Chapter 13

Lash-El punched the blast door and the metal crumbled at the force of his fist. The inconsistent surface gave him a grip. He grabbed the door and pulled it off, throwing it behind him.

"I'm through the inner perimeter," he said into his communicator. Guillotina, the leader of the Female Furies, was on the other line. She had been instructed to lead the Furies inside once he had broken through.

"Don't harm Vunderbar," Brainiac said to him in his head. "Make sure his equipment is untouched. We are going to need it."

"Why do we need his technology?" Lash-El asked Brainiac. "Can't you instruct us on how to make something much more advanced?"

"The technical abilities of the minions we have at our disposal are not great. Pilfering Vunderbar's technology will be a superior route in comparison to building it ourselves.

Lash-El flew through the hallways in a flash. One weapon after another fired at him, but they had not been set up to attack someone of his speed. Every laser beam and missile was fired a second too late to be able to hit him.

He flew straight through the door of Vunderbar's control room. It stunned him a little so he took a moment to compose himself. That moment was enough time for Vunderbar to fire an electrical beam at Lash-El. He was caught in its grip, but was able to move enough to grab his whip and use it to knock the weapon out of Vunderbar's hand.

Vunderbar could do nothing else but run after it as it rolled along the floor. Lash-El took a moment to recover and lost sight of Vunderbar as he ran behind some machine. He was worried Vunderbar might actually recover his weapon until he heard the Furies shouting.

He flew out to see Vunderbar kneeling before Guillotina in submission before the Furies. "Good job, Guillotina," he said to the leader of the Furies. She smiled back at him.

"Take him to the prison," she said to the other Furies as she looked back at them. "We have a special cell set aside for him." The three Furies behind Guillotina ran up. Two of them grabbed him under each armpit while the third picked up his feet. They walked out of his control room, leaving Lash-El and Guillotina alone.

Guillotina ran to Lash-El and through her arms around him. She pressed her lips hard against his and kissed him. She broke the kiss, leaned up, and began whispering in his ear. "Why don't we fully celebrate your victory?"

Lash-El pushed her to the ground. For a moment Guillotina wasn't clear if he was declining her advances, or just engaging in rough foreplay.

"Take off your clothes," he commanded her.

She smiled up at him as he stood over her. "As you wish, my king," she answered in a sultry voice.

"We have more important things to worry about," Brainiac said to Lash-El. Cease now."

Lash-El ignored him completely. He threw himself on top of Guillotina. The AI gave out its version of a sigh as it patiently waited for the two to finish.

"Are you sure none of the other Amazons have been pilfering my armor?" Helena asked her grandmother. "I'm sure I had more here than this. I mean, anyone could just come in here and take anything. There are no locks or doors on this whole damn island."

Helena was looking all over her room on Themyscira for her ceremonial armor. Maril had told her this wedding would be military in nature and it would be entirely appropriate for her to wear her Amazonian armor as her bridesmaid. The only problem she was having was tracking it all down.

"Your aunts respect private property, despite your beliefs that we live a backward life where property rights don't exist. If there is something you can't find, it's likely because you took it to one of your ten houses and left it there."

"I'm looking for the helmet I have with the large plume on it," Helena said as she continued rummaging through the trunk in her room where she kept most of her armor.

"I think I saw you leave with it some time ago," Hippolyta answered.

Helena continued rummaging through her stuff as she paid no attention to what Hippolyta said. "Why do you want it so badly?" the queen asked.

Helena actually looked back and paid some attention to her grandmother. "I just thought something like that would look stately and ceremonial for the wedding."

"You said you're supposed to be in full battle gear in accordance with Tamaranean tradition. Why don't you wear one of the larger battle helmets?" her grandmother suggested.

"Good idea," Helena said as she grabbed the helmet with the thickest armor and threw it on the pile of stuff she wanted to take. "I probably shouldn't take a large chestplate," she said to herself. "I don't want to wear something too restrictive."

"So how long are you going to be off the planet?" Hippolyta asked.

"A couple weeks to a month," she replied. "The wedding will be over in a mere two weeks, but Maril might want me to stick around a little longer."

"I thought you were apprehensive about spending too much time away from Gotham," her grandmother said.

Helena was not pleased that her reservations about leaving had made it through the grapevine from her father to her mother to her grandmother. She wondered if there was actually anyone else in between in that thread of gossip.

"I had a nice talk with my father and he told me I can't obsess over what happens every moment I'm not out on patrol. He told me I need to learn to let go, and with this trip I'm starting to do that." She took a deep breath as she thought for a moment about everything that might happen while she was gone. She cleared the thought from her mind and tried to focus on Maril's wedding. Thinking about that was the only thing that was going to get her through this trip.

