- Pronouns
- She/Her
Oh god no, not Lobo, anyone but Lobo
Kintsugi: Sunstone inventor (DC / YJ)
- Thread starter CapitaoCaverna
- Start date
verycoolname
Not actually cool
Dex-Starr deserves a happier life, I'm glad you're giving him one.
Sorry, yes, I warned people several times I was gonna rename it.
Gonna put that into the synopsis too now that I think about it.
I didn't change it into SB because I have more readers there and people got used to the name
- Location
- Michigan, USA
Just spent a while binging the story and I quite like it, thank you for posting it over here, and also thank you for having kara save Dex-Starr. Such a sad story he had, but I hope his life gets better, Poor kitty.
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Thar section with constantly calling the guys on the bridge "mofos" and then throwing them in to see if they drowned or not was record-scratch kind of breaking of yhe suspension of disbelief. Like seriously what the fuck was that?
Chapter 20
So, today is a day I hate... well, hate is a very strong word, but I really, REALLY dislike.
I'm not going to be releasing any april 1st jokes, so I hope you guys enjoy the chapter.
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"Ah, shit!" Kara repeated herself, her muscles straining uselessly against the chain wrapped around her body.
Standing only fifty meters from her was the giant and shirtless form of Lobo, DC's most infamous bounty hunter.
Lobo was just… huge. While Kal had more of a swimmer's build, the bounty hunter was made of muscles upon muscles with arms as large as Kara's waist. He basically looked like the stylized album cover version of an 80's heavy metal singer on steroids.
The very end of his chain was still wrapped around his bulging arm and the pale man was pulling her slowly towards himself with a smile on his face.
"Lobo, what the hell are you doing here?" Kara grunted, equal parts fear and anger.
"Heh, seems like even Kryptonians know to fear the Main Man. You guys really are as smart as they say!" Lobo mocked, but continued to drag her closer
In a hurry, Kara grabbed at the chain and tried to break it, but the metal was able to resist her strength somehow and only released a groan.
Trying to fly away was useless so Kara did the opposite. Rushing Lobo caused the chain to give her enough slack that she managed to slip out of it and kick him in the face as hard as she could.
Lobo took the hit without even trying to protect himself and went flying, skidding across the ground for a hundred meters before his hand grabbed at the floor and he stopped himself.
"Feisty! I like it!" He laughed as he snapped his nose back into place and snorted a glob of blood out. "I'd offer ya a…"
Kara hit the asshole with the strongest blast of heat vision she could manage before he could finish the sentence.
The attack hit him with physical force, driving his body back and through the ground for nearly a kilometer and incinerating a path of destruction. The farmland around her attack caught fire, its flames spreading rapidly through the crops.
Kara cut off the attack and turned away from the Kent farm. Before Lobo could recover she started fleeing.
A single command activated her panic button, sending a message to the Justice League, Kori, Kal and even Batman at the same time as her leg started reconfiguring itself into her emergency teleporter.
Kara was just starting to think she had escaped when her ears caught a sound that chilled her blood.
From the Kents' direction she heard Kon telling Martha he was gonna check out a noise he heard.
"Fuck!" Kara didn't know if Lobo had come specifically for her or if any Kryptonian would do, but she wasn't willing to risk it.
Stopping herself in the middle of the sky, Kara turned around to see Kon taking a huge leap towards Lobo's location.
The bounty hunter himself was just getting up and seemed in no hurry to follow after her. Kara wanted to scream.
"Bastich, I think I'm in love!" Lobo shouted as he got back to his feet, his burned face already starting to heal and his black hair to grow back.
Pulling a giant cigar from his back pocket, Lobo bit the tip off and used the fire around him to light it up. He took a huge drag on the cancer stick and finally looked up at Kara, lifting an eyebrow when he saw she wasn't running. "Heh. And I thought I'd have to hunt you down again."
Kara was paralyzed with indecision. She wanted nothing more than to fly away but, with Kon coming here and Lobo seemingly disinclined to follow her, she couldn't do it.
She considered catching Kon before he arrived, but she also didn't know how fast Lobo was and couldn't risk leading him any closer to the Kents' farm, the man wasn't exactly known for his aversion to killing innocents.
"Why are you here, Lobo?" Kara repeated herself, hoping that she could get him talking and delay him.
"Seems like you stole something from some pussy-ass lizard people and they put a bounty on y'head. Something about their progenitors or some shit." He pointed at her with two fingers while puffing out a huge cloud of smoke. "Always wanted to bag myself a Kryptonian so I took the bounty, and the Main Man always delivers."
Shit, how the hell did they find out about her? She and Kori had made sure to destroy all the data in the ship when they took it over.
Also, Kara hadn't stolen anything from them. Well, maybe the ship itself, but it was just a common ship, damnit.
Kara took the chance to release every drone she carried in her pockets, the little round devices weren't really weapons, but she could overload their self-destruction and turn them into low power grenades.
Not like that would hurt someone like Lobo, but it could distract him.
Damnit, Kara just knew things had been going too well. Why didn't she bring an actual weapon?
Lobo started calmly walking towards her, twirling his chain in his hand and causing it to sing as it cut through the air.
"Now come here, Princess. The damn Lizards are mostly interested in some bullshit organ they put in ya, so let the Main Man make your insides into the outsides and we can find it together."
The chain flew towards her faster than she could see. Kara was ready and still managed to dodge to the side, but Lobo pulled on the chain and whipped it towards her, almost taking her head off.
On reflex Kara ducking under the swing, but she wasn't fast enough to dodge Lobo himself as he jumped up and grabbed her boot.
"Gotcha. Now let me punch your face in for ya!"
"Fuck off!" Kara stomped down on the brute, but Lobo only grabbed her other leg and squeezed, his strength so great it actually caused her pain.
Looking at Lobo, Kara tried to burn his face off with heat vision again. The Czarnian just leaned his head away and swung them both around in the air causing her shot to go wide, burning a line through the farmland and hitting a barn a few kilometers away, setting it on fire.
Fuck, even here she had to worry about collateral damage!
Lobo took the chance to grab at her shirt and pull himself up her body, cackling in amusement the entire time.
Using the interface on her eye, Kara ordered one of her drones to fly into Lobo's eye and explode.
"Argh." He finally took a hand away from her body to protect his eye.
Kara acted fast. Twisting her body, she ripped the leg of her pants off and caused Lobo's remaining hand to slide off her body holding only a piece of cloth. His body started tumbling down to the ground fast.
With a shout of rage she took the chance to punch him in the kidney and accelerate his fall. He hit the ground with a shockwave and immediately turned around, but Kara was already on top of him, delivering a knee to his stomach.
She used her speed to punch him in the face twice before activating her heat vision again and trying to burn through his neck. The blast was so hot it vaporized the crops around them and scorched the ground.
She just managed to burn her way to his spine when he grabbed her face, his enormous hand blocking her vision.
Kara felt herself being lifted as Lobo got to his feet and ordered all her drones to bombard him, forcing the bounty hunter to use his other arm to destroy her small army.
Having never stopped using her heat vision, Kara's drones brought her enough time to burn through Lobo's hand and amputate two of his fingers, loosening his hold.
Before Kara could take her distance, Lobo kicked her in the chest, folding her body in half and sending her flying back.
"Feetal's Gizz, what a rush! I ain't had this much fun since I stitched my granddad's eyes shut and sent 'im walking through traffic!" Lobo screamed. A giant smile on his face.
A hundred meters away, Kara held her chest with a hand and tried to recover her breath. Heat vision was probably her most costly ability and she had been abusing it.
"Kara!" Kon shouted when he finally got close enough to see them.
With another giant leap the boy dropped by Kara's side in a superhero landing. Putting a hand on her shoulder he checked her for any wounds before looking towards Lobo.
"Bastich. Another one of ya Kryptonians, I knew I wuz gonna have fun t'day! Just fraggin' KNEW it!" Lobo laughed out loud as he shook his wounded hand, his fingers already starting to grow back.
"Kara, who's that?" Kon asked as Kara finally righted herself, her chest still hurting.
"Lobo, psychotic bounty hunter extraordinaire." Kara glanced at Kon and saw the boy was tense, his eyes glued to the enemy as if he just wanted to charge in and start punching. "Don't. I already called for help, we just gotta delay him."
For a second, it seemed like Kon wasn't gonna listen to her, but then he released a breath and nodded causing Kara to smile.
"Alright punks, it's kinda ah tragic fraggin' waste, but the Main Man is on the clock. And if your buddies are coming I'm gonna have to stop playing around with ya." Lobo cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders. "Tell ya what, the more ya struggle the more it's gonna hurt so, y'know, feel free to go crazy!"
Lobo exploded into action, his speed much faster than before. Both Kara and Kon ducked under a swing of his chain and Kara barely had time to cross her arms in front of her chest before getting hit by a flying knee.
Kon tried to punch Lobo in the face, but the hunter reacted instantly. Grabbing his hand Lobo pulled Kon out of balance and head-butted him into the ground.
Kara recovered and attacked with a kick which Lobo blocked with his chain wrapped around his arm. Kara managed to avoid getting grabbed again but Lobo's hook glanced off the side of her head with enough strength to disorient her.
The Czarnian turned towards Kara, giving Kon enough time to jump to his feet and punch him twice in the side, then climb on his neck and try to put him into a sleeper hold.
"What's this, amateur hour?" Lobo grabbed at Kon, but it left him open for Kara to strike him in the balls. "Gah!"
No matter how Kon tried to hold on, Lobo still managed to pry the arm away from his throat with a single hand. He then swung at Kara, using her little cousin's body as a bludgeon.
Kara managed to dodge it and kick at Lobo's arm, but the bounty hunter didn't release his new club.
"Aaaargh!" Kon screamed and grabbed at his arm with his free hand.
"No!" Unable to keep her mind calm, Kara charged right in, tackling Lobo which caused him to drop Kon but rewarded her with a knee to the face.
Before Kara could recover, Lobo lifted both hands and delivered a devastating hammer blow to the back of her head, burying her body deep into the ground.
Under the ground, Kara realized they may not be able to buy enough time. The fight had only lasted for a few minutes and Kara really doubted she could survive another.
She thought about the teleport in her leg. It was already ready. Activating it would be so easy. A single command and she'd be away from here and safe inside the Fortress.
Unfortunately, it could only take one Kryptonian to the Fortress. She couldn't take Kon with her or send Lobo instead.
A huge arm dug into the ground and grabbed her by the hair lifting her up with barely any resistance. Bringing her head up Lobo stared into her face with a grim. "What's the matter? Y'done already?"
"RAAAAAAAA!" Kon screamed as he rushed from the side and punched Lobo in the head.
The Czarnian dropped Kara and took two steps back, but Kon didn't stop there, raining a flurry of blows at his face and screaming all the while.
Kara tried to help, but she was still disoriented from the last blow and couldn't even manage to fly, only managing to stumble towards them.
Finally, Lobo had enough. Grabbing his hook he swung up, forcing Kon to stop his attack and jump back.
In the air, Kon was unable to dodge the second hook strike. Not being fully Kryptonian he wasn't as resistant as Kara and the hook dug deeply into his side splashing blood all over Lobo's arm.
When Kon fell back to the ground he stumbled and fell to his knees in pain.
In desperation, Kara tried to rush to his help, only to fall down, her legs unable to support her. With one last effort she used her eye's interface to delay her teleport by three seconds. Ripping her prosthetic leg off, she threw it as hard as she could towards Kon.
Lobo reacted; his instincts making him swat the projectile out of the sky. Kara watched it hit the ground and, with a loud pop, disappear.
"Huh." The Czarnian looked at where the leg used to be, then shrugged and walked towards Kon with a maniacal grim on his face. "Y'know, ya punch like a chump but y're tenacious, I'll give you that!"
"I'm almost sorry to have to kill ya… Ah, who'm I kiddin'. I'm not sorry at all!" Kon tried to fight back, but Lobo kicked him in the head one last time, sending him back a few dozen meters, worsening his wounds and causing him to finally pass out. "Now, I never fragged a Kryptonian before, y'fella gonna be my first. I'm almost shy!"
Unable to get herself up, Kara dug into her eye socket and pulled out her last prosthetic before throwing it at Lobo as hard as she could.
Once again the bounty hunter swatted it out of the sky with his chain, his swing so fast the bomb flew a few meters away before it had time to implode.
The effect was devastating. The displaced space first drew Kara a few centimeters closer to its effect, then it seemed to break with a deafening bang, violently and randomly cutting everything in its range into a thousand pieces and teleporting them into different directions.
Kara stayed down for a few seconds. Finally, she managed to push herself into a kneeling position and laugh.
She had done it! The device should have splattered Lobo all over the place buying them enough time. It just had to!
"Hey ya fraggin bitch, those chains cost money!" All color fled from Kara's face as she heard the Czarnian's voice. "I was gonna do you the favor of killing ya, but nobody gets away with breaking th' Main Man toys like that. Now I'm gonna hand ya to the bastards alive."
Kara finally saw the bounty hunter. Lobo hadn't escaped the explosion unharmed. He was missing his entire right arm and most of his chest, his head was only connected to the rest of his body by a small strip of flesh and his ribcage was left fully exposed.
He also didn't really seem to care.
Blood flowed freely through the ground and he seemed to barely be on his feet, but soon the blood stopped and his exposed flesh started squirming as it regenerated.
Getting his feet back under him, Lobo used hand to hold his head in place until it grew enough flesh to stay on his body. It must have taken an entire minute, but Kara just stood there, looking.
No, she just refused to believe it.
She refused to believe this utter asshole was just gonna kill her newest little cousin.
She absolutely refused to believe he was gonna hand her back to the Psions, to once again become one of their experiments.
No!
In her first life Kara had just been getting her life in order, had gotten a job and started to be happy when it was all taken away as she died.
NO!
She had been gifted a second chance. A second life on Krypton where she had a family, a bright future, maybe even a chance to leave her mark on the world. But that too had been taken away, even more completely than her previous one.
NO!
Now she had just started to rebuild it all, she had a best friend, she had a family again, she had people who loved her and this… this… thing was just going to…
NO! She refused!
With a roar of absolute anger, Kara threw herself at the regenerating Lobo, a red aura manifesting itself around her, sharp spikes of pure rage forming around it.
Lobo used his remaining arm to punch her, but one of the spikes dug into his flesh and divided his fist in half.
Kara seemed to forget about her wounds, forget about her pain. The only thought in her mind was to utterly obliterate her enemy.
"DIEEEEE!" She shouted, her voice distorted by emotion.
In her anger she grabbed his arm and turned one of her spikes into a thin blade, severing it completely before throwing it away as hard as she could.
The aura around her arm turned physical, lengthening her fingers into claws that she used to push an arm through his chest and pull out his heart.
Lobo head butted her, snapping her head back. He then did it again and again, laughing like a maniac the entire time, but it only served to increase her rage.
Grabbing his head with both hands, she twisted it all the way around and ripped it off before hundreds of rage spikes ripped his body into pieces.
"DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE!" Kara squeezed his head between her arms and activated her heat vision one last time, the heat burning through Lobo's flesh until there was only a skull left, then even that crumbled into ash.
Despite Lobo's total destruction, Kara continued to rage, screaming out like a madwoman. She completely lost track of time as she struck against an inexistent enemy and sent spikes of red light cutting through the ground.
Finally, she fell back to her knees breathing hard, her rage having diminishing and the red aura around her slowly fading away. Breathing hard, she felt the tears falling down her eyes and into the completely ravaged ground.
Strong arms enveloped her and pulled her closer to a chest covered with the red symbol of house El. "Shhhh, it's alright. He can't hurt you anymore."
She looked up to see Kal, his face concerned but also filled with half a dozen small cuts. His costume too was filled with small cuts from her power.
A second set of arms hugged her from the front. Kara turned her eyes to see Kon, a huge gash on his forehead, an eye already starting to swell up, but otherwise fine. She cried harder.
Gently, Kal lifted her into his arms and cleaned her face with a thumb; still crying, Kara buried her face into his chest and shook as the Kryptonian equivalent of adrenaline left her body.
Lifting his eyes, he considered the destruction around them, his face turning into one of utter fury, his eyes shining red with barely contained power.
"Again." Kal quietly whispered. His voice was sadder than Kara had ever heard before. "I won't allow this to happen again, I can't."
"FRIEND KARA!" Kori shouted as she finally arrived.
The Tamaranean princess dropped right in front of Kal and was quickly followed by Wonder Woman.
With some of her regained strength Kara managed to push her face away from Kal's chest. Her cousin reluctantly released her, letting Kara float under her own power for a brief second before Kori glomped her.
Kara buried her face in Kori's shoulder and held on with everything she had. The Tamaranean hugged her back, her hands carefully supporting Kara in case she lost her power.
"It is alright, I am here for you." Kori soothed and held Kara's head in her hands. She adjusted Kara's hair away from her face with a finger and kissed her in the forehead. "I will always be here for you."
Kara let herself be held in Kori's arms, enjoying the fleeting sense of security she could bring. She knew she'd have to let go, but she really wished they could stay like that forever.
"So, what are you doin' after? Cuz bastich, that fight was hot!" Said someone from the ground.
Everyone reacted, Kori held Kara in her arms and floated up to get some distance from the sound while Kal put himself in front of Kon, his eyes shining red.
Without anyone to protect, it was Wonder Woman that advanced, finding a pool of blood and pieces of meat with a half regenerated head inside.
"What's the matter? Ya never seen a guy regenerate from his own blood before?" Said Lobo's head, still missing most of its left side. "Wonder where you threw that arm, cuz I tell ya, that's gonna be a pain to deal with in a week or two."
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I'm not going to be releasing any april 1st jokes, so I hope you guys enjoy the chapter.
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"Ah, shit!" Kara repeated herself, her muscles straining uselessly against the chain wrapped around her body.
Standing only fifty meters from her was the giant and shirtless form of Lobo, DC's most infamous bounty hunter.
Lobo was just… huge. While Kal had more of a swimmer's build, the bounty hunter was made of muscles upon muscles with arms as large as Kara's waist. He basically looked like the stylized album cover version of an 80's heavy metal singer on steroids.
The very end of his chain was still wrapped around his bulging arm and the pale man was pulling her slowly towards himself with a smile on his face.
"Lobo, what the hell are you doing here?" Kara grunted, equal parts fear and anger.
"Heh, seems like even Kryptonians know to fear the Main Man. You guys really are as smart as they say!" Lobo mocked, but continued to drag her closer
In a hurry, Kara grabbed at the chain and tried to break it, but the metal was able to resist her strength somehow and only released a groan.
Trying to fly away was useless so Kara did the opposite. Rushing Lobo caused the chain to give her enough slack that she managed to slip out of it and kick him in the face as hard as she could.
Lobo took the hit without even trying to protect himself and went flying, skidding across the ground for a hundred meters before his hand grabbed at the floor and he stopped himself.
"Feisty! I like it!" He laughed as he snapped his nose back into place and snorted a glob of blood out. "I'd offer ya a…"
Kara hit the asshole with the strongest blast of heat vision she could manage before he could finish the sentence.
The attack hit him with physical force, driving his body back and through the ground for nearly a kilometer and incinerating a path of destruction. The farmland around her attack caught fire, its flames spreading rapidly through the crops.
Kara cut off the attack and turned away from the Kent farm. Before Lobo could recover she started fleeing.
A single command activated her panic button, sending a message to the Justice League, Kori, Kal and even Batman at the same time as her leg started reconfiguring itself into her emergency teleporter.
Kara was just starting to think she had escaped when her ears caught a sound that chilled her blood.
From the Kents' direction she heard Kon telling Martha he was gonna check out a noise he heard.
"Fuck!" Kara didn't know if Lobo had come specifically for her or if any Kryptonian would do, but she wasn't willing to risk it.
Stopping herself in the middle of the sky, Kara turned around to see Kon taking a huge leap towards Lobo's location.
The bounty hunter himself was just getting up and seemed in no hurry to follow after her. Kara wanted to scream.
"Bastich, I think I'm in love!" Lobo shouted as he got back to his feet, his burned face already starting to heal and his black hair to grow back.
Pulling a giant cigar from his back pocket, Lobo bit the tip off and used the fire around him to light it up. He took a huge drag on the cancer stick and finally looked up at Kara, lifting an eyebrow when he saw she wasn't running. "Heh. And I thought I'd have to hunt you down again."
Kara was paralyzed with indecision. She wanted nothing more than to fly away but, with Kon coming here and Lobo seemingly disinclined to follow her, she couldn't do it.
She considered catching Kon before he arrived, but she also didn't know how fast Lobo was and couldn't risk leading him any closer to the Kents' farm, the man wasn't exactly known for his aversion to killing innocents.
"Why are you here, Lobo?" Kara repeated herself, hoping that she could get him talking and delay him.
"Seems like you stole something from some pussy-ass lizard people and they put a bounty on y'head. Something about their progenitors or some shit." He pointed at her with two fingers while puffing out a huge cloud of smoke. "Always wanted to bag myself a Kryptonian so I took the bounty, and the Main Man always delivers."
Shit, how the hell did they find out about her? She and Kori had made sure to destroy all the data in the ship when they took it over.
Also, Kara hadn't stolen anything from them. Well, maybe the ship itself, but it was just a common ship, damnit.
Kara took the chance to release every drone she carried in her pockets, the little round devices weren't really weapons, but she could overload their self-destruction and turn them into low power grenades.
Not like that would hurt someone like Lobo, but it could distract him.
Damnit, Kara just knew things had been going too well. Why didn't she bring an actual weapon?
Lobo started calmly walking towards her, twirling his chain in his hand and causing it to sing as it cut through the air.
"Now come here, Princess. The damn Lizards are mostly interested in some bullshit organ they put in ya, so let the Main Man make your insides into the outsides and we can find it together."
The chain flew towards her faster than she could see. Kara was ready and still managed to dodge to the side, but Lobo pulled on the chain and whipped it towards her, almost taking her head off.
On reflex Kara ducking under the swing, but she wasn't fast enough to dodge Lobo himself as he jumped up and grabbed her boot.
"Gotcha. Now let me punch your face in for ya!"
"Fuck off!" Kara stomped down on the brute, but Lobo only grabbed her other leg and squeezed, his strength so great it actually caused her pain.
Looking at Lobo, Kara tried to burn his face off with heat vision again. The Czarnian just leaned his head away and swung them both around in the air causing her shot to go wide, burning a line through the farmland and hitting a barn a few kilometers away, setting it on fire.
Fuck, even here she had to worry about collateral damage!
Lobo took the chance to grab at her shirt and pull himself up her body, cackling in amusement the entire time.
Using the interface on her eye, Kara ordered one of her drones to fly into Lobo's eye and explode.
"Argh." He finally took a hand away from her body to protect his eye.
Kara acted fast. Twisting her body, she ripped the leg of her pants off and caused Lobo's remaining hand to slide off her body holding only a piece of cloth. His body started tumbling down to the ground fast.
With a shout of rage she took the chance to punch him in the kidney and accelerate his fall. He hit the ground with a shockwave and immediately turned around, but Kara was already on top of him, delivering a knee to his stomach.
She used her speed to punch him in the face twice before activating her heat vision again and trying to burn through his neck. The blast was so hot it vaporized the crops around them and scorched the ground.
She just managed to burn her way to his spine when he grabbed her face, his enormous hand blocking her vision.
Kara felt herself being lifted as Lobo got to his feet and ordered all her drones to bombard him, forcing the bounty hunter to use his other arm to destroy her small army.
Having never stopped using her heat vision, Kara's drones brought her enough time to burn through Lobo's hand and amputate two of his fingers, loosening his hold.
Before Kara could take her distance, Lobo kicked her in the chest, folding her body in half and sending her flying back.
"Feetal's Gizz, what a rush! I ain't had this much fun since I stitched my granddad's eyes shut and sent 'im walking through traffic!" Lobo screamed. A giant smile on his face.
A hundred meters away, Kara held her chest with a hand and tried to recover her breath. Heat vision was probably her most costly ability and she had been abusing it.
"Kara!" Kon shouted when he finally got close enough to see them.
With another giant leap the boy dropped by Kara's side in a superhero landing. Putting a hand on her shoulder he checked her for any wounds before looking towards Lobo.
"Bastich. Another one of ya Kryptonians, I knew I wuz gonna have fun t'day! Just fraggin' KNEW it!" Lobo laughed out loud as he shook his wounded hand, his fingers already starting to grow back.
"Kara, who's that?" Kon asked as Kara finally righted herself, her chest still hurting.
"Lobo, psychotic bounty hunter extraordinaire." Kara glanced at Kon and saw the boy was tense, his eyes glued to the enemy as if he just wanted to charge in and start punching. "Don't. I already called for help, we just gotta delay him."
