A kaleidoscopic display of prismatic colors shone brightly across a nondescript strip of coastline. Sicily's major population centers were miles away from the pretzel the environment had suddenly become. Tall, arcing stretches of land and sky continued to spread, growing almost like someone were untying a ribbon made of rock, water, grass, and air. The warping effect expanded rapidly, forcing space to contort into strange angles with the loudest cacophony of sound I think I'd ever heard. Perhaps louder, even, than the Reach bombings.
"Gabriel," I barked into the open channel of the Plumber badge. "I hope you're up there, listening, because I have no idea what any of this is." I opened a video feed, if only to record the moment for posterity, because the Plumber in question for this Guardian space sector did not answer.
Whatever this was, it terrified me.
If that effect expanded and managed to grab me, I doubted that I could survive becoming stretched flat, or warped into a balloon, or shifted to goo. Many scenarios ran through my mind at once, and not one of them were good. Did a magical villain perform some ritual to ruin the world, one beachfront at a time? Did a mad scientist set off a chain reaction that would, eventually twist Earth into a corkscrew? Did an alien warlord activate a super-weapon that would punt local space into a supermassive black hole?
I didn't have the tools to stop this, not that I even knew what could be warping the fabric of space. If there was a villain doing this, maybe I could fight them, but… the environment?
In but a flash, my immediate worries vanished. Space knit itself back into its proper shape without much fanfare, but something unmistakable appeared on the cliffs overlooking the beach. A monument from the classical period, a monument that was improbably out of place.
The damn Parthenon.
The very Greek, very ancient, very famous Parthenon now overlooked the Sicilian countryside. I couldn't tell if it were worse for wear – an old building like that was never pristine – but it appeared to be as I'd remembered it from pictures during my first life. A gorgeous edifice of legend, uprooted from its proper place.
"Someone transported that here," I shouted in surprise, holding the badge to my mouth. "Teleported, warped – or, maybe recreated?"
I didn't know for sure if this were not some duplicate, a replica of the real thing. One of those existed in Nashville, after all. If not for the warping of space that had seemingly produced this building, I might not have been concerned at all flying past it.
But this was unmistakably the ancient monument, shifted hundreds of miles away. No one in Athens would be happy about this, and this was the kind of move that would absolutely piss off higher powers if they existed. And, considering the DC Universe was as much a kitchen sink setting as any you can imagine, I fully expected it. Hell -one of them might have done it.
I hovered high overhead, studying the surroundings to decide on a proper plan of action. Nothing in the Reach's arsenal could do something like this, and I was admittedly at a loss for the right move. The only person reliably in my corner who could respond and assist was not answering, and I didn't know if he even had the expertise needed to know what to-
Something rocketed out of the ruins and into the sky above the island. It climbed three, four, five hundred feet before coming to a slow stop. From the distance, it lacked the gun metal gray tones of a drone nor the continued propulsion of a missile. It was… a person.
The culprit?
I poured on the speed and raced forward, my body moving faster than my eyes could reliably understand what I flew toward. In but a short moment, I came face to face with a young woman – no, a teenage girl in tattered dark khaki pants, a white t-shirt with several gaping holes, and shoulder-length dark hair. She flew under her own power despite a handful of visible bruises and wounds.
I opened my mouth to question her, to threaten her to comply, to tell me what was going on. Before a single sound could escape, my upper half folded over her fist and the breath escaped my lungs.
The impact sent me flying dozens of feet. I rolled, end over end, disoriented as up became down became up became down. When I finally recovered, I hesitated long enough to think, "Holy shit, she hits hard…!"
The girl appraised me for a moment. "Good to know you can take a hit. I can have fun!"
Then, she moved.
Power rose behind my eyes, like a burgeoning pressure begging to be released. At the same time, I flew backwards to gain distance and time to aim. Green energy crackled from each eye almost like lightning, and neither of the blasts hit but instead streaked between us until they dissipated harmlessly, splitting a cloud into pieces. The direct approach was out, and she instead veered to the side and attempted to change the entry angle.
