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Chapter 11 – Fall From Grace

Russia – March 30th, 1992

"I have been waiting for a long time, Diana, Goddess of War."

Diana remained impassive, but the surprise she felt when she heard that was enough to make her stand still, despite her intentions when she got in the room. Having her name spoken together with that title was not something she would ever expect.

But her surprise lasted only so much.

Extending her hand so fast that no one had the time to even react, Diana grabbed Paula's neck. Her fingers were like steel around her throat and there wasn't a person in this world strong enough to fight against them.

Paula von Gunther, however, didn't even try.

Her heart didn't accelerate, her face showed absolutely no reaction. There wasn't any fear in her eyes, as if she never expected that Diana would actually follow through with her threat. And against all she wanted, Diana held her hand.

"I am not the Goddess of War," Diana said, her voice low voice echoing in the tall room.

Paula's blue eyes stared at her.

"Did you not kill Ares? Shouldn't you inherit what belonged to him?" she asked.

"I am not him," Diana countered.

"No, you are better. Stronger. Worthy of being worshiped."

Diana pressed her hand, feeling the air inside her throat stopping, the blood pulsing hard.

"Don't ever worship me!" Diana snarled. "It happened before. You will not like the consequences."

Either her rage or the fact she was suffocating Paula finally brought a reaction to her face. Her eyes got wider and her face got red, but again, in any moment, she fought against Diana. A second later, she was released.

While Paula coughed, trying to get the air back in her lungs, Diana looked down at her.

"I am here because you know the whereabouts of the Winter Soldier," Diana started. "Somehow, he answers to you. He has been killing people for you. And he killed someone very dear to me. I want to know why."

She waited until Paula could talk again, which didn't take long; still on her knees, Paula looked at Diana, her eyes respectful.

"The Winter Soldier rid the world of a plague. We are better off without Howard Stark."

Diana suddenly saw red. Less than a second after Paula said this, Diana's hand closed around her neck again, but this time she lifted her in the air. She could see the soldiers on the back of the room pointing their rifles at her and even sense Natalia doing the same from behind her, but she didn't even care, too enraged to look anywhere else than to Paula von Gunther.

"You dare talk about Howard?! Your family filled the pockets of Hitler and Johan Schmidt! Your family financed a world war that killed millions! Your family almost destroyed the world! And you dare speak about Howard?!"

Paula was beginning to choke so Diana tossed her back to the ground, none too gently, her back hitting the ground with strength. Without stopping, Diana kneeled over her, her face almost touching Paula's, while her hand held her neck once again.

"If we are going to lay the blame of my family's mistakes at my feet," Paula started, her voice low because of her lack of breath, "wouldn't it be right to lay your family's mistakes at yours?"

That made Diana stop, even if for a second. Who knows how many wars Ares was responsible since the Olympians began to interfere with mankind? What about the other gods? How many deaths could they be blamed for? All that crossed her mind in a split second, before she looked at Paula again.

"Don't try to flee from responsibility," she said, while Paula remained motionless. "I never took part on my family's mistakes. I stopped Ares. You? You are here, doing the exact same thing your family did, feeding the Hydra. You are as much to blame as they are."

"I am not my family!" Paula answered, for the first time showing some emotion: anger. "My family did what they did for power. That was all it was. And if I could I would have fought them with all I had, even if it meant going against the Red Skull himself!"

This time Diana really did hesitate.

Poland, Lublin – February 1st, 1944

Diana and Steve walked the corridors of Majdanek in silence, neither of them in the mood to say anything. Last night's party had been great. They danced, they sang, they ate together with everyone. It was a victory feast that would forever remain in Diana's mind, no matter what happened.

What they were seeing in Majdanek would also remain in her mind forever, but for a very different reason.

She couldn't believe in the horrors they were seeing. It was simply too much. Majdanek wasn't a prison, it was a place designed to kill. That was the easy definition. People were taken there not to be jailed, but to die. Men, women, children… Diana couldn't imagine how many had been there before.

How could people be so cruel? Diana refused to believe they were, that Man's World had truly fallen so low, because if she did she couldn't keep going. That had to be Ares, there was no other explanation. Mankind simply couldn't be that evil.

"Diana," Steve whispered, holding her hand.

Diana didn't even notice she had stopped, her eyes fixed on the crematorium, still filled with evidence of what happened there. She also didn't even realize her eyes were filled with tears.

"Come on, let's keep going," Steve said, gently pulling her.

Looking at Steve, still too shocked to say anything, Diana could see his somber expression. She knew, just by glancing at him, that if there was someone who understood the crippling pain she was feeling right now, that someone was Steve.

