"Whoa—!"
Thea felt the pull hit her like a freight train, hurling her through sound, light, and every speed unit she could name — Mach, C, take your pick. The world around her blurred into a wash of pale blue light.
For an instant she glimpsed images flickering in the glow — an old man's face, children laughing, villages in flames, rockets blasting off amid cheering crowds.
She wanted to focus, to make sense of it all, but she was being dragged too fast, like a loose thread sucked through eternity. By the time she managed to regain a sliver of control over her body, that invisible force gave a final violent tug and flung her out of the void.
Something sticky and dense ripped apart around her — and suddenly she saw familiar things again.
White clouds drifted lazily across the open sky, reshaping with every gust of wind.
She barely had time to appreciate the view before she realized one important detail.
She was falling.
Hard.
Fast.
Normally that wouldn't be a problem. You could drop her from the moon and she'd still walk away fine. She could fly, after all.
Except—
When she tried to summon her magic, nothing happened.
Thea's heart lurched. She could feel it — the air itself shimmered with a strange, suppressive weight. Her connection to her mana was sealed shut, like someone had thrown a blanket over her soul. Her fusion form was gone, her armor reverted to the default red Kevlar suit.
A magic-suppression field.
Wonderful.
Still, panic wasn't her style. Even plummeting through the atmosphere, she started digging through her pockets like a woman rummaging in her purse. Somewhere in there was her compact hoverboard — the nano-sized one that had saved her life more than once.
Phone.
Credit card.
Lip balm.
Really? Now of all times?
The ground was getting dangerously close when her fingers finally brushed something small and metallic — a box roughly the size of a cigarette pack.
"There you are!"
She thumbed the side switch. The board unfolded instantly, expanding beneath her just as she twisted sideways onto it. With a desperate slap of the activation pad, the hover system roared to life, halting her descent about seven thousand meters above the surface.
Thea exhaled hard, lungs burning. "Okay… not dead. That's progress."
Her brain was already racing.
If she had to guess, the Oculus explosion had torn open a time-space rift — possibly several. The psychic imprint she'd left on her Mage Hand had been caught in the blast and yanked her through one of those temporal channels, dumping her here… wherever "here" was.
But then she frowned.
Who the hell built a massive anti-magic field on some remote island?
You had to be either paranoid, powerful, or flat-out insane.
She scanned the horizon. Endless blue ocean. No other landmasses in sight. Just one lush island below, ringed with white beaches and tropical greenery.
She engaged the Eye of Horus, channeling its heightened perception to zoom in.
No sign of civilization — except… movement.
Lots of it.
Clusters of figures on the ground, pointing upward. At her.
"Uh-oh."
She focused. What she saw made her stomach drop.
At least a hundred warriors stood in the clearing below — all women, all armed. Bronze breastplates gleaming, leather skirts to the knee, short boots, bare arms and thighs corded with muscle. Their faces were grim, their stances disciplined.
Spears, bows, blades — an entire phalanx of beautiful, deadly women staring straight at the strange intruder floating in their sky.
Thea wasn't exactly intimidated. Sure, her magic was gone, but her tech wasn't. The Eye of Horus still functioned perfectly, and she still had more gadgets than Bruce Wayne's closet.
A hundred warriors or two hundred — she could handle that if things went south.
What made her blink, though, was that every single one of them was female.
And judging by their sharp gazes and perfect formation, every single one of them could probably kick serious ass.
At the edge of the crowd stood one woman taller than the rest — regal posture, aura like a drawn blade, presence impossible to ignore. She met Thea's gaze across the vast distance… and raised a hand in greeting.
Wait.
She could see Thea from this high up?
Unless she had Kryptonian vision, there was only one group of people who fit this description.
A secluded island.
A field that sealed off magic.
An army of warrior women.
Thea's heart skipped.
Paradise Island.
Themyscira.
The land of the Amazons — blessed by the gods.
And that towering figure waving from below…
"Don't tell me that's Diana herself…"
Fantastic. She'd just crash-landed in Wonder Woman's backyard.
Still, priority one for any accidental time traveler: figure out where and when you are.
Guiding the hoverboard, Thea descended slowly until she hovered a meter off the ground.
A hundred spears tilted upward as one.
She pulled back her hood, revealing her face, and raised both hands in a show of peace — though her thumb hovered near the hoverboard's lift controls just in case diplomacy failed.
"Where do you come from, stranger?"
The voice belonged to a mature woman standing at the front — clad in ornate armor and a golden eagle-crested helmet, a long brown cloak trailing behind her.
Thea caught the question halfway, but the language was ancient, almost melodic. The woman switched tongues a few times — Greek, Latin, something else entirely — before finally landing on English.
Now that confirmed it. Ordinary island hermits didn't speak five languages, including English.
Handling middle-aged authority figures was practically a life skill for Thea.
Smile warm, posture respectful — not too humble, not too arrogant.
"Honored Queen," she said with a polite bow, "I'm from the United States of America."
The woman's expression softened slightly, though her eyes remained sharp. "You fell from the sky, child. How is it that you walk unbroken?"
Ah. So they saw the whole thing.
That could've been awkward.
Time for some quick improvisation.
Thea blinked, adopting a dazed, uncertain tone. "I… don't really know. One moment I was in my city, fighting criminals — and then I blacked out. When I woke up, I was already falling."
Half-truth, half-performance — just enough mystery to sound sincere. These women might be isolated, but their queen clearly wasn't naïve. Her futuristic gear and foreign clothes would give her away sooner or later. So she leaned on ambiguity and goodwill, painting herself as a "protector of the innocent" rather than a possible invader.
It worked.
Tension rippled through the Amazons, but suspicion faded. Woman to woman, warrior to warrior, the divide narrowed.
"Very well," the regal woman said at last. "Welcome, then, to Paradise Island. I am Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. And your name?"
Thea straightened, offering a faint smile.
"Thea. Thea Queen."