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The Games that Gods Play	By : Ristul Category: DC Verse Comics > Wonder Woman Views: 16896 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Wonder Woman,nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 9
- 10
- 11
Interlude 2
Trapped animals would gnaw off their own limbs to get free, regardless of the pain. People do that too.
Jake Kabrinski
It was a beautiful park on the outskirts of the city, in the suburbs. Children laughed as they ran around in the playground, yelling as each other as they enjoyed their childhood. Birds chirped in the background. A perfect picture of happiness.
A boy, not more than 13 years old, stood quietly at one side. He should be with teenagers of his own age, having fun, watching movies, growing up. Yet he was not. He was on a mission. He wore a jacket, within which were several weapons, which no child his age should ever be touching.
He narrowed his eyes as he watched his target approach. A middle aged man with two young children, holding them by their hands as the kids licked at their cones of ice cream. The boy ignored the clenching sensation in his stomach as he watched them laugh with delight at the cold treat.
He had never had ice cream in his life. He wished he did not feel angry. He wished he did not feel envious. The anger, the envy lent him hatred, hatred against the children, for having something he did not, and would never have. He would make them suffer as he did. At least for a while.
“Proceed according to plan.” The radio in his ear crackled. There was an audio microphone and an optical camera on his person, telling his handlers where and exactly what he was doing.
“Understood,” the boy answered. He had his orders. He had to do whatever they told him to, or they would trigger the bomb in his guts. Since that fateful meeting with his father and master, he had killed more than a thousand people in the past year. Sometimes they were in groups, sometimes they were alone. He had been told it was all to solidify his father’s hold on power, killing those who might oppose him in the future. Dangerous figures in politics, business, and the criminal world.
He waited until the man sat down on a bench, and gestured for his two children to go have fun at the playground. Then the boy walked over behind the man, acting as though he was just passing by. One hand reached inside his jacket, pulling out a small gun, equipped with a special tipped dissolving needle. As he walked behind the man, he fired sideways, the needle piercing the man in the neck.
The drug in the needle acted immediately. The target never had a chance. One moment he was breathing, the next he simply slumped over.
The boy continued to walk away calmly, as the man’s two children ran back to him, shouting excitedly. “Papa?” One of them asked. They prodded their father once, then again with worry as they realized he wasn’t reacting.
“Papa!” It was a scream of sheer anguish.
The beautiful sky started to cloud over as 91 left the site of the murder, his eyes cold, his face hard as stone, though his heart was breaking with the children’s cries. He had wanted to make them feel pain, but why did he hurt even worse? Killing the man, hearing their pain, did not make him feel any better.
It never did.
Moments later, it started to rain, as though the skies themselves were weeping for the murdered man and the act of sin itself.

91 was on a bus heading back to his handlers in the city when it happened. A flash of light in the city, a thunderous roar, then the horrifying mushroom cloud which indicated a nuclear explosion.
The other passengers on the bus screamed as they were blinded by the flash, clutching their eyes in agony. 91, guided by some instinct he was not able to explain, had managed to shield his eyes by lowering his head and placing a seat rest between his eyes and the glaring light of a nuclear explosion.
The bus swerved, the driver one of those blinded. It crashed into a building, the front slamming up the sidewalk and into the front of a store. Sparks flew about wildly as metal screeched across metal.
91 looked around, and threw himself out of a window, breaking the glass as he broke through. He rolled away from the bus on the pavement, desperately putting distance between himself and the bus. He did not know why he was doing this. It was as if something in the back of his mind was telling him what to do.
The bus exploded.

He sat on the ground in the small deserted room within the ruins of an abandoned building, looking around him to check on the items he had prepared. His upper body was naked, revealing his lean frame. Most noticeable was the long thin scar across his stomach, somehow overshadowing the numerous other scars, patches, and bullet scar holes on his torso.
A clean knife laid on a rag on his right, while strips of duct tape hung loosely from the side of a table. Several more pieces of clean cloth and bandages laid nearby. There was also a sewing kit with needle and thread, though to use them would be extremely optimistic. He didn’t think he’d be able to go that far. He had been lucky enough to scrounge up these items in light of the terrorist attack.
He tried to control his breathing, and largely succeeded. He took out an entire bottle of painkillers, and swallowed all the contents with a single gulp. Then he took out a small rubber gag, and placed it in his mouth.
He picked up the knife, steeling himself for what he was do to next. He stared at his belly, and drew the knife slowly and carefully across its surface, almost exactly following the scar line, slicing past the skin, revealing his guts and internal organs.
