September 2001…
One Week Before School
By the time September finally arrived, Sebastian had utterly transformed.
Daniel Whitmore’s body was no longer the frail, hollow-eyed thing that had collapsed on a bathroom floor just two months earlier.
Six full weeks of relentless physical training, combined with the absolute best nutrition Sebastian could realistically manage on a group home budget…
supplemented by the occasional “borrowed” fruit from the Kent Farm’s roadside stand, which he always left secret payment for later…
had fundamentally reshaped the boy into something lean, sharp, and quietly dangerous.
He was not big.
He would probably never be big.
Daniel’s frame was naturally wiry.
But there was a deadly precision to the way he moved now…
an economy of motion that only came from literal lifetimes of grueling combat training packed tightly into a teenager’s growing body.
His eyes were the biggest change, though.
They were dark brown and had once been dull and entirely unfocused.
Now, they carried a heavy weight that no normal fifteen-year-old should ever possess.
Mrs. Henderson had certainly noticed the change.
She carefully watched him come and go with a complicated mixture of relief and unease, acting as if she knew something fundamental had shifted within the boy but couldn’t quite identify what it was.
“You seem different, Daniel,” she mentioned one evening over dinner.
It was meatloaf and instant mashed potatoes again.
“Healthier. That is a good thing.”
“I’ve been exercising,” Sebastian replied smoothly.
He offered her a smile…
a genuine one, because he was truly grateful for the roof she provided over his head…
but said nothing more on the subject.
He had also taken care of a few necessary practical matters.
First: his name.
Using a clever combination of the group home’s administrative records and a forged signature…
perfected through the careful application of a Confundus Charm on the overworked county clerk…
Sebastian had legally changed his name from Daniel Whitmore to Alex Carter.
Alex.
The name he had carried in his very first life.
The name he had died with at the Battle of Hogwarts.
It felt right.
The county clerk had processed the paperwork without a single question.
The Confundus Charm, even cast wandlessly at his current pathetic power level, was more than sufficient to muddle the mind of an ordinary person for a few crucial minutes.
It was the first real spell he had cast in this new world, and the immense effort had left him dizzy and lightheaded for an hour afterward.
It was worth it.
Second: money.
Alex had spent most of his evenings at the Smallville Public Library, using the computers to extensively research the current state of the world.
The year was 2001.
The dot-com bubble had burst.
The economy was incredibly shaky.
But Alex knew things that no one else on Earth knew…
simply because he had already lived through these exact years once before in his first life.
He didn’t have access to the stock market.
He was fifteen and had no bank account.
But he did have concrete knowledge of upcoming sporting events and their exact outcomes.
A careful, small bet placed through a sympathetic older kid at the group home…
Tommy Dawkins, a seventeen-year-old who had a fake ID and a bit of a gambling habit…
had easily turned seven dollars into two hundred and forty.
It wasn’t a fortune.
But it was enough to buy proper running shoes, a desperately needed second set of clothes, and all the school supplies he would require for his freshman year.
Third, and most importantly…
Alex had collected seventeen pieces of kryptonite from the vast fields surrounding Smallville.
The radioactive stones were absolutely everywhere if you simply knew where to look.
Twelve years after the meteor shower, all the larger fragments had already been collected by LuthorCorp and various shadowy government agencies.
But thousands of smaller pieces remained scattered across the rural landscape, buried deep in the soil, embedded tightly in creek beds, and hidden in the walls of old buildings.
Alex kept them safely hidden in a shoebox under his bed, each one wrapped individually in thick cloth.
His magical core hummed loudly in their presence…
not growing, but powerfully resonating.
It felt like a tuning fork held near a struck bell.
He still couldn’t absorb the alien energy directly.
But he was getting much closer to understanding exactly how he might do it.
In the Marvel Universe, he had spent years tirelessly studying the complex intersection of magic and science.
He had built the Magic Dimension.
He had created entire schools, forged lasting alliances with cosmic entities, and constantly pushed the absolute boundaries of what sorcery could achieve.
That deep well of knowledge was still locked in his head.
The specific spells might not work here…
the fundamental rules of the universe were undeniably different…
but the core principles remained the same.
Energy was energy.
It just needed to be converted properly.
He needed a catalyst.
Something that would safely bridge the gap between toxic kryptonite radiation and usable magical mana.
