The Trap Springs
(A.K.A. When Seven Villains Think They've Got You Figured Out, But You're About to Become Their Worst Tuesday Ever)
Look, I've been in some pretty weird situations in my life. I once had to explain to my mom why there were scorch marks shaped like my body on the living room ceiling. I've had to convince teachers that "demigod homework ate my dog" is a legitimate excuse. I once accidentally melted a vending machine because it wouldn't give me my Snickers bar.
But standing in the middle of what looked like a really angry crop circle while seven of the world's most dangerous psychopaths gave me their best villain monologues? Yeah, that was definitely making the top ten list of "Why My Life Is Weird."
My shield crackled around me like a snow globe made of fire and bad decisions. Through the flames, I could see Wotan doing his best dramatic theater major impression, complete with billowing cape and everything.
"Behold!" he declared, throwing his arms wide like he was about to break into song. If Mads Mikkelsen had decided to become a community theater director instead of an actor, this is exactly what it would look like. "The might of Shadowflame, severed from its source!"
I had to give him credit—the guy committed to the bit.
Black Adam's fist slammed into my shield, sending lightning in every direction like a really aggressive fireworks show. The impact would have turned a normal person into a pancake, but my barrier held. For now.
"You feel it, don't you, boy?" Adam growled, and wow, when The Rock goes evil, his voice drops about three octaves and gains the ability to make your teeth ache. Electricity danced between his knuckles like he was conducting the world's most dangerous orchestra. "The weakness creeping in? The power... fading?"
I spun my blade in a lazy circle, keeping the flames dancing around me like I was the star of the world's most dangerous light show. "Sorry, what was that? I was too busy thinking about how you look like someone ordered The Rock from Wish and got the anger management issues as a free bonus."
The Joker's giggle cut through the air, and let me tell you, when Heath Ledger's version of crazy meets supernatural Tuesday afternoon, you get sounds that make your soul want to file a complaint with the universe.
"Ohhh, this is *delicious*!" he crooned, pulling out what looked like a hand grenade that someone had bedazzled with rainbow sprinkles. His grin was the kind that came with its own warning label and a side order of psychological trauma. "The great Shadowflame, trapped like a little birdy in a cage! Tweet tweet, pretty boy! Sing us a song! Make it a sad one—I do so love the sad ones!"
He tossed the grenade at my shield with the casual ease of someone who'd probably practiced this move in front of a mirror. It exploded in a cloud of something that looked like cotton candy mixed with pure nightmare fuel. My barrier absorbed it like it was party confetti, which, knowing the Joker, it probably was.
Count Vertigo stepped forward with that swagger that screamed "I own three castles and use poor people as footstools." If Peter Stormare had been born into European nobility and given the power to make people's inner ears rebel against them, this is exactly what you'd get.
"Ze ley lines zat feed your power," he said, his accent making everything sound like a threat delivered over wine that cost more than most people's cars, "ve have cut them all. Every source of magical energy within fifty miles now flows avay from zis place."
Atomic Skull's radioactive glow kicked up a notch, making him look like a nightlight that had gained sentience and a really unhealthy interest in nuclear physics. When Christoph Waltz goes radioactive, apparently he gets even more polite, which somehow makes him infinitely more terrifying.
"Fascinating, isn't it?" he said in that cultured voice that belonged in a wine tasting, not a death trap. He could probably discuss your impending doom while recommending the perfect cheese pairing. "How quickly legends become mere mortals when you remove their... advantages? It's rather like watching a very expensive watch stop ticking, wouldn't you say?"
Poison Ivy's vines pressed against my shield like botanical bloodhounds looking for weakness. She wasn't even looking at me—she was examining her nails like this whole thing was about as exciting as watching paint dry. If Jessica Chastain had decided to become an eco-terrorist with a plant fetish and anger management issues, this is what Tuesday afternoons would look like.
"Poor little godling," she purred without glancing up, her voice smooth as silk and twice as likely to strangle you. "Did you really think you were special? That your flames were somehow different from every other magic user we've crushed into compost?"
Ultra-Humanite adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses with one massive, white-furred finger. When Bryan Cranston becomes an eight-foot-tall albino gorilla with a genius IQ and anger issues, apparently he gets even more condescending. Who knew?
"The boy's power output has decreased by approximately thirty-seven percent," he observed with the clinical detachment of someone analyzing a particularly interesting bug. "Extrapolating from current degradation rates, complete magical exhaustion should occur within... four minutes and twenty-two seconds."
