Donna Troy woke up from a nightmare, giving a whispered gasp as her eyelids flung open.
She quickly glanced to the left to see Kara Zor-El still sleeping, still as naked as she was. As her breath calmed down, Donna pushed aside the covers and sat up on the edge of the hotel bed, looking up at the half-moon shining through the window. She heard a rustling behind her, followed by Kara knee-walking on the bed behind her. The Kryptonian placed one hand on the Amazon's right shoulder, and the other on her left arm.
"Did you have a bad dream?"
"It's nothing, Kara."
"Donna, we're officially partners now. There can't be any 'nothing' between us."
Donna sighed and put her right hand over Kara's left. "Just remembering the scariest day of my life. The day I learned who, and what, my mother is. And what I am."
/
My father is from Oklahoma, and my mother is from Cyprus, or so I was told. They've been travelling the world for so long they've forgotten where I was born. They travelled the world as relief aid workers in countries suffering from famine and disease. These were also fairly dangerous places, so they often had a US military escort with them. Sometimes the government wouldn't allow us in and we had to enter illegally.
By the time I was nine years old, we had been spending most of our travels through North Africa and the Middle East, and I had lived for so long I could speak any language in any accent in the region. When I wasn't helping my parents, I was playing with the other girls. While they were all of different tribes and languages, they all loved Wonder Woman. Since the culture of that part of the world downgraded women to second-class citizens at best who couldn't even show their hair in public, having a strong barely-clothed woman fighting evil and liberating the oppressed was the ultimate role model. She was my hero, and I even had a great deal of merchandise of her. Many girls would say that I looked just like her, and I loved that compliment.
We ultimately came to Khandaq, where the dictator Asin Muhannad had pushed the nation's Egyptian minority into making threats of rebellion. Due to these circumstances, my parents' escort was doubled in size, and we had to be more secret than ever.
Shortly after arriving in a village, my parents had to leave and took a third of the escort with them. I made several new friends as I waited for them to return, and even got to play Wonder Woman with them.
But there was a security breach, and data was leaked out regarding all military personnel. The village I was in came under attack my Khandaqi soldiers, who announced their presence by firing cannisters of poison gas.
Whatever this gas was, if it didn't kill you, it made you into a shrieking lunatic, attacking everyone you came across or sometimes nobody at all. As the villages tore themselves apart, the military escort rushed myself and the other children into a safehouse. But that was attacked by the chemical too, and as the soldiers covered up the mouths of the children, the enemy army broke in.
In the chaos, the soldiers who could still fight put themselves in front of the civilians, and while I threw myself on one of the younger village boys, the enemy came in using live captives as shields. There were gunshots, screaming, blood, and death, until I finally went black.
When I was conscious again, I could feel my body being forced to sit upright in a chair. I couldn't see anything, but I could hear a man speaking in Khandaqi. I was too terrified to pay attention to what he said, but I did recognize the word for "ransom" being used several times. Then a bag was pulled off my head, and I was staring directly into a video camera. Once the man speaking was finished, he turned off the camera and sent the video through e-mail.
As the man walked up to me, I noticed that my hands were strapped down the arms of the chair. He pulled out a device that looked like a puncher, put my left pinky into it, and pressed it down. That device was a torture machine meant to tear off fingernails, and I screamed in response.
"Are you scared, little girl?" he mocked. "Do you want your mommy? Go on, start crying for your mommy!"
I had no idea what was going on, but I hated it. I felt so helpless and frightened, and the fear had completely petrified me.
I started crying for mommy. Gently, at first, then louder as he tore the rest of my fingernails off. Then he pushed me and the chair over backwards and kicked me over, then began pushing me down with his foot on my back. He also put up a Wonder Woman lunch box in front of me.
"You still scared, little bitch?" he snarked. "Why don't you call out for your she-devil to come help!"
I was still crying, but trying to hold it in. As he pressed his foot into my back, I softly stared at the propped-up image of my hero and softly begged for her to save me.
Then a loud siren went off, and I could hear men outside the room rushing around in a frenzied panic. There was a barrage of gunfire, and just underneath it I could hear the striking of metal, as though the bullets were bouncing off something. Then there was a bust of thunder, and I saw a bright flash of blue light as men started to scream in agony. These screams soon drowned out the gunfire, and I also heard what sounded like those soldiers being sliced apart as they called on their god for help.
