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Legal disclaimer: The intellectual properties, and their variations belong to DC and its parent, AT&T, with notable exceptions. More on that in the epilogue. I do not own DC characters or their interpretations and reimaginings. My own characters are implied Public Domain since I have not included a copyright notice as required by the 1974 revisions of the copyright statutes and regulations. While an intellectual copyright is implied without the due symbols and language, all such considerations are generally voided under CC-BY-SA, which governs this site, unless duly noted otherwise
In accordance with Open Source policy I have included a creator attribution for Cabala at the end of the story with appropriate legalese.
"Oi! When're we killin' that bitch Tinker Bell an' her murderin' whore?" Maimie Mannering demanded to know.
Dorothy Gale pinched the bridge of her nose with her eyes closed and her jaw clenched, "Not. Yet."
"Well, why bloody well not?" Maimie hadn't relented on the demanding.
Dorothy had to remind herself that Maimie's time in Neverland and subsequent transformations had stunted her as a thirteen-year old physically and emotionally for, well, forever. At least after returning to Oz several times and finally relocating there as a sixteen-year old she'd aged until the blood sacrifice of the witch's had rendered Dorothy immortal with the earned purest white hair to prove it. Dorothy had slid into her twenties during that gap. But the purging of her rivals left Dorothy as the Wicked Witch of Oz. And only the aging Glinda had remained to challenge her supremacy.
But the not-so-wonderful Wizard of Oz had bargained with the Seelie and Unseelie Courts of Faery to apprehend and lock away Dorothy. In exchange, the Wizard constructed a clockwork weapon to kill one of the Unseelie's own, a renegade sidhe named Renfri.
By that time nearly every one of the Twenty-Seven Realms of Existence had been threatened by the Evil Queen. A title she earned after poisoning her very mortal husband, seizing the throne of the Realm of Fables, and launching a genocidal campaign against her own kind and putting down a rebellion led by her stepdaughters, Snow White and Rose Red.
The Evil Queen, like the other sidhe had been born shortly after creation. And within three thousand years, as the fey came to being, Renfri was outcast and a death mark placed on her name. The merest mention of it summoned the Wild Hunt riders with express orders to kill her. So after fourteen billion years, the Evil Queen held a grudge.
But she was well traveled and equally well versed in illusion magic despite it not being related to her core magic. That core, hidden from even her own kind, was guarded as the most paramount secret in Renfri's immortal life.
But new threats seemed arise. Alice the Mad Hatter, whose core magic was the ability to twist and control minds upon physical contact allied herself with Tinker Bell and butchered Neverland's lord and master and its inhabitants. And Peter Pan's death drove Maimie to the brink of madness in her lust for revenge.
To add insult to Maimie's injury, Alice and Tinker Bell became lovers. They wandered the Realms wreaking havoc and pushing the differing Realms to war footings in advance of the Evil Queen's invasions. The Wizard and Glinda bartered again to parole Dorothy and set her on a leash out to destroy Alice and Tinker Bell. Once she accomplished that task, she'd be exiled back to Earth Prime prior to the Crisis of the Multiverse and its resultant Zero Hour.
Now a lone universe existed as a Realm rather than a Multiverse. And Oz had fallen before the Evil Queen's armies. Ozma had been slain and with the death of her magic, the Wizard had aged to dust. Glinda had been taken as a trophy and rumors circulated that unspeakable horrors had been committed upon her. Dorothy was completely copacetic with the fate of her former friends and mentors. What she was reconsidering was the value of killing Alice. Tinker Bell was a tool to manipulate Alice with. But Alice was powerful. More powerful than her parents, the White Queen and the Mad Hatter, would admit to. One of Alice's younger sisters, Illyria the Mad Hatter, had the ability to destroy a mind with physical contact.
But only to destroy a single mind a time. Alice had her hooks into any mind she'd tapped into. She could resume control over any person, and any number of persons, at any distance within a single Realm. All with a single thought. And she could peer into their thoughts and memories at any given whim.
So Alice was a weapon in desperate need of deployment. And Dorothy thought she saw a way to do so. But first she'd have to isolate Alice from her companions in the Injustice Society. Goldilocks in particular had befriended Alice and Tink. Which made her equal leverage as Tinker Bell.
But Dorothy needed additional sources of power and additional magical lore and spell craft in order to counterweight Alice's advantage. And so she'd been using a scrying globe and it had detected latent power. Latent untapped power residing out of Kansas. Dorothy had taken up residence in the house that sat on Auntie Emm and Uncle Henry's old farm. She'd ensorcelled the owner's to simply deed it to her then pack up and move to parts unknown. Frankly, Dorothy didn't care where or how they survived afterwards as long as they were gone. But Dorothy required peace and quiet to track down these power emissions.
"Maimie, I have heard rumors that the Injustice Society is in Pittsburgh. Tinker Bell and Alice will be with them," Dorothy conjured a short range tracking spell, "Once you're there, this can lead you to them if you're close enough."
"Give it!" Maimie was impatient.
"You scout ahead and I'll come when you call for me, `kay?" frankly she didn't know nor cared where the Injustice Society was. But it would keep Maimie busy long enough to get some business done.
"Crikey! Send me already!" the willful tween took the crackling spell into her hand and gave Dorothy a quizzical look.
Dorothy sighed, "Thattaway."
Maimie rushed over and flew out of the now open front door. Dorothy distractedly gestured and the door slammed shut. Dorothy knew Renfri's magic and also knew that the Evil Queen was responsible for the emanations she'd detected. Likely a lair left behind on Earth. The only Realm to ever have repulsed the Evil Queen was Earth's universe. And she wouldn't nurse that prideful wound for long.
The Evil Queen's expertise cloaked where her lair was but not entirely that it existed. So it came down to the Wicked Witch's skill versus that of the undying Evil Queen. Dorothy had been gathering ingredients for a potion to enhance her spell. She'd even raided a coven to purloin their cauldron. Because it was going to take bucketfuls of potions and charms to enhance the tracking spell to be cast in order to strengthen it to the point it would be global and powerful enough to penetrate whatever shielding the Evil Queen had erected.
The spell erupted above cauldron after the syrupy quagmire had been mixed. It appeared as though a ball of blue and silver electrical flames. It divided itself into smaller portions and exploded out of the house to scour the globe. Dorothy herself was the beacon for the successful scout to return to. But Dorothy had just unleashed an atom bomb's equivalent of magic. Either her former associates in the Shadowmages or the Justice League would investigate. And she preferred delaying those cringe worthy reunions.
So Dorothy whiffed her way to Auckland, New Zealand in a swirl of green smoke. There she checked into a room after bewitching the front desk clerks into giving her a reserved room. No amount of persuasion would cause the staff to remove Dorothy from the room until she was ready to depart or a more powerful witch or mage countered her charm. The 19th Century was far cry from the 21st. Dorothy had left Kansas for good in 1905, the very dawn of the 20th Century. She really couldn't mark the changes down as progress. It just seemed people had become more efficient at killing and hurting one another in every imaginable way. And mores had adapted to accept behaviors that were considered reprehensible during Dorothy's youth. And why all the fuss over sexual and gender identities? Why object to what people know to be true?
