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Wonder Woman and Cheetah had fought so many times before.
Never like this though.
This was not a simple superpowered brawl between hero and villain; this was something… mythological.
Save for short periods of rest when one of them sought to desperately hide from the other, the two just kept fighting without break or respite. They fought each other as the sun rose, they fought each other as the sun hung in the center of the sky, they fought each other as the sun set, and they fought each other when there was only the light of the moon to see by.
They fought each other from one end of the island to the other and back again.
They fought each other… until Cheetah pinned Wonder Woman upon the island’s sandy shores and began to choke the Amazon Princess into submission.
Wonder Woman did not have the strength to fight back now, only to gasp out a few final words.
“You never made me angry… only sad.” Diana insisted.
“Pity?” Growled Cheetah.
“Not… not-t… pity. H-Hope. And… love.” The Amazon Princess responded.
Then Diana’s eyes rolled back in her head as she fell unconscious, the Amazon Princess rendered utterly helpless before her ferocious feline foe.
Cheetah had won. There was simply no other way to describe it.
Diana of Themyscira, Amazon Princess, Daughter of Hippolyta, lay limp and unresisting with Cheetah’s hands wrapped firmly around her throat.
To paraphrase a famous saying, “Cheetah only needed to get lucky once, Wonder Woman needed to get lucky every time,” and today, Cheetah had finally gotten lucky.
The rest of the Justice League were miles away, dealing with other matters, and none of her Amazon sisters were nearby. It was just Cheetah and Diana alone on the island; there could be no possible twist of fate that would let Wonder Woman turn this conflict in her favor, no last-minute gambit or stratagem; all that remained was for Cheetah to choose how she wanted to end the superheroine's life.
Yet before the supervillainess could do the deed, Wonder Woman’s words from their previous confrontation began to echo in Cheetah’s head.
"Long have we stood apart. Let us be united, if only for one night. The lasso demands it. We yearn for the same thing..."
Thus did Heracles awaken from the curse of madness that his stepmother had inflicted upon him, with his hands wrapped tightly around Megara’s throat.
Barbara Ann Minerva reacted to this revelation with an appropriate degree of dignity.
F**k!
The supervillainess released her grip and gazed mournfully at the beautiful Amazon Princess splayed out in the sand before her.
Diana had been right from the start. Diana was always right.
“You... always... talk… I… only… hunger…”
Shame made the tawny golden fur on Cheetah’s cheeks turn redder than her hair as she briefly flashed back to the words she’d greeted Diana with.
Because they were more true than Barbara had realized… Diana always tried desperately to find the right words to awaken some small degree of reason or sense in Barbara, and Cheetah always repaid the Amazon Princess’ kindness with savagery. Even now, even though she’d grown hair and was wearing clothing, she still hadn’t been able to stop herself from acting like a wild animal.
She had seen Diana, smelled the Amazon Princess’ heady scent, and she had attacked. Because for nearly a decade now, how else had she ever acted in Diana of Themyscira’s presence other than to attack her? Yet, still, Wonder Woman loved her.
I am going to be the death of you one day, Princess…
The words themselves hadn’t changed, only their volume and tone. There was a time when she would have hissed them in Diana’s face, a threat from one of the few foes capable of standing toe to toe against Wonder Woman and matching her in strength, speed, and skill rather than needing complex technological tricks, an army of henchmen, or arcane magic. Today, Barbara simply thought the words forlornly, reflecting on how much harm she’d already inflicted on Amazon Princess, and how much more she was surely destined to cause in the future.
For the moment though, Barbara allowed herself to collapse on the beach alongside Diana, lying on her back, in the same position as Wonder Woman's unconscious form.
Idiot, why did you turn yourself over like that? If you’d just fallen face-first into the water, you could have drowned and made the world a better place.
Barbara simply panted and caught her breath for a few moments, then she pushed herself into a sitting position, opened her mouth, and let loose with a wordless scream of animalistic rage, directed at… well, everyone she hated, herself included.
