Wonder Woman #17 Crisis Tie-In!

“You’re going to be working with Clements til we get things situated.” Her new supervisor’s voice was steely and gruff. She was in her late 50’s and she had been around the block a time or two, so Diana had decided to tread lightly until she had her figured out. The wrinkles in her face told the tales that she wasn’t a normal gamer and the silver hair attested to distinction. Yes this lady had seen a lot and Diana was going to do what it took to give her wide latitude as well as deemed respect. Irenia Thibideaux was of the few holdovers that still remembered what it was like during the 1970s when things were a lot different. Diana pushed her glasses up as they had drooped down her nose, and looked at Thibideaux, nodding in acknowledgement.

“Shanica Clements?” Was all that she said in response.

“You’ve heard of her?” The reply was simple enough.

Diana nodded. “She was responsible for bring down the Triad Organization in Gotham. She busted fifty people in a smuggling and distribution racket for hardcore drugs.”

“Almost as if I read the report word for word myself.” Thibideaux replied.

Diana paused as she considered what she was going to say next. “I try and keep up.”

“Good we’ll need that initiative in the very near future.”

Diana put her pen down she had been jotting notes down with as she looked Thibideaux in the eyes directly. “What’s going on?”

Thibideaux raised her slender grey eyebrow as she looked at Diana. “Infiltration, Agent Prince.” It was all she said. It was all she needed to say. With that her boss had turned on her heel and left Diana’s makeshift office.

Diana took out her stylus and underlined a meeting with Clements. Meeting the up and coming superstar of the DEO was definitely going to be a priority. Diana picked up the phone and called Clements’ cell phone, because it was lunch time and she was hungry. Not particularly food either.

*~*~*

Shanica Clements was a prided agent for the FBI formally and currently for the DEO. Her skills were touted as ones that were going to save face in recent public scandals that had rocked the Federal Government by getting things done. Clements was one of the very few African-American female agents the DEO had. That was a fact she was extremely proud of as well. She brushed back a lock of hair that had fallen in her eyes as she saw the slender form of Diana Prince approach her table. “Ms. Prince?” She stood from the table she was sitting at in a secluded spot that would give two Federal agents some privacy to discuss business. She offered her hand to Diana as Diana took her hand humbly.

“Ms. Clements, please call me Diana.” She stated.

“As long as you call me Shanica.” Clements smiled

“I am told you’re the superstar.” Diana started in a jocular fashion.

“I paid them off to say that,” She lifted her iced tea to her lips as she took a sip, holding back as much of her curt smile as she could.

Diana nodded as the waiter came over and took Diana’s drink order. She simply stated that she would have the same thing that Clements was having and the waiter nodded and left to let them ponder what they would order for their lunch. Diana picked up the menu and chose a feta cheese salad and Clements just chose a t-bone steak. “You gotta live a little, girl!” Clements joked as she tried to quell the silence.

“I hate writing expense reports!” Diana nodded “We’re going to be working together for awhile I suppose I wanted to meet my partner early.”

Clements nodded. “No worries, I was going to do the same thing.” She paused as she looked at her. “People have been saying that you were one of the few that had made it out of the attacks.”

Diana lifted an eyebrow “I suppose that’s the latest gossip to train through.” She shrugged. “I was on assignment when that happened.” She drank some of her tea after it had been brought by the waiter.

Clements added. “I read your dossier backwards and forwards, Diana, I know your psych profile and I spoke with several people who know you.”

“You do your homework.” Diana nodded.

“I know you couldn’t have done or would do anything like that.” Clements sat back. “And you know that me being from Gotham I love a whodunit.”

Diana mused with a smirk. “I wonder why.”

“Anyway, there’s a lot of evidence that points to the fact that it doesn’t stop with Brian Rockwell.” Clements decided to disseminate the case as a sign of trust to her. “Clearly there’s an agenda to rewrite the human genome.”

“Which every ethical scientist has said is extremely dangerous.” Diana added.

“True, but Rockwell’s organization is wrought with theories how these advancements were in the best interest of humanity an safeguard us from the likings of a fascist Superman or something along those lines.”

“You think this goes to the very top?” Diana looked a bit surprised.

Clements nodded. “Where there’s smoke there’s fire.”

“If you believe so why haven’t you said anything?”

“You gotta take what you got.” Clements brushed away a lock of hair in her face. “Cliché aside, we need proof.”

“We?”

Clements nodded. “We’re partners remember?”

“True.” She smiled finally. From the corner of her eye she saw a masked man enter the restaurant as internal warning flags went off. “I need to go freshen up.” She stood and headed towards the restroom as Clements just raised an eyebrow.

“Oookay..” Clements replied and started to get up and follow her, but the masked man took out a gun.

