To Save the World, Part 1: Act III
The sky had begun to grow darker over the streets of San Francisco. The last of the orange sunset had begun to fade into the darker purples, and soon, night would fall completely.
But, she couldn't think of whether or not that would make it more difficult for the Enterprise crew - for Jim - to find the holographically concealed bomb. She could only think of the enemy before her.
A scholar, one of her own people. Sister against sister…
She could not save Barbara Ann from becoming the Cheetah. She did not think she could save Vanessa from the Silver Swan. Would those she loved forever be doomed to walk amongst the realm of the damned? Did Hades taunt her? Or did he pity her as Diana of Themyscira, sister of the fallen, forever watching those she loved consumed by their darkest impulses?
With Jim gone, Diana had little time to wonder. He was saving the rest of the planet from Cale's machinations, but he could not stop the Silver Swan, the abomination of Darkseid's Apokoliptian technology and Starro's genetics.
Only she could.
The Silver Swan had finally throw the last of the debris away, clearing a path between them. Her strength was impressive. From the best she could tell, it was not on par with hers, but she was more than a match for someone without increased strength. The Borg implants and augmentation had clearly taken this time.
"We will terminate the Wonder Woman." The Silver Swan intoned, raising her arm cannon again.
Diana's shield was at the ready, and she easily knocked the disruptor bolt away with the same efficiency she had deflected mortar shells and bullets. "Just because you can aim does not mean you are capable of besting me." She said, both warning and taunt.
She did not wish to fight her. But, the Swan had already tried to kill Jim, kill her. There was no suggestion she could reason with her.
"We will adapt." The Silver Swan repeated her remark from earlier. Diana shifted, locking into a lunge in anticipation of another disruptor bolt.
But, it never came.
Instead, the arm cannon suddenly went wild, as if her arm had suddenly spasmed. In horror, Diana could only watch as Vanessa's head jerked suddenly towards her shoulder and the Borg limb began to redesign itself. The white metal opened along her arm, then began to knit itself back together.
A metallic screech, somewhere between a noise given by computers experiencing critical errors and a scream, ripped from the Swan's throat as the arm remade itself.
Diana's foot dug into the broken concrete beneath her a bit more. "Vanessa, please stop this madness…" She muttered behind her shield, as if she could will the woman's humanity back to her.
The plea fell on deaf ears. The Silver Swan straightened.
"We are Silver Swan." She stated. Her ocular implant began to shine it's brilliant purple before going dark for a moment.
An Omega symbol burned itself onto Vanessa's forehead, as if it had charred its way from the inside out. The great burden of Darkseid, the scourge that had corrupted good men into parademons. Her suspicions had been confirmed. The Borg were the evolution of Darkseid's quest. Whether he had lived or died through their many battles with the League, his legacy had now burned across the galaxy.
"The Anti-Life Equation…" Diana breathed, horrified. "I am so sorry, sister... " There would be no way she could recover her mind. The darkness within her soul had been twisted and molded, now given to the force that fueled the Borg.
The Swan swung a much improved arm cannon around and fired.
Instead of a round disruptor bolt, sustained phaser fire burst forth from it. Diana gripped her shield and held tight, bracing herself from the blow. Forced back several meters, the concrete at her feet gave in jagged shards as she tore up an ugly gully in the middle of the street. On her arm, the shield grew warmer against the skin of her arm. Yet, the phaser fire kept coming.
Diana rolled out of the way, allowing the phaser fire to obliterate a vehicle behind her. The move had confused the Swan - or more accurately, probably her targeting sensors - and the fire stopped for a moment.
Diana grabbed for a bench bolted into the sidewalk and yanked it free. Without hesitation, she hurled it with one hand at Vanessa, ignoring the way her body protested. She was quickly on the way to exhausting herself, although she couldn't understand why.
It was almost as if being around the Swan was… draining her somehow. But, perhaps it was not Vanessa. Perhaps it was Darkseid's plague of hopelessness...
"Recalibrating…" The Swan said before turning and firing another sustained blast.
Diana caught it with the shield, but against found herself pushed back from the force. This time, she was able to catch her footing as she reached a curb, then roared as she took a step forward to brace herself.
