So much for giving Diana's mother a good impression.

Clark stood on the edge of the balcony as the small platoon of Amazon warriors moved towards him. He could literally feel the energy that their magic-tempered weapons were giving off and he briefly winced at the memory of the last time Diana had cut him with her sword in a particularly intense sparring session. He allowed himself a smile, remembering how she had fussed over him after she realized that she had got carried away, even threatening to cut him again if he did not stop moving so she could bind the wound. He remembered that his mother said that Hippolyta would test him to see if he was a worthy suitor for her daughter, but when he pictured tests he had not even considered that Hippolyta would order her finest Amazons to kill him, which is exactly what had just happened. He had initially thought that she had been joking, but the look on her face said otherwise, it was the look of ferocious and intense anger, the look of an angry Queen and mother.

"This isn't going to end well"
Clark thought to himself as the closest Amazon drew within striking range. He tensed up, ready to deflect the incoming bladed-edge, just like Diana had taught him on several different occasions. He briefly wondered if Diana had been preparing him for a situation similar to this where he would have to come to blows with some of her sisters. It would certainly explain a lot. However, just before he raised his hand, they were all interrupted by a large 'SMACK!' which was immediately followed by the sound of someone hitting the ground hard.

Both Clark and the Amazon warriors turned in surprise to see Hippolya on the ground and an angry (yet very shocked) Diana standing over her, who was literally shaking with fury.

Diana could not believe that she had just struck out against her mother, but she would not have her mother or her sisters attacking Clark, not when all he had done was ask to speak to her. Hippolyta planned to kill him, and that was something she could not allow. She was not a weakling who needed someone defending her and she would not stand by quietly while Clark fought against her own family's forces. Diana was an Amazon Princess, and she would fight against any one who threatened her or those that she loved, including her own mother and Queen of her people.

"Stand fast warriors, you will not touch a hair on his head!" Diana yelled, gesturing at the Amazons who were about to attack Clark, but were now white with shock and frozen with unease.

Clark's mouth dropped open as did Donna and Phillipus', all unable to comprehend that Diana had struck not just her mother, but the Queen of the Amazons. Hippolyta shakily got to her feet, rubbing a growing red mark on her right cheek, and Clark briefly thought he saw a smile cross her face, but it quickly vanished, replaced by an even deeper anger.

"Amazon warriors, ignore my child's outburst. Deal with the Kryptonian male as I instructed. I will handle this" Hippolyta said, raising her hands above her head, causing her to be enveloped by a flash of light that temporarily blinded everyone. When the flash cleared, everyone was surprised to see Hippolyta clad in thick golden armour, brandishing the gleaming Sword of Hephaestus, and covering her left hand was a jeweled metal armour that Clark knew all to well.

'The Gauntlet of Atlas'
. Clark remembered that the gloved weapon drew its power from the planet's core and when utilized properly was a devastating tool of destruction. He was surprised two-fold, one, that Hippolyta had it her possession, and two, that she was willing to use its power against her own daughter.

Clark's first thought was immediately to go to Diana's aid, but she caught his concerned gaze with a hardened icy expression that spoke volumes to him. He understood her clearly, she didn't need him to fight her battles. She had struck out at her mother for her actions against him and she was willing to deal with those consequences.

"So Diana, you strike your own mother to defend the man?" Hippolyta said, beginning to circle her daughter, wielding the sword out front of her and flexing the gauntlet, causing it to spark with vicious red lightning.

"I do mother, you were completely out of line. Sometimes even a Queen needs to be reminded when she's gone to far" Diana said, gripping her lasso in one hand, and her own sword in in the other, mirroring her mother's circling moves.

"I will teach you a lesson daughter that you will never forget, and when I am done, your precious Superman's head will adorn my throne room as a reminder of that lesson" Hippolyta responded, causing Diana's eyes to narrow and for a moment the Amazon Queen actually felt fear at the expression on her face.

"This is going to be interesting" She thought briefly before bringing her sword forward where it was immediately met by Diana's in a flash of sparks.

Clark tore his gaze away from the warring Amazon mother and daughter just in time to dodge to his left before an Amazonian spear embedded itself in the stone wall right where his head had been a moment ago. He turned his head to see General Philippus, flanked by six Amazon warriors, moving towards him.

"Your life is forfeit man. A hundred gold drachmas to the sister that removes his head!" Philippus roared before advancing on a still bewildered Clark.

