Zatanna had traveled the world, performed in front of thousands of captivated people, and even journeyed to other realms. She had accompanied many of the world’s foremost heroes in various endeavors to thwart so-called villains. She had even been a member of more than one incarnation of the Justice League.
Tonight, however, none of that mattered. All that mattered was trying to push backwards syllables out of her mouth faster than her enraged opponent could move. She barely had enough time to utter her spell before Hawkman leapt at them, menace in his eyes.
Despite the fact that Katar of Thanagar had once fought beside her, his soulless body now only wanted to twist the life from her neck. She had tracked Katar through Midway City over the last two weeks alongside another former teammate, the gallivanting Blue Beetle. They had bound him before, but they had gotten the drop on him then. Now…now a kind of bloodlust had overtaken him.
“!lepeR” Zatanna blurted out just as Hawkman’s fingers came within a hair’s width from her neck.
A bubble of invisible force formed between them and instantly burst, catapulting Hawkman head over heels away from her. Zatanna pulled in a deep breath, thankful to have honed that particular spell to perfection many years ago.
Hawkman tumbled over, slamming against the stone steps of the Midway City Museum of Natural History. He quickly righted himself and flapped his massive wings downward, thrusting him a dozen feet into the air. It would take more than quick spellwork to bring him down again.
“What’s going on?” Shayera demanded. In another guise she was the wife of this frightening man now soaring over them, known as Hawkwoman. Having just left her offices in the Museum and devoid of her own nth metal harness, however, she was at just as much a disadvantage as the others. She looked skyward and shouted, “Katar!”
“Best not to draw his attention,” Blue Beetle said as he raced over to them, his own eyes cast upward. “He did just try to kill two-thirds of us after all.”
“His eyes,” Shayera said. “There was nothing behind them. It was like he was—”
“Hollow,” Zatanna quickly said. She tossed a glance at the smashed bus that Hawkman had virtually destroyed. “Look, there’s a lot to explain, but not here. We have to get him contained again before he hurts someone.”
“Did someone do this to him?” Shayera demanded.
“Yes, but we—look out!”
Blue Beetle threw himself in between the two women and the mindless Hawkman, taking a heel across the chin. The winged warrior allowed gravity and the propulsion of his wings to close the gap below him, thrusting his foot out to catch his former teammate off guard.
On the ground again, Hawkman backhanded the stunned Blue Beetle, who just barely managed to roll with the hit. The power of the nth metal harness that enhanced Hawkman’s strength made that minor tap feel like a pile driver, and Blue Beetle fell to one knee.
“Katar!” Shayera shouted.
Zatanna pulled her back. “It’s not him; not really,” she said. “We have to contain him. Do you think you can distract him for a few minutes while I pull together an enchantment?”
“I know my husband,” Shayera replied. “He cannot be distracted.”
Blue Beetle twisted under another haymaker, sprung up, and drove a kick into Hawkman’s abdomen. “Less talk, more spells!” he shouted as he blocked another punch with his forearm, but left his side open for Hawkman to drive fist into.
There was no doubt that Hawkman was the superior combatant. Blue Beetle’s only goal was to delay his former friend as long as possible and pray that Zatanna could get something cooking that would contain him once more.
Likewise, Shayera knew that to engage Hawkman directly would be foolish. With her harness, perhaps she could to toe to toe with him. But without it she wouldn’t last any longer than Blue Beetle. The man was simply a pureblood warrior, whose skills had been honed to perfection through years of both intense training and real world experience.
Hawkman’s harness enhanced not only his strength, but his speed and other senses as well, making him almost preternatural. Combined with his current rampaging state, she knew that he was capable of anything and had likely disposed of whatever self-restraint he normally imposed on himself.
Blue Beetle did a back handspring and yanked a white cable off of his utility belt. He chanced a quick look at the pair now beside him. “Whenever you’re ready!” he said. “I know this looks fun, but I’m willing to take a break so you can do your thing!”
He cocked his arm back and slung the cable forward as hard as his muscles would allow. The cable spun around Hawkman, propelled in a loop around its intended target by a miniature gyroscope at the end of the line, designed by Ted Kord himself. The cable wove itself around and around Hawkman, pulling tight and holding his arms and legs together.
Shayera stepped in front of the struggling Hawkman. “Katar, please!” she said. “It’s me! Shayera! You have to stop this. You have to come back to me.”
