We arrive shortly afterwards at the alleyway. I hop out, telling the Martian in advance to stay and wait. If she happens to be here, I have to talk to her, by myself, alone.
I examine my surroundings, noticing the lack of change, fundamentally speaking (or thinking). It was on the whole, a shit hole, but it was a lot more spread out. Either this is a hot spot for Foxes, or someone with anger issues has come here. I look at the spread of the garbage from the garbage bag, and used the average area of the bags placed as a starting point of its trajectory. Based on the mathematical data I found here, the bag went at a force greater than what the average human can produce. As well as that, it wasn't a throw, but rather a kick instead.
From this I conclude Diana was here. The splatter is still dripping down from the cold, bricky wall, implying she just left.
"She was here but has just left" I say in my Comm towards the Martian. I get up off my knees and walk back to the batmobile.
"Any guess where she may be now?" He asks me as I jump back into the main driver seat.
"No. Can you contact her yourself yet? This is the only hope we have right now."
"Give me a few seconds Batman and I'll see what I can do"
"Ok." I reply to him swiftly. I need to check if she's on the Watchtower, and right now it's Kal's shift. "Batman to Superman" I call. It isn't long before he replies: "Superman to Batman. What's up?" He asks me. "Is Diana on the Watchtower and/or planning to arrive there anytime soon?"
"Bruce I have her location" Martian says behind me. "Never mind Kal, don't inform her of this. Batman Out" and with that, I cut the com before he could reply. "Where is she?" I ask J'ohnn. "Bruce, her coordinates are identical to ours"
Without hesitation, I lunge out of the bat mobile, only to see a Amazonian slam the vehicle into the ground. J'ohn phases out of it unharmed but concerned. She rests on the back on the batmobile, now several feet in the air, whilst the rest is in the ground.
"You're paying for that" I hastily say to her, trying to keep my cool in front of her.
"You'll have to make me Bruce" she replies, pulling out her sword from its hold.
"Don't tempt me Princess" I reply, gripping my utility belt in the off chance this doesn't go so well.
"You're lucky I don't rip your head off for what you've done Bruce"
"Fortune favours the Brave. But fortune prefers intelligence. Luckily, I have both" I say, extending a grapple and a strong form of rope from the belt. If I have any chance of defending myself, I have to eliminate her powers as much as possible – being bounded by a man does the trick.
"Both of you lower you weapons. This street doesn't need to be destroyed by your issues with each other." Martian tries to argue but to no prevail. Diana hurdles off the remains of the batmobile and raises her sword, resulting in it pointing towards me. I extend my arms out, barrel role out of the way and attempt to wrap the rope around her thigh, but I miss.
At seemingly the speed of sound times ten, she shoulder barges me into the alleyway wall, her forearm pushing against my cheek, face to face with I. I grab tasers from my belt and shock her waists, but she doesn't flinch.
My cowl starts to crack under the pressure of her forearm. I grapple to a valid place for it to hook and fling me into the distance, but she catches my foot as I leave and stops me. With little effort, she throws me over her with one arm, crashing my back into the ground. I can feel a slight dent in the ground from the impact.
She hurdles onto me, her knee resting on my throat. I start to lose my breath as she presses down, hard. In a last ditch effort, I attempt to reuse the rope, and hook it around her throat (my hands are behind her head). I tug hard downwards, resulting in her head whiplashing upwards and lifting the knee from my throat. With this short interval, I drop a smoke pellet, and get to my feet. As expected, she's trying to undo the knot in the rope, but can't do it In time. Suddenly, I strike through the smoke, perfectly placing a sidekick into her gut, causing her to fall to a knee. Her powers have been temporarily cancelled out, but she will still be tough. I grapple to a rooftop nearby.
I watch as she rises, and again attempts to quickly remove the rope. I set myself, aim, and fire my grapple, perfectly grabbing the rope, I then pull up so Diana hangs there. I drop to the floor once more.
I walk to her, as she hangs. She's placing her legs onto the walk behind her, so that she doesn't start to suffocate, leaving me to attack. With little defence, I start throwing shorts to her torso like she's a punching bag, and I'm not holding back. A few shots in and she's starting to feel it big time. She lowers her feet, causing slight swing, which she then uses to push me with both legs, taking me to the floor. She then quickly raises her feet to above her head, and uses the edge of her boot to cut through the rope. She falls and lands on her feet. At this point I arise from the floor.
