Sure enough, the moment Thea said it, Diana instantly understood. She might not grasp the tangled grudges of the outside world, but the people who tried to kill her sisters on Themyscira?
Those were unquestionably bad guys.
"Should we go help them?"
"Help what…? It's only three enemies. Look — reinforcements are already coming."
Thea actually admired these three German spies a little. Truly fearless.
Charging out with just three pistols at the front door of the Allied Command headquarters — even if the guards weren't elites, there were still more than ten rifles pointed that way.
And then some jumpy sentry called a nearby patrol.
Over a hundred more soldiers poured in.
The three Germans didn't even get the chance to bite cyanide before they were turned into Swiss cheese.
A young man wearing a lieutenant colonel's insignia dashed out when he heard the gunfire. Realizing it was a false alarm, he turned to his aide:
"Tell the generals inside they can crawl out from under the table now. I've secured the situation."
"Damn it — not a single live capture!"
Looking around, he realized he'd bragged a bit too early.
Only three corpses on the ground, each riddled with over a dozen bullets.
He roared at the guards, furious that none had been taken alive. What if the higher-ups blamed him for incompetence?
"Sir, there's one alive!" a sentry shouted, saluting as he pointed to Steve — whose face was swollen like a clubbed boar.
"I'm not German…" Steve raised a trembling hand in protest — which only earned him another rifle butt to the head.
At this point, Steve's soul was broken.
What is happening?!
On Themyscira he was mistaken for a German.
Back at Allied HQ he was… also mistaken for a German?
He was innocent!
Fortunately, years of training kicked in. He calmly recited his identity, codename, mission, and superior officer.
The British lieutenant colonel listened with a cold face before waving off the guards.
"Bring him in. He'll see the general."
He turned and walked away without the slightest intention of apologizing.
In his mind, the swollen-faced American clearly wasn't German — but so what?
As a proud officer of His Majesty's army, roughing up a few American bumpkins wasn't worth a second thought.
If this one died, well — that would've been his own problem.
The two women watched Steve get half-dragged away.
"Are we… allowed to let this happen?"
Diana's voice held genuine concern.
She'd never found a single admirable quality in Steve, but he was a companion who'd traveled with them.
Seeing him dragged like a dead dog tugged a bit at her conscience.
Thea also felt a hint of guilt — her spell apparently caused this mess.
The original storyline definitely didn't unfold this way.
But at least nothing catastrophic had happened.
Overall, things were still… more or less on track.
What could she say now?
She forced an explanation:
"This is actually the fastest way for him to reach the generals."
To make it sound convincing, she even started lecturing Diana on British–American relations.
"Look — Steve is an American soldier. If the British respected him, that would actually harm his future. Right now this is perfect. Nobody wants him, nobody trusts him. America knows he won't defect, and Britain won't value him enough to keep him."
"To prove her point," Thea added, "look — his partner is right there, calm as ever."
She pointed at the plump secretary standing at the entrance, still too shocked to process anything.
She's probably scared stiff…
Diana hesitated, but Thea's this-goes-deeper-than-you-think expression convinced her.
She nodded thoughtfully.
"And what about us?"
"We're going in."
With another layer of suggestion magic, the two strolled through the entrance as if they belonged there.
The conference hall — which should've been chaotic in the original timeline — had fallen silent after the first gunshot.
Then, like a tightly wound spring snapping back, the room exploded into noise, ruining the speech Ares had been delivering in his "peace advocate" disguise.
He didn't believe a single word he'd been saying — but seeing his performance ruined still annoyed him.
When Thea and Diana entered behind Steve, he glanced over, pretended not to see them, and inwardly scoffed.
Can't even use proper invisibility? Walking in with nothing but suggestion magic?
Zeus has truly left no one capable of stopping me.
The generals, officials, and Allied delegates were still shaken from the gunfire.
Seeing Steve dragged inside, several who'd been hiding under tables began shouting to have him hanged immediately.
Naturally, Ares couldn't let his pawn die.
With exaggerated warmth, he defended Steve and offered explanations for the chaos.
That's Ares?
Thea examined the man — who looked uncannily like Professor Lupin — without showing any reaction.
His disguise was flawless, not a trace of divine energy leaking out.
Yet her instincts told her… he wasn't all that strong.
By now she'd seen plenty of powerful beings:
Artemis stuck in her divine realm,
Horus reduced to a skin-suit on the mortal plane,
Diana the demi-god,
Madame Xanadu…
She'd seen many levels of power.
The Ares before her wasn't even a projection — just an avatar shaped from a sliver of energy siphoned from human warfare.
With her current strength, she couldn't beat him…
But with the divine bow in hand, she could definitely escape.
So could Diana's battle with him really generate enough energy to send her home?
Thea rubbed her chin, lost in thought.
Ares, unaware he was being silently judged, continued smoothing things over until the assembled leaders reluctantly gave up the idea of executing Steve.
The dignitaries stormed out, furious — whether any of them were going to change their pants was another matter.
Patriotic Steve, spared from bleeding and crying both, repeatedly thanked the limping "Lord Ares" for speaking up on his behalf.
Only after surviving death did he remember his mission — and immediately realized, like an idiot, that he couldn't read a single word in Doctor Poison's notebook.
Diana wanted to rush forward to translate — a job she'd probably enjoy — but Thea instantly cast a soundproof ward around them.
"Not yet."
Are you kidding?
The Allies were fighting the Central Powers — not a village scuffle, but dozens of nations at war, speaking over a hundred languages.
Doctor Poison wasn't an alien.
Of course the Allies would have someone who could read the enemy notes.
If Diana ran out now, she'd make the Allies look incompetent.
The generals would lose face — and in a time when women were widely dismissed, it would only make her look like she was outshining them.
Even if she achieved great feats later, their memory of today's humiliation would make them ignore her contributions.
For someone who wanted to protect and integrate into humanity, that would be disastrous.
Even if these men all died years later, their ideas would carry into the next generation.
A bad first impression would never fully fade.