Administrative Mishap [Supergirl/Worm]

OxfordOctopus · Aug 3, 2020

ADMINISTRATIVE MISHAP
in which Queen Administrator learns to be a person

[Special thanks to @Abyranss for the cover art! You can find the rest of their art here.]

[Special thanks to Lark for this cover image! Please go and read their stuff, I enjoyed so much of it!

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hey, so, I might've got on a Supergirl kick for a while. It might've spiralled out of control, and now we're here. I hope you enjoy.

PILOT

The girl was emaciated, thin and gangly, all bony angles that made her sink into the sheets along the hospital bed like a paperweight. Her hair was black with thick curls, sheared down until it just barely framed the edges of her ears. Her mouth was wide, thin, and her face gaunt, with pale skin stretched across her cheekbones like it might at any moment tear from the strain. To add to it all, she was very obviously missing one arm from the elbow down, leaving little more than a half-melted stump in its place. She was everything Maxwell would imagine when he thought of a coma patient; she wouldn't look out of place on a google image search for that exact thing.

Yet, still, he wasn't happy.

"This looks nothing like Supergirl," he found himself saying, each word slow. Something that wasn't quite anger rolled in his chest, irritation more than anything so excessive; disappointment, too. He turned his head, stared at the man who had brought her in. "I thought I made the specifics of the test patients clear, Doctor Aleksandir."

Doctor Aleksandar winced briefly, face blanching just enough to be made out beneath the fluorescent lights above them. "Yes, and I am sorry about that, but finding a Jane Doe is one thing, a comatose one who has been kept around is another, and finding one who is both and doesn't have someone looking over them is something else entirely. I promise I'll find more, we have a few leads, but—well, she has some special circumstances that made her acquisition faster and easier."

Maxwell raised one eyebrow. "What, precisely, is so special about her that you'd go against the very basic requirements for this project?" Despite the relative difficulties of finding five-and-a-half foot tall blonde comatose patients with no family and no known identity, the requirements were basic. The point was to make someone identical to Supergirl, to have his own weapon if she went bad, if her plan to make the world rely on her until they became dependent came even remotely close to fruition.

Glancing towards the LED screen in the room, Doctor Aleksandir glanced back, tilting his head. "May I?"

"You may," he replied, however begrudgingly.

Stepping forward, Doctor Aleksandir shakily retrieved a thumb drive from his pants pocket, reaching beneath where the screen stuck out from the wall and slotting it into one of the several USB ports. The screen lit up immediately, displaying a brief message, which Doctor Aleksandar quickly tapped through. One by one, he started to open files, an image of the girl's face, initially, looking less gaunt but with bandages wrapped around her skull; another image depicting a CAT scan, a third that showed activity in her brain.

"Right, so, uhm—" Doctor Aleksandir hesitated, reached out shakily, before finally flicking his fingers across the screen, bringing up what looked to be a police report. "She appeared in an alleyway at around the end of June 2013, found by the police. They rushed her to the hospital without working to first verify her identity and while they managed to save her, she, obviously, didn't manage a recovery. She had been shot twice in the head, you see, not to mention the litany of other problems she had."

So not only had he brought her a crippled girl who looked nothing like Supergirl, he brought her a defective one.

Apparently noticing the thin layer of anger on his face, Doctor Aleksandir blanched even further, the pallid cast to his skin reaching all the way to his temples, where black hair had long started to fade to gray. "Anyway, so they wanted to run some basic brain scans, see her chance of recovery, and they found... this."

Maxwell blinked. Once, twice, tilted his head on an angle, tried to figure out what exactly he was seeing. "A tumour?"

Doctor Aleksandir shrugged. "Not as far as they can tell, the bullets went right through it. It's a developed node in her brain, it's where most of the remaining brain activity even is. The guy who found out about it assumed, correctly, that she wouldn't be making a recovery and opted to hide the results of her CAT scan from his peers so he could do research."

Rolling his jaw, Maxwell approached, eyes flicking across the brain scan, making out how the little lump of grey matter had almost depressed the area around it. "Is she an alien?"

Another shrug. "If she is, our technology isn't able to identify it or any evidence of alien DNA. She is different, however, small changes to her physical nature that are generally found in isolated communities. There's not a huge difference, not enough that she'd be another species, but she's just different enough that it piqued interest. All of the information he had on her is in the thumb drive, by the way, the studies he did, theories about what that part of her brain could be used for, among other things."

"So you brought me an unknown girl with an odd brain deformity, which could genuinely just be that—for all we know she could be some inbred child of a religious fundamentalist group from the south. You still aren't telling me why you opted to spend funds I gave you on her, funds which, need I remind you, have been allotted for the sole purpose of this project."

Doctor Aleksandar fidgeted, and for a short moment, didn't really say anything. "She was cheap," he said, voice almost quiet. "The doctor who had been keeping her on standby had started to draw suspicion, I got her for a fraction of what it would cost to smuggle any of the other girls you need. Not just that but, even for a comatose patient, she's not... conventional. Comatose movement isn't unusual, but for someone with almost no brain activity outside of that damaged node in her brain it's... really, really unusual. Almost impossible. She moves slowly, too, not REM or spasms, her arms slowly rise up to her sides and her legs curl. This isn't even bringing up the other things he found on her brain, the fact that she had her brain scarred, specifically in regions that are known to handle pain receptors? She's an enigma, and... I might've assumed that it would be better to start on girls who don't look like Supergirl, so we don't waste the ones who we can find when we begin testing."

He could give him that much at least. An odd, malformed comatose patient with no identifiable history, odd physical behaviours, and the ability to dispose of her when needed without feeling like he was wasting resources was a decent enough draw. Not a good enough draw, in his opinion, he'd be keeping a shorter leash on Doctor Aleksandar, despite his vast access to less-than-legitimate trafficking services, but... well. Termination wasn't in his near future, not unless he pulled a stunt like this again.

"Do you have the DNA prepared?" He finally asked, glancing back towards Doctor Aleksandar.

The man visibly relaxed, like a weight had been taken off his shoulders. If he was lucky, it would be the only thing that was. "Er, yes, of course. Would you like me to begin trials?"

Flicking his eyes back to the gaunt girl in the bed, the way she was swaddled by blankets, the way her chest rose and fell without the help of a respirator or any other life support equipment, Maxwell inclined his head. "Do it."

Queen Administrator had known what the likely consequences for its actions would be. Its host's death, a high possibility; permanent decommission of the host in some capacity, even higher. It had been statistically less likely that the death of The Warrior would result in its host's continued function than it was if its host had simply decided to try to flee The Warrior's wrath.

None of the current situation was within the parameters of its calculations. A force, a humanoid being, in the moments after its host's attempted execution had not just hauled the host herself through a hijacked fold in spacetime - generated by who the host called 'Doormaker' - but the planet Queen Administrator had seeded with it, displacing it dimensionally and outside of the greater cluster they'd fashioned for use in the cycle. There was no precedent for something like this, not that it could've checked now that it was not just cut off from the remnants of The Warrior's network, but any network whatsoever.

Moving something so vast as a planet, let alone one largely occupied by its crystalline mass, was something that would truly only be possible by something on par with The Warrior itself, and yet it had still happened, with no indication it was going to, to begin with.

It was alone. There was no network for it to connect to, and it had checked for anything, any scrap of evidence that it was cut off from its kin. It had sent out pings, bypassed the restrictions on broadcast to reach out to anything in any of the other parallel worlds, and had received nothing, not even interference, which might have pointed towards a way to regain access to the multidimensional hub.

The only lasting connection it had was to its host, and that was tenuous at best. The node it and the rest of its kind had introduced to the host's species had been mostly destroyed during the execution, leaving it largely unworkable. Accessing it wasn't impossible, but the actual practicalities of accessing it were few and far between. There was little it could benefit from doing so, and it risked killing the host and cutting off any connection whatsoever if it did so carelessly, which it would not.

There were protocols for when cycles went wrong. Generally said protocols called for the mass extinction of a dimension's biological populace and the continuation of the cycle in one of its mirror worlds, but for when even that wasn't an option, the generally agreed upon actions were to attempt to reconnect to the network, and if that failed, to establish an independent network which could maintain stability in its local region until such a time where the remaining kin involved in the cycle could bring together the numerous networks and make a decision on where to go from there. That, for what should be patently obvious reasons, was similarly not an option.

The last and remaining protocol for a full cyclical collapse, in the pursuit of ensuring the continued propagation of their kind, was to reduce energy consumption to a bare minimum and go largely dormant until such a time where another entity might possibly cross the region of spacetime and could be contacted.

Queen Administrator did not want to do this. It had already gone against protocol, broken the very fundamental rules - do not attempt to usurp The Warrior, do not hurt The Warrior, do not disrupt The Warrior's goal, continue the cycle to its completion - and if its options were going dormant until it could be cannibalized and misused or trying to find some way to work its way out of this problem, it was going to take the latter.

It had already reduced energy intake to as low as it could go while still retaining its awareness. It had relegated a majority of its energy intake to solar and thermal to avoid consuming too much more of the planet, which it would need if it wanted to continue to survive, and had started the laborious process of ensuring it could achieve some degree of equilibrium with the planet's energy output, so as to ensure it could stretch its limited fuel source to their limit. This had bumped the estimated cycle's 300 solar revolutions to about 3400 revolutions, so long as nothing else went awry that was beyond its control.

What it was left with now was options going forward. The main energy sink was its consciousness and processing ability, as maintaining it was taxing and would only grow more taxing the more it was required. Offloading its consciousness onto something else was possible, but risky. Specifically because it would require offloading its consciousness into its host, which it could do. It would diminish it severely, yes, reduce their processing ability down to unfortunately human levels, but it would cut nearly half of its energy requirement even with it using a connection to its greater whole to access a limited portion of their past processing ability in a manner similar to the one they'd used to originally give their host her multitasking abilities.

Looking at it into the future, so long as its host did not experience a biological cascade failure, resulting in their termination, within 25% of a full stellar revolution, they would already have saved more energy than it would take to do an emergency consciousness transfer back to its original crystalline mass. This wasn't even taking into account the degrees of forewarning it would have on the matter, a slow death would functionally let them transport their consciousness without overtaxing energy reserves before the host ceased functioning and let them continue without any loss.

It was a good plan, in theory. It would diminish their ability to micromanage their inhabited world, but if the host lived for even half of the projected lifespan of its species, it would save them numerous stellar revolution's worth of energy to do so.

It spent a fraction of a millionth of a stellar revolution to think about it, even briefly reactivating since-dormant parts of itself to do so. Outside of the numerous protocol violations it was taking part in by doing so - violations it could ignore as the sole remaining network and network administrator, it had no restrictions anymore - there was nothing particularly wrong with its choice. It was only risky because the host species was biological and their habit of dying was well-documented from past cycles, and even then, the risk was low and the reward possibly what would let them reestablish higher function and begin propagating again.

Yes, this plan would do.

It had made a mistake. Queen Administrator had taken into account the possibility of feedback from its host brain, but not to the degree that it had received. The transfer wasn't difficult, achieved in what it now knew were called 'minutes', which were a collection of 'seconds', but shortly after, it had become abundantly clear that not only had the host's abrupt disconnection from itself shredded the host's consciousness into nothingness, but it did so in such a way that it had retained every last memory and hormonal response as well.

Nominally, Queen Administrator had always had access to its host's memories. Part of the initial connection process was to use the host species' ability to dream to forge a connection, access the greater network of their brain, and then begin the process of engorging the node used to generate a connection between host and shard. This let it have generalized access to memories, but not to the degree it had now. Basic protocol dictated stripping the memories of emotional context and relying on watching the hormonal changes to understand the emotional context of the memories, but protocol was long gone and there was no such barrier anymore.

It... wasn't really sure what to do with this. It was something, the transfer had worked, but the memories were intrusive and it was starting to second-guess its decision, which was new, considering second-guessing had not been a factual part of their existence until seconds ago. It would, of course, wait out the three 'months' - months being units of between 29 and 31 'days', which were units of 24 'hours', which were units of 60 'minutes'; the host's species was rather odd in their absurd need to categorize the flow of spacetime - that would be required before an instant mental transfer could be made, but that was it. This experiment had gone too far.

It would continue its goals and prevent further mental contamination, or simply live out the rest of its existence alone.

Queen Administrator had come to decide that human pronouns were, in fact, somewhat valid. Referring to itself as 'it' had started to feel clumsy and odd after three months of existing in its host's head. 'She' felt better, as she was, after all, a Queen Administrator.

...Of course, Queen Administrator had really just been the closest English equivalent to its designation among the greater shard whole. A royal figure of authority who ensured the numerous parts of the colony organism worked in harmony, while additionally providing some technical abilities in terms of tuning and adjusting shards pre-cycle. Still, the name had somehow come to stick in one way or another, and it felt better, less... uncomfortable, using pronouns female humans did.

She had also decided not to transfer back to her whole. The amount of energy she was saving had been a decimal point off in her calculations and was, in the grand scheme of thousands of years, a rather large bonus. It would be incredibly inefficient to return to her other form, despite it being better at processing and cataloguing information.

The passage of time was not a new concept to her, really. She had existed in some capacity in the greater whole for longer than humans had evidence of complicated life existing on the planet, not that most of it hadn't been spent as one part of a larger consciousness. Memories as a concept weren't really translatable between shard and human; where Taylor's memories were bright and had sensory input, a sort of reality that she could pay some attention to, relive, to pass the time, memories of her time before the latest cycle felt more like a task list, or a textbook. Factoids, information, sure, but... not in the way that mattered.

So, really, a full year was not a huge amount of time. In the grand scheme of things it was infinitely small in comparison to the prolonged existence of what could be described as her consciousness. You had to count her age with to the power of tacked onto it, she was functionally immortal. A year was not a problem.

But, for reasons beyond her understanding, it had been a 'slow' year. The passage of time was relative in spacetime theory, things moving faster tended to do so literally; the faster you moved, the slower time passed. This was not that, however, in all ways but the actual galactic movement of stellar bodies she had been stationary for a year and it had felt more like twenty times that.

Not just that, but she had been accosted, after her thirtieth or so full reliving of Taylor's memories, by an odd and poignant feeling. It was hard to describe, especially without a body to really use for context, seeing as emotions were hormonal byproducts of humanity's botched evolutionary pattern, but she'd found comparisons in Taylor's memories. It felt like a chest hurting, like a lump in her throat, it had made Taylor want to hug things, hold them tight, made her hover around her mother when she was seven and she had gone through a spat with one of her friends, Rebecca Whitehouse.

She had searched for a name to this feeling, however tenuous it might be, and had managed to find it in some of the memories just before Taylor's initial 'trigger event', as humans called it. It had been something she felt when she looked at Emma, happy and hale, without her, when she had thought about her mother, about her father's neglect of parental functions. She hadn't had a word for it until she'd stumbled on a memory of Taylor staring at the ceiling and uttering a single phrase: "I am lonely."

...Which, obviously, was absurd. She knew what loneliness was, accessing the context for that information was as easy as getting access to her memories. Loneliness was something humans felt, something she couldn't feel. She wasn't lonely.

She wasn't.

After two years, someone was deciding to modify her—her host's body. Even though her host had been exposed to enough damage-causing energetic particles to nearly remove her sense of touch - though it primarily prevented pain below a certain threshold from registering, while also dulling most other senses - it hurt. A lot. She had known what pain felt like abstractly, she had relived the memories of her host falling off her bike and breaking her ankle when she was six enough times to know how it feels to have a bone snap, not to mention the countless number of other small injuries, mostly as a result of her host being as clumsy as a foal, but this was something else entirely.

It hurt. A lot. It felt like her veins were full of acid - not that she knew exactly what that felt like but she could draw on Taylor's memories to at least make an educated guess - and it only stopped for a day or less before starting up again. Her ability to influence the body she was inhabiting was limited but she could at least observe it. DNA was the main thing that was changing, subverted by something she had originally thought to be a pathogen but was instead a rather cleverly-used prokaryotic organism that was forcefully modifying things it came into contact with, replacing it with what she roughly assumed was alien DNA.

She just hoped they knew what they were doing. And that they could die, because it hurt, and she wasn't feeling very charitable about it.

Months passed, the pain receded, but the changes remained, propagating out and hijacking her body to further continue the spread of altered DNA. She didn't really know how to feel about it, and could only really guess at the applications, but what she had noticed was the regenerative capacity the changes offered. It would take a while, but the changes would eventually reach her brain, and when that happened, well... hopefully it would fix it and not try to restructure the brain. Or just kill her. That would be bad too.

Queen Administrator wasn't really a name, was it? She didn't really feel comfortable using 'Taylor', although at this point she had somewhat come to realize the differences between herself and her host had become blurry at best. 'Taylor' was too loaded, but... maybe Anne? Addy? Addy was... nice, related to Adeline, she was pretty sure, it didn't really mean anything, but, it at least felt familiar to her, er, old name? Title?

