Wonder Woman #31: "Dystopia, Part One"

Wonder Woman soared over the world, not realizing that everything was about to change. She did not think that the world was about to shift, that a power had been stolen, and a responsibility had been wrenched from its rightful bearer. She had one thing on her mind, and that was the well being of Donna Troy, Wonder Girl, who had come to her with news of haunting nightmares, terrifying faces; and as any good sister would do, she came to her as soon as she could. Donna soared up from Titans Tower below, and smiled as best she could as they flew side by side. “Thanks for coming, Diana. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, I just returned from a League meeting, I came as soon as I could.”

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have pulled you--”

Diana put her hand up, and shook her head. “Sister, you have always been there for me, and I am here for you. Tell me of your dreams?”

“The dreams?” Donna gathered herself, as the two heroines floated above Titans' Tower, just below the cloud line. “I see a face. And he sees me, and he speaks to me as if… as if I am his…” she wiped her eyes, and then looked up to her sister. “Like I’m his daughter!” She took a moment, and collected herself, Diana’s hand resting warmly on her shoulder. When her eyes rejoined Diana’s, a look of seriousness filled her features. “Diana?”

“Donna, sister, your face… why are you so pale?”

“What? I don’t--” Donna Troy wretched. Something caught in her throat like a clamp, and she reeled forward. “D-Diana?” She screamed as the darkness swarmed about her being, vomited up from her pure, crystal clear soul. She coughed, unable to breathe, and Diana reached out toward her, to somehow save her from whatever was afflicting her. “Oh, God help me, no…” Donna tried to land carefully, Diana attempting to assist but the young Amazon pushed her away, as if prolonged exposure to her flesh was infectious. Donna collided hard with the grassy knoll that surrounded Titans Tower, a crater created by the impact. “Nuhhh…”

Diana didn’t know what was happening; she’d never felt anything like this. She pulled her out her lasso instinctively and it felt heavy in her hands. Then her eyes opened wide as she realized what she had to do.

“I said I would always be there for you…” She wrapped the lasso around her fists, and then looked to Donna. She felt her skin turn palest white and black ichor drip from her mouth. With one swift motion, she pushed her hands into the body of her sister. “I take on… your burden… willingly…” She screamed as her hands withdrew from Donna’s chest, her finger nails black, her skin now creeping boney white. Blood-drained flesh seemed to ripple over her, and Donna shook her head, looked up, and caught her breath.

“No, Diana, no! I can’t--” Donna reached forward now, as if she could take back the malady that had struck her so hard, and so fast, but Diana shook her head, the onyx ooze now dribbling from inside her mouth, pale Amazonian skin like the moon on a clear hunter’s night, Diana’s eyes bleeding into blackness. She thrust the Lasso of Truth into Donna Troy’s hands and the young hero felt connected to everything at once, and her head went dizzy for a split second. Diana wretched once more and Donna was about to place her hand on her shoulder when Diana’s head jerked up:

“Run.”

The atmosphere seemed to explode as thunder clouds rolled in above New York. Donna Troy glanced up, white lightning shattering across the skyline, and then down to Diana, her uniform now black where it was once red and blue, white where there was once gold, and a horrified expression across her face. She whispered a word, and then leaped high into the atmosphere, Titans Tower quaking with the exertion.

Donna didn’t know what to do. Thunder and lighting crashed down across the Hudson, the clouds seemed to thicken, and then, as she turned to face Titans Tower once more, she nearly stumbled back.

“Donna,” choked Cyborg, his white noise cannon arm attachment aimed at Donna. “I can’t… I can’t control myself…” He screamed her name as his arm fired, but his voice was drowned out over the blistering sound of his attack. White noise rocked her body, but she stood strong, even as the ground around her flew backwards into the river. She didn’t waver. She didn’t falter. She stared down the gathering Teen Titans, fear in their eyes, a voice in their heads that wasn’t their own.

“Fight this! You can fight this!”

“I-I can’t!” screamed Terra, pillars of stone and rock shooting up beneath Donna, easily dodged as Wonder Girl zipped into the air. She hurriedly attached the Lasso of Truth to her hip and continued to feel the vibrations in the air before they occurred. “Donna!!”

