Chapter 13 - The Bikreet
"Thank you," said the dateless Colonel Lawrence Yashida as a Cygnan draped a wreath of odd-looking flowers over his head. I wonder if they had any contact with the Polynesians, he thought to himself, although this really wasn't a lei - it had a crystal pendant of some sort attached to it - and they really weren't flowers, as Terrans knew them. Pretty, though.
He looked over just in time to see a massive Cygnan similarly decorating his boss, Mr. Director Zuma. My God, that woman has to be seven feet high, Yashida thought. Astonishing. And look at the muscle mass on that gal!
YIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEE, Zuma thought, sweat flying from his brow. This particular soldier - with cerulean-colored hair and that awful 1970's blue eyeshadow those alien broads were so crazy about -- was definitely making goo-goo eyes at the Earth Defense Force commander.
While many of the former Captain's crew had been transported home when the Cygnan Fleet made its appearance, many women remained on Earth, where lifemate-hunting was their favorite sport. He continued up the pathway leading to the Temple of Cybele to join the rest of the guests.
"Ah. Colonel! I am so glad you came," said the ex-Captain, air-kissing him on both cheeks. She wore her white Bikreet gown, a long sleeveless silky thing which flattered her fuller figure, with knots on each shoulder. Her hair was pulled back in some sort of twisted upsweep intertwined with braids inspired by the hair art of the Adrymachidae Tribe on the Homeworld. Iridescent crystals circled her wrists and neck. She held Shiiko on her left hip, arm looped around the child's waist.
Yashida smiled at both ladies, then shook hands with Daitokuji. Where's the new kid? be thought. Must be getting her ready for the ceremony or something. There's so many of 'em that I can't keep them straight.
Zuma was similarly greeted, although Captain had to bend down a lot further. What a poor stunted specimen, she thought. How can his wife stand it? Ew.
Mr. Director was simply happy to be away from his Cygnan greeter, who was starting to get territorial with him. In fact, he even had to run and hide to shake her. These aliens were always on the prowl, but even more so at social occasions. "EEEP!" Zuma then yelped, his hands flying up to shield his face as Akana seemed to menace him with a portable pulse cannon.
"Oh, don't be such a baby," little Akana growled, slinging her weapon. "As an unofficial member of the Security Team, I was just trying out the automatic targeting."
Right behind the military guys came Shinobu Daitokuji, dressed in a black sheath dress with a conservative triple-row pearl choker. She declined the flower wreath, fearing that it would clash. She strode toward her brother and his bride, clacking along on her four-inch stiletto heels, an ersatz smile plastered on her mug.
"OOOooooohhhhhhhh so NICE to SeeeEEE you," she cooed, air-kissing them both (she was good at that).
Captain growled. "What's this, your Jackie Kennedy look? Great Mother! And black, for a Bikreet? Isn't black considered bad luck?"
"Of course not, you heathen," Shini sneered. "It's called taste and sophistication, neither of which you've ever heard of."
"Shut up, Shinobu," her brother snarled, sweat beads beginning to form on his temples. "Keep your trap shut while you're here; thank you very much."
"Shove it, Teru," she said, still smiling and turning her merciless gaze to his wife. "Well, that's a cute little droopy and swishy frock you're wearing. It boldly and proudly announces to the world - 'Aysha Napolipolita shops at Lane Bryant' - ! '"
"AAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!'' the former Captain shrieked, snatching at Shinobu's eyes. Hikaru grabbed her wrists just in the nick of time.
"You can sure pick 'em, dear brother," she said cheerfully. "How many litters is this, now? Excuse me; I'm supposed to meet dear Theram." Gratified, she turned and walked away from the shell-shocked couple.
Aysha's lower lip quivered. "I don't look awful - do I, Hicky?"
He weighed the consequences of telling her that there was simply more of her to love, but decided that he wanted to live to see his next birthday. "Of course not, dear. You look wonderful."
She sighed deeply, and tried to suck in her belly, which refused to conform to her wishes. "One of these days, I'm going to rip your sister's evil tongue right out of her head."
Oooh - I'd like to see that, oh yes I would - Hikaru thought but prudently did not say.
