"The truth of this place is wrong," Diana looked around the forested wasteland around herself. There were so many myths and legends surrounding this dead forest, so many ideas, so many un-truths. Her lasso was wrapped around her hands, tight and taut. She took a breath, knelt, and began to whisper a prayer to Demeter.
"There is no need to pray, Diana of Themyscira." She looked up as the beautiful sight of Demeter hovered above the ground, radiating peace all around. Even the twisted trees seemed to straighten in recognition of this god among them. "As others owe you a boon, so do I. Please, stand."
Diana slowly rose up, and bowed her head. "Thank you for coming to me at this time, my Lady. I am searching for something that haunts my dreams--"
Demeter interrupted. "And the dreams of others of this world, Diana. Morpheus has informed us all of this strange malady, and that is why I am here before you now." She stepped down from the air she balanced upon, and with every footfall, grass and flowers more luscious than anything Diana had seen before sprouted instantaneously. "I believe Mother Gaia would be happy for this infection upon her body to be cleansed away."
"Can you help me then, my Lady? Help me find whoever fell here?"
Demeter took a long breath, and the entire world seemed to flow within her for that one, aching moment. She placed a hand upon Diana's shoulder, and the Amazonian's knees nearly came out from underneath her, the feeling that swept through her body near indescribable. "The answer lies within you now, Diana."
"I can sense..." Diana closed her eyes, her skin tingling, sparks firing off underneath her flesh. "... I know where
he is." She bowed once more to Demeter. "I thank you for this boon, Lady Demeter..."
"That was no boon, Diana. You saved my daughter, and for that, you are my own. Be safe." Demeter glowed once more, and then vanished in a whisper of energy, and the dead forest seemed lighter for it.
Diana pondered Demeter's words for a second, and then launched into the air, headed west, back toward America. It was like there was a map in her mind, and she knew exactly where she had to go to end this mystery.
*
"
'My own'?" Ares scoffed at the words as he drank more from his chalice. Hephaestus sat opposite him, sipping his own goblet slowly and cautiously, his grubby flesh rubbing against the marble of Ares' seats. They were in his chambers, sharing a bottle of finest Greek wine, and watching the world above unravel. "How disgusting. These Wonder Women are nothing but trouble, have been since Hippolyta and my own Zenobia walked the Earth."
Hephaestus smiled, his flesh wet with the sweat of his labours from the hours before, building weapons and armours for those who did not need it. He lead an unnecessarily busy life. "You never talk of Zenobia, Ares. An embarrassment to you?" He smiled devishly, savouring the chance to disrespect the man who had desecrated his wife's flesh time and time again. "A failure?"
Ares did not rise to the God of Fire and Metal's words. "Oh, on the contrary, Hephaestus , I never talk of her because
I do not know where she is. If I knew where she was, I would use her, as I use any weapon you would forge."
"Hrrrm." Hephaestus took another sip from his goblet, and yawned. "I tire of this, Ares. Your weapons have been crafted, your arsenal vastly improved. Is there anything else you would require of me before I return to my wife?"
Ares flashed a wicked grin, and his eyes blistered and burned. "You could sleep."
Hephaestus looked at him in confusion, and then his eyes began to droop. "What? Hrrrr..." He slumped forward in his chair, and began to snore.
Ares heaved him over his shoulder, and laughed. "Back to the forge for you. And I wonder how your beautiful wife is doing this fine evening? Maybe I'll go give her a visit. She's always so
glad to see me."
*
She soared above the trees, before landing in front of a looming castle that soared upwards into the sky. It was like a place that could only be found in dreams. And then, she remembered, that was where she had first seen this intimidating structure. That feeling of familiarity, of terrifying deja-vu, led her forward toward the entrance to this castle. She'd been flying for an hour or so, allowing her thoughts to wash out and back into her. She needed that time to clear her mind, to meditate on what was happening, and now she was ready. Inside this building was a being powerful enough to bleed its own consciousness out into the collective unconscious of the world. Power. This thing had power. And if it was contained by something, that meant that there was something more powerful than it lurking inside this building.
She steeled herself, and stepped inside.