Diana's arm was burning from the heat of the shield as it took the phaser fire. It was more than Kal's heat vision, more than Victor's pulse cannons… it was on part with warp plasma, as if belched from the sun itself. She groaned as her flesh began to sizzle, the shield beginning to overheat.
Her holy shield was divine, but not invincible. Diana would need to change the strategy.
She rolled again, then hurled her shield towards the Swan, hoping that the blow would connect. Unfortunately, the Borg repulsor technology she possessed allowed for more agile flight than she was expecting.
The Silver Swan launched herself into the air as Diana's shield lodged more than halfway into one of the metal walls of a more recent building. With the block leveled, smoke and fire from the collateral damage growing, it was becoming increasingly clear that without intervention, there would be nothing but havoc and death in the Swan's wake.
The Swan seemed to recognize the same in Diana. She tilted her head, clearly observing the other woman, before she turned her head and looked off towards the the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance… precisely where people would be evacuating to in order to escape.
She had clearly gauged Diana's desire to protect others and determined she could use it. The repulsors began to glow a brighter purple as she lifted herself higher in the air.
"Vanessa, no!"
The Swan shot off like a bullet, off between high rise buildings towards what was most likely a cluster of lifesigns.
Diana braced herself on the ground, then pushed off with ease. The force she needed to fly always seemed insignificant to bystanders, because she made it seem so effortless. But, there was far more effort than she wanted to admit tonight. Her energy was waning, but she had to keep up.
As if they were two fighter jets in a dogfight, the Silver Swan soared in between buildings as Diana flew after her, arms at her sides to reduce wind shear and increase speed. She wasn't the Flash, but she could be fast enough.
Her enemy banked heavily to the right as she realized she was being followed, and Diana narrowly managed to avoid a window-washing hover platform against a building. For a moment, it seemed that Vanessa would lead them on a labyrinthine chase throughout San Francisco's skyline. If she could keep her between buildings, it was possible she could outfly her...
Diana caught sight of a shuttle of evacuating citizens at the same time that the Swan did. They were clearly trying to lift people out of danger from their vehicles clogged on the roads. Even with impulse and hover technology, they still travelled in lanes of traffic close to the roads, and the police were desperately trying to evacuate as fast as the danger approached.
Yet, she was here. They had not been fast enough. The Swan dove for them, arm outstretched as she went to take out the unsuspecting citizens.
Diana let instinct take over. She reached for the lasso, throwing out as far as she could until it just barely managed to wrap around the Swan's ankle. Diana shot upward, hands gripping the lasso tightly as she struggled to delay her from getting any further.
Diana landed on the top of one building with the grace of an eagle, then braced herself against the building. With a cry of effort, she wound the lasso around her hand for extra grip and tugged. The Silver Swan's repulsors tried to compensate but couldn't. Ungracefully, she fishtailed as Diana managed to yank her off-course enough that her one shot went wild.
The shuttle banked out of the way.
Diana looped the lasso around her arm again, then heaved another scream of brutal strength as she drew the Swan closer, preventing her from reaching civilians.
She barely had time to see the arm cannon aim for the very building Diana was bracing against.
"NO!"
Diana leapt off the building, lasso still in hand, as she used terminal velocity to beat the phaser burst as she aimed and fired.
She deflected the blow with a clash of her bracelets, but not before it slammed her into one of the aluminum windows. Somehow, she managed to pivot just in time so as not to break the panel.
In the sudden slack from Diana's jump, the Swan shot forward towards the building across from them, carried by momentum from the sudden release. .
Diana could see the faces of the people still trapped in that building. They had thought the evacuation zone was far enough… how could they know that the battle would carry here?
Diana tugged the lasso again, then flew downward to meet the Swan and wrap her arms around her, pinning the arm cannon to her side.
The battle could not be here. If they couldn't keep it to the research facility, Diana would have to determine a suitable location. Her heart had to guide her.
"Release us!" The Silver Swan screamed, but Diana refused to relent in her vice-like grip.
Diana shot upwards, sending them both high into the air until she could pivot back towards Starfleet Command. It was supposed to be evacuated. That would work.