In reply he struggled against the cable and growled incoherently. The cable started to loosen. Within moment he would be free again and the grotesque emptiness behind his eyes had not changed. She realized that no amount of talking would get through to him.
So, she broke his nose.
The quick strike of her palm against the bridge of his nose stunned him and he paused in his struggle for a moment. Blood gushed out, spilling down his mouth and making him look inhuman.
She took advantage of the interlude to spin low to the ground with her leg outstretched, catching him in a perfectly executed leg sweep. He fell over awkwardly, his massive wings fighting to keep him upright, but not able to keep him steady.
Shayera was on top of him instantly, straddling him and lending her weight to the pounds of pressure enforced by the restricting cable. Hawkman bellowed, but she ignored him, instead pulling off his avian helmet and striking him with it across the face.
Engaging him directly and trading blows…foolish. Engaging him indirectly and playing dirty…effective.
“Damn,” Blue Beetle muttered. “Hey, Z, did you see—oh. Sorry.”
A purple aura had encapsulated Zatanna and she now hovered three feet off of the ground. Blue Beetle stepped back, feeling heat radiate off of his compatriot. As a man of science, he knew very little about magic, except what he had learned from a few trinkets that had crossed his path throughout his heroic career. He knew enough to back off when the lady in the top hat was throwing around cosmic forces.
Ropes of power lashed out from her aura, bending in space and then returning. Her eyes were translucent, the pigment gone, allowing her mind to look freely onto the scene.
Just as Shayera was finally thrown off by the bucking Hawkman, Zatanna yelled, “!tnelis llaf llehs sselefil siht teL”
The violet energy let her, instead wrapping itself around Hawkman. It filled him completely, pushing into his mouth, eyes, and ears. He hung three feet off the ground, looking as Zatanna had, the purple energy not enveloping him in a sort of cocoon. The fight had been drained away and he now hung, lifeless.
“No…” Shayera muttered. “You’ve killed him!”
“No, nothing like that,” Zatanna replied. “I’ve basically cut off his motor functions and de-animated him. We have to get him out of the open. We’re vulnerable here.”
“I don’t understand.”
Blue Beetle placed a hand on her shoulder. “I promise that we’ll explain everything.” He looked at Zatanna. “Well, she’ll explain everything. I don’t really understand what’s happening. But right now the most important thing is for us to get somewhere safe.”
“What did you do to him?” Shayera demanded. “De-animated?”
Zatanna looked around their surroundings, obviously uncomfortable. “You have to understand that this isn’t Katar.”
“It looks like him. It fights like him.”
“Yes, it’s his body and his muscle memory is intact. But that’s not Katar. Not how you know him.”
“So, this is just a shell or something?”
“Exactly.” Zatanna took in a deep breath, hesitant to waste more time, but she knew that giving a little information now might speed things up so they could get somewhere safe. “Shayera, someone has stolen Katar’s soul.”
# # #
The Coin should have known better than to trust the Gentleman Ghost. Even though his moniker supposedly marked him as someone with honor, he should have realized that even though you’ve entered a pact with the devil, it’s still a horrible person you’ve ensnarled yourself with.
The plan had been simple enough: use the Genēh he had stolen to finally overpower Hawkman once and for all. The Coin has purloined the item, used the Ghost’s resources to acquire the other sage ingredients, and then directed the spell at their shared enemy. Sure enough, the plan had worked! Hawkman had been reduced to a blithering fool and was in no condition to stop them now. The Coin had gleefully watched as Hawkman had become bewildered at the ceremony he had stumbled onto, and then flown off without so much as a single word!
With the Genēh, he now had total control over Hawkman’s very own soul.
The Coin casually flipped the Genēh over in his palm, thankful that his luck had finally changed. Except that he was getting the sneaking suspicion that he had been double-crossed somehow.
He was alone in a warehouse where he was supposed to meet up with the Ghost to plan their next move in taking over Midway City. Silence reigned supreme in the vacant building, with only the soft metallic ping of his nail striking the Genēh to make it tumble end over end in the air.
After waiting long enough, and with his personal anger now at a peak, the Coin decided that enough was enough. He would be taken seriously now, especially since he had control over Hawkman. With the Genēh he could command the hero that had humiliated him time and again to do his bidding.
The Coin glanced at his watch. Ridiculous! How dare the Ghost stand him up like this. The villain was likely hatching his own plans to take over the town, excluding the Coin from his earned prize. After all, without the Coin’s help, the research into and the procurement of the precious Genēh, how could they have ever succeeded?
