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A strong yet gentle hand brushed against Barbara Ann Minerva's cheek. Cheetah responded to the Amazon Princess' kindness just as she always did, with unrepentant savagery. Her fangs buried themselves deep in Diana of Themyscira's palm, eliciting a brief spurt of warm crimson liquid straight into Barbara's hungry maw. The taste of Diana's fluids filling Barbara's mouth was exquisite; it made her the closest thing to happy she could be, because this was the closest thing to love that Barbara was still capable of.
Especially after what Veronica Cale and her friends had done to Barbara. The various chemicals they'd exposed her to, the experiments they'd run... Barbara doesn't like to think about it. But that's the twisted blessing that her most recent bout of ill fortune has granted her; if Barbara doesn't want to think, she doesn't have to. She can just... let go, and allow her body to act on pure animal instinct.
It's not like she has anything to fight for, anything she wants to accomplish, does she even still cling to life for any grander reason than pure stubbornness? She's such a pathetic monster; too hateful to learn, too spiteful to prosper.
So, just as she long ago cast away human morality, now she seeks to separate herself from human intelligence as well. She allows herself to become nothing but a passive observer of her own existence. It's so much better this way; she won't have to feel guilty for making bad decisions if she doesn't make any decisions. She won't have to feel angry when her plans fail if she refuses to make any plans.
She's vaguely aware of Diana and someone she doesn't recognize talking, but it doesn't matter; all their words are drowned out by the crackling static of her new feral worldview, rendered pointless gibberish by her refusal to engage intellectually. She should have done this years ago; should have realized that she'd never have a chance at being happy and instead simply settled for feeling less sad.
All of it is utterly and completely meaningless… Except for two of Wonder Woman's final words.
"...Steve... Etta..."
Barbara tried to protest, tried to tell Diana not to do this. It's unfair; she doesn't want to have to interact with the world of words anymore, but just as a housecat can recognize its own name or that of its fellow pets, even in her current state, there are still some sounds capable of conveying meaning to Barbara.
"Meeerrrrr..." She can't reply with actual words of her own of course, ultimately all that leaves her mouth is an animalistic murmur of dejection.
Barbara wants to go back to ignoring her captor's discussion, wants to stop caring, but suddenly she can't. For just a brief flickering moment, she finds herself forced to participate in the world around her as a human being instead of the wild animal she wishes to become.
"Long have we stood apart. Let us be united, if only for one night. The lasso demands it. We yearn for the same thing..." Diana insisted, as she cupped Barbara's cheeks with both hands, even as a thin trickle of blood continued to flow from the palm punctured by Barbara's fangs only a few moments ago.
Barbara thrashes about wildly, but she is bound hand, foot, and tail against a gigantic tree by the Lasso of Truth; escape is impossible.
Why does Diana keep on doing this? Why doesn't she have the decency to hate Barbara after everything that the feline supervillainess has done to her?
This is far from the first time Wonder Woman has tried something like this, once the Amazon Princess even got Circe involved, told Barbara that all she needed to do was speak the name of who she had been before meeting Urzkartaga, and she would return to that form… as if going back to who she used to be held any appeal for her. She'd tried that once before, tried to be something better than a bloodthirsty monster, but the universe (and Veronica Cale in particular) had firmly rejected her attempt at redemption. At least as Cheetah, she might have the strength to hurt the people who hurt her.
That time with Circe… Barbara hadn't been bound by the Lasso of Truth; she'd been free to lie, to try and encourage Diana to give her former friend up for a lost cause, to move on and be happy, because that way at least one of them would be.
This time around though, as tightly as the Lasso of Truth bound her body, it bound her soul even tighter.
It insisted on excavating Barbara from the dark pit that she had thrown herself into out of a desperate hope that such an action might spare her some measure of future suffering. The Lasso of Truth was pitiless in how it hunted down the tiny, infinitesimal remains of Barbara's soul wherever they tried to hide, entangled them, and dragged them back towards the harsh light of reality.
Cheetah could not answer Wonder Woman's question; only Barbara Ann Minerva could.
Her head was starting to itch.
It was an absurd thing to be distracted by at such a time, but all the same, it was the truth of her current existence. Barbara's head was starting to itch, and she wished her hands were free so that they could scratch and claw at her scalp until the sensation went away…
That was just a feeling though; it was not the truth that Diana wanted from her, the truth that the Lasso compelled her to speak.
"H..." It was hard to once more make sounds shaped intentionally by the movement of her lips rather than vocalized by her throat and haphazardly pushed forward without further care, like relearning to walk after a debilitating injury.
It was such a daunting task that Barbara would have eagerly given up halfway through if the Lasso of Truth hadn't demanded that she continue onwards, no matter how she tried to shirk its commands.
"Heal..." Barbara managed to voice her first genuine word since Veronica Cale's latest experiments had begun in earnest.
The supervillainess could feel her eyes starting to moisten, the itching of her head growing worse, but after managing to speak one word, the old saying about "riding a bicycle" proved equally apt in this situation. It was almost disturbing how easily the concept of spoken language returned to her… but then Barbara had always been a natural polyglot.
"I want to… heal." Barbara finally gasped out her answer, every second of the process hating how the Lasso of Truth had laid bare her deepest, darkest desires to Diana.
It would be so much easier for both of them if the Amazon Princess thought there wasn't anything worth fighting for inside Barbara, that she was nothing but a wild animal, practically a walking corpse animated only by malign magic rather than something that resembled the soul of her former friend.
