To Save the World, Part 2: Act II
For the last two hundred years, humanity had been without heroes. In the wake of destruction from World War III, people had had to learn to become everything that the Justice League had wished for them. There had been missteps and obstacles, to be sure, but in the void where once stood men and women imbued with gifts and a greater purpose, humanity had reached for the stars. They had achieved that which seemed so far out of reach in Diana's brief time among Man's World. They had found people's beyond their solar system, peoples that even J'onn J'onzz had only heard of in stories of his Martian childhood.
Humanity had been forced to step out of the shadows because the Justice League had left them.
Because Conner had left them.
There wasn't much that he was ashamed of, truly ashamed, but as he soared overhead a blue streak amongst the artificial lights of San Francisco's skyline... That reminder was most poignant. The gasps of shock and awe that his enhanced hearing caught on the wind shouldn't have been so foreign to his ears.
What had once been words of comfort - "Look, it's Superman!" Had become words of confusion - "What is that?"
"Someone said that was Superman."
"I thought he was ancient history."
"I thought he was a myth."
Conner had lost his family, his friends, and he had done what he thought was best. He had pushed humanity to their limits, hoping that they would never need the Justice League again. But, in doing so, he had let his father's legacy, Diana and Bruce's legacies, all fade into the annals of history.
That wasn't what Kryptonians did. Kara had said as much many times. The House of El stood for Hope.
And hope never dies, Conner. He could hear her, even now. Kara had been his age, arriving to Earth later than his father had, but they had grown close over time. It had been a friendship forged in fire, not one easily given, but they had learned that they could be the stewards of humanity. Even as Damian and Tim fell onto opposite sides of how that should be accomplished, Kara and Kon-El - as he had once been called long ago - had been of one mind.
In the end, it had cost Kara her life.
After losing his mother and his father... Conner had buried that symbol in the rubble of the Hall of Justice.
Yet, Diana had uncovered it, as if unearthing a buried temple and clearing it of the sands in the hopes that one day, it would have pilgrims to its altar. That, in itself, had not been surprising. He had figured she would try to pull him back out of the shadows, especially once he had learned that his father was on Themyscira and had been thinking of him. Not only that, he had assumed that Conner would carry on the legacy.
Diana's motivations he could see coming.
He had not expected Jim Kirk to practically throw his suit back in his hands. Nor could he have figured that it would be the captain's last deed. Diana had been strangely unmoved by Jim's demise, but Conner... He couldn't find his heartbeat. He couldn't find anything.
And for that, Circe would most assuredly pay. As soon as she told them how she was working with Veronica Cale. That woman had somehow wormed her way into Starfleet as Conner had been helping shape it, yet she had fallen in with Marcus. The warhawks were beginning to destroy everything he had worked so hard for.
That had to be stopped. They had lost one good man, they didn't need to lose anyone else.
But, the first thing they had to do was to catch the witch and her accomplice.
There would be time for him to nurse his wounded pride and to apologize for staying hidden for so long, for being so wrong. When the fight was over, there would be time to grieve. But, not at the cost of more lives. Diana needed him now.
Conner corkscrewed up into the air as Circe sent another purple bolt of lightning his way.
He raced back to Diana as the two of them soared through the air. From his recollections of her days in the League, she had been fast in the air, but not fast like a Kryptonian.
Whatever metamorphosis she had undergone before emerging from that rubble had changed that. Diana was keeping up with him, quite easily.
"How do you suppose we stop her?" He asked, careful to make sure his voice carried to her and didn't get lost in the wind.
Diana barely turned to glance at him, instead keeping her gaze on the woman ahead of them. She had said something about Circe's Magic being perverse, implying that her use of worship - psionic energy, from Conner's best guess - was unorthodox at best. At worst, it would be wild and impossible to gauge. Not to mention, magic was never his forte. He normally called in Doctor Fate for that sort of thing, but the helmet of Nabu had been lost in the fight long ago.