The pain, despite the drugs he had taken, was excruciating. He bit down hard on the gag, groaning against the pain. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and he laid down the knife, then moved his hand into the wound. Color drained out of his face.
If slicing himself apart had hurt, then digging a hand into his own intestines was worse. The sensation of feeling his own hand within his body would have been academic if there wasn’t so much pain.
He forced himself past the pain, focusing on his task. He had to find the tiny bomb they had placed within his guts to ensure his loyalty and his subservience. This was his only chance to escape from his handlers. He would not squander it.
It had been a break for him when somebody had set off a nuke in the city his handlers were in. The same EMP fallout which had rendered almost any solid state electronics useless had also temporarily disabled the bomb, but it would reactivate itself fairly soon. Normally, it would automatically explode if he did not report to his handlers after every mission, or if he tried to remove it. And since it was disabled for the moment, he could take it out. But he had to do it now.
Due to the circumstances, there was no way he was going to try approaching a hospital. They would have thought he was crazy. Anyway, the hospitals were overworked with fallout from the war raging all over the planet.
Blood seeped from the open wound, staining red the rags he had placed below himself, but he persisted. The seconds ticked by slowly with agonizing slowness, even as he dug within himself for the bomb.
There! His fingers brushed across a metallic object, attached to his guts with some sort of clamp. His control was slipping, his breath coming in short, painful gasps, and he bit down hard on the gag as he closed his hand around the bomb and pulled.
If it wasn’t for the gag, he would have wailed out loud. He focused on the treat he had given himself earlier in the day, using the lingering taste on his tongue to counter the pain. His first apple, even one that was soft and overripe from too long in the sun, unattended and abandoned after the nuclear explosion. He had never known anything that tasted sweet. It had been a new and enjoyable sensation. It had been a symbolic gesture, a affirmation to himself that he was going to break away and earn his freedom once and for all.
His right hand trembled hard as he pulled the bomb out, along with a mess of blood and some tissue which had grown a protective layer over the bomb. He threw it into a corner, far enough that the explosion wouldn’t affect him if it happened. It was not a powerful bomb, after all. Just enough to blow his innards to pieces and kill him with internal bleeding.
Just a bit more, just a bit more . He was feeling a bit giddy from the blood loss, and his vision was clouding over, a sure sign that he was going to collapse soon. His right hand held the open flaps of skin together while his left hand reached for the nearby strips of duct tape hanging from the table. They had already been cut into suitable pieces, and all he needed to do was to pull them off and tape them over the wound.
It was said that duct tape and bailing wire could fix all problems. What most people didn’t know was that duct tape could fix people up as well. He had to use the tape to stop the bleeding and somewhat seal the open wound before he bled to death.
His hands were shaking badly no matter how he tried to control them, and his breath was strained, making his efforts to control his hands even tougher. He managed to get the first piece of duct tape over the wound, and he pasted it over, but it failed to stick because of the wet blood. He almost gave up then, but then he recalled the hell he had gone through, the bodies of his dead siblings. No, I won’t give up!
The strip of duct tape was dry on one side, and that meant further strips on top managed to hold it in place. He quickly followed with several more strips, slowly staunching the bleeding as the tape sealed the wound. The wound would need stitching with the sewing kit later, but he did not think he could carry on any further.
With the duct tape sealing the wound, he finally collapsed onto the ground, drifting off into a fevered sleep, filled with the voices of the children of the man he had killed a few days ago, as they, along with so many others, had tormented him for the past few days.

The boy known as 91 to those who had raised him walked slowly through the small town, careful not to move too fast or else tear the hasty stitches over his belly. Humanity was a wailing sea of despair around him, flotsam from the ruins of the ravaged world.
Since the first attack, some religious fanatics had declared war on the rest of humanity, throwing around weapons of mass destruction like cheap firecrackers. Menkent’s populated areas had been hit hard early on with nukes and air deployed fuel-air explosives, but it was a minor mercy that biologicals had not been used.
The fanatics in-system had been driven out temporarily, though he was sure they would be back. Everybody was trying to get out in case the fanatics did return with even worse than what they had already inflicted.
People looking at him would have thought him just another 13 year old boy, instead of the cold blooded killer he actually was. But his eyes and face would have given him away.
It had been five days since he had managed to remove the bomb from his guts, and he had spent much of the time recuperating, planning out his next moves. From now on, he could start plotting his revenge. He did not have any definite plans, but he knew he had to grow up first. And that meant finding somewhere off the beaten path. And getting out of the way of the brewing interstellar conflict. It wasn’t his business.
