To Save the World, Part 2: Act I
The moment the captain had put out the call for available officers, Nyota had risen from her station. She had been careful to mask the way the world seemed to drop right out from under her when Jim explained that Diana had been fighting with Vanessa and seemed to be buried under rubble. It had not been lost on her that in the end, it was the vessel that carried Vanessa to the stars that ultimately became her prison: The Argentum Cygnus… the Silver Swan… It was as if fate had always pushed them to this point, as if the pieces would have always come to that position on the board.
And Diana had been forced to face her without any of them beside her. Even Jim had been forced to turn his attention to the larger issue.
It had been difficult to consider the implications of that kind of fight, and to be honest, she hadn't wanted to. She had simply followed Spock to the transporter room and found the Doctor also waiting for them. McCoy had his arms full of equipment, but she had no time to ask why before they were beamed down and the three of them met Scotty and Chekov at the coordinates provided.
The moment the transporter beam whirled away, she found herself wondering why the coordinates to Starfleet Command brought them to the garden, faced with smoldering wreckage.
It took her longer than she wanted to admit to realized that Building B, home to most admirals, had been toppled in combat. The bulkhead and plexisteel had begun to melt and curl in on itself. It reminded Nyota of historical records from the wrecked cities after the Factions attacked each other in the Third World War. Buildings looked more like writhing masses of serpents, virtually unrecognizable from their original blueprints.
Was Diana really somewhere in all of that?
She had to be.
The first order of business had been to figure out where she was, and then to get her out.
The fire seemed to be deep within the bowels of the wreckage, smoldering and casting an amber glow along the building. But, Scotty had been able to determine the projected path of Diana's fall from the security footage in the area. She was deep in the wreckage, to be sure, but hopefully not near the worst of the fire.
As it turned out, the reason McCoy had provided so much equipment was not for their usefulness as diagnostic tools, but because they had been flooded with chronitons. As they kept digging and the doctor kept running his scans, he explained what he'd learned about Diana's physiology.
That didn't mean they had any way of getting her out. After twenty minutes of frantic searching, pulling rubble free bit by bit, phasering what they could out of the way, Nyota's hands were raw with scrapes and cuts and no closer to their goal.
With each shift of the rubble, with each barked command from McCoy indicating that he still had no lifesigns, Nyota's head told her that Diana was gone, lost to them forever.
But her heart… her heart believed Diana was still there. And she would hold onto that forever.
She'd begun to lose track of time. As she asked Spock to help her move a fairly large chunk of bulkhead, the two of them tossed it aside. Fatigue had begun to take its toll, however. As they let go of the bulkhead, she tripped on a piece of rebar and fell onto a pretty sizeable piece of plexisteel.
Without hesitation, Spock's hand was around her bicep, pulling her to her feet once more with ease, while somehow managing to be gentle. "Lieutenant, perhaps it is time for you to rest."
She shook her head, turning back to the pile. "No… no, she wouldn't wait if it were one of us… she'd dig for as long as it took."
Spock turned her gently, then pointed to Scotty and Chekov as they debated quite loudly how they could possibly lever the larger pieces of roofing, or perhaps use tractor beams from a shuttle. "Everyone is performing at their best, Nyota." It wasn't resignation, but it wasn't a ringing endorsement. Spock wanted to believe, but it was growing more difficult by the moment to keep hope.
Even when Scotty paused to announce that Jaylah had successfully disarmed the bomb, the reality seemed to be that while they could save San Francisco… saving Diana would be more difficult.
The ground began to rumble beneath them.
The crew scurried back a few feet, watching as the dust and debris started to shudder from some unknown pull. There was a belch of smoke from the far side of the wreckage…
And then the debris began to sink.
"The fire must have burned through a support!" Scotty cried, clearly as dismayed as Nyota felt. "If the buildin' hadn't fallen on her before, it certainly will now."
"Can we stop it?" Spock asked, turning to face the chief engineer with the first real reflection of concern she had seen slip through his measured countenance. "Quickly, Mister Scott!" He said, pushing for an answer.
Scotty simply shook his head as he turned to look at Chekov. The young lieutenant had his hands in his hair, fingers knotted into the curly mop as if he could literally yank the answers free.
