Wonder Woman #23: "II: Day of Champions"

Diana looked upward as the Hades-possessed Batman loomed over her. “Hera!” His skin was thin and pale, the cape and costume suddenly took on a thick, rough texture, as if it were an extension of the flesh, and his mouth was full of razor-sharp fangs and teeth. He hissed and snarled, and Diana smiled. Her body tensed up. Her muscles tightened and her jaw was clenched. She was ready to pounce, but this was Bruce! Whatever had happened, this was still Bruce! She dismissed the thought. Not out of personal choice, merely because the Bat-Hades slammed his fists across her wrists, sending her flying back. She hit the wall behind her hard, but at the last moment was able to spin herself around, and brace her legs against the cold stone.

Without a moment’s hesitation, she shot down to the lower levels, where her sword and shield rested damaged but intact. She took a defensive position, but Bat-Hades grabbed the shield from her arms, weakened already from her battle with the Reaper, and threw it aside. “That won’t work.” Her sword was next. She slashed upwards, cutting through nothing but demonic, twisting, twirling cape, and then had the weapon pulled away from her with a heavy tug. The cape played with the hilt of the blade for a while, before Diana’s amazed eyes, but she didn’t take that sitting down. She got low, and then pounced forward, only to be again swatted back with great strength, her injuries from the previous battle exploding into her mind uncontrollably as Bat-Hades did so. Globules of red blood splattered from her mouth to the stone floor as she hurtled backwards, uncontrollably.

She flew into the cavernous wall of the cave, and pulled herself forward, floating in the air as rock and rubble crackled down the rock ledge. Her chest ached, her ribs burning as they were nearly knocked loose again.

Bat-Hades shrank down from where he floated, the massive black cape trailing around him as he lowered himself to Diana’s level. His face shifted and morphed, Bruce’s demonically-altered features changing into a more elegant, recognisable form. Hades grinned with thin, white lips. “Did that hurt, little Princess?” His hand shot out, impossibly long, and rammed her against the wall of the Bat-Cave. “I hope so. You are the cause behind my great darkness - you and your pantheon - and it took me so long to figure out the proper punishment.” Diana grunted in pain as her body was pinned against the cold, hard surface. “You’ve been a very bad girl.”

She didn’t speak. What was the point? She felt her lasso hang from her side, and she grunted. She felt a rib float in her side. She focused on that. Focused on the pain, blocked out everything else, and felt her hand grasp her lasso tightly. She wrapped the lasso around her arm slowly, methodically, still pushed hard against the wall.

“First, you will pay with your body,” muttered the Bat-Hades. “I’ll break you down into bits. Then your soul, shattered and scattered across the world. And then, my favourite part, all you hold dear. Donna Troy, Clark Kent, this little vessel,” he patted himself on the chest, “and then your sisters, your cousin, your lovers.” He hissed constantly, like a serpent, his tongue playing slyly against his razor-sharp fangs.

“You showed your hand too soon, Hades,” whispered Diana, her eyes focused tightly on the villain. “With your little games with Judson Caspian. An inspired bit of sleight of hand, but sleight of hand none the less.” She grabbed the hand that held her against the wall, her arm wrapped tightly with her lasso. “But I see the truth now. You empowered Caspian. And that rag that touched Bruce, that was clever, but I see through your illusion.” Her eyes seemed to glow gold. And then suddenly Hades knew that she saw him for what he was. “You call yourself the Unseen, but my lasso reveals all.”

Batman stood, angry. His eyes were black pits, but it was him, the black rag that he touched wrapped around him like a parasite, sharing his life. He wasn’t a giant Bat-God, he wasn’t a demonic creature, he was Batman, but that was still a threat. She unravelled her lasso from around her arm, and flew toward him, but enhanced by Hades’ power, Bruce was a force to be reckoned with. “It doesn’t matter, Princess, you cannot stop me! I will never falter, I will never fall, I will destroy you, and your pantheon of half Gods and liars! They will all be shown the… error… of their ways!”

