Zatanna was falling.
The night sky whipped past her, the runes she'd drawn bleeding silver sparks into the dark. Her mouth formed a spell that had no breath to carry it. The street below rushed closer.
Then—
A hand.
Warm. Firm. Pulling her up and forward with impossible steadiness. For a heartbeat, she thought it was Diana, or Wally, or even fate itself. Fingers gripped her arm, steadied her spine—
And then she was on the ground.
Not crashed, not broken. Simply… placed.
The hand was gone. The presence gone. Only the echo of touch remained. She blinked, her head spinning, trying to find who had caught her. But there was no one. Just the street, just the battle, just blood in her mouth and the impossible fact of survival.
Above her, the rooftop smoldered. The commander flickered from shadow to shadow, hunting Diana with a laugh that had too many voices.
—
Wally didn't see it.
He was drowning under monsters. Teeth dug at his suit, claws tearing, weight pressing his chest flat. He screamed, vibrated, tried to phase—but there were too many bodies, too much mass. Their stinking breath filled his lungs.
And then the world lit red.
A circle of deep fire erupted around him, not yellow, not orange—red. The kind of red that eats into the bones of color, the kind of fire that did not warm but consume.
The demons screamed as it touched them. Skin melted. Flesh charred. They crumbled to husks in an instant.
And Wally gasped, realizing that the burns on his own skin—cuts, bruises, broken ribs—were gone. The fire had healed him as it destroyed them. He stumbled upright, staring at his hands like they were new.
"What the—"
The fire vanished, leaving no ash. Only silence.
—
Conner reeled back, chest heaving, fists slick with ichor. He planted his feet, ready to smash another thrall into paste—
—and something heavy thudded into the pavement before him.
A weapon.
He stared. A Morningstar. Medieval and brutal: iron ball studded with spikes, chain curling back to a hilt that fit his hand like it had been measured for him.
A yellow post-it note stuck to the handle.
Use this to kill them.
Conner blinked, torn between laughter and horror. He glanced up. The horde pressed in. The commander laughed in the distance.
"...Yeah. Sure. Why not."
He gripped the weapon, and it hummed like it was alive.
—
Diana staggered. The commander blinked out of reach, slashed her from behind, flickered away again before her lance could find him. Another cut. Another burn. Always small. Always adding.
Her shield was dented, her breath ragged. Her rhythm frayed under the trickster's game.
Then the air shifted.
He arrived.
Valor stepped from nothing, like the shadows had opened their mouth to spit him out. His crimson horns caught the streetlight. His wings folded sharp against his back. Eyes burning blue like cracked diamonds, mouth curled in the edge of a smile that wasn't humor.
"Apologies for the delay," he said, voice low, almost amused. "I had… paperwork."
Diana's lance lowered a fraction. "You."
The commander hissed, flames guttering along his armor. The faces on his chest screamed one word over and over: Prince.
Valor tilted his head, smirk cutting sharper. "Yes. I suppose you could say that."
The street held its breath. Diana raised her shield, Valor's hand lit with hellfire. The commander's many mouths twisted into one long shriek.
The duel was no longer hers alone.
It was Wonder Woman and the Devil's son against the trickster of the abyss.