- The darknesses that dwell within the recesses of the imagination of sentience have held their sway from the moment that the first creature crawled, swelling and pathetic as he gasped for air and the desire for new life, from the waters onto dry land. With every hope, every dream, there was a dark desire and nightmare lying beneath it, waiting to bubble to the surface. With every light there was a darkness waiting to curl its fingers around the sanguine, naïve light's throat and throttle the life from its more hopeful, life giving counterpart. And it was all to prove just one thing; for as long as there would be light, there would be darkness, and there would come a day where the darkness would fall and eclipse the light once and for all, leaving the world to drown in its broken, bitter conceits spun from the belief that the light could have ever protected it.
Above all, for every Champion, there would be a dark echo waiting to tear away its still beating heart and squeeze it until its warm succour ran free and trickled past the echo's lips.
For as long as the Olympians had existed, there had been those that were appalled by the audacity of the gods. Ancient beings woven from even more ancient orders, the younger gods did little to endear themselves to them. The temerity that the Olympians carried themselves with, the conceit that they exuded with every breath, their whole-hearted belief that the Earth was theirs... the ancients had been there first. They had their tendrils wound within the essence of mankind and their grasp drawn firmly on the pulsing, pounding heart of mankind long before the Olympians. They had been in the minds, the hearts and the souls of mankind since Cain had first lifted a rock and sprayed his brother's blood over soil.
They were the darkness that was cast when the sun's light was shone over life itself; they were life's better half, their counterpart, the shadow that crept within the crevices of existence and beneath the surface, hiding your deepest and most depraved of desires that other might think you pious and righteous. They hid the need to take flesh and make it of yours both yielding and unyielding, they obscured your hunger for the cerise sheen that trickled free from the cracks and wounds of their perfectly framed visage, the pristine mask that they set over their bestial features to obscure the truth of their nature and what lay within their heart. They were the truth of life and light and humanity and sentience, the only real truth that was worth anything within these spheres; the only truth that held pure and free of the self-deceit that curdled within the thoughts of all that lived.
So it was Athena whose petty arrogances offended them the most. This woman, this thing that claimed to herald truth and knew so little of what existence really was; so little of what shaped the world around her, what had shaped her, what lay within her own heart, let alone that of those around her. The woman who had the audacity to call herself god and thought to proclaim truth within her charter when she didn't even understand the thing. And it was her arrogance that life's shadows wished to break. First it was that they struck with all of the bestial, self-absorbed, depraved power of which they were gifted, curling around the goddess and seeking to flood her mind with truth enough about the darknesses that were hidden within the planes of this realm that they could rot her mind from the inside and erode her to nothing more than a babbling incompetent, barely even sentient.
The goddess shrank away from what they offered, and she offered her arrogances in response, claiming that their truth was only a pale shade of reality's essence, one that had twisted and corrupted until it became something rotted and broken, hidden long enough from the light that it had blackened until the virtues that they had once held had become something soured and base. That they had once been a part of the light until they had wished to know more, and therein they had been brought low. And in their infinite wisdom, they saw through her deceit of preservation. They found themselves disgusted, that this entity that claimed to hold truth so close to her heart would allow such deceits to spill from her tongue; and they allowed her the illusion of victory, receding from that time and place as the light rose again and Apollo's chariot rode across the sky. They left her to believe that her deceits could spare her
For it was her lies that had shown them the depth of Athena's conceits, the depth of the false Sthenia's corruption, and the echo gods realised that such simple death was not enough. It was not punishment enough for her treachery. It simply wouldn't do. So they fashioned a revenge. One slow in the making that would break the whore goddess as deeply as she deserved. It would not be enough to simply destroy her. It would not be enough to rend her and crack her and spill her blood across the shrine of Olympus' throne as they so longed to. They would have to strip her of all that she held precious. They would have to take from the goddess her claims at truth, and to take from the false Sthenia her followers and worshippers. But as they curled upon themselves for millennia, they could not find a fate fitting enough for the blister of a goddess. Nothing was enough. No pain was great enough.
Then the goddess herself showed them the path. She took on a Champion.
That would be where they would begin. They would take her Champion from her. The being that fought in her name, so proudly sporting her banner; they would make her bleed and cry for her patron goddess as the life was wrung from her. And then they would expose Athena as the false goddess that she was. Only then would the pain of her death be enough; after she saw her Champion, the pinnacle of the people that Athena so loved, fall. But it would not be right for them to act themselves against the Champion, the little Diana Prince. Athena had chosen a proxy to act through, so they would do the same. But the only manner of being that would be fitting for such a task would be one that harboured qualities both of the shadow gods and of the Athena creature. It would have to harbour the same freedom of depravity that they did... and the same conceits that the false, charlatan goddess did.