In fact, the more he thought about it, what right did the Gentleman Ghost have to the spoils at all? What had he really done other than provide a few spellworking trinkets? He could have gotten those himself, had he really wanted to! Yes, the Ghost had been a tool to be handled appropriately, just as the Coin always intended.
Fine. If the Ghost didn’t even have the decency to show up, then he wasn’t due to engage in taking over the entire population either. Whatever the Ghost was up to, it wouldn’t compare to what the Coin had in store next.
There was a reason that the Coin had opted to meet in this old warehouse. He had used it for personal storage many years ago, and just in case the Ghost had decided to betray him, he would find that it was booby-trapped and the Coin would have the last laugh.
Oh, yes, the warehouse held many of the Coin’s secrets. His Suicide B. Anthony Machine, his Morgan Dollar Dynamite, and his Killer Krugerrands, among other creations. Should the Ghost have been gentlemanly enough to actually attend their meeting, the Coin would have delighted in showing off his doomsday device, the exquisite item that would hold Midway City for ransom and push them into another league of power.
The Coin sauntered to a switch on the wall. Once pulled it would reveal his hidden stairwell that led to a massive underground facility. Once there he could begin piecing together his glorious device. The city would be his, and everyone else could go to hell.
# # #
“Nice place you have here!” Blue Beetle announced after kicking in the front door. The cobwebs were nearly as thick as the shadows inside the massive structure, but he trusted Shayera and if she said this was a safe location, then they would be fine here for the time being.
Zatanna’s brow furrowed in concentration, mentally shoving the bound Hawkman into the Mount Tobar Observatory. An astronomical research center located in Midway City, the Observatory had fallen into disrepair over the last few years once NASA funding had dried up. Katar and Shayera had sought refuge there several times, but this was their first time using it after the doors had been sealed shut.
Hawkwoman swept into the room behind them, supported in the air by her wings and nth metal harness. She had insisted that she be allowed to retrieve them before coming here, the only safe haven she could think of outside of the city. They were close to the Canadian border and acres upon acres of wilderness, so the chances of Katar wrecking another bus were slim.
“Put him over here,” Shayera said, motioning to the reception desk. It had been cleared off ages ago, with only a thick layer of dust covering it now. “Can he hear us?”
“Unlikely,” Zatanna replied as she set Hawkman down, glad to finally be rid of the mentally taxing load. “Or rather, I should say that he can hear you, but he’s not able to comprehend it.”
Shayera brought a few chairs over from the side of the room and slid them in front of the reception desk. “Start explaining,” she demanded. “What’s happening to my husband?”
“I’ll see if I can find us something to quench our thirst,” Blue Beetle interjected. “And maybe I can get these lights back on for us.”
He let his hand rest on Zatanna’s shoulder for a moment before leaving the reception area and moving deeper into the structure to explore. They had been through a lot together over the last few days, and he knew that the worst of it likely wasn’t over yet. They had Hawkman back, for now, but they had contained him once already and he had gotten out easily enough.
“From my initial mystical examination,” Zatanna began, “it looks like physically he is fine. His heart is beating, his brainwaves are flowing, and his body is obviously in perfect condition.” She rubbed her ribs at the thought.
“But,” Shayera stated.
“But…someone has stolen his soul, Shayera.”
“What does that even mean? How do you just take someone’s soul and leave a fully functional body?”
Zatanna took a deep breath, and then said, “From the magical residue left around his aura, my best guess is that someone tried to ensnare his soul, possibly in an attempt to control it, but instead removed it entirely. The framework of the spell used was amateur at best. The person did not know what they were doing, hence why instead of using Katar like a puppet they instead got treated to a base-functioning, feral version of him.”
“So it sounds like his condition is an accident then.”
Zatanna nodded. “Given what I’m seeing, the scarred aura, the fragmented mental state, the compulsive animation…it looks like this is a spell gone wrong. That automatically rules out most of the usual suspects. Felix Faust would never have done something this sloppy.”
“Then who did?”
“Well…can you tell me about any cases that Katar might have been working on? Anything that he mentioned about recent encounters with enemies?”
“No. Things have been quiet in the city for weeks. He wasn’t working on anything. He had been called out on League business a few months ago, but that had to do with acting as a reserve while the primary League went to Oa for a few days. It was uneventful for him; mostly monitor duty.”