Luckily, she seemed to have a plan. "Let's funnel her back towards the bridge and flank her. Keep in close, don't let her get too much distance. She's a weaver, it means she needs space for her hands to move and time for her to form words to create her magic." The deeply intimate understanding of that kind of magic came to Diana as if it was nothing. But, her troubled expression suggested she was thinking what they were both leaving unspoken: Circe's lightning didn't need words. What other things had she learned in using another race to feed her?
"Well, that sounds easy enough..." He remarked, agreeing for the most part. "This is seriously out of my wheelhouse, though. When it comes to magic, Kryptonians are just as weak as humans, remember?" Her eyebrow quirked in a way that suggested she didn't appreciate the remark. Of course she remembered. He just wanted to bellyache a little. "Come on, I used to always pass magic jobs off to someone else like Dr Fate or Zatanna."
"Don't worry about the finer points, we just need to keep her away from hurting others." Diana turned to look at him once more. "It is our duty to protect the earth, Conner. Believe that you can and I swear to you... We will."
It had been such a simple statement. But, with Diana... They always were. Who was she? A Seeker of Truth, she would say. A Believer. What did she want? Peace. Love. Hope.
Few words, but with it, she could move mountains and stir souls.
"Then, first thing's first." Conner looked towards the bridge half a mile away, then used the enhanced vision he possessed to look even closer. He could see the people fleeing, the shuttles taking off. "If we want to flank her, we should do it before the bridge. The evacuation is taking too long."
"Define 'too long'," She asked as Circe glanced back at them in the distance. The witch's hands glowed bright with that same lavender light before several smaller bolts of lightning shot towards them.
Conner scowled and dove low to avoid them, cape billowing in the wind as he narrowly avoided the last few bolts. "Evac of the city should take - at max - fifteen minutes. It's been 25." The math in his head wasn't proving out. Even if he gave it a margin of error for a deactivated shuttle, maybe two...
"It must be Cale." Diana answered for him. "If Doctor Cyber was working with her, then it's possible she disabled shuttles."
"Then we just need to buy Starfleet security time." Looking around for a point to divert Circe to, he spotted a park, motioning that way.
"That should be easy enough. We only need to distract her," Diana replied.
"How do you suppose we do that?"
The smile on her face should have been answer enough, but as he had felt many times since her return, his heart skipped a beat at her response. Diana had a way of making old men feel young. Always had. "Do what you do best. Talk."
Invoking Superboy's spectacular ability to run his mouth? Definitely made him feel young again. As a young teen, trying to emulate his father's skill and heroism, he had made a reputation for being the most obnoxious of the sidekicks. Diana knew that all too well. How many times had he actually tongue-twisted Mister Mxyzptlk to send him back to his realm?
If Diana wanted Circe distracted, then it was most certainly a job for Superboy. He just had to hope that in becoming a bit of an older curmudgeon, he could recall his quick wit.
"It's been a while…" He said, unsure.
Diana simply quirked an eyebrow at him. "You've been going toe to toe with the admiralty since it was created. You can handle one hot-tempered sorceress."
The boyish grin on his face probably knocked years off of it, but her words had done the trick. Conner closed the distance between himself and Circe, then focused his vision. The heat shot forth like a laser from his pupils towards her.
This time, Circe was prepared. She turned just before the beams could have connected to her back and blocked it with some sort of energy shield. It made her stop flying forward, however, so he kept it up. The heat vision continued to pound at her barrier as Superman took up a solid position in front of her. He didn't have to hold it forever, just long enough to get Diana over to him.
He wasn't able to buy quite that much time before Circe threw a ball of her spell energy towards him. He had to break visual contact to dodge, fully expecting her to take off again towards whatever location she had seemed safe for her purposes.
Instead, she stared him down, building another round of magic to fire his way. He had only fought her a handful of times in his youth, and most of them had been brief encounters before Diana had subdued the witch or her minions. Faced with her now, he couldn't help but feel as though he'd been brought to heel before a childhood nightmare.
