Post by DiscipleofBob on Jun 8, 2013 2:25:16 GMT -5
Issue 7, Into the Den
The civilians still left in downtown Gateway City wandered about in a haze of depression, unsure of what happened to them in the past several hours. There was something missing, something that had just been wrenched from their lives, but no one could quite remember what it was. Several in their depressions started their own half-hearted riots. The policemen who had fallen under the same spell as the others regained their selves and immediately set to work trying to restore order to the city.
Between the rioters and police keeping each other busy, the lone white horse bearing two uncomfortable riders galloped through the city unmolested by the crowds, who mostly just looked on in even more confusion. Vanessa struggled to hold on. Even with her experience, riding bareback was always as much of a challenge as it was a pain, to say nothing of Etta holding to Vanessa for dear life.
Vanessa suddenly kicked her knees into the horse and it slowed to a stop. “This doesn't look like home safe,” Etta commented as she noticed Vanessa staring back where they came. “No! No way!” she shouted before Vanessa could react, “I've had to deal with your curiosity bullshit three times in the last 24 hours and each time it's almost gotten us killed!” Vanessa only glared back at her with determined puppy dog eyes. “Absolutely not! You saw her! She's got this covered! We'd just get in the way!” The stare continued. Etta had to turn away. “You're going to turn this horse around right now, steer us back home, and we're going to curl up on the couch and watch Netflix. Here, I'll even compromise. We can watch Xena.” The stare only intensified, but Etta turned the other direction and crossed her arms, hearing only Vanessa's frustrated, unrelenting huff.
===WW===
<“This time I will not let you escape!”>
Although Diana also drew the attention of the other passengers, her focus rest solely on her target, the woman in black leather, her arrogant smirk easily recognizable from the attack.
<“Well this is disappointing,”> the Baroness said with a sigh, her smirk fading upon seeing her pursuer’s face. <“Tell me, how many Amazons will I have to send back in pieces before your queen will face me herself? If you don't mind, I'd rather know ahead of time so I can see how much postage I’m going to need.”>
Diana briefly panicked, not at the Baroness's threat but wondered if her secret was already uncovered to the entire subway. Then she realized both the Baroness and her had been speaking in her native Greek dialect of Themyscira. She had not even noticed the seamless transition in languages thanks to the divine wisdom granted by her tiara, just one of the armor’s powers. She could speak in her native tongue and the only one who would understand what she was saying was the one who already knew of her homeland. Diana could speak freely and reveal nothing.
<“I am Diana of Themyscira! You will return what you have stolen, and you will answer for your crimes, either by trial or at my hand here and now!”>
The Baroness rolled her eyes as she sized up the Amazon, thoroughly unimpressed. <“I suppose I should have expected that the Amazon Queen would only send one of her underlings. It's still a shame that I went through all this trouble to prepare a warm welcome just to find her messenger girl.”>
<“I am no messenger!”> Diana replied furiously.
<“Ah, but you are,”> she corrected. <“You see you're going to deliver a message from me to your queen, albeit in a nontraditional matter, and hopefully it will be enough to convince her to come herself, lest more of her precious Amazon subjects suffer the same fate that happened to poor, unsuspecting, innocent... I'm sorry, what was your name again?”>
She had been given her chance to surrender, and forfeited it. Diana quickly but warily moved towards her target. <“There’s nowhere to run now, coward! On guard!”>
Her response to the challenge was an amused laugh. <“I'm sorry, do you think you actually have a chance against me? After I so easily murdered, how many was it again? Twelve? Thirteen? I really should have kept better count.”>
Diana grimaced as her pace quickened. <“Let's see how you fare against an Amazon that is facing you directly!”>
<“How adorable. You still think you've caught me, that I haven't orchestrated everything down to which train I'll be riding home over your bloody corpse. Now the real question is: who should be the first lamb to the slaughter?”>
One of the commuters next to the Baroness, a middle-aged overweight man with a thinning combover, turned and shouted, “Would you and your goddamn girlfriend shut up already?! I'm on a very important call!” He just as quickly turned back to focus on his bluetooth. “What? No, not you. These weirdos are yelling jibberish in the middle of the subway. Some kind of kinky costume party or something. One's dressed like a dominatrix and the other's apparently a Vegas stripper.”
