74Chapter 3: War and Love
Marriage is an adventure, like going to war. –G.K. Chesterton
"…Clark?!"
The voice came from a small metallic courier drone, which had zoomed into the room unnoticed and was now hovering at the foot of the bed.
The utterance of that one monosyllabic name from the drone's speaker caused several drastic events to occur in short order: firstly, Clark forgot what he was doing but also forgot to turn off his heat vision, which resulted in half of the bedding and part of the wall catching fire, while, at the same time, Maxima failed to realize that she had lost Clark's attention, which resulted in some of her own fiercely-projected energy beams hitting the side of his head rather than his eyes, which brought about his immediate loss of consciousness.
With an unconscious Kryptonian draped over her and her blankets on fire all around her, Maxima loosed an infuriated battle cry and then took control of the situation. With a casual flick of her wrist she flung Clark's body across the room, where he crashed into a wall and crumpled to the floor, and with two snaps of her fingers she extinguished the rising flames and set the fabric to work mysteriously un-burning itself. And then, with both hands, she grabbed hold of the courier drone.
"Hello?" said an impatient woman's voice from the speaker. "Clark? Are you there?"
"I'm afraid 'Clark' can't come to the drone right now," Maxima declared, seething mad. "You are speaking to Maxima, Queen of Almerac. And you have just interfered with some very important royal business."
Lois was not impressed. "Alright, Maxima, where is he? What have you done with my husband?"
"Not much, yet." Maxima informed her. "Once this interruption is over, however, I will claim him as my mate."
"Sorry, but he's taken," Lois declared. "You can't have him."
Maxima's eyes instantly began to glow a very ominous orange. "Oh yes, I can."
Light-years away, in Metropolis, Lois's heart was beginning to pound. She was getting upset. But something told her that screaming insults and threats into the phone was probably not going to have much effect on her majesty the Warrior Queen.
Wait a minute—Warrior Queen. What if she…
Lois got an idea. "All right. You've stolen my husband from me, and I know better than to just ask you to give him back."
"Provided that all goes well, you may have him back once I am done with him," Maxima offered.
Lois fought back her enraged expression and spoke calmly. "…Once he's been used," she restated, and then took a breath dove ahead. "You have to realize how dishonorable this is of you."
"This is for the future of Almerac," Maxima exclaimed. "I've scoured the galaxies for suitable mates. Heroes, champions, kings—none of them good enough to sire my child. You speak of dishonor? Ha! Every day that my womb remains cold brings dishonor upon my house and my people."
Lois bit her lip, and caught her reflection in a mirror across the room, and was glad that Maxima couldn't see her desperation. "Okay. So you're doing the best you can, as the ruler of Almerac. I'll buy that. But I still say, if you have any sense of honor, you would at least let there be an opportunity to win him back, before you go on and 'claim' him."
"Win?" Maxima scoffed, as if she'd never heard anything more absurd. "And just what sort of game would you stake your husband's fate upon? A match of wits? A game of common chance?"
"Not a game," Lois said sharply. "Combat."
Maxima fell silent.
"One on one," Lois clarified, careful to control her momentum. "Woman to woman."
"…Combat," Maxima repeated, clearly intrigued.
"Yes," Lois affirmed. "And if you lose, you'll swear to respect my bond with Clark from now on, and you'll find someone else to take as your mate." She held her breath, and could practically hear Maxima's smirk.
"It is an appealing proposition," the Warrior Queen mused. "And I accept. The battle will commence at dawn."
Maxima had been holding the courier drone in both hands for the entire conversation, and now she clasped her hands together, shattering the drone to bits.
The abrupt end to the call made Lois jump. She looked at her phone, and began to feel just a little bit…scared.
What had she just gotten herself into? What if something went wrong? And what was going on with Clark?
Well, there was no time to worry about any of that now.
She scrolled through the numbers saved on her phone. She had one more call to make...
Clark woke up and realized that his eyes were sore. He attempted to rub them, but found he could not, because he was tied to a post.
In the middle of a panic. No—a party.
