40 Thrill

His heartbeat rising constantly with every inch he got closer to the ground, Howard could never forget the thrill of it. Rather than flying, crashing the plane was his specialty aided by lady luck herself, but still, it was the first time he was purposefully doing so.

With the speed, he was diving at and his target being a god who didn't look too happy, it was hard to guess his regeneration rate. With his basic understanding, his body took a minute and 3 seconds before it fully regenerated from just one of his eyes. But keeping in line with the destruction to his body and the unavoidable explosion constantly burning through any remaining part of his body, it was a bit hard to guess the exact time but he was sure a minute would be enough to get things done thoroughly as long as he had his head intact.

A minute might sound easy, but when fighting against a god every second of it counted. Howard knew that even without him, Diana as the protagonist should be able to handle Ares, but there were several factors coming into play so with the butterfly effect it was hard to really guess what exactly happens. Secondly, the fight that was going around them. War and rage fed power to Ares and this part wasn't the only thing he was anxious about. The countries Ares visited, surely he didn't just go there for a normal chat or vacation so what exactly was Ares strength right now was hard to guess.

So after putting all of it into factor, Howard made his decision to crash this plane to buy Diana some time to figure her shit out. She needed to realize who she was and the powers within her and with Ares constantly attacking her, it was hard for her to do so.

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Diana watched as Steve snuck into the plane and another plane heading towards them. A grim feeling entered her heart as she realized what was going on but she didn't have time to figure things out and take things under her control.

In this little time, they spend together Diana had a little understanding of Howard and so his actions were expected. Sacrificing himself to buy her some time, Diana still couldn't understand Howard's thoughts as to why he would do such a thing. Regardless of immortality, the hurt was real and overall the whole plan was completely insane.

For the first time since they met, Diana felt truly connected with Howard as she could see his mocking smile through the glass. Dodging Ares's attack, she threw her lasso towards him which Ares grabbed.

"Futile effort!" Ares said, "We've done this a hundred times already."

"I don't think so." Diana pulled her lasso dragging Ares in but unlike what he expected as soon as he changed his center of gravity, Diana rushed in closer like a spring as she threw a kick at him as hard as she could shooting him away.

Ares had felt the plane before but didn't think much of it but as it got closer he realized what was happening. Ares regardless of his god status having a plane crash at him with a 120 mph impact in an unexpected manner was hard to dodge.

*BOOM*

In a blink of an eye, the plane hit Ares, and taking it with him, crashed to the ground causing a huge explosion. The main factor of the explosion wasn't the actual crash but the few remaining hydrogen bombs, Ludendorff was trying to take with him.

Diana dodged the plane by running as fast as she could but the shockwave of the crash still threw her away a bit, the same with James and the other who couldn't stop their fight. All that followed them were the ringing in their ears afterward as they finally got a grip of themselves.

"That crazy son of a bitch!" Victor cheered, "I knew he had that instinct in him."

"What?" James looked at him not being able to hear a thing with a ringing in his ear but he had the exact same thought as him.

The whole world felt blank without a sense of sound as the two brothers watch the sky burn high when they suddenly felt someone tug behind them. It was Artemis, from the looks of it she seemed to be yelling something but they couldn't hear a thing at all. Artemis annoyed grabbed their necks twisting it at the direction of the fallen soldiers who were standing up again but they looked different.

Originally they were still fighting a human regardless of their strength but now as if their soul had left their body, their eyes seemed blank. All of them looked weird, some were foaming from their mouth some looked completely dead with their broken arms and legs but they stood up regardless as they all turned towards their direction.

The group of soldiers wasn't obviously zombies after all they were still handling their guns normally but it's just something felt different. They kept attacking them regardless of their broken limbs as if they couldn't feel anything and the only thing on their mind was to kill their target which unfortunately was the three of them. And although they seemed senseless it clearly wasn't the case.

The only thing in their mind was attacking as they used every skill they knew with efficiency and with their superhuman strength, they just became the ultimate soldiers. One that attacked without any questioning and no regard for its life.

"Holy shit! What the fuck are they?" Victor screamed as he entered his fingernails inside one of the soldier's head tearing it into two.

"It's probably the thing they took earlier." James jumped dodging an attack as he stabbed the soldier raising him high up in the air and throwing the lifeless body onto another oncoming soldier. "It must've fucked with their heads."

"Well, at least we can hear now." Artemis sliced one of the soldier's head off easily as they felt another shockwave.