[Location:

Themyscira

Main island: Cliffside

June 1943]

(POV Diana)

Here I am, once again gazing into the horizon from this cliff. Something which I seem to find myself doing with increasing frequency these past few years. I remember this being the spot Thara used to stay when she first arrived. Back then, I would accompany her as both a way to sate my curiosity and desires. After all, she was the first non-Amazonian I had ever met, I was deeply interested in what stories she might have to tell about the outside world. Well, in her case the greater universe at large. While also trying to be someone she could open up to in her mourning.

Standing here again, I reminisce about the last few years. Ever since she showed up things had gotten a lot more lively, and I was genuinely happy to finally have someone to befriend my own age on the island. It took a while, but I finally got her to speak with me more than begrudgingly. It took even longer before she finally started opening up to me. Sharing some of her burdens with me and speaking more about her life before finding her way to the island.

I knew from my mother that she had been through some ordeals before joining the sisterhood, but the truth was far more than my younger self was capable of dealing with. I did not know how to comfort someone who's entire race was exterminated by their own hubris. I couldn't even begin to imagine the death of all the inhabitants of the island.

To us amazons, death is not to be feared. There is honor in a good death and such we honor our fallen warriors as they pass on to the next world. But it is completely different to honor the fall of everyone you've ever known and loved, however.

It was after finding this out that I began seeking counsel with my mother, seeking aid in how to better help my new charge. She was to be my responsibility, my sister now, and I would ensure she could live a happy life from now on. Mother's only advice was to be myself and continue being her friend and sister. It was not advice I was happy with, but I continued to do so regardless of my mother's words. So I began to keep a closer eye on her so that I might better help in her time of need.

I had noticed things about her during the time it took for her to open up to me on her own. There were times she thought no one was looking, that I could see her staring off into the distance. At first, I thought she was just reminiscing about her people. But I noticed the look in her eyes to be one of recognition and fear. As if she was looking at someone or something instead of what was actually in front of her.

It only strengthened my suspicions when I would catch her at certain times. She would appear to be talking to herself. She looked remorseful, scared, angry, and a whole slew of other emotions that my younger self could not identify. I genuinely worried for her.

She would train unendingly day and night. Training would have usually been praised by others on the island, if not for the fact that she looked possessed while doing so. She trained with a vengeance, like she was trying to overcome something no one else saw.

Aside from the forced school lessons on the island, she would interact minimally with the other girls. Aside from myself and strangely enough Io, our resident mechanic she would speak with very few in her first years on the island.

The others didn't ignore her or such but they did start keeping their distance since even for we amazons there is only so much training any of us want to do. Even for me, though I always accompanied her when she asked like a dutiful sister and guardian.

Things finally came to a head when she defeated me for the first time. Over the years she had awakened new abilities. The first being the improvements to her eyes, her heat vision, and x-ray vision as she called it. Allowing her to fire concussive beams of pure energy out of her eyes and see through anything, respectively. She managed to defeat me with a surprise blast to the chest while I was mid-air. It seemed to come as a shock to her as well because she stared blankly for quite sometime before the most captivating smile graced her pretty face.

She also cried a little while I was getting even more worried. After calming down she explained to me it was conclusive proof that she was growing stronger that she could defeat me in combat. I only thought her slightly foolish that she believed she wasn't strong before this, as even on the island, the only ones able to directly contend against her were General Antiope and myself. Mother had never fought her, but I'm sure she would have given her a tough challenge.

After that victory, she toned down her training a little, so we were all thankful for that fact. My sister hits very hard and a lot of her blows leave bruises. Well, to say she was cutting back on her training is a bit of a stretch. She instead started focusing on other areas. Apparently she is also a capable sorceress, which surprised me as in none of our spars thus far had she used any magic. She explained to me it was because most of the spells she knew were supplementary in nature and weren't suited for direct combat.

And any spells she knew that were useful for combat took too long to cast due to her inexperience. From that point on, she focused a bit of her time on magic. Apparently her family left her quite the inheritance, so she mostly studied on her own. She even started teaching some other interested girls on the island a few spells. It was at this point that she started to open up a bit more to those around her.

I was glad she started making more friends, even though I was a little jealous, though I didn't know why. I should be happy she was making more friends, but I felt lonely since we didn't spend as much time together. But whenever I was feeling lonely, as if she knew, she would always come to spend time with me afterward.

But, despite her improved mood, I could still tell she was unwell. Her eyes still followed something not there, and sometimes she would awake in the middle of the night to train fiercely for no apparent reason. 

I would join her at those times and then we would sit together on training grounds awaiting the sunrise. It was truly peaceful. Although I constantly worried about her, I had never been happier. But my growing curiosity for the outside world also never waned. I chose not to ask Thara much about her world since even all these years later it still seemed to be a touchy subject for her, but what she did share only fascinated me more.