The man who spoke told the other two to go investigate. Hesitantly, they grabbed automatic rifles of a rack and rushed out the door. I heard one dying screaming in thunder as blue lightning lit up the outside wall, and the second was struck dead by a lightning bolt that shot straight through the doorway.
The thunder from all this lightning had made me and my captors lose hearing, and by now I was getting a dizzy feeling in my head. The speaking man got off me and rushed for another rifle, only for the wall to burst open from behind.
Before he could turn around, a human figure sped through the falling rubble, stabbed him in the chest and made his body violently wriggle with electricity sprouting out all around. Then the mystery figure grabbed his face with her free hand and slowly started pulling his head away from his shoulders, giving a disparaging shriek as she ripped his head off his body. His corpse still being electrocuted, she lowered her hands and dropped both the head and body to the ground. Then the lightning in her sword turned off.
She started to catch her breath, and they were breaths of pure anger. She slowly turned to face me and saw that it was none other than my hero, Wonder Woman, covered in the blood of her enemies, and staring at me with the eyes of a psychotic monstrosity.
The tiniest moment after she saw me, she dropped her sword and quietly lunged at me. I was so scared I knew I had to run, but my body was completely frozen. I closed my eyes tight, expecting to be the next victim. But instead, she took hold of me, ripped me away from the binds on the broken chair, pressed me against her chest, hugged me tight, and burst into tears.
"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"
I knew that voice. I couldn't believe it. And right then, I didn't even want to. But I opened my eyes and exclaimed the truth in pure shock.
"Mom?"
And that's how I learned the truth about my mother. She is a killer. She is a monster. She is a hero.
Realizing this, I hugged her back and cried with her.
/
The data leak was done by Private First Class Manfred Bradford, US Army Intelligence worker. When a group of soldiers came to his office at a military in Egypt near the Khandaqi border, he was just finishing dying his hair to be white as snow.
"Why did you do it?" one of them asked.
"I did it for the information and its right to be free, and to avenge all the misunderstood soul that our government has labeled as 'terrorists'," Bradford answered proudly. "And I did it for my gay brothers and sisters who cannot serve with you fascists."
The arresting soldiers all stood to one side, giving Bradford a clear view of Marine Captain Steve Trevor standing in the doorway, staring at him with eyes of pure hatred. Bradford didn't flinch as Trevor slowly walked towards him.
"So, you think you're a hero, do you?"
Before Bradford could respond, Trevor grabbed him by the shoulder and slammed him onto his work table, smashing it and the desktop he had done his treachery on.
"So, you support those who throw your gay brothers and sisters off rooftops?"
Trevor picked the traitor up, and slammed him into the wall, and punched him square in the face.
"You support those who treat women worse than cattle?"
Trevor punched him two more times, causing Bradford to bleed profusely from the nose and mouth.
"Why are you being so mean?" he cried.
"I'm the one being mean? In the name of 'peace', you have caused the deaths of 3000 men, women, and children."
"Well, they had it coming! They deserved it!"
Trevor spent the next five minutes thrashing Bradford around the room, beating him and snapping his bones until he was a crying, bloody wretch on the ground.
"You can't do this! You arrest me and take me to trial!"
"Trials are to determine if one is guilty or innocent. You have already confessed, which makes you guilty, and so a trial is unnecessary. And besides, I was discharged from the military 20-some years ago when I defied President Kissinger and stopped war crimes that he ordered. Now, I'm a private contractor with the Justice League, and I'm only accountable to them. And while they're normally against killing, they trust my judgment."
"Please, have mercy!" the coward begged. "You're Christian, right? You sound all redneck, so you must be Christian! Why don't you forgive like Jesus does?"
"I don't believe in Jesus. I worship the Holy Trinity of Guns, Beer, and Angels. And you made my angels cry."
With one final punch, Bradford was dead. Trevor stood back up and was saluted by his men, then turned to face a sound of clapping from outside. It was an Egyptian army general and the country's national sorcerer – a popular man who commonly went by the nickname of Black Adam.