"Zere is nosing we can do…" Chekov said, at a loss. "Ve would need sub-zero temperatures to even begin to cool ze bulkhead, but zere's no time!"
There was a crack in the air above them. Nyota turned, looking up for the source of the sound.
Her knees threatened to buckle again for just one, childish moment of awe.
The blue scaled armor had been well-preserved, even if the only visions Nyota had seen of them had been in old historical texts.
The red cape billowed in the wind as the figure came down to hover just above them. That would have been enough to guess.
But when she saw the S on the shield… Nyota knew.
"No way." She breathed.
Beside her, Spock's reaction was less than filled with awe, but nevertheless… surprised. "Admiral Kent?"
Only two men on earth had ever held the name of Superman. And Conner Kent had finally come back to the name and the inspiration it gave. Arms across his chest, standing tall and proud in the air, Uhura had never quite known what to expect from the admiral. And now she knew why. He wasn't an admiral, not at heart. He was a superhero, just like Diana.
"Superman," Nyota said with an honest grin.
"Used to be," Conner said with a bit of a smile. He lifted up slightly into the air a bit more, uncrossing his arms and rolling his shoulders. "Let's see if I can live up to the name, or dad will give me hell." He motioned for them to step aside. "Took me forever to figure this one out in the first place…"
Conner inhaled deeply, then exhaled with a gust of wind to rival the arctic. The crew backpedaled a bit more, stunned and amazed, as the bulkhead was suddenly covered in frost, then iced over entirely. He was freezing the wrecked building. The amber glow of the fire beneath slowly began to dim, then faded entirely.
When he finally let up, not one of them could think of what to say. Thankfully, Conner seemed more than capable of filling the silence.
Superman - yes, Superman - flew over the wreckage and scrutinized it, as if he could see something they didn't. It wasn't until he turned his attention to Doctor McCoy that she realized he probably could see more than they did.
"She's in here. I can see her, but it looks like most of the bulkhead fused together in the fire."
Scotty's expression darkened, a bit lost. "How do we get her out, then? I cannae just lift the bloody buildin' off of her!"
"You can't, Mister Scott, but I can." Superman said with a grin that was much younger than he had seemed as the dour admiral.
Before he could make good on that particular promise, though, the sky lit up across the bay as something exploded near the Golden Gate bridge. They all turned, trying to discern what it could be.
"Oh my dear lord, Jim's over there." Scotty muttered, chilled. "That's about where he thought Anderson was."
"Then, let's not waste any more time." Superman said as he landed beside the wreckage of the building.
He wasn't going to… was he?
Conner's hands gripped at a piece of bulkhead, clearly fused to others below and around it, then began to lift. With a groan, he slowly inched the bulkhead higher and higher. But, it was clear that the feat took greater effort than he had wanted.
Groaning louder, he dropped to one knee so he could brace the bulkhead on his shoulder, then began to stand. Miraculously, what must have been half of the entire roof of Building B started to come up off the ground. Once it was off the ground entirely and Superman was hovering a few feet, he finally roared and threw the whole piece over onto the bare grass between buildings.
When he landed back on his feet, he stumbled until he was on one knee, panting with effort. Nyota made a move towards him, but he held a hand up when he spotted her.
"I'm all right, Lieutenant," He said before he finally stood back up again. "That's just… not as easy as it used to be." It was fascinating and heartwarming, the way his voice changed tone the moment he had put on the suit. It was if she was meeting a whole different person, or at the least, a different side of him. "I'm either out of practice, or old." He shook his head. "I don't like either, to be honest. It kind of sucks."
Nyota's reply faded as she caught sight of a jagged metal wing in the debris. She took another step closer, then frowned as Scotty approached and began to run his tricorder sensor over it.
"Borg. I think." He said. "Poor lass is somewhere down there, too."
"Not exactly, Mister Scott." In the time that it had taken for them to examine the wing, Superman had disappeared down the hole and pulled free the body of one Vanessa Katalepis, or what was left of her. The metal technology had melted all over her. "I'm afraid that Miss Katalepis is gone…"
The image before her invoked ancestral tombs, gilded sarcophagi and masks of emperors. There was certainly nothing living left of Vanessa, but she was preserved nonetheless. Her one organic eye was still open, even though most of her body was cast in steel.