The wind whipped past them as the Swan tried to break free. The two of them corkscrewed in the air as her human arm - or what was left of it - wriggled out of Diana's gasp and reached for her.
Vanessa's hand - only possessing two fingers and three sharp implements - grappled blindly against Diana's cheek. She dug into flesh, leaving deep gashes that immediately felt wet and warm, but it wasn't enough to make Diana release her grip. She was more steadfast than her brother Heracles.
She would know, she had fought him, too.
Was she forever destined now to fight against her family?
The lasso was still in her hand, shining brightly as she tried to pull her away. Diana gripped it tighter, trying to will the magical relic to work for her. The lasso uncoiled itself from the Swan's foot, then snaked around her wrist and yanked the metal hand away.
In that moment, the lasso touched flesh.
I'm in here!
The voice was a primal scream, one that Diana had heard too many times before.
DIANA!
Vanessa's voice ripped through Diana's senses so brutally that she released the grip on the Swan.
In mid-air, the Silver Swan whirled around in her position and gripped Diana by her throat, halting them in the main courtyard of Starfleet Headquarters.
"We will… terminate… you." The Silver Swan said as her arm cannon began to shift and change again. This time, a morbid facsimile of an arm, complete with claw-like fingers and hand, appeared. She raised the hand to Diana's neck. "We will fulfill our. - "
MAKE IT STOP!
The scream tore through her faculties again. Vanessa was begging for… for help. For release, for something, she didn't know.
But, no matter what Vanessa's mind begged through the lasso's connection, Diana recognized that the Swan was trying to inject her with nanoprobes. With a grunt, she grabbed her sword from its sheath and dislodged the hand right from her completely Borg arm.
The Silver Swan screamed that same metallic screech, only this time, it grew even louder. The sound continued to grow more intense until it was a sonic cacophony, pummelling through Diana's senses so painfully that even divine stamina could not hold back the assault.
The Swan held Diana tight with the uninjured hand, screaming into her face.
Diana did the only thing she could.
She shoved the sword deep into the Silver Swan's belly until she released her. Vanessa's hand loosened, but the sonic cry threw Diana back.
For a brief moment, she thought she saw the Omega symbol flicker away…
And then Diana hit the side of a building so hard the plexisteel gave.
While Diana had been solely focused on the Silver Swan, Jim had done his best to get out of the line of fire and to coordinate with his crew. After a quick hail, Jaylah confirmed that she, Scotty and Chekov had all beamed to the surface in downtown San Francisco.
Based on the radius extrapolated from their work to isolate the type of photonic signature that Jaylah's holographic designs emitted, they felt they had a fairly solid idea of where it was. Of course, knowing roughly where something was in an area the size of a small suburb did them very little good if they couldn't narrow it down.
The expected location was somewhere around the Federation headquarters and Starfleet Command. As they were the two most vital organizations on Earth, they were conveniently located near to each other. Unfortunately, without knowing the potential yield of the weapon Cale's Romulan allies had crafted, they had no way of knowing precisely how many people could be affected by Medusa's curse.
Curse...
If he could go back and tell himself of a year ago that he'd be calling a nearly-impossible organic poison a "curse" out of both ease of identification and... because he actually kind of believed that it was, he would have said he was insane. Yet, the fact was: magic was just science that they couldn't understand yet. Bones had only barely begun to scratch the surface of everything Diana's body could do, and what the Medusa curse or organism or poison (whatever he landed on one day) was capable of.
Times had changed. Jim had changed.
He had Diana to thank for that.
As Jim sprinted down the streets of San Francisco, looking for a convenient method of travel in the midst of abandoned vehicles, he heard the sudden crack in the air as the Silver Swan streaked overhead. He whipped his head up to watch as the gleaming white and silver abomination tore around buildings. Another crack followed as he caught the red and blue of Diana's armor, along with the gleaming golden shine of the lasso of Hestia.
Silver Swan had taken the fight on the move.
The longer they waited to disarm the bomb, the more time the Silver Swan had to wreak havoc if Diana couldn't hold her back.
But, she would. Jim refused to believe that anything could ever take Diana down. She wouldn't stop until Vanessa was no longer a threat.