<“I think we just found ourselves a volunteer!”> the Baroness said cheerfully as she reached behind her.
Diana stopped, her thoughts racing. At first she thought the Baroness was pulling out the remaining Apple of Discord and thought to turn her gaze away, but something clicked in her mind. There's no glow. Whatever the Baroness was pulling out, it lacked the signature light of the apple.
She could barely see the small, metal, unfamiliar object in the Baroness's hand. Dangerous. Disarm it. No time to determine exactly what it what the Baroness was about to do with it. But she was still too far away. No projectile weapons. No weapons of any kind.
Improvise.
Her instincts took over, reaching for the nearest object she could throw. The tiara easily snapped off. She hurled her new weapon through the air, tiara-turned-chakram spinning through the air whistling loudly as it shot towards the Baroness’s outstretched hand. Just as the Baroness pointed the presumed weapon at the back of the man's unsuspecting head, the tiara sliced her hand open. The pistol fell to the floor and misfired, the loud bang instantly causing the crowd to panic. The tiara arced back to Diana on the ricochet.
A loud ring signaled an oncoming train, and the Baroness's smile widened as she held up her slashed, bleeding hand.
Her other hand had already pulled out a small, wrapped spherical object. <“Save one life, lose a dozen,”> she chided as she casually tossed the Apple towards the train tracks, its loose wrapping easily sliding off revealing its mystical glow for all the passengers still in the subway.
Although most of the civilians were running for the exits, enough were still frantically looking around enough to notice the reveal of the Apple, and instantly their collective fear of getting shot was completely forgotten in place of the fear of not owning that object of pure desire.
Diana had warned herself to shield her eyes, not to even look in the direction of the Apple, knowing that its power could overwhelm her soul, but she could not ignore the innocent bystanders who did not have the same foresight and were equally enthralled.
Fortunately, the Amazon was far faster as she dashed in front of the crowd, knocking down people in her way. Better they were on the ground then on the tracks of an incoming train. She tried to keep only the faintest glint in her peripheral vision, but she could already feel her mind start to fade. Even steeling her own mind would only delay its effects by seconds at best. Soon she would not be after the Apple to safeguard others, but to keep its precious allure for herself.
Easily breaking from the crowd, Diana grabbed the Apple with both hands as she fell to the tracks. Everything was all right now. She could no longer remember why she was here. Who, or what, she was searching for. Or maybe she did remember. Perhaps everything she had ever wanted was all right here. And now, welcoming her at the end of her journey, was the light at the end of the tunnel, growing brighter as it approached...
The Baroness watched as the train zoomed passed. She only wished she had brought a camera to record the event so she could actually watch the Amazon get splattered in slow motion. As a spectacle it was far less amusing than she had originally thought. “Ah well, at least it got the job done,” she sighed as she turned to retrieve her gun. Maybe as an after sport she could see how many people left in the subway she could murder before they escaped.
Thinking of all the sadistic past times she could do to pass the rest of the night, she turned back around only just in time to see, all in just a few seconds, the Amazon leap over the train from the far side, barely clearing the top in a high jump, spin around midair and deliver an Amazon boot to her face.
Diana, eyes shut tight, quickly deposited the Apple in the bottom of a nearby covered trash can, where it would remain unseen and safe for now. She could open her eyes now. The bright flash from the train had blinded her enough to regain her senses and she had shut her eyes tight. Her sight could not be trusted and the train overwhelmed her hearing as she had pivoted off the far wall to clear the train and return to the subway platform. All she had to rely on was her memory of the battleground, spatial reasoning, and an educated guess on where the Baroness would move in the short time. Fortunately her prediction was right.
The celebration was short-lived as Diana’s arm whipped around to deflect the Baroness's bullet. Her hearing was only just coming back, but that was what her bracelets and training were for.
