Disclaimer: Wonder Woman, Superman, the New Gods and all related characters are property and copyright of DC Comics, a Time Warner company. No copyright infringement is intended. The author received no payment for this story.
WONDER WOMAN: BEGINNINGS
BOOK ONE: THE ALPHA
by JR
Based upon stories by George Perez and John Byrne, as featured in the Wonder Woman comic, Volume Two, issues #10-12, and in Action Comics issue #600; told now without any damn censoring.
PROLOGUE: HEADLINES
"Hot dammit!" Eyes and mouth could grow no larger in the field of freckles that was Jimmy Olsen's face. "I mean, look at her! Just LOOK at HER!"
Though few in the crowded newsroom paid any notice, Clark Kent adjusted his glasses, pretending to squint. The first page of the Planet's extra edition Jimmy held was dominated by a large photo. "Ah, yes. The Boston press is calling her Wonder Woman."
"Ya bet she's a wonder, Mr. Kent, look at those..."
"Lemme see that." Lois Lane snatched the paper from Jimmy's hands. Sitting on a corner of Clark's desk, she casually crossed her long legs. "Oh, come on! Couldn't she give them a less obvious cleavage shot?"
"Lois, I don't-"
"Shut up, Smallville. Look at her! It's all about the boobs!" She threw the paper down. "Fake, too."
"Fake?" Jimmy winced. "Really think she ain't real, Ms. Lane?"
"Maybe she can really fly and all that. I'd buy that easier than those tits being real."
"Fake?"
"What'd you think, Smallville?"
"It's not really my-"
"Yeah, yeah, always the gentleman, Smallville; maybe worked for you back in the sticks, but here-?"
"Fake?"
"The important thing, Lois, is whether she's really as powerful as-"
"As Superman? Fat chance. There's only one Superman, boys." She smiled smugly. "I know that well."
"They say she stopped a crisis at a military base that-"
"Ok, she has some powers, or she'd sure as hell topple face-forward with all that silicone up there, but-"
"Silicone?"
"LOIS!"
"HERE, PERRY!"
"Stop bugging Kent, Lois. Let the boy work."
"Oh, Chief, she isn't-"
"Sure, Kent, sure." Perry White, chief editor of The Daily Planet, sat on the desk next to his star female reporter, both with their backs to Clark. "Lois, get something new on that Wonder Woman broad for tomorrow. We need text to go with a new set of pics-"
"Damn, Perry. I thought we had better standards!"
"Girl sells newspapers, Lois. Cute as a doll and wears the Union's colors like a good American; all great by my standards."
"Oh, sure, naked but for a few bits of flag and-"
"Actually I think she isn't American at all-"
"Shut up, Smallville."
"Hey, Chief-"
"Olsen, I've told you not to call me-"
"You think they're fake, Chief?"
"The pictures? FAKE? Who said-?"
"Her chest, Perry."
"What? Oh. Damn, grow up, Olsen."
"It's said she comes from an isolated, all-female society hidden in-"
"Come on, Smallville, you can't believe all that hot lesbian paradise island crap the Meyer Agency is-"
"Lesbian? She's a lesbian?"
"Shut up, Jimmy."
"Lois, you're just jealous someone else got the scoop this time."
"Come on, Perry! You just can't compare a half-naked cheerleader showing up with Superman's-"
Clark Kent adjusted his glasses. "I can do it."
"Uh?"
"Ah, I can do the piece on Ms. Wonder Woman if Lois-"
Lois rolled her eyes. "Yeah, wouldn't you want a piece of that shameless-!"
"If it's fine with-?"
"Sure, go drool at the silicone! MEN!"
"Lois-?"
Perry White shrugged. "Ok, Kent, you do it."
"Could it really be silicone? They look so-"
"SHUT UP, OLSEN!"
PART ONE: FIRST IMPRESSIONS
He would always remember that first time.
The mechanical constructs rampaged through the street, each larger than a bus. Quadrupedal extremities and viciously fanged maws destroyed storefronts and parked vehicles.
"Giant robot dogs?" The man in blue tights shook his head. "Who the hell makes giant robot dogs?"
"It's better to make a giant insect flier?" Booster Gold told the frowning Blue Beetle. "Oh, crap, they're coming this way."
"We on candid camera or something?"
"Fuck! Wrist blasters ain't doing shit!"
"I mean, GIANT ROBOT DOGS?"
"Get close to me!"
"What?"
"My force-field! GET-!"
"Oh-shi-!"
A blur of red and blue dove through the head of the canine-like automaton, halting its rush.
"Damn, thanks."
"Maybe you should help with the evacuation." The tall man in the red cape threw the ruined robot aside with ease, before taking to the air again.
"That's Superman."
"I could tell. Big eSf on the chest kinda gives it away."
"Superman, dude. We're on the big leagues now!"
"And that means giant robot dogs? Sheesh..."
The Man of Steel rushed to intercept more of the giant mechanical creatures, smiling despite himself. Frivolous as they may be during the sudden attack of Apokolipsian robo-hounds, he could not help but find Blue Beetle's dry comments amusing. Maybe he should work with others more often.
Grabbing another robo-hound by the tail, Superman threw the construct against another of its kind, dismantling both. A glowing wedge of green then materialized and pushed most of the remaining pack backwards, towards the containment structure being shaped by Doctor Fate, another of the costumed protectors on the scene.
"Watch and learn, Pretty Boy!" called out the red-headed man with the bowl-haircut, green energy pouring from the ring on his finger.
Superman stopped to nod amiably at Guy Gardner, and was slammed face-down into the pavement. Jaws of metal not forged on Earth crunched around his neck, and for an instant he grimaced, caught off-balance. He was about to throw the attacker off, when the pressure suddenly disappeared. The hound was pulled away and swung about by a black-haired woman in red, blue and gold.
Superman stood up, and stared.
She was tall, but not as large as Big Barda. Yet the Apokolipsian war-machine crumbled in her hands. First impression was of powerful vitality, balanced by understated elegance. She was obviously in amazing shape, but not just because of the natural exuberance of her curves; perfectly toned muscles flexed under her flawless skin. Even after stepping away from her vanquished opponent, she had the relaxed alertness of the trained fighter.
"Thank you," he said, approaching her, noticing with some embarrassment how little modesty her minimal clothing afforded. She turned around then, and long black hair flowed aside like a glossy curtain of night to reveal her face. Unlikely as it seemed, awareness of even her spectacular figure was then lost, banished by the perfect features and the brightness of those clear, blue eyes.
