Yes I know, I have another incomplete fanfiction still in lying in the wings. I'll get to it if time permits.
I just do this for fun mind you, so sometimes things get dropped when I come up with something more interesting, since I have the attention span of a seagull.
The Great Shipping Wars
I remember that day vividly, the day she disappeared. It's a permanent tattoo on the walls of my psyche.
I've covered a lot of overall unpleasant wars in my time. The Falklands, the First Gulf War and George Junior's little excursion back to the sandpit a decade later. I was right next to General Dallaire, bless his tortured mind, when he told the UNAMIR troops that they were being ordered home. The life of a war correspondent is a life of long swigs of strong drinks far too late into the evening, and if you're out there long enough, you can almost feel your eyes gloss over.
I thought mine had already, until the bureau sent me out to cover the Great Shipping War.
It had been ongoing for as long as most people could remember, a perpetual daily carnage report near the back of your morning newspaper. In the beginning, it was nothing more than give and pull between way too many interested parties, many of whom seemed incongruous at first glance.
Then things started getting vicious. Stockpiles filled bunkers, agents were snuck into every crevice, prisoners stopped being treated as such. Hydrogen Bombs were already pointing at every conceivable dot on the map. A nightmare, that's what it was.
I took off for the nearest battle ground, which at this point was contained to a crater the size of New York's financial district. It's edges were ragged mountains and the ground was scarred with veins of pulsing red. The sky...god the sky was nothing more than a swirl of charcoal.
I remember standing on a plateau, tucked behind a row of spiked spires. My view was hazy; there was a thin filament of dust hovering in the air, but I could see well enough to make out all the angry bruisers and brawlers and fighters and scrappers, every shape and every size, distinguishable by colours that glowed through the dirt fog, glowed brighter than the fiery earth they stood on.
The colours of their ship.
One pocket of the crater was filled with the corpses of Lantern/Vixen fans, having been routed and slaughtered by overwhelming numbers. Donna/Kyle and Donna/Roy shippers were gnawing at one another's throats, with the Platonic Life Partner couple of Donna/Dick desperately trying to find breathing room amidst the rivers of blood and hunks of gore. I pulled out a pair of binoculars that my boss recommended I buy, and peering through them I could see, off in the distance, the silhouettes of what I thought at the time was a collection of quarrelling Flash fans, but upon reflection was clearly Arrow/Canary fans finishing off Ollie/Felicity shippers in a vengeful bloodlust.
Joker/Harley shippers were seated above the carnage in a make shift set of theatre seats, cheering on whomever whenever. No one dared go near them.
But it hadn't taken me long to confirm what every analyst had been saying; the big fight, where all the cogs were grinding against one another, the one where the cyclone of chaos was emanating from, was dead centre in the crater. The Big Ones. The Superpowers of the Fight.
The Trinity Ships.
Superman/Wonder Woman versus Batman/Wonder Woman.
It reminded me of my World War I history classes, what with the snaking alliances this battle had. The Bat/Cat shippers had aligned with the Superman/Wonder Woman (from here on abbreviated "SM/WW" for convenience), seeing common ground in keeping Batman occupied while Wonder Woman staked her rightful claim next to Superman. The ever forgotten and ever demonized Talia fans lurked somewhere in the background, providing covering fire and protection of the groups flanks. If the SM/WW group won out, many were predicting that the next big fight would be between them and the Bat/Cat shippers.
On the other side, the Batman/Wonder Woman (also abbreviated from here on out) appeared to many to be besieged by a far larger coalition. Tenacious as they were, the repeated poundings they took at the hands of their opponents had pushed them back into a corner that was now crumbling around them.
That all changed when the Superman/Lois shippers allied themselves with the BM/WW shippers. Having the support of the largest and oldest ship in comics history evened out the odds and galvanized their new brethren. The fighting intensified, the rhetoric dripped venom from fangs that grew larger and larger with every passing day.
But it was no use. The fighting had stalled, had petered out deep into no man's land. Just like in the First World War, trenches were erected, troops dug in, and artillery shells blasted bunker after bunker even as the sun disappeared behind the black blanket that choked the air around the crater.
I had arrived in the middle of such a barrage, a vicious one at that. The SM/WW side had lobbed copies of "JLA: Act of God" into the enemy bunker. The BM/WW side retaliated with a 80 page comic depicting the JLA travelling into hell.
I cringed. They were getting desperate.
I was so enthralled in the hostilities that I didn't hear a gentle rustling of loose rock until high heeled boots started clicking against the ground. My head swivelled around and my body tensed; journalists were known to be favorite targets or errant rounds and maniacal Joker fans.
It was neither of those. I was staring at Wonder Woman herself.
And she looked mighty exhausted.
My tongue caught in my throat, but eventually I managed to squeak out a very clichéd "Good morning."
"Good morning," she replied absentmindedly. She was staring out through the haze, staring out at the battle.
"You're Wonder Woman," I said, insisting on stating the obvious.