And through it all, Wotan stood there like he was admiring a particularly fine piece of art that he'd spent months planning to destroy.
"You see, young Shadowflame," he said, his voice smooth as expensive whiskey and about twice as dangerous, "every source of power has its weakness. Cut a river from its source, and it becomes merely a puddle. Separate ze flame from its fuel..."
He spread his hands with the kind of theatrical gesture that probably required years of practice in front of a mirror.
"And you get ash."
They attacked again, all at once this time. It was like being hit by a tidal wave made of pure malice, daddy issues, and what I was pretty sure was weaponized psychological damage.
Adam's lightning hit my shield like Zeus having a really bad day. Skull's radiation made the air itself look nauseous. Ivy's vines tried to find weak spots with the persistence of a really aggressive GPS system. Vertigo's... whatever that swirly dizzy stuff was... made my inner ear file a formal complaint. And the Joker's purple nightmare cloud was probably going to give me therapy-worthy dreams for the next six months.
My barrier flickered.
Just for a second, but they all saw it.
"There!" Wotan shouted, his voice cracking with excitement like a kid who'd just spotted presents under the Christmas tree. "Do you see? Ze boy's defenses weaken! Press ze attack! Drive him to exhaustion!"
The next wave hit harder. My shield flickered again, longer this time. I could practically smell their excitement in the air, mixed with ozone and what I was pretty sure was Atomic Skull's cologne.
"Oh, this is *beautiful*!" the Joker cackled, doing a little dance that made him look like a homicidal scarecrow who'd been taking lessons from a drunk flamingo. "Look at him flicker! Like a candle in the wind! A very pretty, very doomed candle! Should we sing him a lullaby? I know some *lovely* lullabies!"
Another assault. Another flicker. My shield was doing its best dying lightbulb impression, and they were eating it up like it was the season finale of their favorite TV show.
"Thirty seconds," Ultra-Humanite announced with the precision of someone timing cookies in an oven. "Perhaps less."
Poison Ivy finally looked up from her manicure, and her smile was the kind that made flowers wilt and small animals file restraining orders.
"Any last words, darling?" she asked sweetly, like she was offering me tea instead of a painful death. "I do so love a good dying declaration. It adds such... poetry to the moment. Something with metaphors, perhaps? I have a weakness for metaphors."
My shield flickered again. Longer this time. Long enough that Adam's lightning actually managed to singe the edge of my armor, which was honestly pretty impressive considering my armor was made of concentrated "please don't touch me, I'm literally on fire."
They were all grinning now. Even Ultra-Humanite looked pleased, in that clinical "my experiment is working perfectly" kind of way. Wotan was practically glowing with self-satisfaction.
"Victory," he whispered, raising his hands to deliver what he thought was going to be the killing blow. "Finally, victory."
That's when I started laughing.
And let me tell you something about my laugh. When I really let loose—not the polite chuckling I do when teachers make bad jokes, but the full-blown, reality-bending, "oh-you-have-no-idea-how-screwed-you-are" laugh—it's the kind of sound that makes the universe itself pause whatever it's doing and pay attention.
It started low, down in my chest, then built like a really happy avalanche. It echoed off the buildings around us, rattled windows three blocks away, and probably made every dog in the city start howling in sympathy.
The Joker stopped mid-cackle. His grin faltered for what was probably the first time since he'd discovered that chaos was more fun than sanity. He actually took a step back, and when the Joker backs away from your laughter, you know you're doing something right.
"That's..." he whispered, and for once his voice wasn't full of manic glee. It was full of something that looked suspiciously like professional respect mixed with existential terror. "That's not... that's not how victims laugh... that's not how *anyone* laughs..."
I threw my head back and let the laughter pour out like water from a broken dam, except the water was pure amusement and the dam had been holding back months of "you guys are so screwed and you don't even know it."
"Oh, Wotan," I gasped between laughs, wiping an imaginary tear from my eye. "Oh, you magnificent, arrogant, absolutely clueless bastard. You beautiful, dramatic, completely wrong disaster of a magic user."
He stared at me like I'd just announced I was actually three raccoons in a trench coat. Which, given how weird my life had gotten, wasn't entirely out of the question.
"You... you are finished," he stammered, but there was uncertainty creeping into his voice like water into a sinking ship. "Your power source is severed! Your magic is nearly exhausted!"
