The basement disappeared.
The fake Superman blinked, expecting the chair, the walls, some kind of prison. Instead he found himself floating in an endless gray void.
"Hey! Where the hell am I?"
His voice vanished without an echo.
He frowned. "You think some cheap illusion can hold me? I'm Superman!"
He shot forward at full speed, bracing for a wall, a boundary, anything.
He switched on his super-hearing and listened. Nothing. No heartbeat, no traffic, no wind, no distant city hum. The silence was total.
He tried another direction, then doubled back the way he came. It made no difference. He threw a punch — nothing to hit. He fired his heat vision and watched the beams travel and simply vanish into the gray.
"Let me out!" he shouted. "I'm the hero! The Book chose me! I'm the main character!"
His voice got weaker every time he said it. He kept moving, searching for something, anything. Nothing ever changed. He lost all sense of how long he'd been there.
Then a faint ticking reached him.
Tick.
The basement returned.
Ivan collapsed against the chair, dragging in a breath, his whole body shaking, sweat pouring down his face.
Tears mixed with it, dripping onto the Kryptonite still taped to his chest. Whatever confidence he'd walked in with was gone.
He looked up at Daniel with wide, hollowed-out eyes.
Daniel watched him for a moment.
"Now tell me where the Book is."
"I'll tell you," Ivan choked out, shivering. "Just... please. Don't do it again."
Clark frowned, looking between the trembling man and Daniel. "Daniel, what exactly did you do to him? It was barely ten seconds."
"Ten seconds for us," Daniel said, shaking out his hand casually. "A century of absolute, sensory-deprived isolation for him."
Clark said nothing. A cold thought settled in the back of his mind. It's a really good thing he's on our side. If Daniel ever decided to be a villain, Clark doubted anyone — anywhere — could stop him.
Daniel waved a hand. The iron chains dissolved into dark mist, and the duct-taped Kryptonite tore loose, clattering against the hardwood.
Before Ivan could process the freedom, Daniel grabbed the front of his stolen suit and hauled him upright.
"Alright, 'Superman.'" He shoved him toward the door. "Show us the way."
***
"Okay, family, go ahead and eat without me. I have some important work to do," Daniel said, looking at the table where everyone was, in fact, already eating without him.
Harleen glanced up, chewing. "What kind of work?"
"Just recovering a reality-altering book before it permanently breaks the universe." He dragged Ivan forward by the collar. "Oh, by the way, Kara. Do you know this guy?"
Kara paused, staring at the bruised, shivering man in the torn suit. "Isn't that Superman? Everyone knows him."
"Nothing else? No personal memories?"
"No." She looked genuinely confused.
"Perfect." Daniel tossed the jagged chunk of Kryptonite to Clark, who caught it without effort. "Clark, hold onto this. If this guy tries anything stupid, smoke his ass."
He scanned the room. Three faces missing — Diana, Mera, Tamara. Diana was out with Rachel chasing a lead on her mother; Tamara had gone to the ocean with Mera. Hopefully they hadn't drowned each other yet.
"Let's go."
The dining room dissolved into dark mist. A second later, Daniel, Clark, and Ivan materialized inside a cramped, poorly lit apartment in Gotham.
The walls were plastered floor to ceiling with newspaper clippings, framed photographs, superhero posters — almost all of Superman.
Daniel picked up a piece of junk mail off the desk. "So, Ivan. This is where you used to live, huh?" He tossed it back down, glancing around the shrine. "Not a crime to admire someone. Nothing wrong with wanting to be like them."
Ivan rubbed his wrists, glaring at his own pathetic apartment. "Then why the hell did you stop me? I was actually helping people! It was my dream, and you ruined everything!"
Daniel turned, the faint amusement gone from his face entirely. "Wanting to help is one thing. Hijacking reality is another. Did you ever once stop to think what happened to the real Superman? Your actual idol?"
Ivan opened his mouth. Nothing came out. His eyes darted to Clark, standing silent in the corner, the green rock glowing faintly in his hand.
"You didn't think about it at all, did you?" Daniel stepped closer, voice going ice-cold. "What if your little wish to play dress-up permanently erased him from existence? What if your dream killed the real Superman?"
Ivan stared at the floor. His hands started shaking. The manufactured god complex cracked open, and what was underneath came pouring out.
"I... I didn't want to hurt him," he stammered, looking at Clark, voice breaking. "I just wanted to be him. I thought it just... made me him. I didn't think I was killing anyone."
He dropped to his knees, face in his hands, sobbing.
Clark looked down at him. Not angry — just tired. He stepped forward, the Kryptonite still glowing faintly in his palm.
"Having powers isn't just about the suit and the applause," he said quietly.
"It comes with a heavy burden. Every time you have the power to save someone, you also have to live with the ones you couldn't reach, and the mistakes you make. It's not a dream you just wish for, Ivan. It's a responsibility."
Daniel let him have the moment, already scanning the wrecked apartment, ignoring the man crying on the floor. He stopped, staring at a cheap, beat-up plaid sofa in the middle of the living room.
Sitting right on the stained center cushion, completely unguarded, was a massive, leather-bound tome pulsing with faint cosmic energy.
"You've got to be kidding me." Daniel walked over and stared down at it. "An artifact capable of unmaking the multiverse, and you just casually left it on the sofa?"
Ivan looked up. "I didn't have a safe."
Daniel sighed and picked up the book.
"Well," he said, adjusting his grip. "Time to rewrite reality."
He grabbed the cover and pulled it open.
A blinding wall of white light tore out from the blank pages — and in an instant it swallowed the apartment, Ivan, Clark, and Daniel whole into nothing.
*****
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