Summary: Diana faces her fears, the past she' has tried to leave behind, as she remembers why was she chosen to be the Champion of the Amazons. She believes in people, and Wonder Woman will prove it in public once again.

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


Chapter 4: W2

"Whatever it is, Steve... let me do it. Please, let me do it."

"No. I'll do it. I'll settle for saving the day. You save the world. I wish we had more time."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm just saying that I love you, Diana."

"Steve? No. No! STEVE!"


Pier Head, Liverpool, England


She woke up abruptly. The light still bothered her, and everything around her was whiter than any other color. At least there was no darkness, but she was about to wish for some. It was all too bright.

"D-Diana..."

"Huh?"

Was she still dreaming? She was on the ground, but Steve Trevor was beside her, trying to help her up. She was very weak, but that was better than being dead. Wasn't he dead? Steve Trevor had died in the war; she was sure of that. And the war was over already.

"Steve?"

"I-I'm sorry I called you. We're still having visions from time to time. They call it the Crystal-Creature on the team. V-very creative. Ugh. M-my head still hurts too much, Diana." He was wearing dark glasses, but his blond hair, his nose, his ears, his tough beard-covered chin, were unmistakable.

"Steve, what…? You're not…? No. It is all wrong. What is with that beard?"

"We've cordoned off the area. Civilians are being cared for by specialists. The few that are here. Many of them are missing. I don't know how long these effects will last… I-I didn't think it would affect you."

"Oh. Steve." Of course it was Steve Trevor, Diana thought. The second Steve Trevor. The first one didn't have a beard. And he was dead.

She helped him up. Other agents were gathered there, downtrodden, dizzy, about to drop their firearms. The civilians around were watching her with indescribable emotions.

"Where is it?"

"It headed west, leaving an army of cries and wailing in its wake. If you can think of a way to stop it, it'd be great to tell us before the D.E.O. arrives and destroys all of Liverpool, creature, and all," Steve said, and he didn't seem to be joking.

Diana removed a piece of bronze from her back, which had ripped her shirt. She wondered where it had come from and remembered that she had been thrown into the statues at the entrance of the Royal Liver Building. Four musicians. One of them had lost an arm, and another…

"Did I just decapitate Ringo Starr?"

"And you took an arm from Lennon too, but we'll make sure Yoko doesn't sue you. We need to go after the Creature again, Diana. Hey, this time I'm not going to ask you to follow me. In fact, they'll probably order me to if they see you. They're already asking questions about who you are and why you're so… well."

Diana remembered again. "I'll settle for saving the day. You save the world."

"You're not asking me. I will do it because I have to do it."


Diana looked west. She could see smoke a couple of kilometers away. The road was made up of hundreds of dizzy people. Many of them looked at her with curiosity and some with fear. They had probably seen her jump a few impossible meters while facing the Crystal Creature. And now, how was she going to explain what was happening?

All she had left was to assume that people would forget about her, as everyone had after the wars. She was going to run at full speed, jump on the creature, strike it with all her might by surprise, and let the army take care of the rest. Or the special forces group Steve belonged to. Team 7.

Steve hadn't given her many details about that special agency, but Diana had already discovered that they called themselves Team 7 because they included seven commanders, the best in their field. Despite being so young, they had chosen Steve as one of them. This Steve, she remembered again. The first one was dead. The second was an enigma that somehow made her happy.

"I remember you," said someone, just before Diana started running.

An old man approached with his young granddaughter. He was very, very old, and had a long diagonal scar across his face.

"Sir, we need to ask you to step back," Steve requested, and several of his agents approached to stop the approaching old man. He had gray, seemingly lifeless eyes, but Diana noticed they were completely fixed on her.

"I don't know what's wrong with him, I'm sorry," apologized the granddaughter, shaking her head from side to side, showing signs of a headache. "It's because of this. What was that thing?"

"I remember you very well," repeated the old man. He reached out to Diana, and the agents got in the way, looking at her sideways, distrustful. They must have been as surprised as the old man. Maybe more. Steve had only told the other Team 7 leaders about her, not the rest of the agents.

"Grandfather, please!"

"Sir, please step back, we are in a disaster zone."

"Wait a minute, Steve." Diana stared at the old man, who smiled at her with longing emotion. His eyes, little by little, regained their shine, as if watching a movie of his memories.