Diana immediately closed the distance, grabbing the hand that held the gun and crushing both in her grip. The Baroness winced as the cracking of bone and the crunching of metal intertwined in her now mangled mess of a hand as Diana hoisted her up by the throat. <“It's over,”> the Amazon declared. <“You will now give me the information I need to continue my quest.”>
<“Please tell me this is the part where you torture me for information,”> the Baroness smiled, gasping her words through a nearly crushed throat, <“Because I love torture. It’s my favorite part of the day.”>
<“The Amazons do not torture. Such techniques do not yield reliable information, and only serve to inflict unnecessary pain,”> Diana calmly walked to the tracks, the Baroness still in her grip, and held her in midair over the tracks, the implications clear. <“Tell me where to find Amelia, the artifacts, and your two companions.”>
<“You’re bluffing. You need me alive.”>
Diana's voice remained steady, her gaze unwavering. <“Amazons do not bluff. Under ideal circumstances I would bind you and take you back to Themyscira, but my priority is the artifacts. I could let you go and follow you back to where they are hidden, but you would likely figure that out and not return to them. Meanwhile your companions might have the remaining artifacts and choose to inflict unspeakable harm like you have done with the Apples. I do not have the resources to keep you imprisoned, so if you will not volunteer information, I have no choice. I would rather remove one of you as a potential threat permanently while I continue my search.”>
<“And you expect me to believe that if I told you, you’d just let me go?”>
<“As I said, the Amazon you kidnapped and the stolen artifacts are my first priority. If you tell me, you may live until I have secured my other goals. At which I would continue my pursuit of you, but at least you would have a head start and could perhaps live a bit longer.”> Another horn sounded as a faint light from the tunnel quickly grew brighter. <“Please make your decision soon before the large noisy metal boxes make it for you.”>
Suddenly, the Baroness started laughing, cackling madly between limited gasps of air. <“You know what? You’ve officially changed my mind. I’m not going to kill you quickly. No, I’m going to take my time and enjoys this. Do to you what I originally had planned for your mother, Princess Diana of Themyscira.”>
Diana's eyes widened, her grip tightening as if unsure that she had a grip on anything at all. <“How do you...?”>
<“I have a certain someone as a guest, someone who’s been very talkative ever since I showed her my new toy. We have tons of fun together with it.”>
Diana's strength momentarily took a mind of its own. Just as the Apple had eroded her will in favor of bliss, now the Baroness had eroded her patience in favor of rage. <“What have you done with Amelia?!”> Both of her grips tightened until Diana was sure she heard bones snap like twigs.
Just when she thought she might have already killed her, the Baroness casually replied, <“Oh you know. Girl stuff. Gossip. Pain.”>
<“WHERE IS SHE?!”> This time Diana's grip tightened on purpose as she crushed the Baroness's arm into a mangled, bloody mess. The Baroness winced this time at the immense pain, but her wicked smile still remained.
<“52 Drozdowski Street. Warehouse 4. By the docks,” the Baroness quickly but casually informed, much to Diana's surprise. The train horn blared again as the light grew closer. <“But you were never really going to let me go, were you?”>
<“I never said I would. I just said I would let you live until my other goals are met. I will bind your arms and you will lead me to this Drozdowski Street.”>
The Baroness's grin widened to the point where she bared her fangs like a cornered fox, or one that only pretended to be cornered. <“I knew I liked you! I predict that this will be the start of a very long friendship, but for now, I have a train to catch.”> Suddenly her head twisted and squirmed in Diana's grip before the Baroness's jaw clamped down on Diana's hand. Despite the teeth sinking into her hand, Diana held on, but the brief shot of pain combined with her surprise allowed the Baroness to plant both feet on Diana's torso and propel herself backward, out of the grip of the Amazon...
...and right into the path of the oncoming train.
It was only for a split second, but Diana watched as the Baroness's perpetual smirk was crushed into paste by the oncoming passenger train.
There was no possible way she could have survived that, even though Diana noted that she seemed completely confident in her ability to do so. The moment could have been Diana's first true victory in this war. It could have been her first true kill. Or it could be that she let one of her sisters' attackers escape her grasp.
Diana could spend hours searching unfamiliar tunnels for any sign of the body, or she could follow her other lead. Slightly shaken by her encounter with the clearly insane Baroness, Diana grabbed the Apple wrapped in old, foul-smelling newspaper, and hurriedly exited the subway, and was met by the rapidly approaching horse bearing Vanessa and Etta.
