ScaredofRobots has been requesting a Jily Wonder Woman AU since the dawn of time and I'm obligated to notify her when I post new stories but I thought I'd surprise her with this one. It's only a one shot though cause I don't have time to write a chaptered fic. I love you Mal. You are the wind beneath my wings.
Also I spelled Aries, ARES on purpose. Don't send me anons about it plz.
xxx enjoy!
When Lily was a little girl she used to want to save the world but she knew so little then. It is a land of magic and wonder. It's worth cherishing in every way but the closer you get the more you see the great darkness shimmering within. And mankind? Mankind is another story altogether. What one does when faced with the truth of mankind is more difficult than you'd think. Humans are full of contradicting struggles of hatred and love. Lily learned this the hard way a long, long time ago. She never saw James Potter coming and now, she will never look at the world the same.
XXX
"Lily, we have to go now! The Germans are loading the gas onto the planes!"
Lily echoed the words of her mother, "It's a never-ending war."
"We can end it if we fight back." James pleaded, "Come on!"
"We fight and they fight." Lily stayed firm in her position and she heeded the words of the other Amazons on the Island back home, "Humans fight in a never ending cycle that they alone, create."
"We can stop this, we can save thousands of innocent people!"
Lily's eyes fluttered back to his face and for a moment she was torn.
She met him on the Island and she had saw that he needed saving. He was almost dead when she pulled him from the cockpit of his drowning plane. He was practically dead when she pulled him into the white sand of the shoreline. He had shown no emotion and no qualities besides a man with a mission. Slowly, with her at his side almost constantly, he's started to live again and show compassion for the world around him. Alongside her he laughed and played pranks on their fellow mates. With her, in the mortal world, they felt untouchable together.
James Potter might've been the first man she'd ever seen since she'd grown up on an Island full of woman but she didn't have to be biased…he was a looker. She saw the way other human females stared at him when they were in London together. She had felt something close to jealousy when she saw him flirt with a barmaid over a tankard before they'd gone to war. She'd felt his lips more than once, pressed against her skin.
Big eyes behind thick frames head all James' secrets—except to her because he was the easiest to read through his eyes. They were soft, almost olive colored when he was his saddest; she'd seen that color all too often on the battlefield. They were hazel and flashy when he was angry; she saw that color often when they were together if only because she drove him mad with all her talk of peace. She loved when they were liquid gold around the iris' the most. That's when Captain James Potter was his happiest; she'd seen that color only when he'd treated her like a goddess under his bedsheets.
This new color shining in front of her though, it was dark and consuming and utterly mind boggling. He stared at her in the middle of the airstrip, she was caught under his spell. She held onto her shield and sword as she stood her ground. She tried not to show that she was hurt but it was impossible when they were so torn about their duties to humanity.
"Ares!" she stomped her foot, a childish action but so very her.
"What if you're wrong?" James had one foot pointed towards her but one foot pointed towards the loading dock where bombs were ready to go, "What if there's no Ares?"
Lily couldn't believe that no God of war existed when war was so clearly happening around them. She didn't understand why James couldn't see it. The Gods and Goddess' had reigned over mankind for years but now they only cared about their sciences and technology. Even James' brain was consumed with firing back at the enemy; he so quickly chose to hate and that frightened Lily.
Would human always resort to hatred?
Ares had brought hate into this world and she was so determined to snuff it out. She was determined to make her Amazonian family safe from Ares. She was determined to make humanity safe so people like James could go home and start a family. He could go to school like he always wanted too, for his art. He could find a nice girl to spoil with his drawings. He could be a father to little kids that shared his charming smile.
James wasn't thinking of his future now. He wasn't thinking of Lily or a family or even of a small farm back in his hometown. Even now, his eyes turned away from Lily as he stared worriedly at the gas bombs being loaded into a large plane. His eyes sought the war, not the love she wanted to give, nor the promise to kill the God responsible for his pain and suffering.
"You don't believe me." she whispered, her sword dropping lower in her grasp.
"Did killing that man end the war, Lily?"
At Lily's feet was the man she had believed to be Ares, the war general, Tom Riddle. Bathed in the blood from her sword, he looked like nothing more than a feeble mortal now. Death had a way of humbling even the cruelest of foes.
"I killed him. I killed him, but nothing stops." she repeated her mantra like a prayer, "You kill the God of war, you stop the war."
"Lily." James said weakly, "Just the gas in those bombs will kill thousands, we don't need a God to do that."