"Just look at her! Grinning like a monkey," Aysha whispered to him as she strode away, clack clack clack. "And - oh sweet Cybele, there she goes! She's on automatic pilot right to my father!"
"Ah, Theram. How wonderful to see you again," she said, but she didn't bother to air-kiss him. She landed a big wet one right on his mouth.
"EEEEEeeeeeeewwww," the former Captain said at a distance, just loudly enough for Shinobu to hear. "Great Mother, that must be like having a dog lick you on the mouth."
Theram gasped, taken somewhat by surprise. However, remembering all his lost and lonely years when he was too depressed to even think of romance, he smiled. "Ah. Shinobu. I'm happy you could come." He took her arm and led her down the path, to show her some of the grounds, perhaps. This was entirely pretextual on his part since Shinobu in fact owned a one-half interest in the Mansion and surrounding real estate.
As he was doing so, an unseen assassin, swaddled in black like a Ninja from head to toe, targeted the head of Hikaru Daitokuji in the crosshairs of the rifle sight.
And immediately after doing so, the assassin felt something cold against the back of his neck. He didn't think it was a kiss from the Frost Fairy. It was, in fact, Akana's pulse rifle.
"You think so, Terran butthead? AUNTIE DEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
Within seconds, Spy D raced across the lawn in her orange battle bikini, scimitar in hand. The assassin dropped his weapon and took off (wouldn't you?), plunging himself through a hedgerow which unfortunately was full of poison sumac.
"Hicky, what is Deesha doing running around here in her battle bikini?"
"Don't know, Dollface. Don't want to think about it, either."
"Oh, stop."
"Why don't you dig yours out, Ayshalita, and do your wood nymph imitation for your old man, like you used to?"
"Hee hee hee! Hicky-sama, you know I have twenty pounds to lose - "
"Doesn't matter, Dollface. There's just more of - " He blanched and bit his tongue.
Fortunately, his bride had been caught up in the recollection of one night she had done so.
Too bad I tripped over that decorative fencing around the hydrangea bushes and nearly bashed my brains in against the base of Hikaru's stupid radio telescope - he might as well fill the back yard with gazing balls and plastic flamencos, or whatever the Avernus those Terran birds are called - thank the Mother the paparazzi didn't catch THAT performance - it was embarrassing enough to be airlifted to the emergency room in a bikini covered with grass stains at two o'clock in the morning -
Suddenly, a bullet grazed her head, going right through her elaborately braided upsweep and into a magnum of Dom Perignon, which stood cooling in ice behind them. It exploded like a bomb.
"HIT THE DECK!" Hikaru screamed, pushing his wife to the ground. Immediately, the place was crawling with security guards, all of them big ol' Cygnan gals who were even more entwined with gun belts and weapons than little Akana.
"Great Cybele!" the ex-Captain gasped, rubbing her bruised arm (she had fallen on it so that Shiiko wouldn't have taken a header). "What was that?"
"Guess the assassins are out in force today. The place must be crawling with them. Sort of like all those spies who boarded your ship, remember that? "
"Oh, yeah. That was right before you shot across the sky in your daughter's Akagiyama biosuit! Oh Hicky! I am SO glad the National Enquirer got a shot of that for posterity!"
"It was NOT my daughter's biosuit! It was MY biosuit! And you LOVED me in it, dammit!"
"Not at the time, sweetums. At the time, I wanted to strangle you."
"Speaking of strangulation, where is the person who took a potshot at you, anyway? Shouldn't D be rounding him up?"
Captain gasped as her Head of Security approached, holding the assassin by the scruff.
"Uh - him?" she stammered.
It was none other than Miss Kobayashi.
"My SECRETARY?" Hikaru shrieked.
"I'm sick of her, I tell you!" the woman shouted, gesturing wildly toward the former Captain. "I want you! I deserve you! I spent all those years working for you! I waited every day for years for you to say a word of romance to me! And you turned around and married this awful creature! How could you?"
"How could he?" the Captain shrieked as D transferred the scruffed woman to her own strong hand. "Well, I'll tell you, little Missy. Because he appreciates brilliance and beauty, so marvelously combined in one package! Because he admires my technological prowess! Because he is dazzled by my unique Cygnan chic! And because - well, never mind. Have at you!''
