Clark didn't hesitate. The silence between them lasted just long enough for his decision to solidify like concrete. He took a step.
'She's done her part. Now she's a living risk.'
His arm rose. The hand cut forward like a straight blade toward Isobel's forehead. Her touched skin still vibrated with remnants of the enchantment, but Clark went straight in.
"You were useful."
The voice came low. No anger, no emotion. Just fact.
"Now you're a problem."
His hand pressed against her forehead. Clark's eyes glowed with golden and blue energy. Mental pulses spread outward like a psychic field, seeking to break through the magical barrier that anchored Isobel's mind in Lana's body.
Isobel froze.
Her body locked. Not a muscle moved. The control spell Clark applied activated instantly. Martian energy flooded into the witch's mind, seeking to erase her presence with surgical precision.
The impulse tore through her mental defenses with force. The first layer—superficial resistance—gave way easily. But the second... that's where the real danger lived.
Isobel wasn't just an ancient soul. She was an entity forged by centuries of punishment, persecution, and executions. Her mind wasn't built from memories. It was made of thorns, traps, and echoes of pain turned into mental walls.
Clark pressed forward.
Each step into her mental structure was like walking barefoot across a corridor of broken glass. The psychic pain reverberated—not as punishment, but as warning.
He knew it.
And still, he advanced.
The third layer reacted violently.
The memory of fire came first—not as a symbol, but as reality. The execution. Ropes biting into flesh. Screams muffled by smoke. All compressed into an eternal instant.
Clark ignored it.
He skipped the scene.
Shattered it with a vibrational surge from the Speed Force laced into his psychic energy. The space ahead cracked like glass forced from within.
Isobel didn't run.
She waited.
In the central hall of her mental domain, the entity stood tall. Her face was Lana's, but the eyes... the eyes carried shadows upon shadows.
She didn't try to retreat.
She absorbed the assault like she had foreseen it. She didn't counter right away. She observed.
Clark channeled more energy.
His mind split with precision. One part held physical control, maintaining his body and the hand pressed to Isobel's forehead. The other plunged deeper into the witch's psyche.
But then, the ground began to tremble.
Isobel gave space.
Not as submission. But to mislead.
Fragments of memory multiplied.
Images of people she killed. People who died because of her. False memories. Distorted truths. Conflicted feelings about Lana. Circles of concentrated hatred.
Clark pushed harder.
Golden energy scorched her mental circuits from the inside out. Martian force pressed into the synapses, trying to rip Isobel away from the central consciousness.
'It's now. She's exposed.'
His arm steadied. His other hand rose—his eyes blazing. Electric blue with golden centers. Heat vision primed, not to destroy the body, but to seal off the invading mind.
'And better bring Lana back.'
"You were useful."
"Now you're a risk."
"So… goodbye, witch."
The heat fired. A precise, short, controlled line. Not to kill but to force the expulsion of the intruder.
Except...
Clark's hand trembled.
For a millisecond.
The psychic backlash struck like an invisible blade.
Isobel's mind didn't retreat. It expanded. It unfurled. Her energy burst outward like a net of magical thorns, shoving the attack back with raw emotional force.
"I knew you would betray me."
Her voice echoed inside his head. Not furious. Expectant.
Isobel had been prepared.
Clark was thrown.
CRACK.
His body shot across the room, slamming into the wall like a living sledgehammer. Wood splintered, plaster shattered, the whole frame groaned like a car crash inside it.
BOOM.
The impact reverberated through the Talon's second floor. Chunks of plaster flew. A painting on the opposite wall fell crooked. The floorboards groaned under the displaced force.
Clark didn't scream.
His body slid down the wall like nothing had happened because, to him, nothing had.
His skin was uncut. His bones intact. But his eyes... his eyes were different now.
Isobel had left a mark.
Not physical. Psychic.
The space around Lana's body bubbled. The tattoo pulsed in three layers—one from the witch, one from the magic, one from something unnamed.
ZZZZMMMMMM.
The low hum of reverse energy spun in the room's core, almost inaudible, but present. Like an old hymn sung in silence.
Clark stood.
No pain. No slowness. Just enough to confirm nothing was broken. Not him. Not his resolve.
But the plan... that lay shattered like the wall behind him.
His hand was still half-raised. Residual energy glowed faintly in his palm, as if the strike was still mid-process.
Isobel, in the room's center, hadn't moved.
Her eyes—or Lana's—now glowed a steady green. Not blazing, but constant. She hadn't fully taken over. But she wasn't hiding anymore.
A semi-permanent possession.
With full consciousness.
Clark watched it for exactly two seconds.
Long enough to admit attempt number one: failed.
He didn't move. He just breathed, slow, measuring words instead of attacks now.
'I should have known it wouldn't be easy. This witch came tougher than advertised.'
'I don't want to kill Lana. But I can't let her keep Lana's body.'
The gold shimmer in his hand faded slowly, like even his body was processing the mistake.
Isobel didn't smile.
She only tilted her chin slightly, Lana's green-lit eyes locked on his face.
"You really tried."
"You invaded my mind. Rummaged through my memories. Tried to crush me like a child crying alone."
Her voice rang steady, unhurried.
"Stupid man."
"I knew you'd betray me. From the first glance. From the first polite proposal."
She breathed deeply. Not because she needed to. Because the body demanded the theater.
"You used me. Like all the rest. But unlike them, you tried to erase me completely."
Her tone hardened.
"Not silence me. Eradicate me."
"Why, Clark Kent?"
She stepped once. Symbolic.
"What did you see in me that made you so afraid?"
Clark didn't answer.
He just watched. His mind turning slow, weighing words.
"Was it what I know? What I am? Or just the simple fact that... I can't be controlled?"
She tilted her head. The tattoo's glow pulsed in rhythm with her voice.
"You thought you could erase me with a mental trick and a forehead laser? You think I survived centuries by luck?"
Clark said nothing. But his tensed jaw said more than words.
Isobel crossed her arms. A simulation of casual that only sharpened the tension.
"Now I'll return the favor."
"You want to play with minds? I'll pry yours apart. I'll crawl through the cracks, Clark Kent. I'll uncover everything. Every trauma, every edited memory, every buried secret."
Clark's breath hitched for a beat. His eyes narrowed like scalpels.
"You're gonna shut the fuck up now."
He stepped forward. Just once. Enough to make the floor groan.
"You think you're the victim? A saint burned by an unjust world?"
His eyes lit again. Deep blue, swirling slow.
"You killed. Poisoned. Corrupted. Wove pain into spells and called it justice."
The air warped. A subtle gravitational shift, barely perceptible—just enough to unsettle the bones of anyone nearby.
"You're not innocent, Isobel. You're the kind of monster that dupes the weak and manipulates the desperate."
Clark flexed his hand. Heat climbed two degrees across his palm. Pure tension.
"There's no redemption in there. No mourning. Just hunger for control."
"You want to talk trauma? I saw yours. Saw how you scream when the fire returns. And you know what I felt?"
He leaned in slightly.
"Nothing."
"Because you deserve to burn."
"Not in the flames that made you a martyr... but in the ones that expose you."
He leaned closer. Their faces inches apart.
"You're a ghost stuffed with excuses. A witch drunk on ego."
Isobel blinked slowly. The green fire in her eyes flared, but she didn't answer yet.
Clark rotated his wrist. Psychic energy flared again.
"You want in my mind? Good luck."
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