I stopped laughing abruptly. The silence that followed was somehow worse than the sound, like the moment right before lightning strikes when the whole world holds its breath.
"My power source?" I repeated, tilting my head like I was genuinely confused. "Wotan, buddy, pal, my magnificently wrong friend who clearly needs to update his magical textbooks... who told you I draw power from the ley lines?"
His eyes widened just a fraction. When you've got enhanced senses, you notice these things. Like when someone realizes they've been playing chess while everyone else was playing checkers, except the game was actually interdimensional poker and they'd been betting with Monopoly money.
"All magic users..." he began, but his voice had lost that earlier certainty. It was like watching a GPS recalculate after realizing it had been giving directions to the wrong planet.
"All *sorcerers*," I corrected, my grin spreading wide enough to show teeth. "All sorcerers draw from external sources. Ley lines, artifacts, environmental magic, sure. Makes perfect sense. Very practical. Like having a really long extension cord."
I took a step forward, my flickering shield still wrapped around me like the world's most dangerous dying nightlight.
"But see, here's the thing you missed in all your research, Wotan. I'm not a sorcerer."
Another step forward. All seven of them were backing up now, though they probably didn't even realize it. It was like watching dominoes in reverse—instead of falling down, they were all slowly standing back up and taking a step away from the crazy person.
"I'm a wizard."
Wotan's face went pale. And I mean *pale*. Like, milk-white, seen-a-ghost, just-realized-you-bet-your-life-savings-on-a-horse-named-"Please-Don't-Trip" pale.
"That's..." he whispered, and his voice had all the confidence of a paper airplane in a hurricane. "That's impossible. Wizards don't... ze magical core concept is theoretical at best, a children's tale..."
"Oh, it's real," I said, and my voice was getting that edge that made smart people suddenly remember they had somewhere else to be. "Very, very real. See, while you sorcerers are out there siphoning power like magical vampires with commitment issues, wizards? We generate our own."
I held up one hand, and flames danced between my fingers. Not the borrowed fire of ambient magic that most people used, but something that burned from deep inside, like a star that had decided to take up residence in my soul.
"Think of it like this," I explained conversationally, still walking forward while they backed away like I was carrying a very contagious case of "about to ruin your whole day." "You've got a car that needs to stop at gas stations every fifty miles. Me? I've got a nuclear reactor with a really good warranty."
Wotan's composure cracked like an egg dropped from orbit.
"Even if... even if zat were true," he stuttered, "you've been fighting for hours! Your core would be depleted, exhausted! Ze laws of conservation of energy—"
That's when my grin turned absolutely feral. Like a wolf that had just realized the sheep were actually made of bacon.
"Would it, though?" I asked, and my voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "See, that's the beautiful thing about my particular core, Wotan. It doesn't just store magic like some kind of mystical battery."
I let my shield drop completely. All seven of them tensed like runners at the starting line, thinking this was their moment, their chance to finally end the annoying teenager who kept making their evil plans look like amateur hour.
"It makes magic. Constantly. Endlessly. Like a star burning in the center of my soul, except the star went to college and got a degree in 'making your day really, really bad.'"
The flames around me weren't flickering anymore. They were growing, expanding, getting so bright that shadows were fleeing the scene like they had somewhere better to be.
"I don't use magic, you absolute disaster of a magic user."
My wings spread wide, but they weren't just wings anymore. They were sheets of pure fire, extending so far they were casting shadows on buildings three blocks away and probably causing a few car alarms to go off.
"I *am* magic."
I rose off the ground, not floating but ascending, like gravity had just politely excused itself from my presence and gone to get coffee. The heat radiating off me was so intense that the asphalt below was starting to melt into glass, which was honestly kind of pretty in an "oh god we're all going to die" sort of way.
"And you know what the really funny part is?" I asked, looking down at seven of the world's most dangerous criminals as they stared up at me like they were watching a god being born, except the god was seventeen and had anger management issues.
My voice carried across the entire district, echoing off buildings, rattling windows, probably setting off every car alarm in a five-mile radius.
"You could have just asked nicely. I mean, seriously. 'Hey, Shadowflame, could you maybe not set our evil plans on fire?' 'Please?' 'We said please?' But no, you had to go with the whole 'trap the teenager in a magical death circle' approach."
The fire around me exploded outward in a wave that turned night into the world's most dramatic sunrise, and for the first time since this whole thing started, I stopped holding back.
