To Richard the dinner proves awkward when five of the Amazon's insists on speaking in their own language, that leaves him to pick up bits and pieces of a fractured conversation he somehow gets the impression he is not allowed to be part of and something he notes has Ferdinand's, Diana's and Ravens eyes roll. Ferdinand, however, tries to compensate for the rudeness, knowing how it is and assured him they would just need some time to accept him.
After dinner, there is first an impromptu Amazon-only meeting, that again has Richard feel like the weird kid in school before the women march off to a round of evening prayers in a small room filled with statues of the Greek deities, after watching them for a moment Richard leaves them to it, partially because he felt like intruding, but also because he again had that feeling he was being watched. The feeling follows him around and he is certain someone is following him and the feeling is especially present when he is in the presence of one of the many statues and pictures that seems to be everywhere, except for the office wing.
"You look like you've seen a ghost." Raven notes as he comes upon the group that has settled inside the library, enjoying the lit fireplace.
"Call me silly, but I just have the feeling someone is following me." He says. "I don't suppose it's any of you?"
"Raven has been here the whole time." Diana shrugs. "Think we should go check?"
"No, figure it's just my paranoia acting up." Richard sighs, knowing if he had them all search the house and come up empty handed, he would be ridiculed, something he felt he already was, judging how the Amazons seemed to burst out in laughs whenever he was around. "So what are you all doing?"
"Storytelling, wanna join?" Raven asks, patting the seat next to her.
"Sure, if it's not all going to be in Greek?"
"There will always yours." Io notes with a smirk as he sits down.
"Why do I have the feeling that I am the center of some great big joke?" Richard asks as he is getting ready for bed, after having been informed that he would be sleeping alone.
"You are." Raven replies as she is leaning against the doorframe. "Io suggested they do that to see how long you'd last before asking what they were talking about?"
"You're kidding me?" He asks. "What were they talking about then?"
"How funny you look when you are clueless, the meeting is still a secret though."
"So this paranoia of mine isn't just me then?" He asks.
"Nothing of mine." Raven shrugs. "And for what I know, Philipus is still a novice at that sort of castings. But with her teacher being deranged it does slow her down. Could be nothing?"
"Could be something." Richard notes.
"Well, if it is, it is really good at covering it's tracks, because all I am sensing is us and the few enchantments on the walls."
"Hope my paranoia will be comforted by that." He sighs. "Wanna kiss me goodnight?"
"Ofcourse…" Raven smirks as an ordinary lasso comes out of the hallway and tightens around Raven's chest.
"Oh no you don't!" Someone yells from the hallway.
"Whoa!" Raven yelps as she is yanked back out. "Goodnight Richard." She says from down the hallways as his door closes on its own.
"Huh." Richard sighs as he hears someone laughing.
Later that night:
Richard awakens in the middle of the night, yanked out of his dream by something he can't remember. It wasn't a bad dream, it was just as if someone wanted him out of it.
"…Grayson…" A voice rings in his head; it's a woman's voice, but not one of those he knows are in the building.
"Raven?" He sends, getting nothing from the other end. "Hope it's not her playing games." He sighs as he gets out of bed, again feeling like he is being watched. "Must be going mad…" He sighs as he opens his door and exits into the hallway in nothing but his underwear and the T-shirt he hastily threw on and almost jumps back inside when he notices that the five statues he can see from where he is standing are looking at him with glowing gray eyes. "Jesus…"
"Not quite." The voice rings in his head again. "You know where to go."
"RAVEN!" Richard yells, but gets nothing of a reaction from anyone. "Who are you? What do you want?" He asks when nothing seems to happen.
"Come and see." The voice replies in a teasing manner.
"Right." Richard sighs before ducking back into his room and slips into his costume. "Ready, whatever you are." He says before marching out, walking down the hallway, constantly followed by the glowing eyes of the statues and paintings he passes along the way, forcibly banging on every door he passes along the way in an attempt to wake the women on the other side. But he continues to walk in the same pace to the spot he saw in his head, the huge lobby of the embassy, currently only bathed in the light of the full moon shining down through the skylight.