They chose well, then, when they found Barbara Minerva. The scientist come archaeologist’s name even beckoned perfection for the role; a cruel mockery of the goddess that they would use her to wound, given the hardened edge and hungers that she held within her heart. The woman carried herself with the same arrogance that the goddess did, and her intellect and thirst for knowledge would have made the corrupt divinity herself proud... if it hadn't been for the blistering greed, hunger and hatred that drove the woman. The hatred of the woman that had been too weak to give her the childhood that she had deserved, rather than succumbing to the habits that plagued the wasted thing that she called a body. The hatred of the men that worked alongside her, taking her gender as reason enough to patronise and belittle her and her ambition as reason enough to label and undermine her. And the hatred of the men that she worked for, with their squalid, pathetic notion of ambition and progression.
The bile wouldn't have been difficult to press to the surface. It wouldn't have taken more than a nudge. A whisper rattling within the base of her skull, echoing to her desires, her wants, her needs, coaxing her hungers to their apex by holding everything that she had desired, everything that she had longed for, everything that she had worked for just dangling ahead of her, well within reach... as long as she took the simplest of measures that were required of her. She could be everything. Everything. The world would have been within the palm of her hand; perhaps the one thing that could sate Barbara's curdling ambition and appetite. The woman would have leaped at the chance. The only thing that she was missing, then, was the knowledge that she required. The little truths that only they could provide, what lay within the crevice of reality and the soul of humanity.
And that one little step that she would have to take to finally be given it. That one, they kept to themselves, even as they flooded her mind readily with the rest.
The whisper ran through her mind all of the way to the Grecian dig; one of Athena's temples that they had desecrated millennia past. It pushed her on and on, feeding her hunger more and more until it was the only thing she could think of, ruling her mind wholly. And when she thought that she would go mad, they finally offered her the final shred of knowledge. The last, little step. An offering of blood across the ruins of the broken, desecrated temple; spilled to the last drop. But the only blood that could be shed so freely and fully was that of her co-worker, her colleague and lover of years; and the only tool she had at hand was her own hands and nails. As if that mattered.
Barbara curled her fingers around one of the ruins' rocks and caved her lover's head in just as Cain had his brother's. By nightfall, the temple ran red with blood.
With that, the gods were not only let into her heart, but her mind and her soul, also. The very first thing that they did was flood her mind with a blood lust that would not let her rest... and then they gave their new Champion, their new shade, their new servant, their Cheetah a target for the blood lust. Diana Prince. She clashed with Prince over and over again during the Amazon's career, but when she faded away and the gods' strength faltered, her shadowed patrons allowed themselves to believe. And they believed that the false goddess had finally fallen. So they abandoned their vessel, leaving her bereft of the powers – and vitality – that they had bestowed upon her. So Barbara did the one thing that she had sworn never to do.
She grew old.
And she wasn't pleased about it. The years weren't kind to her in the least, not with the karma that she had lacing her soul. But there was nothing that she could do about it, and she had other concerns to deal with. The powers might have left her, but the blood lust never had. So she continued to sate it in little ways; a hitch-hiker here, a vagabond there, people that no-one would miss as she rebuilt her life, her career and wove a list of achievements and haven of wealth around her. She grew slowly and steadily more and more ambitious with the targets of her blood lust, and if there was one thing that she could never deny herself regardless of whether or not it was good for her, it was her ambition. Lovers, employees, staff, once they caught the attentions of her blood lust, their days were numbered regardless of who they were. But as she grew older, she grew more and more enfeebled; and learned to hate herself more and more for it.
Then finally, salvation came. The gods took ardent claim over the world, and they proved once and for all that Athena still lived. It meant that their own Champion's work was not yet done. And with that, they re-empowered Barbara. But even though she was strong once more, she was still aged. Still enfeebled; a state that she refused to remain in. Barbara watched those around her, sizing them up carefully, and once she had made her choice, she took a girl by force. She anointed the girl with her own blood before drinking of the girl's blood; assuming her form and claiming her likeness, youth and body as her own. Young once again, she set out within the world. Enough money could fake anything, and she set out in search for Athena's Champion. For if Athena lived still, then so would Diana.
The only Champion that was presented to the world, however, was a stripling girl. Naïve and callow, hopeful in a way that only utter inexperience could allow. This wasn't her rival. It wasn't the Champion that she had fought. The girl wasn't even worthy of her attention. She continued to sate herself in little ways and waited as she kept the Amazons in her sights, certain that Diana would present herself sooner or later. It didn't matter how long it took; Barbara would be there. And to her delight, she only had to wait a couple of years before Diana resurfaced again. Barbara thanked her fortunes that she had never offered the princess any name other than the one her patrons had given her; Cheetah. It would make her work so much easier.
For now, she has simply been watching. Evaluating Diana as the princess tries to find her footing in this new world. Drawing malicious pleasure every time the princess has missed a step or tripped up in those efforts. Biding her time. But soon it will be her time to act again; soon she will make herself known once more in the only way befitting of her. Under crimson rain and in a cerise shower flecking both her skin and the once-Champion's. And when the time is right, only one of them will walk away from their clashes.