With proper reverence, Superman gently set her down on McCoy's empty cart. The equipment was still in a ring around the hole, as if hoping to draw Diana out somehow.
"McCoy to Kirk. McCoy to Kirk!" Leonard's voice cut through any of the relief or solemn respect that Superman's actions would have provided. The doctor was still turned towards the other side of the bay, even as the glow had faded. "Jim! Dammit, answer me!"
"Bones… how's the crew?" Nyota could barely hear Jim from where she stood, so instead she moved closer. But, it was obvious his breath was labored. Something was off.
"We're all fine, but the area where you were lit up like a Christmas Tree." McCoy glanced over at Nyota, clearly worried and frustrated. "Jaylah's disarmed the bomb and traced the detonator signal."
"To Cale…" Nyota shook her head at the way Jim's voice was fading. "Then… You need to find Diana."
"Jim, what's wrong?" McCoy asked. The fact that he was clearly in pain didn't escape either of them.
"Tell Diana… You need to tell her…"
Nyota turned to look at Spock, but he was focused with Scotty and Superman on pulling another piece of bulkhead free.
McCoy shook his head in frustration, clearly hoping he could annoy Jim enough to come clean. "Whatever it is, tell her yourself, we just found her - "
"Tell her… Tell her she's here…"
"Who's here?" Nyota finally asked, unable to stay silent any longer.
"They're…"
"I can hear her heartbeat!" Superman called from the wreckage. "She's coming back!"
"Working together…"
And then the line went dead with one singular beep.
"Who's here? What was he talking about?" Nyota asked, turning to look at Bones. "Cale? Did Cale do that?" She idly motioned to the explosion across the bay. "How would he know unless he - " She stopped abruptly as she realized what they had heard. If Jim had been anywhere near that kind of an explosion…
"She's breathing…" Superman said, head tilted as he was clearly listening.
Nyota scrambled back over to the wreckage, shouting down into the debris.
"Diana! We need you! It's Jim!"
And from the darkness… came a brilliant white light.
Chronitons may have fed Diana's body, but it was the love and faith from those around her that fed Diana's soul. As the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise held onto the hope that she was somehow, miraculously alive, Diana was nearly overwhelmed by the earnest calls of their hearts. She could still feel her mother's hands on her shoulders, telling her to be worthy of her worshippers, even as Themyscira felt but a dream.
Elysium could not hold her, and it never would. Diana, Goddess of Truth, answered the call of her new family.
She gasped for air in the darkness, greedily seeking the air that her lungs had been deprived for over an hour. Oxygen filled her lungs, chest heaving as the debris shifted around her.
Every synapse fired, every nerve was charged, and each cell seemed to work in tandem to knit broken bones and torn muscle, to restore the blood lost. Warmth spread through her body, from her fingers to her toes.
The power of the gods - of being a god - flowed through her until it could no longer be contained. She had felt the lightning before, she had channelled it within her and around her. But, even when she had released that power within, it had never been with such abandon. The closest equivalent had been when she had pushed through the forcefield on the warbird.
Diana could hear Uhura call to her once more and answered instantly. The lightning coiled around her, then blew the debris still above her out of the way as she shot up into the air like a volcanic eruption.
The remains of the building, like lava and ash, spilled over the edges of the hole created from the efforts to unearth her. But, now, unfettered and unleashed, Diana crashed through the last of the barriers before she soared high into the sky.
Thoughts of everything beyond that moment had left her in the wake of such raw, unbridled power. Her eyes, brilliantly solid white, could see more clearly than ever before, the lightning once wielded by her father snapped around her body and between her fingers. She was not simply a conduit, but now the generator of such holy and primordial fury.
The folly of the gods had been in their inability to cherish and respect the power they had been blessed with. Her father had seen himself as humanity's creator while denying Prometheus his place at the table. Ares and Apollo had seen humanity as their source of power in a constant struggle to grow stronger.
In that moment, consumed by Olympian power, Diana assumed her birthright.
But, she was not a god like her brothers and father.
Diana felt hope. She felt love. She felt the truth.
And the overwhelming relief from her friends below pulled her back from the edge, where she teetered over the precipice of greed and lust for worship.
She was Diana. She was not their ruler, she was their friend.
