Delta City Chronicles

The passage of time had become a thick, gray sludge. The cycle of pain, healing, and humiliation was the only clock I knew. I had lost count of the paying customers, the fists, the blades, the brutal energies that had torn my body apart. I had been broken and remade so many times that I felt like a ghost, haunting a body that was no longer my own.

In the deepest, most silent corners of my mind, where the Architect’s torments couldn’t quite reach, a single, tiny ember of hope remained. Its name was Kal-El. My cousin. Superman. They could fool the world, they could capture Amazons and Kryptonians, but they couldn’t hide from him forever. He would come. I would close my eyes and picture it: the walls of this white hell shattering inward, his righteous fury a cleansing fire, the familiar blue of his suit the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. He would find us. He had to.

One day, the Architect entered my cell, not with a customer or a replica costume, but with an air of finality. He wore a triumphant, indulgent smile.

“My dear Kara,” he began, “I have sensed the last flicker of defiance in you. A childish, persistent fantasy that your cousin will swoop in to save the day. I thought it was time we addressed that.”

A massive section of the wall across from my cell became transparent, revealing a much larger chamber. And in the center of it, he stood. Kal. He was in his iconic suit, but it was wrong. The colors were dull, muted. His posture was slack, his powerful shoulders slumped. And his eyes… his bright, kind eyes were vacant, milky, and unfocused. A faint, sickening purple energy shimmered around his temples.

“No,” I whispered, the word catching in my throat.

The Architect had done the impossible. He had captured Superman. And he had broken him.

“Kal!” I screamed, my voice raw. “Kal, it’s me! Snap out of it! Fight him!”

He didn’t even blink. He was a statue, a puppet waiting for its master.

“Please,” I begged, tears streaming down my face. “Kal, you have to help us! Diana and me! Please, cousin!”

The Architect laughed, a rich, hearty sound that was more terrifying than any threat. “He can’t hear you, my dear. But he can obey me.” He looked at the Man of Steel. “Superman. Your cousin has been disobedient. Teach her a lesson.”

My blood ran cold. Superman turned his head, his vacant gaze locking onto me. He floated into my cell, the door sliding open for him. Even weakened, the sheer power radiating from him was immense. He was still Superman. And he was going to kill me.

He advanced. I scrambled backwards, but there was nowhere to go. His first blow was a simple, open-handed shove. It felt like being hit by a speeding train. I flew across the cell and slammed into the far wall with a sickening crunch. He was on me before I could recover, his hand closing around my ankle. He lifted me up and, with a casual, brutal twist, snapped my leg. The sound of my own femur breaking was the loudest thing I had ever heard. I shrieked, a sound of pure agony. He broke my other leg with the same detached efficiency.

Then he went for my arm. He grabbed my wrist and my shoulder and pulled. My humerus tore from its socket with a wet, grinding pop before the bone itself fractured. I was a broken doll, a heap of shattered limbs on the floor. The pain was a physical entity, a white, all-consuming fire that burned away thought and reason. I lay there, sobbing hysterically, my body a ruin.

Through the blinding haze of pain and tears, I saw Diana watching from her cell. With my one good arm, my right arm, I reached out towards her, my fingers trembling. “Diana… please…” I whimpered. “Please… help…”

The Architect stepped over my broken body, observing my pathetic gesture. “You still seek comfort from your fellow failure?” he mused. He looked into Diana’s cell. “Wonder Woman. A demonstration of compliance. Go to her. Break her other arm.”

I watched in absolute horror as Diana stood up, her movements stiff, robotic. She entered my cell and knelt beside me. I could see the tear tracking down her face, the agony in her own soul, but her body was not her own. She took my outstretched, unbroken arm in her powerful hands. Her grip was gentle, her touch a memory of the friend she once was.

“Diana, no, please,” I begged.

She looked into my eyes, and I saw a universe of regret. Then, with a smooth, practiced motion, she twisted my arm until the bone snapped. My final scream was choked off by a sob. I was completely broken, all four limbs shattered, lying helpless at the feet of my two closest friends.

The Architect looked down at me, then at his two mind-controlled heroes. He smiled, his masterpiece complete. He turned his attention to Superman.

“Your work here is done, but your mission is just beginning,” he commanded. “Go. Find every member of the Justice League. Batman. Flash. Green Lantern. All of them. And kill them all.”

My mind fractured. “NO!” I shrieked from the floor. “KAL, NO! DON’T DO IT! PLEASE! NOT THEM!”

Superman turned, his red cape sweeping around him, and without a backward glance, he flew up and out of a hatch in the ceiling. He was gone. Gone to murder our friends. Gone to dismantle our legacy.

I lay on the cold floor, a puddle of broken bones and limitless despair. I watched him go, my last hope becoming the instrument of my world’s destruction. The pain from my limbs was nothing compared to the agony in my soul. The Architect had won. He hadn’t just dismantled me. He had used me, and the people I loved, to dismantle hope itself. And I was left to lie in the ruins, listening to the silence where my hero used to be.

The cycle was the only truth left. Wake, heal, weaken, dress. The flood of divine energy was no longer a relief, just a biological process I was forced to undergo. The mending of my flesh, the sealing of my wounds, was like a janitor cleaning a slaughterhouse floor before the next day’s butchery. The subsequent severing of that power was a familiar, cold plunge. I was an empty cup, filled and emptied by the same cruel hand, over and over.

I no longer fought when they brought the costume. The cheap pleather of the boots felt like a second skin. The plastic belt was a familiar weight. The dead rope of the lasso, the tin tiara—they were my uniform. My job was to bleed, and this was the uniform for my work. My mind, once a fortress of strategy and hope, was now a quiet, gray plain. There was no rage left, no despair, only the serene, hollow acceptance of my function.

The Architect appeared on a large monitor, not from within the facility, but from somewhere… luxurious. He was no longer in his severe suit. He wore a plush silk robe, a glass of amber liquid in his hand. Behind him, through a panoramic window, was a turquoise sea and a pristine white-sand beach.

“Greetings, my asset,” he slurred, a smug, self-satisfied smile on his face. “I do apologize for not being there in person, but the sunsets from my private island in the Maldives are simply too exquisite to miss. Your last encounter with the Grapple-Gangs of Blüdhaven was wildly profitable. It just paid for a new yacht. I believe I’ll name it ‘The Diana’.”

He took a slow sip. “The world loves a tragedy, my dear. And you are the greatest tragedy ever told. A goddess brought low, bleeding for the amusement of the highest bidder. It’s poetry.”

My face remained placid. His flaunting, his wealth, his words—they were stones dropped into a bottomless well. They simply vanished inside my emptiness.

