Wonder Woman

Previously, The last few months had been a trail for Diana. She’d failed in her duty as a peace bringer and as an Ambassador for the Amazons. In her constant struggle against the enemies of peace, and her own Rogue’s gallery, the evil pregnancy of Greece, namely the evil Sorceress Circe, and the equally evil, but far more ancient Cheetahs.

Diana had been felled by her own hubris, arrogance and over-confidence led her to make a fatal error, one that earned her the anger of the Gods. Stripped of her title as Wonder Woman, Diana tried in vain to stem the tide of evil she had released from the Golden Gates, letting the mythology of the world run rampant.

Diana had been unable to contain it, or even prevent it in the time frame that Zeus had given her, leaving her permanently stripped of the role, and powers, of Wonder Woman. Her broken body had been laying in a Hospital, when she had been approached by a deity that was older than the Greek Pantheon, or even human life on the planet.

Maya, the Spirit of the Earth – And She had offered Diana a Deal.

“It is time to be your own person, Diana.”

Maya’s hands moved silently, energy and power spilling from them and bathing Diana in light. In power.

The Change was jarring as Diana stood motionless. Maya’s gestures and powers had been greater than she had ever experienced or witnessed and, more importantly, transformation in most cases almost always resulted in pain. Acute pain, digging and shooting down the soul and through the mind, but in this case, it was a wave of warmth, of pleasure, of comfort; almost as though she were walking through a warm field and returning to her home.

It was as though this was her true form.

This time she was more of a woman; no costume, but elements were still there. Her clothes, if you could call them that, were reminiscent of her Greek heritage. A long flowing toga, made from sheets of rock, like a geological sheet. Wafer thin pieces of rock, layered on top of each other to make up the patterns and ‘fabric’ of her clothes. It strapped across her left shoulder and attached at her right hip with tiny glowing pieces of Quartz, leaving her chest area bare but the rest of the toga flowing down behind her. Aside from this piece she was totally naked, as beautiful and carved as any statue.

She had the same physique down to the same muscle definition, though the angles of her body had changed; instead of soft and curved they were sharp, like the edges of slate sticking out through the soft top soil. It was much rougher as well she noted as she ran her grey hand over her forearm; it had the consistency and pliability of freshly mixed cement, but it was so much harder. As her fingertips glanced over the ‘flesh’ tiny fragments crumbed away from her digits, falling to the ground to her shock.

She looked down into the reflective properties of the crystal clear lake before her that surrounded the island on which Maya sat, with a cool wind whistling past her, not that she’d feel it. Her hand pressed its grey fingers against her face, tracing her features. They were more pronounced; her cheek bones cast a shadow on her lower face, but sharp like edges of a cliff eroded by the sea.

She noticed her eyes next, dark as volcanic ash and charcoaled rock, but a faint glow resonated behind them signaling the molten rock that pumped through her thick veins within. With every movement small cracks formed in her body, cracks that glowed in the darkness and cast light onto the ground below, another indication of her molten core. Whilst they formed with every movement, when still Diana’s cracks faded as the under-currents of molten rock repaired her body.

As Maya sat in the seat of the World, within the core of the planet, something stirred within the hub of civilization. A basin, now drained of water and life located in the Middle East, where Humanity is said to have evolved and developed culture from. Considered to be the closest thing man would ever get to the Hyperborean era.

She stirred, born fully grown, as though the embryo of something to come had erupted many eons ago but only just now gained enough introspection and energy to birth itself. Her blackened hands clawed at the ground and her slender, elegant legs pulled her to a stand. Naked, covered in nothing but the black light and neon glow that emitted from her body, she had no smell, just sexuality and seduction. Her task was to begin – as Maya had created her own Pantheon, as her Mother had created her own world, she too would create her own existence. Her own meaning. Her own Champions.

All children replace their parents, it was nature’s way.

Modo was born.

“Diana. Turn to face your brethren,” Maya spoke, her words echoing throughout eternity and the Cavern in which she stood. As she turned, very slowly, much slower than she had previously been accustomed, her eyes focused on what lay before her.

Six stood in front of her. Six humanoids and, then behind her, thousands, if not millions, of Organisms; trees and waves and stones and flames and winds, all burning, twisting and splashing in salutations to her.

“You are reborn, Diana of Paradise Island. You are of nowhere now. You are from yourself and that is your homeland. You are Diana Prince, Earth Elemental.”

“Earth….Elemental?” Her words were gravel against slate, grating and leaving tiny scrapes for every sound. Guttural, not like the beauty of word she held as a princess of Greece.