"You kill the God of war, you stop the war."
"We need to stop the gas. Come on."
"No. All this should have stopped."
Lily felt like a child back on the Island being told she didn't understand.
Except now, for the first time in her life, she didn't understand. Athena had always said that to be wise meant that you must make mistakes. Lily was certain she'd made the biggest mistake in her life. James had his hand stretched out for her, trying to get her to grab ahold like she'd done so many times before. She clung to his hand in the trenches. She'd clasped his fingers dearly in the town plagued by soldiers. She'd been enticed by his nails on her skin in his bed with his lips sliding down her throat.
Lily's eyes darted to the dead General on the ground again, "The fighting should have stopped." she felt a tear slip from one eye as she looked around at the airstrip where soldiers…no, boys…were filling a plane like puppets on a string, "Why are they fighting a war, still?"
"I don't know! I don't know." James' hands reached for his messy black hair and he pulled at the roots in despair, "but Lily, we're wasting time!"
"Ares is dead." Lily stated firmly, "They can now stop fighting. Why are they still fighting?"
James groaned and in five steps had reached her, towering over her with his hands clasping her shoulders, trying to get her to see some sense, "Because maybe it's them Lily! Maybe people aren't always good. Ares or no Ares...Maybe it's just, who they are. Lily..."
"No." Lily half sobbed, wrenching herself from his grasp, "No."
"Lily, we can talk about this later. I need you to come with me."
Lily was shaking her head so hard that her hair whipped against her cheekbones, "She was right. My mother was right. She said 'the world of men do not deserve you'. They don't deserve our help, James."
"It's not about deserve!"
"They do not deserve our help!"
James' shoulders were crumpled by her exclamation and he looked as if he had aged greatly in the minutes they'd been arguing, "Maybe we don't! But it's not about that. It's about what you believe, Lily. You don't think I get it, after what I've seen out there? You don't think I wish I could tell you that there was one bad guy to blame? It's not! We are all to blame."
Lily pursed her lips, "I am not."
"But maybe I am!" James cried, "Please. If you believe that this war should stop...if you want to stop it...help me stop it right now. Because...if you don't, there will be thousands more dead after tonight. Please, please come with me."
Lily stood her ground, shaking her head in despair. A German soldier called out and James' comrades whistled the all-clear sign. James took one last look at Lily in desperation before tucking behind a slow moving vehicle. She felt helpless standing there, a dead man at her feet and no way to end the never-ending war.
She should've never left home.
There was a deep chuckle from behind her. A clap accompanied the sound of amusement and sent shivers down her spine. Lily turned on her foot and froze when she saw a man with swinging locks of black hair and coal colored eyes burning at her from underneath a broken aircraft model.
"Mr. Snape?"
Lily recognized the man instantly from the spent at James' office in London. He was a political man who had been sitting in on the war meetings James had brought her too when they'd returned from her island home. He hadn't seemed threatening, in fact he had been calling for a cease fire. Even still, there was something about his sudden arrival on a German airfield that made her hair on her neck stand.
"You were right, Lily. They don't deserve our help. They only deserve destruction."
Lily's feet dug into the ground as she lowered into her fighting pose. That only made Snape grin wider. She was reminded of a snake about to strike someone from the shadows. She was reminded of the scary stories her mother sued to tell her as a child.
"You…" she said in disbelief, "You are him."
"I am." his grin was malicious, "But I'm not what you thought I was."
"What is that?"
"I'm not your enemy, Lily. I'm the only one who truly knows you. And who truly knows them, as you now do. They always been and always will be weak, cruel, selfish and capable of the greatest horrors."
Lily swallowed as she thought of the men she'd been living with for weeks. Sure, they didn't always see eyes to eye but Remus sang to her by the fire. Sirius made her food on the fire. James kissed her when the lights were low. Still, she recalled Sirius blowing out the building without blinking an eye. She recalled Remus waking up from nightmares and drinking himself back to sleep. She remembered James' cold face at the graveyards in Italy.
Snape saw the war conflicting across her face and relished in her uncertainty.
"All I ever wanted was for the Gods to see how evil my father's creation was."
She hadn't killed Ares. He was alive and he was standing in front of her believing he had won. He thought she hated them. He thought she hated James. She in no way could ever hate the man who fought side-by-side with her to save the children in a fire. She could in no way curse James' name after it had fallen from her lips in such a sacred way in his bed.
Yet, because they'd fought, Ares believed he had Lily right where he wanted her.