Uncle Henry and Auntie Emm had been strict Methodists but even that denomination accepted what had been considered pagan and heathen before. Dorothy had visited Auntie Emm in the Twenties and torched the old biddy for condemning her for being a witch. Dorothy put the real witch on a pyre. The flames burned and consumed but Auntie Emm was condemned to survive until another witch counter acted the spell, thereby placing Auntie Emm in a witch's debt. The ultimate indignity and fitting of her crime.
Dorothy had arrived seventeen hours and one day ahead of Central Time in Kansas. So she brushed downstairs to collect a cup of coffee and watch the lingering on of guests in the lobby. She'd nearly finished when she sensed a sputtering return on her investment. She rushed back to her stolen room and intercepted the dying embers of her spell. It vanished as she touched it and she understood a general location in Ecuador was to be found.
Kansas had been in high summer. New Zealand was in the dead of winter. And Ecuador, also south of the equator would also be cooler but still in the tropics. So Dorothy cast a protection spell over herself ot protect against the climate and whiffed her way to an approximate location. Which proved to be sweltering rather than blistering.
Dorothy scared the bejezus out a village when her green smoke shroud swirled and evaporated for her to appear. She didn't have to spell them out of the village. They simply fled. She took a walkabout to to scout out the most opulent home, which made her house in Kansas seem palatial. She erected some wards to keep the villagers from returning with torches and pitchforks and spent the evening until she rested plotting out how to break the final concealing wards placed upon the Evil Queen's lair. Wherever it was. It was still resisting her efforts to pinpoint it. The Evil Queen was good, very, very good and damnably clever. But the Wicked Witch would win the next day.
At daybreak, Dorothy felt compelled to enter the forest. It took her the better part of the day but reached the base of the cliffs spawning out from the Andes range. She looked and wished she'd brought her hat to shelter her from the sun.
"Well, shit on a stick," she murmured. Halfway up the peak, on an outcropping, clouds malingered around a castle in the skies. A waterfall even ran down next to it.
It vaguely occurred to Dorothy to be concerned. After all, Renfri had been a fugitive and survived every attempt on her life for fourteen billion years. It was a nearly unparalleled record. And she'd traversed every Realm except for Heaven and Avalon. Her escapades in Hell were legendary lore amongst the magical set. Her only rival in angering Lucifer and placing him so dearly in debt was John Constantine.
But, owing to her Midwestern stubborn streak, Dorothy decided to plunge ahead and upward.
"Where does someone with this much power just appear from?" Zatanna Zatara asked aloud.
John Constantine took a drag off of a freshly lit cigarette, "No one like that ever happens to 'just appear', luv."
"She has a cornucopia of herbs and roots for making potions planted in these fields," Vivian Lachlan reported. Madame Xanadu and Vivian were sisters. Secretly High Sidhe from Avalon, where God had walked amongst the people, the Inwudu sisters, properly Nimue, Vivienne, and Morgaine had fallen and been cursed to appear human and dwell on Earth and enlisted to aid their half-brother, Arthur Pendragon. Nimue became Madame Xandadu. Vivienne became the Lady of the Lake. Morgaine was more infamously known as Morgan Le Fey. But they kept their immortality and thought it another curse rather than a blessing.
Nightshade approached from the house, "She hasn't been in for hours."
"She?" Zee asked.
"She," Nightshade held up lace panties and a bra to match, "And someone younger."
The evidence for Maimie was a tank and shorts but no shoes had been found for her.
"Could still be a man," Enchantress snorted, "Oh c'mon! Don't look at me like that. Half these Kansas farm boys want to be farm girls and be deflowered as such."
Silver Swan alighted nearby, "There's nothing interesting for a hundred mile radius."
Madame Xanadu held Valerie Beaudry's definition of "interesting" to be scornful at best.
Ragman's cloak and cape began twisting, "Something besides magic happened here. There was a disgruntlement of sorts before the spell was cast."
"Looks like we have a mystery, gang," Bobo T. Chimpanzee, the Detective Chimp mouthed off.
"Whatever happened it wasn't evil," Ragman sleuthed, "But it was very wicked."
"You don't think?" Cabala froze.
The Inwudu sisters each groaned as Silver Swan and Black Alice each asked, "Think what?"
Being the same age, they had to represent. Deadman was floating above them, "Hey, don't leave us dead guess hangin' here. I could die again from the suspense."
Flying monkeys erupted from the barn. Enchantress dryly said, "I think the answer just gave itself away."
"Swan! Hit them!" Cabala barked at Silver Swan.
Silver Swan opened her mouth and released a high pitched note. The resultant sonic shock wave knocked flying monkeys out of the air. They went down shrieking and clutching their ears. When Silver Swan relented, the eldest of the monkey tribe led them away across Kansas fields and farmsteads.
"I'm pleased none of them were hurt," Bobo T. admitted.
"I'm pleased none of us were hurt," Constantine removed a flask from his coat pocket, "Celebratory snort, anyone? A romping good orgy?"
"I'm sure Bobo is," Black Alice snorted. At one time Detective Chimp had been the resident alcoholic of the Oblivion Bar. Sadly drinking away the proceeds from his sold movie rights for a biopic that was never made. That and trading favors with the various mages and hellspawn that crowded the Oblivion Bar at all hours. And it was one dimensional block away from Hell's Big Belly Burger. Lady Blaze owned the corporation itself and gladly extended a franchise to Nekron. A franchise where three billion a day were "served" but no food was ever issued. But customers kept coming back anyway. Harboring a little hope could be the greatest damnation of all.
"Ha ha," Detective Chimp drolly laughed, "Besides he's not my type."
"Stunningly handsome?" Constantine fished for a compliment.
"An idiot," Black Alice answered before Bobo T. could.
"That I am. Let's drink to it," and he took a swig.
No one bought into the contrived deception. Constantine's act of callous disregard belied his compassionate nature and the fact he was one of the most skilled and knowledgeable warlocks on the planet. Possibly within the Realms.
"Hey! Idiots, the all of you!" Enchantress was emerging from the house, "While Nightshade conducted her impressive panty raid, she neglected to mention the big ass, used cauldron occupying the living room."
Nightshade shrugged, "It never came up."
Even the effervescent Zatanna rolled her eyes at that.
The Justice League filed into the living room and Black Alice waved in front of her face, "What is that gawdawful stink?"
Enchantress dipped her forefinger in the moldy morass occupying the cauldron and then sucked on the same finger, "Tastes like a tracking spell."
"That's disgusting!" Black Alice gasped and headed outdoors where she could be heard retching.
"Why do we put up with her again?" Deadman asked about the Enchantress.