For a moment he almost stammered, at loss for words. "Er, Wonder Woman, I presume?"
She frowned, and the wrinkling over her nose just made her more fetching. "Diana. Of Themyscira."
"Diana." Suddenly presenting himself as Superman seemed a ridiculous boast.
Then she smiled. Somehow that made her radiant beauty increase exponentially, into the truly heartbreaking. "You are the one called Superman."
"Wow," Booster Gold muttered. "Are those real?"
PART TWO: MY PEOPLE WILL CALL YOUR PEOPLE
Vanessa Kapatelis stepped out into the back yard, her thin frame shivering at the night chill, and stared, surprised. She rubbed her eyes, but the moonlit figure of the nude Amazon Princess remained unchanged. Vanessa blushed, unsure of whether to speak or hide.
Diana's long hair fell in thick waves of dark curls covering most of her wide back, stopping a hand span above her waist and the flaring of her athletic hips. Vanessa tried not to stare at the solid, perfectly rounded buttocks crowning the long, muscular legs, but failed.
It was Diana's fault. After all, she was the one going out butt-naked in the middle of the night.
The teenager just shifted on her feet, and the rustle of her pajamas was surely inaudible, yet Diana still turned to her.
"Vanessa?"
"Uh, yeah." Her face grew as red as her frizzled hair, and she fought not to look down from Diana's face, unsure of just how to even stand, her body language full of the awkwardness of most teenagers after their first growth spurts. "Hi."
"Did I wake you?" Diana's accent was still funny.
"Uh, no -well, yeah. Uh, so, watcha doing?"
"Praying."
"To, uh, your... gods?"
"Yes."
Vanessa shifted uneasily. She still wondered if Diana was actually nuts, powers or not, with all that weird talk of old gods out of books being real. Superman also flew and all that, but never talked crazy that she knew about. "Must you be... um, like that? To pray, I mean."
"Oh, does it bother you?"
Vanessa looked up from the awesome boobs, and reddened even deeper. "No! But... You may give a heart attack to one of the neighbors, you know."
"Why?"
"Uh, what're you praying for?" She actually meant the question. Diana already had everything anyone could ever want and more, didn't she?
"Guidance."
"What?"
"I am... perturbed."
"Per-what?"
"I dreamed again. Of him."
"Him? You mean-?"
"Superman."
Clark Kent rarely perspired at all, but this time he woke up covered with sweat, and for an instant he felt like a teenager again, furiously embarrassed, worried that Ma would walk in. This almost never happened to him; he had better self-control.
But he had dreamed again about Her.
"Superman? SUPERMAN?" Mindy Mayer's eyes lighted up. "Diana, dear, of course! It's fantastic! Fabulous! Should've thought of it myself!"
Princess Diana of Themyscira shifted uneasily on her sandaled feet. Something in Meyer's luxurious office, in the whole floor housing the public relations company, made Diana uneasy. She had been told the assistance of professionals was needed to better reach people with her Amazon message of peace and harmony, but each time she came to this place, she felt like it was all a cage, a gilded cage, shiny but cruelly restraining.
"I'll get you two a date in no time! Oh, the press will eat this up! You'll be the hottest couple ever!"
"Oh, is it you?" Diana smiled brightly and held the telephone receiver tightly. "Your voice... sounds so different."
"Ah, yes. It's... complicated."
"I wanted to see you. Can we-?"
"You're asking me-?"
"Is that alright? I don't know if-"
"No, no. Of course I'd like to see you, too."
"Yes?"
"Yes. Sure."
"Where can-?"
Mindy Meyer smiled, watching the young woman nervously fidget with the telephone's cord while she spoke. Diana always appeared so centered, so assured, that it was amusing to see her so flustered. It was actually humanizing. Maybe they could use it, somehow.
Superman. It was just perfect. She could spin it into a media frenzy. And all it had taken was a promise of an interview with Diana to that Kent fellow.
Hanging up the phone, Clark Kent felt the need to sit down and breathe deeply.
It was just a date. A date. People did that all the time. It was ridiculous to feel any anxiety. Beautiful as she was, she was also warm and friendly.
And she had called him. She called him.
Yet there was something about her: a sense of aloofness, of detachment, somehow at odds with the warmth her smile and voice conveyed. She was also actual royalty, a real princess from a strange foreign land, and that unsettled him. Despite his Kryptonian heritage, he had been raised a simple Kansas farmboy. Lois made a point of always reminding him of that, didn't she?
Lois and Wonder Woman, in so many ways they were so different, yet also so alike. Lois seemed to go out of her way to make him feel inadequate. Wonder Woman did the same by just being there.
He shook his head. It was just a date. Wasn't it?
PART THREE: THE DATE
"Why do you wear those?"
"What, the glasses?"
"Yes, those. Don't you-?"
"It's a disguise."
"A disguise?"
"So people don't... think I'm someone else."
"And they don't? Really?"
"Has worked so far."
Diana frowned. Despite the many surprising features, the wonders of science and achievement in Patriarch's World, her opinion of modern man kept getting lower.
He shrugged. "The different clothing helps, and the posture and... It's many little things."
"So it's a deception?"
"Of a kind... A necessary compromise, for privacy and-"
"Privacy?"
"In order to live a more normal life among-"
"Normal life?"
"Yes, to live as people do, with-"
"But you are not like other people."
"I can just do more than others, but-"
"And what we do is not linked to what we are?"
"Yes, but that doesn't mean that-"
"But why would you need to hide who you are? Are you not proud of being-?"
"Please, don't say that here-"
"And you sustain this... disguise all the time?"
"Not always. Uh, just in public, as Clark Kent, when-"
"But you are Clark Kent. That was how you grew up, no?"
"Yes, but-"
"But?"
He sighed. "I said it was complicated, didn't I?"
"How do you stand it?"
"Stand-?"
"The lying."
He actually blushed, embarrassed. "It's necessary. For protection-"
"Why would YOU need protection? You-?"
"For those close to me. Many would... move against me through my friends and family."
"I see." Diana frowned. The Kapatelis house had been attacked once already, and Decay had come far too close to harming Vanessa. "Maybe I am imperiling my own friends, then."
"Most everyone in this... line of work does the same-"
"I don't know if I could do it."
"Well, you're just learning about our culture-"
"If I also wore such glasses and strange clothing-?"