"This won't end well for you, because you can't keep up," I threatened, fully believing myself to he faster. Combat speed and traveling speed were different, but I didn't expect her to have either on me.
She tried for a brutal haymaker, but I spun to the side with a roll mid-flight. Another strike almost hit, but I dropped into freefall and then immediately flew beneath her and behind her in an arc. I charged another blast of eye beams but did not release them.
She huffed, held off for but a moment at the sight of my prepared strike. "Would you sit still so I can hit you already?"
"No, thanks. Would defeat the purpose if I let the villain win."
"Villain? I'm not the bad guy!"
I blinked, eyes focusing on the ruins far below us. "If not you, then who?"
The brunette gestured with a heavy finger. "You!"
"Me?"
"Who else? You want me to believe the flying guy I ran into right after all that-" she waved her hands dramatically toward the Parthenon, "-wasn't responsible for it?"
I frowned, letting the energy dissipate. "I saw a news broadcast about the spatial anomaly that's been going on all morning. Came to investigate as quickly as I could."
"And I was touring the place when it happened!" She was exasperated. "So you didn't do this?"
"No. Couldn't do that if I tried."
The girl studied the transplanted ruins far below them, then started fiddling awkwardly with the flap of ruined shirt that had betrayed her to expose her midsection. "Oh. So that means they're still out there."
It was clear from her tone that she didn't completely trust what I had said, so I offered, "The name is Cassian. You got any clue what's happening?"
Recognition filtered through her face. "I saw a man in a hood, holding a glowing green device. Thought you were with him when you flew at me so aggressively."
I ignored the comment. "Then we just gotta find him. Take his toy away from him."
"And make him return the Parthenon to its rightful place. Lady Athena must be furious."
I nodded, brain catching up to what I'd heard. Flying, super strong brunette woman of Greek descent who worships Athena. What confused me was her age.
"I thought Wonder Woman would look older out of costume."
She whirled around to me and then shook her head. "I am not Wonder Woman. My name is Troia."
Huh.
Troia was a name somewhat in the back of my brain, though I only knew of her as a list of someone who'd once been a Titan, probably from a wiki page somewhere. When I'd arrived on Earth and researched other heroes around my age, I hadn't heard anything about Wonder Woman having a partner.
"Good to know. Let's kick this guy's ass, then?"
Troia uneasily smiled. "Right."
SICILY
MAY 14, 20:18 UTC +3
TEAM YEAR ZERO
Troia was out of her element and struggled to think. The plan to steal the device was easier said than done, and she had no desire for the man to warp her again. That had been more painful than dozens of sparring sessions with her tutors Artemis and Phillippa, and the fact that it had wounded her despite her goddesses' blessings? It must be foul indeed.
The boy had been faster than her too, and while she had not hit him with every bit of force she could muster, the fact that he got up again with any considerable punch was notable. The stories from Diana about the odd people that she had met on her travels through Man's World were not especially helpful. He could have any number of origins to his abilities, and Troia had no idea how Diana kept track of the wider world's mysteries and how they compared to the Amazon's natural abilities.
Still, Cassian guided her to approach as carefully as they could. She was keen to listen to someone with more experience.
"They probably know something is up – our fight wasn't subtle, but maybe because it ended quickly, we might have a chance to surprise them."
The lights from his eyes were quite bright, she thought.
"Keep the element of surprise," she accounted. "The Parthenon is an open air structure. We should approach from directly above it, then use the roof as cover to slip inside."
A moment passed and then he nodded. "Makes sense. Did they see your great escape?" Troia wasn't sure and told him so. He grumbled. "They might expect you then, but not me. Still, we can't give them the time to play Twister again."
Troia agreed and then, they were off. He kept pace with her – or perhaps she kept pace with him – until they were in position overhead, a low-lying cloud obscuring their immediate line of sight.
Cassian gave her a thumbs-up and then simply fell from the sky. She admired the affable looseness on his face – he enjoyed what he did.
