Part II
"Yesterday is but today's memory, and tomorrow is today's dream."
On a desolate, debris-strewn plain under a curiously pink sunset, a living dead man opened his eyes and groaned.
Stiff and sore from inaction, his head aching and his instincts screaming, Batman rolled onto his side and gingerly pushed himself upright. Blinking several times cleared his vision, but even then it was hard to accept what he was seeing.
Sand, yes, and rock, and a bleak alien sky painted in watercolor shades. But even more bizarre: littering the landscape were circular slabs of concrete, a half-moon cutout of a storefront, and several cars that would have looked more at home in a junkyard... or an evidence lab. The vehicles didn't sport mere wear and tear; this was battle damage.
The memories returned in a disquieting rush of images and sounds. Kalibak –"You really think you can beat me?" – and Superman... Toyman and his ridiculous android... a green sphere of energy erupting from the machine's chest, vaporizing everything in its path.
Not vaporizing, he understood now, but transporting.
But transporting where? Where did that lunatic send me?
And quick on the heels of that realization, another.
It wasn't just me.
"Diana."
She was nearby, sprawled face-down on the same section of transplanted rubble, seemingly in one piece although disturbingly silent and still. Batman clamped down on a sudden surge of dread and carefully rolled her onto her back.
Her head lolled, but he could see immediately that she was breathing. Relief – just as pungent and just as unwelcome as the horror of an instant before – took his breath away for a second, no more. She would be okay; she would wake up in due time and he should turn his attention to the matter at hand. Observe. Take note of the surroundings. She'll be fine by herself for a few minutes; you should take a look around before it gets too dark. There may be some clue as to what this place is, and if you know that there's a chance you can figure out how to get back. So get moving!
A gust of wind snaked through the remnants of Metropolis, smelling faintly of sulfur and musk, surprisingly cold. Batman cast another glance at his teammate's supine form, then looked to the darkening sky, and altered his priorities.
One thing at a time.
Kalibak hit her, throwing her aside as though she weighed less than nothing, and Diana's bones were jarred as she struck the side of an office building with stone-shattering force. Winded by the impact she fell forward onto the street... and sensed that she was in danger just as the structure began to collapse on top of her.
An angry rumble. Dust and gloom and pain. She was trapped, legs and arms pinned by the debris, agony shooting across her ribs as though she was being squeezed by a giant fist, on her back and vulnerable as the building's remaining mass loomed over her, darkness preparing to fall...
She gasped, and it was the gasp that drove the dream-memory from her mind. Muscles coiled and ready to strike, she opened her eyes to discover that she had been held down by nothing but her own fear.
The only thing covering her body was a length of black material with a distinctly-scalloped hem.
Diana pushed herself upright, ignoring the weariness of her limbs and a strange ache deep in the joints. He wasn't far away, crouched next to a small fire that smoked and sputtered. At his side were a spent flare and a stack of what appeared to be newspapers.
"Glad to see you're awake," he said flatly, his attention on the flames.
Unsteadily she rose to her feet with his cape in hand, staring out into a landscape that rivaled any dream's in its strangeness. A violet sky arched overhead, studded with stars and set alight by a ringed satellite – a moon? A close neighbor? A dark mountain range rased the horizon; the terrain was forbidding and completely unfamiliar, and the air was cool.
She thought of her own dream, following it to its logical conclusion. "Toyman's weapon... it sent us... here." Wherever here is.
Batman grunted his agreement, frowning at the fire before sitting back on his haunches. "Too much smoke," he said unhappily. "If any more of Superman's friends are looking for us, we won't be hard to find."
Glancing around at the strange assemblage of concrete, asphalt, mangled cars and even a partial storefront, Diana guessed not. She went to the small fire, grateful for its warmth on her bare limbs, and sat across from her teammate. "But you don't think they are."
He looked up at her at last. "What makes you say that?"
Shifting into a more comfortable position – the pain in her ribs from the dream had followed her into the waking world – she pulled a face. If Batman thought that they were being hunted he would have spent his time fashioning weapons and defenses; he certainly wouldn't have let her just sleep off the effects of the weapon. She ran the hem of his cape through her fingers and simply said, "Because I know how you think."
He made an unintelligible noise in response and crumpled another section of newspaper in his hands, feeding it to the fire. When Diana shifted again, he frowned at her. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," she shot back, hearing the defensive tone in her voice and not liking it. "I'm just a little stiff. Maybe the gravity on this planet is heavier than Earth's."
Batman gave her a long stare, eyes unreadable behind those opaque shields. "I hadn't noticed."
Diana shrugged and looked away, leaning back against the battered sedan he had used as a windbreak. "What now? Whatever was done... there has to be a way to undo it, right?"
"Maybe. In any case, I think we should stay here for the night. If anyone from the League is able to follow us, I don't want to be on the other side of this planet when they come through."
She raised her eyebrows. "Isn't that the advice they give to lost children? We have our communicators."