*
"There is an Amazon. On the grounds." Scisiel looked at the technicians who ran the security system in his castle. "Now, I was aware of this eventuality, but, I have to ask, how is she walking the halls?"
"Sir, Mr. Scisiel, sir... We weren't... Security systems aren't active. We have men patrolling. If we activated--"
Scisiel looked at the technician. "Not to get down right
evil on you right now, but you best activate the defenses that I spent three millionaires' fortunes on, or I'll go downstairs and throw your
burning body at Wonder Woman myself. And, take note, that I did not say burning
corpse. I do not care for the men and women that walk these halls. I care about my brother, and I care about him remaining in my home."
"Y-yes, sir." The technician whispered a prayer, and Scisiel laughed at the gesture. "Defences activated."
"Good."
*
The reception of the building was long and looming, one long corridor leading down to a number of doors that went left, right and forward. A shiver whispered down her back, and then she blinked. Something was about to happen--
Wonder Woman flew up on instinct, and as soon as her feet left the ground a web of electricity whipped through the floor, and she heard the screams of men and women dying down the corridor. She shot down toward where the shouts were coming from, only to be hit by a wave of electricity as it shot up from the ground and up to the ceiling. She held in a gasp, and rolled with the blow, slamming her feet into the wall and tearing into stone and plaster as she broke through it. Machines cracked and screamed as damage was done to the circuits, and the electric storm died down. She took a breath, stepped out of the crater her body had created, and shot down, once more, toward the source of the screaming. All was quiet now. And when she reached where she thought the noise must be coming from, the charred corpses of security guards lay across the ground. Smoke rose up from their empty mouths.
"Hera."
*
"Yours gods hold no power over me, Diana," grinned Scisiel, as he looked at the technicians. "I sold enough of myself to ensure that. You, get the men to the cells, and inform our dear Doctor that his time is coming. Be prepared."
*
She followed the map that had been drawn into her mind by Demeter. The gods had sworn not to directly interfere with human endeavours, but with Diana as their vessel, they could still affect change, if it was in line with her own morals and values. She crouched own, and her fingers found the invisible seam of a trapdoor that lead down into the depths of the castle. Digging in, she wrenched the door off of its concealed hinges, and then descended below.
There was no sound as she descended, but as soon as she reached the bottom of the passage, gunfire broke out. In the darkness, she could not see where the bullets were coming from, but her hearing was more than adept at the task, and her wrists sprang to action, her indestructible bracelets deflected each and every bullet sent her way. Her eyes, after a second, adjusted to the dim light, and like an eagle, she saw her attackers. Mercenaries, trained and with automatic weapons. She continued to deflect the bullets spraying from the weapons at an alarming rate with one wrist, and with the other, released her lasso from its clasp and began to spin it about, until it began to whistle in the darkness. She let it loose, and it snaked outward, and yanked the first line of guards back into the second, and with the bullet fire momentarily stopped, she barrelled into them, a force of nature, and a few seconds later, she stood triumphant.
A whisper led her forward.
*
"We just lost Alpha and Beta teams, sir!"
"I know. Expendable."
"But sir, they--"
Scisiel turned at the man who was shouting at him, and placed a hand over his face. "Die now, be quiet and die." The flesh upon the man's face began to melt downward, and he tried to scream through suddenly malformed lips. "I said be
quiet and die." Scisiel pushed him to the floor, and watched the security feeds from the dungeon below. "Your move, Doctor."
*
Wonder Woman remained silent as she headed deeper into the inky black. She remembered her dreams, the words whispered again and again to her:
"The darkness." Was this that darkness? The mysterious force looming around her. She trudged onward, her limbs getting heavy. She didn't question why this was happening, and continued regardless.
"Do you know how it feels to be buried alive?"
She choked. Her lungs... Something was... "Ghhhgk." She clutched at her throat. Soil filled her mouth and jammed into her oesophagus. She was lying on her back, bound, the mud washing over her as it poured down with rain from above. A man, small and unassuming, stood over head, holding an umbrella, protecting himself from the downpour. "Ggggkkk..." Men around the opening of the grave were shovelling mud down inside.
"I hear it's quite terrifying."
