a casual gesture.
“Hi…
It was fine,” Clark answered somewhat distractedly, without stopping his walk along the trail.
John, noticing that his neighbor seemed a little more downcast than usual that morning, pressed further.
“Hey, Clark, what’s really going on?
You seem off.”
“I…
it’s nothing,” Clark wanted to say more, but in the end he simply shook his head, looking down at the boots covered in dirt from the fields.
Brandon, seeing Clark’s evasive attitude, rolled his eyes in annoyance and let out a mocking laugh.
“Let me guess…
is it because Lana rejected you again?”
“What?!
No, of course not!” Clark immediately tried to reply, feeling heat rise to his cheeks.
“Besides, I already said I don’t like her.
She has a boyfriend, you know?”
Brandon and John looked at each other for a second, sharing a knowing expression, and mercilessly mocked Clark’s clumsy attempt to deny it.
It was obvious they didn’t believe a single word.
“Guys…
seriously, that’s not it,” Clark insisted, stopping for a moment.
John, showing that slightly more mature attitude than his brother, walked over to him, placed a firm hand on his shoulder, and softened his tone.
“Come on.
Then if it’s not that…
what’s got you like this?”
Clark looked at both of them in turn.
He seriously doubted whether he should speak or not; not because he didn’t trust them, since technically they had grown up together and had been best friends for as long as they could remember, but because what had been happening to him these past few days was so outrageous that he feared they would think he had gone completely crazy.
“This…
what would you think if you suddenly found out that I’m not what you thought I was?” Clark asked in a whisper, carefully choosing his words.
John raised an eyebrow, narrowing his eyes as he tried to figure out what the hell his neighbor meant with such a philosophical question.
“I discovered…
I discovered something about myself.
That what I thought about my life wasn’t actually true.
That in reality I am…”
“Oh!
Did you finally find out you’re adopted?” Brandon interrupted jokingly, flashing a mischievous grin and earning a murderous glare from Clark.
Before the tension could rise, John gave Brandon a light smack on the back of the head to make him stop messing around for once, then motioned with his chin for Clark to continue.
Clark let out a sigh and continued.
“It might be that maybe…
I can do things that shouldn’t be biologically possible.
And that in reality I am…”
Just as Clark was about to confess that he could move heavy objects or see strange things, Brandon interrupted again, widening his eyes.
Don’t tell me you’re a metahuman too,” Brandon suddenly exclaimed, looking genuinely surprised and, to Clark’s confusion, strangely happy.
“What?” Clark looked at him completely baffled, blinking a couple of times without the slightest idea what that strange word meant.
“What’s a metahuman?”
Realizing the massive slip-up his brother had made, John reacted with lightning speed and drove a hard elbow into Brandon’s stomach, silencing him instantly with a muffled groan.
“Idiot,” John hissed through clenched teeth, glaring at Brandon.
“Remember that our parents explicitly said we couldn’t tell anyone outside the family about that.”
Brandon rubbed his stomach, pouting in frustration as he complained under his breath.
“Come on, John…
Clark isn’t just anyone, he’s our friend.
Besides…
isn’t it basically the same thing?
It’s exactly what he’s trying to tell us.”
John narrowed his eyes and stared at Clark suspiciously.
Well, thinking about it, Brandon’s idea wasn’t completely ridiculous.
Although their father, Conner, had never explained the reason directly, both brothers had realized since childhood that he always paid very special attention to the Kent family, and more specifically to Clark.
Of course they had noticed; Conner wasn’t exactly subtle when it came to hiding his analytical gaze toward the neighboring farm, even though he never revealed the true reason behind his interest.
“Are you really a metahuman?” John asked with genuine curiosity, taking a step forward.
He got so close to Clark that he began looking him up and down, carefully scanning him as if trying to find some visible physical sign of his abilities.
“Wait, wait…” Clark said, taking a couple of steps back to regain some personal space.
He felt extremely strange and uncomfortable being observed like a laboratory rat by his friend.
He looked at both Blake brothers with deep suspicion and asked cautiously, “What do you mean by metahuman?
What exactly is that supposed to mean…
and what does it have to do with me?”
Brandon and John exchanged a silent look in a debate that lasted only a few seconds.
Finally, John let out a long sigh of resignation and nodded, giving his brother permission.
Brandon smiled happily, showing all his teeth.
Then, before Clark’s incredibly widened eyes, both brothers lifted off the ground simultaneously.
Their feet hovered motionlessly about thirty centimeters above the grassy path, completely defying gravity with absolute naturalness.
“This…
what the hell?!” Clark’s jaw nearly hit the ground in shock, unable to process the science-fiction scene unfolding before him.
