I OWN NOTHIN

Trunks pressed the final button on the surveillance machine and the white ring in front of it started to glow, letting in some illumination to the dark, empty room, or so he thought. He stepped into the ring and heard the teleportation machine warming up with a loud hum. He looked around the room one more time to make sure he was alone. When he returned, he would take Diana's full wrath; however, a small part of him wanted to say Oliver was part of his plan. He would deserve it after that stupid ass "LOL" he wrote him during his date. His Scouter beeped and one circle appeared on the glass. "Nantekotta i?! What the-"

"Trunks!" Diana's voice barked, this time with a thick accent sounding like a mixture between middle eastern and Greek. Trunks looked up and the Amazonian dropped from the ceiling, landing on her feet and throwing a shock wave punch into his chest that blew him across the room and into the wall. The Saiyan grabbed the wall and flipped back, standing on the wall just above another punch that might have knocked him unconscious. Diana jumped and caught the Saiyan in a chokehold, tearing him from the wall and slamming him on his chest in the ground. Diana sat on his back with her elbow crushing the wriggling Saiyan's neck. She leaned in and held his face to the floor. "Submit," she barked.

Trunks didn't know why, but another part of him wouldn't mind if she asked him that again. However, he would not explore that deviant side of him; it wasn't important. "I give up."

"Tell me what you were about to do, and don't you lie to me," she snarled, spinning her lasso above her head. "You tell the truth or I'll wring it out of you!" she shouted, pinning his arms against his back with one hand.

Trunks didn't need to lie. "I was going to go to Themiscyra," he said through the pain in his neck and spine, "I had to be certain if it was there or not."

"I told you I was going to take care of it," Diana snapped, "if you had made it past the barrier in one piece, then the archers would have killed you before you would have landed! If you had evaded the archers, any attempt to talk to my mother would have left your severed head floating in the ocean if you were accused of attempted assault, and don't even get me started on what they would do to you if you tried to steal it!" She stood up, still holding him by his neck. "You want to come to Themyscira? You have no choice now, and know that I'm only bringing you along because your knowledge may prove valuable. My mother has called for my aid and I have decided to bring you along to satisfy your icebreaker portion with me, which means that unless you want another 20 missions above your control, then you would better listen to everything I say or else you may not make it to the Lookout with your hands intact." Trunks nodded with a nervous grin. Her voice reverted to its American accent as she calmed herself down. Personally, he liked her accent more for some reason, but he wasn't just going to ask her to keep shouting at him. She let him go. "Come. There is much work to be done."

"Why the sudden change of mind?" Trunks said. "And shouldn't I be in costume?"

It took a moment for her to speak. "If we can take the Caduceus while we're at it and secure Prometheus, we would be killing two birds with one stone. You have your heart in the right place, but even you know that heading into uncharted territory blind is like having no feet to walk you to your objective and back." Diana turned around to face the Saiyan, looking him up and down in orange and blue. "I told her that you would be coming along. She demanded you abstain from wearing any form of armor as a security measure and to make sure she knows who you are. The same goes for Clark and Bruce."

"They've gone too, yes?" Trunks guessed.

"Clark had to observe Kara's training with Artemis," Diana said; Trunks would now have to spar with Kara because of that, "Bruce had to set up an observance field after Ares attacked the island."

"Wait, the god of war?" Trunks said. "Why would a god of war attack a warrior nation?"

"My mother shamed his sons and him in combat, even with a manipulated Herakles and his men on his side, 300 years ago," Diana said, "and he's held a grudge ever since."

"Well, you know what they say," Trunks said. "War. War never changes."

"That he does not," Diana said, opening the hatch to her jet and hopping in. "And now, he's being kept underground in the deepest, darkest jail on the island with the most powerful suppression magic in all the universes." Trunks sat in the front seat this time and the jet took off toward the Mediterranean Sea.

"Anything pressing I should know about interacting with your family?" Trunks asked. "I want to try to make a good impression, that's all."

Diana scoffed. "Good luck with that. It sounds hypocritical to our teachings, but we opened our borders to the world of man many times and every time we were reminded of why we closed them in the first place."

"Then what should I do to not get looked on as, well," Trunks looked down at himself. "A man from here?"

Diana was a bit taken back at his question. Her boyfriends and fellow League members always just assumed they were fine, associated with a series of misogynistic traits spurring seven break ups and the destruction of two possible relationships. She got around, people had slandered about her; instead she was seen as a prize to be won by her many suitors trying to act as her prince. She always rolled her eyes at that, although flattering it was when she wasn't treated as a damsel but someone cared deeply about. Those who did produce the false gossip about her were promptly shut down by a brief gripping of the throat. Her beauty did not mean docility, and she was glad that there were some men on the Watchtower who recognized that. "Don't speak unless spoken to, no smart comments, don't draw your weapon, and never respond to a challenge from any of my sisters. They are ruthless in combat and even more dangerous if they lose."