“I won’t lie to you, Shayera. I know you too well to do that. You called me and Ted out here to help find Katar because you trust us. So, I’ll give it to you straight. We need a lead. I’m not finding any clues as to what is really happening here.”
Hawkwoman ground her teeth as she looked at her dormant husband. “Then what do we do next? A soul can’t just vanish, right? There has to be some kind of trace you can do. If someone took Katar’s soul, then it has to have gone somewhere. It couldn’t have just…I don’t know, dissipated, right?”
Before Zatanna could tell her that she really didn’t have an answer to that very question, the lights fluttered back on. A large flat screen TV over the reception desk flickered to life, showing a static-filled news broadcast. With no one manning the facility, the cable feed had been killed long ago, but the basic antenna built into the TV was still picking up local signals.
Blue Beetle burst back into the room. “Ta-da! I did it! Hold your applause, unless of course you just can’t contain yourself. Which I would totally—”
“Ted,” Zatanna said.
He raised his hands defensively. “Before you tell me I’m immature, wait until you see the snacks I found in the breakroom. Oreos for all!”
“Ted!” Zatanna repeated.
“Look, I know this situation sucks, but don’t hate on me for—”
Hawkwoman chimed in, but she wasn’t even looking at the cobalt-clad hero. “Shut up,” she muttered as she flapped her wings once, hard enough to propel her across the lobby and to just below the huge television. She turned up the volume.
Through the static they could see a huge pink automaton smashing into Cornerstone Tower, a true monument and tourist site for Midway City. Massive pink appendages crashed through several floors of the steel tower, devastating it instantly. The wreckage poured down onto the streets below, crushing cars and various landmarks.
The cameraman zoomed out and they saw what, given any other circumstance, would have looked comical: a piggy bank the size of a skyscraper walking on its hind legs, bursting through buildings downtown.
“Is this live?” Beetle asked.
On the TV, the reporter’s voiceover said, “The gargantuan robot appeared from the warehouse district only moments ago, smashing its way out of an abandoned storage facility. No one has taken credit for this assault yet as the decimation of downtown Midway City continues. Residents are informed to evacuate immediately.”
The trio glanced at each other, momentarily shocked at the news. They had been right outside of the Museum merely an hour ago before seeking refuge.
“The question now,” the reported continued, “is where is Hawkman to defend us from this threat?”
TO BE CONCLUDED!
Tonight, however, none of that mattered. All that mattered was trying to push backwards syllables out of her mouth faster than her enraged opponent could move. She barely had enough time to utter her spell before Hawkman leapt at them, menace in his eyes.
Despite the fact that Katar of Thanagar had once fought beside her, his soulless body now only wanted to twist the life from her neck. She had tracked Katar through Midway City over the last two weeks alongside another former teammate, the gallivanting Blue Beetle. They had bound him before, but they had gotten the drop on him then. Now…now a kind of bloodlust had overtaken him.
“!lepeR” Zatanna blurted out just as Hawkman’s fingers came within a hair’s width from her neck.
A bubble of invisible force formed between them and instantly burst, catapulting Hawkman head over heels away from her. Zatanna pulled in a deep breath, thankful to have honed that particular spell to perfection many years ago.
Hawkman tumbled over, slamming against the stone steps of the Midway City Museum of Natural History. He quickly righted himself and flapped his massive wings downward, thrusting him a dozen feet into the air. It would take more than quick spellwork to bring him down again.
“What’s going on?” Shayera demanded. In another guise she was the wife of this frightening man now soaring over them, known as Hawkwoman. Having just left her offices in the Museum and devoid of her own nth metal harness, however, she was at just as much a disadvantage as the others. She looked skyward and shouted, “Katar!”
“Best not to draw his attention,” Blue Beetle said as he raced over to them, his own eyes cast upward. “He did just try to kill two-thirds of us after all.”
“His eyes,” Shayera said. “There was nothing behind them. It was like he was—”
“Hollow,” Zatanna quickly said. She tossed a glance at the smashed bus that Hawkman had virtually destroyed. “Look, there’s a lot to explain, but not here. We have to get him contained again before he hurts someone.”
“Did someone do this to him?” Shayera demanded.
“Yes, but we—look out!”
Blue Beetle threw himself in between the two women and the mindless Hawkman, taking a heel across the chin. The winged warrior allowed gravity and the propulsion of his wings to close the gap below him, thrusting his foot out to catch his former teammate off guard.