She'd figure it out.

Probably.

Maxwell Lord had a lot to pay for. Eight girls, he'd taken eight girls with no names or known origins and had killed the majority of them in a bid to create some fucked-up clone of her sister. Which, really, did go to show the sort of man he was; he couldn't handle the fact that Kara was actually saving people and opted to instead create some sort of abomination. At the very least he could give himself the powers, fuck up his own body irreparably instead of using other people for it.

"This is the last one," Agent Vasquez said, glancing at the door. Like most things in the hall, it was locked by a biometric scanner, but considering that Maxwell Lord was now basically the property of the DEO, they didn't have to be subtle anymore. Sparing a glance at Vasquez, who just nodded in return, Alex took a step back, levelled the barrel of her gun at the locked knob, adjusted her stance for the kickback, and fired, blowing the knob apart under the sheer, cathartic power of unreasonably high calibre handgun ammunition.

Vasquez was quick on the uptake, gun held to her side in both hands as she used her shoulder to push the door open. Nothing about this room was any different from the others; it had the same bed, the same hospital equipment, the same drip-feed of Kara's DNA. It was just that, unlike the rest, where she'd found blonde girls in various states of near-death, looking all eerily similar to Kara, with evidence that they hadn't looked that way until Maxwell had gotten his greasy little fingers on it, she was instead rewarded with what looked to be a very awake, very confused looking girl with curly black hair and one arm.

The girl made a noise low in her throat, curious, like she was testing it, before glancing away from the two of them and to the monitor. Glancing furtively at Agent Vasquez, who stared back at her with thinly-veiled worry, Alex found herself pulling fully back and waving down the hallway towards J'onn, who glanced her way wordlessly and started making his way down. Flanked on either side was a pair of troopers, outfitted in assault rifles, and going by the fact that the girl in the room hadn't looked even remotely like someone who spent the last several years in a coma, they might genuinely need them.

"Agent Danvers, report."

Alex felt her spine twitch, straighten impulsively. She knew better than to think J'onn actually saw less of her, knew almost personally that he viewed her more as a daughter, and had only reasonable expectations for her, but she'd always chafed under other people's expectations to begin with. "There's a girl in there, doesn't look much like Supergirl," she started, beginning to tread backwards to keep pace as J'onn quickly marched towards the door. "One arm, she's awake, too, looking more bewildered than anything else, but she's in too good condition to be just a coma patient. Orders?"

J'onn paused, glancing around the door. She watched his eyebrows raise in quiet surprise, curiosity flicking across his face before returning to perfect neutrality. "Get her an escort back to base along with the rest of her files, then strip this place down to its bones."

Being awake was a particularly novel experienced for Addy. Not, of course, that she didn't want to be, but she'd never factored actually having control over the body for any length of time into her simulations and it was all new. Sensations, smells, the way that the wind pulling across her hair made her want to smile. It was very weird, but in a very good way?

She could do without the whole, y'know, prison thing. But they'd stuffed her in there when she'd started to float - something, for the record, she didn't actually have in terms of powers she could give out, which meant the changes to her DNA were the reason, and that did explain where all that solar energy her cells had soaked up was going - and then proceeded to accidentally rip a door off of its hinges.

That did, however, seem to be about the full collection of her powers. Apparent enhancements to her durability, the ability to fly, and super strength. Ironically, those were all the things The Warrior had deigned too unrelated to her main function in gathering information in the cycle to provide her, so he could kindly get fucked.

Being awake was doing a whole lot to her emotions, and most of them weren't really bad per-se. What was bad was the fact that she was now apparently violently allergic to a form of radiation she had never seen before. On the upside, it was a fascinating piece of crystalline substructure, on the downside, she had puked mostly acid onto the boots of the one they called 'Agent Vasquez' when it was brought near her due to the sheer nausea it caused, which was also a new sensation, weirdly enough. It had made the trip back a bit rougher, not that she'd felt any of their attempts to, er, what was the word, 'manhandle' her?

Was it manhandling when it was a woman? Womanhandling sounded off, and girlhandling sounded like a crime.

Sitting in the metal chair they'd given her, Addy glanced at the odd green lights around her - where the radiation was coming from which, really, most radioactive materials didn't glow, that was a fabrication by stupid people, and it said something that this radiation did without first generating enough heat to boil water - and then down at the floor. It was a glass box of sorts, and she was only really sticking around because the closer she got to the glass the more her body wanted to make unpleasant purges of her stomach, so she was, well, mostly content to sit on the chair and just, take everything in.

Of course, it was probably very bad that a shady - presumably government? It looked like the official stuff she could recall from Taylor's memories - agency had more or less abducted her from where she had been genetically modified on, and it was likely that they might have questions, or concerns, or things they wanted her to do, but, well, she could burn that bridge when she got to it.

That was one of her favourite idioms, a combination of 'we'll cross that bridge when we get to it' and the age-old, surprisingly cathartic action of 'burning bridges', which generally referred to both the actual act of arson and ruthlessly destroying connections you have to other people due to several reasons, most of which usually ended up being because people were stupid.

Then again, glass houses and all that. She had only just recently realized that her prior function was to more or less throw shit at a wall until the wall spontaneously started generating unlimited energy. In hindsight, they really shouldn't've purged the creativity matrix from the greater whole after that incident with the Cathexis. Then again, a lot of that cycle had been purged in general for obvious reasons; apparently reality-warping abilities and the ability to generate sentient reality-warping energy fields was, in fact, a bad mix.

A sudden knock on the glass container they'd stuck her in jolted her from her thoughts. That was also a new thing, getting distracted—it was vividly weird to have like, an attention span? Blinking and trying to refocus on the present, Addy tilted her head to the side, staring at a blonde girl in, well, a hero costume sans a mask. It was a pretty average-looking costume, some sort of long-sleeved top, a cape, a skirt, and some thigh-high boots that inspired odd memories of people wearing a full-body latex suit that made her uncomfortable for reasons she wasn't about to process.

"Do you speak English?" Blonde-lady-with-the-boots asked, her voice wonderfully high and weirdly subdued.

Addy blinked slowly. "If it's called English here, probably?"

"Well—that's, uh, great!" The woman stammered, relief washing over her with a suddenness that brought Addy up short. What was she so relieved about? That she could speak English? What if she had spoken Spanish? French? Would she be upset—

"Do you know your name?" The woman interrupted her thoughts, again. She'd have to get a hold on those, especially if she ever wanted to reconnect to her main body and access some form of powers again. She only hadn't because she wasn't entirely sure what they'd do to her altered physiology. "Or, like, what people call you?"

People have called her a lot of things, really. Taylor used to call her 'a parasite' when she thought nobody was overhearing her talking to thin air like a complete weirdo. Theo really was a nice guy, never bringing up her habit of doing that. "I'm Addy," she said, instead, because she was largely constructing the conversation from the lingering memories of Taylor's mother teaching her how to be polite. "What's your name?"

The woman smiled. "Ka—er, Supergirl. I am Supergirl."

"That's a very odd name," Addy blurted, pausing when she realized she hadn't actually intended to say that. Were all humans this impulsive? Or was it just a her thing?

"I, uh, have another name. Supergirl is just my, you know," Supergirl motioned vaguely at herself.

Addy blinked. "I do not, in fact, know."

"Supergirl is just my, er—hero name?" Again, she said it like a question, but this time at least Addy did have context for it. Hero names, cape names, same thing different universe. At least it made sense.

Smiling, Addy nodded, if only to show she did understand. "Do you wanna hear mine?"

"Already thinking about helping the world, huh?" Supergirl said, rapid-fire, face lighting up in a smile for reasons Addy didn't really understand because, well, no. She wasn't. She wanted to experience the world, sure, and she could kinda relate to Taylor's plight after she did all of those mutilations and stuff, trying to be a hero, but what she could remember about being a hero involved an unreasonable amount of paperwork she no longer had the processing power to complete in seconds.

But, then, she did recall Taylor's habit of being immediately pointed out as a villain so it probably wasn't in her best interest to say any of that. "I'm called Queen Administrator," she said, ignoring the odd look on Supergirl's face. "...Or, well, I guess my host was called Skitter, too, and Bug, and uh, Weaver, Khepri, a bunch of words I think aren't to be said in polite company, like slurs, those too."

"...Your host?" Supergirl said weakly, sounding almost... weirdly on the verge of tears? But not in a sad way? Like she was frustrated, or confused, or possibly both, and so much so that it was overwhelming. She was pretty sure Taylor had felt that way before, not that she was going to go digging for the memory at this time.

Addy nodded slowly, just to make sure the assent got across. "Well, I'm my host now and vice-versa, kinda. But, yeah, I was her powers? I guess? If you want to describe it. Then she got shot, twice, and now there's just, uh, me."

Supergirl stared for a long, long moment, her face pinched. After a breath, she turned. "I'm getting J'onn."

Addy wanted to ask who that was, but didn't get the chance before Supergirl blurred out of there. Huh, maybe that's why they called her Supergirl? Super speed was a pretty novel idea. Less cool than flight, though.

"So, did everyone just hear that conversation?" Kara asked, not quite able to keep the weariness out of her tone.

J'onn just shot her a look, depositing another cookie into his mouth, while Alex stared blankly at the screen displaying Addy's cage. She sat like a little princess, Kara noticed upon closer inspection, legs brought together, hands folded primly in her lap, back ramrod straight and a curious, childish look on her face. She'd spoken with inflection, at least, which hadn't made the discussion any creepier.

"I got a headache when I tried to access her mind," J'onn said after another moment, low enough that only she and Alex could pick up. "I'm pretty sure she's telling the truth, she's giving me rather uncomfortable flashbacks to the time a fifth dimension imp popped up on one of our mountain ranges, but she seems genuine."

"Are we really not going to talk about the fact that she's hijacking someone's body?" Alex interjected, arms rising up to cross over her chest.

J'onn wiggled his tin of oreos in a vague gesture, a sort of 'maybe'. "It's very likely what she said was the truth, that she is all that's left in there. Though, the fact is that we have a rogue alien intelligence hosted inside of what we now believe is a very-close-to seventy-five percent Kryptonian body."

Kara snapped her head around. "What."

J'onn set the tin down, scratching his chin after a moment of silence. "The files on her case are unique. She was one of the first test subjects, they gave her your DNA through gene editing, unlike Bizarro herself. They had written her off since she never showed any sign of waking up or becoming cognizant, and so they didn't attempt to use gene-editing again afterwards."

Kara tried not to grimace at the name. It hadn't even been a full day since she'd had to watch Bizarro go under, had to watch as they put her into what was possibly a permanently comatose state because Maxwell Lord couldn't handle her existing. "How does that change anything? Bizarro had my powers, does she too?"

"Some of them, I'd think. Definitely your strength, durability and flight, but she's shown no signs of having enhanced hearing or reactions, nor your eye lasers or freeze breath. Her strength is less strong, too, and she appears to be more sensitive to Kryptonite, for reasons we'll no doubt never figure out. Her body's been modified, Supergirl, most of it has, but it's not perfect, she's still got a fair amount of human in there. If there was any real comparison, she's possibly a good example of what a half-Kryptonian child might look like."

Kara tried very hard not to imagine Kal-El having a kid. Very, very hard.

"What do we do with her then?" Kara finally asked, her voice weak, reedy. "We can't just... leave her here. Even if she's in a body that wasn't originally hers, she didn't really do anything wrong, you know? She's a victim." A victim she helped make.

J'onn hummed low in his throat, drumming his fingers along the table. "Well, we'll see how much she'll be willing to divulge about her origins, ask for a species name, the whole gamut we do when we find non-aggressive but unknown aliens. Then, well..."

A pause, pregnant like a woman with triplets.

"How do you feel about being a mentor, Supergirl?"

OxfordOctopus · Aug 3, 2020

EPISODE 1

The cell they had her in was shaped like an octagon, with about four feet to each face. The walls were glass, lined with bright white lights that had been recessed both into the ground next to the walls and into the ceiling above her. Her chair was one of the ones she vaguely remembered from Taylor's memories, fold-out things with a back too low to be totally comfortable, though that didn't mean she'd do something like slouch over, or whatever. It wasn't the only bit of seating in her little prison, admittedly, there were a pair of benches flanking the left and right sides of the octagon with little fold-up panels and a flush bar, probably meaning they could double as a toilet when the need arose. The only reason why she wasn't sitting on the benches was that they were closer to the interesting green radiation lamps and, while she might be fascinated by them, she would rather not have to be in the same room as her own bile if it could be at all possible.

Addy pursed her lips, squinted up at the green light and really wished she had access to even a fifth of the tools she would need to properly break that piece of esoteric crystal down into its constituent components. She, of course, knew she was allergic to it, that it retaliated against the alterations made to her body, forced her cells to relinquish their share of solar energy they had absorbed, but she didn't know why. Sure, radiation could be plenty diverse, but generally not to this extent; a hunk of uranium wasn't going to kill you any differently than a hunk of thorium, one would just kill you significantly faster depending on how enriched it was. Radiation was supposed to just be radiation, the bane to the weak and fleshy, causing cancerous growths after disrupting the biological coding within most intelligent species who hadn't had the foresight to naturally develop protections against it.

Yet, whatever that was, it wasn't just radiation. Because if her body really did have a violent allergy to radiation in general, to the degree where a chunk of something that wasn't poisonous to the people who had brought her here in the first place was able to completely disrupt her body's ability to store and utilize solar energy, she should've died the moment she stepped out into the sun. But, instead, when she had, she'd felt the most energized she had ever been; they'd stepped out into the light, beyond whatever building they'd been keeping her comatose body in, and she'd felt so floaty that she actually managed to defy conventional laws of physics and actually begin to float.

So, clearly, there was something else going on. She wanted to find out, but, again, she didn't want to puke all over the place she was being contained, not only because it'd be really gross - and what a unique concept that was, to have a sense of what was gross - but also because she wasn't really a huge fan of the feeling she got when she did puke. It felt like she was going to die, really, which was patently stupid because of course she wasn't going to die, her body was just having a symptomatic reaction to something unpleasant and trying to fix that by purging her stomach. But, nevertheless, it had felt like dying probably felt like - she, well, wasn't entirely clear what that felt like but surely puking had to be close - and she wasn't really eager to repeat it.

None of this was even bringing up the other litany of impulses she had going on now. How did people deal with wanting to twitch at the time? Before she had fused with Taylor, being a static entity had been her existence; movement wasn't very efficient for energy storage unless you were doing so by exploiting gravity or some other method of locomotion. It would've been completely unthinkable to twitch, to want to swing her legs back and forth, and yet she was doing quite literally everything in her power not to. Taylor never had to deal with this, she'd checked because she was actually kinda worried this was another her problem and her reference frame for what was normal and what wasn't by searching Taylor's memories was actually starting to get very narrow because despite having a lot of Taylor in her head she really wasn't Taylor, she was Addy and Addy wanted to swing her legs back and forth and twitch her fingers and do weird vibrating gestures when she got emotional and—

The green radioactive lights blinked out around her.

Addy jolted, her foot scuffing off the floor and sending her chair skidding back to the awful sound of nails on a chalkboard. Her back thumped against the glass wall, not that she felt much of it with her powers back, but the sizable dent she could now feel digging into her spine from where the chair had hit the glass wall at an odd angle probably meant it hadn't been a soft impact.

Beyond the confines of the glass walls, the door leading into the containment area opened. The man on the other side was familiar, she'd seen him peek his head around a corner and stare very intensely at her before getting this odd, curious look on his face and leaving. He was dark-skinned, as bald as you could be, and his face was delightfully grumpy, if also somehow expressionless. He was tall, though, bulky and dressed in black, which might've made him more intimidating if not for the fact that he still looked like the human equivalent of a less deformed pug.

Folding his hands behind his back, the man approached with steady, easy strides, managing to project confidence and command despite the fact that his face was still completely devoid of emotion. He came to a stop just short of the glass wall facing the door and - rather impolitely, she might add - stared at her, saying nothing.

Canting her head to the side, Addy blinked slowly.

The man gazed back, though he didn't tilt his head to the side to match her as she'd hoped.

"My name," he began, finally, after another moment of staring. "Is Hank Henshaw, Director of the D.E.O. What is your name?"

Addy blinked, slow and lax. "Addy."

"The name you would go by to others of your species," Hank clarified, voice toneless.

Oh. "Queen Administrator," she answered simply, fingers twitching in her lap.

That got the first reaction out of Hank to date. His eyes widened a bit, lips pursed, jaw almost set, before it all faded back into neutrality. He could be very expressive if he tried; she wondered if that would make his grumpy appeal better or worse.

"You're a monarch," he said, voice almost disbelieving.

That was a bit more complicated. Remembering the gesture, Addy brought her hand up and wiggled it back and forth in a 'so-so' way, feeling more than a little proud of her ability to remember it. "I wasn't the leader of my kind if that's what you're asking. It's just the closest English equivalent I can give."

