[Caterpillar] Chapter 31 - Life and Death Battle (Patreon)

"Superman, no! Fight against it!" she shouted.

But the Kryptonian was too far gone. His eyes were bloodshot, veins were pulsating like small snakes on his temples and a crimson light burned around his eyes, ready to blast a beam as hot as the sun at any moment. An enraged scream came out of his chest and he lunged at her filled with bloodlust. He was not seeing a white and gold-armoured Amazon. In his eyes, she was Darkseid, the one who had just murdered everyone that he had ever cared about.

He screamed his parents' names. Supergirl's name. He was mad with rage. Both of his hands clenched around her neck and the building's upper floors collapsed as he smashed his way through them with Wonder Woman headfirst against them.

He pierced through the atmosphere at a speed that made the air explode with ear-deafening booms behind them. In but a second, the Earth became tiny under their feet. He was holding nothing back. In his madness, he was going to throw her into the Sun.

Her hands clenched around his wrists, struggling with all her strength to free herself from his grasp. But he was too powerful. And the closer they got to the sun, the stronger he became.

Still screaming at her, Superman's eyes became crimson red and the skin on her face started to burn and peel off as his heat beams bore into her flesh. She felt her bones melting.

She clenched her hands around his head and her thumbs dug into his eyes, making his heat vision explode into his eyes. He shouted in pain and the agony made him let go of her.

'Hermes, give me speed!' she prayed as she plunged back towards the Earth which looked like nothing but a small marble from how far away it was.

They were in space. She couldn't breathe. She was running out of air. She had to go back into Earth's atmosphere as fast as possible.

The vacuum of space did not hinder her speed. There was no air to create friction. She flew faster than spaceships, faster than she had ever flown in her life. In the blink of an eye, she reached the exosphere of the planet. Hope grew in her heart.

But she celebrated too early. Oozing a murderous spirit and with his body filled with yellow radiation from his previous proximity to the Sun, the Kryptonian's vicious punch smashed into her face with the force of a star.

Red crystals appeared as the blood that burst out from her mouth was instantly frozen in space. She blacked out for a moment.

In that moment of unconsciousness, Maxwell Lord's face flashed in her mind. He was looking at her from above, smirking smugly and gloating at her defeat. But the heat of the thermosphere brought her back when her body reentered the planet's atmosphere. However, it was too late for her to stop her descent.

A cataclysmic shockwave cleared the sky of clouds for dozens of miles when she smashed into a mountain. The rocks caved in as if they were mud and an enormous crater was formed into the side of the mountain as if a bomb had exploded in it. At the centre of it, Wonder Woman lay unmoving, seemingly dead, her body still burning.

⁂

"This is what happens when the gods fight, Brother, do you understand? Mortals suffer." Maxwell Lord said.

He was speaking to a device that he was holding in his hand. It looked almost like a cellphone. On its screen, there was only the simple image of an eye.

"Clarify." a robotic voice came from the device. It was Brother Eye, the AI that Batman had created and Maxwell controlled now.

"Fortunately, she had fallen into a deserted area, into the mountains, in Chile. Can you imagine the devastation if she had come down in a city like Metropolis, Tokyo, or Moscow? The catastrophic loss of life? These people are in control of humanity's destiny, Brother, and this is why they must be eliminated. Look at him," Maxwell said and gestured towards the screen that was playing the live footage of Superman's and Wonder Woman's fight.

"Look at all the punishment he's dishing on her. Imagine if he turned his power against us. But wait, you don't need to imagine. Just search for the files and stored data on what happened in Metropolis several years ago, how many people he murdered. Hundreds of them."

"What I've done to him took time, it took effort. But the mere fact that I could do it at all proves my point. Because it's not the first time it happened. If I can do it, someone else can, too, and that's the heart of it, Brother."

"Superman, Wonder Woman, the rest of them... ... they are too powerful, too dangerous to be left alive. They will kill us all if we don't eliminate them first.

⁂

With difficulty, Wonder Woman crawled up to her feet on shaky legs. And there he stood, at the edge of the crater, his face as twisted with rage as in the beginning.

"What you did to my parents, what you did to Kara, I'll make sure you'll never do it to anyone else ever again!" he shouted.

"Superman, please, I'm not your enemy!"

But he was deaf to her pleading voice, too lost, too immersed in the illusion shown to him by Maxwell Lord. He was not going to stop until 'Darkseid' was dead. His chest inflated and then he blew out a gust of frozen air. It was his ice breath. It encased her entire body in a block of ice before she could even react.