As the shriek died away, reality slowly began to reassert itself more fully. Looking at how the water lapped against Diana’s dark hair, Barbara knew what she had to do.
Trying not to exacerbate the wounds she’d already dealt the Amazon Princess, Barbara picked up her fallen foe and carried her away from the beach; she hadn’t stopped herself from strangling Wonder Woman only to risk the heroine accidentally drowning instead.
With Barbara’s body no longer being flooded with adrenaline, she was finally able to realize just how much pain she was in, and just what a near run thing her victory had been; surely if Diana hadn’t been dumped on this island in such a pathetic state, she would have surely won their latest battle just like all the ones before it.
“Stay safe, until I get back, okay?” Barbara was only able to bring herself to utter such pathetic and pointless words because she knew that Diana could not possibly hear them.
There was nothing on this island that could pose a threat to the Amazon Princess save Cheetah, a fact Barbara was painfully well aware of. She had spent far longer than she ever would have imagined licking ants off the ground to “feast” on the island’s sole source of protein.
The worst part of it was that, roughly a decade ago, Barbara Ann Minerva had been a vegetarian.
Urzkartaga had put paid to that though, beyond any ancient magical curse to consume human flesh, her new body’s digestive system was that of an obligate carnivore. One more way for the plant god to prove how thoroughly he dominated his new “wife” and how completely he could bend her body (if not her mind) to his whims.
It was almost funny, imagining how much trauma that one small change might have been able to wreak upon the woman she used to be, but it was hard to hate yourself for eating sausages when “long pig” was the dish you truly craved.
Barbara could have tried to push her body to its limits, see how fast she was capable of running, but since Diana would probably be unconscious for a while, she might as well take her time, as both women’s magical healing powers sought to undo the harm they’d inflicted on one another.
So it was with a slow, sedate pace that Barbara began to patrol the interior of the island looking for twigs, small branches, and anything else she could use for kindling. The entire time that she’d been on the island, never once had she felt the need for any sort of comfort beyond that granted by her fur, but tonight would be different. Tonight she had company.
Company she wanted to make feel welcome.
As she stalked through the empty forest, her body slowly pulling itself back together, so too did her mind begin to mend. She began to clearly recall how she’d gotten into this mess, and for some strange reason, those memories brought a perverse smile to Barbara’s lips.
XXX XXX XXX
She was down on all fours again, just like back in Brazil.
That was the only thing about her current situation that was the same though. Back in Brazil, she’d gone along with what Veronica Cale had done to her; it felt like those experiments were bringing her salvation from the curse of sapience. This time, she was determined to fight back; for once in her life, Barbara Ann Minerva would not let herself be molded to suit another’s desires.
There was a lasso wrapped around her neck like an animal’s leash, and she hated it. Hated the way it glowed with an unnatural, false “gray light” that shouldn’t exist. Everything about the lasso was a lie, especially the words it tried to shove into her head. Into her soul.
“Wonder Woman is never coming to rescue you. Wonder Woman hates you.” Her captor proclaimed, and through the lasso, his words tried to impose themselves as an inescapable certainty upon Barbara’s very being.
The supervillainess laughed so hard it made her lips (dry and chapped from lack of water) hurt.
“There’s… there’s not a lie you can tell me about her that I haven't already told myself!” Barbara snarled back.
She hadn’t overcome those lies just to wind up falling for them a second time simply because it was a different voice whispering them in her ears; her captor would have to try harder than that if he wanted to tame this cheetah!
“Micah 3:2-4
“Who eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them, and break their bones in pieces and chop them up like meat in a pot, like flesh in a cauldron. Then they will cry to the LORD, but he will not answer them; he will hide his face from them at that time, because they have made their deeds evil.” Her captor preached.
The man’s voice was old, dry, decrepit, weak, if Barbara’s hands weren’t currently bound by chains of some metal that was probably so high tech it didn’t even have an official name yet, she most likely could have crushed the life out of him with a single finger.