“But business is business,” he continued, his tone shifting. “And tonight’s client has paid a premium for a truly… transformative experience. Prepare the asset.”

The gate opened. A figure in a fully enclosed, corrosion-proof environmental suit waddled in. He was bulky, not with muscle, but with tanks and tubing. A heavy backpack fed hoses into two nozzle-like guns mounted on his gauntlets. Green, viscous liquid bubbled inside the transparent canisters. This was Caustic.

The drones took their positions. The show began.

I stood in the center of the room, my posture straight, my expression vacant. I was ready.

Caustic didn’t bother with preamble. He raised his left arm and fired. A thick jet of green acid shot through the air. I didn’t even try to dodge. The stream hit my right leg. The replica boot sizzled, melted, and dissolved into black slag in less than a second. Then the acid touched my skin.

There are no words in any language for that kind of pain. It was not a cut, or a burn, or a break. It was the pain of unmaking. I watched, with detached horror, as my own flesh blackened, blistered, and then began to liquefy, sloughing off the bone in smoking, gelatinous clumps. A scream, primal and inhuman, tore through my quiet acceptance. My body still knew how to feel, even if my soul had given up.

I fell, clutching the ruin of my leg. He fired again. A splash caught my shoulder and chest. The fake eagle emblem on my breastplate dissolved, and the acid ate into my flesh beneath, the pain so immense it felt like my entire nervous system was on fire. He walked closer, a methodical exterminator. He kicked me onto my back and aimed downwards.

“They want to see your face,” he rasped through his suit’s vocoder.

The stream of acid hit the left side of my face. The world became a universe of white-hot, sizzling agony. The pain was absolute, eclipsing thought, memory, everything. I felt the skin of my cheek and brow melt away. The horrifying sizzle was next to my ear. My left eye burst in a flash of searing light and then darkness. Tears from my remaining eye streamed down my face, mixing with the blood from my ravaged skin and the clear, horrifying fluid weeping from my dissolving tissues.

My body convulsed on the floor, a ruined thing twitching in a puddle of gore and chemical waste. I was beautiful, they once said. The ‘face of a goddess’. Now, half of it was a crater of smoking, bubbling ruin. Through the one eye I had left, I watched as Caustic, his work complete, turned and exited the chamber.

The pain was everything. It was the air I breathed, the world I saw. And in the center of that fire, the Architect’s voice returned, soft and intimate from the speaker above.

“Magnificent,” he whispered. “A true masterpiece of deconstruction. The market will go wild.”

I lay there, broken beyond any hope of repair, my life-fluids pooling on the floor.

“You must be wondering what the point of all this is,” he said, his voice turning philosophical again. “The yachts, the islands… they are merely perks. The real profit, my dear Diana, was the seed money. All the capital I have raised, all the technology I have perfected by testing it on you, was for a singular purpose.”

He paused, letting the silence hang in the air, thick with the smell of my own dissolving flesh.

“It was to build a trap not for an Amazon, but for a Kryptonian. All this money you have made for me will fund the acquisition of my next asset.”

A new monitor flickered to life. It didn’t show my broken form or his island paradise. It showed a live feed of a young woman with a familiar red ‘S’ on her chest, smiling as she helped rescue a cat from a tree in National City. Kara. My friend. Young, bright, hopeful Kara.

“She’ll be here soon,” the Architect’s voice whispered, a final blade twisting in what was left of my heart. “And you’ll have a front-row seat. You will watch as I do this to her. Day after day. You won’t be alone anymore.”

And in that moment, I found it. A place beyond acceptance. A hell deeper than any poet could imagine. The quiet, gray plain of my mind was set ablaze. Not with hope, not with defiance, but with a new, infinite agony. The agony of being a helpless witness. My one remaining eye stared at Kara’s smiling face on the screen, and for the first time in a long time, I began to scream. And I knew, with a certainty that burned hotter than the acid eating my bones, that I would never, ever stop.

The abyss of unconsciousness was my only solace, a fleeting mercy in an eternity of pain. But even that was now denied me. I was wrenched back into existence by a foreign, yet achingly familiar, sensation: power. A trickle of divine energy, warm and golden, was being fed back into my system. I felt bones that had been shattered knit themselves together with impossible speed. Deep gashes and wounds sealed over, leaving smooth, unblemished skin in their wake. The chronic, grinding ache in my feet vanished, replaced by strength. For a few precious seconds, I was whole. I was me.

The sensation was a lie, a drug administered by my jailer. As soon as my body was fully restored to its peak physical condition—a perfect, living statue of sculpted muscle and divine proportion—the connection was severed. The warmth vanished, plunging me back into the cold, profound weakness of a mortal. The nanites reasserted their dominance, leaving me trembling and gasping on the floor, a perfectly restored engine with no fuel.

“A pristine canvas is so much more appealing for the artist, don’t you agree?” the Architect’s voice echoed from a speaker. A compartment in the wall slid open, presenting not my true armor, but a mockery of it. A cheap replica.

The ritual began. My compliance was born of utter exhaustion. I pulled on the stiff, molded pleather boots that mimicked my own, the material chafing my skin where blessed leather once sat. The belt was plastic, its “golden” finish already flaking at the edges. The lasso was a simple nylon rope, dyed gold, cold and dead in my hands. The final insult was the tiara, a flimsy piece of metal with a plastic star that I had to place on my own brow. I looked in the reflection of the polished floor. To the cameras, I was Wonder Woman, vibrant and ready for battle. But I felt like a ghost haunting my own skin, a blasphemous effigy of myself.

The gate ground open. “Tonight’s patron has a particular appreciation for aesthetics,” the Architect announced. “He prefers his art… incised. Allow me to present, for a staggering sum, the mercenary known as Lacerate.”

The figure that emerged was a nightmare of chrome and flesh. He was lean and wiry, his body a patchwork of cybernetic enhancements. His legs were digitigrade, like a raptor’s, allowing for explosive, unnatural speed. But my eyes were drawn to his arms. From knuckles to elbows, his gauntlets were fitted with a series of long, wicked blades that hummed with a low, vibrating energy.

The red lights of the drones blinked to life. Showtime.

Lacerate didn’t charge; he blurred. He was on me before I could even fully register his movement. The first blow wasn’t a punch, but a sweeping arc of his arm. The vibro-blades sang as they sliced through the fake fabric of my bodice and bit into the flesh of my abdomen.

