End: Warp Chamber

The door swung inwards...and Lois Lane's first inkling of something wrong came with the **** with which it did so. It nearly ripped her arm off, and sent the front-heavy reporter to topple forwards...into a chaotic whirlpool of colors, a seething maelstrom of unknown energies.

At the last moment, Lois Lane grabbed onto the frame of the door...and she hung there, feet planted firmly, in a white-knuckle grip on the wood. Air streamed past Lois as it was sucked into the warp chamber, her hair flew freely...and her breasts, aching and swollen with milk, suddenly let go, the golden-white droplets formed and spun into the abyss before her.

Sudden maternal fear struck the pregnant reporter. The need to protect her babies...both of them. Even though one was her own mother and the other was the demon Blaze, and logically she had only been pregnant for an exceedingly brief period of time, right then and there Lois knew she would die for her babies. It was a primal instinct, and as her feet slowly slid toward the yawning portal, Lois grit her teeth and pulled back...back from the almost hypnotic swirl.

The reporter could not tell how long that struggle lasted. It felt like hours, but it could have been minutes. The pull of the warp chamber was constant, and try as she might, Lois could feel that her poor muscles were not up to the task of pulling her away. Perhaps if she wasn't pregnant...if she wasn't burdened with this massive belly and spurting breasts...she could have swung herself out of the way. But now, it was all she could do to hang on...and pray.

It was a wordless prayer. Lois Lane had never been a good Christian girl; had never really felt the faith that so many people had in some invisible sky-father. She believed what she could see and hear, smell and taste and feel with her own senses...and Lois had conducted enough interviews to know even human senses and memories were fragile, treacherous things...

Yet right then and there, with the lives of her children on the line, Lois Lane took a leap of faith...and perhaps something, or someone, heard her. For it felt as though a great invisible hand grabbed ahold of the reporter's legs and pulled her into the portal...into the flashing tumult of light...

...and a moment later, Lois Lane landed with a splash.

She tasted salt water, blood-warm. Buoyed in the water, the naked reporter kicked her legs and broke the surface, gasped for air.

A Mediterranean sun beat down upon the azure waters. A white sand beach stretched out before a rocky island, hints of marble buildings in the ancient Greek style peeked through the foliage. Naked women were on the beach, their sun-bronzed bodies sweaty as they hit each other with long poles... Lois Lane spat brine and tread water for a moment as the tide caused her to bob nearer the shore.

They saw her. The tallest of them, black hair streaming from beneath her golden tiara, turned and ran. She leapt into the water and cut through it like a missile...and Lois Lane knew her name before she even reached her.

"Wonder Woman!" The pregnant reporter gasped.

Full, generous lips spread in a wide and genuine smile, to show perfect white teeth. The eyes laughed.

"Lois Lane, I presume?" The Amazon swam closer, her hand found the reporter's waist...and her eyes widened in realization.

"It's been a long night," Lois Lane said. "Help me get to shore? And, uh...how are Amazonian midwives?"

"The priestesses of Hera, Aphrodite, and Hestia are the best doctors of women in the world..." Wonder Woman said. With ridiculous ease, she wrapped one arm around Lois, and used her legs and free arm to guide them back to shore where the other naked warrior-women watched and waited. "...but if they are boy-children..."

"They're both girls," Lois said. "Trust me. I'll explain everything..."

...and Lois Lane did regale the princess of the Amazons with the whole tale of her night out. While she told it, her hand rested on her massively swollen stomach, and she wondered to herself at the choices she had made, that had brought her to this point...and what might have happened, if things had gone a little differently.