Hank relaxed at that, shoulders untensing, little bits of tension in his body she hadn't noticed until they faded all but leaking out of him in relief. "What is the name of your species?" He asked.

"We don't have one," which was true. While the greater whole tended to go by symbolic names—The Warrior, The Thinker—as a species, as what was once a part of that greater whole, there wasn't really one to give.

"Why, exactly, is that?" Hank probed, eyes narrowing minutely. Did he think she was being stubborn? Maybe he thought it was a political issue or something. Humans were weird.

Still, Addy shrugged, not following that line of thought through. "We just didn't. We were—well, the closest equivalent in your terms would be a colony organism? Most of the time we had very little independence, the main intelligence in the hub would relegate us to be more limbs than individual entities when we were combined back into the greater whole, and we would only gain a semblance of control and awareness after a cycle had begun." It was oddly very cathartic to talk about something that she had been expressly disallowed to; the cycle had been sacrosanct until it hadn't been, its existence a closely-guarded secret, purged from the memories of the ones who they didn't just purge more literally. But, then, as far as she could tell there was no cycle here, no reason to keep any of it hidden.

"A cycle?" Hank, again, probed. At least he was being blunt about it.

"We would seed ourselves into a host species and grant them powers," Addy began, each word slipping off her tongue with relish. "Targeting those who would use said powers the most, collecting data, informing the next cycle. When a cycle would end, usually long after the host population's civilization would have collapsed, we would reconsolidate into one whole, eradicate what was left of the native inhabitants, and then detonate the core of their planet across several universes to generate enough energy to fuel and fund the transit to the next planet, whereupon we would repeat the process."

Hank remained silent for a long moment, staring at her with an unreadable expression on his face. "Do you intend to do that here?" He asked, tone forcefully calm.

Addy shook her head. "I'm aberrant," she said in lieu of an explanation. "I'm not... that anymore, the cycle has no purpose, our goal was to let us keep reproducing, to propagate throughout the universe, and the way we thought we could figure out the answer to that was to do mass testing on a large scale, relying on the creativity and intuition of host species to do so. It was ineffective at best, completely pointless at worst. When I fused with Taylor I—I... realized that things weren't all that they seemed, but even before that I had long ago gone outside of the parameters of my existence to aid her in killing the central hub to my network and prevent the cycle from being completed."

She'd had doubts about things even before she'd become a she. She hadn't been devoted to the cycle since she'd learned through Taylor that The Thinker's absence was more than just some sort of experiment, had realized what they could've gained from it wouldn't be enough to make up for the loss of The Thinker. While her species had decided upon two gestalts, two greater wholes, to better prevent over-specialization into a single type of study, the two had still been more close to one than they had been independent. Two bodies, two main intelligences, but one mind, just split between two halves. The evidence for ending the cycle, for preventing The Warrior from finishing it, had only compounded from there; The Warrior had devolved into what it was by that loss, had become something as aberrant as she now was, if in a wrong way.

"Your... host," Hank began again, wrenching Addy out of her thoughts. She'd been spiralling there, self-justifying, it would do her no good to run in circles. What was done was done, she was now who she was; the past would simply be that: the past. "What is her status?"

Something in her chest wrenched, twisted painfully in a way that wasn't physical. Addy gasped almost, reached up to touch her chest with her fingers, the feeling fading as rapidly as it had come on. "She's—" gone, she wanted to say, which she was. She was gone in every way that mattered, what had been Taylor had died when a stupid bitch had put two bullets through their node, through the loose connection they had formed. They had killed her, turned her consciousness to so much shredded nothingness, not even enough for her to begin reconsolidating Taylor's identity, updating the saved consciousness she had on her big body. What she had left was a pale echo, devoid of emotions, a two-dimensional copy of someone important and—

"I'm sorry for your loss," Hank said, interrupting her again. He was staring at her with warmth, with something very... knowing, in his eyes.

Blinking, Addy reached up further, brushed fingers over her cheeks and found them wet. She breathed in, her throat catching, an awful gurgling noise escaping her as her nose sniffled. Was she crying? She didn't like it. "She's gone," Addy finally said, not liking how her voice came out feeling numb. "I have a very rudimentary copy of her on my big body, but it's... not her. It's a two-dimensional copy at best, it wouldn't be Taylor. She's gone. I'm all that's left."

"Let's move on, then," Hank said cordially, sounding almost gentle. "We'll need a name for your species, and while I realize you may not have one, do you know of any terminology other members used to refer to themselves?"

Addy blinked, slowly. She did, she'd used it to refer to herself at one point too—shards of a greater whole, pieces and splinters of their main body spread out and seeded, grown into trees. But she wasn't that either anymore, was she? She was also Taylor, also human, also whatever else they'd modified her body with. She was different, close to what she had been, but not quite. "Shardite," she found herself saying, very slowly. "We referred to ourselves as shards of a singular thing, splinters, but, if you want a species name, Shardite would probably work."

"It's not taken," Hank conceded, folding his hands across his chest, not in a defensive gesture, but seemingly just for something to do with his body. "You said you could give out powers, do you still have access to that anymore?"

Addy sniffed again, wiped away at what remained of the dampness with her good arm. "Some of it," she confessed. "I haven't checked, but I can access some of my powers, I just—I can't bud. It's energy-intensive, we didn't need to really control energy output because cycles didn't last long enough, but now I do. I'll have powers, but I can't commit the resources to give them to anyone else."

She didn't want to, either. It felt like it would be a betrayal, taking something away from her memory of Taylor, playing into a role she was no longer fit for. She wasn't Queen Administrator anymore, she was Addy. That did raise some questions, though, she wondered how Aiden was doing, he'd been her only bud and it was very likely he no longer had access to powers now that she wasn't in the same universe as he was. She just hoped his mind handled her absence better than Taylor's did.

"That's okay, Addy," Hank stressed the word for a moment, and Addy found herself lowering her arm from her face, blinking owlishly at him. He smiled, face half-wrinkling with warmth, comforting in a way she hadn't known she needed. She wanted to focus on other things, on the crystals and the sensations and she wanted to hop in place and jump around and do things but this was okay too. Taylor always had problems processing her emotions in any way but a rote, rationalist mindset, it had stripped the emotions that made people healthy away, as was intended when she had chosen her. Maybe it was okay to be emotional if her past self had chosen someone who would do the opposite. She still didn't like crying, though. "I won't apologize if this has been stressful, this discussion has to happen, you are, one way or another, an extraterrestrial who needs to be filed and understood if you want to ever leave here. We don't intend to keep you here, you're a victim as much as you are an alien, but we do need certain knowledge to ensure you won't be a danger to other people."

That made some sort of sense. It didn't make her feel any better, but it wasn't like his logic was unsound. Letting her arm fully drop back down to her lap, Addy twined her fingers into the hospital gown she was still wearing, feeling her nails drag against the itchy cotton. "Okay," she finally said, forcing her spine straight, folding her legs closer together, ignoring the urge to curl in on herself. She could do this. She was Addy. "What do you need to know?"

Hank's face faded back into neutrality, though there was something stiff set into his face, firm, resolute. "What can you tell me?"

Everything, she wanted to blurt, almost did. Addy swallowed it down, rocked her legs forward to let some of the energy in her body out, and canted her head. "I guess it all started when we—they entered into orbit around an Earth..."

Watching Hank depart, Addy leaned back into the mangled metal of her chair. It had taken a while to explain, to clarify, but she had told him... a lot. At the very least he'd promised they weren't going to turn the 'Kryptonite' - what a word - lamps back on, which was what had been sapping her strength. He'd assured her she wasn't a threat in their eyes, not after what she explained, but he had been uncomfortably mum on her future.

Her future, it was... odd, to think about. Shards had futures, yes, but it wasn't so clear-cut. A future meant being a tool in a cycle, fulfilling a purpose, achieving goals, but it was like the memories she had from her past, binary and rote. She had a future now, a future as more than an amalgam of crystalline architecture on a barren planet, more than just doling out powers and being forced to watch from the background, to be cannibalized and used for parts when her purpose outside of transit was changed. It was a very odd thing to think about, to see herself as having to do things Taylor did—get a job, get shelter, eat food, meet people. She wasn't sure how she felt about them other than nervous, which was itself another feeling she wasn't very fond of.

Exhaling deep from her chest, Addy toed at the ground again, staring at the scuff mark she'd left with her foot. She was strong enough to do that now, her body was apparently very durable, fast to heal, strong, and capable of flight. She could possibly generate lasers out of her eyes and breathe out bursts of air so cold it would generate free-standing deposits of ice, though Hank had said that it was incredibly unlikely. She was apparently between fifty and seventy-five percent Kryptonian now, not that she understood the context for that information outside of the fact that the name was related to Kryptonite, the radiation she was allergic to.

There was a whole world out there for her, apparently. She'd have to deal with that eventually, she couldn't just not deal with the future, however weird it felt. Getting a job? That was somewhat translatable, she'd always had duties, functions, purposes as one of the noble shards in her network, as one of the more important functions for transit outside of the shards meant to purposefully fuel the transit itself. A house? Less translatable, but still not incomprehensible; this body had the chance of being worn down by the elements. Eating was... apparently a thing, she hadn't really thought about it, had skipped over the memories of eating because she had no comparison. Yes, sure, gestalts could cannibalize one-another but there wasn't any actual consumption, no chemicals and acid dissolving biological matter down into nutrients. Predation in terms of her kin involved swarm tactics, peeling away the near-invulnerable outer shells of each-other in orbit and forcefully converting the parts of the whole into ones they controlled. That was how it worked, but she didn't really think she'd be able to do the same thing to, like, a chicken drumstick.

Or, at least, if she did, she'd probably get a few questions from other people, because she was almost positive that was not how humans ate things. They used teeth and muscle to mash up the material until it could be safely moved down the throat and into the digestive tract. She could, you know, study Taylor's memories for context, and she had before, she knew how to eat, it was just the idea of it was... vaguely nauseating? Concerning? Inefficient? But she'd have to because if she didn't she would very likely die, which wasn't really on the table, because she wanted to live. Despite all the worries in her future she didn't want to give it up, so, really, she'd... cope. She'd figure it out.

Maybe she'd just, y'know, never eat in public. That might work.

It'd probably be safer, and would probably keep people from figuring out she was anything but human. That seemed logical, sure it might be weird to refuse to ever eat near anyone but she knew vaguely that Taylor had similar impulses, but that had mostly been on account of Sophia's habit of soiling her food by covering it in otherwise indigestible matter, like sand, or spoiled milk, or that one time confetti.

"—I still can't believe you're doing this," a voice echoed, and this time Addy managed to avoid startling hard enough to throw her into the wall. Glancing up, she just caught sight of a woman with a sharply-cut brown bob of hair, an expression she'd remembered seeing on Annette's face that one time Taylor had gotten into an entire jar of artisanal jam, and a uniform very similar to the one Hank was wearing.

Following shortly after her, Supergirl appeared, looking at the woman with a muted expression. "Alex," she said slowly, in a way that Addy was pretty sure implied Supergirl thought Alex was a moron. "Who else is going to take her? Who else can we trust to take her? We both know the answer, and... anyway, I sympathize with her a little!"

"Hi Supergirl!" Addy yelled, because they were talking loudly too even from a distance and human customs dictated talking as loudly as the person you're speaking to. She waved her hand a little, a short back and forth, because waving was also people did when greeting someone from a distance away. Human customs were going to be difficult to learn, but at least she knew where to start.

Supergirl's face lit up a bit, a warm smile sliding over her features as she jogged forward, Alex begrudgingly trailing after her with a bit more speed in her step. "Hello Addy, we're here to let you out!"

Alex, to her side, fished a large ring with several complicated-looking keys attached to it out of her pocket, giving her a suspicious look before shoving one of them into the little console beside her prison. The glass wall on the other end of the prison began to slowly drop, sliding down into the earth, while a pair of metal steps loudly slotted out from beneath the prison.

"Oh, I'm glad," and she was because she was quickly getting bored and she wasn't sure if she could sleep sitting up. She hadn't slept before, at all, and she wasn't sure if sitting up would make it so that she always slept sitting up for the rest of her life. Human minds could be wonderfully bizarre like that; it was half the reason they'd chosen to use them as hosts. Well, that and dreams, which were, while not unique to Earth, exceptionally rare to find, even more so when the dreams didn't serve a secondary social purpose among species who could communicate without speaking. "Where will I be going?"

"Home with me," Supergirl answered without missing a beat, dutifully ignoring the way Alex glared at her. "I'm going to be your handler until we're sure you can integrate properly into society. Teach you how to act human, get you a place to sleep, things like that."

Huh. That was unexpected. "Is that allowed?"

"Yes," Supergirl answered, her voice firming up for a moment. Alex, beside her, deflated, reaching up to run one hand through her hair while she used the other to put the keys away in her pocket, the scowl dropping from her face. "But, oh, right, first things first..."

For reasons Addy wasn't entirely sure were rational, Supergirl blurred, returning with her hair pulled back into a ponytail that looked painfully tight and a pair of clunky glasses that brought to mind the pair Danny had used before Annette's death. "My uh, my real name is Kara Zor-El," she explained, fidgeting, like Addy might have something bad to say about a name like that. "I go by Kara Danvers, however, which you have to use when talking about me around others, okay?"

Addy nodded.

Kara beamed, a bright smile, before reaching over with enough speed that Alex couldn't duck out of the way, wrapping an arm around the distrustful-looking woman and pulling her in for a hug. "This is my sister, Alex. Her family adopted me when I arrived on earth. My planet, Krypton, was destroyed; me and Kal-El - Superman - and, I suppose you, kinda, are among some of the only Kryptonians left, except some Fort Rozz escapees."

Krypton, Kryptonians, Kryptonite. Oh. Oooh. "So is that why they're leaving me with you?" Addy asked, rising from her seat fully and beginning the slow tread towards the exit of her prison.

"Technically no," Kara denied, releasing Alex from her hug, who scrambled away like a particularly offended cat, glaring daggers at her sister. She stepped away, giving Addy more room as she descended the two stairs built into the platform of her prison. "I was asked by J—Hank to house you, because they think I'll be a good influence on you and I'll be able to help you learn how to control your powers, as well as being the only person here who learned how to be more human after being raised in a very different culture."

Feeling the cool metal beneath her toes, Addy let them wiggle. "Okay," she agreed, because it did make sense. She could rely on how Taylor acted to engage with the world around her, but she wasn't Taylor, and learning how to be Addy and seem human would probably be a good idea, all things considered. "Do you live nearby?"

Kara choked, a bit of laughter escaping her. "No, we're pretty far outside of city limits. I'll be flying you back, though speaking of..." She blurred again, too fast to track with the eyes despite Addy's very stubborn attempt to do so. When the blurring stopped, she had a small bundle of clothes in her hands: what looked like undergarments, gray sweatpants, and a gray sweatshirt with 'D.E.O.' written across it in huge black blocky letters. After a moment, she very unceremoniously extended the bundle out, which Addy managed to take most of. "Put these on."

At least they'd cover more than the hospital gown. Really, hospitals gowns were just airy ponchos with nothing on underneath them, and she wasn't very fond of them, though that could be in large part since she was still getting used to her body and some of the carryover from Taylor had been a certain reluctance surrounding her body, especially after the loss of her arm and seeing Brian with a woman who even Taylor had been somewhat struck dumb by and—no, she was thinking too much. She just had to put the clothes on.

Nodding resolutely, Addy glanced back up at Kara and Alex and very confidently slipped out of the hospital gown.

Why, exactly, they both started making weird noises at the brief display of nudity wasn't really important. She understood the importance of privacy and not being naked in front of others, she wasn't an idiot, but her prison had been made out of glass and if they'd wanted her to have privacy they would've given her a changing room. Getting her clothes on was easy, even with one arm, though the fact that one sleeve of her sweatshirt hung limp at her side made her want to cut the sleeve off, but that was neither here nor there.

Glancing back up now that she was fully outfitted, though she was still missing socks and shoes, Addy spotted Kara peeking back around the corner of the hall leading into the containment area. After a moment, apparently making sure she wasn't about to strip down again, Kara stumbled out from around the corner and approached.

"Alright, so, before I fly you to my place, you have to know, public nudity isn't okay, alright?"

Addy blinked. She contemplated a few responses to that, she could tell them she knew that, but that might get her in trouble, since they were clearly working from the idea she didn't know that. She just didn't really care, bodies were bodies, hers might be new to her but it wasn't like she cared whether or not anyone else showed skin. It didn't matter. "Alright," she eventually said.

"Good!" Kara chirped, that same bright friendliness spreading across her features. "Now, how do you want to be held? I can do the princess carry, the sack carry, or the football carry, though that one might be more difficult because you're like... six inches taller than me."

"I have no idea what any of those are."