With that, the Bikreet mother drop-kicked the unfortunate interloper across the lawn. Still screaming, she landed headfirst in a cut-glass punchbowl.
"Hope that kakamatandula didn't break it," Captain commented. "Hikaru-sama. Shall we greet our guests? Ah! Mayor Elden and his lovely wife!"
"Yeah," Hikaru growled. "Dumb and Dumber-"
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The Bikreet ceremony went off to perfection. The six Priestesses of Cybele - tall and resolute women all - were the same ones who had officiated at the Napolipolita-Daitokuji wedding. "She's a beauty!" the senior priestess said, kissing the baby's cheek. Akana hung around her, looking glum, until she got a kiss too.
"Oh, Aki," her mother whispered, hugging the child. "You'll always be my little baby, you know, no matter how many little ones we have around here." The girl smirked and buried her face in her mother's long was careful to secure her pulse rifle before she did so, however; it would not do to incinerate the Ma.
The senior priestess then touched Akana on her shoulder. "And tell me, little one. What is the most important thing you've learned on Earth?"
"Ummm - men are scum?"
She patted the child on the head and turned to her sister priestesses, smiling. "The Force is strong in this one."
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A-ko was already on her feet and moving to join her mother's side, but Diana's outstretched hand froze her where she stood. Every fiber of her being, of her very soul, called for her to stand at her side to face off the woman who all but killed her mother on that New Year's Eve in New York.
In an instant A-ko's mind raced back to that night four years ago when A-ko's mother met with Artemis to help her find her runaway daughter, Zoey. They only discovered for the first time that it was all a trap when A-ko's mother felt the enchanted blade - forged by the god Hephaestus himself as a gift for A-ko's grandmother - enter her back.
"You could say that," said A-ko's mother as she kept her eyes on Artemis. "Or a better and simpler explanation would be that she tried to murder me by stabbing me in the back with the very blade she stole from you, Mother!"
Making sure she never took her eyes off her one-time friend, Diana asked her mother, "Or have you invited her to dinner to finish the job?"
"On the contrary. Artemis is here for a totally different reason, my daughter," explained the Queen.
"Even if it is true that I would much prefer to do just as you suggested, Diana," interrupted Artemis.
"But only if her back was turned, you coward," snarled A-ko as she stared into the eyes of the woman who nearly killed her mother.
"Keep out of this, child," warned her mother. Turning her full attention back to Artemis, she told her, "If you're planning on doing something, Artemis, I wish you'd simply challenge me openly and get it over with."
"Nothing would make me happier," replied Artemis.
A-ko's grandmother then interrupted them. "If you make the mistake of remaining on this island one minute after your three-day truce period has ended, you will be fair game for Artemis or for any other Amazon of the Sisterhood."
"Then why is she here?" asked Diana.
"Actually, it's part of her punishment for stabbing you in your back - for that and other things," answered A-ko's grandmother.
"What other things?" asked A-ko's mother.
"That is what we will discuss during dinner," Hippolyta said, gesturing for everyone to take their places.
Sitting back down, A-ko's mother made sure to keep herself in between Artemis and her daughter. The food was being served when A-ko was shocked to hear Artemis quietly tell her mother, "I was wrong for attacking you that night in New York." She then added, "Or -perhaps I should say I was wrong in the way I attacked you on top of the Empire State Building - not that I was wrong to attack you at all."
"In other words, you're not sorry for trying to kill my mother! It's just the way you went about it that you regret."
"You're not as naive as you look," answered Artemis as she did her best to stare A-ko down.
"Don't get me wrong or make the mistake that I've changed my feelings about your mother. There is no one I hate more than the woman who bore you, or would rather see dead. I just admit I went about it in the wrong way - that's all."
Turning to her grandmother, A-ko asked, "Is that what you think, Grandma?"
"Artemis had every right to challenge your mother, little one. But she bad no right at all to try and commit a murder," answered Hippolyta.
"Does that include me also, Grandmother?"
"I have no interest in you, man spawn," replied Artemis. "even if you have driven a wedge between my daughter Zoey and myself. It's not you I blame for that," said Artemis as she stared daggers at A-ko's mother.
Hippolyta watched her granddaughter intently.