"It's too late to ask for mercy now. You didn't show any mercy when you killed my Ma and Pa either. You're just a rabid animal that needs to be put down."

As he said that, the Kryptonian smashed his fist into a cliff on the mountain and broke off a huge chunk of it. Then, he hurled it with all his strength into the crater where Wonder Woman had been frozen.

But when the ice and the rock were smashed to smithereens, the Amazon princess' remains were nowhere to be seen. Even in his rage-clouded mind, he understood that she had gotten away at the last moment.

"There's nowhere to hide. Nowhere you can run," he said and then he stood still, focusing on his super-hearing.

Somewhere away from Superman's line of sight, Wonder Woman was breathing heavily, trying to catch her breath. Her entire body was an aching bruise. She had barely survived when she had been smashed into the planet like a meteorite.

'He's too strong. He has so many abilities. His speed, power, invulnerability, heat vision, super hearing...'

But as her line of thought reached that point, a flash of inspiration hit her.

'But every strength can be turned into a weakness. When he stops speaking and stands still, I know he's using his super-hearing.'

The sound of wind being displaced by a fast-moving object reached Superman's ears but he was just a little too late to react in time. Wonder Woman's Bracelets of Submission slammed into his ears at the same time.

The gong-like sound that followed almost turned Wonder Woman herself deaf, to say nothing of Superman who had been using his super-hearing at that moment. He collapsed on the ground with his hands holding his ears and screaming in agony. Blood was flowing from his ears; his eardrums had burst.

Despite the immense pain he was going through, he tried to stand up. But she was not going to give him the chance. As a warrior, she knew when to take advantage and press on, regardless of whether it was honourable or not. There was no such thing as a 'fair fight' in a life-and-death battle. Her shin smashed into his temple, and the Kryptonian was thrown back to the ground.

Relentlessly, he tried to stand up again but another vicious kick to the back of his knees made him lose his footing and he half-kneeled on the ground. In the next instant, a powerful cross slugged him in the face and the Man of Steel was smashed face-first into the ground.

He was powerful. Incredibly so. But she was not too far below him in strength as to make her fighting techniques useless. And when it came to hand-to-hand combat, there was nobody on Earth more skilled than her, a warrior who had honed her martial arts for thousands of years.

Though the last punch almost rocked the Kryptonian hard, she knew better than anyone just how durable he was. That was nowhere near enough to put him out. Her hand wrapped around the handle of the god-slaying sword strapped to her waist. But she stopped herself.

'No, he's not the enemy.'

She had to hold back. She could not use her sword against him. She did not want to kill him. Bearing that thought in mind, she grabbed her Lasso of Truth instead.

'If I could catch him, just for a second, it would be enough for my Lasso to clear his mind and stop his madness.'

However, that short moment of indecision on her part was enough for Superman to gather his wits and recover. When Wonder Woman threw her lasso at him, he disappeared in a burst of speed. Flying faster than the naked eye could follow, the Kryptonian rushed at her and swang his fist wildly.

A shockwave exploded from the impact of his fist clashing against her forearm as she blocked his punch. Her bracelet absorbed his hit.

Seeing his all-out punch blocked, Superman's eyes glowed crimson-red and he fired his heat beams but the Amazon's other arm came forward and her elbow smashed into his temple, making his heat beams miss their target when his head was rocked to the side.

Taking advantage of the short moment when he wobbled back from the force of the elbow that had crashed into his temple, Wonder Woman raised her hand and threw her Lasso at him. However, to her surprise, he grabbed her right wrist when she had least expected it. The Kryptonian may have been an unskilled brute in the eyes of a trained martial artist like her but he was not stupid. Seeing how she single-mindedly tried to ensnare him with her lasso, he took advantage of it.

Putting his entire strength into it, Superman abruptly twisted her arm and Wonder Woman screamed in pain when her wrist snapped. He followed up with a swing of his punch, all the way from the back, intent on finishing her off with it. But she headbutted him in the face, her golden Tiara smashing right into his nose. An audible crunch was heard when the Kryptonian's nose cartilage was crushed and he stumbled back on rubber legs as his vision momentarily became white from the pain. He was not allowed a moment to rest as her high-heeled greaves smashed into his stomach, making his body bend like a parenthesis as he was hurled off the top of the mountain.

Wonder Woman grabbed her broken wrist with her other hand and clenched her teeth in pain. It was a foreign sensation to her. It was the first time she had broken a bone. It was the first time that someone had hurt her that badly.

'I was a fool for thinking that I could hold back against someone like him. He's too powerful.'

