A/N: Thank you for the reviews!
Chapter Two — She
"Arrrrrrrrrrrgh!"
Copperhead's scream was cut off as Wonder Woman casually tossed him into a tree. Then the tree fell down on top of him. Diana winced slightly. More deforestation was not what the Amazon jungle needed. She looked around, taking stock of the situation before she flew back into the fray. They weren't fighting the Injustice Gang exactly, since they were now just a bunch of miscreants who had apparently just banded together and for some reason come to the Amazon Basin. It still wasn't clear what they were after, but they'd already destroyed several villages on the banks of the river, and had to be stopped. Giganta was busy being tripped up by Flash, Batman was keeping Cheetah busy and Lantern was trading energy blows with Star Sapphire.
There was an almighty crash as Flash succeeded, and Giganta went flying into the cliff-wall, under whose shadow they were currently working. The rock wall crumbled under her weight, and she soon shrunk down to her normal size, unconscious. While Lantern kept Star Sapphire distracted, Diana flew up behind her, tapped her on the shoulder and then knocked her out when she turned to look. Lantern nodded in thanks and wiped his forehead.
"Copperhead and Giganta are down," Diana told him. "Just Cheetah-"
Cheetah flew past them with a hiss, landing on her feet snarling at Batman. She coiled, and pounced on him again, pinning him to a tree with an evil smirk. "Now why do we have to fight?" she purred in his ear. "Rumour is you have a thing for cats."
Batman's only answer was to jerk his head viciously back, connecting with Cheetah's nose and making her stumble backward with another growl. Diana took the opportunity and looped her lasso over Cheetah, then pulled it tight, binding her with perhaps a little more force than she would have ordinarily used. Within another two minutes, Giganta, Cheetah, Copperhead and Star Sapphire were all bound in the golden cord. "They all out?" Lantern asked.
Diana rabbit-punched Cheetah right between the eyes. "They are now," she said innocently.
"Hey, look at this!" Flash called, looking at the rock wall that Giganta had destroyed. "It's hollow." GL and Diana went over, looking at where he was pointing. "Think we should go in?" the speedster asked.
"Not now," Diana said. "We have to get them to the authorities-"
Batman's voice broke in. "Batman to Watchtower. We have Giganta and some Injustice Gang members that need transporting to the holding cells."
The four villains disappeared in a burst of light, and they all frowned at the Dark Knight in question. "Why did you do that?" Diana asked. It didn't seem like Bruce to do that — the removal of the bad guys was top priority, there was no way he'd ignore that just to explore a cave.
"That," he said, pointing.
At Flash's feet, the large splinters of the rock still lay, partly covered in green growth. The parts that weren't, however, had writing carved into them.
"What does it say?" GL asked.
Flash shrugged. "No idea. It's written in some kinda ancient language-"
"It's ancient Sumerian," Batman cut in. "And it says, 'Beware She who rests here' and, 'Do not disturb this eternal tomb, or the consequences for thee shall be dire'." As he finished, he glared at Flash, who grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck.
"Uh, oops?"
Diana raised an eyebrow at Batman. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised you can read ancient Sumerian."
"Never mind that," he replied. "We need to worry about who this 'She' is."
"Well we're not going to find out standing here, are we?" she said, walking inside before he could stop her.
Lantern followed her, the glow from his ring illuminating the cavern beyond. It was narrow, but very high, with the ceiling impossible to see. Green light bounced off the wet rock, making the whole thing look far eerier than it already was. Suddenly the cave opened out and widened into what looked to be about the same size as the Batcave. Wonder Woman went cautiously, not sure what to expect. Her fingers traced the walls, drawing back sharply when she felt carved shapes.
"Lantern, over here!"
It was more writing in a narrow column stretching up into the dark – but this time in a language she recognised. Not understood, but recognised. "Egyptian hieroglyphs."
GL turned to Batman. "Don't suppose your translation skills go as far as hieroglyphs?"
"No." From his seemingly endless supply of gadgets he produced a tiny digital camera and began snapping images of the inscription.
"There's more over here!" Flash called.
Diana smiled as she joined him — the language was ancient Greek. She took a moment to scan through it quickly. "Still doesn't say who 'She' is, but it does give more information about where 'She' comes from." She cleared her throat. "'Born of unholy union between Earth and Sky, between the gods and the demons, She offers only madness. The weak shall perish, the strong will find their strength turned upon them. Beware her enmity, but beware more her gift.'" She paused. "Then it repeats. 'The weak shall perish, the strong will find their strength turned upon them.' That's all there is."
"Well what the heck does that mean?" Flash asked.
She shook her head. "No idea."
Green Lantern's voice echoed further in. "There's more over here. Looks like Hebrew."
"Ancient Hebrew," Batman corrected. "And Sanskrit. Over there looks like some kind of Norse language."
"Do you think they all say the same thing?" Diana asked, studying the runes.
"Probably. Whoever 'She' is, She was obviously a creature of fear for all the ancient world."
"Let's just hope She's not for the modern one," Lantern said.
"Before the Romans though," Flash said. "There's no Latin here."
They all turned to look at him with raised eyebrows.
"What?" he asked, looking annoyed. "I did graduate high school, you know. I know what Latin looks like."
"No sign of a tomb though," Diana noted.
"Not yet," Batman said, suppressing a sigh as she brushed past him without a word. He had no idea what he'd done this time. Women were the one mystery even the World's Greatest Detective couldn't work out.
