4912/Bad Cassie, Part I

Bad Cassie, Part I
Date of Scene:	28 January 2021
Location:	Untermyer Gardens, Yonkers
Synopsis:	Cassie's double gets the better of her, and lures Diana into an ambush. The Invisible Jet saves the day, but leaves Diana seriously injured and the real Cassie locked in the trunk of her car!
Cast of Characters:	Cassie Sandsmark, Diana Prince

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Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
Between superheroing on multiple teams, college classes, assisting at the embassy, and finding time for an actual /life/ in there somewhere, Cassie's been under some stress recently, a fact Diana is well aware of. Mostly, she handles it pretty well. But the young heroine is far from perfect, a state of being she ascribes only to Wonder Woman herself, accurately or otherwise. And sometimes, all that teenager stuff really does add up. Apparently, this was one of those times.

Not-so-shockingly, it was Helena who broke the news, when she showed up at the new gallery on Monday to meet Diana to discuss some upcoming event: that Cassie wouldn't available for embassy or heroic stuff for a few days because she was 'grounded' - a term with some extra meaning when it came to the young demigodess - after after a recent fight. The details were a little vague, but typical. Cassie spending too much time on everything from heroing to partying with her friends, missing school assignments, the usual stuff. So she was being forced to take a break from all of that and catch up on her classwork. Fair, right?

It was hardly the first time it had ever happened, either. Cassie and Helena got along about as contentiously as /any/ teenage girl and her single mother, constantly butting heads. The added control over her heroic career certainly hadn't helped.

All of this serves as preamble to a text Diana receives from Cassie a few days later, sent right after her classes are usually over for the day:

[im going nuts like this lets go for a drive, meet at the embassy?]

With her being barred from flight, it's not too surprising Cassie might turn to the more traditional symbol of teenage independence, her car. She's been absolutely with the new one that Diana got her from Christmas, taking up just about any excuse she can find to go driving. If some extra begging is necessary, there are reassurances that they'll only be a couple hours, and that she's spent the last few days burried in her homework. She's being good, prooooomise!

Half an hour or so later, and she's out front waiting in said bright red sports car. "C'mooooon. I've got curfew and everything now, so lets get this show on the road!"

Diana Prince has posed:
Diana has been dealing with the fairly usual sort of affairs. Though the Themysciran Arts Center is gearing up for its grand opening, which has been a fun new time occupying focus for the Princess.

If anyone knows her day to day schedule though, it's Cassie. So the text is sent at a very opportune time, and it arrives in a moment that garners a warm smile from the red lipped Princess herself. Wearing a matching red turtleneck sweater that is slim fit to Diana's shapely form, a pair of black slacks and simple black shoes, Diana is already in casual attire to easily leave the Embassy.

"I am cooooominnnng!" The Princess says in a playful tone, exiting the Embassy and moving down the exterior steps, carrying her black leather jacket in her hand, her dark hair tied back behind her head.

Following after Diana is one of her assistants, speaking to the Princess as she goes to settle a few things-- hurriedly --before the Princess dashes off with Cassie in the nice sporty car.

Diana does finish up with the assistant and then pulls her jacket on before moving to get in to the passenger seat of the vehicle, to smile at Cassie brightly. "Okay!" She announces. "To the road!" She seems all to eager to get out and about herself.

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
"I'm so happy you were free! Ugh. If I had to spend another day just stuck to myself, doing school shit, I'd blow my brains out."

Despite the commentary, the current events don't seem to weigh too heavily on Cassie, despite encouragement to get the proverbial show on the road. But her demeanor is cheerful, a grin on her face as Diana finally makes it out to join her in the passenger seat. The younger woman is dressed even MORE casually, very much the college slacker 'I barely woke up for class and threw all this on' style, with one of her typical colder weather front zipper hoodie-jackets worn over one of her many branded shirts, and dark lightly fuzzy sweatpants. Hopefully they don't say 'Juicy' on the back, but its hard to tell with her seated!