He eyes the colossus in the center of the room the entire time after he notices its eyes are not following him or glowing as he makes his way to the spot, right in front of it. "This is another test, isn't it?" He asks the statue. "Hello?" He tries when it remains silent. "Great, it was too late to save my head." He sighs when the silence endures and finally turns his back on the statue, feeling embarrassed as he aims to head back to his bed.
He takes five steps before he notices the rumbling in the ground shortly followed by the groan of metal being twisted, turning around his worry is confirmed as the bronze colossus is rising out of it seat, tearing itself free from the seat. As it stands up with glowing eyes, its head scrapes out the triangular windows above it. "Indeed Richard Grayson, this is a test. But not of the kind you may think." The thing says, with the same voice Richard has been hearing in his head.
"Hopefully I am not going to have to fight you, whoever you are?" Richard asks, noting it is at least eight times his own height. He can't see it because the shadows the moon casts on its face, but he is certain it is smiling at him, but that could just be his imagination.
"Have you yet to guess my identity?" It asks as its eyes pulse gray.
Richard cranes his head to the side, recognizing a given clue when he sees it. "By her gray eyes." Diana's voice rings in his head, but it was something he had heard other Amazons use the expression as well. "Athena."
"In the bronze." The statue replies.
"What is all this about?" Richard asks.
"Since the banishment of my brother Ares, I am bereft of my usual sparring partner, so I am forced to find other alternatives for entertainment."
"So having me jump at shadows constitutes as fun to you?" He asks, getting a soft chuckle out of the deity.
"Oh no, but you may have forgotten that we can be as cruel as we can be benevolent. But now is the time you show me your mettle, entertain me and you shall be rewarded."
"And if I refuse?" Richard asks, feeling annoyed to be seen as a plaything.
"You would defy a god?" Athena asks, her voice growing harder. "What a silly question, of course you would, that is why you chose to challenge the Great Unmaker, knowing you most likely stood no chance against him. But rest assured, I will have my sport, Richard Grayson and so will they." She says as four men step out of the shadows, all dressed in ancient Greek armor, more or less. The first is the most scantily clad, dressed only in sandals, a red loincloth and a cape along with his armaments; a large round bronze shield, a spear and a hoplite helmet with a black plume rising above it. "Brave Leonidas." The man next to him seems to come from a later date with a chest plate added, carrying a shield and sword, while a white skirt pokes out beneath his armor. "Achilles." The man next to the second is more heavily dressed as if to ward off the cold and he carries a bow and arrow, he is the first to show is face, revealing his gray eyes behind his long brown hair. "Odysseus." The final looks most of all like a rank and file soldier in his leather chest armor and the sword he is carrying as the only armament, besides the bag fastened to his belt. "Perseus." She points out as he takes note of the ancient warriors. "Let us see how the legendary heroes of old fare against those of today."
"Well met warrior, fight with honor." Achilles says as he nods at Nightwing, who doesn't understand him, but he understands the gesture and returns it. As Leonidas beats his chest with his spear arm, while Perseus makes a few practice swings with his sword and Odysseus draws his bow.
"Fight with honor warriors, you may begin." Athena says from above as Richard gets a batarang ready, guessing Athena makes herself understood in all languages no matter what he heard. He reacts by instinct and throws his weapon as Odysseus pulls back on the string before releasing, it is a trick Bruce was taught by Oliver, and he had taught it to Richard when he returned, but the shot does not go as predicted. Instead of splitting both arrow and bow, the batarang only splits the arrow before Odysseus has sidestepped out of the way.
It is time enough for Nightwing to meet the charge of Achilles and Perseus, who both rush him, while Leonidas is strolling towards him as well. Nightwing has a brief flash of the plan they have; the two swordsmen will keep him busy while the spear armed Leonidas will wait for and opening to stab him, while Odysseus keeps him close to the others with the threat of bow fire.
First to reach him is Achilles, who seems not to be encumbered by his heavy armor while he runs. Nightwing is quickly forced into a dance of dodging and weaving out of the way of the swordsman's attacks, a dance that becomes more desperate when Perseus adds his attacks to the fray.