She strained against the bonds, but they were too tight, her wrists must have been tied together because she couldn't feel her strength, her power. "GGhghhhh..." Suddenly she was up to her head in the dirt, a spade full of mud from drowning in it, and then she took a breath...
How? she asked herself.
How are you in a grave? How are you in a grave, when you were moments before in a dungeon? She breathed in, still being buried, but now only stale air filled her lungs.
How are you anywhere but the corridor in the bottom of the castle? She jerked forward, wrenched herself out of the fantasy being cast into her mind. "You'll have to do better than that!" she screamed in defiance, and continued to move forward, her limbs still heavy.
"I guess I will," said the voice to itself.
*
"What's she doing?" Scisiel was talking to himself. Mere moments before, he'd taken the time to slaughter his entire staff of inept technicians, and was now munching on a bag of chips as he watched Wonder Woman stand perfectly still, twitching. "What in
his name is she doing?"
*
She moved forward, every step taking her deeper into the belly of the beast. There were no more guards preventing her from making progress. She smashed her fist into the lock mechanism beside the door, and the door creaked open, heavy stone on heavy hinges, and she looked inside.
"You came."
She knew who it was immediately. The man who had haunted her dreams. Here he was, chained to the floor, his body wrapped with metal links that made his every movement an apparent agony. "I'm here to save you."
"He is here though, he is here and he will make us all suffer--"
"Who are you talking about?"
"Me, I hope." A small man appeared behind Diana, and she spun around, ready for anything. "Because I do take a certain pleasure in seeing the suffering of anything. Forever."
"Who are you?" She stepped forward, her fist raised.
"Doctor Psycho. A name, I hope, you will not forget in a long time." He laughed. "And before you think about beating me to death, I have to ask, what will that achieve?"
"It'll make
me feel better." She lifted him off the floor, and held him high over the ground, his tiny legs wiggling about. "And that would go a long way to making my day an improvement."
"But then you wouldn't save your friend over there. The messenger." He chuckled. "Because there are rules to this place."
A tingling sensation echoed up her thigh. She dismissed it. "You are lying." She wrapped the lasso around his torso. "Tell the
truth: What holds him here?"
"A spell. One of my own concocting. You see, he cannot leave here. Those chains are bound to the world itself. Gaia would be torn asunder if he left this cell."
"Then he is trapped?"
"Yes. But no." He cringed.
"No? Tell me. How will he leave."
"Someone needs to bear his burden." He stifled a cough of anger. "Someone needs to wear the chains."
"Who is he?"
"An angel, Wonder Woman, who saw the infinite chasm of the universe and was blinded by it. If he were to walk the world he would reveal the secret that looms over the multiverse."
"...The darkness."
"Yes." He grit his teeth. "I hate you for this."
"The truth hurts, Doctor Psycho." The tingling in her thigh moved down. She pressed her finger to her ear, and opened her League alarm, alerting her comrades-in-arms that they were needed. "Then I will bear his burden."
"Damn you..."
She knocked out Psycho, and then went to work freeing the angel, who looked at her empty eyes. When he was free, she replaced the chains upon herself, the weight forcing her to her knees. "Hh... Go. There's help coming. Go."
"The darkness," the angel whispered, "engulfs you."
The tingling was by her knee now. What was that? "You need to go. Before..." She felt so heavy now. A cacophony of weight upon her back. "Before..." She blinked. That tingling...
She screamed, and the weight fell away from her. She was standing in the darkness, and stroking her leg was the small man from the fantasy scenario that had unravelled inside her mind. "You..."
"Oh, little girl, I'm sorry, did I
hurt you?" Doctor Psycho laughed, his hand still against her leg. "I do hope not."
"Get away from me..." She swatted him aside, and he laughed as he hit the wall.
"Oh, violence and pain! Lickety-split, my favourite combination. I do love it when you girls get hot and heaving..."
She punched him in the face, and he fell unconscious, and looked up. The layout of the corridor was exactly the same as it had been in her dream, and she realised now that her escape from the grave was a device created by Psycho, before she
did realise she could escape. All in her head. She breathed in, and realised her heart was
racing. Diana took a moment before continuing, and then headed toward the entrance leading to the cell. She smashed her fist into the lock mechanism beside the door, and the door creaked open, heavy stone on heavy hinges, and she looked inside.
