Chapter Three: Grove of Persephone

Bastion had been falling forever, and he was falling still. It felt like it had been years before his body finally cracked onto the ground...years of falling into nothing without food, water, or company.

His impact with the ground was agony. The kind that convinced him that every bone in his body was broken and that he should be dead, but he wasn't.

It took a few moments for Bastion to force himself back onto his feet. He was surprised that his legs hadn't been snapped in two, but grateful nonetheless.

When he finally managed to glance at his surroundings, his lungs were denied of all oxygen. It felt like they were filled with heavy lead and weighing him down with each breath. This place was like nothing he'd ever seen before...

The sky was littered with the colour of blood, the red swirled into darker shades then back out into horrifying gore. The smell of death filled his nose, like that of the corpses that had been left to rot in the facility all those decades ago. Everything else was covered in a filter too dark for his eyes to ever grow used to.

There was forest surrounding him in every direction. No matter which way he chose to start walking, he would end up being swallowed by the thick, twisted trees. That forest was one of the places that had no palpable reason to exist.

The unnatural, choking mist that swirled and sprawled on the forest floor was the first thing that spoke of a strange sort of wrongness. The sickly white substance seemed to possess liquid properties which only reminded of the maggot-like texture of a dead man's eyes, ready to burst with the slightest touch. The smoke made no sound but it swallowed his feet as it rolled towards him.

The mist then spread around him, drawing his attention to the temple nearby. It was a grand structure with a marble statue of a half naked woman in front of it. It looked as if it might fall apart at any minute but the vines winding up its form kept it together.

"You should not have followed me." A voice boomed through the quiet atmosphere and echoed around him. He turned his head to see Wonder Woman towering over him.

"I didn't." He growled back, more than a little annoyed at her assumptions. "I was dragged down with you."

"That is unfortunate for you." She replied. "This is no place for mortal men."

Bastion furrowed his brow. "And what exactly is this place?"

Wonder Woman straightened her posture and stepped forward, averting her eyes from him and toward the temple. "Many knew it as the Underworld... Today, however, it's simply called Hell."

"H-Hell?" Bastion's voice found air but he was too shocked to hear it. Fear curled up inside him and clung to his ribs, settling uncomfortably in his chest. Bastion didn't doubt the feeling was there to stay, reminding him of its existence every time he opened his mouth to breathe.

Bastion didn't believe it... He couldn't...and yet it was right in front of him. Just as it felt like he could no longer process any more changes, a woman appeared from inside the temple. The young woman held herself like her upper spine was rubber, shoulders falling forwards in a way that would be more befitting a grandmother.

Her porcelain skin was ashen, almost anemic; a cold sweat glistened on her forehead and her recessed cheeks; the moss of her eyes had turned into a leaf that was desperately trying to cling onto the last bit of its chlorophyll, its life. She had hair so dark orange against skin so white that it created a contrast that only served to make the girl look all the more ghostly, all the more haunting; her lips that were likely once pink and soft, were now chapped and bleeding. She looked tired, sick.

On her withering body she wore nothing but plant life. Dead leaves covered her form, and blackened vines crawled up the length of her legs and arms.

The shadow of the statue stretched over her, and now it was clear that it had been sculpted in her likeness. The statue looked far more alive than she did though.

"Persephone." Wonder Woman spoke gently as the woman approached them. "It is good to see you, sister."

"Diana." Persophone replied in a congealed voice. "What brings you to this place?"

"Your husband has, once again, banished me here."

The woman frowned at this, making her look even duller than before. "Then I must apologise on his behalf... I do not understand why he persists with this foolishness."

"You have nothing to apologise for. I have grown used to his scheming."

Bastion, who was wrought with both shock and confusion, finally managed to string a few words together. "Wait a second! What's going on here? Who is that?"