"Boston as a point," Ragman referred to Boston Brand's ghost.
"Compared to Constantine, she's a saint." Zee pointed out.
"Luv, compared to me, everyone is a saint," he took another swig and then a drag and then belched a small blue flame.
Madame Xanadu quietly sat at Dorothy's table and dealt tarot cards before she began a reading. Images appeared in the smoke still rising from the spent cauldron. It showed Dorothy and Maimie conversing before the child's dismissal. Each card revealed a new scene. Culminating at when the spell was cast and its worldwide dispersal.
"She's seeking to draw power from something...or someone," Madame Xanadu interpreted, "There seems to be some confusion on that detail."
"You know we're talking about the Wicked Witch and her little friend from Neverland, right?" Nightshade asked.
"From effin' Oz!" Black Alice recalled their adventure there, "So they live here?"
"Both are from this Realm," Cabala was tracing numbers in the air, "Dorothy Gale was raised on this very farm and Maimie Mannering is originally from London."
"You met a very supposedly dead Evil Queen on that trip as well. An Evil Queen that threatened both the Justice League and Justice Society some months back," Bobo T. played historian.
"And the Wicked Witch feels very threatened," Madame Xanadu added to the conversation.
"So she's tracking the Evil Queen?" Ragman inquired.
"But she's a threat herself," Zatanna redirected the conversation, "Why would she feel threatened by the Evil Queen?"
"Because the Evil Queen is the greatest threat to the Realms since the slumbering Darkseid," Vivian explained.
"So the Wicked Witch is jealous," Silver Swan deduced.
"A great deal of Dorothy Gale's actions seem driven by peer rivalry," Vivian remarked. Madame Xanadu remained silent regarding her sister's commentary. Morgan le Fey hadn't fared much better regarding Arthur and she and Mordred, Arthur's bastard by his own half-sister, were equally cursed by Merlin. Mordred more so because his own mother hexed him with eternal youth and then revoked it.
"A word?" Enchantress drew the Inwudus in for a confab. She cast a spell to insure the privacy of the conversation. Cabala scowled.
"I feel insulted," she growled.
"So do I after all I've done for them," Zatanna bitched.
"Even I can't get through to spy a little," Deadman lamented.
"I don't believe we'll like what they have to say after this is wrapped up," Ragman opined.
"Rory makes a hell of a point," Detective Chimp concurred.
"They're talking about crafting their own tracking spell to track the witch's tracking spell and find out where it found whatever it was it was looking for," Constantine reported between swigs.
"How do you possibly know any of that?" Silver Swan had to wonder.
"`Cause I'm drinkin' the best moonshine Hell has to offer. It obscures the obvious and the obscure becomes obvious," Constantine began to slur, "Now does anyone care for a wee snort?"
"Hell, yeah!" Black Alice enthused.
"Absolutely not!" Nightshade ripped the flask out of his hand and cast it into her mother's native Land of the Nightshades.
"Bloody hell, woman. That swill goes for two souls an ounce," Constantine vented his frustration.
"Where did you even get some?" Cabala was perplexed.
"Brimstone Bar in Gotham," Constantine winked at her, "The bartender is an exiled demon tasked with fomenting crime and violence. I did him a few favors and now I get some black market hootch when I come a'callin'. Delightful little pub if I say so myself so I will."
"He's definitely buzzed and the kick on this slime lasts longer than an earthly booze," Nightshade groaned.
"What was the name of that bar?" Black Alice whispered to Constantine.
"Lori Zechlin, you are still six years away from being legal," Zatanna lectured her.
"No worries, luv. They don't card," Constantine dismissed the notion.
A collective groan was raised in response to that flippant remark. Zatanna tried a different tack, "John, you're attempting to contribute to the delinquency of a minor."
"Look at her," Rory Regan protested, "She's pretty delinquent already."
Black Alice flipped Ragman off.
"I could try to take a peek but the pain is pretty searing when I do," Deadman offered.
"Waitasec!" Ragman's cape snaked out the door and dragged in a floating Maimie.
"It's a kid," Silver Swan observed.
"Brilliance in action," Black Alice rolled her eyes rather theatrically.
"Geddoffame!" Maimie was struggling rather violently.
"Who is she anyway?" Zee wondered.
"She's the kid from Xanadu's reading," Nightshade formed a blade from the ambient darkness.
"Leggo, you tosser!" Maimie screamed.
"She's terrified," Silver Swan sympathized.
"She's Maimie effin' Mannering, Peter Pan's first and only Lost Girl. Formerly of Victorian London and recently Neverland. She was first on the scene after Tinker Bell killed Pan himself," Constantine recited, "God, that booze is good!"
"She's been hunting Tinker Bell and Alice the Mad Hatter ever since," Detective Chimp explained.
"You know this how?" Cabala asked.
"I do more than drink at the Oblivion Bar," Bobo T. retorted.
"Lemme go!" Maimie roared.
"!peelS" Zatanna ordered.
Maimie dozed off. Ragman settled his cape down but Nightshade prevented him from releasing the feral child, "We can't let her go if she doesn't calm down and wakes up just as violently."
"What happened to her ears," Silver Swan studied their elegant curves.
"The pixies transformed her the way they modified Pan. They saw Maimie and Peter as the penultimate couple," Bobo T. described the transformation, "Every attribute Pan possessed, Mammie can manifest as well."
"Wendy must've been a helluva surprise," Black Alice snorted.
"Maimie returned to London to say final farewells to her family. But thirty-five years had passed for them and they'd moved elsewhere or died," Bobo T. continued, "While she searched, Pan came across the Darlings. Maimie's angry return, and Tinker Bell's incessant jealousy drove Wendy, Michael and John from Neverland back to London. But Tink's ongoing jealousies and Alice's appearance in Neverland led them to trick Maimie into reentering the Prime Universe and kill Wendy and her children, Jane and Daniel, during WWII. When she returned to Neverland, Pan had sealed his alliance with Hook and his fate as well."
"Pan had shared literally everything, and I mean everything, with Maimie," Constantine added, "But Tinker Bell's jealousy spared Maimie and made her an eternal enemy."
"She's what? Twelve or thirteen? And you're implying she was sexually active with Peter effin' Pan?" Black Alice was beyond incredulity.
"She can bleed so she can breed," Constantine snickered.
"I am so gonna stuff your balls in your mouth," Black Alice warned.
"Been there, luvvy," Constantine snorted.
"Actually, she's one hundred and forty-five," Bobo T. clarified.
"And she's the key to finding Dorothy Gale," Madame Xanadu announced as Enchantress ended her privacy spell.
"How so?" Nightshade was suspicious.
"Ozma and the Wizard tasked the Wicked Witch with killing Alice the Mad Hatter. Since Tinker Bell is Alice's lover, she is always with Alice. And Maimie became Dorothy's bosom companion in order to kill both Tinker Bell and Alice," Vivian explained, "Thereby we can exploit Maimie Mannering's relationship with Dorothy Gale to track the Wicked Witch down."
