"Cough. Looks like things have changed, Luthor."
Three battered figures, still steaming all over, returned to Divinity through a column of teleportation light. Perpetua's mothership lay parked in a lightless region somewhere within the Genesis Galaxy, silent and utterly lifeless.
Luthor, who had been tapping away at the keyboard before the console, turned around. His bald head gleamed.
"Looks that way. You're all injured?"
"We were ambushed by a magical army. A whole damn army!" Cheetah's yellow fur was scorched in places, red blood staining it and leaving her wounds looking damp. "We were carrying out the task you assigned us, causing trouble for Justice Incarnate in a Parallel World, but you never mentioned an army of wizards would be following right behind us."
Her injuries did not seem too severe, since she still had the energy to bristle at Luthor.
"Oh." Luthor gave a perfunctory reply, turned back, and pressed a series of buttons on the console. "Circe? We need to talk. Circe? Are you there?"
Of course she was not. Luthor's communications device could not even lock onto Circe's location. It had never been able to before, since Circe used witchcraft to disrupt the signal, but not like this.
It was as though he were speaking to empty air filled with silvery moonlight.
"Don't bother. It wasn't Circe's people." Sinestro was battered as well. His formerly immaculate slicked-back hair looked as though it had been struck by lightning, sticking up in every direction. "We ran into a combined force from Justice League Dark, the Shadow Pact Squad, the Seven Soldiers of Victory, S.H.A.D.E., and some independents. More than thirty spellcasters were chasing the three of us down. It was brutal!"
Even someone with Sinestro's temperament fell briefly speechless, and in the end, all he could say was that