Tears streaked down Barbara's face, following the path of the black smudges that broke up her tawny golden fur.
"But I know I'll never get the chance." Barbara wanted to spit the words in Diana's face, to tell her that she was wasting her time and efforts, that it didn't matter what Barbara wanted because Barbara never got what she wanted; yet those words were choked silent and left stillborn by the Lasso of Truth's grip on the supervillainess' soul.
"Welcome back, my sister." Diana intoned solemnly, leaning forward to rest her forehead against Barbara's as tears flowed freely along the superheroine's cheeks as well.
For a brief moment, Barbara would swear she could feel the fluid tracing its way down the pair's faces meeting, mixing, combining, creating an unexpected and unwarranted sense of equality between Beast and Beauty.
The Amazon Princess' hands began to work their way further up Barbara's cheeks, and the sensations they brought changed unexpectedly. It no longer felt as if Diana was caressing Cheetah's fur, but instead, well, it was hard to be sure, given how much time had passed, but the new feeling almost reminded Barbara of...
"I don't have hair. Why does it feel like I have hair?" Barbara's first attempt at a response was rebuked by the Lasso of Truth, and only when she reframed it as a question were the words able to break free of her lips.
"Because you do." As Diana spoke, she ever so tenderly twisted a lock of crimson hair around so that it fell directly in front of Barbara's orange eyes.
Her head had stopped itching.
It didn't make sense. Barbara Ann Minerva had been blond, why had she grown red hair as Cheetah? Then Barbara realized that ultimately she didn't care. After so many years of only having fur, she felt a perverse comfort at the sight of genuine hair emerging from her head once again. If she wasn't going to be allowed to live her life as an animal, then the more she felt like a human, the better.
"I don't want you to see me naked. I'd like you to take me clothes shopping again." Barbara awkwardly requested, though no sooner were the words of her mouth than she looked away, fresh tears coming to her eyes.
That "again" was the bitterest truth yet to emerge from her lips. She could still recall the pathetic fleeting joy of when she'd stood in front of Diana, wearing a shirt that she'd failed to button properly: either because she'd gotten distracted by thoughts of how to get Wonder Woman back to Themyscira, or the years she'd spent as Cheetah had caused her fingers to forget how to preform that particular task, if not some combination of both.
Back then, it had felt like the start of something newer and better, when in reality it had been nothing but an all too brief respite before the agony of being Cheetah reared its ugly head once more. Barbara didn't dare to dream that she could have another moment like that; she didn't deserve another moment like that after all the horrible things she'd done.
"I'll see about setting something up." The Amazon Princess promised, letting go of Barbara's newly grown hair.
The supervillainess likewise didn't deserve to have Diana looking at her like that, with so much hope and joy in her eyes, when ultimately Barbara was only going to end up disappointing her all over again...
"I still hate you. This doesn't change how I feel about you." Barbara tried desperately to warn Diana that the Amazon Princess was throwing good money after bad by investing herself in the supervillainess' future.
"I have set my life upon a cast, and I will stand the hazard of the die." Was Diana's only answer.
It was the only answer that Barbara needed, the only answer she could have ever wanted.
Those words, that quote from Shakespeare, it had been one of the last things that Doctor Barbara Ann Minerva had told Diana back when Barbara was just an ordinary archeologist. It wasn't just the Amazon Princess declaring that she was willing to risk Barbara turning on her yet again; it was a vow that she refused to let the evils that Cheetah had done eclipse their former friendship.
"I'm not that woman anymore. I don't trust myself to live up to your expectations." Barbara sighed forlornly.
"Will you try?" Diana probed, her words every bit as kind and gentle as her touch.
"I hate how perfect you are. I hate how much I love you. Princess, this story doesn't have a happy ending. I will try." Barbara agreed.
"It takes nine full days to fall into Tartarus; it takes longer still to climb out. If the ascent ever feels too daunting, just ask, and I'll do my utmost to aid you." Diana promised, and though the supervillainess didn't want to, she couldn't help but feel a slight spark of joy at the Amazon Princess' reference to the Greek mythological tales that had so captivated Barbara's imagination as a child.
"I don't trust you anymore, not after what happened in Bwunda. You should have left me in the dark pits where a monster like me belongs. There are people far more deserving of your help than I am." The supervillainess lamented.
"Maybe so, but I don't love those people like I do you, Barbara Ann Minerva." The Amazon Princess countered as she carefully worked her hands underneath the Lasso of Truth so that she could embrace Barbara without the tree that the supervillainess was tied to getting in the way.
"Stop that, you know I hate it when you treat me like some kind of stuffed animal! You'll never love me the way that I love you, Diana. You win..." Cheetah whimpered the words as she allowed her body to go slack in loving submission to the superheroine's embrace.
Of course, it had to end like this; no matter how many times the two crossed paths, there remained one unshakeable universal constant, something more fundamental than even the Void Wind itself...
Wonder Woman always won.
The End
AN: Tartarus is Greek mythology's equivalent of Hell.
The clothes shopping scene that Barbara thinks of is a reference to Wonder Woman Volume 5 issue 9, Barbara telling Diana, "I have set my life upon a cast, and I will stand the hazard of the die." takes place in Volume 5 Issue 18, Diana enlisting Circe to try and reverse Barbara's curse is in Volume 5 Issue 750.