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Chapter Text

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Zatanna

Chapter One - Death

Clark Kent was fond of her. She even liked to think that maybe, just maybe, he might love her - but that didn't really matter for she knew, deep down inside, that he would always love Lana Lang more. That was why Lana Lang had to die. It seemed obvious to her now, and, in retrospect, she wondered why the idea hadn't occurred to her before, but, then again, lots of ideas had been occurring to her recently, ever since she'd come across those green rocks.

Of course, with her vast intellect, she could have come up with an elaborate plan to dispose of Lana, but sometimes simple plans are just more satisfying. And so it was that she found herself walking down the streets of Smallville, to The Talon, ignoring the stares of those around her. Just as she planned, it was closing time when she reached The Talon, and, through the glass in the doors, she could see her victim Lana, all alone, helpless, and she knew that now was the time to strike.

The doors were locked but, running up to them, she smashed through them. Lana's face was a mixture of incredulity and fear as she saw her.

"Hello, Lana," she cried in an inhuman drawl. "Bet you didn't expect to see me here. Now I'm afraid you'll have to die."

And then Lana disappeared, or so it seemed to her, but she didn't know Lana Lang's secret. For unbeknownst to her, and the rest of Smallville's non-insect population, Lana Lang was also the mistress of the microcosmos known as Insect Queen. Even now a shrunken Lana Lang was calling for reinforcements.

Seconds later, her confusion over Lana's disappearance turned to fear, as she saw ants crawling up her legs. The next thing she knew they were on her face, and she couldn't see for the ants crawling over her eyes, and, more importantly, couldn't breathe for the ants clogging her air passages. She fell to the ground, her legs flailing. It wasn't supposed to be like this, and suddenly her mind thought back to the times in the barn with Clark, his warm hands on her ...

And then her mind stopped thinking.

Lana resumed normal size and looked down at the dead body as the ants vacated it. She'd encountered all sorts of freaks in her one-woman crusade as Insect Queen, freaks of all shapes and sizes, but this one she knew. She looked at the broken doors, but figured they could wait until morning - first she had to take care of the corpse.

Twenty minutes later Lana Lang stood in a field of the Kent's Farm. She took the shrunken corpse from her pocket and dropped her on the grass below. Within the hour she'd be full size again, and sometime early tomorrow Clark would be discovering her cold, lifeless body. Lana felt guilty about killing her, but it was the only way.

"Sorry, Buttercup," she sighed, a tear running down her cheek, and then walked away.

---

It was the next night and a crowd stood around a grave as dirt was poured into it.

"This was supposed to cheer him up?" asked Pete.

"It seemed a good idea at the time," replied Chloe. "A magic show - you saw the poster - You'll believe a man can fly - I thought it would take his mind off things. Besides, Clark liked the flying, and that trick where Zatara turned a piece of coal into a diamond, it's just the finale that's set him off crying."

Clark wasn't the only unhappy person there that night. Standing at the foot of the grave was the magician Zatara's daughter, who was pretending to cry as part of the act, but was having all the audience's attention distracted from her and, more importantly, the trick, by Clark's constant wailing. Zatara would be clawing his way to the surface any minute now and everyone would be looking at Clark. She whispered a few words - ecneidua erongi eht yug gniliaw pucrettub - and everyone's attention returned to the magic act - well nearly everyone's. Zatanna found that she was still looking at Clark. She couldn't take her eyes off him. She whispered a few more words.

Clark stopped crying and an idiotic grin took over his face.

"Hey, Clark, are you okay?" asked Pete, suddenly noticing Clark, and his inane grin, now that he'd stopped wailing.

"I'm in love, Pete."

"Let me guess - Lana," Chloe said, also suddenly noticing Clark.

"No, that girl over there," replied Clark, before adding, in all seriousness, "Who's Lana?"

---

Once Zatara had dug his way out of his grave, the show was complete. As the audience applauded, the girl at the foot of the grave made her way towards Clark Kent.

"Hi there, I hope the show didn't upset you too much," she said, facing a blushing Clark.

"No, that's okay. Dead cow," explained Clark.

"Interesting," replied the girl. "Let me introduce myself. The name's Zatanna Zatara, but you can call me Zee, nearly all my friends do."

"I'm Clark .. Clark Kent. Charmed I'm sure."

Chapter Text

Chapter Two - Desire

Once upon a time Clark Kent wanted Lana more than anything else in the world, but not anymore. Now the only person on his mind was some girl called Zee. For the last three days, on his visits to the Talon, he'd lectured Pete, Chloe and, when they started to avoid him, anyone else who would listen, about the wonders of this Zee who, from the sounds of it, was almost Lana-esque in her beauty.

While Lana could cope with Clark's heart's allegiance's shifting, what upset her more than anything was that Clark was now treating her as a stranger. Maybe it was her fault for constantly keeping him at a distance all this time, afraid to get close to him because it might put him in danger from Insect Queen's many enemies. The number of times she'd come close to sharing her secret with him but, no, she couldn't risk endangering their friendship. Now, it seemed, that friendship was gone.

Still, she had to admit, Zee made Clark happy. At the start of the week Clark had been distraught beyond the point of melodrama about his dead cow, telling Lana how he'd held Buttercup in his arms and how he'd wished he could have turned back time, like in that Warrior Angel movie that Lex had made him watch, to save her. Whereas today, when she'd accidentally set up the Talon's background music to play "Build Me Up Buttercup" followed by "No Milk Today", Clark's smile was unwavering.

As Lana stared at Clark, sitting at the counter alone, smiling, completely oblivious to her, she completely ignored the raven-haired girl who'd just walked in.

"Hey Clark," shouted the girl, "I managed to get Dad to move the auditions to here."

Clark's head whirled around faster than Lana would have thought possible. "Zee!" he exclaimed joyfully.

Lana looked at the girl unimpressed. So this was Zee? She hardly lived up to the publicity (then again, apart from herself, Lana expected nobody possibly could have).

"Hi, I'm Lana," she said, offering her hand to the approaching Zee. "I expect Clark's told you all about me."

"No," replied Zee, confused. "Oh wait ..." she added as Clark looked upon her adoringly, "you must be the rinky-dink Lana that Chloe told me about that night after the show. Pleased to meet you. I'm Zatanna."

"Hi, Zatanna, I've heard a lot about you," replied Lana smiling her forced smile.

