59Disclaimer: I do not own anything, except my OC, Magdalena "Elena" Castro, as well as the Castro Family, and any further characters I make up along the way. I do not claim anything else besides the small tweaks and changes I'll make to the story/dialogue. This is purely meant to entertain and no profit is made out of it.
"Pilot"
Part One
After two minutes of looking for the pair of sneakers that hid her throwing knives so well between their midsoles and putting them on, Elena finally ran down the stairs to the kitchen. On her way there, she made sure to pick up the house keys from the dinner table, quickly grabbing the last apple from the fruit bowl and snatching a water bottle from the fridge before going out the kitchen's back door and locking it.
As she ran to the bus stop, she felt the weight of the slender knives in her shoes every time they stepped further down the gravel road. After the meteor shower that hit Smallville twelve years ago, there had been some weird, unexplained cases going around, but nothing too bad that required a teenage girl carrying knives in her shoes at all times. Still, although Elena never used them, keeping her parents' gift close to her made her feel safe.
Thankfully she reached the bus on time, also safe from being late to school again as she stepped inside it and sat behind her friends.
"Hey!" Elena saw Pete hand over a five to Chloe, who took it and only smiled smugly in return. "What's going on?" Curious, she leaned forward to rest her chin on the back of her best friends' bus seat. "Have you two finally taken up the drug-smuggling life, now?" she whispered jokingly and Pete and Chloe turned their heads.
"Four more seconds, Elena." Pete held up four of his fingers at her face, shaking his head in defeat. "Couldn't you have waited four more seconds?!"
Her face shared Chloe's broad smile before she reached out and slapped him on the back of his head, scolding, "That's what you get for betting against me, Military! Now you're five dollars poorer."
Pete rubbed the back of his head where her hand left a tingling sensation behind, but Elena calling him her special nickname told Pete she wasn't really that mad about the bet.
When the school bus made another stop in front of the Kent Farm, he turned to Elena again to see her biting a green apple and he couldn't help but smirk. "Ready to eat your words, too?"
She raised a confused eyebrow in response, glancing at Chloe as the blonde looked through the window searching for a certain tall, dark-haired, and blue-eyed boy to get on the bus.
But after three minutes the bus driver closed the bus doors and Pete's grin grew brighter. Chloe turned away from the window and sighed as she slumped down on her seat. Clark Kent was late.
"I can't believe you bet against your best friend!" Though she had lost the bet, Chloe finally smiled at the dark-skinned boy and gave him his five dollars back.
Pete chuckled and looked between Chloe and Elena while he tucked the dollar bill in his jacket, "Statistical fact: if Clark moved any slower he'd be extinct."
Elena stopped herself from biting her apple and smirked at Pete. "Alright, I bet those five bucks he gets to school at the same time as us."
"Are you serious?" Both her friends looked at her like she was crazy, but Elena didn't back down and simply nodded. Pete thought about it for a second and then extended his hand out to the brunette to solidify the bet.
Just as Elena gave her friend's hand a firm shake there was a brief pounding on top of them.
Chloe grabbed onto Pete's arm, sounding alarmed, "Did you hear that?"
The boy simply shrugged and looked up at the bus' roof, Elena holding a knowing smile to herself as she said, "Maybe it was a bird or something."
Elena continued to finish her breakfast on the ride to school with the knowledge that she'd have enough money to buy lunch today.
Pete and Chloe walked up the stairs outside of Smallville High School, chatting animatedly about the high school dance coming up. Elena stayed a few steps behind and instead watched the kids in charge of the Homecoming Dance preparations rush pass with red and yellow poster flyers rolled up under their arms and hands.
A cheerleader carrying around a heavy box of props in front of her face, as she tried to not let go of the pompoms dangling from her hands, almost caught her foot on one of the steps. Fortunately, Elena held on to the giant cardboard box with one hand while she wrapped her other one safely around the peppy girl's small waist, just in time before she could fall face-first on the concrete. The cheerleader thanked Elena with grateful smile and gathered her things properly this time to catch up to her friends.
"Nice save." Clark stood behind Elena with a stack of books in his hands, smiling as she frowned down at the glitter stuck to her clothes and tried shaking it off.
"Yeah, I'm a real hero." She deadpanned, but Clark only laughed and pointed out that she was a "heroine," rather. "Same thing," Elena turned to face him with a shrug and took three of his books to carry. Looking back down at her glittery black shirt as they walked up to Chloe and Pete, she added to herself, "I'm still covered in fairy vomit either way."