“Welcome.” Alec Holland, the Swamp Thing, held his moss covered hand to her. She moved slowly, taking a full minute to move her hand from the stationary position at her side to Alec’s open hand. She looked embarrassed, the molten rock coming to the surface of her skin and giving it a faint glow.

“Do not…Worry, Diana Prince. We are….All Elementals and all….understand the trials that come with this….Station.”

“You….Are….Most…Kind,” Diana said, with a brief and very slow nod of the head. In truth, her anger and frustration bubbled underneath her surface. She had been able to keep tabs on the Flash, her strength and speed were legendary, equal to Hermes if not greater in some rare cases. She was elegant and beautiful, and now…now she was simply a statue that thought it was a woman. How could she have made this mistake? How could she not find herself trapped?

“Diana.” The Tin like voice of the Android before her clasped her hands in both his, drawing her close to his mouth. His body smelt like Cinnamon and engine oil.

“Your trials will soon be upon you. We do not mean you any harm, but please understand, if you hurt, if you ache, if you feel we are pushing you too hard, it is because we as Elementals, we cannot fail. We are the last Bastion and the last hope Maya has against all that holds the Earth and its natural balance in contempt.”

The Android released her hand and stepped back, as the Water Elemental, the Japanese woman known as Naiad, simply stared at Diana, her eyes opaque and lifeless. Her mind was clearly elsewhere. The other Elementals, for the Red, stood next to her Father, sucking back on a Cigarette was the Gothic looking Tefe Holland, a shock of white hair, cut short and choppy, whilst the rest of her was bawdy and angry. Her very image looked to be visceral and violent, as though blood were not just her life, but her staple food and garment was well.

The only elemental left was the Fire Elemental. Who stepped forwards, flames licking against her skin.

“I shall be your first Challenge,” she said without any hesitation.

And so, the Challenges began.

Modo moved silently through the halls of the long building. Within the confines of Egypt, the woman sat, brooding. Always brooding.

As the new Queen of the Modern age walked silently, casting her black light against the stone floor, the Brooding woman stood, her hands, fingers covered in rings and dripping now with the energy on which she called, looking to the source of the footfalls.

“Who disturbs me?” Osira asked, stepped off her stone throne. The self proclaimed Goddess of Egypt, she wielded many powers, but nothing which made her formidable in this, the Modern Age. Being privy to the information she was Modo, Daughter of the Mother Earth, placed her hands on her hips as Osira drained her energy into her black-as-night form.

“You’re wasting your time, you know?” She clicked her tongue against the back of her teeth and moved against the flow of energy. The ground underneath each foot fall dented with impact, her black teeth burning with the Cosmos.

“My name is Modo.” She smiled, wrapping her hands over Osira’s and pulling her in close. Modo’s tongue flicked out and licked over the Sorceresses dry lips. She pulled back in utter revulsion.

“How DARE You!” As Osira began to form a sentence to voice her outrage, Modo twisted her hands, pulling the Mages own hands in opposite directions from her body. She gave a short grunt in pain.

“It’s Latin for Modern, Osira, and you are as outdated as they come. An Egyptian Goddess? Who gives a shit about Egypt these days? Its all about the States, and its all about the Money.” Her eyes glinted as she pulled the woman from her feet and up into the air, her black body beginning to flicker and ooze. A black fluid pumped its way onto the ground, whilst she rolled her head around held in the grips of orgasmic feelings.

“What…what is this?” Osira asked, fear writing itself over her eyes. What black gunk was this? Was it passage to the dark dimension? Was this were she would die?

“That, Osira, is oil.” Modo smiled, dropping the woman in it and placing a foot firmly on her chest.

“And you’re going to Champion its removal from the planet, along with any other hard elements, and ores. I want you converting everything from oil to ore into alloys.” Modo removed her foot and crouched next to her, running a slender finger through the black liquid and brushing it against her tongue.

“Why should I do that? I want to eradicate free will, not create some cheap metals,” Osira scoffed and pulled herself to her feet.

“No, you don’t, do you know why?” Modo let a globule of Oil drop from her fingertips and fall into the pool below her. It fluttered and changed beneath their feet. The pool became a scrying pool, showing a possible future.

“You’re Magic is old, Osira; you’re stuck in the laties, you know? We’re talking the mobile generation where people text each other their pregnancy test results, or find out they like someone from an email. You don’t get your power from rings and amulets anymore.” She pointed down at the black sea, reflecting the possibility.

“You get it from updating yourself.”