Following after Kara as they walked the last stretch of hallway to her apartment, Addy really did try to take everything in. Her apartment was a delightful little brick obelisk on the edge of the inner city, with bright gold-coloured elevators that chimed when they opened and closed and with flooring that felt very nice on her toes. The fly back had been a blur, mostly because by Addy's reckoning Kara had been going speeds excess of five-hundred miles per hour, but even then the few furtive glimpses she'd managed to see from where Kara had clutched her close to her chest - they had decided upon the princess carry after Addy brought up the chance of Kara dropping her in the football carry - had been fascinating. Sure, she'd seen plenty of planets before, plenty with even more urban sprawl and beautiful architecture than National City, California, but it felt weighted, different with eyes of her own.

"This is us just here," Kara said, her tone happy. "God, today was... long. First Bizarro, then you—no offence, or anything, Addy."

Addy just blinked. "None taken?"

Kara just beamed back at her, a wide smile full of bright white teeth. She had a certain energy to her that was contagious. Everything about her was interesting, from her casual use of her powers to the way she'd ramble to fill the silence on occasion, to the fact that she had an adopted sister by all accounts she shouldn't get along with but were apparently as thick as thieves. While the concept of a sibling wasn't really translatable to her past experiences, she certainly knew that Aisha and Brian, while siblings, didn't get along nearly as much as Alex and Kara did despite being about as different as Alex and Kara were from one another.

Humans, or, perhaps sentient biological lifeforms in general, tended to have exceptions to observed realities. Sometimes people who were oppositional to one-another were drawn together, while very similar people were pushed apart due to said similarities. It was very odd, but very interesting, and not for the first time she really wished she'd looked more into the psychology of humans during Taylor's time as her host. Sure, it probably would've been considered a waste of resources by her past self, accessing the network like that to recalibrate her understanding of how humans interacted, but at least then she wouldn't feel so out of her depth.

Kara slid her key into the lock, pushing the door open. Blinking and glancing around, Addy found her gaze wandering across the area. The apartment was set up in a rough L-shape, as far as she could tell, with the entrance being flanked on one side by the kitchen. Two separate dining areas sat beside it, one in the middle and one further off to the side, and just before the bend in the apartment was a rudimentary living area with a television and several places to sit, along with a simple coffee table. The bend in the area was slightly partitioned by curtains and a bookcase, the former of which hung from the ceiling and left about eight feet of space between them to let people walk through them.

"So," Kara began, stepping inside, Addy trailing after her as she reached out to flick the light on. "Technically I don't have a guest bedroom or anything," she started, speaking slow. "This is an open apartment, but, I have a bedroom, and it isn't going to be difficult to partition off some space for you. You see that easel?" She pointed, and Addy followed. There was a small screen that slightly blocked her view, but just to the left of the living area, tucked into the very corner of the apartment, was a pair of chairs, a table, an easel, and a small dresser. "I'm going to move the living room a bit to the right and then set up some curtains and stuff to close that area off and give you some privacy. We can move a bed in, set it up right in that corner, and some customization stuff for you, and it should work."

"Where will I sleep for the meantime?" Addy found herself asking, stepping past Kara and making her way towards the area. She was curious about it, despite it looking big enough to fit a bed and whatever else, it did seem awfully slapdash, not that she was going to complain. She was just curious.

"The couch, if that's okay?" Kara less asked, more plead. Addy turned her head, blinking at her, because that was okay. A couch was just an oddly-shaped cushion.

"Of course it's—"

"Addy watch out!"

Something hit her from the side, a writhing green mass of tendrils with oddly-shaped, red flowers and thorns. It curled around her chest, tightening until, for the second time in her new existence, pain arced across her body, mostly around her ribs, where the tendrils dug in with enough force to make something creak. She felt something reach out to her, something try to access her brain, and leaned ever-so-slightly onto her connection to her large self, slamming the doors shut. The thing spasmed, twitched, and then fell off of her body, landing on the floor as it withered and curled into itself, going still a few short moments later.

There was a moment of silence as Addy glanced up and then around, from the weird withered thing on the ground to what she was now noticing was... the fragments of an egg? Or at least a nest, with a lot of slime and stuff around it, near Kara's bed.

"I—" Kara began, her voice reedy and thin and sounding exasperated and relieved in equal parts. "Think we need to go back to the D.E.O."

OxfordOctopus · Aug 3, 2020

EPISODE 2

"So, which of you two want to tell me why neither of you used our trained, professional disposal team and instead opted to stuff an unknown plantoid alien into a garbage bag and fly it over here?"

Addy watched raptly as Kara nervously avoided her sister's eyes.

"Because," Alex continued, pacing back and forth in front of the two of them like a caged animal. "You know, it was clearly hostile, it attacked one of you, and it could have any number of predatory natural weapons. Poisons, venoms, it could be explosive, it could—"

"Yes! Okay, alright!" Kara belted out, hands upraised, palms facing forward, in a show of deference. Their relationship was fascinating, because by all accounts, Kara was easily one of the strongest entities on the planet and Alex... well, Alex very much wasn't, but here she was, nevertheless, being cowed by Alex. "Fine. Yes, I shoved it into a garbage bag and flew it back along with Addy, okay? I was tired, I just wanted to drop the thing off and go back home!"

"Supergirl, it could have exploded when you touched it!" Alex shrieked back, no longer bothering to even pretend at not being concerned.

"She did poke it with... I think it's called a fire poker? Before she tried to lift it and put it in the garbage bag," Addy cut in very helpfully, because that was pertinent information. Kara hadn't just touched it, she'd at least checked that it wasn't alive anymore.

"A fire poker?" Alex hissed, pitching her voice low enough that it was only the three of them who could hear it. "Why on earth did you have a fire poker, your apartment doesn't have a fireplace Kara!"

Kara squawked, stepping back a step. "It was there when I moved in!"

"No it wasn't, and I know that because I lived there before you did!"

"But—"

"Addy?" Hank's voice drew her attention, Addy tilting her head around a bit to catch sight of him. He was flanked by a single woman in scrubs with long, curly brown hair and off-green eyes.

Addy let the smile that had been simmering below the surface bubble up, spreading across her face. "Hi, Hank!" He was one of her favourite people, besides maybe Kara? Because Kara was nice, and helpful, and very compassionate, but she also wasn't Hank, and Hank at the very least was her favourite looking person.

Hank's face softened a touch, the edges of his lips twitching up before slanting back down into a neutral expression, if one that wasn't so hard as the one he normally wore. "It's good to see you, Addy. This is Doctor Abel, she just wants to do a quick check over to see that whatever that was hasn't left any unpleasant surprises behind. Is that okay?"

Addy couldn't really see why not, honestly. Nodding in acquiescence, she got the ever-rare fleeting smile from Hank before, with almost comedic swiftness, the expression was banished from his face. He turned towards Kara and Alex, still hissing at one another in quiet tones, bickering endlessly as the garbage bag full of the plant alien sat between them.

Hank cleared his throat rather loudly. "Agent Danvers," he said, voice a bit clipped. Alex jolted. "Supergirl," he said, equally blandly, causing even Kara to twitch. "If you wouldn't mind, please bring the garbage bag over the hologram and see if she has anything to say on the creature? If you can't, then feel free to leave, none of us have the time to waste bickering."

Kara flushed a blotchy red, while Alex snapped her head away, folding hands over her chest in what Addy was almost sure was a pout.

"Addy?" Doctor Abel, she assumed, asked. "This way, okay? They'll be fine."

Sparing one last glance at the two sisters, both refusing to budge an inch, Addy shrugged, turned towards the doctor, who had stopped just shy of a hallway entrance, and let her legs carry her after her.

Doctor Abel didn't wait for her to catch up before she started walking herself, folding brightly-coloured nails behind her back as she did. "Hank just wants me to run a few tests, draw a bit of blood, and do a basic physical," she began to explain, Addy pushing her legs a bit harder until she had caught up fully, trailing only a few feet behind the woman. "It won't be anything invasive, but we always want to make sure we have everything covered. Some hostile aliens can have some particularly nasty defence mechanisms."

That was true. There had been a few host species who had been just as effective at killing one-another without powers as they were with. It had made the cycle somewhat counterproductive, as even with interference from The Thinker the resistance to the appearance of people with powers had been met with judicious use of a highly concentrated acid the species could generate and then project through all the pores on their body with more than enough pressure behind it to punch holes in things. The Warrior had been oddly fond of the things, had even bothered to collect data on their physical abilities and transfer the knowledge into a shard for use in later cycles.

Blinking, Addy shook away the cobwebs, again. She'd started to notice that memories distracted her more the further back they were, though not so much as Taylor's memories so often did.

Doctor Abel made a turn, reaching out to gently push open a door, motioning with her other hand for Addy to follow. The interior of the room was bland, white walls, white floor, white ceiling with a recessed white light, a white stretcher covered in itchy-looking white cotton blankets, a white metal chair tucked into a white metal desk upon which a white computer sat. White, white, white. White was possibly her least favourite combination of visible light, it was just everything more or less stuffed together with no elegance whatsoever. It was the colour equivalent of saltine crackers.

"Please take a seat," Doctor Abel said, stepping over to the desk without looking at her.

Begrudgingly, Addy plodded her barefooted way across the cold metal tiles - she really hated the cold too now, no wonder Taylor liked clothes so much. Well, that and the self-hatred, anyway - and then up onto the footstool just at the base of the stretcher, giving her just enough height to plop herself down on the crinkly, itchy blanket. Someone had apparently decided to put plastic beneath it, which, while she could appreciate the texture - drumming her fingers over it brought with it a delightful series of noises - she disliked it significantly less because her body seemed hell-bent on adhering to the plastic.

"When was the last time you've eaten?" Doctor Abel asked, still not looking at her, focused on what seemed to be getting a few tools ready.

Addy blinked. That was hard to answer, really, which meant the only good answer was one that got that information across. "No," she decided on.

That got Doctor Abel to look back, an exasperated eyebrow raised in her direction. "Addy, please, this is information we need to know—"

"You misunderstand," Addy cut in, dragging her fingers away from the bed and onto her lap, letting them do their little drumming across the surface of her knee. "I haven't eaten. Ever."

Doctor Abel blinked slowly. "Is that a trait of the Shardite?" She finally asked, sounding a bit concerned.

"Technically, but this body will need nutrients soon," she commented, glancing down at her stomach. It had started to hurt a bit, and she was feeling somewhat queasy, and a cursory glance through Taylor's memories shortly after her mother's death had pointed towards those being associated with a lack of food and liquid intake.

Doctor Abel just sighed, looking a bit more tired as she turned back to her desk, scribbling something down with one proffered pen. "I'll just note down about a day of no eating, in that case, which isn't great. When you get home, I want you to eat several small snacks over the day to ensure your body doesn't attempt to reject what you take in."

More solid advice, it would seem. Addy was actually starting to grow fond of the doctor, despite that feeling possibly being only in one direction. "Okay."

With a huff, the doctor pulled away from her desk, a small bucket full of assorted medical equipment clutched in one hand. She plodded over, placing the bucket down on the table just near the top of the stretcher, reaching inside to pull out a rather intimidating looking needle. "What's your opinion on these?"

"I don't have one," Addy said automatically, because, yeah, sure, it was a needle, and Taylor had been viscerally uncomfortable around them, but this was a new experience for her. "This is my first time with one near me."

Doctor Abel smiled wanly, gently reaching out to begin rolling up one of Addy's sleeves. "Well this one has a little bit of Kryptonite in it to let it penetrate your skin, but since we've noted your sensitivity to it, it's less than what we would've used on Supergirl. Still, I hope I can make this as pleasant as possible."

Addy just smiled, because that's what people did when they wanted to reassure someone else. "I'm sure you'll do fine," which she was. Even as the needle got closer and the vague feeling of nausea heightened, she was pretty sure the trained doctor a government agency had would be able to properly take her blood. Otherwise, why hire her at all?

Tucking her arm in near her stomach, Addy regretted ever doubting the veracity of Taylor's memories. Not only had Taylor's fear of needles been plenty justified, apparently Addy's host had very hard to find veins, it had taken not one, not two, but exactly eighteen and a half - one being aborted when Addy flinched at the sudden spike in nausea - attempts to draw her blood. The rest of the exam had been fine, sure, but not great, a lot of poking and prodding and asking about this symptom or that.

Doctor Abel was now thoroughly near the bottom of her list of interesting people, not that it was a particularly large one.

Doctor Abel sat a distance away, looking over a few pieces of paper she'd printed out, but clearly angled away."Well, everything on your reports looks fine," Doctor Abel finally conceded, glancing up at her with something like an apologetic look on her face. Addy didn't trust it. "You're a bit malnourished, probably due to being in a comatose state for the better part of almost three years, and your blood sugar is a bit too low for comfort, but I'm pretty sure that's just a factor of the former rather than any outlying problems. I can find no evidence of contamination, and the bruising around your ribs is going to be faded by the time it's morning, so..."

"I'm clear to go?" Addy asked a bit too quickly, though she couldn't find it in herself to care.

Doctor Abel sighed, eyes glancing away. "I am sorry, Addy, I—"

There was a rattle at the door, a series of three sharp knocks. Addy shared a look with the doctor for a moment before glancing away, huffing a bit under her breath and trying to urge the vague ache in her arm away. Sure, there hadn't been a lot of Kryptonite in the needles, but it had kept dissolving into her bloodstream and precisely nothing about that had been pleasant, or felt pleasant, for that matter.

"Come in!" Doctor Abel called out after another moment of hesitation.

The door creaked open, revealing Hank, who glanced between them with a bemused tilt to his brow. "May I borrow Addy for a moment, Doctor Abel?" He asked, though from the way his tone was pitched, it felt more like a command. The intricacies of human languages never ceased to amaze her. "She's needed in the hologram room for further clarification on a few things."

"She's clear to go," Doctor Abel said, her voice a bit thin. "Again, I am sorry, Ad—"

Addy was on her feet, ignoring the cold feeling of the floors, and speed-walking her way towards Hank before Doctor Abel could finish. Sure, she was being mean, and reconciling with the person who might be responsible for her health was probably important, but at this point in time all she wanted to do was get away from those needles. Hank just shot her a look before stepping back, boots clunking heavily on the metal floors. She definitely needed to get a pair of shoes, even though she couldn't be hurt by walking on sharp things she didn't really like the feeling of it, either.

Ignoring the long-suffering sigh behind her, Addy flicked her gaze up to Hank, who just stared down at her with actual amusement on his face before it all faded back into neutrality. Motioning her forward, he kept to her side as he led the two of them back down the hallway, out into the main command room, and then off towards a doorway that had been almost nestled away in a corner of the area.

Stepping through it, Addy was briefly struck dead by the hologram. Which, really, she probably shouldn't've, it wasn't particularly novel technology, especially the intangible ones, but it was more the fact that, despite having dark brown hair and brown-green eyes, the woman projected by the hologram looked scarily close to Kara in terms of facial composition and general regality. Blinking a few times, Addy glanced off to the side, to see Alex and Kara staring mutedly at her, the garbage bag upended and the corpse of whatever the plant creature was left out in front of them.

"I've brought her," Hank finally said, gently patting her on the arm. The hologram turned to look at her, and even though it likely had no actual bearing on what the hologram could perceive, Addy felt a bit small beneath the stare.

"Can you please tell me what the plant creature attempted to do once it had adhered itself to you?" The hologram asked simply.

Addy appreciated simplicity. Simple things were the good things, in most cases. "It tried to access my mind," she said, for lack of a better explanation. "I stopped it."

"What species are you?" The hologram continued bluntly.

"Shardite."

That, however, did bring the thing up short. It blinked at her for a moment, considering. "No record on file. I will keep it recorded for future reference, and ask that someone inform me of Shardite abilities. In any case, this is very likely to be a Black Mercy, in that instance, instead of a Strangler."

"A Black Mercy?" Addy asked, ignoring the outburst of arguing between Kara and Alex. The hologram kept her eyes on her, expression blank, not that it bothered her any. Her expression was probably mirroring it.

"The Black Mercy," the hologram began slowly. "Is a species of parasitic plant-based alien born from a larger creature by the name of Mother Mercy, who spawned them as far as we can tell, though their purpose was distorted upon coming into contact with other alien life. They are psychically powerful, but very simple organisms, and achieve a degree of sentience once they ensnare an unsuspecting, biological victim and use their brain to then empower their own intelligence to craft a perfect dream world from which the user must willingly force themselves out of. Those who do not will fall deeper into the delusion while the Black Mercy gradually siphons their physical health from them until they are killed, after which the Black Mercy will wait for a new victim. There are very few species which are immune to its powers or able to overwhelm the initial psychic attack, which is likely why the Black Mercy died the moment you prevented it from enthralling you. They use a lot of energy to establish the link in the first place, and when that failed, it did not have enough left to live."

There was a pause, the room having gone quiet, people all turning to look at the hologram.

