Circe was, after all, one of the Amazons' oldest enemies.
The instant she saw the silver bracelets flashing on the little Wonder Pig's forelegs, her expression changed dramatically.
"Stop! Don't attack those bracelets, or—"
Too late.
The lightning containing nearly all of Constantine's power slammed directly into Diana.
A burst of golden light erupted.
With a deafening boom, the spell was reflected away.
Worse still, the rebounding attack seemed to carry even greater force as it hurtled straight back toward Constantine and Circe.
Constantine had never expected anything like this.
He threw himself to the ground and rolled aside, narrowly avoiding his own reflected spell.
Because Diana's smaller pig form had changed the angle of the deflection, the magic missed Constantine and Circe and instead struck a stone statue on a nearby windowsill.
A thunderous explosion shook the entire building.
"You idiot!"
Circe screamed furiously.
"Who told you to attack her with magic?"
"Wonder Woman's bracelets can deflect ranged attacks! You only managed to hit her before because you ambushed her from behind!"
"Did you seriously think you'd get lucky twice?"
Constantine, shameless as ever, refused to admit that he had done anything wrong.
Instead, he immediately turned the blame back on Circe.
"Who told you not to explain what those bracelets could do?"
"And now you're blaming me?"
"How is that my fault?"
"If I'd known, do you really think I would've made such an amateur mistake?"
He had barely finished speaking when Circe furiously seized him by the throat and hauled him up in front of her.
"I swore in the Underworld that I would not attack the Amazons directly!"
Her eyes burned with rage.
"But that does not mean I'm forbidden from killing you, Constantine!"
Circe's face became completely expressionless.
"If I rip out your tongue and crush your throat right now, I'm sure Lucifer and Gabriel would both thank me."
Constantine could tell that she was genuinely furious.
And when someone like Circe became genuinely furious, there was always the possibility that she might actually kill him.
He hurriedly changed the subject.
"Hey... is this really the best time to discuss that?"
Constantine forced the words through clenched teeth.
"If Wonder Woman gets away..."
"Then both of us lose everything, don't we?"
He forced an awkward smile.
"Think about it. You can kill me whenever you want."
"But if Wonder Woman escapes, well... that would be a real disaster."
"Wouldn't it?"
Circe's gaze was sharp enough to cut steel.
She hurled Constantine to the ground.
Then she looked around.
The magical little pig was nowhere to be seen.
All that remained were frightened pedestrians and a chaotic street.
...
While Constantine and Circe had been arguing, Wonder Woman had hurried through a gap beneath the eaves and scrambled down to street level.
By then, the commotion caused by the explosion was already beginning to settle.
Everyone on the street was still staring upward in shock.
Nobody noticed the little pink pig awkwardly weaving between their feet with silver bracelets around her forelegs.
After being transformed, Diana herself had become thoroughly disoriented.
Her sense of direction was almost completely gone.
All she could do was wander aimlessly, trying to find her way back to the place where she was staying.
Perhaps if she encountered one of her Amazon companions and they somehow recognized her, she might still make it home.
Unfortunately, she had wandered far away from where she had started.
In her current form, there was almost no chance that she could find her way back on her own.
Then a faint aroma drifted through the air.
Something delicious was being cooked nearby.
Diana stopped.
Her little snout twitched.
Now that she possessed a pig's sense of smell, the aroma of food was almost impossible to resist.
She greedily inhaled again.
Then, driven by instinct, she followed the scent.
At that moment, in the rear kitchen of the Zeus Hotel, the head chef impatiently carried out a container filled with scraps and leftovers and dumped it into a garbage bin behind the building.
A delivery truck was parked nearby.
Several workers were unloading fresh meat, ham, and other ingredients required by the hotel kitchen.
"What's this? The head chef has to take out the garbage himself now?"
One of the meat-delivery workers joked.
"Hmph!"
The head chef cursed under his breath.
"Who knows what happened outside the hotel? There was an explosion for no reason, and every kitchen assistant ran outside to watch the excitement."
"So now I'm stuck doing all the miserable work back here!"
He shook his head.
"I swear, Gotham people..."
Hearing this, the delivery driver leaned out of his cab and laughed.
"We heard that explosion too."
"It sounded pretty dangerous."
"For a moment, we wondered whether you'd managed to ignite one of the gas cylinders in your kitchen."
"That would explain the noise."
The head chef snorted.
He took the delivery ledger handed to him and checked over the shipment.
"If our kitchen had actually exploded, where do you think you'd be standing right now?"
"There are enough gas cylinders in there to blow the whole place apart."
Then he glanced suspiciously at the meat shipment.
"Besides, you people from the Gotham meat-processing plant are the ones I should be worried about."
"You didn't bring me another shipment of pork containing human fingers, teeth, or any other spare parts today, did you?"
Apparently, the Gotham meat-processing plant still had a terrible reputation.
People continued talking about the stories even now.
Back when the Mafia had run rampant in Gotham, enemies were supposedly thrown into meat grinders and reduced to paste.
The remains were then canned and sold back to the people of Gotham as food.
So the chef's question was hardly unexpected.
"That was years ago!"
The driver protested.
"Our processing plant operates independently now. There are no gangsters interfering with it anymore, and the management is incredibly strict."
"Forget human fingers or organs. Even if a single hair got into the meat, we'd—"
Before the driver could finish, a loud gulping and smacking sound echoed through the otherwise empty rear yard.
Everyone turned toward the noise.
A small pink pig had climbed up beside the garbage bin.
She was enthusiastically digging through the leftovers the chef had just thrown away and eating as though she had discovered the greatest feast in the world.
The chef slowly turned toward the driver.
"Oh?"
A sarcastic smile spread across his face.
"Who was just telling me how strict the management at your meat-processing plant is?"
"And now you're delivering live pigs too?"
The driver stared at the little pig in disbelief.
He had never expected to see anything like this.
"If you told me a stray cat or dog had wandered in here, sure, I'd believe that."
"But a pig?"
"Hardly anyone in Gotham keeps one of those."
"And this hotel never buys livestock."
He stared at Diana for a moment longer.
"So there's really only one possibility."
"When your people were loading the truck, nobody noticed one of the animals at the plant slipping inside."
"It must have ridden here with us."
The driver wanted to argue.
But after thinking about it carefully, even he had to admit that it seemed like the only reasonable explanation.
He sighed helplessly, muttered under his breath, climbed down from the cab, and walked toward the little pig.
(End of Chapter)
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