Before Clark could scream or run away in fear, both brothers descended smoothly and touched the ground again.
John quickly stepped forward, grabbing him by the arm before the shock could completely overwhelm his neighbor.
“I’d love to talk about all this and explain everything in detail, Clark, but if we don’t get moving right now, we’re going to be late for school,” John said calmly, using a bit of his strength to friendly push Clark forward so he would resume walking.
“Look, we’ll explain everything you want to know right after classes.
I promise.”
Clark nodded absentmindedly, allowing himself to be pushed along while his legs moved almost on autopilot toward the school bus.
Inside, his mind was racing a thousand miles per hour, completely unable to comprehend what had just happened.
His two lifelong best friends had been hiding a secret of monumental proportions…
and he wasn’t the only oddity in Smallville after all.
…
“Ugh, that was a long day.
I feel like my butt is numb from sitting in those chairs for so long,” Brandon complained as they walked back along the trail, stretching his arms lazily and yawning. Follow the newest chapters on novelping dot com.
“What are we doing today, guys?”
Clark stared at him without letting himself be distracted by his friend’s relaxed attitude and said firmly, “Come on, stop playing dumb.
You said you’d explain in detail what happened this morning…”
“Well, here’s the thing…” Brandon began, but before he could continue blurting things out halfway down the road, John suddenly stepped in, positioning himself between them.
“Well, out here isn’t a good place to talk about this.
Let’s go to your barn and discuss it there,” John suggested, draping an arm over each of their shoulders and discreetly guiding them away from the sight of anyone who might pass by the road.
A few minutes later, the three boys found themselves sheltered beneath the wooden roof of the Kent family’s barn.
The atmosphere was calm, filled with the familiar smell of dry hay and old wood.
“So…
I’m listening,” Clark said, crossing his arms and looking at the Blake brothers with a mixture of nervousness and enormous anticipation.
The brothers looked at each other silently for a second and then nodded at the same time.
John stepped forward, taking the lead, and began speaking slowly to make sure Clark processed every word.
“Well, to start with, you should know that there are special people in this world, born with gifts completely beyond the ordinary,” John explained while opening his backpack.
He rummaged through his notebooks for a moment until he pulled out what looked like a photocopied page from an old book and handed it to Clark.
“Although it’s not something you’ll see on television news, if nothing strange happens, the woman in the photo on this document could be considered the first recorded metahuman in modern history.”
Clark took the sheet and looked at the black-and-white image with deep curiosity and amazement.
In the blurry photograph, an imposing dark-skinned woman held a sword and an ancient-looking shield while standing atop the wreckage of a destroyed tank.
“People born with powers that defy normal laws are formally known as Metahumans,” John continued, crossing his arms.
“Of course, it should be pointed out that, at least for now, metahumans are extremely rare, and ordinary people hardly know we exist.”
“So…
how are metahumans born?
How do they get their powers?” Clark asked with genuine curiosity, fascinated by the term while continuing to hold the paper in his hands.
As John was about to speak and provide a more technical explanation, Brandon completely cut him off, jumping enthusiastically into the conversation.
“Our father has two main theories about that.
The first is purely scientific: he says metahumans appear naturally as part of the next step in humanity’s evolutionary process.”
Brandon shrugged, downplaying that possibility somewhat.
But suddenly, he narrowed his eyes and discreetly looked around the barn with an air of absolute mystery, as if wanting to make completely sure nobody was watching them from the shadows of the upper floor.
Then he lowered his voice and continued.
“The other theory, and the one I think is the most accurate of all, is that metahumans are actually direct descendants of the ancient Gods.
In other words, the gods and demigods of old myths had children with humans, and those children had more children, and so on throughout history.
That’s where the so-called ‘metahuman gene’ came from.
That gene remained completely dormant in family DNA for generations and countless years…
but right now, in our era, it’s slowly beginning to awaken in certain people.
And according to my dad, it won’t be long before more and more metahumans start appearing all over the world.”
Brandon stared directly at Clark’s face, enjoying the clear expression of amazement and disbelief that had appeared in his friend’s eyes.
He nodded as if he had already expected that reaction and continued confidently.
“Although I don’t know with absolute certainty whether this mythological theory is one hundred percent real, I can assure you there’s a very high possibility that the gods of legend truly exist,” Brandon stated, pausing dramatically before dropping the final piece of information.
“Oh, and by the way…
the woman in the photo, as hard as it may be to believe, my father confirmed that she comes from Themyscira, a place that comes directly from Greek mythology.”
Clark remained completely speechless, looking back and forth between the photograph of Nubia in his hands and the utterly serious faces of his two best friends.
His mind was trying to process that the world was far larger, older, and more dangerous than he had ever imagined during his quiet life on the farm.