Clark smiled. Diana had her long hair in a simple, unadorned ponytail and wore a flowing robe of vaguely ancient Greek style, which covered her from ankles to shoulders, yet every pair of eyes in the restaurant remained fixed on her, and half a dozen waiters stood nearby waiting for any excuse to approach the table.
"I think you'd need much more than just that."
"WONDER WOMAN!"
"Princess Diana!"
"WONDER WOMAN!"
"-any work done?"
"What's your stand on abor-?"
"Are you really dating Geor-?"
"WONDER WOMAN!"
"Will you pose for Pla-?
"-they real?"
"WONDY!"
"-fake?"
"SMILE!"
A constellation of multiple flashes and a cacophony of overlapping voices demanding answers to all kinds of questions had met them as they exited the restaurant. Diana smiled shyly for the cameras, while Clark kept back a pace, fumbling with a hand-held voice recorder of his own. Few among the reporters or paparazzi glanced twice at the hunched man with the thick glasses and ill-fitting suit.
"-the Gaza strip-"
"-who does your hair?"
"WONDER WO-!"
Diana lifted a hand up, open and facing outwards.
"Please."
Impossibly, silence ensued after that single word and her firm, imperious gesture. Even Clark was impressed.
"I apologize, but I cannot answer questions tonight. I promised... Mr. Kent that he would have an... 'exclusive'?"
As the reporters erupted in even more frantic questions and demands, she turned to Clark and smiled.
"May I give you a lift?"
Clark frowned, genuinely baffled, and did not fake his surprise as Diana calmly lifted him off the floor and held him up, cradled in her arms.
"Please excuse us," she said, smiling broadly, before she flew up and away.
"You were surprised?"
"Yeah. Well, I'm normally the one who-"
"Did it bother you?"
"No, no. It's just-It's nothing, really." Superman looked away for a moment, embarrassed again. You could not lift anyone that way without close bodily contact.
"I was trying to preserve your secret."
"Yes, I know. Thank you."
They were high over Boston, flying a few feet apart, and the cityscape was a sea of lights under them, mirroring the starry sky above. Superman had changed into his distinctive outfit, while Diana still wore her robes, which clung to her body, buffeted by the strong wind.
"I love it. Flying."
He nodded, smiling at her. "Me, too."
"It's... pure. Up here."
"Yes."
"I confess I like your cities better from above."
"Is it so different where you come from?"
"Oh, yes."
"Tell me."
She smiled back at him.
Superman placed the last of the lifeboats on the dock, near the waiting ambulances, and smiled, waving back at the grateful occupants. He flew up, and saw Diana, steadily pulling the damaged cruise liner, towing it with her golden rope. Once again, he was amazed at seeing her in action, at her strength and presence.
There were a few others in the world that could also perform such a feat, but probably nobody looked as good as her while doing it. Then, she went to speak for a while with the people they had rescued, and he actually felt chided. Maybe he was used too much to helping and running, in a sense.
"You're wet," he said, as she flew up to join him. She had dived into the sea to bind the cruise ship with her lasso.
"So are you," she said, smiling broadly. There was a glow to her, he noticed. She had looked like that back after destroying the robo-hound, as if the action made her even more alive.
"I can dry you," he offered. "With heat-vision."
"Really?" Her smile grew in radiance. "Just by looking at me?"
"Uh, yes, it's-"
"Good ahead, then. Look." She spread her arms wide, arching her back and throwing her head back.
He hesitated for a moment, before bathing her in the heat of his vision power. She rotated slowly, soaking the warmth, and making him realize that his skin-tight clothing could be a source of embarrassment.
"I liked that. Thank you." She brushed her hair to a side casually, coming closer. "Now, how may I dry you?"
"Oh, you don't need-"
"Should I get you out of those wet clothes?"
He met her eyes. They sparkled with starlight.
"Ah, I normally just fly higher, towards sunlight."
She raised an eyebrow.
"Fine. Let's do it."
They reached the upper limits of the atmosphere, and when the sun broke through the line of the horizon, casting its golden low over the Earth's curved edge, they held hands without really noticing.
Both shared the beauty of the spectacle for a long moment before finally turning to face each other.
Then they kissed.
The TV newscast made Lois Lane look up from her toes and drop the nail polish.
She frowned and pursed her mouth. So Smallville got his interview with WonderBoobs after all. Big deal. It should not bother her at all.
She snorted when the top-heavy bimbo lifted him up like an overgrown baby. Just when you though Kent could not look any more ridiculous. Anyone smarter probably would have coped a feel, but she knew the farmboy better. That there was probably the most action the guy had got in ages, if not ever.
It was all over the networks, and speculations were running wild. Lois shook her head, baffled. People would believe the craziest of things. Really, what could Smallville even talk about with that siliconed cow? She could not think of a more mismatched pair.
It still should not bother her at all.
She grabbed the remote, and shut the damn thing off.
There were no words that could describe the taste of her, no metaphor fitting the pressure of her against him. His hands moved from her toned arms down to her waist, and he marveled at its slenderness before their embrace vanquished all conscious thoughts. She was both soft and hard, firm and yielding, and he could not get enough of her.
Much later, their mouths separated grudgingly, lips returning again and again for soft pecks, before they finally moved back from each other.
Diana was blushing, and his face felt warm, too. Lana had never kissed like that, he thought, and then felt flustered. It had taken him years to first kiss Lana, back in Smallville, yet hefd jumped on Diana on their very first date. Was he being too forward?
"Uh, Diana... Look, I'm sorry if-"
"Sorry? There is no need. You were not really bad."
"Not really bad-?"
"I liked it, it was just-"
"Just-?"
"Just different."
"Different?"
"From kissing a sister."
"Sister?"
"Oh, we call each other sisters."
"Each other?"
"Amazons."
"Oh, so you-?"
"Yes, but then, Mala had centuries of practice-"
"Mala-?"
"A sister. A friend."
"So you-?"
"Of course. Doesn't everyone learn like that?"
"Learn?"
"To kiss. Did you not start with a friend?"
Superman looked down, embarrassed. He did not feel like bringing Lana up. "Well, yes, but-"
"Though maybe I can still teach you... a bit more."
"More?"
"Yes. Come, I will show you."
His eyes opened wide.
PART FOUR: PEOPLE WILL TALK
"They real then?"
Clark Kent frowned. "Real?"
"Yeah, cfmon, Mr. Kent! She held you pretty close, didn't she? So are they real or not? You must-"
"Jimmy, I can't-"
"KENT! COME HERE!"
"Going, sir."
"But-!"
"SHUT UP, OLSEN!"