She made her way through the agents. They were indeed decimated, but they wouldn't have been able to do stop her even if they were in perfect health. Diana took the old man's hand, and he smiled at her with much more strength and vitality. He even seemed to regain few years.

"Yes, I do remember you…"

"Good sir, my name is Diana."

"Second Corporal Daniel Bradley, Third Squadron, Sussex Infantry, British Army," replied the old man, with a lucidity that left his granddaughter open-mouthed.

"May I ask where you remember me from, Corporal Bradley?"

"Well, you haven't aged a bit. But I know I saw you there. I know I didn't dream it. You lifted a German tank over your head and crushed it to the ground after taking out everyone inside… You're the Angel I always remembered." A tear appeared in the old man's left eye, and Diana couldn't help but being moved.

"All those things are long behind us, Corporal Bradley." Diana took his other hand and held both with affection. He did remember her.

"No, not things of the past. Things of the future. It's people like you that we've needed. You, who got us into No Man's Land and diverted the missiles to the ground so we could advance. I remember you very well." The old man stopped to cough into his forearm. Diana approached a little closer and looked tenderly into his eyes.

"The things I saw, don't make one wish to return, Corporal Bradley."

Clouds of smoke shaped like mushrooms. Naked children without family, fleeing bullets. Women under the rubble, abandoned. Mountains of dead men while the living hugged each other to avoid joining the fallen frozen. Nature completely annihilated. Weapons that should never have existed.

It repeated four years ago, and now again. Space people arrived on Earth to dominate another species. A crystalline monster was making people scream, reliving their greatest fears in agony. And she was only using a sword, hidden in the shadows.

"No one wishes to return to Hell, but you're the only one who understood."

"Understood what, good man?"

"Diana, what are you doing?" Steve intervened. The bearded Steve, not the one the old man might have known. "The Creature is getting away. I see smoke rising. And you're attracting too much attention, the world isn't ready for…"

"The world has always been ready for her!" exclaimed the old man, squeezing Diana's hands with all his strength. "It's us men who were never ready for her. I remember you well, Angel. You didn't fight to annihilate or kill our adversaries, but to protect us. And them, too. That's why we need you in Hell, to make it Heaven. I always wanted it to be true, and now my old hands are holding yours, just like back then when my eyes couldn't stop seeing you."

Diana noticed how people were gathering around. It wasn't the first time she had seen something like this. It had happened in the First War, when she arrived in the world of man, an innocent and incredulous princess. It also happened in the Second, when she dressed in the colors of a flag that seemed to represent freedom, and joined other men and women like her, with colorful powers and uniforms, until they were betrayed by a government that dared to drop two weapons on Japan that Hephaestus would never have thought to create.

"Are you sure you want me to…?"

"We need you to protect us," said the old man, smiling and teary, shining like Helios, his smile like Hebe's. "From ourselves, really. Protect us, Wonder Woman."


When she heard that name she hadn't heard in so long, and the murmurs spread among the crowd, perhaps remembering a lost epithet, Diana slowly stepped away from the old man, lowering her hands gently. The Amazons couldn't age, and that's perhaps why they didn't understand the wisdom that came with aging.

"What are you doing, Diana?"

"Steve, you are so very young," she replied, smiling at him.

"Me?"

Diana took the Sword of Truth from Steve's hands. It wasn't used to attack, but to defend. She shouldn't leave the past behind, but to use her experience to create a better future. That's how she had been educated and trained for four hundred years.

She tapped the bracelet on her left wrist, which emitted an intense lightning bolt, joining her left hand. There her shield materialized, which was gifted to her by Athena herself when she became Champion. An Aspis Shield perfectly round, silver in color, with a golden brim. The old man looked at her with great joy.

"I remember… I remember!"

"Yes. I do too."

Without wasting any more time, like a bullet, Diana ran after the Crystal-Creature, leaving Steve, the Team 7 agents, the old man, his granddaughter, and three of the Beatles behind. Despite all her training, it was Jay Garrick, The Flash, who really taught her how to run in the most perfect way. The Flash was much faster than her, but he explained that speed didn't determine the effectiveness of running. She could run not only as a method to get to a destination faster, but better, to save people.

In a minute, she was already in front of the Crystal-Creature. The people around her, touched by the creature's tentacles, writhed on the ground or by the river, as she advanced. One of the faces of the crystalline cube pointed towards her, unleashing vivid and radiant golden flashes.

