Quotes / A Force of Four

Wonder Woman would have been surprised at her own energy, if she had had the time. Lately, she had been labelling her punches. "This, for my mother," she said, smashing Badra with a left to the chin. "This, for my daughter," she pronounced, sinking her right into the villainess's stomach. "This, for the sisterhood," she declared, with a double uppercut to Badra's chops.
[...]
Diana decided against trying to itemize the members of the Justice Society or Infinity, Inc., and even ruled out Power Girl. But it was forgivable, under the circumstances.
"This one is for me," she said, and swung her balled fist forward.

"So you see, I came from a world not unlike Krypton," she finished. "Had you arrived several decades earlier, we might well have been allies. Friends."
"Oh, I don't think so," said Power Girl, with a smile. "And, you know, in my whole career as a superhero, there's something that's always been missing."
Badra waited.
"I've never really met a woman who I could turn loose on," Kara continued. "I mean, Mala and company are nice, if they're not going two-on-one against you. But there's really nothing like going up against somebody of your own sex. It's fairer. It's more invigorating. I haven't gone a round with Diana, except maybe for some arm-rassling, and I haven't even done that with Fury. But you and me? Why, I can just see us both pulling hair, punching faces, kickin' and scratchin' to beat the band. I'll bet the men would just love it. The first Kryptonian-Hatorian catfight. What do you say?"
Badra's eyes widened in disbelief.
Kizo said, softly, "Mala...I think I would enjoy it."
"Shut up, brother," said Mala.
"Take her away," said Badra, turning from them. "Do whatever you want to with her."
Mala looked at Kizo, who had put U-Ban down in a sitting position against a nearby wall. "Wake him u—"
Power Girl slipped out from under his grasp like a greased weasel.
She had been gauging the pressure of his grip with great accuracy. Her talk to Badra had a specific effect on Mala, she could tell by a certain feeling against her back. And when a man starts to think down there, she told herself, he loses a little ability to think up elsewhere.

Tough girl, her mental jester mocked her. Everybody thinks you're such a tough girl.
But she had to be tough. Finding out that so many years of her life were a pre-programmed lie, coming to a strange world, finding only one man of Krypton and then losing him, turning from innocence into grim experience on a planet she never made... she had to be tough, or break. She had to wall the little girl off, most of the time, and put on the casing of the big, tough, capable bitch.

Wonder Woman: One there is who has not joined the battle. The one who proclaims herself your greatest ally. She, whose lust for my death is matched only by your own. She, who has not suffered the battering I have today and earlier, at her own hands. I challenge her to single combat. Upon the outcome of which our lives—and those of my mother, daughter, and Kara, and the people of Earth—will depend. Only stay the men from fighting me or my allies. That is what I propose.
Badra: You are insane, Amazon. Mars has no need to make bargains with you. You have no power here...
Mars: Silence. Since the days of the great war on your sphere, Amazon, you have frustrated me. With the power of Conquest, Greed, and Deception I opposed you and Aphrodite's other whores. Yet did you frustrate me. And, though my work on Earth has prospered in various places... though your ‘peace' has been shattered across your world, time and again... the nation in which you dwell has remained unconquered, and untyrannic. This has caused me pain. Great pain. I will allow you this much. I will allow my agent to battle you, should she wish to do so. I will keep both my allies and yours separate from both of you. But I make no bargains about the reward. All that will be done is to give you a chance to revenge yourself on your tormentress... to allow her a chance to kill you... and to afford myself a better spectacle. Well? What say you?

Badra: I am not so foolish as to relinquish my own advantage, Diana. Held by those man-joined chains, your power is negated. Freed, you might be a threat to me... so the fetters will remain until the time of your execution. Or should I say, your murder?
Wonder Woman: Greater than you have tried. I assume you keep me alive to see your masterstroke? That's the usual pattern with you mediocrities.
Badra: Mediocrities? No, Diana, the murder of a planet will be more than enough to satisfy even the harshest standards of those in my profession. I will allow you and your daughter to see it. You will know that, with your world's passing, your husband, your mother, your Amazon sisters, and your friends will pass as well. Then we will kill your daughter before your eyes. And then we will kill you.
Fury: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've heard it all before. Can't we just cut to the final reel, where we slap you back in jail, go back to the clubhouse, and crack a few corny jokes before the credits reel?

"Even so," said Hippolyta, "she has greater than mortal years ahead of her, but less even than her mother, who renounced immortality at a later date than her, and much less than a pure Amazon who has not renounced the Waters of Youth. So there are fewer days to you, Lyta, than you might expect. Use them wisely while you do have them."
Wonder Woman's eyes widened. "Mother, what are you saying? Are you saying that Lyta has—"
Lyta's eyes were widening at the same time that her skin was flushing crimson.
Diana finally finished the sentence. "—has given herself to a man?"
"Ohhhhhhh, hell," muttered Lyta, and hid her face in her hands.

Faora told Badra that the Zone could be escaped, at times. She and her fellows had done so before. When they did it next, she agreed to accept Badra's help in destroying Supergirl, as long as she got to do the real killing. If they emerged in Earth-Two's universe, they would collaborate against Power Girl.
<But, if you have escaped from the Zone many times,> asked Badra once, <why is it that your Superman and Supergirl yet survive?>
Faora had fixed her with a steely eye.
<Next time,> she sent. <Next time, it will be different.>

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