"H-How could they…" she started, her voice dying out.

Steve didn't answer for a few seconds, while they left the place, going to the administration building.

"I don't know," he finally answered. "And I think I don't want to understand either. I just want to stop them."

No one knew what was going on Majdanek, not really, not until now, but if it happened here, in Lublin, it was probably happening on other places too. That was something Diana didn't want to even think about, but she had to. Someone had to do something and she would be that person.

Neither of them spoke again, walking in silence until they reached the administration building. As Diana had learned in London on the day she arrived, no one would believe their word without proof. If the crimes committed in Majdanek were to be exposed, they needed evidence, documents to show the Allied Forces exactly what the Nazis and HYDRA were doing.

And to make it clear that they would stop it.

They entered the administration building and went up, following the sounds of the people already there. The Howling Commandos and the soviet spy, Bierut, were searching for those proofs, taking everything they could to present in London, before Howard arrived to take them back.

"Found anything?" Steve asked, just as they saw Bucky kicking a chair out of his way.

"Too much," Bucky answered, somber for once. "More than I ever wanted to."

Diana looked at the piles and piles of papers on the desks, each of them full of names and pictures from the people taken to Majdanek. She knew, just by looking, that the place couldn't contain all those people at the same time; that could only mean they were always opening new spots. Diana felt sick.

Averting her eyes, Diana turned, glancing at a picture half hidden under a pile of paper. For one second, she thought she was seeing things or that she was too far to see properly, but that couldn't be true, not with her perfect vision. So she approached and reached for it, taking the picture in her hands. She looked again, from very close this time, seeing exactly what she saw from afar.

A man without a face, as if all his skin had burned off, leaving only a–

"Red Skull," said Steve, approaching her. He pointed at the picture. "That's the man behind HYDRA, Johan Schmidt."

That was the Red Skull? Diana looked back at the picture, staring at the man's eyes. Diana knew no normal human could survive such injuries, it was impossible. Steve had told her the Red Skull was a super-soldier, like him, stronger than common people. But regardless of the serum he had taken, regardless of his appearance, there was one thing that Diana couldn't stop looking at.

His eyes. No human could possess such cold, evil eyes.

"Steve!" she exclaimed, pointing at the picture. "I was wrong all this time. Ares is not behind the Red Skull, he is the Red Skull!"

HYDRA Headquarters, Swiss Alps – February 1st, 1944

"The Führer is not accustomed to being ignored, Herr Schmidt," said Roeder, a high-ranking officer of the SS, as he followed Johan Schmidt through the corridors of his base, his companions Hutter and Schneider by his sides. "He funds your research because you promised him weapons."

"You serve at his pleasure," Schneider added. "He gave you this facility as a reward for your injuries."

Schmidt scoffed.

"Reward? Call it what it is: exile," he said, without stopping. "I no longer reflect his image of Aryan perfection."

"You think this is about appearances?" Roeder asked. "Your HYDRA division has failed to deliver so much as a rifle in over a year. And yet we learned through our intelligence that weapons are being manufactured! Our soldiers spoke of a tank in Lublin, capable of unquantified levels of destruction! And what do you do with it? Nothing! You lost it, and Lublin, to the Allied Forces!"

"The Führer feels it – how does he put it? – 'The Red Skull has been indulged long enough!'"

That made Schmidt stop. He smiled, not yet turning to face the SS officials, allowing the rage flow through his veins as if it were a narcotic. So the Führer thought he was the one indulging him? Ironic. Very slowly, Schmidt turned, his eyes passing from one SS official to the other; he could almost taste their fear.

He was wearing his mask of synthetic skin, covering his injuries, but that wasn't the reason they couldn't face him; power was. They knew, instinctively, who was in charge there.

"Gentlemen," he started, "you have come to see the results of our work. Let me show you."

And with this he opened the doors to the lab. They could see the scientists working, Arnim Zola, his brightest mind, among them.

"Hitler speaks of a 1000-year Reich, but he cannot feed his armies for a month. His troops spill their blood across every field in Europe, and still he is no closer from achieving his goals."

As he said that, Schmidt pulled the covering of one of his cannons.

"And I suppose you aim to win this war through magic?" Roeder mocked.

"Science," Schmidt corrected him, as he turned his controls on. "But I understand your confusion. Great power has always baffled primitive men." He was in silence for a second, adjusting the panel. "HYDRA is assembling an arsenal to destroy my enemies in one stroke, wherever they are, regardless of how many forces they possess, all in a matter of ours. That tank you mentioned? Just one step in a long walk."

"Your enemies?"