"I suppose you think I should be impressed that she pulled you out of retirement," Circe snarled at him, the orbs glowing even brighter in her hands. "Wearing your daddy's suit and everything, as if you're even close to the real thing." There had been a time when words like that would have hurt him, brought out the unbridled temper of a young man trying to step out of his father's shadows. But, that had been centuries ago. Before he'd spent decades in the Justice League and Starfleet. "Nothing but a cheap imitation."
"Funny," Conner said, smiling with a flare that his mother would have been proud of, the kind of zinger that normally made Damian roll his eyes. "I could say the same thing about you." He motioned to her unusual attire of the Greek chiton with spiked heels. "You're like a bad Halloween costume model, not a Greek goddess reclaiming her destiny."
If there was one thing he could do, it was rile hot-tempered people up. Circe took the bait, hurling the two orbs of energy his way with a roar. The ancient Koine words followed, suggesting that she was going to give him more than just her borrowed worship from the Altheans, but her old-fashioned magic as well.
He ducked away, although not with the grace or same speed he had in his younger days. He turned to watch, checking quickly to see where they would fall. By the time he tracked the orbs to their point of impact - an old fountain - Circe was already preparing another volley. Good. He had her full attention, so her ego would keep her focused on him.
"I mean," Superboy's easy, dismissive tone had been dialed up to 11 for the first time in centuries. For just a moment, he let himself forget that he was supposed to be more like his father. "Let's be honest: You want to be feared by humanity, but not because you care about what they want. Not even as a battery." He caught sight of Diana streaking below them, clearly working to flank the sorceress. "You're just angry that they still find hope in Diana. That given the choice, they'll always pick her."
"You think I'm jealous?" Circe scoffed, but the offense had clearly been taken even through her derisive snicker. "You? The washed up boy scout trying to make up for tanking your daddy's legacy? You mortals and your pea-sized brains. Even your ambitions are miniscule compared to my greater plan."
Conner quirked an eyebrow. "Does Cale know you think she's so short-sighted? Not very nice words for a partner."
Circe paused in her weaving of spellwork. He had struck a nerve, or at the very least, given her reason to cackle from her own cunning. "Veronica Cale isn't my partner, she's a tool. Just like her exciting little Silver Swan experiment, and Doctor Cyber's involvement. They're all parts in my play, my ultimate goal! They mean nothing!"
"Really?" He asked, his response clearly displeasing her. "Because, everyone you just mentioned has had one goal: to undo everything Diana ever worked for. So, you're still just that sadly obsessed."
"Nihe-LA!" The ancient words weaved thought into magic and magic into energy. By playing to her ego, he had pushed her just far enough to admit Cale wasn't important. Circe clearly had greater machinations at play, but it also meant she was getting faster and more impatient.
Conner dropped a few feet in the sky to dodge her blast, but a ball of crackling purple energy followed too quickly for him to dodge.
Using the quickest weapon at his disposal, his heat vision flared and met the ball of energy head on. It dissipated, but not enough. The energy crackled against his suit, passing straight through to his body as if his Kryptonian half had never been present. His father had been weak against magic, and so was Conner. And he hadn't felt pain like that in a long time.
"Sounds a lot like you just want to see Diana's legacy burn," He growled, trying to shake it off. "And no amount of burning our fields is going to make us worship you. We've outgrown threats like yours."
"I am not a threat, I am your goddess. And I will be your death." Circe's fingers curled as she channelled energy and raised her hands to the sky.
"You're angry at people who don't even know your name!" Conner said, prodding that dragon once more as it prepared to breathe fire. "That doesn't sound like a goddess, that sounds like a person so consumed with their obsession that they've gone crazy! We don't care about you, Circe!"
"Enough!" Circe howled. The way each fiber and sinew of muscle seemed to snap and draw the energy from the air meant he needed to move out of the way, but he was a little too sluggish to move as fast as he would need to. Nevertheless, he tried. Her voice carried in the wind even as he tried to speed away.