"Sorry, Jimmy. Mr. White's the Boss. Oh, hi, Lois."
Lois Lane just grunted a reply, but after Clark had passed by her, she turned to stare at him, frowning. There was something funny about Kent today. Still hunched over as usual in his dated, cheap suit, fidgeting with those ugly coke-bottle glasses, yet she could tell that in some undefined way he was now... different.
She shrugged and returned to work. It was not like she suddenly found him cute or anything.
"Martha, we agreed to stop buying all those papers."
"He's in there-!"
"He always is! Clark doesn't want us to-"
"Not as Superman! As Clark! And he's with that nice foreign girl!"
"Who?"
"The one with the powers! The Princess!"
"Let me see that."
"You think there's anything going on?"
Jonathan Kent shrugged, putting the paper down.
"Should have told us by now."
"Seemed awfully happy last time he called. Maybe-?"
"Let the boy have his privacy, Martha."
"He should bring her over."
"She does look... nice."
"Too skinny. Clark should bring her for dinner."
"She sure doesn't look skinny at all to me."
"Jonathan!"
Vanessa Kapatelis sighed. So that geeky reporter got Diana a date with Superman, and they flew all over, holding hands in the clouds, and all that, and it was all so special, and marvelous, and romantic. Whatever.
Sure, she had also found it so cool at first and all. Now, she wished Diana would just shut up about it.
"Why do I even buy this crap?" Lois threw the tabloid down in disgust. They just keep printing those silly pictures again and again.
It did not bother her personally, of course. Who cared about that balloon-body bimbo or sorry, pathetic Clark Kent? It was the shoddy journalism that pissed her off.
"J'onn is in," said the man in the dark cowl and cape, standing on the building's ledge. "But many others are new at this. Too many. Maybe you-?"
"Should join? I don't know." Superman shook his head, floating in the smog-filled Gotham air. "Why don't you-?"
"You work better in groups."
"I'm already working with someone now."
"Ah, yes. Wonder Woman."
Of course he would know. "Diana."
"Are you-?"
Superman looked away. "Maybe."
"What we do isn't a game. We should not mix-"
"She can more than hold her own."
Under the cowl, an eyebrow rose. "Really?"
"You should meet her."
"There are more urgent things to do."
Superman looked up, and breathed deeply. "This is... different. She is different. I feel like... I don't know how to-"
The ledge was empty.
Vision powers found no sign of him. He should have heard him leave, too. How did he always do that? The Man of Steel shook his head. He should know better than try to talk about some things with Bruce.
Mindy Mayer cursed again, and again.
No one had gotten any pictures yet of Superman and Diana together, and the damn girl was not answering her calls. The info had of course been leaked already, but such talk had been tabloid fodder before, and some evidence was necessary. Meanwhile, the damn press was still going on about the crappy pictures with that Kent fellow; as if anyone gave a shit about a nobody.
How the hell was she supposed to work like this?
PART FIVE: YOUR PLACE OR MINE?
He should not be breathless. Had never been. Never before her.
"You learn fast." Diana smiled, and the delicate tip of her tongue licked at her open lips in a playful gesture that made his breath even harder to find.
He looked down, but that meant staring at where her breasts were squeezed together inside her top, almost bulging over its edge as she pressed against him. So he looked back up. "There's a place I want you to see."
"Smallville?"
"Uh, no." Should he introduce her to Pa and Ma yet? Maybe it was too soon. She had not taken him to her island, had she? Was he ready to meet her so-called sisters? Her mother?
"Where then?"
"North."
There was a place where reality as men knew it held no firm stronghold, where up could be down, and left right. Through that no-space, something that was far more than a man yet somehow less than an idea rushed faster than human eyes could see, with panic at his heels.
"It's... beautiful."
The crystalline structures rose into the cold air of the North Pole, a picture of a world long gone.
"Itfs cold," Diana added, placing a hand on one of the giant icy spires that comprised the Fortress. "But beautiful, in its starkness, its purity."
Superman feared his thoughts were hardly pure. He had never realized before just how suggestive all those upright icy spikes looked.
She turned back to him. "But you don't live here."
He shook his head. "I have an apartment in the city."
"To live a more normal life?"
He smiled at her gentle mocking. "I also visit the farm, my parents, as much as I can."
She nodded. "The tree must keep its roots strong."
"Here are my roots, as well. I come here to study my heritage. Here, I am Kal-El, of Krypton."
"Kal-El." She smiled. "I like it."
"I also come to think, to meditate."
"To be alone? Fortress of Solitude?"
"Sometimes that, too."
"Yet you brought me."
"Well, it's more private."
She came close, very close.
"Maybe there's no more need to be alone."
"Are you talking about me, or-?"
"Maybe about the two of us."
Their lips met, slowly, tenderly. At first.
Danger was coming.
She pulled back, her breathing labored, her face flushed by excitement. "Kal-El..."
"Diana?"
"Here. Now."
"Here? But-?"
"It's the right place. The right time. I know it." She unclasped her belt and dropped it to a side.
"Diana-?"
She tossed her head, long hair flowing forward, and reached for the back of her tightly-fitting bustier, nearly tearing out the cords lacing it to her body.
"HERE. NOW."
Darkness was coming.
He pulled her outfit down her body with almost as much urgency as she showed undressing him. Revealing as her sparse attire had been, only full nudity made real justice to the perfection of her athletic, yet lush figure. He could be intoxicated by just the sight of her, but was allowed no time to stare.
Mouths locked hungrily again, before their hands joined in exploring each other's nakedness. She kneaded his powerful arms and back, while he kissed her long, graceful neck, making her shudder in response. Then, she arched her back and pulled him lower, encouraging him to kiss her breasts, to lick and bite the nipples. She clasped powerfully at his buttocks, long before he dared to move that low, and they grappled for position, for access with impatient need, rising from the surface where they had stood into the air, writhing together with feverish caresses, careening about to slam on one crystalline spire after the other, making the entire structure ring with eerie notes.
Her fingers clasped around his erect manhood, and he gasped as she squeezed and pulled.
"Diana-?"
"Gods, it's so... hard!"
As she tried to move down towards it, he held her back self-consciously, but she shook off his hands easily, with strength he was unused to finding in others.
"And big!"
He flushed with embarrassment. "Err-I'm not-"
"I feared it would be gross," she said, her eyes level with his groin. They were several feet off the ground, with his back to an inclined spire.
"Uh?"
"-But it's... beautiful, too, in its own way."
He would have never called THAT beautiful.