Instead, since the only part of her that was currently free to act was her lips, Barbara simply repaid him in kind.
“Ovid's Metamorphoses: Book One...
“Not satisfied with this he took a hostage sent by the Molossi, opened his throat with a knife, and made some of the still warm limbs tender in seething water, roasting others in the fire. No sooner were these placed on the table than I brought the roof down on the household gods, with my avenging flames, those gods worthy of such a master. He himself ran in terror, and reaching the silent fields howled aloud, frustrated of speech. Foaming at the mouth, and greedy as ever for killing, he turned against the sheep, still delighting in blood. His clothes became bristling hair, his arms became legs. He was a wolf, but kept some vestige of his former shape. There were the same grey hairs, the same violent face, the same glittering eyes, the same savage image. I’ve already been punished by one god for my hubris; yours is welcome to have a turn whenever he likes.” The supervillainess taunted the man who dared to call himself "Sovereign".
Because that was her captor’s own great hubris, believing that he could make Barbara Ann Minerva into a good person, someone who obeyed the rules of society, when Diana of Themyscira had been failing at that particular task for over a decade!
Every time he cited some trite Bible verse at her, she would reply with a quote from the ancient Greek tales on the same subject.
“Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands as to the Lord.” Sovereign insisted.
“I was their ally, and with them when the Amazons, peers of men, came up against them...” Cheetah riposted.
Her captor was horrendously outmatched; he had but one book to draw passages from, Barbara’s literary arsenal contained a small library’s worth of Greek and Roman texts.
“Is that truly all you have to pit against the will of God? Fairy tales?” The haughty dismissal in Sovereign’s voice was music to Barbara’s ears.
“When I was a child, my father told me that I needed to stop believing in mythology. To prove his point, he threw a wooden sword and shield I’d been playing with into our fireplace and made me watch them burn. If he were still alive, he’d probably be as old as you are. But my ‘sword’ isn’t made of wood anymore, is it?
“You can rip the claws from my fingers, shave the fur from my body, cut the tail from my back, pry every fang from my mouth, smash my leg until I once again need the aid of a cane to walk, and for all I might look like a human rather than an animal, that appearance will ultimately reveal itself as nothing but another lie, because I will still be Cheetah.” The supervillainess vowed.
Barbara tossed her head back and forth wildly, and the lasso she so hated, the lasso that her captor had bragged was as impossible to escape as Diana’s own, fell from her throat to land limply upon the floor.
“Your ‘god’ lacks the power to make me human again, and we both know it. Just like we both know, no matter how deep a prison you bury me in or how thick a door you lock me away behind, sooner or later, Diana will rescue me. Diana never stops trying to rescue me.” Cheetah growled defiantly.
XXX XXX XXX
The Sovereign’s will had broken before Barbara’s. He hadn’t been able to face her again after she’d slipped free from his lasso, because even if she could not lay even a single tooth or claw upon his flesh, her actions had still been able to wound his pride.
That was ultimately all it had taken to convince him that, rather than trying to tame Cheetah, she should be shipped off to her current island prison to experience her own special form of solitary confinement. Well, she had survived the worst this island could do to her; she wasn’t alone anymore.
She had survived the island, but she had not withstood it.
All of that torment she had endured in some government black site without losing her faith in Diana... and yet how had she reacted when she’d first laid eyes on the Amazon Princess?
It wasn't the torture that had broken her; it wasn’t the Sovereign’s magical lasso, it was the hunger. Hunger consumed every aspect of Barbara Ann Minerva. Even hope.
Now, just like so many times before, Barbara could do nothing but mourn her past mistakes and move forward. Perhaps she was doing just a little better this time though? Maybe? Rather than wallowing in her despair or using her errors as an excuse to justify future misdeeds, all she did was gather kindling and firewood, return to Diana’s side, set them down, and go back to the task of locating still more. She was doing something productive, even in the face of her failure.