Squinting through slightly blurry vision, he tried to make sense of his surroundings. He was outdoors, and judging from the murky mauve of the sky, it was just before dawn. There was music- terrible clanging percussion and shrill tweets and buzzes, the combined effect of which rivaled a chorus of alarm clocks accompanied by a rambunctious toddler beating on pots and pans with a ladle. There were decorations—wreaths and garlands of red flowers, some of which were on fire, though they looked none the worse for wear for being so. There were crowds of revelers, shouting (singing?) and holding bottles and goblets of what must have been an intoxicating beverage.
And there was an entourage of dancing slave girls, whirling around him in costumes of red silk. He looked down, and noticed that his own outfit had been modified, and was now completely red, and there were several leis of those same red flowers draped around his neck. Of greater interest were the ropes securing him to the post—at first glance they appeared to be made of red silk as well, but closer inspection revealed a material of something shiny and metallic-black, peeking up through the pores of the fabric like a thousand microscopic reptilian eyes.
Clark tensed against his restraints and his fears were realized. Breaking free wouldn't be easy. Might not even be possible.
He looked up and cleared his throat.
"Uh, excuse me," he tried, addressing the girl who was dancing closest to him. She did a backflip, landed in a handstand, and danced away on her hands, legs gracefully bicycling in the air. "…Okay," Clark said, eyebrows raised in compliment to her gymnastic ability. He turned his attention to the next girl. "Miss? Excuse me—miss? Can you tell me what's go—"
His question was cut short as the girl leaned in and kissed him. Clark grimaced and waited until she was done massaging his lips with her own, and looked her in the eyes as she drew back. "What is this?" he demanded. But the girl merely smiled at him and danced away. "Hey!" Clark called after her. "Wait a minute!"
But she was gone, lost amidst the other dancers. Frustrated, Clark fidgeted for a moment, and was startled as another dancer came swooping towards him. "Hi there," he said, awkward, as he half-expected to be kissed again. Instead, the girl held up a crown of red flowers.
"Okay, this has gone far enough," Clark said, his eyes crossing a bit as he watched the girl settle the flowers on top of his head. "What's this all about? Where's Maxima?"
"She's preparing for the battle," the girl replied, seeming surprised that he didn't know.
Clark shook his head angrily, which caused the flower-crown to fall apart. "What battle?" he demanded. Red petals fell from his shoulders and fluttered to the ground around him, and the girl pouted.
"Why'd you do that?" she asked, disappointed. "Those are phoenix flowers. I was about to light them on fire for you. Now I have to go make you another one." She spun away, red silk ribbons of her costume rippling through the air.
"Wait wait wait!" Clark called. She hesitated, and looked back at him. "Please. What battle were you talking about?"
"Against the Earth-woman," she informed him.
"Earth-woman?" Clark repeated, alarmed.
"Yeah… didn't you know? There's some Earth-woman who claims that Queen Maxima stole you from her."
"Lois!"
"Oh, is that her name?" The girl asked, and then shrugged. "Well, whoever she is, she was crazy enough to challenge Maxima to one-on-one combat. At dawn."
On cue, the first sliver of sun breached the bloodied horizon. "No!" Clark yelled, as a deafening cheer rose from the assembled crowd of merrymakers.
Clark bent his head forward, straining against the ropes that held him. Lois was in danger. Maxima would hurt her. Maxima would kill her! He closed his eyes, gritting his teeth, and rallied every ounce of strength left in his body.
The ropes held.
But the post at his back shattered, and the coils loosened. Clark was free. Flying-
And there was Maxima—striding through the droves of her subjects, in gleaming golden armor with excessively spiky shoulder-guards, her hair wildly red in the light of the flaming flower-wreaths. She was wielding a sort of a wizard-staff with a ball of fire at the top of it. And she was not going to fight Lois Lane, not if Clark had anything to say about it.
He put his feet out and landed right in front of her, impacting the ground with such force that several nearby buildings were dislodged from their foundations. He clenched his hands into fists, and Maxima quirked an eyebrow at him, impressed.
"Maxima. You can't do this," Clark said in a low and completely serious voice.
"Watch me," Maxima replied.
"She's only human!"
"So I hope she brings plenty of weapons. This fight was her idea, after all. I'm sure she'll come prepared."