"Like your fortress," she added, stroking him.
"No," he muttered. "You-You are what's beautiful."
"I know," she said, without false modesty. "We both are. " She smiled. "Can I try it?"
"Uh?"
His eyes opened wide as her soft lips kissed the tip of his penis, sending a shiver throughout his body. Her kiss became more involved, open lips rubbing him before her tongue brushed his glans. He groaned loudly.
"You liked that," she whispered. "Good. Now it's my time to learn."
She licked at his shaft then, in long, sensuous strokes that made him tense violently, before her mouth finally opened to engulf his head completely.
"Diana!"
She moved her head up and down along his member slowly, before drawing back, saliva trailing from her lips. With athletic ease, she jumped high and rotated over him, turning head down in mid-air, to move her loins before his head.
"You do it, too."
Clark blinked twice, surprised, before the sensation of her encompassing mouth again drove him to action. Grabbing her hips first, then her thighs, and finally her round, muscular buttocks, he leaned forward to kiss and lick the treasure offered between her spread legs. Her rosy flesh was swollen and moist, nearly glowing in the ethereal light of the Fortress, and her taste was sweet, and tangy, and much more he could not describe. Her ministrations also began hesitantly, but her touch was exciting far beyond mere technique, and she soon found a working rhythm, skillfully matching hands and mouth in concerted effort, making him gasp with pleasure.
Suddenly Diana stopped and looked over her shoulder.
"You need to learn a lot more," she observed.
"Sorry." He blushed, knowing he had been too absorbed in the pleasure she gave him. "I'm not..."
"Don't worry." Her smile grew wider. "I'll tell you how. I had good teachers."
Darkness arrived.
"Lick, then suck on my lips, and stroke between them- Yes, like that."
He complied, sucking on her swollen labia as best he could, and moving a finger to slide along the moist channel. He could feel her muscle tension change in response.
"Oh, that's better. Yes. Now rub higher... No, wait. Stop there. Now rub softly there, under that... Yes. Oh, yes... More. YES!"
He had no idea before of how this was to be properly done, he realized with further embarrassment, but by following her instructions faithfully, her breath grew more labored and soon started to moan softly.
"Oh, yes. YES. Lot's better. Harder, yes. YES!"
His lower face was now wet with her fluids, and pleased with his growing achievement, he sought to probe more daringly with his fingers.
"Ow-!" Diana gasped, surprising him. "No, not there. Not yet. Not like that."
He frowned. He had barely pushed against her entrance. "Didn't you-?"
"Just continue as before. That was nice enough."
"But-?"
"My... behind. Do it there."
His eyebrows rose. "In your-?"
"Yes, there."
He obeyed, and after wetting his finger he slid its tip with caution inside her anus. She gasped instantly, and her strong buttocks tightened.
"OH! OOH!"
He began probing her tight opening gently, continuing with lips and tongue on her delicious nether parts, and after further moaning, and apparently pleased with his actions, Diana returned to fellating him.
He groaned, fighting the pleasure, not wanting to stop caressing her like he should, but the most beautiful woman on Earth or elsewhere had him deep in her mouth while he licked her wet sex and fingered her tight ass. That was no way to keep any proper concentration.
The sensation grew until it was nearly painful and he could take it no more. "Diana! No-! Stop-! I can't-!"
Saliva dripped from her full lips as she turned to him. "Did I hurt you?"
"Oh, no! I just-I couldn't-It was too much. I didn't want to- Not yet, I mean."
"Oh, yes." Her eyes filled with understanding but also a measure of apprehension. "Then we must... Move on."
She let go of him, and with some obvious nervousness moved her lower body off to a side and down, rotating to face him, both still leaning against the inclined crystalline spike in defiance of gravity.
"I think I'm ready," she said with just a quaver in her voice, as she began to slowly move up along his body, rubbing him first with her full breasts and then her taut stomach. "I-I have not-"
Her legs were astride him, and first the soft hair of her bush brushed his quivering member, then the base of his shaft felt the contact of her wetness.
"OH, NO!" he gasped.
She must be found. Wherever she was.
"Merciful Hera."
"Oh, no. No. No. Diana, I'm-I'm sorry."
"You-?"
"I'm so sorry."
"Oh. Oh."
"This had never happened to me before!"
"Really?"
"I'm-"
"Is this-?"
"Let me clean you-"
"There's no need."
"No-Let me, please. I-"
"It's alright. I was just... surprised."
"Diana, I'm so... so sorry!"
She ran a finger along her midriff, gathering some of the dense fluid, and picked up more before it dripped from one of her prominent breasts. "It's... a lot."
He felt like tunneling into the Earth's core.
"I'll get a-"
"Oh, never mind, I-"
"But I can-"
"I just never imagined-"
"Uh, there's more there, too."
"Here?"
"Yes, there. Uh, in your hair, too. Just let me-"
"Oh, please. I said it's alright!"
"I'm sorry. I tried to-I was just-You were just so- Oh, damn!"
She smiled, and took her coated finger to her mouth. "Mm. Interesting taste."
He stared, speechless.
She licked her lips. "I rather like it."
He stared even harder.
"Now, where were we?"
"But I-"
"Yes, you did. So?"
"But you didn't-"
"Well, we are just starting, no?" she asked, rubbing her hands over her breasts, spreading the milky fluid more than wiping it away. Her eyes drifted down and she smiled. "Oh, you agree."
Suddenly the air exploded into a paroxysm of light and sound, as reality folded and tore, allowing a glowing glimpse of a haggard-faced figure whose trembling hands gripped a long staff with snakes coiling along its shaft.
"DIANA! DIANA OF THEMYSCIRA!"
"Who-?" Superman stared in shock.
"Lord Hermes?" Diana flew up, mindless of her nudity, towards the oversized image shimmering high above her with violently twisting energies encircling it, and casting a deep reddish glow on the Fortress. "What-?"
"Help me, Diana. Help-"
The image was gone and the coruscating energies began to shrink and fade.
"LORD HERMES! I'M COMING!"
"DIANA! WAIT!" Superman yelled as the Amazon Princess disappeared inside the contracting whirlpool of energies. The exchange had been in no language he knew, but he hesitated no further. Gathering both his and Diana's fallen clothing within less than a second, he sprang through the dimensional portal just before it finally vanished from the world of men.
PART SIX: HEAVEN'S REACH
Superman fought nausea as his body and the universe alike seemed to twist into absurd configurations. He tried calling out to Diana, but breath and voice were both physical impossibilities.