“EVERYONE GET DOWN!” He yelled out.

Maxell Lord started his day like any other, perhaps there was more to the story than met the eye but so far he hadn’t seen much to persuade him to move up any timetables yet. “Mr. President, there was an incident in New York this morning and Susan Flores is here to see you, sir.”

“Okay,” he clicked the intercom. “Send in Under Secretary Flores in.”

“Good morning, Mr. President.” She said in a cordial and formal tone.

“It’s only good once we get these stupid attacks and what not out of the news, Susan.” He growled in frustration.

“I am on it.” She looked at him with some exasperation herself. “This is going all wrong from what we were promised.”

“We promised the moon and the stars and all we’ve had are problems from the start.” He folded his arms as he looked out across the Rose Garden. “I am going on TV tonight, and I am going to denounce this and cut our losses.”

“We put billions into this project, Max.” She took off her glasses as she rubbed her eyes.

“Then we can spend our money better elsewhere, obviously.” Lord had his hands behind his back, “Besides, I have an idea what we need to do to clean this mess up.”

“Well you could start by filling me in.” She looked at him.

“All in good time, Susan, all in good time.” He repeated the phrase in a slow and cool manner. Lord did have the ability to make things seem simple rather than complicated as the media made it out sometimes.

“I hope you know what you’re doing.” Susan Flores just shrugged as she picked up her satchel and put her paperwork back into the bag. “I am sure we’re going to need a lot of miracle working on this, Mr. President.”

“You can be sure of that, Miss Flores.” He nodded as he turned his head to face her for a moment then he turned his head back to watch the Rose Garden. “Just fighting the good fight and looking Presidential while doing it.”

She laughed. “As if.” She smirked as Lord waved her off.

“Go on get out of here, I have work to do.”

“Sure, whatever.” She left the office as Lord sat back and he saw the television as it chaos in the downtown New York bistro. Wonder Woman had apprehended the man that nearly killed some of the patrons in the restaurant just a few hours prior. He clicked up the volume as he saw Elizabeth Gary giving an interview to the man that was an eye witness to the attack in the restaurant.

“I saw this man come in with a mask and started to open fire at everyone with his gun!” The man exclaimed as Elizabeth Gary just nodded.

“What happened next?” Gary prodded him with the next question.

“Well Wonder Woman swooped in and saved everyone, but she took off his mask and we didn’t know who he was!”

Gary then took the mic back to his mouth as she nodded. “So Wonder Woman saved everyone from this attacker?”

“I don’t know what’da hell was going on…, but she said it was a big problem…” The man answered the reporter’s question with his own question.

“Okay thank you for your time.” Gary looked back into the camera. “There you have it folks, something strange is going down in New York and from what witnesses are saying, Wonder Woman believes that something definitely is going down here. This is Elizabeth Gary, Eyewitness News…..”

Lord turned the volume down as he put a hand to his chin. He looked at his files as he considered what he was going to do say or do. One thing was for sure though, if the press got a hold of a story that a member of the Justice League had been a part of, it would soon turn into a full blown media sensation. He sat back as he considered his options which at the moment seemed to few and far between, but he knew that considering that people seemed to be distracted by the Wonder Woman stories lately in New York that they might forget about the attacks by The Black Panther.

He hoped anyway.

-*-*-*-

“I need you for a bit longer, Apollo.” She sighed.

“How do you know what I am doing is helping or not?”

“Because all the information you’ve helped me get has proved that Hermes was correct and if he has told Zeus that my allegiance is corrupted, what do you think that he will tell Athena?”

“I really don’t know, but I do know that this cannot continue.” He had changed his voice to that of Apollo as he looked at her. “Subterfuge in this manner isn’t going to change the fact that Zeus knows that you may have divided loyalties now and that you are vested by Patriarch’s world more and more.”

“My loyalties are to freedom and justice, Apollo; you should know that better than anyone.” She cleared her throat. “Where is Steve now?”

He nodded finally. “I know your heart, Diana.” He paused. “He is still on Themyscira, he has chosen not to receive the gift that you asked Athena for.”

She sighed. “That man is a stubborn fool.”

“Apparently.” The god nodded.

“We need to bring him back to America; he has other duties to attend to.” She relented.

“I know, but I have a few more things to check on before I do that.”

“Like what?” She raised her eyebrow at him.

“Your suspicions about members of the government in lieu of the recent events in New York City have led me to believe that one or more of the members of the Cabinet of the President are behind this.”

Diana nodded as she saw Apollo leave. He was correct in the fact that things had been left open, but there was a lot more going that met the eye.
-*-*-*-

Diana watched Batman and J’onn look at the evidence she had brought to them. “This might explain a lot of things.” She offered.

“Doubtful.” Batman looked up from the microscope that he was examining the evidence with.

