Chapter 4: Climax
The sharp, medicinal smell of ammonia capsules cut through the fog. Diana gagged, her head snapping back as her cornerman, Steve Trevor, waved the vial under her broken nose. His face, usually so assured, was pale granite.
“Diana. Look at me.” His voice was low, urgent, a command trying to pierce the haze of pain and humiliation. “You don’t have to go out there. Just say the word. This isn’t worth it.”
Her vision swam, settling on his concerned eyes. Behind him, the blurred crowd was a roaring, hungry monster. Her body was a cathedral of aches—a throbbing pulse in her jaw, a sharp stitch in her ribs with every breath, a deep, sickening throb between her legs that had nothing to do with punches. The taste of TT, salty and sour, was still on her tongue. The memory of the ropes biting into her wrists was a brand on her psyche.
She pushed his hand away. “I finish my fights, Steve.” The words were slurred, her lip split and swelling.
“This isn’t a fight anymore,” he hissed, dabbing at the cut over her eye with a greasy, stinging vaseline. “It’s a public execution. She’s breaking you in ways the ring doesn’t account for.”
The bell clanged, a death knell.
ANOTHER ROUND, ANOTHER BEATING, WONDER WOMAN LIFTED HER GLOVES, BARELY ABLE TO STAND. The world tilted. She willed her legs to move, each step a monumental effort of will over failing muscle. The canvas felt like quicksand. Across the ring, Tiny Terror was a coiled spring of energy, grinning, bouncing on the balls of her feet. She wasn’t even sweating.
“Missed me, Princess?” TT chirped as Diana lumbered forward, a slow, heavy target.
Diana threw a jab. It was slow, telegraphed, a pathetic shadow of her Amazonian speed. TT slipped it with contemptuous ease, a small, ugly laugh escaping her as she came inside.
The punches weren’t knockout blows. They were precise, surgical tools of dismantling. A short, brutal hook to the same tenderized spot on Diana’s ribs. A stiff right that snapped her head back and reopened the cut on her cheekbone, sending a fresh trickle of warm blood down her face. Diana’s guard was sagging, her arms made of lead.
“Where’s all that righteous fury?” TT whispered, dancing around her, a hornet stinging a wounded bear. “Used it all up earlier, huh? On your back?”
Diana tried to summon the anger, the warrior’s pride. But all she found was a hollow, sickening shame. Every cheer from the crowd for TT felt like a slap. She was a spectacle. A joke.
Steve’s voice from the corner was a distant echo. “Move! Diana, move your feet!”
But she couldn’t. She was anchored in place, a statue of defeat. TT feinted low, then drove a punishing uppercut into Diana’s solar plexus. All the air left Diana’s lungs in a pained, silent gasp. She doubled over, gloves touching her knees, world reduced to a desperate, wheezing struggle for breath.
The referee stepped in, giving her a cursory eight-count. As he wiped her gloves, his eyes held a pity that was worse than TT’s hatred. “You wanna continue?” he muttered, not meeting her gaze.
Diana straightened, her breath a ragged scrape. She gave a single, stiff nod.
The rest of the round was a blur of pain. TT was everywhere, a small, tattooed demon. A jab to the nose. A cross to the temple. Diana’s world narrowed to the metronome of impacts, the jarring of her bones, the copper taste in her mouth. The bell saved her from going down again. She stumbled back to her corner, collapsing onto the stool so hard it groaned.
Steve didn’t bother with advice. He just worked, pressing an ice-cold enswell against the swelling around her eye, his jaw clenched tight. “Last round,” he said, his voice hollow. “Just survive it. That’s all. Just make it to the bell.”
The final bell rang. Diana rose. It felt like lifting the world. Her body screamed in protest, every muscle fiber burning, every bruise shrieking. TT met her in the center, no taunts now, just cold, professional lethality. She knew she’d won. This was just the finale.
It was a masterclass in cruelty. TT boxed, using her speed, peppering Diana’s face with sharp, stinging shots that snapped her head back again and again. Diana’s punches were wild, heavy swings that cut through empty air, leaving her off-balance and exposed.
With thirty seconds left, TT saw it. The microscopic drop of Diana’s right hand. A flicker of exhausted hope that the end was near.
TT exploded forward. She ducked under a lumbering hook and planted a perfect, devastating left hook to Diana’s liver.
The pain was incandescent. It wasn’t a surface hurt; it was a deep, internal detonation that short-circuited Diana’s entire nervous system. Her legs buckled. A guttural, helpless sound tore from her throat as she dropped to one knee, gloves clutching her side, eyes squeezed shut against the white-hot agony.
The count started over her.
She heard it as if from underwater. “…four…five…six…”
She tried to push herself up. Her arms trembled violently, useless. The will was there, a dying ember, but the body was gone. It had been used up, broken, taken.
“…seven…eight…nine…ten!”
The roar of the crowd was immediate, deafening. It washed over her like a physical wave. The referee grabbed TT’s wrist, thrusting her small, tattooed arm into the air. The victor.
Diana remained on her knees, head bowed, the world reduced to the spot of canvas beneath her. The pain in her side was a nova. The deeper shame was a void, consuming her. Steve was there suddenly, his arm around her, hauling her up. She leaned into him, her weight almost pulling them both down. She couldn’t look at him.
Across the ring, Tiny Terror was soaking in the adulation, blowing kisses to the crowd. She caught Diana’s eye for a split second. Her grin wasn’t one of sport anymore. It was possession. It was a promise that the beating, in all its forms, was hers to claim.
Steve half-carried, half-dragged Diana toward the exit, through the tunnel of screaming, flashing faces. The journey felt miles long. Every shout, every camera flash, was a nail in the coffin of who she was supposed to be. She was just a broken woman in a ruined costume, being led away from the scene of her own annihilation.