In any case, her haste to make the best of their time seems obvious, as she barely waits for Diana to sit before cranking back on the gearshift and tearing out of her parking spot in front of the Embassy in a very typical 'make the taxi drivers swear colorfully' New York driving maneuver. From there, she heads quickly across town through the park, and toward the West side. Soon, they're on the Henry Hudson Parkway, getting away from the more crowded (and slow) city streets. On the river-adjacent highway, when the traffic allows, there are stretches where you can actually open up a little and really drive.

Which Cassie does!

They'll spend the next half an hour or so on the road, as if the young woman's aim really -was- no more complicated than just getting out and driving. Following the river, they pass beneath one impressive bridge before getting on another, crossing out of Manhattan and into Riverdale (LIKE THE SHOW) in the Bronx, and eventually up into Westchester. By then, there's a lot less traffic, and the driving gets even easier and freeer. The conversation, en route, is pretty trivial. Cassie doesn't bring up the fight, for whatever it's worth, but goes on about some trivial stuff at school. This class is boring. This professor is kind of hot. That sort of thing.

"Oh hey, look at those." It's only when they've made it most of the way through Yonkers (where she does have to slow down a bit again) that they come across a sprawling garden on the roadside, with some buildings visible in the back that look nearly like something you might find at the Embassy, or on Themyscira itself. "Wanna check it out?"

She's pretty much turning in, without even waiting for an answer.

Diana Prince has posed:
Throughout the ride, Diana is very prone to listening to what Cassie has to say and talk to her about it all. She's eager to be apart of the young woman's life, as it's fun for a plethora of reasons. From getting to hear her stories of interacting with others, to how it all weaves in with Cassie's association to Themyscira.

The young Cass, by all rights, is the first American-born girl to become an Amazon, and that's an achievement to Diana, a real achievement toward her personal goal of getting her people to open up and become a bigger presence in 'man's world'. 'Man's world' being a phrase itself that Diana wants to see retired some day.

So with her designer sunglasses on, and the two women happily transiting through the greater New York City area, Diana seems quite happy. When they reach Yonkers, and the garden is spotted, the Princess' tinted eyes go to look upon it. "It has indoor gardens." She says, noting the buildings on the property, which means it probably has lots of cultivated flora. "I would love to stop and look it over. I am always being asked for good locations for where people should hold their weddings, for some reason people think I should be an authority on this." That last part is said with a smirk sent over to Cassie.

Soon followed by another one of her trademark smiles. "We should stop, take some pictures, yeah?"

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
Cassie pulls them into the little parking lot the gardens have, and soon they're stopped. Not long after, she grabs the keys, pops the door on her side, and hops out.

As it turns out, the Gardens are a vaguely famous local attraction, and there are a few vehicles in the lot. What they're hugely popular for is wedding photography, and while there's a lot less of this in winter, there's still bound to be a party or too, a couple who decided that a chance at seeing the gardens with a dusting of snow or frost might make them even more magical. Cassie heads up ahead, though one notable thing is how quickly she rejects Diana's initial idea: "Indoor stuff? We can see it later, I guess. But don't you want to see those like... ruins or whatever they were?"

Obviously, ruins is the wrong word. The elaborate gardens include a number of structures in a variety of styles, with a pair of Sphinx type statues at the end of the long reflecting pool, or a pair of Chinese guardian dog-lions guarding another building. And then there's the Grecian colonnades. Clearly, none of these civilizations ever thrived here, and these are all early 20th century constructions, with the gardens being a product of one the many wealthy landowners who had estates in Westchester.

But they're quite grand!

Cassie bolts ahead, running along the length of the long pool, before veering off. Ahead, there's a circular open 'temple', a ring of columns built open to the sky. Somewhere, there's probably a plaque giving it its title for all the tourists. Apparently, it's even /called/ the Temple of the Sky.

When she reaches it, she stands in the center, staring up through the open ring above.

Diana Prince has posed:
Cassie's behavior is a bit odd, but it's not odd enough for Diana to really think anything foul of it, or her as a whole. She's 19, she's lived a 'weird life' compared to most girls her age, acting out isn't that unexpected to Diana... if this would even qualify for that.