"Zoey is my friend, and - as my friend - I happen to know that any trouble between the two of you wasn't caused by my mother. Zoey respects and likes both of my parents. It's not my mother's fault that my friend can't say the same about her own mother!"
"Shut up about my daughter," warned Artemis.
"You're the one who started this conversation, not me," said A-ko. "If you don't like it, then why don't you try shutting me up?"
"Martha Kent, what would your father say if he heard you talking like that?" asked her mother.
A-ko bowed her bead in contrition before she said, "I'm sorry, Mama."
It was strange indeed that it was the usually-scatterbrained C-ko who at the moment seemed to be the only one who noticed how intently A-ko's grandmother stared at A-ko. She had been intently tracking how the girl had reacted to every word Artemis - and now her mother - had said.
"Your so-called father was the cause of most of this trouble, Pup, so I wouldn't be too eager to mention him if I were you," said Artemis.
"As far as I'm concerned, you're not good enough to even mention his name," replied A-ko.
"Who would want to?" said Artemis with a sneer.
Speaking of the Alien, how has he been treating you, Daughter?" asked Hippolyta as she tried to manipulate the conversation back around her.
"With respect and love, Mother," Diana answered with a smile.
"And have you kept your so-called wifely vows to love, honor, and obey, my child?" asked Diana's mother.
This time, it was A-ko's turn to laugh out loud as she said, "That's a laugh, Mama - obey?"
"Clark and I have both sworn to love and honor one another as part of our wedding vows, but we did do away with the old-style 'obey' part. He never asked me to obey him, Mother, or tried ordering me about."
"Never?" asked her mother.
She smiled briefly before she admitted, "Perhaps a few times!" But only when it was for my own good or to try and keep me out of trouble," she quickly added with a sly grin.
The sniping and insults which tried to pass for conversation continued throughout the first course. As the meal progressed, Artemis attacked A ko's mother; her grandmother in turn would study her granddaughter for her reaction. She did this carefully in order to study the next generation of her bloodline - trying to take the measure of the young woman by how she handled herself during the course of the evening.
It all came to a head when A-ko's grandmother said, "I had no idea that when I welcomed the Man of Steel to our shores, he would pay me back by stealing the thing I love most."
"He had no reason to steal what was already his, Mother."
"What is that supposed to mean?" asked Hippolyta.
"It means that I always loved him, Mother, and he always cared for me – perhaps even loved me - even when he was still married to Lois. I had to deny myself because of the pure and incredible way Clark loved and treasured his first wife. But with her gone, it was my turn - even if it took ten years after her death for me to reach out and seize what I always wanted."
It was A-ko's grandmother who pointed out, "So. All you've done is given up everything for another woman's leavings."
A-ko watched as her mother shake her head sadly. "You couldn't be more mistaken, Mother. It was only with Lois's blessing - and her passing - that Clark and I rediscovered what we once almost had before they were married. Even if it took all of ten years after she was tragically taken from him to give us the courage to try again. To stop denying what we both wanted and, most important of all, needed. In the end, it was her love that inspired my own love for him."
"Yet, it took an 'accidental' pregnancy for you to finally trap the poor man into marriage, didn't it?" asked Artemis.
The Amazon Queen studied the rage building in her granddaughter. She smiled as she watched A-ko successfully drove it back down inside her, where she could control it.
"It's not going to work, Artemis," said A-ko's mother. "My daughter already knows that I was pregnant with her when her father and I were married. She is equally sure that she was conceived out of love, no matter what the timing might have been. Furthermore, if there is any so called sin, it falls on her parents' heads and not on her's. So - if you plan on trying to hurt her that way - you will fail!"
"Still, Daughter, after fifteen years of this so-called marriage, I wonder why my granddaughter is an only child."
"Clark and I have talked about other children, Mother. In fact, we would both love to have a larger family. But it wouldn't be fair to them, being forced to live the way we do -" she then added, " - in large part because of you."
"You're sure about that?" asked Artemis.
"What is that supposed to mean?" asked A-ko.
"It means I seriously doubt if your mother can remember how many litters she's managed to drop over the years."
With a roar, A-ko was on her feet and lunging to get at Artemis. It was only her mother's strong arms that were able to hold her back. Even as her own mother struggled to keep her under control, A-ko was screaming at Artemis, "You dare compare my mother to a dog?"
