Justice League_The Gauntlet

by Simonson, Louise

  The astounded victim scrabbled backward toward the street, pleading for his life, telling her to keep the money and just leave him alone. When he reached the sidewalk, the victim stumbled to his feet and was gone.

  Diana picked up the abandoned satchel. It was heavy with coins. With it, she could buy food instead of stealing. But she couldn’t join the crowd covered in rags and blood.

  She eyed the unconscious robber’s clothing speculatively. She had noticed that men and women alike wore trousers and tunics, military-looking jumpsuits, or even armor. The mugger’s clothing was a motley mixture of leather and mail, probably random pieces stolen from his victims.

  Superman and the others would probably disapprove of this, Diana thought. But here on Apokolips, the law of the jungle prevailed. She’d have to adapt if she wanted to survive.

  So she began to strip the mugger and assemble her disguise.

  Diana emerged from the alley, wearing a hooded leather tunic with a red design on the shoulder and mail breeches that fit her like a second skin. They were tight, but they covered her incriminating wounds.

  She wore the aerotrooper boots but had left the discs hidden beneath her bloody, torn rags in the alley. They were too large to hide in the satchel, and since they were military issue, she dared not be seen with them.

  Moving with the crowd, she caught her reflection in a gritty window. If she could wash the grime off, she thought, she would be fairly presentable. At least for Apokolips.

  Diana nearly trampled the man ahead of her when he stopped abruptly, gaping skyward.

  Flying low, scanning the crowd, came a wedge of Parademons. The people around her broke into excited whispers.

  “Parademon patrol!”

  “Who’re they hunting?”

  “Escaped prisoner!”

  Diana ducked her head—surely they wouldn’t notice one more bowed head among so many others—and slipped into the next open doorway.

  Diana found herself in an Apokoliptian diner.

  She studied the dimly lit room casually. It was crisscrossed with exposed beams. Pipes snaked haphazardly up walls and across the rafters. Weapons, medals, and pictures of dashing female warriors adorned the walls. Above the counter, in a place of honor, hung a portrait of Darkseid, Ruler of Apokolips.

  Tables crowded the sawdust-strewn floor, and at them, powerful-looking women in clothing ranging from crisply military to skimpily casual sat drinking, eating, gaming, and laughing noisily. Some were armed.

  Delicious smells wafted from the kitchen.

  Copying the other patrons, Diana shoved her way to the counter, ordered food and drink, and fumbled with the unfamiliar money. She plonked down a large coin and told the server to keep the change. He grinned happily.

  She grabbed her order, elbowed her way to an empty table in a rear corner, and began to eat, drink, and eavesdrop.

  The patrons were what they looked like, Diana realized—elite soldiers, representatives of a culture of war, an Apokoliptian version of the Amazons. For the first time in days, Diana began to relax, feeling comfortable among such a sisterhood. Their loyalty will be to other women, she thought.

  But when she glanced at the portrait of Darkseid, she wasn’t so sure.

  A blond giantess with a broad, cheerful face bumped Diana’s table as she shoved past carrying full mugs. Diana’s drink slopped onto the tabletop.

  “Sorry,” the blonde said.

  Diana shrugged. “No problem.”

  Blondie moved past. Her red-haired friend followed, carrying several bowls of stew.

  Red-Hair stopped before Diana, squinting at her suspiciously. “You’re from the Seventeenth.” She sneered toward the insignia on Diana’s tunic. “What’re you doing here?”

  Diana groaned. She must be wearing the emblem of a rival division. Just her luck! Uncertain how to answer, Diana bluffed, “Special assignment. Who wants to know?”

  “Blood Red of the Female Furies,” Red answered. “What special assignment was that, soldier?” She looked around, making sure the others were watching her roust this interloper. “Same kind that got the entire Seventeenth transferred to Night-Time, after the fracas at the Slum Section 8 Vehicle Dump?”

  Diana had no idea what Blood Red was talking about, but she answered coolly, “What I’m doing here is none of your business.”

  “That so?” sneered Red. “I say you’re AWOL! What’s your name and rank? Who’s your commanding officer?”

  “That’s not your business either,” Diana sneered.

  “I’m making it my business,” growled Red.