"My weapons contain enough destructive power to decimate every hostile capital on Earth," he continued, ignoring Roeder. "Quite simply, gentlemen: I have harnessed the power of the gods."

The cannon began to vibrate, making a small noise, but nobody paid attention to that.

"Thank you, Schmidt," Schneider said, sarcastically.

"For what?"

"For making it clear how obviously mad you are."

Madness… How often little minds stared at great ones and saw nothing they could understand? It was pitiful, really.

"Berlin is on this map!" yelled Hutter, suddenly, staring at a big map covering his table, full of enemy capitals marked.

Schmidt barely reacted.

"So it is," he agreed, as the cannon turned to point at the SS officials.

"You will be punished for your insolence!" said Roeder, clearly more frightened than angered. "You will be brought before the Führer himself!"

That was the last thing he said, as the cannon fired, the blue energy vaporizing him. Abandoning any pretense of bravery, the other SS officials began to ran, trying to save their lives. It was, of course, futile. Hutter was hit next, completely disappearing, as Schneider tried to open the door.

"SCHMIIIIDT!" he yelled, before vanishing in a blue glow.

Schmidt smiled. Finally, he could drop the pretense of serving Hitler. Such a small minded man, no vision. Still smiling, he looked at Zola, seeing the doctor cowering behind the table.

"My apologies, Doctor, but we both knew HYDRA could grow no further in Hitler's shadow. "He looked back at his men. "Hail HYDRA!"

"HAIL HYDRA!" they yelled back, immediately, raising both arms.

The doctor just stared at him, too frightened to say anything; still, not frightened enough to remain in silence.

"Hail HYDRA!" he said, after a few seconds.

Schmidt smiled again, walking to the scientist.

"You are afraid of walking this path alone," he said.

Zola looked at him, pale.

"I-I just think we could've stayed with them for a little longer," he stammered. "The resources will–"

"Let me show you something," Schmidt interrupted, gently pulling Zola with him to the table where his map was. "Let me show you why we no longer need Hitler's limited mind dragging us back."

The doctor followed him with uncertain steps, until they arrived at the table. Without saying anything, Schmidt removed the map, grabbing a series of pictures from under it and placing them one by one, side by side, all across the big table. He could feel Zola's shock growing at each picture he placed down.

"Yesterday, our facility in Lublin was attacked," Schmidt began, still organizing the pictures. "We were conducting the research to develop Mjölnir, our city destroyer weapon, and our best tank to wield it, Sleipnir. We had an endless supply of manual laborers in Majdanek, we had a protected city where we could develop our weapons in peace. And we lost all that, in a single day, to the Howling Commandos and Captain America."

Schmidt smiled and looked at Zola.

"And yet, I am not saddened by it, am I?" Zola looked at him, uncertain if he should answer, but finally he shook his head. "No, I am not saddened. Do you know why? Because of her!"

And he placed the last picture in the mosaic he was building. There, before his eyes, was something unbelievable, something he would never had accepted if the soldier who gave him the news didn't show him proof, such incredible piece of evidence that he even allowed the man to live.

Before his very eyes was a living goddess.

Schmidt couldn't stop staring at the images. Pictures taken from different angles, at different parts of the city, showing her fighting with a ferocity not even he could compete. Lifting vehicles and even tanks as if they weighted nothing and throwing them around, dodging bullets… And if his witnesses were correct, even stopping the blast from Mjölnir using nothing but her bracelets.

He could not put into words how long he had expected for this, for the gods to walk amongst them once again. It had to be a sign. First the Tesseract, now her. It didn't matter to him that she was apparently killing his men, fighting side by side with Captain America. Gods followed their own whims and soon she would find him and Schmidt was sure he could offer something no other man could: the world.

Johan Schmidt walked the path of the gods and soon he would walk side by side with a goddess.

Russia – March 30th, 1992

Diana stared at Paula's blue eyes, seeing all the emotion in them.

"If that is true," Diana started, speaking very slowly, "why did you kill my friend?"

"I already told you why, I killed a bad man who deserved nothing else," Paula answered and Diana felt rage fill her once again. Even so, she waited for her to continue. "A man who would've started a new war so soon after the end of the last, just because he couldn't accept not solving a puzzle. Only because he just had to replicate the Super-Soldier Serum."

Paula looked at Diana, not intimidated by her in the least.

"The serum that flowed through Steve Roger's veins. The serum that flowed through the veins of the Red Skull. The serum that countless people died so its secrets could be unveiled. And Howard Stark finally did, at the twilight of his life, just to prove he could. Only one more crime to add to a long list."

Diana smiled, but her eyes showed no reflection of that.

"So that's why my friend is dead? Because you wanted to save the world?" Diana asked, sarcastically.