Clark had a few moments to decide what to do next. Despite their speed and strength, they still seemed to be moving in slightly slow motion to him. Diana had trained him in Amazon self-defence for times when he had been weakened by green kryptonite, or had his powers stripped by the gold variety. This was not one of those times, he was full-powered, and if anything felt an increase in his powers as the sun seemed to shine brighter these past few days. Eventhough it was dark here, his inner solar batteries were fully charged. He had several non-lethal options, and he also knew how much Philippus meant to Diana, and to be fair, he also felt he owed her as Diana had pretty much taught him everything that she had taught her. In a way, Philippus had without her knowledge trained him. That was the solution! A smile spread across Clark's face.

Fight like an Amazon.

Clark dropped down and let his feet touch the ground. He wouldn't be flying for the rest of this encounter. He drew his arms up in a ready-stance, prepared for Philippus' advance, and briefly drew his hands up in an X-shape before bringing them down to his waist, in the Amazon-way of meeting a challenge. It worked. A look of hesitancy and surprise crossed Philippus' face, which was exactly what Clark wanted.

In the next moment, he blurred forward, causing her to stumble, and he reached forward, wrenching the other spear from her grip, before using her own momentum to catapult her over his head and into the wall behind him.

Next a red-haired Amazon tried to strike at his left side with her short sword, but was caught off-guard when Clark ducked and shunted along the ground, knocking the woman's feet out from under her, right before he let loose a blast of his freezing air, encasing her hand and the sword it was holding in ice.

That's one down.

Next Clark was greeted by twin Amazons using a Gemini-style of fighting, their moves mirroring eachother and both of them carrying circular-bladed weapons. The swiftness and doubling of the moves meant twice as much to follow and was meant to overwhelm the opponent before falling to twin attacks. Diana had prepared Clark for this in the Watchtower training simulation by using the program to duplicate her multiple times. He knew exactly how to combat this threat. He sprung out, grabbing the one on the right by the side of her head, before quickly spinning her in rough circle, both nauseating and disorienting her. Clark stepped back, just as the off-balance one crashed into her sister, the momentum of both of them sending them crashing to the ground.

One side cannot fight without the other. Take down one, you take down both.

Diana's words rung in Clark's ears as Philippus looked on in absolute shock,as the man seemed to blur from opponent to opponent, her eyes barely following his vicious fighting style. When Philippus had first met Superman many years ago when they had engaged in a battle against Ares and the forces of Tartarus, his fighting seemed to rely solely on his brute strength, barreling through opponents with little thought or strategy. This was a completely different man before her now. He moved with the fluidity and surgical precision of a seasoned martial artist, and at this point Philippus had picked up on more than a few Amazon techniques in his fighting style. She was hit with a realization that both upset her and gave her a certain amount of pride.

"Diana taught him how to fight like an Amazon. She trained him to fight like us because she knew this day might come" Philippus thought to herself, finally allowing herself to admit that Diana must love this Superman deeply if she had entrusted him with the secrets of the Amazons' unique techniques. It was then that the Amazonian General realized something that the Queen had not. Diana had known how this encounter was going to go before it even started. She knew that Clark could win against our forces, because she trained him how to do it, but both the male and her had chosen a more diplomatic approach before coming to blows. Philippus felt a deep sense of pride in her former student, that Diana had truly learned to be both the warrior and the master strategist, but briefly cursed that pride as she was now on the receiving end of her having relayed that lesson to another.

Philippus looked up just in time to see two more Amazon warriors sail over head before landing in a heap twenty feet away. She looked up just in time to see Clark engage with the rarest of the unique Amazon styles, the Spider-technique.

Clark was slightly winded and could feel the magic of the Island weighing down on him, but he was stronger now and thanks to the years of sparring with Captain Marvel, Zatanna, and Dr. Fate, he was used to the wear and tear that magic had on him. He turned to his right and was immediately greeted by something that not even Diana could have prepared him for.

Standing before him was a tall, brown-haired, and extremely muscular Amazon dressed in a huge mechanical armoured suit. She brandished two magical tempered swords, and briefly smiled at Clark, before, to his shock, six other appendages shot out from the back of the armour. All of a sudden Clark was up against an eight-armed Amazonian war machine.

"Spider-technique" Clark thought to himself. The one technique that Diana had been unable to show him, mainly because only one Amazon at a time was trained in the use of the magic God-crafted armour. All she could do was tell him that it existed and the technique had not been used in many years, as it was what the Amazons called 'A Weapon of Last Resort'.

"I guess this is it" Clark thought, realizing that with their General down, the Amazons were resorting to their greatest weapon, as Hippolyta was using the gauntlet against her own daughter.

"Let's see you handle this one man!" Philippus shouted, knowing very well that not even Diana knew how to defend against the Spider-technique. A true teacher left some things to surprise, in order to teach one final lesson, to always expect the unexpected.

Clark braced himself, ready for the final onslaught from this screeching mechanized creature in front of him. He blurred forward to meet the attack as eight different blades came at him from several different angles.