"Very good, Captain Trevor! You would make a fine ruler!"
"Well, coming from this part of the world, I won't take that as a compliment."
/
The next day, footage of the gas attacks were released worldwide, and Egypt responded with an invasion backed by Israel and the US. In retaliation, Muhunnad launched a nuclear missile at Cairo, which was intercepted by Superman. After witnessing the bomb explode in space, he flew straight down to Khandaq and apprehended Muhunnad, discovering that he was the immortal Vandal Savage. After a trial at the UN, he was sent to Belle Reeve, where the only available cell was with Killer Frost. As long as she lives, she'll have fun making him wish he could die.
The poison gas was developed by an American biochemist, Dr. Jonathan Crane, improving on the work done by Dr. Poison. He fled the country and relocated to Gotham City, which he terrorized for eight years as The Scarecrow. It was only then that his involvement in the genocide was discovered, and he was sentenced to the same fate as Savage. He only lasted one day.
The US tried to turn Khandaq into a democracy, but that endeavor quickly failed, and Black Adam was set up as the nation's new dictator. Not genocidal, but still draconian, and since the US sends him aid that makes him a "good guy".
/
After we had both recovered, mother took me by the hand and walked with me out of the military hospital. She led me to the middle of an empty hanger reached for a latch in the air, opening the door to her Invisible Jet. We got on and she made sure that I was safely secure in the co-pilot's seat directly behind hers.
I didn't look at my mother in the eyes during this time, and she didn't try to either. My mind was still trying to comprehend everything that had happened. My friends killed, the gas, the bombs, the bullets, the horrible man … and my mother is Wonder Woman. And she is not the big smiling hero on my lunchbox.
After the plane took off, mother put on autopilot and moved to back to my seat.
"How are you feeling?"
"OK."
"Here, you need to watch this. It's about our history."
She lowered a screen and we watched a video I had seen before, but so long ago I had forgotten it. It was a documentary on the history of the Amazons.
"According to myth, Sparta sought to conquer Athens, and their god Ares granted their soldiers great strength and power to do so. In retaliation, the goddess Athena granted her followers similar traits, but only to those who possessed the true will of a warrior – the ones who sought not the destruction of their enemies but the protection of what they loved, even if that meant more destruction. All of the Athenians who were worthy happened to be women – young widows grieving for their husbands killed on the battlefield.
"Thus, Athena transformed them into Amazons, and they quickly gave the Spartans a humiliating defeat. But the men of Athens showed no gratitude. Even though they worshipped a goddess, they refused to believe any woman was worthy of such power. Infuriated by this, Athena led the Amazons and their daughters to the island of Themyscera, damning Athens to Spartan rule.
"But Ares found the Amazons and sought vengeance for defeating his followers. He and Athena engaged in battle over Themyscera, and Athena had the upper hand until Ares' minions blinded her. Their father Zeus, who was watching, was enraged by barbaric act, and condemned Ares to the center of the Earth."
"Soon after, with Sparta ruling Greece, the gods wanted nothing to do them, so they left our world, but not before putting the Amazons in a curse to vanish, but reappear should Ares be released."
"Skip ahead several millennia. Nazi occultist Vandal Savage releases Ares and his minions in exchange for immortality to aid the Axis in a new World War. The Amazons reappeared and were discovered by US Marine Pilot Steve Trevor. He introduced them to the Allies and together, they defeated Ares and the Axis nations (and rather quickly, and the Allies didn't have to finish development of a nuclear bomb). The greatest of the Amazons was Princess Diana, known as Wonder Woman, and after the war she married Steve. Today, they continue to fight evil and oppression wherever it appears."
Once the movie was done, it was time to land. Mother went back to the pilot's seat and guided her jet down through the clouds. I watched in awe as we descended onto a Mediterranean island, and we landed in the middle of an ancient Greek city, which was now ruins covered in cracks and vegetation.
Mother guided us into the royal palace, with mother giving nostalgic comments on every building and artifact we could find. She led her daughter up to her old bedroom, and found it still had her old clothes from every age.