Suddenly, he struck and shattered a thick marble column, barely stopping his flight before making a whole building collapse around him. Standing on an irregularly tiled surface, he staggered with disorientation as roofs and floors around him slanted and mixed in irrational angles, with walls, columns and stairs stretching and twisting in unworkable Escherian directions.
"Where-?" He shook his head, but reality refused to settle into normal semblances. Stumbling into what could be called a hallway, he felt gravity itself shift its pull in different directions with each few steps. "Wonder Woman?"
He cast his superhuman vision, but it only brought a new wave of vertigo, as his mind resisted to process the jumbled information of the insane perspectives.
"WONDER WOMAN! WHERE ARE YOU?"
Only silence answered him.
"Where the hell am I?" he muttered, and looked down.
Maybe he should get his clothing straightened first.
Diana of Themyscira ran through a dark, narrow corridor, following an faint echo, a subtle remnant of her summons which she could not articulate. Her Olympian gifts of speed and flight had been bestowed by Hermes, the Messenger God, and even if she must search all of this mockery of once-shinning Olympus, she would not fail to find and help her benefactor and friend.
"Diana."
The whisper was barely audible, but she followed it to a locked dungeon, where a reinforced door flew off its hinges from a single push of her hand.
"Lord Hermes!" she cried out, entering the grimy cell.
"Diana," muttered the once-glorious Olympian. His shriveled form, draped in ragged and burnt remnants of cloth, lay on the debris-covered floor by the fallen Caduceus that his limp hands could no longer grip. "Praise Zeus I reached you."
"My Lord! What is the meaning of this?" She knelt to raise him up with delicate care.
"You come to me unclothed?" Hermes muttered weakly, his eyes sparking with new life at the sight of her uncovered form. "Now? When I'm like this?"
Diana dismissed her nudity with a shrug. "Is not important. But-"
"Oh, cruel Fates taunt-"
"Save your strength, Lord! But how did this-?"
"Not how. Who."
"Who? Someone did this to you?"
"To me. To Olympus. To-"
"For Hera's sake! Who was it?"
"Sorry. Can't help it. Hermetic by nature, you know." He coughed weakly.
"Take whatever you need from me, Lord."
"Ah, such offer, at another time-!"
"Take back your power!"
"You'll need it, child. Against the Dark New God."
"Dark new god-?"
"The foreign invader of fair Olym-"
"Who in Hades could-?"
Hermes coughed again. "Not Hades, but worse, as-"
"WHO IS IT?"
"Yes, yes. Darkseid. Darkseid, see?"
"Superman is here, Great Darkseid."
The massive figure in the center of the large hall turned slowly, thickly-thewed arms held calmly behind the wide torso, but his eyes, deep-set under the cragged, protruding brow, glowed with unholy red light at the news.
"The Kryptonian. Interesting."
Skinny, stooped Desaad bowed low again before the ruler of Apokolips, involuntarily trembling at the despot's deep, rumbling voice. "He arrived, oh, Great Master, through a temporary rift that-"
"He would not come alone."
"Wise is Darkseid! Indeed not, My Lord. A female came as well, but they arrived at separate locations, likely by the nature of this place-"
"A female."
"The Earthling called Wonder Woman, Great Lord."
"Good."
"Wonder Woman."
"Superman?" Diana turned and rose, with the now unconscious Olympian in her arms. "You followed me? But-?"
"Anyone would follow you."
"Olympus is under attack!" she explained, placing the limp god with care on a side alcove. "Darkseid, of Apokolips has taken over-!"
"Darkseid is not here now." His eyes ran over her nude body, from her long, muscular legs to the full, round breasts set high on her chest, and his smile grew wider and wider with each inch examined. "But we are."
"Lord Hermes fell before him! You must help me-!"
"I will help you." He strode forward and grabbed her upper arms, pulling her to him. "I'll give you what you need."
"Wha-?"
His mouth fell on hers, roughly forcing his tongue past her lips in a violent, hungry caress, while hugging her tightly with immense strength.
Diana's eyes grew wide open in surprise.
"Superman."
"Diana?" He turned, and she stood there, where seconds before nothing had been. Was his super-hearing failing?
"I was waiting for you."
"Uh, yes, I can imagine. Sorry." He looked down, not wanting to stare at her at this moment and place, and offered the bundle of her clothes, belt and lasso. "Got sidetracked somehow."
"Oh, yes." She began to reach for the items, but as he released them, she drew back and let them fall to the ground. "Don't really need any of that now, right?"
"Don't you?"
"Do you?"
"Where are we-?"
"We are together," she said, in a soft, seductive voice. "Isn't that all that matters?"
"But... the vision?"
She spread her arms. "What better vision than me do you need?"
Superman frowned, but her mouth quieted his questions.
His hands grabbed her bottom roughly, each hand somehow seizing all of each buttock, so his fingers dug inside the crevice between each round, muscular globe. Wonder Woman reached down nervously, trying to make him unhand her, but he only squeezed and kneaded her flesh with even more savage intensity, even as his tongue clumsily tried to reach down her throat, almost making her gag.
She twisted her head away, breaking the kiss, and gasped: "Kal-! No!"
He just lifted her up, so her chest came level to his face and his mouth attacked her breasts, slobbering over each one, and lapping the stickiness remaining on them from before.
"OW-! Kal-! Superman, no! Not now! We-OW!"
His teeth bit cruelly one nipple, gnawing on it like a ravenous beast, pulling on it so her breast was tugged forward, and jostled painfully.
"OW! Why are you doing this?"
His grip on her behind grew so vicious it would have torn away a normal woman's flesh.
"Superman! STOP IT!" Could something or someone be controlling him? Making him act like this? "STOP! STOP NOW!"
The backhand slap threw his head to a side, but still he held onto her.
"NO!"
He laughed before biting ravenously on her other nipple.
Superman drew back from her embrace, unnerved. Diana was always enthusiastic, even aggressive in her kisses, but such furious biting could have injured anyone without invulnerability. ""Diana? What are-?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Her hands ran over his wide chest as she closed to bite his neck.
"But... Who had called you? What did he want?"
"I want you."
"But who cried for help?"
"False alarm."
She bit at his nipple through his costume's fabric.
"What's gotten into you?"
"You will. Deep into me. Very deep."
"Diana, this may not be-"
"Making me come. So hard, so..."
To his surprise, she moved much lower. He was baffled that she would try that again with what had happened. "Diana, I don't think-"
"Don't think, just fuck."