"Stand still!" Achilles growls, obviously growing frustrated by their inability to hit Nightwing. It is the expression in Persues' eyes that has Nightwing react, using the two warriors as a springboard to handstand over them while the air between them is pierced by a spear. He rolls as he lands while picking out a smoke bomb which he rolls down towards Odysseus when he gets up and begins stepping to the side in an erratic fashion to avoid getting shot.
"You jest." Odysseus mutters under his breath as he draws, before he is enveloped in smoke that leaves him coughing and blind.
"Magic." Leonidas grumbles as the three watches Odysseus disappear in smoke and Nightwing picking out his two Eskrima truncheons from his boots.
"He aims to club us into submission?" Perseus asks as he eyes the weapons.
"Let's find out, shall we?" Leonidas asks as he begins advancing again in his own pace before being overtaken by the two others.
"Let's dance ladies." Nightwing smirks as the two charges him again, obviously aiming to repeat the tactic, but now that he is armed himself, he has something to fight back with and the two quickly find that they have to parry as well now, something Achilles has an easier time of doing than Perseus, or he just ignores the hits.
Nightwing doesn't fail to notice Odysseus emerge from the smoke, nor does he fail to notice Perseus' troubles. A quick decision has him kick out and send Achilles onto his back before he begins raining blows down on Perseus, who to his credit parries more than he takes, even going so far as to catch Nightwing's right arm in a vice like grip before he is head-butted onto his back, pulling Nightwing down with him, unknowingly saving him from the spear tip that races over his back tearing some of his costume open.
Swinging his body around, Leonidas is toppled onto his back when his legs disappear under him when Nightwing's feet collide with the back of his knees. Quickly freeing his hand, Nightwing rolls a side as Achilles' sword scrapes the floor where he was lying. He is forced to keep rolling as the legend continues to advance on him, slicing away at the ground. A sudden idea strikes him, or a memory of Raven taking him down while she was on the ground.
Quickly he acts on the memory, and kicks out, getting the other man to back away as he begins spinning on the marble floor turning it into a hand stand before getting back onto his feet, following the flowing movement he was in he jumps to swing his heel around in Achilles' head height, but the attack is countered by the man's shield and the foot rolls over him, this was anticipated by Nightwing who continues to turn, spinning low this time, sending Achilles back onto the ground as his left knee is jarred. "By the…" The warrior does not get to finish his curse before Nightwing has dropped two small brown pellets through his visor slits of his helmet, before it explodes and expands rapidly, blocking his sights when the mass hardens in the span of a few seconds.
Looking up Nightwing sees Leonidas is back on his feet, and Odysseus is taking aim again, with stinging eyes, Nightwing knows the smoke irritates eyes and breathing. Nightwing quickly forces Achilles' shield up as Odysseus shoots, to have the arrow deflected by the insides of the shield, the curve sending it off to somewhere behind Nightwing. Knowing he had no choice but to take Odysseus out now, Nightwing pulls the shield free of its owner, noting its weight. He rolls aside as another arrow flies through the air, before using the shield as a disk. Odysseus has a surprised look in his eyes before a hollow 'bonk' tells of the impact between his forehead and the shield rim, taking him out. Leaving the towering Leonidas to stare at Nightwing.
"You fight well young one, perhaps once, you would have become a good Spartan?" The ancient king says as Nightwing gets up to face him, while Achilles is cursing the puddy in his eyes for all his worth.
"I have no idea what you are talking about, but let's finish this." Nightwing replies as he waits.
"Alas that we are impeded by speech." Leonidas sighs. "And alas this has to end… FOR SPARTA!" He roars before charging in with his spear leveled.