The pain was clean, sharp, and terrifyingly deep. A searing line of fire erupted across my stomach. I staggered back, looking down to see a perfectly straight, crimson line welling with blood, staining the blue of my mock costume. He was already moving again, a whirlwind of silver and red. A slash across my back forced a scream from my lungs. Another across my thigh, deep enough that I felt the muscle itself sever. My leg buckled, sending me to one knee.

He was toying with me, a surgeon of sadism. He wasn’t trying to bludgeon me into unconsciousness like Blockbuster. He was methodically, artistically, carving me apart. Each cut was precise, aimed to cripple and bleed. My beautiful, powerful body, moments ago perfectly healed, was being methodically ruined. The skin of my arms was cross-hatched with bleeding cuts. A deep gash on my shoulder exposed the white of bone beneath.

I was too slow. My weakness was a leaden cloak I couldn’t cast off. I swung a desperate, clumsy punch, and he simply danced away, his cybernetic legs carrying him just out of reach before he darted back in, his blades opening another wound along my ribs.

Just kill me, my mind pleaded, a mantra of silent surrender. Drive one of those blades through my heart. End the performance.

But death was not what the client had paid for. He had paid to dismantle me. He spun, his leg sweeping around in a graceful, deadly kick. The blades on his greaves connected with my side, carving a deep, horizontal furrow from my hip to my armpit. The agony was absolute. My vision swam in a red haze. I collapsed onto my side, my breath coming in ragged, wet sobs. Blood pooled beneath me, warm and slick on the cold white floor.

Lacerate stood over me, his chest heaving slightly, the humming of his blades the only sound besides my own wretched gasps. He admired his handiwork, the masterpiece of ruin he had made of my body. For a final flourish, he pressed the tip of one blade against the smooth, powerful curve of my calf, and slowly, deliberately, carved his initial—a stylized ‘L’—into my flesh.

The pain was secondary to the humiliation. I was no longer a warrior. I was not even a victim. I was a canvas. A piece of meat to be autographed by my destroyer.

He retracted his blades and gave a slight bow toward a hidden camera before turning and striding out of the gate. It slammed shut, leaving me alone. Alone in my fake costume, lying in a puddle of my own real blood, my body a roadmap of excruciating wounds.

The desire for death was still there, a dull ember in the ashes of my soul. But a new, more horrifying realization dawned. The Architect wouldn’t let me die. He would just let the divine energy trickle back in, seal the cuts, mend the muscle, erase the scars, and then dress me in this clown’s costume to be torn apart all over again.

This wasn’t just defeat. This wasn’t an execution. This was my eternity. A cycle of perfect healing and perfect destruction, performed for an audience that had once called me their hero. I laid my head on the floor, the metallic tang of my own blood filling my senses, and for the first time, I did not pray for death. I simply accepted that my hell had no end.

Time had lost all meaning in the white, sterile purgatory. The Architect’s voice, the hum of the lights, and the ceaseless, grinding pain in the arches of my feet were the only constants. My body, a vessel once brimming with divine power, was now just a canvas for his art of cruelty. It remained strong, a testament to its Amazonian design, but it was a strength that only prolonged the suffering. My skin, though still resilient, was a tapestry of faded yellow and purple bruises from lessons I could no longer distinguish. My muscles, starved of the gods’ fire, were perpetually sore, the lean, powerful lines softened by exhaustion and malnutrition.

Hope was a distant memory, a concept from another life. The betrayal of the world had hollowed me out, leaving nothing but a fragile shell of the woman I once was.

The door to my chamber hissed open. The Architect entered, his tailored suit immaculate, his presence a fresh wave of despair. The clamps on my feet tightened viciously, sending a jolt of agony through my system, a cruel demand for my attention. I didn’t even have the energy to gasp anymore, only to tremble.

“Good morning, specimen,” he said, consulting a tablet. “Excellent ratings from the last compliance session. The market for your suffering, it seems, is insatiable. Which brings us to the next phase of our enterprise.”

He gestured to a large wall panel that I hadn’t noticed before. It slid away, revealing a heavily reinforced gate.

“I have proven my thesis on the baseness of the common man,” he continued, his voice dripping with condescending pride. “Now, I cater to a more discerning clientele. Your former adversaries, the criminal underworld… they are willing to pay astronomical sums for a unique opportunity. The chance to fight, and defeat, a legend.”

My blood ran cold. He wasn’t just my tormentor anymore. He was my purveyor.

“Of course,” he added with a thin smile, “we must ensure a fair contest.” He tapped his tablet, and I felt the nanites in my system surge, a wave of profound weakness washing over me, bringing me to my knees. “Your power levels will be… adjusted accordingly. It wouldn’t do to have the clients feel cheated.”

The gate ground open. A hulking figure stepped through, and my heart, what was left of it, sank. It was Blockbuster. His brutish face was split by a sadistic grin, his massive, grotesquely muscled frame radiating malice. In my prime, he was a challenge, but a manageable one. In this state, he was a death sentence.

As if on cue, small, silent drones detached from the ceiling, their red recording lights blinking. The live stream. The world was watching again.

Blockbuster charged. I tried to move, to call upon the muscle memory of a thousand battles. My body responded sluggishly, my limbs feeling like lead. His first blow, a massive club-like fist, caught me in the ribs. The impact was sickening. I felt more than heard the crack of bone. The pain was sharp, blinding, stealing the air from my lungs. My body, which had once withstood the force of explosions, now broke under the fist of a common thug.

I crumpled to the floor, coughing, tasting blood. He kicked me in the stomach, rolling me over. The cameras zoomed in.

Let it end, a voice whispered in my mind. My own voice. Please, just let it be over.

He hauled me to my feet by my hair, my scalp screaming in protest. His fist smashed into my face. My head snapped back, and the world exploded in a flash of white light. I could feel the skin split over my cheekbone, the warm blood running down my face, mingling with tears I no longer tried to hold back. My body was a symphony of agony. The sharp, piercing pain of my broken ribs, the dull, throbbing torment in my feet, the fiery sting on my face, the deep, aching exhaustion in every muscle.

He hit me again. And again. I stopped trying to fight back. What was the point? Every defensive move only prolonged the beating. Every ounce of resistance only delayed the inevitable. Oblivion. That’s all I wanted. The sweet, silent darkness of the end. A final rest. The Elysian Fields felt so close, a peaceful shore after a lifetime of storms.

My inner monologue was no longer a warrior’s analysis. It was a prayer to Thanatos. Hephaestus forged my bracelets to deflect blows. Now I welcome them. Hermes gave me speed to evade my foes. Now I stand and wait for them. Athena gave me wisdom. And my only wisdom now is that this must end.

