This story follows the 2017 movie up to the moment of Wonder Woman's final battle with Ares, but what happens afterwards turns out somewhat differently... Be in for some surprises! After all, Wonder Woman disappears for decades out of sight, and we're going to explore why exactly that is, what she did before her spectacular return, and what made her return anyhow. A mystery that will be solved — hopefully — is why we don't see her (in the movieverse) apprear to save the day during WWII. Enjoy!
Copyright on the personages of Wonder Woman and her companions belongs to DC and Warner bros. This storyline, however, is mine.
When Warriors' Fates Collide
I. A Hero Defeated
Diana's head spinned. She could barely keep her body upright while placing one foot before the other in the thick mud. Heavy chains restrained her steps; her arms were strapped tightly to her back by similar bonds. It was the chains of Hephaestus that Ares had used against her in that final ferocious battle,— she felt she was too weak and could not do anything to free herself from them. But — she defeated Ares! The gigantic explosion she unleashed wiped away the arms factory. What in Zeus's name had happened afterwards?
The German platoon guarding her while stumbling her way through the salient around Ypres wasn't very helpful in clarifying the recent events either. Gruff grunts were the only sound the soldiers made when they yanked her chain, leading her further and further into German-occupied territory.
Then it hit her.
— Steve.
She saw the plane, climbing into the darkened sky, and then — the explosion. She saw it again, and again, before her mind's eye. Ares suddenly threw her down and immobilised her in the caterpillar tracks. She fought to get free in vain, but after that explosion,— it was like she erupted herself from the dead; she rolled over the German lines like an ardent firestorm. The last thing she remembered was her amassing the White Fire, the most powerful kind of energy a god can muster, and throwing it in a smoldering blaze to the godly entity she by now realised was her brother. She hit him, hit him hard, with a deadly blow, she knew that for certain. But something had happened; a crack, a breach in her soul had exposed her, rendered her vulnerable at exactly the moment she should be utterly invincible and adamantly strong. Whether by fire or by realisation, she had been blown uncounscious, only to find herself at the moment of resuscitation plodding through the mud, tied by an unbreakable chain as a prisoner of war to these Germans. Her chest heaved heavily, her throat thick and dry. So Steve was dead, the war not over, and maybe even Ares survived. In sum, she had failed, and everything that mattered was lost.
Overcome by grief and distress, she stumbled and fell onto her knee. The soldiers scold and insult her, beat her with their rifles, yell to her to stand up. Blood runs from a burst eyebrow over her beautiful face. They're angry, that Drecksau killed many of them, she destroyed the vital ammunition factory where the gaz that could have won them the war in one stroke was produced. And above all, she murdered the deputy field marshall, general Ludendorff. Can you believe it? She spiked him with her sword and nailed him to the rooftop of the command post of the factory! If it were up to them, she'd be cut to little pieces right here and right now, but the Oberste Heeresleitung had insisted she'd be brought behind the lines, where they would hand her over to the military authorities. Von Hindenburg himself had ordered that she'd be court martialled — with only one possible outcome. It was crucial that the German nation saw with their own eyes that an enemy even so exceptional and powerful as this one could be humbled and defeated.
They yanked her to her feet. Diana felt more than she saw the utter devastation that surrounded them; her feet skidded and slided away in the knee-high mud, finding support only on dead bodyparts that lie invisibly buried, rotting away under the surface. There is water everywhere, gurgling with a sickmaking sound into stinking pools of a dark, thick liquid mixture of blood, slime and gore. Weapons, helmets and bones remained as sole witnesses of the men that had fought on that plain the days and weeks before; the number of deaths must have been immens. No tree stood even alive, only blackened stumps with lifeless branches eerily standing out against the dumb grey sky. "Death as you can never imagine" — he had used these words to describe it, the "front", the horror of the "war to end all wars", and she had imagined she could end all that, just in one stroke, just by killing one man, even if that man was the God of War. How incredibly, utterly foolish of her, how arrogant, how — daft, to even believe for a second that this depraved creation of her fathers', this "humanity" could so easely be saved! Her call, her duty, her for ordinance — it was all nothing but a swindle. Tears welled up in her eyes, they ran over her face, dripping on her cold chest, while her soul was sinking away in depths of despair unfathomable.