For a second, it seemed like Kon wasn't gonna listen to her, but then he released a breath and nodded causing Kara to smile.
"Alright punks, it's kinda ah tragic fraggin' waste, but the Main Man is on the clock. And if your buddies are coming I'm gonna have to stop playing around with ya." Lobo cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders. "Tell ya what, the more ya struggle the more it's gonna hurt so, y'know, feel free to go crazy!"
Lobo exploded into action, his speed much faster than before. Both Kara and Kon ducked under a swing of his chain and Kara barely had time to cross her arms in front of her chest before getting hit by a flying knee.
Kon tried to punch Lobo in the face, but the hunter reacted instantly. Grabbing his hand Lobo pulled Kon out of balance and head-butted him into the ground.
Kara recovered and attacked with a kick which Lobo blocked with his chain wrapped around his arm. Kara managed to avoid getting grabbed again but Lobo's hook glanced off the side of her head with enough strength to disorient her.
The Czarnian turned towards Kara, giving Kon enough time to jump to his feet and punch him twice in the side, then climb on his neck and try to put him into a sleeper hold.
"What's this, amateur hour?" Lobo grabbed at Kon, but it left him open for Kara to strike him in the balls. "Gah!"
No matter how Kon tried to hold on, Lobo still managed to pry the arm away from his throat with a single hand. He then swung at Kara, using her little cousin's body as a bludgeon.
Kara managed to dodge it and kick at Lobo's arm, but the bounty hunter didn't release his new club.
"Aaaargh!" Kon screamed and grabbed at his arm with his free hand.
"No!" Unable to keep her mind calm, Kara charged right in, tackling Lobo which caused him to drop Kon but rewarded her with a knee to the face.
Before Kara could recover, Lobo lifted both hands and delivered a devastating hammer blow to the back of her head, burying her body deep into the ground.
Under the ground, Kara realized they may not be able to buy enough time. The fight had only lasted for a few minutes and Kara really doubted she could survive another.
She thought about the teleport in her leg. It was already ready. Activating it would be so easy. A single command and she'd be away from here and safe inside the Fortress.
Unfortunately, it could only take one Kryptonian to the Fortress. She couldn't take Kon with her or send Lobo instead.
A huge arm dug into the ground and grabbed her by the hair lifting her up with barely any resistance. Bringing her head up Lobo stared into her face with a grim. "What's the matter? Y'done already?"
"RAAAAAAAA!" Kon screamed as he rushed from the side and punched Lobo in the head.
The Czarnian dropped Kara and took two steps back, but Kon didn't stop there, raining a flurry of blows at his face and screaming all the while.
Kara tried to help, but she was still disoriented from the last blow and couldn't even manage to fly, only managing to stumble towards them.
Finally, Lobo had enough. Grabbing his hook he swung up, forcing Kon to stop his attack and jump back.
In the air, Kon was unable to dodge the second hook strike. Not being fully Kryptonian he wasn't as resistant as Kara and the hook dug deeply into his side splashing blood all over Lobo's arm.
When Kon fell back to the ground he stumbled and fell to his knees in pain.
In desperation, Kara tried to rush to his help, only to fall down, her legs unable to support her. With one last effort she used her eye's interface to delay her teleport by three seconds. Ripping her prosthetic leg off, she threw it as hard as she could towards Kon.
Lobo reacted; his instincts making him swat the projectile out of the sky. Kara watched it hit the ground and, with a loud pop, disappear.
"Huh." The Czarnian looked at where the leg used to be, then shrugged and walked towards Kon with a maniacal grim on his face. "Y'know, ya punch like a chump but y're tenacious, I'll give you that!"
"I'm almost sorry to have to kill ya… Ah, who'm I kiddin'. I'm not sorry at all!" Kon tried to fight back, but Lobo kicked him in the head one last time, sending him back a few dozen meters, worsening his wounds and causing him to finally pass out. "Now, I never fragged a Kryptonian before, y'fella gonna be my first. I'm almost shy!"
Unable to get herself up, Kara dug into her eye socket and pulled out her last prosthetic before throwing it at Lobo as hard as she could.
Once again the bounty hunter swatted it out of the sky with his chain, his swing so fast the bomb flew a few meters away before it had time to implode.
The effect was devastating. The displaced space first drew Kara a few centimeters closer to its effect, then it seemed to break with a deafening bang, violently and randomly cutting everything in its range into a thousand pieces and teleporting them into different directions.
Kara stayed down for a few seconds. Finally, she managed to push herself into a kneeling position and laugh.
She had done it! The device should have splattered Lobo all over the place buying them enough time. It just had to!
"Hey ya fraggin bitch, those chains cost money!" All color fled from Kara's face as she heard the Czarnian's voice. "I was gonna do you the favor of killing ya, but nobody gets away with breaking th' Main Man toys like that. Now I'm gonna hand ya to the bastards alive."
Kara finally saw the bounty hunter. Lobo hadn't escaped the explosion unharmed. He was missing his entire right arm and most of his chest, his head was only connected to the rest of his body by a small strip of flesh and his ribcage was left fully exposed.
He also didn't really seem to care.
Blood flowed freely through the ground and he seemed to barely be on his feet, but soon the blood stopped and his exposed flesh started squirming as it regenerated.
Getting his feet back under him, Lobo used hand to hold his head in place until it grew enough flesh to stay on his body. It must have taken an entire minute, but Kara just stood there, looking.
No, she just refused to believe it.
She refused to believe this utter asshole was just gonna kill her newest little cousin.
She absolutely refused to believe he was gonna hand her back to the Psions, to once again become one of their experiments.
No!
In her first life Kara had just been getting her life in order, had gotten a job and started to be happy when it was all taken away as she died.
NO!
She had been gifted a second chance. A second life on Krypton where she had a family, a bright future, maybe even a chance to leave her mark on the world. But that too had been taken away, even more completely than her previous one.
NO!
Now she had just started to rebuild it all, she had a best friend, she had a family again, she had people who loved her and this… this… thing was just going to…
NO! She refused!
With a roar of absolute anger, Kara threw herself at the regenerating Lobo, a red aura manifesting itself around her, sharp spikes of pure rage forming around it.
Lobo used his remaining arm to punch her, but one of the spikes dug into his flesh and divided his fist in half.
Kara seemed to forget about her wounds, forget about her pain. The only thought in her mind was to utterly obliterate her enemy.
"DIEEEEE!" She shouted, her voice distorted by emotion.
In her anger she grabbed his arm and turned one of her spikes into a thin blade, severing it completely before throwing it away as hard as she could.
The aura around her arm turned physical, lengthening her fingers into claws that she used to push an arm through his chest and pull out his heart.
Lobo head butted her, snapping her head back. He then did it again and again, laughing like a maniac the entire time, but it only served to increase her rage.
Grabbing his head with both hands, she twisted it all the way around and ripped it off before hundreds of rage spikes ripped his body into pieces.
"DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE!" Kara squeezed his head between her arms and activated her heat vision one last time, the heat burning through Lobo's flesh until there was only a skull left, then even that crumbled into ash.
Despite Lobo's total destruction, Kara continued to rage, screaming out like a madwoman. She completely lost track of time as she struck against an inexistent enemy and sent spikes of red light cutting through the ground.
Finally, she fell back to her knees breathing hard, her rage having diminishing and the red aura around her slowly fading away. Breathing hard, she felt the tears falling down her eyes and into the completely ravaged ground.
Strong arms enveloped her and pulled her closer to a chest covered with the red symbol of house El. "Shhhh, it's alright. He can't hurt you anymore."
She looked up to see Kal, his face concerned but also filled with half a dozen small cuts. His costume too was filled with small cuts from her power.
A second set of arms hugged her from the front. Kara turned her eyes to see Kon, a huge gash on his forehead, an eye already starting to swell up, but otherwise fine. She cried harder.
Gently, Kal lifted her into his arms and cleaned her face with a thumb; still crying, Kara buried her face into his chest and shook as the Kryptonian equivalent of adrenaline left her body.
Lifting his eyes, he considered the destruction around them, his face turning into one of utter fury, his eyes shining red with barely contained power.
"Again." Kal quietly whispered. His voice was sadder than Kara had ever heard before. "I won't allow this to happen again, I can't."
"FRIEND KARA!" Kori shouted as she finally arrived.
The Tamaranean princess dropped right in front of Kal and was quickly followed by Wonder Woman.
With some of her regained strength Kara managed to push her face away from Kal's chest. Her cousin reluctantly released her, letting Kara float under her own power for a brief second before Kori glomped her.
Kara buried her face in Kori's shoulder and held on with everything she had. The Tamaranean hugged her back, her hands carefully supporting Kara in case she lost her power.
"It is alright, I am here for you." Kori soothed and held Kara's head in her hands. She adjusted Kara's hair away from her face with a finger and kissed her in the forehead. "I will always be here for you."
Kara let herself be held in Kori's arms, enjoying the fleeting sense of security she could bring. She knew she'd have to let go, but she really wished they could stay like that forever.
"So, what are you doin' after? Cuz bastich, that fight was hot!" Said someone from the ground.
Everyone reacted, Kori held Kara in her arms and floated up to get some distance from the sound while Kal put himself in front of Kon, his eyes shining red.
Without anyone to protect, it was Wonder Woman that advanced, finding a pool of blood and pieces of meat with a half regenerated head inside.
"What's the matter? Ya never seen a guy regenerate from his own blood before?" Said Lobo's head, still missing most of its left side. "Wonder where you threw that arm, cuz I tell ya, that's gonna be a pain to deal with in a week or two."
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Fellow Human
Verified Roado Rolla
Almost caught up with SB! I don't find April Fools funny either, probably since I was 10.
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- She/Her
What Lobo really needs is a nice hot dose of balefire, preferably done with the backing of sa'angreal.
Chapter 21
So, new chapter here, I'm trying out some new stories, but I'll be posting another chapter in a day or two.
As always, I hope you guys enjoy it!
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Fifteen minutes later, Kara was still feeling a little shaken. She and Kori watched as Kal used his frost breath to put out the fires surrounding them. Unfortunately, the cold probably also killed the crops around the place.
Kon himself had woken up angrier than ever, but he had calmed down after a minute or two. As a half Kryptonian under sunlight, he still had some impressive regeneration and the wounds Lobo had given him were already closing.
The largest chunk of the bounty hunter himself hung from Wonder Woman's shoulder, he was still only a head with the bare hints of a neck starting to grow. His hair was tied into a convenient handle and Wonder Woman had used her Lasso of Truth as a gag to keep him from talking.
"You sure you should be using a divine artifact like that?" Kara couldn't help but ask, after all, the Lasso was usually used to force people to talk, not the other way around.
"Do not worry. While this isn't exactly its intended purpose, I have to confess I hardly used the Lasso for a more satisfying cause," the heroine told them as she started looking around the devastated farmland. "I do believe even the gods would approve."
An old farm truck approached them from the direction of the city, the young man driving it parked just before the devastated area and got out. "Jesus, my crops!" without knowing what to do, the man just grabbed at his head.
With the fires put out, Kal started floating down to talk with the farmer, a smile on his face.
"Tell him I'll pay for the damages," Kara whispered and saw the slight tilt of her cousin's head indicating he had heard her.
The damage of their battle was extensive, and the farmer's insurance probably didn't cover villain damage this far away from a big city.
"I'll start marking the area Lobo's blood has affected," Wonder Woman put a hand on Kori's shoulders and nodded. "Superboy, are you willing to help me out by making sure I don't miss anything?"
"Yeah, sure," Kon pushed himself to his feet.
As Kal continued to explain to the farmer what had happened and how the League weren't going to leave him in the lurch. The two heroes started trying to mark a large area around the battle for incineration, the crops were already dead anyway and it was best to be sure no new Lobo's would grow from a piece of him they missed.
They'd still have to keep a watch on the place to make sure –Just incinerating him wasn't enough to deal with Lobo– but, with his head already there, it was unlikely that he'd multiply right here. Lobo's regeneration was nonsensical like that.
Kara wanted to help out as well but was still feeling exhausted, and confused.
Together with Kori, they just floated up and went to sit on top of the half destroyed barn to wait and watch until everything was done. Kara would react to any strange noises and only Kori's presence by her side prevented her from fully freaking out.
"Sorry, you and Kon are missing the sidekicks' meeting," Kara apologized, but it only earned another hug from Kori.
"Absurdity, foolishness, madness. How could I abandon you after that… that zarbnoff… no, that glempork attacked you!" Kori said, her fists shaking with anger as she stared directly at Kara's eye. Suddenly, she threw her arms around Kara's neck and squeezed. "I am so overjoyed you are safe, Friend Kara!"
Feeling Kori's arms around her body and knowing her cousin was near to deal with any danger, Kara finally let herself sag into Kori's embrace, her entire body shaking. Squeezing her eye shut, she took in Kori's feel, her scent and her aura before pretending everything else didn't matter for a few minutes.
Slowly, Kori adjusted her position and laid Kara's head on her lap, gently caressing her hair and starting to make tiny braids.
Eventually, the two of them had to fly up. Wonder Woman held Kon up, flying by their side while Kal opened his eyes wide and released a controlled blast of heat vision, incinerating everything on the demarcated area, turning it into ash to prevent Lobo's regeneration.
It remained to be seen if that would work, and how large a problem they'd have because of Kara's teleporting grenade.
"Is it done?" Kal asked and Wonder Woman shook her head.
"No, we could not find his missing arm," She said as she grabbed Lobo's head from her shoulder.
"Well, I'm not seeing it either. I'll inform Batman but, at this point, I think we'll just have to deal with it when he shows up again," Kal sighed and turned his gaze to Kara and Kon's way once again before looking back at Wonder Woman. "Accompany us to the Fortress? I know they're mostly fine, but I want to do another scan on them."
Diana gave Kal a kind smile and let him take Kon from her hands, holding Lobo by his hair, she nodded. "Of course, I can make some time for this."
Together, all five of them flew as fast as they could towards the Fortress. Inside a planet's atmosphere, there was very little difference in their speed and, soon, they dropped in front of the crystal structure.
Kon seemed annoyed he had to be carried around, but Kal laid a hand on his back and smiled. "I used to have to walk everywhere too. Only got my flight when I was, what, twenty?"
Kon stared at Kal for a second then nodded with a small smile on his face. "Thanks."
"Don't worry too much about it. Heck, Batman doesn't have any powers and he gets around just fine. I'm sure you're gonna adapt before long," Kal opened the Fortress and they all walked inside even as he continued talking, almost as if he wanted them to distract them from what had happened. "I remember I even beat the Flash in a race once… don't think I can do that again, I'm a lot slower now that I don't run so much."
"Clark, you do know the Flash let you win that race, right?" Wonder Woman asked with amusement causing Kal to turn on her with a surprised look.
"What? Slander! I won that race fair and square!" He said in indignation.
"It was for charity Clark, he let you win once," Wonder Woman said with an amused smile on her face.
"Lies!" He mock-shouted, then saw the Fortress AI manifest in front of them. "Alright, prepare the healing pods for Connor and Kara please."
"As you wish, Master Kal-El," the image of Jor-El said and turned towards Kara. "Miss Kara, I took the liberty of getting one of your spare prosthetics ready for you."
Kara traded glances with Kori and finally released her hand, a slight blush on her face. "Alright, were you able to recover my leg?"
"Yes, the Kryptium casing is perfectly fine, but the sunstone inside it had to be completely replaced," Jor-El's image said and Kara nodded, using her flight to stay on her feet.
"How long is it gonna take?"
"Again, I took the liberty of scrapping the damaged sunstone and placing one of the spare sunstone crystals inside, it will only take a few hours in the solar chamber before it is finished growing."
Kara nodded; she had programmed a few spare crystals with the configurations of her leg in case it was ever damaged. In a solar chamber, the crystals should be able to absorb sunlight much faster and develop at an accelerated pace.
Kal accompanied Kon inside one of the rooms while Jor-El guided Wonder Woman towards the emergency cells inside the fortress so she could finally drop Lobo off. A second manifestation of Jor-El guided Kara towards another of the healing rooms.
Stopping right at the entrance, Kara gulped and turned towards Kori. "Keep me company?"
"I will not leave your side, Friend Kara," Kori said as she followed her.
Looking at the healing pod awaiting her, Kara took a few deep breaths and squeezed Kori's hand. Finally, she gathered her courage and took her damaged clothes off, stepping into the pod and lying back against the comfortable seating.
"In-In the fight against Lobo, I…" Kara almost choked at her own words, after a second she swallowed and completed her sentence. "Lobo said there was an important organ inside me and I also showed a new power while fighting him, something not common to a Kryptonian. Can you take a deeper look at it?"
"Certainly, Miss Kara Zor-El," The AI nodded and briefly looked aside as if it was reading something. "I have to say, it is entirely possible this is simply a different manifestation of your Kryptonian heritage. There are thousands of possible powers a Kryptonian can manifest under yellow sunlight radiation and would therefore not register as abnormal to my programming previously, but I will certainly look into the matter."
"Thank you," with that said, Kara gave Kori one last look and let the pod's door close.
She thought she'd be able to stay awake for the entire time but, once the pod started healing her, she was quickly hit with the sheer exhaustion she had been holding back and fell asleep.
.
.
.
Kara woke up with a startle. Her hands immediately started banging against the lid of the pod with frantic hurry as her mind flashed back to her time under the Psions.
With a strong kick, she sent the lid flying and jumped out of the pod, falling down to the floor and hyperventilating.
"I am awake!" Kori shouted as she slipped from her chair and fell to the floor, "I am here, Friend Kara, you are safe."
Seeing her friend with dark bags under her eyes, Kara finally calmed down. She let herself sit down and leaned against the pod before sighing. At least she only damaged the lid. The Fortress could fix that fairly easily.
Banging her head against the pod, she noticed her shaking hands and grabbed at them, forcing her limbs to stop trembling. Only a second later, she felt Kori's own hands grabbing at hers and squeezing.
"How long was I out?" She finally asked.
"Nearly twenty hours. Truthfully, you were completely healed in seven. However, Superman and I decided to let you sleep a little longer."
Taking another deep breath, Kara noticed she had both her leg and eye prosthetics back. Looking down at her leg, she wiggled her toes to test their motion and nodded in satisfaction.
"And you, were you awake the entire time?" Kara asked, seeing the bags under Kori's eyes.
"I did not wish for you to awake and be alone," Kori said, glancing at the pod's lid piercing the ceiling and causing Kara to snort. "The pod of healing does resemble a Psion device."
"Thanks… What would I do without you?" Together, they got up from the ground and Kara found an empty bedroom for Kori to rest.
Despite her increased resistance, Kori had been awake for nearly two days now and her dislike of the situation didn't help. Tamaraneans were incredibly vulnerable to negative emotions, it made them weaker.
"Are you certain you do not need me any more, Friend Kara?" Kori asked even as her eyes struggled to stay awake.
"Don't worry, I'm feeling much better already. Just rest Kori."
After Kori finally started resting, Kara waited a few minutes just thinking about things before asking the room. "Did you find anything in the examination?"
"Certainly," Jor-El materialized at her side, his face impassive as always. "It seems like your body has fully integrated the alien organ inserted into it, it's no longer inert."
"What exactly is it doing then?" Kara asked.
Jor-El briefly glanced at Kori before starting to talk. "The organ seems strangely similar, but not exactly equal, to Tamaranean biology, it is constantly releasing a minimal level of psionic energy and, while this is only a hypothesis at the moment, said energy seems to fluctuate with your mood."
"So it gets stronger the angrier I get?" Kara asked, feeling both tired and curious.
"Incorrect, it still needs further observation, but the new organ seems to react to any strong emotion," the AI said with an amused smile. "Even then, the fluctuations are very small and it would need an extremely large emotional response to manifest."
"Well… shit," Kara couldn't help but say. Leaning back on her chair she snickered, her laughter grew louder and louder until she had to put a hand over her mouth to stop herself from waking Kori up. "What the hell were those stupid lizards trying to do?"
"Apologies, Miss Kara Zor-El, but the Fortress does not have that information at the moment."
"Of course it doesn't. It would be too easy if it did," Kara wanted to curse, if only she specialized in biology.
Ah, who was she kidding, if she had the necessary knowledge to solve this particular problem, she was probably gonna have to deal with a rogue AI or some problem with her soul instead.
"Uncle, please, scrap that power-armor I ordered built," Kara said after a few moments of thinking. "I'm gonna have to start from scratch."
"Miss Kara Zor-El, I hope you're not thinking of using the blue star radiation suit?" Jor-El looked at her with enough disapproval on his face to almost make Kara wince. "You know it may increase your powers, but it will also vastly accelerate the deterioration of your damaged cells."
"I'm not going to be using it constantly, or at all, before I'm fully healed, not if I can help it," Kara defended, and already started considering the modifications she'd make. "But I NEED to have the option. I can't allow myself to be that vulnerable again."
Jor-El sighed and shook his head. "May I suggest you speak with Master Kal-El first?"
"Good idea, I'm gonna ask him to incorporate some of the weapons we discarded. Maybe unlock that file with the really dangerous tech."
"That… was not what I had in mind Miss Zor-El and you know it." Jor-El tried to intimidate her with his stare for a few seconds, but she kept in mind he was not the head of her house and he gave up when she wasn't responding. "Very well, I'll start the modifications."
Kara spent the next few hours modifying her plans for a power-armor, including a variety of things such as energy weapons strong enough to stun even a Kryptonian and various prototypes based on the teleporting grenade Kara kept in her eye.
She also started working on turning her drones into teleportation grenades; it would make them slightly bigger and less stealthy, but the ability to destroy a cubic meter and a half of space around themselves more than made up for it.
As she continued tapping into the screen of her device, Kara saw a hand grabbing at her arm and stopping it, causing her to notice she had been shaking again.
Staring at her trembling limb she willed herself to stop, squeezing the device for a second or two before finally looking up and meeting Kal's eyes.
"Come on. Let's talk where we don't risk waking up your friend," he said and nodded towards the exit.
"Fine," Kara barked, already feeling insecure.
She was supposed to be the older one, the one looking over him. Not the one who needed help every Rao damned time.
Kara followed Kal towards the same table they once had breakfast on, two glass bowls of ice cream waited for them.
"I'm not a kid. You can't placate me with ice cream," Kara grunted, but sat down and started eating it anyway.
It may not placate her, but it was still ice cream.
Kal just gave her a look and smiled. "I'm not trying to placate you, just to make you feel better, is it working?"
Kara scooped another spoonful of vanilla ice cream and sighed. "Yes, kinda. I'm still gonna be filling my armor with enough weapons to blow up the moon," she grumbled before taking a third bite. "Lobo may have been the fastest to track me down, but I really doubt he's gonna be the last."
"I know," Kal said, dropping his amused smile for a more serious look. "And we're gonna deal with them when they show up. Until then, I won't stop you from improving your armor."
"You won't?"
"Well, I'll stop you from putting a nuke inside it, I'd prefer if you choose a more… focused form of destruction, but I won't stop you from using the Fortress resources to improve it as long as you don't use it recklessly," picking his own bowl up, Kal started eating his own ice cream, earning a glare from Kara. She had wanted to eat both of them.
"Alright, so what are we gonna talk about?"
"You know, I thought you weren't gonna be getting into those kinds of fights. In hindsight, that was kind of foolish of me, but I thought you were just gonna act as tech support and your training with Diana would be enough. I was wrong."
"Hah, that makes two of us!" Kara snorted in bitter amusement and oddly poked her spoon at the ice cream.
"Yes, well… I already spoke with Connor. Seeing as the both of you can't stay away from trouble, I'm offering to personally teach you how to fight," leaning over the table, Kal continued. "It's going to be after his school hours, but I'm gonna be teaching him Kryptonian martial arts every day from now on and I want you to be there too."
"Would it even help all that much?" Kara asked with uncertainty. It's not that she didn't want to learn, she had even tried martial arts a little when she was young, but she doubted she could get good enough in a short amount of time. "I mean, I don't have ten years to train with you."
"You'd be surprised. Torquasm Vo and Torquasm Rao were made to be mastered in ten to twenty years by Kryptonian warriors, but that was on Krypton," lifting a hand, Kal poked at his temple and smiled. "Yellow sunlight improves more than just our strength, you know. Not only do we think faster and better, even our muscle memory is created faster."
"So… I can be some kind of master in months or something?"
"Not… exactly? In truth I'd say I'm only above average if we're only talking about skill," Kal leaned back, his hand flashing forward and snatching his ice cream from the table just as Kara was about to steal some of it. "What both disciplines have taught me is how to use my powers to their fullest."
"What do you mean?"