He had quite a bit of money, taken from looting dead bodies despite the stench, the terrible smell, and the deadly radiation. He did not care if he was going to die of cancer down the road. He didn’t plan on living that long. He would leave this planet, covering his tracks in the chaos of refugees fleeing the world.
91 headed to the crowded spaceport, wary of his future and with one hand on his gun. His heart was empty, but his soul was filled with hatred. His fingers twitched often, as though expecting to pull out the gun at any moment and start firing. He disappeared into the crowd, a silent, invisible, and menacing presence.

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Chapter 10-Wild Hunter
I’m no hero, just a bounty hunter trying to make a living. Just so happens most of the people I hunt are bad guys. Not exactly my fault.
Gawain Sharpe
Two days after the incident with Doctor Psycho, Wonder Woman found herself extremely busy dealing with the cleanup and helping to rebuild the city. The citizens of New York City, from the richest to the poorest, had all pitched in to help, if not with their time and strength, then with money.
The battle had brought them together in ways that astounded her, and gave her hope that her mission was not futile, that one day all beings could gather together in peace and harmony to work for the common good.
And some of them gave both time and money.
Diana watched Phillip Delacroix as he shouted at several men to help him shift a piece of wreckage onto a truck. He had been unstinting with his funds to aid the homeless and even took time to help out. She lifted another gigantic piece of shattered concrete with her lasso and dumped it into the same truck.
Some of the men waved at her as she flew overhead, and she waved back. Only Phillip did not turn her way, as though he was completely focused on his task, his eyes on the ground. Wonder Woman had the feeling he was avoiding her.
As she worked, Diana ran over the events of that terrible night with Doctor Psycho. The Doctor was almost about to break their wills when he had simply snapped them out like a bad nightmare. But she could not forget the slight flitting of stolen memory for the briefest of instants, a remembrance of incredible torment and pain, beyond even what Psycho had inflicted on them. And she guessed that it was those memories that incapacitated Psycho. But whose memories were those?
In a rare piece of good news, Rachel Keist was still alive. She had been on the periphery of the suicide bomb. Rachel had been wounded quite badly, but she had assured Diana that she would be up and working in a matter of days. Which was a relief to the Amazon Princess. Diana could not be sure she could the loss of anther close friend.
President Pete Ross had even turned up, disregarding concerns about his safety, and since then he had given a few speeches to reassure his countrymen and the world. Diana hoped he would not give in to the wave of hatred sweeping anew across the United States to punish those responsible, though she understood why they felt that way.
“I think we’ve got somebody alive in there!” Somebody shouted as they gathered around a sensor device, around the ruins of a building. “I think they’re in the basement!”
Diana landed on the ground near them. “How can I help?”
The rescue worker looked at her thankfully, “We need to dig our way past all that debris, but we lack heavy equipment. If you can lift them all away…”
Wonder Woman did not need to hear any further. She quickly worked her way through the rubble, and her sensitive hearing did pick up the crying of young children inside the pocket they were trapped in. She eventually managed to dig her way enough such that she could see a boy hugging an even smaller girl, both their faces streaked with dirt and tears.
Because of the wreckage arrayed around the area, the Amazon realized the same debris was also holding up the air pocket, preventing it from collapsing. The best she could do was to hold up one particular section, high enough for a person to crawl through. Even then, it was pretty precarious, with almost several hundred tons of ruined building above her. Diana reached within herself for the strength of the earth as she slowly lifted up a small, long crawlway.
“Come on, it’s safe now!” Diana called out as gently as she could to the children. A female rescue worker came up beside her, and called out as well, their voices soothing and calm. The two children were clearly terrified, not even moving towards them.
“I’m going in.” The female worker said to Diana, and the Princess nodded.
The female worker was halfway through when she brushed against something she could not see in the dimly lit crawlway, and the children screamed even louder. There was a dull explosion.
Grenade! Diana realized with a shock, identifying the sound as dust suddenly billowed towards her. The weight above her suddenly became staggering, and Wonder Woman knew that the structural integrity of the building above her had been compromised even further. Which meant she had to hold up even more weight.
“Urgh!” Wonder Woman gritted her teeth as she pushed back with all her strength. He could hear the panicked voices behind her, screaming for help, and worse yet, her keen eyesight could pick out the limp form of the female worker. There was no sight of the children.
“Somebody come in and get them out! I can’t hold this up for long!” Diana yelled, hoping that somebody heard her.