Many possibilities had run through Bastions mind, each more bewildering than the last. He had attempted to read their thoughts but he couldn't gather enough concentration to even get a glimpse. He thought that, perhaps, if this was hell then she was Lucifer... or maybe the man on the surface was. However, it seemed a lot deeper than that. He wasn't willing to make a fool of himself by vocalising his guesses.

"I am Persephone." Her dreary voice answered. "Daughter of the Goddess of harvest, Demeter, and the God of Thunder, Zeus. Wife to Hades and Queen of the Underworld."

Bastion simply blinked at her in response, expression twisting into one of disbelief.

"And you are...?" Persephone begun before observing him closer. "Mortal. Diana, why did you bring a mortal here...?"

"It was your husband." Diana sighed.

"Mortals should never set foot in this realm...they are much too fragile." Persephone said in a worried tone. "You must help him escape before his form begins to decay."

"Is that a threat, lady?!" Bastion hissed, ready for a fight to pursue.

"I will do my best." Diana spoke clearly over him, ignoring his threatening gaze.

"Then I have no doubt that he will return safely, Amazon Champion." Persephone smiled weakly but it didn't suit her at all, at least not in her current state. "Now, you must depart. Hades will return soon and you must be far away from here when he does."

Diana simply nodded and gave a rather respectful bow before leaving. She had started to walk towards the many trees that surrounded them, a confident stride in her step.

Bastion turned between Diana and the Goddess in front of him. Ultimately, he chose to run after Diana. She may have been the strongest person he'd ever met, but she was nowhere near as strange as Persephone.

As they both disappeared into the grove, Bastion received a closer, unwelcome look at the forest. All the trees were tightly-knit, just one strand in a massive web of dead bark. They were lifeless sticks of charcoal, reaching up like spindly fingers ready to attack.

The sight was panic inducing... even for someone as ruthless as Bastion, and so, in a desperate attempt to maintain his sanity, Bastion started to speak. "So... She's your sister? I don't really see the resemblance..."

"All women are my sisters." Wonder Woman said bluntly, and rather harshly. It became obvious that she didn't want to converse with the likes of him. When the silence lingered around them though she seemed to change her mind. If they were going to be travelling together, they might as well be civil. "...But Persephone is different. She is my blood. My half-sister, in your terms."

"Half-sister?..." Bastion pressed. "Who exactly are you then?"

"I am Diana of Themyscira." She answered without the slightest sign of hesitation. "Daughter of Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, and Zeus, the King of Olympus."

"A... Demi-God?" He said in disbelief. This just kept getting even more unbelievable... Bastion kept expecting to jolt awake in the facility, like it was some kind of elaborate dream forced upon him. It never happened though.

"So... uh... Where are we exactly?" Bastion said when Wonder Woman had no response to his shock. "I mean, in terms of the Underworld."

"We are currently in the Grove of Persephone." Diana answered simply. "And we are looking for the Elm in which false dreams cling; that will guide us forward."

"Oh, so we're looking for a tree...in a forest." Bastion groaned.

"Your pessimistic attitude will not help us locate the Elm."

"It's not pessimistic, it's realistic. There are hundreds, maybe even thousands of trees in here. How are we meant to find one in particular?"

"I've done it countless times before." Diana said bluntly. "And I didn't do it by giving up."

Sensing that this conversation wasn't very productive, Bastion swallowed his own doubts and raked his mind for something else to discuss. Silence wasn't an option, not in such an eerie place.

"Well, while we're looking, why don't you bring me up to speed with what's happening... I think I have the right to know now that I'm involved."

Diana pondered this, whacking a dead tree branch out of her path and breaking it clean off the tree. "What do you wish to know?"

Bastion paused, he hadn't thought that far ahead. "Anything. Why did Hades send us here? And why is Persephone helping us?"

"Hades has sent me here many times, an attempt to fight me on his grounds I assume. I always escape. I don't even think he knows why he does it." Diana replied, but that only confused Bastion even more. "Persephone's story is not a pleasant one. The relationship she has with her husband is complicated."

"Complicated?"