After washing out decades' worth of dust, Mother changed into her adult clothes while having me dress up in her old girl clothes. Mother couldn't help but stare at her daughter, possibly because she understood how her mother felt when she looked at her.
She led me to the back of the palace, where we found an outdoor mausoleum. Mother walked much more slowly now, walking passed each of the caskets that had been carved in the likeness of the Amazon who'd been lying dead inside. Atop each casket was the Amazon's weapons and armor, man of which still bore heinous battle damage.
As Mother passed by each one, she whispered a prayer in Greek; I believe it was, "Athena smiles down upon you." She began to move even slower as she passed by certain caskets, and began saying the names of who was in them:
Orana. Artemis. Antiope. Drusilla. Mala. Nubia. Philippus.
"Were they your friends?" I asked.
"Yes, we were friends. We were lovers. We were sisters."
We came to the end of the graveyard, and found the largest, most decorative casket. Towering over with was the statue of a war goddess with an owl perched above her shoulder.
Diana got on her knees and began giving a soft chant in Greek, paying her respects to the deceased.
"This is your grandmother, Donna. Queen Hippolyta. The statue above her is the goddess Athena, your other grandmother."
"Wait, you have two mommies?"
"Yes. They became lovers after coming here. The Queen was the only one without child, so they made one. Over there is the pot of clay Hippolyta used to carve me out from, and Athena brought me to life. She used her divine blood and her lover's divine blood, and that blood is in me. It's in you, too."
"Huh? Was I carved from clay too?"
"No, dear. But your birth was still a miracle. Your father and I were made immortal, so it should have been impossible for us to have you. And yet, here you are."
Mother sat down next to me and looked straight into my eyes.
"When the war was over, all of my sisters who had survived had gotten pregnant in-between battles. They had also fallen in love, and joined their soulmates to be wives and mothers, slowly changing the world to have the equality back in your father's home."
"Are they still alive?"
"No. They live on in their descendants. Every good buy and bad guy who uses magic, they're all part of the Amazon family tree. I met them from time to time, and they all took great pride in motherhood. Transforming their bodies into a vessel that creates life, then crafting that life in your image. The one thing that a man cannot do, but a god can. I see now why your father claims to 'worship' women – between crafting life and our immense beauty, a woman is truly divine!"
Mother must have noticed that I had was desperate to ask something.
"Donna, what is it?"
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"You thought it'd be cool if you mom was the greatest hero ever, right? Well, I'm no hero. Heroes never have to plague their conscience from taking a life. It's a real easy way to be when you're indestructible or have a gadget for everything. No, I'm a warrior. I understand that sometimes destroying what you hate is the only way to protect what you love. It's a rough, tragic life full of losing friends and gaining enemies. You have to face the children and grandchildren of your lost sisters-in-arms. You have to deal with shadowy evil from every turn, even when it's done under the banner of freedom.
"That's not the life I wanted for you. I wanted you to be normal, or at least as normal as I could make it. But that all ended when I saw you in that video file. Every act of sadistic cruelty I had seen went off in my head, and my mind couldn't stop picturing them happening to you. And I made your captors pay."
Diana glanced at Donna's hands, which by now had recovered through her magic healing. She couldn't stop picturing those nails replaced with blood.
"I've fought god, enchantresses, wizards, monsters, Nazis, communists, terrorists, mad scientists … but that man, he did the one thing they never could. He broke me.
"I'm sorry, Donna. I failed you. When I first held you, I promised that nothing would hurt you. But someone was stupid enough to do that, and I was stupid enough to let it happen. You lost your friends because of me. You were hurt because of me. You almost..."
"No, mom!" protested Donna. "You are a hero! And even if you weren't Wonder Woman, you'd still be Wonder Woman to me! You have inspired so many girls and boys to work hard and be stronger so that they can be brave and stand up to the bad guys just like you! When the village was attacked, we couldn't fight back, but we still protected each other!"
"You did?"
Mother took out her Lasso of Truth and asked me hold it. I was confused at first, as I was never a habitual liar, but looking back, I believe mother wanted to be sure I was honest and not desperately trying to lift her spirits.
"How did you protect them?"
"Our building was attacked by gas, there were gunshots, and I pushed a little boy to the ground and covered him with my body."
