#also did I mention the name you used for the demon palace ROCKS and KICKS ASS

[hihopelessromantics]

BOOM. FANFICTION

We have a dead OC haunting the narrative, we have absolutely soul crushing whump, we have hurt/comfort and a little sprinkle of hurt again at the end! What's not to love!

HELL YEAH! Another entry to the 7-rats-in-a-trenchcoat holy war cinematic universe!!!! Today is a gooood day

when I saw the mail icon I was like I HAVE BEEN CONTACTED YEAAAAAAA

today... is an even better day because we got more Saorise... I'm gonna cry.

You know, I didn't recognize that the "dead oc" was her until I saw her actual name, because in my mind she's still alive and running around as a vital part of the ten commandments. I haven't done anything but gently put her in the background of the daydreams with a cookie of her choice yet, because knowing she was Zeldris's only friend on top of being her own lovable self and now learning that she was a like sister to them both- my HEART 😭

i cannot touch that yet. it is holy. but one day, if I have your approval, I swear I'll make her a happy ending. bc that's what I've been doing since I was little for tragic narratives (Cough, cough, Darkstalker Legends, if you know you know) and now's as good a time as any to step up my game. just the prospect gives my heart the zoomies

me when a writer I love makes an oc and gives them the good angst: 👀 is mine to love? to cherish? to make fictional happy endings for? fictional happy endings that don't exist for the characters that don't exist, that are wonderful and die a horrible undeserved death that fits the themes and story so well my heart is screaming?

oh... so THIS is where that sketch is from...

can you tell I can't write tragedies but enjoy the themes and execution of them so much that I religiously read and corrupt them anyway? yeah 😍

[fyeahwonderbat]

Keywords #5

Theme: Intelligence

Rating: PG / T

Word Count: 2,057 words

Bruce had no clue what was going on around him. He heard Diana ask that the goddess of witchcraft send him away and that her request was obliged. The words he wanted to say in protest felt like they evaporated in his mouth as he traveled through space and time to some foreign location.

He landed on his knees, surrounded by a crowd.

“Warriors!” a chorus of angry voices shouted as Bruce tried to recalibrate himself after such a forced teleportation.

There was the distinct shifting of armour amplified by the thousands reverberating around him, like a shockwave that was meant to knock him to his feet. All it managed to do was seize his heart with panic as he lifted his head to stare down his foes.

It shocked him more than he’d care to admit when he came face to face with an army that was made up entirely of women. Donning leather armour with ancient designs and medieval weapons in their hands, the female cavalry that threatened to skewer him with spears and swords and arrows reminded him of the costume that his so-called partner wore…

“Intruder,” roared an authoritative voice from behind the readied warrior. “Identify yourself.”

With all due respect, Bruce kept quiet while her surveyed what little terrain he could make out from the gaps in their forces. He spotted grass that was the color similar to emeralds, and trees that sway in the seabreeze. There was the sound of the ocean somewhere close but he couldn’t make out the direction it was in, meaning he had no obvious means to escape the angry women’s wrath. Carefully, monitoring them to determine whether or not he was allowed to move, he took the chance to see if he was enclosed in a circle by their army or if he was his back against a wall of some kind.

No matter which direction he cast his gaze, there were hundreds of furious glares staring right back at him.

“I won’t ask you again!” Warned the assertive voice from before.

Bruce knew that he should not press his luck any further he wanted to make it out of such a sticky situation alive, so he turned back around and replied with just as firm a tone, “Am I on the private island of the Amazons?”

Meeting their demands with a question urged the arches to pull on their drawstrings and the spear-throwers to tug their arms back. Furious, the supposed commander howled at him, “You were warned. Atta--!”

“Heads up!” Cheered a familiar, cocky, unwanted voice the second before something sharp landed in front of Bruce. The way it embedded itself into the ground was so fierce, he took a step back for fear of being associated with the soaring trident.

“Dammit,” he hissed to himself as many of the warriors turned to face the direction from which the weapon was thrown. Thinking on his feet, Bruce blurted out the only thing he could think to say in order to diffuse the arising tension. “We mean you no harm! We must speak with your queen--”

“Silence, heathen!” Demanded a woman with long brown hair, sitting on horseback and armed with nothing more than her animosity.

Bruce met her hatred with his signature indifference when a gust of wind rushed by him. “Hey Batman,” said the Flash, as chipper as ever. “Glad we got here when we did.”

Bruce had so many things he wanted to say to that, such as an inquiry about how they got to the seemingly secret island, or why he let Arthur announce their arrival like that. However, he lost his chance to when Victor landed next to him and filled in the gaps faster than the speedster. “Your magician friend really saved your ass just now.”

“You really couldn’t have picked a worse time.” Bruce said, vehemently.

Ignoring his derision, Cyborg scanned the group and whispered to him nothing more than a number, “Five thousand.”

The army was larger than he first anticipated. Unwilling to participate in a standstill any longer, Bruce kicked Aquaman’s trident down from its upright position and stood over the holes in the ground that its prongs had made. Then, he made sure that his voice carried its signature boom when combined with the distortion application in his suit as he proclaimed, “We seek an audience with Queen Hippolyta, on behalf of her daughter Diana! There are demons being made in the Underworld that threaten all of mankind, and she is down there fending them off on her own! She needs your help, now!”

The lie he told was small, but it helped to sell the emergency he was presenting to the army and their commander. As Arthur was pushed through the crowd with his hands in the air, his shirtless body offending the women greatly, Batman stood tall at the front of the haphazard Justice League in the hopes that his stoic demeanour would prove to them that his claim was legitimate and worthy of their attention.