"Hi, guys," Clark said as they stopped right behind the pair of teenagers.
Chloe whirled around to face Clark with the same confused expression as Pete. But unlike her best friend who was able to shrug off his surprise after a second, Chloe was at loss of words. "Uh, didn't you just...? Weren't you-?"
"I took a shortcut."
"Through what? A black hole?!"
"Clark," Pete pulled him by the shoulders and they continued to walk.
Elena had to suppress her laughter at the sight of Pete reaching his hands up at Clark as he kept talking; the kid had always been so damn tall. "You'll have to excuse our intrepid reporter. Seems as though her weirdar is on DEFCON 5. She thought something was attacking the bus!"
"Okay," Chloe ran to stand in front of them with Elena following at her side, "just because everyone else chooses to ignore the strange things that happen in this leafy little hamlet doesn't mean that they don't happen."
"Now, you know we'd love to join you and Scooby inside the Mystery Machine for another zany adventure," smiling excitedly, Pete took out a piece of white paper from his jacket's inside pocket and patted Clark on the back, "but we got to hand in these permission slips before homeroom."
Elena glanced at Clark worryingly. She knew how his parents felt about football, or Clark trying out for any sport in general, and she also knew why. It wasn't that Clark wasn't good at sports. Truth be told, he was too good. Having practically grown up together Elena couldn't help but find out about Clark's super abilities at an early age, and she worried with his parents that he might get too caught up in the game to control them.
Knowing this, Clark shared a look with Elena before shaking his head at Pete. "Actually, Pete, I'm having second thoughts. I don't think signing up for the team is such a great idea."
His friend stopped walking for a second to look at him incredulously, "Clark, listen, this is the only way..."
"Wait, wait, wait." Behind, Chloe tried not to laugh as she walked up to them. "You two are trying out for the football team? What is this, some sort of teen suicide pact?"
Pete wrapped his arm from behind her blonde head to silence her giggles, pulling her aside with a harsh whisper, "We're trying to avoid being this year's scarecrow."
"What are you talking about?" Chloe looked between Clark and Pete, raising her voice once she realized she'd been whispering, too, "And why are we whispering?!"
Pete drew in a breath, looking away and back at Chloe clearly irritated as he explained, "It's a Homecoming tradition. Every year before the big game, the football players select a freshman, take him off to Reilly Field, strip him down to his boxers and then paint a S on his chest."
"And then string him up like a scarecrow," Clark finished.
"Jeez, that sounds like years of therapy waiting to happen."
Chloe's disgusted face reminded Elena of how different she reacted to first hearing about the tradition than her friend. In seventh grade, she'd been completely unfazed when she heard a group of eighth grade boys talking about it during lunch. God knew her parents had done worse things than string a 95% naked teenager up on a pole. And although they never spoke about it when Elena was around, that didn't meant she couldn't hear their late night conversations as she hid behind the stairs in the shadows.
"Why do you think we're trying out for the team? Figure they'd avoid choosing one of their own," Pete's words snapped Elena out of her thoughts.
"And talking about avoiding things...," she shifted all of Clark's books to her left arm and held out her right hand to Pete. "Where is that Lincoln you owe me?"
He sighed and pulled out the money from his red jacket. While Elena took her promised money, Pete cocked his head towards Clark, who was too busy making googly eyes at Lana Lang ahead, and the boy waved another five dollars at Elena, "You in?"
"I'll see you guys in class," Clark walked away from his group of friends and made his way to the pretty brunette talking to the cheerleader Elena had saved from an embarrassing fall moments ago.
"Bye." Chloe was the only one to tell him anything as he left, Pete and Elena starting their bets already.
"Give him ten seconds." Pete placed his bet and gave Chloe his dollar bill for her to hold.
"Five." Elena handed Chloe her five bucks, confident.
The three of them watched Clark with smiles, the blonde beginning to count, "1. 2. 3. 4. 5-."
Chloe, Elena, and Pete grimaced when the six-foot-something guy fell face-first on the floor in front of his crush. But then Elena remembered winning, and a smug smile spread across her lips while Pete continued to stare at Clark with an unbelievable expression on his features.
Chloe laughed as she gave Elena the money and looked at Pete, "Statistical fact: Clark Kent can't get within five feet of Lana Lang without turning into a total freak show."
Elena stared back at Clark, her smile fading when Lana's boyfriend came into view shooting a nasty look at him. "Uh, I think I better go. See you later?"
