Gateway City
Diana soared through the sky on Pegasus, her skeletal warhorse whose bones burned with ethereal fire. The creature's wings beat powerfully as they cut through the air, leaving trails of flame in their wake.
Ahead of them, countless red fish-like creatures filled the sky. They had wings that beat frantically as they swarmed toward Gateway City like a plague of locusts. Each one was roughly the size of a large dog, with razor-sharp teeth and claws that could tear through steel.
The Harbingers had come.
Diana was the only thing standing between the humans below and these creatures from the depths of hell. Her great sword, forged in the fires of Tartarus itself, gleamed as she swung it through the air.
She cut through three Harbingers with a single stroke. Their bodies dissolved into ash and smoke as they died, their essence returning to whatever dark realm had spawned them.
Pegasus opened his jaws and released a torrent of hellfire that incinerated a dozen more creatures. The skeletal horse had been her companion for a few years, a gift from Prometheus himself, that had never failed her in battle.
Diana fought with the skill of someone who had trained for thousands of years. Every movement was precise, every strike lethal. She moved through the swarm like a dancer, her great sword an extension of her will.
But there were too many of them.
For every ten she killed, twenty more emerged from the massive inverted pyramid structure floating in the ocean. The structure was a gateway, a tear between dimensions that allowed the Harbingers to pour into this world.
She had been fighting for over an hour, and still they came.
Diana spun in the air, her sword cutting through another wave of creatures. Blood and ash rained down toward the beach below. The humans had evacuated the immediate area, but the city was still in danger if even one Harbinger got through.
She would not allow that to happen.
"Φωτιά και σίδερο, σταχτιά και οστά!" she chanted, her voice carrying power that resonated with dark magic.
Fire and iron, ash and bone!
The air around her sword ignited, the blade wreathed in flames that burned with supernatural heat. She swept it in a wide arc, and a wave of fire cascaded through the swarm, consuming dozens of Harbingers in an instant.
Pegasus shrieked and dove, his hooves crushing the skull of a Harbinger that had gotten too close. The horse was as much a warrior as Diana herself, fighting with instinct and fury.
But the Harbingers were learning. They began to coordinate their attacks, striking from multiple angles simultaneously. Diana deflected most of them, but some got through her defenses.
Claws raked across her armor, leaving shallow cuts. Teeth found gaps in her protection. She ignored the pain and kept fighting.
Then something massive emerged from the gateway.
It was easily a hundred times larger than the other Harbingers, its body thick with muscle and covered in armored scales. Its wings were vast, casting shadows across the beach below.
The Harbinger Prime had entered the battle.
Diana saw it coming and tried to adjust her position, but she was surrounded by smaller creatures. The Prime moved with surprising speed for something so large, its massive clawed hand swinging toward her.
The impact was devastating.
Diana was knocked from Pegasus's back, sent hurtling through the air like a stone from a sling. She crashed into the beach with tremendous force, the impact creating a crater in the sand.
The world spun.
For a moment, she just lay there.
The impact did not hurt her much, for she was the warrior who would break the cycle of injustice and bring justice to the world.
So, she had to fight.
Diana pushed herself up slowly. She thought about what she was, about the legacy she carried.
Amazon.
The mighty warriors who protected mankind from the creatures of hell.
Her sisters were all gone, trapped by the God-king Zeus himself. She was the last of them, the final guardian standing against the darkness.
This battlefield had both the creatures of hell and herself.
An Amazon.
She whispered the word as she stood, feeling the weight of it. "Amazon."
The name carried power. It carried responsibility.
The Harbinger Prime landed on the beach before her, its massive form shaking the ground. It was even more terrifying up close, with eyes that burned like coals and teeth like daggers.
The creature looked at her with something approaching respect. When it spoke, its voice was like grinding stone. "Away, warrior. You are beaten. Leave this place while you still can."
Diana looked at it, her hand tightening on her sword.
"We must prepare this world," the Prime continued. "This world is ours now. You cannot stop what is coming."
It leaned closer, its breath hot and reeking of sulfur. "We do not wish to kill you, warrior, for you are the Princess of Hell. But we must hurt you if you insist on standing against us."
Diana's response was to reach for the coiled rope at her waist. She drew forth the Nemesis Lasso, the crimson lasso.
The lasso began to glow, extending and growing longer as she channeled power into it. The weapon responded to her will, becoming whatever length she needed.
Diana began to slowly rise into the air, her body defying gravity.
Her voice rang out, clear and powerful, echoing across the battlefield.
"No. I insist."
The Harbinger Prime tensed, recognizing the shift in her demeanor.
"For I am Diana of Themyscira," she declared, "The last of the Amazons!"
The lasso blazed brighter, wrapping around her arm like a living serpent.
"The daughter of Circe!"
Magic crackled in the air around her. She was not just a warrior, but a sorceress in her own right, inheritor of her mother's dark gifts.
"The Princess of Hell!"
Power surged through her body. Her eyes began to glow red.
"And you will not have this world until I—"
Her words were cut off as a beam of brilliant red light lanced through the air.
The energy struck the Harbinger Prime directly in the head, burning through scales, flesh, and bone like they were paper. The beam carved a clean hole through the creature's skull, so precise and powerful that the Prime didn't even have time to scream.
The massive body swayed for a moment.
Through the smoking hole in the creature's head, Diana saw something that made her breath catch.
A man was floating in the air where the beam had originated. He had red hair that seemed to glow in the sunlight, and he hovered effortlessly as if gravity meant nothing to him.
Harbinger Prime's body crashed to the beach like a felled tree. Yet, Diana's eyes were focused on the man.
His appearance was striking.
Young, perhaps in his early twenties by human standards.
He wore armor that was unlike anything Diana had seen before, dark metal etched with symbols.
But it was not his appearance that captured her attention. It was the power that radiated from him.
Even from this distance, Diana could feel it. The man's presence rivaled that of the Lord of the Underworld, Hades. Perhaps exceeded him.
Yet, she could not sense a shred of divinity in him... was this man a mortal?
The remaining Harbingers looked at the man. The swarm that had been so aggressive moments before now hesitated, their instincts warning them of a predator far more dangerous than the warrior woman they had been fighting.
Diana stared at the floating man, her mind racing with questions.
Where had he come from? How could a mortal possess such power?
But one question dominated all the others, the only question that truly mattered in this moment as she looked at the mysterious red-haired man hovering in the sky above the battlefield.
Who is this man?
....
A.N: Yes, it's her... the Absolute Beauty!!
P.S: I was thinking of delaying this fic till the Absolute Universe had a lot more chapters, but it seems like it will take forever for that. So, as of this moment, the concepts of the Absolute verse that I will be taking and using might be from my imagination. So, please bear with them.
....
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