"Well, yes, of course." Diana had said at the talk of the ruins, and moves to follow after the other, but not nearly at the same pace as her. Diana is quite a ways back in fact, but her sunglasses-covered eyes keep a watch on where Cassie is going as she trails after her.

A couple of people pass by her on the pathway and she shares smiles with them, complimenting the ground and receiving similar response back to her.

The pillars of the ruins are noted upon approach, and they do make Diana tilt her head a bit. A glance is given to the reflection pool, but ultimately Diana's path is taking her to catch up with her sister.

"Cassie." Diana says. "This place is rather remarkable... for Yonkers." Another look is given around, the Princess raising her left hand up to put her sunglasses upon her hairline. "How did you find it?" She assumes this wasn't happenstance...

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
The Gardens, it should be said, are hardly 'out of the way': the road they're on is technically still Broadway, and if one drove straight north along it from somewhere in Manhattan, they'd eventually pass by here. But at the same time, it's a fair question why Cassie would have any reason to have ever done that, to have taken that trip. Even if they ARE directly north of the city, laying right alongside the Hudson... Basically no one who doesn't live in Yonkers ever comes to Yonkers. Despite its history of being founded in great wealth, nowadays its treated as an almost bumpkinish suburb by 'sophisticated' city folk..

So Cassie kind of hems and haws on her answer. "Oh, well, you know. I guess it popped up in a search or something? Not a lot of places like this, you know. Greek temples just sitting around in the middle of wherever?"

There is a bit of a pause, as if there's more to her answer, but she holds it until Diana has had time to catch up to it. "It's sort of funny, isn't it? I was looking for somewhere to pray, and I couldn't really do it at the Embassy." And why not? "But... this, this is all fake. It's a joke. Some rich moron was jealous of some other rich moron and built a huge garden, then some other rich moron bought it from him, and built all this stuff for his wife- all this cultural stuff he probably barely understood, to impress her with how exotic, how classical, whatever it all was."

Diana Prince has posed:
Diana had flown over Yonkers who knows how many times, and she'd never noticed this particular spot. But that's the nature of this area, so it seems, a quiet suburban community that she'd never been called to for any emergency related situations. In her public years of service as 'Wonder Woman' Diana... hadn't been /everywhere/ after all.

"Well." She replies to Cassie's latter commentary on the less-than-impressive reasons the place exists at all. A grin forming on the Princess' lips. "We live in a different world, than the one where temples like this were built for serious reasons. But it is not the modern world, alone, that built grand items and structures out of pure vanity. That... is a trait that goes far back in time."

She says this as she walks casually around the temple, taking in the sight of its intricacies before she turns to face Cassie. "Why-- are you not able to pray at the Embassy?" The Princess asks her young sister, her hands held with fingertips together in front of her waistline, standing a good 10 or so paces away to the east of where Cassie is.

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
"Well, I suppose I could have, you're right," Cassie agrees, nonchalant. "But sometimes a girl wants privacy."

Again, it is an answer that might be justifiable, just maybe, although perhaps a little incriminating in a different way. Cassie came to things a little differently than Diana did, than her sisters did. And, as Diana well knows, she bears a gift from a God the Amazons do not worship, who they honor only as a matter of necessity, showing him the respect of a member of their Pantheon, yet counting him among their greatest foes.

"Anyway, it's pretty useless to try, right?" She turns around, spreads her hands to indicate the structure around her. "This place is all fake. Blasphemous even, right?" She cocks her head, and starts walking back toward the other woman. "Isn't that what you call it, when someone worships a false idol, invokes symbols of a faith without any true belief? This- this is all pretty much the definition of that, right?"

In truth, though Cassie is putting on a show, there's a part of her that has given up the facade. She can't maintain it perfectly, quite keep the contempt out of her voice, or even hold herself the same way. It was a lot, just to fake their way out here, to pretend that long. "Well." She stops, ceasing her approach short of where she senses Diana won't allow her closer. "This was kind of fun. I'm glad- glad I got to come out here with you." And for a moment, there's something painfully sincere in that, almost sad.

And then Cassie's clothing explodes.