Would Diana be proud of Barbara when she woke up? But then, why should the fire make a difference? Surely, the fact that the Amazon Princess was still alive to wake up in the first place was the only thing that truly mattered?
It was a logical question, but ultimately, there was nothing “logical” about the interactions between Wonder Woman and Cheetah.
So Barbara took trip after trip to gather firewood until the sun began to set, at which point she finally ignited her stockpile.
She had neither flint nor steel on hand, but likewise she did not need them. Instead, Barbara, now fully healed, simply took a piece of wood in her hands and slid it back and forth between her furry palms. When you had super speed, it was no great challenge to start a fire through friction alone.
Before long, she had a respectable blaze going (she’d also gathered rocks to surround the campfire to limit how far it could spread), and her senses detected that her companion had regained consciousness. Diana could try to feign sleep, but after the pair’s countless battles, Cheetah’s super keen ears knew every possible rhythm of the Amazon Princess’ heartbeat, and her current one said “awake” quite clearly.
Rather than directly accuse Diana of playing coy, Barbara simply sat down opposite the Amazon Princess, and allowed her tail to wrap around the superheroine’s leg and give it a gentle squeeze.
“How are you doing?” Wonder Woman responded to Cheetah’s actions as if they were simply old friends, even though Barbara knew that they were anything but, despite how much she might have wished otherwise.
“Not great. Luckily, a little of your blessed flesh goes a long way.” The supervillainess answered, releasing her tail’s grip on Diana.
There were so many things that Barbara would have preferred to have said; she wanted to talk about how much having company, someone to talk to, helped her feel like a human again, but she did not wish to wound the Amazon Princess’ heart as thoroughly as she had her body.
Better for Diana to think that Cheetah was still some half-tame beast who was reluctantly being dragged kicking, screaming, snarling, and clawing towards domestication, than to have her discover the pathetic truth that Barbara Ann Minerva was trying her best… and yet this was all she was capable of.
“If it starts to return, if you’re afraid of losing yourself, let me know. I’d sooner slice off strips of my own skin than see you once again debased by Urzkartaga’s curse.” Diana offered.
Barbara turned away and began to spit and cough with as much force as she could muster, trying desperately to trigger her gag reflex. It was the only thing she could do to stop herself from getting lost in the sensation of twisted desire that was rising from her stomach.
“Don’t… don’t talk about that.” Barbara whimpered desperately, hoping that she’d be able to get through the night without forcing Diana to live up to such a perverse promise.
“Demeter blessed me with the ability to heal from injuries as easily as Gaea renews herself every spring; I’d recover from such an act in an hour at most.” The Amazon Princess tried to reassure her former friend.
“Stop trying to make me eat you!” Cheetah spluttered pathetically.
Diana looked at Barbara.
Barbara looked at Diana.
They both laughed to keep from crying.
The crying would still come, but not quite yet, for this brief moment, both women could hold it at bay a little longer.
“The trees grow coconuts; you can have as many of them as you want,” Barbara suggested, as if that was some kind of genuine gift on her part, telling Diana she was welcome to consume food that would bring Cheetah not the slightest bit of sustenance.
“I don’t think we’ll be here that long. Sovereign didn’t realize that the tracking beacons he planted on my costume before dumping me on this island could also be used by other people as well. Donna, Cassie, and Yara should be here tomorrow morning with the Invisible Jet to save both of us.” The Amazon Princess tried to reassure Barbara.
If only the supervillainess had been able to find some comfort in those words.
While the prospect of leaving the island was indeed invigorating, the underlying meaning was anything but...
“Diana, don’t tell me that you went through whatever the hell the Sovereign did to you, just for the sake of rescuing me. Please tell me you didn’t!” Barbara pleaded.