"But-"
"Fuck my face. Fuck all of me."
Diana struck against his ears with open hands in a deafening clap. He winced and arched backwards, and she pivoted her shoulders to deliver a circular elbow strike at his face. Grunting in pain, he let go of his hold, and she immediately ducked down and turned, grabbing him behind his armpit and by one forearm, so with a powerful twist she threw him over her shoulder to slam hard against the facing wall.
"BITCH!" he snarled, and rushed at her.
Diana dodged, but he turned towards the fallen Hermes, and she was forced to move into his path to protect the helpless god. His fists were easily blocked, but his enormous mass bodily slammed into her, driving both against the wall. Diana winced, but needing to spare the unconscious Hermes from danger, she wrestled her opponent aside and to the ground, away from the alcove. A punch at her midsection made her gasp, and with a wide grin he grabbed and spread both her legs apart, moving between them. But as he fumbled below his belt, Diana grabbed one of his arms, and pulled him closer, while throwing her legs around his head and shoulder. With a grunt, she slammed him sideways with a powerful reversal and arm-bar lock.
"YOU WHORE!" he roared, and his arm lifted the Amazon completely, swinging her horizontally and wrecking a wall into rubble with her back.
Bodyweight leverage was useless at such power levels, she realized, so without releasing his arm, the Amazon Princess kicked out at his face, and twisted over him, reaching out to grab a leg first, and then a different target.
"No, please, no. Not again," he muttered, stepping back, his face flushing red. Why was it so hard to concentrate?
"Not again?"
"I won't-"
"You won't? Ah, but maybe I will."
"Diana, no." He stepped backwards again, and the wall behind him suddenly became a floor, leaving him facing up as she stood over him, her spread legs allowing for a most embarrassing view. "Uh, Diana-?"
"Let's skip the foreplay."
Without hesitation, Wonder Woman squeezed. Hard.
She sat on him, taking everything in one single fluid motion, and her gasp of appreciation rivaled his own. She was hot as a furnace, and her voice rose and fell in high cries and low growls as she rode him, wildly buckling and shaking.
But it was wrong, and Superman grabbed her by the hips, stopping her wanton motion. "No, Diana. NO. Not now. Not like this."
"Oh, you'd prefer it differently?" She laughed, but her laugh was not the sound of joy and freshness he had heard before. "Maybe I should tie you up. Would you like that?"
She arched back and reached for the nearby bundle of the discarded Wonder Woman costume, which lay on its different gravity plane with the coil of golden rope.
He screamed in pain, but his writhing only increased the agony.
"You are not Superman," Diana stated. "You are not half the man he is. Literally."
She cried out, dropping the golden rope, and the bright, wholesome loveliness of the Amazon Princess was gone, replaced by a different beauty, angular and hard, draped sensuously by long, dark red hair.
"YOU BITCH! AAAARGH! YOU FUCKING BITCH!"
"Diana?" Hermes groaned, roused back to wakefulness by the shrill screams. "What-?"
"YOU CURSED FUCKING BITCH!"
"Oh. Remind me never to ask for a handjob."
"AAAAAAARGHHH!"
"Lord, this fiend pretends to be someone dear to me."
"Oh, a glamour. Yet I'm too weak to-"
"I SHALL KILL YOU BOTH! AAARGH-!"
She twisted her grip. "Stop that."
"AAAYYYRH-!"
"Ouch," Hermes said.
"Who are you?"
"-YOU BITCH-I SHALL RAPE AND-!"
She twisted harder.
"YAAAARGH!"
"You may soon lack the equipment for that proposal. I advise you to talk. Who are you?"
"AAAAAYYYGGG!"
"Strange name, that," Hermes scoffed.
"Who are you?"
She began to twist even harder.
"KALIBAK! KALIBAK!"
"Who?"
"KALIBAK! KALIBAK THE DESTROYER!"
Hermes shrugged faintly. "Never heard of him."
"WHAT-? WHO ARE YOU?"
"You can call me Grace, love." The tall, angular-faced woman smiled, green eyes glinting wickedly while she leaned forward, her hips undulating sinuously over him, her svelte body honoring her name. "Amazing Grace."
"Amazing Grace?" He frowned, confused, and her smile grew even wider.
"Oh, you'll see how amazing I am," she whispered. Like her brother Glorious Godfrey, Grace had subtle mind-twisting powers, and Superman was falling deeper into her sway. "You will never forget that name."
"Get-Get off me."
"You will never forget our fucking, either."
"No!" Superman pushed her off and away, and she fell to the floor of the adjoined gravity zone.
"That's no way to treat a lady," she snarled.
Superman frowned, pulling his clothes back into place. "You're no lady."
She bared her teeth. "Kryptonian dog, you dare turn me down?"
"I'm glad to do it, Grace. Now, why are you here?"
"Can't you realize what you're missing?"
"Is Darkseid involved?"
"The best fuck of your life! The best!"
"Where is Wonder Woman?"
"You'd rather have that fat-titted cow?"
Her appearance changed again, but Superman could now notice all the glaring differences, the many small but vital things that were missing: the way Diana moved, the gentleness in her voice, and the clear look in her eyes.
"I can give you another chance," she rasped.
"ANSWER ME, GRACE!"
"Catch me, love, and I may give you answers! Or more!"
"I'M KALIBAK!" His features and body blurred, and were replaced by a crude face framed in coarse, leonine hair and a monstrous, oversized figure clothed in thick leathers and metal. "KALIBAK! SON OF DARKSEID!"
"Really?" Hermes squinted. "Can't see the resemblance."
"YOU DARE-?"
"That's what your mother claims?"
"I'LL KILL Y-YAAAARGHH!"
Diana turned to Hermes. "If we have Darkseid's son, maybe he will-"
"Doubt anyone values this one much."
"YOU DOG! I SHA-AARRRGHHHH!"
Suddenly a crimson flash of light filled the dungeon, and Diana felt her hand close on nothingness.
"He's gone!"
"Can see that, yes."
"Stay here, Lord! I'll catch him!"
"Won't stray far, sure."
Still in her false appearance, Grace ran through the twisting, labyrinthine pathways, and Superman cursed the place's strange physics, which rendered his flight and speed of little advantage.
She disappeared around a strange bend, and he followed.
Diana rushed through the corridors, until a gateway leading outside the dungeons came before her. Without hesitation, she flew straight through it.
"YOU!"
"YOU!"
"STOP THERE!"
Wonder Woman grabbed a fallen chunk of marble column and threw it with missile-like power.
