Slithery little water snake, where's your icy cave?
It took Pamela two hours after waking up a second time to remember a place in Serbia that fit the bill. The Uvac canyon had a windy river and a famous ice cave in its borders.
It takes them a while to gather their new collection of clothes and drag themselves out of bed to check out and return to the invisible jet. Pamela makes sure they stop for food before they get on their way, forcing Diana to down at least two full glasses of water and pick up a couple gallon jugs before they made for Serbia.
Diana looks a wreck from the night, but she doesn't appear unhappy. Pamela is glad she had fun; she was just sorry it got out of hand so fast.
Pamela hadn't explained how the kiss would go, so when the amazon kissed her lightly, she pulled her back in for a second dose. Unfortunately, she had greatly overestimated Diana's tolerance and the poor woman ended up skipping tipsy and going straight to punch drunk. Pamela already was feeling the effects of the chemical changes in her body, and due to overcompensating for Diana she also got far too loose far too fast.
She remembered bits and pieces of the night.
She remembered dancing close to Diana, hands grabbing hips and sides and arms. She remembered barking at someone who got too close to the Amazonian, and then kissing her again. Though she can't remember who initiated it, she remembers Diana deep throating her with her tongue, sloppy now that she was so drunk, and only getting drunker from the kiss.
She remembers getting thrown off the dance floor after snaking a hand under Diana's top, getting friendly with a couple of people at the party and getting invited to come along with a group to go bar hopping. She remembers pulling Diana along after, and… doesn't remember anything else after that.
Pamela had asked Diana what she remembered from the night before, and the poor woman claimed to remember nothing. She felt guilty for letting them both go so wild. She was just trying to loosen Diana up after their encounter with Cheetah.
It worked in the moment, but only time would tell if it worked in the long term.
They find the canyon easy enough and land within sight of the winding river.
"Where do you think the next clue will be?" Diana asks, her voice lower than usual.
"Are you sure you don't want me to whip up something for your hangover?" Pamela ignores her entirely, and Diana lets out a heavy sigh.
"I'm fine paying my dues." Diana says despite rubbing her temples with her fingertips. "Where might the next clue be?"
"I don't know. There really isn't any specific landmark I'm interested in here, just the few red list plants in the area."
"Can you connect to the Green here?"
"I can connect to the Green almost anywhere."
They disembark the jet and Pamela kneels, placing her hands flat on the ground. She connects to the plant life in the canyon, reaching out and showing them what she desired.
And in return, they show her the robot men entering a cavern along the river, just a few miles away from them.
They also show…
"Diana!" Pamela jumps up and commands the trees near them to build a wall with their branches just as bullets light up the area.
Despite her warning, the Amazon is hit several times before she can start deflecting them with her bracelets. "Rubber again?! Keep your head down, they can still kill if they hit the right place!"
Still connected to the green, she quickly seeks out where their attackers are located and commands whatever foliage is near them to attack. The bullets stop and she feels metal crunch under the vines in her command.
She also feels more on their way.
"More are coming." Pamela warns, weaving bark around her chest and torso to protect herself from any stray bullets. "We're completely surrounded, we need to get out of here!"
Diana grabs her arm and turns back to the jet, but three of the robotic gunmen leap out from the bush between them and protection. Pamela hears the Amazon swear under her breath as she pulls up a wall of roots to block the robots off, also cutting off their access to the jet. She sprouts two great trees under the jet and grows them tall and strong, keeping their escape route safe even though it was still invisible.
"We'll lose them in the brush," She pulls back the dark-haired woman and towards the one area where there are no pursuers. "If I can get a moment to concentrate, I can end this like last time."
"Then let's find some place to hunker down." Diana relents with a scowl, and Pamela can barely believe she's rearing for a fight after the night they had.
The plan is simple enough, but of course the game must be difficult today of all days. She hadn't bothered to count the robots she had destroyed in the forest in Poland, but if she was forced to guess she'd assume there was somewhere between ten and twenty of them.
This time she did count them, and she was already on thirty with more coming on the edge of her senses. They were getting pelted with those rubber bullets. Bleeding welts covered their arms and legs, and Diana had taken to defending their heads over their bodies out of pure necessity. The robots were pushing them towards the river, and of course they were on the side with a near fifty-foot drop to the beach below.
There were just too many of them.
Pamela did what she could to protect them both with vines and branches and her man-eating flower heads, but each bullet that hit her plants also made them scream in pain, and she could feel the echo of that pain in her very bones.
She tried to throw out her powers, to just lash out at anything nearing them. It worked for all of three seconds as a second battalion of robots swarmed them.
The welts hurt, her head felt like it was about to explode, and her body was just so tired from the night before. Pamela was almost tempted to give up and see what the robots wanted from them. Diana, on the other hand, was a woman possessed.
She pushed Pamela forwards while also defending their backs as best she could from the hailstorm of rubber bullets. Her face seemed to be made of steel, and even when she knew a bullet found its mark on her exposed arms or back she barely even flinched.
It hurt Pamela more than she could say to be so useless to the Amazon.
They eventually found the edge of the cliff they where on that looked down into the river. The bullets stopped for a moment, and Pamela used that time to catch her breath and pull at the plants between them and the robots.
She and Diana traded a glance, and when the moment continued to stretch on, the dark-haired woman called out. "What are you? Why are you trying to stop us?"
The robot men didn't make a sound. Pamela was fine with that. She flexed her fist, but then one of the robots raised a different kind of gun and fired it at them.
Vines erupted from the ground, but the blast had already exploded into a massive black net. The world moves in slow motion as several things happen at once.