OK, OK, relax, she has something on underneath. Or maybe, rather, she /calls forth/ something from... well, who knows where. The effect is of her sleepy, slacker duds exploding into shreds of cloth as pieces of spikey golden armor, bracers and gauntlets, boots, and breastplate, burst to the surface. Beneath them, her body is sheathed in a skintight red suit, slightly sparkly. Each gauntlet grips a lasso. One is unfamiliar, glowing red, almost barbed-wire in appearance.

The other... is clearly Cassie's. The Cassie she knows, that is.

Diana Prince has posed:
Cassie's behavior has started to add up further and further to being a bit odd, unusual, out of place. It isn't quite enough to really warrant Diana to think anything is out of the ordinary beyond Cassie just having some internal issues going on as a result of the wild world she lives in, let alone the wild responsibilities placed upon her.

Diana does start to tip her chin down and raise her dark eyebrows up as she stares at her friend and sister before her, speaking of Blasphemies and Fakery in the monument around them. "It would depend on one's definition of what makes a place true to what you desire it to be, versus fake to what you believe it is trying to be. This place? It is a great tribute to what it is trying to emulate, I would say."

The part of Cassie speaking happily about their trip together today has Diana showing a small smile. "Come then, we should continue i--" Of course, that response is cut off, cut short and thrown away when the following display of exploding garments, replaced with spiky wildly designed armors takes place

Diana doesn't have her armor, she doesn't have her weapons, she does have her bracers however as they were never far from her...

"Cassie, explain this!" Diana says, a cold wind sweeping through the open temple now as she widens her stance, taking on a much less casual posture where she faces off against this gold and red armored woman before her.

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
"Explain it? Wow, maybe people oversell you a bit, if you haven't figured it out," this Cassie now taunts her, rolling her eyes - a gesture which echoes her counterpart in rather eerie perfection. "Fine, I'll spell it out, 'sister.' I'm not _your_ Cassie. Though I _did_ get a glimpse of her life, then fucked it up, and her mom _did_ take away her powers. Kinda convenient, if you ask me." She hefts the stolen lasso, among her pair. "Made taking this one pretty easy."

Wearing a bright grin, the blonde stalks forward. Her movements are very different, lacking the tell-tale signs of Amazon training, yet for all of that, perhaps even more confident, fearless in the face of her opponent. "Do you want the whole sob story? I'm sure you've heard it a few times already. Blah blah aliens, my world sucks. Zeus likes to stick his dick in random mortals no matter what the universe. Never met the Amazons. But you know what did happen? My mom went looking to find things to fight them off, and she _found_ something. Then I took it."

It's with this, as she stalks just a little closer, that her smiling, oh-so familiar face is finally enshrouded by a golden mask as well, leaving her mane of blonde hair loose behind it. "Neat, huh?"

And then, with casual disregard, she swings one arm, bringing the first of the two lassos - the unfamiliar and frankly pretty nasty looking one - to sweep toward Diana, lashing out as much like a whip as anything.

Diana Prince has posed:
Of course, Diana's bracers are not currently worn on her forearms, they're stowed inside of her leather jacket. She'd hooked them on to the pockets on the inside (as most all of her clothing was custom designed with purposes like this intended.)

And being taunted by her foes is nothing new for the Princess... She just wanted to hear this version of Cassie say it out loud, for her own conscience to bare through knowing it is true.

When the aggressive posture and stance is noted, Diana reacts by quickly raising her hands up to her jacket to toss it off of her shoulders in a very specific way! Her motions cause her bracers to fly up out of the interior of the jacket, while that ominous red lasso comes spiraling toward her!

The Princess' amazing speed, reflexes, give her just enough time to intercept the bracers in mid-air to glide her hands in to them, to cross them together just as the red lasso wraps around her now-armored-forearms!

Leaving Diana's eyes to glare past her own balled up fists, at this version of Cassie.

The barbed angry lasso, coiled around Wonder Woman's bracer encased arms, crackles with light and sparks!

"You do not have to take this path, Cassandra." Diana says, warns, offers to her 'sister'. "This is not your world. You have a chance to be /better/ here!" She tries to convince the other, the errors of her ways?