Diana briefly glanced over her shoulder at the sound of the mechanical wheezing of the Amazonian spider-armour. She could not believe that her mother would have allowed Philippus to send out the warrior who was trained how to use that. It was guarded for only the most dire of emergencies. Hell, they hadn't even brought it out the last time Ares attacked the Island from Tartarus. She didn't have much time to dwell on this though as her mother used the opportunity to shift forward and catch Diana in the side of her head with the gauntlet, brutally smashing Diana through the adjacent wall before landing in the forested area behind the palace.

"Okay, now that hurt" Diana said to herself, bringing herself shakily to her feet. She was surprised to see the Queen come streaking through the hole in the wall before landing in the forest next to her.

"Sandals of Hermes. A gift from the messenger god. Can't have you being the only one who can fly Diana, that wouldn't be fair" Hippolyta said, gesturing to the small wings that protruded from the heels of the sandals on her feet.

"Fair? This coming from the mother who just cold-clocked her daughter in the side of the head?" Diana clipped in response, bringing her sword down in a wide arc, scratching the shoulder of Hippolyta's armour.

"It was not my fault that you let yourself become distracted. If that's what you mean by being 'cold-clocked'?" Hippolyta responded, before parying Diana's blow and attempting to strike her in the chest with the gauntlet.

"You're using the Spider-armour against Kal! That is madness! You didn't even use it against Ares!" Diana yelled, grabbing the gauntlet in her hands, dropping her sword, surprising the Amazon Queen, just in time for her to tear it off her mother's arm before back-handing her across the face with the loose weapon.

Hippolyta fell to one knee before standing back up and trying to take the gauntlet back from Diana, but watched as her daughter tossed the glove in a wide arc over the far palace wall.

"It's going, going, gone! Sorry mother, just another phrase I picked up from Man's world. Baseball. Slow game, but can be exciting under the right circumstances" Diana said, as Hippolyta stared at her daughter in disbelief.

"I'm using the Spider-armour against him because he's a bigger threat than Ares ever was" Hippolyta taunted, before realizing that maybe she shouldn't have resorted to that, because she watched as Diana's blue eyes darken at that comparison. Before she knew it, her daughter had blurred forward, knocking her off her feet, before systematically beginning to tear every piece of her armour off with her bare hands.

"Don't. You. Dare. Compare. Kal. To. That. Monster. Ever. Again". With each word Diana ripped another piece of the Queen's armour off, before leaving her in the dust wearing only her original royal tunic that she had had on prior to willing the armour to her.

"So you defend this man, even against your own family? You're willing to defy everything you were raised against and to engage with your Queen and Mother just to protect someone that you love?" Hippolyta said, spitting blood on the ground, before shakily regaining her footing and leaning against a nearby tree.

A small tear escaped Diana's eye as she realized what she had done to her mother, but her Amazonian resolve still remained strong as she responded.

"To my last breath".

Diana was shocked as a broad smile crossed her mother's battle-worn face before she reached forward and embraced her daughter warmly.

"Then I have raised my daughter right" Hippolyta said, before stepping back, and to Diana's surprise, there were tears in her mother's eyes.

"What are you talking about?!" Diana demanded, unable to comprehend what her mother's angle was here.

Meanwhile...

For the first time in a long time, Clark was caught off-balance by the relentless attack of the mechanical monster that continued its eight-point attack against him. He could defend himself against eight different attackers, Hell, he could defend himself against eighty different attackers, but eight attacks coming from one was a different story.

"God, even Starro only attacked from five different points, and I had the help of the entire Justice League when that happened" Clark thought to himself, briefly recalling one of his earliest battles where Diana had fought by his side. He was brought rushing back to reality when one of the blades on his right cut into the flesh of his shoulder, sending a burning pain up his side and briefly blinding his vision with a flash of red.

Clark was quickly coming to the realization that he couldn't outmaneuver the swiftness of the strikes, the armour's speed being enhanced by God-made engines, deliberately designed to combat someone as quick as Hermes or the Flash. If only he could get inside the swinging blades he'd have free reign to take it down.

"Get inside..." Clark thought to himself. He had an option, but he really didn't like the idea, but he was quickly running out of time. Clark gritted his teeth and deliberately moved into the path of one of the swinging blades, catching a vicious blow to his side, and beginning to cut into his abdomen, spilling blood onto the white Grecian stone around them. Clark saw the look of defiance on the Amazon's face that dwelled inside the armour, and the perverse smile that crossed her face.

"Got you man. You are defeated. Yield"

To her surprise, Clark raised his head to meet the Amazon's gaze and in a flash his painful grimace turned to a crooked smile.