She no longer hesitated. The first time she had hesitated, it had allowed Superman to recover himself and he turned the tables on her by breaking her arm. She was not going to make the same mistake twice.

The Bracelets of Submission were a godly artefact that the Olympian God of Forging, Hephaestus, had crafted for the champion of the Amazons from Zeus' shield, Aegis. They were indestructible. They had served her in her battles over the years, protecting her from attacks that could have been lethal. However, ever since she found out about her true power and heritage, the Bracelets also served as a limiter for her. As her mother, Hippolyta, had instructed her, ever since that day, Diana had never taken them off, not even while bathing or sleeping. It was the only way for her to hide her identity as a demigoddess, as Zeus' daughter, the only way to stay hidden from Hera's eyes.

But she could no longer afford to suppress her powers. Fighting to kill was much easier than fighting to subdue. If she wanted to subdue him without killing him, she needed more strength. Decisively, Diana took off her Bracelets.

The moment the Bracelets fell on the ground, an exhilarating feeling washed over her and she involuntarily closed her eyes. It was as if a weight was lifted off her chest and she could finally breathe freely, for the first time in her life.

A rush of energy suddenly came from the earth beneath her feet. It was Goddess Demeter's blessing. As long as her feet touched the ground, the Earth would supply her with unlimited strength and stamina. The burnt flesh wound on her face from Superman's heat vision began to heal and close up at a speed visible to the naked eye, and even her snapped wrist righted itself and the injured bones of her hand were mended.

She was still marvelling at what happened when the enraged Kryptonian appeared in front of her, leaving sonic booms in his wake. The entire mountainside quaked from the cataclysmic shockwave of the two god-like individuals clashing against each other. But the result was far from what Superman had expected. His fist was firmly caught in Wonder Woman's hand and she did not budge even an inch from her spot. It was like an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object.

But the Kryptonian screamed and it was like his rage amplified his strength sevenfold. His other hand clenched around her neck and he smashed her into the mountain and flew with her through it until they broke through the other side. A massive landslide followed and a fifth of the over ten-thousand-foot-tall mountain crumbled in the wake of their destruction.

They smashed from one mountain into another, levelling their peaks and creating landslides and avalanches as they crashed with their bodies into them in their violent power struggle. Despite her releasing her true power as a demigoddess, the Kryptonian was not falling behind in the least. It was like his strength was infinite. But as Superman continued to smash with her into the mountains, her heavy punches rained down onto his face repeatedly. Even with his incredible durability, after the 10th punch, his face became a bloodied mess. A particularly painful hit landed on his already broken nose and the pain made him almost blackout for a second. That was the moment when Wonder Woman managed to get away from his grasp.

Spittle came out of her mouth as she coughed. He had almost strangled her to death.

The enraged Man-of-Steel was like a juggernaut. No matter how hard she hit him, he was too durable. Even with her enhanced strength, when her power grew, it felt as though his strength multiplied as well. With the sun brightly shining above their heads, his supply of power was infinite.

'This isn't going anywhere. At this rate we'll beat each other to the death,' she thought.

She could increase her healing factor and draw strength from the earth but Superman was in no way below her; he was doing the same by absorbing the energy of the sun. And although her fighting technique was unmatched, it could be said the same about his durability.

'In the end, it still came down to this, huh?' she thought while she drew her sword from her waist and grabbed the golden shield strapped to her back.

She had not wanted to use lethal force against him but he was leaving her no choice.

"Come!" she shouted to provoke him and the Kryptonian rushed at her like a wild beast.

A battle cry erupted from her chest and the ground under her feet ruptured as she exploded forth.

*bang*

The sound that came from the white and gold-armoured demigoddess bashing with her shield into the god-like man travelled for dozens of miles and the shockwave it generated flattened the forests below and massacred any living beings in it.

As he watched the footage filmed by Brother Eye, even Maxwell Lord's heart shuddered in terror at their terrible strength. It was beyond anything that he had ever seen in his entire life.

Miles opposite of each other, both Superman and the Amazon princess created another pair of craters as their bodies were slammed back by the force reflected from their clash. Logically, due to her using her shield, Wonder Woman should have recovered faster as she was not as hurt by their collision as Superman. But the reality proved to be different. He rose up to his feet even faster than her and he once again broke the sound barrier, flying at her.

Both of his fists raised above his head, he was going to slam them onto her like a hammer.

But when he got to two feet away from her, a wet, squelching sound was heard and his body suddenly froze in mid-air.

A feeling of pain like he had never felt before assaulted his brain.

When he looked down, he saw only the handle of a sword sticking out of his stomach. His blood-thirsty eyes were cleared up and his mind became lucid. The pain was so intense that it momentarily cancelled Maxwell Lord's control over his mind.