PART SEVEN: NOTHING HAPPENED, NOTHING
"Good," Darkseid said.
In the holographic display, Superman swatted aside with ease the marble projectile. He stomped a foot and the floor shook, unbalancing Wonder Woman.
"Monitor her, Desaad."
"Oh, yes, yes, My Lord!" The Master or Tortures looked up from his control devices at the image of the young woman, his twisted smile growing into a leer.
"Monitor her power. The Kryptonian will task her, make her reach her limits."
"Oh, yes, My Lord. Task her. Reach her limits, yes."
"She will then try to draw upon her patrons for further might."
"Oh, yes, My Lord. I can imagine what her limits are. Yes, yes I can..."
"Thus will be found those so-called gods, those craven false deities, hidden in righteous fear of Darkseid's wrath."
"Oh, yes, yes..."
"And these Olympians will be shown a god's true face, before their crude power is taken and consumed."
"Oh, yes, show, show so much..."
"Shut up, Desaad."
Her punch threw Superman careening through a full wing of the distorted palaces, demolishing it.
He stood up, shrugging the debris off, and smiled.
"Diana."
Wonder Woman flew to him and landed within two paces.
"Kal-El," she stated, smiling as well. "It is you."
"You too."
"Someone impersonated you just before-"
"Really?" He frowned. "You too."
"Not very convincingly, though."
"Really?"
"Oh, yes. Big, big difference."
"Oh." He looked down. "Mine... she-"
"I had to be sure, but I knew this time it was you."
"Me too. There's... beauty, even in how you fight."
"And there is nobility in the way you hold back."
He blushed. "When I can hold back-"
"Oh, please, will you forget about that?"
Desaad glanced nervously at Master of Apokolips, who stood silent. "Um, My Lord-?"
Darkseid spoke calmly: "Send the parademons."
He shrugged off multiple blasts of destructive energies.
"So what did Kalibak... try to-?"
"Does not matter," Wonder Woman said, diving through a throng of snarling parademons and scattering them.
"But did he-?"
"I was not fooled."
"From the very start? Or did he-?"
"Kal-El! Please!"
"Uh, sorry."
"Send more. Send all of them."
Superman smashed the assault battleship into the ground.
"So he didn't-?"
"PLEASE! I'M FIGHTING!"
"Yes, sorry."
His heat vision melted the nozzles of one attack station after the other.
"It's just that-"
"Just WHAT?" Wonder Woman grunted, swinging a fighter craft with her lasso, against the formation it had led.
"I'm just worried that-"
"Oh, please!" She deflected an energy pulse with her right bracelet. "I can take care of myself!"
"I know, but-"
"Yes, he tried to! But I-HERA!" She ducked under a barrage of enemy fire, and rushed to counter-attack.
"But you-?"
"But I stopped him, of course!"
"Yes, of course."
"I am an Amazon! You think I wasn't prepared to handle something like that?"
"No, no. Sorry." He melted the weaponry on the hands of a battalion. "Just at what point did-?"
"Hera's Tits! He just kissed and groped me-!"
"HE DID? I'll-!"
"-And then I fought him off! Just like I'm sure you did, too!"
Superman looked away from her, and armored plate gave under his fists.
Wonder Woman turned to him. "You did, right?"
He nodded. "Yes."
"Fine."
"But-"
"But?"
A parademon raised his arms in exasperation. "FUCK! AT LEAST LOOK AT US WHEN YOU'RE-!"
Superman swatted him unconscious.
Wonder Woman insisted: "BUT?"
"She kissed and... groped me, too... Then she-"
"Kal-El, did you fuck that woman?"
Another ship crashed in flames.
"No, but she tried to... She began to-"
Three dozen parademons were knocked from the sky by a thrown wreck.
"She did. Did you do it to her?"
"No!"
"Fine, then."
"It's just not that simple."
"IT IS! EITHER YOU FUCKED HER OR YOU DID NOT!"
"I didn't! But-"
"FINE! I BELIEVE YOU! NOW BY TYPHON'S SHIT LET ME FIGHT!"
"Enough."
Instantly, the vast armies of Apokolips stopped at the deep voice of their master.
"Darkseid?"
The thickly-built tyrant stood on a wrecked terrace. "Enough of all this."
The swarms of heavily armed parademons and many other grotesque creatures bowed low and began to move back.
"Why-?" Superman began.
"Nothing is to be gained here."
Wonder Woman frowned. "But your assault on Olympus-?"
Darkseid cast his gaze around him with clear disdain. "Real estate is of no interest to Apokolips."
"But-?"
"The Olympians were, but they hide, as the frightened children they are."
Diana's mouth opened in outrage.
"Their Messenger was left alive to draw them out. Then you, their avatar, were allowed to be summoned, to lead to them. But it seems you are not so easily used."
"I am not. Ask your son."
Darkseid lifted a hand to silence her. "Speak not of such irritations." The Apokolipsian despot then looked at Wonder Woman, his red eyes narrowing in his cracked, granite-like face. "You are not the usual avatar for provincial deities, woman. Your powers are linked to the forces the Olympians manifest, not just to them in particular. It is... interesting."
The despot's stare on her was like a physical pressure, an almost crushing load, yet Diana did not flinch, and her bright blue eyes locked on his, defiantly.
Darkseid did not break the visual contact. "If the Olympians fear my power so much as to abandon their own kind and abode, to so cowardly hide into the depths of other realities, then they are not worth more of my attention and time."
"So you just-?"
"Be thankful," he warned. "The chatter between you two was beginning to irritate me as well."
Superman clenched his fists, but Wonder Woman gestured him to stay back.
"Whatever your affront, peace is preferable to war, Lord of Apokolips." She smiled. "We accept your unconditional withdrawal. You may go."
A shudder of fear ran through the entire Apokolipsian armies, and for a long moment Darkseid's eyes, glowing with blood-red puissance, remained locked on Diana's.
Then he laughed.
Desaad stared in disbelief. Few had ever spoken with such a tone to Darkseid and even survived. Few had ever made him laugh, also.
A broad smile spread on the tyrant's grayish face. "One day you may see fit to serve a higher power, young woman. One worthier of your faith and courage than your petty godlings." The glow in his eyes grew much, much brighter. "Perhaps Darkseid will welcome you that day."
With thunderous noise, multiple dimensional tunnels known as boom-tubes opened, and Darkseid and his minions left Olympus.
Hermes limped into view. "Don't you just hate it when they talk about themselves in the third person?"