“And what about my ideas? My terms?” Osira asked defensively.

“I know your game, Osira. You want to make the world yours by eradicating free-will, yeah? Well, you can do that through my method. Listen, Osira, I’m offering you the opportunity to do something great here, you can become my champion. My Elemental for Industry.”

“And what do I get out of the deal?”

“Aside from power? You get my ideas and, Osira baby, I’ll tell you what I’m imagining. I’m seeing huge fields of people worshipping you, I’m seeing Free Will as a reason to die, and I’m seeing mass subjugation, why?”

Modo waited for her rhetoric to be answered with another.

“Why?”

“Because you’re going to Industrialize Magic.”

“Diana, you belong to the Earth now.” Maya leaned down, her body creaking with the effort. A small burst of Molten rock jetted out from underneath her breasts, burning the trees and water underneath, which instantly burst back through the ground as the Lava turned to rock and ash.

“What….Has….Happened…”

“To you?” Maya cut her off before she finished her sentence. It was hard for Diana to think or even to move. Everything was so heavy. How could she have consciously made this decision?

Maya spoke again, the other Elementals crowding around her.

“You will become more adapted and more at ease with your form as you move and live through it, Diana.”

“I…Didn’t…”

“I know, perhaps I should have told you sooner, Diana, but there is little time. As an Elemental, you will serve the world much faster and much better than you have as a hero – your previous purpose, your status quo was stale and old. You were ineffectual and you had forgotten where you had come from. I understand this must be hard to hear.” Maya’s huge fingers scored through the ground that Diana stood upon and lifted her thousands of feet into the air.

“You must understand, Diana…these are the end times for the World. We begin a new tale this century and its opening chapter starts in vain in only a few short days. Everything will change and I need to count on you, with your experience as Wonder Woman, as a human being, as a woman and a fighter and a peace keeper, to maintain what I have built.”

Diana hung in her hand, unmoving, a statue from necessity and shock. How could she be expected to take all of this in. She had been thrown from one situation to the next with no time to understand or to come to terms with it.

“I…Am…Not…Ready...” she began, only for her words to be cut off from Maya, who pulled her ever closer to her face.

“You ARE Ready, Diana Prince, Earth Elemental. There is so much to teach you, and so little time. You challenges begin now.”

Elsewhere

Her Blonde shoulder length hair fell across her field of vision as she leapt deftly from rooftop to rooftop. Her job had become that much harder of late, with creatures from all manner of field and imagination being leaked into our realm. The other hunters that had been with her had all died; she was the only one remaining. Her body was covered in scores and scars from her various attacks, especially as she dropped down a fire escape, her Parkour coming in handy as she leapt downwards, feet first into the Minotaur’s back. Why it was in a city she would never fathom. These creatures went to the nearest approximation of their habitats.

She guessed that Minotaur’s must be eusocial animals.

As the creature looked up to her, fear and panic written on is features, the blonde woman simply smiled, stroking it’s forehead softly as it began to be absorbed through the glowing square that opened up within her stomach, flesh flicking upwards as if it were on hinges. The Minotaur’s body and spirit were sucked through the opening and back into the world it came from.

“There is no need for you to be here anymore,” she whispered softly, closing the hinge in her stomach and resting for a moment, lying against a bin, with a leg splayed out in front of her.

“What a night.”

He threw his goggles at the ground and slammed his fists into his bed.

“For Fucksakes!” His gauntlets were hurled across the room and he stood in the center shaking with anger and frustration. His bald head held in his hands he shook it softly across the course skin of his palm.

“There’s an order for a fucking reason!” The man threw insults at the cracked mirror in front of him, he was clearly upset and frustrated.

“I’m Sick of this…”

The man sat down on the bed and looked up at the ceiling. Something bubbled to the surface of his mind.

Revenge.

Diana stood in silence as her eyes opened; she didn’t even realize that she’d closed them. Before her was a barren world, the only thing that struck her as alive or moving was a burning spot. It took a moment to register but she soon realized what she looked upon.

It was the Fire Elemental. She had come to begin the challenge. They stood watching each other for a few moments before the Fire elemental opened her hand and crouched down, placing it against the soil.

“It is my duty to begin your training, Diana Prince. As Earth Elemental you must be as hard as Granite and as light as Pumice. You shall never be eroded, or worn down, nor shall you be unmoving or unyielding. Do you understand?”

Diana took a full minute to remember her mouth and uttered simply.

“No…”

Anger wrote itself quickly onto the Fire Elemental’s features and the entire world when white with fire.

To Be Continued...

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