He didn’t have it yet.
But he would find it.
He was patient.
He had been nothing but patient across three long lifetimes.
The First Day
The morning of September 4, 2001, was warm and blindingly bright.
A crisp Kansas autumn had not yet arrived, and the lingering summer heat clung to the air like a reluctant houseguest.
Alex Carter stood quietly in front of the scratched bathroom mirror at the Lowell County Group Home and studied the face staring back at him.
Dark brown hair that he had practically buzzed short with a dull pair of kitchen scissors.
Deep brown eyes that held far too much intelligence for a fifteen-year-old orphan.
A lean jawline.
A mouth that defaulted to a flat, neutral expression…
not necessarily unfriendly, but certainly not inviting, either.
He was average height for his age.
Average build, at least if you didn’t look too closely at the dense, corded muscle hiding beneath his simple t-shirt.
He looked, in short, like an absolute nobody.
Good.
A nobody was exactly what he needed to be.
He pulled on a plain grey t-shirt, a pair of worn jeans, and the running shoes he had bought with his sports betting winnings.
He slung a secondhand backpack over one shoulder.
Inside it were two fresh notebooks, three pens, his battered copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, and a single small piece of kryptonite wrapped tightly in cloth, kept close to his core like a protective talisman.
He left the group home at 7:15 AM sharp.
The walk to Smallville High School took exactly twenty-two minutes on foot.
Smallville High was a sprawling, older complex of red brick buildings arranged neatly around a central courtyard.
The football field sat just behind the main building, its bleachers already proudly decorated with banners for the upcoming season.
A massive banner strung across the main entrance read:
WELCOME BACK, CROWS!
Students streamed through the front double doors in the familiar, noisy chaos of a first day.
Freshmen looked completely lost.
Sophomores looked terribly bored.
Seniors swaggered around like they owned the place.
Alex walked through the bustling crowd like water seamlessly flowing around river stones.
No one looked at him.
No one greeted him.
Daniel Whitmore had been totally invisible, and Alex Carter intended to stay exactly that way…
for now, at least.
He collected his freshly printed class schedule from the front office.
English.
History.
Biology.
Math.
Physical Education.
And one specific elective that he had personally requested during the summer registration process.
Journalism.
The Torch…
Smallville High’s student newspaper…
was much more than just a typical school paper.
In the years to come, it would become absolute ground zero for investigating every single bizarre event in Smallville.
Its editor would soon be a girl named Chloe Sullivan, whose relentless curiosity and sharp investigative instincts would easily make her the most dangerous journalist in all of Kansas.
Chloe Sullivan was also, as far as Alex’s memories of the show reliably told him, the most genuinely good person in the entire cast.
Brave.
Fiercely loyal.
Brilliant.
Constantly underappreciated by almost everyone around her, especially by Clark Kent, who spent years pathetically chasing Lana Lang while Chloe’s painfully obvious feelings went completely unnoticed.
Alex had absolutely no interest in repeating Clark Kent’s mistakes.
But that was a serious consideration for the future.
Right now, he just needed to get through his very first day without drawing any unwanted attention.
His first three classes passed without incident.
He sat quietly in the back row, answered questions only when directly called upon, and took careful, methodical notes.
The curriculum was hardly challenging…
he had the accumulated knowledge of three entire lifetimes…
but he was incredibly careful not to stand out.
In Biology, he immediately noticed a large, broad-shouldered boy with sandy blond hair sitting in the front row, proudly wearing a Smallville Crows letterman jacket.
Whitney Fordman.
Star quarterback.
Lana Lang’s boyfriend.
Alex quickly filed the information away.
In History, a girl with long dark hair and kind eyes took the seat exactly two rows ahead of him.
She wore a delicate necklace with a glowing green stone…
kryptonite, though she certainly didn’t know it.
Alex clearly felt the faint, buzzing resonance of the stone from all the way across the room.
Lana Lang.
He looked at her for a long moment, then simply looked away.
In the show, Lana had been the primary love interest.
The quintessential girl next door.
The one that everyone endlessly orbited around.
Alex just saw a girl unknowingly wearing a highly radioactive necklace made from the exact same meteor that killed her parents, and he felt nothing but a vague, distant sadness.
He turned his attention back to his notebook and waited patiently for the one class he actually cared about.