A figure dashed past her into the crawlway, as the weight became even heavier. Diana closed her eyes to better concentrate her powers, her mighty muscles bulging with effort as she sought to keep the crawlway from collapsing. For long moments, she could hear nothing, and even her strength would soon be insufficient to hold up the collapsing structure.
There was a shuffling sound, then the pounding of feet. Diana opened her eyes to see a man with the female worker draped over his shoulder and the two children in his arms running past her. “Okay, you can let go now!”
Wonder Woman made one final heave upwards with her remaining strength, then she moved back quickly as the building crumpled completely.
She turned towards the rescue workers, and saw medical personnel swarming over the motionless figure of the female worker, while the man who had rushed in was hugging the two hysterically crying children and trying to calm them down.
He whispered gently to the children, “Shhh… you’re safe now. Don’t cry, don’t cry…” Diana realized with a shock that it was Phillip Delacroix. He was barely recognizable with all the dirt on his face and hair, but those cold blue eyes were unmistakable. Except they weren’t quite so cold now.
“Let me try,” She said to him, “Maybe a woman’s touch would work better.”
He looked up at her, and nodded silently, handing her the kids without a word.
The were a handful, but Wonder Woman rocked her arms slowly until the children fell asleep. When she looked up, Phillip Delacroix was already somewhere else, shouting at several men to get back to business.

Phillip tried to ignore the pain in his right foot as he worked in an alley, at a distance away from the others. He did not know why exactly he had rushed in while the other people around him were petrified with fear. It just felt like the right thing to do.
The previous day, he had bid goodbye to Gawain Sharpe as the bounty hunter left Jake’s café, along with several severed heads on his back in order to collect the bounties on those dead assassins and terrorists they had killed.
After that, he had met with Ares for a short while. The God of War had been ambivalent in his reaction to Phillip’s report, and the killer had come away with a feeling that there was definitely more to the situation than Ares had been willing to tell him. Why was he concerned with Cassie Sandsmark’s fate?
Then there was Veronica Cale. Fallon had miraculously survived the attack on her apartment, but Cale was a mental wreck from Doctor Psycho’s manipulations. Phillip had spent the rest of the day with her at Leslie Anderson’s apartment on Ares’ express orders to do so. It wasn’t as bad as he had feared. They talked about anything and everything, just to get her mind off the horrors Psycho had subjected her to.
Phillip frowned. He should have placed a bullet in Psycho’s head when he had the chance. From what Veronica had revealed, it had been horrible. She had been raped and tortured almost senseless in her mind, and he got the hint that the other women had suffered similar ordeals.
Nobody had emerged unscathed from the outside battle either. Ares’ Macrotech’s offices were amongst those damaged, and while they had survived better than others, work had to be stopped for the next few days while the city took stock and mourned for its dead. There were simply too many, even worse than the attacks on 9/11.
The global market were all flung into chaos, and the economy was about to go into the tank as a result of the battle, which had shaken the confidence of investors. The loss of so many important figures in business made matters worse.
They knew where to hit the US for maximum effect, Phillip pondered as he dumped a pile of debris into a wheelbarrow. That’s the problem when you pull your punches. The jihadists just want to pull down the modern world, and impose their own strict, unyielding theocracy on the rest of the world. Hmmm… what does Ares think of this?
The one good thing to come out of the whole mess was that Ares Macrotech was now even better positioned to dominate the market in the wake of the attacks. Many companies had lost their value on the market, leaving them ripe and open for takeovers. In his mind as he worked, Phillip slowly compiled a list of targets.
A shadow suddenly fell over him, and Phillip looked up to see Wonder Woman descend towards him. He looked around quickly. Damn, no crowd to disappear into.
“Got a minute?” She asked him. Her smile was dazzling, and Phillip found it hard to glance away for an instant.
He sighed, “Okay, sure.”

“Thank you for your help back there. You helped to save the lives of three people.” Wonder Woman said to Delacroix, trying to peer past the barrier of his cold, uncaring façade into the man underneath. Into the honorable man her heart told her existed.
“I did what anybody else would have done. No big deal.” He replied, leaning tiredly against a wall, his hands resting on his thighs.
“Into a crawlway about to collapse?” She smiled at him.
He looked at her and smiled back weakly, “I trusted you to hold it up long enough.”
I might as well come and say it , Diana thought. “Are you my enemy?”
Phillip let out a long breath, “Not now. Not yet. Not until Ares tells me I am.”
That’s good enough for me right now. Diana’s mouth curved upwards slightly, “Then since we are not enemies yet, I would like to thank you for helping me the other day at the restaurant and for saving my friends. How about dinner at my embassy? The kitchen’s not damaged, and my chef Ferdinand is a mean cook.” In more ways than one, she reminded herself, since he’s an 8 foot tall minotaur as well.