That was a fact Cale had to be counting on...
Jim's communicator chirped after a moment. Scanning the area around him, still looking for a way to get across several blocks without his lungs burning, he backpedaled off the street and flipped his communicator open. "Kirk here."
"James T!" Jaylah exclaimed his name as if it was both curse and blessing. He couldn't quite tell how she was feeling, and he hoped it was less dire than it seemed.
"Jaylah, please tell me you found the bomb. Or something." Jim made his way over to a side street, peeking down the alley way. "I'm stuck two miles away from Starfleet Command, so my best estimates put me there in maybe 15 minutes. Less, if I can find something a bit better than my own two feet."
For a brief moment, he had hoped for some rebuttal indicating that the metaphor had gone past her. Unfortunately, the fact that she simply continued on, undaunted, only lent credence to the notion that things were only getting worse.
"It is in Federation Headquarters - the main Assembly building." No sooner than the words left Jaylah's mouth, Jim closed his eyes and bit back a curse. If they hadn't found out about it sooner... if the delegates had convened in the morning as they planned...
"That area's evacuated, right?" Jim tried to remind himself of what they could - and hopefully had - controlled.
"Yes." Jaylah sounded just as relieved as he felt. For a moment, he could let himself relax. At least there were no civilians, and hopefully no lingering Starfleet security officers. "But, the room is locked."
"The room..." Jim echoed, momentarily perplexed. Then, it struck him. "You're not in the building, are you?"
"We tracked the signal to the General Assembly, but the photons are too close to find where." It took him a moment to realize that the Romulans had succeeded where Jaylah had, and with aplomb. Photons were densely packed enough that while it gave off a signature, it was impossible to tell if it was a chair or the weapon unless they could get right on it.
That meant three of his closest friends would be right at ground zero. "Negative, I want you out of there, Jaylah! That's an order! Wait for me to get there and I'll go in - "
"No, James T! There is no time." Over the comm line, he heard the sound of a phaser on low beam. Someone - probably Scotty - was cutting through the doors to get into the assembly. That could easily backfire. "That is not the danger! The detonator is."
Jim started to jog again, heading towards Federation Headquarters - lungs be damned. "What about it? You're that close to the damn thing, it's gotta be on a timer -"
"No, I do not think so. Unless it is old, mechanical. With the amount of power needed to create a hologram and the projected size of the hologram, it is not possible to power anything else in there."
"So, it's using minimal power, no more than a communicator…" Jim frowned. He knew that Cale was old-fashioned, but the Romulans weren't. And what was it Diana had said?... Cale would want to know it was happening, but she wouldn't want to be right there. She'd want someone else to get their hands dirty. "You think it's a remote detonator? Could it get through the photonic interference?"
"Maybe. But, if they made the weapon and armed it, there is a way for someone to deactivate the hologram." There was a metallic thud as they must have finished cutting through bulkhead. He heard Scotty order them into the room, and Jaylah's voice changed to reflect the cavernous General Assembly chamber. "We are looking, hold on."
Jim pushed himself harder, making his way to the bottom of a hill before he finally slowed to a halt. Panting, he found himself staring at an even more daunting slope to make his way up to the headquarters. The Enterprise would be in no position to help with a transport nor would Jim ask for it.
Pivoting, he circled idly as he scanned the crowded streets again. When they had evacuated, Starfleet hadn't left anyone behind, and it looked like they'd picked people up in shuttles.
In the distance, he heard an explosion, then another.
They were fighting. She was getting tired. How do I know that?
"Diana…" he breathed, turning towards the Golden Gate bridge. He couldn't see anything, but somehow… he knew.
"Cap'n!" Scotty's voice cut through the emotional stupor and refocused him. Diana could take of herself. Right now, she had to.
"Talk to me, Mister Scott," Jim said in his patented blend of authoritative, urgent and casual. As he circled again, his gaze fell on exactly what he needed. "What's the situation?"
"We found the holographic device. Murderous buggers were clever, it looks like the Head Councilwoman's podium stand." Scotty's voice was full of gravel and dark concern. Knowing his engineer, he was trying to describe the possible scenario while trying not to visualize it. Jim couldn't blame him. "She would've stepped on it in the morning and… well, turned to stone. Probably along with everyone else in the room."