Inhaling deeply, the cold night air finally cleared her mind enough that she could hover back down to the others. The wounds she had endured in her combat with Vanessa had disappeared, and even her armor had been knitted back together in nothing short of divine will. Even as she slowly sunk back to the ground, Diana found herself struggling to clarify the world around her.
Once her feet touched the ground and she found herself faced with Nyota Uhura… the last of that brush with the greater connection to her divinity faded to almost background noise. Her empathic nature had always been fairly in tune, and she had honed it through the years, but now… the floodgates were open.
Uhura's relief was so palpable that Diana crossed over to her and pulled her into her arms, hugging tightly. Nyota's grip was just as tight, desperately grateful. "You scared all of us…" She finally breathed against Diana's shoulder before pulling away. That relief and gratitude held a dark edge to it, one that seemed strangely… unnecessary to her. She couldn't place why it seemed so strange until Nyota turned towards the bay, motioning to a wrecked area near the Golden Gate bridge. "But, Jim..."
Diana pulled away, her smile fading to a frown as she took a few steps in the direction of the carnage. That wasn't from the Silver Swan. She knew Vanessa's soul was in Elysium.
Jim was… Gone. But… not.
She had no idea what she was sensing, but she knew definitively that Jim Kirk was dead.
Yet the truth was that his soul was… not.
"Jim…" She breathed, confusion flickering across her features as she tried to reach out with her new awareness. If she stretched her senses more, perhaps she could…
"I can't hear his heartbeat, but you know, it's been awhile since I've had to listen that closely." Even before she turned to face him, she heard the Conner Kent of her younger days. That dour, severe and worn down admiral had disappeared from his voice. Instead, she half-expected him to tell her he needed her to cover his patrol so that he could go surfing and drag Tim and Kara with him.
To see him in the same Kryptonian armor as his father was enough to make her smile. The way his mostly gray beard had a little bit more black in it once more made her grin. "I thought you were in Starfleet because the world didn't need Superman anymore," She teased him gently.
Conner smiled a bit, although it was a bit of levity in the midst of that dark foreboding that told her that Jim was gone… and she should be mourning. "Yeah, well, Kirk pointed out this wasn't the kind of problem that an admiral needed to solve. It's the kind of thing that…" He shrugged a bit. "Would've had the Justice League." He sighed a bit. "Just sorry it took me so long."
She smiled, tilting her head a bit as she looked him over with her godly senses. "Why am I not surprised that Jim talked sense into you? He's the only person I know more stubborn than your father." Diana knew that the captain would find that profoundly satisfying, and he'd probably be insufferable about it for quite some time. "When this is all over, I promise not to let him hold that over your head… too much."
Conner didn't seem to find the humor in it. In fact, he furrowed his brow with an expression all too much like Kal-El, then reached out to rest his hand on her shoulder. "Diana… did you hear what I said?" When she didn't reply, still too focused on the way that she could sense the Truth within him. There was a reason why he had seemed so much older on the Yorktown… He was.
"This is amazing…" She breathed, as if he had never asked the question. Diana reached up to gently brush his cheek. "I see it now. I never realized it before, but the Kryptonian materials in the suit… they store sunlight. You and Kal-El… you both have aged because you were no longer near the yellow sun. But, it's started to restore you - "
Conner took her hand in his, taking a step back. "Diana, I don't know what you've gone through. You're different. But… I can't hear Kirk's heartbeat. Jim is dead." His words were true. She had already felt it once before.
Diana stood a bit taller, turning to face the bay again. He was dead. His body was gone. And yet…
"There are no doors which I cannot open…" She muttered as the last piece of the puzzle slid into place. For all of her life, Diana had seen death as so final, so tragic. Even with her hopes of Elysium, she had never thought she would see those she loved again. But, now, she could tell that something was different with Jim.
"What?"
Diana turned back to him. "He's not gone. That is the Truth. I don't understand how, but… something… or someone is at work." She knew, somehow, that it was not in denial or delusion. She simply knew that Jim was not lost.
"Oh, someone's at work, all right, Diana…" Circe's presence was felt by everyone, not just Diana, long before she appeared before them. Her voice seemed to carry in the wind along with the spine-tingling sensation of her sorcery. "Just not who you think."