He was wrong.
"I am Lily of Temiscira..."
Mr. Snape—Ares—ignored her as she began talking, "So I destroyed them, all of them. Gods murdered. One by one."
Lily stood her ground, her heels digging into the pavement,"I am the daughter of Hippolyta and I am here to complete her mission."
The God of War sneered, "Oh?"
He spoke to her like she was a child.
Like she knew nothing.
Lily raised her swords and shield, "The God Killer..."
"My dear girl, your sword's not the God Killer." His hooked nose looked even more defined as he stepped closer to her, "You are the God Killer."
Her courage faltered, "What?"
One of Ares' eyebrows raised, "Only a God can kill another God."
Lily felt slightly sick to her stomach as the man spoke, his long black cloak billowing in the wind like cat wings.
"Zeus left the only child he had with the queen of the Amazon."
She shook her head, in disbelief. She couldn't be…someone would have told her…
"You are a weapon to use against me." Snape hissed, "A God Killer."
"No. You liar." Lily called out, pulling the lasso of truth from her belt and roping the man around his pale wrist, "I compel you to tell me the truth."
"I am." Snape, Ares, ripped his hand from the lasso without even flinching, "I'm not the God of war, Diana. I am the God of truth. Mankind stole this world from us. They ruined it, day by day. And I, the only one wise enough to see it, was left too weak to stop them. All these years I have struggled alone whispering into their ears. Ideas, inspiration for formulas and weapons."
"You're a monster." she exclaimed, slashing her sword through the air, "You bring death to both worlds."
"But I don't make the humans use them." Snape snarled back aggressively, "They start these wars on their own, Lily. All I do is orchestrate an armistice I know they cannot keep in the hope they will destroy themselves. But it has never been enough." his eyes suddenly gleamed terribly at her as if she were made of gold, "Until you. When you first arrived I was going to crush you. But I knew that if only you could see what the other gods could not then you would join me, and with our powers combined we could finally end all the pain, all the suffering and destruction they bring. We could rule a new Earth without them. Together."
He wanted to rid the world of all the things she loved about it.
"I…I can never be a part of that."
She raised her sword and swallowed, prepared to fight. God Killer or not.
Ares' eyes glistened eagerly despite his next words, "My dear, I don't want to fight you. But if I must…"
He threw his hands in the air and she Lily shielded herself as thousands of lightening bolts came raining down on her from the sky. The floor at her feet broke up as she felt herself being thrown back by strong winds. She grasped ahold of her sword and shield with all her might. When she stood back up she came at her again with lightening but this time she crossed her arms and the lightening shot back at him. He waved her defense away like it was a butterfly in his path.
"Oh my dear, you have so much to learn."
Lily sobbed when she was thrown against a railcar but she stood back up and with all her strength, raced at Ares. They met midair with a loud clash that brought the attention of everyone in the area. She thought he heard James screamer name. That only made her bring down her sword harder. With a huge burst of energy she didn't even realize she had, Ares got flung right into a bunch of canisters that exploded around him.
The force of the blast made Lily land close to where the plane filled with gas bombs was almost finished being loaded. She was dazed from the fight and she thought she might feel a wound on her arm. Someone lifted her to her feet and she rocked against the strong familiar hold.
It was James.
His eyes were liquid gold as he shouted something at her. She couldn't grasp what he was saying. She placed her hands on his cheeks, trying to tell him Ares was here, Ares was coming but her pulled her hands off frantically and placed something in them instead. She looked down and saw his favorite pocket watch. He kissed her cheek. Then he was gone.
"No, James!" she cried, as he ran towards the plane being loaded, "No!"
But before she could go after him, before she could save him, Ares threw her entire body into the air and crashed her back into he cement. She lay there as Ares taunted her.
"Let's see what kind of God you really are. You will help me destroy them, Lily. Or you will die. Mankind did this, not me. They are ugly...filled with hatred...weak...Just like your Captain Potter. Gone and left you nothing."
Lily clasped her hand around the pocket watch, eyes closed. She could hear what James had been saying. It played on repeat in her head.
"Lily! It has to be me. I could save today. You can save the world. I wish we had more time."
"What are you saying?" she cried as the plane took off and into the air, "James, no!'
"I love you!"
His voice, so confident, made her heart beat against the walls of her chest. She grew firm and she gripped her sword in one hand, James' pocket watch in the other. Ares seemed surprised when she stood, her eyes attached to the plane in the sky. James was sacrificing himself for her. He was saving her this time.