She looked back at Chloe and Pete who nodded and waved goodbye at her, Elena already running to her best friend's rescue.
"Dude are you feeling alright?" Lana's star quarterback boyfriend, Whitney Fordman, asked without looking all that concerned for how Clark leaned low against the fence and looked down at the ground. "You look like you're about to hurl."
"I'm fine," Elena heard him say, although he looked anything but when she got a better look at him.
Either way, Whitney seemed not to care as he smiled at Lana and gave her a quick kiss on the lips before they turned to leave. Elena rolled her eyes and looked back down at Clark. He was starting to gather his books from the ground and made an attempt to get up only to sit back down against the railing, his face a sickly shade of green.
Elena's concern grew as she moved closer to Clark. For as long as she'd known him, the boy never got sick. Hell, he could easily bench press the school bus if he wanted to. So how come being around Lana Lang was such a hard thing for him?, she wondered.
"You forgot one, Clark." Whitney stopped to pick up a book with a smirk and tossed it at him. But Elena, who was having none of the jock's shit, swiftly reached out and caught the book mid-air. Lana looked at her impressed, though her boyfriend looked peeved as he said, "Nice catch."
"I've been told." The short-haired brunette gave him a tight smile and turned her back to them, helping Clark get up as she handed him the rest of his books before going to class.
So, even if she hadn't been late, Elena got after-school detention for saying some very explicit words to her classmate. But in her defense, Lillian Rogers had those words coming when she blatantly threatened for Elena to "back off my boyfriend, bitch."
Obviously, she deserved more than a few nasty words thrown her way but Elena was not one to start a fight because of a rumor. A stupid one at that.
Walking beside the stretch of empty road, she scoffed at the idea, Me, going after Sean Kelvin? He's not even close to being my type... Kinda hot for a brain-dead jock, though.
Looking down at her nifty little SpongeBob Squarepants wristwatch, she stopped to look up at the evening sky and let out an irritated groan.
Why can't I have super speed like Clark?! She narrowed her eyes at whatever god was up there accusingly, but she knew it was just her hungry stomach talking.
As much as she liked Clark, having his powers was something she didn't want. Ever. Powers like that came with a lot of shit Elena didn't want to deal with, and she'd seen first-hand how scary and difficult life was with them.
Sometimes she wondered how Clark even managed to wake up every morning with a weight like that on his shoulders. She could barely keep her own secrets from breaking her apart every night she went to sleep.
But to appease her growling stomach she needed to get home soon, walking a little faster as a red truck drove up the bridge. She saw it carried a load of steel wire coils on its flatbed, the worn-out and dirty yellow harness securing them in place becoming loose enough for one bundle of coil to slip out onto the road.
The truck's driver kept going unaware of the danger he'd just let fall. Elena peeled her eyes away from the coil and stared ahead at the tall man's figure that began to look more and more like Clark the closer her hurried feet got to him. While the red truck drove down the bridge and out of sight, Clark continued to stand against the bridge's railing, pensively looking down at the water.
She shifted her eyes back to the big piece of wire in the middle of the road with the intention of getting it out of the way, but a car was already speeding down the bridge like nobody's business. There was no way in hell she was going to get that thing off the road in time.
"Shit," she breathed out, her brisk walk turning into a run when she realized the Porsche was not going to stop. "Clark! Clark!"
Her shouts and the screeching of tires against asphalt turned Clark around, wide-eyed as the blue-gray car skid towards him uncontrollably.
When the Porsche's driver crashed into the side of the bridge, taking Clark with him as his body flew off into the water fifty feet below, Elena felt a scream in her throat build up. But all she could do was let her mouth hang open in horror as she stood a couple feet away from the broken railing, all sound caught in her throat.
It took her no more than a few seconds to recover from the shock, her rapid heart beating loudly against her chest and ears as she ran to the side of the bridge and stopped right on the edge of the railing's huge gap. There was movement in the water but the car was more than half-way sunk by now and there was no sight of Clark, much less the driver.
Elena gripped the metal railing next to her tightly, her feet more than ready to jump as her worried thoughts blurred any trace of sense in her. She didn't care how super-humanly strong or fast Clark Kent was, nobody survived being crashed into and thrown off a bridge like that. Though she really hoped she was wrong.
With her backpack and jacket off on the ground, she gave it no second thought as she dove head-first approximately fifty feet in the air to go after her best friend.