Nightwing quickly stops thinking and lets his body do the moving he needs to do to avoid the stabs and sweeps of the spear and shield that Leonidas uses as much as a weapon as a means of defense. Also what worries Nightwing is that his own attack hardly seems to slow the man down. "This is like fighting Bane." He thinks as he sees an opening and grabs hold of the spear before sending his elbow into the side of Leonidas' helmet turning it slightly. "Good that will block his vision." He thinks before realizing that while actually inside the man's guard, he doesn't need to actually see him as the king sends his own head forwards, smashing it into the side of Nightwings. "Ow." Nightwing sighs as he lands on the ground, feeling slightly lucky that his shoulder prevented Leonidas from smashing his face.
"HAH!" The king roars as he tries to stab Nightwing through the chest, who rolls aside as the spear penetrates the marble floor. Thinking quickly, Nightwing kicks out at the weapon, breaking the head off while it its lodged in the ground before Leonidas can retrieve it. The king looks at the stump for a second before discarding the rod and pulls out his second armament, a sword while Nightwing jumps to his feet.
"Here we go again." Nightwing mutters as his opponent charges him, while he also charges him by leaping into a flying kick to the shield that makes the warrior tumble to the side, at the cost of him drawing the tip of his sword down the back of Nightwing before he lands. "Just what I needed." He says as he grabs the spear pole before getting up in time to not be skewered. "Or not." He sighs as he stands up to hold the stick between them, only for Leonidas to cut it in two.
Like he did Perseus, Nightwing begins raining down blows on the warrior while receiving a few cuts and scrapes for his efforts while bruises begin to appear on the other man's frame, before the two are broken apart by one swipe with a shield and a heavy blow to the side of a helmet. Getting them both to stagger back to regard each other, huffing with the effort. Apparently the king is tired of having his helmet twisted so often that he pulls it off and lets it fall to the ground with a hollow clang, Richard just stares at him while he also drops his sword and shield before finally undoing his cape, letting the red fabric fall to the ground with the rest, leaving him standing in nothing but his sandals and loincloth. Nightwing gets the idea and drops the sticks.
"Why do I have the feeling he is no push over?" Nightwing asks himself as the two begin circling each other, Nightwing casually at first before mimicking Leonidas' strafing with his arms out to the sides. The two men circle each other once before they both rush each other and end up straining against each other in a wrestling match. "It's a pity we can't talk; I'd love to hear what old Greece was like." Nightwing growls while admitting he may have been foolish to engage Leonidas like this, considering the man is adept at this form of fighting and has more muscle mass than he does.
"You are too small." Leonidas growls back, slowly forcing Nightwing down onto one knee. "Yield." He says, seeing his own victory.
"New plan." Nightwing growls before he stops pressing against Leonidas, instead letting the man fall forwards before being catapulted over Nightwing, landing the man on his head behind him. Nightwing gets up quickly to finish the job, but he can see it is unnecessary as the king is unconscious, it is at this realization that the sound of metal being slammed against metal is heard from above him, making him remember who just set the whole event in motion.
"Well done Richard Grayson, victory is yours in a battle most of your kind would have swiftly fallen under." Athena says from above. "Before I leave, you are to be rewarded." Nightwing doesn't get a chance to reply as Athena's eyes blaze and his own mind and vision is filled with it.
"Nightwing." Someone's voice makes it into his head. "Nightwing?" It is a woman's voice and an upset one by the sounds of it, part of him wants to ignore her, but most of his mind reminds him that the speaker would most likely be an Amazon and would turn violent if not addressed. Opening his eyes he is confirmed in the fact the speaker is upset as Diana has a sour expression on her face. "I want an explanation as to why my foyer is in ruins and why you think you can sleep here?" This has him look around himself, seeing the foyer still had the scars from the fight last night and that he is lying in Athena's lap, the statue looking as if it had been vandalized.
"Would you believe that last night Athena arrived and wanted me to fight off four Greek legends for her own amusement?" He asks.
"And we were not awoken by the noise?" She asks.
"I tried waking you, by hitting your doors, but you didn't notice it." Richard replies as he sits up. "Not the best place to sleep." He notes at his sore back. "You know this place is really creepy when every picture and statue is watching you?"
"Maybe." Diana shrugs before grabbing the neck of his costume and returns him to the ground. "But I prefer you leave my armory alone." She says as he notices a discarded helmet lying on the ground.