Time to show them what a real legend looked like when it decided to stop playing nice.
Black Adam actually stumbled backward, his usually unshakeable confidence cracking like cheap plaster. "This is... this is not possible. I am the champion of Kahndaq! I have faced gods!"
"Yeah, well," I said, my voice carrying the weight of someone who was officially done with everyone's drama, "you're about to face a really annoyed teenager with a nuclear reactor for a heart. Spoiler alert: I'm having a much worse day than those gods were."
The Joker was still staring at me, his mouth slightly open. When you manage to render the Joker speechless, you know you've accomplished something special.
"Oh," he whispered, and for the first time since I'd known him, he sounded almost... reverent? "Oh, this is... this is *art*."
---
The Nuclear Core
(A.K.A. When the Final Boss Realizes He's Been Watching the Wrong Movie This Whole Time)
Miles beneath the ocean floor, in a chamber that made the Batcave look like a walk-in closet, Vandal Savage watched his monitors with the kind of focused attention usually reserved for watching a master chef create their signature dish, except the dish was "teenager discovers he's basically a walking nuclear weapon" and the chef was apparently the universe itself.
If you've never seen Javier Bardem play a character who's lived for fifty thousand years and has the patience of a glacier with a really good investment portfolio, let me paint you a picture. Imagine someone who's seen every empire rise and fall, who's watched the invention of fire and the splitting of the atom, and who treats both with the same level of "well, that's interesting" that most people reserve for Tuesday afternoon weather reports.
On every screen around him, the same impossible sight played out in high definition: a teenager rising into the air on wings of pure fire, his power not diminishing but expanding like someone had just removed the safety limits from a really expensive piece of machinery.
The magical containment field—Wotan's masterpiece, a trap that had taken months to perfect and probably cost more than most small countries' GDP—was cracking like an eggshell under the pressure of something it had never been designed to contain.
Victoria stood beside him, her tablet forgotten in her hands like a prop in a play where everyone had forgotten their lines. Her mouth was slightly open as she watched seven of the world's most dangerous individuals suddenly realize they'd brought knives to a nuclear war, and the nuclear war was being fought by someone who wasn't even old enough to vote.
"Sir," she whispered, her voice barely audible above the hum of electronics and the distant sound of reality having a minor nervous breakdown. "The readings... they're completely off the charts. Whatever he's doing, it's generating more energy than our sensors were designed to measure. I think we might need bigger sensors. Or possibly a completely different understanding of physics."
Savage said nothing for a long moment. His ancient eyes were fixed on the central monitor, where Shadowflame hung in the air like someone had convinced a small sun to take human form and develop a sense of humor about it.
The boy's laughter was still echoing through the district, and even through layers of ocean and stone and really expensive audio equipment, it was the kind of sound that made you want to check your life insurance policy.
Victoria had heard a lot of different kinds of laughter in her fifteen years working for someone who collected dangerous people like some people collected stamps. The desperate laughter of heroes who'd realized they were outmatched. The manic cackling of villains who'd finally snapped. The cold chuckles of people who'd sold their souls for power and got a really good deal on the transaction.
This was different.
This was the laughter of someone who'd just realized they'd been playing easy mode their entire life, and someone had just switched them to nightmare difficulty, except they were the nightmare.
"The magical core concept," Savage murmured, his voice carrying the weight of someone who'd just watched mythology become Tuesday afternoon reality. "I remember the old texts mentioning it. Ancient magic, from before the split between wizards and sorcerers. Most scholars dismissed it as mythology. Children's stories to explain why some mages seemed more powerful than others."
On the screen, Shadowflame spread his wings wider, and the flames dancing around him shifted through the visible spectrum and kept going into colors that probably didn't have names yet. The heat distortion was so intense that the air around him looked like reality was having trouble maintaining its structural integrity.
"Not mythology," Savage continued, his smile growing wider with each passing second like someone watching their favorite movie reach the good part. "Evolution."
Victoria glanced at her boss, trying to process what she was seeing. In all her years working for him, she'd never seen Vandal Savage look genuinely impressed by anyone. Intrigued, yes. Amused by their futile struggles, occasionally. But impressed? That was rarer than honest politicians and considerably more dangerous.
"Sir," she ventured carefully, the way you might ask someone if they'd remembered to defuse the bomb they'd been working on, "should we... should we intervene? If the boy defeats the Injustice League..."