"Hey, can I put some of these up here," the girl asked, pulling some posters for Zatara's magic show from one of the pockets of her trenchcoat.

Lana looked at the posters and a tear came to her eye. "I'm sorry, Zatanna, but, like I told Clark when he asked me to go to your Dad's show, magic really upsets me. I guess it's because I was waving a wand the day my parents got hit by a meteorite."

Zatanna looked sadly at Lana, nodded understandingly and, slowly, deliberately, began tearing the posters up into strips. When she'd finished she bundled the strips together in her hand and passed them to Lana.

Lana looked at the bundle of strips and saw that they'd reformed. Slowly she unfolded the paper in her hands to find herself staring at her younger face on the cover of an old issue of Time.

"Old news," said Zatanna.

"So, Zee, where's your Dad?" asked Clark, ignoring any reaction from this Lana girl who claimed to know him.

"Oh, he's seeing some old acquaintance - some guy called Luthor."

---

Zatara entered the darkened room. sthgil no he murmured and the room lit up.

"Very impressive, Mr. Zatara."

"Please, call me Zatara, Mr. Luthor."

"Thank you, Zatara. And you can call me Lex."

"Well, Lex, you've certainly changed from that red-haired little boy I entertained at those birthday parties years ago."

Lex looked at Zatara, dressed in top hat and tails, with his jet black hair and moustache. "You, on the other hand, haven't aged at all. It's hard to believe you've been around as long as you have. There was even a comic strip about you at the back of the first Warrior Angel comic."

"I still say I should have got top billing," interrupted Zatara, with a trace of mock resentment in his voice.

"So, Zatara, what's your secret," asked Lex, curious that this face from his childhood hadn't changed.

"My father was a fifth-dimensional imp," replied Zatara deadpan.

"Okay," laughed Lex, "I understand if you don't want to give away your secrets. It's a lot more fun trying to guess them myself anyway. Which, I guess, is how we met originally - my father decided to hire the world's greatest magician for my birthday party after the previous year when I'd spoiled the magician's tricks by guessing how they all were done and heckling him accordingly."

Zatara smiled. "So, Lex, why are we meeting again after all this time?"

Lex walked over to a water-damaged Porsche, with it's roof torn off. "I've had top engineers looking at this car since 2001 and, apart from a general consensus that it's unroadworthy, I still haven't had any answers that make sense."

"I'm sorry, Lex, I don't understand," replied Zatara confused.

"In October 2001 I was driving this car when I collided with a young man named Clark Kent on a bridge and ended up plunging into a river. When I next regained consciousness Clark Kent was standing over me unharmed and this Porsche was sitting underwater with a torn roof. Ever since I've been trying to piece together a rational explanation for what happened that day but ..."

"But you can't," added Zatara, completing Lex's sentence for him

"That's right," replied Lex, turning his gaze away from Zatara.

"So you want me to show you how this trick was done?"

"That's right. I'm bored with scratching my head. I figured if anyone can figure out the impossible you can."

"Very well, Lex. I've never met a mystery I cannot explain. But are you sure? Once you know how a trick's done the magic's lost forever."

"I'm sure."

"Well, if that's what you desire, I'll investigate. Soon you'll know how the magic was done and, more importantly, who was the magician."

Chapter Text

Chapter Three – Despair

Chloe Sullivan peeked her head in through the door of The Talon to see if Clark was there. The last thing she needed after working all through the night on the most important story of her life was Clark going on and on about the wonders of Zatanna, or Zee as Chloe knew her. After all, who wanted to hear him state the obvious all day? But suddenly that didn't matter because Zee, her best friend, was sat with Clark in a table in a corner, so she rushed over as quickly as she could, eager to show her new friend the latest issue of The Torch with its "Smallville Loves Zatanna" headline.

Lana Lang watched from behind the counter and rolled her eyes. What was so special about this Zatanna girl? She was pretty, admittedly, with her raven hair and big blue eyes, but not in the same league as Lana. And then there was her outfit: a white T-shirt with her initials on it, a pair of blue denims, some scuffed running shoes, all topped with a battered trenchcoat – needless to say it really needed some pink. She looked on in confusion as Chloe fawned over Zatanna.

And then Pete Ross entered and, in a re-enactment of Chloe's entrance, made his way straight over to where Clark, Chloe and Zatanna where sitting. As Pete started laughing uproariously at whatever stray comments Zatanna made, Lana made her way over to their table. After taking their orders, and being resolutely ignored once more by Clark, she attempted some pleasant chit-chat.

"So, Zatanna. What brings you to Smallville?"

Zatanna looked down at the copy of The Torch that Chloe had given her. "Well according to this article my Dad's come here looking for new magicians. This place seems to be a breeding ground for them. He's getting letters every week from teenagers here claiming that they can do all kinds of weird magic acts so he decided we should hold an audition."

Lana got a queasy feeling in her stomach. The teenagers were probably local mutants hoping to cash in on their strange powers. And then she remembered what Zatanna had said when she first entered The Talon.

"You want to hold the audition here?" Lana shrieked.

"Yeah, if that's okay. Think of the extra coffee you'll sell."

But Lana's mind was thinking of the dangers. Gathering lots of meteor freaks in one place couldn't be a good idea. "You're sure they'll turn up? How will they know the auditions have moved here?"

"Don't worry, it's all taken care of," answered Zatanna reassuringly.

"Are you sure this audition's a good idea?" asked Lana, wondering what Zatara had been thinking of when he came up with the idea. What audience would pay good money to see a group of teenage mutants? "Oh, wait, today's a bad day. I've got someone coming around later to decorate the upstairs apartment."

"eerga," mumbled Zatanna, growing weary of the conversation.

"Okay, somehow you've won me over," Lana conceded. "The freak show can go ahead."

"Thanks, Lana, although personally I don't think the audition's the real reason Dad came to Smallville. After all, he's not even bothering to turn up to it."

Chloe let out a gasp of disbelief. The thought that the greatest story she'd ever written would turn out to be factually inaccurate chilled her to the bone. On the plus side it now looked like there might be some material for a follow-up story.

"So why's he really here?" asked Chloe, getting out her notebook. "Don't spare any details."

"Well, we were due to start a tour of England this week, but he didn't want me running into my boyfriend."

"Boyfriend?" everybody around the table echoed.