A flicker of uncertainty shadowed the man's face, or at least the part she could see. "I'm not sure we do. After I came around I tried to make contact. There's a beacon signal, but no audio."
Diana touched her own communicator for confirmation; a faint electronic pulse buzzed in her ear, slow and steady. "Someone else is already here, then."
As usual, he would concede nothing. "Maybe," he said again. "In the morning you should go check it out. I'll stay here and try to figure out what happened." He nodded at the rubble. "If Toyman opened a portal... it might be possible to open it back up."
Diana nodded in agreement, trying to ignore the apprehension that was coiling in her stomach. Something was wrong, she realized... something that went beyond waking up on an alien world with no one but the Batman for company. Beyond his typically male attitude and the discomforting fact that he had awoken before she had. Something was wrong... but as much as it gnawed at her, she didn't want to consider it.
Yawning, suddenly sleepy, a thought occurred to her. "I should let you get some rest."
He rejected her offer with a single glance. "I'm used to working nights," he reminded her, balling up another sheet of newsprint.
Diana hesitated, wondering if she should protest, then settled back again and pulled up her knees, draping herself with the cape. After all, he hadn't asked for it back.
She closed her eyes and hoped that she wouldn't dream.
Batman had known that whatever Diana had been hiding from him – hiding from herself – would come out sooner or later. But he honestly hadn't expected it so soon as the following morning.
He watched as she stepped away from the car trunk he'd just asked her to open, staring down at her hands in disbelief. He stared at them too, wondering what she saw. She'd only just grabbed the lid and pulled, and nothing had...
Nothing had happened.
The Princess took another step backwards, dropping her hands and staring at the ground instead. She stood perfectly still for a moment before throwing her head back towards the sky. Her expression was composed, almost serene, but two things betrayed that image: her breathing, hard and fast, and a wild anguish in her eyes.
The clues came together, as they usually did – more quickly when he was on top of his game – and he said aloud what she obviously couldn't. Wouldn't. "Your powers aren't working."
It figured. That was what he got for assuming that anything was going to be easy.
Diana looked sharply at him, as flustered as he had ever seen her. She grew up with those abilities, Bruce reminded himself. If it's true, it wouldn't be like forgetting how to do something... it would be like losing a sense – sight or hearing...
Or like being paralyzed.
"No. It's not something that can just... stop working," she told him curtly.
"It obviously is," he retorted, although the wounded look on her face gave him pause. "It could be a side effect of the Toyman's weapon," he offered by way of apology. "A temporary one."
"No... They can be masked... suppressed... but this is something else. They're simply... not there." She shook her head slowly, stricken.
The familiar duality warred inside him. Deep within was the desire to sit her down, reassure her or at least give her some words of comfort until that awful bleakness left her eyes. That was Bruce Wayne talking.
But they were alone, stranded on an inhospitable alien world and, no matter what, the person standing in front of him was still Wonder Woman. Likewise, he had to be the Batman. Detached. Rational. If the princess was unable to check out the homing signal in the usual method, then they'd just have to do it the old fashioned way. And then, he considered, steeling his resolve with cold thoughts, maybe she'll get a better feel for what life is like for us non-metas.
"Welcome to my world," he said, turning away so he couldn't have to see the way she looked at him. At least if she was mad at him it would distract her from feeling sorry for herself.
Bruce Wayne objected, but Bruce Wayne had no place here.
Working silently, they salvaged what they could from the transported pieces of Metropolis: gasoline siphoned from the tanks of the ruined vehicles, some rope and wire, a metal toolbox and a spare battery, just in case. Breakfast was a bit of water and some barely-palatable energy bars... a brand Flash had endorsed.
We really need to talk to him about his taste, Diana thought ruefully, and she almost shared the sentiment with Batman before remembering that she was mad at him.
It wasn't that she wanted sympathy from the man. Aside from being completely out of the realm of possibility, Diana refused to be coddled. But was some kind of common courtesy too much to ask? If he was in my place...
But that was where that train of thought stopped, because it was so easy to forget that Bruce hadn't been blessed the way she had, hadn't been born on a different world, wasn't a master of powerful alien technology. He was, for lack of a better term, normal, and as sad as that somehow seemed it did mean one thing – nothing could take what he had away from him.
That just ticked her off even more.
The car with the least damage was a cherry-red convertible, and Diana made a point of slipping into the driver's seat first. She looked at him challengingly when it seemed he might object and after a brief pause he settled for the passenger's side.
"I assume you have some experience with this," said Bruce, obviously under the impression that anyone who didn't own a Batmobile was somehow deficient.
"Of course," she said tightly. "Flash taught me."
She started the engine. Batman reached back, pulling the seat belt across his chest and fastening it with an emphatic click.
She drove for most of the day, and despite Batman's wordless implication she believed she preformed very well. Of course, there wasn't much traffic to contend with.