"So we cut her loose and follow her?" Ragman inquired.
"We use her as the cornerstone for a spell to track Dorothy. When we have a location, we portal there and then cut Maimie loose and awaken her while we're in hiding in order to follow her straight to the witch," Xanadu told them all.
The spell faintly resembled Dorothy's but it immediately raced across the plains to cross the Rocky Mountains to leap off out across the Pacific Ocean to light on Auckland to move on to ford the Indian Ocean and then across Africa to adjust slightly to venture across Brazil and Columbia to arrive at a rural village amidst a clearing within the vast forests of Ecuador at the base of the Andes.
"Ecuador?" the image hung in the air.
"There is still residual Incan magic," Cabala shrugged, "But wild reports indicate a castle in the skies in that region. But no one can verify the claims."
As "Vanda Emmanuelle" Cabala was a reporter based out of Brasilia. Cabala was her actual name given her by the Jewish Kabalists that had raised Lancelot and Guinevere's illegitimate daughter in medieval Palestine. Vanda was her assumed name. Rather opposite of the ruling practice amongst the superhero set.
Cabala's youthful training in numerological sorcery was to suppress the dark and enhance the light. But dark magic was seductive and hungry and impossible to destroy with human efforts alone. Dark Justice had been usual in providing allies to her cause. But the Justice League had greater reach. And those Dark Justicers that had the vision to join the JLU stood beside her today. Whereas those lacking the faith to move onward wouldn't even join the Justice Society despite its membership rolls including the new Dr. Fate, Anna Fortune, the Sandman, and Sand.
Likewise Vivienne had been entrusted with Excalibur and Merlin's own staff before Merlin regressed further in age and as a slightly younger man, left to explore his options. Vivienne the Lady of the Lake morphed into Vivian Lachlan of Lachlan Keep on the loch she'd defended since being cursed by the High Sidhe.
Nimue was bestowed the dubious honor of defending Jason Blood and tempering Etrigan's lusts. But Madame Xanadu and Jason Blood separated after a few centuries due to Jason and Etrigan vying for Xanadu's sexual favors. She'd enough of both them and she lived a solitary life until led to found the Justice League Dark, which begat Dark Justice, which split between the Justicers and the Justice League Unlimited.
Madame Xanadu, Vivian, and Morgan had all confronted Toby Merlin in his new lair in Crossroads, Vermont. And they found that the now twentysomething Merlin had no interest in them and only in his quests of vanity at vexing the universe now that the Multiverse was no more. Merlin had steered Grail into destroying her father's power base. And Apokolips was freed from Darkseid's tyranny only to embrace Grail's vindictiveness.
Darkseid slumbered and the Elite were scattered. But the Hunger Dogs and the Lowlies still bowed under the weight of oppression. Vreti had died at Grail's hands when she deduced the offspring of Darkseid's loins plans for Apokolips after deposing her father. And the Justice League and all humans, meta or otherwise, were banned from Apokolips and now New Genesis as well to insure the peace.
The Evil Queen was no different except she twisted life itself to secure her reign. Offered allegiance was appreciated but mistrusted. But she pulled souls and damned them out of bodies to create wraiths bound and enslaved solely to her will. She twisted the fey, including but not excluding faeries, elves, gnomes, nymphs, and pixies into the foul creatures, including but not excluding ogres, trolls, goblins, and every fell creature save dragons, which weren't necessarily good or evil. Dragons gave loyalty, mercy, kindness, and respect to those that gave the same to them. Renfri even had a dragon mage in her retinue. A dragon whisperer if you will.
The Inwudu sisters had damned Uther to being a wraith after his rape of their mother and conceiving Arthur. And so they too were damned by the High Sidhe. If the sidhe could not forgive Renfri of the crime, how was it to expect the High Sidhe, the chosen of God, not to do the same? It was an unforgivable blasphemy. Only God could judge immortal destinations, not creations. And even the Angels, the Fallen, the Endless, the High Sidhe, the Lords of Chaos and Order, the Spirits of Vengeance and Justice, and the Court of the Dead were creations and not the Creator. Just as the Silent Knights served Avalon so too did the High Sidhe serve Heaven. Zauriel proving to be problematic for everyone. An Angel that hadn't fallen but had drifted downwards over the eons. The Crisis and Zero Hour being the breaking point in Zauriel's loyalties. Zauriel had first presented as a human male but now preferred a female incarnation.
Zauriel had discovered a taste for human carnality and identified as bisexual, zoosexual, necrosexual, pedophiliac, and a hardened BDSM advocate. As long as it couldn't outrun her, Zauriel had sex with it.
The village the JLers portalled to was still deserted. Although the inhabitants numbly stood outside its barriers, they couldn't enter. The counter spell was enacted and the dwellers returned somewhat mystified as to why'd they'd ever left and spent the night in the forest. The Wicked Witch's spell was easily overturned and had already been fading.
So it seemed Dorothy hadn't intended to permanently deprive the locals of their homes. Although, the village medicine man vociferously complained of items being drained of their magical essences.
They stepped into hiding and awoke Maimie. The tracking spell still lingered within her and she tore off flying into the forest headed towards the mountains. Cabala gave everyone a smug and utterly vindicated look. The second portion of the tracking spell now engaged and allowed the Justice League to track Maimie. So they to entered the forest. Frankly, despite their gratitude regarding their liberation, the villagers were relieved to see the JLers disappear hopefully never to return.
North of their location, Ecuadoran villagers cleared grasslands and forestation to grow Columbian cartel coca leaves. The cartels hired witches of every ilk and skill set to erect wards around their crops. So using a mirror portal to penetrate those wards would've proven more difficult than the ancient vestiges of Incan wards around the mountains and surrounding lowlands. But in the face of the individual JLers' power, the Incan wards flexed and broke. Just as they had done for the Wicked Witch and before her, the Evil Queen.
Dorothy whiffed her way into the battlements and walls of the Castle of the Blackest Heart. In itself an echo of the original in the Realm of Fables. The Evil Queen had set a copy in every Realm she'd conquered or intended to conquer. The Wicked Witch knew the existence of this one bode ill for humanity.
The walls were rife with portal magic. The Castle wasn't a lair. It was a staging ground for invading armies. The Evil Queen's time table for invasion was closer than anyone had guessed. Even Dorothy.
The rooks and buttresses hummed with magic but the central castle and its epic towers eked magic from the mortar holding the rough hewn stones together. Even the stones seemed to pulse with magic, light, dark, and indifferent.
The Wicked Witch whiffed her way straight to the pinnacle of the tallest central tower. There she found a throne room. The windows, though glazed with crystal, showed light on the throne not the penitents. Secreted behind the throne room was an opulent bedroom. Dorothy did a second take and realized "opulent" was too poor a word. The Evil Queen admittedly enjoyed the perks of being a tyrant across a dozen Realms to plunder from.
