Tempest Island

Their arrival on board the Windsong attracted little, if any attention. The passengers and crew were busy removing pieces of debris resulting from the destruction of the Grotto and its equipment. The crew had managed to move the ship away from its anchorage next to the Grotto during the explosions however the force of the blasts had knocked substantial holes in the Kevlar sails.

Diana and Bruce waited for an hour at the beach as the sky darkenowarowards sunset. They yelled and waved their hands to attract the ship’s attention when they were finally spotted by a passenger on the bow of the ship. The crew dropped a zodiac in the water and fifteen minutes later they were back on board. There were twenty or so commandos under lock and key in the ballroom, all of which had been taken out by Wonder Woman during the battle.

The crew had re-established communications with the outside world and had even managed to get the plasma television working on the main-deck. Passengers were crowded around the flatscreen, watching the CNN broadcast repeating images of the super-tankers being disabled by the Justice League. There was a fuzzy picture of Batman and Wonder Woman taking out the tanker-bomb in Singapore and reports of other League members in Tokyo and Sydney.

Malcolm Woodbridge spotted a still muddy Bruce Wayne on the deck and ran over to him. "Wayne, my good friend. Where did you escape to?"

"I found a ventilation shaft to the surface and hid in a pool of mud until I heard the explosions." Bruce said sheepishly. "I saw Wonder Woman fly away an hour ago so I assumed Mossoud was taken care of. Is everybody all right?"

"Everybody but Chesterfield. Mossoud shot him two minutes after you escaped. We thought we were goners for sure then we were all dragged to the tunnel and thrown into the golf carts. Somebody thought it was Batman who saved us but I think that’s a load of bunk. It was probably Superman or the Amazon…Batman’s an urban myth."

Bruce laughed with the man. "I’ve never seen him in Gotham myself so I tend to agree with you. Sorry I wasn’t able to help out more, old chum but I’ve never been cut out for this hero business."

Bruce and Diana returned to their suite a few minutes later after sharing the same stories with the other passengers. Diana told Cassidy she’d swum to the beach and then hid in the jungle for a few hours until Bruce appeared in his mud-soaked clothing. Cassidy looked wistfully after the two of them as they retreated down the hallway then returned to her own quarters, happy to be alive but depressed that she had no one with which to recount the harrowing experience.

Bruce turned on the shower and stepped into it still wearing his mud-caked clothes. Diana watched him with amusement then walked out to the balcony and threw the jilbab overboard. She was still wearing the shirt and trrs srs she’d put on that morning however she peeled them off as she approached the shower.

Bruce was standing under the water, eyes closed as the hot water relieved the soreness of his body, then he was startled as Diana ripped off his remaining shreds of clothing.

"So where were we before we were so rudely interrupted this morning?"

The Windsong backed out of its anchorage on Tempest Island an hour later. For some passengers, the journey was near the end. For ot, it, it was just about to start.