After school, Clark and Sage walked out together, and Sage immediately caught the dreamy look still sitting all over Clark's face from Lana's cemetery kiss the night before.
Sage teased him hard about it, a grin spreading across his face. "One little kiss on the cheek and you're walking through Smallville High like you're floating three inches off the ground. Man, you are glowing."
Clark tried to deny it, cheeks already flushing. "It wasn't like that. She was just being nice."
Sage kept laughing, shaking his head as they moved down the hall. "Your face is giving everything away, Clark. You look like you just won the lottery and the only prize was one peck on the cheek."
Before they reached the parking lot, Sage spotted Chloe and Pete waving him back toward the Torch office.
"I gotta split off for a minute," Sage said, already turning. "Jeremy Woods and the Scarecrow files. I'll catch up with you later."
Clark kept heading for the lot alone, still carrying the emotional warmth of Lana's cemetery kiss.
Whitney and the football team cornered him between the trucks.
Whitney, bitter and jealous, revealed Clark was this year's Scarecrow victim. He was wearing Lana's kryptonite necklace. Clark weakened instantly. Whitney mockingly placed the necklace on Clark, saying this was the closest he would ever get to Lana. Clark was thrown into the pickup.
Inside the Torch, Sage joined Chloe and Pete as they kept digging through the Jeremy Woods meteor revenge case. Chloe was cross-referencing old yearbooks, police reports, and the original Scarecrow incident from 1989. Pete kept watch near the hallway while throwing in what he remembered about the football tradition and the upperclassmen involved. Sage helped connect the strange attacks to the meteor shower patterns, using what he knew about unstable frequencies and corrupted energy signatures.
In the middle of the discussion the copper tether bracelet prototype linked to Clark suddenly spiked with distress. The mana pulse hit Sage so sharply it stopped him mid-thought. The blue energy sting ran straight through his senses like a warning bell. Sage went completely still. He instantly knew something was wrong with Clark. The distress frequency was too sharp, too panicked, and too close to kryptonite interference to be anything minor. Sage immediately realized Clark was in danger.
Whitney and the football team dragged Clark out to Riley Field under the cover of dusk. The kryptonite necklace kept Clark too weak to fight back, leaving him barely able to stay conscious as they forced him through the old Smallville hazing ritual. Whitney's team stripped Clark down to the ritual Scarecrow state. One of the players grabbed the spray paint. The red S was painted across Clark's chest. The team hoisted Clark onto the wooden cross in the middle of Riley Field. Clark was tied tightly into place, helpless beneath the fading Kansas sky. Whitney threw one last cruel comment at him about staying away from Lana. The boys left laughing, their truck headlights disappearing down the dirt path. The field went silent. A figure slowly emerged from the darkness between the corn rows. Jeremy appeared. Clark immediately realized this was no random encounter. Jeremy studied the Scarecrow cross like he was staring at a memory that never stopped burning. Clark asked Jeremy to untie him. Jeremy refused. Jeremy revealed Clark was actually safer tied here than being inside the Homecoming dance. That was when Clark learned Jeremy's real target was the dance itself. Jeremy planned to use the sprinkler system and electricity to punish everyone inside.
At the Hall house Sage arrived through the closet fold transit in a rush of blue Mana, the distorted hallway light snapping back into place behind him. The moment he stepped into the upper corridor, Pandora intercepted him within the hallway folds before he could move any farther. She was already waiting, pink Mana shimmering around her like starfire silk. Pandora immediately sensed the distress pulse coming off Clark's tether frequency. She confirmed Jeremy's meteor energy was becoming dangerously unstable. His electrical field was no longer acting like controlled power. It was nearing total discharge collapse. Pandora warned Sage that if Jeremy released that charge into the school's water system, the sprinkler lines would turn the entire Homecoming gym into a death trap. The current would spread through every wet surface, every puddle, every student on the dance floor. Sage instantly understood the scale of the danger. There was no more time to lose. Without another word Sage opened a blue-fold transit seam in the hallway air. He immediately blue-fold transited to the school.