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
The crackling of the new lasso is definitely -very- unfriendly. It can't harm the bracers, but the reaction enough seems to reveal the fact that it would do something unpleasant if it got a touch on flesh, or even less impervious material. Meanwhile? Cassie scoffs.

"Nice move."

She's sarcastic like real person, too! "But like, now your arms are tied up?" She's really got the whole 'unimpressed teenager' thing down! "Seems like kind of a dumb way to go."

Using a quick motion to loop the first lasso around her forearm an extra time, Cassie steps in while pulling back, keeping the lasso taught nearly the entire time even as she shortens the length of the frightening, mean-looking 'rope' that now binds the two of them together. This is repeated several times, ever narrowing the space between them. Evidently, she'd be happy to get up all close with that spikey armor of hers. And not too surprisingly, given the way she's armed herself, while one arm works at shortening their distance, she uses the other to launch her second weapon, tossing the loop toward the already once-bound Wonder.

"Yeah, no, I think that's a 'pass,'" she answers the plea for sanity, repentance, self-improvement. "I've seen how it goes. We're not fit for you people, and you'll lock us up, one way or another. But I get rid of you people... Well, even if I can't exactly move on in, I figure it's a big world. Plenty of places to go. Maybe lay low, until there's more of us, until we can figure out how to-"

Diana Prince has posed:
Diana is standing her ground in her black shoes with one inch heels, not budging even a little as she feels Cassie on the other end of the rope around her bracers tightening, to let the young alternate universe version of her younger sister to gain ground and get closer to her. She's not daft to the armor either, seeing the spikes and assuming they are used for offense as much as they are for defense.

The response that Diana gets from the armored foe is enough for her to disregard her entirely then, she's chosen her fate, so it seems... With the real Cassie's lasso being flung toward her, Diana doesn't hesitate to step forward toward this new enemy, but not to rush in to her and her spiked armor, but instead to shoot in to the sky and fly over her head!

They're both bound to one another after all, by at least that red lasso!

Diana takes to the sky over the gardens, with the intention of dragging this impostor right out of the temple... and in to the trees that surround the garden!

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
The throw goes over Diana's head as she bolts forward, swooping close and then just above. It is, among all the various outcomes of the interaction, probably not the one that Cassie planned for, and she's jerked off her feet with a surprised yelp, a touch of a revelation of the girl beneath the armored terror, before she turns it into a snarl.

"Fine, have it your way."

There is some uncertainty when it comes to fighting this alternate version of Wonder Woman's familiar sidekick, because clearly the relation of their powers is not precisely one-to-one, as it may have been with some other Dopplegangers. The first question that gets tested in this very moment: can this version of Cassie fly?

Yes, yes, she can.

So while Diana succeeds in avoiding her opponent's immediate desire to get close and personal, and even succeeds in getting them airborn, it's only putting off the inevitable, at least while that length of strange, vicious cord links them together. Indeed, even if Diana is still outright faster, it makes no difference: Cassie can ride her momentum, and then throw her own on top of it. Which is precisely what she does, sailing into a mid-air collision, armored shoulder- and its collection of spikes and pointy bits -first.

Diana Prince has posed:
A well laid plan has its advantages, quite obviously, and this anger fueled version of Cassie Sandsmark did a good job at getting Diana in to a place of vulnerability. There aren't many people in this world that Diana trusts like she trusts her sisters, and it's possible Diana underestimated just how adaptively deceptive one of these dopplegangers could be to their world. Gar's alternate self had exposed his true identity quickly, easily, he was just too far gone from what this world had to be a threat to Diana at least...

But this Cassie, had knowledge, and she'd used it to get herself in to a good position to actually get a shot at Diana.

Case in point, Diana's attempting to drag the younger enemy through the trees initially seems to have some positive results, but then the young girl at the other end of the lasso is advancing up the length of rope in a skyward charge! Their bodies collide, but collide in a way that Diana attempts to push aside the spikes, to avoid them...

She doesn't avoid them entirely however, the left sleeve of her red shirt is torn open, along with a gash that goes across her arm! There is no pain from the wound, not yet, perhaps later! But in the heat of the moment, the two grappling women are now close to close!