He punched her hard, but she rolled with it, and countered with her own blow. He wasn’t braced for the impact, and though the attack was short of breaking his body, he flew backwards, and was suddenly snagged by the lasso around his ankle, that dragged him to the ground. Diana could scarcely believe that the bestial visage visible to her was Bruce Wayne’s. He looked savage, animalistic, and she knew that Hades had warped his mind when he took control. “And if you think I’ll give up this dirty thing, you’d be mistaken! I’ll rape his soul and cremate his mind before you can have him back!”

“Unlikely, uncle,” whispered a voice, as bright light flooded the cave. Bruce cowered, still snarling, and his eyes opened wide. “You are banished from this place, by order of the Queen of Mount Olympus.”

“Soll--?” grunted Hades through Bruce’s quivering lips, before holding in his words, just as Diana watched on in amazement. She had witnessed his celestial chariot’s arrival many a time before, but even now, it amazed her. He himself was dressed impeccably, a smart, well cut, completely white tuxedo, and a white shirt and tie to match. His blond hair was longer than she had seen before, and his jaw was covered in a fine stubble, and his eyes, ever blue, were worn and tired. “You will pay for this!”

“Yes, uncle, and you will continue to sound like a ham theatre actor. Please, just be gone.” Apollo held his fist high, and then motioned downward with it, and then suddenly, Batman was on the ground, gasping. He looked up at Wonder Woman and Apollo, his eyes returned to their usual live, normal condition. “Diana, we have need of you on Olympus.”

She bowed solemnly. “Aye.”

“Diana!” shouted Batman, staggering to his feet. The entire possession had weakened him, but he pressed on. “I’m coming with you.”

“No,” said Diana simply, “you are not.” And then the cave was filled once more with golden light, and Batman was left standing alone in the dark.

“Diana,” he whispered, his gaze turning to the damage inflicted to his base of operations, “what is going on?” He grabbed his Justice League communicator.

[/i][/b][/center]

Though it had been many years since they were sought after for advice, for help with the grand schemes of the known world, the temple was still looked after by a flock of priestesses. They weren’t real, by no means, though when their time came, one of these perpetual shades would take human form, a belief made flesh, and assume the role of the former high priestess, and then, when her time was up, when the belief was tired and worn, thousands of years later, she would journey away, to Elysium. It had been a long time since the high priestess was true form. But these shades were of the righteous, the strong, and they held their heads high in service to the higher power.

“Traveller, my lord beseeches you; please, guide the lonely queen through the underworld, where the shared vision of his brethren cannot see. If she fails below the world, the walls will falter, the dead shall rise, and none shall be safe, from this plain to the next.”

“Mistress of Delphi, Pythia, Oracle,” spoke the traveller softly, as he approached the elderly woman who sat upon a tripod situated over a chasm that extended down into the abyss below, “you are as beautiful as you were when we first met. The millennia have been kind.”

“As they have to you,” she replied, smiling. She was old. Her skin was like parchment, tanned, shrivelled and brown, like she had been left out in the sun for too long. She wore simple robes, and smoke rose up around the two of them, filling her large, bilious nostrils. “You have not aged a year nor decade since we last met.”

“There are grey hairs beneath my hat, I assure you,” smiled the traveller, as he knelt before her, bowing. “It has been many years since I was last summoned by your master; what is it he wishes for me to hear?”

“When you went by another name, during the greatest quest of the ancient world, you travelled to the underworld, and you remember the way well,” hissed the Pythia, her voice suddenly taking on a rough, distant quality, “Aethalides, the name was, and the history, the myth behind that name, rings true. You remember every footstep you take, that you took, and you must remember them now, for if you do not, then the lonely queen shall falter from her path, and never return to the land of the living.”

The traveller rose up. “For you, I will do this.” He bowed, and suddenly the woman crumpled inwardly, groaning. She clutched her chest. “Are you alright?” His tone suddenly shifted from respectable to concerned; his old friend was dying, near the end of her life.