Blockbuster landed a final, devastating blow to my chest. I flew backwards, my magnificent, broken body hitting the far wall before slumping to the ground in a heap. The world began to fade to black around the edges. The jeering face of my opponent, the cold eyes of the Architect, the silent red lights of the drones… they all began to blur.

Yes, I thought, as the darkness rushed in to claim me. Finally. Peace.

Through the haze, I saw the Architect approach my prone form, checking his tablet. “Excellent,” he murmured, likely at the new flood of cryptocurrency to his accounts. “The audience appreciates verisimilitude.”

I lay in a pool of my own blood and shame, every nerve screaming, my body shattered. But for the first time in what felt like an eternity, a flicker of something other than despair touched me. It was the hope, not for rescue, not for victory, but for the sweet, final mercy of death. My breathing was shallow, my vision almost gone. My last conscious thought was a plea.

Let this be the end. Please… let me die.

The throbbing agony in my feet had become a part of my existence, a hellish metronome counting the seconds of my degradation. My bleeding brow stung with every shift of my gaze. The monitors played their cruel symphony of my failure. I was a prisoner not only of the alloy but of my own broken body.

The Architect watched me, his head tilted. “The foundation is laid. The crown is removed. Now, we go deeper. To the core of the myth.” He gestured to the clamps on my feet, and with an audible whir, the pressure intensified. A fresh wave of white-hot agony surged up my legs, making my vision swim and a low moan tear from my lips. My arches felt as if they were being ground into dust. He wanted me distracted, overwhelmed by the pain in my extremities, so the next blow would land with surgical precision.

He moved to my waist. His gloved hands went to the great golden buckle of my belt, the Eagle of Zeus that my mother had fastened for me herself. It was not just a belt; in some tales, it was the very anchor of my Amazonian strength, a gift from Gaea herself. His fingers, slow and deliberate, worked the intricate clasp. It was a heavy, solid thing, a symbol of my unbreakable will. I felt it give way with a solid thunk.

He didn’t pull it off. He slowly, deliberately, unlaced it from the loops of my battle skirt, his knuckles brushing against my skin. The humiliation was a cold fire in my gut. This man was undressing me like a doll, dismantling me piece by piece. Finally, he pulled the heavy golden belt free and laid it next to my tiara. Another piece of my soul placed on display.

Hanging from the belt was the coiled form of my lasso. The Golden Perfect. The Lasso of Hestia. It glowed with a soft, internal luminescence, a light that no darkness had ever been able to extinguish. It was a part of me, a conduit for the truth that I championed. He picked it up. The light seemed to recoil from his touch, but he held it firm.

“The final symbol,” he whispered, his voice full of reverence and contempt. “An instrument that compels truth. What truth will it tell now, I wonder?”

He uncoiled it with a flick of his wrist. The golden rope, which had bound gods and monsters, slithered through the air. He didn’t use it to restrain me further; the alloy was more than sufficient. Instead, he did something far worse. He wrapped the glowing cord gently around my bare forearm. The moment it touched my skin, I felt its familiar, warm magic. But now it felt like a violation. It was being used against me.

“The Lasso compels you to speak only the truth,” he said, his face close to mine. “So, tell me. Tell the world… what do you feel, Diana of Themyscira?”

My mouth opened, but I fought to keep it shut. The lasso tightened, its magic flooding me, forcing the words out. They came out as a choked, broken whisper. “I feel… pain. Humiliation. I feel… weak.” Speaking the truth of my own degradation, forced by my most sacred tool, was a new, profound level of violation. A tear I couldn’t stop slid down my cheek.

“Ah, but which world?” he asked, a cruel smile touching his lips. He turned to the monitors. The images of my broken form vanished, replaced by a dizzying mosaic of screens from across the globe. Times Square. A pub in London. A crowded plaza in Tokyo. Living rooms in Metropolis. Phone screens in Gotham. I saw my own face, bloody and weeping, reflected in thousands of places at once. A counter at the bottom of the screen was ticking upwards at a horrifying rate: 850 million viewers. 900 million.

“Your ordeal is not a private one, Princess,” the Architect explained. “It is the single greatest media event in human history. I have shown them your power failing. I have shown them your body breaking. Now, I offer them a choice.”

On every screen in the world, and on the monitors before me, a poll appeared. The question was simple, stark, and utterly monstrous.

THE FATE OF WONDER WOMAN IS IN YOUR HANDS.

The options: [ FREE THE HERO ] or [ SHOW US THE TRUTH ]

His twisted euphemism for my continued dismantling hung in the air. This was his masterstroke. My life, my dignity, was now subject to a global vote. For a moment, a desperate, insane flicker of hope ignited in my chest. I had saved them. I had bled for them, fought for them, loved them. They would remember. They would choose mercy.

The results began to pour in.

My hope turned to ice in my veins. The bar for “[ SHOW US THE TRUTH ]” shot up. 70%. 80%. It settled at a staggering, unbelievable 92%. The other bar, “[ FREE THE HERO ]”, was a pathetic sliver.

I stared at the numbers, my mind refusing to process what my eyes were seeing. 92 percent. Billions of people. The child I’d saved from a fire, the city I’d protected from invasion, the soldiers I’d fought beside—had they all voted to see me suffer? Did they truly hate me? Or worse, did they simply not care? Was I nothing more than a spectacle? A diversion? A bloody show to entertain them on a Wednesday evening?

The pain in my feet, the sting on my brow, the shame of my nakedness—it all vanished, replaced by a cold, hollow emptiness that was more terrifying than any physical torment. My entire life, my purpose, my love for the world of men—it was all a lie. A fool’s errand. I had offered them truth, and they had chosen this. I had offered them love, and they had chosen cruelty.

Something inside me didn’t just break. It disintegrated. It turned to dust and blew away on a cold, cosmic wind. The warrior, the princess, the hero—she died in that moment, there on that cold, white platform. My vision blurred, the monitors and the room dissolving into a meaningless smear of light and color. A silent scream echoed in the hollowed-out cavern of my mind, a scream for a faith that was now dead, for a love that had been betrayed. The Architect watched, his expression serene. He had proven his thesis. He had not just dismantled my body and my symbols. He had dismantled my soul. And the worst part, the only truth that now mattered, was that the world had helped him do it.

The white room was an assault on the senses. It smelled of ozone and cold sterility, a scent that promised clinical cruelty. My body, drained of its divine might, felt every ache, every point of contact with the hard platform. My muscles, starved of their power, were heavy and unresponsive. But the true torture was the monitors. My own defeat played back for me in a silent, endless loop—the strain, the collapse, the utter helplessness.