Cassie's spiked armor pushes in toward Diana's body, as Diana's forearms hold her at-bay as best she can while still flying. With her teeth gritted, Diana looks in to the 'eyes' of this Cassie, she tilts her head back as she feels the spikes from the woman's armor pushing in against her form, and does cry out as she feels the pain of it...

But then, she reacts, the red lasso has gone limp between their bodies, and Diana thrusts her bracers up to cast this Cassie back off of her, then moves as quickly as she can to try to wrap the red lasso around the other's armored form! She tries to use the slack in the red barbed rope against her foe, while they both soar through the sky...

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
The impact is violent, with a dull metal clang as Cassie's breastplate hits Diana's crossed bracers, forcing her arms back to her body as they colide. It spares her impalement, but not injury, and those spikes... well, there's just so many of them. It complicates all of this close-quarters grappling tremendously, every motion seemingly imperiled by potential accidental self-harm. And that's just for starters!

While Diana may not immediately feel the slice of those blades, as the sensation reaches her, she'll sense something else with it, a kind of numbness, a chill in the affected flesh. It doesn't really take much to put two and two together here, particularly as the open wounds seem a little less bloody than they should be. The armor drains, _feasts_ upon those it injures. And perhaps not only them. Close as the two of them are, and veteran of how many untold centuries of battle, with the experience of many strange foes, Wonder Woman will catch something in the corner of her eye as Cassie lifts her free arm to strike or perhaps do something with the second lasso, opening up a better view of her body: at the places where the bodysuit doesn't cover, where the golden armor meets the young woman's own pale flesh, it seems to emerge directly from the skin, or latches on to it, and not gently. The armor is like a parasite, feeding on her, precisely as it feeds upon a foe.

All of this may be somewhat academic, something for reflection in the moments between moments, before combat instinct takes precedence. Thrusting back with the bracers, Cassie flies loose by some short measure, and Diana does indeed manage to get a grip on her own lasso, intent on turning her foe's weapon against her-

-yet this proves ill-conceived. Against the bracers, it was neutral, the strange, angry red showing no special effect. Yet as it touches bare skin, the earlier draining effect of the armor is felt in far more intense and immediate fashion, siphoning off her lifeforce.

And somewhere in there, Cassie is laughing beneath her mask. "I see what you're doing, 'sis.' Let me help." The two of them tangle in the cords, and while Diana is messing with the red lasso, she swings the golden one. Not really directly at Diana, but outward, so it whips and loops around, encircling them both.

"Your little friend, you know- she has this thing, but you don't let her show proper appreciation." She tugs, tightening them together. "You discourage her from asking for what she's due, for asking for the full power it should bring her. But I'm not that shy. And you know, funny thing- Ares doesn't seem to care which one of us worships him. He told me the prayers, and I spoke them. Praised him. Worshipped him."

A moment later, the two of them light up the sky as lightning courses over the length of the rope and around their bodies, the raw fury of the gods. Cassie screams, yet it's almost ecstatic, reveling in the expression of pure divine anger.

Diana Prince has posed:
There was more to the armor than simply being a well crafted suit of metal protective gear, and the reactive pain that Diana was beginning to experience was making that very obvious!

As was the contact of the red lasso upon Diana's skin. She hadn't intended to use her hands, she'd intended to merely use her snared bracers as leverage to get the rope around the other woman's form, but now with the spiked armor shredding away more of Diana's vulnerable shirt, there's more of the Princess' skin visible, and more of it to be touched by the threads of the red 'angry' rope that they're both wrapped up in.

Diana's expression showcases the pain she feels, right up to the point of having the lightning lasso brought about her, knowing full well that the wielder's anger effects its energy output, and when that energy output comes, it is quite spectacular. It feels the sky, with a glorious light show, and an eruption of electrical power, but also the sounds of the women screaming together, though Cassie's screams are rooted in something far more twisted!

Their combined flight up in to the sky may have seemed initially random in tactics out of Diana, but as the powerful lightning fades again back to where it originated from, Diana and Cassie are left floating in mid air high above the rural landscape.