"No, one of those guys I had to fight off was wearing that. He took is off when he got tired of me blocking his vision with it." He says noticing the looks she is giving him. "Look, I know it sounds crazy, but how else did that statue rise out of its seat?" He asks motioning at Athena's statue.
"And why exactly would Athena do this to her own monument?" Diana asks.
"She said it was because she couldn't spar with Ares anymore, she would have to entertain herself otherwise, so she made me fight four other men I swear jumped right of out the story books." He replies.
"These warriors, do you remember their names?" Diana asks as some growls and sighs are heard from the door to the sleeping quarters.
"Perseus, Odysseus, Achilles and Leonidas, I have no idea if they were the same as the ones from legends."
"By the looks of it, Princess, someone is going to have to put this place back together." Io says from behind Diana while she eyes Nightwing, having obviously named him the sinner. The rest of them, besides Raven, seem to have come to the same conclusion.
"Hmm, if we are fortunate, the surveillance cameras will be able to prove your words Nightwing." Diana says before walking off, getting a sigh out of Nightwing as he is nudged to come along.
"And here we see Nightwing doing an acrobatic maneuver in the middle of the night and completely alone." Diana says as the group sees the night's recordings while Nightwing just stares at it in disbelief, he is alone and nothing is out of place.
"I need therapy… It was so real." He sends to Raven.
"That's the scary part about it." She sends back. "Look I can't explain how you managed to maul the statue or if this really happened, because the Gods have the power to make this seem like a nightmare or a dream. If I may suggest something… telling them what happened to you might make them less aggressive, distract them."
"What happened?" Philipus asks, startling the two. "What? You two aren't that quiet?"
"They haven't said anything?" Io notes.
"They were thinking it, they have a bond between their minds." Philipus says.
"Well thanks for letting me know you can hear it." Raven sighs.
"Richard, what happened?" Diana asks, while she was informed about the Arkham incident, what happened to Richard was only known to the Clark and J'onn.
"It's not something I want to talk about." Richard grumbles.
"Has to be something we can relate to if Raven thinks it will appease us." Philipus notes.
"You probably can." Nightwing sighs as he rubs his eyes. "But I am not… uh ladies?" He asks as he notices that none of them are moving, not even to draw breath and the timer on the video has ceased to tick. As a test he looks to Raven who is as immovable as the rest, and snaps his fingers before her eyes, not even getting the slightest response.
"Would she really flinch if she was aware of it?" Athena's voice asks behind him, making him spin around, finding the goddess standing there, dressed in a white jacket and skirt, slightly taller than him, while her hair has been put up in a bun, but he can still recognize her. Behind her he can see an old man in a brown robe sit down on a bench in the hallway.
"Who's that?" He asks, pointing at the old man.
"Chronos, master of time. One of the Titans, I am his liaison." Athena shrugs.
"Right." Richard shrugs. "What is all of this?" He continues motioning at the frozen women.
"Raven experienced the same when she had to fight Hades in Tartarus, but back then I took her to Olympus. But what you are really asking is, if you have truly lost your mind regarding last night and now?" She says with a smirk. "And as Raven once told the Martian, everyone is a little crazy, and you are naturally just a little more."
"There's more." Nightwing notes dryly.
"You wonder why they don't see your feats on the screen. Believe it or not, I am trying to subtly help you earn their acceptance." Athena says as she waves at the five oldest amazons.
"By making me seem like a lunatic and a vandal?" Athena chuckles at his reply.
"Funny, but no. I was hoping that you'd reveal to them that you have gone through the same as they have; the same humiliation and shame. After Ares' vision Raven came clean with them almost immediately."
"It's not the same." Nightwing growls. "From what I heard, she was already becoming respected if not liked by them. They will most likely say that it was my own fault or something."
"True and possibly. But you, more than most, know how the mind works. For three thousand years they have lived with the idea that most men are like Heracles and his ilk and until recently they believed that Patriarch's World oppressed and abused women as a matter of course. Tell me, what do you think they will say to a woman taking the role of Heracles?" She asks.
