The silence that followed was unnatural.
Not quiet. Quiet had shape—breath, rustling suits, shifting glances.
This was absence.
The President of the United States had vanished. No warning. No sound. No trace.
No one moved.
Eyes flicked between the empty seat and each other—high-ranking officials, all battle-tested, all frozen now. Searching for logic where none existed. No one spoke. Not the Vice President, not the Secretary of Defense, not even the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs—a man who'd once stared down foreign coups with a pen and a poker face.
Then—
"Secret Service! We've got a breach! The President's been extracted—repeat, the President's been—!"
It was the National Security Advisor who shouted, voice raw with disbelief. His hand was halfway to his earpiece, already spitting into the comm—
**Ffshhkk**
A puff of smoke—black tinged with radioactive green—exploded in front of him, twisting like an oil spill caught in wind. It warped gravity around it, bent the light.
From within it, she emerged.
Enchantress.
Crawling—twisting—her limbs dragging through the air like a creature pulled from rotting earth.
Her spine arched too far back, her eyes glowed with that dead-green haze. Her hair clung to her like vines. Her lips were parted in that grin—too wide, too calm, too sure.
The Advisor froze.
His earpiece hit the floor with a muted clack.
Before he could scream, her hand snapped forward—**whrrkk**—phasing through space like a corrupted frame in a broken video file. Her fingers found his neck.
He vanished.
No flash. No cry. Just the air sealing behind him like he'd never been there.
The Secretary of State stood first. Then the Director of National Intelligence.
"Move. Move!" DNI yelled, dragging a chair back with a loud scrape as the room ignited with panic.
"Get to the panic vault—!" the Secretary of Defense yelled, already yanking the table aside.
But Enchantress was moving again.
The White House Chief of Staff, a woman in her early fifties with steel-gray eyes and a reputation for outmaneuvering entire networks of political operatives, was the next target. She made it three steps toward the exit.
**Snap**
A hand clawed out from beneath the conference table.
Enchantress grinned up at her from the shadows—on all fours, eyes wide with joy. Her fingers dug into the woman's ankle.
"No—please—" the Chief of Staff whispered, but there was no mercy.
Gone.
The Vice President backed up hard into the wall, hands shaking as he muttered, "This… this isn't real. This isn't—"
Across the room, the Homeland Security Advisor tried to issue a command, but her voice faltered as her tablet flickered and died in her hands. Enchantress appeared inside the screen for a split second—her hand reached through the glass and pulled her in like it was water.
**Shhk**
The room collapsed into chaos.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs—normally the image of control—grabbed a chair and threw it at the far wall, shattering the touchscreen interface as he tried to break open an emergency override panel. His fingers scrambled for the biometric reader.
Then something pulled him upward.
His boots scraped the ground for less than a second before he was yanked through the ceiling like a puppet string had gone taut.
Gone.
The Secretary of Defense made a run for it.
Full sprint. 30 years younger in that moment. His hand slammed the panic room's access panel.
A glimmer of hope.
Behind him, footsteps—too soft, too wrong—padded across the floor.
He turned just in time to see her.
Kneeling. Smiling.
Her hand already reaching up.
"No—!"
Vanished.
Only one remained.
The Director of National Intelligence stood alone near the center of the room, surrounded by overthrown chairs and discarded items. His mouth moved but no words came out.
Then—slam.
The doors burst open.
Secret Service agents poured in, rifles raised. "Stop! Put your hands—!"
Too late.
Enchantress turned, holding the DNI's wrist. Her eyes met theirs.
And she smiled.
**Shhrkk**
Gone.
The agents stood frozen.
The room was silent again.
Only now, it wasn't absence.
It was aftermath.
The lead agent slowly reached for his shoulder mic, hand trembling. He didn't blink as he spoke.
"…Level Zero anomaly. Commander-in-Chief removed. War Room personnel… gone. Repeat: War Room compromised. Immediate lockdown. National Continuity Directive… initiate full chain."
He exhaled. Shakily.
———
Elsewhere in Gotham—far from the White House and its vanishing dignitaries—a different sort of operation was underway.
A mansion. Opulent and wide-shouldered. White stone exterior, black steel framing. Spotless lawn trimmed to within a millimeter of arrogance. A half-circle driveway arched through a gallery of expensive vehicles, each one glinting beneath the mansion's gold-tinged lights.
Security guards littered the scene like discarded thoughts.
Some sprawled unconscious on the lawn, uniforms rumpled, sidearms kicked out of reach. One lay across the hood of a red Bentley, arm dangling limply, a purpling bruise already forming around his jaw. Another slumped near the marble fountain, feet still twitching slightly.
Only one vehicle was untouched.
A matte black van, unmarked. Functional.
At its rear, the double doors were open—and Tala stood in front of them.
She was quiet. Her posture bored, her gaze irritated.