It was bad enough how much pain she’d ended up causing Diana herself; she didn’t want to imagine how much the Amazon Princess must have suffered at the Sovereign’s hands before he grew desperate enough to ship her out to this island.
“You are not an animal. You deserve better than to live in a cage, even one the size of an entire island.” Wonder Woman insisted.
Barbara realized it was pointless to fight this particular battle and even went so far as to allow her head to loll forlornly atop Diana’s shoulder, her hair brushing up against Diana’s cheek. It truly was just like she’d told the Sovereign, the Amazon Princess would never stop trying to rescue Cheetah.
For a while, the two just sat there in silence as Barbara started to make plans.
She would not allow the two of them to ever meet each other like this again. She was tired of repaying Diana’s kindness with pain and suffering. Once they were done dealing with Sovereign, Barbara Ann Minerva was going to fix herself, or she was going to die trying. Most importantly of all, she wasn’t going to involve Diana in it.
Cheetah had spent years as a supervillainess, so what was a few more months of being one, for the sake of making sure that if she failed, such an event would not taint people’s opinion of Diana? Barbara would make sure that the next time Wonder Woman rescued her, she was able to greet the Amazon Princess’ open hand with sheathed claws, even if she had to kill a god to do it!
Her vow sworn, Barbara could finally find the courage to continue the conversation.
“How are you doing?” Cheetah turned Wonder Woman’s own words back on her.
“Not great.” Eyes as keen as Barbara’s had no trouble detecting the moistness in Diana’s eyes.
“So many of my sisters have perished at the hands of the Amazon Extradition Entity, because I decided to fight with words against a foe who had already made up their mind to use bullets. If I had shown more of your fierceness from the start, would Sovereign have respected me? Realized that my sisters and I were not a force to be trifled with? How many Amazons died because of my choices?” Wonder Woman lamented.
“Is the cyclops struck with guilt when he kills?
Is he up in the middle of the night?
Or does he end my men to avenge his friend
And then sleep knowing he has done him right?” Barbara began to sing.
“When the witch turns men to pigs to protect her nymphs
Is she goin' insane?
Or did she learn to be colder when she got older
And now she saves them the pain?” Diana took over.
“When a god comes down and makes a fleet drown
Is he scared that he's doing something wrong?
Or does he keep us in check so we must respect him
And now no one dares to piss him off?
Does a soldier use a wooden horse to kill sleeping Trojans
'Cause he is vile?
Or does he throw away his remorse
And save more lives with guile?” The two harmonized.
“Princess, that song isn’t a duet. I’m the only one who should be singing it.” Barbara insisted as she looked Diana square in the eyes.
“It’s hard, it’s hard not to be tempted.” Wonder Woman sighed.
“No, for you it should be easy. Because we both know, my way doesn’t work. If it did, how come I wound up stranded on this island before you?” Barbara reminded Diana.
Now the tears finally started to flow from Diana’s eyes.
“I do my best to save everyone, but the only thing worse than knowing I might have made the wrong choice, is the possibility that my choice might not have even mattered. That sometimes even I don’t matter, but that I still have to carry on all the same, keep looking for the next chance when I can make a difference...” Diana sobbed.
This was a side of Wonder Woman that only a handful of people had ever been allowed to see. She wasn’t afraid to show it to the feline supervillainess seated beside her though.
Not because Cheetah had spent a decade trying to uncover every weakness that Diana had, seeking some way to bring the Amazon Princess to her knees.
No, she wasn’t afraid to show it because Doctor Barbara Ann Minerva, the only resident of the World of Men who spoke the “mythical” Amazon language, had already seen it when she’d been called in to translate for a mysterious woman being held in a government prison until somebody could discern what her intentions were.
“It’s so hard, having to present myself as some kind of invincible, incorruptible champion. If that is what this world demands of me, then the gods should have never turned my clay to flesh, because a statue would serve such a role better than any living being.” Diana whispered in between sobs.
Barbara took the Amazon Princess in her arms and held her tightly.