Inside the gym the Homecoming dance was in full swing. Lana was there beneath the glitter lights, surrounded by Whitney's friends, the cheer squad, and the restless swirl of Smallville teenage energy. Homecoming banners hung across the walls. Cheap glitter lights spun over the dance floor. The whole room was built on teenage illusions, fake crowns, forced smiles, and the fragile drama of high school status. Sage arrived in a slick black suit cut perfectly to his lean frame, the fabric detailed with elegant gold and silver striping that caught every flash of light. He looked polished, expensive, and completely in control on the outside. Inside he was quietly panicking. The tether pulse from Clark was still unstable. Sage immediately started scanning the gym for Clark. He could not find him anywhere. That absence made the tension in his chest tighten. He spotted Pete and Chloe near the refreshment table and moved over to them. Sage talked to them briefly, asking if either of them had seen Clark. Neither of them had. Chloe mentioned Clark never showed up. Pete said Whitney and some of the football jerks disappeared earlier too. That detail made Sage's stomach drop. Before Sage could move, one of the football jerks from Whitney's circle stepped over and asked Sage for a dance, clearly trying to flirt. Sage shut him down again without hesitation. He turned the invitation down cold, making it clear he was not here for foolishness tonight. The danger already felt like it was breathing through the walls. The music. The lights. The water pipes overhead. Everything suddenly felt wrong. Sage slipped away from the dance floor and moved behind the maintenance wing.
Sage slipped behind the maintenance wing and reached the service corridor before anyone else. The music from the dance became muffled behind the walls, replaced by the metallic hum of pipes, breaker boxes, and old water lines running through the school. At the far end of the corridor Jeremy was already there. His hands were crackling with unstable white-blue electricity as he reached for the sprinkler control system. Jeremy was seconds away from activating the sprinkler overload. Sage reached him first. Without hesitation Sage threw out his hand. Blue Mana flashed across the control panel. Using telekinesis layered with tight mana seal work, Sage locked the sprinkler system in place before Jeremy could trigger it. The valves jammed under invisible force. The water lines froze in a suspended hum. Jeremy spun around, eyes glowing with meteor-fed rage. He attacked immediately. A violent arc of lightning exploded down the corridor toward Sage. Sage did not move. He lifted both hands and caught the electricity inside a blue mana lattice. The construct bloomed into existence like geometric glasswork. The lightning froze inside it, trapped in glowing hexagonal lines like stained glass made of stormfire. For the first time Jeremy actually looked shocked. Sage adjusted the cuff of his slick black suit, still perfectly calm despite the panic running under his skin. He delivered the line cold: "The wrong person to try this in formalwear season." Before Jeremy could escalate, Clark arrived at the corridor entrance.