Jim wanted to remind Scotty that they'd gotten to the hard part. They'd found the bomb. But, he knew they weren't out of the woods and he needed more than a pat on the back. "You found it, Mister Scott, so no one has to go through that. Can you move it?"
"We're workin' on it. Jaylah and Chekov are tryin' to figure out how to turn off the projection."
Jim came around to the vehicle he'd spotted. A hoverbike, standard issue and slimmer than the normal police models used these days, had been left on its chain outside a cafe. The owner had probably been evacuated from the building and told to leave it behind. The chain was decent enough for common theft, but for a Federation phaser…
"I'll be there shortly." Jim said as he phasered the chain off and pulled the bike over onto the road before straddling it. A couple of seconds of messing with the controls, touching the right buttons in the right order and he kicked in the manufacturer's override start up.
"No offense, Jim, but I dinnae think ye'll be any good here. This hologram… it's not quite what we thought it was."
Jim's confusion was plain, even if no one was around to see it. "The hell is that supposed to mean?"
"Jaylah, lass, explain to Jim." WIthout any hesitation, Jim's senior engineer clearly handed his communicator over to Jaylah. Or maybe he'd only been borrowing hers for the moment. Either way, the captain was suddenly speaking to a different crewmember.
"Captain - " She began.
"Oh, shit…" He swore under his breath. If she was using rank...
"This is my design, but these are not my subroutines. I do not know how to stop it, how to turn off the hologram." Jim scowled. The Romulans hadn't had the technology for that long. If Jaylah had only just gotten it working on a grand scale, how could they learn to outcode her? "It moves too fast. It adapts like a urazi when I try to touch it."
"It's adapting organically, ceptyin." Chekov remarked, probably still working beside her. "Zere is no way to know how it vill move next. Subroutines follow patterns and zese..."
"They don't. They adapt, like someone else was out-thinking you." The realization struck Jim with such clarity, he was honestly surprised with himself. He could be impressed later, though. "I know what you're up against, and you're not going to be able to outcode her."
"Her?" Jaylah and Chekov echoed simultaneously.
Jim could still see the woman's face in the grainy footage. "Anderson. Her name's Anderson. At least, that's what she used to be called. Diana said she was going by Doctor Cyber." He revved the bike and began to speed up the next hill, weaving around abandoned cars. As he did so, he shouted over the wind shear in the hopes that they could still hear him. "Scotty, I need you to find Adrianna Anderson! I don't care how, but she's gotta be in Starfleet's records! She's the key, she's going to be the detonator!"
"Aye, and if I find her?"
"You give me her coordinates when I get to you!"
"No, Jim - "
"Objection noted!"
Jim caught sight of a blocked road and quickly hitched the bike up to jump one of the cars. As he came back down, he suddenly caught sight of Diana and the Swan heading towards Starfleet Command.
"And Scotty, I need you to get proximity monitors online," He said, all too aware that they were now fighting only a block away from his crew - and the bomb. "If Diana's not careful, you might get some incoming traffic."
There were sparks.
For a brief moment, they were flashes of flint against stone, casting a shower over dry brush to raise the fires in the sacred temple of Artemis.
Another shower, amber flicks burning through the darkness over her head. Her sharpening stone running across the length of her blade, the sword of Athena.
FIRE SUPPRESSION SYSTEMS ONLINE.
The echoing, monotone voice of the building's computer system brought Diana's surroundings back into focus around her. Conjured images of Themyscira, of her days training upon the very grass that Demeter herself had blessed, vanished as she tried to pick herself up.
In the wake of the Swan's sonic cry, Diana had been thrown clear through half of the building, crashing through an admiral's window before blowing the doors off its hinges.
She wasn't entirely sure how she had ended up halfway embedded into a console in a hallway, but the gaping maw where she'd punched through bulkhead like a bullet gave her an indication.