“You don’t have to be perfect for me. There’s no one, no one in the entire world who knows how flawed you are better than I do.” Cheetah reassured Wonder Woman.
Don’t do that, Diana. Don’t make those sounds, don’t make me feel your tears dampen my fur. Nobody is allowed to make you feel the need to cry, nobody but me.
“A noble friend is the best gift. A noble enemy is the next best.” Declared Diana as she slowly slid free from Barbara’s embrace and wiped the tears from her eyes.
“You’re quoting a f**king children’s book.” Huffed the supervillainess, mildly affronted at where Wonder Woman was currently choosing to pull her “sage wisdom” from.
“When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” Diana was openly taunting Barbara now.
Cheetah, for her part, could do nothing but shake her head and accept that she had no proper counterargument.
“I’ve spent so much of my life hating you, and the rest loving you.” The supervillainess groaned, feeling as compelled to tell the truth as if she’d been bound by Wonder Woman’s lasso.
No sooner were the words out of Barbara’s mouth than she fixed Diana with a furious glare. The Amazon Princess was the Spirit of Truth; it should be beneath her to make any sort of pithy comment about how she felt the same way, when Barbara knew there wasn’t one single day, one single hour, one single minute, one single second, one single moment when Wonder Woman hadn’t loved Barbara.
“Love can exist with hatred, each preying on the other, and this is what gives it its greatest fury...” Diana intoned solemnly.
Barbara was once again rendered silent by the Amazon Princess’ cunning mind. So instead of speaking, she simply extended a hand with her claws retracted.
Diana took it, her grip an impossible mix of firm and gentle.
The two shook.
XXX XXX XXX
Barbara Ann Minerva was walking a dangerous metaphorical tightrope. Surrounded by a quartet of Amazon superheroines, she had to work hard to make it clear that she was invested in the cause of dethroning Sovereign without ever revealing exactly what kind of altruistic motivations guided her, lest Diana become too emotionally invested in a flesh-eating monster. It was a task that required the mental equivalent of feline agility, never allowing any of them to suspect how she truly felt.
“THAT MOTHERF**KER KILLED STEVE?!” Cheetah roared in defiance of conventional feline biology.
This was, perhaps, not her most successful moment when it came to keeping that precarious balance.
“I WILL ************** STARTING WITH HIS FEET ************* SLOWLY *********** UP TO HIS EYEBALLS *********** THEN ***************** INTO A LITTER BOX *************** AND ****************** ALL OVER AGAIN!” Barbara screamed.
Someone less knowledgeable about the supervillainess might have assumed that she would have been delighted, nay, overjoyed at the news of Steve Trevor’s death at the Sovereign’s hands. After all, with Wonder Woman’s romantic partner shuffled off to whichever afterlife awaited him, that could theoretically mean Diana would pay more attention to Barbara.
Except Barbara had never seen Steve as a romantic rival for the Amazon Princess’ affection, Steve had already won that particular race, and Barbara had been silently rooting for him every step of the way. Why wouldn’t she? Steve Trevor and Barbara Ann Minerva had spent several months together as close friends, bonded by their mutual admiration for a certain Amazon Princess. Steve Trevor was a golden retriever in human form; whatever minor faults he might have when it came to intelligence, he more than made up for with having a huge heart and warm disposition. He was the kind of man whom Barbara had felt confident would never betray Diana, someone who could make her happy in ways that a cannibalistic monster like Cheetah never could.
Diana deserved to have someone like Steve Trevor in her life.
It was only when Barbara finally ran out of expletives to expel at the top of her lungs that she turned her head in the Amazon Princess’ direction to see how Diana was reacting to the news.
Oh no.
Cheetah was angry with the rage of a supervillainess, her hatred a series of brief spluttering sparks that more often than not were rendered utterly impotent when all was said and done.