The four poster canopy bed could easily fit a dozen occupants. And probably did as the Queen deemed fit given her appetites. Word was she enjoyed being serviced by no fewer than four men at a time. And she would hex the three at the lower half of her body to be unable to release, they only continued pounding at her until they dropped from exhaustion. Those that she pleasured counted their good fortunes not to be among the others. Unless she bit them, of course. Some had required surgical reattaching afterwards or stitches to differing degrees.
Dorothy pilfered through the Evil Queen's privater drawers and closets. The fact that Renfri kept a full wardrobe on hand brought a chill of expectation to the Wicked Witch. The library was filled banalities if her faery tongue training indicated anything. Epic poems and histories dominated the shelves with an occasional torrid pamphlet that was so frankly pornographic as to bring a blush to Dorothy's otherwise jaded cheeks. One had an enchantment that caught her in its grip and she came while she read the writing and viewed the mobile and shifting illustrations.
Dorothy irritably caught her breath after the epic orgasm and was forced to replace her own underwear with the barely-there trappings the Evil Queen considered under garments. Renfri's bust size was considerably greater than her own so Dorothy forewent putting on a matching bra. Although the thong was making Dorothy even more irritable as it settled into place. She wondered why people willingly shoved the things up between their ass cheeks.
Dorothy gazed around finally took note of the consequence of two things: the wall sized crystal window and the floor to vaulted ceiling mirror. Dorothy tsked the Queen's vanity. And then she approached the mirror and she felt the buzz of its power. This was the source of the emanating power she'd sensed thousands of miles away. How had she missed it upon entering the room? Cloaking spells, indeed.
"Of course, it had to be a magic mirror," she chuckled appreciatively.
Maimie followed the trail left by Dorothy, weaving between trees, ever accelerating with her eyes on the prize. She hovered in place for a bit where the Wicked Witch had disappeared in a swirl of green smoke. But the prickle at her senses returned and pointed her skyward. As she raced towards the heavens she recognized the presence of the massive stone outcropping next to the waterfall she'd been following. And as she cleared the outcropping's crest, she beheld the Castle of the Blackest Heart for the first time in any iteration. She landing in the courtyard in the precise place where Dorothy had portalled herself to.
Maimie warily took it all in. Her spine shivered at the sights and smells. Other than the outward rush of water, there were no sounds but the wind. Birds of every description, even condors, avoided this place. Neverland had been a place of verdant growth so the absence of anything living deeply disturbed her. Even Oz and Wonderland had been lush in comparison. Hell, even Limbo had more life to it even under Surtur's dominion.
But that annoyingly incessant prickling led her into the castle proper and ascending the stairs of the highest tower. Which began to baffle her when she could just as easily fly up them. But her unease grounded her she found.
"She went up the bloody cliff?" Constantine was finally arriving at the thunderous hangover the moonshine rewarded its partakers with.
"I told you," Cabala just barely avoided sing-songing. The others all felt smug did not look good on the impossibly blonde numerologist.
"Something is cutting out my ability open a rift to the Land of Nightshades within any structure on the outcropping we're barely spotting," Nightshade lamented.
"And none of us can open a portal there." Madame Xanadu concurred, "The Wicked Witch must be more powerful than we feared."
"Then let's call in a portal specialist," Enchantress opined and vanished a twirl of smoke. A mirror portal opened and Enchantress reappeared with the Angorian Silver Sorceress and her fellow survivor, Blue Jay.
"Before we try anything else, I have to know, who is in command here?" Silver Sorceress asked, "It's always nice to know the chain of command to defer to."
Both Madame Xanadu and Vivian looked askance. Enchantress found the question boring. Silver Swan admitted her youth and inexperience counted her out. No one would entertain Constantine or Ragman. Deadman bowed out and Black Alice was voted down despite her eagerness. That left Zatanna, ightshade and Detective Chimp as the potential qualifiers since everyone mutually ignored Cabala volunteering. Zatanna was too embarrassed to consider it.
"I defer to you, Eve. You have the training and experience. And who am I to stand in the way of a princess?" Bobo T. yielded.
"I abdicated that title," Nightshade reminded him.
"Still, you were a deputy commander of the Suicide Squad," Enchantress offered and Silver Swan heartily backed her opinion up, "And we never committed suicide under your watch."
"Looks like you're it," Blue Jay offered Nightshade.
"Then my first order is for you to reconnoitre that ledge," Nightshade decided.
Blue Jay sighed, "I thought you'd say that. Fortunately, I can assume the size of a bird if anyone is in residence."
He flew upwards with his wings flapping for thrust. Black Alice asked asked, "Did anyone else know he could do that?"
Everyone confirmed that they had and Black Alice grumbled, "Damn. No one tells me anything."
"I could've gone," Silver Swan reminded Nightshade.
"But Blue Jay is far more discreet," Nightshade replied.
"Fly Blue Jay, fly," Silver Sorceress' husky voice could heard whispering.
The fact that the two Angorians were the last of their kind was complicated by the fact neither of them were comfortable, or in one case, capable, of reproducing through conventional means. Jay Abrams was very out and very proud about it. Laura Neilsson had been on feminine hormones since age ten and had begun feminization surgeries at seventeen culminating with her Sexual Reassignment Surgery a mere two years ago. Claire Connelly having normalized transwomen to the Justice League. So Jay could still be a sperm donor but the offspring would only be half-Angorian. And what was the point then? Were Angorians even genetically compatible with humans anyway? Neither Silver Sorceress nor Blue Jay cared to find out anymore.
Dorothy was continuing her examination of the massive mirror when Maimie made her way into the boudoir, "Oi! We've got bottles and stoppers at the door!"
Dorothy spoke enough Cockney now to translate that as "the cops were coming". The JLers thought Maimie was unaware of their presence. But she'd literally scented them out. The girl was feral in almost every way imaginable.
An image of a sidhe appeared in the mirror, "So we almost meet at last."
"Renfri," the Wicked Witch acknowledged.
"Please, your Majesty will do," the Evil Queen adopted falsely modest airs.
Then she stepped through the mirror's surface. "Well, here I am. What can I do you for?"
Dorothy blinked. The Evil Queen laughed, "Still that schoolgirl from Kansas, I see."
Despite her eternal youth achieved in her early twenties, Dorothy looked the same age as the fourteen-billion year old Unseelie sidhe. She didn't think that was fair. Renfri was born immortal. Dorothy had sacrificed blood for it. Other people's to be sure, but still a messy business.
"Hello? What have you stolen so far?" the Evil Queen asked in a chiding tone.
The Wicked Witch had expected umbrage or outrage at the intrusion not a mild scolding, "Nothing so far. There's nothing here of value."
"Au contraire mon frere, there's everything of value," the Evil Queen flicked her wrist and the side wall extended outward and opened up stone by stone to reveal the true reliquary of magical objects and tomes.
Dorothy was weirded out. Renfri was systematically enslaving Realm after Realm and she already spoke French? Was she expecting them to host another invasion during Fashion Week?