Her sarcasm was met with deadly certainty.

"Yes, that is why Howard Stark is dead," Paula von Gunther affirmed.

The steel from Diana's sword touched Paula's chest.

"Allow me to show you my appreciation, then," Diana snarled.

Instead of piercing her with the sword, however, Diana sheathed it once again, grabbing the Lasso of Hestia from her hip. With a practiced and quick move, Diana wrapped the lasso around Paula's neck and leaned above her once again.

"Now, let's start over," she said, feeling the heat of the lasso. "Why did you kill Howard Stark?"

Paula von Gunther closed her eyes for a moment, no doubt feeling the magic of the golden rope seeping in her, but aside from that she didn't show signs of discomfort.

"The Lasso of Hestia… I've always wondered how it would feel," Paula mentioned, smiling, before opening her eyes and facing Diana. "Howard Stark was a threat to peace in the world," she said, after a moment, and Diana felt her eyes widening at each word. "He flooded the world with new and dangerous weapons, with no thought of how they would be used. He helped to create an intelligence agency too powerful to be contained. And he replicated the Super-Soldier Serum, giving no thought about how the countries around the world would throw themselves at war all over again simply to obtain it." She stopped talked and looked Diana in the eye. "He needed to be stopped."

So Paula was telling the truth… Or at least what she believed to be the truth. That was the Lasso's only weakness: some truths were dependent on belief. Paula von Gunther wasn't lying, she truly believed in what she said, otherwise the Lasso of Hestia would have interrupted her. But that didn't mean that what she said was unquestionable.

It was a story being told from her point of view, nothing else. Still, it put things into perspective. Paula hadn't lied to her, not intentionally at least.

"Did you send the Winter Soldier after Howard?" Diana asked.

"Yes. I needed to end a threat and to secure the Super-Soldier Serum," Paula answered, still without any signs of pain. "That serum could not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands."

"So you made sure they fell into the right ones? HYDRA's?" Diana asked, sarcastically.

"No," Paula von Gunther answered calmly, "yours."

Without noticing, Diana got up, releasing the pressure that was keeping Paula on the ground. Once again she had answered with the truth; what changed this time was the answer itself. Why would Paula von Gunther, a descendant of HYDRA members, secure the Super-Soldier Serum for her? Nothing about that made any sense.

"I did not lie when I said I was waiting for you for a long time, my Goddess," Paula continued, gazing respectfully at Diana as she got up, slowly, no doubt wondering if Diana would attack her again. "I've seen the atrocities the Nazis and HYDRA committed. I've seen what my family paid for. The Red Skull talked about a unified world, but all he wanted was destruction, I could see that even as a child."

She finally stood, her eyes not leaving Diana even for a second, the Lasso still around her neck.

"And to do what they did they followed the God of War. Ares was the one guiding HYDRA and the Red Skull didn't even notice until the very end. Until you came up." She approached on step. "You, a true Goddess, a savior. You were the one who ended the war, killing Ares, finishing that once and for all."

Paula gave another step forward.

"I have been fascinated by you ever since. I looked for you, I tried to find you again. I knew since then that if we wanted to correct this world, we would need you back. A Goddess to lead us again." She smiled. "My family did not agree with me, so like Howard, they had to be stopped."

Diana could only listen, not able to say anything.

"I acquired the von Gunther's fortune and what was left of HYDRA and I used it to find everything I could about you." She looked around, glancing at the truly amazing stash of historical and magical objects in the room. "But still, nothing would matter if I couldn't find you once again, if I couldn't bring you back."

"Bring me back for what?" Diana asked.

"For you to lead us to a new Era, to a new world!" Paula exclaimed. "Schmidt's HYDRA was a decadent organization, but at least they understood that this world is rotten to the core. War after war after war. You defeated Ares and ended his reign, only to see a new war rising a few years later, now fought between the very nations that called themselves allies! The world was almost consumed in nuclear fire because humans simply can't stop fighting each other!"

Paula von Gunther approached another step, her eyes wide as she spoke.

"Atrocities on top of atrocities, senseless deaths, conflict… This world needs a savior, my Goddess. Otherwise humanity will fight themselves until there is nothing left." Suddenly, she kneeled. "I pledge myself and everything I own to you. My strength is your strength, my resources are your resources, my armies are your armies. Please, save us!"

Diana had forgotten how to speak as she looked at Paula von Gunther. She was expecting virtually anything when she got there, a powerful enemy, maybe even an army, advanced technology and maybe magic itself. But a cult of worshipers? That she didn't see it coming at all.