He did not reply immediately, as though thinking about it.
“Come on, Mister Delacroix. Or are you scared I’ll attack you?” She prodded with a teasing tone of voice.
He shook his head, “I thought I told you to call me Phillip?”
“So, what’s your answer?”
He sighed again helplessly, “Okay, I bite. About seven o’clock?”
“Seven is fine.” She beamed at him. “Oh, and casual wear.”
They stared at each other for a while longer before Wonder Girl suddenly appeared, landing beside them. “Diana, the workers are calling for your help.” The young woman pouted slightly, “They don’t trust me to do it right.”
Phillip raised an eyebrow, “Of course they don’t. How many such disasters have you been involved in, girl?”
Cassie frowned at his biting words.
Diana reassured her young friend. “Don’t worry, Cassie. You’ll get the hang of it. Nice talking to you, Phillip. See you tonight.” Diana leapt into the air. She tried not to laugh when she took a peek backwards to see Cassie step on Phillip’s right foot petulantly, then quickly fly off before he could react.
The supposedly dangerous minion of Ares hopped around in a pain dance while holding his foot.

“Welcome to Buenos Aires!” The airport PA system called out over the drone of airplane engines.
Gawain Sharpe shouldered his duffel bag, a slight grin on his face. He pushed his way past the throngs of people in the airport, looking for his contact.
“Over here, Mister Sharpe!” A Latino man in a shirt and Bermuda shorts called out.
“Good to see you again, Cortez. Long wait?” Gawain asked as he walked towards Fernando Cortez.
“Not really.” Cortez smiled back, and replied in accented English. “So, how is your business?” In other words, how many bounties Gawain had collected since the last time they had seen each other.
Gawain shrugged, “Quite good.” New York had been a bonanza. Gawain resisted a nasty chuckle at his good fortune in having both Tom Serra and Jake Kabrinski to hunt alongside him that night, plus the folks from Delta Force. He had earned more than thirty thousand dollars that one night from the slain assassins and terrorist leaders.
He supposed he should be more somber about the events of that night, about the innocent people killed, but in his mind, he had done his best, and so did everybody else. You do the best you can, and move on. To think of anything else was to invite madness and insanity. Tom Serra had tried to go over his past once, and it had literally killed him until he was somehow reinvented as Phillip Delacroix, something which Gawain still didn’t quite understand. But then again, Tom had killed many, many people…
“So, who are you hunting this time?” Fernando asked as he led Gawain to a waiting jeep.
Gawain shipped out a piece of paper, with some words and a picture of a Hispanic looking man. “Some fellow called Angle Man, real name Angelo Bend. The requirements are to bring him in dead or alive. Bonus for a live capture.”
“Hah!” Fernando barked back a laugh as they moved off, “Angelo Bend? That’s a funny name! Almost as funny as having Sharpe for a surname! The bendy guy versus the sharp guy!”
“Ha ha,” Gawain winced at the crude joke, “That was low, Cortez.”
“Ah… I think this will be very interesting.” Cortez stomped on the accelerator as he rounded a bend, and Gawain had to clutch at the front of the jeep to avoid falling off. “It is said that this Angle Man possesses great powers. He can travel halfway around the world with a simple twist of his hands. That he can create dimensions out of nothing.”
“Great powers or not, unless he had the gift of foresight, he still can’t stop a bullet from going through his head.” Gawain looked at the buildings on both sides of the road, “You got the stuff I need?”
“Yeah. The weapons you want are prepared. You have the money for them?”
“Of course. Five hundred US dollars in unmarked bills, as usual.”
Cortez smiled. “And as always, very good business with you, Gawain.”
They drove on for a while more before Cortez asked, “So, what makes you think you can catch this Angle Man fellow here in Argentina?”
Gawain was leaning with his right arm on the door looking at the city. “My sources informed me he has an apartment somewhere in the city suburbs. More importantly, I have reliable information that tells me he is currently working for somebody else, and that somebody else is also based in this country.”
“But you don’t know who that is.” That was a statement, not a question, and Gawain wondered if Cortez knew something he didn’t.
“All I know is a Dark-something. Odds are, his boss will probably be on some wanted list. Some third rate super-villain loonie. Should be a piece of cake and a nice bounty.”
Cortez looked intently at the road, as if afraid to look at Gawain. “These are dangerous matters you are getting into, Sharpe. I know you’re good, but you’re very much out of your depth here.”