As if sensing my thoughts, the Architect gestured toward the platform I was bound to. “A foundation of pain is necessary for deconstruction,” he stated calmly.

I didn’t understand until I felt it. From the surface of the slab beneath my feet, two small, vice-like clamps materialized, pressing into the tender arches he had brutalized earlier. A low, grinding pressure began, not as intense as his hand, but relentless. It was a constant, throbbing agony, a deep, sickening ache designed to be inescapable, a foundation of misery upon which he could build. I gasped, my back arching against the restraints as the torment flared anew. My bare feet, now pinned and subjected to this automated torture, felt like they were being crushed by the weight of my own failure.

The Architect approached, his footsteps echoing in the tomb-like silence. He moved to my head, standing over me. I was forced to stare up at him, my neck held immobile by the alloy collar. His shadow fell across my face.

“The Boots, a symbol of your journey, your warrior’s path,” he lectured, his voice a soft poison. “But this…” His gloved fingers hovered near my brow, near my tiara. “This is different. This is a symbol of royalty. Of wisdom. Of a mind they say is divinely inspired. But all crowns can be removed.”

My tiara was not mere jewelry. Forged by Hephaestus, it was a badge of my station as Princess of Themyscira and an extension of my will—my star, my weapon. A hot, defiant rage, all I had left, burned in my chest. He would not take this from me.

His fingers touched the golden metal at my temples. I tried to jerk my head away, a futile gesture that only scraped my skin against the inside of my collar. His touch was firm, exploratory.

“Ah, I see,” he murmured, a hint of discovery in his voice. “It is not merely worn. It is fitted. Embedded.”

He was right. The tiara was secured by two sharp, pin-like points that pressed into my temples, a constant reminder of my duties. A proper, swift removal was painless. But he had no intention of being proper or swift.

With agonizing slowness, he began to pull it away from my forehead. Instead of lifting it cleanly, he dragged it. The sharp points dug into my skin, scraping across my temples. A searing, white-hot line of pain followed the tiara’s path. It felt like he was peeling my royalty away from my very flesh. I squeezed my eyes shut, a strangled groan escaping my lips as the metal tore at my skin. The constant, grinding pressure in my feet was a roaring bonfire of pain, but this new agony at my head was a lightning strike—sharp, focused, and utterly degrading.

He was uncrowning me. This man, with his cold hands and colder heart, was stripping me of my birthright. The humiliation was a physical force, a crushing weight on my chest that made it hard to breathe. The tear tracks on my face were cold now, but I could feel fresh tears of pain and shame welling, and I hated myself for them. I was Diana, daughter of Hippolyta, and I was being broken like a child’s toy.

With a final, sickening scrape, the tiara came free. The sudden coolness of the air on my bleeding temples was a shock. The Architect held the golden circlet in his hands, examining it as if it were a curious fossil. He turned it over, his thumb tracing the star at its center. My star. He had taken my star.

He glanced at the monitors. On the screens, the image of my face, twisted in agony, was replaced by a new, live feed. It showed my head, now bare. Two small trickles of blood, starkly red against my pale skin, ran from the scrapes on my temples down toward my jaw. I looked defeated. I looked broken.

“The crown of wisdom is removed,” the Architect declared to the empty room, holding the tiara aloft like a spoil of war. “And what is left? Not a princess. Not a strategist. Just an animal in a trap, bleeding and screaming.”

He placed my tiara on a small, sterile pedestal next to the platform, another trophy added to his collection. The constant, grinding pain in my feet continued its wretched rhythm. The sharp, stinging pain on my brow was a fresh brand of shame. And before me, the monitors displayed my own bloody, uncrowned face for me to witness. The barrage was relentless. He had taken my foundation. He had taken my crown. And I was left to wonder, with a terror that eclipsed all the pain, what piece of me he intended to carve away next.

As I braced for the inevitable, a single, hot tear escaped my closed eyelid, tracing a path of shame through the grime on my temple. The Architect’s gloved fingers found the clasps on my right boot. The small click of the mechanism was as loud as a thunderclap in my defeated silence. He didn’t rush. The act was a ceremony of degradation, and he was its high priest. The whisper of leather sliding down my leg, the final pull, and then… nothing. Both boots were gone. The cold of the concrete floor seeped into the soles of my feet, a final, damning confirmation of my state. I was brought low, grounded, stripped of a symbol I had worn with honor across worlds.

The Architect let out a soft, appreciative hum. “Perfection,” he murmured. Against my will, my gaze was drawn down. I saw my feet as he must be seeing them. They were not the delicate, pampered feet of a sheltered princess. They were the feet of a warrior. High, strong arches, sculpted by a lifetime of leaping, landing, and driving forward in battle. My toes were long and straight, the muscles and tendons beneath the skin clearly defined. The skin itself was fair, but the soles were tough, lightly calloused from countless hours of barefoot training on the packed earth of Themyscira’s sparring grounds. These feet had stood on the soil of Olympus. They had braced themselves to push a planet. Now, they lay bare and useless on a dirty floor, twitching feebly in their restraints.

“The very foundation of the goddess,” the Architect said, his voice laced with a cold, academic curiosity. He reached out and, with a horrifying intimacy, wrapped his hand around my right foot. His grasp was firm, his gloved fingers pressing into my instep, his thumb settling on the sensitive arch. I recoiled instinctively, a full-body shudder, but the Hesperian Alloy held me fast.

“All that divine energy… channeled through this flesh,” he mused, his thumb stroking my arch in a slow, analytical way that made my skin crawl. “But now the conduit is closed. So what is left? Just sinew and bone?”

His grip tightened. It wasn’t a sudden crush, but a slow, grinding pressure. His thumb dug deep into the soft, vulnerable curve of my arch, pressing a nerve against the bone. A sharp, electric jolt shot up my leg. I gasped, my teeth clenched so hard my jaw ached. This wasn’t the clean pain of a sword’s edge or the concussive force of a super-powered blow. This was a debasing, invasive pain, a violation designed to produce a specific result.

He squeezed harder. The pressure became a lance of pure agony. The muscles in my arch screamed, knotted and tearing. My entire body went rigid, every weakened fiber straining against the unyielding metal. The man, this small, insignificant man, was causing me a level of torment my most powerful foes had never achieved. He was proving his thesis on my own flesh.

“There,” he whispered, a triumphant gleam in his eyes as he saw the agony contorting my face. “There is the breaking point.”

The pressure intensified to an unbearable peak. And my control shattered. A scream was torn from my throat, raw and ragged. It was not a warrior’s cry. It was the shriek of pure, helpless pain, echoing off the concrete and steel of my prison. It was the sound of my own humiliation given voice, the ultimate admission of his victory over my body.