Donna’s eyes turned to slits. “I’m sorry. I have to stop you.” She went to battle, the final word Diana uttered to her screaming in her head. Kronus.



Mt. Olympus was charred, the silk curtains that divided the sky from the chambers inside tattered and scorched, the white marble completely black. Melted footsteps were depressed into the floor, leading to the throne of Olympus, where sat Kronus, smiling. He was in nearly every mind in the world, and the power was intoxicating. For a split second, he had made everyone believe in him. He’d entered their minds, and now that they were connected, he was in control. “Who knew this would be so easy?”

Wonder Woman burst through the center of the chamber, emerging from the scrying pool that connected the gods to the realm of Earth below. She gasped, and landed hard on the floor. She looked up, her eyes black, her teeth clenched.

What is this? You were not supposed to be the one to answer my call. Kronus surged upwards. I wanted my daughter. My blood. You are neither. A servant girl. He crushed scorched marble under his grip like it was already dust, and then he closed his eyes. He put his fingers to his temples, and then shook his head. I cannot feel her! You have taken her from me! He roared, and the entire mountain quaked.

Diana choked back a laugh, her throat constricted like the rest of the muscles in her body. "Donna...will...not be...yours."

YET! laughed the Titan. She will not be mine YET He sighed wistfully, and reclined in the throne. You shall do though. You shall do quite nicely. And instead of my daughter, I have her adopted sister. You do not even know what she is inside, do you? You treat her as an Amazon, one of your little island girls… a shame you will no longer be yourself when you next meet her.

“Hrrrgh…”

Stop fighting it. Your body is mine. Now that your gods are banished, uour blessings are blessings given to you by me. I am everything your pantheon was, is, and will be. I have their power, Diana of Themyscira, and that means your blessings are my gifts now. Come here.

“Nuhh… no…” came the stifled reply. Wonder Woman stepped forward, each step an agonizing struggle, her body not her own. “…Gahhh…”

You cannot resist my will, Diana. He stood, and approached her slowly, his black cape crackling around him like fire. He was taller than Ares, taller than Zeus, and he towered over the Amazonian Queen. His face was strangely handsome, his mouth twisted into a smile as he looked Wonder Woman up and down. You accepted my blood as your own without condition. I respect that. I also resent it. He stroked her cheek, but Diana didn’t flinch. She was struggling for control, thoughts in her head not her own, wants and desires to inflict pain stabbing into her mind. The emotions you feel? They are what my daughter will feel. She will accept them readily. They are the true birthright of a Titan.

Wonder Woman’s black lips pursed together, and through gritted, unrelentingly clenched teeth, she spoke: “You won’t… you won’t...”

I will not what? Win? It is not about winning, Diana, it is about taking what is rightfully mine and gifting that to my true blood. I have taken control. And I will take the world. Compensation for my time spent imprisoned. My daughter will rule by my side eagerly.

Wonder Woman tensed up, her muscles rigid. “Nhhhrrr.”

It is amusing for me to feel you struggle. Soon enough, you shall relent, and as your patron, you shall serve me willingly. You are mine. And the rest of the pantheon you so thoroughly worship? Gone. Exiled. Taken away from this world. There is no one to stop me. I placed a piece of my own being inside you, Diana, and you can feel it, can’t you? The anger? The rage? Amazon Vs Titan. You will never win.

“I… will… never…”

Give up? You do not have to. You will simply stop… caring. Now, tell me of my daughter. Tell me of ‘Donna Troy’.



Training instructions and sage advice rang in Donna's head as she drowned out the sound of battle all around: ‘Sometimes, when outnumbered, it’s better to retreat than face defeat.’ Great wisdom, Diana. Cyborg was in the harbor. The lasso felt easy in her hands, and with a loop and a whip and one hell of a heave, Vic Stone was sent flying. She didn’t wait for the rest of the Titans to follow through with the attack. Beast Boy was a mammoth, but he was clumsy, too driven to destroy than succeed. Donna leaned low, and pushed up, and sent the green beast flying into the rest of her team. Then she broke off, flew up, and vanished in the sky.

Wally West pushed the unconscious form of Gar Logan off him, his body dealing with the damage with apparent ease. “Run, Donna, RUN! Run before we catch you!”