“What are you doing back here?”
“She always picks rock,” Vanessa offered with a seemingly innocent smile.
“You were steering the horse!” Etta grumbled. “What I was supposed to do? Leave you behind and WALK home?”
“I thought I told you to take these two to safety,” scolded Diana. The horse whinnied in response, only confusing Etta and Vanessa even more. “Well I appreciate the concern, but I need them and you to be safe first.”
“How can you talk to animals?” Etta asked.
“Anyone can talk to animals. It’s just a matter of whether or not they listen and respond appropriately,” Diana offered.
“That's not an explanation!”
“Since you are already here, it would be best to reunite the three apples. It will be easier to transport and conceal that way.” Everyone shut their eyes and Vanessa even covered the horse’s gaze before Diana deposited the garbage-covered Apple of Discord into the purse and resealed it. “Now I need you to leave. Hide these somewhere secret and safe. I will be back later.” Before any more questions could be asked, Diana turned and sprinted in the direction of the ocean.
“Wait! No! You are NOT getting away without telling us what the hell is going on this time!” Etta yelled as she ran after Diana. “Did you hear me? I said get back here!” It did not take long before Diana had long-vanished, a mere speck in the distance. Etta ran as fast as she could, never gaining any ground, eventually being forced to stop just to breathe again. Vanessa slowly approached her with a sympathetic arm. Etta replied defensively, “Don't look at me like that! She's clearly a superhero! Come on, Vanessa!”
“What, now you want to follow her?” Vanessa smirked.
“Well we aren't getting any answers by going home and watching Xena.”
===WW===
When the sorceress materialized, she was in a dark warehouse, one like any other. Busy during the day, but empty at this time of night. The creatures of Poseidon’s dominion lay in frozen boxes, but their stench permeated the warehouse. It was a necessary evil for Circe’s purposes. In the far corner was a small stack of unmarked dusty old boxes, unused and forgotten.
Circe approached the small stack of boxes, and with a wave of her hand removed the glamour, the boxes vanishing to reveal a small altar, adorned with medieval weapons encrusted black with ancient blood. A red clay bowl rested before the statue of a mighty faceless warrior, wearing an amalgamation of armors throughout cultures and history.
Conjuring a small flame at her fingertip, Circe ritualistically lit the wax candles adorning the altar’s weapons. Taking a small athema from her robes, Circe pricked a finger and let the blood drip into the clay bowl as she spoke the practiced words.
“Impetuous one who takes joy in strife,
Keen-bladed god, friend of those who struggle in vain,
Giver of might drawn from desperation,
Of skill born of muscle and bone, of devotion
To eternal conflict, I honor you.
Hear my call, Master.”
The blood rippled towards Circe, or rather outward from the statue as the smoke from the candles mixed with a blood-red vapor rising from the bowl. The darkened smoke grew and engulfed the altar, solidifying into a suit of sharp, angled, obsidian armor, crafted equally for intimidation as it was for combat. A pair of blood red eyes glowed from beneath a horned helmet.
“Circe. I trust you bring good tidings?” the armor bellowed in a deep, commanding voice.
The sorceress nodded, kneeling in reverence before the figure. “Everything is proceeding as planned. The Amazons are crippled. The bulk of their forces are either dead or wounded.”
“Excellent. And the artifacts?”
“We took only the selected artifacts, and left the rest behind, as instructed.”
“And Pandora's Box?”
“As promised,” the artifact materialized in Circe’s hands. The figure took the offering and looked upon the seemingly simple box with triumph.
“With this our victory is assured. Soon the Golden Age of war will come, and then my servant, your vengeance will be guaranteed. You already know your orders. Carry them out, and keep me informed of all that transpires. I will not be subject to my enemy’s usual tricks.”
“As you command, Lord Ares,” Circe said as she bowed before the god, who vanished back into blood and smoke, a sharp gale snuffing the candles. Circe stood, about to recast the glamour on the altar before the click of a flashlight and a voice from the shadows suddenly made an intruder known.
“This is just a suggestion, but you know we mere mortals have these things called phones now. Might be easier than ritual blood sacrifices in fish-smelling warehouses,” said Cheetah as she shined the small flashlight on the unsuspecting Circe and the previously hidden altar. “Nice collection you’ve got here. Anything worth something or are those all knock-offs?”