  Three things were clear, Diana thought. Red was spoiling for a fight. They were drawing unwanted attention. And the questions were beyond her ability to answer.

  The Flash would think of a clever comeback, Diana thought. But wit would probably be lost on Red, anyway.

  So Diana fell back on tradition. She overturned her table, spattering Red and the patrons behind her with the remnants of her dinner, toppling Red and the stew she carried onto Blondie, who careened onto a nearby table in an almost comical domino effect.

  “You and what army?” Diana asked.

  In a single fluid motion, Red pushed herself upright and leapt, panther-like, for Diana.

  Diana sidestepped, grabbed Red by the scruff of her neck, and tossed her headfirst into an adjacent table. Red slammed facedown in the middle of a dicing game, sending stacks of coins rattling onto the floor.

  “Get off!” growled a braided Valkyrie, roughly shoving Red onto the floor. “Darkseid’s teeth, woman, I was winning!”

  “Find your coins if they mean that much to you!” Red snarled, pulling the woman onto the floor, slamming into yet another table that overturned noisily.

  The diner erupted joyfully in a maelstrom of fists and feet. The owner sank behind the counter, groaning, “Not again!”

  Diana sidled toward the door, hoping the crowd would be so distracted and entertained by the brawl that she could slip quietly away.

  But Blondie grabbed Diana’s shoulder. “You mess with Red, you mess with me!” she said.

  Diana froze. Blondie had grabbed her energy-scored shoulder, and the pain was almost blinding. But it was memory that immobilized Diana. . . .

  GANG FIGHT

  It makes no sense.

  Diana knows that, even as she trips one attacking Amazon, parries the sword-thrust of another with her right hand, and kicks the blade from the hand of a third. Diana’s left hand snatches up the falling blade before it hits the ground.

  Nine attackers are down and disarmed now, three more to go. One of those three Diana faces, swords to sword. Two are behind her.

  With a quick riposte, Diana disarms her opponent. A kick sends the attacker sprawling.

  As Diana expects, the two behind rush at her. She sprints toward a wall with her attackers in hot pursuit, believing Diana plans to face them with the wall guarding her back.

  But Diana doesn’t do the expected. She leaps up the wall, flips backward over the heads of her opponents, and lands behind them.

  She presses the points of the two swords she holds into their backs.

  “You’re out of the fight!” she says.

  Diana is victorious. Twelve warriors beaten in a single melee and she is still an adolescent.

  The arena erupts in applause and Hippolyta beams proudly from her carved wooden throne.

  The real battle comes later.

  “What does it matter, Mother, if I win or lose?” Diana rages as she paces her mother’s chamber. “Training for combat, fighting mock battles! How can these things honor Athena when there’s no wisdom in it?”

  “That’s nonsense, Diana,” Hippolyta says. “We Amazons are warriors. You are my heir and will someday be Themyscira’s queen!”

  Diana rolls her eyes. “Mother, you’re an immortal. I won’t ever be queen! Why do we even need warriors? The gods protect Themyscira. We are at peace, have always been at peace, will always be at peace!”

 
“Someday, a champion may be needed,” Hippolyta says firmly. “And, if that day comes, Diana, wisdom suggests that you be ready!”

  In some amazement, Diana realized that, while her mind was in the past, her body was reacting automatically in the present.

  She had grabbed Blondie’s wrist and flipped her against yet another table, kicked another Fury backward, and tripped up a third.

  Even now, someone was swinging a chair at Diana’s head.

  But Diana spun sideways to avoid it and kicked out at the swinger, knocking her backward into another group of fighters, who went down under the impact.

  Someone grabbed at Diana’s hood, and her dark hair tumbled free. Diana sent the woman sprawling.

  The bodies piled up around Diana as she continued her dance of bloodless violence. This was her art, she realized. What she was good at. What she loved. How had her mother known?

  Then Red staggered to her feet, clutching a dagger long as a sword.

  “Don’t!” Blondie yelled. “Red, no! Fun’s fun, but bloodshed’s against orders!”

  But Red, in the grip of a mindless fury, rushed at Diana, murder in her eye.