As the scream died in my throat, leaving me panting and trembling, he released my foot. The sudden absence of pain was as shocking as its presence, leaving a throbbing, fiery ache in its wake. He watched me, a small, cruel smile playing on his lips. He had done it. He had dismantled the stoic Amazon, and made the goddess scream from the simple act of crushing her foot.

“The specimen is ready for transport and further study,” he said into a communicator on his wrist.

With a series of hisses, my restraints detached from the dam wall. They did not release me, however. Instead, they reconfigured, folding my limbs inward, forcing me onto my back as the entire apparatus lifted from the ground, hovering silently. I was now strapped to a floating slab of black metal, a specimen on a tray. The Architect walked calmly ahead, leading my helpless, floating form away from the site of my failure and into a dark service tunnel.

The journey was a blur of concrete walls, humming lights, and the drip of unseen water. I was cargo. Less than cargo. I was an object, a prize being taken to a more secluded location. My mind reeled, trapped in a loop of the grinding pain in my foot and the sound of my own shriek. Each throb in my arch was a reminder of his touch, of my weakness, of the man who had so thoroughly and methodically unmade me.

We emerged into a vast, sterile white chamber. It was less a lair and more a laboratory or a museum exhibit hall, silent and cold. In the center of the room was a raised platform, empty and waiting. My platform. The Architect gestured, and my hovering slab drifted toward it, preparing to dock.

“Welcome, Diana,” he said, his voice echoing in the stark emptiness. “To the theater where we will dismantle the myth, piece by piece.”

As the slab locked into place with a final, definitive clang, my eyes fell upon a set of monitors on the far wall. They flickered to life, showing close-up, high-definition images of me, captured from moments before. My face contorted in pain. My bare, vulnerable feet. My body, pinned and helpless. He wasn’t just defeating me; he was documenting it, cataloging my humiliation for his own perverse satisfaction. The dismantling had only just begun.

The call had been a frantic one—the structural supports of the new Kord Industries hydroelectric dam were failing. A cataclysmic failure would not only plunge Metropolis into darkness but would send a wall of water into the low-lying suburbs downstream. A mission for Superman, perhaps, but he was off-world. It fell to me.

The icy spray of the churning water felt good against my skin as I descended from the sky. The groan of stressed metal was a symphony of impending disaster. My muscles, honed by millennia of Amazonian training, coiled and bunched as I landed on the cracking concrete platform. I went to work immediately, my body a seamless extension of my will. I braced one crumbling buttress with my back, the pressure immense but manageable. The familiar thrum of divine energy, a gift from the gods of Olympus, coursed through me, a warm and limitless ocean of power. I could feel every fiber of my being engaged, my shoulders and thighs straining like living marble to hold back a mountain’s worth of water and steel.

That was my first mistake. Believing the power was limitless.

As I held the failing structure, my feet planted firmly on the slick concrete, a strange sensation began to creep into the edges of my awareness. It started in my calves, a subtle coolness that had nothing to do with the river’s spray. It was a deep, internal cold, a numbness that felt profoundly wrong. The thrum of my power, usually a roaring fire within me, seemed to flicker.

I pushed harder, gritting my teeth, attributing the feeling to the sheer exertion. But the cold spread, seeping into my thighs, my core. It was a venomous lethargy, turning my powerful muscles into sluggish, heavy clay. My breath, usually steady and controlled even in the heat of battle, started to come in ragged gasps. A wave of dizziness washed over me, the roar of the water and the shriek of metal fading in and out.

What is happening to me?

My strength, my birthright, was leaving me. It wasn’t being broken; it was being siphoned away, drained like water from a broken vessel. The immense weight I was supporting suddenly became unbearable. My knees buckled. A cry of frustration and pain was torn from my throat as the buttress gave way. But instead of the catastrophic collapse I expected, there was a series of loud, pneumatic hisses.

From the walls of the dam, thick arms of a metallic alloy I didn’t recognize shot out, locking the failing structure in place. Simultaneously, restraints of the same strange, matte-black metal snapped around my wrists, my ankles, my waist, and my neck, slamming me back against the very wall I had been trying to save. The trap was sprung.

The metal was cold, impossibly so. But worse, it was inert. My remaining power, flickering and desperate, found no purchase against it. It didn’t reflect my energy; it simply absorbed it, drank it down, leaving me even emptier. Panic, an emotion I so rarely feel, began to claw at the edges of my mind. I strained, my body trembling with the effort. My muscles, which could trade blows with gods, felt like water-logged ropes. A sheen of cold sweat broke out across my brow and down my back. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, trapped bird. I was weak. For the first time since I left Themyscira, I felt utterly, completely helpless.

A figure emerged from the shadows of a service entrance, his footsteps echoing with an unnerving calm in the sudden quiet. He was unassuming, a man in a tailored suit, but his eyes held the cold confidence of a master craftsman admiring his work.

“Princess Diana of Themyscira,” he said, his voice smooth and cultured. “They call me the Architect. And I have designed your end.”

He walked a slow circle around me, his gaze analytical. “The water,” he explained, gesturing to the dammed river. “Laced with custom nanites, keyed to your unique divine energy signature. They don’t attack your cells, you see. That would be too crude. They merely… decouple you from your power source. You are still an Amazon, but the god-fire that makes you a wonder is gone. You are left with only the flesh.”

My flesh felt like a prison. The restraints held my arms wide, my legs apart, a mockery of my star emblem. My head was forced back against the collar, my chin tilted up in forced submission. Every inch of me screamed with the humiliation of it. To be laid low not in glorious combat, but by a trick. A poisoned well.

The Architect stopped in front of me, his eyes drifting down. He knelt, not in reverence, but as a predator might crouch before its captured prey. My gaze was locked forward, but I could feel his attention, his focus. It landed on my feet.

On my boots.

My red and white boots. They had trod the soil of Olympus and the battlefields of Man’s World. They had kicked down the gates of Tartarus and stood firm against the tide of Parademons. They were a part of my armor, a part of my identity as a warrior.

“Such symbols you heroes rely on,” the Architect mused, his voice a low murmur. His gloved hand reached out, not with a warrior’s roughness, but with the slow, deliberate precision of a surgeon. A wave of revulsion and a deeper, sharper shame washed through me. This was a violation more profound than any blow.

His fingers traced the white stripe down the front of my left boot. I flinched, a useless twitch of a muscle. My body was a tapestry of failure, and he was examining every thread. I could feel the heat of my skin, the pounding of my pulse in my ears, the utter, sickening powerlessness.

