Captain Rogers and the Wonder Woman
By Alex Shannon and Kevin Ridley
Based on Captain America: The First Avenger by Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, and Joe Johnston & Wonder Woman by Zack Snyder, Allan Heinberg, Jason Fuchs and Patty Jenkins.
Long ago, there were many gods, so they say. From the birth of the universe onwards, there have always been beings of immense strength who possessed the power of immortality, or something quite close to it. One such being was known as Zeus, who became known to the Greeks as the god of the sky, king of the other gods. At least, of the ones they knew. Zeus, much to his wife Hera's chagrin, fathered many children with many women, creating many bloodlines. Today, we learn the story of one such bloodline. A story of a demigoddess, and her fateful encounter with the man who would change the course of her entire life.
Diana, Princess of Themyscira, was something of an unusual presence in the nation. As men rarely found their way to the islands which made up the country, children were uncommon. Indeed, the female population, known as the Amazons, never aged, anyway, so the need for procreation was nearly non-existent. Instead, they spent their many centuries honing their craft, mastering their profession. And their profession was war. Daily, the inhabitants of the island would practice sword fighting, archery, they would spar, they would ride their horses, they trained with whips and lassoes, they would prepare for a war they would never fight. Themyscira was isolated, and fighting rarely found them, but nevertheless, they continued. Diana had been fascinated by the spectacle of combat since she was a child, but her mother had always discouraged this urge in her. Her father was... Different. He'd always enjoyed a good fight, and convinced Hippolyta that a little training couldn't hurt. And so, Diana trained with the best of the best Amazon warriors from a very young age. For what, she did not know. It just felt exciting and enlivening to learn, to practice, and to execute the techniques perfectly. They certainly had the time to make every motion perfect.
When Diana was not training, she would spend time watching her mother hard at work in the forges of Themyscira, where Hippolyta moulded, forged, and battered metal into a great many shapes, both offensive and defensive, or in the armory tower, where she admired the great many weapons and armors her mother had forged, or the gods had provided. Colorful armors, in every imaginable shade. Mighty swords, of metals that mortal men did not dream of, and shields with ornate carvings on their faces, which would nary fail if used properly. But, most of all, she admired the greatest of the many. The oldest sword of the arsenal, the Godkiller, and a painstaking recreation of Zeus's shield, Aegis. Godkiller was said to have been used to slay Ares, the God of War himself. After it's original purpose had been fulfilled, it had slumbered in it's protective chamber, waiting for the time it would be called upon to fulfill its terrible duty once more.
Eventually, even immortal girls grow to be women, and Diana was no exception. She was gifted a pair of enchanted bracers when she reached the age at which she would age no further, and she wore them at all times. Her mother admonished her for the act, but Diana had always preferred having something and not needing it to needing it, and not having it. Besides, she liked the way they always glinted in the sunlight, where the gold trim caught as much light as the silver bodies.
One day, on a day such as any other, Diana sparred with her aunt, Antiope, as she always did on this day of the month. Diana would spend her month training with the others, and then spar against Antiope to see how she'd improved. Diana wished she and Antiope could fight more often, but at least she got to train with someone. Her mother all but refused to be involved with her training, though she loved her sister and her daughter so. Hippolyta could not bear the thought of her daughter in battle. Though the others told Diana stories of the days of old, of the defeat of Ares, and his war he waged against the world many centuries ago, Hippolyta insisted that the warnings that Ares would one day return were unfounded. Diana herself was unsure. Gods could certainly be killed, after all, they were immortal, not invincible, but had Ares actually died? And if he hadn't, would anything come of it? Diana could hardly picture anyone convincing a world to go to war with itself, much less a world of perfection as they lived in, at least, according to her mother. Nothing was impossible, but it all seemed so unlikely, Ares or no Ares. Nothing could possess someone of such hate, surely?
