Summary: In England, a Princess trains with her young sister, until she receives an emergency call. But how can she attend it when she's been hiding from the world for such a long time? What is the weight of responsibility?

Disclaimer: Wonder Woman and all affiliated characters here are property of DC Comics, and I do not own them.

Chapter 2: W1

Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire, England

When the swords clashed, the impact produced a shrill, off-key sound. Even though it could now be said that they were playing the same score with the same instrument, the notes were not aligned; one of the songs was faster than the other. It was the music she disliked the most, played by anger and anxiety. No matter how refined it was, the difference in the performers prevented their tunes from harmonizing. Although she had improved, they still needed more practice together.

"Less aggressiveness and more delicacy, Donna Troy" she suggested, dodging a fine horizontal sweep that would have decapitated any man.

"Are you asking me to be delicate in war, Diana?" her opponent replied. The young woman switched her sword to her other hand, behind her back, taking advantage of the spin momentum to attack for a second time. "Emotions have nothing to do with war! If you don't kill your enemy, they will kill you."

"Good tactic, sister, but your eyes betray you." Diana jumped over both the sword and the young warrior. She took her right arm and twisted it back. "Surrender. Calm down."

"I was not taught to surrender." Donna broke free from Diana's grip by breaking her own arm and attacked again with the sword firmly grasped by her healthy hand.

"We have a saying." Diana threw her sword into the air and stopped Donna's weapon with the palms of her hands, embracing the edge of the Amazon steel. Then, she disarmed her easily, throwing the sword to the ground, all while kicking Donna in the stomach. "Do not kill if you can wound. Do not wound if you can subdue."

Donna fell on the cold grass of Sherwood, on her back. Diana caught her own sword, that she had thrown into the air, and pointed it at Donna's neck.

"Alright, you win. You have me."

"No. Do not subdue if you can pacify, and do not raise your hand until after you have first extended it." Diana did just that, throwing her sword into the grass, and offering her right hand for Donna to take. "Yes, it's a long saying. Get up, sister!"

"I find your reasoning very difficult to understand." Donna smiled, accepted the help, and stood up. Then, she readjusted her arm. She didn't even flinch.

The wind whistled, singing a beautiful song. Unlike with soldiers and warriors, nature had an orchestra who had been playing together since the beginning of time, and they were perfectly synchronized. Old Boreas still blew with virile experience from the north, not yet finishing his song, so that his younger brother, Zephyrus, could bring spring with his soft and lively concert from the west. The plants offered accompaniment, swaying with the four winds, delivering their voices in an unparalleled chorus, in all shades of green. The taller the trees, the louder the protective and prodigious symphony directed by benevolent, nurturing, Demeter, source of her strength.

The animals of the forest had their own song, but they generally accompanied the winds and the plants during the changing of the seasons. The squirrels jumped from tree to tree to find their food, and each jump was a perfectly executed note. Up in the sky, the birds moved in unison. Doves sang a beautiful lullaby as they moved eastward, and a pair of swans in a nearby lake glided over the water, creating ripples that originated from each other.

This was how the wildlife and verdure of spring worked. However, humans were governed by their emotions, and in each individual could be found a unique mark, an unparalleled personality, and a set of emotions that at times could seem inexplicable. That was what made humans so beautiful; but, as Diana had discovered a hundred years ago, that also made them dangerous, selfish, and impetuous.

"Why do you insist on belittling the meaning of battle, Diana?" her younger sister asked as they walked through the forest clearing. Light slipped through the leaves, forming perfect hexagons on the grass, where insects ran.

"I do not. Battle is a fundamental part of our life. All great ideas are born from the conflict of perspectives. If they turn out well, those ideas will be prosperous for humanity."

"You know I'm talking about something else. Everything you preach, the subtlety of battle, the delicacy of movements, the respect for the opponent, the humility in defeat; it goes against everything I was taught."

"Let's be fair." Diana extended an arm to a nearby tree, and a couple of gray squirrels descended it, to perch on her shoulders. "The person who taught you to fight is a night witch who hates me."