Diana turned, more than grateful that her mother and aunt had been there to provide her much-needed advice. Unfortunately, it didn't soothe the hot coal of anger and concern that had settled in her stomach. Staring down the woman that she definitively banished from Earth in the 2020s had brought her back to the stark reality. In fact, the moment she locked eyes with the witch-goddess, that sense of godly awareness seemed to lock in as well into a stable sense of background static.
The thoughts and feelings of the crew behind her, confused and worried, possibly mourning their captain, faded into the background so that she could instead provide her full attention to her enemy.
"I banished you from this earth," Diana said, hands clenched into fists. Her shield was somewhere across town, and her sword was still in the midst of the rubble. The haze now gone, she was starkly aware that in facing Circe, she would be doing it without the sacred relics of the gods, save for her lasso. "I was very clear on my terms. You should not be here - "
A peal of laughter escaped the sorceress, who seemed all too amused by Diana's choice of words.
It was Doctor McCoy from his position several feet behind them who said what she was thinking. "Oh, that's comforting. Maniacal laughter is surely the sign of a mentally balanced individual," The sarcasm rolled off his tongue with ease. He didn't even seem fazed when Circe's laughter faded and she turned her attention towards him.
"Oh, I can assure you I am absolutely sane, Doctor McCoy." Circe made a wide arc around Diana and Conner, clearly attempting to get a better view of the medical officer. Even having Superman block her view didn't deter her from continuing. "But, I just find it so highly amusing that Diana would be so foolish as to bring up the very reason I'm here."
"What are you talking about?" Nyota's confusion was mixed with the raw sensation of fear and barely held back grief. Diana could tell she was barely holding onto her self-control. Her heart was screaming Jim's name, hoping her best friend was somehow still alive.
"Diana was right, my dear little polyglot." Circe reached up, weaving a spell in one hand. "She was incredibly clear on her terms."
Immediately, Diana lifted herself off the ground, hovering so she could be level with the dark magic unfolding in the air.
It was only when Circe completed the sigil that Diana realized it wasn't an offensive spell. No strange words had been uttered from her lips. She was only using it to show her… something.
"See, the banishment was incredibly specific." Circe clapped her hands together and then pulled back, a glass-like, murky orb in her hands. The insides swirled, as if smoke was caught in the smooth sphere. "In fact, maybe you'd like to hear it, Diana. After all, two centuries is a long time for such a simpleton like yourself."
Diana's own visage came into focus within the smoke, then her own voice echoed around them. "Until no god's foot may touch the earth, I bind you and banish you from Man's World, from the land of the Olympians! So long as one of my people calls Earth home, you may never return!"
Those had been her words, many years removed but an honest spell and proclamation. At the time, Diana had been sure the only reason it had worked was because Apollo and Athena supported her.
The orb in the witch's hands cracked, then disappeared in a cloud of smoke. "You were very specific. For as long as one of your people calls Earth home, I could never return."
Diana's expression flickered with real fear and concern as she realized the folly.
It was Spock who voiced it, no doubt thanks to his uncanny ability to recall and store information. "When the Olympians left Earth in order to forge new sites of worship, the terms were no longer valid and you were able to return."
"Precisely." Circe turned her attention to Diana, sneering and drunk on her own arrogance. "I could have come back anytime I wanted to after you abandoned the planet."
"So, why didn't you?" The authority in Conner's tone was every bit the Superman. As was the deeply buried concern that he felt some responsibility for her return.
"Oh, please. Why would I ever come back to this abysmal rock?" Circe scoffed, turning to look down at the Enterprise crew like ants on her shoe. "On Earth, I am a joke. They only remember me for my brief time with Odysseus. No one remembers when I unleashed Medusa, or set the Hydra upon New York City." Circe stared down young Pavel Chekov, even as he managed to keep from flinching away. "Mortals have such short memories."
"And they are blessed for it," Diana said, careful to keep her tone even, but certainly not hiding the fact that she would not allow Circe any closer to the crew. "The suffering you caused to this world should be forgotten. Humanity has never done anything to you, and yet you hate them all the same." Sweeping around in the air to block her view of Chekov, Diana found herself asking the same words she always had, every time Circe had gone down this path. "Why?"