Such thoughts were as far as they could be from Diana's mind, as she and her aunt clashed swords against each other. Antiope swung, Diana parried, and swept for Antiope's leg. Antiope jumped over, and swung overhand to Diana's neck, but the latter blocked it with a swipe from her gauntlet. Sparks flew in the morning air as she traced down the sword to the arm, and slung Antiope to the ground. Diana held her own blade to the back of her aunt's neck. "Do you yield?" She asked.
Antiope pulled her legs beneath her, and flipped herself forward, and around to face Diana before the latter had a chance to react. "Never." Antiope pulled a cord from her hip, and lashed it against Diana, pulling the sword from her hand, then leapt into a downwards strike against her niece. With nowhere to run, Diana crossed her arms in front of her, and brought her gauntlets together. As Antiope struck, a shockwave of thunder and lightning threw her back fifty feet, and sent her sword tumbling through the air, where it embedded itself in the ground. Other Amazons rushed to Antiope's side, but she waved them off.
"Good." She said, getting to her feet. "I believe that's enough for one day."
Diana walked along the edge of the cliffside, staring down at the beaches below. Training with Antiope was always anticlimactic, either ending in ludicrously easy defeat, or a hard-won victory. Either way, her aunt never explained what she did right or wrong. She contemplated going for a swim in the water below to cool off. And then... A large black object passed through the island's protections. It made a loud, obnoxious buzzing sound, and flew erratically through the air, then came to a thunderous crash on the beach below her.
Diana was shocked by the impact, but only briefly, as she scrambled down the rock-face to investigate the wreckage. Once on the beach, Diana ran towards the object, ready to face a potential invader, but... Nobody came from the mysterious craft. Her eyes darted across the hunk of metal, taking note of ugly black and red symbols that adorned the wings and body of the craft. She approached cautiously, wary of any potential tricks someone might pull on her, but as she got closer to the mysterious vehicle, she could only make out one figure inside the metal hull.
She leapt upon the side of the craft, and pulled at the handle of the door, rending it from its hinges. Once inside, she saw a man. A man? Surely not here. But yes, a man. A blonde one, dressed in colors that reminded her of the ancient armors of her people. The man was unconscious, and the symbols upon his shoulders were not that of the craft he, for he was the only one present in it, had flown here. Had he stolen this craft? For what purpose?
No matter. Diana could tell something had gone wrong, whatever had happened, and her mother could interrogate him later. She hoisted him onto her shoulders, and made her way back to the door of the craft, where she upon what appeared to be a discarded circular shield, adorned in much the same fashion as the man himself. She squatted down to examine it, and found the disc to be as light as a feather. She took it, and laid it upon the beach next to the man.
Then, as she examined the man's unconscious features, smaller black objects penetrated the protections that masked the island from the outside world. As quickly as Diana spotted them, they spotted her, and the man in front of her. Diana barely had time to register that the craft bore the same symbols as the much larger one beside her before a screeching sound emanated from the aircraft, and blue bolts that appeared to be some hybrid of fire and lightning traced their way from the ocean towards her position.
By pure reflex, Diana twisted out of the way of the first volley, and when the second one came, she caught a number of blasts with her bracelets, deflecting them into one of the buzzing aircraft, which exploded in a blast of fire. She continued to return the blue fire to the strange craft it came from, destroying another of the strange vessels. Too late did Diana realize that, in her attention to the other attackers, she had given her back to one of the remaining craft.
She barely had time to turn towards it, and register that one, it had fired a charged shot of blue lightning that grew larger with every passing moment, and two, it was close enough that she couldn't dodge it.
Her eyes went wide in terror at her apparently imminent death when, with a sound like a large drum, the ball of destruction bounded away from her, careening off of the shield of the man she had saved into one of the planes, blasting it apart in a blaze of blue and orange fire. The man had regained consciousness, and leapt between her and the engine of destruction. He stumbled slightly, almost falling to one knee, but he kept himself and his shield between her and the airplanes.