"It helps to know my mother will be watching over Gotham while I'm away," Helena told her grandmother. "The city is going to have two thirds of the triumvirate for the next few weeks; it couldn't be in better hands."

Hippolyta could hear the skepticism in her daughter's voice with that last part. "You seem to have a little doubt over your parents protecting the city."

Helena gathered up all her armor in one bag and slung it over her shoulder. "I worry about them working together. They can really go at it at times. They seemed to have lost trust in each other. I don't know how that it is going to go."

"They've been through a lot together and take their work very seriously," her grandmother reminded her. "You have nothing to worry about with them."

"I hope you're right," Helena said to her grandmother as she walked out to the Batwing.

Maril walked through the palace alone, thinking about everything that had happened over the past couple days. An hour ago she had taken a leave from her advisors and servants, telling them she needed a short amount of time away from everything.

She walked down to the royal gardens and walked around the recreated Tamaranean jungle. The thickness of the garden helped hide her from view of anyone who might have been looking out their windows. She was alone with her thoughts and she liked it.

She thought deeply about everything that had happened that day. She thought about her mother's final moments and started crying as she felt the impact of her death for the first time. She knelt to the ground and leaned back on a large tree trunk to support her weight.

When her back hit the tree she thought of how Richie had Olivia wrapping her arms around him and comforting him. Meanwhile, she had no one because the love of her life had been killed years ago. On the bright side of things not having anyone in her life left her free to marry some Thanagarian general and have a loveless marriage for the rest of her life.

For almost an hour she let her emotions out as she cried continuously. Her life was turning out nothing like she had imagined it. She thought about running away from everything, but knew she couldn't do that. She had been raised to be a superhero, to put others before herself. While becoming Queen and entering into a political marriage wasn't quite what she had dreamed for herself when she was little, it required her to put her own needs behind her just as much as any bit of superhero work. She had billions of people counting on her and she couldn't be selfish and let them down.

She pulled herself together and wiped the tears from her eyes. She calmed herself down by telling herself she could take pride in being a good queen. As for the marriage, she reminded herself she wouldn't have to spend much time with her husband if she didn't want to, and for the moment she didn't see herself wanting to spend much time with him. They would have to produce an heir of course, and she smiled and was actually filled with joy over the prospect of becoming a mother. The more she thought about the situation the more she was able to convince herself she would be able to make it work somehow.

With her composure back, she stood up and walked back in to the palace. She was still thinking about a lot of things and kind of wandered around the palace aimlessly. She didn't come across anyone so she didn't break out of her trance until she heard her father's voice. With her trance over she looked around and saw she had wondered into the visitor's wing of the palace. Her father's voice was coming from the guest room he was occupying.

The door was open and Maril stood just outside the room watching her father. He was talking to her stepmother through the viewscreen on the room's desk. She didn't call out to him or walk in the room as she didn't want to interrupt his conversation.

Barbara was simply filling him in on everything that was happening back on Earth. Maril wondered how long they had been talking and whether or not they had discussed her mother's death. For the first time, Maril thought about how much her father must be suffering over his loss. While her parents had separated it was only because circumstances demanded it. They still very much loved each other through the years. They both moved on with other marriages, her mother with a political marriage and her father married the other great love of his life, Barbara Gordon, the original Batgirl.

Maril had become lost in her thoughts, but broke out of them when she heard the screams of children. She looked at her father and the view screen and saw her brother and sister on the screen. They were screaming their hello's to their father. They were both acting so silly Maril chuckled slightly.

Her father's superhero senses were still intact and he heard the chuckle. He looked over in her direction and back at the screen quickly. She felt guilty for spying on him and turned to leave.

"Look who's here to see you," she heard him say to the twins. "It's your big sister."

When Maril heard her father mention her she knew she had to go in to the room. She walked in with a big smile on her face and said hi to her brother and sister as she took a spot over her father's shoulder.

"Are you really going to be queen," her sister Harriet asked her.

"Yes, I am," she answered enthusiastically.

"And I have a surprise for the two of you," her father told them. "Your mother and the two of you are going to be traveling up here to see the coronation. Isn't that exciting?"

The faces of the twins beamed with excitement. They started jumping around like crazy on their mother's lap. She did her best to get them under control and they calmed down quickly.

Maril had a good laugh over their antics. It felt good to her to laugh so heartily after everything she had been through. "Do you have a dress picked out for it yet?" Harriet asked her about the coronation.

"No, the planet's best seamstresses are supposed to make something for me. Perhaps when you get up here you can help me pick out something really pretty to wear."

"Yay," Harriet yelled as she started clapping. She was obviously excited over the thought of helping Maril with her dress.

"Maril has more good news for you," her father said. Maril knew what was coming and suddenly became uncomfortable thinking the kids would know she was marrying someone because she had to. "She's going to marry the ruler of Thanagar."