Circe was livid. “How dare you tread upon sacred ground!”
“Oh yeah, I can smell the reverence.” The stench of rotten fish mingled in the air with the strange incenses of the altar. “You know they have churches for this sort of thing.”
“This place was the site of a large-scale battle between law enforcers and smugglers in the early twentieth century. Blood was spilled from a massive conflict here. Only in places like these can I call upon the god of war. And there are very few such sites in this city that meet such a requirement and are isolated from the masses, and you have sullied this one with your presence!”
The Cheetah remained unintimidated. “Hey, don’t get all snooty with me, Maleficent. I was just following the Baroness’s orders.”
Of course, Circe realized. The Baroness was a valuable ally, but also crafty and unpredictable. “How did you find this place?”
As Cheetah looked over the various trinkets on the shrine, trying to decide which ones were worth something and which ones would be missed. In response she held up a small pendant engraved with runes all too familiar to Circe. “Your magic isn’t exactly untraceable. This cost me a pretty penny off of Amazon.com, ironically enough. But that’s what expense accounts are for.”
“You expect me to believe that you were capable of using an actual scrying stone to locate me?”
“Look, I don’t care if you are the Circe from the Odyssey. Magic is magic. It’s not as strange and mystical as you and the rest of Dumbledore’s army would like to make us Muggles think it is.” She turned back to Circe with mock fear. “Oh no, I’ve read Harry Potter. Does that mean I already know all of your tricks?”
“Why you blasphemous, ignorant...”
Her brief tirade was interrupted by a soft ringing. Cheetah pulled out the cell phone, ignoring Circe’s rant completely. “Hold on a sec. Hello?” She confirmed the voice on the other line. “It’s the boss. Here, I’ll put it on speaker.”
===WW===
“...wretched, vile piece of gutter trash scum! You dare mock the mystical arts of one who has survived for millennia?!”
“Darling, it’s so good to hear from you! Cheetah, how is the home of my all-powerful sorceress? Any human sacrifices?” Paula Von Gunther cooed sweetly into the phone as she popped her leg back into place.
“Not really. Just a blood-pricking dagger apparently.” the assassin calmly replied.
“Pity. Well at least I know what to get you as a housewarming gift.”
“What is the meaning of this?” Circe’s voice demanded.
“Circe, you seem upset! I only had Cheetah track you down so I’d know where to send birthday cards, invitations, severed limbs, and the like,” Paula maneuvered the phone between her head and shoulder as she picked shrapnel out of her hand. She liked that gun a lot too. “Oh, I almost forgot, I have to ask you a favor. We have a guest from Themyscira. I ran into Hippolyta’s lovely daughter Diana today and, well, my place is just a mess with all those wonderful new toys cluttering up the place. So I sent her to yours instead!”
“YOU WHAT?!” Circe’s voice rose to almost inhuman levels.
“I know, I know, big social faux pas on my part, but we had to bring the party somewhere. So I’m hoping you’ll arrange a little welcome for her.”
“This is a shrine to the Amazons’ sworn enemy! And you sent one here?!”
Paula shook her hand as the wounds slowly stopped bleeding. “Oh dear, how inconvenient. I wish I would have thought about that when I pointed her towards Cheetah’s GPS, but I guess what’s done is done. Give her all the welcoming we can give, okay? Sorry but I have to go. I’m borrowing a wonderfully polite gentleman’s phone. Lunch later? Lots of love!” She hung up the phone to the sound of Circe’s increasingly incoherent rantings.
“Now see, that didn’t take too long, did it?” Paula said sweetly as she carefully readjusted her neck back into alignment, the spine painfully snapping back into place.
“Please... just let me go... I’ll do anything... I have a daughter...” the miserable man sobbed into a pool of his own blood on the floor.
“Ah, how sweet,” Paula smiled as she grabbed a nearby broken, jagged, rusty pipe and raised it above her head...