"You know just how good our senses are. Most of the time I have to block most of the things I see and hear, letting them become almost like white noise in the background in order to stay sane," he told her as he finished his cup and laid it to the side. "With Torquasm Rao, I can process all that information and act on it almost on instinct. It allows me to use the full extent of my powers in a fight.
"Torquasm Vo, on the other hand, is a completely mental discipline. John tells me it taps into my latent psychic power, and it does allow me to fight off mental influences and even some specific magical effects."
Of course, during Kara's upbringing as well as in her last life, she had heard about these Kryptonian martial arts, but she had never been able to fully understand them. She only had a few months of Klurkor. "So, one just allows you to fight better but doesn't improve your skills per see, while the other is a mental defense?"
"Well, let me ask you this, Kara: how do you fly?"
"I just… will it?" Kara answered, flight was almost second nature for her now, and it wasn't really any strange power or propulsion system. She wanted to fly, she believed she could fly, so she flew.
"Exactly, it's mental. Now, this isn't really the goal of Torquasm Vo, but greater control of my latent psychic power does give me certain advantages," with a smile on his face, Kal gently touched the cup with just the tip of his finger, causing it to slowly float up as if flying by itself. "It used to be that I had to hold something in my arms to make it fly and protect it from harm, now I can just touch something and extend my protection field. I think that, if I fully master the art, I could make something fly without even touching it by extending my field at range."
Kara already knew about the protection field, it was how she could catch a plane and prevent it from crumbling around her, or allow her to carry a normal person in her arms while flying extremely fast. If she could use that actively instead of just on instinct… "Well damn."
"Hah, even under yellow sunlight, it still won't improve you immediately, but I bet that, in six months to a year, you can become a competent fighter. You won't be defeating Diana or Bruce in a contest of skill, but we do have our tricks to make up for it."
"I see."
Kal seemed happy to just talk with her, explaining a few tricks he could do with his powers that Kara hadn't thought about and telling her about beautiful spots she could fly to if she wanted to relax.
Finally, Kal sighed in frustration. "Hah, this is much harder when it's personal."
"What is it?" Kara asked.
"Kara, I really wanted to wait until YOU decided to talk about it, but you know I had access to the Fortress medical scans right?" Kal tried to extend a hand to hold Kara's, but she pulled away from him, feeling exposed. "I know at least some of what happened to you."
Kara's first instinct was to tell Kal to go fuck himself, but she managed to stop and think about things. "So what, it's over Kal, what do you want me to do about it?"
"Talk with someone, it doesn't need to be me Kara, but you don't need to go through this alone."
"Do YOU need to talk with someone every time something happens?" She grumbled while shifting her eyes away.
"Yes, not always, mind you, but even I have to ask for help sometimes," Kal said with a tired, haunted voice as he remembered things. "Nowadays I just talk with Ma and Pa, but it was hard to accept some things when I was starting out."
Kara just stayed quiet, it's not like she hadn't needed help from a psychologist in her previous life. She knew how much it could help, but she had wanted to be stronger.
Finally, as she saw the concern on her cousin's face, Kara nodded. "Fine, I guess I can talk with someone."
She'd have to search for a good psychologist VERY carefully. Far too many of them turned out to be supervillains in DC.
"You know, Black Canary is a licensed therapist and she has personal experience of our kind of problem," Kal said as if he could read her mind. "And I can indicate several others if you need it."
"Right, I'll think about it," Kara said with a tired voice and poked at the remains of her ice cream, it had melted while they talked.
After further discussions, planning and ice cream placation, Kori woke up after only two hours of sleep and the both of them returned to their apartment. Billy had been there to feed Dexter, but he had no wish to stay any more time than necessary with what he called the 'DEMON CAT', all caps.
The two women eventually got settled in, but Kara wasn't able to fully relax, her mind was filled with far too many thoughts. What had the Psions put inside her? Did they already know where she was or had Lobo been working by himself? Could Torquasm Vo help her control this new power? Had she actually used the Red Light of Rage and had that attracted Atrocitus's attention? Was he even a thing here?
A loud and indignant meow, caused her to turn to Dexter. The cat lifted his tail in the air and started guiding her to the bathroom sink before meowing again.
"Dexter, you have your water fountain, it's right there!" Kara huffed and pointed at the small fountain connected to the socket. Kori just snickered from her place on the couch.
"MEOWWWWW!"
"Fine, here," she slightly opened the faucet letting just a trickle of water run down the sink. Dexter just continued to look at her. "Right, of course you want me to lift you too. Alright, but you have to pay the toll."
Grabbing the cat, Kara squeezed it tightly against her chest, earning herself a few more meows and scratches of indignation. Toll paid, she dropped him next to the sink and watched as he drank the water for a minute or two.
Sitting on the carpet of the floor, Kara pulled her mobile computer out and continued working on improvements to her armor. She wasn't going to leave the house without at least some heavy protection.
In her bedroom, her device started printing a mixture of new bomb-drones and full-stealth cameras to refill her wasted devices. Eventually Kara noticed her hands had started shaking again, but then Dexter jumped on her lap and started kneading her clothes while purring and her shaking stopped.
"Silly cat," she complained, but started petting him anyway. Her hand going through his fur calmed her down a lot. "Billy is completely wrong, you're a good kitty."
Still tired and lying on the sofa, Kori smiled as she watched them and finally went to sleep.
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If you like my work, take a look at my other novels or my patreon and Ko-Fi. You can support me for a single dollar.
Thanks for my patrons : Xhaustedhero, Iori Daemona Angel, AlliterativeArts (Eric Faust), Lynx of Chaos, Comics, Davvy chappie, Ian Michael, WanderingDaemon, GrumpyJustGrumpy, Travis cox, Rootbeerguy, High Priest of Torga, James Williams, Michael Neal, Felrook, Kenzie, NotableRonin, Josh Orton and stanley seymour for supporting my work!
As always, I hope you guys enjoy it!
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Fifteen minutes later, Kara was still feeling a little shaken. She and Kori watched as Kal used his frost breath to put out the fires surrounding them. Unfortunately, the cold probably also killed the crops around the place.
Kon himself had woken up angrier than ever, but he had calmed down after a minute or two. As a half Kryptonian under sunlight, he still had some impressive regeneration and the wounds Lobo had given him were already closing.
The largest chunk of the bounty hunter himself hung from Wonder Woman's shoulder, he was still only a head with the bare hints of a neck starting to grow. His hair was tied into a convenient handle and Wonder Woman had used her Lasso of Truth as a gag to keep him from talking.
"You sure you should be using a divine artifact like that?" Kara couldn't help but ask, after all, the Lasso was usually used to force people to talk, not the other way around.
"Do not worry. While this isn't exactly its intended purpose, I have to confess I hardly used the Lasso for a more satisfying cause," the heroine told them as she started looking around the devastated farmland. "I do believe even the gods would approve."
An old farm truck approached them from the direction of the city, the young man driving it parked just before the devastated area and got out. "Jesus, my crops!" without knowing what to do, the man just grabbed at his head.
With the fires put out, Kal started floating down to talk with the farmer, a smile on his face.
"Tell him I'll pay for the damages," Kara whispered and saw the slight tilt of her cousin's head indicating he had heard her.
The damage of their battle was extensive, and the farmer's insurance probably didn't cover villain damage this far away from a big city.
"I'll start marking the area Lobo's blood has affected," Wonder Woman put a hand on Kori's shoulders and nodded. "Superboy, are you willing to help me out by making sure I don't miss anything?"
"Yeah, sure," Kon pushed himself to his feet.
As Kal continued to explain to the farmer what had happened and how the League weren't going to leave him in the lurch. The two heroes started trying to mark a large area around the battle for incineration, the crops were already dead anyway and it was best to be sure no new Lobo's would grow from a piece of him they missed.
They'd still have to keep a watch on the place to make sure –Just incinerating him wasn't enough to deal with Lobo– but, with his head already there, it was unlikely that he'd multiply right here. Lobo's regeneration was nonsensical like that.
Kara wanted to help out as well but was still feeling exhausted, and confused.
Together with Kori, they just floated up and went to sit on top of the half destroyed barn to wait and watch until everything was done. Kara would react to any strange noises and only Kori's presence by her side prevented her from fully freaking out.
"Sorry, you and Kon are missing the sidekicks' meeting," Kara apologized, but it only earned another hug from Kori.
"Absurdity, foolishness, madness. How could I abandon you after that… that zarbnoff… no, that glempork attacked you!" Kori said, her fists shaking with anger as she stared directly at Kara's eye. Suddenly, she threw her arms around Kara's neck and squeezed. "I am so overjoyed you are safe, Friend Kara!"
Feeling Kori's arms around her body and knowing her cousin was near to deal with any danger, Kara finally let herself sag into Kori's embrace, her entire body shaking. Squeezing her eye shut, she took in Kori's feel, her scent and her aura before pretending everything else didn't matter for a few minutes.
Slowly, Kori adjusted her position and laid Kara's head on her lap, gently caressing her hair and starting to make tiny braids.
Eventually, the two of them had to fly up. Wonder Woman held Kon up, flying by their side while Kal opened his eyes wide and released a controlled blast of heat vision, incinerating everything on the demarcated area, turning it into ash to prevent Lobo's regeneration.
It remained to be seen if that would work, and how large a problem they'd have because of Kara's teleporting grenade.
"Is it done?" Kal asked and Wonder Woman shook her head.
"No, we could not find his missing arm," She said as she grabbed Lobo's head from her shoulder.
"Well, I'm not seeing it either. I'll inform Batman but, at this point, I think we'll just have to deal with it when he shows up again," Kal sighed and turned his gaze to Kara and Kon's way once again before looking back at Wonder Woman. "Accompany us to the Fortress? I know they're mostly fine, but I want to do another scan on them."
Diana gave Kal a kind smile and let him take Kon from her hands, holding Lobo by his hair, she nodded. "Of course, I can make some time for this."
Together, all five of them flew as fast as they could towards the Fortress. Inside a planet's atmosphere, there was very little difference in their speed and, soon, they dropped in front of the crystal structure.
Kon seemed annoyed he had to be carried around, but Kal laid a hand on his back and smiled. "I used to have to walk everywhere too. Only got my flight when I was, what, twenty?"
Kon stared at Kal for a second then nodded with a small smile on his face. "Thanks."
"Don't worry too much about it. Heck, Batman doesn't have any powers and he gets around just fine. I'm sure you're gonna adapt before long," Kal opened the Fortress and they all walked inside even as he continued talking, almost as if he wanted them to distract them from what had happened. "I remember I even beat the Flash in a race once… don't think I can do that again, I'm a lot slower now that I don't run so much."
"Clark, you do know the Flash let you win that race, right?" Wonder Woman asked with amusement causing Kal to turn on her with a surprised look.
"What? Slander! I won that race fair and square!" He said in indignation.
"It was for charity Clark, he let you win once," Wonder Woman said with an amused smile on her face.
"Lies!" He mock-shouted, then saw the Fortress AI manifest in front of them. "Alright, prepare the healing pods for Connor and Kara please."
"As you wish, Master Kal-El," the image of Jor-El said and turned towards Kara. "Miss Kara, I took the liberty of getting one of your spare prosthetics ready for you."
Kara traded glances with Kori and finally released her hand, a slight blush on her face. "Alright, were you able to recover my leg?"
"Yes, the Kryptium casing is perfectly fine, but the sunstone inside it had to be completely replaced," Jor-El's image said and Kara nodded, using her flight to stay on her feet.
"How long is it gonna take?"
"Again, I took the liberty of scrapping the damaged sunstone and placing one of the spare sunstone crystals inside, it will only take a few hours in the solar chamber before it is finished growing."
Kara nodded; she had programmed a few spare crystals with the configurations of her leg in case it was ever damaged. In a solar chamber, the crystals should be able to absorb sunlight much faster and develop at an accelerated pace.
Kal accompanied Kon inside one of the rooms while Jor-El guided Wonder Woman towards the emergency cells inside the fortress so she could finally drop Lobo off. A second manifestation of Jor-El guided Kara towards another of the healing rooms.
Stopping right at the entrance, Kara gulped and turned towards Kori. "Keep me company?"
"I will not leave your side, Friend Kara," Kori said as she followed her.
Looking at the healing pod awaiting her, Kara took a few deep breaths and squeezed Kori's hand. Finally, she gathered her courage and took her damaged clothes off, stepping into the pod and lying back against the comfortable seating.
"In-In the fight against Lobo, I…" Kara almost choked at her own words, after a second she swallowed and completed her sentence. "Lobo said there was an important organ inside me and I also showed a new power while fighting him, something not common to a Kryptonian. Can you take a deeper look at it?"
"Certainly, Miss Kara Zor-El," The AI nodded and briefly looked aside as if it was reading something. "I have to say, it is entirely possible this is simply a different manifestation of your Kryptonian heritage. There are thousands of possible powers a Kryptonian can manifest under yellow sunlight radiation and would therefore not register as abnormal to my programming previously, but I will certainly look into the matter."
"Thank you," with that said, Kara gave Kori one last look and let the pod's door close.
She thought she'd be able to stay awake for the entire time but, once the pod started healing her, she was quickly hit with the sheer exhaustion she had been holding back and fell asleep.
.
.
.
Kara woke up with a startle. Her hands immediately started banging against the lid of the pod with frantic hurry as her mind flashed back to her time under the Psions.
With a strong kick, she sent the lid flying and jumped out of the pod, falling down to the floor and hyperventilating.
"I am awake!" Kori shouted as she slipped from her chair and fell to the floor, "I am here, Friend Kara, you are safe."
Seeing her friend with dark bags under her eyes, Kara finally calmed down. She let herself sit down and leaned against the pod before sighing. At least she only damaged the lid. The Fortress could fix that fairly easily.
Banging her head against the pod, she noticed her shaking hands and grabbed at them, forcing her limbs to stop trembling. Only a second later, she felt Kori's own hands grabbing at hers and squeezing.
"How long was I out?" She finally asked.
"Nearly twenty hours. Truthfully, you were completely healed in seven. However, Superman and I decided to let you sleep a little longer."
Taking another deep breath, Kara noticed she had both her leg and eye prosthetics back. Looking down at her leg, she wiggled her toes to test their motion and nodded in satisfaction.
"And you, were you awake the entire time?" Kara asked, seeing the bags under Kori's eyes.
"I did not wish for you to awake and be alone," Kori said, glancing at the pod's lid piercing the ceiling and causing Kara to snort. "The pod of healing does resemble a Psion device."
"Thanks… What would I do without you?" Together, they got up from the ground and Kara found an empty bedroom for Kori to rest.
Despite her increased resistance, Kori had been awake for nearly two days now and her dislike of the situation didn't help. Tamaraneans were incredibly vulnerable to negative emotions, it made them weaker.
"Are you certain you do not need me any more, Friend Kara?" Kori asked even as her eyes struggled to stay awake.
"Don't worry, I'm feeling much better already. Just rest Kori."
After Kori finally started resting, Kara waited a few minutes just thinking about things before asking the room. "Did you find anything in the examination?"
"Certainly," Jor-El materialized at her side, his face impassive as always. "It seems like your body has fully integrated the alien organ inserted into it, it's no longer inert."
"What exactly is it doing then?" Kara asked.
Jor-El briefly glanced at Kori before starting to talk. "The organ seems strangely similar, but not exactly equal, to Tamaranean biology, it is constantly releasing a minimal level of psionic energy and, while this is only a hypothesis at the moment, said energy seems to fluctuate with your mood."
"So it gets stronger the angrier I get?" Kara asked, feeling both tired and curious.
"Incorrect, it still needs further observation, but the new organ seems to react to any strong emotion," the AI said with an amused smile. "Even then, the fluctuations are very small and it would need an extremely large emotional response to manifest."
"Well… shit," Kara couldn't help but say. Leaning back on her chair she snickered, her laughter grew louder and louder until she had to put a hand over her mouth to stop herself from waking Kori up. "What the hell were those stupid lizards trying to do?"
"Apologies, Miss Kara Zor-El, but the Fortress does not have that information at the moment."
"Of course it doesn't. It would be too easy if it did," Kara wanted to curse, if only she specialized in biology.
Ah, who was she kidding, if she had the necessary knowledge to solve this particular problem, she was probably gonna have to deal with a rogue AI or some problem with her soul instead.
"Uncle, please, scrap that power-armor I ordered built," Kara said after a few moments of thinking. "I'm gonna have to start from scratch."
"Miss Kara Zor-El, I hope you're not thinking of using the blue star radiation suit?" Jor-El looked at her with enough disapproval on his face to almost make Kara wince. "You know it may increase your powers, but it will also vastly accelerate the deterioration of your damaged cells."
"I'm not going to be using it constantly, or at all, before I'm fully healed, not if I can help it," Kara defended, and already started considering the modifications she'd make. "But I NEED to have the option. I can't allow myself to be that vulnerable again."
Jor-El sighed and shook his head. "May I suggest you speak with Master Kal-El first?"
"Good idea, I'm gonna ask him to incorporate some of the weapons we discarded. Maybe unlock that file with the really dangerous tech."
"That… was not what I had in mind Miss Zor-El and you know it." Jor-El tried to intimidate her with his stare for a few seconds, but she kept in mind he was not the head of her house and he gave up when she wasn't responding. "Very well, I'll start the modifications."
Kara spent the next few hours modifying her plans for a power-armor, including a variety of things such as energy weapons strong enough to stun even a Kryptonian and various prototypes based on the teleporting grenade Kara kept in her eye.
She also started working on turning her drones into teleportation grenades; it would make them slightly bigger and less stealthy, but the ability to destroy a cubic meter and a half of space around themselves more than made up for it.
As she continued tapping into the screen of her device, Kara saw a hand grabbing at her arm and stopping it, causing her to notice she had been shaking again.
Staring at her trembling limb she willed herself to stop, squeezing the device for a second or two before finally looking up and meeting Kal's eyes.
"Come on. Let's talk where we don't risk waking up your friend," he said and nodded towards the exit.
"Fine," Kara barked, already feeling insecure.
She was supposed to be the older one, the one looking over him. Not the one who needed help every Rao damned time.
Kara followed Kal towards the same table they once had breakfast on, two glass bowls of ice cream waited for them.
"I'm not a kid. You can't placate me with ice cream," Kara grunted, but sat down and started eating it anyway.
It may not placate her, but it was still ice cream.
Kal just gave her a look and smiled. "I'm not trying to placate you, just to make you feel better, is it working?"
Kara scooped another spoonful of vanilla ice cream and sighed. "Yes, kinda. I'm still gonna be filling my armor with enough weapons to blow up the moon," she grumbled before taking a third bite. "Lobo may have been the fastest to track me down, but I really doubt he's gonna be the last."
"I know," Kal said, dropping his amused smile for a more serious look. "And we're gonna deal with them when they show up. Until then, I won't stop you from improving your armor."
"You won't?"
"Well, I'll stop you from putting a nuke inside it, I'd prefer if you choose a more… focused form of destruction, but I won't stop you from using the Fortress resources to improve it as long as you don't use it recklessly," picking his own bowl up, Kal started eating his own ice cream, earning a glare from Kara. She had wanted to eat both of them.
"Alright, so what are we gonna talk about?"
"You know, I thought you weren't gonna be getting into those kinds of fights. In hindsight, that was kind of foolish of me, but I thought you were just gonna act as tech support and your training with Diana would be enough. I was wrong."
"Hah, that makes two of us!" Kara snorted in bitter amusement and oddly poked her spoon at the ice cream.
"Yes, well… I already spoke with Connor. Seeing as the both of you can't stay away from trouble, I'm offering to personally teach you how to fight," leaning over the table, Kal continued. "It's going to be after his school hours, but I'm gonna be teaching him Kryptonian martial arts every day from now on and I want you to be there too."
"Would it even help all that much?" Kara asked with uncertainty. It's not that she didn't want to learn, she had even tried martial arts a little when she was young, but she doubted she could get good enough in a short amount of time. "I mean, I don't have ten years to train with you."
"You'd be surprised. Torquasm Vo and Torquasm Rao were made to be mastered in ten to twenty years by Kryptonian warriors, but that was on Krypton," lifting a hand, Kal poked at his temple and smiled. "Yellow sunlight improves more than just our strength, you know. Not only do we think faster and better, even our muscle memory is created faster."
"So… I can be some kind of master in months or something?"
"Not… exactly? In truth I'd say I'm only above average if we're only talking about skill," Kal leaned back, his hand flashing forward and snatching his ice cream from the table just as Kara was about to steal some of it. "What both disciplines have taught me is how to use my powers to their fullest."
"What do you mean?"
"You know just how good our senses are. Most of the time I have to block most of the things I see and hear, letting them become almost like white noise in the background in order to stay sane," he told her as he finished his cup and laid it to the side. "With Torquasm Rao, I can process all that information and act on it almost on instinct. It allows me to use the full extent of my powers in a fight.
"Torquasm Vo, on the other hand, is a completely mental discipline. John tells me it taps into my latent psychic power, and it does allow me to fight off mental influences and even some specific magical effects."
Of course, during Kara's upbringing as well as in her last life, she had heard about these Kryptonian martial arts, but she had never been able to fully understand them. She only had a few months of Klurkor. "So, one just allows you to fight better but doesn't improve your skills per see, while the other is a mental defense?"
"Well, let me ask you this, Kara: how do you fly?"
"I just… will it?" Kara answered, flight was almost second nature for her now, and it wasn't really any strange power or propulsion system. She wanted to fly, she believed she could fly, so she flew.
"Exactly, it's mental. Now, this isn't really the goal of Torquasm Vo, but greater control of my latent psychic power does give me certain advantages," with a smile on his face, Kal gently touched the cup with just the tip of his finger, causing it to slowly float up as if flying by itself. "It used to be that I had to hold something in my arms to make it fly and protect it from harm, now I can just touch something and extend my protection field. I think that, if I fully master the art, I could make something fly without even touching it by extending my field at range."
Kara already knew about the protection field, it was how she could catch a plane and prevent it from crumbling around her, or allow her to carry a normal person in her arms while flying extremely fast. If she could use that actively instead of just on instinct… "Well damn."
"Hah, even under yellow sunlight, it still won't improve you immediately, but I bet that, in six months to a year, you can become a competent fighter. You won't be defeating Diana or Bruce in a contest of skill, but we do have our tricks to make up for it."
"I see."
Kal seemed happy to just talk with her, explaining a few tricks he could do with his powers that Kara hadn't thought about and telling her about beautiful spots she could fly to if she wanted to relax.
Finally, Kal sighed in frustration. "Hah, this is much harder when it's personal."
"What is it?" Kara asked.
"Kara, I really wanted to wait until YOU decided to talk about it, but you know I had access to the Fortress medical scans right?" Kal tried to extend a hand to hold Kara's, but she pulled away from him, feeling exposed. "I know at least some of what happened to you."
Kara's first instinct was to tell Kal to go fuck himself, but she managed to stop and think about things. "So what, it's over Kal, what do you want me to do about it?"
"Talk with someone, it doesn't need to be me Kara, but you don't need to go through this alone."
"Do YOU need to talk with someone every time something happens?" She grumbled while shifting her eyes away.
"Yes, not always, mind you, but even I have to ask for help sometimes," Kal said with a tired, haunted voice as he remembered things. "Nowadays I just talk with Ma and Pa, but it was hard to accept some things when I was starting out."
Kara just stayed quiet, it's not like she hadn't needed help from a psychologist in her previous life. She knew how much it could help, but she had wanted to be stronger.
Finally, as she saw the concern on her cousin's face, Kara nodded. "Fine, I guess I can talk with someone."
She'd have to search for a good psychologist VERY carefully. Far too many of them turned out to be supervillains in DC.
"You know, Black Canary is a licensed therapist and she has personal experience of our kind of problem," Kal said as if he could read her mind. "And I can indicate several others if you need it."
"Right, I'll think about it," Kara said with a tired voice and poked at the remains of her ice cream, it had melted while they talked.
After further discussions, planning and ice cream placation, Kori woke up after only two hours of sleep and the both of them returned to their apartment. Billy had been there to feed Dexter, but he had no wish to stay any more time than necessary with what he called the 'DEMON CAT', all caps.
The two women eventually got settled in, but Kara wasn't able to fully relax, her mind was filled with far too many thoughts. What had the Psions put inside her? Did they already know where she was or had Lobo been working by himself? Could Torquasm Vo help her control this new power? Had she actually used the Red Light of Rage and had that attracted Atrocitus's attention? Was he even a thing here?
A loud and indignant meow, caused her to turn to Dexter. The cat lifted his tail in the air and started guiding her to the bathroom sink before meowing again.
"Dexter, you have your water fountain, it's right there!" Kara huffed and pointed at the small fountain connected to the socket. Kori just snickered from her place on the couch.
"MEOWWWWW!"