"You're not going to hurt her," Clark said, warningly.
Maxima's eyes were like molten lava. "So much fight in your spirit, all of a sudden," she said fondly, and tapped her staff on the ground. "Could be troublesome."
Clark found that his feet were suddenly frozen in place. "Nhg!" he grunted, struggling. To his horror, the paralysis was already traveling up his legs. It felt like his muscles and bones were being filled with cement. "What did you do?!"
"You'll be fine," she assured him. "You'll just be… out of the way for a while."
"No," Clark said, as his torso froze in place. He was quickly turning into a statue. Now his hands were tingling- going numb- freezing solid. He forced himself to stay calm. It was suddenly clear to him that there was only one thing he could do.
He could beg. "Maxima, listen to me. You aren't evil. I know you aren't. So please don't hurt her—" everything up to shoulders had frozen, and as the paralysis worked its way up his neck to his jaw, it became harder for him to speak. "—don't hurt Lois," he managed to plead. "Don't hurt my—"
And then he was frozen in place, suspended in time. Maxima stepped up to him and patted his cheek. And then she strode past him, into the strengthening glow of the sunrise.
The Earth-woman had arrived. She wore a hooded cloak of deep cobalt blue, which flagged out in the wind around her, and the only visible weapon she carried was a fearsome silver broadsword, whose hilt was in the form of a golden eagle, wings proudly spread.
Maxima narrowed her eyes at her opponent, looking her up and down. "I know you," she said thoughtfully. "You're Hippolyta's girl, from Themyscira. You're called Diana. Princess of the Amazons."
"I'm Wonder Woman," Wonder Woman said, in that certain way she'd always wanted to. She pulled back her hood, let her hair stream free in the wind. Her tiara glinted dangerously, un-intimidated by the spikes on Maxima's shoulders.
"I wasn't expecting you," Maxima said coolly, and her mind replayed her conversation with Lois Lane. One on one. Woman to woman. "I see," Maxima said, smiling. "That was clever of her. She never said she would fight me herself."
"Yes, it was, and no, she didn't," Diana affirmed, also smiling.
"So you're here to fight for another woman's man?"
"No, but you are," Diana told her bluntly. "I'm here because Clark and Lois are friends of mine."
"Hmm." Maxima whirled her staff in the air. "Let's find out how strong those bonds of friendship are."
Diana raised her sword over her shoulder, struck a pose. Her eyes were deadly blue.
"Let's," she agreed, and the battle began.
Maxima dashed forward, battle cry rumbling from her chest, eyes flaring with white-gold light. Diana crossed her wrists in front of her face, anticipating the blast, and cleared her throat.
"I have to ask. Why Superman?"
The energy blast deflected, leveling dozens of distant trees and turning several nearby boulders to dust. Some of the deflected energy even shot back at Maxima herself, stopping her in midair and sending her somersaulting backwards.
She came to a halt, hovering. "Because. He's the best man in the multiverse."
She tried again, hurtling down from above.
"He's a good man, but there are others," Diana stated, waiting till the last second before darting aside.
Maxima was quick enough to avoid crashing into the ground, but as Diana swung at her with her sword, she was forced to construct an energy shield to block the blow. The blade struck the shield, and a shockwave raced out from their feet, rippling the ground for a mile in every direction.
Maxima narrowed her eyes. "Superman is the last of his line. Don't you think he deserves to have descendants, to carry on his blood and his name?"
"Yes," Diana replied. "But he's not the only one. There are plenty of good men who are the last of their family." She struck the shield again, cracking it. It was like breaking a jar of lightning—thrashing tendrils of gold and red energy flashed out of the broken shield, writhing through the air and across the ground, and catching the leveled trees in the distance on fire. Maxima's lip curled in annoyance. She pointed her staff at Diana.
A flash of white was all Diana saw, and suddenly she was hurtling through the air, probably at around mach 2, and then she was crashing into the side of a cliff. She came to a halt imbedded several dozen feet into the stone. She heard a deep crunch in the earth above her, like the sound of an ancient stone femur breaking, and half of the cliff crumbled away in front of her in a massive avalanche.