"Well, JC was my boyfriend but I'm going to dump him now that I've met Clark." As Clark's smile got wider than the dimensions of his face would appear to allow, Zatanna continued. "JC was kind of complicated, whereas with Clark you get what you see."

Lana laughed. "You obviously don't know Clark too well."

"She's right, Zee, you can't always judge by appearances. Take Lana for instance," Chloe said, gesturing towards a smiling Lana. "She's full of hidden shallows."

Zee turned to Pete, and it broke his heart that he had to lie to his new best friend, but he owed it to Clark. "Nothing special about Clark. Not in the least."

"Well, there's one way to find out," announced Zee. "If you'll leave me and Clark alone for a moment, please."

While Lana, Chloe and Pete waited on the other side of the room, Zee dug out a pocket watch from her trenchcoat.

"Zee, what are you going to do?" asked a worried Clark.

"Don't worry, Clark. Just getting to know you. You wouldn't want to keep any secrets from me would you?"

As Clark began his answer, Zatanna began saying something that was unintelligible to Clark and then Clark went silent.

Zee turned back to the others. "You can come back over here now. If there's anything you ever wanted to know about Clark Kent, now's the time to find out."

---

Lex had told Zatara all about the accident on the bridge that October day, and Zatara had been able to come up with a rational explanation for what had transpired. Unfortunately, Zatara had been able to come up with hundreds of rational explanations. In some of these explanations the accident wasn't an accident, in others the car fished out of the river was a replica of the car that went in, and in others the Lex that came out of the river was a replica of the Lex that went in. Some explanations for the torn roof involved Clark being a mutant, some involved him being an Atlantean, and others involved a mutant Lex himself being responsible. This was all assuming, of course, that Lex was a reliable witness in the first place.

It was time for Zatara to admit defeat, time for the final resort.

"Lex, do you mind if we revisit the scene of the accident? I realize you might find it traumatic but …"

"That's no problem. We can be there in ten minutes."

"We can be there sooner than that," Zatara explained. In fact it took as long as it takes to say some words backwards.

Lex suddenly found himself sat in his old Porsche, superimposed over his past self, and heard his old mobile phone ringing, he turned in panic towards the passenger seat to see Zatara there smiling.

"Deja vu, Lex?"

"How are you doing this?" asked Lex, gritting his teeth, trying to remain calm, as his other self picked up the phone.

"Magic," replied Zatara. "Don't worry, we're only observing. We cannot interfere with the past."

Zatara looked across at the still-perturbed Lex, murmured a few words and Lex suddenly felt a wave of calm passing over him. Lex watched with detachment as the car swerved, slammed into Clark and plummeted into the river. And then came the events that he'd missed the first time around. Finally, he saw just how the trick had been done. He smiled. He'd guessed how it had been done all those years ago, but was just too scared to shout out the secret in case he was wrong – now he knew that he'd been right all along.

"Time to visit the magician?" asked Zatara, oblivious to the water around him.

"Of course," replied Lex. "Maybe he knows some more tricks."

---

"Clark, do you remember me?" asked Lana.

Clark looked at Lana and was forced to tell the truth. "Yes, you were taking our order five minutes ago."

"Okay, Lana, that's your turn wasted," explained Zatanna. "Your turn, Chloe?"

"What turns you on, Clark?" asked Chloe with a wicked gleam in her eye.

"Fishnet stockings," replied Clark without the slightest hint of a blush.

"Interesting," observed Zatanna. "Your turn, Pete."

Pete thought for a while, trying to think of a question that couldn't possibly jeopardize his friend's secret. He thought and thought and thought and ...

Lana watched Pete impatiently. She'd always suspected Clark of being affected by the meteorites and now was the time to find out the truth. "Pete, ask Clark if he's got any special powers."

Pete was about to refuse when Chloe added "Yeah, ask him. I've always been curious about that."

Turning his gaze towards his new best friend, he saw Zee smiling and nodding her head. Pete turned towards his old best friend, took a deep breath, and then asked "Clark, is there anything special about you?"

"Yes, there is," began Clark, before pausing for dramatic effect. While the others waited in deep anticipation for Clark to continue, Pete Ross knew what Clark was going to say. He knew that Clark didn't consider his powers special, but rather something that made him different from everybody else, preventing him from ever leading a normal life. There was only one thing that Clark considered special about himself, and Pete wasn't the least bit surprised by Clark's next words: "I've got great hair."

"Wow, what a revelation," observed Zatanna with all the sarcasm she could muster. "I'm just popping away for a little while. Unfinished business."

Lana turned her attention away from Clark, and whatever he was saying, as her eyes followed Zatanna.

"I've got unfinished business too," Lana said coolly, as she left Pete and Chloe listening to Clark going through a list of some sort:

"There's Joe and Jerry, Mort, Wayne, Julius, Curt, Murphy …"

---

Lana burst into the ladies' restroom that she'd just seen Zatanna enter. It was time for a confrontation. Zatanna was standing there, surrounded in a haze of smoke, seemingly spouting gobbledygook into a mirror. If she'd noticed Lana's big entrance she was completely ignoring it.

Lana saw the cigarette in Zatanna's hand. "You can't smoke here!" she exclaimed.

Zatanna suddenly stopped her gobbledygook mid-flow, turned her head towards Lana and smiled. "S'okay, I've disabled the alarm system."

"That's not the point," argued Lana.

Zatanna put her other hand into her trenchcoat pocket and took out a pack of cards. "Pick a card. Any card."

"Sorry?"

"Pick a card," repeated Zatanna.

"Okay," Lana replied, then took a card from the deck and looked at it. The card contained two words: GO AWAY!

"I haven't got time for this," fumed Lana, and then she walked over to Zatanna, took the cigarette from her hands, threw it to the floor and squished it beneath her heel.

"Okay, Lana. What do you want?" Zatanna asked, snatching another lit cigarette out of thin air. "Surely you're not just here to annoy me."

Lana shoved her face right up against Zatanna's. "I know what you've done to Clark, Chloe and Pete."

"And what's that?" asked Zatanna with mock innocence.

"You've hypnotized them!" replied Lana.

"No, I used magic," admitted Zatanna.

Lana laughed in disbelief. "There's no such thing as magic. What did you do? Blink your eyes? Twitch your nose? Or did you just speak backwards like your Dad does during his magic act."