She willed herself to descend, the power of her blessings guiding her along gravity's natural path. Was he similarly blessed? An accident of genetics? Another species entirely? Whatever the truth, she suspected the abilities were quite potent.
Troia didn't dare touch the delicate roof of the ancient building directly, but he, curiously, tapped it once with his finger and then grinned. She… didn't have time to question him, but she knew immediately that whatever their task, they must protect the Parthenon.
Troia and Cassian separated to approach from different sides of the building. The front room lay beneath her, and as she gingerly righted herself to peek clearly at what lay within, she groaned in righteous frustration.
A half-dozen armed goons began unloading crates that popped into existence with a small warping twist of space. Light flashes flickered from the triangular device in the leader's hands as each appeared. Thugs pulled arms, grenades, drones, and other weapons of Man's World from storage.
More frustrating than it all was the fact that the leader had removed his hood, revealing the handsome face of that teenager, Angelo. Troia felt disgust that she hadn't seen it coming, that she had gone along with the fool of a man's suggestion that she wait by the gift shop. If she had been there, then this would not have happened.
"Angelo!"
The teenager found her face quickly, peeking from above. She flew into view properly and quickly, readying herself to attack at a moment's notice. The gang members started to brandish their weapons at her, but Troia stood firm.
"You're unexpected," the teenager said as he recovered. His eyes leered on her, lingered on her exposed skin. "I wondered what it was that had shot out of my angles, but things always get a little weird."
"Put it back," she demanded. "Put it all back!"
"Boss, I'll take the shot!"
"Don't," Angelo ordered. Surprisingly, they listened to someone half their age. "I meant what I said earlier. I was trying to spare you from getting caught up in all this. Had no idea that you're superpowered. Someone so beautiful, with so many talents."
Troia moved.
The device in Angelo's hand flickered, and space warped. Her fist impacted not against him, but against empty air a few feet to the left. The displacement of air alone sent a wave of wind in all directions. She twisted to attack again, to follow-up with a knee strike that would make Phillippa proud, but the knee impacted instead against the space above, mere inches from the roof of the building.
Gunfire started to pepper the area, and Troia felt a bullet impact her left flank. It didn't pierce her skin, but a painful welt erupted in its place. She yelped and then dashed backwards, skidding to a stop on the floor of the Parthenon at the base of one of the pillars.
Troia focused on her closest target, a thug holding a thick, dark rifle. When she almost made contact with the weapon, to knot it as easily as a shoelace, she instead never reached the target. Space continued to warp, becoming paradoxical in length as she became as trapped as Zeno.
"Give up now," Angelo taunted, emerald energy flaring around him from the strange relic in his hand. It did not taste of any magic she would find familiar, and if it were tech, then it was far more advanced than anything she had ever seen before. "You can't stop us if you can't touch us."
Troia tried another angle, but the warping effect followed her and she was helpless to close the distance on him. She may as well have been running in place.
"You're disrespecting the gods!" she shouted.
"Bah. The old gods don't matter." He held up the device until she could see his eye through the space between its angular shape. "Let's cut a deal. I don't want to ruin a pretty face. You give up now, and when the ransom pays out, you'll get a fresh quarter of a billion euros. And a chance to bed the man of your dreams."
Troia wanted to vomit.
Where was -
Twin bolts of green energy erupted into the back of a thug, throwing him to the ground while his clothes sizzled. A moment later, two more of the men dropped and their pistols shattered in Cassian's fists, the blonde teenager floating over their heads.
Angelo hissed and then energy flared once more. Troia fought against the binding affect, forced herself forward, and just broke through it in time to see a spiraling conflagration of warping angles. What emerged a half-second later was an American tank!
The vehicle popped into existence just outside the Parthenon, its desert camouflaged paint job an eyesore on the island beach. Two men rushed on cue to enter the vehicle, and Cassian attempted to intercept them with a flurry of speed but was similarly caught in a warping tunnel of twisted, impossible space.
