Raven stood on the broken altar of the ruined Temple of Fate, shadows curling around her cloak like tendrils of mourning. Magic screamed through the air—disrupted, unstable. The stars had dimmed again.
Something was wrong with reality itself.
Zatanna had vanished into silence hours ago. Constantine and Fate hadn't returned from their desperate consultation in the Shadowrealms. Deadman hovered nearby, ghostly and pale, as if even he could feel the weight of something greater than death approaching.
And now—she was here.
The Batwoman Who Laughs descended from a veil of spiraling ink, boots tapping across the cracked marble like a gavel. Her grin stretched too wide for a face still vaguely human. Spikes jutted from her shoulders. Chains clinked behind her like the leash of a rabid beast.
"Little empath," she purred, circling Raven, "you're the first to look into the dark and not flinch. I admire that."
Raven's violet eyes narrowed. "I sense nothing in you but chaos."
"No. What you sense is liberation. You just don't know what that smells like yet." The Batwoman twirled a rusted batarang between gloved fingers. "But you will. You all will. Vorax is coming, and oh—he's hungry tonight."
A flicker of emotion twitched across Raven's face. "We felt it. Neptune…"
"Gone," the Batwoman whispered with theatrical joy. "Not destroyed. Not conquered. Just… gone. Like a light that no longer remembers how to shine. That's his signature."
Raven held her ground, folding her arms beneath her cloak. "You serve him?"
"Serve?" Batwoman laughed—high, broken, delightful. "No. We dance. He devours meaning, and I give him meaning to devour. It's a beautiful arrangement."
Deadman floated closer. "What do you want from us?"
The Batwoman turned, expression suddenly mock-serious. "I've brought a gift." From a belt pouch, she produced a warped hourglass. The sand inside flowed up instead of down.
"This," she said, "is your mercy."
She threw it to the floor—crack. It didn't shatter. Instead, it stopped time within a twenty-foot radius, encasing part of the chamber in frozen moment. Light, wind, even falling dust was suspended.
"It's a taste of what Vorax offers. Stillness. Peace. No more pain, no more lies. No time. No death. No birth." Her smile widened. "Isn't that what all of you little heroes claim to fight for?"
Raven stepped forward, cloak trailing behind like a tide of mourning. "You want us to surrender."
"I want you to join me," the Batwoman said, eyes flaring crimson. "Not to fight against oblivion—but to help orchestrate it. Why struggle when you could conduct the final symphony?"
Raven's voice was low, shaking with controlled emotion. "You think the end is beautiful. I think it's cowardice."
"Oh, child." Batwoman leaned in, forehead nearly touching Raven's. "You'll change your mind when he speaks your name."
And with that—she was gone.
Only the time-locked hourglass remained, humming gently on the floor.
---
Elsewhere, beyond the veil of stars…
The void shifted.
Vorax moved—not with speed, but with inevitability. His approach was not seen, but felt. Time curved behind him. The lights of distant stars flickered out in waves like dominos toppling in the dark.
Neptune was no longer a planet.
It was an impression. A ghost of gravity. A whisper of mass. Even its orbit had begun to unravel.
Juno-7, a deep-space research vessel on Saturn's outer ring, transmitted its final broadcast:
> "—this is Dr. Rana Omar aboard the Juno-7. Neptune is… it's—gone. Not destroyed. It's just missing. Please, if anyone's receiving—"
The signal cut out. Forever.
On Earth, telescopes blurred. Calculations failed. Gravitational patterns went haywire. Panic blossomed across the scientific community, then spiraled outward into the public sphere. Rumors of black holes, alien warlords, or gods-of-the-end spread like wildfire.
But those attuned to magic knew better.
Zatanna reappeared in the Hall of Fate, bruised and trembling, her hat torn, her glyphs still burning across her arms.
"It's not just a being," she gasped. "It's a void wearing intention. A hunger that remembers it once had a name. We must call upon the old gods. The true ones."
Deadman looked around. "Where's Raven?"
---
Back at the Temple...
Raven stared at the hourglass, its swirling inverted sand now emitting a faint, rhythmic pulse.
For a brief moment, something whispered at the edges of her mind. A voice like silence. A concept she couldn't understand.
It felt like her name—but broken into pieces.
And for the first time since she was a child, Raven was afraid not of what she might become—but of what might be coming for her.