"Black Mercies were generally used on Krypton as a tool of political assassination," the hologram continued, folding its hands together politely. "Once under their thrall, without third-party interference, death was almost always likely and it was very hard to track down the person who did it. While owning a Black Mercy was banned on Krypton, their existence as a whole was not, and it was common that large houses would own off-site gardens for them to be grown in and then used to target political adversaries. People going into politics were generally taught to see the early signs of being enthralled and attempt to break it, but very few were ever successful once the initial connection was established."

"So someone's targeting Supergirl," Alex interrupted, sounding angry.

The hologram inclined its head in silent agreement.

"Could it be Astra?" Hank interrupted.

"No!" Kara yelled back, face looking furious. "No!—just, no. Astra wouldn't, she understood the bonds of family, killing one's kin would be unthinkable to her, even in this manner. It could be Non, or any of the other Kryptonians."

Alex huffed, folding her arms tighter around herself. "Supergirl," she said, her voice so quiet. "You just barely avoided this because Addy was there—what if you hadn't? Would I have found you the next morning, comatose? This is serious. This could be anyone, from Non to any of the other Fort Rozz escapees, your mother's reputation follows you."

Kara looked like she deflated for a moment before, with a bit of a jerk, she straightened her spine. "Alex," she said, voice gentle and almost compassionate. "I chose this, I know the risks—"

"You nearly died—"

"But I didn't!" Kara interrupted, throwing her hands up. "I'll be in just as much danger any number of other times, and I didn't die! I'm fine! I need to keep moving, this isn't something that can just stop my superhero career, Alex!"

"I know that!" Alex snapped back, though with significantly less heat than before.

"Girls," Hank interrupted, voice smooth and rich in Addy's ears. His voice was genuinely pleasant to listen to, like the low purr of a cat, just more... human. "This isn't the time. I have a few questions for the hologram, if you would be quiet?"

Neither Kara or Alex continued arguing, and Hank clearly took that as assent. Turning back to the hologram, he stepped forward. "Is there a risk of another Black Mercy attack?"

The hologram shook its head. "No. Caring for a Black Mercy is incredibly dangerous unless very specific stasis equipment is used. They need a constant intake of victims, usually animals, to feed on, and there's always an inherent risk in handling them. It's more than likely that this was the only one they had."

Hank nodded curtly. "Should we know anything about how to handle dissection and other methods of disposing of the corpse?"

"The Black Mercy generates a chemical to attract mates. While to them it is a scent they are unable to ignore, as a species without specific sexes they can germinate in either direction, to everyone else it is an incredibly unpleasant scent. The chemical itself is produced in their flowers, with an amount always stored, and if you remove the flowerhead wrong, it will be released and will likely cause severe nausea to anyone within a few miles if not properly contained at the time of release. I believe the chemical name on earth is thioacetone?"

Out of the corner of Addy's eye, she watched with rapt interest as Alex's face went completely ashen.

"Please handle that carefully," Alex cut in, before anyone could say anything, sounding on the verge of panic. "Thioacetone sticks around for a while and it is extremely unpleasant. Someone managed to spill barely a drop of it in one of my biochem courses and we had to spend the rest of the semester in a pop-up unit because it had contaminated the lab space so badly nobody could go in there for a month without getting sick."

"I'll be sure they handle it with utmost caution," Hank drawled, sounding not amused, but something very close to it.

"I have to be at work in less than thirty minutes," Kara piped up, glancing at her phone. She slipped it back into the pocket on her skirt, glancing at all of them. "Can someone take Addy home for me? Alex? You have keys, right?"

Alex stared at Addy, her face pinching. "I do," she hedged.

"Then, Agent Danvers," Hank interrupted, Alex's face visibly falling. "I think you should take Addy back home for the time being."

Alex opened her mouth, almost as though she wanted to object, before it clicked shut and she slumped. "Yes sir."

Hank just smiled, looking all the world like he was benevolent. "Very good. You're all dismissed."

Alex's car was a lot like Alex: coloured black - like her clothes - with simple fabric seats that were just a bit too stiff to be comfortable - like her personality - and a large number of what appeared to be protective plastic spread across the floor and back seats - also, somehow, like her personality. Alex hadn't spoken to her since they'd originally gotten into the car, opting to focus on the road as they drove down the long stretch of winding almost-desert, National City, still cast in a near-gloom, growing ever-larger as they approached.

Addy turned to glance out the window, wiggling her toes against the plastic on the floor. The world sped by, blurring unless she forced her eyes to track along with it. She could see a few cacti, which were themselves very interesting organisms despite the fact that they grew so slowly, and she could even make out a number of tumbleweeds, the most iconic invasive species on the planet with maybe cats, dogs and rats as an exception.

Something started to build in her chest, oddly enough. It wasn't a bad feeling, just... thick, growing and pushing up to her throat. Involuntarily, her jaws pulled apart and she inhaled, long and protracted, eyes watering. Blinking away the teardrops, Addy briefly scoured Taylor's memories for the name of the phenomenon and came up quite honestly surprised when she realized she was yawning.

Alex, finally, spared her a glance. "So you can get tired," she said.

Addy looked back at her and away from the window. "It would make sense," she agreed.

"I had just assumed," she said in reply, before slouching a bit, looking tired. "Look—I'm sorry, alright?"

Addy blinked, not sure where the apology was coming from.

"You're just, you literally were the result of an experiment someone was using to try to kill my sister," she explained after another moment, turning the steering wheel as they went from the long stretch of paved highway and onto an interchange. Nobody else was on the road at this time, leaving everything very quiet and very dark, only illuminated by the beams of the car's front lights and the occasional passing streetlamp. "Not just that, but what you said about your species, the entire thing it was—I was suspicious of you."

It wasn't really hard to follow that line of thought, either. She might've had difficulties understanding it before fusing with Taylor, but suspicion had been something of a long term hobby for Taylor, even before she found out the world was going to end, and she could relate. "I would be too," she offered truthfully, keeping the thoughts about Taylor's experiences to herself.

"Stop that!" Alex barked out sharply, her fingers tightening around the wheel with enough force to make it creak. "Just—stop, I get that I fucked up, that I was suspicious of you without any good reason to be, you've been nothing but accommodating which is more than I can say for half of the fucking aliens who try to kill my sister, so stop acting so nice!"

She didn't follow. Staring blankly at Alex, Addy said nothing.

"Say something," Alex grit out, fingers tightening, knuckles whitening. Every muscle in her body looked taut and tense and ready to snap. "Get the anger out, I'm sure you have it!"

"I don't," Addy answered after a long moment, glancing away, not comfortable with the odd feeling that the sight of Alex was currently inspiring. "I, mean, I don't like being scrutinized, sure. Taylor didn't either, she had a lot of problems with body image and how people perceived her. She needed to be seen in a superior light, or at least as someone who couldn't be pushed around the way she was at school. But I'm not that. I'm not angry at you, I'm still... adapting. Things are new, even though I've lived a life like this in Taylor's memories plenty of times, I had no agency. I was just watching, and now I'm experiencing. If I was mad at you, I'd tell you. Communication is, as far as I can tell, key to maintaining good mental health among your peers." It was why shards so rarely chose well-connected hosts; it was infinitely more difficult to connect during a trigger event when someone had a support network to stop them from reaching those crisis moments.

Alex just stared at her, long and bewildered, before almost tiredly bringing one hand up to drag fingers along her face in what Addy was quickly starting to realize was a gesture of sheer exasperation. "Right," she muttered after a moment, glancing back towards the road. "The world already had one Kara, why not two?"

"My name is Addy, though?"

"That's not what I—no, actually, even Kara wasn't that bad when she first landed here. No, you are definitely Addy, that much is for sure."

"I'm glad you agree?"

Kara's pantry was well-stocked, Addy had come to learn. What few words she'd gotten out of Alex on the rest of the drive back had painted an image of a sister fretting hopelessly after her younger sibling, one who, while very outwardly human, had a lot of inhuman traits that you could pick up on only when you were looking for it. Evidence one was, perhaps, her stomach; Kara apparently needed somewhere in the realm of roughly six-to-eight thousand calories per day depending on her activities if she wanted to maintain her current weight. Even a fully sedentary day required closer to four or five thousand calories, which wasn't very easy to achieve.

Which meant, of course, a lot of take-out. Apparently Kara had a lasting love for pizza and something called a 'potsticker'. She'd searched Taylor's memories for any information on the topic and had come up completely empty, with no knowledge or memories associated with the word. She hadn't asked for clarification about what it was, either, in large part because Alex hadn't really seemed like she wanted to talk near the very end of their drive and Addy wasn't about to argue with someone just to find out what a potsticker was.

Slowly placing the plate down on the living room table, delighting a bit in the way the sunlight filtering in through the windows passed over her skin, Addy plopped herself back into the seat. Navigating the technology at use in the living room hadn't been difficult when she relied on Taylor's knowledge of how remotes work and how, no, sometimes the box and the television weren't synced up properly - the television had been off, the cable box not so much, so when she'd tried to turn it on the television had just turned blue and told her nothing was connected - and you'd have to click the big 'TV' button or 'CABLE' button at the top of the remote to sync it back up properly. After she'd gotten that down pat, finding a good channel wasn't hard, even if it might be considered childish to watch cartoons, she didn't really care. They were colourful and had lots of surprising noises and she was just happy to sit and watch.

The plate, however, was another topic. Eating was still very... unique for her, the concept of it at least. Reaching down, she plucked the piece of cucumber off the plate and brought it to her mouth, letting it drop down on her tongue. She'd tried a few bites of everything already, just to get over the awkwardness of learning how to chew, and cucumber was definitely her favourite. It popped and cracked and almost snapped when she ground it between her molars, making a bunch of very pleasant noises and being accompanied by a texture you just couldn't defeat. The taste, well, it could be better, it tasted mostly like plant-flavoured water, but then the same could be said for a lot of vegetables when you got down to it.

She dropped a chunk of carrot next in her mouth, almost as crunchy as the cucumber. Where the cucumber won outright on texture and sound, the carrot definitely won on taste. She hadn't bothered to do much more than peel them - Taylor's memories had been, again, been very important to figuring out how to use the peeler in the first place - and they had come out so good. Slightly sweet, with a good crunch, but not as good as cucumber had been. If cucumber was her number one, carrot was definitely her number two.

Onion she was less sold on. She knew you had to cook it but, really, she'd eaten carrots raw, and onions kinda looked like apples, and she'd remembered vaguely that one time Taylor watched a movie where kids dug holes - human media was weird - and ended up on a mountain eating onions like apples, so she'd bit in.

There had been a fair amount of regret and washing her mouth out with tap water after that.

So she'd stuck to cucumber, carrots and celery, of which for someone who apparently couldn't cook to save her life or the food, Kara had a lot of. Maybe she had similar thoughts on their consumption, it wasn't like she could burn a piece of celery without a viable heat source.

Turning her focus back to the television, Addy watched as a short, anthropomorphic animal of no real discernable origin outside of maybe 'rabbit', but was also blue, so that probably wasn't right, try to lie to their mother, also maybe a rabbit, and fail at doing so. Their voices were pitched oddly, like nothing Addy had heard in normal people, but that was okay because so long as it wasn't too loud she actually really preferred the odd, pitch-shifted voices to normal human ones. Sure, Hank's voice was smooth but he was in a big minority. Alex's voice was fine, so was Kara's, but she'd heard a few agents talking and one of them spoke like they had plugs in their nostrils, which wasn't great.

Dropping a chunk of celery into her mouth, Addy bit down. Celery was weird, it had the crunch and watery taste of cucumber, but it was... for lack of a better word, fibrous? It pulled away into little strands that got caught between her teeth in a way that was kinda unpleasant but not totally. Could something feel both good and bad at the same time?

"Who are you?"

Addy swung around, blinking wide at the sight of a woman just, floating in the opening on one of Kara's windows. She looked almost identical to the hologram, if not for a single lock of white hair that had presumably been dyed, because she did remember that being a fad for a while on Earth Bet. Chewing a few times, Addy finally swallowed, trying not to grimace at the feeling of something... going down. "Addy."

The woman blinked slowly at her, glancing around pensively.

"Would you like a piece of cucumber?" She did have plenty, after all, and despite her misgivings about people breaking and entering it wasn't like the woman was trying to kill her.

"No, but, well, thank you," the woman stumbled a bit on her words, like she hadn't been expecting them, which was weird. Wasn't she just being polite? "Do you live here?"

"I do now," Addy acknowledged.

"Do you live with someone?" The woman probed.

That's an awfully suspicious question to ask not long after an assassination attempt. "Did you have anything to do with the Black Mercy?" She asked, instead, quietly beginning to open her connection to her core self. She hadn't intended to try to play with her powers until she was sure they weren't going to make her head explode, but at this point she was starting to wonder if that was going to happen anyway.

The woman jolted, her face twisting in concern. "What? Is Kara okay?"

Addy stopped drawing on her power. "Yes?" She hedged, carefully. "It attacked me, so... she's fine?"

The woman stared at her for a long moment, something like suspicion swimming across her face before flatlining into complete and total bewilderment. "You're not lying," she said, sounding almost out of breath. "A Black Mercy is a death sentence, how did you overcome it?"

"I'm sorry, but who are you?" Addy interjected, because calling her 'this woman' in her head was starting to feel kinda wrong.

The woman - ugh - blinked, paused. "Astra In-Ze," she finally answered, each word sounded out with the sort of slowness that only came with reluctance. "I am Kara's aunt."

Well, she was flying, and did look a lot like her... "She's at work," Addy finally offered, glancing back towards her plate and plucking a piece of carrot off and dropping it in her mouth. Making sure to properly chew and swallow before speaking again, she directed her eyes back to the television, where someone was trying to hammer someone into place in lieu of a nail. "Do you want me to leave her a message or something?"

Astra floated a bit back, relief shuddering across her shoulders. "No," she finally said, glancing away. "No, no, that's—fine. She doesn't have to know I was here, I'm just glad she's okay. Thank you for the offer of food, Addy, but I must go. I have... things to do."

That was oddly ambiguous, but then again people in general were. Nodding, Addy didn't take her eyes away from the television, trying to comprehend how someone's body would have to deform to fit into a hole the size of a drinking straw.

When she next looked up - commercial breaks were awful - Astra was gone.

The phone ringing interrupted her viewing pleasure. She'd gone through another four plates worth of snacks over the day, and though her eyelids felt heavy now that the sun was starting to set, she didn't really... feel tired. Her body was sluggish, sure, but her mind was more than active, which might be a bit worrying.

Clambering to a stand, Addy smothered another yawn into her shoulder and stumbled her way over to the phone, plucking it from the receiver. She'd double-checked Taylor memories for the various appliances throughout the apartment just to be sure she wouldn't break any of them by pressing the wrong thing. Her main experience with technology had been the ones derived from them, and in her memories that had been intentionally prone to self-destruction at the drop of a hat, so it was always a good idea to avoid causing catastrophic technical failures.

"Addy?" Kara's voice crackled in, interrupted a bit by what sounded like... the wind?

"I am Addy," she agreed knowingly.

Kara choked a bit on the other end of the line, though it became that very happy laugh that made her chest feel warm. Kara was nice like that. "Good to hear from you! You didn't burn down the apartment or anything, right?"

Addy nodded, before remembering she was on a phone and that phones, for reasons beyond her understanding, didn't track physical movement. "I did not. I avoided the stove, but I ate all of your carrots and cucumber. I left some celery, though." Mostly because she didn't like it as much, but that wasn't something she had to say.

That got her another laugh. "I'm glad you're settling in! Did anything else happen today?"

Astra hadn't said she couldn't tell Kara, which, well. "Someone called Astra In-Ze came over? Looking for you I think. She seemed concerned about the Black Mer—"

"WHAT."

Addy coughed. Maybe the signal was bad? "I said, someone called Astra In-Ze—"

"No, I heard that Addy! Are you okay? Did she attack you?"

"No?" She hadn't seemed aggressive or anything, just... there. "I offered her some cucumber, though."

"Addy," Kara said, exasperation filling her voice. "You can't just—okay, new rule, if unknown people force their way into the apartment without me first telling you, you are to immediately call me if it's an alien or the police if it's a person. They aren't allowed there, okay?"

More rules. She could do those, they were easier. "Sure."

"I'm going to have to come and bring you to the D.E.O.," Kara continued, unbidden. Addy bit down on the urge to make a weird, wounded noise in her chest. Where had that come from?

"I need shoes," she said instead, for reasons she didn't really understand.

"I'll stop by a shoe place, okay? What's your—no, you wouldn't know your size. I'll get you flip flops, are those fine?"

Addy scoured her memory, coming back with a few tidbits from that one time Taylor had gone to the beach with Emma and had been stuck in those clappy wondrous things. "Absolutely. All shoes should be like flip flops."

"Alright, I'll be there in a bit. Just... don't let anyone but me in, alright?"