He couldn’t talk, thick burns caked around his throat. He was writhing about in the bed, scratching at the wounds, pooling his willpower to heal them, but as much as he tried, he couldn’t completely do away with them. “Hhhhrrrrr…”

“It is alright, my beloved, I’m here for you.” She dabbed a damp cloth across his brow, and he looked at her through fevered eyes. He’d been thrown across the world, landed somewhere, been brought here by savage magicks. “I know what’s happened, Ares. I know your grandfather has returned, crippled your family, and sent you here, to me.”

She smiled, as he murmured nothings into the air.

“I escaped the torments thought up by your uncle, just so I could return to fight by your side. I escaped the worst hell imagined so I could be here today.” She wiped the fevered sweat from his skin, and gently applied a salve to the wounds around his neck. She moved a strand of purple hair from her face. She was tired, but aware, a mad spark of attentiveness behind her eyes. “Circe would never abandon her husband to the torments of an unkind grandfather-in-law.”

Ares looked up, and a smile formed on his lips. “I’ll… bring them… war…”



Wonder Girl landed inside Themyscira House, and headed for the armory. If Diana had been affected, why hadn’t she? Her origins were not clear to her, but she believed her powers to originate from the same source as Diana’s, as that just made sense. But what was it that kept her from transforming into a vicious reflection of herself?

She turned, sword raised. Standing before her was a woman draped in a red cloak, her features not visible to the young woman. The glint of red and silver beneath the scarlet material tickled at Donna’s recollections, but nothing more. “State your business.”

“I should have known better than to sneak up on the sister of the great Wonder Woman. Princess Donna Troy of the Themysciran Amazons. To be honest, I’m surprised it’s you. Always thought poor optimistic Diana would be here at the fall of Man’s World.”

“Who are you?”

“I can taste his influence in the air, Troy. I know what’s happening. It’s Kronus, is it not?”

“I know that,” replied Donna, her sword still levelled at the trespasser. “But I don’t know the how.”

“He’s locked away our gods, he’s resumed his throne as head of the world. Overlord of creation. The last Titan, returned from his prison beneath the world.” The woman smiled, and Donna felt discomfort at the sight of her lips beneath the shadowed hood. “But you knew that, didn’t you? Donna Troy. Teen Titan.”

“Who. Are. You?”

The woman pulled off her hood, and laughed. “Oh, isn’t it obvious?”



Kronus felt his influence across the world. He felt the way it rippled and reverberated out from him, circling the globe and flowing back into him, again and again. He felt like he’d been doing this forever. And it felt like it would never end. Wonder Woman knelt at the foot of his throne. No one has died yet, Diana, you can take some pleasure from that. I am a kind and benevolent god. Soon you will not care about the lives of others. Soon you’ll beg for the blood of others to flow into the oceans. He crouched down. You have no one but me. I am your god. There is no one left in your pantheon. Only Kronus. He stood back up, and waved his hand over the scrying pool. I saw your pithy attempt to save my mother from her murderers, Diana. I saw how you were too late to save her. I saw how you let Gaia die, and I am not feeling forgiving of that. So I shall make things even between us. He watched as violent emotion fermented on Earth. Where shall I send my army first? Somewhere poetic. Why not… Themyscira? Imagine the entirety of the world, six billion men, women and children, now all soldiers in my legion. And imagine them arriving on Themyscria. He laughed. And killing all your sisters.

“Noooaarrhhhh!” screamed the tormented Wonder Woman. She was bound, not physically, but mentally, by the whims of Kronus, but the words leaving his mouth caused her to surge forward. His laughter was cut short, and he placed his hand in front of her, causing her to stop in her tracks. She was completely his, and the new emotions and feelings that raged through her, this sudden lack of moral conscience, it actually hurt. She fought tooth and nail, pushing back the tidal wave of hatred that crashed down on her defences again and again and again, but she was fighting a losing battle.

You are fighting it still, are you not you? This is beautiful. Poetic. Tragic. I wonder who I will have you kill first. Maybe your husband.

Diana’s eyes widened. “Hhhippolytus?”