“To defeat you is one thing,” he continued, his fingers finding the clasp near my ankle. “But to unmake you… that is artistry.”

With an audible click, he released the clasp. My breath hitched. He slowly, methodically, peeled back the leather from my calf. His touch was cold and clinical through the glove, but it felt like a brand against my skin. He wrapped his hands around the heel and the toe.

And he began to pull.

The boot slid, resisting for a moment before surrendering. The feeling was excruciatingly slow. The leather whispering against my shin, the sound of it an intimate insult. The cool air of the dam hit my bare arch, my toes, my heel. I had been barefoot on the sands of my home, in the halls of justice, but this was different. This was being stripped. My bare foot, starkly pale against the grimy floor, looked fragile, vulnerable. A symbol of my utter defeat. A hot, furious shame burned in my cheeks, a feeling so intense it almost eclipsed the physical weakness.

He set the boot down beside him with a soft thud, like a trophy. I refused to look at it. I kept my jaw clenched, my eyes fixed on the far wall, fighting the tears of pure, undiluted humiliation that threatened to fall. He had not just beaten me. He had taken a piece of me.

His gaze shifted to my right foot. My heart sank.

“And now for the other one,” the Architect said softly, his hand reaching out once more. “Let’s see what’s left of the great Wonder Woman when all the pieces are taken away.”

As his fingers closed around my other boot, I closed my eyes. The cold of the metal restraints felt like it was seeping into my very soul. The strength was gone. The hope was dwindling. All that was left was the woman, Diana, pinned and exposed, her body a testament to her failure, waiting for the final piece of her warrior’s pride to be stripped away.

The mysterious man known as The Traveler enters Eddie’s office. He is a tall older muscular man with long white hair. He wears a tailored black suit with expensive leather shoes. Eddie could tell this man meant business and he became concerned for his own safety. Eddie stood up from his desk to greet The Traveler. “Mr. Traveler, please have a seat, make yourself comfortable.  Ya wanna drink?” Eddie said motioning to the leather chair in front of his desk. The Traveler walked past Eddie and sat in his office chair at the head of the desk. He put his feet up on the desk and leaned back in Eddie’s chair. “I’d love a drink, Carpathian Brandy, do you have it?” The Traveler asked.

Eddie looked dumbfounded as he walked over to his bar picking up a fine crystal glass. “Uh, I have cognac and carvalos.” he said. The Traveler motioned his fingers in the direction of Eddie and the glass he was holding blinked away and reappeared in front of The Traveler. Eddie watched as the glass filled up with Carpathian Brandy magically. He looked at Eddie and motioned him to sit in the guest chair in front of his desk.

Eddie felt his anger rising, but knew better than to blow up at a man who could make rare brandy appear out of thin air. Eddie poured himself a fresh drink and sat down begrudgingly. “Nice magic trick.” He said nodding towards the glass. “Magic, no trick. Magic is simply ancient technology most don’t understand.” He replied. Eddie said nothing glaring at the stranger sitting at his desk.

The Traveler sat motionless looking at Eddie. Eddie’s anger quickly subsided when he realized The Traveler was waiting for him to talk. “So, Mr. Dark sent you to kill Superwoman for me.” Eddie said.

“Incorrect, Mr. Dark paid me 50 million dollars to give you the means to kill Superwoman.” He replied. “Okay, so then how do I kill Superwoman?” Eddie asked.

The Traveler produced a small blue crystal from his pocket and tossed it on the desk. “A crystal? Are you kidding me? They don’t work no more. That Majick bitch cancelled them.” Eddie said. “This is a blue Null crystal. My own design. Majick has nothing to do with this. This one will do more than the null crystals you’ve been using. This one will not only instantly nullify her powers, it will also make her sick, dizzy and weaker than a baby.” The Traveler replies. “Yeah? and what happens if Superwoman laughs at it and kicks my ass?” Eddie asks.

“She will be helpless. You have my guarantee. In return I want her belt and choker.” The Traveler said. Eddie raised an eyebrow. “What do you want those for?” He asked. “That’s my business.” He replied.

That Night…

The blizzard had been raging for a few hours. The streets of Delta City were desolate as people stayed in the warmth of their homes. It seems even crime took a break for the winter storm.

Detective Rebecca Hunt opened the door to her apartment after a long day. She took off her coat and hung it on a chair. She put her badge and gun on a bookshelf and turned on the lights. She was surprised to see Eddie Winter sitting at her kitchen table. “Detective Hunt, shitty place you got here.” He said. Rebecca knew a distraction when she saw one. She spun around to see Big Sal ready to attack her. She quickly sent a kick into Sal’s chest sending him falling back. “Hey Sally, looks like Eddie didn’t kill you.” She moved towards the big man when suddenly a chloroform soaked rag clamped over her mouth and nose. “You’re coming with us bitch!” Eddie said into her ear. Rebecca felt herself getting dizzy and quickly elbowed Eddie to get him off her. Rebecca leaned back against the wall trying not to pass out. “Fuck!” She said to herself.

Sal and Eddie stood up and moved towards the weakened Rebecca. “She’s weak now, Sal. Work this bitch over and we’re square.” Eddie said. “You got it boss.” Sal said happily. He grabbed Rebecca by the throat with his left hand and tossed her backwards to Eddie. Eddie grabbed her arms and pulled them behind her back. Now completely defenseless and weakened from chloroform Rebecca saw Sal cocking his fat fist back. Shot after shot landing on Rebecca’s tight belly. Each shot knocking the air from her lungs. “YOU FUCKING CUNT!” Sal screamed as he started slapping Rebecca. “Look at the big bad detective now! Not so fucking mouthy when I’m not cuffed!” Sal yelled. Rebecca looked up weakly with a smirk from her bleeding mouth. “Go..fuck… yourself SALLY!” She says enraging Sal. Sal takes out his brass knuckles and cracks Rebecca across the jaw. The force of the punch ripped Rebecca out of Eddie’s grip and she crashed to the floor unconscious.

“Nice work Sal.” Eddie said reaching down and grabbing Rebecca’s hair. He pulls her head up and clamps the chloroform rag over her face. A soft moan escapes her lips through the rag as she goes completely limp. Sal handcuffs Rebecca with her own handcuffs. “Let’s get her in the car before it gets bad to drive.” Eddie says to Sal worried about the storm. Sal smiles at the unconscious Rebecca. The feeling of satisfaction seeing her defeated made him happy. He picked up the limp Rebecca and slung her limp and handcuffed body over his broad shoulder. Eddie scribbled a note and left it on Rebecca’s kitchen table. The two walked out with Rebecca into the snowy winter night to the car and drove away.