"They'd be furious." Nightwing says flatly.
"And you would be seen with different eyes." Athena continues. "It took the collective people of Themyscira almost a decade to recover from what Heracles put them through. Those who forsook us never did and passed on their anger to the generations to come. Now I won't say it is a sure bet, because I am not Tyche, but what do you really have to loose?"
"You seem to know a lot about me, so you should know why already." He says.
"I do; your pride. You fear you will be pitied and your respect lost if it becomes widely known, in that respect, you are not so different from them." She says and thumbs the group now behind her as she stands before him. "But who says they will not respect you for appearing as if nothing had happened?" Nightwing huffs at the suggestion but thinks it over.
"Question, I am not one of your believers, why are you doing this? Why do you bother yourself with my social relations?" He asks after a minute of thought.
"I have my reasons." She smirks. "But know this Richard Grayson, by involving yourselves with an Amazon, you involve yourself with the Olympians and that one day, perhaps, I will call upon you for a task and hope that I will not be denied."
"You know I won't cheat on Raven or murder anyone." She holds him with a fierce look for a second.
"I will allow you the mention this once human, but mention it again and you will face my wrath!" She says with a voice that reeks of sudden hostility. "I am chaste, always will be, what you were thinking is Aphrodite's realm. I am the Goddess of War, but fear not, I will not bother you with mere mortals on such a quest." She continues, returning to the soft voice she was using before. Also it is as the Goddess of War I take interest in Raven's choice of partners, who knows who would like to assume command of one of the most formidable armies in existence?"
"You know I don't care about that."
"A dark corner of your mind has toyed with the idea, but that part was the one Raven extracted in the Pit two years ago. But I have other reasons, ones your mind cannot comprehend."
"You never visited Bruce like this." Nightwing notes, ignoring the last comment, getting a smirk from Athena.
"Not all meetings have to be open like this and he knows who sent them. Don't look so surprised, not everything that happens around him is filed and catalogued. Perhaps if you ask him, perhaps he will indulge you?" She smirks. "Now I must be going, there is much to do for one such as I." She says as she walks out the door. "Oh, and keep the helmet, Leonidas thought you should have it."
As Nightwing watches them fade out of sight, he turns to see the others relax, by the looks of it as time resumes its normal course as Nightwing takes a deep breath before resuming, knowing the others wouldn't have noticed. "Weeks before the quake in Gotham, there was an incident. Some of the nutcases wanted to properly introduce Raven to Gotham, and I was chosen as the bait to lure her in. I was beaten and forced to watch and wait for Raven to come get me, believe me when I say I couldn't fight to save my life if forced to when they stopped. But that wasn't the worst part, Terra was."
"She was there?" Antiope asks, getting a nod, obviously having not noticed anything.
"Ares had already recruited her back then, he made her look like Raven with the clothes and the skin color. She injected a drug into my system that overcharged my mind… but that was before she forced herself upon me." He sighs.
"WHAT?!" Antiope, Diana and Io shouts while Penelope, Artemis and Philipus just stare at him in shock.
"She did, and no I did not like it." He forcibly continues. "The drug made me have panic attacks whenever I saw Raven and slowly it was breaking my mind apart, I was slowly going insane because it, until I had help three days ago to get past it."
"You don't jest?" Penelope asks.
"Unfortunately he isn't." Raven sighs getting the others to stare at her.
"You knew?" Diana asks.
"Bruce told me as soon as I woke up." Raven replies. "And I asked him if he wanted me to kill her if I ever got my hands on her, but he didn't, unless it had to be on Themyscira."
"But you did not." Artemis notes. "Even if she deserves it, you let her go to Man's World."
"It's not compassion or a sense of mercy, is it Rae?" Nightwing asks.