On the ground again, Hawkman backhanded the stunned Blue Beetle, who just barely managed to roll with the hit. The power of the nth metal harness that enhanced Hawkman’s strength made that minor tap feel like a pile driver, and Blue Beetle fell to one knee.
“Katar!” Shayera shouted.
Zatanna pulled her back. “It’s not him; not really,” she said. “We have to contain him. Do you think you can distract him for a few minutes while I pull together an enchantment?”
“I know my husband,” Shayera replied. “He cannot be distracted.”
Blue Beetle twisted under another haymaker, sprung up, and drove a kick into Hawkman’s abdomen. “Less talk, more spells!” he shouted as he blocked another punch with his forearm, but left his side open for Hawkman to drive fist into.
There was no doubt that Hawkman was the superior combatant. Blue Beetle’s only goal was to delay his former friend as long as possible and pray that Zatanna could get something cooking that would contain him once more.
Likewise, Shayera knew that to engage Hawkman directly would be foolish. With her harness, perhaps she could to toe to toe with him. But without it she wouldn’t last any longer than Blue Beetle. The man was simply a pureblood warrior, whose skills had been honed to perfection through years of both intense training and real world experience.
Hawkman’s harness enhanced not only his strength, but his speed and other senses as well, making him almost preternatural. Combined with his current rampaging state, she knew that he was capable of anything and had likely disposed of whatever self-restraint he normally imposed on himself.
Blue Beetle did a back handspring and yanked a white cable off of his utility belt. He chanced a quick look at the pair now beside him. “Whenever you’re ready!” he said. “I know this looks fun, but I’m willing to take a break so you can do your thing!”
He cocked his arm back and slung the cable forward as hard as his muscles would allow. The cable spun around Hawkman, propelled in a loop around its intended target by a miniature gyroscope at the end of the line, designed by Ted Kord himself. The cable wove itself around and around Hawkman, pulling tight and holding his arms and legs together.
Shayera stepped in front of the struggling Hawkman. “Katar, please!” she said. “It’s me! Shayera! You have to stop this. You have to come back to me.”
In reply he struggled against the cable and growled incoherently. The cable started to loosen. Within moment he would be free again and the grotesque emptiness behind his eyes had not changed. She realized that no amount of talking would get through to him.
So, she broke his nose.
The quick strike of her palm against the bridge of his nose stunned him and he paused in his struggle for a moment. Blood gushed out, spilling down his mouth and making him look inhuman.
She took advantage of the interlude to spin low to the ground with her leg outstretched, catching him in a perfectly executed leg sweep. He fell over awkwardly, his massive wings fighting to keep him upright, but not able to keep him steady.
Shayera was on top of him instantly, straddling him and lending her weight to the pounds of pressure enforced by the restricting cable. Hawkman bellowed, but she ignored him, instead pulling off his avian helmet and striking him with it across the face.
Engaging him directly and trading blows…foolish. Engaging him indirectly and playing dirty…effective.
“Damn,” Blue Beetle muttered. “Hey, Z, did you see—oh. Sorry.”
A purple aura had encapsulated Zatanna and she now hovered three feet off of the ground. Blue Beetle stepped back, feeling heat radiate off of his compatriot. As a man of science, he knew very little about magic, except what he had learned from a few trinkets that had crossed his path throughout his heroic career. He knew enough to back off when the lady in the top hat was throwing around cosmic forces.
Ropes of power lashed out from her aura, bending in space and then returning. Her eyes were translucent, the pigment gone, allowing her mind to look freely onto the scene.
Just as Shayera was finally thrown off by the bucking Hawkman, Zatanna yelled, “!tnelis llaf llehs sselefil siht teL”
The violet energy let her, instead wrapping itself around Hawkman. It filled him completely, pushing into his mouth, eyes, and ears. He hung three feet off the ground, looking as Zatanna had, the purple energy not enveloping him in a sort of cocoon. The fight had been drained away and he now hung, lifeless.
“No…” Shayera muttered. “You’ve killed him!”
“No, nothing like that,” Zatanna replied. “I’ve basically cut off his motor functions and de-animated him. We have to get him out of the open. We’re vulnerable here.”
“I don’t understand.”
Blue Beetle placed a hand on her shoulder. “I promise that we’ll explain everything.” He looked at Zatanna. “Well, she’ll explain everything. I don’t really understand what’s happening. But right now the most important thing is for us to get somewhere safe.”
