It took me a lot longer to break out of the magical chains than I’d expected, which was a good lesson on not getting caught by unknown magic spells even if the caster looked like a wimp, but as soon as I was free I made a beeline for the Washington DC area.
Luckily Wonder Woman was already out in the open so once I could sense her Ki Signature, actually tracking her down wasn’t hard. I just had to get to her fast enough that she didn’t walk through a Zeta Tube and suddenly teleport to the other side of the country.
Thankfully when I spotted her, she was only busy dealing with a hostage scenario at a bank. Wait – that sounded wrong.
Luckily it wasn’t anything more serious than some bank robbers holding some civilians at gunpoint, threatening to shoot them? No, that was worse.
Whatever. I didn’t have time to figure out the right way to phrase that.
I landed nearby and ran up to her. “Wonder Woman, there’s an emergency. We need to go!”
“Califa? What are you– no, wait, we’re in the middle of a situ–”
I didn’t wait for her to finish. My hand came up and I fired off seven ki blasts. Three into the robber’s guns, three into their heads to knock them out, and one that went straight through the bank wall to nail the fourth robber hidden on the other side.
They would be fine. Probably.
“Situation’s handled, we need to go!”
“Wha– that’s not, will you slow down?” Wonder Woman protested, resisting my attempts to drag her off. “What is going on?”
“No time, I’ll explain on the way.”
“Wonder Woman, what happened? I thought the plan was – Califa? What are you doing here?”
Oh good, Donna was here too. She could help.
“I’ll explain later. Emergency. We have to go.”
I think I finally convinced Wonder Woman something was very wrong because this time when I tried pushing her, she actually went along with it instead of fighting against me.
That silent cooperation lasted exactly long enough for us all to get on one of the League’s Javelins and set course for Themyscira.
“Alright Califa, I think it’s time you explained what exactly this emergency is. What is going on?”
“Do you know a magic user named Felix Faust?” I asked instead. “Blue robes, stupid headband, summons demons?”
Wonder Woman frowned. “The name doesn’t sound familiar. But I admit there's a good number of magic users out there I’m unaware of. I assume he’s the cause of your emergency?”
“Yeah, the jackass ambushed me earlier today. Caught me in some sort of magic chains and started monologuing about how I was nothing in front of his magical might, blah, blah, blah.”
“Wait, he beat you?” Donna leaned forward. “How’d he do that?”
I scowled at her. “No, he didn’t beat me. He ambushed me, caught me by surprise, and then ran off.”
“Girls, focus.” Wonder Woman snapped.
“Right, sorry.” I winced at her reminder, because yes, I did need to focus on this. “Anyway, he caught me and then said something about the way to Themyscira being open and then opened a portal. We need to get to the island and stop him!”
“Impossible, you can’t get to Themyscira by magic alone. The entire island is protected.” Donna objected.
“It wouldn’t be the first time a magician did something everyone thought impossible.” Wonder Woman said. “Although I don’t know why Califa specifically would let him open a portal.”
I opened my mouth to say something… only to realise I had no idea why Faust came after me. Or even how he knew I’d been to Themyscira in the first place.
“Alright, but why the rush then? Even if this magician managed to sneak onto Themyscira, he’d be up alone against the entire island.” Donna continued. “Do you really think one man is enough to defeat every Amazon?”
“If he summons enough demons it won’t be one man.” I pointed out. “And I don’t think it’s just him. When he first ordered his minions to attack he said I was the key to their master’s plans. From the sound of it, they were on loan for something.”
“There’s plenty of artifacts on the island that would be an attractive target for a magician, if they could get into the vaults.” Wonder Woman agreed with me.
“Like a certain orb someone decided to steal for themselves?” Donna said pointedly.
I ignored her.
“Is there a way to call ahead? I don’t like the idea of Faust having time to prep without anyone knowing and he’s already has a few hours head start.”
“No. We will just need to trust our sisters to hold him off if he attacks before we get there.”
I clenched my teeth at that.
I just hoped we got there in time then.
-o-
“Great Hera…”
“What happened here…?”
We… we didn’t make it to the island in time.
Themyscira looked like something out of an ancient war movie.
The smoke hanging over most of the city had already tipped us off that something had gone wrong. But as we got closer I saw nearly everything had been destroyed. Boats littered the docks, either fully sunk or partially sticking out of the water with torn sails. Buildings riddled with holes or collapsed. And almost every decorative column had fallen or broken to pieces.
The only silver lining was that despite all the destruction, I hadn’t seen any bodies just laying out in the open.
Felix Faust didn’t strike me as the kind of person to care about that, so I hoped that meant enough Amazonians made it out of the battle to carry everyone away even if it looked like they ended up losing the fight.
The Javelin touched down in the first open space Wonder Woman could find and the three of us immediately got off. And the city didn’t look any better in person than it did up in the air.
Funnily enough, I think Donna was taking it the hardest out of the three of us. I guess she didn’t really believe that a single person could actually be a threat to the entirety of Themyscira. Though I guess it wasn’t actually very funny in this case.