The next day there was 43 inches of snow on the ground and the storm was still raging. The city was shut down from the snow emergency. Josephine received a call at home from Captain Randolph of the Delta City Police. “Don’t suppose you and Rebecca are recovering from a hangover from last night?” He asked. “What? No? I haven’t seen Rebecca.” She replied. “Okay, sure. Well, since she doesn’t like to answer her phone tell her if she doesn’t report for duty in the next hour I’m busting her down to patrol.” He replies with a tone of light sarcasm. “Andy, I’m serious. She’s not here. Can you send a car to her apartment?” Josephine said. “I’ll try but the plows can’t keep up with the snow and my officers are stuck.” He replied. “I’ll go check on her.” She said. “Yeah? That BMW you drive has snow tracks now?” He asks. “Something like that.” She replies.

A moment later Superwoman was flying towards downtown Delta City in the heavy snowfall. Her red leotard with shimmering pantyhosed form cutting through the storm like a missile. The beautiful protector of Delta City landed at Rebecca’s apartment and walked through the front vestibule. She knew the code to enter and floated up the 3 flights of stairs to her unit. The door was partially open and she walked in. “Rebecca?” She called. She noticed her gun and badge on the bookshelf  and her jacket was hung on the chair. She noticed signs of a struggle. The kitchen chair she never sits on knocked over. Then she noticed the note on the table. She picked it up and read [Superwoman, Oh baby it’s cold outside. But Hunt’s gonna keep us warm. Nothing beats an Ice Cold Winter. Love, Eddie.]. Her blood boiled with anger at the audacity. She knew what she needed to do. She left the apartment and flew to Eddie Winter’s mansion.

At the mansion Rebecca Hunt sat tied strictly to a chair in her jeans and a t-shirt. A rag stuffed in her mouth with packing tape over her mouth. She watched as Eddie played with a small metal box. Opening it up and smiling while he looked at it. A slight blue glow on his face each time he looked at it. He noticed Rebecca watching him. “My boys watching your apartment across the street tell me Superwoman just visited your place. When she gets here she’s dead.” He said opening the box and showing Rebecca the blue glowing crystal. Rebecca started laughing behind the gag which pissed Eddie off. “You think it’s funny bitch? You won’t be laughing when I kill Superwoman!” He said scowling while reaching down and ripping the tape off her mouth. Rebecca spit the gag out.

“You fucking dip shit! The crystals don’t work. When she gets here she’s gonna rip your place apart and then I’m gonna shove my foot so far up your ass it’s gonna come out of your fucking mouth!” She screamed. Eddie backhands Rebecca across the face, the slap echoed across the large office. “You’re a fucking pussy Eddie and your stupid plan won’t work!” Rebecca screamed while looking behind her hearing the library door open. She saw a man in a high tech suit of armor. He is an older man with long white hair. “Who the fuck is this rusty old tin can?” She asked looking at The Traveler.

“Normally I would agree with you Detective Hunt, but that crystal is of my own design, not Majick’s. I assure you, Superwoman will die tonight.” He said to her. “Even if you don’t appreciate the sophistication of my armor. I am The reckoning of destiny, I am the reaper of souls. I am The Traveler.” He said sending a chill down everyone’s spine. Rebecca looked at him unfazed. “You look like a fucking idiot.” She said harshly.

“What’s with the outfit?” Eddie asked The Traveler. “This is no mere outfit. It is a tool which will power the Quantum Compass.” He replied pressing a button on his chest opening a compartment and holding up a small rune with symbols and etchings. “This is why you will give me Superwoman’s power artifacts. They will charge the Quantum Compass.” He said.

“Quantum Compass? The fuck is that?” Eddie asked. “It’s an ancient magical artifact that will allow me to travel across the Multiverse.” Traveler said.

“You are both fucking crazy. I can’t wait to see you morons in prison.” Rebecca said. Suddenly a voice over Eddie’s radio breaks through with a static voice. “Superwoman’s here. Flying from the front.” He said. Eddie picks up the radio. “Make it look good.” He says. Eddie shoves the rag back in Rebecca’s mouth and takes it shut.

Suddenly gunfire can be heard outside. The gunfire outside stops after men scream. Suddenly the loud crashing echo of a smashed heavy oak door hitting a marble floor. More gunfire, more men screaming, gunfire stops. The sound of heels hitting the mable floor then tipping and tapping on the floor with each step. The steps stop outside the door. Eddie reaches into his pocket and feels the box with the crystal in it. The double doors are ripped off their hinges revealing The red costumed Superwoman. Her red leather boots walking into the office. Her high end pantyhose shimmering in the office lights. The muscles of her legs flexing with each step she took. Her toned stomach flexes with each motion. The artifacts of power shining red and glowing as her red mask draws your attention to her perfectly shaded eyes. She is an intimidating sight to anyone with evil in their hearts. The red costume letting villains know she doesn’t care who sees her coming.

She saw Rebecca tied up and gagged on a chair and Eddie closer to the door to her left. She saw a man she didn’t know in armor. She glared at Eddie. “You made a big mistake Eddie.” She said with the confidence only a powerful Superheroine could say with conviction. She began to walk towards Eddie. Rebecca began shaking her head trying to tell Superwoman to stay back. Eddie smiled and pulled out the small metal box. Superwoman was raising her arm to grab Eddie when he opened the box and held the blue glowing crystal out in front of him.

“No bitch! You made the mistake.” He said with a sick twisted grin on his face.

Superwoman’s blood suddenly felt like it was on fire. She grabbed her chest as her confidence washed away. She fell to her knees in extreme pain. She had never felt this weak before in combination with the internal pain, even the most powerful Null Crystals never made her feel this kind of extreme pain. She looked up to see Eddie laughing at her. Eddie looked with joy as Superwoman’s face twisted in pain as she moaned and struggled to breathe.

Rebecca watched in horror as Eddie grabbed Superwoman’s hair and forced her to look at him. She looked in horror and fear as her body felt like it was burning from the inside out. “I’m gonna fucking kill you tonight Superwoman. It’s over bitch. You walked right into my trap and this time you finally lost!” He said bending down and forcing his tongue into Superwoman’s unyielding mouth and kissing her, tasting her warm mouth and exploring with his tongue. He pulled her head back and watched as she looked at him helplessly. Eddie smiled. “But first I’m gonna have fun before you die.” He put the blue glowing crystal in front of her face and watched as she looked at it twisting her face in pain. He could see the fear in her eyes behind that red mask. “N…no… please…stop.” she said weakly wheezing from her lungs.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 4