By comparison, there was only one way to describe what Barbara found waiting for her in the Amazon Princess’ eyes…
Sing, O goddess, the anger of Diana, daughter of Hippolyta, that brought countless ills upon the Sovereign. Many a brave soldier did it send to the embrace of Hypnos, and many a villain did it yield as prey to her prized hunting cheetah, for so were the counsels of Zeus fulfilled from the day on which the son of some asshole whose name I don’t even know, king of America, and great Diana, first fell out with one another.
XXX XXX XXX
Grail, daughter of the Amazon Myrina and Darkseid, the unquestioned master of Apokolips, stood before the White House’s entrance and watched Wonder Woman draw closer.
This was what she had waited for, this was why she had withstood the humiliation of seemingly serving the pathetic mortal man who dreamed himself some manner of “Sovereign” in a world of gods and monsters.
Grail had agreed to fight for his cause, not that she believed in it (or even understood it), but simply because she knew it would inevitably provide the daughter of Darkseid with a chance to face the Amazon Princess in combat.
Their first fight’s results had been less than conclusive (Grail did not enjoy the implications that while entering into battle against a wounded and tired Wonder Woman, it had been the daughter of Darkseid who first fell unconscious, even if the Amazon Princes had followed suit scant seconds later) and so today she would erase the stain of that failure forever.
Of course, the Sovereign’s other servants tried to stop the superheroine first, for all the difference that made.
They unleashed their most powerful weapons upon her, only for Wonder Woman to walk through hails of gunfire as if it were naught but droplets of rain. They sent forth a spy with twisted schemes to try and compel her obedience... whose plots had already been seen through and undone. The finest human soldier they could compel the loyalty of took the field against the Amazon Princess, and she ripped the flag he carried from his hands.
All of the Sovereign’s defenders had fallen or fled… save Grail.
Now she, and she alone, would truly humble Wonder Woman!
“I hope you haven’t forgotten the feel of my fists upon your face.” The daughter of Darkseid beckoned the Amazon Princess onwards to her inevitable defeat and doom.
“You once conquered my homeland, twisted my sisters into your minions, and you alone among the Sovereign’s servants have managed to bring me to the point of complete exhaustion...” Wonder Woman freely admitted as she faced down her red-eyed foe.
“Does any of that have a point?” Grail sniffed haughtily at her Amazon Princess’ blathering.
“Do you feel such feats have made you my nemesis?” Wonder Woman demanded.
“Hardly, they make me your executioner.” Promised the daughter of Darkseid.
“Then I’m glad we’re in agreement.” Grail had prepared herself for many things, but the Amazon Princess openly accepting her conclusion was not one of them, and so ever so briefly, the daughter of Darkseid found herself frozen in confusion.
“What do you….” Before Grail could finish the sentence, a blur of gold and black zoomed across the White House lawn, and then a furry fist struck the daughter of Darkseid’s face, the blow landing with enough force that she was knocked clean off her feet and sent flying through the air.
“Grail, this is my nemesis. I hope you enjoyed our battle at the Washington Monument; you aren’t going to like fighting Cheetah.” Promised Wonder Woman.
Then, while the daughter of Darkseid was still struggling to regain her footing, the Amazon Princess simply walked past her, mockingly revealing her defenseless back to Grail without any concern for what fate might result from daring to show such impudence.
Still lying on the ground, a pair of glowing crimson Omega Beams emerged from the daughter of Darkseid’s eyes and flew towards Wonder Woman.
Cheetah’s foot connected with Grail’s stomach, sending her flying across the White House lawn to slam into the side of the building. The impact instinctively made the Daughter of Darkseid squeeze her eyes shut for only the briefest of moments, but that was more than long enough to reduce her attack into nothing but a pair of faintly glowing lines hanging meaninglessly in midair.
“You won’t get to find out if you could defeat Diana today, but don’t worry, we’re going to answer another important question instead.” Promised Cheetah as she unsheathed her claws.
“Which of us is stronger?” Scowled Grail.