"Da, da meine Liebe, wird alles in Ordmung Sein," the Evil Queen promised.
Sweet Jesus. German too. How close were they to the eventual invasion?
"You look pale. Or at least paler than usual," the Evil Queen tutted her, "Perhaps you should take a lie down. The bed is quite accomadating and bespelled to avoid well deserved lumping. And perhaps your little friend too? Is her name Toto?"
"Maime. Maime Mannering," she growled.
"Oh, she is quite the little animal after all," the Evil Queen appreciated that, "Dear Peter's castaway Lost Girl. How cute that you two formed a pack."
Maimie started towards Renfri but Dorothy caught her arm, "Don't give her the satisfaction."
"Oh, you two are absolutely no fun," the Evil Queen pouted, "Maybe you can handle pest control instead?"
She pointed out the crystal theater window. A diminutive Blue Jay fluttered about. A portal opened in the middle of the crystal, "Kill him."
Maimie felt angry enough to obey. She whisked through the crystal and took flight after a fleeing Blue Jay.
"We can expect further company," Dorothy warned.
"No, I don't think so," the Evil Queen said pensively, "I've insured our privacy. Care to get right down to it then?"
Rock trolls and ogres descended the mountain heights to attack the Justice League. Goblins scurried out of the woods in waves of charging putrid flesh. But Silver Sorceress was beside herself for other reasons.
"Blue Jay is being attacked by a strange flying girl," she cried out.
"On it," Silver Swan's wings blew dust, dirt, and leaves all about as she took flight over a distance.
"Form up a circle," Nightshade began issuing orders, "Bobo, take to the treetops and find where the goblins coming through the forest from. Deadman, you're with him."
She formed a blade out of the shade of the trees, "Ragman, Cabala, and Zatanna deal with the trolls. Inwudu sisters and Constantine, take the ogres. Enchantress, you're on me as we deal with the goblins. Black Alice, you're center point in case all else fails."
Deadman suddenly returned, "The battle royale is goin' in a castle atop that ledge."
"Stick to the damn plan!" Nightshade snarled as she began beheading goblins.
"Touchy, touchy," Deadman griped but he complied at last.
"C'mere you!" Maimie grabbed at Blue Jay several times. He increased his stature to more easily outweigh Maimie's ninety pounds. Silver Swan buzzed them both as she ascended on the thermals blowing up off the cliffs.
"Bloody hell," Maimie began furtively glancing about. Blue Jay made an approach and she pulled her knives free from her belt and made to eviscerate him.
"Use your damn song!" Blue Jay angrily shouted at Silver Swan.
"You're too close to her!" Silver Swan called as she circled the flying combatants.
"I don't give an eff!" he screamed.
So Silver Swan sang and the sonic wave blew both Maimie and Blue Jay out of the sky. She easily caught Blue Jay but she didn't have the lift to slow Maimie's descent. It'd been some time since Silver Swan had killed a foe. And Maimie wasn't much younger than Valerie herself despite her appearance as Silver Swan. Neither she nor Lori Zechlin were even old enough to qualify for driving permits yet.
Silver Swan found a place in the trees open enough to land and set Blue Jay down while she rested. Ares had gifted her with greater than human strength but her Swan Song took all of her energy. So needed rest after each use. But Maimie weaving through the trees with knives flashing wouldn't let her get any.
The troll, ogres, and goblins backed off after their initial assault and hedged the JLers in. Black Alice called it, "We're effed."
Deadman erupted out of the treeline as inhuman shrieks tore through everyone's souls, "You ain't kiddin', Sister Sweets!"
Black Alice noticed everyone looked stricken by fear. Especially the sisters, "What? What is it?"
"Wraiths. Bloody effin' wraiths," Constantine voiced their fears.
"Zee, Ragman, and Silver Sorceress, watch rear and flanks. Everyone else up front. We've damned souls to kill," Nightshade commanded and then muttered, "If it can be done."
The Evil Queen yawned under the assault, "Is this the best the Wicked Witch has to offer?"
Dorothy thrust her hands out and Renfri was pushed up against the massive crystal window. The Evil Queen felt it crack and she laughed, "Now that's the spirit."
She reached out a hand, closed it as though taking hold of something and yanked. Dorothy stumbled forward and her hair fell in her face. It was brown! Effing brown, like when she was plain Dorothy Gale, lost farm girl from Kansas.
"Immortality is earned or a birthright. It can't be stolen," Renfri looked pensive, "Or can it?"
Dorothy cursed the Evil Queen with the vilest magic at her disposal. Renfri actually broke a sweat deflecting it. She literally applauded.
"That's it! I left this open ended. If you prove your value and ability you'll restore your precious immortality and prove to me you're worth talking to," the Evil Queen bargained, "By now you realize you can't take me, fair fight or otherwise. So, you kill the Justice League members at the base of this cliff and your immortality will be restored to you. But there's conditions. You have to do the dirty before my forces do. And you have until sundown. Which, in the here and now, gives you roughly one hour. Ta, ta and good luck with all that."
Renfri was obviously delighted with herself as she stepped back through the mirrored surface and vanished for good. The Less Than Wicked Witch cursed as she whiffed away to the mountain's base and found concealment to observe who it she was here to kill. Still, Dorothy had a life threatening aversion to obeying orders after all of Ozma's, the Wizard's, and Glinda's manipulations.
The nutbar sidhe had wanted Dorothy to cut loose to test her. This was yet another test. She hated tests, magical or otherwise. She'd been such a scatter brain the teacher at her single room school had sat her outside the door during the dry season. She gave Dorothy an umbrella otherwise. And the students shunned her after every trip to Oz. Leaving Kansas permanently had been easy enough when she recollected the scorn she received at being thought insane even by her family.
Learning that Uncle Henry and Auntie Emm were prepped to sell her off as a mail order bride had galvanized Dorothy's decision making. To some blinkin' old robber baron to boot. They'd received more money than they could spend in a lifetime for her and that was just the down payment. She'd wished herself to Oz with the silver slippers before the old fart's stale old retainer could collect her. Let her adoptive parents suffer the damnations inflicted by the scorned rich.
She'd thwarted one self-styled monarch. She could screw over yet another one. She just had to clever. Being raised to kill Oznian witches, Dorothy had perfected her arts of being clever. There were always spoken or even unspoken loopholes. And Dorothy should've attended law school as seeing at how adept she was at exploiting them.
Bobo T. found the mirrored portal guarded by goblins. And had successfully hidden while a trio of wraiths passed by. Even their mere proximity chilled one to the bone. Deadman had pushed on back to warn the others. Like any good wraith, if there were such a creature, they wore enchanted cloth, leathers, and armor to take physical form. Their saw toothed swords and massive balls and chains were obvious problems. The other dire problem was equally obvious: the wraiths were already dead. Their corporeal shells could be destroyed but could their essence?