Diana got to her feet, straightened her tiara and took off.
Maxima met her in mid-air. Staff blocked sword. "Superman is noble and pure of heart," Maxima said. "He stands for justice."
"But he's not your only hope for a decent mate, Maxima. There are other heroes. Superman isn't the only one who believes in justice. On Earth, we have an entire Justice League."
They slashed, kicked, wrestled. Even pulled each other's hair. The air caught fire around them in huge bulbous flashes. Hurricane winds raised roiling clouds of dust, sand, and soil from the ground below, rolling trees and rocks across the plains like tumbleweeds.
The fight took them higher and higher, until finally Diana got around behind her opponent. She had an arm wrapped around Maxima's throat and both legs wrapped around her waist. "Face it," Diana said. "You need to find someone else." They were upside-down, so she looked up at the ground. And sped towards it.
In the back of her mind she recalled that Clark had tried something like this with Doomsday, and it hadn't ended well.
"Like who?" Maxima asked, unperturbed by their impending collision with the surface below. "If you were in my place, and needed an heir, who would you choose?" Immediately she reached out, subtly, curiously, in the most non-hostile way possible, to read Diana's mind. And, to her delight, there was an image there. More like a shadow.
"…Certainly not someone who was already married," Diana said, and with a gunshot-bang that echoed for a hundred miles, they slammed into the ground.
When Diana came to, she was crumpled at the bottom of a thirty-foot-deep crater. She looked around, and spotted Maxima standing nearby, one hand pressed to her chin in thought.
"…What happened?" Diana groaned, struggling to sit up.
"Oh, you won," Maxima said lightly. "And you gave yourself a concussion."
Diana winced as she touched the bump on her head. "I…won?" she asked hesitantly.
"Yes," Maxima said, and waved a hand at the remnants of her staff as evidence. "You're free to go. I'll open a portal for Superman—send him home to his wife. I won't pursue him anymore."
"You're… giving up?" Diana asked, confused.
Maxima smiled. "You were right," she said. "I need to find someone else. Actually, I've found him. Even as we speak, my bounty hunters are cornering him."
"Wait." Something was wrong. Vaguely, Diana recalled something that had happened, when she was not-quite-conscious. "You—you read my mind!"
"It was an open book," Maxima confessed, shameless.
"So this someone else that you've found—it isn't-"
"Of course it is. He's perfect. You know it's true."
Diana turned an angry shade of pink. "How dare you—"
Maxima shrugged. "What can I say? Earth heroes appeal to me. And this one is truly special. You know, I've heard of him before, but never gave him a second thought. Until now."
Diana was breathing a little faster. "He… he's only human," she warned.
But Maxima's eyes lit up. "Oh, he's more than that," she said, with a little too much hungry emphasis on the 'more.' "According to your own thoughts, he's a human and yet a rival to Superman. A rival! And," Maxima couldn't help but chuckle a little. "…he isn't married."
Diana looked away. She drew her knees up to her chest.
"No," she muttered sadly. "He isn't."
But Clark was. And the next thing he knew, he was standing in his own bedroom, in Metropolis, Lois blinking at him as if he'd just appeared out of thin air, which he had.
"—wife," Clark said, completing the sentence he'd been speaking when his mouth and brain had frozen up, back on Almerac.
Lois grinned. Clark was back. She didn't care how it had happened. He was dressed in some ridiculous long-sleeved toga-mumu, and, god, were those flowers? But he was back, and he was hers, and she was more than happy to play his little game.
"Husband," she answered, making it a challenge. She jumped into his arms.
"Mmn?" he asked, kissing her.
"Mm-hmm," she agreed with abundant enthusiasm, not breaking the kiss. And that was all that needed to be said.
...to be continued!
Author's note: Aww, Clark and Lois! I'm happy now. But I have to be evil again, in the next (final!) chapter... oh, yes. The best/worst part is yet to come, hee hee hee!
anyway, what do you think? Now that I've included Wonder Woman in this story, does it belong over in the Justice League section? I'll keep it here for now since it's mostly inspired by that "Warrior Queen" episode of S:TAS.