End: Wonder Woman's Scream

It cut through the reporter's heart, which froze still for a moment...and then set it race faster than before. Lois Lane pushed through the pain as she pulled herself stiffly to her feet. Her stomach churned and flipped, tasted vomit and swallowed it back down. Though her legs didn't want to work right, and her steps were stiff and mechanical, the reporter lurched toward the door, her swollen, sore abdomen preceding her like the prow of a ship.

Diana's scream caused her to keep on the move. Even as shooting pains stabbed down her legs, and a wet trickle of something slid down her thighs. Bare feet on the hard floor, and Lois had to lean against the wall, able to breathe only in shallow gasps. She had never been in this much pain, not even during her worst period.

Yet she was sure that it was Wonder Woman. The voice, that she had last heard in a lusty whisper, was impossible for the reporter to mistake...and it was in more pain than Lois was in.

Doorway. Hallway. Somewhat familiar: cement, fluorescents overhead, graffiti on the walls. A cackle of laughter, and the scream rose in pitch for a moment.

Lois Lane's hips clicked ominously as she made her slow way down the hall. A dozen feet she should have covered in as many strides and it seemed to take forever. The reporter pushed herself, sweat dripping down her naked body beneath the robe, heart a-flutter, stomach unsettled.

Carefully, the reporter peeked around the open doorway.

It was the other end of the hall from the shrine. Lois could actually see the shrine in the distance, and frowned. She wasn't sure how she had gotten here...but then, she had been **** for a while. Robed figures were laid out, ****; the place looked like a battlefield where the cultists had lost...but not a dozen feet away, the battle was still being fought.

Diana was losing.

She had reclaimed her costume: the star-spangled shorts, the golden bustier, the tiara and bracelets. Yet she was also on her knees, her hands grasped white-knuckled around the crimson forearms of her foe, whose thumb-talons were slowly pressing into the Amazon's eyelids. Lois could see trickles of blood flow Diana's cheeks, like crimson tears.

Her opponent was tall, thin. Skin like fresh blood on parchment, though torn here and there, the cuts wept black blood, and the face was marred by deep purple bruises. Dark horns curled up from a brow set above pure white eyes without pupil or iris, that seemed to glow and spark. Black hair cascaded down to her shoulders like a lion's mane. Tattered remnants of an orange tunic kept her body barely decent, and what Lois could see of the slim, feminine body looked almost inhuman—like a human built on the scale of a greyhound. Impossibly thin, bony, hard and muscled, with a waspish waist and small breasts. No spare fat or curves.

Between Lois and the couple locked in combat was a golden metal strand.

The Lasso of Truth.

The claws dug into Wonder Woman's face. Blood streamed down from ten holes. Lois lurched forward. No walls, now. Her hands were on her swollen stomach, legs still didn't want to work right, but she pushed forward, lifted her legs over ****, broken bodies. The reporter got a glimpse of their faces—they might have been human, once. But something was pushing out from within. Horns, spikes that distorted the flesh, broke through. People in the process of becoming...something else.

"Hurr?" The demon sniffed loudly. Turned her head. Lois paused, the nausea suddenly increased. Her weak legs collapsed beneath her, and she landed hard on her knees. Bit back vomit. One hand on her distended abdomen, the other...the other landed on the golden rope.

"Lois Lane," the voice had a strange accent, emphasis on all the wrong syllables. It grated on the reporter's ear. "I had lost track of you for a little while. No matter. Now you can witness as I crush this bitch's skull and eat her living brain."

The reporter's hand closed on the golden strand. It writhed and glowed in her grasp.

No catchy one-liner from Lois Lane. The pain was building in her stomach. She whipped her arm back...and the golden rope moved like a living thing, aglow with power, bright afterimages on the reporter's retina as she swirled it once about her head...it had already formed a lasso...and Lois raised one knee so that she could bring her body up and cast it...

If the demon Blaze had not had both hands occupied in her attempt to mutilate Wonder Woman, she could have easily caught the golden loop that settled on he head limply like a drunken halo. The demon shook her head to dislodge it from her horns...and with both hands, Lois Lane pulled the golden line taut about that throat, her elbow digging into the rope to draw in the excess line.

"Let her go!" Lois ordered.

A tiny distraction. Not enough to even cut off Blaze's air. Not enough magic to truly compel Blaze. Yet the demon loosened her grip...just a little.

Wonder Woman stood up. To Lois Lane, it looked like the Amazon simply spread her arms as wide apart as she could.

Blaze's arms were ripped out of their sockets, black blood sprayed out in twin fountains as the arteries were severed. The Amazon dropped the arms and grabbed Blaze's horns...

There was a crack and crunch as the vertebrae snapped. Blaze's body fell backwards...face-first.

Diana panted...and then she was at the reporter's side, arms wrapped around her.

"Are you all right?" The Amazon said.

"Great Caesar's ghost!" Lois stared in awe at the demon's corpse. "That was like something out of Mortal Kombat."

"She is not mortal," Diana said gravely. "This physical form is destroyed, but her spirit will return, I fear."

Lois shook her head. "It's...a reference. To a video game. No video games on Themyscira, I guess."

"Mother allowed me to introduce Pong. It was not a great success."

The reporter chuckled. Wonder Woman slid a hand under her legs and effortlessly lifted Lois up into her arms.

"I can walk," Lois said.

"In your condition, I'm amazed you can move!" Diana said. The Amazon's tugged at the lasso; it came free from the demon's neck like a living thing, and slithered up to arrange itself in a coil in her hand.

"What is my condition, anyway?" Lois said. She winced as she put a hand against her distended belly.

"Let's put it this way," Wonder Woman said as she carried Lois away. "I hope you want a big family."