"Then he will have earned the victory," Savage said, his voice carrying the finality of someone who'd made peace with the laws of physics being more like suggestions. "And more importantly, he will have proven himself worthy of my attention. Which, I assure you, is considerably more valuable than any victory over those seven."
On the monitors, the seven villains were regrouping with all the coordination of a flash mob that had forgotten what they were supposed to be doing. Their earlier confidence had been replaced by something that looked suspiciously like the kind of fear usually reserved for people who'd just realized they were in a horror movie and weren't the final girl.
Black Adam was shouting something that was probably very impressive and threatening, but against the backdrop of Shadowflame's ascending power, it looked like a particularly buff chihuahua barking at a hurricane.
"Fifty thousand years," Savage said softly, his eyes never leaving the screens. "Fifty thousand years of watching mortals rise and fall. Heroes who burned bright and died young, their flames extinguished by their own nobility. Villains who accumulated power like children collecting toys, only to lose it all to their own hubris. Gods who forgot that mortality was not a weakness to be overcome, but a strength to be embraced."
He leaned forward slightly, his massive frame casting shadows that seemed to have their own gravitational pull.
"But this..." he whispered, his voice filled with something that might have been wonder, if wonder had been aged in oak barrels for several millennia. "This is something genuinely new. Something that remembers what it means to burn from within rather than steal fire from others. Something that generates its own light instead of reflecting borrowed glory."
The screens showed Shadowflame beginning his counterattack, and even from miles away, through layers of ocean and stone and really expensive monitoring equipment, Victoria could feel the raw power rolling off him like heat from a forge operated by someone with serious anger management issues.
"He's not drawing from the world around him," Savage observed, his voice taking on that professorial tone that meant he was working through a puzzle in real time. "He's not borrowing or stealing or siphoning like every other magic user I've observed in five millennia. He's creating. Generating power from nothing but his own will and the nuclear reactor someone apparently installed in his soul."
Victoria stared at the readings scrolling across her tablet, numbers climbing higher and higher until they stopped making sense and started looking like someone had let a toddler play with a scientific calculator.
"That's... that's not possible," she said weakly, her voice carrying all the conviction of someone arguing with gravity while falling off a cliff. "Conservation of energy, thermodynamics, basic physics, the fundamental laws of the universe..."
Savage's chuckle was like distant thunder rolling across ancient battlefields where the outcome had been decided by forces beyond mortal comprehension.
"My dear Victoria," he said, his eyes gleaming with the kind of anticipation usually reserved for watching a really good magic trick, except the magic trick was reality having an existential crisis, "when gods decide to rewrite the rules, physics becomes merely a strongly worded suggestion that nobody has to follow."
On the central monitor, Shadowflame raised his blade, and the weapon erupted into something that looked less like fire and more like someone had convinced a piece of the sun to take the shape of a sword and develop opinions about justice.
The heat radiating from him was so intense that even the Joker—the Joker, who found everything funny including his own impending doom—was backing away with something that looked suspiciously like sanity creeping back into his eyes.
"This changes everything," Savage murmured, his hands clasped behind his back, his posture radiating the kind of excitement that had probably made ancient civilizations very nervous about their life expectancy. "Not just the power itself, but what it represents. A fundamental shift in how magic can work, how it can grow, how it can become something entirely unprecedented in the history of this world."
He turned slightly, just enough to catch Victoria's eye, and his smile was the kind of expression that had probably launched a thousand wars and ended twice as many.
"Do you know what I'm looking at, Victoria?"
She shook her head, not trusting her voice to work properly when faced with the sight of her boss looking genuinely excited about something.
"The future," Savage said simply, his voice carrying the weight of absolute certainty. "Not just a powerful hero or a dangerous enemy or another temporary player in the endless game of cosmic chess. The prototype for what comes next. What humanity could become if it stopped looking outward for power and started looking within. What mortals could achieve if they remembered that the greatest magic comes not from what you can take, but from what you can create."
The screens showed the battle beginning in earnest now, seven of the world's most dangerous individuals throwing everything they had at one teenager who was treating their combined might like a particularly interesting warm-up exercise.
And for the first time in millennia—possibly since he'd first realized he was going to live forever and had better find some interesting hobbies—Vandal Savage felt something he'd almost forgotten how to experience.
Hope.
Not for victory or conquest or the satisfaction of a plan coming together like the pieces of a really expensive puzzle. Not for the fall of enemies or the rise of allies or any of the temporary pleasures that came with playing the long game of power.