"I am," she said. "And you are?"
"A journalist," I said, forgetting my own name.
"I see," she said. She pointed at a near-by rock. "Do you mind if I sit down?"
"N-no, not at all," I said. "It's a free rock. Be my guest."
She nodded and took her seat, never tearing her gaze from the fighting. I turned and stared through my binoculars again, and tried my best to focus on the source of my story. I'd like to think it was because the attacks became repetitive that I found myself unable to concentrate, but if I'm to be honest with at least myself, it was because a real bonafide hero was sitting just behind me.
I tried to start a conversation. "So," I said, "what brings you here?"
She didn't turn to me when she answered. Not out of disrespect, most likely because, as I soon found out, she was trying very hard to keep a torrent of emotions under control.
"I came for the view," she said.
"Ah," I said, and I tried to turn back to the battle. It wasn't going to happen. My journalistic curiosity postulated that something would have to be up to drag her all the way out here, all by herself, and with that steely look that made me think of a disappointed mother trying desperately to keep from blowing up in front of strangers. I shuffled backwards, closer to the other end of the rock. I motioned towards it with my hand. "Mind if I take a seat as well?"
"Go right ahead," she said, and she gave me a little, diplomatic smile.
I took my seat and shifted my weight until I was looking at her. Just as I was about to say something, her bright blue eyes turned to me, and she interrupted me with a voice that had none of the graininess from before. "Would you like an interview?" she said. "If you're a journalist and all that, I'd expect that you're editors would want you to come back with something. And I'm not sure wandering out into the killing fields is the best idea."
I paused, not anticipating that. I had tried to interview the Blue Beetle once, a very long time ago. The incident left us with a mutual dislike of superhero interviews.
"That would be most appreciated," I said eventually. I reached into my coat pocket and pressed play on my recorder. I started with the first question that came to my mind: "Where are the others?"
"Busy," she said. So am I, not that anyone notices." Her tone was neither angered nor crass. It seemed, to me, to be a mix of distance and pained acceptance. Looking back now, it all makes a sort of sick sense.
"I see," I said. Still getting used to the idea that I was interviewing Wonder Woman, I pressed on tentatively. "They know about this war too, though?"
"Yes," she said. "Though Batman think's its beneath him, and Superman would prefer that he not get involved lest things take an even worse turn. Which they might."
"I see," I repeated. "But you're all aware of the mechanics of this war?"
"Very much so," she said, and again her gaze drifted towards the battle. The ground was growing angry under the bodies of the dead and dying. My eyes drifted with hers. At the time, I didn't know, couldn't have known, that the SM/WW fans were loading up "Kingdom Come" with a back up volley from "Heart of Hush". The other side had "JLA #75" and Blue Ray copies of Bruce Timm's "Justice League" ready for retaliation.
I shudder at the carnage that game of MAD would have wrought.
"What do you think of the war?" I said. "If you don't mind me asking."
She stood from her seat and walked closer to the edge. Her arms were crossed over her chest regally. She looked both contemplative and all together uncomfortable.
She turned her head slightly when she answered me.
"I don't like the way my friends are being portrayed," she said.
"What do you mean?" I said.
She pointed at both groups, holed up in their trenches. "Batman is a pig or a coward, or a weakling that bows before the might of a god." She pointed to the other trench. "Superman is weak willed, useless, or little more than Batman's lap dog." She sighed. "It's slander at best. And even though they may not care, I do a great deal. They are my friends, and I don't like seeing anyone being treated unfairly. But especially them."
"They aren't always like that," I said, feeling oddly defensive.
"No," she said, "they aren't. But often a rivalry is created where none exists." She chuckled lightly. "As if those two had any other reason to act like competitive children."
Her face dropped again as another group of soldiers sank into the blackened soil. Deep within me, I felt as though she was keeping something private, even though I still don't know why. Perhaps it's her position as the Spirit of Truth; she empowers other's to see through the lies and the half truths, even when the avatar herself is being dishonest. Either way, with a bit of courage pulled from God knows where, I asked her, "it's just as much about they way you're depicted too, isn't it?"
She turned again to face me.
"I don't think you want to admit it," I said, "but deep down, it upsets you to see yourself torn between these people, right?"
She sighed. Her shoulders dropped. Her head began to hang. "Yes," she said. "That would be the truth."
I let her speak from here, speak of her own free will. In hindsight, I'm glad I had the good senses to do that. Wonder Woman strikes me as someone who bottles most of her misgivings away until she can deal with them alone, away from prying eyes.
Well...even superheroes need to vent sometimes.
"I'm torn between either Batman or Superman," she said. "I'm either the wife of the destined Messiah, or the longing girlfriend of the world's most stubborn man. But I'm rarely ever just me."
She pointed through the haze, locking in on something with her enhanced vision. "You see that there?" she said. I pulled up my binoculars and followed the direction she was pointing. I saw two people, situated near the centre, wearing opposing colours, scribbling something down like committed scribes. "Those two," she said, "are writing tales about this battle. Tales where I fall into the arms of the rightful hero, and peace and prosperity reign as the heathens are cast into black abyss."