"Yeah, I spoke backwards - it's as simple as that. I made Clark love me and forget all his former loves. Chloe and Pete were suspicious of me so I got round that by making them my best friends. I was thinking of making you my best friend too but, hey, who wants you as a best friend? Besides I needed someone to confide in. You can't imagine what it's like having everyone adore you 24/7 when you haven't done anything to deserve it."

Lana was still skeptical. "Still don't believe you."

"Okay, ask me to do something magical. Anything at all."

Lana spoke softly, nervously, and, as the words came out, she could hear her heart pounding in her chest. "Bring my parents back to life."

Zatanna's confident air left her as she turned away from Lana. She might have been able to bring them back, but she wasn't willing to try. Not after the last time.

Her mind went back several years, what now seemed like an eternity, to when she'd met that mysterious kid who could bring people back from the dead (just had to say one word, didn't even need to say it backwards). She asked him how he did it but he just gave her a tortured look and told her it wasn't worth it. She'd then asked her father who warned her against such things, but, of course, that was the last thing he should have done.

She was learning magic, learning it faster and faster, and even the impossible had started to seem trivial, and so, that night, she tried to summon people from the spirit realm. Nothing happened, not the first time, but she persevered, trying different word combinations for spirit realm . First ghost world which didn't work as she planned (although, on the plus side, she got to meet Thora Birch and Scarlett Johansson) and then phantom zone which led to two men and a lady, dressed in black, appearing.

They'd seemed nice enough at first, once a spell had sorted out the language problem, interested in her and the world they'd been brought to, but then they turned nasty, fire leaping from their eyes, leaping towards her. If her father hadn't returned at that moment, sending them back to where they came from, she wouldn't be alive now.

Zatanna wiped the tears from her cheek, the cheek from which her father had magically removed the scars (although inside the scars had never healed), and then turned back to Lana.

"Sorry, Lana. I won't do that."

"Should have known," Lana said sadly, her hope taken away. "There's no such thing as real magic, just the cheap substitute that you and your father trade in."

"Don't underestimate me, Lana," responded Zatanna, beginning to regain her composure.

"And don't underestimate me," replied Lana. It was time to show this charlatan who she was dealing with.

"I'm a magician, not a miracle wor-" started Zatanna, and then noticed that Lana had disappeared.

Zatanna looked around, confused. Surely Lana wasn't a witch, or maybe she'd misheard Chloe. Suddenly, she felt someone tapping her on the back and turned around to see the strangest sight she'd seen all day - Lana Lang standing there in a strange yellow costume with a mask and a pair of fake translucent wings.

Lana placed her hands on her hips, and announced her true nature to the stunned Zatanna. "You may think that I'm just the exquisite Lana Lang, but I'm also Insect Queen, Empress of the Entymological, friend of the cute ant, enemy of the mutant, saving Smallvillians from the big villains ..."

Zatanna mumbled something, hoping that Lana hadn't wasted too much time coming up with her cringe-worthy spiel. Suddenly Lana felt herself shrinking - a not-unfamiliar sensation - but she didn't end up as small as usual. She looked up at Zatanna and wanted to ask what had happened. She wanted to ask so many things, but the same question kept coming out: "Ribbit?"

"So, Lana, have I convinced you?" asked Zatanna, kneeling down to talk to the new-look Lana. "From Insect Queen to Frog Princess, what a transformation! Don't worry - it'll only last an hour, not for as long as I live like my spell on Clark."

"Ribbit!" protested an angry Lana.

"There, there, don't get upset. For what it's worth you're the best-looking frog I've ever seen, and hey, if you get hungry, I'm sure there are lots of your tasty insect friends hanging around. Got to go now. Toodles."

Just before Zatanna reached the door, Chloe barged in.

"Hey Zee, there's some people outside looking for you. Two guys and a girl, all dressed in black."

Zatanna's heart skipped a beat, as her memories of several years ago returned. "Is there a glint of red in their eyes?"

"Couldn't tell. They're wearing sunglasses."

---

JC had a magic mirror (although, strictly speaking, all mirrors are magic if you know the right words and aren't a vampire). This mirror normally showed him the most beautiful girl in his world, but for some reason she'd not called at her usual time. He hated their being apart and hated her father even more. Zatara had permanently grounded her with a containment spell, otherwise she could have teleported to him at will. While he stood there, smoking, looking at the mirror he decided to summon a demon. Anything to pass the time.

---

Zatara breathed a sigh of relief as she saw the three teenagers awaiting her.

"We're here for an audition," one of them, a blonde-haired girl, explained.

At that moment, Lana, who'd followed Chloe and Zatanna out of the restroom, made a leap at Zatanna.

"emoc kcab retal," said Zatanna, just as Lana's froggy form was over her head, causing Lana to vanish.

"Sorry?" asked Chloe.

"Nothing," replied Zatanna. "To tell you the truth I'm just glad these three auditionees are just normal kids and not aliens with super powers."

"Yeah," nodded Chloe, humoring her best friend. "We don't get a lot of those in Smallville."

---

As the three arrivals performed their magic acts, Zatanna set about writing a letter to dump her boyfriend (who'd she'd been going to dump via the ages-old method of magic mirror when Lana had interrupted her).

Pete gazed at the first act, Mari the Mind-Reader. "Can you read my mind?" he thought, as he started to mentally undress her. The next thing he knew, in his mind, she was mentally dressing herself again and telling him to keep his dirty thoughts to himself.

Zatanna finished her letter, sent it off to JC with a few well-chosen words, and turned her attention back to the acts. Nothing that original (in fact they seemed to be driving all The Talon's customers away) - first the mind-reader, then a boy who could light up light bulbs, and finally some kid who could bend spoons and make watches stop and start. Zatanna was disappointed. Disappointed that only three kids had turned up for the auditions, and disappointed that this was the best they had to offer. She looked at Clark, who was still talking, as he had been all during the acts:

"And then there's Jeph and Tim, Brian and Jim."

"What question did you ask him?" she asked Pete, who was trying to avoid the gaze of the female mind-reader.

"Oh, Clark's still talking about his hair."

"What, has he given them all individual names?" joked Zatanna.

Pete nodded.