"Fine, here," she slightly opened the faucet letting just a trickle of water run down the sink. Dexter just continued to look at her. "Right, of course you want me to lift you too. Alright, but you have to pay the toll."
Grabbing the cat, Kara squeezed it tightly against her chest, earning herself a few more meows and scratches of indignation. Toll paid, she dropped him next to the sink and watched as he drank the water for a minute or two.
Sitting on the carpet of the floor, Kara pulled her mobile computer out and continued working on improvements to her armor. She wasn't going to leave the house without at least some heavy protection.
In her bedroom, her device started printing a mixture of new bomb-drones and full-stealth cameras to refill her wasted devices. Eventually Kara noticed her hands had started shaking again, but then Dexter jumped on her lap and started kneading her clothes while purring and her shaking stopped.
"Silly cat," she complained, but started petting him anyway. Her hand going through his fur calmed her down a lot. "Billy is completely wrong, you're a good kitty."
Still tired and lying on the sofa, Kori smiled as she watched them and finally went to sleep.
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If you like my work, take a look at my other novels or my patreon and Ko-Fi. You can support me for a single dollar.
Thanks for my patrons : Xhaustedhero, Iori Daemona Angel, AlliterativeArts (Eric Faust), Lynx of Chaos, Comics, Davvy chappie, Ian Michael, WanderingDaemon, GrumpyJustGrumpy, Travis cox, Rootbeerguy, High Priest of Torga, James Williams, Michael Neal, Felrook, Kenzie, NotableRonin, Josh Orton and stanley seymour for supporting my work!
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Oh damn, weaponized biological lantern ring?
Yeah, no wonder the Psions want it back.
Here I was thinking that Kara had attracted a red ring and just not noticed that fact during the berserker rage.
Yeah, no wonder the Psions want it back.
Here I was thinking that Kara had attracted a red ring and just not noticed that fact during the berserker rage.
Ginny McAllister
On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog
- Location
- Pacific NorthWet
Lemme see...
I do like the writing cue of color-tagging her dialog to indicate the emotion (now strong enough to trigger the emotion and the organ's power). Hopefully, we'll see more colors than red in the future.
... and then more stuff, too. Yeah, sounds like sort of an emotion-based green lantern power. It would be a shame if it was specifically a red lantern effect, limited to rage only.
I do like the writing cue of color-tagging her dialog to indicate the emotion (now strong enough to trigger the emotion and the organ's power). Hopefully, we'll see more colors than red in the future.
Chapter 22
Was gonna post this earlier, but I'm kinda busy lately, and I was tired as all hell yesterday, so I kinda forgot to do it. Sorry.
Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy the chapter!
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"I'm sorry Miss Danvers, what exactly is going on here?" The large man asked, his huge beer belly touching the table as he used his elbows to lean forward. "I mean, I'm glad things are working again, but why now?"
Kara thought about what to say, she could lie and come up with an excuse but, did she even need to?
"Were you close to the Danvers, Mister Blackwell?" She asked, buying herself a few more seconds to think.
"No Miss Danvers, I never really met your parents. I'm just a grunt trying to keep everything working after that asshole ran away with the company's money." The man told her and scratched at his beard. "From what the boys tell me, they were never that involved with things anyway."
"I see. Well, suffice to say that, for personal reasons, I too did not know them very well either." That the personal reason was the fact that she was an alien from another planet with no actual relation to the Danvers didn't need to be pointed out. "It took me some time to get access to my inheritance once I found out they were dead."
"I see…" he sighed, then shook his head. "Or well, I don't, but I guess that's not any of my business anyway. All I wanted to know is, do I still have a job? And what about everyone else?"
"Yes, you still have a job. Mr. Donovan will be taking over the CEO position for the time being however," Kara pointed to Dubbilex disguised form at her side; a middle aged black man wearing glasses. "And, since we're going to be expanding, you're actually getting a salary bump despite the demotion."
Derrick Blackwell had turned out to be a surprisingly simple man. Far from being the best man for the job, Blackwell had, nonetheless, been the only one capable of doing it until now.
Thankfully, Dubbilex had agreed to act as CEO for a few months until Kara could get someone better.
She was already compiling a document with all she could prove about Lex's crimes to try and entice her first choice away from the unscrupulous business tyrant's side.
"Right, can't say I'll miss all this damn paperwork, and I'm really glad the guys still have a job but…" Blackwell cut himself off, as if afraid of actually asking something.
"Go on Mr. Blackwell, I won't be firing you for asking questions as long as you're polite about it." Kara waved for him to speak.
"Well, it's just… a few of the boys and I stopped by the factory earlier today and… well, it's awfully in order ma'am, and there were some strange people working there, people nobody had ever seen before." The overweight man pushed himself away from the table and his eyes avoided Kara's. "Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you, but a man hears things."
"Now, I don't mean to insult you ma'am, but you just showed up out of nowhere, fixed the old factory in a week, and now you're not only hiring the boys back, but a lot of other people too, all this because of some miracle contract with WayneTech of all things…" Blackwell's leg started tapping against the floor from anxiety and he kept glancing at the door. "I had to think to myself: The city is awfully quiet and away from anything exciting. Ain't nobody gonna be asking too many questions if strange shit starts happening around here. I don't want the boys getting caught with some kinda metahuman or mad scientist deal."
"Don't worry, Mister Blackwell. I'm only going to be doing exactly what I said, which is to produce affordable technology." Kara sighed. In hindsight, getting the G-Trolls to help put the factory in order was kind of a dead giveaway. Even when Dubbilex kept them under his illusions the entire time, they were still too fast and too strong to be normal humans. "Is anyone else going to cause trouble because of the ridiculous notion that I'm some kind of supervillain?"
"No ma'am. Most of the boys are too happy to see the company back on its feet again to even think about it." Blackwell said, and now that Kara was looking for it she could see the clear signs of fear on his face.
At least now she knew why he was being so polite to her. Machiavelli may have been a prick, but if it really was better to be feared and that kept Blackwell in line, Kara wasn't about to go out of her way to correct any misunderstandings Blackwell might have.
They finished talking about the new hiring policies and having Blackwell act as a guide so Dubbilex could get to know the company better, with that out of the way the now former CEO of her company left the room feeling both apprehensive and optimistic.
With Bruce having accepted her proposal, Kara had spent two weeks designing new solar panels that they could produce. Kal had not been happy she was putting off her talk with the League's unofficial counselor, Black Canary, but he hadn't pushed the issue yet.
Still, Kara had managed to get her panels' efficiency up from around 13% to a whopping 26% just with the technology her company had access to, and decreased the cost of producing them by 35%. However, even this improvement was pitiful considering what she could do with her own tech, but it was the absolute limit with the current materials in use.
They weren't exactly the quantum leap forward she'd hoped for but she'd make her panels even better in a year or two.
"Miss Danvers." Dubbilex shook her shoulders, causing Kara's eyes to snap open with a startle and her fingers to dig a hole into the table she had been holding. "When was the last time you slept?"
"Sleep is for the weak." Kara joked. Seeing the unamused look on Dubbilex's human face she pushed herself to her feet and explained. "Kryptonians don't really need to sleep, Dubbilex."
"Miss Danvers, I was in charge of your little cousin and read CADMUS' files on Kryptonians. While you can achieve a state where sleep is unnecessary, it requires years of exposure to yellow sun radiation."
"I slept plenty yesterday." Kara defended herself, but didn't tell the Genomorph it had only been for two hours before waking up in a cold sweat. "I'll sleep a little tonight when I get home."
"...Very well, I'll start working on getting the company fully operational right away."
"Remember to put some G-Gnomes to watch over the employees, at least for now. Like Blackwell said, I don't think anyone is gonna be asking questions at the moment, but we did 'mysteriously' get a WayneTech contract and the factory site is full of Genomorphs. It's better to be safe than sorry."
"Of course. Miss Danvers, before you leave, can I ask you about a personal matter?" Dubbilex said, his illusion appearing to be hesitant.
"Sure, go ahead." Kara mumbled as she scratched at the bags under her eyes.
"Many of us Genomorphs wish to meet the metahumans used as a base to produce our kind, but the CADMUS database only has the location of a few of them. Could you ask the League about it?"
"Of course, I'm sure that even if the League doesn't have that information, Batman should."
"Thank you."
With a yawn, Kara allowed Dubbilex to take her seat and start working on the company systems.
Walking into one of the storage rooms, she typed a password on her cell phone causing both the floor and ceiling to open and revealing the Zeta-Tube she had installed in the building a few days ago.
In truth, she really wanted to fly back home, but the Lobo locked on the Fortress of Solitude was already completely healed. It meant there was far too big a chance that a copy of the bounty hunter had already regenerated from his missing arm and was hunting for her.
Lobo really was incredibly annoying, she didn't even dare go back to her moon base alone since he could travel through space with his motorcycle. As a result, she had to get Kori to go with her and relocate some of the projects there into the Fortress.
Thankfully, Kal had agreed to separate a corner of the Fortress for her use and she trusted him to give her privacy while she was there.
When she got back and saw the state of her apartment, she groaned. There were feathers spread everywhere and even some drops of blood. With a sigh, Kara made for the linen closet when Dexter came running from her bedroom, his little paws barely making a sound on the floor.
He threw his body against her and waved between her legs once or twice before dropping a pigeon head at her feet and glancing up with an incredibly smug look on his face. "Meow."
"Ah! Who's my cute little murder machine!" Kara couldn't resist and crouched down to scratch at his ears until the cat laid on the floor and presented her his belly. Kara knew it was a trap, but being a Kryptonian had some advantages so she scratched at it anyway. "You're a good kitty, eliminating all those flying rats. I just hope you know you're gonna need a bath now."
Dexter had been in the middle of clawing at her hand with all four legs when he heard the dreaded word. With a hiss, he kicked away from Kara's fingers and fled under the sofa.
"You know that's not gonna help you!" She called out as she got the cleaning supplies and started using her speed to clean the apartment once again.
She was in the middle of washing the yowling cat when something on the TV caught her attention, a supervillain with wind powers had attacked Happy Harbor and caused a lot of property damage.
"Right, almost forgot about that." She said and finished getting rid of the blood on Dexter's fur. Pulling her phone out she first called Kal's number.
"Hey Kara, is something wrong?" Kal asked in a worried voice when he picked up the phone..
"Nope, just calling to warn you I'm gonna be improving the defenses on Mount Justice." She said in a calm voice.
"What?"
"Just saw it on the TV. Kori and Kon subdued a villain over at Happy Harbor less than a week after they moved into the mountain." She told him with a tired voice. "I just wanted to warn you I'm turning that mountain into an impregnable fortress. And I'm NOT avoiding deadly force."
"Ah… look, can we talk about it later? I'm working right now."
"Sure. I'm not gonna change my stance, but you can talk."
Hanging up the phone, Kara immediately started dialing a second number even as her mind was filling with the defenses she'd put on the mountain… Was poisonous gas too much?
"I thought we'd only talk next week, Miss Zor-El?" Said the older, male voice over the phone.
"Hello Bobo, have you found out anything about Dr. Morrow yet?" Kara asked in a curious voice. "Cuz I just saw one of his robots attack Happy Harbor not even two hours ago."
"Hmmm… that certainly explains some things." The chimp said from his side of the phone, then seemed to stop to think about something. "Yes, I do believe I can narrow down the scientist's location by the time of our first team meeting."
"Good, while The Light is a far more dangerous long-term enemy, T. O. Morrow is our most immediate priority." Kara said before ending the call, already thinking about how much of a powerhouse Firebrand would be.
Worst case scenario, she was pretty sure she could reverse engineer at least some of Morrow's hardware if she could get her hands on another one of his androids.
While Kara had no confidence in replicating Red Vulcano's AI, she could probably make less intelligent robots with a version of his hardware.
Also, a geokinetic modification to her armor and drones could improve their capabilities by a lot.
'When was Red Vulcano born anyway?' Kara wondered, she was pretty sure she could slightly modify his core programing to make him less of a homicidal robot supremacist, but doing that after he was activated felt too much like mind control… or even mind r**e for her liking.
She wouldn't feel all that bad about destroying him if he didn't give her a choice, but mind control was a step she wasn't willing to take.
With Dexter angrily staring at her from under her bed, Kara sat down on the carpet and started messing with her latest experiment. Two small platforms, just big enough for one of her smaller pillows to fit on and connected by a myriad of cables.
Kara used her X-ray vision to stare at the components inside it, then pulled out the fried circuit board, fixed it, adjusted its configuration and used her heat vision to weld it back in place for another try.
Her front door bell rang causing Dexter to dart out of his hiding place and go check out who had arrived.
Looking through her apartment's walls Kara saw it was just Billy making sure she was alright. The boy had been coming over so often the doorman just let him through now. Grabbing for her phone she buzzed the door open and shouted. "Come in Billy!"
Kara hated that her friends and family felt the need to keep an eye on her every day since Lobo attacked, but she understood their reasoning. She and Kori hadn't exactly been perfectly stealthy when coming or going from the building. And most people didn't know she had enough firepower to face an army hidden in the residence.
"Hello, Miss Kara. Thanks for ha… Argh!" Billy started to say from the entrance when a terrifying hiss and loud yowling interrupted him. Dexter had already started defending his home. He was such a good and loyal kitty. "Get it off, get it off! Shazam!"
A few seconds later Kara saw her cat walk back into the room, his tail held high. In a much better mood, he jumped on top of a chair and started licking his claws clean.
"That cat is a menace." Billy grumbled as he peaked through the door and glared at Dexter.
"Don't be silly, Dex is just protecting his home." Kara dismissed the boy's concerns and smiled at him. She liked Billy, he was a good kid. "Come in, make yourself comfortable. You're gonna be here until my training with Kal, right?"
"Yeah… sorry about the ruckus, Miss Kara." He scratched at his neck and sat down on the bed to watch her work. "So, what're you doing?"
"Trying to make a commercially viable teleporter, but it's not going very well."
"Don't we already have the Zeta-Tubes?"
"Do you know how much those things cost?" Kara snorted and put one of her small pillows on top of a platform. "Zeta-Tubes are incredibly expensive to make and maintain. They are made from very exotic materials and require constant upkeep. Not only do we not have enough materials to build them for civilian use, it would cost more than anyone could pay to use them."
"So, you're just making something new?" Billy asked, now becoming interested.
"Well, I'm trying. Krypton had its own teleporters, but Earth doesn't have the technology or the materials to make them work."
Kara glanced at Dexter with a guilty look, but she pressed the activation button anyway and winced. With a crack of displaced air, space crumbled in a circular hole around the pillow and it was sucked in as if by an irresistible force, then the hole healed and the pillow appeared resting on the second platform. "YES!"
"It worked?"
"Don't know, but there wasn't an explosion and the stuffing is still inside the pillow, so that's progress." Taking the pillow off the platform Kara looked it over and didn't see anything wrong with it. She nodded, time for another test.
The most annoying thing about the teleporter was the constraints Kara had to work under. She could make a teleporter fairly easily, but it would either need to be made completely with Kryptonian tech or with Earth-tech that made each activation cost more than a quarter billion in resources. She wanted something accessible.
Something like, one or two thousand dollars per activation would already be ground breaking. She'd offer to substitute the current Zeta-Tube network too, but the technology was also much harder to block or intercept and had a galaxy wide range.
She thought she had managed to get everything working affordably, but every time she activated one of the platforms to send something, it ended up creating a mess.
The concept was simple: you take two fixed platforms, you gather enough power and pierce through the space between those two points, the person steps through the portal and viola.
The problem is that she couldn't create a bridge through space-time gently, not yet. The connection would traverse the object through space like a bullet and the exit was far more violent than the entrance.
Not only would whatever was sent come out in a violent and noisy bang of displaced air, the space around the exit would also expand causing the teleported object to explode as it stayed in its expanded form even as the space around it snapped back to normal..
Her answer was to change the direction of the space tunnel, instead of sending something, she'd pull it. Which seemed to have worked. At least the pillow had not contracted or imploded.
"Huh, this is new." Billy commented. "Usually, when I see mad science, I'm trying to stop it from happening, not just watching with interest."
"I prefer the term, 'super science'. Thank you very much." She threw the pillow at his face in mock anger before looking around for a new test subject.
One of her drones would probably work, right? They were inexpensive to make anyway.
"I don't know, it seems like mad science to me." Billy mocked as he looked around the messy room. "A super scientist would probably have a tidy room."
Kara snorted, "Aren't we feeling cheeky today?"
Making sure the first teleport hadn't messed up anything inside the bases, Kara pressed the button again. A second later, her drone teleported from one platform to the other without apparent damage. Eagerly, she ordered it to fly only to release a frustrated breath when it didn't move.
Using her vision, she confirmed it's insides were fried. Taking the entire thing off the socket and making sure it couldn't turn on again, Kara put the entire device away and sighed. "Not today I guess."
"What went wrong?"
"Don't know, gonna need better equipment than I have here to find out." She confessed and scratched at her tired eyes, she really had to get some sleep. "So, what's this I hear about dangerous villains at the Sidekicks' place?"
"Ah, it was great!" Billy almost jumped on the bed, his eyes shining with excitement.
"A villain attack was 'great'?"
"Well, no, but it wasn't a human enemy, and it wasn't really trying to hurt anybody, so Red Tornado and I agreed to let the Team take care of it and They. Were. Awesome!" Billy seemed to regain his energy, motioning with his hands like mad. "Miss Koriand'r took charge of the situation instantly, and Robin disappeared so fast when I wasn't paying attention. Do you think he'd teach me how to make my laugh come out from everywhere like he does?"
"Lame! Tell me more about Kori and Kon, did they get hurt?"
"No, Connor worked really well with her. The enemy was this cool robot that could use wind like Red Tornado and..." Billy sat up on the bed and started reenacting the scene while Kara imagined what it must have been like to be there. "But the robot was too strong and made a huge tornado! If Robin hadn't been waiting to sneak attack it I don't think Aqualad would have made it with his electricity. Then the Robot self-destructed."
"So, there was nothing left?" Kara asked, from what Billy said the fight had gone much better than in canon. It was a pity they hadn't managed to save anything then.
"Well, Kid Flash did manage to steal its head as a souvenir before it exploded."
"Oh, really?" Kara's eyes focused on the boy with a much bigger interest. So they had managed to save something. Could she track Morrow using the head? Did some of its wind control abilities remain?
"See! That's totally a Mad Scientist look right there!" Billy jumped up on the bed a second time and pointed right at Kara's face making her lose the definitely NOT evil smile she had.
"Get down from my bed Billy!" She scolded, causing him to float a few centimeters above her bed before setting down on the floor. "And, are you gonna stay transformed the entire time now?"
Billy only gave a quick glance towards Dexter, peacefully sleeping on top of the chair and gulped. "Yep."
Eventually, Billy escorted her towards the Zeta-Tube and Kara teleported to the Fortress. She had actually taken a quick nap and arrived a few minutes late for her daily session with Kal.
Both Kal and Kon waited for her with the same disapproving look on their faces, almost making Kara laugh out loud when she saw it.
"Sorry. Captain Marvel was telling me about your fight today and I lost track of time." She lied almost on instinct, then grimaced when she noticed she was trying to avoid talking about her problems again.
Walking to their side Kara sat down on her knees, her back perfectly straight and her arms resting on top of her legs. At their side, one of the Fortress' screens was reproducing the sound from an out of tune TV.
"Now, today we're gonna start on Torquasm Vo. As I already told you, this art has a lot to do with meditation so that's what we're gonna be starting with." Kal said, looking at the both of them seated at his flanks. "Now, I want you to close your eyes and focus on the sound of the white noise, don't try to ignore everything else but just… let it drift away while you focus."
Trading one last glance with Kon, Kara saw that Kal had already closed his own eyes and was slowing his own breathing. She followed his example, closing her eyes and trying to concentrate on the TV.
She breathed in, drawing the cold Arctic air into her lungs and breathed out, letting out some of her worries every time. Her mind became clearer and clearer.
She was safe, she was with family and under the strong defenses of the Kryptonian Fortress, right now she didn't need to worry about improving her armor or hunting down the Light. She didn't need to ask herself what happened with all the pieces of Lobo hit by her teleport grenade and if they'd all regenerate into a new one, she only needed to relax and focus.
Before even ten minutes had passed Kara's head fell forward, her body tilting to the side until she was touching Kal's shoulders as she fell asleep.
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"I'm sorry Miss Danvers, what exactly is going on here?" The large man asked, his huge beer belly touching the table as he used his elbows to lean forward. "I mean, I'm glad things are working again, but why now?"
Kara thought about what to say, she could lie and come up with an excuse but, did she even need to?
"Were you close to the Danvers, Mister Blackwell?" She asked, buying herself a few more seconds to think.
"No Miss Danvers, I never really met your parents. I'm just a grunt trying to keep everything working after that asshole ran away with the company's money." The man told her and scratched at his beard. "From what the boys tell me, they were never that involved with things anyway."
"I see. Well, suffice to say that, for personal reasons, I too did not know them very well either." That the personal reason was the fact that she was an alien from another planet with no actual relation to the Danvers didn't need to be pointed out. "It took me some time to get access to my inheritance once I found out they were dead."
"I see…" he sighed, then shook his head. "Or well, I don't, but I guess that's not any of my business anyway. All I wanted to know is, do I still have a job? And what about everyone else?"
"Yes, you still have a job. Mr. Donovan will be taking over the CEO position for the time being however," Kara pointed to Dubbilex disguised form at her side; a middle aged black man wearing glasses. "And, since we're going to be expanding, you're actually getting a salary bump despite the demotion."
Derrick Blackwell had turned out to be a surprisingly simple man. Far from being the best man for the job, Blackwell had, nonetheless, been the only one capable of doing it until now.
Thankfully, Dubbilex had agreed to act as CEO for a few months until Kara could get someone better.
She was already compiling a document with all she could prove about Lex's crimes to try and entice her first choice away from the unscrupulous business tyrant's side.
"Right, can't say I'll miss all this damn paperwork, and I'm really glad the guys still have a job but…" Blackwell cut himself off, as if afraid of actually asking something.
"Go on Mr. Blackwell, I won't be firing you for asking questions as long as you're polite about it." Kara waved for him to speak.
"Well, it's just… a few of the boys and I stopped by the factory earlier today and… well, it's awfully in order ma'am, and there were some strange people working there, people nobody had ever seen before." The overweight man pushed himself away from the table and his eyes avoided Kara's. "Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you, but a man hears things."
"Now, I don't mean to insult you ma'am, but you just showed up out of nowhere, fixed the old factory in a week, and now you're not only hiring the boys back, but a lot of other people too, all this because of some miracle contract with WayneTech of all things…" Blackwell's leg started tapping against the floor from anxiety and he kept glancing at the door. "I had to think to myself: The city is awfully quiet and away from anything exciting. Ain't nobody gonna be asking too many questions if strange shit starts happening around here. I don't want the boys getting caught with some kinda metahuman or mad scientist deal."
"Don't worry, Mister Blackwell. I'm only going to be doing exactly what I said, which is to produce affordable technology." Kara sighed. In hindsight, getting the G-Trolls to help put the factory in order was kind of a dead giveaway. Even when Dubbilex kept them under his illusions the entire time, they were still too fast and too strong to be normal humans. "Is anyone else going to cause trouble because of the ridiculous notion that I'm some kind of supervillain?"
"No ma'am. Most of the boys are too happy to see the company back on its feet again to even think about it." Blackwell said, and now that Kara was looking for it she could see the clear signs of fear on his face.
At least now she knew why he was being so polite to her. Machiavelli may have been a prick, but if it really was better to be feared and that kept Blackwell in line, Kara wasn't about to go out of her way to correct any misunderstandings Blackwell might have.
They finished talking about the new hiring policies and having Blackwell act as a guide so Dubbilex could get to know the company better, with that out of the way the now former CEO of her company left the room feeling both apprehensive and optimistic.
With Bruce having accepted her proposal, Kara had spent two weeks designing new solar panels that they could produce. Kal had not been happy she was putting off her talk with the League's unofficial counselor, Black Canary, but he hadn't pushed the issue yet.
Still, Kara had managed to get her panels' efficiency up from around 13% to a whopping 26% just with the technology her company had access to, and decreased the cost of producing them by 35%. However, even this improvement was pitiful considering what she could do with her own tech, but it was the absolute limit with the current materials in use.
They weren't exactly the quantum leap forward she'd hoped for but she'd make her panels even better in a year or two.
"Miss Danvers." Dubbilex shook her shoulders, causing Kara's eyes to snap open with a startle and her fingers to dig a hole into the table she had been holding. "When was the last time you slept?"
"Sleep is for the weak." Kara joked. Seeing the unamused look on Dubbilex's human face she pushed herself to her feet and explained. "Kryptonians don't really need to sleep, Dubbilex."