The reason Diana had lost the ability to talk, however, wasn't the fact that she was facing a fanatic; she had been warned Paula von Gunther was obsessed with the gods. The reason Diana couldn't speak were Paula's words.

And how she caught herself agreeing with them.

Diana had left Man's World because she couldn't stomach it anymore. Paula hadn't lied about that, humanity was set on destroying itself. Ares had said the same thing to her once and even though she hadn't believed in him at first, seeing mankind's atrocities over the years had changed that. She was naïve enough to believe she and Steve had saved the world, but humanity had cured her of that affliction quickly enough.

It was a century of horrors and Diana had lived most of it alone. So if anyone understood the meaning behind Paula's words, that someone was Diana.

But at the exact moment she realized that, her mind flashed a very different set of images. Not of suffering or tragedy, not of lowliness and sorrow; quite the contrary. She remembered Howard, young and handsome as he was when she met him, buying the first set of clothing she ever had in Man's World. She remembered the first time he took her flying and then, years later, when he taught her to fly. She remembered when he introduced her to Jarvis and gave her a room to live in his house, right after the war, a time she was so lost she didn't even know what to do.

She remembered when he introduced her to Maria and, later, when he called her to give her the good news, that he would have a son. She remembered him laughing as she held little Tony on her arms, the cutest baby she had ever seen, telling her that he would have given anything to have Steve there with them. She remembered feeling happy for the first time in a long while, with Peggy, Howard, Maria, Jarvis and Tony around her.

Howard had made mistakes in his life, but he was family. And he was dead because of the woman in front of her; no amount of ideals and philosophy would change that.

"And how do you plan to save the world?" Diana suddenly asked, the memories fading as she looked at her.

"By cleansing Man's World," Paula answered, immediately. "This world is in chaos, we need to reestablish order, by any means necessary. That was what HYDRA stood for once, before the Red Skull perverted it as his own destruction army."

And there it was, just as she suspected; Diana almost scoffed.

"So your plan to end war… Is to make war?" she asked.

Paula von Gunther didn't seem offended.

"You are the Goddess of War, milady. You should know that war can be fought for dozens of purposes. You fought one to defend the world, haven't you? This is exactly the same: a war to save our world."

Maybe it was the arrogant way she said those words, that gave the impression that she knew everything, or maybe it was the callous way Paula treated Howard's death, but what she said made Diana's blood boil fast.

"Killing my friend, my brother, is your way to save our world?" Diana asked, her voice coming out slowly and dangerous. "I care about very few people in this world. One of them, someone I considered a brother in all but blood, died during the war. Another, the man I loved more than anything, died before we could even begin our lives. My brothers in arms aged and died, one by one, during the course of the years." She got closer from Paula, her eyes burning with fury. "My sister is near the end of her life… And my last brother was killed by your assassin."

Diana was almost touching Paula's face now.

"So tell, me, Paula von Gunther, how exactly did you think you would convince me to fight with you?"

For the first time since Diana arrived, Paula's expression carried doubt. It was subtle, almost imperceptible, but it was there and Diana could see it.

"You are a Goddess," Paula repeated, as if speaking something obvious. "Mortals live and die every day, why would you care if some of them died?"

The way she said that made it seem she truly couldn't understand how Diana could care that much for her friends. And Diana was beginning to suspect she really couldn't. Paula von Gunther understood power, respect and faith; she did not understand love all that much.

"If you have to ask, no answer I can give will make you understand," Diana said, holding the Lasso still connected to Paula's neck as if to remember her it was there. "The Winter Soldier, where is he?"

The change in the conversation made Paula frown, but she couldn't very well refuse to answer.

"I don't know," she finally said, with a hint of pain. "There are hundreds of bases where he could be, I don't know where he is."

"That's convenient, isn't it?" Diana snarled.

"But true, as you well know."

"Oh, I know. I just find difficult to believe someone like you would be confortable about not knowing where your best assassin is. It feels almost deliberate, doesn't it?"

"It was deliberate," Paula confirmed. "I knew that if the Winter Soldier was here, nothing I could say would prevent a conflict. So I sent him away."

Diana would like nothing more than to do the exact same thing the Winter Soldier did to Howard to the Winter Soldier himself, a hundred fold, but right now that would have to wait.

"And the serum?" Diana demanded. "Where is it?"

Paula von Gunther smiled.

"Right here. I did say my strength and my army were yours, didn't I?"

Her eyebrows shot up when she heard that and her eyes focused on Paula once again. She had used the serum on herself?! The risk of that was enormous. It already was when Steve was injected and he had the scientist who invented it and Howard Stark to oversee the procedure.