Gawain stared at the weapon supplier. They weren’t friends, not exactly, but Gawain was always on good terms with Cortez’s gun smuggling company, and he knew the weapon supplier would be loathe to lose such a valued customer like him. “Fernando, you know something I don’t? If so, it’s a good time to speak up now.” His hands are sweating. Whatever it is has got him very scared.
“I cannot tell you, Gawain. Trust me, if you want Angelo Bend, go after him at his apartment. Do not seek out his employer. You will be destroyed.” The last few words were spoken like a promise of doom.
Gawain stared at Fernando Cortez warily, then replied, “Well, they can take their best fucking shot.” The two men fell into an uneasy silence after that.
Ten minutes later, they reached a building. Gawain stayed in the vehicle, while Cortez left to collect the weapons. Cortez came out with two large cases, and threw them onto the back of the jeep. “You want to check the merchandise?”
“No need. I trust you.” Gawain took out a wad of bills. “Your payment.”
Cortez took the money, and flipped through it with the air of an experienced dealer. Then he looked back at Gawain, “My friend, please heed my advice. There are terrible dangers around. Do not invite unnecessary trouble. Find Bend, and only Bend, and you would not have much problems.”
Gawain shook his head, “Uh uh. I didn’t think there was much to this, but sorry, you’ve now piqued my interest for real. I want to find out who Angle Man is working for.” He showed his teeth as he grinned, the eager expression of a bloodhound who had caught the scent of interesting prey and was willing to track it down no matter what.

Angelo Bend, better known to the world as Angle Man, stared at the grave he and his fellow workers had dug in the ground of Themyscira.
“Hurry up! We don’t want anybody to see us!” Angelo urged his men as they carried out the form of a corpse. Angle Man stared in amazement as he realized that even after so long, the body of the Amazon was still not decayed. The blessed soil of Themyscira would never allow such blemish on the favored daughters of the goddesses of Olympus. She looked the same in death as she had in life.
She was still so beautiful. Angelo remembered her vibrancy when she had been alive, her smile which seemed to light up everything around her. It was such a tragedy that she had died so young.
Well, that was about to be rectified.
Angle Man held up his triangle, the source of his powers, and teleported the entire group off Paradise Island with their precious cargo.

Phillip Delacroix shuffled anxiously as he stood before the door of the Themysciran embassy. He tried to ignore the big gaping hole in one side of the embassy wall fronting the road. His right foot still hurt, especially after Wonder Girl had stomped on it. At least it didn’t start bleeding again. He was feeling like a walking catalogue of injuries, with wounds in his left hand and his right foot. It had been a bad week for him.
He hoped he wasn’t underdressed. He wore a plain blue shirt with jacket, along with brown slacks. He couldn’t quite remember what Stan’s fashion consultants had said about dress codes, and hoped he didn’t look too out of place. Not for the first time, he wished he had learnt some social mores in his youth instead of how to kill in a thousand different ways.
Phillip raised a hand, and was about to knock when the door opened to reveal a young woman in T-shirt and jeans. Vanessa Kapatelis, he recalled from the dossiers Ares had kept.
He started to speak, “Uhhh, good evening. I’m…”
Vanessa smiled, “Mister Delacroix. Diana told us to expect you. Come on in!” She beckoned to Phillip as she walked into the embassy. “I’m Vanessa Kapetelis, nice to meet you!”
Her chirpy attitude made Phillip wonder if Diana had told them who he really was. Probably not. Feeling a bit awkward, not knowing what else to say, Phillip took off his jacket and hung it up on a hanger near the door.
He was about to speak again when Wonder Woman walked down the stairs. She was dressed casually as well in a loose blouse that nevertheless showed off her figure, in a manner that would make most supermodels envious.
“Good, you came.” The Princess said, as though she half expected him to turn tail and run for his life.
Phillip smiled ruefully, “I can’t pass up a free meal.”
Vanessa leaned over to Diana, and half-whispered, half-giggled something into her ear, to which Diana whispered back with a broad smile on her face. Phillip had no idea what they were talking about, but he felt very uneasy.
“Good evening, Mister Delacroix,” Doctors Julia Kapatelis and Helena Sandsmark walked down the stairs, dressed just as casually. Phillip sighed in inner relief that he had dressed appropriately.
After exchanging pleasantries, Wonder Girl came in through the front door. She still wore her red costume, and she greeted the other women with smiles and hugs, and a rather contrite greeting to Phillip.
“I scolded her a bit for stepping on your foot, “ Diana said to him as the group moved to the dining room. “How’s your hand?”