===WW===
Diana easily snapped the lock on the warehouse door before throwing it open. Expecting an ambush or a trap right then and there, Diana treaded carefully through the darkened building, treating each corner, each shadow as a possible ambush. The smell of fish rot permeated the air, but mixed with something else as well. Something that did not belong to the rest of the docks here. A burnt fragrance. Incense? Searching for clues in the warehouse was tedious. Impossible for most people. But Diana like many Amazons learned how to track wild beasts in the dead of night, many of which also knew how to cover their own tracks.
The ground had been disturbed here recently. Twice. Though Diana could not be sure of their source. One seemed to appear out of nowhere, the patterns around it suggesting that the owner of the footprints only suddenly appeared. Magic? The footprints in the dirt leading from
The second set of footprints also appeared suddenly, though the slight deviations allowed Diana to eyeball and guess the angle of their descent. Nearby was an open ventilation shaft, likely the entrance or escape plan of the other.
It does not take long for Diana to notice the prints leading to a suspiciously empty corner. Checking the area for clues led her to some small sticky clumps on the ground. Candle wax. she realized after analyzing the substances. Further investigation found more candle dropping, but also some blackened red stain.
Blood... but not spattered. Just a few drips Diana attempted to piece what little of the puzzle she had together. Something, and someone, was here. What sort of rituals were conducted in this place?
As Diana pondered over the meaning of the scene, an unseen assailant smiled from up in the rafters. Amazon or no Amazon, Cheetah had the perfect vantage point to kill the target before she could know what happened. She took her time lining up her aim, her pistol sights set right at eye-level. Her finger relished pulling the trigger.
Before the bullet had left the chamber, before the click or resounding BANG deafened her ears, Diana suddenly turned to her enemy as the bullet ricocheted off her suddenly outstretched bracelet. Not wanting to lose the advantage, Cheetah dropped the obviously useless gun and grabbed for her knife, leaping down at the Amazon with no mercy. Her opponent turned out to be far stronger than she had anticipated, deflecting the knife blow as well with her bracelets.
Diana quickly wrapped her arm around the would-be assasin's knife arm and immobilized it. Her free hand jabbed at Cheetah's wrist, the blade falling to the ground where Diana promptly kicked it under one of the many storage containers and well out of reach.
Just as one blade was taken care of, several more suddenly dug into Diana's back. Cheetah grinned as the retractable claws in her glove raked across the Amazon's exposed flesh. Gritting her teeth in pain, but bearing it, Diana launched her foot into the assailant's torso, kicking her away.
Now that the initial ambush had mostly failed, both women analyzed each other. Their stances, their weak points, their arsenals. Unfortunately for Diana other than her armor she was unarmed, while the Cheetah had who knows how many hidden weapons and tricks up her sleeve. The Cheetah knew it too.
“Neat trick with the bracelets. I didn’t believe it when I was told guns wouldn’t work on your kind. But that's why it pays to be versatile.” Her hand whipped around and threw two previously hidden knives.
Diana deflected the blades with even less effort. “I assume nothing that you stole from my people is here then?” she asked with a cold understanding.
“Got that right. You’ve been hustled,” Cheetah sneered.
“I would have been more surprised had your master been truthful. But at least this way I can take down two members of your trinity.” Diana dashed forward, keeping her body low in pursuit.
“Heh, is that what you think?” Cheetah snickered as she cartwheeled off a few nearby boxes to get the high ground, “Nice try, but I already got a call from the boss. Not sure what went down, but you didn't take her out. No one takes out Baroness Paula Von Gunther. You have no idea who you're dealing with.”
The same leap to the top of the storage containers that took Cheetah several boxes to make Diana vaulted in a single, powerful leap. Cheetah had to tumble out of the way to avoid getting crushed by the Amazon's heels. “I had already guessed that your master had some plan to survive our ordeal, though what or how I was not sure. Thank you for confirming this for me.” Before Cheetah could get to her feet, Diana took a running start and kicked Cheetah square in the jaw, tossing her over several crates until she crashed into the side of a container across the warehouse, leaving a Cheetah-sized dent in the sides. “I was referring to the one who thinks her magicks will hide her from me.”
Circe ceased her invisibility spell, her form slowly shimmering into existence. “Your senses are well-trained, Amazon. As is your body. But I have to wonder. You are no doubt trained to fight brutish soldiers and cowardly assassins,” Circe says as she casts a grin in Cheetah's direction. “But how does an Amazon handle true power?” Even the slight glow from her fingertips filled the darkened warehouse as Circe began to draw forth the magical energies.