  Diana kicked Red’s feet out from under her, twisted the knife from her hand, and slammed Red backward onto the floor. Diana knelt over her attacker, Red’s own knife pointed at the woman’s throat.

  The other Amazons grew silent.

  “Go on,” Red snarled. “I drew on you! It’s your right! No one could blame you—”

  “My right?” Diana said.

  Blondie looked disgusted. “You know—to kill her!” she said.

  For a moment, Diana held the point to Red’s throat. Then she threw the knife aside and got to her feet. “Why waste a good warrior?” she asked.

  “She’s right,” the Valkyrie intoned solemnly. “We belong not to ourselves, but to Darkseid.”

  “Hail, Darkseid!” they all chanted in unison.

  Diana almost rolled her eyes. How had Darkseid managed to brainwash an entire world? But at least, finally, she had said the right thing.

  Blondie pulled Red to her feet.

  The Furies all seemed in fine spirits now, righting the tables and chairs, calling for more food and drink.

  Red brushed herself off, eyeing Diana curiously. “Unusual fighting style,” she said. “None of us could touch you!”

  “Higher-ups got you slated for a crack at the Special Powers Force, don’t they?” said Blondie. “That’s your special assignment, right?”

  “Gotta be!” said the Valkyrie. “If she was with the Seventeenth, she was the only decent fighter they had!”

  Another group of Furies crowded into the restaurant, excitedly discussing the Parademon patrols and the rumored escape of one of Desaad’s prisoners.

  Diana subtly led the discussion to Desaad, hoping someone would know the location of his lab within his manor. She was so engrossed in the conversation that she hardly noticed when Red’s gaze rested on her speculatively. Or when Red excused herself and temporarily disappeared into the crowd.

  “What are you thinking, you young oafs, inviting a stranger into your midst?” said a cold, high voice behind them.

  The talking, laughing Furies fell silent.

  As one, they turned to face a bony woman with a head too large for her spindly body. Her short dark hair was slicked back from her high widow’s peak and shaped into affected spit curls that framed her face. Her eyes were flat, like a snake’s, and the color of poison. She wore not armor, but a long-sleeved tunic, and carried a multi-pronged harpoon-like blade.

  She may have looked unimpressive compared to the robust, armored giantesses who surrounded Diana, but the younger Furies were plainly in awe of her.

  Red stepped forward, dragging Diana to face the newcomer. “Bernadeth, this is the warrior I told you about.”

  Red told her about me? Diana wondered. When? Why? She began to feel a trickle of alarm.

  Red looked at Diana smugly. “Bernadeth will be able to answer all your questions about the Lord Desaad. Because, you see, she is his sister.”

  His sister! Diana thought, dismayed. Great Hera, can it get any worse?

  “You’ve been betrayed, of course—Wonder Woman!” Bernadeth said. Diana’s horrified expression obviously amused her. “Red always was a resentful loser. But she is clever. She alone realized your true identity.”

  The other Furies looked confused. Bernadeth glanced at them contemptuously. “That, you idiots, is my brother’s runaway. Desaad will arrive soon to collect her.”

  “Then Desaad will have made the trip for nothing,” Diana snarled.

  She snatched up a metal staff that was lying across a chair, swung it around her head, then smashed it across a tabletop. The table collapsed into splinters.

  The Furies trained their weapons on Diana, but Bernadeth signaled them to step back.

  “She single-handedly defeated all of you—as well as a number of my brother’s minions,” Bernadeth said. “But she will find me a more challenging opponent.”

  THE DUEL

  Enough is enough!

  Diana holds a gleaming sword, but refuses to raise it.

  For this Feast Day, Hippolyta ordered a test of Diana’s swordsmanship against her teacher, Xanthe. Diana argued that it was stupid to test her when everyone already knew she was the most skilled swordswoman on Themyscira. But Hippolyta insisted. At her command, Diana was garbed in her finest chiton and led to the arena.

  Diana glances over at Xanthe, then scowls up at her mother, who watches from her throne, surrounded by Amazons eager for spectacle.

  She can drag me here, Diana thinks, but she can’t make me perform like a trained monkey, just so she can brag about what a great warrior I am.

  Hippolyta calls out, “Begin!”

  Xanthe, sword in hand, salutes Hippolyta, then Diana. Diana just stands there.

