Chapter Five – Delirium
The next second, or many seconds earlier depending on your point of view, Clark Kent found that the transparent bubble had in some unfathomable fashion deposited him back in The Talon, and he immediately recognized the scene - it was just before the explosion that would claim the lives of his friends. As he saw the electricity bolt leave the red-haired boy's hands, on its journey to John and his lethal dynamite waistcoat, Clark knew that he'd have to move fast if he was to prevent history from repeating. Very fast indeed. Faster than the speed of lightning.
Meanwhile, Clark Kent sat motionless on his seat, struggling to overcome whatever Zee had done to him. As he tried and tried again he suddenly noticed that a bubble had appeared across the room, and then a figure had run out of it (so fast that even to Clark they appeared as a blur) and the figure was running directly towards the electricity bolt.
The speeding Clark Kent, invisible to any onlooker save himself, collided with the electricity bolt and smiled as the charge flowed through him. With this strange bubble who knew what he'd be able to do? Go back several days and save Buttercup? Go back several decades and save Krypton?
John felt a gust of wind behind him and turned around to see the red-haired boy standing across the room, looking at his hands in puzzlement as he tried to figure out why the electricity bolt hadn't reached its destination. " peels ," John said and the red-haired boy fell to the floor just as he was shaking his hands to check they were still working. This shaking had loosened a ring on his finger and as he hit the ground the ring rolled off his hand in the direction of the unconscious Zatara.
Meanwhile Chloe Sullivan sat on the floor, next to her best friend Zee's writhing body, mentally copy editing the unusual story that was taking place before her eyes. Zee however, with her mind exposed to all actualities, was witnessing a very different story. She saw an electricity bolt hitting JC and then she saw what the speeding Clark had lived through earlier - the explosion, the bodies, the devastation - and her confused mind needed it to go away; it needed the madness to stop. "ENOGEB," she yelled.
The rubble-strewn, blood-covered, torn-shirted Clark slowed down to his normal super-speed, ready to take care of Zee's crazy ex-boyfriend, and then, before he even knew it, he was no more. Whether by preventing the future he'd wiped himself from existence, or whether it was Zee's spell that had erased the only remains of the reality she'd just witnessed would be forever open to question. Despite the reason, the future Clark Kent and the time machine were no more, and nobody would ever know of the sacrifice he made that day.
John looked around, surveying the room. There were five unconscious bodies (Zatara, three black-clad freaks, and some guy John didn't recognize - namely Pete Ross). That left the bald guy, some guy who was just sitting there watching, and a mumbling Zee and her friend who was holding onto her.
"Okay, so who are you?" asked John, walking up to Clark.
Clark, still under Zee's spell, was forced to tell the truth. "I'm Clark Kent."
"Oh, so you're Clark Kent," John laughed as he pointed his gun at Clark.
Lex wondered if a teenager who could rip roofs off Porsches could also survive bullets, but he wasn't willing to find out. As John slowly started to pull the trigger, Lex started to creep up on him. John never saw him coming, however KannNn (a lot more vigilant after the earlier potentially lethal attack by the electricity boy) did.
Lex made a grab for John but found himself holding empty air. John on the other hand, who KannNn had just teleported behind Lex, smashed his bottle of whiskey over Lex's head.
"You see, Clark. I've got no quarrel with this Luthor guy," John explained, standing over yet another unconscious body, "so he gets to live. Unlike you and Zed."
"You'll have to go through me first," yelled Chloe (her gag having disappeared when Spoon Boy became unconscious). Nobody was going to kill Chloe's best friend this day, unless of course they could somehow defeat a totally unarmed Chloe. Maybe she hadn't thought this through, she thought as John's sleep spell sent her into the land of dreams.
"It's getting kind of crowded here. Is there somewhere a little bit more private we can go?" John asked Clark.
"The girl who owns this place said there was an apartment upstairs that's being decorated," replied Clark, totally honestly.
"Okay, that'll do," replied John and walked over to pick up Zatanna. With his help she managed to walk over to Clark, unfortunately throwing up over Lex on the way.
And then KannNn transported Clark, Zatanna, John and himself to The Talon's upstairs apartment.
Insect Queen had initially hidden in Zatara's top hat. She was only going to be there a little while, but the swirling vortex at the end of the hat had somehow lured her to it. Sticking her head through the vortex she saw a separate Universe, the same as ours but inhabited by talking rabbits. As she stuck her hand through the vortex to wave at them, she heard the rabbits' cries from below:
"Worship the hand!"
"Choose me! Choose me!"