This time the twins weren't excited by the news, they seemed puzzled. "Who?" James asked.

"Maril is going to have a royal wedding with the ruler of Thanagar so their two nations can be joined together. It is just like a lot of the fairy tales stories we've read to you."

Her father put a great spin on it for the twins and they instantly became excited by the prospect of their big sister's fairy tale wedding. Maril, on the other hand, was depressed. A real fairy tale wedding would have been one where she was marrying a man she knew and loved.

As she thought of her wedding an idea occurred to her that would help make it more palpable for her. "James, Harriet," she said to the screen.

"Yeah," the two of them said in unison.

"I have important roles I need the two of you to play."

"What roles?" Harriet asked.

"Well, Harriet, you can be my flower girl. And James, you can be my ring-bearer."

"What does a ring-bear do?" her brother asked.

"It's not ring-bear, it's ring-bear-ER. And you just have to carry the wedding rings down the aisle."

"Do I get a bouquet of flowers?" Harriet asked about her job.

"It's not exactly a bouquet," Maril replied. "You'll have a basket of flowers and you'll have to drop them as you walk down the aisle. Do you think you can handle that?"

"I guess," Harriet said as she let out a big yawn. James copied his sister and let out a big yawn as well.

"It looks like it's time for these two to go to bed," Maril's stepmother said.

"Sleep tight," their father said to the twins.

"Good-bye, I can't wait for the two of you to get up here," Maril added.

The screen went blank and Maril and her father stayed silent for a while. "I'm sorry if you didn't like the fact I mentioned the marriage," her father said. He seemed uncomfortable with what he said to her. "I just thought it would be better for them to learn about it early. That way Barbara will have most of their questions answered for them by the time they get here."

"It's okay that you mentioned it," Maril said to him. She knew the real reason her father was uncomfortable. She knelt down so she could easily talk to him face to face as he sat in the desk chair.

"I know this isn't the ideal way to be getting married," she told him. "I'm glad you told them for me. It's hard to think about explaining a marriage like this to someone who has expectations you should only marry for love."

Her father reached over and pushed some hair out of her face. "I know doing this must be really tough for you. I've known about the proposal for a long time. I'm sorry I never talked to you about it. It's just-"

"I'm sorry I didn't consult you at all about it," Maril confessed to him. "I kept you out of the loop and I shouldn't have done it."

"You didn't have to consult me," her father tried to tell her. "You're a grown woman and I trust you to make decisions on your own. You're twenty-two years old and you don't need me anymore. You made the right decision though. Your country needs you to do this."

Maril became emotional over her father's admittance she was now a grown woman. She was saddened thinking about how she was going to leave him and the rest of her family behind to live on Tamaran among strangers, one of them being her future husband.

She embraced her father and kissed him on the top of his head. "I'm always going to need you, Dad," she whispered to him.

"I've done my best to prepare a guest room for you," Bruce said to Diana. "I have to warn you, though; I never picked up much in the way of housekeeping from Alfred. So this place doesn't exactly have the touch of hospitality that you might remember."

Diana laughed lightly at his little dig at himself. She looked around the room he had prepared for her. In all the years she had lived at the manor she couldn't remember being in this room. It served as reminder how immense the place was.

"Thanks Bruce," she said. "I'll try and stay out of your way when we're not working. I know how uncomfortable you can get with. . ."

"I'm not that bad with having other people around the mansion anymore," he told her. "But if you want to leave me alone, there is one job our daughter wanted you to do that you could tend to."

He took a folded up piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to her. "She wants you to take care of the horses while she's away. She wrote down all the particulars for you to follow."

Diana took the paper Bruce handed to her and looked it over. She was shocked to see that the names of the horses were Troy and Prince. The two horses she had bought when she and Bruce had been together were named Troy and Prince.

"Are these the same Troy and Prince I bought all those years ago?" she asked Bruce.

"The same," he answered.

"I didn't think you would have kept them, or that they would still be alive."

"They are still breathing and quite healthy. And I never got rid of them in case. . .I was afraid they might have ended up in the glue factory if I sold them."

Diana caught the little pause he made. She thought he paused because he meant to say he had kept the horses around in case she came back. She looked over it as she talked with him. "I guess Helena has been taking care of them recently?"

"Yes, she always said she loved riding horses on Themyscira. It was good for her to keep that up when she came to live with me. It gave her some continuity in her life at that time."

Diana sighed as she thought about how disconnected she had been from her daughter and Bruce over the years. She talked with Helena a lot after she sent her to live with her father, although Helena never told her much. She had known living with her father was a jolt, but she was only now learning that horse riding was something that helped her cope with all the changes. The knowledge about the horses also served as a reminder that she never talked enough with Bruce.

"I should go out and see them," she said. "I wonder if they still remember me."