Clark burst into the maintenance corridor just as Jeremy's rage spiked past reason. The moment Jeremy saw Clark the electrical field around his body intensified, white-blue bolts snapping wildly across the walls, pipes, and breaker panels hard enough to make the entire hallway tremble. Jeremy fully escalated. He unleashed a brutal storm of electricity straight at Clark. Without the kryptonite necklace anywhere near him, Clark stepped directly into the attack. The lightning crashed across his body in violent waves. It crawled over his chest, shoulders, and arms, illuminating him in jagged flashes. Clark absorbed the full force of the electricity without falling. He kept moving forward through the storm. At the same time Clark tried to reach Jeremy emotionally. He told Jeremy he understood what it felt like to be trapped by something the meteor shower did to your life. He told him the pain did not have to end with everyone else suffering too. Jeremy rejected the appeal completely. He lunged into physical confrontation, throwing another concentrated bolt at point-blank range. Clark closed the distance and slammed into him, driving both of them across the corridor in a violent collision that dented a metal locker bank. The fight spilled out of the service hall and toward the gym access doors. That was where Sage took over the battlefield control. Sage instantly threw up blue Mana barriers around the gym exits. Hexagonal walls of light sealed off the main dance floor entrances so no students could accidentally rush into the danger zone. As stray lightning blasts tore through the corridor, Sage redirected the electrical surges upward into suspended mana channels, forcing the current harmlessly into sealed blue pathways instead of letting it spread into the building. The overhead lights burst. The glitter lights in the gym flickered violently. Students screamed. Sage pivoted fast, extending both hands. A wide blue shield blossomed over the dance floor entrance just as a surge tore through the wall. The shield caught it inches before it could hit the crowd. Sage specifically shifted one barrier to cover Chloe, Pete, and Lana, who were closest to the gym doors and frozen in panic. The blue wall curved around them like living glass. Pete could actually feel the vibration of the trapped electricity hammering against the other side. Jeremy ripped free from Clark's grip and threw a massive radial blast through the corridor. Clark tanked the center of it head-on. Sage caught the outer arcs before they could spider into the sprinkler pipes. The two boys moved like dual pillars holding the school together. Clark handled the impossible force physically. Sage controlled the battlefield technically. Clark drove Jeremy backward again, forcing him toward the maintenance bay. Sage kept every exit sealed, every student protected, and every surge redirected away from the dance floor. This became the defining Smallville dual hero moment of the chapter: Clark as raw invincible force. Sage as precision cosmic control.
Driven deeper into the maintenance bay, Jeremy's control finally fractured into pure desperation. His glowing eyes locked onto the parked maintenance truck at the far end of the bay. With a violent sweep of his hand electricity surged into the engine block. The truck roared to life. Its headlights exploded on. The tires screamed against the concrete as Jeremy sent the vehicle barreling straight toward Clark. Sage stepped into position first. Even in the middle of chaos he still looked impossibly cool in the slick black suit with the gold and silver striping catching every emergency light flash. Blue Mana rolled off his hands in smooth controlled ribbons. He lifted one hand with almost casual precision. A towering blue mana wall snapped into existence between Clark and the oncoming truck. The construct was flawless—clean geometric planes of glowing blue force, elegant and absolute. The truck slammed into it. The entire bay shook. For one suspended second the mana wall held, the force rippling across it in sharp crystalline fractures. Then the truck smashed through. The shattered remains of the blue wall burst into glowing fragments that scattered through the air like broken glass made of light. That single moment of resistance was all Clark needed. Clark planted his feet and caught the remaining force of the truck head-on. Metal groaned. Concrete cracked beneath his boots. The front end of the truck crumpled in Clark's grip as he forced it sideways. Jeremy lost control. The truck fishtailed violently and slammed straight into the exposed water main line running along the bay wall. The pipe erupted. A violent explosion of water flooded the entire maintenance area. The danger instantly multiplied. Electricity began screaming through the water. This was the exact nightmare Pandora had warned about. Sage moved with unnerving calm. He turned sharply, one hand extended, his expression cool and perfectly focused despite the panic all around him. Blue Mana spiraled out from his palm and formed into a massive glowing sphere around the truck cab and the flooding electrical surge. The sphere trapped the lightning inside it. Every bolt that should have backflowed through the water lines and into the gym got compressed into the floating blue containment field. Inside the sphere the electricity lashed and coiled like trapped serpents, but Sage kept it perfectly stable. Even while doing impossible containment work he still somehow looked immaculate. His suit remained sharp. His posture remained elegant. He looked cool while doing it, like the entire disaster was just another room he decided to control. With the current contained Clark ripped the truck door clean off. He tore Jeremy free from the flooded cab before the unstable field could collapse. The meteor energy finally burned out. Jeremy's body rapidly caught up with the twelve stolen years. His teenage frame visibly aged into twenty-five. The glow disappeared from his eyes. The rage left his face. The power was gone. When he looked up at Clark there was no memory of the fight, no hatred, no recognition. Only confusion. No powers. No rage. No memory.