Insect Queen pulled her head back out of the vortex. So that's how that trick was done. It sort of spoilt it all when you knew that there was a simple explanation.
Suddenly Insect Queen heard Clark's voice, from outside the top hat, telling the English guy about the upstairs apartment. Unfortunately she was very tiny and covered ground very slowly so that by the time she'd got out of the top hat Clark, Zee and the English guy had gone.
Insect Queen increased her size to an inch high, walked forward and started to move a golden ring that was in her way. As she thought about the wings on her costume and about how far away upstairs was she wished that she could fly. And then, unbelievably, she was flying, holding on to the golden ring that she'd just been moving.
While Zee lay on the bed, still trying to piece together reality, she managed to spot, somewhere in the multitude of realities that were assaulting her, JC pointing a gun at Clark.
"So, Clark, you think that you Muggles can hang out with real magicians like me and Zed? Let's test you then. Let's see you catch this bullet between your teeth."
Zee attempted a spell. " Catch the bullet between your teeth ," she screamed as John pressed the trigger.
Clark, who was forced to obey Zatanna's every command under her current spell, obliged by catching the bullet.
John stared in shock and disbelief at Clark while Zee, thinking that her spell had worked, exclaimed "m'I kcab ot lamron !" and thus accidentally cast a spell that put her back to normal.
"Hey, JC, remember me?" she asked.
"Hey, Zed. Nice to have you back. Can't kill your boyfriend but I'm sure I can kill you. I've got a chainsaw here," he said, producing a chainsaw from under his jacket, "and I'm going to saw you in half."
Zee laughed as she considered the many ways she could stop JC, but then she saw a small figure, holding a gold ring, landing on his shoulder.
"Don't worry, Zatanna. Insect Queen will handle this," she shouted (although Zatanna only just heard her), and then an invisible KannNn kicked her off John's shoulders and into a paint pot below.
John looked below and saw two open paint pots, a red one and a white one.
"What's with the red and white?" John asked, as Lana used the magical golden ring she'd found to fly out of the white paint pot. "Is the owner a Manchester United fan?"
Clark was forced to answer. "The owner Lana, who for some unknown reason claims to know me, has a propensity for pink. Presumably when she went to buy the paint the salesperson guessed that she wanted pink paint, so, just to prove them wrong, Lana went for red and white figuring she could mix them together later."
"Wow, I can see why Zed's drawn to you and your colorful anecdotes," observed John.
"She's back," warned KannNn as a white paint clad Insect Queen returned to John's shoulder. Unfortunately for him she heard the invisible KannNn talking and made a grab for him. Her hand got hold of one of his horns and she threw him off of John's shoulder. As KannNn splashed into the red paint below, Insect Queen (with her wings, newly-white costume and still holding the golden ring above her head) tried to reason with John.
"JC, there's no need to kill Zatanna. You used to love her and somewhere, deep inside, I'm sure you still do."
But KannNn was a quick climber and was now on John's other shoulder, standing there, now all red from the paint, with his horns and pitchfork. "No, John, don't listen to her. You know you want to kill Zatanna."
As John looked between the two of them, trying to decide whether to go for right or wrong, Zatanna suddenly recognized the demon under the red paint.
"That's a KannNn demon," yelled Zatanna.
"KannNn demon?" asked Insect Queen,
"KannNn demon," confirmed John, Zatanna and Clark (who was forced by Zee's spell to answer).
At which point the KannNn demon got sucked into a nearby mirror.
"What just happened?" asked Insect Queen.
"It's a KannNn demon," explained Zatanna. "You summon it, and get rid of it, by saying its name five times near a mirror. They made a film about it once - totally inaccurate."
"Sorry, Zed," said a remorseful John as, now no longer under the demon's influence, he realized the full extent of what he'd done.
Zatanna got up off the bed and looked John in the eyes. "Dear, dear JC. How many times have I got to tell you," she started. "Don't call me Zed," she concluded, emphasizing the point with a knockout punch.
And then she turned to Insect Queen, who'd now returned to normal size (after briefly shrinking to a microscopic size first in order that the white paint would fall off). "So, Insect, thanks for your help. I'll say my goodbyes to Clark, while you better take care of the freaks downstairs."
"Okay," said Insect Queen, looking at Zatanna suspiciously, but not wanting to argue in any way that might leave her amphibious.
As Insect Queen started to go out of the door, Zatanna started to delve in her trenchcoat and pulled out a selection of handcuffs.
"Lana, cuff 'em," she shouted as she tossed the handcuffs to Insect Queen, and then she turned her attention to Clark.