The air above the Rock of Eternity cracked like old glass under pressure. Thunder split the skies, but no storm followed—just silence, then laughter. It began faint, almost a whisper, yet somehow too close, as if inside every ear at once.
Zatanna froze mid-incantation, her blood chilled. "Something just breached the circle," she whispered. Her wards fizzled. Magic recoiled.
Across from her, Doctor Fate's helmet pulsed with golden light, scanning realms within realms. "It is not Vorax," Fate intoned. "But something tethered to him. Something worse... because it remembers joy."
Constantine flicked his cigarette into the void and drew a rune-covered dagger. "What the hell's worse than a cosmic beast that eats gods?"
A voice answered.
> "Me, darling."
The shadows at the edge of the chamber warped, unfurling like curtains. From them emerged a figure in crimson and black, her cloak stitched from laughing mouths and jagged bat symbols. Her cowl was twisted—half Batman, half grinning clown—its smile stitched wide with barbed wire.
The Batwoman Who Laughs stepped into the circle, dragging behind her a chain of shattered artifacts: Wonder Woman's tiara, the broken helmet of Jay Garrick, the lasso coiled like a dead snake.
Deadman recoiled, his incorporeal form flickering. "She's... she's not alive. Or dead. She's performing reality like a sick joke."
Zatanna raised her hands, but her spells collapsed the moment they touched the air near the newcomer. "Who are you?" she demanded.
Batwoman's smile stretched wider beneath her cracked cowl. "You can call me Laughing Queen, if you want to keep things formal." She stepped closer, her boots tapping on nothing yet echoing through everything. "Or Bride of Vorax, if we're being romantic."
Doctor Fate's voice deepened. "You are an echo of a dark multiverse. You should not exist."
"Neither should your gods. Yet here we are." Her eyes glinted like two tiny red stars. "I've come with a message, darlings. Consider it an... RSVP to your funeral."
She reached into her cloak and tossed something onto the floor. It clattered: a piece of obsidian, etched in blood.
Zatanna bent down slowly. The glyph pulsed with low-frequency vibrations, ancient and incomprehensible. Her eyes widened. "It's a countdown. To a dimensional breach."
Constantine muttered a curse. "How long?"
Zatanna stared at the numbers forming. "Three days."
The Batwoman giggled. "Ooh, tick-tock, magicians. You've got seventy-two hours to hug your pets, kiss your crushes, and burn your secrets. Then my beloved arrives. And he's hungry."
Fate raised his hands. Light flared. "Begone, corruption. I cast you from this place."
She tilted her head. "Oh, sweetie. Do it, and I might just leave behind all of me."
The room rippled. Behind her, the shadows split open into a corridor of cackling voids—eyes peering out from dimensions where laughter was law and reason was strangled in its crib.
Deadman floated closer, trying to read her aura. "You're not just warning us. You're... scouting?"
"Correct!" she chirped, delighted. "Vorax is still yawning somewhere in the entropy tides. I just came to stretch my legs, taunt some spellcasters, and maybe drag one of you home for dessert."
"Try it," Constantine growled, summoning hellfire into his hands. "I'll shove that stitched grin straight down your rotten throat."
Batwoman paused, blinking. Then she laughed. Long. Loud. And real. "I like you, trench coat." She pointed at him with her black-gloved finger. "I'll save you for last."
Suddenly, Zatanna stepped forward, voice calm but cold. "You said you're his bride. Why does a monster like Vorax need you?"
The Laughing Queen's grin thinned. Not with anger—but with affection.
"Oh, Zee. You misunderstand. Vorax doesn't need anything. But even annihilation gets lonely."
She stepped closer, trailing her fingers along a wall of forgotten spells that withered at her touch. "He and I met in the space between screams. I sang to him while universes choked. I danced as stars died. And for the first time in all his silence, he didn't devour me. He watched."
A faint tremor passed through the Rock of Eternity. Zatanna's eyes widened. "He's listening now."
Batwoman smiled wider. "Of course he is. My Voidy always watches when I perform."
She bowed theatrically. "Final act, darlings. Curtain's falling. Prepare your spells. Write your wills. Call your gods."
With a snap of her fingers, the floor cracked beneath her.
She fell backward into the void, arms spread like wings—disappearing with a final giggle that echoed like a cracked music box.
The chamber went still.
Constantine ran a hand through his hair. "Bloody hell. We're not fighting some alien blob. We're dealing with a married couple of nightmares."
Zatanna clutched the obsidian countdown. "Three days..."
Fate turned toward the skies. "Then we must summon the others. The League. The Titans. The Old Guard. Everyone."
Deadman floated silently, his ghostly eyes staring into the empty portal where the Laughing Queen vanished.
> "What kind of monster flirts while ending worlds?"
Zatanna looked at him, fear finally settling in her bones.
> "The kind that's already won."