"And who created me from warrior blood, I know." Donna sat on the ground, placing the sword on her lap, and looking at the ants. "But one thing does not negate the other. Why fight if not to defeat the enemy?"

"We fight for those who cannot fight for themselves," Diana replied, stroking the bellies of some squirrels who had climbed down to say hello. "We fight with love and compassion. We defend ourselves with the sword, but we do not use it to attack."

"But the world of man is full of crises, chaos, and crimes. That is what made you give up fighting, is it not?" Donna faced a stern look from the Princess of Themyscira, but that didn't stop her from continuing to speak. "You told me yourself. These men brought misery to the world, and you got tired. And they kept fighting and killing each other. That delicate and protective battle is only useful in Themyscira."

The squirrels sensed the aggressiveness of Donna's words. Diana also felt it in her heart, where the words merged with the ones that she had told herself almost sixty years ago, in front of the smoke mushrooms rising over Japan.

"The world of men is very strange, dear sister, but it also has its charm. It just happens that you still resist trying ice cream." Diana sat in the grass in front of her younger sister. She let the wind caress her hair and back. The mischievous Zephyrus was playing his tricks.

"Why would I want to eat frozen fruit? Come on, Diana, do not change the subject. I know perfectly well that since those space men came to Earth, and that guy in the red cape went out flying, you have been going out every night, in secret. You protect people without them seeing you. You refuse to use the sword, and you beat criminals with some tricks. Yet, you meet with that soldier. Steve Trevor. A man trained in war. Do you think I have not seen you? Do you think I haven't heard you at nigh…?"

"Donna!" Diana yelled, frowning.

They both stared for a few seconds. Her younger sister, except for the eye color and the darker tone of skin, was a perfect copy of her. She was also one of the few people who knew her well, someone she could trust, despite being created with dark magic just for the opposite purpose. Together, Diana and Donna, they laughed heartily, and the squirrels returned to Diana's shoulders.

"Donna... do you know why I brought you to this forest?"

"To tell me about your love life, like a good sister?

"Maybe?"

"I hope not."

As if her was listening to them, the phone rang. Steve was calling her. A special phone with only one contact.

At the same time, a black helicopter flew overhead. Another followed.

"Steve, how are you?"

She heard him shout. In the background, she could hear the sound of bullets and people in turmoil. Her heart raced.

"Steve! What's going on? What is all that...?"

"Listen to me! I don't know how much longer we can hold! It's gotten into our heads. I'm seeing things!"

"Steve? What do you mean?" Another series of helicopters flew across the sky from east to west. Diana stood up, and Donna looked at her nervously. "Steve!"

"I know what you said. I know what you believe, and you've told me what you've lived through. But I think t-this is different… We need you! Ugh… L-Liverpool, next to the Royal Liver Building. There are…! There are rats in my hands! They're everywhere! Diana, I don't know what is real…"

The signal cut off when something seemed to hit Steve's phone. Diana could hear the dry impact on the other end of the line. Without waiting a second, she started running after the helicopters. Soon, she was in front of them, and Donna was by her side. Diana was not about to lose Steve again.

"Diana, wait!"

"Donna, I want you to stay here."

"What? I'm going to fight too. That is what you are going to do, is it not?"

"I'm not going to fight. That's what you need to understand, dear sister of mine. I'm going to protect!"

"But…"

"Stay here, Donna!"

As much as she wished she hadn't yelled at her, she did. She hurried, ran harder, and both the helicopters and her beloved younger sister were left behind.

Pier Head, Liverpool, England.

She helped some people get up, but they threw themselves back onto the pavement or into the water. She pulled some children out of the river, but they screamed that they needed to return to the sea where they lived. She stopped a traffic accident when no one was looking, but the drivers, upon getting out, looked at each other and fled terrified of something only they could see. And that was just the least of it.

