By Emily Hanson <emilymhanson@yahoo.com>
Rated: G
Submitted June 2002
Summary: An ant gets super powers from Kryptonite, Smallville-style, and wackiness ensues.
Disclaimers: The characters recognizable from Lois & Clark are not mine and are owned by DC comics, as far as I know. Super Ant is my own original character.
This takes place sometime during the final season, but before the finale. I know, at first glance this doesn't look like a Lois & Clark fic, but keep reading. :)
***
Once upon a time, there was a little ant who lived in Smallville…not that he cared. All that he cared about was finding enough food, keeping away from the bigger ants who liked to pick on their smaller siblings, and avoiding being stepped on or crushed by the giant humans who, in his opinion, were far too prolific. One day, the little ant was out foraging for food in a field when he happened to notice a huge green rock that was glowing as bright as the sun. Curious, he approached it.
Then the little ant felt sick. He'd never been this sick before, not even when he had sipped water from a pond near a large factory that was spewing black smoke into the air. That was nothing compared to how he felt now. The little ant eventually passed out.
Hours went by before the little ant woke up. The crimson sun slowly sank below the horizon. It reminded him of an apple, which in turn reminded him that he was hungry and hadn't eaten since at least morning. Intending to look for food in the field, the ant began to crawl. Suddenly he found himself in the driveway of a house that had been nowhere near the field.
A house meant that human giants would be nearby. The little ant realized that he had better hurry if he didn't want to be stepped on. He was crawling out of the driveway when Martha Kent opened the window and shouted, "Jonathan!"
Form the garage, Jonathan replied, "What?"
"Lunch is ready!"
"All right," he answered, setting his tools down.
The ant moved quickly to avoid the human that was moving towards him, and found himself flying through the air. Jonathan blinked as the little ant flew past him and in through the window.
"I think a mosquito just flew in," he remarked.
Martha glanced around. "Well, I'm sure we'll get it eventually."
"When are Lois and Clark coming over?"
"They should be here anytime."
The sound of footsteps could be heard outside as Clark landed and set Lois down. "Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad."
"Hello. Did you two have a nice trip?" Martha asked. "I heard that it was supposed to rain today in Metropolis."
"The weather was great, Mom."
While the Kent family got ready to eat lunch, the little ant hid under the table, hoping that someone might drop a crumb or two.
"Clark, are you okay?" Lois asked as he sat down. "You look a little pale."
"I'm fine, Lois," he replied. As he helped himself to roast beef and mashed potatoes, Clark soon realized that he was feeling weak.
"I think Lois is onto something," Martha said. "You don't look well, almost as if you've been exposed to Kryptonite…but that's impossible. You wouldn't have been able to fly here with Lois."
"I do feel kind of weird," Clark answered. "I'm sure it'll pass, though. This roast beef smells great, Mom."
"Thank you."
The little ant had to agree. He was so enticed by the smell that he found himself floating upwards towards it! Now, the little ant couldn't understand why or how he was defying gravity. He just knew that he was floating. It seemed reasonable that he might be able to control his direction, so he aimed for the space between Lois and Clark's chairs.
"What was that?" Lois asked as the little ant flew past her.
"I'm not sure," Clark said.
"Probably the mosquito that got in," Jonathan replied.
"I don't think that was a mosquito, Dad." Clark tried using his super vision. It wasn't working properly, so he squinted at the speck that had just landed on the table. "That's an ant!"
"What?"
"That can't be," Martha added.
"It is. I'm sure of it."
Lois bent down and looked at it. "He's right. It is an ant."
"Since when do ants fly?" Martha asked.
"They don't," Clark said. "But this one does."
"How is that possible?" Jonathan inquired.
"Beats me. Maybe it got exposed to radiation or something. You know, there's that factory north of town that's always polluting. I bet it wandered close to it and ingested some toxic waste."
"We should call Dr. Klein," Lois remarked.
"Yeah, but by then, its super powers will probably have worn off."
"Your toxic waste theory is good, but it doesn't explain why you're sick and your powers are gone," Martha said. "I wonder if that ant was exposed to Kryptonite."
Clark looked at her. "In that case, who knows how long its powers will last?"
The little ant suddenly took off and landed on the roast beef.
"Oh, no," Martha exclaimed. "It's on the meat!"
"Too bad we can't squish it," Jonathan said.
"Jonathan!"
"Well, it is an ant."
"But it's a super ant!"
"Are we supposed to just let it have that good pot roast?"
Martha sighed. "Ant, if you can understand me, get off the meat for just a minute. I'll cut you a piece."
The ant looked up. The giant human female was looking at him and moving her mouth. Sound was coming out, but it was incomprehensible. Was she trying to communicate? The ant waved its front right appendage, then attempted to tear off a little bit of meat. Big mistake! The entire roast beef flipped over along with the dish, drenching the little ant with meat juice.
"Oh, no!" Jonathan exclaimed. "There goes our lunch!"
Clark began to laugh. "You'll have to make him a costume if this keeps up, Mom."
"If he wants the roast beef that badly, let him have it," Martha said, also laughing.
"It's probably squished now," Lois said.
Slowly, the dish flipped back over along with the roast beef. The little ant couldn't believe he'd lifted something so huge. He crawled out of the puddle of meat juice and sat for a moment. All he had wanted was food. Why did this have to happen to him? The little ant sighed. Suddenly, Lois's glass of milk tipped over from the sudden gust of super breath.
The little ant was so confused by now that it didn't know what was happening. Finally Clark reached down and held out his hand. "Come on, little guy."
The ant looked up at him, wondering whether to trust this person. Somehow he sensed that it was safe to crawl onto the outstretched hand. Clark took the little ant into his old room and set him on the floor. "You stay in here for now, okay? Don't go anywhere." He closed the door.
When he returned to the kitchen, Martha was cleaning up the mess that the ant had made. "I still can't believe this. Can you, Jonathan?"
"No, Martha," he answered. "Who would have ever thought that an ant could get super powers from Kryptonite?"
"Here, Mom. Let me do that."
"All right." She sat down.
Clark took the rag and wiped up the table at super-speed. He had his powers back, now that the ant was no longer there. "I guess we'd better give it some food, or it might leave and cause who knows what kind of damage."
"Good idea," Martha said. She took two homemade chocolate- chip cookies out of a storage bag in the refrigerator and gave them to Clark. "This should be enough."
"All right."
Meanwhile, the little ant noticed a crack in the window that would be just wide enough for him to get through. It tried to fly, but all it could manage was levitating a few millimeters from the ground. Its powers were fading away.
Clark opened the bedroom door and set the cookies down on the bed. "Here you go. Enjoy."
But no little speck flew past him. Clark looked on the ground. He saw the ant crawling towards the cookies that he'd dropped. But it was crawling at normal speed. Clark tested his powers of flight. They were working perfectly.
"Guess you're back to normal, huh, little guy? See you around." He carefully backed away, being careful not to step on the ant. Slowly he closed the bedroom door.
The little ant was content to munch on chocolate cookies. Eventually, he found his way outside to another anthill, where the bigger ants were much nicer to him.
THE END