"Miss Danvers, I was in charge of your little cousin and read CADMUS' files on Kryptonians. While you can achieve a state where sleep is unnecessary, it requires years of exposure to yellow sun radiation."
"I slept plenty yesterday." Kara defended herself, but didn't tell the Genomorph it had only been for two hours before waking up in a cold sweat. "I'll sleep a little tonight when I get home."
"...Very well, I'll start working on getting the company fully operational right away."
"Remember to put some G-Gnomes to watch over the employees, at least for now. Like Blackwell said, I don't think anyone is gonna be asking questions at the moment, but we did 'mysteriously' get a WayneTech contract and the factory site is full of Genomorphs. It's better to be safe than sorry."
"Of course. Miss Danvers, before you leave, can I ask you about a personal matter?" Dubbilex said, his illusion appearing to be hesitant.
"Sure, go ahead." Kara mumbled as she scratched at the bags under her eyes.
"Many of us Genomorphs wish to meet the metahumans used as a base to produce our kind, but the CADMUS database only has the location of a few of them. Could you ask the League about it?"
"Of course, I'm sure that even if the League doesn't have that information, Batman should."
"Thank you."
With a yawn, Kara allowed Dubbilex to take her seat and start working on the company systems.
Walking into one of the storage rooms, she typed a password on her cell phone causing both the floor and ceiling to open and revealing the Zeta-Tube she had installed in the building a few days ago.
In truth, she really wanted to fly back home, but the Lobo locked on the Fortress of Solitude was already completely healed. It meant there was far too big a chance that a copy of the bounty hunter had already regenerated from his missing arm and was hunting for her.
Lobo really was incredibly annoying, she didn't even dare go back to her moon base alone since he could travel through space with his motorcycle. As a result, she had to get Kori to go with her and relocate some of the projects there into the Fortress.
Thankfully, Kal had agreed to separate a corner of the Fortress for her use and she trusted him to give her privacy while she was there.
When she got back and saw the state of her apartment, she groaned. There were feathers spread everywhere and even some drops of blood. With a sigh, Kara made for the linen closet when Dexter came running from her bedroom, his little paws barely making a sound on the floor.
He threw his body against her and waved between her legs once or twice before dropping a pigeon head at her feet and glancing up with an incredibly smug look on his face. "Meow."
"Ah! Who's my cute little murder machine!" Kara couldn't resist and crouched down to scratch at his ears until the cat laid on the floor and presented her his belly. Kara knew it was a trap, but being a Kryptonian had some advantages so she scratched at it anyway. "You're a good kitty, eliminating all those flying rats. I just hope you know you're gonna need a bath now."
Dexter had been in the middle of clawing at her hand with all four legs when he heard the dreaded word. With a hiss, he kicked away from Kara's fingers and fled under the sofa.
"You know that's not gonna help you!" She called out as she got the cleaning supplies and started using her speed to clean the apartment once again.
She was in the middle of washing the yowling cat when something on the TV caught her attention, a supervillain with wind powers had attacked Happy Harbor and caused a lot of property damage.
"Right, almost forgot about that." She said and finished getting rid of the blood on Dexter's fur. Pulling her phone out she first called Kal's number.
"Hey Kara, is something wrong?" Kal asked in a worried voice when he picked up the phone..
"Nope, just calling to warn you I'm gonna be improving the defenses on Mount Justice." She said in a calm voice.
"What?"
"Just saw it on the TV. Kori and Kon subdued a villain over at Happy Harbor less than a week after they moved into the mountain." She told him with a tired voice. "I just wanted to warn you I'm turning that mountain into an impregnable fortress. And I'm NOT avoiding deadly force."
"Ah… look, can we talk about it later? I'm working right now."
"Sure. I'm not gonna change my stance, but you can talk."
Hanging up the phone, Kara immediately started dialing a second number even as her mind was filling with the defenses she'd put on the mountain… Was poisonous gas too much?
"I thought we'd only talk next week, Miss Zor-El?" Said the older, male voice over the phone.
"Hello Bobo, have you found out anything about Dr. Morrow yet?" Kara asked in a curious voice. "Cuz I just saw one of his robots attack Happy Harbor not even two hours ago."
"Hmmm… that certainly explains some things." The chimp said from his side of the phone, then seemed to stop to think about something. "Yes, I do believe I can narrow down the scientist's location by the time of our first team meeting."
"Good, while The Light is a far more dangerous long-term enemy, T. O. Morrow is our most immediate priority." Kara said before ending the call, already thinking about how much of a powerhouse Firebrand would be.
Worst case scenario, she was pretty sure she could reverse engineer at least some of Morrow's hardware if she could get her hands on another one of his androids.
While Kara had no confidence in replicating Red Vulcano's AI, she could probably make less intelligent robots with a version of his hardware.
Also, a geokinetic modification to her armor and drones could improve their capabilities by a lot.
'When was Red Vulcano born anyway?' Kara wondered, she was pretty sure she could slightly modify his core programing to make him less of a homicidal robot supremacist, but doing that after he was activated felt too much like mind control… or even mind r**e for her liking.
She wouldn't feel all that bad about destroying him if he didn't give her a choice, but mind control was a step she wasn't willing to take.
With Dexter angrily staring at her from under her bed, Kara sat down on the carpet and started messing with her latest experiment. Two small platforms, just big enough for one of her smaller pillows to fit on and connected by a myriad of cables.
Kara used her X-ray vision to stare at the components inside it, then pulled out the fried circuit board, fixed it, adjusted its configuration and used her heat vision to weld it back in place for another try.
Her front door bell rang causing Dexter to dart out of his hiding place and go check out who had arrived.
Looking through her apartment's walls Kara saw it was just Billy making sure she was alright. The boy had been coming over so often the doorman just let him through now. Grabbing for her phone she buzzed the door open and shouted. "Come in Billy!"
Kara hated that her friends and family felt the need to keep an eye on her every day since Lobo attacked, but she understood their reasoning. She and Kori hadn't exactly been perfectly stealthy when coming or going from the building. And most people didn't know she had enough firepower to face an army hidden in the residence.
"Hello, Miss Kara. Thanks for ha… Argh!" Billy started to say from the entrance when a terrifying hiss and loud yowling interrupted him. Dexter had already started defending his home. He was such a good and loyal kitty. "Get it off, get it off! Shazam!"
A few seconds later Kara saw her cat walk back into the room, his tail held high. In a much better mood, he jumped on top of a chair and started licking his claws clean.
"That cat is a menace." Billy grumbled as he peaked through the door and glared at Dexter.
"Don't be silly, Dex is just protecting his home." Kara dismissed the boy's concerns and smiled at him. She liked Billy, he was a good kid. "Come in, make yourself comfortable. You're gonna be here until my training with Kal, right?"
"Yeah… sorry about the ruckus, Miss Kara." He scratched at his neck and sat down on the bed to watch her work. "So, what're you doing?"
"Trying to make a commercially viable teleporter, but it's not going very well."
"Don't we already have the Zeta-Tubes?"
"Do you know how much those things cost?" Kara snorted and put one of her small pillows on top of a platform. "Zeta-Tubes are incredibly expensive to make and maintain. They are made from very exotic materials and require constant upkeep. Not only do we not have enough materials to build them for civilian use, it would cost more than anyone could pay to use them."
"So, you're just making something new?" Billy asked, now becoming interested.
"Well, I'm trying. Krypton had its own teleporters, but Earth doesn't have the technology or the materials to make them work."
Kara glanced at Dexter with a guilty look, but she pressed the activation button anyway and winced. With a crack of displaced air, space crumbled in a circular hole around the pillow and it was sucked in as if by an irresistible force, then the hole healed and the pillow appeared resting on the second platform. "YES!"
"It worked?"
"Don't know, but there wasn't an explosion and the stuffing is still inside the pillow, so that's progress." Taking the pillow off the platform Kara looked it over and didn't see anything wrong with it. She nodded, time for another test.
The most annoying thing about the teleporter was the constraints Kara had to work under. She could make a teleporter fairly easily, but it would either need to be made completely with Kryptonian tech or with Earth-tech that made each activation cost more than a quarter billion in resources. She wanted something accessible.
Something like, one or two thousand dollars per activation would already be ground breaking. She'd offer to substitute the current Zeta-Tube network too, but the technology was also much harder to block or intercept and had a galaxy wide range.
She thought she had managed to get everything working affordably, but every time she activated one of the platforms to send something, it ended up creating a mess.
The concept was simple: you take two fixed platforms, you gather enough power and pierce through the space between those two points, the person steps through the portal and viola.
The problem is that she couldn't create a bridge through space-time gently, not yet. The connection would traverse the object through space like a bullet and the exit was far more violent than the entrance.
Not only would whatever was sent come out in a violent and noisy bang of displaced air, the space around the exit would also expand causing the teleported object to explode as it stayed in its expanded form even as the space around it snapped back to normal..
Her answer was to change the direction of the space tunnel, instead of sending something, she'd pull it. Which seemed to have worked. At least the pillow had not contracted or imploded.
"Huh, this is new." Billy commented. "Usually, when I see mad science, I'm trying to stop it from happening, not just watching with interest."
"I prefer the term, 'super science'. Thank you very much." She threw the pillow at his face in mock anger before looking around for a new test subject.
One of her drones would probably work, right? They were inexpensive to make anyway.
"I don't know, it seems like mad science to me." Billy mocked as he looked around the messy room. "A super scientist would probably have a tidy room."
Kara snorted, "Aren't we feeling cheeky today?"
Making sure the first teleport hadn't messed up anything inside the bases, Kara pressed the button again. A second later, her drone teleported from one platform to the other without apparent damage. Eagerly, she ordered it to fly only to release a frustrated breath when it didn't move.
Using her vision, she confirmed it's insides were fried. Taking the entire thing off the socket and making sure it couldn't turn on again, Kara put the entire device away and sighed. "Not today I guess."
"What went wrong?"
"Don't know, gonna need better equipment than I have here to find out." She confessed and scratched at her tired eyes, she really had to get some sleep. "So, what's this I hear about dangerous villains at the Sidekicks' place?"
"Ah, it was great!" Billy almost jumped on the bed, his eyes shining with excitement.
"A villain attack was 'great'?"
"Well, no, but it wasn't a human enemy, and it wasn't really trying to hurt anybody, so Red Tornado and I agreed to let the Team take care of it and They. Were. Awesome!" Billy seemed to regain his energy, motioning with his hands like mad. "Miss Koriand'r took charge of the situation instantly, and Robin disappeared so fast when I wasn't paying attention. Do you think he'd teach me how to make my laugh come out from everywhere like he does?"
"Lame! Tell me more about Kori and Kon, did they get hurt?"
"No, Connor worked really well with her. The enemy was this cool robot that could use wind like Red Tornado and..." Billy sat up on the bed and started reenacting the scene while Kara imagined what it must have been like to be there. "But the robot was too strong and made a huge tornado! If Robin hadn't been waiting to sneak attack it I don't think Aqualad would have made it with his electricity. Then the Robot self-destructed."
"So, there was nothing left?" Kara asked, from what Billy said the fight had gone much better than in canon. It was a pity they hadn't managed to save anything then.
"Well, Kid Flash did manage to steal its head as a souvenir before it exploded."
"Oh, really?" Kara's eyes focused on the boy with a much bigger interest. So they had managed to save something. Could she track Morrow using the head? Did some of its wind control abilities remain?
"See! That's totally a Mad Scientist look right there!" Billy jumped up on the bed a second time and pointed right at Kara's face making her lose the definitely NOT evil smile she had.
"Get down from my bed Billy!" She scolded, causing him to float a few centimeters above her bed before setting down on the floor. "And, are you gonna stay transformed the entire time now?"
Billy only gave a quick glance towards Dexter, peacefully sleeping on top of the chair and gulped. "Yep."
Eventually, Billy escorted her towards the Zeta-Tube and Kara teleported to the Fortress. She had actually taken a quick nap and arrived a few minutes late for her daily session with Kal.
Both Kal and Kon waited for her with the same disapproving look on their faces, almost making Kara laugh out loud when she saw it.
"Sorry. Captain Marvel was telling me about your fight today and I lost track of time." She lied almost on instinct, then grimaced when she noticed she was trying to avoid talking about her problems again.
Walking to their side Kara sat down on her knees, her back perfectly straight and her arms resting on top of her legs. At their side, one of the Fortress' screens was reproducing the sound from an out of tune TV.
"Now, today we're gonna start on Torquasm Vo. As I already told you, this art has a lot to do with meditation so that's what we're gonna be starting with." Kal said, looking at the both of them seated at his flanks. "Now, I want you to close your eyes and focus on the sound of the white noise, don't try to ignore everything else but just… let it drift away while you focus."
Trading one last glance with Kon, Kara saw that Kal had already closed his own eyes and was slowing his own breathing. She followed his example, closing her eyes and trying to concentrate on the TV.
She breathed in, drawing the cold Arctic air into her lungs and breathed out, letting out some of her worries every time. Her mind became clearer and clearer.
She was safe, she was with family and under the strong defenses of the Kryptonian Fortress, right now she didn't need to worry about improving her armor or hunting down the Light. She didn't need to ask herself what happened with all the pieces of Lobo hit by her teleport grenade and if they'd all regenerate into a new one, she only needed to relax and focus.
Before even ten minutes had passed Kara's head fell forward, her body tilting to the side until she was touching Kal's shoulders as she fell asleep.
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Chapter 23
Hello people, Happy Easter!
Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy the chapter!
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"Kori, no." Kara said, but there was no strength in her denial.
"Awww, but Friend Kara, you said I could!" The Tamaranean ignored her words and continued approaching.
"No, bad Kori, and wait… where do you think you're touching!"
"But how are we going to proceed if you are still wearing clothes?"
"Kori, down! Down! I can do it by myself, you know." Kara took a step away and managed to avoid Kori's hands. "Besides, I just wanted your opinion on the three costumes I already had. Not for you to bring new ones."
"But, mayhap you will like it? It is certainly better than your uninspired black armor, yes?" Kori protested as her feet slowly lowered back to the floor, a pout on her face. "Friend Troia even helped me choose some that are inspired by your cousin's. It is perfect to maximize exposure to sunlight!"
Kara glanced at the blue outfit with a red skirt, one with far too little cloth, far too much leather and suspiciously placed zippers. "And where exactly did she say that comes from?"
"Friend Troia said it was from a movie, 'SupermanXxX: Return To The Dungeon.' She even bought the movie so we may watch it together!"
"Nope!" Kara shuddered from horror and seriously considered incinerating the thing with a blast of heat vision. "For the record, please, don't show me anything that associates my cousin's name with three 'X's, ever."
"Please, you do not wish to watch the movie with me?" Kori flinched with a hurt look on her face.
"Ugh, I'm gonna kill that bitch." Kara grumbled and sighed, she really didn't want to explain the birds and the bees to her friend. Especially because she wasn't sure Kori would share her dislike of depicting Kal in any sexual way. "Fine, I guess I can try some of the other costumes."
"Wonderful! Start with this one."
Kara glanced from the costume on Kori's hands to the huge smile on her face and sighed. From his place atop the sofa, Kara swore she saw Dexter taking mental notes about how to manipulate her.
The first costume Kori had brought was a simple copy of her own, with the typical Amazon look and leaving plenty of skin exposed. At least the chest armor seemed resistant enough to block a few blows and protect her organs.
Still, Kara felt like she was cosplaying while wearing it.
Using her super speed, Kara darted back inside her bedroom and changed into whatever the second outfit was without even paying attention. Once changed, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and froze. She recognized the costume.
With her face flushed, Kara stepped out into the living room wearing Power Girl's costume. The white swimsuit left both of her legs fully exposed and clung so tightly to her body Kara could see all of her muscles through the fabric. The boob window left her modest breasts exposed and Kara felt the need to cover it up with an arm when she caught Kori staring at her for too long. "What?"
"It. Is. Perfect!" Kori shouted, her eyes shining with green light. "Friend Kara, you have to wear this. It is perfect for you!"
On instinct Kara put a hand against Kori's face and had to strain to prevent the Tamaranean from hugging her, "It doesn't even have pockets, where would I put my drones?"
"It has a utility belt. Just like The Batman! Please, will you wear it?"
"Never!" Kara shouted and dodged aside to let Kori pass her by before dashing for the bedroom.
Unfortunately, Dexter took the chance to attack her cape and forced her to slow down in order to not send him flying. Kori pounced "Well done feline friend!"
The both of them struggled for a few minutes before Kara submitted, swearing she'd keep the costume in her wardrobe, even if she wouldn't ever use it… in public.
After finally being freed from the twin terrors Kara put the Power Girl costume away and brought out her three personal choices.
One was a lesser version of her Power Armor. Dark blue, it had the El house symbol on its chest, only increased her bulk by a little bit and had a lot of armor covering her vitals. Various compartments all over the suit held dozens of devices for her use. It could also store a lot of solar radiation if she was ever in an emergency.
Truth be told, she'd really prefer to use her full power-armor, but her public persona had to not look like a threatening walking tank and this was the next best thing.
The fourth costume was just a version of her cousin's; a blue bodysuit with a red cape and boots. It also had a few belts all over in order to hold her devices.
The fifth one was completely different. It didn't have a cape but a dark blue coat with gold detailing, the El house symbol covered her chest. It also had red boots that ended just below her knees and matching gloves.
To the side she had her mask. Made with a thin layer of Kryptonium; it was painted white, with only a few details in gold and without any human features or even a mouth.
Inside the mask was a breathing device with half an hour of air in case she lost her powers while in a vacuum or was exposed to a harmful gas and light blocking lenses on the eyes to prevent anything from blinding her.
"Friend Kara, please, did you have to cover your entire body in every costume?" Kori complained with a disappointed voice.
She didn't. Kara had actually been thinking of using a far more revealing outfit, it would help to accentuate the differences between her public persona and the one she'd be using on the secret team.
In fact, she was pretty sure Kori could have convinced her to actually wear the Power Girl costume. She couldn't deny she looked hot wearing it, but that was before Lobo's attack.
Kara hated it, but she just didn't feel comfortable taking the risk anymore. Perhaps her mind would change in a few months, after she was fully healed.
"No, but… I feel better with a full outfit. Plus I need the space to keep my devices."
"I postulate you would not consider using a skirt with the second one, yes?" Kara just gave her a look. "Very well, this last one is better."
Kara considered it. She really would prefer to wear the mini-power armor outfit, but the coat had enough space for her devices and it was far too easy to connect the first one to the full power-armor she'd use with her own team. The coat also looked cool.
"Thanks Kori, I'll just make some last minute adjustments and we can go." Kara lifted Dexter from atop one of the costumes and started gathering everything in one arm to put away. With one last scratch behind the cat's ear she remembered something. "Ugh, nevermind. I forgot I had to pick some things at the Fortress before going to the Mountain."
"I continue to regard the white outfit as superior." Kori grumbled, but then smiled at Kara and squeezed her hand. "I can not wait to introduce you to the team! You will love them."
"I'm glad you like them." Kara squeezed back and went to her bedroom to start adjusting her new costume's gloves. Introducing small quantities of Nth metal on the fabric in order to disrupt magic. "Any tips?"
"Do not call Robin a sidekick!" Kori yelled from the living room. "I tried following your guidance when we first met but, despite the honor of apprenticeship under The Batman, he does not seem to enjoy the title."
"You sure?" Kara asked when she finished snickering. "Perhaps I should try too?"
"Yes, do not call him that. I do not understand why, but he seems to consider it demeaning."
"Fine, I guess I can just call him by name then."
Kara finished adjusting the costume and wore it for the first time, the coat fit her like a glove and the material didn't restrict her movement at all. Stepping out of her bedroom, she found Kori already wearing her own heroic outfit. The pair flew together to the Zeta-Tube, but Kori went directly to Mount Justice while Kara teleported to the Fortress first.
Kara had installed a Kryptonian stealth device on the apartment which masked their presence until they were a certain distance away. Unfortunately the device was too big to carry or she'd make it a part of her costume, but at least it made coming and going from the apartment much harder to track.
Over an hour later, Kara heard the robotic voice of the Zeta-Tube network announce her arrival at the Mountain. The huge kart filled with equipment she was pushing in front of her was far from everything she had prepared, but it was enough for her to start working.
"Supergirl, you came!" Captain Marvel shouted and flew towards her, only stopping when they had nearly collided.
Kara smiled under her mask and nodded towards the boy before looking at the entire room. The sidekicks were sparring with each other under Red Tornado's gaze
"Supergirl, Captain Marvel has told me a lot about you." Red Tornado stated evenly as he started walking towards her.
Kon had been sparring with Miss Martian. The girl was using her shape-shifting abilities to actually overwhelm him despite his superior strength. Kara smiled and waved at him causing his face to open into a huge smile.
Taking a pause, Miss Martian turned around to see what had caused the boy to smile. Her eyes went wide as she stared at Kara. She smiled but retreated closer to Kon.
"Titans, reunite with me please." Red Tornado called out with his mechanical voice, causing everyone to finally stop sparring.
"So, they already chose a name?" Kara asked in curiosity, from what she remembered of the show they had been simply 'The Team' or 'Outsiders'
"Indeed, the group felt that, if they were to work together, they preferred to have their own identity." Red Tornado commented idly. "They voted on the name 'Titans' soon after."
Kid Flash was the first to arrive, his speed nearly a match for Kara's; he stopped beside Marvel and leaned over him with an elbow. "You called? Whoa, hello there beautiful!"
Marvel frowned down at the boy but, when Kara didn't react, he didn't say anything.
"Sooo, who're you supposed to be, a new recruit?" he asked and showed off his speed by darting away from Marvel and towards Red Tornado. "You got here just as we were about to spar, so maybe I can show you some moves?"
"Hmmm, somehow you're less annoying than I thought you'd be." Kara told him with a smile. She had always thought Wally would be unbearable, but the combination of his young age and clear inexperience made it more amusing than anything else. "But no, I'm not joining the Titans; I guess you can consider me tech support."
"Huh, is that all gear for us? Sweet!" The boy tried to run towards her kart to take a peek, but Kara decided she had enough and slapped his hand away even while he was moving. "Ouch!"
"Try to keep your hands to yourself, will you."
"You must be Kara, Koriand'r spoke well of you." Aqualad put a hand forward to compliment her. "I'm Aqualad, current leader of the Titans."
"Pleased to meet you, but please, call me Supergirl while in costume." Kara shook his hand with a smile. "I kinda want to keep things separated while in costume."
"Friend Supergirl!" Kori shouted and glomped her, causing Kara to take a step back to keep her footing.
Soon, all members of the Titans were gathered. They seemed more in tune than in the cartoons, with Aqualad having been voted as their leader and Starfire as vice leader.
In truth, Kori had more experience and better training than Kaldur, but her lack of familiarity with Earth and the rest of the team meant they preferred the Atlantean over her. Still, from what Kara had heard, the boy had a good head on his shoulders and actually listened to her opinion often.
"Titans, after hearing about Mr. Twister's attack three days ago, Supergirl has offered to help update the Mountain's defenses." Red Tornado told them with the same impassive voice. "She has also offered to act as tech support for the team, I am certain her help will prove invaluable."
"She's some kind of tech genius then?" Robin asked while lifting an eyebrow.
"She's my cousin." Kon replied and actually approached her for a hug.
"One thing doesn't exclude the other, you know. I may be a Kryptonian, but I'm a much better inventor than a fighter. The El's were a prominent house of the Science guild, not the Military caste after all." Kara was so proud of him, not that long ago he wouldn't have even known how to ask for a hug; he'd also get angry at not knowing. She hugged him back. "I don't see Zatara's daughter here, is he still holding her back?"
"Yeah, Master Zatara really doesn't want to let her come." This time it was Marvel that answered while scratching at his neck. "But Miss Zatana is gonna break him soon."
Kara snorted at that, and then took stock of the Titans. Aqualad and Starfire stood together, leader and vice-leader of the Titans. Kid Flash was still rubbing his stung hand with Robin by his side.
The Boy Wonder seemed annoyed, but Kara didn't think it was about losing the leadership position. No, from the way he was glaring at her, he'd probably figured out who she was.
Kori probably talked about her a lot and Kaldur had used her real name when shaking her hand, so she wasn't exactly surprised. Plus, Kara wasn't making an effort to mask her voice. Robin probably recognized her from Batman's fundraiser and was feeling irritated.
How amusing.
After releasing her from their hug, Kon had stepped back to Miss Martian who was still acting shy, hiding behind his body and only giving Kara quick glances.
"Connor." the Martian whispered in his ear as quietly as she could. "Yo-Your cousin, is she a robot?"
Kon gave his friend a strange look and shook his head. With a startle, Kara finally realized the problem and laughed out loud.