Hope for something genuinely new. Something that could surprise him after fifty thousand years of thinking he'd seen everything. Something that could make the next thousand years as interesting as the last fifty thousand had been predictable.
"Sir," Victoria said quietly, her voice carrying the careful tone of someone asking a very important question, "what do we do now?"
Savage's smile grew wide enough to be genuinely terrifying, the kind of expression that suggested he knew something everyone else didn't, and what he knew was going to change everything.
"Now?" he said, his voice carrying the weight of absolute certainty mixed with anticipation that had been building for centuries. "Now we watch a legend learn to fly. Now we observe as a young god discovers the true extent of his power. Now we witness something that I suspect will be talked about long after this world has crumbled to dust."
He paused, his eyes returning to the monitors where history was being written in fire and fury.
"And then," he added softly, his voice carrying the promise of plans within plans within plans, "we introduce ourselves."
In the ancient chamber beneath the ocean, surrounded by technology that could reshape the world and artifacts that had witnessed the rise and fall of civilizations, one of the oldest beings on Earth settled in to watch something truly unprecedented.
The birth of a god who refused to ask permission from anyone, including the universe itself.
---
Meanwhile, On the Streets of Metropolis
(A.K.A. When Your Girlfriend's Magic Sense Starts Screaming "Your Boyfriend Is About to Do Something Incredibly Stupid and Incredibly Awesome")
Six blocks away from what was rapidly becoming the supernatural equivalent of a nuclear meltdown, the Young Justice team was having what you might call a "routine cleanup operation." Which, in superhero terms, meant they were trying to convince the last of Poison Ivy's mutant plant life that terrorizing innocent civilians was not, in fact, an acceptable hobby.
Zatanna was in the middle of making a particularly aggressive venus flytrap forget how to be carnivorous when it hit her.
The magical flare was like getting smacked in the face with a lightning bolt made of pure "oh no, my boyfriend is doing something that's going to give me gray hair before I'm twenty." She stumbled backward, nearly tripping over a root that had been trying to grab her ankle.
"Whoa," she gasped, pressing a hand to her temple as waves of power washed over her magical senses like someone had just cranked the universe's volume dial to eleven. "That's... that's a lot of magic."
Three feet away, Raven's meditation pose faltered as she felt the same surge. When Raven of all people looked concerned about magical energy levels, you knew something was seriously wrong.
"Something's happening," she said, her voice carrying that flat, matter-of-fact tone that usually preceded someone having a very bad day. "Something big. The magical fabric around us is... vibrating."
Both girls turned toward the same direction, like compass needles pointing toward magnetic north, except instead of north, they were pointing toward "wherever Harry is probably about to become a legend or a cautionary tale."
"That's coming from the botanical district," Zatanna said, her voice climbing toward the register that meant she was trying very hard not to panic. "That's where Harry went to deal with Ivy."
Raven's eyes widened just a fraction, which in Raven terms was basically the equivalent of running around screaming.
"The power signature," she murmured, her voice taking on that distant quality she got when she was seeing things that normal people couldn't. "It's not just strong. It's... growing. Like a star being born, except the star is angry and has a really good sword."
That's when the rest of their team—who'd been scattered across the street dealing with various botanical nightmares—started converging on their position with the kind of synchronized movement that came from months of "oh god, what's Harry done now?"
Arcana landed beside them in a swirl of midnight blue robes that seemed to have starlight woven into the fabric. Hermione Granger had always been the smartest person in any room, but when you gave her magical armor and the kind of education that came from fighting alongside demigods, she became something that made ancient scholars weep with envy.
"The magical resonance patterns are completely off the charts," she announced, pulling out what looked like a really complicated magical calculator. "Whatever's happening over there, it's rewriting the basic principles of thaumic energy distribution in real time."
Ron—or Cannonball, as he'd started calling himself after discovering that magical armor made him approximately as unstoppable as a very determined bowling ball—landed with a thud that cracked the pavement. His black and orange robes were scorched from dealing with a particularly vindictive sunflower, but his attention was focused entirely on the glow coming from the botanical district.
"That's Harry, isn't it?" he asked, his voice carrying the weary resignation of someone who'd spent years watching his best friend attract trouble like a magnet attracted really dangerous metal objects. "Please tell me that's not Harry doing something that's going to end up in history books."