I'm not sure when but one day I would love to leave this island and see the rest of the world. Even if I can't go to man's world I would at least like to see beyond this planet one day. Thara plans to revisit Kryptonian space one day to see what became of the planet with her own eyes, and I talked her into letting me come along.

Now the only problem is getting Mother to agree. She still sees me as a child which I guess is true compared to her and some of the other thousand year old amazons, but I'm at least considered an adult on Krypton. Not sure how much that counts for but If I'm to visit the planet, I would imagine it does for something.

Until then, I do hope something interesting happens soon. Thara seems to be cooped up with Io again doing something with her ship and I have no experience in that area. We were supposed to meet in an hour or so, but knowing how Io gets she'll probably be a little late. Maybe I should go for a swim?

As I was considering doing just that I couldn't help but notice a strange sound enter my ears. It's nothing like I had ever heard before. A strange whirling maybe? Buzzing? I looked and I can see a strange smoking vessel enter the barrier surrounding the island and crash into the ocean.

"It seems I'll get both my wishes after all," I muttered before jumping off the cliff into the cool waters under me, going for that swim I wanted.

###

(POV Steve)

'Well, this just went from bad to worse.' I thought as the biplane snapped in half after being front-loaded with water after the crash. To make matters worse, the eject is jammed. I was going to drown at this rate. I tried to use my enhanced strength to snap the mechanism in half, but I can barely grab a hold of it with both hands while it's under my legs like this.

If I make it out of this, I'm definitely going to give Howard some advice on emergency safety precautions. The man is a genius, so I know he'll be able to come up with something. But that's for later, kinda drowning right now.

I was about to grab the new shield on my back when I noticed a shadow peek out from over me. Thanks to the serum I could hold my breath for a long period of time but even I was starting to think I might be hallucinating from the lack of oxygen when I saw a mermaid appear in front of me.

Yea, I must be hallucinating since I just saw a mermaid bend, no snap metal in half with her bare hands, freeing me in the process. She then put her arm under mine and began swimming towards the surface.

After resurfacing I gasped a breath of fresh air as she began swimming us both to shore on the island I was sure wasn't here nor in any of the charts before. After being beached and sucking in as much air as I could I turn to thank the strange mermaid lady for saving me, only to notice first, she's standing and she has legs. So probably not a mermaid?

Second, she is by far one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen in my life. I was still planning on asking Bucky how I should go about asking Agent Carter for a date, but had I not been so smitten with her I might have fallen for this woman in an instant.

Standing at 6'0 feet tall, long black hair braided and tied in a ponytail she's an absolute beauty. She's also wearing some kind of medieval armor I think? She was also looking at me like I was one of the most interesting things she had ever seen in her life. I still wanted to thank her but the only thing I managed was a weird,

"Wow." I never was the best with girls. After the serum, I was a lot more confident and a lot of women started approaching me but this will still take some time getting used to.

"You're a man," she said like more of a statement than a question then chuckled a little. Almost like she couldn't believe her own words.

"Yea, I am. Do I not look like one?" I joked a little since it seems like she was in a playful mood.

"Where are we?" I decided to ask. I couldn't imagine she lived here alone so we must be near some uncharted territory or I suck at navigating far more than I thought.

"Themyscira." 'Themawhat?' I wanted to ask back to her response but before I could we both looked up to the sky after hearing a whistling sound right before a crash landed in the sand not too far from us. I was about to grab my shield to protect us from what I thought might be an artillery shell, but the melodious voice that followed made me halt my actions.

"Diana! Are you alright? I heard some strange noise coming from over here and I didn't see you at the cliff." After the dust cleared, I could see the next most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I'm really starting to wonder if I'm really not in the process of drowning right now and my head isn't just playing tricks on me.

A drop dead gorgeous 5'7 woman came out of the dust. Wavy Blonde hair with black highlights and the most mesmerizing crystal blue eyes I had ever seen. She wore similar armor to the first woman, whose name must be Diana if I heard correctly, with the only exception being its color scheme and the giant red S displayed in the center of her chest. I was at a loss for words before this new woman turned to me with evident confusion and suspicion on her face.

"Who are you?" She asked and I only just now realized I had yet to even introduce or properly thank my saviors. Normally I don't need to say my name since people usually recognize the red white and blue suit at first glance. It has been a while since I've met someone who didn't know me. I also failed to comment on the woman who just dropped from the sky but I can worry about that in a bit.

"Sorry, my name is Steve. Steve Rogers"

I wouldn't realize it until many years later but this was the first meeting of the founders of the world's strongest superhero team.