Female heroes could cut through an army without a guide. Thea and Diana dressed casually, arm in arm, wandering out together.
"Feeling better?" Diana asked. They stepped into a café, each ordering a coffee.
"More or less. Still a little off." Only Diana knew Thea's current condition. Driving Darkseid back had not been a small thing — burning through a colossal amount of divine power in a short span left a real weight on both her spirit and her mind.
That was why she had been moving through the days in a fog. She simply had no mental energy left for anything extra.
The Sea of Souls had a "DO NOT ENTER" sign posted at its gate. It wasn't a joke — she was just too drained, in body and mind, to go back in.
Darkseid's divine energy had certainly left residue in that sea. For now, she could only set it aside. As for the people of Earth who were apparently terrified of no one and seemed convinced the sea held some great secret worth charging into — let them. She had bigger things to worry about.
The clash with Darkseid had also let some dark divine power seep into her. But because she had her own understanding of the dark domain, given enough time she could purge the contamination on her own. Otherwise it would have eaten into her very core.
"How long do you think it'll take Darkseid to recover?"
The question caught Thea off guard — she genuinely hadn't worked it out in precise terms. She lifted her coffee cup and took a sip. The warmth traveled down her throat and settled into her stomach, comforting and steady.
"Well... I'm in the process of dissolving the dark divine power. His avatar holds more soul-energy than mine. If he doesn't want to abandon that portion of power, he has to dissolve my soul-energy before he can reintegrate. Theoretically, I'd say two years. His methods outclass mine due to his higher level, so that process might be shorter — but refilling his reserves after reclaiming all his power? I'd estimate three years at the absolute minimum."
"Three years..." Diana went quiet for a moment. She had given everything in that battle. And yet the damage she'd dealt was painfully little. The gap between her and the Dark Lord was simply too wide.
Thea reached over and took her hand. "Don't worry. I'll be back to full strength in six months, and Highfather will recover most of his as well. Even if Darkseid shows up in his true body next time, we'll have a real shot at winning."
"Alright. I believe you." Diana put on a determined look, but Thea could see it was partly forced. There was nothing she could really say to that. In this world, the only being who could grow without limit was Superman — spend tens of thousands of years soaking in the sun and come out absolutely invincible. That was a genuine chosen-one destiny, unique to him. No one else, god or mortal, had that kind of potential.
For Thea and Diana, the road ahead was already mapped. Their ceiling was stacking divine domains — reach Darkseid's level of accumulation, and that counted as a major milestone. What came after that was anyone's guess.
The problem was that divine domains didn't stack freely. Every position was already spoken for, and the ones best suited to Diana were almost all held by Highfather. Unless she killed Highfather, taking another step forward was going to be nearly impossible.
As for having Diana study the Primordial Shadow... that was completely out of the question. Setting aside whether she even could, if she did, it would fundamentally change who she was. Diana's warmth — that sunlit, open quality of hers — was what kept Thea anchored to herself. Without it, Thea would sink into the dark. The day that happened, she didn't even want to imagine it. Two dark queens rampaging across the Earth, marching on Apokolips and Oa, slaughtering every New God and Old God until the universe reverted to nothing. Very powerful, yes. Also absolutely horrifying.
Diana's warmth was the single most important thing keeping Thea's heart in the right place. The Primordial Shadow could never reach her.
"Want to go to the beach? Sit in the sun for a bit?" She could feel the mood getting heavy and offered a change of scenery.
Diana had no strong objection. It was only when they were almost at the sand that they realized neither of them had brought a swimsuit.
Amazon customs traced back to ancient Greece. Diana had grown up on Paradise Island surrounded entirely by women — the concept of a swimsuit simply hadn't existed in her world back then. A century among humans had softened some habits, but she still found swimsuits more trouble than they were worth.
Thea wasn't quite so unbothered. With Secretary Mercy on leave — almost certainly dealing with some Luthor-related fallout — she'd been managing without her assistant for two days. It showed. She was forgetful and scatterbrained, not quite herself. She dug through her travel bag from her ring's storage space for a solid few minutes and came up empty.
Fine. They'd just buy them.
Every shop here was run by a woman, staffed by women — and practically none of them failed to recognize Thea. They picked out a few pieces in their respective sizes and headed to the fitting rooms.
Diana's choice matched her personality: bold and unapologetic. Fiery red, exposing a taut and smooth midriff, thin straps looping over the shoulders and tying at the back of the neck, her hair pulled into a high ponytail.
Thea grabbed something at random. When she put it on, she had to laugh — classic black and white split down the center, left side white, right side black. A single strap tied at the back. Neither over-the-top nor plain, clean and sharp without trying too hard. She wasn't planning on going in the water anyway, so she left her hair down.
They put on their sunglasses, grabbed two beach chairs, and stretched out.
Sunscreen? Completely unnecessary. Diana had spent millennia running wild on Paradise Island and had never once touched the stuff. A hundred years among humans hadn't changed that habit. As for Thea — her body simply absorbed sunlight naturally, so the concern didn't apply to her either.
They weren't alone on the beach. A few water-adjacent heroines had already claimed their own patch of sand.
Mera — who could control water — along with Caitlin Snow (Killer Frost) and the ice-wielder Dora were sparring seriously nearby.
Thea glanced over idly, and something caught her attention. From an energy perspective, Dora read almost like a spellcaster — but her method of channeling was entirely bloodline-based. She had the innate ability to command and generate ice, and at full power her eyes glowed white, weather bent to her will, and she could whip up a full blizzard.
Ice arrows, ice walls, ice storms — all three women played with cold the way most people handled breath. Effortless.
Queen of Atlantis, human scientist, descendant of a Norse royal line. Their abilities were similar, their combat strength roughly matched. Waves and frost swapped between them, traded, converted — and in watching each other's different approaches to the same elemental force, even if they couldn't replicate the techniques, they could still pick up useful ideas. A few exchanges and everyone leveled up a little.
Thea watched for a few seconds and stopped. Their strength was solid — but it stayed at solid. She raised a hand and threw up a barrier to block the chill drifting her way, then let the warm light settle over her as she drifted off to sleep.
She didn't know how long she was out. A shout pulled her back.
"Faster! Come on!" That frantic energy could only be Felicity.
"Go, Mera!" A voice with a slight accent — probably Ya'Wara, one of Aquaman's Atlantean companions.
A few others were watching too, cheering on the sidelines.
Thea pushed the sun hat off her face and looked over, then broke into a grin. Several heroines were hollering from the shore — and out in the water, Diana and Mera were racing.