"You are a fool! And I will raze this entire planet until the blood rushes through the streets and draws him back to me! Cale won't have a cent to rub between her fingers when I'm done!" A volley caught Conner in the leg and sent him reeling head over heels before he could try to right himself. Circe had already caught up to him, hitting him straight on with another blow to the chest. "The Romulans will rule this planet and spend the next thousand years razing the galaxy! Each war, each triumph, and he will come crawling back to me!"
Conner buckled and grabbed at her arm, trying to stop her from making contact. Nevertheless, he couldn't help but voice his confusion. "Him?"
Circe knocked his hand away with ease, satisfied she was draining him of his strength with each bit of her sorcery. Her lightning crackled, then her fist connected with his chest.
Fire ignited and raced through his veins as he went plummeting towards the ground. The lightning ripped a cry of shock and pain from him. He couldn't focus, couldn't fly… he hadn't felt something like this since the war...
The golden lasso of Hestia wrapped around his wrist and yanked him back upwards as Diana soared past him. Momentarily tethered to her, he took a moment to regain his strength and faculties as Wonder Woman, his childhood hero, his family, his inspiration, pulled him back to safety.
"Circe!" Diana bellowed to get the woman's attention. As she rose to meet the sorceress, the lasso unfurled from Conner's wrist and let him lose.
Superman spun out of the way with a rustle of his cape, just in time to see Diana's fist connect with the other woman's jaw. The two goddesses grappled with each other, lightning snapping at their limbs as punches connected mid-air.
"Dammit, Circe!" Diana grabbed the woman by her wrist and slung her through the air before racing to come back at her like a hawk swooping down on its prey. "All of this?! Again?" Like fury incarnate, Diana rained blow after blow down on the other woman with such speed that she couldn't muster another spell, only flee. "You are such a fool! He doesn't love you, he will never return here! You have endangered billions, all for Ares!"
Circe finally seemed to worm her way out of Diana's grasp, kicking the woman with such power that they finally broke apart. Righting herself, Circe's hands moved again to begin her spellwork. Before Diana could come back at her, an orb surrounded the sorceress, clearly to protect herself from further interference.
"You will never understand what we had, Diana! We share a child! And he will return, now that I am finally back on this rock - "
"You shared a child!" Diana finally shouted. From the way her voice broke, it was clear that the proclamation brought her no joy. Even Conner had to take pause. His heart twisted painfully as Diana clenched her hands into fists, as if steadying herself from the difficult truth before them all. "Lyta is gone, Circe…" She finally breathed, the anger gone from her voice for the moment. "You must feel that. Ares will never return here… Or to you. He told me himself."
The wind and the hum of magic were the only sounds that reached Conner's ears as he found himself watching Circe for her her reaction. She had a daughter? That information had not been common knowledge, at least… not by his time in the league. Wouldn't Circe have known when she stepped foot back on Earth? If her child was as powerful as her parents?
The expression of shock, of disbelief, and… denial on Circe's face seemed to drive the point home. Either she hadn't known… or she had chosen to bury that knowledge so deeply that Diana had ripped it clear from her like reopening a wound. Tears streaked down the woman's face as her chest heaved, hands momentarily frozen mid-spell.
"Don't…." The sorceress warned, shaking her head as the grief welled up inside her. For a moment, Conner could understand that profound sense of loss. "You know…. Nothing…" He couldn't know what it was like to lose a child, but he'd lost parents, lovers, families…
"I am sorry…" She offered. "Lyta was an innocent child when I last saw her, trying to live simply, out of her parents' shadow."
Circe grit her teeth, the tears cascading even as she shook her head. "Don't… pity me… And do not say her name…"
Diana knew that the blow she had struck had been true, and had been quite painful. Her own sympathy and regret were evident on her face. But, Conner knew her. She was hoping she could appeal to whatever part of Circe had once been a mother, had known love outside of her megalomania.
"Let this go, for her sake."
That plea fell on deaf ears.
"I'm glad I killed him…" Circe hissed, voice shaking along with the rest of her, barely containing her rage. Conner tensed, every sense on high alert as he tried to predict her next move. But, all of her ire was directed towards Diana. "I only wish you had been there so that I could make you watch as I spread his entrails on the ground..."