Chaos reigned in Liverpool, and Diana ran back and forth to find the culprit. Some of the special agents from Steve's group were on the ground, their weapons pressed against their chests as teddy bears. Others had thrown them to the ground as if they were but snakes. Others were aiming at each other, or at innocent people, who fled in terror. She didn't see Steve. She couldn't save them all. She couldn't save anyone in plain sight. Indeed, she could barely see with so much sunlight…

That was it. The sun. Helios was only one, not two, and when Diana turned around, she found a second sun shining in the sky. Upon closer inspection, she realized that, firstly, it wasn't the sun, and secondly, it wasn't in the sky. On the roof of the Royal Liver Building was an extremely strange creature, one that Diana had never seen in all her centuries. It shone like Helios, but it wasn't a god she knew. It was a cube floating above the building, slowly moving through the air.

A cube made of what looked like a reflective material, like crystal. From its body, a series of small whips emerged, perhaps a hundred, emitting flashes, and moving with no pattern. Sometimes they extended ten meters and touched people's heads, knocking them down instantly. The cube emitted flashes frequently and intermittently, and every time it did, the people looking at it screamed a little louder.

"Everything is dark, everything in the world is!" shouted a man, hitting himself on the forehead near her.

"I don't exist, there are only dogs So many dogs! I don't want to see them anymore, they're everywhere!" exclaimed a woman.

"Is that thing causing this?" Diana looked around. Painful memories came to her mind. Was it possible that she wasn't being affected simply because of who she was? Was that fair?

The black helicopters from before arrived. They fired their missiles. The cubic creature raised its tentacles to the sky, sparkled as if it were becoming the sun, and all the missiles exploded in the air before touching it. The explosion covered the sky. The missiles' debris fell to the ground, where people were twisting in front of things that weren't really there. There were children there, and Diana didn't think twice.

She rolled up her shirt sleeves, and a pair of silver bracelets magically appeared on her wrists. They were always there, but she only made them visible when it was really necessary. She closed her hands and crossed her wrists, so that the bracelets clashed against each other. As she did so, the missile shrapnel vaporized in front of her shockwave. The creature stopped in the air, above a house this time. It turned around, and one of its tentacled faces confronted her. It seemed to be looking at her.

As the helicopters began to descend, ready to crash, as their pilots started to see putrid visions, Diana gathered momentum and jumped towards the creature. It raised its tentacles, and it was like hitting an invisible wall that pusher her back towards…

"Diana!"

She stopped abruptly when she tried to go again. What was that? Was she imagining things? She clearly heard a voice in her head, shouting her name. She didn't hear it with her ears, but as if it were a memory embedded in her mind. Diana looked at the floating cube, and it emitted another flash…

"I have to do it!"

Diana hit her temple with her forearm. She shook her head as if that would help to push away the memory of a voice that she knew well. The memory hammered in her head with a murderous fury, no matter how much she tried to bury it.

In the air, the crystal cube increased the frequency of its flashes, and its whips went crazy, swaying, extending, and pointing at Diana. The flashes were so fast that she couldn't follow them with her eyes, they were even faster than her blinks. But she was trained in the golden land of Themyscira. She didn't need her eyes.

"You say you can affect even me, crystal creature? By Hera, I promise you that your threat will end today."

Diana hit her right bracelet, which released a golden lightning bolt that concentrated on her right hand. There, the sword she had used while training with Donna materialized. She had forged it two months ago, in Greece, with the help of the immortal priestess of Athena, Pallas. She called it the Sword of Truth, a very different weapon than Godkiller, that the God of War had destroyed a hundred years ago. It had a golden hilt and guard, with ancient Greek-style drawings in black shining on it. The blade was silver, as long as her arm, and so heavy that only she, and perhaps the Kryptonian hero, could lift it.

"Hola!"

Diana wielded the sword and aimed at the creature. She wouldn't be intimidated. She let out a war cry and jumped, determined to protect people. They deserved it. That's why she lived for battle, wasn't it? That's why she fought…

The cube went out while she was in the air. It had suddenly turned into a completely charred piece of stone. Diana didn't stop her attack, and she struck the surface of the creature with the edge of the sword. She felt like she could penetrate its surface.

Suddenly, without any warning, the crystalline being shone again, more intensely than ever. Diana felt that her eyes only captured the white light and there was nothing else in the entire universe. She was thrown back, toward a quartet of bronze statues near the Royal Liver Building. Her body was completely paral-

"Diana… I love you."

"Steve!"