---

JC often got "Dear John" letters, for John was his name, but he'd never received one from her before. She'd always called him JC (like that guy JD in Heathers, her favorite film), and he'd always called her Zed (all her other friends called her Zee but they were American and didn't know how to pronounce the alphabet properly).

He'd been looking in the mirror, still waiting for Zed to contact him, when the letter had suddenly appeared right in front of him. It took him only a moment to read it, and, due to his being a trifle upset, only a moment to smash his fist into the mirror.

"Haven't you forgotten something, JC?" asked KannNn as he waved his trident at JC.

"Call me John. Only Zed called me JC," he snarled as he turned, cradling his injured hand, towards the demon he'd summoned earlier. To tell the truth, demons aren't that hard to summon - it's getting them to leave that's the problem, especially if you've just smashed the mirror that they'd use to get home.

"I need something to drink," moaned John as he entered the kitchen but the only drink he could find there was a half-empty bottle of Vimto.

"Here, John. I've conjured up some spirits," shouted KannNn, as he pointed to a whiskey bottle that had magically appeared on a table.

And so John started to drink and drink and drink some more and as he drank he thought of Zed. She'd bewitched, bothered and bewildered him, taught him magic, started him smoking. Still their love was all an illusion, just smoke and mirrors. Nah, who was he kidding? It was magic.

And KannNn watched John go deeper and deeper into despair. And the deeper into despair you go, the stronger your demon's become. "Want to share your thoughts, John?"

John looked across at the demon. "She didn't even have the guts to tell me to my face. Just sent a letter - listen John, I love you, but there's this bloke I fancy - or words to that effect. It hurts inside, you know. Can't stand losing her. Every little thing she did was magic."

"Who's the guy?"

"His name's Clark."

"So, Clark's got Zed. Surely you're not going to stand for that, John. Look into my eyes. You'll see there's only one answer."

And John stared into the demon's eyes and everything made sense again.

"I'm going to Smallville," announced John.

"What are you going to do to Clark, John?"

"I'm gonna smash his face in."

"And Zed?"

"Zed's dead, baby. Zed's dead."

---

The three of them sat around the table, as Zatanna pondered which cutting remarks to unleash on them.

"Where's Lana?" asked the red-haired boy who'd made light bulbs light up.

"I don't know," replied the girl calling herself Mari."I sensed her when we came in, but she seems to have disappeared for a while."

"What was she thinking? Maybe it'll give us a clue," asked the black-haired boy with the spoon-bending act.

"It's not easy being green," replied a bewildered Mari. "Anyway, we don't need Lana anymore. The only person Clark's been thinking of recently has been Zee. Now, I've sent everybody not connected to Clark home, our escape vehicle's parked out back, and we're wearing sunglasses. Hit it!"

And with that the three of them rushed from their table towards Zee, Clark, Pete and Chloe, shouting in unison "Everybody's going to die!"

Chapter Text

Chapter Four – Destruction

Clark sat still on his chair, unable to move, no matter how much he tried, as the three black-clad freaks ran towards him and his friends.

"Hey, Zee. Maybe Clark could help," suggested Pete, but Zatanna just smiled. After all, unbeknownst to Pete and the rest of the world, during her short time as a magic-wielder she'd already saved the world five times (although, admittedly, she'd almost destroyed it twice).

The three freaks stopped in front of Zee and her newly acquired friends.

"So, Zee. Say something backwards," demanded the girl who called herself Mari. "I dare you."

Zee opened her mouth to speak, but just as she did so her reality shattered into a multitude of fragments. Suddenly she didn't know what was up and what was down and what was real and what was imaginary and then she became dizzy, although she wasn't sure if it was her, and she saw the ground rushing up to her.

Zatanna lay squirming on the floor, speaking in anagrams as she vainly attempted to conjure herself back to normality.

"What have you done to her?" asked Chloe, kneeling down beside her friend.

"My psychic attack's left her confused," explained Mari. "All the barriers of perception have been removed from her mind. She's seeing all realities. To be honest, I'm quite impressed. Whenever I've done this before they're usually throwing up at this point."

"What do you want?" asked Pete, moving next to Clark.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Were we too vague?" asked the red-haired boy, who now had electricity crackling around him. "You're all going to die."

"So what can you do? Toss around lightning bolts?" asked Pete, placing his hand on Clark's shoulder.

The red-haired boy nodded as electricity lit up his eyes behind his sunglasses.

"Well, whatever you do, don't use your powers on my friend Clark here. Look at him. He's frozen with fear." Of course Pete Ross was using reverse psychology, hoping that a lightning bolt might shake Clark out of whatever state Zee had left him in or, failing that, transfer Clark's powers to him. Ironically, as Pete said these words, Clark did become frozen with fear, as he remembered a Physics lesson from years ago involving a Van Der Graaf generator. He remembered his classmates laughing at his precious hair as it stood on end due to the static electricity. Some scars never heal.

"Okay, I won't use them on him" replied the red-haired boy, and then electricity leapt from his hands to Pete Ross, knocking Pete unconscious.

Chloe turned towards the black-haired member of the evil trio. "So we've met Psiduck and Pikachu. What do you do, Spoon Boy?"

"Silence," he shouted, and a spoon leapt off a nearby table, flattened into a thin rectangular shape, and wrapped itself round Chloe's mouth.

While Zee squirmed, Pete did even less than usual, and Chloe tried to ungag herself of the spoon, the girl calling herself Mari walked over to the sitting Clark Kent. "So, Clark, this is where we kill all of your friends. Surely you're not just going to sit and watch."

But Clark could just look on helplessly. No matter how much he tried, all he could do was watch and listen.

---

Meanwhile, in England, a demon was getting bored.

"So, what are we waiting for?" asked the green demon named KannNn as he used his trident to scratch an itch on his tail.

"It takes time to get to America, you know. I'll have to apply for a passport," began John, standing there in his leather jacket, holding a half-empty whiskey bottle.

KannNn grabbed him by the hand. "I'll teleport us there."

"Blimey, didn't know you could teleport . Never said anything about that in the books."

"I can when I'm working in a vengeance demon capacity," explained KannNn. "For the love of Beelzebub, doesn't anybody read the invisible small print these days?"

And so it was that seconds later they found themselves in America collecting a mass of destructive weapons ready for their assault on The Talon.