"No. You are defeated. You just don't know it yet" Clark responded, and before the Amazon could even react, he reached up and tore the arms off the left-side of the armour with a brutal torque and a flash of sparks.

She reeled in shock and tried to strike at him from the right side, but Clark had moved in to close to her. He had allowed her to strike him so he could get inside her defence. She couldn't even hit him from where he was, he was too close...but he could get to her. Clark reached up and tore the arms off from the right as well, before using his heat-vision to bisect the armour up the middle. He stepped back and watched as the armour fell off the Amazon warrior in a smoking heap, leaving her standing there unarmed and vulnerable.

Clark reached down and picked up the now defenceless Amazon and dropped her against the nearby wall.

"Yield. All of you. It's over Philippus" Clark said, before letting her go, and walking back over to the edge of the balcony.

Philippus was about to respond, having been left speechless by the way Clark had managed to destroy the Spider-armour, which now was nothing but a hunk of smoking and twisted metal, but she was cut off by the approaching Amazon Queen and her daughter.

"Yes it is over. Well done Superman" Hippolyta said, as Diana landed and immediately ran over to Clark, holding him tightly in a warm embrace. For a moment Clark forgot the searing pain in his side and just held her against him.

"Mother, I think you owe Clark and myself an explanation" Diana said, reluctantly pulling herself away from Clark, but still remaining next to his side, with her hand still pressed over his on top of the wound to his side.

"As Clark will probably tell you my daughter, he briefly spoke to his mother before coming here regarding you and his feelings. While I am not exactly sure of what his intentions are towards you at this point, or for that matter sure what you two plan to speak about once you get the opportunity, I do know one thing for sure, and that's that both of you have been dragging your feet for a long time" Hippolyta said, narrowing her eyes at both of them, causing both of their mouths to open in shock.

"So I organized a test of sorts to see if your resolve was indeed there Superman, and if you were truly worthy of my daughter's time and energy. I do not as you have learned, take this situation lightly. My friendship with your mother does not gain you any special treatment. You had to prove your worthiness on your own to me. You have been, how do they say in Man's world? 'Tiptoeing around?' I had to make you pay for that. What I was not counting on and what I am particularly proud of, is the intervention of my daughter" The Queen turned to to Diana with a stern expression, who blushed as she watched her mother rub her injured reddened jaw.

"This test was meant to be for Kal-El, but your outburst offered me an opportunity to see how committed you were to this as well. I do not believe it fair to Superman that he risk his life for you if you were unwilling to do the same. Plus, if you are going to be Queen some day, then you are going to have to know when it is time to follow your own heart and pick your own battles, despite the risk involved".

Both Diana and Clark were floored by the reaction of the Amazon Queen, with both of them left temporarily speechless. This had all been a set-up by Hippolyta to test Clark's commitment and loyalty to Diana.

"Was it really necessary to use potentially lethal force against me?" Clark said, as both he and Diana still held on to his side, which had begun to heal and close on its own accord.

"Let me put it this in very simple terms Kryptonian. I cannot have my daughter courted by a weakling who is unwilling to stand for what he believes in or to fight for those he loves. Also, you both took a damn long time getting to this point, the least I could do is swing a sword at your thick head!" Hippolyta responded, crossing her arms against her chest.

"You and my mother really do think alike" Clark said, shaking his head in disbelief.

Meanwhile Diana was surprised to see that her mother had gone through so much effort just to have Clark prove himself to her. She was also as surprised as Clark had initially been when she found out that Martha and Hippolyta had become close friends. At that moment however Diana had one thing on her mind, she was annoyed and wanted to get it off her chest.

"Well mother if you're finished testing Kal, I think you owe us time to talk" Diana said, raising her left eyebrow crossly at the Queen, who laughed heartily.

"Of course daughter, you have the Queen's permission to speak" Hippolyta responded, and watched as her daughter grabbed Clark by his hand roughly and took off into the sky, dragging the still bewildered Kryptonian after her.

Despite his shock and the rapidly closing wound in his side, Clark decided some payback was necessary for the Amazon Queen. He was after all a Kansas farmboy at heart, and had enjoyed watching the mischievous way his father had teased his mother, making her blush at inappropriate times. He smiled as Diana pulled him into the dark night air, but not before turning back to the Queen.

"Thanks for the workout. We will see you soon Polly" Clark said, causing Diana to nearly let go of his hand in shock, and causing the Queen to turn a furious shade of red.

"That will always be Hippolyta to you Clark Kent. Your mother raised you better than that!"

Diana watched this exchange with surprise and amazement, as she traveled off with Kal.

Despite time and cultural differences, mothers are always the same at their heart. They all want what is best for their children.

A/N: And to the victors go the spoils...or should I say conversations. Next up, it's time for a serious heart-to-heart between the two of them!