Diana, is drained, but not down. She's hurt, but not broken. Her eyes look to this armored foe that is yet still up close, her hair is loose about her shoulders now as it had come undown from the ponytail it had previously been in, and now waves in the wind waround them.

"I am not the Diana you may know, I am not your 'sister'." She grunts out to the other. "You are not, my, Cassie, and this is /not/ your world."

In actuality the flight path had been entirely intentional, and now, up in the sky, the two hover, with Cassie's back to the clouds...

The Invisible Jet hovers in the sky, and its weapons come online, rapid fire bursts of hot plasma all aimed directly at Cassie's back! The Jet starts peppering the armored foe with its alien-powered energy!

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
When the lightning fades, it leaves both of them smoking, though clearly, Cassie seems to revel in it, not really being 'injured' by the lightning, though she clearly pays a price for it, her pain another offering to Ares. Perhaps it is a blessing that Diana cannot see her face beneath the armor's strange gold mask: it would be heartbreaking to see her face twisted in pure rage and hatred, or see her whisper her new patron's name with such disturbing devotion.

"You see? You see what you keep her from?" she taunts, sounding manic. With Diana weakened, and the embrace tightened, more of the spines from her armor have pushed into her body, no single one a grievous wound, and yet all of them contributing to it. And while it doesn't bite as deeply, the lasso is worse by far, concentrating the effect. Indeed, it is a 'lasso' only in imagery, in vague approximation. In truth, the weapon is just an extrusion of the armor itself, a tendril it uses to feed.

And it's having a lovely meal.

In the meantime, she releases her grip on the golden lasso and lifts the fist that was clutching it, the rope smart enough to bind them together in a way that leaves it free. She lifts it high, ready to strike her coup de grace, the golden gauntlet's bloody spikes glistening-

-before they explode in a _second_ lightshow, this one on Wonder Woman's terms.

In her apparent moment of victory, Cassie may have wondered (hee) at things being a little too easy. Yet in her rage and god-fueled arrogance, it truly did not give her any reason for pause, nor to notice that her foe was using the last of her strength to keep taking them upward. And even if she had paused to consider it, this outsider has no experience with an alien device that never made its way to her world. So the Jet's attack takes her wholly, completely by surprise.

Which makes it DoppleCassie's turn to get blasted by plasma weapons, this time around. Compared to her counterpart, she still fares somewhat better, because the armor is pretty close to indestructible itself. But it doesn't completely cover her, nor does the strength of the material mitigate all the other effects, the raw force of the blasts, driving them both through the sky. The spike-covered warrior screams out in pain, while the armor itself reacts to the assault, acting on its own to protect its host... and thus itself. The red 'lasso' retracts, drawn back inside the armor, and with the golden one no longer held taught, Diana can use the last of her strength to kick free, sending herself plummeting earthward and her foe sailing back through the air under a continuing barrage of fire.

Diana may not see it, but the ship sensors will record the final moments of the fight, as the suit rights itself midair before accelerating away at great speed over the river.

Diana Prince has posed:
The Invisible Jet doesn't let up, it doesn't operate on any measure of science from this planet. It doesn't even obey the planet's laws of physics, and defies gravity to propel itself. In essence this makes it a fairly easy 'Jet' to fly, but the abilities of actually mastering its capabilities as a maneuverable craft are far more nuanced than one might initially think.

The pilot inside of it right now?

The redheaded Amazon by the name of Adrastea. She's taken quite fondly to the Lansinarian technology that fuels the craft, and with her green eyes locked on DoppleCassie's form, she doesn't let off of the stick's weaponry! Even as Diana is released, the Princess starts to fall away toward the earth below...

The Invisible Jet just tracks the doppleganger in her retreat, adjusting it's pitch and yaw to keep it on-target with their enemy, unleashing bolt after bolt of blue glowing energy to chase her OFF!

It's not until the fleeing foe is just a speck on the horizon that the redheaded pilot relents from squeezing the trigger on the flight yoke, and summarily brings the cloud-hued jet down rapidly toward the ground.

The other Amazonian in the cockpit of the Jet rises to her armored feet and starts to rush out toward the exit of the alien vessel, rushing out to find their Princess where she'd fallen to...