Still without saying anything, Diana passed her eyes from Paula to the four others, catching on for the first time the state of their bodies; she knew immediately that they had been injected as well. She had been with Steve for enough time to be able to identify the strength inside their bodies, the strong muscles, the enhanced senses, the balance their stances possessed... And as she looked at them, she saw Paula smiling again.

"They will be yours to command," she announced. "A Goddess of your stature deserves the best champions." She turned to look at her soldiers as well. "They are HYDRA's top assassins, more kills than anyone in HYDRA's history. They speak 30 languages, can infiltrate any place, defeat anyone. They could take an entire country in one night without anyone noticing. Fit soldiers for the Goddess of War."

Diana guessed before, but she was certain now: Paula von Gunther wanted war. She wanted to throw the whole world back into the flames of battle if that could make them bend their knees. HYDRA was but a tool she was using, as were the men behind her and even Diana herself, she supposed, even if Paula claimed to worship her.

The sad thing was that she truly believed she was doing something good. The Lasso of Hestia guaranteed that much honesty from her. Paula von Gunther really thought that this would solve all the problems in the world. That suddenly everything would become a paradise. Diana knew very well it wouldn't. War was war, no matter the motive. Even when fought with good intentions, the result was always suffering.

"They will be your vanguard," Paula continued, excited, oblivious to Diana's thoughts. "We can have this confused country by its knees by the end of the week. Start our offensive from here. With you leading us, it will be only a matter of time before we have the world. And then we can begin to set things right, to make things as they should be!"

She was looking at Diana, her eyes wide with thrill; Diana simply stared back, her face blank.

"Finally we can end this world's sorrow! We can make a better one! We can–"

"I've heard enough," Diana interrupted and Paula stopped mid-sentence. She looked into Paula's eyes once again. "My answer is 'no'."

Something broke inside Paula von Gunther when Diana said those words. Her expression didn't change, she didn't utter a word, but it was clear as day that her spirit had shattered when Diana spoke. On another day, with another person, Diana might've felt pity for her; the Lasso of Hestia proved she wasn't lying, she truly wanted to make a better world.

But, like they said, the road to hell was paved with good intentions. Diana had seen too many of that already, evil men trying to do good things, only to end up doing worse deeds; and Paula von Gunther had the means to do very bad things indeed.

She needed to be stopped.

For almost five minutes, Paula von Gunther only looked forward with glassy eyes. She didn't move or say anything, just stayed where she was, the Lasso of Hestia still around her neck. Suddenly, she blinked.

"I see," Paula said, finally, her voice weak. Her eyes weren't glassy anymore as she looked at Diana. "I see now, I was wrong. It was supposed to be me all along." She raised her hand and held the golden rope linking her to Diana. "I wasn't supposed to follow a Goddess. I'm supposed to become one."

Diana raised her eyebrow, trying to find any sense in what Paula had said; that's when she closed her hands around the Lasso of Hestia and pulled. Diana knew for a fact that her godly strength was so beyond the strength of the Super-Soldier Serum that they might as well be humans compared to her. Steve, strong as he was, was always physically inferior to her. Logically, Paula's pull should barely register.

Instead, Diana felt herself leaving the ground, flying in the air before she had the chance to react.

She was so surprised that it cost her the chance to defend herself. Her back collided against one of the stone pillars in the room, breaking in half as it touched her muscles and armor, the cloud of dust covering everything as the whole thing fell down. Diana heard the pieces of the pillar hitting the ground as she got up, eyes fixed on Paula.

And on her glowing gauntlets.

Diana had assumed that the gauntlets she was using were just a piece of armor, some relic she found over the years. And in a way she was right, except they weren't just that. No, if Diana was right, the marks glowing white on the gauntlet's surface meant they were very famous indeed.

The Gauntlets of Atlas.

An artifact built by the god Hephaestus himself, gifted to the amazons before Themyscira even existed, capable of multiplying the strength of its user several times. As far as Diana knew, they had been lost after the amazons were enslaved and never found again; Paula von Gunther proved her wrong.

"I wonder, Goddess of War, if I kill you do I inherit everything you own?" Paula asked, suddenly, making Diana forget about the gauntlets.

When she said that, Diana was already moving, dodging the flurry of bullets coming from behind her. The enhanced soldiers began firing in her direction, their powerful ammunition obliterating the stone of the pillars as she rolled to the side, raising her bracelets. She deflected some of them back, forcing the shooters to stop for a second, and kicked one half of the pillar in their direction.

The multi ton piece of stone flew in the air as if Diana had kicked a can of soda, and the soldiers jumped to evade it, moving with the same fluid movements Steve once had. Without looking at them a second more than she had to, Diana turned and drew her sword, advancing against Paula.