The shield surrounding Circe seemed to explode in a burst of power and energy that cascaded through the air. Conner made a move to dodge, but… there was nowhere to dodge that would have been out of the expanding radius.
He heard Diana scream Circe's name, but then the wave came. Conner went tumbling back down towards the surface as the wave hit him, then continued further towards the ground.
Not just towards the ground…
The bridge.
Circe's cascade of energy moved faster than the already weakened Superman, crashing into the two main support pillars on the closer side of the Golden Gate bridge. Suspension bridges relied entirely on the towers to support the full weight of the bridge, and they could take a lot of abuse, but…
Metal snapped somewhere in the distance.
The steel cables that bound the bridge together were beginning to buckle.
Conner glanced back at Diana and found her once again grabbing for Circe. Their eyes met for just a moment, knowing what had to be done.
He could not fight that battle for her, nor would she ask him to.
Diana nodded briefly at Conner before Circe scratched her across the face, the magic lacing through the sorceress's fingers leaving talon-like marks.
The air cracked around him as Superman turned towards the bridge and promptly broke the sound barrier in the force of his flight. As his abilities provided, he focused his earing on the sound of snapping cables, then used his enhanced vision to spot the central point of failure.
As he reached the center of the bridge, he took hold of several cables in one hand from one side of the bridge, then crossed the distance to the other cables, catching them as they snapped, one by one.
Conner had done a lot of things in his life, but there wasn't much he was proud of, truly proud of.
But, holding a bridge together, his father's shield gleaming in the light of the shuttlecraft trying to evacuate the refugees stuck on the road…
If he survived, he would let himself be proud of this moment.
His hearing, still keyed for the sounds of cables snapping, caught the way that panic turned to hope in just a brief moment for the people down below.
"Look! It's Superman!"
"He's holding the bridge together!"
He could hear the Starfleet officers as they barked orders to get people onto the shuttlecraft, only to stop and gape for a moment themselves.
"So, he is real…"
Conner's father had once said the House of El stood for hope. That it was a symbol to inspire, to give faith in dark times.
It is our duty to protect the earth, Conner. Believe that you can and I swear to you... We will.
Conner grit his teeth, forcing himself to expend every last bit of energy he could to hold the bridge together as Diana's words thrummed through his veins.
I believe, Diana. He thought, as the shuttlecraft evacuated from the bridge. In the distance, he could see Diana and Circe disappear from view as their fight took them across the city once more. We will.
What Jim was feeling, what he was experiencing…. He didn't know if words existed to adequately describe.
From the moment he touched the thread in Athena's hand, it felt like his mind had been pried open and then… freed. He was both standing on the bridge of the Enterprise, but then he was also somehow, inexplicably, in the driver's seat of his stepdad's old convertible he'd crashed, and yet also in that wreckage of the Golden Gate Visitor's Center while also somehow laying on the beach of Themyscira, staring at a brilliant blue sky while also being in the snowfall in Veld and also -
"Open your eyes, James."
Even though he could see that blue sky, clear as day, he was compelled to obey the goddess before him. It reminded him of night terrors he used to have in his first year of command after the incident with Khan. He would dream he was falling through a world of vivid color, but that his eyes were closed. Over and over again, he'd try to open his eyes, but could barely force them more than to slits. It would only be when he woke up that he realized… he couldn't open them because he had been asleep.
Jim opened his eyes and the myriad of images from the two lives he had lived vanished. In its place stood the goddess, and behind her, a chamber that seemed to go on…. Forever. The Temple of Delphi, only…. Infinite.
Along the wall, stretching as far as he could see, was a woven tapestry of every shade and color he could imagine. And he instantly knew what it was: the tapestry that the Fates wove people's lives into. From a religious perspective.
Some days, he felt like a Starship captain, and some days….
Some days he was sure that science would never be able to explain everything.
The thread in his hand shimmered, then ebbed and his stomach rolled uncomfortably. He could hear voices echoing, calling his name… no, not Jim. He could hear Chief and Sammy shouting for Steve… The tarmac…
Jim took a deep breath and forced himself to look up at the goddess again.
