End: An Incredible Journey

Rather than walk all the way to her womb, Superman and the Atom had to crawl through the soft, squishy tunnels. They moved mostly in silence, the both of them lost in a majesty not unlike the Grand Canyon...Mammoth Cave...the light Atom carried barely illuminating the vast chasm that they found themselves moving through, like a cathedral of flesh...

"Atom, I can hear everything," Lois grumbled through gritted teeth, and blushed as the heroes crawled along into her inner walls, like cockroaches skittering in her pussy. Constantine and Zatanna quipped, while Doctor Midnite, ever the professional, traced their progress and answered the occasional question. With his X-ray vision, Superman had no real question of where to go...and Atom had no intention of shutting up.

"I'm just saying, hypothetically, if she was ovulating, you could...you know..."

"I don't think that would work," Superman said. "The sperm would be microscopic, and there would be hundreds of thousands of them. I think all you would accomplish is to destroy a viable egg."

"Can we please not talk about how Superman can impregnate me right now!?" Lois hissed. Her hands gripped the sides of the bed in a white-knuckled grip, the reporter tense and anxious. "It's bad enough I've got a dybbuk inside of me, I don't need that kind of...aagh!"

Lois half lurched forward. It felt as though something had kicked her in the stomach.

"The mass is growing," Dr. Midnite opined. "Superman, Atom, you need to hurry."

They came at last to the reporter's cervix, at the very end of the long tunnel, as it twisted upward and gently curved. Before them, the great portal of reddish flesh was cinched tight...yet they could see it bulge from within. Something beyond pressed upon it.

"If I can touch it, I can shrink it down...make it easier to extract," Atom said. "Can you open her cervix without hurting her?"

"I'll try," Superman said, as the other hero slid off his shoulders. The Man of Steel was dwarfed by that huge fleshy ring. Yet when he pressed his hands against it, his mighty shoulders rolled, and he began to pull it apart...and at the same time something pushed against the opening.

"Aaaargh!" Lois shook as pain stabbed her, deep within.

Grey-black tentacles as thick as his thighs squirmed out of the abyss and wrapped around Superman, who held the cervix apart at arm's length.

"Atom!" he said...but the other hero jumped past him and into the darkness of Lois Lane's uterus.

...and then the tentacles shrank, squirming down to merely the size of his wrists. Superman stared into the abyss...

Up above, Lois Lane saw light flash through her abdomen, like holding her hand to a flashlight. It was a disconcerting moment...but then the pain immediately eased, and she relaxed a little.

"This is Atom. Superman and I got it. We're bringing out what's left...meet us at the entrance, and, uh. Bring a couple of towels."

By the time they emerged and rebigulated, Lois Lane had (with the aid of a sedative Doctor Midnite supplied), managed to unclench a little. There were still aftershocks...twinges of pain inside of her...but the doctor said those should go away.

"You've been given the physical equivalent of a Plan B pill," he said. "Some physical discomfort is, unfortunately, to be expected. You might have a little spotting or bleeding down there. If it becomes very heavy or keeps up for more than a few days, you'll need to be seen. If you feel ill, you might have an infection...I should have sterilized those two before they went in."

"Thank you doctor," Lois said. She opened her violet eyes and surveyed her heroes. "Thank you all. I don't know how to thank you."

Superman coughed and blushed. The entire room smiled.

"I, um...realize this is out of order...but perhaps we could have dinner, sometime? Maybe something low-effort, at your place. Takeout, ice cream, a movie on the couch?"

Lois Lane smiled. After all she had gone through on her night out, a night in with Superman sounded like a treat.

"Sure. That sounds...nice."

Atom looked like he was going to say something. Zatanna elbowed him in the ribs, and Lois Lane smiled wider at that.

"The real question is," Constantine said as he stared at the dead, grey, half-burnt squid-like thing they had pulled out of the reporter's womb. "Who was casting runes at you to make this happen?"

"Someone we'll have to deal with," Zatanna said. "Let's go visit that club..."

They left Lois there, to recuperate. Superman gave her hand a quick squeeze before he left to go punch whatever villain was behind all this. Lois let herself relax, as the world turned beneath her. She almost couldn't believe what all had happened tonight...and as she drifted off to sleep, she wondered what might have happened if she had acted any differently.