---

Zatanna lay on the ground trying to sort out which reality was real. Over there she saw a boy called Pete Ross, but this one had blond hair and freckles. And over there was Clark but he was wearing a ridiculous blue and red outfit with a cape, and the freaks had colorful outfits too. But then there was that freak called Mari, dressed in black again, standing over her.

"This one will be the first to die I think," exclaimed Mari, looking towards Clark.

And then Zatanna saw JC appear from nowhere behind Mari. He must have come to save her.

"Hello, love. Excuse me I've got work to do," said the newly-arrived John to Mari as he pushed her aside.

"Wait," Mari said, seeing the image in John's mind. "That girl in the ZZ top, you're going to ..."

"Eliminate 'er . That's right," replied John, as his fist rushed towards Mari's face. Stopping just before impact, the fist opened and the fingers gestured. " peels ," he said and Mari fell to the ground (all those months with Zed had taught him something).

"Good work," whispered KannNn who'd made himself invisible mid-teleport in order to remain unnoticed. Truth to tell, KannNn was only an inch tall and would probably have gone unnoticed anyway.

"Thanks," said John, taking a swig from the whiskey bottle he'd brought with him and then sticking it back into the pocket of his bulky leather jacket. Suddenly he noticed the other two black-clad freaks raising their arms. Just as bolts of electricity and a barrage of spoons were about to hit him, he (and KannNn) teleported away, reappearing behind the two of them. He was tempted to re-use his sleep spell but instead went for the far more satisfying approach of smashing the two freaks' heads together.

As they fell to the ground, John started to walk back to Zed, taking out a gun that he'd picked up on his way to The Talon. "Dear Diary, my teenage angst now has a body count," he misquoted as he raised the gun to point directly at Zed's head, but then he heard someone entering The Talon. He turned around to see an old familiar face.

"Well, if it isn't Mandrake," he started, and then, seeing Zatara's companion, added "And it looks like you've brought Lothar, too."

"It's pronounced Luthor," Lex said, as Zatara positioned himself across from the blond-haired Englishman. "So, Zatara, who's the Spike wannabe?"

"Young Master Constantine," said Zatara, tipping his hat towards the young man. "You look a bit the worse for wear."

"Yeah, but I'll feel a lot better after I've killed your daughter and her boyfriend," John explained matter-of- factly .

"Tsk, this calls for magic," responded Zatara, gesturing with his gloved hand towards the young man.

"Look! Up in the sky!" exclaimed John suddenly, pointing, with his gun, just above Zatara's head.

"Is it a bird? Is it a plane?" Zatara asked, still looking steadfastly at John, ignoring his pitifully obvious attempt at a distraction. Of course, Zatara didn't realize that exactly one hour ago his daughter had performed a spell upon the spot where he was standing.

"No, it's a frog!" yelled Lex, as an incredibly good-looking frog completed it's materialization into the realm of existence.

And then Zatanna's other spell wore off and the frog transformed into Insect Queen who came crashing down on Zatara.

"Not plane, not bird, not even frog. It's just little old me, Insect Queen," she explained as she lay on top of the unconscious Zatara, and then, just as she saw John's gun pointing towards her, she shrank out of sight.

While this was all going on, Clark had been doing one of the few things he still could do: look. His X-ray vision showed that John was wearing a ridiculous amount of dynamite beneath his leather jacket. Suddenly he saw the red-haired freak, left for unconscious by the John guy, starting to get up just in front of him. He then proceeded to raise his hands towards John and fire a bolt of electricity at him.

Clark had to do something before the electricity bolt hit the dynamite. He had to overcome whatever Zee had done to him. He had to try. He strained with a superhuman might, but nothing happened, so he tried again, and again, as the nanoseconds flew by. He had to overcome whatever irresistible force had turned him into an immovable object.

Of course, heroes don't always succeed and sometimes it's the best that they can do just to try, and such was the case here. And so it was that Clark, with his eyes and brain capable of processing events at super-speed, saw the inevitable destruction unfolding in all of its gory, horrific details. He saw his friends flung around like rag dolls by the dynamite blast, bones splintering, flesh twisting, and then he felt the red-haired boy's fragile body smashing against him. Whatever Zee had done to Clark meant that he couldn't close his eyes, so instead, as a self defense mechanism, he used his X-ray vision more than he'd ever used it before, effectively making the carnage, and everything else around him, as far as the normal eye could see, invisible.

---

Finally it was all over, and Clark found himself, at last, able to move. Struggling with his X-ray vision to make the carnage around him visible again, he stumbled around The Talon. His friends were all dead. Shouldn't he be crying? He wandered around in guilt and shock wondering when he'd wake up from the nightmare. Then he heard a voice:

"Clark, I'm still alive."

Suddenly his surroundings became visible as he frantically started searching through the rubble, afraid to use his X-ray vision in case he'd never be able to turn it off again. The voice became louder:

"It's me, Chloe."

He dug deeper into the rubble and finally found her, her face pale. He held her in his arms and looked into her open empty eyes.

"I'm still alive, Clark," she said, but her lips didn't move ... and her heart didn't beat. Clark laid her down softly, tears finally reaching his eyes, as he realized his mind was playing tricks on him. Other calls for help suddenly came from elsewhere but he knew that it was all in his head, either that or the macabre onset of some bizarre super-ventriloquism power.

He looked around him one last time but he couldn't see anybody living or hear any hearts (outside of his own and those of nearby insects). And then he looked down on the ground and there, next to a broken pocket watch (belonging to Zee - who now seemed to be the last person on his mind), there was his foot that was unbelievably resting on a hole (although it was actually more unbelievably resting on the invisible remains of a demon). Startled he lifted his foot up, overbalanced and fell to the ground. As he started to push himself up he looked in front of him, and then he found himself looking closer and closer. Somehow a newly discovered microscopic vision was kicking in, and with that vision he saw a microscopic Lana, wearing a ripped mask, a torn costume and some broken wings.

He lifted her up as gently as he could and placed her on the palm of his hand. He looked at her and she looked at him. "Clark ... Listen to me ... there's something I've got to tell you ... something important ... I ..."

And then she, like the others, was dead.

Clark had to get out of The Talon fast (very fast) so he walked straight forward and exited via the nearest wall. He looked at himself covered in rubble, not to mention the blood of the red-haired boy. He didn't even want to think about how his hair must look.