Later that night, after the chaos of Homecoming, Clark and Sage took the long dirt road back from town beneath a sky full of cold Kansas stars. The adrenaline from the fight was gone now, leaving behind only the emotional weight of everything that had happened. As they walked Sage finally turned to Clark and asked where he disappeared to earlier before the fight at the dance. That opened the door. Clark told him everything. He walked Sage through what happened the moment they split up in the parking lot. How Whitney and the football team cornered him between the trucks. How Whitney was wearing Lana's kryptonite necklace. How the second Whitney stepped close all the strength drained out of his body. Clark explained the full humiliation of being chosen as this year's Scarecrow. Being shoved into the back of the pickup. Taken out to Riley Field. Stripped down for the ritual. The red S painted across his chest. Being tied helplessly to the wooden cross in the middle of the field. He told Sage the part that still burned the most—Whitney taking Lana's necklace and forcing it around his neck while mocking him, saying it was the closest Clark would ever get to her. Sage went ice-cold hearing that. His jaw tightened, blue anger threatening to spark behind his eyes, but he kept it contained because Clark needed to say it out loud more than Sage needed revenge in that moment. Clark continued, telling him how Jeremy emerged from the darkness, refused to untie him, and revealed that the Homecoming dance was the real target. Then Lex drove past, found him tied up, cut him loose, and accidentally knocked the necklace off in the process. By the time Clark finished telling the whole story they had reached the split in the road. The emotional pressure had eased between them. Sage gave Clark a long look, part anger for what happened and part quiet pride that Clark made it through. Then they separated—Sage heading toward the Hall estate while Clark made his way toward the Kent farm.
A little later Clark climbed up into the loft alone. The telescope waited beside the window, pointed toward the endless night sky. Tonight the stars felt different. Not just beautiful. Personal. Every distant light felt tied to the ship in the cellar, the questions about where he came from, and the truth that had been sitting like a stone between him and Jonathan since the storm cellar reveal. The wooden stairs creaked softly. Jonathan joined him in the loft. He didn't come in angry. He came in tired, honest, and carrying that quiet fatherly weight that only deepens after fear and almost losing your son. For a moment they simply stood together beside the telescope, looking out at the stars above Smallville. Jonathan quietly told Clark the telescope once belonged to him when he was Clark's age. When life on the farm used to feel too small it reminded him there was always something bigger waiting beyond the fields. That vulnerability changed the atmosphere. The alien-ship fallout, the tension from the storm cellar, and the distance that had grown between them finally began to soften. Clark admitted he was no longer as angry as he was after learning the truth. The pain was still there, but tonight reminded him that no matter where he came from this farm was still home. He quietly told Jonathan he was glad the Kents were the ones who found him. Jonathan looked at him with steady warmth and gently corrected him. They didn't find Clark. Clark found them.
