The figure who had just landed turned her head slightly. Brilliant eyes framed a timeless, classical face; the elegant lines only made her high nose bridge and soft red lips more striking.
Her dark wavy hair fell over her shoulders exactly as Thea remembered — from roasting boar together on Themyscira, to dancing under the moon in a quiet Belgian village, to the long century of separation that followed.
"Diana Prince."
"Thea Queen."
Neither finished her sentence.
The moment their eyes met, they closed the remaining distance — a kiss filled with everything left unsaid: the grief of parting, the joy of reunion, and a love that had never faded despite a hundred years apart.
"…Pft—"
Batman, who had been tightening something with a power drill nearby, actually froze. For a man who could remain calm while a city collapsed, this was apparently the limit — the drill slipped and jabbed straight into his armored thigh. Thankfully, the suit was tough enough to spare him an embarrassing trip to the ER.
Thea and Diana didn't linger long. There was too much happening, too many things to say — but right now was not the time.
"What is that thing?"
Diana's eyes narrowed as she stared at the monstrous, smoke-wreathed form of Parallax. The creature thrashed wildly, raw yellow energy pulsing like a storm.
Seeing she couldn't hide anything from Diana, Thea gave her a quick rundown — what Parallax was, where it came from, and why it was here.
"The embodiment of fear?"
Diana clenched her fists.
"I don't fear anything."
Thea nodded vigorously.
Of course she didn't — not after Themyscira was restored and no longer haunted by the losses of the past. Diana was very nearly incapable of fear at this point.
"Then who's the big guy fighting it? I didn't know Earth had someone that strong."
The "big guy," naturally, was Clark Kent.
Parallax, cunning as ever, had taken advantage of the chaotic battlefield — even blasting several fighter jets. One pilot managed to eject in time; the others… not so lucky.
Thea remembered something from the original timeline — Superman and Diana once had a hint of unresolved "tension."
She decided to kill that line of thought immediately.
With a subtle sound-proofing spell to block Clark's super-hearing, Thea leaned in and whispered:
"He's an alien."
Diana's expression dropped a full two levels.
The Amazon had spent decades fighting invaders from other worlds. Her goodwill toward aliens was below zero by default.
Sure, Clark looked like a "good" alien — but the seed of distance was planted instantly.
Thea watched the battlefield. Clark held the upper hand, but Parallax kept dragging unconscious civilians into the line of fire, forcing Superman to pull his punches.
"I'll help him."
Diana drew a sword similar to her Godkiller blade, raised her shield, and launched forward in a blur.
Thea couldn't help watching for a moment — and quickly realized Diana had grown terrifyingly strong.
If in the old days Thea lost more fights than she won against Diana… now she wouldn't even see a chance to win.
Superman's combat style?
Brute-force American bar-fight philosophy:
throw a punch, take a punch, repeat until someone stops moving.
Diana's style was the complete opposite — fluid, precise, adaptive, every move branching into multiple possibilities. Her silver bracers flashed with divine power, each surge cracking through Parallax's smoky defenses.
"She's incredible… Guess I need to train harder…"
Thea muttered.
"That woman… is your friend? And what's with this darkness? Everyone's affected."
Batman appeared beside her, holding a massive experimental cannon with a barrel the size of a soup bowl and sparks arcing around the power coil.
Thea glanced at it — zero idea what the hell it was supposed to do.
"Yeah. Old friend."
She pointed upward.
"And that's magic. I mentioned I had some, remember?"
Batman squinted at the sky.
"The moon's still in its orbit… so where did that moon come from?"
Thea ignored him.
She recharged her Yellow Lantern ring — she couldn't exactly conjure Ares in front of Diana, but she had another option.
Horus, the Sky God.
A gigantic falcon — over fifty meters long, wingspan stretching nearly three hundred — materialized above the battlefield, the right eye glowing with the unmistakable light of the Eye of Horus.
Thea merged with the avatar in a streak of yellow-gold light, diving down on Parallax like a divine spear.
The talons—sharp as hooked blades—ripped into Parallax's smoky form, tearing energy loose before she shot upward again for another dive.
With her and Diana joining in, Superman finally got some breathing room.
He glanced back several times — Thea's constructs looked familiar enough (green except… well… yellow), but Diana—
Diana was terrifying.
Superman didn't fully understand his own fluctuating power levels; he just felt "strong." He barely noticed Thea's anti-male enchantment shaving off a chunk of his strength.
But Diana?
She was hitting harder now — easily three levels above her earlier state.
To Clark, who measured strength by feel rather than numbers, it suddenly seemed like this Amazon warrior was on par with him.
And as Batman's "close colleague," Superman had just enough pride not to let two women finish the fight while he watched.
He dug in, pushing harder.
His strength climbed by the second — Parallax's form began to shrink, its smoky mass being hammered apart from three sides.
"Green Lantern! Use your chains! Give them an opening!"
Thea shouted to Hal Jordan — who at that moment was happily blasting Parallax with a giant AA turret construct like he was at a carnival game.
Teamwork, apparently, was optional in his mind.