[Washington, D.C.] [Waller's House]
Amanda Waller stood in her kitchen at six in the morning, reading a secure report on her tablet while the coffee machine hissed behind her.
It had been two smooth, uneventful, and beautifully productive months.
Funding cleared quickly after she presented her projections to the oversight committee. Black budgets expanded, equipment upgrades were approved, and recruitment pipelines widened. The new task force, unofficially labeled Task Force Echo, was already operational. Volatile metas capable of leveling city blocks now wore compliance bracelets connected to micro-detonators woven into their spinal implants.
Everyone of them understood the arrangement: Follow the order and die or survive 50/50% or not follow the order and die 100%.
She had not activated a single device in the last two months. That alone confirmed the process had worked exactly as intended.
The kitchen lights switched on as Martin wandered in with messy hair and a half-buttoned school uniform. Jessie followed him, already arguing about a math quiz. Coretta entered behind them, clutching a history book and muttering about a presentation on Cold War strategy.
Waller lowered the tablet and studied them with the same controlled focus she used in war rooms.
"You finish your homework?" she asked, her eyes still scanning the report.
"Yes, ma'am," Martin said quickly.
"Mostly," Jessie added, rolling her eyes.
"I added more sources like you said," Coretta said.
"Good," Waller replied. "Preparation prevents weakness."
She poured coffee into a mug.
Her phone vibrated.
An encrypted channel.
She tapped the screen.
A holographic projection appeared above the counter. General Lane's face appeared, stern and already irritated.
"We lost three potential recruits to Kahndaq," he said without greeting.
Waller took a slow sip of coffee. "Define lost."
"They declined federal custody and relocated voluntarily. Kahndaq offered asylum and employment."
"Data."
The files arrived instantly. She skimmed them in seconds.
Their powers: Electrokinetic, Biokinetic, and Pyrokinesis.
They were all young and unstable, but ideal for controlled containment.
She released a quiet breath.
"Kahndaq is becoming a magnet," Lane said. "We're seeing chatter online, forums, and underground meta networks. Word is spreading that it's safe there for metas and that they are giving them a chance to use their power for something good instead of hiding in fear or doing crimes."
Waller set her mug down. "Safety is a story people choose to believe. Stories can be dismantled."
Lane leaned closer to the camera. "You want clearance to escalate."
"I want flexibility," she said.
The line went silent for a moment.
"You already have your squad," Lane said.
"Yes," Waller replied. "And I am assembling another."
Upstairs, Coretta shouted that someone had taken her charger. Martin immediately denied it. Jessie accused both of them.
Waller kept her voice level.
"Children, resolve it in thirty seconds. Otherwise, every device in this house is confiscated for a week."
The argument stopped at once.
Lane watched the exchange with a look that hovered somewhere between discomfort and reluctant respect.
"You really haven't had to lean on Enchantress lately. Don't you think it's time to use her power to force the other metas into submission under A.R.G.U.S?" he asked.
Waller's eyes shifted briefly toward the box on the dining table. She had not opened it in months, because circumstances had not required it.
"Magic is leverage," Waller said evenly. "Leverage is only spent when the board demands it."
"And does the board demand it?" Lane asked.
"Not yet."
She ended the call and remained in the quiet kitchen.
Everything was working perfectly according to her plans.
That was the problem.
When operations ran this clean, something was brewing somewhere else. Power never stayed balanced for long. Kahndaq's rise was too fast and with far too much unity behind it. A nation shaped by magic and backed by a near god who had already demonstrated the ability to defy demons, modern weapons, near Superman-level power or maybe more, get the Amazons and foreign governments under control without hesitation was not a historical anomaly. It was a structural threat.
In public briefings, she described him as a stabilizing force.
In her internal projections, she treated him as an accelerating variable.
In sixty percent of modeled futures, Kahndaq became untouchable within five years. In thirty percent, it fractured the geopolitical framework entirely. In the remaining scenarios, it replaced the existing order.
Those were not outcomes she could afford to leave unmanaged.
Her children ran down the stairs moments later, backpacks slung over their shoulders.
"Mom, can you sign this?" Jessie asked, holding out a permission slip.
Waller scanned it and signed immediately.
"The bus arrives in four minutes," she said.
They left in a blur of sneakers, raised voices, and restless teenage energy.
The door closed.
The house settled.
Waller walked down the hallway toward the table and touched the box. She narrowed her eyes. For some reason, she felt a strange uneasiness that she couldn't pinpoint. She pressed her thumb on the biometric scanner and then opened the box.
Her eyes widened as she stumbled back in fear.
The box was empty.
At that exact moment...
The kitchen tile shattered right beneath her feet.