"You are wrong about them." she turned her steely glare upon Ares, "They are everything you say but so much more."
"Lies!" he was drawing in more lightening but she knew she could not fight the God of war with hate—that's what he lived on, "They do not deserve your protection!
Lily clasped the pocket watch to her hand as she heard up against Ares' lighting wrath, "It's not about deserving. It's about what you believe. And I believe in love."
Ares screamed as he sent electricity surging at her. Lily knelt into her shield she made with her arms. The force was powerful, it rocked her to her core, but she knew she could beat him. For James. She saw a flash of his crooked smile and she couldn't help but smile herself. That's when the lightening broke away and shot backwards. There was a large yellow blast, almost like a star bursting. She wasted no seconds and her eyes shot from the yellow starbursts in front of her to the sky above where James had disappeared with the precious cargo. She saw no sign of the plane and her heart stopped.
She'd lost him. All the suffering, all the pain she'd witnessed on her journey was not comparable to the pain she felt when she realized James had gone. He's blown up the plane on purpose. He'd sank the dangerous weapons to the bottom of the sea and this time she wouldn't be able to save him. She collapsed to the ground, her knees shaking and her heart racing.
Ares was gone.
James was gone.
Everything she had come to the human world for—was gone in the blink of an eye.
Lily forced herself to stand up and she looked around at the battlefield. Aries was gone but the war was not over. German soldiers stood close by wondering where their plane had gone. Sirius and Remus met Lily halfway, where upon she crumpled into their arms sobbing over James.
"He's the only one of us who can fly a plane." Sirius was crying too, "It had to be him."
She knew that but it didn't make it any less painful.
they traveled back to London together and Lily knew she could never go home to her Island. Mankind still needed her. A part of her felt as if she still needed mankind, if only so as to have a connection to James. She spent her first week establishing a job through an old friend of James' at the museum of History. They adored the fact that she spoke so many languages and had an interest in history.
She spent the second week of her job in the artifacts room going through old scrolls and helping translate them. She had taken to wearing the fashion of the era, even if the skirts did get in the way. It was while pulling on her skirts as she studied that she felt a tap on her shoulder. Lily turned her cheek expecting to see the museum curator—and she almost fell out of her seat when a flashy grin met her instead.
Captain James Potter stood there, unscathed, wearing a uniform and a cap that hardly covered his mess black hair. James laughed when she started choking back tears. He laughed even harder when her fingers tips traced his chest as she stood slowly, trying to make sure he wasn't a dream. When her fingertips reached his stubbly chin he lowered his head to kiss her fingertips.
With a strangled cry and flung her arms around him and he lifted her but the wiast, turning her in circles happily. Her voice echoed through the hall and other museum workers watched in wonder.
"You're alive!"
James let her down and pressed his forehead to hers, "I don't know how, but those bombs never went off. I was able to fly them to the allies and someone deactivated the triggers."
She kissed him, the tears running down her face turning his lips salty and her gasps shallow. He kissed her back, pressing his hands into her back and keeping her firmly attached to his person. Half angrily and half playfully she punched his arm when he finally loosened his grip.
"No more flying planes until the war is over." she joked, "I've almost lost you twice to those metal contraptions."
James chuckled and brushed his nose against hers, "My love, it's my job to fly planes in war." he eyed her, "I wouldn't ask you to hang up your sword and shield, now would I?"
"I suppose not." she agreed, but only partially, "But still, be more careful."
His eyes shifted, "Did you hear what I said to you on the airstrip before I got on the plane?"
"You mean while I was fighting Ares?"
He smiled as he tucked her red hair behind her ear, "Yes, then."
Lily felt anticipation bubble in her stomach, "You said you love me."
His smile was blinding, "I do love you." he said again, "So much, perhaps next time you fight a God, give a bloke a little warning, yeah?"
"I tried telling you that Ares was real." she reminded James with a smile.
James rolled his eyes, "Yeah, I know, but someone in this room once told me that I was a stubborn fool."
"No more stubborn and foolish than I am." she leaned up and kissed him again.
Lily had grown up wanting to save the world and bring an end to all evil things. Lily hadn't brought about world peace or ended famine or even ended the war…but she's saved James and he'd saved her…so a feeling similar to peace settled over Lily as they kissed amongst scrolls of ancient greek texts and large white marble statues.
I hope this was a nice surprise Mal. I had caffeine and didn't sleep at all so I whipped this up for you instead.
All my love,
Petals