"I apologize that I could not tell you any of this sooner, show you the Truth of our bargain, but the time was not right. You had to make choices of your own accord, without understanding. You had to be willing to take actions based on faith and love." Jim's confusion must have been obvious, but Athena took it in stride. "When we met, I knew then that Diana would be different. She did not require worship as we did, no belief. When the names Minerva and Athena eventually die from the lips of those once knew me… I shall be gone. Into the sleep of all dead gods, amongst the fields of Elysium. But, not Diana. Because she has never known to need worship, she will be everlasting. Which means, she will always be lonely." The goddess reached out, slowly resting her hand on his as the very real memory of his full conversation with Athena in the bar in Veld finally locked into place. "Unless she has you."
He could remember the way the beer tasted, the way the bar always seemed just warm enough to escape the biting cold outside. He also remembered the longing, the way his heart had been stuck between comfortable anticipation and aching for Diana to walk through that door.
"I didn't just ask to come back to her." He said, finally recalling the way he had met Athena in an afterlife before Jim Kirk. "I asked to stay with her."
Athena smiled, then motioned for him to look past them both. "Attend and walk with me. Let me show you."
The two of them began to walk down the chamber, following the thread in Jim's hand. With her free hand, she motioned to a glittering gold thread that tracked through the tapestry. He instantly knew who it belonged to.
"As you can see, Diana's thread has already shown brightly, a brilliant hue amongst an otherwise colorful but muted tapestry. But, it will never be cut. When she wishes to leave this world, the world of men, it will be because she wishes to. But, I desire a greater purpose for her. One she cannot do alone, simply because she is a creature of love. She born of love, she deserves it, and it would be unwise to ignore that.
"So, when you asked me to see her once more, I knew that the pain of losing you would be too great. To ask her to endure that a second, or third time, as wheel kept turning, would be cruel. Therefore, we struck a bargain." He could remember setting his mug of ale down, telling Athena he was willing to do whatever was needed. "Yet, in order to fulfill it required time and power I did not yet have."
"How much time?" Jim asked. The Nexus didn't have time as a construct. He had no idea how long he had been waiting.
"It took approximately 310 years after your death as Steve Trevor. The day we finally struck our bargain, Diana had been gone from Man's World, but my father had finally passed the power he once so richly sought over to me." Athena rose her hand once more. From behind them, Jim felt wrings brush at his hair just before an owl alighted on her gauntlet. "And as I am now Queen of the Gods, I could do that which only my father once could." Her footsteps slowed until they both had come to a stop. Before them, he recognized the three women before him from even a basic knowledge of Greek mythology. "I could command the Fates."
"Huh." Jim's response was one part disbelief, and one part resignation that this seemed par for the course.
"We did not simply pull your thread from the tapestry: that was simple enough. Instead, I had the Fates respin your fiber to that of stronger stuff. Yet, like a blade, it had to be hewn. Melted and reforged as necessary." With the care of a physician, Athena gently extricated the thread from Jim's grasp and held it up for him to scrutinize with her. "Your death on the Enterprise allowed us the opportunity to build you stronger, to make you more wise in anticipation of your destiny."
Khan… Jim glanced up at her, brow furrowed. He had spent years wondering how much of his darkness, his own self-doubt, had been because of Khan's blood. And now, the goddess of wisdom, Diana's sister - or at least, his dying mind's manifestation of her - was telling him that he had been made more wise because of it.
"When you came to Elysium, I needed you to exercise faith. Faith that even in a mortal life, the love you and Diana shared would be strong enough to last. So, I allowed your former self to appeal to you as needed. And when you emerged, you were nearly ready. We had cast you into the flames once more." He remembered the way he'd asked Steve about the deal they had struck. His former self had been very clear that Jim just needed to go back to Diana. Yet now, he knew the truth. There had been more needed of him. "You had to be willing to cast your past aside. For what is in store for you is a great gift, but comes with a heavy burden."