She heard the metal screeching as Paula did the same, running against her as well, and in the split of a second they clashed. The sound of the swords hitting each other was deafening and the air around them trembled, but neither of them paid any attention, as they began their dance.

The speed of the blades moving was almost too much for a human to see and Diana knew Natalia was seeing only a series of blurs around them. Even so, Paula was responding to each attack with perfection, her own speed and reflexes matching Diana's, the Gauntlets of Atlas giving her incredible strength behind each blow.

Diana, however, was still stronger.

Using her own bracelet to deflect Paula's blade, Diana kicked her chest, her muscles delivering such a powerful hit that Paula was sent flying against the relics she had piled up in the room. As she did that, she was already spinning to deflect a powerful punch delivered by one of the enhanced soldiers, holding him by the neck and lifting the sword to pierce his chest.

Before the blade could even touch him, however, Diana felt a bullet passing by her ear, coming from behind her; the enhanced soldier's head exploded in a rain of blood. Diana grinned; Natalia was alert, it seemed.

Dropping the man, Diana, used her blade to defend herself against the bullets coming from the other side of the room, being fired by the only enhanced woman. Her sword moved fast, cutting the air, hitting the bullets as they arrived and deflecting them to the side; until she slightly changed her position, this time deflecting it back to the woman.

She dodged two of them, but she just wasn't quick enough to avoid the rest as they hit her chest; one, two, three, one after the other, dropping her on the ground.

There was no chance to celebrate, because before Diana could even see the enhanced woman fall she felt the air in the room change. And as soon as she did she turned to see a huge stone pillar flying in her direction, horizontally, in a direct trajectory to her and Natalia just behind her.

Diana did the only thing she could: she punched it, straight in the middle.

Natalia was out of her depth, she realized that quite quickly. There was a goddess, four enhanced soldiers and an enhanced woman wearing some kind of magical armor that made her as strong as Diana; and she was not even a teenager yet. Still, she was there now, for the first time by her own will. Nobody had forced her to follow Diana, nobody sent her to fight.

That, somehow, made all the difference.

She could see at the moment they arrived that Paula von Gunther was crazy. She talked well, she inspired confidence, but Natalia knew enough to know a fanatic when she saw one. And if Diana was the woman Natalia thought she was, then it was only a matter of time before they fought to the death.

So she wasn't exactly surprised when the fight began. What surprised her was the intensity of it. She had seen Diana fighting before, but she never saw someone actually hold their own against her. And Paula von Gunther was doing just that. Natalia could barely see their swords colliding against one another, both of them moving fast enough to become blurs. But as she knew it would happen, Diana soon had the upper hand.

Paula von Gunther was sent flying to the other side of the room and Natalia was certain that if she wasn't enhanced Diana's feet would have turned her body into mush. There was no time to dwell on that, however, because as soon as their boss was out of the way the soldiers attacked again.

They moved fast, faster than any normal human could move, but not fast enough to trick a goddess. Diana easily immobilized the man; Natalia saw her chance and fired. The bullet hit the target just as intended. The man was dead but neither her nor Diana had time to stop, as more bullets came in their direction. And then a whole pillar.

Natalia had no idea how she would dodge the flying stone pillar, but as her mind tried to find ways for her to escape Diana simply punched it. The pillar broke into two, the halves flying one to each side of Diana and her. Her eyes were wide when she saw that, her hair swaying as the pillars passed fast by her sides; well, that solved that problem.

Before the two halves had even stopped, Diana was already jumping forward. She moved so quick that the enhanced soldier in front of her had just the time to raise his rifle, before her blade swept the air; Diana's sword went through the gun and the man as if it hadn't met any resistance whatsoever.

The last soldier was paralyzed by Diana's side, probably realizing by now that whatever he chose to do was bound to failure. So Natalia took her shot; the gunfire echoed in the closed room, the bullet flying fast to the target. Afraid or not, unfortunately, the enhanced soldier had enough sense to move.

He managed to dodge the bullet at the last moment, jumping to the side without even turning, only to see Diana raise her arm and deflect the bullet back to his forehead.

Well, as long as it worked…

Diana stared at Paula, approaching with her sword raised, as the last enhanced soldier fell to his death.

"Your army is down, Paula von Gunther," Diana said. "There is still time to come out alive from this."

Paula almost roared when she advanced, the Gauntlets of Atlas glowing white as she attacked. Diana defended herself from the flurry of blades, dodging and deflecting her sword, using all her formidable training to show Paula just how much she was outclassed. Rolling, Diana, picked the Lasso of Hestia from the ground.

"Last chance," she warned.