“Getting better.” Phillip showed them his bandaged left hand. “Good enough to pick up a fork, at least.”
“Mister Delacroix, where did you learn to shoot like that day at the museum and the restaurant?” Helena asked him.
Why does everybody have to ask me this? Oh well, lying through my teeth again. He stuck to the lie. “I spent my youth malingering around the world. Along the way, I learnt to shoot on a ranch in the Midwest.”
Wonder Woman turned sharply towards him, and he knew she knew he was lying. How do you lie to the goddess of truth? Answer: You can’t.

Diana knew Phillip was lying, but that didn’t mean she knew the actual truth to Helena’s question either. She guessed that he had his own share of skeletons he did not wish anybody to know.
She entered the dining room where the rest of the embassy staff were, already in their seats and carrying a light conversation. She saw Jonah McCartney sit upright suddenly in his seat when he saw Phillip Delacroix. Jonah blinked several times, then looked at her in query. Right, he was the one who suspected Phillip and Ares Macrotech to be Ares’ tools.
Diana made a small gesture with her hand, signaling ‘it’s okay’. Jonah visibly relaxed.
She introduced her staff, Jonah McCartney, Alana Dominguez, and Peter Garibaldi and his two sons Martin and Robert to Phillip, who responded politely, even though his slight unease was apparent. The staff members all looked closer at Phillip after she had introduced them, and Diana could practically guess what they were thinking.
As they took their seats, Diana added, “And we have one more member, Rachel Keist. She was wounded in the attacks, and she’s in the hospital right now.”
“Are we gong to see Rachel later?” Peter Garibaldi’s son Martin asked while sneaking another piece of garlic bread from the stacked plates on the table under his father’s disapproving eye.
Peter said, “Martin, how many times must I tell you to wait until all our guests are seated before eating?”
Diana laughed, “It’s all right. As for your question Martin, yes, we’re going to the hospital to visit Rachel after dinner.”
“I hope Miss Keist is doing well,” said Phillip.
“Oh yes.” Diana suppressed a shudder, “She was only moved out of the ICU late last night.”
Diana decided to change the topic. “Oh, I nearly forgot to tell you this, Phillip, but there’s no meat at this table. It’s all vegetarian.”
Phillip smiled wryly, “Any food is good. I’m not picky.”
From his words, Diana sensed there was a long story behind them, but she found herself hesitant to ask for it. Instead she said, “Ferdinand is an excellent cook, and when I told him I had invited you, he said he’ll whip up something special. I think you’re in for a treat today.”
Cassie blurted out, “Diana! We’re always in for a treat. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten this good back home.” The she suddenly realized the implications of her words, and covered her mouth with a hand, “Oops! Sorry mom!”
Helena laughed, “It’s okay. Ferdinand is a professional cook. Of course he’s better.”
Diana joined in the laughter, “Cassie, don’t sell your mother short. She still cooks better than I do!”
Alana tried to look shocked, “Wonder Woman, the role model for women all over the world, is a lousy cook? The horror!”
The entire table laughed, before Diana admitted, “Yes, I’m still pretty lousy at this. I’ve always wanted to learn to cook well, but I never had the time to spare.”
“Well, perhaps because there’s no incentive for you to learn.” Jonah quipped, “After all, most women cook to impress their boyfriends. Like my mum said, the way to a man’s heart is through the stomach.” Then Jonah grinned, as the heads around the table all turned to look at Phillip Delacroix, who looked as if he wanted nothing more than to shrivel in his seat and disappear from view.
Ferdinand broke the silence, entering with a massive tray with various plates stacked with food. “Dinner is here, folks!”
Diana savored Phillip’s surprise as she introduced her cook, “Phillip, this is Ferdinand, our cook. Ferdinand, Phillip Delacroix.”
She saw Phillip blink twice, and then quickly recover as he said, “Pleased to meet you, Ferdinand.” Then she saw him look and down the huge figure of the minotaur. “The myths weren’t joking.”
Ferdinand grinned, “Actually, I’m considered the runt of the litter, so to speak. You should see my brothers.” The minotaur took a place at the table, his frame making even the oversized chair creak a bit with his weight. “Then again, if I get any bigger, we’ll have to pay for a new chair.”
They all laughed.
As they ate, they kept up the conversation around the table. Most of it revolved around the gruesome attacks of two days ago, and suspicions over the responsible parties. Doctor Psycho was comatose, while many of the fanatical Islamic warriors were dead. Still, enough had survived for questioning and interrogation. The answers were fairly obvious.