Groaning, she pulled herself up, slowly extricating herself from the folded metal around her. Her gut swam with a wave of nausea so intense that she found herself clamping her mouth shut, determined not to lose the limited contents of her stomach. Teetering, she finally made it to her feet, bending over the console a bit as she waited for sickness and disorientation to abate. She couldn't recall feeling as weak as she did in a long time. Probably not since her days fighting Darkseid, surrounded by the Apokaliptian wasteland as Granny Goodness tried to pry open her mind.
Diana had fought countless rogues and villains. She'd taken hits from Ares to Circe to the Cheetah. Yet, the Silver Swan was somehow different. She was made of the New Gods of Apokolips and the ancient Starro entity. She was something new and yet profoundly old, and Diana felt weak around her.
As she turned to slowly cross the distance of the hallway, back towards where she'd last fought Swan, she reached up to wipe something warm from her face. It was only when her hand came back slick and crimson that she realized that she had not healed from the encounter.
Even the New Gods could not have killed Diana. This was more.
The thought turned her stomach the same as if she'd been struck with another ear-splitting cry.
Idly, the Amazon reached for her sword, only for remember that it was - if she was fortunate - still lodged in the Swan's side. If not, it was somewhere on the grounds below, staining the grass.
Just as well. The sword would not kill her. It would only slow her down. And Vanessa did not need to be slowed down. She needed to be stopped.
As she made her way back to the windows at the end of the hall, she spied the silhouette of the Silver Swan as she flew along the grounds and around the building. She was circling, looking for her prey.
And yet, Vanessa's screams for help could not go unheeded.
Over 80% of her body now belonged to the Starro and the Borg.
She was barely holding on, reaching out to Diana in the most pure way she could: the truth. Vanessa was still inside the Silver Swan, and she wanted the suffering to stop.
"Phoebus Apollo..." Diana breathed as the Swan circled once more. She gripped the lasso tightly, feeling its warmth in her hand as comforting as it was dangerous. "Bringer of Light, Seeker of Truth... Guide my hand, brother. Show me how to wield Hestia's gift." She carefully unhooked the lasso, watching the Swan's circling, silently counting the seconds between rounds. As she steadied her nerve and her muscles, Diana clenched her fists.
If the gods hear no other prayer, let it be this one. She fervently thought, tears of pity, of remorse, of love, warming her eyes as they fluttered closed.
"Athena, promise me she will be welcomed at the hearth of Olympus. She deserves such an honor." With every fiber of her being, with every beat of her heart, Diana longed for Athena as she had every day on Themyscira. Not for herself, not for guidance. But, for Vanessa. For her sister's rightful place as a hero amongst the gods, a scholar and explorer. No hubris had driven Vanessa to the stars. Only hope.
And hope was all that mattered.
The Swan's repulsors screamed past her one last time and Diana snapped her eyes open. Her grip tightened on the lasso as her mind calculated the perfect moment for the final movement in their dance.
Vanessa would not be lost to Tartarus today. She would not become Darkseid's pawn in his never ending war.
She would be free.
The Swan was coming around again. Diana forced the last of her strength to her legs and she leapt forward, bracelets crashing together just in time to shatter the plexisteel windows before her.
The metal showered over the Silver Swan, a clear distraction for Diana's real gambit.
Diana's arm swung wide. The lasso followed.
This time, it lashed around the Swan's waist, catching one of her arms but unfortunately missing her wings. The repulsors fired as the two of them swung wildly in mid-air. Without intending to, Diana dropped out of the sky, pulling the Swan with her.
The closer she was to the Swan, the more ill she felt.
But, if she could ground her...
Using her sudden drop in altitude, Diana forced gravity to help her. She tugged the Swan after her towards the ground until the two of them came crashing into the dirt. Diana's feet buried a few inches into the soft earth. The Silver Swan's repulsors on her feet scorched the very grass to char.
"Vanessa, this ends today. I promise you," Diana held the lasso fast, hoping she could somehow reach out to her. She had no way of knowing if the girl beneath the machine could hear her anymore. "I will not let you go down this path until it consumes you."
The Silver Swan opened her mouth, screeching again with that earth shattering force.
Diana cried out, skull splitting as she found herself even more sensitive to the sonic frequencies than before. Trying to avoid further injury, Diana dropped to her knees and grabbed for anything that could help her.
When her fingers brushed the hilt of her sword, somehow within reach, she felt the pulse of power within the blade.