No matter how much she prepared for the impact it still came hard and, for a moment, the cold, sharp pain of landing in the water consumed her body to the point she could not move. But Elena didn't let her pain stand in the way of getting to Clark, as she resurfaced and gasped up at the sky for air. Going back under, she swam with opened eyes down to the sinking vehicle, searching frantically for Clark.
The relief of seeing him well and alive, swimming towards the unconscious man inside the car, got rid of that god-awful clenching feeling in her heart and she couldn't help but give him an underwater hug when she reached him.
Clark pulled away after a second, pointing down at the Porsche and Elena nodded understandingly before swimming further down. She reached the car first, always the faster swimmer, and tapped on the car's roof for Clark to pull off as there was no other way of getting the man out. She watched him put his hand inside a hole in the broken front glass and grabbed onto the roof before effortlessly bending it back. With just enough space open for Elena to swim inside, she unbuckled the man from his seat and pulled him out.
Between the two of them they carried him up to the surface, where Clark laid him down on the ground by the river. She put two fingers to the side of his neck and checked for a pulse. When she didn't find one, Elena glanced up at Clark's worried face as he looked at the dead man, and she pressed her lips to the young man's mouth starting CPR.
Finally, he coughed out all the water from his lungs as she turned him on his side. Clark immediately let out a breath of relief but, after taking his attention away from the bald man on the ground, he eventually noticed the trail of blood running down the smiling brunette's arm and his expression turned back to his worried state.
But before Clark got the chance to speak, the driver opened his eyes and looked up at him. "I could have sworn I hit you."
Elena froze at his words, her relieved smile now replaced with a flicker of panic in her eyes, and Clark tore his eyes away from her wounded arm with dawning realization.
"If you did, I'd be- I'd be dead." Shaken, he met Elena's eyes again and she stared back, the same thought crossing her mind: He survived a fifty-feet crash and fall unharmed.
The Porsche's reckless driver turned out to be none other than Lex Luthor, son of Lionel Luthor the founding billionaire of LuthorCorp.
Elena didn't know much about the Luthors, the little few facts she did know coming from a seventh-grade, three-page research paper she never bothered to finish. And of course, there were the things Jonathan Kent angrily sputtered about Lionel Luthor and his family. Things she would rather not repeat. Especially now that Clark and her had saved Lex's life, and he paid for the medical assistance needed to stitch up her cut arm when the EMS arrived.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Clark asked her for the third time.
A piece of the Porsche's broken glass had grazed her when she pulled Lex out, cutting the upper part of her left arm.
"It's just a small cut. I'm fine, Clark," she smiled, wrapping the red blanket one of the paramedics handed her tighter around her wet shirt. "Though I'm the one who should really be asking you."
"I know," he sighed and sat down on the ground beside her, also pulling on his red blanket as they both looked at the bridge's mangled railing and Lex's wrecked Porsche being pulled out of the water.
"Clark!" Jonathan came running down the dirt slope to the riverbank, placing a hand on Clark's face while trying to catch his breath. "Son, are you all right?"
"Yeah, I'm okay," Clark nodded and smiled.
His dad sighed and turned to Elena but before he could worry about her next, she held up her right hand, "Same here."
With a nod, Jonathan looked back to his son and demanded to the closest State Trooper, "Who's the maniac that was driving that truck?"
"That would be me," he turned to face the bald young man, "Lex Luthor."
It was impossible to miss the look of extreme displeasure on Mr. Kent's face when Lex offered his hand. Elena tried not to wince when Jonathan blatantly ignored his handshake and returned his attention to Clark.
"I'm Jonathan Kent." He took off his jacket and put it around Clark. "This is my son."
Disregarding Mr. Kent's harsh tone, Lex looked down at Clark and Elena, "Thanks for saving my life."
"I'm sure you would have done the same thing." Clark didn't look too happy with him, either, but at least he managed to sound sincere as he stood up to leave.
Jonathan held out his hand for Elena to take and she thanked him as she stood up, following Clark to their truck.
"You have quite an extraordinary boy there, Mr. Kent," Lex stopped the man. "If there is any way I can repay you,-"
"Drive slower," Jonathan gave him a serious look to go with his cutting tone before continuing to walk away.
Mr. Kent dropped Elena off first in front of her house. After thanking him and saying goodbye to Clark, she held on to her backpack's strap on her shoulder and walked up the steps to the dimly lit front porch.