But it was already too late. She had already jumped.


A furious kick knocked the Crystal-Creature to the ground for the first time. Diana heard a crack. Its tentacles didn't stop writhing.

Quickly, some of them launched themselves at Diana. She deflected them to the ground with the shield or struck them with the sword. Crack. She found that she could make deep cuts on its crystalline surface with some ease, and wondered why she hadn't tried it before. Was she so preoccupied with not being seen that she acted so recklessly?

The Creature rose into the air again. It glowed, and its crystal limbs rose vertically, all parallel to each other. Diana began to feel the usual pain.

Your arms are very warm, Diana…

"I know, Steve," Diana said, perfectly remembering the time Steve Trevor told her that, the first night they slept together, so many decades ago. She smiled and dodged with perfect synchrony and precision the crystal whips' attacks, as well as the fears they brought. "You will not be able to affect me again, Creature!"

She had experienced much worse things. Real things. In her mind, she saw thousands of terrifying things, but she convinced herself in that moment that she would do everything in her power to prevent them from happening again.

She threw the shield at the monster, which rebound against its surface. Diana expected that, and when the weapon returned, she struck it with the wave caused by the crossing of her two Bracelets of Victory. The cuffs were made of Amazonium, like all the bracelets wore by Amazons, but these ones were made by Goddess Nike and were able to control light and store divine items. The glow caused was even more intense than the one produced by the creature, which quickly lost its shine and was struck again by the shield.

Now was the time. She was a Champion of Humanity; it was time for her to act as such. She threw herself into the air and cut one of the creature's filaments with her sword, and the thing hadn't finished peeling off the cube when another tentacle was severed. And then another. And one more. And another. She intoned a melody she hadn't used in decades, accompanied by dozens of longing hearts.

Using buildings, the ground, nearby statues (and making sure not to decapitate any musicians), and even some lampposts to jump and cut whips, Diana danced. The Aspis Shield had not finished casting its glow when she finished off almost all of them, leaving only one, the one closest to the ground.

Diana took it, and immediately had horrifying memories again. But this time, she didn't let herself be intimidated. With both hands she grabbed the tentacle tightly, and after a jump, she slammed the Crystal-Creature against the ground. She wasn't going to allow it to harm any living being. Repeatedly Diana smashed it against the ground, while having sad and painful memories before her eyes.

The monster was gradually losing its shine. Five times Diana managed to slam it until the muscles of her arms began to numb. The Crystal-Creature exhibited damage and cracks on all its sides, where the filaments it had created to manipulate people had been.

In the end, its glow faded. Shortly after, Team 7 helicopters arrived, ready to take the defeated monster somewhere. Diana waited for Steve's news, because she suspected she still had work to do. It was bad news…


...


Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire, England.

On her way to her apartment, to get what she was going to need more than ever now, Diana met Donna again in Sherwood Forest. Donna didn't ask too many questions, and Diana didn't tell her either. There would be time for that, and Donna, as the warrior she was, knew there was a time for all stories.

"Hey… you asked me before why you brought me to this forest. While I was waiting for your news —quite frustratingly, I must admit— I started looking around," Donna said, sitting next to some squirrels. Diana noticed that her melody, for the first time, seemed more in tune with nature.

"And?"

"I found a statue. Ribon Hood I think they called him?"

"Robin Hood, yes," she corrected.

"Apparently he's a hero around these lands. He stole from the rich to give to the poor. Is that what you wanted to show me?"

"Robin Hood is a legend, Donna. A legendary figure who fought against injustice, just because he knew he had to. I brought you here because it's here, in this forest, where his legend is told. A forest whose music is in tune with that legend."

"I don't understand."

"Legends are what they are because of the message they deliver. Robin Hood and Wonder Woman are just names, what matters is to share their message. And I think you know what the message is, Donna."

"One doesn't fight to defeat the enemy," reflected her younger sister, looking down. "One fights to protect those who can't fight. The enemy is the least important element?"

"That is correct. That is the true meaning of combat." Diana stood up, with some birds on her shoulders. "I need you to take care of this forest while I'm away, in case another enemy comes from the skies."

"Where are you going?"

"To get the things I need to prevent the chaos from spreading. At the end, maybe you were right, sister mine. Wonder Woman is needed."