“It has… been so long since I saw you, traveller,” she gasped deeply, each breath long and tortuous, “I have lived for this moment alone. He instilled inside me a seed of life, though that life has blossomed, it now withers…”

“Pythia,” comforted the traveller, as he held her in his welcoming arms, “close your eyes, and let me take you on a journey you will not forget.” His voice was so soothing. So soft.

She looked up at him through teary eyes, and was met by his warm blue ones. He smiled. That smile. The one that made everything better. She did as he asked. He covered her face with his gloved hands, and a light shone, and then he was alone in the temple. He rose slowly, and looked around. “Who are you?” came a voice, inquiring from beyond the room he stood in the centre of.

He turned, and watched as this shape formed from the spirits that whispered around the great hall he stood outside. “I am of no consequence. A traveller. A visitor. A mere stranger. You, on the other hand, are the Pythia. The Oracle of Delphi. I take my leave of you, and wish you the best in your future.” He paused as she approached him. So young. Her eyes deep wells of emerald green. Just like her predecessor. “You look just like her.”

He vanished with that, and Pythia took her place atop the tripod throne of the Oracle at Delphi, above the chasm that led into the world below.

[/i][/b][/center]

“Oh, this is ridiculous.” Ares glanced around in the whiteness, his irritation growing at his imprisonment. He had walked for what could have been days, but this place had no discernible end to it, and no matter how far he walked, or leapt, or jogged, there was always more whiteness. He had shed his armour by now, hoping to use it as markers, and he was left wearing his pressed black shirt and trousers, and as he looked behind him, he saw his war armour sitting on the white ground. Was it ground though? Was it ground because he had to believe he was standing on something, or was the whiteness a void without depth or distance, as it appeared to be? He sighed, and fingered the hilt of his sword, and then continued to walk. He was the God of War, and somehow he had become trapped in a place beyond reason. It would be delicious, if it weren’t happening to him, he thought.

The wind whistled. Her hair flew back behind her head, black locks caught in the gale. She looked forward to where she would have to venture, and realized that the wind came up from below the world, from Tartarus itself. She knelt, and began to pray. Her meditations would help focus herself, to center her for the task at hand.

Taenarum lead all the way to the Underworld. All the way to Hades and whatever evil machinations he was planning. His existence was a drain upon the immortal lives of the Greek pantheon. Why? Wonder Woman found herself questioning the very events of the day. The Kindly Ones had taken Zeus away, destroyed him, and he had not returned, and he was the most powerful of all her patrons, she thought. And if Hades could return, could not the King of the Gods? Was Zeus waiting in the wings for his inevitable return? She sighed, and raised herself up from the ground.

She had decided it was best not to wear her battle armor. It protected her, yes, but it restricted movement, and as she was a trained warrior, she did not have to settle for ‘just’ her Wonder Woman uniform. The uniform was designed for battle, and she would save the eagle-crested armor her mother had ordered smelted for a day it was truly needed.

She had her lasso of truth. The one thing that had kept her on the path of righteousness for all the years she had been a hero. An ambassador for peace to Man’s World. Its golden radiance calmed her. During her meditations, it allowed her to center herself. Her mind was fluid, a stream of calm in the maelstrom that her existence had started to become. She placed a hand on the side of the chasm that led down. She took a final breath of the Earth-bound air and then--

“Do you have any idea where that leads, your majesty?” She turned, alert but not on the defensive. She knew that voice. “Because the winding road down to the realm of the dead is a hazardous one. It appears, with all due respect, that you require a guide.” The man doffed his hat to the Queen of the Amazons, and smiled. “And I offer my services.”

“Ah.” Diana smiled. “You offer your services, friend?”

“Yes, your majesty, I do. I have been here before, and I will enter again, if you allow me to, by your side. He replaced his hat, and approached her. She stepped back from the chasm, and watched as he gazed down into the abyss. He looked back at her, and then nodded slowly. “Well, this is it.” He pulled his cape close to him. “Follow me, Diana, for I am the Phantom Stranger.” He stepped inside the entrance. “Let us face whatever lies below together.”