Cheetah dragged herself back up to the fight and wiped the blood from her face. Both gloves extended sharp claws from each fingertip as her new weapon of choice. “You can chill for now, Hermione. I've got this. I already took down twenty or so Amazons on Paradise Island,” Cheetah boasted, her pride now at stake as she lunged at Diana.
“You will find a large difference between ambushing an Amazon from the shadows during peacetime and challenging one who is staring you back.” The Cheetah attacked in a dizzying flurry of slashes from her claws, too fast for the naked eye even before the darkness was taken into account. The tiny glints of metal blades struck against the shine of Diana's bracelets, sparking with each strike, but frustratingly never cutting into the arm it sought. Cheetah tapped her heel at the exact angle needed to release the small blade in her boot and kicked at what she hoped would be a blind spot.
Diana suddenly edged forward, just inside of Cheetah's guard and grabbed her by the leg, the stiletto slicing at air. Hefting her up, Diana swung Cheetah overhead by her leg before slamming her down into the steel container.
While Cheetah was still recovering, Diana slammed the leg down as well, shattering the blade. Panicking now, Cheetah reached for a different pouch and weakly flicked a small pellet towards Diana.
The pellet exploded, the resulting smokescreen engulfing the entire warehouse. Cheetah used the brief distraction to run away, briefly on all fours as she quickly leaped back up to the rafters to plan her next attack.
But as Cheetah scanned the warehouse for any sign of the Amazon, she came up empty even as the smoke started to clear.
“You attacked from the shadows above me before and it did not work. What made you think it would this time?” Looking straight down, the bewildered assassin found Diana standing directly beneath her, looking straight up, just before performing a standing leap that not only reached the assassin's position, but tackled the unbelieving Cheetah from her perch. Falling in between the containers, Cheetah fell twenty feet before she was slammed between Diana's full weight and the hard floor.
Cheetah could feel the sickening crack of her ribs as she hit the ground and vomited blood. Diana grabbed one of Cheetah's hands and slammed the other against the ground, smashing the claw mechanism and disarming Cheetah. “Yield, Assassin of the Cheetah! I am victorious!”
“A little help here?” Cheetah growled at Circe who only watched with amusement.
“I thought you said you could handle her? Are you getting cold feet already?” The sorceress was enjoying this way too much.
“You're the witch! Turn the bitch into a cat or something!”
At first Circe's smile vanished, but then it was slowly replaced by an even wider menacing grin. “Very well. As you wish.” The mystical energy from before returned to Circe's hands. Diana watched as Circe threw a cascade of magic in her direction, diving out of the way, only for it to engulf her opponent instead.
“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?” Cheetah screamed as her entire body felt on fire, every nerve ending going through searing pain.
Diana carefully approached Cheetah again, hoping to knock her unconscious before she could suffer any more pain, but was knocked across the room into a pile of broken boxes by a sudden strength Cheetah had nothing of before.
“Turning.”
Diana watched as Cheetah stumbled into the moonlight, her shadow cast on the opposite wall, growing in girth as her muscles expanded to nearly twice their original size.
“The bitch.”
A thick layer of orange fur sprout all over Cheetah's body, from head to toe. Her very bone structure bent and cracked as it was not merely just healing, but being reshaped into something else along with the rest of her body.
“Into a cat."
Cheetah's clothes fell from her body, ripped to shreds by her new form. She no longer needed aritificial cat claws as her hands started sprouting actual claws. Her face started exhibiting more bestial features. Her ears moved to the top of her head and adopted a more feline shape. Her pupils turned to cats eye slits, and as if the fur was not enough whiskers sprout under her new cat-like nose.
As Cheetah grimaced and grit her teeth, they sharpened and elongated into a set of full carnivorous fangs. As a finishing touch, a long, prehensile tail sprouted and whipped around from side to side.
The smoke was just starting to clear, and the strange beast that had once been an ordinary criminal tried to scream in pain, but only let out a feral howl of fury.
“Or something.”
To Be Continued...