“Why do you always force me to prove everything I am saying?” She was getting frustrated with his attitude lately.

“Because, if someone important was this, they would have made a move for a coupe d’ tat and took over everything not just waging war against us..”

“That may not be entirely true.” J’onn spoke up. “I cannot sense this creature telepathically, but there is a psionic resonance that it leaves sort of like footprints. There are more than just a few that we have to contend with.”

Diana raised an eyebrow. “So they build an army to fight us?”

“With us out of the way, the Government can continue to do business on the .” Batman had to finally relent to the logic of their argument.

“Who else knows about this Diana?” J’onn looked at her as a bat flew above them. The Batcave was dark as usual and offered little comfort to her

“A Federal agent named Shanica Clements.” She added.

“Clements is connected loosely with Checkmate.” Batman looked at them both.

“How do you know that?” Diana looked at him directly.

“I know.”

“Damnit Bruce, I hate….”

J’onn interrupted them as his eyes glowed. “Clements has been taking orders from Director Irenia Thibideaux.

“Of course.” Diana looked at the Martian with a little bit of confusion. “I work for her as well.”

“The Director is not acting in accordance with the DEO, Diana.” He paused. “At least not completely.”

“I may know why as well.” Batman pulled up a record in the Batcomputer that displayed Brian Rockwell’s dossier as it showed that he had been dabbling into genetic experiments for years, but what wasn’t commonly know about Rockwell is that there were no birth records for him. “Bingo.” Batman punched a few keystrokes as it brought up Rockwell’s involvement with the Project 51 a few years back.

“Project 51 was a codename for a project that the US government was putting together to experiment by putting human DNA under Metahuman tests.” The Dark Knight continued. “Apparently there was some success behind that venture, because little of the information that I found has ever been disseminated to private corners.”

“Recombining DNA is a dangerous gamble.” J’onn said outloud as it was more a thought that just a rhetorical statement.

“Indeed, or at least a risky businesses venture.” Batman nodded as he brought up Rockwell’s recent history. “He’s been busily trying to convince the private enterprises that are invested into genome research to give him money to further his causes.”

“Yes anything to do with bio-technology or medical research has been given top priority by the Congress and past Administrations.” She nodded. “What does that have to do with Starro’s plans for conquest?” She added.

“Creating Metahumans isn’t actually something you can do… Genetic research is tricky enough; but to try and explain why some people have abilities and some do not have been a mystery that science has tried to pursue since the genome was fully mapped fifteen years ago.”

J’onn added. “To better humanity.”

“Or conquer it.” Diana looked at him.

“Either way, this goes far deeper than just the government and Rockwell. There is some sort of symbiosis going on between the two of them to accomplish its plans, obviously.”

“That would make sense, because the government obviously want to create misdirection if they were behind the commissioning of the metahuman operation…. A layer of subterfuge would have done it to created to accomplish their goals.” Batman looked at them both. “We’ve got some work to do.” Batman stood up.

“I’ll talk to Rockwell, since I am the one that had him locked up.”

“I doubt he’s still there, Diana.”

“He and Holloway were transferred to an undisclosed location.” Batman looked at her. “Undisclosed in government terms means that they were busted out of jail.”

“I know where he’s at.” Diana clenched her fists.

“Good, because J’onn and I need to alert the others.” Batman draped the cape around his shoulders. “And I am sorry for my attitude lately; I have had a lot going on.”

“Save it, Bruce.” Diana lifted off the ground and flew out of the Batcave and headed towards the scene of her last confrontation with the Black Panther and Holloway. Even genetic monsters were still men… and men were creatures of habit she had learned in all her years in Patriarch’s world.


-*-*-*-*-

Diana sat down after a short flight from NYC to the dockyards in the harbor. The ships going in and out of the harbor kept the Port Authority in The City busy looking for smugglers and drugs.

Hermes’ warning seemed to call louder than it had before. The government had been shown to have their fingers deep in this… ‘Crisis.’ But she had no time to judge whether Hermes’ warning had merits she needed to follow or not. But her brief preoccupation was interrupted by the voice of Brian Rockwell. “I had a feeling you would follow us, Princess.”

“I haven’t been called that in a long time, Mr. Rockwell.” She called back into the darkness.

“I have been watching your people for quite awhile, Diana.”

“Glad to hear it.” She looked around as she was trying to catch her bearings as she looked the yardarm that was pointed in the opposite direction than when she first landed in the docks. “You seem to be trying to prove that you need metahumans before you rid the world of them.”

He laughed some. “This is true. There are some of you that have abilities that we’ve never been able to duplicate.” He stepped from the shadows as he saw Diana on the floor of the old wharf wood planks. “You know I never did say thank you for putting me into the hands of the people that gave me a new perspective about life.”