He found himself looking at his thread even closer as she spoke. The blue hue was vibrant, but as Athena continued on, he found himself drawn to gold flecks, like stray bits of wool.
"We spun you… into that of a Champion. But, like Heracles, you must first be consumed by the flames in order to ascend to Olympus."
Wait…. Did she mean… Jim glanced up, the question on his mind, but he couldn't think of how to voice it.
Athena seemed to already know, and she was smiling, beaming with pride. "In what you did, stopping Circe from killing all of your family and most assuredly stopping Diana from ascending…. Has led you to die in the service of a god." Athena's owl flapped its wings, then suddenly fluttered over to Jim's shoulder, hooting softly. It felt almost as if the creature was trying to nuzzle him, or…. Groom him, maybe. Or, as his mom said for years, he'd been blessed by the animal's presence. He had a feeling it was that one. "You have died in the service of Diana, risen Goddess of Truth."
He had a solid understanding of the common literary tool, the Hero's Journey. He'd just never thought he'd be living it.
"For that, you are now her Champion. And your thread is wound as one with hers. For as long as Diana lives, so shall you. You shall never be touched by age, but only be the wisdom that comes with it. " Jim's eyes went wide as he followed the trail of his thread from his hand over to the Fates. Sure enough, there was his blue thread…. Twisting with a strand of gold as it was laid upon the loom.
"Are you saying I'm… immortal?" He finally breathed, not entirely sure he believed the thought, but couldn't help entertaining it. Bones had been sure he would have proven Diana was mortal, but in all of his research, he'd come up empty-handed. And while all of the thread before him had to be a metaphorical representation of something greater…. It seemed all too real to pass off. "But, I'm already dead."
"To the gods, there are no doors which cannot be opened." Athena simply remarked. "Humanity needs Diana. But, not me. Because, they do not need gods to rule above them. They need gods to guide among them. The Kryptonians…. Diana… and now do not need gifts of speed or flight or 'power', you need only your mind and the luxury of time."
The owl fluttered off of Jim's shoulder and into the air. As it did so, the temple faded away around them. He found himself standing in the wreckage of the visitor center again…. Staring at his body.
"Take the gift and be what she needs. Be the voice of humanity amongst the clouds, and the two of you will take humanity through many trials. And you will succeed. " Athena walked closer to Jim's prone body. She waved her hand, and suddenly he found himself staring up at her. He was back… in his body, but… he didn't feel pain. "There will be enemies, dangers that you cannot know… but together, you will conquer them." Athena held out his hand, as if all he needed to do was reach out and take it.
Jim breathed.
Coughing, he stared at her in confusion as his body suddenly reacted with great prejudice from the abuse it had been put through. Yet, Athena still stood there, waiting expectantly for him. Jim forced his hand up from its limp position on his stomach, desperately trying to reach the goddess's offer of assistance.
"Attend and walk with me, my child, and I shall impart to you my Divine Wisdom." Just a few inches more… "For I am Pallas Athena. I am she who is now Queen of the Gods in place of my father."
Jim's fingers brushed hers, then her hand clasped around his. Her fingers slipped down to his wrist, holding firm as if pulling a fellow soldier from battle.
"I have seen the greatness of Diana."
Jim groaned as he began to sit up. As he did so, he could feel her hand, a grip as firm as Diana's. He closed his eyes, pain suddenly wracking through him as every nerve and synapse seemed to protest all at once.
"And I see the greatness in you, James Tiberius Kirk."
When he opened his eyes again, the fires set by Circe's magic had started to finally go out around him. Twilight was on its way.
Athena was gone.
Jim's hands ran down his stomach, expecting a ripped shirt but only to find a pristine uniform. He inhaled, filling his lungs with air, feeling as though he could run forever. He'd never felt so good in his life.
As he heard a crack of air above him, he barely had time to shield his eyes as the ground exploded before him from an impact. Diana and… Circe.
Athena's voice stuck with him even as he tried to pull himself to his feet.
Believe in her.
Be wise, Champion. Be wise.