Had Athena heard her prayers after all?
Gripping it tightly, Diana hurled it at the Silver Swan as she continued her weaponized scream. The sword's aim was true. It lodged into an implant port at her shoulder, nearly hilt-deep. The blade's tip jutted out the other side and the Swan's arm - the one equipped with the cannon - went limp.
She had managed to cut off access to her limb.
Diana pressed the advantage. She could not truly free Vanessa if she persisted in those ugly attempts at one of Dinah Lance's Canary Cries. They were twice as deadly, if only because they could be artificially modulated for that purpose.
Yanking Vanessa towards her, Diana used the momentum to connect her fist with the woman's jaw. If she could continue to attack her, use the same methods as before to help burn off the Borg technology, perhaps she could weaken her to the point of incapacitation.
Yet, just as Diana recalled how she had fought Vanessa before, so had the Silver Swan. While her first blow landed true, subsequent ones were narrowed avoided by her opponent. Each attempt to strike the Swan was met with air as she deftly avoided the Amazonian technique. While the original Borg drone technology used on Vanessa had left her slow and methodical, the Starro had fused with the nanoprobes to create something as sleek and agile as any other alien species.
Diana had to unfurl the lasso and spin away from one of the Swan's returned blows. As she did so, she yanked her sword free. While the Silver Swan's Borg arm was missing a hand, she had no way of knowing if it could be... regenerated somehow. It had morphed from cannon to hand. How did she know it wouldn't revert back?
As Diana glanced down at her blade, she felt a shiver run down her spine. It should have come away red, just as it would have with any other Amazon. The liquid that dripped off of her weapon was a sickly pus, green and grey.
Yet another reminder that what was within the vessel was on the losing end of the fight if Diana did not help.
Galvanized by the knowledge that she was fighting more machine than woman, Diana turned. Quickly, she leapt up into the air and spun, bringing her leg down in a move she had once learned from Selina Kyle, of all people. She hooked her leg around the Swan's neck and threw her to the ground with a roar. Diana somersaulted forward in the momentum, then turned to face her opponent so she could strike again.
The Swan was ready for her. The purple shield that had been used to block phaser fire buffered - but couldn't completely block - Diana's sword. But, it did slow it down. Instead of lopping off the Swan's arm as she had hoped, her blade was stuck in the already deactivated shoulder. This time, it wouldn't pull free. She abandoned the weapon.
The Swan rose quickly, back to her feet and whirling to face Diana. "We have been programmed to adapt. We will adapt to Wonder Woman's technique. Resistance is futile."
"It is never futile to hope, Sister." Diana spun once more, her foot connecting solidly with the Swan's jaw. It struck so hard that she could hear something break, although she couldn't tell if it was bone or the fastening for her metal jaw.
The Swan staggered, clearly thrown by yet another deactivating part. The arm with its still exposed flesh reached up, clawing at the faceplate as if she could simply pull it back into place. It had thrown her. When she tried to open her mouth, nothing but a metallic whirr emerged, distorted and fading.
Diana had damaged her vocal modifications. She rushed her again, landing blow after blow to the Swan's jaw, neck and already broken shoulder.
Eventually, the Swan's arm began to belch plasma sparks. Crippled, she backpedalled before looking to Diana again. For the first time since the battle had begun, Diana saw something that the technology had hidden away.
The Omega somehow seemed blacker than the night around them against Vanessa's grey, necrotic skin. But, in her eye… Diana saw hatred. She saw the darkness.
And then the Swan took off into the air one more time.
She would be lost. Diana was already so weak. To fly, to pursue… Maybe she couldn't.
But, she loved Vanessa too much to ever abandon her. Even if it took the last breath in her body.
Pulling from a strength deep within, summoning divine power even when she was sure the coffers were empty, Diana leapt again. She lifted herself off the ground with the same force that had driven her across battlefields and pulled the lasso free once more.
No one had died today. If Diana could preserve Vanessa's soul long enough, she could beg the gods' forgiveness for Hackett's death.
She swung the lasso out. It snaked around Vanessa's arm, then around the other until Diana had a solid grip. She pulled the Swan closer until she was flying alongside her, the two of them climbing ever higher.