"End this, now, or the whole building goes down," Angelo threatened.
"You wouldn't dare!" Troia spat and hovered into the air, not wanting to clue in that she was not as caught as she had been a moment ago. "Then where would you get your stupid ransom money?"
Cassian tried to release his eye energy again, but it twisted, warped, and then impacted against the sands of the beach outside harmlessly.
"I don't need the ransom money!" Angelo shouted. "But fine. If the two of you insist…!"
Space exploded, expanded, writhed, extended, retracted. Impossible angles became possible, and she lost all sense of direction.
Troia grasped for anything that might be nearby, anything she could use to overwhelm it. She couldn't tell if she tossed a piece of the floor, the ceiling, or a chunk of tree from meters away. Two more pieces joined the first, then four, then eight.
"Lady Artemis, give me precision!"
The chunks sailed through the air, through the ocean water, through a complex mass of material. At its heart was Angelo and the device, and she aimed as truly as she could despite every confusion in her mind all at once.
Blasts of light from Cassian's eyes joined her makeshift projectiles, though she could see each was less vibrant than the last. He shouted something she could not hear over the cacophony of noise, and the remaining thugs were now fully operating the teleported tank. She braced herself, trying to shout her own warning, but Cassian couldn't hear her either.
A miracle.
One of her attacks managed to close the distance and struck the teenager's wrist.
Instantly, all space returned to normal as the device clattered to the ground. Troia felt every sense was on alert, haywire, and she barely managed to look up in time.
Angelo fought through the pain, holding a snapped wrist, and ran for the device.
Troia flew toward the falling ceiling and braced her strength against it. It held, with great effort, and she pled for Hera's strength as everything she had endured thus far caught up with her all at once.
Cassian flew toward the angular artifact, but she heard the tank swivel. "Look out!"
She called on Lady Demeter for her resilience and asked that she bless this boy of Man's World.
He twirled and sped for the vehicle. A hand forcefully grabbed its front, face full of turret, and then he became the same material as the tank. He adopted its coloring, its material, and then he gripped the tank's turret. With a grunt of effort, he bent the vehicle's barrel into uselessness.
But it was too late. The turret exploded in his face, melting and shattering simultaneously into shards of shrapnel. She cried out in shock as Cassian rocketed backward and carved a several yard dip into the ground outside. The tank was a wreck, but so too was Cassian, who lay prone and smoking.
Troia wanted to move to him, to check on his safety, but that would leave the ceiling to fall. A relic of her people, her culture- it could not be destroyed!
Yet Cassian might be hurt.
Paralyzed with indecision, the Parthenon remained an incredibly heavy burden on her shoulders, one that Atlas himself could easily bear.
Cassian, to his credit, rose from the ground to his feet. The tank's misfired explosion had torn a hole threw the armored plating Cassian had adopted, the hole stretching from the base of the boy's chin down to the center of his chest. He heaved with breath, touching the space of exposed skin. The wounds were difficult to see from this angle, but the fact that he was moving at all was miraculous.
A green flash took attention away from Cassian's recovery, and she found its source in time to see Angelo bow his head slightly to her. Next to him, a green crack in space hovered.
"It's been fun," he taunted. "Let's do it again sometime."
Locked in place, Troia was helpless to stop him from stepping into that fracture in space. Cassian moved, but woozily and far more slowly, uneasily. Just like that, the thief was gone, leaving his collection of thugs and weapons behind.
SICILY
MAY 15, 01:19 UTC +3
TEAM YEAR ZERO
Unlike some of my other recent prominent exploits, I didn't leave as soon as the conflict ended. More out of respect for Troia than anything else, though I didn't plan to stay long. The girl had never engaged with a villain on her own before, or even at all, and her first one had gotten away. She deserved a pep talk.
It might have also had to do with the painful bruising that had already started spreading across my neck. What might have killed anyone else was just blunt-force trauma instead, but I would recover.
