From the fractured skin of the Moon, a strange hum began to pulse across the stars.
It was not light.
It was not sound.
It was something older—deeper.
Earth's satellites trembled. Communication relays went dark. Gravity fluctuated for a brief, impossible moment. At the ruins of the JLA Watchtower, once proud and whole, now cracked open like an egg, a presence stirred in silence.
High above Earth, Vorax watched from the shadows of the void, still cloaked in his mantle of devouring silence. He did not move. He did not need to. The echo of his will had already infected the Moon.
It was no longer simply a satellite.
It had become a womb.
And something ancient was beginning to breathe.
---
Below, panic had taken root.
In the arcane safehouse beneath New York, Zatanna stood in front of a rotating circle of sigils, her voice trembling with each incantation. Blood trickled from her lips. John Constantine was already puffing on his third cigarette, hands shaking, eyes hollow. Doctor Fate floated above them, silent and still, golden helm gleaming even in the candlelight.
"This isn't just about Vorax anymore," Zatanna gasped, falling to one knee.
Constantine caught her. "No kidding. You felt that shift too? Whatever's inside that moon… it wasn't there before."
Fate's voice rang out like a bell. "It was sealed within. The Moon was a tomb. Vorax is not just here to feed—he is here to awaken it."
"A cosmic midwife," Constantine muttered. "Bloody perfect."
---
At the Hall of Justice, what's left of the League was scrambling.
Superman stood beside Wonder Woman, looking up at the shattered Moon, jaw clenched. Martian Manhunter floated beside them, mind sifting through the fragments of telepathic feedback still bleeding from the lunar surface.
"It's no longer just Vorax," J'onn said quietly. "There's another mind there now. Something… fractured. Sleeping. But dreaming in our direction."
"Can we stop it from hatching?" Diana asked.
Batman, or what remained of him—now a series of automated drones running off his old protocols—was silent.
The Batwoman Who Laughs had erased his mind three days ago.
---
In orbit, the Batwoman hovered above Earth's atmosphere, her torn cape billowing like wings of ink.
She laughed.
The sound echoed through the clouds and drove entire flocks of birds screaming from the skies.
Beneath her mask, her grin widened.
"Do you see it now?" she whispered. "The final joke? Even your Moon hates you."
With a flick of her wrist, she opened another portal—this one leading directly into the Tower of Fate. Not for infiltration this time.
No. This was for fun.
---
Inside the Tower, shadows stirred.
The tower, guarded by a labyrinth of time-locked traps and wards, began to bend. Symbols unraveled. Rooms inverted. The Tower bled magic.
She was in.
Zatanna and Constantine felt the shockwave immediately.
"She's inside Fate's sanctum!" Zatanna shouted.
Constantine stood. "Then we're out of time."
---
Meanwhile, on the far side of the Moon, the cracks widened.
Bones pushed through stone. Not human bones—colossal, fossilized structures that pulsed with black marrow. Mouths opened along the surfaces. Not mouths made of flesh, but of memory. Each one howled with a voice from a different age—Atlantis, Mars, Krypton… even Apokolips.
The new being within was taking shape.
Not born. Reborn.
And Earth could feel it.
---
In the streets of Tokyo, cities began evacuation drills. In India, the skies turned violet for three full minutes. In Brazil, rivers froze solid without temperature change. Something in the Moon's resonance was warping reality.
People prayed. Others rioted. The Church of the Final Hour—the Batwoman's cult—grew tenfold overnight. Hooded figures sang in reverse tongues. Some danced in the streets, carving grins into their own faces, awaiting what they called "The Arrival."
---
In Gotham, Raven knelt within a crumbling church, eyes closed.
Her soul-self hovered behind her—a bird of black flame.
"He's coming," she whispered.
Her father's voice—Trigon's—echoed somewhere deep in her mind, laughing. Not with cruelty. With fear.
Not even the Nine Realms of Hell could contain what was about to emerge.
---
At the base of the Moon, the final seal broke.
From the cracked lunar crust, a shape emerged—vaguely humanoid, but formed of jagged bone, stretching a mile high. Its eyes were hollow voids. Its back erupted in tendrils of dead light. Its mouth opened not to scream, but to inhale.
And all of Earth heard it.
The silence.
The terrible, absolute silence of something that had never been meant to awaken.
Vorax hovered above it, folding his cloak back.
Its name had no translation.
But its hunger would be infinite.