"Ah, sorry about that. I have a telepathic blocker in the mask. " She quickly tapped her mask twice and deactivated the blocker. "It's still in testing and I doubt it's enough against a Martian, but it should keep any stray psychic from noticing me if they aren't already looking for it. Better now?"
"Yes, thank you!" Miss Martian finally relaxed and smiled at her. "I could feel something when I focused on you, but it was very unnerving and I didn't want to push."
"Don't worry Megalicious; I'm always here to protect you." Kid Flash appeared at her side and tried to hold her hand, but only made her more uncomfortable.
Aqualad released a sigh when he saw it, Kara swore he was praying really hard he wouldn't have to deal with the situation while Robin actually facepalmed at his friend's actions.
"Kid Flash! That is enough." Kori intervened with a hard tone on her voice, her hands at her waist and a disapproving look on her face.
"Right, sorry." He sheepishly said and stepped back.
Kara smiled. She would have disciplined the boy herself but, unfortunately, she didn't really know him very well. She'd probably have to talk to the Flash about that. It was amusing when he was doing it to her, but Miss Martian was clearly bothered.
"Right… anyway, I spoke with the League and they let me make some improvements to the costumes you guys use." Kara said with a smile. Grabbing the cover of her cart she pulled it away dramatically to reveal the equipment inside. "So, what do you guys think?"
Kara stepped away from the kart and let the team of teenagers charge in. With the approval of the League, she had worked hard to replicate their costumes and increment them with her tech. The adults had still refused to allow weapons on the costumes, but Kara had prioritized safety anyway.
Kid Flash was the first to pull out a copy of his costume. While it looked almost exactly like his original costume, all of her gear was made from Kryptonian fabric stronger than spider silk and had shock absorbers on the torso.
The most distinct feature however, was a bulge at the back that resembled a small backpack. Kid flash immediately noticed it and started poking the thing. "So, what exactly is this?"
"Well, the costumes were all made at the Fortress. They're strong enough to block gunshots and knife wounds and have plates on the torso capable of absorbing most mundane kinetic impacts. Even high caliber rounds should only leave bruises." Kara told them while giving Kon his own costume and messing his hair at the same time. "The costume can also monitor your life signs and the bulge at the back is an emergency teleporter. It's a copy of something I use myself and I just couldn't make it smaller."
"Cool!" Kid Flash said.
Robin didn't seem convinced, looking at his own costume with distaste. "So, this is gonna let us teleport around then?"
"Not exactly, it's a one-time thing, really." Kara explained while lifting Miss Martian's device. She hadn't been able to replicate Martian clothes so, the best she could do was to create the device and hope Miss Martian's costume could assimilate or grow over it. "You can activate it manually or it will trigger when it detects you're unconscious or mortally wounded. The device will only bring you back to the mountain once before I have to replace it. So, do make sure to tell me if that happens."
"Yeah… I'll have to talk to Batman before using this." Robin said.
"Go ahead. Try to convince the Bat to wear one himself will you?" Kara said while handing the teleporting device to M'gann. "Here, see if your costume can hold this in place at your back."
"Ah, thank you." The Martian said with a blush and tried to place the device at her back, when that didn't work she grew a third hand from her back to help out.
"I have to ask, can this device bring more than one person?" Aqualad questioned while looking at his costume. "While I appreciate the chance to escape a dangerous situation, I don't think the Titans could use it if it meant abandoning someone."
"Unfortunately, making it able to teleport a second person or work repeatedly would more than triple its size." Kara explained while picking up the rest of her devices. "Still, I created a dozen spare devices the Titans can carry on the bio-ship in case they're needed."
"I see, thank you. That should greatly increase our ability to act." He nodded her way.
Kara looked towards the kart. There were still four large metal boxes inside. Picking up the one with the spare teleporting devices she laid it to the side and laid the other three in front of the Titans before opening them.
The first box had hundreds of her little civilian drones. With access to military tech the little flying cameras had become obsolete to her, but they were still very useful for the team and Kara had a large supply of them.
The second box had a new holographic device Kara had produced, it wasn't anything special, but it was about the same size as her drones and, once it was laid on the ground, it could selectively make anything in a ten meter radius around itself invisible, or project an image that wasn't there.
The final box had a far more complicated device, and one that used materials so rare even Kara had a very limited supply. Even with Kryptonian tech it was incredibly hard and expensive to create a stable portal big enough for a person to pass through, but Kara didn't need a huge portal.
Instead, the device would stealthily create a very small connection between two points in space. Even a finger wouldn't pass through, but it was perfect to send communication signals.
It meant that, even if someone had the tech to block communications in an area, unless they also blocked this particular form of teleportation, the Titans wouldn't lose contact with the base.
The Titans quickly distributed the equipment between themselves, with only a couple going to Captain Marvel after he had made a face at them. Kid Flash kept pressing the sign on his chest and changing his costume between the usual yellow, black and several versions of camouflage for any environment he found himself in.
Even Robin couldn't resist playing with the drones, using his own devices to control them, even when he wouldn't put on his new costume.
"Zero two, Batman." Announced the robotic female voice from the Zeta-tube, causing Robin to jump up and hide the drones behind his back.
Batman only gave a quick glance towards the boy and nodded. "You can put on the costume."
When the entire team was gathered in front of him, Batman activated a holographic display showing a picture of an island.
"This is Isla Santa Prisca, it is a sovereign island nation on the Caribbean Sea that the League doesn't have access to. It's also the primary producer of Venom." The Bat said without preamble.
"You're sending us against Bane?" Robin asked with surprise and not a small amount of eagerness in his voice.
"No, as far as we were able to find out, the island was taken over by the Cult of the Kobra last month." A picture of both Kobra and Bane appeared on display, with a red 'X' over Bane's face. "Bane attempted to take the place back and was reported dead a few days ago."
"Is he? Dead, I mean." Robin asked again while leaning closer.
"Unknown. His body wasn't found, but his forces were devastated and the Island is completely under Kobra's control." Batman pressed a button and another four pictures appeared.
Kara recognized one of them as Blockbuster, but the other three were unknown, only showing the same signs of Blockbuster use as the original.
"It appears that Kobra got control of the Blockbuster formula and is mixing it with Venom to create new super soldiers. Besides Blockbuster himself, the League has faced three other users of the substance in the last month alone. After considering Supergirl's new supplies, the League has decided to make this the Titans first mission."
"What is our mission?" Aqualad finally asked.
"The League cannot be seen interfering with a foreign nation, but with Bane gone we have an opening. Your goals are threefold: arresting Kobra, stopping the production of Kobra-Venom and finding out how he got access to the Blockbuster formula."
With another click, Batman made a picture of another man appear. He was a thin man wearing a suit and tie.
"This is Camilo Pena. Bane used to have effective control over the island but, when he organized his revolt, he caused unrest on the island and there was a purge of many of his supporters. Mister Pena used to be a small politician but, with the purge, he has grown far more important. If the Titans can disable Kobra before Kobra reestablishes control over the island, Mister Pena has a real chance of getting to power."
"An honest politician? In Santa Prisca?" Robin snorted and Batman nodded at him.
"Camilo Pena isn't exactly honest, but he's making a very risky play for power, one that would require him to open the island to the League if he wants to remain alive." Batman turned off the projector and turned to the team. "While the other goals are very important, taking out Kobra is your highest priority. We're not under any illusions that it would immediately solve the problems on the island, but allowing the League to operate freely on its territory would be a huge step forward, the first in many decades."
The Titans traded glances, eager smiles on their faces despite the situation. Looking Batman in the eye Aqualad asked. "When do we leave?"
Twenty minutes later the Titans stood in front of the Bio-ship, the portal machine safely held in the ship.
Kara adjusted Kon's costume, instead of a jeans and T-shirt it was a black version of Superman's costume, without the cape and with an armored chest plate. The costume had sunlight absorption and storage capabilities that would constantly feed him the radiation, or allow him to quickly regain his strength if he was ever depowered.
"Here, remember to keep some drones with you." Kara stuffed a few more drones into a pocket at his side and settled his hair in place. "And don't just start punching things. You have a good mind, use it."
Kon nodded with an embarrassed face, Miss Martian taking a few peeks at them from inside the ship with an amused smile.
"Don't worry, Captain Marvel and I will be monitoring the mission." Red Tornado told her, causing Kara to smile. He was surprisingly empathic for a machine. "Do you wish to accompany us?"
Kara thought about it, but eventually shook her head. "No, I still have to improve the Mountain's defenses. It's probably gonna take me the entire day. Keep an eye on them for me, will you?"
"Certainly." Red Tornado said.
"I will." Marvel commented and squeezed her shoulder for comfort. "Well, until someone comes to replace me."
Kara watched as the Bio-Ship left the mountain, then excused herself and went towards the Titan's souvenir room which already held a certain robotic head. Acting quickly she attached several cables to the head and put her computer to work trying to find anything about Dr. Morrow's location.
Finally, Kara started bringing the rest of her equipment from the Fortress. Despite how wide the Zeta-Tube was, Kara still had to use it five times before she had everything she needed.
"Well… Let's get to it."
The League had demanded that the Mountain's defenses have layers, where the outer layers would only trick or dissuade invaders away and the subsequent layers increasing in power slowly.
It reminded Kara of playing Dungeon Keeper, only with non-lethal traps and defenses.
She worked for hours, installing hundreds of devices all over the Mountain. Making sure no one would crawl through the air ducts or drill through the walls. She was only allowed to go all out at the last layer and, when she was done, Kara was sure that even Darkseid himself would think twice before attacking the place. She even used the last amounts of Nth metal she had to block magical teleportation or use.
Kara thanked Rao for her super speed and strength. Without it, the renovation would probably have taken her an entire month. Still, she only completed it in less than a day because many of the defenses were programmed into Sunstone crystals. Kara would still have to make sure to bombard them with sunlight for a few days to make sure they finished growing, but it was much easier to carry and install than the complete equipment.
The best thing was that many of the defenses were independent from each other, and from Mount Justice's own security protocols. Even if someone managed to disable one of them, it wouldn't affect the others.
Approaching the Souvenir room again, Kara checked her device and cursed when she saw it hadn't been able to find anything in Mr. Twister's head. Grabbing the deformed robot head, she carefully put it back in place within the case and put away her equipment.
Going into the kitchen Kara brewed some extra strong coffee and drank two cups before filling a third and finding Red Tornado still monitoring the Titans. Captain Marvel's shift was over and it was Hal Jordan that sat with him.
"Coffee?" She offered and handed Hal a cup when he eagerly nodded. "How are they doing?"
"Very well, the Titans have successfully contacted Mr. Pena without drawing attention from his enemies." The robot answered while only briefly glancing her way. "They're preparing to infiltrate the Venom factory now. Do you want to watch?"
Kara hesitated. She really wanted to keep watch over things, but she trusted Kori and Kon to be fine. Red Tornado was also watching things closely.
"No, I can be the chair guy another time. Take care of them."
Red Tornado stared at her for another second before answering. "...it is what I'm here for." Then he turned back to the screen.
Kara took the Zeta-Tube towards the Fortress one last time. Storing her equipment, she made her way towards her private area with sure steps.
She briefly stopped in front of Firebrand's room and watched the android for a few moments then asked. "Kal still hasn't found out about this?"
"Master Kal-El continues to respect your boundaries, Mistress Kara." The Fortress AI answered as he materialized by her side. "Although… I truly don't understand the need to hide it."
"Need is too strong a word. I want to keep this quiet until I'm ready, but I don't 'need' to." Firebrand would probably reveal herself to her old teammates, and thus the League, as soon as she woke up anyways. Kara just preferred to keep things close to her chest. "Is the power-armor ready?"
"It is fully operational."
The power-armor was a masterpiece. It still had a human silhouette, but there was no way to tell the gender of the person inside and it was filled with as much equipment as Kara could manage.
Fully enclosed, the armor actively filtering any radiation while absorbing sunlight to feed directly to her. Although it was sleek, the armor still made her as big as Blockbuster when she wore it.
Putting it on, Kara tested her range of motion and dexterity and was very satisfied with the result.
Engaging her stealth tech, the military one that didn't leave any signs of its use, Kara flew towards her second important meeting.
She arrived at the nondescript building and sneaked inside without anyone noticing. Sitting on top of a box, Kara waited until everyone had arrived and was very satisfied when none of them seemed to notice her presence.
"Apologies for the delay." She said while disengaging her stealth and watching Green Arrow jump to his feet.
"Holy sh…eep" The blonde trailed off as he glanced at the boy by his side, then he glanced from his bow to the giant gun at her back and sighed. "Damn, now I feel underdressed."
The Shade just tipped his hat to her and Bobo nodded while both Speedy and Red Arrow crossed their arms at the same time, then noticed it and became awkward about the entire thing.
Kara glanced at Speedy's robotic arm and shook her head. "You sure you don't want a new arm? It isn't all that hard to make."
The boy looked at his gray hand and squeezed his fingers into a fist. "Not until they're arrested, I don't want to forget it."
Kara briefly glanced at her own prosthetic leg, she couldn't wait to replace it and move past what the Psions had done but… well, she wouldn't blame him. "Very well, let's start then."
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"Kori, no." Kara said, but there was no strength in her denial.
"Awww, but Friend Kara, you said I could!" The Tamaranean ignored her words and continued approaching.
"No, bad Kori, and wait… where do you think you're touching!"
"But how are we going to proceed if you are still wearing clothes?"
"Kori, down! Down! I can do it by myself, you know." Kara took a step away and managed to avoid Kori's hands. "Besides, I just wanted your opinion on the three costumes I already had. Not for you to bring new ones."
"But, mayhap you will like it? It is certainly better than your uninspired black armor, yes?" Kori protested as her feet slowly lowered back to the floor, a pout on her face. "Friend Troia even helped me choose some that are inspired by your cousin's. It is perfect to maximize exposure to sunlight!"
Kara glanced at the blue outfit with a red skirt, one with far too little cloth, far too much leather and suspiciously placed zippers. "And where exactly did she say that comes from?"
"Friend Troia said it was from a movie, 'SupermanXxX: Return To The Dungeon.' She even bought the movie so we may watch it together!"
"Nope!" Kara shuddered from horror and seriously considered incinerating the thing with a blast of heat vision. "For the record, please, don't show me anything that associates my cousin's name with three 'X's, ever."
"Please, you do not wish to watch the movie with me?" Kori flinched with a hurt look on her face.
"Ugh, I'm gonna kill that bitch." Kara grumbled and sighed, she really didn't want to explain the birds and the bees to her friend. Especially because she wasn't sure Kori would share her dislike of depicting Kal in any sexual way. "Fine, I guess I can try some of the other costumes."
"Wonderful! Start with this one."
Kara glanced from the costume on Kori's hands to the huge smile on her face and sighed. From his place atop the sofa, Kara swore she saw Dexter taking mental notes about how to manipulate her.
The first costume Kori had brought was a simple copy of her own, with the typical Amazon look and leaving plenty of skin exposed. At least the chest armor seemed resistant enough to block a few blows and protect her organs.
Still, Kara felt like she was cosplaying while wearing it.
Using her super speed, Kara darted back inside her bedroom and changed into whatever the second outfit was without even paying attention. Once changed, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and froze. She recognized the costume.
With her face flushed, Kara stepped out into the living room wearing Power Girl's costume. The white swimsuit left both of her legs fully exposed and clung so tightly to her body Kara could see all of her muscles through the fabric. The boob window left her modest breasts exposed and Kara felt the need to cover it up with an arm when she caught Kori staring at her for too long. "What?"
"It. Is. Perfect!" Kori shouted, her eyes shining with green light. "Friend Kara, you have to wear this. It is perfect for you!"
On instinct Kara put a hand against Kori's face and had to strain to prevent the Tamaranean from hugging her, "It doesn't even have pockets, where would I put my drones?"
"It has a utility belt. Just like The Batman! Please, will you wear it?"
"Never!" Kara shouted and dodged aside to let Kori pass her by before dashing for the bedroom.
Unfortunately, Dexter took the chance to attack her cape and forced her to slow down in order to not send him flying. Kori pounced "Well done feline friend!"
The both of them struggled for a few minutes before Kara submitted, swearing she'd keep the costume in her wardrobe, even if she wouldn't ever use it… in public.
After finally being freed from the twin terrors Kara put the Power Girl costume away and brought out her three personal choices.
One was a lesser version of her Power Armor. Dark blue, it had the El house symbol on its chest, only increased her bulk by a little bit and had a lot of armor covering her vitals. Various compartments all over the suit held dozens of devices for her use. It could also store a lot of solar radiation if she was ever in an emergency.
Truth be told, she'd really prefer to use her full power-armor, but her public persona had to not look like a threatening walking tank and this was the next best thing.
The fourth costume was just a version of her cousin's; a blue bodysuit with a red cape and boots. It also had a few belts all over in order to hold her devices.
The fifth one was completely different. It didn't have a cape but a dark blue coat with gold detailing, the El house symbol covered her chest. It also had red boots that ended just below her knees and matching gloves.
To the side she had her mask. Made with a thin layer of Kryptonium; it was painted white, with only a few details in gold and without any human features or even a mouth.
Inside the mask was a breathing device with half an hour of air in case she lost her powers while in a vacuum or was exposed to a harmful gas and light blocking lenses on the eyes to prevent anything from blinding her.
"Friend Kara, please, did you have to cover your entire body in every costume?" Kori complained with a disappointed voice.
She didn't. Kara had actually been thinking of using a far more revealing outfit, it would help to accentuate the differences between her public persona and the one she'd be using on the secret team.
In fact, she was pretty sure Kori could have convinced her to actually wear the Power Girl costume. She couldn't deny she looked hot wearing it, but that was before Lobo's attack.
Kara hated it, but she just didn't feel comfortable taking the risk anymore. Perhaps her mind would change in a few months, after she was fully healed.
"No, but… I feel better with a full outfit. Plus I need the space to keep my devices."
"I postulate you would not consider using a skirt with the second one, yes?" Kara just gave her a look. "Very well, this last one is better."
Kara considered it. She really would prefer to wear the mini-power armor outfit, but the coat had enough space for her devices and it was far too easy to connect the first one to the full power-armor she'd use with her own team. The coat also looked cool.
"Thanks Kori, I'll just make some last minute adjustments and we can go." Kara lifted Dexter from atop one of the costumes and started gathering everything in one arm to put away. With one last scratch behind the cat's ear she remembered something. "Ugh, nevermind. I forgot I had to pick some things at the Fortress before going to the Mountain."
"I continue to regard the white outfit as superior." Kori grumbled, but then smiled at Kara and squeezed her hand. "I can not wait to introduce you to the team! You will love them."
"I'm glad you like them." Kara squeezed back and went to her bedroom to start adjusting her new costume's gloves. Introducing small quantities of Nth metal on the fabric in order to disrupt magic. "Any tips?"
"Do not call Robin a sidekick!" Kori yelled from the living room. "I tried following your guidance when we first met but, despite the honor of apprenticeship under The Batman, he does not seem to enjoy the title."
"You sure?" Kara asked when she finished snickering. "Perhaps I should try too?"
"Yes, do not call him that. I do not understand why, but he seems to consider it demeaning."
"Fine, I guess I can just call him by name then."
Kara finished adjusting the costume and wore it for the first time, the coat fit her like a glove and the material didn't restrict her movement at all. Stepping out of her bedroom, she found Kori already wearing her own heroic outfit. The pair flew together to the Zeta-Tube, but Kori went directly to Mount Justice while Kara teleported to the Fortress first.
Kara had installed a Kryptonian stealth device on the apartment which masked their presence until they were a certain distance away. Unfortunately the device was too big to carry or she'd make it a part of her costume, but at least it made coming and going from the apartment much harder to track.
Over an hour later, Kara heard the robotic voice of the Zeta-Tube network announce her arrival at the Mountain. The huge kart filled with equipment she was pushing in front of her was far from everything she had prepared, but it was enough for her to start working.
"Supergirl, you came!" Captain Marvel shouted and flew towards her, only stopping when they had nearly collided.
Kara smiled under her mask and nodded towards the boy before looking at the entire room. The sidekicks were sparring with each other under Red Tornado's gaze
"Supergirl, Captain Marvel has told me a lot about you." Red Tornado stated evenly as he started walking towards her.
Kon had been sparring with Miss Martian. The girl was using her shape-shifting abilities to actually overwhelm him despite his superior strength. Kara smiled and waved at him causing his face to open into a huge smile.
Taking a pause, Miss Martian turned around to see what had caused the boy to smile. Her eyes went wide as she stared at Kara. She smiled but retreated closer to Kon.
"Titans, reunite with me please." Red Tornado called out with his mechanical voice, causing everyone to finally stop sparring.
"So, they already chose a name?" Kara asked in curiosity, from what she remembered of the show they had been simply 'The Team' or 'Outsiders'
"Indeed, the group felt that, if they were to work together, they preferred to have their own identity." Red Tornado commented idly. "They voted on the name 'Titans' soon after."
Kid Flash was the first to arrive, his speed nearly a match for Kara's; he stopped beside Marvel and leaned over him with an elbow. "You called? Whoa, hello there beautiful!"
Marvel frowned down at the boy but, when Kara didn't react, he didn't say anything.
"Sooo, who're you supposed to be, a new recruit?" he asked and showed off his speed by darting away from Marvel and towards Red Tornado. "You got here just as we were about to spar, so maybe I can show you some moves?"
"Hmmm, somehow you're less annoying than I thought you'd be." Kara told him with a smile. She had always thought Wally would be unbearable, but the combination of his young age and clear inexperience made it more amusing than anything else. "But no, I'm not joining the Titans; I guess you can consider me tech support."
"Huh, is that all gear for us? Sweet!" The boy tried to run towards her kart to take a peek, but Kara decided she had enough and slapped his hand away even while he was moving. "Ouch!"
"Try to keep your hands to yourself, will you."
"You must be Kara, Koriand'r spoke well of you." Aqualad put a hand forward to compliment her. "I'm Aqualad, current leader of the Titans."
"Pleased to meet you, but please, call me Supergirl while in costume." Kara shook his hand with a smile. "I kinda want to keep things separated while in costume."
"Friend Supergirl!" Kori shouted and glomped her, causing Kara to take a step back to keep her footing.
Soon, all members of the Titans were gathered. They seemed more in tune than in the cartoons, with Aqualad having been voted as their leader and Starfire as vice leader.
In truth, Kori had more experience and better training than Kaldur, but her lack of familiarity with Earth and the rest of the team meant they preferred the Atlantean over her. Still, from what Kara had heard, the boy had a good head on his shoulders and actually listened to her opinion often.
"Titans, after hearing about Mr. Twister's attack three days ago, Supergirl has offered to help update the Mountain's defenses." Red Tornado told them with the same impassive voice. "She has also offered to act as tech support for the team, I am certain her help will prove invaluable."
"She's some kind of tech genius then?" Robin asked while lifting an eyebrow.
"She's my cousin." Kon replied and actually approached her for a hug.
"One thing doesn't exclude the other, you know. I may be a Kryptonian, but I'm a much better inventor than a fighter. The El's were a prominent house of the Science guild, not the Military caste after all." Kara was so proud of him, not that long ago he wouldn't have even known how to ask for a hug; he'd also get angry at not knowing. She hugged him back. "I don't see Zatara's daughter here, is he still holding her back?"
"Yeah, Master Zatara really doesn't want to let her come." This time it was Marvel that answered while scratching at his neck. "But Miss Zatana is gonna break him soon."
Kara snorted at that, and then took stock of the Titans. Aqualad and Starfire stood together, leader and vice-leader of the Titans. Kid Flash was still rubbing his stung hand with Robin by his side.
The Boy Wonder seemed annoyed, but Kara didn't think it was about losing the leadership position. No, from the way he was glaring at her, he'd probably figured out who she was.
Kori probably talked about her a lot and Kaldur had used her real name when shaking her hand, so she wasn't exactly surprised. Plus, Kara wasn't making an effort to mask her voice. Robin probably recognized her from Batman's fundraiser and was feeling irritated.
How amusing.
After releasing her from their hug, Kon had stepped back to Miss Martian who was still acting shy, hiding behind his body and only giving Kara quick glances.
"Connor." the Martian whispered in his ear as quietly as she could. "Yo-Your cousin, is she a robot?"
Kon gave his friend a strange look and shook his head. With a startle, Kara finally realized the problem and laughed out loud.
"Ah, sorry about that. I have a telepathic blocker in the mask. " She quickly tapped her mask twice and deactivated the blocker. "It's still in testing and I doubt it's enough against a Martian, but it should keep any stray psychic from noticing me if they aren't already looking for it. Better now?"
"Yes, thank you!" Miss Martian finally relaxed and smiled at her. "I could feel something when I focused on you, but it was very unnerving and I didn't want to push."