"House rules," Addy agreed, and the line went dead.

Flip flops were amazing. Walking in them was like having someone slap the heels of her foot every few seconds and they made this wonderful sticky smack each time she arched her foot. She would live in these if it wasn't for the fact that wearing shoes inside houses wasn't okay, and flip flops, despite being superior, still qualified as shoes.

"She was in your house?" Alex said, sounding exhausted. She looked exhausted too, apparently she was sleeping on-base when Kara had come back with her and had been rudely awoken. "You're going to have to move, this is getting to be too much—"

"She just seemed to be looking for me to see if I was okay!" Kara cut back in sharply, folding her arms. "Right, Addy?"

Addy glanced up from her feet, rolling the stick of carrot around in her mouth. The D.E.O. had a canteen that she hadn't been informed about until recently, and she apparently had free access to it within reason. She'd just asked for a lot of carrots, because they were great. "Yeah, she was nice."

Alex just stared back at Kara, looking exasperated. Kara wilted a bit.

"We have to deal with Non and Astra," Hank interrupted, appearing from around the corner, completely equipped in military gear. Alex went ramrod straight, while Kara seemed to almost curl in on herself at the thought. "She entered your home, Supergirl, whether or not her reasoning was sound, it still wasn't okay. She knows where you live, and from the way she was acting, Non probably does too. We have to end this, now, before they finish whatever they're trying to do."

Kara's throat bobbed as she stepped back, her costume pooling out around her from the jerk. "I know that," she hissed back, closing her arms around herself in a hug. "I know that, okay? I—we have to do it. They clearly chose to attack me now for a reason, the solar storm is still in effect, isn't Winn working on it?"

Hank shook his head. "He already got us a location. We're rolling out now. I'm sending teams out to other labs, while myself and Alex scope out some of the more likely ones."

Kara straightened, her face hardened, and for a moment, Addy almost thought she would argue about it. "I'll take Non," she finally agreed, glancing momentarily at Addy. "He has a lot to answer for."

The room seemed to relax for a moment, and Addy felt herself loosen a bit. She kicked her foot out, felt the clack of her flip flop hitting back up. She didn't really feel like she needed to do anything, really, this was their job, their duties. She was just enjoying herself, figuring things out. Sure, Astra had been nice, but if she was trying to do something bad, then there was probably a good reason to stop her. After all, Taylor had stepped up for Scion, why couldn't Kara for Astra?

Finishing the last of her carrot, Addy banished the odd vein of doubt. She wasn't going to dwell on it.

Bad_kobold · Aug 3, 2020

This is golden- and i have not even seen supergirl.

derpfen · Aug 3, 2020

Well this is definitely interesting, have a watch and a few likes.

Direfox · Aug 3, 2020

Looks good. Watched.

Mixter E · Aug 3, 2020

Listening to her describe her eating habits... yeah maybe she shouldn't eat in public. She sounds like someone who's never heard of eating before.

johnwedd · Aug 4, 2020

Mixter E said:
Listening to her describe her eating habits... yeah maybe she shouldn't eat in public. She sounds like someone who's never heard of eating before.

That's exactly what she is, trying to human. She's seen the tutorial videos, now she has find out hands on.

Syphiralae · Aug 4, 2020

Hope Taylor had a decent meeting with Death on her way out. A bit of closure you know? EDIT!2 Though it looks like Addy will eventually need some as well once she gets a bit more experience with emotions...I honestly expect her to eventually break down crying at some point, maybe not soon but...there it is.

Also, Addy talking about her eating habits is adorable. In that way that would be creepy in real life coming from what looked like a late teen early twenties girl(assuming Taylor's body is looking the correct age)

Kind of curious of how she blocked the memory access, but I figure it is some sort of energy control within her body or something...Preventing telepathic energies or some such, but anyway!

EDIT! Also, have no real idea of the characters or media used for Supergirl. Was it a comic or...?

Rini · Aug 4, 2020

Syphiralae said:
EDIT! Also, have no real idea of the characters or media used for Supergirl. Was it a comic or...?

She was a super-heroine from the DC comics. They made a TV show about her that started airing in 2015. It is currently in its 6th season on the CW network.

Castle_Bravo · Aug 4, 2020

I'm disappointed. This cross-over seems like wasted potential to me. I mean, Addy is essentially an OC. The idea of aliens granting powers is not unique to Worm. Neither is the idea of aliens bonding with humans, or even controlling a human body. You could remove all mention of Worm, and Addy's backstory would sound like a mishmash of any number of science fiction settings. At this point the crossover just seems like an excuse to bring Addy into the story. Which I mean, ok... Tell me an interesting story about Addy. But it seems like a waste to use Worm only for that. Supergirl is a fundamentally optimistic setting, and Worm a pessimistic one. A story where the characters have to navigate between the two seems very interesting to me.

I admit, I only have what you've posted to go on. But it doesn't seem to me that you are intersted in exploring the interaction between the themes of Worm and Supergirl. If my impression is wrong, then I wish you well in your writing. If I'm not wrong, it makes me sad.

Deathsheadx · Aug 4, 2020

so this is a story about queen Administrator wearing a Taylor meat suit?

it was interesting to read, but not my thing.

Drebom · Aug 4, 2020

johnwedd said:
That's exactly what she is, trying to human. She's seen the tutorial videos, now she has find out hands on.

Addy's behaviour actually seems to be checking a lot of the boxes for autism; a very literal understanding of communication, sensory sensitivity, the desire to hop and jump about when talking with Hank (which sounds a lot like stimming to me), etc. I'm not entirely sure whether it's intentional or not, but it's still a nice way of framing her behaviour.

Syphiralae said:
Kind of curious of how she blocked the memory access, but I figure it is some sort of energy control within her body or something...Preventing telepathic energies or some such, but anyway!

Well, Addy/QA's whole thing is connecting minds together. And if you know how to connect, it's a safe bet that you know how to disconnect those same sorts of links, and therefore how to shut down pesky plants trying to poke at your brain. Plus, there's the whole 'giant mass of crystal' thing, which doesn't sound like something a Black Mercy would be well-equipped to hijack.

magicdownunder · Aug 4, 2020

I only just started reading this and I already caught up 😭.

Watched!

Rini · Aug 4, 2020

Thank you for the chapters so far, they made me laugh. Looking forward to more as you are ready to post. Good health and luck to you.

Mastersgtjames · Aug 4, 2020

liking the story. Hope MC munchkins, if only to secure herself. She does not like death, loneliness, or being weak. So My hopes are that she improves herself, either by making herself full kryptonian, or more. Like throw in some czarnian abilities, malthusian immortality, or homo-magi magic.
Also, hope MC learns kryptonian science.

PerpetualRed · Aug 5, 2020

Mastersgtjames said:
liking the story. Hope MC munchkins, if only to secure herself. She does not like death, loneliness, or being weak. So My hopes are that she improves herself, either by making herself full kryptonian, or more. Like throw in some czarnian abilities, malthusian immortality, or homo-magi magic.
Also, hope MC learns kryptonian science.

Taylor was very formidable even without brute powers. And it seems that Addy can still use administrative powers - perhaps not on the same scale - in addition to a modest brute set. These alone sound quite promising.

Deathsheadx said:
so this is a story about queen Administrator wearing a Taylor meat suit? it was interesting to read, but not my thing.

I never did understand why people state that they don't like the premise. You're not really asking for clarification and it is obvious that this is a story of QA in a Taylor meatsuit. There is no constructive criticism. There is no purpose besides "I don't like it". It's like emailing the author of a book that you're not going to buy it, to paraphrase an SBer I saw today.

The comment above yours, if it inspired you to comment this, made a good point about the use of a character from Worm easily replicable by a generic sci fi background without combining Worm's grimderp and Supergirl's optimism. It offers new insight.

EarthScorpion · Aug 5, 2020

Mastersgtjames said:
liking the story. Hope MC munchkins, if only to secure herself. She does not like death, loneliness, or being weak. So My hopes are that she improves herself, either by making herself full kryptonian, or more. Like throw in some czarnian abilities, malthusian immortality, or homo-magi magic.
Also, hope MC learns kryptonian science.

And I hope that @OxfordOctopus does nothing of the sort. This is a story about a parasitic space crystal being (who is remarkably adorable) running a fork on meat with only Taylor's memories for reference on "How to Human". "Munchkining" is poison to good stories, when "75% Kryptonian, plus whatever QA can use without draining her energy reserves" is already a pretty damn significant power.

Stories aren't VS Debates; they're not a thing to "win". I'm here for the charming character interactions and "munchkinning" would ruin that.

Booksareawesome2 · Aug 5, 2020

I'm looking forward to seeing how the story goes, regardless of which of those paths the author decides on. The first few chapters already have me interested in seeing where they take the story.

wowow2264 · Aug 5, 2020

This is adorable and in my top 3 takes on QA doing human things in Taylor's body.

Sivantic · Aug 6, 2020

The story is okayish.

OxfordOctopus said:
Taylor used to call her 'a parasite' when she thought nobody was overhearing her talking to thin air like a complete weirdo.

Did Taylor not call them passengers?

OxfordOctopus · Aug 6, 2020

Sivantic said:
Did Taylor not call them passengers?

QA is referring to Taylor explicitly calling *her* a parasite, not the words Taylor used to refer to shards/powers in general.

13th Bee · Aug 6, 2020

OxfordOctopus said:
QA is referring to Taylor explicitly calling *her* a parasite, not the words Taylor used to refer to shards/powers in general.

Such a hurtful thing to say. Poor Addy.

*FuryouMiko · Aug 6, 2020

Sivantic said:
The story is okayish.

Did Taylor not call them passengers?

She did both. Towards the end she became more and more fond of trying to talk to her Passenger, even though QA never replied.

OxfordOctopus · Aug 6, 2020

EPISODE 3

Of all the things Addy had come to experience, fatigue was possibly the worst among them. Sure, pain was bad, it was distracting and somehow had a rather wide variety of how pain felt - which really wasn't necessary - but in the end she could rationalize it, understand it even if only sometimes in the abstract. Pain was the body's way of telling a person they were doing something it didn't like, and she did get that, everyone needed protection methods even if she had lacked the sensation until recently.

But fatigue? Addy couldn't really explain how it felt, the crawling tiredness, the urge to close her eyes, the way her gaze kept slipping off of things and towards the floor. Her coordination got worse, it became harder to think in a way that she was absolutely not used to; not like the pain which was more an interruption and instead more of a haze that clung to her brain and numbed things, made it hard to gather up her thoughts to begin with. Every impulse her body had naturally was telling her to tuck her chin into her arms and close her eyes.

But Kara wasn't back yet, so she didn't.

Blinking quickly seemed to help, in any event. The longer she kept her eyes close, the more comfortable she got, the worse the tiredness got in turn. Sitting had been abandoned shortly after she'd nearly lapsed into a state of unconsciousness, and despite the low ache in her head that was telling her she was overdoing it, walking back and forth seemed to be the best method to keep herself upright.

The canteen for the D.E.O. superficially resembled what she remembered of Winslow's cafeteria. It was a large, round space outfitted with carefully-arranged benches and tables that could seat at least a few hundred people at once, more if you really crammed people in there. It was, as with most things in the D.E.O. that Addy had observed both in passing and in person, coloured the uniform black and made mostly out of metal. From the tables to the seating to even the little bar area they had to pick up food on trays, it was all black and metal and made clunking noises as she tromped back and forth.

Keeping herself from yawning was the other problem. Yawns weren't just dramatic inhales, they came with tears and an impulse to shut her eyes, which raised a problem. For starters, letting her eyes remain shut for any length of time posed a considerable risk to her continued functioning, and second, the tears made her vision blurry and required her to blink or rub them away, which also generally ended up with her eyes shut. It was like yawning had been the result of evolution towards very picky sleepers, people who needed the repeated reminder that they had to go to sleep, which was really odd considering humans as a whole were endurance animals whose main method of hunting before the invention of sharp things and brains that didn't struggle with basic arithmetic had been to literally chase their prey down until it collapsed.

Humans should really be like giraffes. See, giraffes didn't need to sleep for a long time - only four hours when in captivity, less outside of it - and unlike humans, as far as she had been made aware after cursory glances over the native population of the planet, didn't really have the conventional deep sleep that humans themselves relied on. Taylor had been a light sleeper, sure, but she knew better than to think she was anything but the conventional data set for the population. Most people not only needed six or more hours of sleep per day, but also needed hours after regaining consciousness to orient themselves and partake in ritualistic consumption of an addictive substance that tasted, as far as she could pull from Taylor's memories, absolutely abhorrent.

But human brains being inefficient and pointlessly fussy was nothing new. That did raise a question, though, did her brain still qualify as human? She'd have to ask Kara later—if Kryptonians could get away with lighter sleep cycles and less downtime maybe she would too? It would be nice, to be honest. Then again, by her estimate, she'd been awake for close to two days and humans were generally supposed to start shutting down at this point, which would be bad, because she still had to wait for Kara. She had been very clear on that fact, no leaving the D.E.O. until she came back, mostly because the D.E.O. was located quite the distance away from National City and despite her ability to fly - which she still had to test out, but not here - the time it would take to fly back and find her way to Kara's apartment would, to quote the woman directly, "worry everyone and probably cause a scene, so please just, stay here until I'm back, okay?".

Stopping before her next turn, Addy reached out to press the flesh of her palm against the cool metal wall. She felt a bit too hot, overheated, she wasn't sweating or anything so it was probably all in her head, but that didn't mean she wasn't unbothered by it. At one point in time all she had really been was a consciousness, it wasn't like shards had arms or legs or an immune system, they were functional and, perhaps more importantly, only tangentially biological. Crystalline more so than anything else, though there wasn't a particularly good word for what she had been made of, a substance she could only describe as something between crystals, soft tissues found mostly in the brain, and various metals.

"Miss?"

Addy blinked quickly, because she had to do that now. She was going to make a list about how inconvenient having a body with a sleep cycle was, just you watch—

"Miss?" the voice repeated again, this time more urgently. Addy whipped her head around finally, blinking away some of the dots that came with sudden rapid movement, and came face-to-face with the woman she had puked all over. Huh.

"Hello," she said, because being polite was probably the best way to regain the trust of someone you puked on. Not that she had any experience on the topic, but one of Taylor's memories from third grade had included Emma getting a stomach bug and throwing up her entire lunch over Cassidy's shoes and they had spent weeks throwing insults at one another until finally Emma had bothered to be polite and actually try to rebuild bridges and—

A hand came to rest on her shoulder, unexpected. Addy jolted away, out of her—Taylor's memories, the jerk carrying over to her physical self, hauling her body away in something not unlike a flinch, jostling her shoulder against the cool metal wall hard enough to almost hurt. It was really weird being durable enough yet still primed with enough nerves to feel the potential of pain.

Agent Vasquez - at least, that's what she thought her name was - stood there, looking at her with creased brows and a slight tilt to her mouth. Worry. Right, yes, she had catalogued that emotion very early on into the cycle and its accompanying facial tics. That was worry. Agent Vasquez was worried. She was also carrying a tray with food on it, not that Addy paid it much attention because despite everything she had managed to eat enough carrots to sate the low ache in her stomach that demanded food. Also water, she had drunk a lot of water, and though she hated drinking almost more than eating, she had still done it because being thirsty was worse.

"You look like you need to sit down," Agent Vasquez said, finally, voice toneless.

Addy shook her head before she could think better of what that would do to her balance, which was to say nothing pleasant. Thankfully, the wall was durable enough to stop her from stumbling over as the world spun unpleasantly, the ache in her head ramping up. "If I sit down I'll go to sleep," she muttered, not sure what emotion was in her voice, but it sounded... vaguely stubborn, mulish almost.

Agent Vasquez's face smoothed over, became a bit softer. "Maybe you should sleep, then," she offered, voice slow and smooth and so fitting for her face. Agent Vasquez looked, as far as Taylor's terminology went, somewhat butch, with short hair and a bit of a hard face. It reminded her of Rachel, abstractly, and she could almost feel herself relax because of it. Not quite, of course, because she was sleepy and unfocused and that meant she had to be vigilant.

"Can't," she supplied after she noticed she had been quiet for too long, Agent Vasquez's face wrinkling again, taking back on that worried cast. "Gotta wait for someone to come back." She did, she had to wait because Kara could be back at any second and then she could go and sleep on a couch instead of in a base—

"Then," Agent Vasquez started, motioning towards the nearest table. "Why don't you sit down with me and I keep you awake while I eat? I'm off duty, anyway, and I think you'll make people less worried if you stop trying to dig a hole in the ground with your pacing."

Addy looked down, glancing over the path she'd been on for... however long it had been since she'd nearly dozed off. It didn't even look scuffed, and she tried to project that without words when she looked back up, catching Agent Vasquez's gaze.

"It's a figure of speech," Agent Vasquez provided gently, the corners of her lips twitching upwards.