"What happens when they lose a challenge?" the Saiyan asked.

"One flaw many of my sisters have is great hubris in their combat skills," Diana said, "and they are masters of passive aggressiveness."

Master fighters and grudge holders? Well, that certainly sounded familiar. "My lips will be sealed, then."

"Good, good; perhaps my sisters won't end up trying to skewer you after all," Diana said. "We're dropping into Athens at 11AM, their time, to respond to an active site of disturbance. You've been there before, yes?"

"Yes, but no," Trunks said, "I was thrown through Phidias's Zeus sculpture, broke my leg in the Parthenon, and more recently, had the tunnel of Eupalinos cave collapse on my head."

Diana had to make sure she rephrased this question correctly. "Have you been to an Athens with everything and everyone intact?"

"Oh, then no," Trunks said.

"While we're down there," Diana said, "take a couple glances around the city and absorb what you can before you have to return home."

"You bet I will," Trunks said, "what's happening in Athens?"

"October second was the Festival of Ares; soldiers prayed to him for strength before combat and their strength was increased tenfold, mages would harness the energy of war around them for greater fear, rage, and passion spells, and an extremist cult wanting him to reign over Olympus instead of Zeus would summon his children with a ritual spell that would reactivate every year until my mother stripped it off," Diana said. "Our problem is that something or someone reactivated the spell and now the barrier around Themyscira is weak enough for mystical entities at an intermediate level of resistance to push through the barrier. Phobos and Deimos are running rampant around downtown Athens and we will have to send them back to realm from whence they came. Hippolyta wants us to find whoever is responsible for summoning them and rebuild the barrier keeping our island from harm; after we do that, we shall inquire the whereabouts of the Caduceus."

All of this would make such a cool story for his kids, if he had any. "A god of fear and another of terror," Trunks said, "if they can't jump out behind corners to 'boo' me to death, then what should I know about fighting these guys?"

"They are wild fighters that will use anything and everything to your defeat," Diana said. "You are permitted to use any force necessary to protect the innocent, even if it includes killing them. Do not worry if you must take their lives- they are deities and thus immortal."

"I'm not going to have a problem with it," Trunks said bluntly. "If Ares' children love sending others to Tartarus, then perhaps sending them to give them a firsthand experience until they regenerate will change their mentality. I don't want to do it, but keeping them alive will lead to murders we couldn't prevent, and we cannot take that chance."

"I agree; sadly I haven't been able to change their minds for six years so don't think you'll just talk them into stopping. The rule here is to never kill our opponents, but if it is necessary to prevent the deaths of innocents, it is my duty to do what needs to be done," Diana said, beginning her descent toward the sunny, shining blue waters on the black horizon as they moved up seven hours in time zone. "Thinking like that will keep your live rouge's gallery very low."

"Rouge's gallery?" Trunks said.

"It's your collection of criminals you have acquired over time that are unique to you," Diana said, "with supernatural deities and Greek monsters, I'm up to 1,897."

"Whoa! That's a lot of hacking and slashing!" Trunks exclaimed. "How many of them are still walking around?"

"Too many," Diana said bitterly, "100. 85 of them are deities and the other 15 never have the chance to kill anyone when I'm around. I have not told the other newer League members about that; some of them are too green to death. I assume with your adventures you have met quite your share of opponents."

"Yes, but not nearly as much as you," Trunks said, "only 1,023."

Diana figured she already knew the answer to the next question, but she asked just to make sure. "And you've ended how many of these creatures?"

"1,022," Trunks said, "Buu is the only one I haven't taken down."

"We'll fix that," Diana said, "but don't make what's necessary visible to the public. It will affect your hero ranking and how the public views you."

"Hero ranking?" Trunks said. There was still so much to learn about being a hero with a large public. Back home, he would have never needed to get a costume or regulate his powers. It was all so strange here.

"The public ranks the League members based on a variety of factors, including how villains are treated thus reflecting on how they influence the children," Diana said. "Companies and celebrities will contact you to use your image on albums, merchandising, your name, or get you to participate in advertisements and events. Bruce, Clark, and I are tied for number one, and the former two already have movies with fake origin stories out there, with mine coming out next year."