Circe scoffed wordlessly, staring Diana down as if she couldn't quite believe they were replaying the same conversation. "I deserve their respect, Diana. And they will fear me, if they will not give it to me freely."
She shook her head as she allowed herself, for just a moment, to evaluate Circe's motives with a level of clarity she'd simply never had before. Yet, she found that even with the world open to her in entirely new ways as the Goddess of Truth… Circe was still impossible to read. "You want their worship…" Was all she could mutter as she tried to understand the other woman. "But, you aren't an Olympian, Circe. What you ask for is not yours to receive."
Circe's hands rose into the sky, a flare of purple lightning crackling down from the sky into her hands. "Who are you to make such judgements, Diana?!" She snarled, eyes flaring with a bright purple indicative of the same divine power running through Diana's veins. "You claim you never wished to be a goddess, and yet here you are, bathed in the stink of Apollo's cast-off responsibilities! You wanted the power just as much as anyone else, and yet you dare to tell me that I don't deserve it?"
Beside her, Conner tensed, clearly sensing that a fight was imminent.
Yet, Diana needed to understand her. Circe had been powerful on the Enterprise, yes, but she still had thought the woman to be an immortal blessed by Hecate. This was different, primal. And it was divine.
"The Altheans…" She said, realization dawning. "You convinced them you were Hecate and they worshipped you. And somehow… you used magic to channel it as if you were one of the gods themselves." The words rang true from Diana's lips. "This is… dark, perverted. You should not have done this, Circe, it will consume you." It was impossible to ignore the implications of such things. The hubris that Circe had to possess in order to think that this the best course of action would be returned in swift retribution. But… not by Athena. Or Apollo, or any of the others. They had given up on Earth.
Diana could not consider how long it would take for Circe's mania to be her own downfall, nor could she visit that suffering upon the people of Earth.
Drawing herself up higher, the lasso glowing at her side, Diana prepared herself for the inevitable. "Release those who worship you from this, and return to your planet, Circe." She ordered, voice clear and kinder than the woman had earned. "You can still return from this."
"Diana, I promise you with every fiber of my being…" Circe's hands crackled once more as she summoned more power to her, eyes wide with cruelty and glee. "I am exactly where I wish to be."
Circe shot off into the sky, drawing the power in her hands before hurling it back down at the people below.
Diana and Conner moved as one. Wonder Woman shot upwards, bracelets connecting so she could take the magical blow from Circe in its entirety. Behind her, she could hear the distinct rushes of air as Superman quickly grabbed each of the crewmembers and sped them to safety.
That was about all Diana could hear before the electricity and divine wrath of Circe coiled around the bracelets and down her arms, lancing straight to the bone. She grit her teeth, managed to stay aloft, but the first sensation of pain since her resurrection was more of a shock to her senses than she wanted to admit.
She had taken blows from Ares, from gods and monsters over the years, but this was something else entirely. Circe had stolen something that only gods could wield. And in doing so, she had made it wild and unstable.
All doors may have been open to Diana now…
But, if she wasn't careful, she might see her mother and aunt again all too soon. And something told her…
That would make her lose Jim. For good.
"I wanted to kill him differently, you know." Circe said, as if she could sense who Diana's thoughts had turned to. When she realized she now had the fellow goddess's attention, the witch tsked mockingly. "Poor boy. It would have been much easier if he had let me carry out my plan. None of your friends would have suffered. I would have just obliterated them all and been done with it, then killed your lover boy. Instead, he bled out like a pig. Such a boring end for a man who thought himself so interesting."
Diana could feel a swell of anger beginning to build, then tried to push it back down. When another blast of lightning from Circe connected with her bracelets, sending another ripple of pain, that sense of calm and understanding she had felt began to fade.
"I was wrong to let you leave the ship," Diana breathed. She had thought perhaps Jim had died stopping Cale. But, it had been Circe. All this time, Diana had been blind to Circe's machinations. "I should have pursued you back to Althea, scoured the planet for you. You've been tracking my every move, and you've somehow brought Veronica Cale into all of this." She shook her head in disbelief. "But, you never needed to hurt Jim."
"I told you I would kill him once you thought you had him back, Diana." Circe replied, clearly pleased at the heartache she had wrought. "I am a woman of my word."
"You are a cruel, heartless woman," Diana shot back, inhaling deeply to help steel her nerves. "And I am done listening to the words you weave."