Oh. That would make sense. She was pretty sure humans didn't even really have the ability to do that, and she knew a lot about humans. Still, considering her offer wasn't a totally impossible thing, and it wasn't like she had anything else to do besides walking back and forth. If Agent Vasquez thought she could keep her awake, well, who was she to deny her that? She pushed herself off the wall, nearly stumbling as her flip flop pulled hard in retaliation to her slip, before managing to catch herself without face planting and treading her way over to the table. Stepping over the bench, Addy dumped herself down onto the seat, letting her legs whip out beneath the table and swing up, catching the heel of her flip flop against the ground to a satisfying sound and feel.

Agent Vasquez, with grace and smoothness neither she nor Taylor would ever have, slipped into the seat in front of her, setting her tray down. At a closer inspection, she had gotten two wraps - not that she knew what was in them - a pretty large salad, a few pieces of naan, and a small little container of hummus. Altogether, it looked good, though not something Addy was sure was entirely necessary to eat at whatever time it was. They really should put clocks up, they'd do her and probably everyone else some good.

"So," Agent Vasquez began, pausing briefly to take a quick bite out of one of her wraps. "My name is Susan Vasquez. I am a field operator and general agent working for the Department of Extranormal Operations, or as you know it, the D.E.O." Another bite, Addy might've felt some jealousy over the wrap if not for the fact that all she could taste was carrots in the back of her mouth and she didn't feel particularly hungry. "Who are you?"

Addy blinked. She would've thought Susan would've known that by now, or at least read her file. Well, whatever, she could still do that, and it was something to do. "I'm Addy," she introduced proudly, because why wouldn't she be proud of her naming sense? "I, uhm, am an alien, I live with—someone." Because Kara had been clear about divulging too much information to people, and being non-specific on the topic was probably better for everyone. She was surprised she'd thought to interrupt herself, considering how her head felt. "I puked on your shoes," because that was pertinent information. "I was also recently attacked by a Black Mercy."

Susan continued eating her wrap for a moment, blinking owlishly at her, before finally setting the unfinished thing down. "Sounds like you've had a rough day since you found me," she offered after another few seconds.

"I have been here a total of three times in the time since I vomited on your shoes," Addy responded, nodding sagely, because being sent back to the high-security government agency tasked in your handling three times in fewer days was, in fact, indicative of a 'rough' day.

Susan winced, tearing off a piece of naan before using it to scoop and then deposit a portion of hummus into her mouth. After yet more chewing and swallowing, which seemed to come so naturally to everyone else but her, probably for good reasons, though it was still a bit irritating, Susan finally glanced back up at her, drumming her fingers across the table. "I've been called in a few too many times lately too," she began, speaking as though confiding some deep dark secret. "My wife at home isn't terribly impressed with me, I'll probably be sleeping on the couch."

That she could actually relate to. "I'm sleeping on a couch too once the person coming back to pick me up arrives," she shared. "But I don't mind that, since the couch was soft when I was sitting on it and I believe I will be offered blankets and pillows." She hoped so, anyway, despite not really getting hot or cold, she could still feel coldness or hotness and she disliked both of them in equal measure. Though, actually, all of this raised a question, since the way Susan had framed it... "Is sleeping on the couch generally considered a punishment?"

Susan stared at her for a few seconds before, almost lethargically, she shrugged. "Not in your case," she clarified, picking at the lettuce tucked away into one of her wraps. "But in mine? Certainly."

Oh. Addy felt herself fidget involuntarily, a slight twitch in her legs that made her want to swing them, like an itch. "That's sad, maybe communication will help? By my estimate, a lot of human problems can be dealt with through conversation. The rest, as far as Taylor's memories can be concerned, can be handled with judicious application of violence, but I prefer the talking." It was less messy. Or, well, it was less physically messy; apparently, emotions could be messy too, not that she was going to let her emotions be messy. Her emotions were simple and straightforward, and that was a good thing.

Susan didn't reply and instead continued to eat her wrap with quick, precise bites. She ate differently to how Addy ate, she knew that, but she was pretty sure Susan also ate differently from how everyone did. In fact, the one thing she thought of when she saw Susan eat was birds and their pecking, with more than a passing similarity. That wasn't a bad thing, of course, sure it might not be normal but then normal wasn't always the best; abnormality brought about the greatest test results and made people more interesting. Abnormal did not mean bad, just different, and different was in no way itself bad. Maybe in some distant future, the descendants of Susan would have long necks to eat like cranes, maybe they might have sharp teeth to ensnare their enemies, or maybe they wouldn't. It didn't matter, because she was different and that was fine and so was Addy and that was also fine.

"You know," Susan began, gesturing with the wrap she had clutched in her hand, gesturing towards her. "You should—"

The canteen doors flew open with little prompting, startling not just her, but Susan, who dropped the wrap and went for the gun on her belt. Others around her, the few stragglers who'd come into the canteen, also startled, one bulky-looking guy with more hair on his face than his head even rising to his feet. Before anyone could start shooting and making things even messier, however, Kara in her Supergirl outfit strode through, her face a blank mask of neutrality.

"Supergirl!" Alex called out, rushing in after her. She stopped for a moment when she noticed others staring at her, hesitating for only a second before marching forward. "Please, we have to talk about this—"

Kara, nevertheless, continued striding forwards, right towards her. "I can't," she said, voice flat. "I can't talk about it, or be in this place, right now, Alex."

"Hank was just trying to pro—"

"Alex!" Kara snapped, stopping only to glance behind her with a jerky, sharp motion. "Enough. Stop, please."

Alex paused, her throat bobbing as she took in a breath, her shoulders slumping even while her spine straightened. "Later?" She less asked, more begged, her voice cracked.

Kara glanced away, back towards her. "Later," she confirmed, before stepping back into her stride, letting it carry her through the length of the canteen and right up to the table they were seated at. "Agent Vasquez," she said, nodding, Susan blinking up at her before nodding as well. Finally, Kara turned her gaze onto her, eyes flicking over her features rapidly, looking for something, before finally her neutral expression softened. "Addy. I think it's time we got you home, okay?"

Something soured in her gut. This wasn't right, Kara was bright and exuberant and loud even when she was Supergirl. This time, though, there was nothing like that, just emptiness and softness that was familiar if distant. She wanted to demand, to know what made her like this, but stopped herself before she could open her mouth. She was tired, Kara was probably tired, something had happened but—but... she couldn't do anything about it.

Her stomach twisted, ached. She didn't like this. "Okay," she finally answered, pushing down on the queasiness in her chest.

The apartment was dark and cleaned when they got back. Maybe she was just better at noticing differences, but it was clear enough that someone had come through at some point to remove the egg goop and do some rudimentary cleaning. Despite that, in places, she could just barely see boot treads, and in others, objects had been rearranged, possibly because they had been knocked over in the retrieval process. There was no evidence that anything that had happened today had; no open window with Astra, no corpse of a Black Mercy, no egg, no scuffle.

Everything looked completely normal.

Glancing down at her toes, Addy let each one wiggle, feeling the way flesh brushed against flesh.

"Right!" Kara called out, appearing from around the corner of her room, carrying with her a small tower of blankets and pillows. The blanket was on the bottom, looking thick and plush, folded in a rectangle, while about three pillows had been stacked on top of that. "Do you think you'll need any more than this to sleep?"

Addy stared at it for a moment, glancing between the articles, before shaking her head. "Don't think so, the blanket looks interesting."

Kara smiled, though it was brief. Getting home had returned some of the energy she'd lacked at the D.E.O. back, but the difference was still there. She'd held back on asking what was causing her to act this way, or why, but... well, her impulses were getting the worse of her, especially now that she was sitting down on something comfortable and it was just so easy to let her head go all fuzzy and soft. Blinking a few times, Addy glanced at the clock; it was close to 1AM, late even for Taylor.

"The blanket's one of the ones my adoptive mother got me—Eliza Danvers," Kara explained without prompting, coming to a halt just next to her and letting the bundle of soft fabric plunk down on the couch. "The blanket is weighted a bit, though I'm not sure if you'll notice, and reinforced. I used to have nightmares and I kept shredding the blankets, and she came up with... well, this. Or, well she and Jeremiah did. The pillows are just normal though, so don't grab them too hard or you'll rip them apart."

Addy reached out, dragged her fingers over the wrinkles in the bedsheets. They were soft, but not in an unpleasant way, not like cotton swabs. It was soft and silken, almost textureless in the way it sat against her fingers, and it smelt faintly of Kara's perfume, like she'd used it a while ago, but not so long ago that it was simply a childhood blanket. Glancing up at her, Addy tried to find any concern or weariness in her face and found none. "Are you sure?"

Kara smiled then, but it was sad. "I kept it around because after Jeremiah died it was all I had left to remember him by," she explained, reaching down herself to begin moving the pillows to the other end of the couch, piling them until they padded the area where cushion transitioned into the hard fabric armrest. She tugged on the blanket too, pulled it until it unfurled in full and reached over to slowly drape the article around Addy's shoulders, her fingers warm when they brushed against the skin of her cheeks. "I think he'd be very proud of me if he saw that I was passing on a blanket that helped me so much to someone else, you know? It's a little sad to be giving it up, but it's yours now, Addy, for as long as you need it, and even longer then."

Addy swallowed, scrunching her nose when the lump in her throat didn't abate. Her throat almost ached with it, she reached up, brushing fingertips over thankfully dry cheekbones, but she just had to be sure. The blanket was heavy, enough that it was noticeable, but not so much it stopped her movement. It felt warm, heavy on her shoulders, grounded her somehow, in a way that other things hadn't. She breathed in, felt her lungs fill with air, then out. This felt good, this felt nice, she felt whole and safe and like she could tuck her head under the blanket and the entire world wouldn't be able to find or affect her. It felt like a shield, and she liked that.

The sound of fabric shifting drew her attention, her eyes tracking over to Kara, who had decided to slump down into her chair. Bringing her hand up, she brushed shaky fingers through her hair, not paying any attention to her. She reached for the remote after another moment, bringing it up and turning the television on, some sort of cartoon about a large, red-coloured robot striding across a ruined landscape flickering into view. Her cartoon channel got weird after midnight, apparently, not that she minded, especially with the volume so low she had to strain her ears to hear it.

"You wanna watch this?" Kara asked after another moment, clicking a button and causing a small menu to pop up at the bottom of the screen, displaying future shows to be broadcast. Flicking her eyes down, Addy briefly caught sight of the title of the show before Kara could scroll away from it, an 'Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone'. "Because, it's okay if you do, I'm just... sticking around until you doze off, okay? But, I thought maybe I could change it to something less apocalyptic."

Addy blinked again, this time too slowly. Her head felt fuzzier than normal, she was warm and comfortable and found herself rocking back and forth a little, the motions comfortable. "M'not," she stumbled, not liking the way the words came out unclear. She'd have to work on that, impeccable pronunciation was important. "I'm not," she repeated, just for clarity. "You can change it, I just like the colours and noises of the shows."

"Bright, right?" Kara said knowingly. Addy found herself nodding, letting the weight of her body tip her over to the side, the lack of a right arm leaving her left side slightly unbalanced. She landed against the cushion of the couch with a thump, wormed her way up the length of it and tucked her face into the crisp white pillows. They smelled like fake flowers in a way that wasn't entirely unpleasant, and the pillowcases were smooth and silky enough that brushing her cheek across the surface felt nice, soothing, the relative cool of the pillows feeling like a respite from the heat of the blanket.

The channel flickered, changed over. On it, a man with a deep, English accent documented the behavioural patterns of the alpine ibex, from the way they frolicked and hopped and did all other sorts of jumpy things. She felt her eyes stutter for a moment, blinking only to find that the documentary had skipped forward to talking about goats, her place gone. Her eyes felt heavy, weighed down, she blinked again and glanced around, not finding Kara in her seat. She slumped a bit, not finding the energy to go looking, and tried to watch the documentary again, letting the warmth suck her in, the sound of his voice, slow and smooth and pleasant on the ears.

Another blink. Kara was back, floating in through the window in her Supergirl uniform. Their eyes met for a moment, Kara jolting slightly before relaxing. The show on the television wasn't even the one they'd started with, the English accent replaced for something more Irish, talking about the creation of Earth instead of the mating habits of mountain-dwelling fauna.

"Kara?" Addy rasped, her tongue flicking out mostly on instinct to wet her lips.

Kara wilted, glanced back towards the window she had come in from, before finally closing it. "It's okay Addy, you can go back to sleep. I just had to see someone off."

She had to know. Kara's behaviour had been bothering her, had been making something awful twist in her chest. "Who?"

Kara paused, visibly swallowed, and then gave her a sad smile. "Aunt Astra," she explained quietly, fingers pulling together. "She was killed today, and it's part of my people's culture to send their caskets off to meet Rao, the god - and sun - of our system. My boss was responsible for her death, and... it's why I wanted to leave the D.E.O. so quickly."

The feeling came back, a sharp pang in her chest. It made her queasy, ill, made her want to apologize. She searched for a moment, reached out to her memories, but was met only with the constant flicker of how Taylor had been after Annette's death, how Danny had been, how Kara was. She pushed them aside, delved into it, tried to draw out the meaning of the feeling, the dull ache of something bitter and shameful.

It came to her a second later. She felt guilty.

For what? For not stepping in, for not asking to help when they would've told her not to? She just wanted to exist, why was she feeling guilty? There was no rational reason, and yet, even knowing that, even knowing the source of it, she still felt it. It made her chest hurt, made her want to do anything to help, it itched at the back of her skull and almost managed to banish the fatigue, but not enough.

Kara's fingers brushed over the crown of her hair, gently smoothing over her hair. Addy felt herself almost melt.

"I'll be okay," Kara said gently. "I didn't think I'd get attached to her, she did bad things, but... I felt like I could've brought her to the light. She wasn't committed to her cause, not like she had been. I'm just sad, you know? She was kin, and now she's gone."

Addy understood, but she also didn't. Taylor would understand, and she had enough Taylor in her to get some of it, but the concept of kin to her was foreign, alien. Kin ate kin, kin did anything the gestalt intelligence wanted. Kin ate planets and culled populations who knew too much, who had unwanted complications, who they could not exploit for information or resources. She understood family, understood the loss of it, and yet didn't.

Her eyes shut, too heavy. Kara's fingers kept brushing over her head, gently smoothing the curls down.

"I'll see you in the morning."

Addy jolted awake with a heave, her vision swimming as it adjusted to the light. The memories were on the tip of her tongue, not present enough to be knowable, but there. She had been thinking of something, what had she been thinking of? It had been about Taylor, right? She was almost certain it had been but nothing else was clear and she didn't like that she—

"Addy?" Kara called out, head peeking around the corner. Addy felt herself relax back into the couch, the feeling of sweat slicking the back of her neck unpleasant. The memories trickled out, away, lost to the ether despite her nominally perfect recall of everything that had happened since she'd first woken up. She breathed out, low and slow, tried to get her heart to stop pounding relentlessly against her chest.

"Sorry," she rasped out, blinking once as Kara's pyjama-clad figure blurred and then reappeared a breath later with a glass of water that she very carefully placed on the coffee table an arm's length away. "I think I might've just had a dream."

Kara gave her a curious look, brow ticked up. "Is that not normal?"

Reaching out, Addy took the glass and tipped it back, feeling the water pour into her mouth and down her throat, an unpleasant flood of fluid slicking against flesh. She hated it, but it made her throat less sore, less dry. "No. I don't remember it either, and I have perfect recall." Or at least, she thought she did.

"Just give it time," Kara said slowly, walking back towards her bedroom. Her voice had a knowing tone to it, something about it spoke of experience and understanding, and it somehow made it both worse and better. "Dreams will fade, you'll feel better soon."

Addy breathed out again, focused on the feeling of taking air in and out. It did help relax her, and the panic from before did fade, though not entirely. She didn't like dreaming, though the fact that her head felt alive and not smothered by fog meant that she did, however, like sleep. Maybe she could find a way to avoid dreaming? After all, dreaming was just important to people who didn't have a consciousness capable of working through its problems outside of select moments of unconsciousness.

Yeah, dreamless sleep sounded nice. She wanted that.

"We'll go out tomorrow to get your stuff put together," Kara began, startling Addy not for the first time. She glanced up, catching Kara quickly slipping a pastel-pink cardigan over a white blouse and black slacks that had at some point replaced the sheep-patterned pyjamas she wore. "But today I have work, you'll be fine on your own, I think. Actually, can you tell me the house rules I told you about yesterday?"

Blinking away the sleep behind her eyes and the gunk more literally on them, Addy took another reluctant sip of water, her entire body almost vibrating with a need for it. "Don't let people into the house if you don't tell me they're coming. If an alien forces its way into the house, call you, if a human does, call the police. Don't use the oven, try to eat three meals a day, and do not break anything."