Troia and I found a place as secluded as we could afford to be while Interpol's agents swarmed the site. Local authorities were involved, and Greek officials were on the way. This place would be a minefield of complicated questions in half an hour, and I'd dodged as much information as I could to tell the authorities about myself so far. I didn't plan for that to break today.
Troia's face, alit by the moon high overhead, showed her displeasure. The sound of the waves lapping against the cliff-face below matched her downcast eyes. She pulled a blanket tighter around herself, and I cleared my throat to break the comfortable silence.
"Don't be disappointed. You did well."
She exhaled a tightly held breath. "I almost toppled the Parthenon."
I shrugged. "That asshat almost did it, not you. You held it up!"
She glanced away for a moment, her eyes surveying the distant, out of place building. I'd had to precariously help her adjust the weight and supports of the ceiling that remained, so that they could be further manipulated later. There was no telling if it would remain standing as it was, but I imagined a major reconstruction project would have to be the solution.
"Some good that did," she frowned.
I didn't know how to break it to her. "It's not ideal, but I'm sure next time will be better for you."
The girl glanced at me like I'd grown a second head. "Next time?"
"Yes?" I frowned. Had this truly thrown her motivation? "Next time you go out, I'm sure you'll do better. I couldn't begin to tell you how often I've messed up, but I can't afford to stop." I gestured to my neck. "I don't know why I let this happen."
I squashed the thoughts of other mistakes I'd made over the years. Mother….
"I don't know that I can do this again," Troia muttered.
I considered her words for a moment. Troia in the comics was a Titan, but the girl sitting next to me was just a girl. If things from the comics were true enough here, she had trained to fight on an island of warrior women. That controlled combat experience did not necessarily translate to heroics, nor could the Amazons have prepared her for everything that the world outside their small sliver of preserved ancient culture contained.
So, I said the thing that might have helped me at one point.
"You don't have to."
Her questioning eyes met mine.
"I don't know all the details of you or your life," I answered truthfully, "but I know that this is not for everyone. Give every person in the world superpowers, and ninety nine percent of them would do nothing like what we just did. You gotta have a reason to put yourself out there."
I thought of the My Hero Academia series, a setting where virtually every character had powers of some kind. Unique talents called quirks, that could range from incredibly powerful fire and ice manipulation to having a super-strong tail. That setting had adjusted to an entire industry of people who do what the heroes of DC do, and a significant majority do not even do anything with their quirks or are not allowed to in public without a license. There, it was a viable career option, but here?
Your heart had to be in it. You had to have the right reason to face the threat of tanks to the face.
Troia broke my reverie. "What's your reason?"
The million dollar question, one I couldn't answer fully without tipping my hand before I was ready. I had a prepared answer to this, but she deserved more than a generic riff off of the Uncle Ben quote.
"Ultimately?" I explained carefully. "I'm building experience and making connections. What I've been doing in New York, what I did today, prepares me for bigger problems to face. There is a lot of danger out there, and I want to be able to face down anything to keep those I love safe."
All true, without the added information of space empires and alien planets. It wasn't the time for that.
"So, for you," she began, "it's a matter of preparing for the worst."
I nodded, the movement slightly more painful than merely talking. "Someone has to. Might as well be me."
Troia admired the waves for several seconds before clearing her throat. "Where I am from, we train for similar reasons. Mostly for keeping tradition alive, but some believe we are all that stands in the way of darker days."
I did not pry into why she did not mention Themiscyra or the Amazons specifically. I couldn't imagine the position she was in – this was her first outing, a high-profile international incident. Attaching her face and reputation to that meant keeping the facts separate from the falsehoods told to the media or the officials. What she did or said would fall upon the heels of her culture's reputation.
It was a precarious position, one that on paper resembled my own. What the League learned about Osmos V, they learned through me. In the far off future where the heroes of Earth get to meet Osmosians and battle the Reach, I hoped to have given them a good impression of what the planet and its people were like.
"Listen. I don't know your situation, you don't really know mine," I began, "but I'm going to devote some time to investigate that kid. Might take me a while to locate him, because I get the feeling he can be-"
"Anywhere?"