Only one being in all the Realms could create and command wraiths now that the Inwudu sisters was neutered. The Evil Queen had built and commanded the Wicked Witch's destination. Which meant Renfri maintained a foothold in the universe. And after the global debacle that ended in her defeat in London no one expected her to remain close at hand. Certainly no visitor to the Oblivion Bar had voiced such a concern. Not even those from Realms besieged by the Queen's forces. They were all celebrating her defeat at the hands of the Justice League. Justice Society, Young Justice, and guest-starring Kalea-El. And the Evil Queen had brought in her mightiest warriors and commanders and still lost.
That spoke well of Earth's chances. But what if Renfri chose another vantage point in the restored yet newly born universe to invade from? Could they resist as well? Or would the Evil Queen's wounded pride compel her to try again from this hub to the New Universe?
Early humans had it right all along. The Crisis proved that Earth was held in cosmic esteem as the center of the universe despite its far flung stellar geographical position in a spindle arm of the Milky Way. The universe, as the Multiverse before it, lived and died on Earth despite the grandiosity of other civilizations. Advancement did not guarantee importance. And when Dr. Manhattan took the Zero Hour Rose from the Evil Queen and threw it to Glorith, she kept the momentum of the expired history as she rewrote it into her tale. Like Renfri, Glorith had an underlying agenda. And no one knew that the agenda culminated around one man from the 21st Century to bear fruition in the 31st.
No one knew any of that. Outside of magical circles and the various Realms, few even remembered the Multiverse or the worlds and histories that were lost. Yet Glorith maintained the refugee status of those the Monitor had rescued from certain destruction in order to fight the Anti Monitor. They retained their memories of their lost Earths. Even if such memories were vague in the minds of their companions and newfound friends in the universe. Without constant reminding, even those memories would eventually be absorbed by the new timeline of the New Universe. And no one would ever recall Earths-2, -3, -4, -5, -16, and -27 again. And the doppelgangers from those Earths would just considered coincidental lookalikes.
Detective Chimp had pockets folds in his deerhunter's cap. From one he withdrew a slingshot and one of several iron ball bearings. Fey magic, and sidhe, was vulnerable to iron while immune to steel or any other metal or alloy. But iron could destroy or rip through a faery magic spell. So he took careful aim and shot the ball bearing through the portal. It eventually collapsed. As he suspected, it didn't re-form. Either the Evil Queen was distracted or she was absent. Either way, the shrieking and fleeing goblins wouldn't have the means to alert her. Beyond her usual scrying methods, that is.
Bobo T. tracked the scurrying goblins to make certain they didn't reach the human village. But a nagging doubt eroded Bobo T.'s confidence. The portal's collapse should've been instantaneous. But there's been a delay as though it were considering its demise and whether or not it would accept it. Which could explain the Evil Queen's longevity notwithstanding her natural immortality.
Maimie was whipped into a frenzy. The sight of the Evil Queen had brought her ferocity to the fore. While it was true Tinker Bell had delivered Peter Pan's fatal blow, he'd been in the employ of the Evil Queen agt the time. And he'd unnaturally allied himself with Capt. James Hook as well as united the divided factions in Neverland. Only the pixies and a fraction of Tigerlily's tribe had split off to rebel against the Pan. And then Alice had appeared and all hell broke loose.
Word amongst the Realms had been that Alice the Mad Hatter and Tinker Bell had scourged Neverland. The truth was that the pixies camouflaged it as a barren wasteland and Tigerlily's faction protected and sheltered Alice's father, the Mad Hatter, while he and the White Queen went into exile while her cousin and stepsister, the Blood Queen and Silver Duchess, had taken hold of Wonderland's thrones and arranged for a systematic surrender to the Evil Queen's amassing forces. Although, at the time the Evil Queen was believed to be dead and replaced by a weaker rival, the Dark Lord Saron. A useful invention to distract the resisting masses while Renfri increased her power, seemingly exponentially even without resorting to her ability siphon the magic and life forces from others. That power was stored as a battery stores a charge. Once depleted it had to be recharged. Instead, the Evil Queen had reemerged to be more naturally gifted than ever. Even mightier than the most powerful Seelie despite her humbler Unseelie origins. Some guessed she even outclassed the High Sidhe. Though that theory would remain untested until the Evil Queen had consolidated absolute control over a majority of the Realms.
Like all faery and fey, Renfri possessed a singular core magic. One so hidden that even her own kind didn't know what it was. Her lore and knowledge of magic had increased geometrically as the billions of years marched on and Renfri visited the Realms in search of sanctuary and knowledge to further her ambitions. It wasn't until she took the Fables' throne that she began her mad drive for conquest derived from her hatred of all sidhe. She wouldn't be content until she was the last of her species. Or of her cousins in Avalon.
Maimie came at Silver Swan in a headlong rush meant to slice away the Swan's life blood. But Blue Jay roused himself and hit her from the side. Silver Swan sang her song of power again and it depleted her. But Maimie was down this time.
Blue Jay zip tied the girl's wrists and ankles together, "You need a breather, I can tell. Watch over her and I'll check in with the others."
Before left though, he collected Maimie's knives as the inhuman wraith shrieks echoed throughout the forest.
The fell creatures split their ranks to allow the three wraiths passage. Apparently they were as terrified as the JLers themselves. Constantine broke the silence.
"Fire, luv., It'll burn away their cassocks and render them spirits again," he suggested.
"You heard the man," Nightshade had nothing to contribute to the effort. Madame Xanadu, Vivian, Enchantress, Cabala, and Constantine each conjured fire spells. Which ignited the cloaks giving shape to the wraiths. And then a shielding spell snuffed the flames out.
"Bloody. Effing. Hell," Constantine slowly drug out each word.
Enchantress cut loose with the blackest magic Cabala had ever witnessed. And she seemed to relish cutting loose. Which, as a sorceress dedicated to stamping out dark magic, severely worried Cabala. She unleashed the full extent of her numerological powers well. But they were each barely holding wraiths back.
"Have you ever seen Ghostbusters?" Enchantress asked Cabala.
"What?" that confused her.
"Cross the effing streams!" Enchantress screamed at her and she obediently complied and belatedly realized they could rip a dimensional hole in the frabric of Existence. Instead they vaporized a wraith. Then both of them collapsed under the weight of the backlash from mixing their divisive magicks.
"They're onto something!" Madame Xanadu shouted at Vivian.
But both were cursed to avoid black magic. To the extent they couldn't even recite the simplest dark spell in their minds. And all knowledge regarding wraiths and their weaknesses had been expunged from their minds.
Detective Chimp came bounding into the center of the circle and he addressed Black Alice, "Miss me?"
"I actually did, hairball. I thought maybe the nasties got you," Black Alice admitted.
From the other pocket fold he withdrew a pipe and cherry tobacco and prepared a smoke, "Nah. No one needed a throw rug just yet."