Kara smiled brightly at her, looking almost like herself before her face slipped into something like understanding. "Speaking of food," she started, slipping out of the bedroom area and making her way towards the kitchen, or more specifically, the fridge. Cracking it open, Kara reached inside and took out what looked like an oversized, very tall mug filled with a honey-coloured slurry, a white container with 'GO YOGURT' written across it in bright, all-capital colourful letters, and a small assortment of saran-wrapped granola bars. Walking back over, she placed each of them carefully down on the otherwise empty surface of the coffee table.

"These," she began, motioning towards the three bits of what Addy was assuming - and hoping, her stomach was very taut with what she had come to realize was hunger - was food. "Are my secret to keeping myself from starving to death." She reached down, tapping her finger against the yogurt tub. "This is the most calorie-intensive yogurt on the market. I have to have Alex order it on Amazon for me because nobody stocks it outside of expensive fitness stores. I store them in the dozens and I go through about one per day, so I'll have to double up for you in all likelihood." Next, she tapped the granola bars. "These are homemade, specifically by Alex, though the recipe is Eliza's. It's basically a brick of pure calories, if you feel hungry, eat half of one, it'll be about five hundred. I don't know how it works, don't ask me, my sister is a wizard." Finally, she tapped the side of the huge container. "This is a protein smoothie, it tastes like grass-covered honey and is the only reason I can keep upright at work. I can make more for you, it is one of the only things I can make because fire isn't required, but it's high-calorie, like everything else, and makes you feel full really quickly, so be careful if you eat it."

Addy had a lot of questions. She was not aware Alex practiced a magical religion, nor was she aware that something the size of her palm could contain five hundred calories, but despite all of that, they did look appealing, for better or for worse.

"I want you to choose one of these to eat today, okay? They're still going through the tests they ran on you to find out where the acceptable caloric intake range would be. Considering you're not falling over from starvation, I doubt you're as bad as me, but you probably still need to eat a lot, sedentary or not."

Glancing between them, Addy struck off the smoothie immediately. Liquids were gross. The granola bars looked appetizing, but she didn't like how dry they looked, which really only left the food equivalent of a liquid. "Yogurt," she said, flicking her eyes up. Kara smiled at her, beamed really, and Addy felt that awful guilt gnaw at her throat again. She had a bad feeling about what was going to happen, she should've stepped in, Kara looked so sad and she kept reminding her of Taylor after Annette and Taylor after Annette was why she existed but she was also miserable and it was awful.

Kara swept up the other two, walking back over to the refrigerator and putting it away before closing the door. "I have about thirty minutes before I need to get to work," Kara explained, walking back over with little too much speed in her step to call it slow. Instead of stopping just shy of the coffee table like she thought she would, however, Kara continued past it, coming to a halt next to the bookshelf just in front of one of the curtains that slightly blocked off the archway into her bedroom. On top of the bookcase was a cardboard box, a small pile of files, and an envelope, all of which she similarly picked up and carefully made her way over, placing it down on the coffee table. "So we need to go over this quick, okay?"

Addy glanced at the box, the papers, the yogurt, and then Kara. This was a lot, but she could deal with it. Doing a lot of things simultaneously was kind of her thing. Finally, she nodded, trying to put some resolve into the gesture.

Kara smiled, though a bit more timidly, with less exposed teeth and bright cheer. "First thing," she began, reaching out to swipe the envelope from the top of the pile, handing it over. Addy took it, flicked her thumb under the little bit of it that hadn't been perfectly sealed, and pulled up, tearing the top open just like she remembered. "Congratulations, you are now a citizen of earth!"

True to what she said, inside was literally that: an American birth certificate, a social insurance card, and a personal ID. Written on all of them was 'Adeline Taylor Queen', with 'Addy' left as an alias on one of the files. She had apparently been born and raised in a town just outside of Boston by the name of Brookline. She'd gone to school, graduated top of her year from the local High School with proficient grades in mathematics, sciences, and literature. They'd even managed to get a picture of her somehow, her face blank and staring directly into the center of the camera with her hair framed around her ears, the picture cutting off just below her shoulders.

She wasn't sure how to feel about the middle name or the fact that her 'true' name was Adeline, but then Addy was her name and if people could say their name was something different to the thing they were born with, so could she.

The bundle of papers was placed down in front of her, looking about twelve to fifteen pages thick all told. "This," Kara explained, tapping the top, which was blank for all but 'D.E.O.' in large, blocky capital letters. "Is a proficiency test to understand where you are relative to humans in terms of mathematical, technological, and other information knowledge. I'm not sure what's in it, I didn't check, but they want it back as soon as possible because they want you to find a job to begin integrating into."

Dropping the envelope to the side, Addy picked at the corner of the page, frowning a bit at it as she flipped it over and was met with what was very obviously rote mathematics. Mostly just simple algebra that most humans would learn in university; nothing she would sweat at. "Alright," she eventually said, glancing back up at Kara, who was giving the cardboard box a long look. It wasn't like a conventional cardboard box, not a perfect square, but more of a very short, very wide rectangle.

"This, meanwhile, is the laptop they're providing you. It's yours now, try not to break it, and it has already been connected to the wifi if what Alex said was true, so all you need to do is turn it on and then plug it in to recharge it. It should have a booklet you can look through to find out how to operate it if you're not sure."

Taylor had a lot of memories of laptops and computers. It had been, for a while, her passion, what she wanted to be when she grew up. She wanted to either code for a living or teach coding if at all possible. Even after she'd ended up turning herself in, that want had stayed consistent, and only really changed as the time got ever-closer to the end of the world. She'd stayed with it, too, taking courses and classes about it, learning as much as she reasonably could, though Addy hadn't really looked too deeply into those memories with as much frequency as she had with the more emotional ones. She would have to now, though.

The guilt was back now, though, as strong and potent as ever. She felt herself tense up, felt her fingers tighten a bit. Astra was dead, she did nothing, and now she was being rewarded for it. She knew, rationally, that that wasn't the case, that she couldn't have done anything, but something about the situation was too close to home. Really, everything was, everything felt like she was watching Taylor's memories play out again. Maybe she didn't even feel that guilty about not acting, she wasn't sure, but it somewhat felt like she was guilty about what would happen after, about what she'd be forced to watch again.

"Why are you a hero?" The words came impulsively, blurted before she could stop them. Kara froze, opened and shut her mouth for a long moment before fully turning to her, focused on her with an intensity she hadn't seen in Kara before.

Kara breathed in, then out. "I was sent to Earth to protect my cousin. My planet was destroyed, and in the process, I got trapped in this part of space that doesn't really follow conventional laws of spacetime. By the time I actually arrived, Kal-El—my cousin—was already grown up and... he didn't need me. He had already become Superman. I grew up being told to hide my powers, and the one time I didn't ended up with my adoptive father turning up dead a few years later. I... both resented my powers and really wanted to use them. I am powerful under this sun, so, so powerful, I can do so much, but I just... didn't. I hid who I was, what I wanted to be, while my cousin did what I should've been doing for him. Until the world forced my hand, my sister's plane had gone down and she was going to die if I didn't interfere, so I did."

There was a short pause. Addy digested that, compared it to what she knew of Taylor's decision to become a hero, which had been far less idealistic, far more driven by a sense of duty and requirement. She might've felt guilty for what she did, might've gone on to seek atonement, but the comparison was only surface-deep.

"Then, I found my purpose like that. My life had felt hollow, half-fulfilled, I had rejected so much of my Kryptonian heritage to just fit in, to feel normal. I didn't want to be normal anymore, and maybe that was selfish, but... I wanted to be abnormal, I wanted to help others, I wanted to make people feel safe." Another pause, heavier, Kara stared at her with lidded eyes and a warmth that Addy felt completely unprepared for. "So, I did, and I continue to. You don't have an obligation to follow in my footsteps, Addy, but I felt obligated to do so because I had the power to do so. My powers let me help people, and to not help them was a decision I just couldn't handle, so I won't. That's why I became a hero, that's why I am Supergirl."

They really were nothing alike. Part of Taylor's rationale for it was that she'd always wanted to be a hero, always wanted to help, but to a degree when she had become a hero, some of it had been primarily driven by the need for the resources they provided. She could stop the end of the world far better if she had help, after all. They were superficially similar, doing the right thing when they needed to, but only in the abstract, only so far as they could be as two very different people.

Kara glanced away, up at the clock, and froze. "Shit," she cursed, which was new because Kara did not curse. "I gotta get to work. Are you okay with people coming over tonight for game night? It's totally fine if you want me to cancel, you just arrived and it—"

"It's okay," Addy said, still processing, still working through her thoughts. They were different, yes, similar, also yes, but so different. She needed to focus on that, Kara wasn't Taylor, she shouldn't feel guilty about Kara's future because Kara was not Taylor, would not fall apart as Taylor had. It didn't make the guilt go away, didn't even diminish it, but the thought was at least a comforting one. "They can come over."

Kara beamed another smile in her direction. "Do the worksheets! I'll see you at around five!"

The worksheets had turned out to be a trivial if welcome distraction. None of them were difficult, and they had all been framed in ways that let her explain her reasoning even if she didn't use what she thought was conventional human practices to reach her answers. It took her thirty minutes, and most of that had been trying to figure out how to explain to people a mathematical concept that didn't exist in conventional human mathematics yet, which she had managed, at the very least.

She had turned the television back to cartoons shortly after Kara left, ramped up the volume until tinny voices and dramatic sound effects until it had drowned out the memories of Kara's speech about being a hero. Her laptop was set up, it wasn't hard to figure out after digging through her brain for the relevant information. The laptop UI was a bit different, going from LiteTech to Microsoft, but that wasn't hard to acclimate to in the same way that the keyboard layout had been. A few keys had been changed around, but so long as she looked at her hand while she typed, she was fine. A bit slow, but fine.

Eating the yogurt had been another slow process. It wasn't as watery as she'd been expecting, tasted nice and had a very smooth texture, but she didn't really like it? There was nothing particularly wrong about it, and the texture wasn't offensive, but by the time she had cleared out the entire tub of it, she kinda wished she had just gone with the granola bars.

Glancing up at the clock, Addy felt her face cramp. It was still only two in the afternoon, even after spending hours finding out there was an entire genre of music that was called noise and was wonderful and amazing and should be significantly more popular. Time was slow, had been since she'd fused fully with Taylor's body, but even that was a bit much.

People took a lot of photos of their cats. Not that she was complaining, cats were delightful creatures who were soft and made a lot of odd noises. She liked geese more for their noises, the throaty honks that bellowed out of their beaks like little car horns, but cats were still good, especially when they made that chirping noise.

She could do without the people who left weirdly-spelled comments beneath them though. What on earth was a 'uwu'? Why were they everywhere? It was just a cat. Was it some type of religious thing?

She wanted Kara. It was half-past four in the evening and she should be home soon but she was bored and the television had nothing on and she wanted to be around Kara because Kara was bright and cheery even if she made her feel guilty about something she could not control and hated the fact that she was guilty but—but...

She wanted Kara.

"I'm home!"

Addy nearly jolted to her feet, stopped only by her stranglehold on the couch. She hadn't really left the couch outside of to use the washroom and get another drink, and had found a comfortable little nook inside of it. Of course, she'd had to dislodge the cushion a tiny bit so she could fit her rear into the little groove and feel the way the scratchy fabric pressed against her, feel the little coiled up springs, but it was very comfortable.

Kara sort of stared at her for a moment, glancing between the done bundle of papers, her computer which was still playing that low trill of noise music, to her, half-stuffed into the couch, and then back again. "Did you have a good day?" Kara finally asked, shucking her pink outer shirt and leaving it hanging on one of the chairs in the dining table.

"I learned a lot," she said instead of 'no I wished you were here but I also didn't', because that felt a bit too much for her. Kara just smiled, ignorant, and Addy let the moment pass.

"That's good! You got the worksheets done, too, which is a bonus. Now, I need to know, what do you know about Settlers of Catan?"

"This is Winn Schott, he works at CatCo as an IT guy," Kara smoothly introduced, motioning towards the man in question. He was wearing a cardigan over a simple white shirt, some slacks, and some converse shoes the colour of the sky. He smiled awkwardly at her, a smile that wobbled a bit when she just cocked her head to one side, staring at him curiously. Finally, after a few more seconds of awkward silence, he very nervously extended his hand for a shake.

Addy took it, firmly shaking it up and down. "Hello, I'm Addy."

"I've heard a lot about you," Winn replied, his voice as wobbly as his awkward smile.

"Well," Kara began, startling them both. She shot them a look, like she shouldn't be startled when someone silently appears right beside her and speaks, which was rude. "You'll have to learn a lot, in any case, since you've both been paired off for tonight."

Winn shot her another shaky smile, one she very tentatively tried to return. From the way his smile went from shaky to actually somewhat genuine, it probably worked.

"This is James Olsen, he—"

"Shoots photos," Addy interrupted. Because he did, because one of the first things she'd looked up was famous photographers and James was on just about every list. His photos were all vibrant, even over a screen they were all perfectly framed and colourful. She especially liked his work done on Superman, who he liked to capture mid-flight, with the reds contrasting the blues, but he also had done Superman in more scenic shots, rural areas where the greens made for a bright, wonderful comparison to the reds and blues.

"—Alright, you already know. Cool. This is his girlfriend, Lucy Lane," Kara said, stressing the word 'girlfriend' like it might actually mean something to her. Addy just shot her a blank look, one Kara ignored until something like comprehension flicked across her face and tension Addy hadn't noticed was there bled back out of her.

Turning to the woman in question, Addy held out her hand for a shake. "Your boyfriend makes very colourful photos," she said, in lieu of a conventional greeting.

Lucy took her hand, a sly smile pulling across her face, some sort of in-joke she didn't understand in all likelihood. "It's one of his redeeming qualities," she confessed, and somewhere behind her, Addy could hear Alex snort.

"I have this monopoly card."

The rest of the table stared at her, their puny villages meek and incomparable to her own villages, stalwart, well-built, properly administrated with giant roads. She could see Winn sitting beside her, looking like he was on the edge of vibrating out of his seat. They had been a good duo, working together, though he had quickly realized she was far better at micromanagement and figuring out how to best exploit resources, even if those resources were her enemies.

"Give me all of your ore."

"Here, uhm, here's my username on twitter and stuff," Winn said, shoving a ripped-off piece of paper into her hand. True to his word, there were several usernames and ways to contact him. She stared blankly at it.

"I heard you didn't have a phone," he started, sounding like he was babbling. "A—and I'm not, trying to hit on you, or ask you out."

"That is good," Addy said, glancing up after another moment. "I do not like men."

Winn smiled, though it was a bit weak. "So you're gay?"

"I don't like women either." Really, she'd prefer it if people understood that. Apparently liking someone's photography was enough to make people think she was interested in them physically, which was patently untrue. Fleshy bits could remain tucked away, thank you very much.

"Oh, so you're asexual!"

"I'll endeavour to look up what that is tonight after you and Alex leave."

Alex snorted, again. She had done a lot of that, though for a while she'd remained quiet and focused on glaring at her. How should Addy know that she had an entire hand full of ore? It wasn't like Kara got mad at her, and Alex had been on her team.

The apartment was finally quiet.

Lying down on the couch, Addy stared up at the ceiling, fingers tucked against the little grooves between each cushion. Kara was in her room, either sleeping or trying to, and the television had been turned back on to the documentary channel and turned low. She couldn't even really make out the words the person was saying, but it was soothing even despite that.

Addy blinked, long and slow, tried to let her eyes shut on their own like they had the night before. She was still awake, still aware. The apartment still smelled vaguely of takeout, as a large order of potstickers and pizza had been the dinner. Pizza was fine, a lot of different textures and in one instance the wonderful addition of pineapple which gave everything a very sweet and salty taste. Potstickers had been less great, but workable, she didn't really like how the dumpling itself tasted or felt when she bit into it, though the filling was still nice. Kara really liked them, so she hadn't said as much, but if push came to shove it wasn't like she couldn't eat them.

Wiggling her tones one by one, Addy forced her eyes shut. She didn't want to dream again, but she had to sleep. The guilt had waxed and waned throughout the day, coming and going seemingly with her mood. She wanted to do more, she wanted to do something, to do anything with what she had. She wasn't at fault, none of it was, but, again, it would appear that her brain had other opinions on the matter. She shouldn't feel bad, shouldn't feel like she was watching Taylor happen again in slow motion, but she did, and regardless of how much she told herself otherwise, the feeling always snuck back in.

She was tired, but she wasn't.

Was this what Taylor had felt like, near the beginning?

(She didn't know. Didn't think she ever truly would, really, even with the memories, full of emotion and texture and feeling, she knew better than to assume she understood what Taylor had been thinking at any given time.)

Administrative Mishap [Supergirl/Worm]

Seeker of the Orb of Zot

Somone

Above Average man

The user formerly known as Nuke_Equestria

╯‵Д′)╯彡┻━┻

Worker