Firebolt—Ginny in her red and gold armored robes, hovering on what was quite possibly the most advanced flying broomstick ever created—swooped down low enough to join the conversation. Her freckled face was set in the expression she usually wore when her boyfriend was about to do something monumentally stupid and heroic.
"Oh, that's definitely Harry," she said with the kind of certainty that came from dating someone whose idea of a quiet evening was preventing the apocalypse. "The question is, what kind of trouble has he found this time, and how many of us are going to need therapy afterward?"
Diamond—Daphne Greengrass in robes that looked like they'd been woven from winter morning and good intentions—appeared beside them in a swirl of ice crystals. Her pale blue eyes were fixed on the magical light show happening in the distance, and her usually composed expression had cracked just enough to show genuine concern.
"The power levels," she said softly, her voice carrying the kind of precision that came from a lifetime of magical study, "they're beyond anything we've encountered before. Beyond anything anyone has encountered before. It's like he's tapped into something fundamental."
Spitfire—Susan Bones, whose yellow and orange robes made her look like a particularly determined sunrise with anger management issues—landed in a controlled explosion of sparks and frustration.
"Well, whatever he's tapped into," she said, brushing soot off her robes, "it's making every plant in a five-block radius either wilt or try to evolve into something with more teeth. We need to get over there. Now."
The Marauders—Fred and George in their black and red armored robes that made them look like matching nightmares with really good senses of humor—appeared on either side of the group with the kind of synchronized timing that only came from being twins who'd spent years perfecting the art of dramatic entrances.
"So," Fred said, grinning the kind of grin that usually preceded something exploding in a very expensive way.
"What's the plan?" George finished, his identical grin suggesting that whatever the plan was, it probably involved more explosions than strictly necessary.
Zatanna looked around at the assembled group—seven of the most magically gifted teenagers on the planet, all looking toward the botanical district where her boyfriend was apparently in the process of becoming something that physics textbooks would need to be rewritten to explain.
"The plan," she said, her voice steady despite the fact that her magical senses were currently screaming like smoke detectors at a dragon convention, "is that we get over there before Harry decides to solve whatever problem he's facing by becoming a small star."
Raven nodded grimly. "The magical disturbance suggests he's facing something significant. Multiple powerful opponents. The kind of situation where backup isn't just helpful—it's necessary."
Hermione was already running calculations on her magical calculator, her face set in the expression she wore when she was trying to figure out how to solve impossible problems with insufficient data and really good math.
"Based on the energy signature," she announced, "he's not just fighting. He's... evolving. His power is growing exponentially. Either he's discovered something new about his abilities, or he's about to do something that's going to require a completely new classification system."
Ron hefted his war hammer—a beautiful piece of magical engineering that looked like it could probably flatten a small building if he put his back into it.
"Right then," he said with the matter-of-fact tone of someone who'd followed Harry Potter into certain death so many times it had become routine. "Let's go save Harry from whatever he's gotten himself into this time."
Ginny adjusted her grip on her broomstick, the Firebolt humming with barely contained magical energy.
"And if we're too late to save him from it," she added with a grin that was equal parts affection and exasperation, "let's make sure we're there to help him finish it."
Daphne's ice crystals swirled around her like living jewelry, responding to her emotional state with the kind of precision that came from years of training.
"Together?" she asked, though it was really more of a statement.
"Together," Susan confirmed, sparks dancing between her fingers like eager fireflies.
The Marauders exchanged one of their patented looks—the kind that could convey entire conversations in the space of a heartbeat.
"This is either going to be brilliant," Fred said.
"Or spectacularly catastrophic," George added.
"Probably both," they finished in unison.
Zatanna felt another wave of magical energy wash over them, this one strong enough to make the streetlights flicker and set off car alarms for three blocks in every direction.
"Whatever's happening over there," she said, her voice carrying the weight of someone who knew her boyfriend better than anyone and was therefore uniquely qualified to predict his capacity for chaos, "Harry's not holding back anymore."
She looked around at the assembled group—her found family, her team, her fellow survivors of adventures that normal people would need therapy to recover from.
"So neither are we."
And with that, seven of the most dangerous teenagers in the magical world set off toward the botanical district, where their friend was in the process of discovering just how far the boundaries of power could be pushed before they stopped being boundaries and started being suggestions.
Behind them, the last of Poison Ivy's mutant plants withered and died, as if even the vegetation could sense that something much more significant was happening just a few miles away.
Something that was going to change everything.
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