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Fingers crossed, I'm going to try and keep up this pace now. Thanks to my beta reader, GreeKnight, and thanks to all of you, my readers. Please enjoy, review, and pm me if you like. I don't own any of the characters or settings.

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Day One

They stood next to each other, shields raised and spears pointed toward the small group of monsters before them. The creatures hesitated, most likely due to the disappearance of their previous adversary and the appearance of two new ones. They quickly got over this and charged forward. The beasts that had nostrils breathed heavily, all had a look of utter rage in their eyes. Rage born from scorn, they were the products of hatred and pride, lust and greed. They felt naught but pain and they knew naught but the meaninglessness of their existence, so contrary to nature, and so they did naught but destroy. And in so doing they sought to drag all of existence into the same meaningless by its annihilation. They had no plan, no reasoned strategy, not even higher order thinking, just one motivation. So, the cosmic horrors, so unlike any life on Earth, flung themselves with reckless abandon at the only beings between them and their goal.

Bruce had counted them as soon as they had arrived. Only ten, it looks like The Gentle Man was almost done with this wave. Still, no reason to get sloppy. He kept his eyes on the remaining beasts and muttered to Diana next to him.

"When they are almost upon us, let's step forward and thrust. With any luck we can catch the first two off guard."

Diana nodded. "We should go back-to-back immediately afterwards, even mindless beasts know how to surround their prey."

"Agreed."

They waited, completely unmoving as the small group drew closer. In almost perfect synchronization they both lunged forward and thrust deep into the tissue of the closest monster to each of them. One of them gave out a yelp and then ceased to move, the other cried out then retreated off the spear, opening the wound even further. Bleeding profusely and screaming, it tried to lunge at the two warriors but had already lost so much strength that its attempt came to nothing and it fell in agony into a pool of its own blood.

Diana and Bruce spun on their heels and stood back to back as the creatures split around the two corpses like a stream around a large stone. Diana had been right, they were surrounded on three sides. The creatures approached more cautiously this time, but it did not matter, two more fell. Bruce yanked his spear hard out of the head of his victim. The momentum of the creature Diana had slain had carried it far down her spear, its head now laying against her shield. In one fluid motion, she dropped the spear, stepped forward, grabbed the half of it already through the beast, and placed her boot on its neck, shoving the corpse down the spear shaft onto the ground. She regained her grip and stepped back against Bruce's back.

The remaining six made unearthly noises and then charged them, abandoning all caution. Diana managed to skewer two with one thrust, she left her spear in the bodies for now and drew her sword. Bruce thrusted upwards from a low position into the closest one and then carried the motion through into an arc, pinning the creature in the ground with the spear. It flailed in agony and futility as Bruce drew his sword and made a long upwards diagonal cut from his sheath to the next beast's shoulder. Its guts burst through the wound and dropped to the ground in front of Bruce. He noticed just in time as the claws of the last one on his side bore down on him, he lifted his shield high in an angle. The claws scraped and slid down off the shield and away from his body.

"Bruce! Jump!"

He did as she said with no question, and as he did a tail (at least what he thought was a tail) swung beneath his feet, presumably from one of Diana's adversaries. He used the momentum of his descent to cleave off the arm of the clawed beast in front of him. It let out a short cry, but did not relent, swinging its other arm at him. He stepped into it thrusting into the creature's body. Its arm wrapped around him inertly, the claws hitting the air behind him. He twisted the blade and then ripped it out. Blood sprayed over his armor, he hit the creature hard with his shield and it fell over.

He looked behind him to see that Diana had already finished off her portion of the creatures and was currently having some difficulty extricating her spear from two corpses. He sheathed his sword and kicked the beast that he had pinned off of his spear. He went over to help her.

"So this is what it's like for you all the time?"

Before he could respond or help, she gave the spear a good yank and both beasts slipped off it. Bruce looked up at the sky.