"That's wild! How do you even begin setting up things like that? It's all so surreal," Trunks said; he would be leaving such a bizarre way to treat heroes. The most the Z-Fighters would get was a hardy handshake, a pat on the back, and a hospital bill. "How does one check their hero ranking?"

"Online," Diana said, now flying over a vast countryside with farmland as far as the human eye could say. The Saiyan, however, is only half, thus he could see the cushy suburbs of Athens under the bright sun and clear, blue sky built in the standard, beautiful style of the Greek architects of old. "You might want to hurry. We're going to drop in a few minutes."

Trunks easily looked it up with his Scouter on a site called "HeroNet," scrolling through the list of all twenty League members. The Saiyan was at the bottom of the list. His eyebrow twitched as he remembered all he had to go through the past three weeks. Then again, he had only been here for three weeks. "I shouldn't have looked."

Diana laughed and unlocked the hatch. "It's alright. At the rate you're going, you should be number 19 in no time."

"I hope that I'll still be on the list by the next recruitment cycle," Trunks said. Oliver had been busy; he was already 17.

Diana pressed a set of controls as they passed Athens overhead and opened the hatch, standing up and preparing to leap out. "Take what you need to conceal your face; I should have something in the seat's side pockets. No sword. No Scouter. No Capsule. Take nothing but you and the clothes on your back."

"No sword?!" Trunks exclaimed, hugging his trustworthy steel to his chest and looking at her like she was a bloodthirsty monster.

"I won't tell you again," Diana said venomously, jumping off the auto-piloted plane. Although she knew what they were there to do, she couldn't help but admire the beautiful historic city she was freefalling into: the perfect mixture of the ancient and the modern, Athens showed off their intimidating temples on the tops of hills and a fearsomely elegant and massive Acropolis on one end of the old state and the citadel flaunting the Parthenon on its highest peak at the other. Modern buildings, homes, hotels, and restaurants filled in the rest, all with a striking view down the hills at their eastern coast of the Aegean Sea glistening under the yellow sun. It wasn't all good to look at today, as a grouping of buildings on the north side of the modern city on the coast was black in smoke and the closer they fell, the louder the cries for help and firefighter sirens became. She flipped back and looked up, seeing the Saiyan quickly descending after her with a blue cotton hood she would wear during the winter. It covered his hair and face, besides for him seemingly glowing blue eyes and thin strands of lavender hair to frame his face. She took off toward the fire and the Saiyan followed her. They landed in the center of a small shopping plaza with a fountain in the center spitting water under the thin film of smoke that only got thicker the closer they got to the burning apartment complex. It was just down the hill from a large, black marble temple; the Saiyan guessed that was the temple of Ares. They stopped in front of the four story complex styled like a mini citadel in flames.

"I'm sensing two pretty high power levels and then about thirty little ones," Trunks said.

"You can sense life forces?" Diana asked. "Why do you need the Scouter?"

"It's possible to hide one's power level at will," Trunks said, "Buu can do it, so it was just a precaution."

"Before we go in there, we need to get rid of this smoke," Diana said, inhaling deeply. Trunks backed away and he was right to do so. She exhaled, blowing the smoke and the external fire away with powerful and windy super-breath. That was new, Trunks thought. The people cheering her on from around the complex swarming with firefighters probably had seen it before, however. "Saiyan, I'll start searching for Ares' spawn. You make sure everyone from those buildings is out and safe. Leave medical care until after we have defeated the opponent."

Trunks nodded and fazed out, heading inside and pulling every person still in the front three buildings outside, putting out the flames, and giving them a quick check up faster than they realized they were no longer surrounded by flames. He crossed the courtyard behind the three front buildings and ran up the wall, pulling himself off a pole to lift himself into the second story window. He quickly closed his eyes, hearing, sensing nothing on the first three floors. He overpowered the flames with his ki and ran through the fourth floor toward the only noise in any of the rooms. He heard the repeated, rhythmic groans of several woman and one man with extremely loud, pounding music that shook the floor; he gasped at the cries of pain and he rushed toward the corner room. He tried jiggling the handle. "Are you alright in there?" the Saiyan shouted, receiving no response. "If you don't respond in three, I'm coming in!" he shouted, still getting no response. He counted and kicked the door down on the small, one bedroom apartment. He raced across the hall to the closed bedroom door, leaping forward and kicking it down. "The complex is on fire and the surrounding area is dangerous for civilian activity. I will take you now and- oh god."

"Could you get the fuck out?" the muscular air force man, his uniform was on the floor, of average height and ruddy skin with dark green eyes and short, dirty blonde hair shouted over the blasting seventies music with three Greek women naked in bed with him. "We're in the middle of something, right ladies?" he said in a very sly, con-like voice.