As he stumbled along he suddenly saw a large transparent bubble appear in front of him. He must still be hallucinating. And then the side of the bubble slid open and he walked into it. And then he heard a voice:

Destination?

Great, he was back to hearing voices again.

"Back in The Talon just before the explosion," he muttered, mainly to himself.

Compliance.

Chapter Text

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.

Chapter Text

Chapter Six – Destiny

A full-sized Insect Queen, alias Lana Lang, stood outside the upstairs apartment admiring the ring that she'd found earlier, now permanently ensconced on her finger. It even had the letter L on it - how appropriate. Suddenly she heard Zatanna's voice from inside the room.

"Okay, I heard you the first time," she shouted back and, with the aid of the ring, started to fly downstairs. Apparently the mighty sorceress was too important to handcuff the freaks (whoever they were - Lana's hour of non-existence meant that she'd never made their acquaintance, although she was pretty certain that they'd entered The Talon for the sole purpose of getting revenge on Insect Queen for all of her freak-capturing activities).

Once downstairs she surveyed The Talon and its collection of unconscious bodies. However, one of the bodies wasn't unconscious. A blonde-haired girl who Lana didn't know (and she knew everybody in Smallville) was standing there, also looking around. She saw Insect Queen and, taking off her sunglasses, walked over to her.

"There's no need to handcuff me, Lana Lang," said the blonde girl, "I come in peace."

"I think you're mistaken," replied Lana, thinking fast. "I'm not Lana Lang, but Insect Queen, Empress of the Entymological, friend of the -"

"Don't waste your breath," interrupted the girl, "I can read minds."

"So who are you and your friends and why are you here?" asked Lana.

"Well, unbelievable as this may sound, we're a bunch of teenage heroes from the thirty-first century. We came here today to audition a new member for our Legion of Super-Heroes. The name's Imra, also known as Saturn Girl."

"And my name's Rokk, but you can call me Cosmic Boy," added her black-haired friend who'd fortunately recovered consciousness just in time to join in the conversation, as had the red-haired boy who started "My name's Garth, otherwise known as Li-"

"So what do you call this legion of super-heroes?" interrupted Lana, before the boy could finish revealing his super-heroic sobriquet.

"Well, erm , The Legion Of Super-Heroes," replied a blushing Saturn Girl.

"And how many are there in this so-called legion?" asked a non-plussed Lana.

"Well, there's just the three of us at the moment but -" started Saturn Girl.

"And you've travelled backwards in time?" interrupted Lana, not believing their story for a second but playing for time while her insect army, following her mental commands, took up positions. "Just think of the damage you may have caused."

"Well actually, Miss, I think we know what we're doing," claimed the boy who'd introduced himself earlier as Li-.

And suddenly Lana remembered the ring she was wearing, with its letter L ... L for Legion. It looked like they might be telling the truth. They'd come back one thousand years, risking historical upheavals, just to get her to join their silly little group. She could understand that - presumably she was the best that this millennium had to offer.

"Did one of you drop this?" she asked, showing the, for want of a better term, "flight ring" to the teenagers.

"Oh, keep that," replied Saturn Girl. "Garth really shouldn't have had that - it's from our future. We visited there earlier in our Time Bubble just to see if this Legion thing was worth carrying on with."

"Actually, we're still using these clunky flight belts," added Cosmic Boy, pointing to his clunky flight belt.

"Well, it's been nice meeting you, and I'm flattered that you want me for your little group, but I'm just too busy protecting Smallville," explained Lana. "Now you'd better go, while I clear up this mess you've left."

"Okay," said Saturn Girl, and telepathically told her team-mates not to hurt Lana's feelings by mentioning that it was Clark they'd actually come for.

As the Legionnaires left, Insect Queen slipped into a nearby broom closet to change back into Lana Lang.

---

Zatanna sat on the edge of the upstairs apartment's bed, smoking a cigarette. She looked across at Clark - he could have been killed because of her. They all could have. It was her fault those freaks were in The Talon and also her fault that the only person who could have stopped them, Insect Queen, wasn't around to save them.

She remembered her vision of what could have been, with JC exploding before her eyes. Poor JC. Before she'd come into his life, he was leading a quiet life, with a potentially rewarding future in flipping burgers. Now he was being plagued by demons. She couldn't have the same thing happen to Clark.

A quick spell later, and a couple of other quick spells to transport JC and Zatara to limbo so she could deal with them later, and Zatanna was ready to say goodbye to Clark, who she'd left sleeping.

"Bye, Clark," she said, kissing him on the forehead. "Promise you'll never remember me."

"I'll never forget you," she added, as she made her way downstairs.

---

Garth searched for the Time Bubble, waiting for it to uncloak itself when it detected his DNA.

"I'm sure we parked it somewhere round here," he grumbled.

"That's the problem with cloaking devices," observed Saturn Girl unhelpfully. "I wonder if Wonder Woman had the same problem with her invisible plane."

"What a waste of time it was coming here," moaned Cosmic Boy. "We attack all Clark's friends and he just sits there. Hard to believe he'll grow into Superman."

"Yeah, I know," replied Saturn Girl. "But I kept reading his mind and he kept thinking how he was powerless to do anything no matter how he tried. Guess it explains why he never wore a snazzy costume in Smallville."

"Still, we really need someone from Earth on our team," observed Cosmic Boy, "purely from a PR standpoint."

"Lana Lang?" asked Garth, much to the other two's amusement.

"You've got to be kidding," replied Cosmic Boy. "Have you seen what the History Cubes say about her? And what about that dopey insect outfit?"

"It could have been worse," laughed Saturn Girl. "Going by the History Cubes I'd have expected her to fight crime in a pink bikini. I'm just glad we left before she figured out it was me who used my powers to get rid of her customers and turn her decorator away."

"Okay, Lana Lang's out," reasoned Garth, "I guess we'll have to give that bouncing kid another chance."

"If we ever get home," Cosmic Boy said, sitting down on the sidewalk. "If we stay much longer we might end up wrecking the timeline just like Lana said."

"I think we're a bit too smart for that," said Saturn Girl smugly. "Although, if we don't find the Time Bubble soon maybe we could go back and get Zatanna to change Luthor's personality - I'm sure Clark would really thank us for it in the long run."

"Ah, here it is," shouted Garth as the Time Bubble uncloaked before him.

---

By the time Lana Lang returned to the unconscious bodies, Zatanna was already there, mumbling her incantations over them.