The truck's engine roared behind her, turning around one last time to see the red vehicle making its way down the road before it disappeared. Staring back down at the "Welcome" mat under her feet, Elena leaned forward to press her forehead against the wooden door and let out a tired breath as she closed her eyes. She rested there for a second, before standing straight again with eyes back open and pulled out her house keys from her jacket's pocket, the movement making her stitched-up arm sting a bit but it was nothing she couldn't handle.
She ignored the pain and pushed open the door after unlocking it, expecting the small piece of black yarn that they always put on the top edge of the door to come flying down on her hand. But the string was already on the ground, the throwing knives in her shoes becoming instantly heavier as her brown eyes scanned every corner inside the dark house.
Her body tensed at the overwhelming silence she was met with and the blood in her veins pumped faster as she quickly reached down to her shoe for a throwing knife, taking her first steps inside the house cautiously.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw the shadow move faster than she could blink, and it charged at her with brute force.
A woman, Elena noted as the intruder's small but hard fist made contact with the left side of her face. She stumbled back a step, but she readied herself for the unknown woman's second hit, grabbing the intruder's leg when it flew up to her stomach. Twisting it around, the woman clad in black clothing fell down face-first on the hardwood floor just to roll over and stand up again without hesitation.
Experienced, too.
The technique was enough revelation for Elena to figure out who her attacker was as she tightened the grip of her knife and threw it at the woman's head. With a roll of her eyes, she watched her avoid the weapon, as she knew she would, and prepared herself for another blow when the woman spun in mid-air and stretched out her long leg in a kick to hit Elena's head.
The brunette easily deflected the attack by bending her waist straight back (thanks to her many years of ballet) and let the woman's foot pass freely, inches above her face. She stood straight again, right arm up to block the fist coming at her as she kneed the woman in the stomach, got a hold of her shoulders, and kneed her a second time.
But instead of doubling over, the blonde grabbed her by the nape of her neck and pulled Elena down to the ground with her, getting on top of her and pressing the throwing knife to Elena's neck as they both breathed in and out heavily.
"Didn't think I'd catch that knife, did you?" The older woman withdrew the knife from Elena's throat when the young girl looked at it in surprise. She finally stood up, victoriously twirling the knife around her fingers. "Always expect the worst out of your enemy, Magdalena; I taught you that. Never underestimate your opponent."
Wincing, Elena put a hand over her bandaged arm and stood up on her own, ignoring the outstretched hand of her mother. "School was great, Mom, thanks for asking," she replied with heavy sarcasm while going over to turn on the lights in the living room.
The teenager turned around to see her mother staring at her with a stern look, catching sight of her wound. "What happened to you?"
As if you actually cared, it took everything in her to keep from rolling her eyes again as she shook her head. She had felt her stitches open during the fight, felt the small trail of blood going down her arm under her jacket. Knowing that she'd have to stitch the cut close again on her own and that it was going to leave a nasty scar afterwards, Elena shot her mother an angry look as she lied, "It's nothing. I'm going up to my room now; I have some homework I need to finish."
Magdalena simply nodded and handed Elena back the throwing knife, watching her daughter go up the stairs without another word. Feeling the pain of Elena's hits in her stomach, she smiled if not a bit proud at how good the girl fought back.
She'd admit that her methods were extreme, but it was the only way Magdalena knew how to protect Elena. It was the way her mamá had raised her, and how her mother's mother had raised Elena's grandmother before. And no matter how much Elena hated Magdalena for it, she could not fight against her destiny. Magdalena certainly tried to and although she had succeeded, she paid a high price for it. A price she promised her daughter would never have to pay.
Whether Elena wanted to acknowledge it or not, the girl was cursed; born to spill blood. And Magdalena was going to make sure her daughter would be prepared to do so when the time came.
A/N: Hello! I hope you enjoyed the start of my first Smallville fanfic ever! I always get super nervous when crossing over to another fandom and writing an OC-centric fic, but I am extremely happy for finally having the guts to post the first chapter to "Between Shadows"!
Magdalena (a.k.a. Elena) Castro has got to be my favorite OC I have ever created, and I'm so hyped to be sharing her story! I have big things planned for her, and I am determined to write her story (all 10 seasons worth of it omg- pray for me please lol)!
I hope you all find this fic as enjoyable, too, and reviews are always an effective way of getting me to update faster! So, please, I would love to hear your thoughts, feedback, and any constructive criticism on this chapter! Oh, and also, Elena(my oc) is portrayed by the younger Jessica Alba for those of you who were wondering!
Thank you for reading, I wish you lovelies a good day/night! :)