"What are you going to do, Diana?" Circe laughed as she threw another bolt of energy. "You can't protect them."
Diana sensed the coming presence behind her, then smiled. "We shall see about that."
Duel red streaks lanced through the air as Superman came soaring back from wherever he had dropped off the Enterprise crew. The heat vision arced across Circe's leg, burning and sizzling.
The witch-goddess screamed in anger and pain, clearly unprepared for the joint assault.
She was already losing control of her surroundings, of her power. In a streak of purple light, she took off into the sky, heading upwards and towards the larger buildings.
Beside her, Superman paused and glanced over at her. "The crew's safe."
"If we don't stop her, they won't be for long." Diana motioned to Circe's climb into the air, then shot off like a bullet after her.
Moments later, she could see the blue and red of Superman's armor beside her in the air.
"You know how much Kryptonians hate magic, right?" Conner's boyish humor made him shouting over the wind seem even more petulant than usual. "If she lands a hit on me, I don't know how much help I'll be."
Diana glanced over at him, smiling a bit. "Then, don't get hit."
Conner simply rolled his eyes. "Now, why didn't I think of that sooner?"
As if to illustrate the point, another bolt of tainted lightning suddenly shot towards them as Circe had clearly turned to attack her pursuers.
Gracefully, the two of them spun out of the way, then took opposite paths around a building before meeting up again and beginning to climb higher.
"I've really missed the mentorship," Conner said as he met up with her again. "I forgot how much sarcasm was involved."
"Then, I hope you remember that when you have to get back in Starfleet uniform, Conner." Diana replied, choosing to focus on the hope that they would resolve this and be back in their duty positions in the morning. "It's good to have you back."
Conner glanced over at her, clearly touched by the simple statement. Perhaps, he had recognized it, too. He had let something of himself be buried over the years. Now, it had returned.
She could practically hear Lois cheering her son on from Elysium.
The two of them had no time for more words, however. Another chase, another bolt of lightning lit up the night. It would be difficult to catch up with her, even more difficult to stop her if she continued to spiral out of control.
But, thanks to Jim…
At least she wouldn't be doing this alone.
Sure enough, the moment Superman had whisked the crew off to safety, Montgomery Scott was standing on the steps of the Federation Assembly building and straining to watch the combat in the sky above.
Of course, his stomach felt rather like the time he shot himself out a bloody torpedo tube from how quickly he'd been grabbed and sped away, but he was coping better than others. In a matter of moments, Superman had brought each member of the crew, sometimes two at a time, as well as McCoy's cart with Vanessa's remains to those same front steps. The poor doctor was now bent over the railing, trying to keep his lunch in his stomach.
Not Scotty. He was watching bloody Superman and Diana soaring into the sky, chasing after Circe, before they vanished around a building. The whole thing dinnae make any sense. It had been one thing to hope that Diana would somehow be alive in all of that rubble… it was another to see her burst out of the ground, completely unscathed and almost disturbingly calm.
Especially about Jim…
"Where did they go?" McCoy asked beside the Chief Engineer. Apparently, once Jaylah joined them through the front door, the doctor had been able to regain his constitution.
Scotty motioned to the building he'd last seen them, just in time for a purple bolt of lightning to strike the roof and crackle through the air. He flinched a bit on reflex, the sound a bit too like a plasma arc with an unstable warp core. "I've never seen anythin' like this. That's impossible. I dinnae even know where to start on all the ways this defies science."
"Yeah…" Bones breathed. "I thought I had a handle on how Diana's abilities worked, but… Diana's reached a whole new level." The accompanying frown from the doctor was one Scotty shared. "Seeing her like this, I'm surprised the Swan even injured her, much less buried her under all that rubble."
Scotty nodded at the idle question. It was a good point. No sign of injuries even though Vanessa had been practically chrome-plated when all was said and done? And Jim was sure Diana was alive.
The realization struck him like a bolt out of the blue. Clapping his hands, he grabbed McCoy by the shoulders so he'd look at him. "Ye're right! If she's doin' this, then there's got to be a reason why the Swan was able to injure her. How much ye wanna bet we can use it to help Diana with the purple people-eater?"