The terrain changed as the hours passed. The sandy plains fell behind them, replaced by rock formations, shallow canyons and what appeared to be a dry riverbed. The greatest boon was the discovery of plant life: short, scrubby brush with thick, brittle branches Batman thought would burn.
They paused at a few of the larger clusters, stretching their legs, drinking a little of their precious water, attending to personal business, and gathering up kindling. The plant refused to go quietly, though, fighting back with razor-edged leaves that drew blood from Diana's palms.
Crouched in the hot sand, biting her lip as she wrestled with the vegetation, she could not remember ever feeling quite so weak. Yes, she had been captured, restrained, chained up and left helpless... but always the vulnerability she so detested had come from an outside source. A guard with a rope, a madman with neigh-unbreakable bonds: these things were in her experience, and she could manage them as they came.
But here and now it was her own body that was betraying her, fragility that came from within.
She grabbed a hold of a particularly broad branch, tired of adding only piffling twigs to their collection in the back seat of the car. Before, one sharp tug would have brought the entire plant up by its roots. Now her hands were so slick with her own blood that she could barely get a firm grip.
Frustration drove needles into the backs of her eyes. No. She was not going to be driven to tears... not by this Tartarus-spawned flora... not out of mere irritation... and Hades himself would lead the entire Underworld in dancing the Kalamatianos before she cried in front of him.
She heard footsteps approaching from behind. His timing was impeccable. "Maybe you should let me handle that," he said impassively. "I've got the gloves."
Any tears she might have shed instantly evaporated with his words, burned away by a rush of pure anger that both frightened and exhilarated her. Diana set her jaw and pulled – if Hera would not give her strength, simple force of will would have to do – and the offending branch snapped close to the ground. She pulled it free, turning as she stood and throwing the limb at him with as much power as she could muster.
Once, it would have crossed the space between them in less time than it look to breathe, and he would have been knocked down, winded and bruised. Now he was able to bring up his arms in time, although the branch still caught him solidly across the chest and biceps. He was forced to take a step back.
"You want to handle it?" she spat. "Fine! Handle it!"
She stalked away. Not towards another crop of the hated plant, or towards the car, but in the direction they'd been driving, the direction that the call of the homing beacon led them. Unadulterated fury burned within her blood, purer and more powerful than the ichor which ran in the veins of the gods. If he wanted to do it all, if he thought her so inept without her powers, then he and his little belt and his damned gloves were welcome to it.
After a long moment his voice called after her – with more than a little surprise, she noted gladly. "What are you doing?"
She didn't bother to turn around, trusting her voice to carry. "What does it look like? I'm walking!"
He didn't respond, and she refused to give him the pleasure of glancing over her shoulder at him. Instead she focused all of her strength on the forward journey. The sky had already started to deepen from pink to mauve; twilight would fall soon. There was a large outcropping of rock perhaps an hour away. That would be her goal.
Anger could only carry her so far.
Tired and sore, her hands stinging with cuts and her eyes straining against purple shadows, Diana leaned against a tall, curving wall of stone. Although the night was cool the rock had soaked up the heat of the sun during the day, and she paused to enjoy the warmth against her skin.
After a moment she stumbled on. Her feet hurt. It was no wonder that her footwear attracted more than a few questions from women; they really were uncomfortable. Why hadn't she noticed before?
She hadn't seen Batman since she'd walked away from him hours ago, but then again she hadn't looked back either. She thought that she'd heard the car's engine, but she felt like her hearing wasn't what it had once been. Perhaps he had been following her at a safe distance... and perhaps he had simply washed his hands of her.
No. Not him. Not Bruce.
Not Bruce, maybe. But this was Batman. If he thought he could reach their destination quicker without her hindering presence, maybe he would... maybe he should...
She stopped in a clearing of sorts, a space enclosed on three sides and – she noted with a short, hysterical laugh – festooned with a less-hardly variety of the vile plant. Diana stopped and leaned against a section of wall where the demonic vegetation was not, putting one blood-crusted hand to her forehead and feeling the unmistakable dampness. Sweat – when all she'd done was walk!
There was something else against her hand as well, something cool and metallic, something that had been a gift from the goddesses themselves... a symbol, not of who she was, but what she was.
What she had been.
It was painfully obvious that she was no longer the champion she had once been named. Was she, she wondered, her gaze drifting to her bracelets, even Amazon anymore? What would her sisters say if they saw her now? What would Hippolyta say?
Something caught in her throat, something as blackness and thorny as the plants that surrounded her, and for a moment Diana feared she might be sick. The nausea passed but not the moment, not the pain. She slid down, her back against the wall, until she was sitting on the hard ground, simultaneously pulling the tiara out of her hair. A flick of the wrist; she let it fly into the gathering shadows, heard it land, unseen, with a rattle as sharp as an accusation.
Alone in the darkness, she rested her forehead against the palms of her hands and, at last, indulged in the luxury of tears.
End Part 2