And so Hippolyta descended into hell.
The palace of Hades was not a place of comfort, or repose. It was a bleak and cold and cruel. To be condemned to the dark forever- it had seemed to her such a heavy burden for someone like her lover and she had understood the simmering resentment Hades had for his brothers who ruled in the sun.
In the end, the cold and black of the underworld had suited him well.
She ignored the bows of Hades ghostly servants as she sprinted by. She didn't have time- she didn't have time-
Hippolyta cried out when her feet slipped from underneath her as she tried to cut right down a particularly slippery corridor. She hit the stone floor with an armored clatter. Her head went back and her helmet slammed into the marble hard enough to make her head ring.
"Gods," She groaned, and if her mission wasn't so dire, she would've laid there forever. It had scarcely been two hours since the battles that had raged across the slopes of Mount Olympus between the rightful king Zeus and his usurper brother Hades. The possibly broken ribs beneath her crumpled breastplate (courtesy of a minotaur) and the wound she'd suffered from a centaurs spear to the shoulder burned. It felt so good to lie there on the cool stone; she felt light and dizzy as exhaustion set in and leached her strength from her bones.
No... No. I can't stay here. Get up, Hippolyta. GET. UP.
Hades sneering face floated across the surface of her mind, his handsome features twisted by hate and humiliation as Poseidon and Ares forced him to kneel before the golden thrones of Zeus and Hera. The God of the Dead cursed them, of course. Words flowed like bitter wine from his mouth as he raged against the entirety of Zeus' court, damning them all to Tartarus and back. He had turned to her, so very small and insignificant next to the gods of Olympus, and saved his worst for her.
"It is always good to see you Hippolyta." He jeered. "Truly, I am glad my brother has allowed me one last look at you before condemning me to the pits of hell. However, I am surprised to see you here. I would have thought you'd be gone by now, for the birth."
"Speak plainly." She demanded, her wounds and grief cutting her temper short. "I have no time for you riddles and games, Hades."
"No, you never enjoyed those." He said. "What I mean to ask was why you are not with your daughter."
No. No. Hippolyta's heart stilled. He could not possibly- surely not-
"Yes." Hades hissed, triumphantly. "How long do you think a babe could survive down there my dear? Hours? Days? I promise you that no being of flesh and blood stays that way for long in the underworld!"
"You monster." Hera thundered. She rose from her throne and in two quick strides was standing before the cowed form of her elder brother. "You shaped that babe from clay with your own hands and dare to tell me that you left her out to die?"
"Why yes, sister." The light in Hades' eyes is mad. He turns to Hippolyta again. "I have killed your daughter, Hippolyta. Run and perhaps you might save her."
And when Hippolyta had turned and ran, Hades laughter had chased her all the way down the mountain.
Your daughter! Get up!
Remembering brought some last vestiges of strength to her limbs, and Hippolyta pushed herself to her feet, swaying slightly as she stood upright. She limped down the last few flights of stairs until she had finally stumbled into the basement.
She descended into the grotto that made up the lowest level of the palace. Hades had aptly named it the 'womb of the world'. The darkness was broken by sconces along the cavernous walls, lit by emerald flames that sent eerie ripples of shadow and light across the obsidian floor and the pools of unnaturally still black water set deep into the ground.
And there, resting on the broken stub of a stalagmite as if it were an altar, lay her daughter. Cracked chips of clay lay around the pedestal like eggshells, remnants of the spell that brought her blessed child to life. Hippolyta dropped to her knees, her metal grieves carving long white scratches into the black floor, unnaturally loud in the stillness underground. Her heart thudded painfully against her broken ribs.
Her first thought was that she was beautiful. Even pale with death, Hippolyta thought her little girl was the most beautiful creature she'd ever seen. "My daughter." Hippolyta half-sobbed. She gathered the cold little corpse gently in her arms, holding her close as she rocked and keened. She ripped off her helmet, and thrust her face into the crook of her child's shoulder and neck. She inhaled deeply- and there, hidden behind the intense smell of decay and death that permeated the underworld was the scent of her beautiful baby girl.
...a breath of air on her cheek.
Hippolyta jerked back.
A pair of bright blue eyes blinked weakly back at her.
"You live." She whispered. "By Hera, you live!" And she couldn't help the tears that followed that pronouncement, nor the slightly hysterical laughter that accompanied them. Something in her heart that had violently dislodged at the sight of her daughters little corpse shifted back into place again.
The babe blinked, as if agreeing.
"At least Hades could not take you from me. His last revenge remains unfulfilled, for now." Hippolyta murmured, pressing a kiss to the still unnaturally cool skin of her daughters forehead. "I will die before I allow any harm to come to you." She ripped her cloak from her shoulders, wincing slightly at the tearing sound as her cloak pins were forcibly removed. "Here, little one." Hippolyta murmured. "This will keep the worst of this foul place from you, I hope." She attempted to wrap the infant in her cloak, but the task proved impossible to accomplish with only two hands.
As she laid her cloak out on the ground and placed her daughter neatly in the center of it, she thought back to Hades. He'd been so smug when he sent her running to the underworld- so sure that whatever he'd done would make her suffer for the indignity of his defeat. But he hadn't. Her child was alive- barely- but alive.
So why-
Her daughter cooed, waving her arms with that strange intensity of infants and Hippolyta was reminded suddenly of the chill in the air and the fact that a damp cave was no place for a newborn. "We will take our leave of this place." she says (or does she think it?), addressing the baby as if she is understood. "I do not trust that Hades does not have some sort of trap set up for us in this place." And she began to wrap her daughter in the warm folds of her cloak.
It was only her watchfulness that had her notice. Her swaddle of the child was poorly done, and slipped low to her daughters chubby hips. "My apologies," The Amazon laughed ruefully. She turned, holding the child up to the light of a torch to show her what she was doing-
No.
"I have killed your daughter, Hippolyta."
And he had, in a way. Hollow understanding pounded through the Amazon queen's brain. The perfect, blessed clay vessel of their child had been all she had ever dreamed of and Hades had ruined it. He had touched what was pure and beautiful and marred it with his hands. Man had again ruined something that she had prized above all else. Truly, Hades had killed her daughter
Instead, he had given her a son.
Okay, so I'm going to give this a shot. This idea just wouldn't let me go, so I typed it out and I kinda like this. I don't want to create a Gary Stu/Mary Stu situation here. But I was thinking about the implications of a GB!Wonder Woman and I was just floored. Would Hippolyta even keep GB!Diana? Would they have a relationship? How would GB!Diana be perceived by the population of Themyscira? How would he feel about the fact he's male? Assuming he was kept by Hippolyta, how would he deal with puberty and growing up while surrounded by women who (rightly) believe male sexuality is barely more than rape? So yeah.
As for my Fem!Bruce, I mostly just wanted to write a female Dark Knight (no disrespect to Batwoman in the comics) and the different ways that would translate to respect in Gothem particularly. I'm imagining that Fem!Bruce would have to be much, much more brutal with the crime elements of Gothem to be taken as seriously as her male counterpart. So maybe I'm gonna write a more vicious (not catty or jealous- this is Batman we're talking about here) harsh Batwoman.
This is an experiment to see if I can pull off an actual AU... that doesn't exactly follow the tropes in the show. Wish me luck; any criticism is welcome.