The Inwudus collapsed under their mental short circuit. Nightshade shouted, "Eff! We're all that's left."
She formed a dark blade and attacked corporeally at the spirit approaching her. Constantine tried to afflict the soul of the other. Each mounting a direct attack in their own ways.
"They're getting restless," Ragman warned Zatanna.
"!tpure erif fo llaW" Zatanna shouted and flames burst into a semicircle.
"Hopefully that'll slow them," Zee breathed a sigh of relief.
"Look!" Silver Sorceress pointed to the sky as Blue Jay circled around. As the foul creatures pushed around to approach beyond the flames' reach, they crowded the remaining wraiths, who indiscriminately slaughtered them as well. No loyalty among the serving classes, it seemed.
Nightshade found her weapon could harm the shrouds and armor of the wraiths. It was particularly effective at severing the leather bands strapping armor plates down. It also effectively blocked their own weapons. She actually felt sorry for them. They were obviously being tormented into compliance. Seeing her friends losing a war of endurance, Black Alice desperately drew off of both wraiths. They faded back into nothingness and their clothes fell to the earth. But as a result, Black Alice went comatose for a time. Now the assembled trolls, ogres, and goblins roared their displeasure and mounted wave after wave of attacks.
Maimie was awake and trying to chew her way through her bonds. Suddenly Silver Swan was swatted aside by a brush power that rendered her unconscious. Then the Wicked Witch drew enough power off of Silver Swan to return her to being the juvenile Valerie Beaudry.
"Ew. Homely," Dorothy waved Maimie's bonds free. She was not appreciative.
"You sent me scarpering on a bloody useless chase!" Maimie exploded her accusation out.
"To be fair, I did actually. But you wouldn't shut up. I needed to think and prepare," Dorothy shared.
"For this?" Maimie was incredulous.
"I needed to learn what I've learned," Dorothy promised her.
"That's fair dinkum, I suppose. But what happened to your bloody hair. You've color again," Maimie pointed out what was staggeringly obvious to Dorothy. She needed to draw additional power.
"Deal with Bird Man or whatever he calls himself. The rest are mine," Dorothy requested.
"He and I already need to settle up," Maimie pledged and flew off weaving her way through the dense forest rather than lift above the canopy and alert Blue Jay to her approach.
"Smart kid. Those years in Neverland really taught her," Dorothy approved and whiffed herself back to the battle.
Blue Jay was trying to hack away at random enemies when Maimie barreled in with her knees between his shoulder blades. She drove him into the ground, knocking him unconscious. She retrieved her blades and threatened Detective Chimp, "What about you, Smoking Monkey?"
"Actually, I'm a primate," Bobo T. dryly corrected her.
"Say what?" Maimie hadn't been prepared for a talking animal. Her adventures in Oz had been staggeringly short and she hadn't met any Animals.
The Evil Queen's minions surged in one final attack and were killed wholesale by the JLers. It was then they noted that Blue Jay was down, Black Alice was down as well, Madame Xanadu and Vivian were still down beside the fallen Enchantress and Cabala. The rest of them felt like falling. And the middle of their midst, brandishing knives at Detective Chimp was Maimie Mannering. Deadman tried to possess her to diffuse the situation but he roared in pain and floated off as though he were driftwood swept aside on the ocean.
"What the eff?" everyone, including Maimie, said at once.
"You can thank me later," Dorothy chose to reveal herself. Before anyone else could react, the Wicked Witch siphoned considerable power from the four immortals and the essence stolen from the wraiths. Black Alice revived. Dorothy examined strands of her hair. It was blissfully bleached white again.
"I need the rest of you, so carry on," she whiffed herself and Maimie out of the area.
"What the hell was that about?" Nightshade had to wonder.
"That was the Wicked Witch. And obviously she siphoned from our comrades to restore whatever perjorative effect that her whitened hair displays," Detective Chimp summarized, "Although I fear at this point that's the least of our concerns. These creatures, including the Evil Queen's trademarked wraiths, indicates she isn't done with our world just yet."
"Hopefully she is for today, mate," Constantine was near collapse.
"And obviously the Wicked Witch is the Dorothy Gale of story and legend. The farmhouse in Kansas must be a memento of her past. A memento she will now abandon," Bobo T. continued.
"Do we have any idea of where'll she'll go?" Nightshade really hoped the answer was a negative.
Her faith was restored as Detective Chimp shook his head, "I fear we know more fiction than fact about Dorothy."
"She drew off our companions, and someone needs to locate Silver Swan, so roust Blue Jay, but why did she leave us unharmed," Zatanna questioned.
"Technically she left them unharmed as well," Silver Sorceress made her own observations, "Except for Deadman, of course."
"It was all tied into what her hair represented. Whatever experience involved in that seemed to rattle her more than we could," Detective Chimp sleuthed.
"The Evil Queen," Ragman guessed.
"My deduction as well," Bobo T. Chimpanzee concurred.
"Laura, prep a spell to get us back to the Hall of Justice as soon as Blue Jay returns with Valerie. Rory, go with Jay. He doesn't look steady enough to fly yet," Nightshade tied up loose ends, "Zee, rope in Boston. We're not leaving anyone behind. And someone assign a damn beacon spell to this spot so we can find that damn castle in the clouds again."
"Or hopefully we'll forget it entirely," Constantine hoped as he forget to create the beacon. The JLers departed without ever recalling it was there at all or why they'd come to Ecuador at all.
In the parapets above, the Evil Queen laughed softly to herself over her memory charm mischief. The Wicked Witch had not disappointed. The real test was how to cheat at the test. Dorothy Gale's resourcefulness could prove to be a valuable asset, if the girl could broken and obedient. Initiative was good as long as it obeyed the Evil Queen's dictates. But she and the witch both had the rest of the ages to come to terms. And they would, one way or another.
"Where're we goin'?" Maimie asked hopefully. Kansas was as dull as dirt.
"San Francisco. We can disappear there while we finish our opening move," Dorothy explained.
"Killin' Tinker Bell and her bitch?" Maimie gleefully asked.
"You need a little perspective," Dorothy sighed, "San Fran might give it to you."
"Maybe Tinker Bell and Alice are already there," Maimie was homicidally sadistic at the thought.
"Or maybe not," Dorothy gave up.
Cabala was open-sourced in 2009 and, thus, every aspect of the character prior to then can be used by anyone, so long as the creators are cited.
Created by
Miguel Rude and Leandro Silva
Footnote: This concludes the 22nd DCAU series Anthology story and is roughly between The Evil Queen and Kalea-El in chronological fashion just as Glorith follows Kalea-El. But the train of stories goes back to Oracle and The Dark Lord preceding The Evil Queen.The Anthology series stories have a continuity but not a strict one as I insert episodes in no particular order. But they are self-referencing enough to deduce their inherent chronology. The history of the series takes place within and beyond that of the Justice League DCAU Series Parts 1-26. Except for rare exception, every character was originally depicted in the larger, and longer, framework series.