The Silver Swan could not speak. But, with the lasso touching flesh, Vanessa could.
Diana pulled the lasso taut, opening her mind to the woman trapped within the cybernetic prison. "Vanessa, hear me, sister."
Your grace! Please! I cannot do this much longer!
The Swan tried to pull away, more aware than before that there was another voice between them. Diana held fast, desperately seeking the soul beneath the abomination.
It's too loud! It's always in here, talking. The Starro, it's never quiet -
I can't think -
"Let me help you!" Diana cried, tugging her even closer.
Vanessa's voice grew quieter. You can't help me.
Diana's eyes widened as she realized that the girl was losing control as the Swan struggled against the lasso even harder.
Let me go before they make me kill you -
"I will never abandon you, Vanessa." Diana held fast, vaguely aware that they had stopped in their upward climb. The two of them now hovered hundreds of feet above the buildings over Starfleet Command. "I did so once, and I will never do so again. Even if it means my death."
The ocular implant suddenly blazed into a radiant lavender light. The Omega burned again, as if it had just been branded.
"Then… you… will…" The Swan's modulation had begun to repair itself, a low, throaty and discordant cacophony. "Fulfill... that. Imperative…"
One of the wings curled around them and Diana felt a sharp, hot pain lance through her back. The wing went between ribs, through armor like it was cloth, and lodged firmly in her torso. She gasped, mouth agape as the pain rippled through her with such ferocity the air left her lungs.
And then it struck again.
Another wing pierced her on the other side, just as deep as the first.
The other two repulsor wings kept the Swan aloft, but Diana remained impaled upon the very implements that she had been unable to lash with her weapon.
The lasso still kept glowing, brilliant light in the sea of darkness. Diana forced herself to focus on that. Even as her vision began to cloud, as she tasted blood the first time she convulsed with pain, she held tight.
"Such is… the way of an Amazon, Vanessa." Diana managed to breathe. There was no thought of her own life in that moment, just of the scared girl beneath those lethal actions. "Because I love you… and that is… the only Truth I know."
Diana began to sag, unable to keep herself aloft. As gravity began to weigh on her, the wings pierced her deeper. A scream tore from her lips as she struggled to grip the lasso.
She had fought many. She had been close to death's door once or twice…
But, perhaps she should have kept drachmas to pay the ferryman after all.
"Diana?" The voice did not belong to the Silver Swan. Somehow, not through her mind, but through her lips… Vanessa spoke her name.
As the Queen of Themyscira met the eyes of her wayward subject, the true horror of what Vanessa had done pierced through the haze of mind control, both psionic and cybernetic.
"Peace, Sister." Diana breathed, her lips beginning to go numb.: "And you will walk in Elysium tonight."
Vanessa's expression shifted from horrified, seemingly unable to do more than watch as the Swan's wings drove deeper into Diana, to the barest sense of relief. She understood.
Thank you.
The thought brushed against her mind from the lasso.
I'm sorry. I love you, my princess.
Diana's grip tightened as her tiara began to glow white.
Diana of Themyscira had been many things.
She had been the Daughter of Hippolyta.
She had been the Daughter of Zeus.
She had been the Wonder Woman.
She had been, for a brief moment, partner and lover to Steve Trevor.
To James Kirk.
She had loved. Sisters, brothers, friends, family.
She had loved.
Diana channelled that swell of love into the lasso of Hestia.
With a brilliant scream, a beautiful dance of pain and euphoria, the Silver Swan began to turn the amber of molten metal. She began to melt, the wings seizing up in Diana's torso as they ripped through something altogether more vital than simple muscles.
Diana held on, giving the last of her life to the last of Vanessa's.
As Diana's vision began to grow dark, she could see the Omega symbol begin to shine as brilliantly as the lasso itself.
The stain from Vanessa's soul burned away as the last of the Silver Swan melted.
The wings broke off from the host body. With the last of her strength, Diana pulled her sister close and let the lasso slip away.
She had promised not to abandon her. As they plummeted to the earth…
She made good on that promise.
Diana of Themyscira had been many things.
But, now…
She was gone.