After a long moment, as if trying to piece together what seemed so clear to the Engineer, McCoy's eyes widened. He turned to Jaylah, snapping his fingers quickly. "Chronitons! We need to look for chronitons! And anythin' in Vanessa's body that might absorb them!"
Scotty pulled his tricorder and motioned for Jaylah to follow him.
They might not be able to fly with Diana, but perhaps they could ground Circe instead.
He just had to hope that whatever they accomplished didn't leave Diana at a disadvantage. He wasn't sure how, but his gut told him not to give up on Jim. Diana felt he was fine.
For once in his life, Scotty chose to give himself that bit of a faith in the impossible. After all, that was what Diana had given them all.
Faith. And no matter how impossible it seemed, Jim had to be alive.
Jim had to be dead.
The bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise was all around him. His captain's chair was warm, and the sensors were thrumming. Ahead of him, a starscape of infinite potential. Captain Kirk stepped onto the bridge of the Enterprise, surrounded by his crew.
The bridge was running with peak efficiency, with Spock evenly intoning, "Captain on the bridge," as the officers all turned to face him. Even Pavel, who he hadn't seen in months, sat at his navigator's position with that boyish grin and a lust for the next adventure.
Without thinking, Jim smiled and nodded to his shipmates as he strolled down to the chair. He could see himself slipping into the seat, used to the cushions that were just worn enough to be both comfy yet firm.
He heard Uhura giggle from behind him. He was back on his ship. The ordeal was over.
No, the ordeal had never happened. From here, he could see it all perfectly. As Sulu punched in new coordinates, as Janice Rand flashed him a smile from the operations station… everything was running just as it should.
Except, it couldn't be.
Chekov was in San Francisco, hopefully disarming a bomb alongside Jaylah. Along with Spock, Uhura, Bones…
The events had played out exactly as they had when he had stepped into the Nexus before… when he was alive. With Napi.
The crew vanished around him. The illusion was broken as Jim threw a pebble into the still waters of the afterlife. Without the crew there to fill the silence, even the sensor beeps sounded like water dripping in the caves he'd spelunked as a kid.
Jim rose to his feet out of the captain's chair, slowly turning to scan the bridge. He remembered where he had been. He had been trying to stop Circe… and he'd seen Cale. He needed to warn Diana. She had to know.
As if he had summoned her into his fantasy, he spotted her at the science station. She stood tall, draped in the same black cloak he had seen her in ages ago, on a boat in the waters of her homeland.
"Diana?" He asked, making his way closer so he could reach up and pull the hood off of her and turn her to face him.
When she turned to face him, he stopped in his tracks. Not Diana.
The woman before him held more severe, angular features, and had dark auburn hair that spilled down her shoulders, only partially hidden by the helmet that had suddenly appeared.
"No, James Tiberius Kirk. I am not my sister." The woman smiled, although there was something so placid in her tone, so wise, that he just… he instantly knew who stood before him. Before he could say her name, she smiled wider and pulled back the cloak so he could see the aegis across her breast. "You are wiser than you wish others to know, James. Yes, I am Pallas Athena."
"The goddess of wisdom…" He echoed, looking her over as he had with Apollo once: a mixture of awe, discomfort, and skepticism. Even after all he had seen, even though he was willing to take so much on faith, this was the Nexus. He couldn't trust any of it.
"Yes. And I am she who is Queen of the Gods in the place of my father." Athena's hand reached out into the air. As her fingers began to curl, a golden spear materialized into her grip. "As such, I am here to fulfill the bargain we struck many years ago, when you were still the man called Steve Trevor."
Jim furrowed his brow. "I thought it was already fulfilled. What bargain are you talking about?"
"Man cannot escape the riddle of his life. For he only truly sees the shadows on the cave wall. He does not see beyond." Athena held her other hand out to him. He couldn't help but feel almost as if her words were being carried to somewhere far beyond his understanding. "Attend and walk with me, my child." Slowly, he crossed the distance between them and slipped his hand into hers. "Let me show you what lies beyond the cave. "
Athena tilted the spear in her hand. Jim watched as it suddenly shifted into a golden thread, one that she laid across the palm he had given her.
Her next words should have filled him with dread. Instead, he found himself strangely comforted by them. "See the Tapestry that is your Life, James Tiberius Kirk."