  She begins to circle Diana cautiously, as if looking for an opening. Diana gazes ahead mulishly.

  Her teacher lunges at Diana. Diana refuses to parry. She refuses to move at all.

  The older Amazon glances uncertainly toward Hippolyta, asking wordlessly, “What do I do now?”

  Diana raises an eyebrow at Hippolyta tauntingly, relishing her mother’s embarrassed, frustrated glare.

  Then Hippolyta’s jaw juts out, mirroring Diana’s own mulish expression. “Continue, Xanthe!” Hippolyta says. “If my daughter chooses not to defend herself, so be it!”

  Xanthe lunges at Diana, her sword slashing.

  Diana glances down, and her eyes widen with shock as blood wells thick and red from a cut on her sword arm.

  Diana glares accusingly at her mother. But Hippolyta sits unmoved, arms folded.

  Xanthe slashes again. Another cut drips red.

  Diana begins to get angry. How can her own mother let this happen? How can she calmly watch Diana’s lifeblood drip onto the sand?

  Another prick. And another. Fury rises like a geyser in Diana’s breast—not at Xanthe, whose cuts are, in truth, little more than scratches—but at Hippolyta, who is trying to compel her obedience.

  Diana whirls on Xanthe, shouts angrily, “Xanthe! Stop it! Now!”

  But Xanthe slashes again, and finally Diana meets Xanthe’s leaping blade with her own. With powerful, angry strokes, she forces Xanthe back toward her mother’s dais. And knocks the blade from Xanthe’s hand.

  The Amazons are on their feet, cheering.

  Diana raises her sword and snarls, “You command swordplay, Mother. So be it!”

  With all her might, Diana flings the sword past Xanthe’s head and sends it, quivering, into the backrest of her mother’s wooden throne.

  Diana sees Hippolyta’s stunned expression and realizes what she has done. Her mother’s betrayal infuriated Diana, but her own violent reaction has horrified her.

  Diana bursts into tears.

  Leaping the arena gate, she flees into the countryside, as if pursued by the demons of Hades.

  As Diana stood fro
zen beneath the onslaught of memories, Bernadeth, quick and ruthless as the snake she resembled, struck with her pronged blade.

  Diana, roused by the movement, jerked backward, and the tip of Bernadeth’s blade slashed her leather tunic.

  The Furies were shouting, wagering on who would win and how long the fight would last. It was like the arena all over again. Except this fight was real.

  When Bernadeth thrust again, Diana caught one of the blade-prongs with the staff, jerked and twisted, trying to wrench the blade from Bernadeth’s hand. But with surprising strength, Bernadeth yanked her pronged blade upward, slicing the metal staff in two.

  That’s no ordinary sword, Diana realized. It was sharper by far than it appeared. And Bernadeth was stronger and more dangerous than she looked.

  No wonder the memory struck with such power, Diana thought. I resented fighting Xanthe because my mother tried to force me. Bernadeth, too, is forcing this fight on me, but now I resent the time it is taking. Every second of delay brings Desaad closer. I have to find a way to end this quickly!

  Diana tossed the severed staff aside and leapt upward, grabbed an overhead pipe, and swung acrobatically atop a rafter.

  Bernadeth, furious, slashed up at Diana, slicing through both rafter and pipe. Oil spurted from the pipe, spattering Bernadeth and fouling the room. The rafter sagged ominously.

  Diana leapt gracefully for the next rafter and the next. Then she sprang down onto the floor and dashed toward the exit.

  Howling with frustration, slipping on the oil-slicked floor, Bernadeth hurled her blade at Diana. Diana jerked backward, and the blade skewered the restaurant door. Now I know how my mother felt when my own sword quivered so close to her head, Diana thought.

  She hauled open the door, dove outside, and tore around the corner of the building into the adjoining alley.

  In the distance, she had glimpsed a wing of Parademons and, in their midst, a flying craft that, no doubt, held Desaad.

  Diana could hear Desaad’s craft arriving in front of the restaurant. Bernadeth, in a foul temper, was cursing coldly as she tried to wrench her blade from the mutilated door. In seconds, Furies and Parademons would be pouring through streets and alleys, searching for her.