"I'd say we got pretty lucky. The hordes may be everlasting, but they clearly come in waves, and there wasn't much of that one left. We've got a few hours left in the day. Hopefully we won't be bothered again until we can find some shelter and a source of water."

"Well, I guess we better get to it then, I hope there are some BIG scavengers in this world." She pointed in the direction the ten beings they had killed came from.

There were dozens of the things scattered throughout the area.

"Well, I suppose it's safe to assume that unless The Gentle Man spent a lot of time moving corpses, something does. There doesn't seem to be any more in the immediate area."

She nodded in agreement. Bruce started to walk in a direction that seemed promising.

"Bruce. Aren't you going to clean your weapons?"

"Right. Most of my weapons are thrown, not used to the maintenance side of things."

Bruce stooped down and began haphazardly wiping off his sword and spear in a patch of grass. Diana rolled her eyes and took the sword from him.

"This grass isn't going to be very effective, it's too sparse. Usually it's better to just take the inconvenience and wipe it on your sleeve. Thankfully, I brought a piece of cloth specifically for this, so that isn't necessary." She pulled out the already used cloth and wiped his blade off on one side then handed the sword and cloth to him so he could do the rest.

After he had gotten most of the gore off himself and his armaments, he handed the cloth back, making a mental note to procure one of his own as soon as possible. They circled the battlefield until they found the direction The Gentle Man had approached the site from and began to follow his tracks backwards. It was not long before Gehenna's sun began to set.

"Damn it!"

"What, Bruce?"

"I think the days are significantly shorter here, we won't know for sure until tomorrow. Either way, we need to book it."

They started to jog, no easy feat with all the armor they were wearing, but they managed. After about twenty minutes of light jogging, they came across the wall of a small cliff that had a crude door built into it. It was a few meters up, so there was also a staircase leading up to a porch on stilts. A chair and a bench sat on the porch, with similarly crude craftsmanship as the door.

Diana pointed to the bench. "He was expecting us to come here. That or he frequently has tea with those things."

"Well it's all the invitation I need."

They climbed the stairs and when they reached the porch they realized that The Gentle Man had plastered over a natural cave entrance and then painted the plaster to match the rest of the cliff face. They went inside and fumbled around in the dark until they found his fireplace and fire starters. A large pile of logs sat next to the fire, and an even larger pile was under a canopy they had seen outside. They started a fire, in the small alcove they had found. The smoke rose and disappeared into the rock, presumably into a chimney that led outside somehow.

They both set their stuff down and took off the bulk of their armor. It was then Bruce noticed a tap in the wall with a basin underneath it. He walked over to it, and gave it a quick twist. Water flowed out in little more than a trickle, but that was enough. Diana heard the sound of water and joined Bruce at the spigot. They were beginning to understand why The Gentle Man had chosen this particular cave; easy access to a natural spring was going to be a life-saver. They filled their cantines and then sat by the fire, feeling much better about this upcoming week.

"Let's review what we've learned." Bruce began. "The horde comes in waves, conveniently giving us time to rest between bouts. The Gentle Man has constructed a permanent or at least a semi-permanent dwelling that he most likely had to travel for a while to find due to its seemingly unlikely level of convenience. Meaning that the hordes will follow us wherever we go, so we don't have to defend a specific point or portal, something binds them here as long as we're alive."

"He also seems to intentionally fight the hordes a good distance from his home. I suppose there could be various reasons for this, so we should probably follow suit."

"Agreed. Good news is, if he sleeps in one place and fights in another, then it would seem the hordes only come at day."

"Alright, Bruce, let's wash our stuff and get some sleep before morning. It's a cave so I expect you'll have no trouble sleeping for once in your life." She broke the tension and urgency of their situation with ease, all it took was a bad joke and a simple smile.