"Don't worry Megalicious; I'm always here to protect you." Kid Flash appeared at her side and tried to hold her hand, but only made her more uncomfortable.
Aqualad released a sigh when he saw it, Kara swore he was praying really hard he wouldn't have to deal with the situation while Robin actually facepalmed at his friend's actions.
"Kid Flash! That is enough." Kori intervened with a hard tone on her voice, her hands at her waist and a disapproving look on her face.
"Right, sorry." He sheepishly said and stepped back.
Kara smiled. She would have disciplined the boy herself but, unfortunately, she didn't really know him very well. She'd probably have to talk to the Flash about that. It was amusing when he was doing it to her, but Miss Martian was clearly bothered.
"Right… anyway, I spoke with the League and they let me make some improvements to the costumes you guys use." Kara said with a smile. Grabbing the cover of her cart she pulled it away dramatically to reveal the equipment inside. "So, what do you guys think?"
Kara stepped away from the kart and let the team of teenagers charge in. With the approval of the League, she had worked hard to replicate their costumes and increment them with her tech. The adults had still refused to allow weapons on the costumes, but Kara had prioritized safety anyway.
Kid Flash was the first to pull out a copy of his costume. While it looked almost exactly like his original costume, all of her gear was made from Kryptonian fabric stronger than spider silk and had shock absorbers on the torso.
The most distinct feature however, was a bulge at the back that resembled a small backpack. Kid flash immediately noticed it and started poking the thing. "So, what exactly is this?"
"Well, the costumes were all made at the Fortress. They're strong enough to block gunshots and knife wounds and have plates on the torso capable of absorbing most mundane kinetic impacts. Even high caliber rounds should only leave bruises." Kara told them while giving Kon his own costume and messing his hair at the same time. "The costume can also monitor your life signs and the bulge at the back is an emergency teleporter. It's a copy of something I use myself and I just couldn't make it smaller."
"Cool!" Kid Flash said.
Robin didn't seem convinced, looking at his own costume with distaste. "So, this is gonna let us teleport around then?"
"Not exactly, it's a one-time thing, really." Kara explained while lifting Miss Martian's device. She hadn't been able to replicate Martian clothes so, the best she could do was to create the device and hope Miss Martian's costume could assimilate or grow over it. "You can activate it manually or it will trigger when it detects you're unconscious or mortally wounded. The device will only bring you back to the mountain once before I have to replace it. So, do make sure to tell me if that happens."
"Yeah… I'll have to talk to Batman before using this." Robin said.
"Go ahead. Try to convince the Bat to wear one himself will you?" Kara said while handing the teleporting device to M'gann. "Here, see if your costume can hold this in place at your back."
"Ah, thank you." The Martian said with a blush and tried to place the device at her back, when that didn't work she grew a third hand from her back to help out.
"I have to ask, can this device bring more than one person?" Aqualad questioned while looking at his costume. "While I appreciate the chance to escape a dangerous situation, I don't think the Titans could use it if it meant abandoning someone."
"Unfortunately, making it able to teleport a second person or work repeatedly would more than triple its size." Kara explained while picking up the rest of her devices. "Still, I created a dozen spare devices the Titans can carry on the bio-ship in case they're needed."
"I see, thank you. That should greatly increase our ability to act." He nodded her way.
Kara looked towards the kart. There were still four large metal boxes inside. Picking up the one with the spare teleporting devices she laid it to the side and laid the other three in front of the Titans before opening them.
The first box had hundreds of her little civilian drones. With access to military tech the little flying cameras had become obsolete to her, but they were still very useful for the team and Kara had a large supply of them.
The second box had a new holographic device Kara had produced, it wasn't anything special, but it was about the same size as her drones and, once it was laid on the ground, it could selectively make anything in a ten meter radius around itself invisible, or project an image that wasn't there.
The final box had a far more complicated device, and one that used materials so rare even Kara had a very limited supply. Even with Kryptonian tech it was incredibly hard and expensive to create a stable portal big enough for a person to pass through, but Kara didn't need a huge portal.
Instead, the device would stealthily create a very small connection between two points in space. Even a finger wouldn't pass through, but it was perfect to send communication signals.
It meant that, even if someone had the tech to block communications in an area, unless they also blocked this particular form of teleportation, the Titans wouldn't lose contact with the base.
The Titans quickly distributed the equipment between themselves, with only a couple going to Captain Marvel after he had made a face at them. Kid Flash kept pressing the sign on his chest and changing his costume between the usual yellow, black and several versions of camouflage for any environment he found himself in.
Even Robin couldn't resist playing with the drones, using his own devices to control them, even when he wouldn't put on his new costume.
"Zero two, Batman." Announced the robotic female voice from the Zeta-tube, causing Robin to jump up and hide the drones behind his back.
Batman only gave a quick glance towards the boy and nodded. "You can put on the costume."
When the entire team was gathered in front of him, Batman activated a holographic display showing a picture of an island.
"This is Isla Santa Prisca, it is a sovereign island nation on the Caribbean Sea that the League doesn't have access to. It's also the primary producer of Venom." The Bat said without preamble.
"You're sending us against Bane?" Robin asked with surprise and not a small amount of eagerness in his voice.
"No, as far as we were able to find out, the island was taken over by the Cult of the Kobra last month." A picture of both Kobra and Bane appeared on display, with a red 'X' over Bane's face. "Bane attempted to take the place back and was reported dead a few days ago."
"Is he? Dead, I mean." Robin asked again while leaning closer.
"Unknown. His body wasn't found, but his forces were devastated and the Island is completely under Kobra's control." Batman pressed a button and another four pictures appeared.
Kara recognized one of them as Blockbuster, but the other three were unknown, only showing the same signs of Blockbuster use as the original.
"It appears that Kobra got control of the Blockbuster formula and is mixing it with Venom to create new super soldiers. Besides Blockbuster himself, the League has faced three other users of the substance in the last month alone. After considering Supergirl's new supplies, the League has decided to make this the Titans first mission."
"What is our mission?" Aqualad finally asked.
"The League cannot be seen interfering with a foreign nation, but with Bane gone we have an opening. Your goals are threefold: arresting Kobra, stopping the production of Kobra-Venom and finding out how he got access to the Blockbuster formula."
With another click, Batman made a picture of another man appear. He was a thin man wearing a suit and tie.
"This is Camilo Pena. Bane used to have effective control over the island but, when he organized his revolt, he caused unrest on the island and there was a purge of many of his supporters. Mister Pena used to be a small politician but, with the purge, he has grown far more important. If the Titans can disable Kobra before Kobra reestablishes control over the island, Mister Pena has a real chance of getting to power."
"An honest politician? In Santa Prisca?" Robin snorted and Batman nodded at him.
"Camilo Pena isn't exactly honest, but he's making a very risky play for power, one that would require him to open the island to the League if he wants to remain alive." Batman turned off the projector and turned to the team. "While the other goals are very important, taking out Kobra is your highest priority. We're not under any illusions that it would immediately solve the problems on the island, but allowing the League to operate freely on its territory would be a huge step forward, the first in many decades."
The Titans traded glances, eager smiles on their faces despite the situation. Looking Batman in the eye Aqualad asked. "When do we leave?"
Twenty minutes later the Titans stood in front of the Bio-ship, the portal machine safely held in the ship.
Kara adjusted Kon's costume, instead of a jeans and T-shirt it was a black version of Superman's costume, without the cape and with an armored chest plate. The costume had sunlight absorption and storage capabilities that would constantly feed him the radiation, or allow him to quickly regain his strength if he was ever depowered.
"Here, remember to keep some drones with you." Kara stuffed a few more drones into a pocket at his side and settled his hair in place. "And don't just start punching things. You have a good mind, use it."
Kon nodded with an embarrassed face, Miss Martian taking a few peeks at them from inside the ship with an amused smile.
"Don't worry, Captain Marvel and I will be monitoring the mission." Red Tornado told her, causing Kara to smile. He was surprisingly empathic for a machine. "Do you wish to accompany us?"
Kara thought about it, but eventually shook her head. "No, I still have to improve the Mountain's defenses. It's probably gonna take me the entire day. Keep an eye on them for me, will you?"
"Certainly." Red Tornado said.
"I will." Marvel commented and squeezed her shoulder for comfort. "Well, until someone comes to replace me."
Kara watched as the Bio-Ship left the mountain, then excused herself and went towards the Titan's souvenir room which already held a certain robotic head. Acting quickly she attached several cables to the head and put her computer to work trying to find anything about Dr. Morrow's location.
Finally, Kara started bringing the rest of her equipment from the Fortress. Despite how wide the Zeta-Tube was, Kara still had to use it five times before she had everything she needed.
"Well… Let's get to it."
The League had demanded that the Mountain's defenses have layers, where the outer layers would only trick or dissuade invaders away and the subsequent layers increasing in power slowly.
It reminded Kara of playing Dungeon Keeper, only with non-lethal traps and defenses.
She worked for hours, installing hundreds of devices all over the Mountain. Making sure no one would crawl through the air ducts or drill through the walls. She was only allowed to go all out at the last layer and, when she was done, Kara was sure that even Darkseid himself would think twice before attacking the place. She even used the last amounts of Nth metal she had to block magical teleportation or use.
Kara thanked Rao for her super speed and strength. Without it, the renovation would probably have taken her an entire month. Still, she only completed it in less than a day because many of the defenses were programmed into Sunstone crystals. Kara would still have to make sure to bombard them with sunlight for a few days to make sure they finished growing, but it was much easier to carry and install than the complete equipment.
The best thing was that many of the defenses were independent from each other, and from Mount Justice's own security protocols. Even if someone managed to disable one of them, it wouldn't affect the others.
Approaching the Souvenir room again, Kara checked her device and cursed when she saw it hadn't been able to find anything in Mr. Twister's head. Grabbing the deformed robot head, she carefully put it back in place within the case and put away her equipment.
Going into the kitchen Kara brewed some extra strong coffee and drank two cups before filling a third and finding Red Tornado still monitoring the Titans. Captain Marvel's shift was over and it was Hal Jordan that sat with him.
"Coffee?" She offered and handed Hal a cup when he eagerly nodded. "How are they doing?"
"Very well, the Titans have successfully contacted Mr. Pena without drawing attention from his enemies." The robot answered while only briefly glancing her way. "They're preparing to infiltrate the Venom factory now. Do you want to watch?"
Kara hesitated. She really wanted to keep watch over things, but she trusted Kori and Kon to be fine. Red Tornado was also watching things closely.
"No, I can be the chair guy another time. Take care of them."
Red Tornado stared at her for another second before answering. "...it is what I'm here for." Then he turned back to the screen.
Kara took the Zeta-Tube towards the Fortress one last time. Storing her equipment, she made her way towards her private area with sure steps.
She briefly stopped in front of Firebrand's room and watched the android for a few moments then asked. "Kal still hasn't found out about this?"
"Master Kal-El continues to respect your boundaries, Mistress Kara." The Fortress AI answered as he materialized by her side. "Although… I truly don't understand the need to hide it."
"Need is too strong a word. I want to keep this quiet until I'm ready, but I don't 'need' to." Firebrand would probably reveal herself to her old teammates, and thus the League, as soon as she woke up anyways. Kara just preferred to keep things close to her chest. "Is the power-armor ready?"
"It is fully operational."
The power-armor was a masterpiece. It still had a human silhouette, but there was no way to tell the gender of the person inside and it was filled with as much equipment as Kara could manage.
Fully enclosed, the armor actively filtering any radiation while absorbing sunlight to feed directly to her. Although it was sleek, the armor still made her as big as Blockbuster when she wore it.
Putting it on, Kara tested her range of motion and dexterity and was very satisfied with the result.
Engaging her stealth tech, the military one that didn't leave any signs of its use, Kara flew towards her second important meeting.
She arrived at the nondescript building and sneaked inside without anyone noticing. Sitting on top of a box, Kara waited until everyone had arrived and was very satisfied when none of them seemed to notice her presence.
"Apologies for the delay." She said while disengaging her stealth and watching Green Arrow jump to his feet.
"Holy sh…eep" The blonde trailed off as he glanced at the boy by his side, then he glanced from his bow to the giant gun at her back and sighed. "Damn, now I feel underdressed."
The Shade just tipped his hat to her and Bobo nodded while both Speedy and Red Arrow crossed their arms at the same time, then noticed it and became awkward about the entire thing.
Kara glanced at Speedy's robotic arm and shook her head. "You sure you don't want a new arm? It isn't all that hard to make."
The boy looked at his gray hand and squeezed his fingers into a fist. "Not until they're arrested, I don't want to forget it."
Kara briefly glanced at her own prosthetic leg, she couldn't wait to replace it and move past what the Psions had done but… well, she wouldn't blame him. "Very well, let's start then."
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If you like my work, take a look at my other novels or my patreon and Ko-Fi. You can support me for a single dollar.
Thanks for my patrons : Xhaustedhero, Iori Daemona Angel, AlliterativeArts (Eric Faust), Lynx of Chaos, Comics, Davvy chappie, Ian Michael, WanderingDaemon, GrumpyJustGrumpy, Travis cox, Rootbeerguy, High Priest of Torga, James Williams, Michael Neal, Felrook, Kenzie, NotableRonin, Josh Orton, stanley seymour and AjiTae for supporting my work!
- Location
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- Pronouns
- She/Her
I can't help but think that silently in the background, Batman is going "finally, someone else who gets it."
Chapter 24
Yo, a new chapter here. I hope you guys enjoy it!
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Kara looked at all the members of her little team and smiled.
She briefly noted her armor made it so she towered over everyone present. While this meant she had to crane her neck a bit, it also made her feel safe. In truth, she wasn't complaining.
The Green Arrow group still wore their basic costumes, with Red Arrow and Speedy wearing almost the same outfit and, by the way they were avoiding even looking at each other, not feeling very comfortable about it.
The Shade wore a black trench coat over antiquated formal clothes, with a large top hat on his head. He carried around a dark cane, with a raven head for a handle, and had smoked glass spectacles in his face. His back was perfectly straight and he seemed to be enjoying the heroes' unease at his very presence.
Bobo was wearing his old Sherlock Holmes costume, complete with his plaid coat and detective cap. He sat on top of an empty crate and smoked from a pipe, but still made sure he wasn't puffing up smoke towards Speedy.
"Very well, let's start then." She said, the armor's speaker masking her voice and making it impossible to know her gender. Detaching a large backpack from her armor, she threw it towards the archers. "If you guys are gonna tag along, we can't have anyone recognizing you, it's best if our enemies remain ignorant of the League's involvement. Also, we're probably gonna be infringing on the League's UN charter. Someday."
Kara had prepared all three costumes. They were all a variation of dark tactical gear with metal plates for protection and sleek black helmets. Green Arrow and Red Arrow costumes had small compound bows and a simple sword, while Speedy's had a rifle and two laser pistols.
Green Arrow pulled out his costume and lowered his head in shame. "Great, we're playing disposable minions now."
"You're not disposable minions, you're super soldiers." Kara said in an annoyed voice. "Green Arrow, I designed the outfits myself, they probably provide more protection than anything you ever wore, and have better mobility."
"Nope, that's not how it works." Green Arrow shook his head sadly. "One guy wearing this armor is a badass super soldier. Three guys wearing the same armor are just faceless minions. That's just how it works. I can already feel my accuracy dropping just by looking at them."
Kara decided to ignore the man from now on. Turning to Bobo, she asked. "Have you truly located Prof. Morrow?" The chimp had informed her he had a major breakthrough in his case, but gave no details on the phone.
"Possibly. What I definitely have is the location of his newest workshop." The chimpanzee said while puffing out another cloud of smoke. "Usually, finding a new super scientist is just a question of following the money, or the materials. They use money to gather equipment, materials, minions and all that. Tomas Oscar Morrow was an old hand at this, and a good enough polymath to overcome some of the more obvious needs but, even he couldn't produce some of his higher end devices completely by himself."
"He revealed himself then?"
"Maybe, if you don't interrupt me, you'll find out." Bobo grumbled, causing Green Arrow to snort in amusement. Kara just shook her head and motioned for him to continue. "As I said, Prof. Morrow can produce most of his tech alone, but some of his equipment requires rare materials, equipment like the devices he uses to give his robots their elemental control."
"Now, when our boys in the capes defeated him for the last time, back when they were still the JSA, they cracked down on his operations like mad. Raided half a dozen of his bases and confiscated all of his gear." Bobo continued his lesson, but got up from his position and stretched his back. "I managed to get my hands on the manifests listing the said confiscated materials, particularly the more exotic ones and, only a few weeks ago, there was a break in at one of STAR labs subsidiaries, one that stored quite a bit of an element that matched those on the list."
Finished stretching, Bobo pushed the crate he had been sitting on to the front of the group and opened a blueprint on top of it.
"After that, it was a simple case of solving the theft, easy." Lifting his cap, he scratched at his fur. "Everything points to this building. It's been empty for the last two decades but, somehow, it's been kept in stellar condition. I also found some complaints of strange noises and tremors made by its neighbors back when Morrow was active, I'd bet anything there's some kind of underground facility there too. There's always one of those."
Both Kara and Green Arrow studied the blueprint with attention. It was a large, four storey building with many smaller rooms.
"Say, who exactly is this Prof. Morrow? I mean, the League never had to deal with him, and Red Tornado is an okay guy."
"My old companion was an arrogant man." The Shade opened his mouth for the first time. "Arrogant, narcissistic, perfectionist and obsessed, he took particular pride in his programming skills. His androids tended to be a little too human, but he refused to lower their intelligence or make them any less sophisticated, no matter how many times they grew a conscience and betrayed him. I doubt he has changed too much."
"Shade, can you take us there?" Kara asked.
"But of course, do you prefer to land inside the building or close by?" He asked as he pushed away from the wall.
Kara looked around, everyone seemed ready to move. "The latter, I'd like to have a chance to gather more information before attacking."
"Wait." Green Arrow shouted. "What do I call myself? Also, what do you call yourself?"
"You can call me Forge while in this armor." Kara said, she really hadn't thought a lot about her superhero name in this costume. Hopefully, nobody would ever need to use it. "As for you, I think you're right, you're Minion C from now on."
"Hey!"
"I guess that makes me 'B' then?" Red Arrow asked. "I can live with that."
"I was gonna use Arsenal, but I guess I can save that for when I'm acting openly." Speedy nodded.
"Do prepare yourselves." The Shade said with a smile. "This will only take a moment."
In a second, every shadow in the room converged on them, stretching unnaturally, their tips curving as if becoming thin arms that grasped towards their bodies. Kara had to stop herself from moving as the darkness enveloped her, a weight settled over her shoulders and she completely lost her vision.
It felt suffocating, as if the weight of the world was pressing down on her. The darkness stretched endlessly and, for a second, she lost any sense of direction, then the shadows were gone and they were all left standing on top of a building.
Red Arrow stumbled, almost falling to his knees, Bobo shook himself and even Kara would have swayed in place had she not locked her armor's joints before the trip. The Shade stood in front of them looking amused. His own shadow still far larger than it should be.
"Was that entirely necessary?" Bobo asked when he finally recovered.
"It seems not everyone can face the weight of the Shadowlands with the same ubiquitous aplomb as me. My apologies." The Shade lifted his cane and laid it against his shoulder. With his free hand he pointed towards a building two blocks from where they had appeared. "I'll attempt to tone down its presence next time. That's our target."
"Thanks." Kara told him when she fully recovered. With a motion of her arm, a compartment at her back opened up and released thousands of little devices. Two millimeters in size, they spread in the air and soon disappeared from view.
Every single one of the devices could transmit sound and sight towards her receptor, but they could also connect to each other, creating different equipment on the field.
Kara laid down a holographic projector and all six of them watched, in real time, as her devices mapped the entire building, managed to infiltrate the underground facility and continued to map everything inside it.
The little things mapped four underground floors before something on the fifth finally managed to block their signal.
Finding a connecting port, Kara ordered a dozen of her drones to reconfigure themselves. They fused together into a hacking tool and attempted to enter Prof. Morrow's systems.
Eventually, Kara shook her head. "Such bullshit."
"What, having trouble?" Green Arrow, now minion C, asked.
"Earth tech should NOT be able to do shit like this." She complained. In front of them stood the nearly complete map of Morrow's hideout, as well as recorded images of Morrow and his associates. "Something on the fifth floor is completely blocking my signal. The entire floor is also fully isolated from the rest of Morrow's systems. I just can't fully subvert his programming. I can disable it, and even take over some of his equipment, but not only is he gonna know we're coming as soon as I do that, the fifth floor's defenses will also stay active."
"Can't the Shade just teleport us down?" Arsenal asked.
"Certainly, it would be simple. However, without an image of the fifth floor, I fear the trip would be much longer, and far less pleasant to you."
"Yeah, I think I speak for all of us, I'll pass." Green Arrow said and shuddered.
"Minions." Kara called Green Arrow and his protégées. "Your arrows and bullets are all filled with small EMP's, they should be able to disable any of Prof. Morrow's creations in an area around themselves, but he could have added shielding, so try to pierce their armor anyway." She pointed at his subordinates one by one. "This is Brom Stikk, Prof. Morrow's human assistant. He's not really a fighter, but he could be wearing a second Mr. Twister suit. This is Red…"
Kara laid out all she knew about Morrow's resources and abilities, including the possibility of a new geokinetic android. It didn't take her more than five minutes. Then they attacked.
With a command, Kara disabled all surveillance on the first four floors and The Shade teleported them all down, dropping the entire team in front of the fifth floor entrance. This time he made an effort to keep the terrifying effects of the Shadowlands back.
As a Kryptonian, and someone wearing literal tons of armor, Kara breached the new floor first. The laboratory was surprisingly spacious, with clean wide corridors and white floors. There were no exposed cables or robots in sight.
Kara tried commanding her drones forward, but they dropped to the floor as soon as it happened. Her armor immediately informed her there was some kind of signal blocker being used in the hallway and the devices were too small and vulnerable to overcome it.
Stepping back, she ordered a few of her devices to latch on to her back and physically connect to her while reconfiguring themselves into a transmitter. It wouldn't be enough to cover the entire base, but could still allow her to use the drones at least a dozen meters around herself.
When she stepped back into the room there were two enormous turrets sprouting from the walls. They immediately pelted her with bullets. She let them bounce off her armor and lifted her own weapons. Shooting both turrets with lasers and causing them to explode.
"Who is this?" Came Prof. Morrow's annoyed voice from speakers all around the base. "Ah, no matter, I was expecting dear Ivo to send someone after me as soon as he stole my Red Inferno. My Morrowbots will make short work of you."
"Morrowbots? Really?" Kara couldn't help but ask, getting a pat on the back from Green Arrow.
"Ah, villains and their ridiculous minion names. Don't worry, you get used to it."
Detective Chimp peeked down to the fifth floor and looked at the turrets, "Alright. I have to confess that chimps have a weakness, we're deadly averse to getting shot up, and I am a detective, not a fighter. I guess I'll stay up here and, you know, investigate or whatever…"
"Fine, the disabled systems won't be coming back on anytime soon. Try to see if you can find a connection to other villains." Kara said. "I'm pretty sure it's an unwritten rule that mad scientists spy on each other."
The sound of metallic footsteps came from around a corner, making Kara lift her gun back again. The androids that came over were still humanoid, but they were faceless and completely white, they lifted their guns in unison and Kara was about to destroy them when an arrow flew and pierced the one in the middle before releasing an EMP.
With a discharge of electricity, each of the robots crumbled to the floor, the EMP having obviously fried their circuitry. "Hmmm, these babies pack quite a punch, don't they?"
"Yep." Kara nodded. The end of the hallway opened into three different directions.
Kara tried to activate her X-Ray vision to find the best path, but the Professor's paranoia had preemptively managed to stop that, the walls were filled with at least a small layer of lead.
"Spread out?" Red Arrow asked.
"Spread out." Kara and Green Arrow agreed at the same time.
Choosing the left path, Kara started walking. Waves of robots came towards her, some held traditional guns, others had laser weapons and a few had the weapons embedded into their limbs. Kara barely paid them any attention.
A hail of bullets pinged off her armor as she walked towards the center of the base. Kara had started to feel kind of silly holding her gun in front of her, so she put it back into place.
Instead, she had ordered her modular drones to form into a turret on her armor and start shooting lasers at the robots automatically from its place at her shoulder.
Grabbing one of the androids, she lifted it up to her face and couldn't help but admire the craftsmanship that had gone into it. The thing was clearly mass produced, but Morrow still showed considerable skill and attention to detail on the things.
Suddenly, thick metal doors cut off her advance, falling to the floor with such weight the entire base trembled. A quick glance behind her back confirmed what Kara already knew. A second door had fallen shut behind her and locked her in the hallway.