“What did you do to him?” Shayera demanded. “De-animated?”
Zatanna looked around their surroundings, obviously uncomfortable. “You have to understand that this isn’t Katar.”
“It looks like him. It fights like him.”
“Yes, it’s his body and his muscle memory is intact. But that’s not Katar. Not how you know him.”
“So, this is just a shell or something?”
“Exactly.” Zatanna took in a deep breath, hesitant to waste more time, but she knew that giving a little information now might speed things up so they could get somewhere safe. “Shayera, someone has stolen Katar’s soul.”
# # #
The Coin should have known better than to trust the Gentleman Ghost. Even though his moniker supposedly marked him as someone with honor, he should have realized that even though you’ve entered a pact with the devil, it’s still a horrible person you’ve ensnarled yourself with.
The plan had been simple enough: use the Genēh he had stolen to finally overpower Hawkman once and for all. The Coin has purloined the item, used the Ghost’s resources to acquire the other sage ingredients, and then directed the spell at their shared enemy. Sure enough, the plan had worked! Hawkman had been reduced to a blithering fool and was in no condition to stop them now. The Coin had gleefully watched as Hawkman had become bewildered at the ceremony he had stumbled onto, and then flown off without so much as a single word!
With the Genēh, he now had total control over Hawkman’s very own soul.
The Coin casually flipped the Genēh over in his palm, thankful that his luck had finally changed. Except that he was getting the sneaking suspicion that he had been double-crossed somehow.
He was alone in a warehouse where he was supposed to meet up with the Ghost to plan their next move in taking over Midway City. Silence reigned supreme in the vacant building, with only the soft metallic ping of his nail striking the Genēh to make it tumble end over end in the air.
After waiting long enough, and with his personal anger now at a peak, the Coin decided that enough was enough. He would be taken seriously now, especially since he had control over Hawkman. With the Genēh he could command the hero that had humiliated him time and again to do his bidding.
The Coin glanced at his watch. Ridiculous! How dare the Ghost stand him up like this. The villain was likely hatching his own plans to take over the town, excluding the Coin from his earned prize. After all, without the Coin’s help, the research into and the procurement of the precious Genēh, how could they have ever succeeded?
In fact, the more he thought about it, what right did the Gentleman Ghost have to the spoils at all? What had he really done other than provide a few spellworking trinkets? He could have gotten those himself, had he really wanted to! Yes, the Ghost had been a tool to be handled appropriately, just as the Coin always intended.
Fine. If the Ghost didn’t even have the decency to show up, then he wasn’t due to engage in taking over the entire population either. Whatever the Ghost was up to, it wouldn’t compare to what the Coin had in store next.
There was a reason that the Coin had opted to meet in this old warehouse. He had used it for personal storage many years ago, and just in case the Ghost had decided to betray him, he would find that it was booby-trapped and the Coin would have the last laugh.
Oh, yes, the warehouse held many of the Coin’s secrets. His Suicide B. Anthony Machine, his Morgan Dollar Dynamite, and his Killer Krugerrands, among other creations. Should the Ghost have been gentlemanly enough to actually attend their meeting, the Coin would have delighted in showing off his doomsday device, the exquisite item that would hold Midway City for ransom and push them into another league of power.
The Coin sauntered to a switch on the wall. Once pulled it would reveal his hidden stairwell that led to a massive underground facility. Once there he could begin piecing together his glorious device. The city would be his, and everyone else could go to hell.
# # #
“Nice place you have here!” Blue Beetle announced after kicking in the front door. The cobwebs were nearly as thick as the shadows inside the massive structure, but he trusted Shayera and if she said this was a safe location, then they would be fine here for the time being.
Zatanna’s brow furrowed in concentration, mentally shoving the bound Hawkman into the Mount Tobar Observatory. An astronomical research center located in Midway City, the Observatory had fallen into disrepair over the last few years once NASA funding had dried up. Katar and Shayera had sought refuge there several times, but this was their first time using it after the doors had been sealed shut.
Hawkwoman swept into the room behind them, supported in the air by her wings and nth metal harness. She had insisted that she be allowed to retrieve them before coming here, the only safe haven she could think of outside of the city. They were close to the Canadian border and acres upon acres of wilderness, so the chances of Katar wrecking another bus were slim.
“Put him over here,” Shayera said, motioning to the reception desk. It had been cleared off ages ago, with only a thick layer of dust covering it now. “Can he hear us?”