Diana leaps before Pamela, bracing for the net, and the vines easily rip through the disguised metal like paper. Unfortunately, just as the net engulfs Diana, the cliff they are standing upon collapse from the disturbance the vines caused to the ground.
Diana's arms are pinned to her side and goes face first into the dirt while Pamela plummets into the river below. She can hear the Amazon shout her name before she hits the water. Hard. Everything stings, but the icy water is already soothing the welts decorating her back, upper arms, and her legs.
Pamela works her eyes open after a moment and already sees a familiar shadow diving for her, and it is then that she has an idea.
Working her sore limbs, she forces her body deeper down just as Diana follows her into the water. The woman is wild eyed with worry and reaches for her, but Pamela grabs her arms and places a finger to her lips before pointing upwards, and then tugging her downwards again.
It takes only a moment for her to catch the hint and help her swim even further under the surface. A few stray bullets follow them downwards, but they are carried down river by the currents and have a wall of water between them and any danger.
When Pamela feels she needs a breath, she pauses and turns to Diana, hoping she'd be just as quick to catch on as the last time.
Taking up the Amazon's cheeks, she surges forwards before Diana can pull back and places an awkward, open mouthed kiss upon the woman's lips. She works her thumbs at the hinges of her jaw, and eventually she gets it and opens her mouth.
Pamela breathes out what feels like her entire lungs into Diana, and the woman grabs her shoulders in surprise. A long time ago, Pamela was forced to accept she had become more plant than woman, but it did have its benefits. The Carbon Dioxide in Diana's breath feels like the freshest of spring breezes when it flows into her mouth. She is tempted to stay there for a moment and take another breath but knows getting them both to safety should be her top priority.
When they separate, Diana reaches up and touches her lips carefully. Pamela can only smile and pull on her arm again. They were closing in on the ice cave already due to the speed of the water, but it still took two more breath breaks to make it safely under the cave's mouth.
They break the surface of the water simultaneously, gasping for fresh air. While she wouldn't say swapping breaths with Diana was the worst thing in the world, Pamela did prefer to breathe in air that was cold and dry, not hot and wet.
Diana helps her out of the water and they take a moment to gather themselves.
"Are- are you alright?" Diana puffed.
"Never better." Pamela hissed through her teeth as she accidentally knelt on a quickly bruising welt. "I'm gonna murder this mother fucker."
"I just might let you." Diana wrung out her hair before flipping it back over her shoulder. "How'd you do the breathing thing? That's some neat trick."
"I'm more plant when it comes to my respiratory system. I inhale CO2 and breathe out Oxygen." She explained before standing.
Diana stood as well. "We should hurry, but this is called an 'Ice cave' for a reason. They get colder the further down you go."
"We could take a second to dry off?" Pamela offered, but then paused. "Those things might follow us though…"
The Amazon touched her lasso and it began to glow, illuminating the cave around them. "I've got an idea."
Diana left her lasso with Pamela before she set to work gathering up several boulders and forming a little cave just out of view of the actual cave entrance. It was small, but good enough. Pamela handed back the lasso and climbed in while Diana sealed it behind them and made the golden rope stop glowing.
The little cave was tight, and already Pamela felt far too cold for her liking, so they huddled together and rested in silence while they waited for their skin and hair to dry a little more.
It wasn't long before they heard the tapping of many footsteps enter the cave. Pamela clenched her jaw so hard it hurt, and she felt Diana wind an arm around her torso and give her a light squeeze. In return, she leaned her head against the Amazon as they listened to the footsteps disappear into the cavern.
It took only twenty minutes for the feet to return and scuttle out of the cave again. They waited a little while longer after that, and then Diana let her go to push open the rock guarding their little hideout.
"Hopefully that will throw them off our scent for a while." Pamela said as Diana helped her out of the little cave.
With no tour guide and no maps, they use Diana's lasso like string in a maze as they followed the main tunnels down deep into the mountain side. Diana insisted they hold hands, and Pamela has to fight hard to not notice how firm and yet careful her grip is.
The note is found literally taped to some random rock in the center of the pathway. Pamela would have been annoyed by the audacity had she not been so glad their search was finally over. Now they just had to get back to the Jet and get the hell out of here.
But of course, today wasn't going to be an easy day.
She heard the shot, and then felt it whiz past her shoulder. Diana is quick to grab her and spin them both so Pamela is pinned between her and the wall as more of those damned bullets rain down upon their heads.
Pamela reaches her hands past Diana and allows her anger to consume her for a moment. They are no longer surrounded, so it was like shooting ducks in a row, but rather than bullets the wood she had wrapped her torso with crept up her arms and shot out thorny harpoons that slashed through the metal with ease.
She kept it up until all they could hear in the cave was static from the robots electrical parts. Diana dropped her arms for a moment and leaned back against Pamela, and in return she wrapped her arms around the poor woman's torso.
"Thank you," She unthinkingly kissed Diana's shoulder. "I can whip up a healing salve when we get back to the jet."
Diana let out a small hum before reaching back to push herself off the wall. Pamela offers her arm, but they are both spattered with painful bruises and end up being poor crutches for each other. They make it past the carnage of the robots slowly and begin working their way back up the tunnel using Diana's rope.
But of course, today wasn't going to be an easy day.
Pamela heard the sound of metal grinding and something robotic moving. She glanced back and just caught sight of one of the robot men raising its still functioning arm and pointing it at her.
The shot was fired, and Pamela wasn't fast enough at warning Diana, but she is able to shove her away in time.
She doesn't feel it hit her; the entire world just vanishes.