He screamed when he saw her, but then as she stepped closer, her presence seemed to calm him. He began to ramble, inaudibly at first, gibberish, but then she began to hear... "
I saw it all, scarred across His creation, I saw the secret history, the story not yet told... As I fell from my post, I saw it all. And I know. I know that he will come, the freed Lord of the Apocalypse, god not of life nor death, but of that which is far, far worse..." He rubbed his wrist against his temple. "
Lightning masses in the one who races against the edge of time! Legion and onslaught and the inevitable race from the end..." Blind eyes welled with tears, the bound angel with torn wings and feathers littering the ground, sobbing words that didn't make sense to anyone, let alone himself."
They rise again, the scourge of the world, the generations weep..." He coughed, chaffed lips cracking. "
The lady of thunder, blessed, defeating he-who-rages..." She approached him slowly, ready for anything. "
An old foe with a new angle and a new foe hidden in-between nowhere comes..." She examined the chains, and then began to take them apart, listening to his words, but concentrating on getting the job done. "
And the dream, the dream that shouldn't be so, they want it so much, the seven of them, lusting for it..."
Diana tried to comfort the angel, but it wouldn't stop shaking. "It's okay, I'm here now, I'm here to help."
"
You won't be able to though, will you?" His free hand clutched her bare shoulder. His words made her shudder, like he shouldn't entirely be there, and the vibration of his voice... She remembered the Wonder Woman that saved her in Tartarus. She remembered that feeling of disjointed reality beneath the world. "
The darkness comes, will strike down the Sun God, scour the Earth of life, and he will come, the great one, the Void King, he will emerge..."
"That's the idea, sweetheart," Wonder Woman spun around, and a man in a well cut suit stepped forward. "The Void King. He goes by many names, but sealed under the universe, his prison a scab, he waits."
"I don't like surprises. Who are you?"
"Scisiel. And my brother over there? He knows too much. And now you do too."
The prisoner screamed, shuffling back against the wall. "
Scisiel, sold his soul for the end of the everything... Qliphoth inside Qliphah..." The angel clutched his head. He was an ancient thing, his skin so thin, hair long and scraggly, and his nails longer than anything. "
He betrayed his life, fell and fell like I did all those years..."
"And I enjoyed it, brother. You don't know the pleasure of sin if you're so high up not to enjoy it." He stepped toward him, and reached his hand down to the angel's head. Wonder Woman grabbed his wrist.
"Don't touch him."
"No, honey, don't touch me." She looked at her hand, as smoke began to rise off her fingers. "Because I may have betrayed my heritage, but I still have more power than you will ever know."
She withdrew her hand, her skin blistered and burnt, and then looked at him. "I've fought gods to standstills." She clenched her wounded hand into a fist and punched Scisiel through a wall, her knuckles blistering. "You don't intimidate me."
"
The darkness... he sold himself to the oncoming storm, he is their herald. The herald to the great darkness. And only we know it."
"It'll be okay."
"NO. IT REALLY WON'T BE." Diana turned, and shook her head. Scisiel had doubled in size, his once pale flesh was now on fire, and his suit had long since burned into nothingness.
"YOU AREN'T LEAVING THIS PLACE." "Yes I am." Diana smiled, her hand resting on the chains that bound the fallen angel.
"... NO. I JUST SAID THAT YOU'RE NOT. AND I MEAN--" The chain Diana held swung behind Scisiel and embedded itself into the wall, and without a moment's hesitation she flew at the flaming, inhuman mass, the chains still in her hands. Scisiel, now bigger than the room, was swatting his hands down at her, but his size and her agility were incomparable, and she was shooting around him like a bullet.
"GET THOSE AWAY FROM ME!" He swatted at the chains, catching his arms in them, and Diana leapt over his wrists, the chains crackling with energy as they met his fiery flesh.
"KILL YOU! BURN YOUR SOUL AND EAT YOU ALIVE, SACRIFICE YOU TO--" Diana landed in front of Scisiel, and held the two ends of the chains. "These can hold an angel." She wrenched them toward each other, bringing them together, and the chains looped around Scisiel tightened, toppling him. "And they will hold you." He looked up, from the floor, shrinking down, the chains tightening with her pull she gave. "Yield."