It took longer than he would have liked - with images of Diana battling those lava rock-made demons passing through his mind at lightning speed sending him into a spiraling state of concern - but eventually, the commander spoke over the silence and the chirping cicadas to decree, “Bring them to the queen’s palace.She will know if he speaks the truth.”

Not one to bask in the feeling of relief, Bruce released an involuntary sigh when his spontaneous scheming managed to keep him alive. Considering the chaos that his involuntary teleportation caused, any turn of events that didn’t end with him being sliced in two gave him a fighting chance.

And, as a result, Diana too.

__________________________________________

The great hall of the palace was shrouded in gold, almost as if every inch of the room had been bathed in the metal. Filled to the brim with what he assumed to be Amazonian council members, none of the other women had the same presence in Bruce’s eyes as the queen herself. Hippolyta stood in front of her circular throne, appearing domineering and spiteful as she glared at the gathered members of the League.

The gathered men.

“You four are quite brave,” remarked the queen with a false tone of admiration. “Traversing the Underworld, facing off against demons while some of you are nothing more than mere mortals, staring down one of my strongest fleets and commanding them to bring you to me.”

“If it makes you feel any better,” Arthur thought it was wise to chime in at that exact moment. “I’m not mortals like them.”

Hippolyta cracked a smile, Bruce noticed, but it most definitely stemmed from her righteous sense of hatred. “I know, Atlantean. You’re merely the one who threw his weapon at my warriors.”

No one in the room spoke, awaiting Arthur’s reply. Thankfully, the silence drew out over many beats, which was music to Bruce’s ears.

“Tell the queen what you told me, Bat-man.” Ordered the general from the field. Though he’s never told her his heroic moniker, he figured that it wasn’t that difficult to identify him in such a way given his costume.

“My name is Bruce Wayne. Your majesty, I didn’t mean to randomly appear on your island.” Bruce apologized in his own way.

“No? You materialized in the very spot where a raging purple fire spawned in our field.”

Bruce used her words against her, “You said it yourself - you know I’m mortal.”

Hippolyta’s eyes narrowed as she spat, “Then who sent you here?”

“Hecate.”

The mention of the goddess sent the Amazonian council into a frenzy after a collective gasp filled the space. For the first time since he met her, she reminded Bruce of Diana. When she was too distracted by his circumstances to present herself as the matriarch of the island, she had the same emotional pair of eyes as her daughter. Her shock, her cautious joy and her immediate curiosity all fought for dominance over her expression, painting a rather human depiction of the queen of the Amazons.

“What nonsense is this!?” Screamed the general.

“Menalippe!” Scolded the Queen, regaining her composure by the time she finished saying the woman’s name.

Menalippe was taken aback, but she refused to cease her inquiry. “He mentions a goddess from our history and expects us to believe him!? What, were his friends brought here by Poseidon!? Were they flown in on the back of Zeus’ eagle!? Our gods are not for you to speak of so lightly!”

Unaware of the fact that the Amazons thought of their gods as deceased, Victor raised his hand at Bruce’s side. “No, we were brought together by the magician Zatanna. She told us that Bruce needed us, and her portal brought us here.”

“Diana and I visited her—“

“Mentioning my daughter now too?” The wayHippolyta hissed at him made it easy to compare her to what he imagined Medusa would have sounded like.

If she was real.

But she wasn’t.

Bruce hoped, at the very least.

Unafraid by the growing animosity in the great hall, Bruce approached the bottom step of the staircase that led to the infuriated queen. There were whispers that also reminded him of snakes, but he persevered. “We know your daughter. She is a founding member of our team and all we want to do is to keep this world safe. She was with me while I investigated these strange stone-made creatures that were gathering… in the North, and it led us to ask a magician I know—a sorcerer who could help me locate the place where these monsters come from.”

He expected someone to interrupt him, to insult him or question his legitimacy. When no one made a sound within a millisecond after he said his last word, he decided to keep going.

“She sent us to the Underworld, and we met a woman in a cell. She said her name was Hecate. She had no idea just how long she had been trapped down there, but Diana realized that it had to be for thousands of years based on a story you told her about a battle between your gods.”

“And somehow, only you escaped?” Scoffed the general, all while the queen tried to hide her sparkling eyes by closing them tightly.

Bruce could tell that he was breaking through to Hippolyta. Her heart was drawn to his story and desperately wishing it were true. He couldn’t guess when she last saw Diana, but—

He knew when she had last seen Hecate.

He climbed a single step, much to the frustration of the Amazonian council. Menalippe even drew a dagger out of its hilt from her back and readied herself to strike. Bruce didn’t care for her threatening behaviour, not when he had a goal. Not when he knew he was so close.

“Your majesty,” he tried to coddle her before he would have to push her back into some of her deepest memories. “You didn’t know that Hecate was alive, and she didn’t know that the war with Ares ever happened. Her last happy memory is when you dressed her for her wedding to Hades. She was honoured to meet your daughter, and now they're fighting alongside each other against Hades’ demons in the Underworld.”

He knew that what he had said was a lot to digest, and it took the queen some time to fully comprehend what he was telling her. With her eyes still shut, Bruce could still make out the pride she felt given the way the corners of her mouth quivered as they fought off the desire to smile. Her expression was so telling, the typically combative Menalippe called to her with an uncharacteristic softness. “My queen?”

Bruce climbed another step and was immediately blocked by the general’s body. She leapt down to the stair right before his and leered at him. Unperturbed, he decided it was time to get to the point.

Bruce knew that the reason why Hecate sent him here was so he could ask the queen of the Amazon one thing. “So, your majesty, I have one request of you: please... take us to the gates of hell. The same one you took Hecate through all those years ago. Let us help your daughter. Let us defeat Hades.”