The Hall mansion was wrapped in a deep unnatural stillness. The house itself felt asleep, every polished hallway dark, every stained-glass window washed in cold silver moonlight. Outside the Kansas wind brushed softly through the trees lining the estate, but inside Sage's room the air felt charged, alive with something heavier than silence. Sage hovered four feet above the floor in the center of his room, legs folded into a perfect lotus position above the Persian rug. Moonlight spilled across his caramel skin, catching the sharp lines of his shoulders and the lean swimmer build of his frame, but the most striking thing was the blue Mana. It rippled around him in slow liquid waves. Not wild. Controlled. Precise. The glow moved like silk in water, curling around his arms, his thighs, his strong back, then spiraling upward in thin ribbons that brushed the ceiling like living smoke. Every pulse of blue light carried intention, and tonight that intention was cold. His eyes remained closed. His breathing was slow. Measured. Deliberate. Then his lips parted and his voice cut through the darkness in a calm chilling murmur. "I don't like pulling a Pandora move," Sage said softly, blue Mana thickening around his hands, "but tonight? I really don't mind doing it." The room reacted instantly. The mana around him expanded in a silent shockwave, brushing against the walls, rattling the glass ornaments on his dresser, making the curtains billow as if the windows had been thrown open to a storm. Sage lowered one glowing hand toward the floor. The blue Mana stretched outward like a river of light, slipping through the shadows, racing across the Hall grounds, over fences, through fields, down the sleeping streets of Smallville until it reached Whitney Fordman's house. Inside Whitney's bedroom the football star slept hard, one arm flung over his chest, his face finally stripped of its daytime arrogance. Then the dream began. At first it was darkness. A cold suffocating darkness filled with the sound of rustling corn. Whitney opened his eyes and immediately realized something was wrong. He couldn't move. Panic crawled up his spine in a hot sharp line. His arms were stretched painfully wide. His wrists burned. He looked down. Rope. Thick rough rope cut into his skin, binding his arms to weathered wood. His breath caught. He was tied to the Scarecrow cross. The wooden beam dug cruelly into his bare back, every splinter and knot pressing into his skin. The night wind tore across Riley Field, freezing the sweat on his body. He tried to pull free but every desperate movement only made the ropes bite deeper into his wrists and ankles. Then he saw it. The bright red S painted across his chest. Fresh. Wet. Humiliating. His heart slammed against his ribs. "No," Whitney whispered, voice trembling. "No, no, no—" Laughter erupted around him. Not one voice. Dozens. He jerked his head up. The entire school was there. Students circled the field beneath the moonlight, faces lit by cruel amusement. Football players. Cheerleaders. Teachers. Pete. Chloe. Even the freshmen. They were all laughing. Some pointed. Some whispered. Some openly stared. The sound was unbearable, echoing across the field in a rising chorus of mockery that stripped away every ounce of his pride. Whitney's breathing turned ragged. His chest tightened. This wasn't just embarrassment. It was terror. Pure helpless terror. Then the crowd parted. Lana Lang stepped forward. For one desperate second hope flared in Whitney's chest. "Lana," he breathed, voice cracking. "Please—help me." She stopped just a few feet in front of him. The moonlight caught her face. There was no anger there. No sadness. Just disappointment. Her eyes drifted to the red S on his chest, then back to his face. Slowly, heartbreakingly, she turned away. She left him there. The sound of her footsteps fading into the corn hit harder than any punch. Whitney's fear spiked into something primal. He thrashed harder against the ropes, skin tearing now, wrists raw and burning. "Lana! Lana, wait!" The laughter got louder. The field began to close in around him, the rows of corn bending unnaturally inward like an audience leaning closer to watch his humiliation. Then the laughter stopped. The silence that replaced it was worse. Blue light flooded the field. It spilled across the dirt, crawled up the wooden cross, wrapped around Whitney's wrists like ice. Sage's voice filled the dream. It didn't come from one direction. It came from everywhere. Above him. Below him. Inside his skull. Cold. Measured. Divine. "Now you understand." The words hit like judgment. Suddenly Whitney didn't just see the fear. He felt Clark's fear. The helplessness. The humiliation. The weakness. The cold dread of being left alone in the dark while everyone laughed. The sensation crashed into him in waves so intense his mind could barely hold it. His throat tore open in a scream. Whitney bolted upright in bed, drenched in sweat, breath coming in broken gasps. The room was dark. His sheets were tangled around his legs like ropes. His wrists ached so badly he grabbed at them instinctively, half-expecting to find rope burns there. For a terrifying second he still heard the laughter. Still felt the cross. Still saw Lana turning away. A scream ripped out of him before he could stop it. Across town, back at the Hall mansion, Sage slowly opened his eyes. The blue Mana faded into a low soft glow around his body as he lowered gently onto the edge of his bed. His face was calm. Unreadable. But there was a hard satisfaction in the stillness of his expression. Justice delivered. Outside his window the Kansas night stretched endless and silent.