Trunks blushed and turned away from the women hiding themselves under the blankets. Tight clothing and alcohol bottles laid everywhere about the disheveled bedroom. Trunks turned off the music, saving him a headache and threw all the clothes onto the bed. "Get dressed and get out." He faced the wall. "I'll wait, but please hurry so professional individuals can focus on medical care."

"Poios eĆ­sai?!" one of the women shouted, asking him who he was.

"I am the Saiyan and I'm-"

"Lady, this guy is just a crazy dreg in parkour clothes and a hood," the man said, throwing on his US Air Force uniform on and standing up on the bed. It was obvious he was under some kind of alcoholic or drug-related influence. "I'll take care of this freak for you." He stepped off the bed and grabbed Trunks by the shoulder. He tried pulling the Saiyan; the shorter Japanese man did not budge.

"I am the Saiyan and I'm Justice League personnel," Trunks said, "I'm with Wonder Woman and we're here to help."

The soldier gasped. "Wonder Woman? Where is she?"

"Outside, searching for the careless bastards who started this fire," Trunks said. "Are the woman done yet?"

"You have to take me with you to see her," he said dreamily. "Isn't she just so beautiful?"

One of the girls scoffed. "You're a pig, Steve! We're out of here!"

"He said we were going to get married!" one of the girls yelled, bursting into tears.

"And wait, did you say Saiyan?" Steve laughed. "You're her lackey who keeps staring at the back of her head during any shots of you guys together, especially that one time in Chicago when you tried to impress her by freezing an enemy she defeated for you!"

Trunks nearly went white. "Wait, what?"

"The new, young recruit wants to take Diana's heart, eh?" Steve said, laughing even harder. "Well, poor you! You're not her prince, her knight in shining armor, that's my job!"

"You don't understand," Trunks said, "it's-"

"What was it that did it for you?" Steve sighed. "Her gorgeous, green eyes? Her banging figure? Her huge breasts and fat butt? Her long, thick, silky black hair? Her sexy olive skin? Her luscious, pouty, pink lips? Her-"

"How base," Trunks said, a tad insulted on her friend's behalf. He felt the three girls leave the room before he went on his mini rant. He turned around and looked up. "Whether I'm interested in her or not, her body is not all that defines her; she's intelligent, strategic, compassionate, powerful, clever, elegant, graceful- and her eyes are blue!"

"Gotcha!" Steve said triumphantly. "I hate to burst your bubble, but she's already mine. I own that Amazonian, but she doesn't know it. We might have broken up, but true love never dies, even if she's dated twenty one other people who feel the same way I do! You would think a girl like that would settle, but some are just harder to hunt than others! I'm her prince, you classless pauper, so back off now because now that I've found her, I'm never letting go."

Trunks brushed him off as some hopeless obsessed romantic that got entranced by Diana. He swept him off his feet and fazed out, scooping up the crying trio of young women and placing them in the grass just outside the front buildings. "Stay here," Trunks said.

"And leave a brute monkey to do a man's job?" Steve said in a slick, confident tone, hopping to his feet in his uniform. "I'm going to go save my damsel."

Trunks felt his anger rise up his back and through his arms, making his fingertips rattle. "Just who the hell do you think you are?"

Steve rolled his eyes. "My bad, where are my manners, little man."

"You're only 2 inches taller than-"

"The name's Steve," the American said, "Steve Trevor."

"I don't care about your name," the Saiyan said bluntly, walking toward a wall in one of the side frontal buildings that had just been broken through, letting out a thick area of smoke in the alleyway between the apartments and a bar. "I just need to find Wonder Woman and then I'll leave you to your vacation."

"I need to find her too," Steve said, "so you'll just have to take me to her so I can look at those legs again."

They saw Diana back away from the smoke in a fighting stance with her sword drawn. Trunks fazed out, falling into stance next to her. "Everyone is secure," he said, "and one of your exes is here."

Diana's eyes narrowed and she turned her head to face him. "Who?"

Steve ran up to her, standing next to the battle ready Amazon and putting an arm around her shoulder. "Hey, beautiful."

TRUNKS HERE: I DON'T KNOW WHO THE HELL THIS STEVE TREVOR BITCH IS, BUT HE HAS A LOT OF NERVE! I SWEAR IF I HAVE TO WORK WITH HIM ON SOMETHING, HE MIGHT NOT LIVE TO SEE THE END OF THE MISSION.

AN: What did you guys think of the last two chapters? What will happen between Steve and Diana? Find out next time on DRAGONBALL Z.