“Unlikely,” Zatanna replied as she set Hawkman down, glad to finally be rid of the mentally taxing load. “Or rather, I should say that he can hear you, but he’s not able to comprehend it.”
Shayera brought a few chairs over from the side of the room and slid them in front of the reception desk. “Start explaining,” she demanded. “What’s happening to my husband?”
“I’ll see if I can find us something to quench our thirst,” Blue Beetle interjected. “And maybe I can get these lights back on for us.”
He let his hand rest on Zatanna’s shoulder for a moment before leaving the reception area and moving deeper into the structure to explore. They had been through a lot together over the last few days, and he knew that the worst of it likely wasn’t over yet. They had Hawkman back, for now, but they had contained him once already and he had gotten out easily enough.
“From my initial mystical examination,” Zatanna began, “it looks like physically he is fine. His heart is beating, his brainwaves are flowing, and his body is obviously in perfect condition.” She rubbed her ribs at the thought.
“But,” Shayera stated.
“But…someone has stolen his soul, Shayera.”
“What does that even mean? How do you just take someone’s soul and leave a fully functional body?”
Zatanna took a deep breath, and then said, “From the magical residue left around his aura, my best guess is that someone tried to ensnare his soul, possibly in an attempt to control it, but instead removed it entirely. The framework of the spell used was amateur at best. The person did not know what they were doing, hence why instead of using Katar like a puppet they instead got treated to a base-functioning, feral version of him.”
“So it sounds like his condition is an accident then.”
Zatanna nodded. “Given what I’m seeing, the scarred aura, the fragmented mental state, the compulsive animation…it looks like this is a spell gone wrong. That automatically rules out most of the usual suspects. Felix Faust would never have done something this sloppy.”
“Then who did?”
“Well…can you tell me about any cases that Katar might have been working on? Anything that he mentioned about recent encounters with enemies?”
“No. Things have been quiet in the city for weeks. He wasn’t working on anything. He had been called out on League business a few months ago, but that had to do with acting as a reserve while the primary League went to Oa for a few days. It was uneventful for him; mostly monitor duty.”
“I won’t lie to you, Shayera. I know you too well to do that. You called me and Ted out here to help find Katar because you trust us. So, I’ll give it to you straight. We need a lead. I’m not finding any clues as to what is really happening here.”
Hawkwoman ground her teeth as she looked at her dormant husband. “Then what do we do next? A soul can’t just vanish, right? There has to be some kind of trace you can do. If someone took Katar’s soul, then it has to have gone somewhere. It couldn’t have just…I don’t know, dissipated, right?”
Before Zatanna could tell her that she really didn’t have an answer to that very question, the lights fluttered back on. A large flat screen TV over the reception desk flickered to life, showing a static-filled news broadcast. With no one manning the facility, the cable feed had been killed long ago, but the basic antenna built into the TV was still picking up local signals.
Blue Beetle burst back into the room. “Ta-da! I did it! Hold your applause, unless of course you just can’t contain yourself. Which I would totally—”
“Ted,” Zatanna said.
He raised his hands defensively. “Before you tell me I’m immature, wait until you see the snacks I found in the breakroom. Oreos for all!”
“Ted!” Zatanna repeated.
“Look, I know this situation sucks, but don’t hate on me for—”
Hawkwoman chimed in, but she wasn’t even looking at the cobalt-clad hero. “Shut up,” she muttered as she flapped her wings once, hard enough to propel her across the lobby and to just below the huge television. She turned up the volume.
Through the static they could see a huge pink automaton smashing into Cornerstone Tower, a true monument and tourist site for Midway City. Massive pink appendages crashed through several floors of the steel tower, devastating it instantly. The wreckage poured down onto the streets below, crushing cars and various landmarks.
The cameraman zoomed out and they saw what, given any other circumstance, would have looked comical: a piggy bank the size of a skyscraper walking on its hind legs, bursting through buildings downtown.
“Is this live?” Beetle asked.
On the TV, the reporter’s voiceover said, “The gargantuan robot appeared from the warehouse district only moments ago, smashing its way out of an abandoned storage facility. No one has taken credit for this assault yet as the decimation of downtown Midway City continues. Residents are informed to evacuate immediately.”
The trio glanced at each other, momentarily shocked at the news. They had been right outside of the Museum merely an hour ago before seeking refuge.
“The question now,” the reported continued, “is where is Hawkman to defend us from this threat?”
TO BE CONCLUDED!