"First you must understand that their love did not form naturally. Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love, wanted to prove to her son Eros that she had the power to make anyone fall in love." Diana started taking longer steps to cover more ground, and Bastion only barely managed to keep up. "They selected Hades, as he was considered a man that could love no one, and she forced him to fall in love with the first woman he saw...Persephone. In his crazed infatuation, he stole her from the surface and brought her here."

"So...he kidnapped her?"

"Technically speaking, yes."

"And she...married him?" Bastion scoffed as if the entire concept was absurd to him.

"She didn't have much choice, but she did eventually grow to love him." Diana said lowly. "She was stuck in the Underworld, six months of every year because she ate the food here. If you eat anything in the underworld, your soul is bound to it. She ate only six pomegranate seeds and that was enough to secure her place here."

"Don't eat anything." Bastion quickly replied. "Got it."

"Unless you wish to be trapped here."

"No thanks."

This conversation quickly ended, but was replaced just as rapidly by another once Diana spotted the Elm. It was not as large as Bastion had expected, but not exactly small either. It was the only thing in that place that actually looked alive. It's leaves were bright green and sparkled under a non-existent sun.

"Every soul enters with unfinished business." Diana started without any need to be asked for an explanation. "Dreams that they didn't accomplish, hopes that were wasted in their death. This is where they all end up. Each leaf holds a different persons lost desires."

"I thought it'd be bigger..." Bastion said, thankful that there was no one there to take his words out of context. "I mean, a lot of people die."

"With each death a new leaf replaces another. If you pluck one off another will grow in its place from a person that died before them." Diana explained. "You could pick each leaf off one by one for the rest of your existence, and still never find the bare branch."

Out of curiosity, Bastion touched his index finger to one of the leaves and it shivered under the touch then started glowing even brighter. Finally, he caught it in his hand and tugged it off, only for Diana to be proved correct. Another leaf swiftly grew in its place, as if it had always been there.

The leaf he now held in his hand swirled with colour, and like a crystal ball, an image appeared from within; one of a woman holding a newborn. A sadness flashed in Diana's eyes, one that Bastion couldn't even begin to understand.

Bastion, in a lapse of judgement, attempted to throw the leaf away but Diana stilled his hand with a firm grip. "You cannot mistreat someone's lost wishes!" She said in outrage.

"They're unachieved goals... I don't see their relevance." Bastion retorted coldly.

"These are all that remain of their mortal forms!" Diana argued.

"You mean to tell me that, when you die, the only important thing you leave behind is the things you didn't do..." Bastion sneered at the very thought. Failure should not be rewarded, and it certainly shouldn't be all that's left of a person.

"Unachieved goals and unattainable dreams shape a person more than what they've accomplished. It tells of who they are and who they hope to be... It is the centre of their personality, drive, and soul."

Bastion's nose scrunched up. He obviously didn't understand what she was trying to say.

Diana sighed. "You can tell more about a person by knowing that their impossible goal was to end world hunger, or help out a friend, more than knowing that they like to go on skiing trips on the weekend..."

Diana took the leaf from Bastion and held it delicately in her hand. Then, at last, she moved it closer to the Elm. Like a magnet, the leaf hovered from her hand and clutched back onto the tree. It's dulling form started to glow bright green again, as if it was given new life.

"The path from here should lead us straight toward the rivers Acheron and Styx. We must cross them if we wish to escape." Diana pondered. "Usually it would be no small task to fly over the rivers, but this is Hades realm. My powers are dulled here... We'll have to take Charon's boat."

"Charon?" Bastion was starting to think that his voice wouldn't allow anything other than questions to leave his mouth.

"The Ferryman. He delivers the souls of the dead to the other side, where they are judged and sorted into their eternity."

Bastion shook his head in disbelief, yet again. He didn't know why he bothered asking these things... He never understood her answers anyway. They were both too cryptic, and too far fetched. Nevertheless, he followed Diana as she continued down the bone riddled path. She was his best chance of survival, after all.