"What are you doing to them?" asked Lana, concerned for her friends.

"Making them forget these days, just like I did with Clark," replied Zatanna, who seemed quieter than usual.

"I guess you'll be doing the same with me," said Lana.

"No, Lana. I figure I owe you."

Zatanna took Lana's hand in hers and looked at the ring on it. " gnir evig anaL tcesni srewop ."

"So, what have you done?" asked Lana.

"This ring will now give you insect powers," explained Zatanna. "Now you're truly an Insect Queen."

"Thanks," said Lana as she hugged Zatanna. Actually she thought it was the stupidest idea she'd ever heard of but was still wary of getting on Zatanna's bad side.

---

Hours had passed and Zatara's tour bus was leaving Smallville. John stared at Zatanna, sat facing him, her head drooped down, looking at the only remaining copy of the latest Torch, refusing to make eye contact. She still wasn't talking to him, her mascara was smudged from the tears she was trying to hide, and he just didn't know what to do. He couldn't handle this Zatanna - he was more used to the fast-talking, glib, fun-loving version.

"So much for showmanship," he muttered.

"What?" she asked. At least they were talking.

"I've been dumped, punched, got paint all over my jacket, but at least I put on my usual show of uncaring apathy. Whereas you, you just sit there wallowing in your self-pity when you should be putting on a show for the crowd. Didn't your father teach you anything?"

"Yeah, he taught me two things," she said, putting down The Torch.

"Number one?" asked John, curious and grateful that the old Zatanna seemed to be back.

"You've seen my Dad do his magic act, and how he says the words backwards and the magic gets done. Did I ever tell you how he does the tricks?"

"You don't need to. I know he uses real magic. He fools the audience. So what?"

"Well, actually it was you he was fooling, JC. He doesn't use magic to perform his tricks - that would be, as he always insists on telling me, cheating."

"But he says the magic words?" asked John, now confused.

"But he doesn't mean them. That's one of the things my father taught me. You can say words and not mean them."

"Number two?" asked John.

"Actually, I'm still not finished with number one want to know why I dumped you? It wasn't Clark. It wasn't you. It was me. I didn't believe you when you told me you loved me."

"Why not?" asked John, worried that Zatanna had somehow found out about ... but, no, he was being paranoid.

"Because I never had to cast a spell on you, JC. All my life, travelling round the world with my father's show, using spells to make friends of people I'd never have the time to make friends with. I'm used to having people as my puppets, doing what I say."

"Hey, you shouldn't feel guilty," started John.

"Of course I don't feel guilty." Zatanna was horrified at the very thought. "Magic's as much a part of me as my looks and my personality so why shouldn't I use it to get what I want."

"Okay, so you don't believe I love you? Why not just use magic to find out?"

"I don't need to use magic. Not anymore. Not after dumping you caused you so much despair that a KannNn demon managed to twist that love into hatred. Liked the dynamite by the way - was that meant to be a Heathers reference?"

John nodded.

She looked at John. He might not be the best-looking guy or greatest magician in the world, and whenever he called her Zed her mind always conjured up an image of that guy called Zod that she kept trying to forget, but that didn't matter for now.

She got up off her chair and started taking John's leather jacket off. "I know what you need, JC."

"Yeah, and what's that?" he asked, getting excited as she started to take off her trenchcoat.

"Here, you can have this," she said, throwing her trenchcoat in his lap. "Like you said, your jacket's covered in paint."

"Don't you want it? You've worn it for as long as I've know you."

"It's time I grew up," she said. A few backwards words later, she was wearing a copy of her father's stage outfit.

"Very dapper," observed John.

"No, it's missing something, ah, I know ... stenhsif raeppa ."

"Big improvement," said John, taking her in his arms. "You did that just for me?"

"Of course I did," replied Zatanna, remembering the first thing her father had taught her.

"So, Zee, what's the second thing he taught you?"

"Doesn't matter, not since you've started calling me Zee anyway," replied Zatanna.

Elsewhere in the tour bus, Zatara wondered whether they should really be leaving Smallville. They still had a few shows left to perform but Zatanna had really been persuasive. Still, if there was one thing he'd taught her it was to always leave the audience wanting more.

---

Lana had been there when Chloe had woken up. She'd disappeared quickly when she realized that she couldn't remember producing The Torch that week. Lana Lang had no doubt that a late edition would appear tomorrow, full of the inventory items that Chloe had been storing up for such an occasion.

The next who had woken up was Pete who remembered all about Zatanna. It looked like she'd forgotten about Pete when dealing out her amnesia spells. Fortunately for Lana he'd been unconscious when Insect Queen was present so there was no need to call Zatanna back.

Finally there was Lex who still lay there unconscious. Lana still wasn't happy with Lex because he'd refused to pay anything towards decorating the upstairs apartment. Where was that decorator anyway?

Lex woke up with a blinding headache, smelling of whiskey, covered in vomit and with a large expanse of his recent memory missing. He looked up at Lana Lang glaring down at him.

"Hey, Lana," he said, squinting up at her, "I'm sorry. I thought I'd learnt to hold my drink these days. Please accept my apologies for my behavior."

"Decorate the upstairs apartment and we'll say no more about it," replied a smiling Lana.

"Deal," replied a relieved Lex.

As Lex left The Talon, Clark entered the room, tears in his eyes.

"Lana, she's gone," he said.

"Don't worry, Clark, I'm still here," she replied, confused. Shouldn't he have completely forgotten Zatanna and their time together? Well, at least he still remembered her. "I know it's a bit early, Clark, but one day maybe I'll be able to take her place."

"No, Lana. There'll never be another Buttercup."

Chapter Text

Chapter Seven – Dream

Sometimes Clark Kent dreamed of his teenage years back in Smallville. Usually he'd remember these dreams but, every so often, there'd be a dream he wouldn't remember. A dream about a young raven-haired sorceress. And then he'd wake up, trying to remember but never being able to, and these dreams were always accompanied by an emptiness inside.

Usually this feeling would go away, but not today as, just after waking up, he had to rush to yet another emergency. As the buildings passed by below him there was an ache in his heart that just wouldn't go away and that just kept on getting stronger, but he had to ignore it and just continue flying, continue concentrating on the sound of Jimmy Olsen's signal watch:

Zee-Zee-Zee

THE END