It was the problem of how to avoid similar such attacks that raised the most interesting answers. Diana noticed that Cassie tended to take a more aggressive view, wanting the US to hunt down and seek out the leaders, while most of her staff wanted a more peaceful approach by working through the UN. Phillip stayed quiet throughout the discussion.
Then the topic shifted again, and Diana knew that this time Phillip would not be able to stay quiet.

It had been a relatively quiet dinner for him, since this was the first time he had actually attended something like this. The embassy staff and Diana’s friends talked to one another with ease, all enjoying the meal. As he ate, Phillip tried to ignore the aching, gaping feeling in his own heart, choosing to observe the people around him. Is this what a family dinner is?
If they were a family, then Diana was definitely the eldest sister, with Julia and Helena acting as joint matriarchs. Phillip felt out of place, as though he didn’t belong. And yet… why did he have the urge, to be drawn to their gathering, like he wished to be part of their group? To be one of them, talking and conversing with welcome familiarity?
“So, Mister Delacroix, what are you working as?” Alana Dominguez asked him in a sultry tone.
Phillip looked at the faces around the table, and slowly swallowed the morsel of food in his mouth. They all looked at him expectantly, though he knew Diana already knew, and from the prior hints of body language, Jonah McCartney and Julia Kapetalis.
This was not going to be easy. “I’m the owner and CEO of Ares Macrotech.”
The word ‘Ares’ had everybody suddenly blinking. Alana had dropped the utensils in her hands on her plate in shock, the tinkling sound especially loud in the acute silence after his reply.
Might as well twist the knife in. “And before anybody asks about my company’s name, yes, I work for the God of War, Lord Ares himself. You might not believe me, but the perks are great.”
Diana somehow knew just what to say, “And if a minion of Ares can sit at our table and discuss matters without resorting to violence, then I say my efforts to promote peace must be working.” She then smiled at Phillip, and he got the distinct impression of being hunted. “Besides, I’m interested in what Lord Ares had planned.” She had somehow brought up her golden lasso, and was twirling it around her fingers.
Phillip gulped, “Uhm, would it help if I say I don’t really know what Ares has planned?”
“Relax, this is not an interrogation. I invited you over for dinner, after all.” She smiled sweetly at him, “And there are others ways to make you talk in the future.”
He rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously, “I believe this is not the right time or setting.” The other people around the table were sitting in stunned silence at Wonder Woman’s innuendo. She had always seemed so prim and proper, and Phillip knew her words and actions had been a real surprise to everybody, including himself.
To tell the truth, he was almost scared out of his wits by her behavior. It wasn’t the fear of dying, of losing, but rather a fear of the unknown for him. He had never opened up to anybody, certainly not romantically. His quasi-friendship with Jake and Gawain were the result of comrades bound by blood, pain and war. The past few days with Veronica Cale and Diana both frightened and exhilarated him, as though some forgotten, hidden part of him was finally being unlocked.
Part of him loved it. Part of him hated it.
He stared at Diana while she stared back at him, and he could drown his self, his very soul, into her compassionate eyes.

“Princess!” The sudden sound jerked everyone from their intent observation between the blond man and the Amazon Princess.
Vanessa was disappointed. The attraction between Phillip and Diana was so obvious even a blind man could see it.
She had pegged Phillip Delacroix as a possible love interest for Diana the moment she opened the door of the embassy. Blond, tall, and dashingly good looking with a cool, contemplative air that made women swoon, like that night at the museum when one gorgeous woman after another had practically thrown themselves at him, only to be rejected out of hand. Even Cassie had been awed when he had disabled the robber by shooting through his own hand. Looks, brains, brawn, and plenty of guts in a single package. Looks like Diana has hit the jackpot. Yes!
Then he had revealed that he was working for Ares. That put a dampener on things, though Vanessa suspected Diana wasn’t concerned in the least. She even seemed as though she welcomed the challenge.
It helped that Phillip didn’t act at all like a typical bad guy. In fact, Vanessa wasn’t even sure he was a bad guy at all from the way he was acting and the stuff she had seen him do. He had also saved her mom, so Vanessa thought he deserved some slack.
The young woman watched in surprise as she saw Artemis and Io enter the dining hall, their faces stony, as though something terrible had happened. They must have came from Themyscira through the portal.
“Artemis, Io, is something wrong?” Diana stood up from her chair.
Artemis stopped in front of Diana and took a deep breath. Vanessa saw Diana stiffen and brace herself for the bad news.
Artemis spoke, her voice full of rage, “Somebody has intruded upon our island… and stolen your sister Donna Troy’s body.”
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The Games that Gods Play