Wonder Woman: Protector of Humanity by Jade Gretz

https://www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai/art/Wonder-Woman-Protector-of-Humanity-1117954788

Wonder Woman: Protector of Humanity ANIMATION

The Ember-Mask of Themyscira

The moon hung low over Themyscira, swollen and pale as if it, too, feared to shine too brightly upon the night. The Amazons slept in quiet harmony—except for the sentries, who paced in pairs along the alabaster walls, spears catching shards of moonlight.

Diana felt the disturbance long before the alarms began.

It began as a stillness. The kind that wraps its fingers around the throat of the world. Even the sea seemed to hush. Diana rose from her bed, hair falling around her shoulders in dark waves, and reached for the bracelets resting at her bedside like loyal hounds.

Something is wrong.

She moved into the courtyard, her sandals whispering over the marble. A faint wind toyed with the torches, bending their flames into uneasy shapes. She narrowed her eyes.

That was when she heard it—no louder than a sigh.

“Diana…”

A woman’s voice. Familiar. Soft. But wrong.

She turned. “Hippolyta?”

Her mother stood by the archway, her face half lost to shadow. The outline was perfect, regal as always. Yet the silhouette was a little too still.

“My daughter,” Hippolyta said, stepping forward, though her movement was strangely gliding, as if her feet barely touched the ground. “You look troubled.”

“I felt something,” Diana said carefully. “A stirring in the air. Something that does not belong.”

Hippolyta smiled—or, the face wearing Hippolyta’s shape did. It was a fraction delayed, as if uncertainty were adjusting its mask.

“You worry too much.”

Diana’s blood chilled.

Her mother had never said those words in such a tone—dismissive, warm with a hint of condescension. Hippolyta was precise with her care.

Diana stepped forward, the moonlight revealing every detail. “If something were amiss,” she said, “I trust you would tell me.”

The queen tilted her head. “Of course.”

But the voice carried no heartbeat.

And Hippolyta always carried her heartbeat in her words.

Diana’s hand shot out, seizing the queen’s wrist.

A cold, rubbery texture writhed beneath her fingertips.

The impostor hissed, its transformation collapsing like wax dripping too near a flame. Hippolyta’s shape melted, colors running, bones reshaping into something long and slender and wet. Black eyes blinked open, lidless and wide.

The creature shrieked, stumbled backward, and leapt into the shadows in a fluid ripple of limbs.

Alarms rang across Themyscira.

Diana shouted, “An infiltrator! Sound the horns!”

Within moments, warriors flooded the courtyard, spears drawn. Artemis skidded to Diana’s side.

“What did you see?” Artemis demanded. “What intruder dares shape itself as our queen?”

Diana stared into the darkness where the creature fled.

“I do not know,” she murmured. “But it has already learned us too well.”

THE SKIN OF SECRETS

By morning, the island buzzed with tension. Diana convened her closest warriors in the Hall of Voices. The stone pillars shimmered with ancient murals of women triumphing over monsters, but none resembled the thing she’d encountered.

Artemis leaned over the table. “We searched the perimeter. No breach. It must still be within the city.”

General Philippus crossed her arms. “A creature that can mimic faces… any Amazon could be it.”

“That is the danger,” Diana said. “It might wear any guise. Speak with any voice.”

“And it sought you first,” Artemis added. “Why?”

Diana did not answer, though she felt the question slide coldly into her chest.

A new voice entered the chamber—melodic and low.

“Perhaps it wanted to test her.”

They turned.

Hippolyta stood in the doorway, flanked by two guards.

The real Hippolyta.

For a moment, Diana’s heart softened with relief.

“My daughter,” Hippolyta said, sweeping forward. “You did well to expose the intruder. But we must act swiftly before it impersonates us again.”

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