As A-ko was held tightly in Diana's arms, Hippolyta told Zoey's mother, "Perhaps it would be best if you skipped the rest of the meal, Artemis."
Artemis bowed. "To hear is to obey, my Queen."
She was backing out of the room when A-ko shrieked after her, "The night you stabbed my mother in the back, I made a promise to kill you for it. But my parents told me I was wrong to think like that, and both made me promise that I wouldn't go hunting for you. Mama even told me that you had been friends once. and that I shouldn't hate you but pity you instead. Well - now I wish I never had given my word."
At A-ko's outburst of near-uncontrollable rage, her grandmother leaped to her own feet to protect C-ko from getting in the way of A-ko's attempt to get at her mother's one-time friend.
As everyone was settling back down on the couches to finish their dinners, Diana tilted her head and thought for a moment. Nodding in her own mother's direction, she asked her quietly, "A test, Mother?" When she received no immediate response she asked once again, "All of this was a test?"
"I had to discover for myself if the child heard the Call of her warrior's blood - to know for sure that her sire's bloodline hadn't bred all the spirit out of her."
"I told you once and I won't tell you again about that whole 'sire' nonsense!" warned A-ko.
Turning back to her own daughter, Hippolyta said, "So. After all is said and done - she is Daddy's little girl after all."
"Thank the gods for that, Mother," said Diana.
"Who would have believed what that man could accomplish simply by seducing you, my child," said A-ko's grandmother.
A-ko's mother laughed out loud. "Oh, Mama, don't you realize by now? Clark didn't seduce me! If you want to know the truth - I seduced him!"
"And you're proud of that?" asked her mother.
"Pride has nothing to do with it, Mother. I love him, and he loves me, and that is all I need or care about. What I needed then was you to be happy for me - or at least to have your blessing. Instead, you tried to keep me from the one thing I loved most."
"What I tried to do was to keep you from making a fool of yourself," said Hippolyta. "instead of what you did do - which was to abandon your mother and Sisters!"
Diana answered, "I didn't leave, Mama. I was driven out!"
"You had a duty to obey," said her mother.
"I did, Mother. I obeyed my heart."
"You were also a princess, with certain duties and responsibilities - responsibilities to family, friends, and Nation," explained her mother. "You should have had greater pride in our traditions."
"The same traditions that said I should have simply obeyed when I had turned eighteen and Zeus had ordered me into his bed?" asked Diana.
A-ko and C-ko looked at each other with shocked expressions. Of all the strange goings-on in the Magami household and the equally strange revelations of this evening didn't prepare them for this shocking piece of family history.
"It was his right as King of the Gods, my child, and yours to obey."
"So - according to you - what his son Hercules did three thousand years ago to you, Mother, with his lies and his violence, the father had every right to do to me just for the asking?" Diana then added, "I had to face the challenge of the Gods for refusing his command, Mother, and I would gladly do it again."
"And yet you gave yourself willingly to a mere mortal instead!" said the suddenly-angry Amazon queen.
"A mortal with the power to rival that of a god, Mother! And yet he is a man. One who never has, and never will, do or try to do what our very own gods tried to do all too often to us!"
"It is not your place to judge the Olympians, Daughter!"
"Who better, Mother?" asked Diana. "When I first came to Man's world as our people's ambassador, Mother, I was first attracted to Kal because his power rivaled that of the very gods I had worshipped all my life. When I finally admitted to myself that I had fallen in love, it was with the knowledge of who he was inside - and not what he could do. But in the end, perhaps the most important thing of all was that he needed me, Mother, even more than I needed him."
Like other girls her age, A-ko too had often wondered about things such as love and marriage - most of all when it concerned her parents. It seemed ironic to the young redhead that it had taken an invitation from a grandmother she had never met to discover for herself the sacrifices and pain her parents suffered in order to make a life, and to find some measure of happiness together.
Diana had been wrong, A-ko often wondered in some small dark place of her mind, as to whether her pregnancy was the real reason her parents finally married after all those years apart. It was good to be finally sure, to know absolutely that her mama's being pregnant with her was not the excuse for their marriage - but the catalyst for their happy life together.