“I know enough that we can stop you.” She gritted her teeth as she looked the man who now was controlled completely by the alien. “They couldn’t control you through you taking orders so they finally just took control of you completely.”

“Absolutely brilliant deduction, Diana.” He mockingly clapped his hands. “The whole picture hasn’t been painted yet.”

“You’re done with your paintbrush.” Diana took her lasso in her hand but she suddenly felt a push from behind as she had been lunged at by The Black Panther. His powers were unabated as he took a swung at Diana’s jaw that sent her back into a heap of boxes and crates.

The Panther smiled as he stood over Diana with his fists clenched and pounding one fist into his left hand as he looked at her. “I wasn’t quite ready for our last meeting, Your Majesty, but I assure you that this time is going to be quite a different dance.”

Diana wiped blood from her mouth as she stood back up. “Dancing isn’t something I do very well.” She growled as she leapt up and fired a punch back at Holloway that sent him against a brick wall. He crashed through the bricks but seemed to be not phased as he stood up from the rubble. He reached into his coat and pulled out his guns as he fired them with superhuman accuracy. Diana blocked the bullets that ricocheted off her gauntlets. “You’re going to need to do better than that, Kitty.”

He yelled back at her. “I am to rip your apart and then I am going to eat your entrails!!” He leaped at her as he sent a well place kick to her jaw. The blow lanced off her face as she fell back again. She heard the click of a gun as she took off her tiara and flung it up towards the sounds of the gun about to go off… It knocked Rockwell to the floor. The tiara flied back to her hand in the same the motion as he put her boot into the Black Panther’s midsection and he was flung backwards.

Rockwell had blood coming from his mouth as his hand was hanging from the top of the landing. The Panther had climbed up to the landing and took out his pistol. Holloway unsheathed a katana from his coat as he yelled in a battle cry and lunged towards the Amazon.

Diana crossed her arms as she blocked the sword from slicing her open like a ribbon. “You know I am getting really tired of this.”

“Oh! But I am having so much fun!” He lifted up the sword again and swung for her head. She ducked and flipped in the air and landed behind him and sent a roundhouse kick to the Black Panther’s head. He slipped and fell off the landing and twenty feet to the floor. She heard him survive the fall but he had many bones in his body were broken as he cried out in sheer terror and pain. She saw Rockwell stir as he sat up.

“Is he?” Rockwell looked at Diana.

“No, but he’s going to need a lot of medical attention.” She responded. “What were you thinking?” She asked the direct question that he was going to get from the others.

“To control and dominate… humankind needs to bow to our wishes. Using nuclear power would allow us to control and dominate your society…” He looked at her with nothing but contempt in his heart for her.

“That’s why you stole the Metronium? That’s why you’re trying to destroy the metahumans?” Diana looked at Rockwell as his eyes were rolled back in his head.

“The radiation and isotopes will allow us to strengthen and the destruction of the Justice League will allow us to conquer humans.” Rockwell’s words weren’t his own but his lips spoke the words.

The body of Brian Rockwell fell and she felt his pulse as she felt no heartbeat whatsoever. She knew that she was going to have to explain this but she needed to get the alien back to the lab so that the others could look at it and figure out how to stop the alien, but she was going to need the help of the others. She made sure she contacted the police from her cell-phone that was attached to her pouch that Bruce had made her to keep simple items that she needed. She took pictures of the scene with the camera phone and sent them to Thibideaux and then she lifted off of the ground.

Epilogue:



Diana watched Steve Trevor wheel in from his office to where she was at. “I appreciate you taking me to Themyscira, Diana, but I am needed elsewhere.”

“I know, Steve, but I made contact with people that you would have been familiar with.” Diana watched him as she wore the tunic of her people. “I know you don’t like being the way you are, but why didn’t you take my offer to have your legs restored?”

“I don’t need or want it, Diana, besides I have other things I can do that can make my life just as fulfilling.” She rolled away from her. “I’m going to be leaving to head back to Washington, D.C., will you be coming too?”

She nodded. “Soon, I have things to discuss with the Justice League.” She sighed. She understood why men were so difficult but it wasn’t something that she pondered more than a few times in her life, but men like Batman and Steve Trevor had her respect because they were focused on their goals. It was a focus that she understood all too well and she knew that those two men would not allow the nation or world fall to madness…

Chaos and peace were partners that led each other lead in the grand dance, but it was time to focus on getting the world back together and getting Patriarch’s World back to where it had been before Starro and the rouge metahumans had been involved…

She saw her Amazon sisters helping Trevor get to his plane that he would use to get back to the United States. She knew that she would be seeing him again soon, but it would not be as mere friends but as warriors. There was much to fight for and she was ready…