“No, ‘how much of your flesh do I get to eat before you surrender?’ So, please, keep fighting, you couldn’t possibly comprehend how hungry I am...” Cheetah implored, her voice filled with suffering to a degree that would have matched that of the most miserable slave in the bowels of Apokolips, yet still she licked her lips in eager anticipation.
What manner of monster had the Amazon Princess brought forth to face a Grail in her place? How could a being in the grip of such agony even manage to stand, let alone fight?
It was the way of neither Amazons nor New Gods to show fear; nonetheless, for one brief moment, Grail realized that she had a very strong preference indeed for trading blows with Wonder Woman.
The End
AN: As much as I by and large detest Tom King’s Wonder Woman series (I could go on at length why, but this is hardly the correct place)… issue 10 wasn’t horrible, and I appreciate the fact that his depiction of Barbara is a completely logical extension of where we last saw her working alongside Diana as a semi-reluctant ally. Indeed, the fact that she attacks Diana after being left alone with nearly nothing to eat leads perfectly into Barbara feeling like she is tired of constantly being driven to do horrible things by her hunger, which is her core motivation in Cheetah and Cheshire Rob the Justice League.
I also appreciate that after building up Grail as being Diana’s greatest physical challenge in Issue 6 (the two fight each other for almost an hour before Diana wins), come Issue 18 Barbara (who fought Diana for multiple days straight before Barbara wins) is fast enough to blindside Grail, and then proceeds to more or less defeat her off panel, making it clear that whatever exactly Cheetah is to Wonder Woman… Barbara Ann Minerva is not to be trifled with.
Heracles is the Greek name for Hercules (or to be more accurate, Hercules is the Roman name for Heracles since the Greek version came first, obviously), who was driven to madness by his stepmother Hera (due to her being upset over Zeus cheating on her with a mortal), forcing him to murder his wife Megara and their children.
Barbara being a vegetarian is a complete head-cannon on my part, but it really is an amazingly effective way of driving home just how thoroughly Urzkartaga sought to defile her, mind, body, and soul, isn’t it?
The song that Barbara and Diana sing together is a section of “Monster” from EPIC the Musical, which is a retelling of the Odyssey. Because it's based on Greek Mythology, of course both Barbara and Diana are extremely familiar with it. In particular, “Monster” is a song that Odysseus sings as he grapples with the possibility that the only way to protect the people he cares about is to become a ferocious monster whom no one would dare risk doing wrong against. It’s thus a 100% completely on point with the worries Diana was having about how she might have been too gentle/slow when responding to Sovereign’s actions.
Likewise, Barbara’s comment about “that song isn’t a duet. I’m the only one who should be singing it” is her way of implicitly telling Diana that she shouldn’t lower herself to looking at the world the way that Barbara does, and instead stay true to her Amazon values.
The “children’s book” That Diana gets her quote about noble friends and noble enemies from is "The Last Battle" by C.S. Lewis. Her next line about “When I became a man...” is also a quote from C.S. Lewis, which is why Barbara responds the way she does.
The “Sing, O goddess, the anger of Diana” bit that Barbara thinks at one point is the opening of (one translation of) the Iliad rewritten to fit their current situation. It’s basically Barbara’s way of properly depicting just how downright mythic Diana’s fury at Steve Trevor’s murder is.
Hypnos is the Greek god of sleep, so Barbara is using excessively flowery language to describe Diana knocking people unconscious.
I just love the linguistic games being played with the meaning of Barbara being Diana’s “nemesis”. Normally, that possessive “apostrophe s” implies that Barbara is a something aimed at/targeting Diana. In this situation, however, it implies ownership or command; Barbara is a nemesis ("one that inflicts retribution or vengeance") who is called forth/guided by Diana. The ownership has effectively become a contronym, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contronym, a word that can mean “X” or “the opposite of X” depending on the context in which it is used. In this case, it is capable of meaning both “targeted at Diana” and “targeted by Diana”.