"
Once fixed, the signal will fly, the domino will fall, the great darkness, it will come, it will come..." The angel was sitting huddled in the corner, staring at the two of them through his fingers. "
The Sun God will bubble and burst..."
Diana walked over to the fallen angel, and helped him up. "I'm going to take you to safety."
"You don't know what you're doing, Wonder Woman!" Scisiel was now back to his normal size, naked, bound by the chains that once held his prisoner. "You don't
know!"
"I might come back for you." Wonder Woman flew out of the prison, the angel in her arms, and headed for the sunlight. She landed on the dale outside the looming structure, and checked the angel again. "How do you feel?"
"
The Circle will complete. The winged one is tainted by the touch of the trapped one, the precursor..."
"Wonder Woman, I'll take him from here."
Diana looked up, ready for anything. Before her was what she assumed the fallen angel would look like if he hadn't been bound to the Earth for one hundred years. He was beautiful, his wings flapped in the dawn light, and his armour, gold and white, was inscribed with runes that she had never seen before in her life. "Who are you?"
"Zauriel, of the Eagle Host. Guardian Angel, currently in-between charges." He lowered himself to the grass, and put out his hand. "I've admired your work for years."
"You're an angel? Then you're trying to set my hand alight, with that little act, aren't you?"
"Scisiel is inside, I take it?" Zauriel looked over to the castle. "Subdued?" His hand floated over his sheathed sword. "A taint upon this world."
"Yes, bound by the chains he used to keep this creature."
"His touch was tainted. Mine, on the other hand, is not so painful." He put out his hand again. "And you know that, don't you, Diana? Because you sense these things."
She looked at his eyes, and then nodded slowly. Taking his hand, she felt warm, and the burns and bruises inflicted in the night before eased and vanished. "What will you do with him?"
"Take him home. We can help him, maybe. Or, at least, make him comfortable. He was never supposed to fall. But these things happen."
"What happened to him?"
Zauriel looked at her. "There are rules, Diana. Unfortunate rules. But believe me, you will find out soon enough." Zauriel took the fallen angel in his arms, and flapped his wings.
Diana stepped forward. "Then, this darkness, what is it?"
"It is coming." He vanished with a flap of his wings.
"It is coming." Wonder Woman repeated. She then headed toward the castle, to where she had battled, feeling that she should be feeling weary, but after the touch of that angel, refreshed. Rejuvenated. She held her lasso, and headed inside.
*
Scisiel lashed out inside the chains. His skin itched, like ants creeping all over him. "No, no, you can't do this, you can't..."
The voice was slow and deep, echoing within his mind and his mind alone: "
You forsook your God, Scisiel. You have no allegiance to anyone but yourself. We granted you power, and you failed at the one task assigned to you."
"No…" His flesh began to melt. He tried to scream, but his throat collapsed inwards. He gagged on molten flesh, alive for no reason other than
they decreed it, and then as soon as his body was no more than a pool of melted flesh, bone and muscle, he died, and was dragged down to Hell.
*
"Hades," grunted Diana, as she searched the ruins. DEO agents had been dispatched with a phone call, and were rounding up the unconscious mercenaries. She could find hide nor hair of Doctor Psycho, who had pawed all over her mind, and where there was once a bound damned angel, was a pool of what smelled like melted fat. She spoke to the officer in charge, filled them in on what happened, and then departed.
Doctor Psycho nursed his broken nose and smiled up at the night sky as he bent perceptions around himself. He watched as Wonder Woman flew away, a goddess upon Earth. "I was inside you, Diana." He laughed. "I know everything about you. I know about your island and your sisters. I know there's a whole civilisation of women just like you that I can make suffer. And I know that you're on a crash course to the end, and I cannot wait to bear witness to it." The DEO agents looked up from their vans, and could have sworn they heard someone, but shook their heads collectively. And then when they got home, they would feel a strange urge to put their guns in their mouths, and pull the triggers. Funny that, thought Doctor Psycho, as he walked among them, scarring their minds with his thoughts.