They cleaned themselves and their armor and weapons in silence, taking turns at the spigot and with the small basin. There would be plenty of time to talk later. Diana let out a yawn and looked at the only bed in the small cave, it was low and too narrow for two people even if they were of the mind to share. Guess he only had time and/or resources to make the bench. Without a word she pulled her blanket out of her rucksack and curled up on the floor next to the fire.

"You can have the bed tonight, we'll take turns." She said after she was good and settled.

Bruce looked around, even if he wanted to be obstinate there really was not a whole lot of floor space anywhere but in front of the fireplace. We could always share the floo...No! That thought forced him to come to grips with just how hard a week with her was going to be. He laid down in the bed without protest. They both laid there for a while thinking about what they had gotten themselves into before they finally fell asleep.

Day Two

Diana awoke first, rose and was startled to find that it was still dark out. She heard Bruce jump to alertness with her first footstep, batarang in hand aimed directly at her. He lowered the batarang and rubbed his face.

Diana chuckled, "Good morning to you too, Bruce. Although I'm not quite sure it is morning yet."

She placed some kindling on the embers of the fire and gave the embers a hearty blow, the fire restarted nicely and was going strong again in a minute. The warm glow lit up the one room home, waking them up and lifting their spirits. Diana went over to the spigot and crouched down, looking into a small piece of polished metal. She did her best to comb her hair with her fingers and the trickle of water to undo what the floor had done to her hair. Bruce put on a pot of tea to give them a little boost and some nutrient variety. Then they both started suiting up while chewing on some jerky they had brought. It did not take them more than ten minutes to wake up and get out the door. They stood on the porch feeling the cool breeze, the sky had still not brightened at all.

As they descended the steps, Diana gave voice to their mutual thoughts. "I suppose nights are longer than days here. That's good, we may be able to get an hour or two of free time after waking every morning."

"Don't bank on it. It will probably take us around an hour to get to the battlefield. In that time, the sun could rise and the hordes could return."

The sky brightened slowly as they approached the battlefield they had been on the previous day, to their surprise every single corpse was gone.

"Looks like there ARE some pretty big scavengers here. Hopefully they only like corpses."

They had arrived before the sun had risen, so they sat on the ground and watched as the star began to peak over the horizon. The sunrise in this strange world was only slightly different in color and hue to the sunrises of Earth. Not entirely surprising since the atmospheric composition would have to be similar to sustain them, and the star would have to be pretty much the same distance away from the planet in order to keep Earth-like temperatures.

There was an aesthetic to what they were doing. Even Bruce realized it, the two of them watching the sunrise together on a strange world. Contentment and calm threatened to seep in, but they reminded themselves that they had not experienced the worst of it yet.

"Bruce, how are the nights so much longer here?"

"Most likely the planet is on a tilt, much like ours, and we're on the hemisphere tilted away from the star. I can confirm that by noting the path the sun takes through the sky throughout the day." He took out a compass and compared what it said to the location the sun was rising. "If I'm correct we're relatively near the south pole of this planet. Although there could be different astronomical reasons for my observations so far."

"Wouldn't that mean that once the planet progresses to the other side of the star, the days will be significantly longer?"

"Yes, but I dare say we won't experience that in the week that we're here. I don't know what The Gentle Man does about that."

They sat for a while in silence contemplating their situation, and each other. Bruce was suddenly reminded of their fairly recent interactions before The Gentle Man had called. He had temporarily forgotten that he needed to speak with her, about what, he was still not sure. But he knew there was only one way to find out.

"Diana, we need to…"

The sun was now completely visible and dozens of creatures began to appear in the distance.

Diana turned to look at him, giving a faint, forced simile. "Yes, we do."

She stood up, putting on her helmet. She began to walk forward, the orange glow of early morning shining off her armor, her cape fluttering gently in the wind. Her eyes were set on the approaching horde, an even, steady gate carrying her towards the evil of the world without fear. Bruce followed suit. Once again, two stood against the world, as they had so many times before, but this time Bruce reached down and squeezed her hand briefly before spear and shield; before blood and pain.