Behold the wolf king.

Talia was overwhelmed. Horrified beyond comprehension as her eyes shifted back and forth violently as if trying to escape. “Get out…”the illusions that swam through her mind swirled and changed, showing Talia her entire life play out in front of her; from her childhood, to the years of training under her father’s teachers, to her first kill, to confronting the Batman. All the years of her life played out for her to see, and in every slice of time of those moments was the eldritch monster summoned by Constantine leering down at her in every second of her life. “Get out of my mind… Out of my memories!”

“I have always been in your thoughts, in your memories, your mind was never open wide enough to perceive me in them until now.”

“SHUT UP!”

Clutching her head, Talia fell to her knees, all she could see was the coiling mass of tentacles, teeth and eyes glaring back at her while its voice whispered in her head. “I have watched you for all of her days, a pawn that thinks itself a Queen on the chess board, do you know how many children your father has had? How many he has sacrificed for his goals?” From there, Talia’s eyes went wide with horror as she was shown memories not her own, spanning centuries. “Arkady Duvall, groomed to be his greatest weapon in the hopes of shattering the American Union, left to rot in old age for his failures.” The image of an elderly man in a retirement home, drooling and riddled with dimensia made Talia shiver. “Nyssa Raatko… Tossed aside and abandoned, even after she taught her father so many secrets of the Lazarus pit.” Seeing the look of a broken woman in a Russian gulag during World War Two, Talia whimpered, hot bloody tears streaming down her face. “Dusan the White Ghost, neglected and disposed of for being born an albino, unusable.”

“Stop it!”

“Even under the rule of a new king… Or Count, you remain a pawn.”

“STOP THIS!!! PLEASE, I BEG OF YOU!!!!!”

“In the abyss, all have purpose… And that purpose is nothing.”

Zatanna faired no better, shaking on her feet, the woman was shown all her memories flash before her eyes, and in some corner or shadow of all of them this Demon floated just within sight. “You play with magic like a child plays with matches… How many times have you been burned by your spells? How many times by others?”

Her eyes twitching, Zatanna’s memories laid bare before her, even the ones she didn’t remember; suddenly remembering the moment Dracula first came to her, hypnotised her, drained her for knowledge and blood, then used her to extract information from Bruce Wayne, letting him screw her over and over again over her desk and twisting her mind into hating her former friends and loved ones. The memories contradicting the thoughts in her head that could no longer hold under scrutiny, false memories crumbling under the face of truth.

“He uses you as a tool for his own goals, even now, what happens to a tool that has served its purpose? What happens to the magician after the act is over?”

“No! That’s not me, Dracula loves me, he has always loved me!”

“You cry out into the abyss for an answer, an affirmation, the abyss answers… Always in silence.”

“No…” Falling to her knees to join Talia and Vicky on the ground, the three brides of Dracula looked up in absolute horror, their minds sifted and picked at by the shapeless creature glaring back down at them, its primary cyclopean eye burning like a torch while eye stalks and tentacles appeared and disappeared from its central mass.

“Cain Adamson, High Priest Nagash, Vladimir Tepes, Dracula of Carpathia, so many lives lived and squandered, so many centuries left adrift through time… All to wait for HER!” Far more strong-willed than his brides, the Count was no less bombarded with thoughts and emotions both his own and not, reliving the lives he had with his true love, over and over again, each time a tragedy, each time a false hope dangled over his nose only to be pulled away at the last second. “You claim to be a Count, a No-Life King, a lord of the dead and wielder of the damned… Your empire pales in the shadows of the obsidian spires of R’lyeh, where the nightmares of nightmares dwell and all things fall away to dust and whispers.”

Insanity, pure insanity was the danger of this demon, its presence so toxic to the mind that even the strongest would fall to their knees trying to claw the images from their gouged-out eyes. Clenching his fists so hard they drew blood, Dracula glared up at the abyssal demon leering down at him, all around him the tapestry of his life played out like a kaleidoscope of memories and dreams, failed ambitions, nightmares and failures. Everywhere he looked, his failures played out in front of him, only the abyssal creature was constant, fixed at the center of his vision.

That was it!

The only constant in the sensory violation assaulting his sight, smell, taste and hearing was the shapeless creature demanding his full attention. Taking a chance, the vampire count struck out at the only thing he believed was real.

*

“Give it up Deathstroke, you have nothing left that can stop me.”

Still aiming his pistols at the Dark Knight and backing away slowly, the mercenary glared back at the man, his pistols steady in his hands… But doubt was already settling into him, if he could take two clips worth of bullets, another set would do very little if anything at all. That is, until he aimed one of his pistols at one of his hostages.

“I’m done here, and you are going to let me leave, unharmed.”

“Harm any one of them and you won’t make it past the flag podium.”

Cocking the trigger to his pistol, the sound made Batman freeze. “I’m leaving, your staying, its that simple.”

Glaring back at the man, the crowd, the police, the hostages, they all got a surprise when they heard the dark knight growl. Suddenly his body began to swell larger, growing in size and muscle until his body armor couldn’t contain him anymore, bursting at the seems where thick black fur grew out from the tears. The mask fell away when his humanoid face pushed out into a lupine shape, baring sharp teeth and yellow eyes, his long ears arched back in anger. Taken back and shaking, clutching the grenades in their hands, the hostages screamed when the Batman had transformed into a massive black werewolf… In broad daylight!

“Grrrr…I’m giving you one last chance; drop the guns and you won’t be harmed.” Snarling and brandishing his claws,

“I can dodge a grenade blast, but they can’t, not all twenty of them anyway, what have you got that can beat me?”

Bringing two of his clawed fingers to his mouth, Batman whistled out loud, almost as if calling out for something. Then off in the distance, Slade heard a sonic boom. Turning his head just in time to see a blonde blur sweep past the hostages, their hands suddenly empty. Off in the distance, the sounds of grenades went off like firecrackers high up in the air. Turning his attention back to the black wolf, Slade tried to aim between the wolf’s eyes, only for the blur to appear again and find his gun missing… Along with every bone in his hand broken. Reeling in pain and falling onto his back, Deathstroke made to use his other pistol when the source of the honey coloured blur landed between him and the Batman, all 2 tonnes of Power Girl stood on all sixes with her hackles and spines up, roaring down at the prone man with enough force that it felt like a hurricane wind. Swiping away the other pistol with enough force that everyone heard his wrist snap.

Pressing one of her claws down on his body armored torso, another gripped at Deathstroke’s helmet and cracked it under her strength, tossing the yellow and black panels away to reveal the man’s face. Well into his fifties if not older, the man’s good eye glared up at the massive cragwolf with defiance, blood staining his teeth from biting his lip. Opening her jaws wide, Kara looked as if she planned to bite his head off.

“That’s enough Kara!”

Slowly calming down, the massive she-wolf rose up and closed her mouth, glaring down at the broken man before lifting herself up to her hind legs, a tilt in her hip as she rested one of her hands at her waist. “I wasn’t going to bite him, just scare the shit out of him.”

Looking over to the crowd of reporters, police and the hostages who had finally fled to the safety of the officers nearby. Bruce padded over to Commissioner Gordon and untied the man, setting the shocked man down before looking over to Kara. “Let’s go…” Grabbing the offered hand of the she-wolf, both werewolves disappeared in a black and blonde blur high up into the air, the sound of a sonic boom could be heard before the y disappeared.

“What the fuck just happened?!”