"You don't have to do this princess" I tell her.
"You don't deserve to call me that" she responds. And with that, we move into each other.
She attacks first, hitting the inside of my front leg with an ambitious kick. I parry as much as I could have, but she's still very quick. As the kick take place, I swing with and overhand, brushing her eyebrow and eye. We both step back a tad. The armour I have is more than hers and protects me from her hits a lot better. Her eyebrow start bleeding from the hit.
A second later, and she starts barraging me with kicks, punches and head butts in multiple combos. All blocked well except for a roundhouse , that hit my head, and the head butts (they will hurt her more). The roundhouse staggers me to the wall behind me. She goes for a superman punch, but I move my body, causing her to full on punch the wall behind me, breaking 3 knuckles. She turns around to see a flying kick connect straight to her face(breaking her nose), putting enough force to slam her into the wall behind her and fall, landing on her ass.
She looks up at me, spitting out slight blood that fell from her nose and into her mouth. She faintly speaks "go ahead, do your worse. This is what you wanted…". I move towards her and stand near her feet, peering over her. "I never wanted the hurt you Princess. You gave me no option" I say, trying to reason with her. I see her hands by head side turn into balls. 'You should have bounded her again' comes running into my mind, as I see her lunge from the floor, grabbing me by the neck and launching us just above the roof I was perched on recently. Without hesitation, she throws me downwards, through the roof and into apartment stairway.
I slide down one set of stairs at high velocity, ripping my cape and flipping me when I reach the bottom. I look back up to see her standing at the top. I get back to my feet, only to see her fly at me, kicking my chest through the window, falling onto the arched part of the Batmobile (where she stood), where I roll down it till I'm at the bottom. A part of my chests armour has now come off, as she glides back down to me. She grabs the start of the cape by my neck with both hands, and holds me in the air.
Martian, despite my orders to stay at one side until I resolved it, steps in. "That's enough Diana" he says as he rests his hand on her shoulder. The imagery is shattering. Her hair gliding in the air, as she holds the raised and broken Gotham Knight. Blood, coming out his nose at an alarming rate. Whilst his vehicle, destroyed and on fire, rests behind him. "I could kill you right now Bruce…" she tells me. Rewarding herself a glare from J'ohn. I refuse to look at her, my head held high and my eyes looking far behind her. I don't respond to her. "Even when you're near death, you stay stubborn". Finally I reply to her: "you could…could kill me right na….now. But you wo..won't. I don't fear Death. And as long I breath, i… I will stand."
Diana bites her jaw, deciding reluctantly to let me go. I fall to my hands and knees, looking at the ground, letting a pool of blood form from my nose. She looks down at me: "and to think you are the one Aphrodite cursed me with" she says, turning away shortly afterwards. She starts to walk away.
I'm beat quite badly, but I still find the energy to stand. I call her name, and she turns round to face me. "I never wanted to hurt you." I say one more time to her face. She swallows hard and replies: "you can have all the good intentions in the world Bruce. It's the actions that define whether you're right or not." And with that she raises herself, before saying one last statement: "the Gods are watching you now Bruce. Make one wrong decision, and may Hera have mercy on your soul. Act wisely." And with that, she flies away.
I turn to face the Martian, who simply said; "taking this beating was the strongest, bravest and most respectable thing I've ever seen you do".
It's clear that I deserved some punishment for being so mean. I didn't know the punishment would be a cracked rib, a fractured nose and a destroyed Back. But they say 'an eye for an eye', which leads me to question how much I truly hurt her. I don't reply to Martian, but instead keep quiet, as he'd expect me to.
"If it's any conciliation, you fought well considering the lack of prep you had" he says, making me feel somewhat better about the ass whooping I just took. "It's nearly day time J'ohn, I need to get home." I say, attempting to leave.
"I shall come with you. If thugs saw you like this, they'd truly think Santa existed" he claims. "Yes, I do have Oreos at home." I simply reply, knowing what he wanted to ask. "Good, let us travel quickly".
And with that, I went home for the night. Bruised and beaten – I guess it's just another day at the office.