The lasso confirmed that to be true, and for the first time since my rescue, mother smiled.
"Oh Donna, I'm so proud of you!" she exclaimed while hugging me.
"It's not your fault he died," I replied back. Mother stopped hugging and looked straight at me again.
"It was the soldiers of Asin who did it. You couldn't save them because you weren't there. If I was like you, I could have stopped it!"
"Sweetie, you're already like me!"
"No, I'm not, mom! I'm not big and strong! I'm weak and stupid and..."
"No! All girls, and boys, have strength and smarts within them. They just need to discover it. But you already have something much more important – you have the heart of an Amazon, of a warrior. You value the lives of the innocent and defenseless, and you're determined to protect them even if it means sacrificing yourself. That's what separates warriors like your father and I from murderers like Savage and Asin."
"Then show me how to be a warrior like you, mother! I don't want anyone to die like how my friends did! I don't anyone to feel helpless like I was! I don't want anyone to cry like you did!"
"A warrior like me, huh? I've been fighting evil for decades, and evil still hasn't gone away. And the other Amazons couldn't make all their children and grandchildren turn out good. Being like me won't be good enough."
"Then I'll be better than you!"
Mother smiled again. "That's exactly what I wanted to hear. You're ready!"
Leading me by the hand, mother took me around the graveyard and back into the palace. We came to a room we had passed earlier, where there was a device that didn't look it was from ancient times, but more like a futuristic operating table with violet strobe lights on the ceiling.
"This is the Purple Ray. This is what I used to heal your father when he crashed here. After the big war, I used it to make us immortal, so we could continue fighting evil. Then I come back here to give birth to you.
"I was laying down right here, when you were delivered. Then, as I nursed you for the first time, I had this ray put a lock on all your Amazonian abilities, so you could have a normal life. But I was wrong to do that. I thought I could protect you from the evils of this world, but now I see that I should have been preparing you to deal with it. For that, I'm sorry, daughter."
"I forgive you, mom."
"But now, I shall redeem myself and awaken all of my strength and powers that have been sleeping in your blood."
"So, it will make me as big and strong as you?"
"Not exactly. Like I said, there is a lock on the Amazonian blood within you. I'll open that lock, but you will have to nurture the seed inside. You will be training beside me day after day, for year after year. Your body and mind will be pushed to their breaking points, and bit by bit, your true power will grow into a mighty tree."
"OK, then let's do it!"
"Don't take this so lightly, daughter. Your grandmother Hippolyta was not easy on me, and I will be no different. I expect the utmost best in everything, and if I suspect of you deliberately slacking even the tiniest bit, I will make certain that I appear in your nightmares. I will make you a model Amazon, Donna, but the only way is the hard way."
I smugly smiled at mother. "Then do your worst, mother. I promise I will be the greatest Amazon ever."
Mother smiled back. "Then lay down on that table." I did so. "Your life as an Amazon begins … now!"
/
Donna never did manage to surpass her mother, but one couldn't say she never tried. She was the best Amazon, the best warrior, and the best hero that she could possibly be.
"And yet, moments like that still come back to haunt me. When I felt so helpless, so frightened. I can't but think that in spite of everything I've done, I'm really nothing more than a pathetic little girl who's just trying to make mommy proud."
"You're not alone in that," replied Kara. "Sometimes, I'll catch myself thinking about Krypton – how I couldn't save my world, and how I could've saved Barbara from that clown. Sometimes I don't think I deserve to live when so many others died and suffered.
"But Ma told me something very important - 'You can't move forward with your head facing backward'."
"My mother told me something similar. 'Our past is what inspires us, but it doesn't define us'."
"You and me, all the other heroes and ex-sidekicks, we all tragedies in our past. They are what drives us to make the world a better place. Remembering them can be troubling, even traumatizing, but since it's easy to lose track, sometimes we just need a reminder of what we're fighting for."
Donna smiled and sighed comfortably. "Your parents raised you well."
"As did yours. Do you feel better now?"
"Yeah, but I guess I could … use a quick reminder of what I'm fighting for."
Kara smiled back. "Gladly!"
Donna turned to face her lover and the two heroines shared a late-night kiss.