"Diana would you bring up the League file tagged SP-703?" Raven asks, waiting for the Princess to bring up the note on the screens that merge to make it into one big, displaying a photo of a thin shorthaired man along with lines of information on him. "Joseph Harrison, suspected to be the torture-killer that terrorized Las Vegas a year ago. He preferred women as his targets, because of his abusive mother and the continuous rejection he got from others. Two tourists and five night workers were abducted or lured into his apartment where he would drug or otherwise subdue them before torturing them to death, he didn't have a preferred way of doing it; he just did what came to mind at the time. Diana the photo second from the bottom shows what happened to him." Raven says calmly as if she was reading a newspaper, while the others gasp at the sight of the man hanging suspended by countless cables that is dug into his body. "We had the best detective and a magician there to look it over and it was concluded that no one else but the Spectre could have kept Joseph alive like that for three days while the electrical power was running. This is the thing that I believe is coming for Terra, and like I said; whatever we could come up with as punishment would be preferable to what it can think of. So to answer your question, no, it was not a case of compassion that I suggested to have her handed over… quite the contrary."
The room is filled with a somewhat awkward silence, as they all go over what Raven had just said, some reevaluating their views of her, others wondering what exactly Terra was in for. "Hey what's that?" Richard asks pointing at the screen that had switched without Diana touching the controls.
"We have already seen that." Io notes as they watch Richard exit his room.
"It's different." Antiope notes at the light emitted from the statues along the wall.
"That would have woken me." Diana notes as Richard can be seen banging on the doors he passes along the way, something that was not shown previously.
"Think all of us would." Artemis notes while Nightwing on the screen makes his way down into the foyer. "And that would have woken the entire palace at home." She continues as Athena gets out of her seat.
"It seems Nightwing has been vindicated." Raven says as the four warriors enter the image before they engage Nightwing.
"We heard legends of the near-invulnerable Achilles and of Odysseus' doomed voyage and those match the description." Philipus mentions.
"If I am not mistaken, the bag that one carries" Artemis continues pointing at Perseus. "I believe it contains Medusa's head."
"Think I heard it hiss at me at one point, but I am not sure." Nightwing says as they watch him take out the warriors one by one till only Leonidas remains. "What about him?"
"No idea." Antiope says. "But he carries himself like a king, nice build though."
"If this is the Leonidas of Sparta, he would, but he was born some 800 years after Old Themyscira was lost." Raven says, having tried to test and place many of the old myths.
"But why was he in the company of Achilles and Perseus?" Io asks.
"Leonidas was the leader of a small force of Greek soldiers numbering in the thousands against the forces of Xerxes from Persia, who's forces had subjugated everything from Afghanistan to Turkey , rumored to have numbered in their millions, thought that is probably exaggerated. Leonidas held Xerxes at bay for three days at Thermopylae, even dismissing the bulk his forces by the second day when he was betrayed by a local before defying Xerxes till he died. Xerxes was an ill tempered ruler and had Leonidas' corpse mutilated after he was slain, unlike most Persians who treated valiant warriors honorably, later he would order a strait of water flogged for washing away his bridges before his army was forced back at Plataea." Raven explains.
"Seems we have missed out on something." Artemis smirks, the others notice the look in her eyes, telling she was wishing to test herself against this man.
"Well, if Athena thought him worthy, then who are we to argue against her wisdom?" Penelope says.
"Io, if I can get the materials, would you mind repairing Athena?" Diana asks the smith who nods at her. "And sorry Richard for unjustly accusing you of vandalism."
"No problem." The man smirks, feeling better already.
"But next time, would you care to let Athena allow the rest of us other see her as well?" Diana asks with a smirk as Richard raises his eyebrows in surprise. "She was just here."
"You knew?" Richard asks.
"She was here?" Penelope asks.
"She was, because Nightwing cannot move as fast as I saw him." Diana smirks as the fight concludes behind her along with the aftermath. "What gift is it she mentions?"
"No idea, she didn't say." Richard says. "But she said Leonidas left his helmet for me, but she just told me that before leaving."
"Curious." Diana says as she turns back to see Richard collapse on the ground before being picked up by Athena and placed in her lap after the statue sits down again.
Author's Notes: Now they just have to warn Superboy before he draws similar attention to himself :)
Next chapter: The Wall has a few questions. Raven has a few questions. And Nightwing finds out what his helmet does.