"Diana, I-,"

He could not find his words. He was in shock. Shocked at realizing he had been trying his utmost to kill Wonder Woman, that it was not Darkseid. Shocked at realizing that someone had been mind-controlling him from the start. Shocked at finding out that the Amazon princess went as far as to run her sword through him to stop him.

"I'm sorry, Superman," Diana said. "It was the only way to stop you."

The Kryptonian stumbled backwards and almost fell but the princess caught him and stabilized his body. Then, she guided him to sit down on the ground. Another cry of pain came from him when she pulled her sword out of his stomach. Blood started to flow from the hole in his body like a river but she was not worried. Although it was a grievous wound that would have killed a lesser being, it was not enough to end a Kryptonian's life. As long as the yellow sun shone above his head, he would recover.

"Don't leave this place if you don't want to start murdering innocents. You don't know when Maxwell's control over you will resume. Hold on just for a few minutes. I'm going to deal with him myself."

The princess split the air with her sword and she flicked off all of the blood on it before sheathing it back to her waist. She also strapped her golden shield on its place on her back and then she flew away without sparing him a second glance. She was in Chile, in Southern America, while Maxwell Lord was all the way over the ocean, in Europe, in Switzerland. A commercial plane would take over 12 hours to cover that distance. Even the fastest military jets in the world would still need around 2-3 hours to cover that distance. She had no time to waste. After a short prayer dedicated to Hermes, her speed increased way beyond her usual flight speed when her powers were sealed.

⁂

Though the building had become a ruin after Superman ran Wonder Woman through it and flew into space, Maxwell Lord had not moved away from it. It was not like he had much time to do that either. His eyes had been glued to the screen that was playing the life-and-death battle between Superman and Wonder Woman. And it was only a few minutes after the end of the fight that the rest of the building shook as the Amazon landed next to him.

Though he was inwardly shocked at her speed (he had never thought anyone could fly from Southern America to Europe in a matter of minutes) his face was as composed and relaxed as ever.

"Bravo~" he said sarcastically and clapped his hands. "Most impressive. To think that-"

But the warrior princess was not in the mood to entertain him. Her golden Lasso of Truth was swung in the air and thrown at him. The billionaire was tied up and immobilized in an instant.

"End this now!" she said aggressively.

"No."

"End it!" she screamed and lifted him in the air by the neck.

Though he was choking, Maxwell's only reaction was to laugh. With difficulty, he said:

"You and I both know that wound is not enough to put Superman out for good. Any minute now he'll arrive here and start this all over again. And he will keep coming at you until you either kill him or he kills you."

"He snapped out of your control when I stabbed him. He knows your illusion was not real!" she retorted.

"Oh, but it seemed real for him. And it will become real again once the shock from being stabbed goes away."

"How do I stop it? Tell me!" she commanded and the billionaire was compelled by the Lasso of Truth to speak.

"You can't. Unless you kept him tied with your Lasso at all times. But you can't do that, can you? And the next time, I will send him to kill Batman, or you, or maybe kill his own parents with his own hands. Superman is mine. I'll never let him go."

She threw him to the ground and then she smashed him against one of the still standing walls of the room.

"Tell me how to free him of your control!" she ordered.

Maxwell Lord looked at her without any fear.

"Kill me," he said. "That is the only way."

She looked him in the eye. He did not avoid meeting her eyes either. But then, his head was abruptly twisted to the side. In the last moments of his life, Maxwell Lord only saw the wall behind his back. The Amazon princess snapped his neck.

Little did Wonder Woman know that her and Superman's violent and brutal clash had been filmed and televised from start to finish. That the world was now aware of the metahumans' potential for destruction.

Little did she know that millions of people had watched her as she killed Maxwell Lord by snapping his neck.

⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂

AN: Up to the moment when Superman broke Wonder Woman's wrist, the way the fight went is almost identical in the canon. But in the canon, the fight ended shortly after that; Wonder Woman won by slashing Superman's throat with her Tiara, almost killing him.

Nonetheless, much more important than Diana's win over Supes is what followed after that. Wonder Woman is one of my favourite characters not just because of her beauty/strength etc but also because she was willing to get her hands dirty and do what needed to be done. Unlike Batman and Superman who repeatedly spared mass murderers like the Joker or Lex Luthor because they didn't want to kill, Wonder Woman killed Maxwell Lord. Yep, it is canon, she really snapped his neck. And she did not hesitate for even 1 second. It was an iconic moment that defined her character as a hero/anti-hero.