I nodded. She shuddered at the idea. "Whenever I find something concrete, I can reach out. Maybe you can help me take him down."
An offer of assistance. Let her decide on her own if she wanted to take it, if she wanted that next step into becoming the person she might one day be. She and I could help each other. Finding Troia and working with her was a happy accident, but if I could give any assistance at all? It would be worth it to ensure a powerhouse like her did not stay on the sidelines.
"I'd love to help, in theory. In practice, there are concerns I'd need to work out with home." She gestured toward a cadre of analysts from Interpol. "This was not usual for me."
"I understand. If it doesn't work out, I would not blame you."
How she would navigate the Amazons and Wonder Woman was, admittedly, expected. In other media, Hippolyta might have begged Athena to smite Troia by now for even suggesting or promising assistance to a man.
"Troia."
The voice cut into my reverie, and I glanced over my shoulder to see a middle-aged man who'd gone gray earlier in life. A well-fitted navy suit and tie did not match the environment, nor did it match the rest of the agents on site, shifting through the gathered evidence as efficiently as they could.
He met my own eyes, studying me for a long moment, but he didn't seem to know how to address me.
"How does he know your name?" I whispered to the girl, who had tensed the moment the man arrived.
"It's a matter of public record, once you cut through the red tape with the right credentials," he answered for her. "My name is Agent King Faraday, lead investigator from Interpol on this and other cases. Troia, here, is a Themiscyran national operating in international matters. You, however, are an enigma."
"And that's how I'll stay," I answered simply. "For now."
Troia cleared her throat. "What do you want?"
Faraday surveyed the two of us carefully for a moment. "I am here to take a statement. An initial summary of what happened, when, what you did, and how it ended. You give us this so that we can do the work behind the scenes to connect the dots."
This was a complicated matter. Troia's discomfort was palpable.
"What dots have you already connected?" I redirected.
Faraday pulled a device from his pocket and readied it to record. "We have had some initial connections to other heists across the last few months. A few on that list are likely unrelated, but Angelo Bend's proving himself to be quite prolific."
I shrugged. "This man has the power to do basically anything with his tech, and he tries to ransom a building?"
Faraday gave a hearty half-chuckle. "A good question for the ages."
I continued the train of thought to delay the next conversation as long as possible. "You deal with this kind of crime often, Agent? The weirder crimes?"
"Some. These days, I mostly deal in high-profile cases like this one. World gets stranger and stranger by the day." He gestured toward the two of us. "Her I understand. You're the stranger one to me."
"And stranger I'll continue to be."
Faraday remained neutral at that, something that had to be difficult for him.
Troia challenged the man with her eyes. "What do you think you know about me already?"
"You're an Amazon," he explained carefully. "You were cleared for a backstage pass to legislative proceedings in the Grecian government earlier today, while Wonder Woman addressed them. My people are pretty convinced you're either her daughter or her sister."
"Sister," she clarified for them.
I nudged her. "You don't have to give them anything," I muttered, then raised to my feet and stepped forward. Faraday, to his credit, did not flinch even the smallest amount. "I'll make a statement, but on my terms. You leave her out of it as much as possible, and neither of our information ends up in the hands of the press."
Faraday chuckled again. "This doesn't have to be hard, kid. I've worked with hero types before. I know the standard best practices."
"And best practices will help keep my friend here from facing difficult questions back home? Diplomacy is so very complex."
"I don't need you to handle this for me, I can-"
"Troia," I interrupted, "it will be better this way, I promise."
Faraday acknowledged the two of us with a nod. "All I need is a simple play by play of the incident. Any complex issues surrounding your specific involvement are not handled here and now. This isn't the stage for that."
This was why the Justice League had support personnel. A liaison office. People working behind the scenes to ensure that the men and women in tights are capable of intervening where necessary. These complicated questions are handled eventually.
"All right then," I relented. I didn't have access to any of that yet. Troia merely watched, uncertain. "Let's get started."