The skies above Earth dimmed unnaturally as the Hollow Moon drifted into full view—its jagged, bone-like frame blotting out starlight. From its chest echoed a resonant hum, not sound but something older—an invitation, a threat, a question. It had no voice, no tongue, and yet it asked.
And no one knew how to answer.
---
Zatanna Zatara stood barefoot in a salt circle atop a mountain peak where the ley lines converged. Her hands trembled around a burning staff of Yggdrasil root, and her eyes were red from a sleepless night. "It's not just an entity," she whispered to Constantine, who lit another cigarette beside her. "It's a test. Of something."
He blew smoke through clenched teeth. "Then we better hope we've been studying."
Doctor Fate floated nearby, his golden helm refracting broken sky. "It speaks through unbeing. We must answer in kind: not with power, but with meaning."
Below, cities struggled to remain calm. Mass evacuations had begun days ago, but panic could not be evacuated. A mile-high figure silhouetted against the atmosphere tended to override rationality. Some believed it was a god. Others a herald of judgment. The Batwoman Who Laughs believed it was art.
---
In the shadows of the atmosphere, the Batwoman Who Laughs watched Earth's reactions unfold like a grotesque theater. Her mask twitched with glee, blood tears trailing down cracked lips.
"They scurry like insects, don't they?" she cooed, speaking to herself—or rather, the twisted mirror fragments of her former self still buried deep within. "But the Moon doesn't ask because it wants truth. It asks because it enjoys watching them fail."
She extended a hand and conjured a shape: a cracked hourglass filled with rust instead of sand. "Let's see if anyone gets the answer right… before the Hollow One chooses its response."
---
The Justice League was no longer the League of old. In the Watchtower ruins, salvaged tech and magic coexisted in makeshift war rooms. Martian Manhunter's astral form drifted between councils, aiding what remained of the United Nations. Diana was missing. Superman had fallen silent since Vorax took Neptune. Batman had vanished the night the Batwoman arrived.
Now, it was Raven who stood before the table.
"I've touched its mind," she said, cold sweat tracing her cheek. "It's not one mind—it's many. Devoured souls. Collapsed civilizations. The Hollow One is their echo. It asks a question not to learn… but to record the moment we answer wrong."
Across from her, Mister Terrific shook his head. "So what's the right answer?"
Raven's silence was not encouraging.
---
Back on the mountain peak, Zatanna reached deep into the spell lattice Constantine had built. "We can't communicate in language. But we can offer. A sacrifice. A symbol."
Constantine blinked. "You mean one of us?"
"No. Something greater." She turned toward the jagged skyline behind them. "We give it memory. Not knowledge. Not faith. Meaning."
She flung the staff into the sky, where it exploded in a web of light. Fate extended his hands, guiding the streams of arcane energy into the upper atmosphere. The spell unfurled like a lotus—memories from Earth's collective past rising: births, deaths, wars, peace, stories of heroes and villains. A quilt of mortal experience.
Raven joined, channeling the emotional weight. Her soul strained as she bridged the Void and Earth's astral plane. "Let it see what we are," she gasped. "Flawed. Fragmented. True."
And for a moment, the Hollow Moon stopped humming.
---
On the lunar surface, Vorax stirred.
It had coiled itself around the moon like a parasite—feeding, growing, unraveling the ancient bones of the satellite to fuel its reconstitution. From its ribcage emerged antennae of dark matter, scanning Earth's resistance. It did not understand the ritual. It did not care.
But it tasted change.
And it disliked it.
A single eyelid of bone opened on the Hollow Moon's torso. A blinding light surged forth—not destruction, but a rejection.
It did not want memory.
It wanted silence.
---
Back on Earth, buildings shook. Static erupted across all screens. Birds fell from the sky. Then came the voice—untranslated, but felt in the marrow of every living being.
"No."
The ritual imploded, knocking Zatanna unconscious. Doctor Fate barely caught her with a golden spell weave.
"Too human," he murmured.
Constantine knelt beside them, blood trickling from his ears. "Well, we tried your polite answer. Time for a rude one?"
---
Within the Tower of Fate—rebuilt in secret near the ruins of Salem—the Batwoman entered without invitation.
She didn't open the door. She unmade it.
The tower's wards screamed as she stepped inside, dragging a blade of broken laughter—alive and whispering names it once killed. The walls bled time. Reality unraveled around her like a wet scab.
Inside, one of Earth's surviving Archmages, Khalid Nassour—wearer of a former Fate helm—stood ready.
"I was wondering when you'd show," he said.
The Batwoman tilted her head. "You kept the tower pretty. Shame I'll have to repaint it in skin."
She moved forward, slowly. No rush. This wasn't war. This was performance.
"Tell me," she grinned, "did the Moon ask you, too?"
Khalid summoned golden chains of order. "It didn't have to. I already knew the question."
---
As he cast his first spell, far above, the Hollow Moon's eye turned toward the Western Hemisphere.
Vorax stretched its full form, no longer hiding in the moon's shadow.
Earth had failed the test.
The descent would begin.
And the next question wouldn't be asked—it would be answered with extinction.