They proceeded further into the darkness until the dim glow of daylight faded completely. There were other noises in the gloom now apart from the constant dripping of water. Up ahead Diana could hear the sound of rock on rock, and above there was the soft chittering of bats.
"Friends of yours?" GL asked.
Batman didn't bother passing comment. Unlike the others, he was scanning the floor and walls for booby traps. Booby traps like the pressure pad Wonder Woman was about to step on. "Diana!"
He ran and threw himself on her, knocking them both to the ground. Behind him, he heard the thunk and hollow whistling of several stone rods flying out of holes in the walls. Rods that would have been embedded in Diana's side had he not acted. He spent a fraction of a second pushing that most harrowing of pictures out of his head before getting agilely to his feet and offering her a hand up. She took it silently, and he gave her a quick assessing glance to make sure she wasn't injured. Even though his gaze wasn't visible, she still tracked it anyway, and her blue eyes were waiting for him when he got back to them. They held a question he couldn't begin to interpret — and apparently it wasn't one she was ready to divulge, since she turned away without speaking.
"Don't step there, there, or there," he warned GL and Flash.
They nodded, and Lantern enveloped them both in a green bubble then floated them across. He shrugged. "Better safe than sorry."
Nodding, Batman followed Diana through another narrow corridor of rock and into another cavern – smaller than the last, or perhaps it only seemed that way, since this one was illuminated by a soft golden light. It gave the previously creepy cave an atmosphere of warmth and benignity. It made Bruce suspicious. Caves were not supposed to be welcoming.
At the end of the cave, mounted on an obelisk, was a mysteriously glowing crystal, emitting the golden aura in soft pulses. It seemed to be humming softly too. "Don't touch it."
Diana scoffed slightly. "Yeah, like I'm going to be making that mistake again." Nevertheless, she stepped toward the altar, careful not to touch it. "There are no more symbols, though."
"We should take it back to the Watchtower for analysis," Batman said. He stepped up beside her and took it with his gloved hands, then put it into an empty pouch. "Let's go. We're not going to find any-"
The whole cavern began shaking, the light gone now. Above, the previously quiescent bats burst into angry screeching at the sudden disturbance of their roost. Used to bats and their shifting moods, Bruce grabbed Diana and pulled her into a crouch while Lantern pulled the Flash into a spherical shield. While the air exploded with fangs and wings and needle-sharp squeaks, the ground was still quaking. Finally, all the rodents settled again, and gradually their footing became solid again. Or so it appeared, right before the ground underneath Batman's and Wonder Woman's feet vanished.
They must have fallen for at least thirty metres before Diana remembered she could fly. Bruce was already grabbing a grappling hook from his belt, but she'd grabbed him around the waist before he could fire, pulling him firmly against her body. His mind flicked back to the last time they'd been in each other's arms, and the time before that; both times when he'd let his guard down far lower than it should have been. Not something he'd be doing now — even if he could feel her through the Kevlar. He wrapped an arm around her waist in return, and their eyes locked and held for a moment.
Damn it.
Flash's voice broke the semi-moment. "Hey, you guys okay?"
"We're fine," he called back.
Diana looked down at the apparently bottomless pit, then back up at Batman. "Got a flashlight?"
He got one out, and flicked it on, directing the blue-white beam downward. It illuminated the floor about another twenty metres down. He moved it along the floor until it came to…a pair of feet. Frowning, he moved it further — there was the prone figure of an old woman, lying curled up as if in pain on the freezing cold floor.
Diana gasped. "Hera!" Before Bruce could say anything, she'd dropped like a stone, slowing down only enough to land gently(ish), before running to the old woman's side. "She's still breathing!"
"Diana, I don't think you should-"
"Get over here!" she yelled at him.
He did — but only to grab her and yank her away. "She's a 'She', Princess."
"So?" she demanded. "Bruce, she's just an old woman!"
"You're still not going near her."
"Get off me!" With her strength, there was no way he could hold onto her, and he had to take two steps backward in order to stay on his feet while the Amazon ran back toward the old woman and lifted her up. She really was ancient, she thought, far beyond what the word 'old' covered. Lines deeply engraved into her face, hands wrinkled with paper thin skin and curled into claws by age.
As Diana touched her face, she stirred and woke. Diana began to lift into the air, but the old woman grabbed her hand. "Na!" She began babbling in a strange language that Diana vaguely recognised — guttural but strangely flowing.
"N gynifer blynedd i mewn 'r dywyllwch!" she wheezed. "Hannel i mewn r dywyllwch achos n gyhyd!"
"Can you hear me?" Diana asked. "Just hold on a minute, we'll-"
Suddenly, the old woman's mouth opened in a wizened, toothless smile. "Da blentyn…arddun bachgennes…" Her eyes opened fully, and Diana found herself utterly captivated by them. They were luminous, beautiful and golden. Glowing with magic. Dimly, she was aware of Bruce calling her name, and went to look at him…if only she could tear her gaze away.
"Chymer m ddonia…"
One frail hand came up to rest on Diana's forehead. Bruce threw himself at the two women, only for there to be a blinding flash of light that she did not blink at.
"I ewyllysia anrheithia chi."
With that last, whispered sentence, the old woman slumped in Diana's arms, her breath escaping her. Clearly dead. At the immediate instant that she realised it, the crone's body dissolved into wisps of smoke, leaving Diana alone. There was a sudden pain in her heart, and she grabbed her chest with a gasp of pain. Like the old woman before her, Diana collapsed into darkness.
A/N: Review please!