"That's very poetic," I said.
"Have you been on fanfiction?" she said.
I had. She had a point.
"For many fans," she said, "that's all I am. A prize for the strongest man out there. Naturally, it's a contest between the two most popular.
"But," she said, "it's not just fanfiction anymore. I'm in a comic where one of the artists admitted it was being aimed at the "Twilight" crowd. A comic where all I do is sit around and moan about how great my boyfriend is, if I'm not busy meeting his entire extended cast. And," she said, "I'm about to make my big screen debut, but more people care about who I'm supposedly sleeping with in the movie than the fact that I'm actually in the movie." She shook her head. "I always have to be involved with someone else, don't I?"
"I can see what you mean," I said, and I really did. "But not every story involving you and one of them is bad, right?"
"No," she said, "that is true. But I'm not just some member of the batclan, and I don't actively wait around until the love of my best friend's life finally dies. I adore Lois almost as much as Clark and Bruce, that wouldn't be fair or right to her."
She stepped back from the ledge, closer to the rocks we were sitting on previously. "I'm not Wonder Woman to make a spectacle of myself, I'm Wonder Woman because I wish to do right by the world, to make it a place where wars and famine and disease and death aren't things to be feared, things to run from. I don't want to think or act or be selfish. But I do want to inspire people to find themselves, their true selves, and live and love that fact. To love and live with other's, to use words before actions, compassion before conflict. I want to be that kind of person for others, so that they know there's always a hand waiting for them, no matter the darkness nor the demons. But I can't do that if I'm always tied down to a romantic partner. I just can't. At that point, if the only thing that matters is that I'm dating someone, or in love with someone, or fawning over someone, then what I'm trying to accomplish will always have to war with the drama around my feelings, at least until there comes a time when the two can groove together."
She uncrossed her arms, and stared at me sympathetically. "Tom and Trevor and Steve are my friends, my supporting cast. They can help me help others. But I shouldn't have to date one of them for them to be important. I shouldn't have to have flings with Aquaman or Orion just to show bits or my personality. I should be working with them towards achieving the greater good, without any of sexual tension to cloud our goals. And most importantly," she paused. "I shouldn't have to be tied to another, more popular character, just to get exposure. I should only have to be me. That's the only thing I've wanted to see in others; for them to simply by themselves. I should follow my own advice too."
"You've been around for 75 years," I said. "I think you deserve to have your own special spotlight too."
She gave me a smile. "Thank you, but I don't do it for the spotlight either. That would just be a nice bonus."
An explosion off in the distance interrupted out thoughts and drug our attention back towards the killing fields. At this point, everything was starting to click for me. I realized then that she had something planned, and that I, in my cosmic fate, just so happened to be at the exact place at the exact time to act as her final mediator between us...and her.
"Why are you really here?" I asked.
She sighed. Her face tightened. "I'm here," she said, "to produce a message."
With that, she leapt up into the air, and cut through the clouds of dust. I rushed over to the ledge and pulled out my binoculars, aware now of where she was heading, what her message really was.
Off in the distance, the trenches filled with shippers clamoured over one another, weapons ready, many already covered in blood.
She landed in the middle of them, kicking up a cloud of grey and black as she did.
The fighters stopped and stared, eyes wide and mouths agape. I expected a speech.
All she did was remove her tiara and girdle, and rip off a patch from her uniform with a violent tug. She threw it into the soil. This is what it said:
"DC COMICS"
Without a single word, she lifted off into the sky with a brilliant shockwave. Her body cleared the clouds of sulfur in the air, let light pour down over the ruins of the battlefield, dissipated the darkness from the still bodies of the dead and the shaking bodies of the living. The light was so blinding, so brilliant, that I had to cover my closed eyes with both sleeves. I could still see light seeping through.
I didn't see her leave, however, like a streaking eagle into the sky. One moment she was there, then there was light, and the next moment she was gone, never to be seen again.
The crowds murmured and stared at one another. Some of them moved haphazardly around, dazed beyond any cognizant thought. They dispersed eventually, zombified and confused, often staring into the piercing blue of the now afternoon sky.
I went back to my office in a hurry, and began to write.
The JLA, the public, neither of them really know where she is, which is probably for the best though obviously, with this story, they soon will. My Marvel Universe counterpart told me that there had been reports of her fighting the Kree on their home planet, albeit briefly. I'm sure my Dark Horse counterpart would have told me something similar if he hadn't been killed covering Hellboy.
Last I heard, she had finally found a universe free of romantic entanglement, where she could plot her own path independently, as the hero she was destined to be when she was created all those decades ago.
Apparently, she's adapted to her role as Optimus Prime's Chief Lieutenant perfectly.
The End
If there are any spelling errors, it's because the narrator works for the Guardian.