Steve Trevor vomited over his desk. His head felt like there was a pressure within his brain, never ceasing to push, never stopping in it’s attempt to get inside. His initial gut reaction to this feeling was not a voluntary one, but the fact the screams from the rest of the Checkmate headquarters were echoing down the halls meant that he wasn’t alone in this. He reeled back, and fell into his chair, and felt the urge to push his fingers into his head and pull whatever was doing this to his head out. He resisted the thought, thanked his common sense, and reached into his jacket, pulling his gun from its holster. If this was an attack upon the Checkmate facility, he didn’t want to be taken unawares due to a slight migraine. He looked up to his office door, and watched as it opened. A man clad entirely in white, blonde hair flowing behind his neck, strolled inside, and didn’t stop walking toward Steve.

“Stop where you arrrrrghhh…” Steve buckled, one hand clutching his skull, the other aiming the weapon at this interloper. “Stay… where you… lord… I know you.”

“I have no time for this.” The man clutched Steve Trevor by the head with a glowing, outstretched hand, and the two vanished in a cascade of golden light.



The entirety of the world was silent, apart from one last bastion, no longer hidden behind a veil of magic, in the midst of the Aegean Sea. Themyscira pulsed with activity. Phillipus, long since recovered from her ordeal at the hands of the witch Circe, was giving orders, and the Amazons listened. They were clad in battle armor; they held weapons at the ready. They were prepared for war, because they could hear it across the realms beyond Paradise Island.

“The gods do not answer our prayers,” whispered Penelope, Oracle of Themyscira, as Phillipus stood atop the walls that surrounded the city, also known as Themyscira. “And I can see the world from here. We are no longer separated by magic, only by sea.”

“Where is Diana?”

“I cannot see her,” replied Penelope. “I cannot see beyond the island, but I can hear… whispers… of pain… of conflict…”

Phillipus steeled herself. “Tell the sisters. War is coming to us. Prepare for the worst.”



She released her hood, and revealed the silver and red uniform she had taken as her own. Her tanned skin, her toned muscles, the bracelets around her wrists, and the uniform itself, the emblazoned insignia of Wonder Woman across her breast, all marked her as an Amazon of much import, one that Donna instantly recognised. “Zenobia.” She didn’t lower her sword. “What do you have to do with this?”

Zenobia pushed a lock of bone white hair from her eye line, and then put up her hands. “I do not wish you harm, Troy. Ares took my anger and twisted it into something ugly and monstrous and I have purged those impulses from myself. I am no longer beholden to the will of the gods. I am whole again, though that counts for naught if Kronus succeeds in his plans. He has taken the world, one he helped create, and twisted it in on itself. Warped the minds of the inhabitants. He is everyone at once, and he knows we are untouched by his taint. We have to stop him before he destroys the world.”

Donna looked her in the eye as Zenobia spoke. She had faced murderers. Liars. Rapists. Super-villains. And while Zenobia’s dark eyes showed her capable of the terrible acts that she had been recorded committing in this world, she would not dare call her a liar. She lowered the sword, and sheathed it, and then proceeded to latch the hilt to her hip. “We need to find Diana.”

“She is tainted now. Kronus has done something to the pantheon that empowers her, and I believed you too. But you are here. Sane. Not one of those monosyllabic cretins on the streets.”

Donna remembered the feeling of the darkness inside her soul. She remembered the sweet, painless relief as it was wrenched out from her. And then she thought of her sister. “If we save Diana--”

Zenobia put up her hands. “I understand that, but you need to understand this: Diana is an avatar of Kronus now. An avatar of destruction. He has taken her pure soul and turned it into something horrible, just as Ares did my own darkened glory. That is what the dark gods do. They whisper in our ears and makes us do terrible things. Start wars. Murder. But to do this to Diana, Queen of your people…? Kronus is more than Ares, more than Athena or Apollo. He has awoken with more power than ever, unconstrained by his now dead mother. I know things, Donna, and I know what he intends to do next. If someone was responsible for the death of your most cherished one, would you not want revenge? To hurt those who failed her? Diana failed Kronus, and he’ll want his revenge on her. I think we both know where he will unleash his rage.”

“Oh, Athena help us, Themyscira…!”