"You are blind!" Paula yelled, attacking again. "Blind and deaf to the suffering of this world!"

"No, I can hear them just fine," Diana answered, defending herself from the increasingly feral attacks. "That is exactly why I won't add to them by starting a war against the whole world."

"So you chose to do nothing?! To just watch as humanity tears itself apart? Hypocrite!"

Diana deflected Paula's sword with her bracelet and struck; the blade made an arc in the air and hit von Gunther's left arm right where the Gauntlet ended. With nothing between the blade and the arm the result was very predictable.

"ARRGHHH!" Paula yelled as her arm was detached from her body.

Without losing any time, Diana struck again, hitting the right arm just as she did with the left; Paula's scream hadn't ended yet, but the second half was even louder than the first. The shock of the injury made her fall down, the blood pouring on the floor.

"Strength comes with a price, Paula," Diana said, as Paula tried to get away from her, dragging herself on the ground. "The Gauntlets of Atlas exchange power for fury. The longer you wear them, the more rage you feel. And it's hardly in your best interests to lose your sanity during a battle."

There was no answer from Paula, just a murderous look as she gasped in pain.

"Don't worry, the serum is already congealing your blood, you won't die from those injuries," Diana said, as she approached, Natalia appearing by her side as well. "Which is more than you deserve!"

Diana snarled that last bit, finally allowing herself to feel all the rage boiling inside her as she stared at Howard's assassin; one of them, at least. Paula didn't know where the Winter Soldier was, but she definitely knew enough to give her direction. She just needed some time to make questions.

Before she could start, however, Paula began to laugh. It was a desperate laugh and Diana considered for a moment if she hadn't lost too much blood.

"I waited so long to meet you," Paula said, finally stopping to laugh. "So long to meet the Goddess I prayed to every night. Every night when I saw all the bad things my family did I would go to my room, kneel, and tell you all about it. I would ask for help, for guidance." She looked at Diana's eyes. "You never answered. But then I thought: you are the Goddess of War. You value strength and what strength is there in asking for help? So I solved the problems myself. And I went looking for you."

She moved, the blood of her injuries beginning to stop. Diana and Natalia watched her in silence, neither of them knowing what to say, if anything.

"I dreamed about building a better world," Paula whispered "I wanted to stop this chaos, to give mankind the life they deserve."

"You would have made things worse," Diana whispered back, feeling for the first time pity for the woman in front of her.

One more human she had failed, Diana thought.

"My Goddess took one look at Man's World and turned her back at us, disgusted. Maybe I would make things worse," Paula agreed, closing her eyes. "But at least I tried to do something. Can you say the same?"

Her words hit Diana like a slap to the face. And before Diana could even shake herself out of the stupor, Paula von Gunther reached for her sword using her feet, raised the blade, and threw herself heart first on it.

She was dead before Diana blinked.

Diana felt the cold Siberian winds on her face, howling, as the snow fell. She had left Paula von Gunther's base after destroying the bodies and taking back the dangerous artifacts she had collected, before collapsing the entrance with bombs. Natalia was already inside the Quinjet, ready to go back, but Diana needed a few minutes alone.

Paula von Gunther was dead and with her any chance of finding the Winter Soldier. She had lost the last clue to find Howard's assassin. The true responsible for his death, at least, was dead; it was a small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless.

What was in Diana's mind right now wasn't the fact that the Winter Soldier had escaped; it was Paula's parting words.

For almost half a century Diana had hidden herself, too shocked with Man's World atrocities. She saw war after war happening a few years after she killed the God of War, a few years after the man she loved died to save the world. She saw allies turning against allies, weapons with obscene destructive power being mass produced, genocide… Nothing they fought to stop during the War had truly stopped. Some things got worse.

She couldn't take it. It was just too much, so she left. She just… stopped trying.

"You would be so disappointed in me," Diana whispered, suddenly, her eyes closed. "You gave your life for them and I… I couldn't even be bothered to stay. I gave up."

Diana felt her cheeks getting wet, but even so she didn't open her eyes.

"She was right, Steve. I could do nothing or I could do something and I chose nothing. This is as much their fault as it is mine."

Her eyes opened and she stared at the snowy fields.

"I wish you were here with me," she said. "I wish none of this had happened. But you are not and it did. I miss you more than you can possibly imagine, Steve. Maybe… Maybe that's why. You died a hero and I am not even close of being one anymore."

Diana grabbed Steve's compass around her neck, feeling warmth despite the cold metal.

"I think it's time to change that."

New chapter guys! End of an arc! I hope you like it. Please, review, favorite follow… Thanks for everything!

angelvan105: Happy Birthday! A little late, but I hope it still counts!