“Califa, can you sense anyone nearby?” Wonder Woman asked. A question I had hoped to avoid.
“No, it feels like the city is abandoned.”
She frowned. “Not even the attackers? That doesn’t make sense, where would they – oh…”
Donna and I both looked over at Wonder Woman’s gasp – it was such an unexpected sound from her it instantly had both of our attention. At first I wasn’t sure why three statues were so important when the city had been wrecked but then my brain caught up with what I was actually seeing.
Those weren’t statues. They were Amazons, turned to stone even as they tried to face the one who attacked them.
Faust? His boss? And why did this whole scenario suddenly feel familiar?
“Are they…?” Donna trailed off.
I walked up to one of them – thankfully someone I didn’t recognize – and put my hand on her. “Huh, I can actually still sense her Ki.” It just felt like it was weak and incredibly far away, even when I was directly touching her. “They’re still alive!”
“Then we find the one who did this and make them change everyone back.” Wonder Woman decided and walked off.
Oh, she was mad.
I mean, so was I, but hearing it in Wonder Woman’s voice…
Donna and I shared a look before rushing after the older hero.
-o-
“This place feels weird.” I don’t know why I was whispering when there was no sign of anyone around. Anyone not turned to stone anyway. We found… a lot more of those along the way.
“I feel it too.” Donna whispered back.
We were in an area of Themyscira I’d never been to before, which didn’t mean too much, since most of the time I was on the island wasn’t dedicated to exploring every inch of the place. But considering the place looked really similar to the temple dedicated to the Olympians, I’d sorta expected to see the same kinds of decorations welcoming people inside.
Instead, the whole place seemed like it was designed to keep people away.
But we had to keep going, because all the statues we came across were facing towards us even as we went deeper. Which meant Faust had definitely come through here on his way to do… whatever it was that he was after.
“Oh no.”
Once again, Wonder Woman ran off ahead of us but it was hard to blame her when I saw the reason why.
We just found Wonder Mom. Sword drawn but frozen in stone just like everyone else, a tired but determined expression on her face at the base of some steps leading up into whatever the main part of this creepy temple/fortress actually was, and absolutely no sign of the one who did it to her anywhere.
“Califa.”
I swallowed at the restrained anger in her voice. “Yeah?”
“Find Faust. We’ll make him fix this.”
“No need to trouble yourself, Princess. I’m right here.” I whipped my head around to find Faust walking calmly out from behind some rubble. I couldn’t sense his ki.
“You monster!” Wonder Woman burst into action, crossing the gap between them in a blink of an eye and slamming Faust into a broken pillar. “How dare you defile this sacred ground and attack my sisters! Change them back!”
“Well, it seems my reputation precedes me.” Faust wheezed even as Wonder Woman pushed harder against him. “But they simply left me no choice, I had to defend myself.”
That was definitely the wrong thing to say because Wonder Woman pulled back her other fist and looked like she was ready to punch Faust into next week.
Something he was smart enough to realise. “Wait!” he shouted. “Harm me and the others will remain as they are. Cold, hard, stone.”
Not smart enough to keep himself from being smug about it though, which earned him another shove into the pillar. “Talk. What do you want.” She demanded.
“What I want is simple. Ultimate knowledge. But to gain my prize, I need to gather the fragments of an ancient sacred relic. The first piece was here, on this island.”
“And that means you can just attack us?” Donna demanded. “Assault our home and do whatever you want?”
“Many people would do much worse for far smaller prizes, my dear.” Faust smiled. “But I can propose a deal. I’ll restore your sisters, if you help me gather the other fragments.”
“And why would we help you?”
“Because otherwise, your sisters remain as they are for eternity.”
Donna grit her teeth at that, but there wasn’t much we could say against that.
“Prove you can change them back.” I said.
“A demonstration? As you wish, but if you attack the others will stay trapped.” Faust said and glanced at Wonder Woman.
She very obviously didn’t want to let him go, but eventually dropped Faust and moved a couple steps back until the wizard conjured some sort of stone disk and chanted a spell that turned Wonder Mom back to normal.
We barely had time to enjoy that little fact before he reversed the spell and turned her back to stone.
I couldn’t even risk grabbing the stupid disk. The chance that only Faust could reverse the spell was just too high. And I could tell Donna had the same thought as me.
“So then, do we have a deal?” Faust really missed his calling as a used car salesman considering how greasy his voice sounded.
Unfortunately, he had us over a barrel.
“Fine. We’ll take your deal, Faust. But if you break your vow, no magic in the universe will save you from me.” Wonder Woman promised.
If Faust was intimidated, he managed to not show it. “You better hurry, Princess. The sooner I have what I want, the sooner you sisters are released.”
“Enjoy your kneecaps while you can.” I whispered under my breath as we turned to leave. “If you cross us once we’re done, you won’t have them anymore.”
Going by the way Faust twitched at my threat he did hear me, even if he chose not to respond. More telling was the fact that I was sure both Donna and Wonder Woman also heard what I said and for once didn’t object to my promise of violence.
It made me almost look forward to the inevitable sudden betrayal.