A thin, dark line shot across the floor like spilled ink, creeping up the cabinets and onto the ceiling. The walls seemed to ripple. The morning light streaming through the window fractured into sharp shards, as if the entire house had been made of glass and someone had just slammed a hammer right through it.
Waller didn't scream.
She took one step back, her eyes darting around for a way out that wasn't there anymore.
The refrigerator split open, its parts floating away in pieces. The table dissolved into floating splinters of wood. The sound warped into a low, heavy hum that pressed down on her head.
Then, everything broke apart at once.
The world folded in on itself like a mirror cracking in slow motion.
And suddenly, she found herself standing somewhere completely different in her office clothes.
The air felt off right away.
It was cold, but not a normal kind of cold. It slithered over her skin, feeling like damp fingers. The ground beneath her boots was smooth and black, reflecting like oil, but it was solid. A green haze clung to everything, thick and sickly-looking. It swallowed up the distance and blurred the horizon into a smudged shadow.
Overhead, a huge moon hung low and bloated, washing the landscape in red light. It gave off a faint pulse, as if something alive and watching was up there.
Waller inhaled once.
Her breath fogged in front of her face.
Silence pressed in from every direction.
Then the voice came.
It did not travel through the air. It pressed directly against her mind.
"You just had to open it, didn't you?" the voice boomed, layered and distorted, like multiple tones speaking through the same throat. "You could've had a life where everything goes according to your plan, but you just had to open it."
Waller planted her feet wider, shoulders squared, refusing to let the cold or the voice shake her posture. She scanned the area for movement, for any telltale shimmer that might betray the edges of whatever construct this was. Her right hand flexed instinctively toward the spot where her sidearm should have been, but of course, nothing was there.
"How the hell did you take the heart?" she asked, voice flat and controlled even though fury simmered underneath every syllable. "And how long?"
A low laugh rolled across the sky.
The ground beneath her rippled like disturbed water.
"You think this is about time?" the voice replied, almost amused. "You think this is about my heart?"
Waller clenched her fists.
The Enchantress.
Of course, it was her.
Either this was an illusion inside her own mind, or she had been dragged into a pocket reality stitched together by ancient magic. She could not feel the weight of her body the way she normally did. Her balance felt slightly off, like gravity here had opinions of its own.
"You removed the heart from containment," Waller said calmly. "That means you've either breached my vault physically or you've bypassed it metaphysically. Or, someone else freed you."
The red moon flickered.
A shape began forming ahead of her.
At first, it looked like smoke. Then it thickened into a silhouette of a woman, tall and slender, hair flowing upward as if underwater. Green energy bled from her eyes and curled around her limbs like living serpents. Her body was covered in ancient runes.
"You always reduce everything to mechanisms," the voice said again, now clearly coming from the figure. "Locks, vaults, control systems... You truly believe you own what you cage."
Waller crossed her arms slowly.
"You are bound to the heart," she said. "You don't move without it." Then she pointed at her chest. "If you really have your heart, then we wouldn't be having this conversation. You're evil incarnate. You'd have started an apocalypse and died by either Dr. Fate's hand or John's..."
The figure tilted her head.
"Are you certain?"
The ground cracked open beneath Waller's boots. Hands made of shadow burst upward and clawed at her legs. She did not flinch. She stepped aside, forcing the shadows to grasp at empty space.
"If this is a psychological intimidation attempt," Waller continued evenly, "you should know I have endured interrogation techniques that make this look like a carnival ride."
The Enchantress laughed again, louder this time, but suddenly stopped. Her expression turned serious.
"Evil incarnate, you say?" Enchantress said in a layered voice. "What made you think that I am evil? Did I hurt anyone after the seal was broken? Did I kill June? Did I unleash an apocalypse upon this world after I got out? No!"
She blinked, appeared before Waller and looked into her eyes.
Waller could feel her cold breath and the intense energy pressing down on her.
"You, who have enslaved your own kind, are the real evil reincarnate."
She grabbed Waller's throat and pulled her up in the air.
"Kuggg!!" Waller struggled to breathe as she felt the insane grip on her throat.
...
[INFO DUMP] [I'm pretty sure not many knows these facts about Waller]
Waller's worldview was shaped by the murder of her husband and two eldest children by street criminals. This tragedy caused her to lose faith in traditional justice and vigilantes (including heroes like Batman), pushing her to take personal control of public safety.
Joe Waller Jr.
(Son): Amanda's eldest son was killed first, during a mugging gone wrong while he was on his way to college on a basketball scholarship.
Damita Waller
(Daughter): Six months later, her daughter was ra*ed and murdered in an alleyway while returning home from church. The killer was a local criminal and drug dealer known as "Candyman".
Joseph Waller
(Husband): After the police failed to get a conviction against Candyman due to a lack of witnesses, Joseph set out to take the law into his own hands. He tracked down Candyman, and the two men killed each other in a gunfight.
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