A green gas started filling the small space even as the ceiling started to lower in order to crush her. All that was missing was the floor opening up into a pit of spikes. Sealed safely inside her armor, Kara couldn't care less.
Lifting an arm, she stopped the ceiling from falling. Pushing the ceiling back, she walked right towards the door, her turret already reconfiguring itself, it quickly shot a stream of plasma like a blowtorch and, in less than a minute, melted a hole through the meter thick door.
Picking up her pace, Kara massacred the robots as soon as they appeared. She knew her companions must have been doing the same thing because, soon, Morrow spoke again.
"You're destroying all my robots, you pest! Granted, they're not masterworks and it pained me to make them in such a hurry but, please, have some respect for my genius!"
Finally, Kara broke through one last door and into a wide open room. A white copy of Mr. Twister stood at the other end of the room. "So, you've arrived. I confess I'll…"
Instead of waiting for the villain to monologue, Kara just commanded her shoulder gun to shoot him. The laser hit its armor harmlessly. In one fluid motion, she grabbed for her larger weapon and lifted it up towards the robot. The thing seemed to recognize the threat of the gun and dodged aside while directing a wave of wind towards her.
She tanked the blast and continued to shoot, but the robot was enveloped in a cyclone and controlling the wind to move its body around at unexpected angles. Finally, she managed to clip his arm and send it flying aside, but it only dented the armor. "What the hell?"
"Well, I doubt a brute like you can appreciate this, but what do you think of the new body I was building for my dear Red Tornado?" Morrow said, his voice coming from the robot. "While Red Tornado's wind and programming are far superior, his casing is a little obsolete by today's standards, I thought he deserved an upgrade."
Kara felt her feet sliding a few centimeters through the ground towards the robot as it drained all the air from the room, she didn't know it could do that, and it could be dangerous if one of the archers had been here, but she wasn't affected.
Another four shots hit the robot on the head, deforming its armor even further, but not causing much damage. Morrow protested. "How rude!"
"Fine, I guess we're doing this the hard way." Kara had wanted to keep as much of her capabilities as she could a secret, she didn't know if Morrow was under the Light's employ, or if there was anyone monitoring him, but this was starting to get annoying.
Advancing on the robot, Kara tried to dodge another cyclone of wind, but the attack spread and caught her in its effect anyway, driving her back a few centimeters. Her sabatons dug into the floor causing it to crack as she tried to rush him, but the wind had started to pick up speed the longer it went on.
Finally, she jumped aside and shot him in the arm to stop him from following her movements. The hurricane of wind slipped past her to smash against the opposite wall, drilling a hole through it and several adjacent rooms before stopping.
She quickly advanced on Mr. Twister and, when he targeted her again, didn't let his winds gather power. Instead, she grabbed her large gun with both hands and swung it down on the cyclone with devastating strength. The blow dispersed the cyclone and forced Mr. Twister to start over again. Fortunately, he didn't have the time.
Dropping the weapon, Kara grabbed at the turret on her shoulder and reconfigured it into the plasma blowtorch; it detached from her armor while she rushed the final distance towards the robot. The thing tried to shoot her with more wind blades, but it wasn't strong enough to push her back, and its cyclones couldn't build up speed in such little time.
The android tried to retreat, but she grabbed it and, while the metal managed to resist the amount of strength she was willing to reveal, it couldn't get free. Kara pinned it to the ground and applied her blowtorch to its chest, after less than a minute, she had managed to expose its insides.
Her drones flooded inside the android, attaching to its cables and circuits until Kara could disable it. She did carry around stronger weapons, ones capable of overcoming even this android's armor but, again, she didn't want to reveal them if she didn't have to.
And she could make use of anything she didn't damage too badly. She was looking forward to having an army of robot minions.
"Well, that was unexpected." Morrow's voice came from some speakers in the room. "Still, it's a good thing I took precautions. I'll see you pests next time, if you survive, ta-ta!"
"Self destruction sequence starting in, 10…9…8…7…"
Rao be damned, he was gonna collapse the entire secret base. "No! My spare materials and androids!"
For the first time, Kara ran, driving her shoulder through the door and blowing right through it, she completely ignored the few surviving robots.
Bursting through the command center, she found Brom Stikk with his arms in the air, The Shade held the head of T. O. Morrow's android replica in one hand, while his other was pointed at the human assistant, a drop of ink black darkness at his fingertip.
Ignoring the scene, Kara rushed towards the computers and started tipping. With direct access to the central computer, her hacking programs started working at an astonishing pace.
"4…3...2…" Her programs broke through the computer security and gave her access to the device. Kara tapped as fast as she could. "Self destruction sequence interrupted!"
"Was it really that dangerous?" The Shade dropped the head of Morrow's replica on top of a table and asked in a conversational tone.
"Not really, most of the explosives were on the upper floors, I had already disabled them." She said while releasing a deep breath. "But, as much as I dislike the guy, Prof. Morrow was a genius. I didn't want to lose any of the work he stored in the main server."
A second door opened and Green Arrow walked in, he was limping, his bow was broken and his armor was dripping water everywhere but, behind him, Red Arrow and Arsenal dragged Red Torpedo's disabled body, a dozen EMP arrows stuck in a single hole on his armor.
"Don't get the computers wet." Kara scolded.
"I'm fine too, thanks for asking." Green Arrow said. His eyes then saw Prof. Morrow's severed head. "Well, when I heard the self-destruct sequence initiating, I just knew Morrow had lost his mind."
Behind him, there was a loud smack sound as both his sidekicks facepalmed in shame.
A minute later, Kara found the signal blocker and disabled it, their communications started working again and Kara checked on Bobo to see he was perfectly fine. Sitting on top of a disabled android, he was reading a document while puffing on his pipe.
"Well, what now?" Arsenal asked.
"Now I check if we got our objectives." Kara said and grabbed Morrow's head. Beside his decapitation, the robot wasn't all that damaged, she connected his head to the central computer and used Morrow's own systems to bypass his protections. The information she recovered was… annoying. "Alright, there's some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first?"
"I'd like to know the location of my former partner." The Shade asked, holding his cane with both hands. "I'd thought to trade a few words with him, and he wasn't one to use fetches when he could appear and gloat in person."
"He's not he-here." It was Brom that answered The Shade, his voice trembling from fear.
"He's alive then, else you wouldn't fear for him." The Shade lowered his glasses slightly and stared at the man. "Don't fear. I'm not one to kill without provocation and, despite the situation; I merely wish to speak with him."
Brom Stikk seemed incapable of making a decision, so Kara decided to push. "I didn't find his location on record, but I know he's sick. You're not gonna be escaping here Brom, who's gonna take care of him?"
Finally, the thin man realized his predicament, head lowered, he answered.
"He's bedridden, I watch over him while he's on life support." He gulped and told them the address. Morrow was being taken care of in a small home in this same city.
"Alright, that's taken care of, what's the good news." Red Arrow asked, losing patience with the cowardly man.
"Good news, we got everything we came here for, and more." Kara told them, a smile on her face as she imagined the amount of things she could learn from Prof. Morrow's notes in the intact main server. She had even gotten Firebrand's activation code. "We got Prof. Morrow's information, hundreds of spare androids and even Red Torpedo. Or should I say, Doctor Jim Lockhart. I doubt he'll want anything to do with heroics when he wakes up, but we still saved him."
"And the bad news?" Asked Green Arrow, his voice betraying how tired he already was.
"Prof. Morrow's android managed to make a copy of his memories and Red Torpedo's into his newest creation. Red Volcano was still incomplete but, with Morrow's memories and knowledge uploaded, he'll probably be able to finish the job himself." Kara leaned back and wanted to massage her eyes in frustration. "The android also thought we were hired by Professor Ivo to steal his research. He's going after Prof. Morrow's old rival in order to get revenge and a new base of operations."
"That doesn't seem like bad news to me." Arsenal dismissed the news. "I'd say, let them fight."
"The problem is: what happens when one of them wins? Red Volcano has all of Prof. Morrow's knowledge and skill in his memory. Unless one of them gets completely destroyed, the winner will get access to the loser's tech. I really don't want to see what happens after that."
Prepared as she was, there was almost nothing Prof. Morrow or his creations could do against her but, together with Ivo, they could achieve so much more.
Kara could already see it in her mind. With her luck, Red Volcano would win and she'd have to face the damn genocidal robot in Amazo's body. Even if Prof. Ivo won, he'd have access to Morrow's knowledge and be able to give Amazo an actual human level intellect, or even improve his tech, allowing the android to use all his abilities at once like in JL and JLU.
That'd be just great, now wouldn't it?
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Kara looked at all the members of her little team and smiled.
She briefly noted her armor made it so she towered over everyone present. While this meant she had to crane her neck a bit, it also made her feel safe. In truth, she wasn't complaining.
The Green Arrow group still wore their basic costumes, with Red Arrow and Speedy wearing almost the same outfit and, by the way they were avoiding even looking at each other, not feeling very comfortable about it.
The Shade wore a black trench coat over antiquated formal clothes, with a large top hat on his head. He carried around a dark cane, with a raven head for a handle, and had smoked glass spectacles in his face. His back was perfectly straight and he seemed to be enjoying the heroes' unease at his very presence.
Bobo was wearing his old Sherlock Holmes costume, complete with his plaid coat and detective cap. He sat on top of an empty crate and smoked from a pipe, but still made sure he wasn't puffing up smoke towards Speedy.
"Very well, let's start then." She said, the armor's speaker masking her voice and making it impossible to know her gender. Detaching a large backpack from her armor, she threw it towards the archers. "If you guys are gonna tag along, we can't have anyone recognizing you, it's best if our enemies remain ignorant of the League's involvement. Also, we're probably gonna be infringing on the League's UN charter. Someday."
Kara had prepared all three costumes. They were all a variation of dark tactical gear with metal plates for protection and sleek black helmets. Green Arrow and Red Arrow costumes had small compound bows and a simple sword, while Speedy's had a rifle and two laser pistols.
Green Arrow pulled out his costume and lowered his head in shame. "Great, we're playing disposable minions now."
"You're not disposable minions, you're super soldiers." Kara said in an annoyed voice. "Green Arrow, I designed the outfits myself, they probably provide more protection than anything you ever wore, and have better mobility."
"Nope, that's not how it works." Green Arrow shook his head sadly. "One guy wearing this armor is a badass super soldier. Three guys wearing the same armor are just faceless minions. That's just how it works. I can already feel my accuracy dropping just by looking at them."
Kara decided to ignore the man from now on. Turning to Bobo, she asked. "Have you truly located Prof. Morrow?" The chimp had informed her he had a major breakthrough in his case, but gave no details on the phone.
"Possibly. What I definitely have is the location of his newest workshop." The chimpanzee said while puffing out another cloud of smoke. "Usually, finding a new super scientist is just a question of following the money, or the materials. They use money to gather equipment, materials, minions and all that. Tomas Oscar Morrow was an old hand at this, and a good enough polymath to overcome some of the more obvious needs but, even he couldn't produce some of his higher end devices completely by himself."
"He revealed himself then?"
"Maybe, if you don't interrupt me, you'll find out." Bobo grumbled, causing Green Arrow to snort in amusement. Kara just shook her head and motioned for him to continue. "As I said, Prof. Morrow can produce most of his tech alone, but some of his equipment requires rare materials, equipment like the devices he uses to give his robots their elemental control."
"Now, when our boys in the capes defeated him for the last time, back when they were still the JSA, they cracked down on his operations like mad. Raided half a dozen of his bases and confiscated all of his gear." Bobo continued his lesson, but got up from his position and stretched his back. "I managed to get my hands on the manifests listing the said confiscated materials, particularly the more exotic ones and, only a few weeks ago, there was a break in at one of STAR labs subsidiaries, one that stored quite a bit of an element that matched those on the list."
Finished stretching, Bobo pushed the crate he had been sitting on to the front of the group and opened a blueprint on top of it.
"After that, it was a simple case of solving the theft, easy." Lifting his cap, he scratched at his fur. "Everything points to this building. It's been empty for the last two decades but, somehow, it's been kept in stellar condition. I also found some complaints of strange noises and tremors made by its neighbors back when Morrow was active, I'd bet anything there's some kind of underground facility there too. There's always one of those."
Both Kara and Green Arrow studied the blueprint with attention. It was a large, four storey building with many smaller rooms.
"Say, who exactly is this Prof. Morrow? I mean, the League never had to deal with him, and Red Tornado is an okay guy."
"My old companion was an arrogant man." The Shade opened his mouth for the first time. "Arrogant, narcissistic, perfectionist and obsessed, he took particular pride in his programming skills. His androids tended to be a little too human, but he refused to lower their intelligence or make them any less sophisticated, no matter how many times they grew a conscience and betrayed him. I doubt he has changed too much."
"Shade, can you take us there?" Kara asked.
"But of course, do you prefer to land inside the building or close by?" He asked as he pushed away from the wall.
Kara looked around, everyone seemed ready to move. "The latter, I'd like to have a chance to gather more information before attacking."
"Wait." Green Arrow shouted. "What do I call myself? Also, what do you call yourself?"
"You can call me Forge while in this armor." Kara said, she really hadn't thought a lot about her superhero name in this costume. Hopefully, nobody would ever need to use it. "As for you, I think you're right, you're Minion C from now on."
"Hey!"
"I guess that makes me 'B' then?" Red Arrow asked. "I can live with that."
"I was gonna use Arsenal, but I guess I can save that for when I'm acting openly." Speedy nodded.
"Do prepare yourselves." The Shade said with a smile. "This will only take a moment."
In a second, every shadow in the room converged on them, stretching unnaturally, their tips curving as if becoming thin arms that grasped towards their bodies. Kara had to stop herself from moving as the darkness enveloped her, a weight settled over her shoulders and she completely lost her vision.
It felt suffocating, as if the weight of the world was pressing down on her. The darkness stretched endlessly and, for a second, she lost any sense of direction, then the shadows were gone and they were all left standing on top of a building.
Red Arrow stumbled, almost falling to his knees, Bobo shook himself and even Kara would have swayed in place had she not locked her armor's joints before the trip. The Shade stood in front of them looking amused. His own shadow still far larger than it should be.
"Was that entirely necessary?" Bobo asked when he finally recovered.
"It seems not everyone can face the weight of the Shadowlands with the same ubiquitous aplomb as me. My apologies." The Shade lifted his cane and laid it against his shoulder. With his free hand he pointed towards a building two blocks from where they had appeared. "I'll attempt to tone down its presence next time. That's our target."
"Thanks." Kara told him when she fully recovered. With a motion of her arm, a compartment at her back opened up and released thousands of little devices. Two millimeters in size, they spread in the air and soon disappeared from view.
Every single one of the devices could transmit sound and sight towards her receptor, but they could also connect to each other, creating different equipment on the field.
Kara laid down a holographic projector and all six of them watched, in real time, as her devices mapped the entire building, managed to infiltrate the underground facility and continued to map everything inside it.
The little things mapped four underground floors before something on the fifth finally managed to block their signal.
Finding a connecting port, Kara ordered a dozen of her drones to reconfigure themselves. They fused together into a hacking tool and attempted to enter Prof. Morrow's systems.
Eventually, Kara shook her head. "Such bullshit."
"What, having trouble?" Green Arrow, now minion C, asked.
"Earth tech should NOT be able to do shit like this." She complained. In front of them stood the nearly complete map of Morrow's hideout, as well as recorded images of Morrow and his associates. "Something on the fifth floor is completely blocking my signal. The entire floor is also fully isolated from the rest of Morrow's systems. I just can't fully subvert his programming. I can disable it, and even take over some of his equipment, but not only is he gonna know we're coming as soon as I do that, the fifth floor's defenses will also stay active."
"Can't the Shade just teleport us down?" Arsenal asked.
"Certainly, it would be simple. However, without an image of the fifth floor, I fear the trip would be much longer, and far less pleasant to you."
"Yeah, I think I speak for all of us, I'll pass." Green Arrow said and shuddered.
"Minions." Kara called Green Arrow and his protégées. "Your arrows and bullets are all filled with small EMP's, they should be able to disable any of Prof. Morrow's creations in an area around themselves, but he could have added shielding, so try to pierce their armor anyway." She pointed at his subordinates one by one. "This is Brom Stikk, Prof. Morrow's human assistant. He's not really a fighter, but he could be wearing a second Mr. Twister suit. This is Red…"
Kara laid out all she knew about Morrow's resources and abilities, including the possibility of a new geokinetic android. It didn't take her more than five minutes. Then they attacked.
With a command, Kara disabled all surveillance on the first four floors and The Shade teleported them all down, dropping the entire team in front of the fifth floor entrance. This time he made an effort to keep the terrifying effects of the Shadowlands back.
As a Kryptonian, and someone wearing literal tons of armor, Kara breached the new floor first. The laboratory was surprisingly spacious, with clean wide corridors and white floors. There were no exposed cables or robots in sight.
Kara tried commanding her drones forward, but they dropped to the floor as soon as it happened. Her armor immediately informed her there was some kind of signal blocker being used in the hallway and the devices were too small and vulnerable to overcome it.
Stepping back, she ordered a few of her devices to latch on to her back and physically connect to her while reconfiguring themselves into a transmitter. It wouldn't be enough to cover the entire base, but could still allow her to use the drones at least a dozen meters around herself.
When she stepped back into the room there were two enormous turrets sprouting from the walls. They immediately pelted her with bullets. She let them bounce off her armor and lifted her own weapons. Shooting both turrets with lasers and causing them to explode.
"Who is this?" Came Prof. Morrow's annoyed voice from speakers all around the base. "Ah, no matter, I was expecting dear Ivo to send someone after me as soon as he stole my Red Inferno. My Morrowbots will make short work of you."
"Morrowbots? Really?" Kara couldn't help but ask, getting a pat on the back from Green Arrow.
"Ah, villains and their ridiculous minion names. Don't worry, you get used to it."
Detective Chimp peeked down to the fifth floor and looked at the turrets, "Alright. I have to confess that chimps have a weakness, we're deadly averse to getting shot up, and I am a detective, not a fighter. I guess I'll stay up here and, you know, investigate or whatever…"
"Fine, the disabled systems won't be coming back on anytime soon. Try to see if you can find a connection to other villains." Kara said. "I'm pretty sure it's an unwritten rule that mad scientists spy on each other."
The sound of metallic footsteps came from around a corner, making Kara lift her gun back again. The androids that came over were still humanoid, but they were faceless and completely white, they lifted their guns in unison and Kara was about to destroy them when an arrow flew and pierced the one in the middle before releasing an EMP.
With a discharge of electricity, each of the robots crumbled to the floor, the EMP having obviously fried their circuitry. "Hmmm, these babies pack quite a punch, don't they?"
"Yep." Kara nodded. The end of the hallway opened into three different directions.
Kara tried to activate her X-Ray vision to find the best path, but the Professor's paranoia had preemptively managed to stop that, the walls were filled with at least a small layer of lead.
"Spread out?" Red Arrow asked.
"Spread out." Kara and Green Arrow agreed at the same time.
Choosing the left path, Kara started walking. Waves of robots came towards her, some held traditional guns, others had laser weapons and a few had the weapons embedded into their limbs. Kara barely paid them any attention.
A hail of bullets pinged off her armor as she walked towards the center of the base. Kara had started to feel kind of silly holding her gun in front of her, so she put it back into place.
Instead, she had ordered her modular drones to form into a turret on her armor and start shooting lasers at the robots automatically from its place at her shoulder.
Grabbing one of the androids, she lifted it up to her face and couldn't help but admire the craftsmanship that had gone into it. The thing was clearly mass produced, but Morrow still showed considerable skill and attention to detail on the things.
Suddenly, thick metal doors cut off her advance, falling to the floor with such weight the entire base trembled. A quick glance behind her back confirmed what Kara already knew. A second door had fallen shut behind her and locked her in the hallway.
A green gas started filling the small space even as the ceiling started to lower in order to crush her. All that was missing was the floor opening up into a pit of spikes. Sealed safely inside her armor, Kara couldn't care less.
Lifting an arm, she stopped the ceiling from falling. Pushing the ceiling back, she walked right towards the door, her turret already reconfiguring itself, it quickly shot a stream of plasma like a blowtorch and, in less than a minute, melted a hole through the meter thick door.
Picking up her pace, Kara massacred the robots as soon as they appeared. She knew her companions must have been doing the same thing because, soon, Morrow spoke again.
"You're destroying all my robots, you pest! Granted, they're not masterworks and it pained me to make them in such a hurry but, please, have some respect for my genius!"
Finally, Kara broke through one last door and into a wide open room. A white copy of Mr. Twister stood at the other end of the room. "So, you've arrived. I confess I'll…"
Instead of waiting for the villain to monologue, Kara just commanded her shoulder gun to shoot him. The laser hit its armor harmlessly. In one fluid motion, she grabbed for her larger weapon and lifted it up towards the robot. The thing seemed to recognize the threat of the gun and dodged aside while directing a wave of wind towards her.
She tanked the blast and continued to shoot, but the robot was enveloped in a cyclone and controlling the wind to move its body around at unexpected angles. Finally, she managed to clip his arm and send it flying aside, but it only dented the armor. "What the hell?"
"Well, I doubt a brute like you can appreciate this, but what do you think of the new body I was building for my dear Red Tornado?" Morrow said, his voice coming from the robot. "While Red Tornado's wind and programming are far superior, his casing is a little obsolete by today's standards, I thought he deserved an upgrade."
Kara felt her feet sliding a few centimeters through the ground towards the robot as it drained all the air from the room, she didn't know it could do that, and it could be dangerous if one of the archers had been here, but she wasn't affected.
Another four shots hit the robot on the head, deforming its armor even further, but not causing much damage. Morrow protested. "How rude!"
"Fine, I guess we're doing this the hard way." Kara had wanted to keep as much of her capabilities as she could a secret, she didn't know if Morrow was under the Light's employ, or if there was anyone monitoring him, but this was starting to get annoying.
Advancing on the robot, Kara tried to dodge another cyclone of wind, but the attack spread and caught her in its effect anyway, driving her back a few centimeters. Her sabatons dug into the floor causing it to crack as she tried to rush him, but the wind had started to pick up speed the longer it went on.
Finally, she jumped aside and shot him in the arm to stop him from following her movements. The hurricane of wind slipped past her to smash against the opposite wall, drilling a hole through it and several adjacent rooms before stopping.
She quickly advanced on Mr. Twister and, when he targeted her again, didn't let his winds gather power. Instead, she grabbed her large gun with both hands and swung it down on the cyclone with devastating strength. The blow dispersed the cyclone and forced Mr. Twister to start over again. Fortunately, he didn't have the time.
Dropping the weapon, Kara grabbed at the turret on her shoulder and reconfigured it into the plasma blowtorch; it detached from her armor while she rushed the final distance towards the robot. The thing tried to shoot her with more wind blades, but it wasn't strong enough to push her back, and its cyclones couldn't build up speed in such little time.
The android tried to retreat, but she grabbed it and, while the metal managed to resist the amount of strength she was willing to reveal, it couldn't get free. Kara pinned it to the ground and applied her blowtorch to its chest, after less than a minute, she had managed to expose its insides.
Her drones flooded inside the android, attaching to its cables and circuits until Kara could disable it. She did carry around stronger weapons, ones capable of overcoming even this android's armor but, again, she didn't want to reveal them if she didn't have to.
And she could make use of anything she didn't damage too badly. She was looking forward to having an army of robot minions.
"Well, that was unexpected." Morrow's voice came from some speakers in the room. "Still, it's a good thing I took precautions. I'll see you pests next time, if you survive, ta-ta!"
"Self destruction sequence starting in, 10…9…8…7…"
Rao be damned, he was gonna collapse the entire secret base. "No! My spare materials and androids!"
For the first time, Kara ran, driving her shoulder through the door and blowing right through it, she completely ignored the few surviving robots.
Bursting through the command center, she found Brom Stikk with his arms in the air, The Shade held the head of T. O. Morrow's android replica in one hand, while his other was pointed at the human assistant, a drop of ink black darkness at his fingertip.
Ignoring the scene, Kara rushed towards the computers and started tipping. With direct access to the central computer, her hacking programs started working at an astonishing pace.
"4…3...2…" Her programs broke through the computer security and gave her access to the device. Kara tapped as fast as she could. "Self destruction sequence interrupted!"
"Was it really that dangerous?" The Shade dropped the head of Morrow's replica on top of a table and asked in a conversational tone.
"Not really, most of the explosives were on the upper floors, I had already disabled them." She said while releasing a deep breath. "But, as much as I dislike the guy, Prof. Morrow was a genius. I didn't want to lose any of the work he stored in the main server."
A second door opened and Green Arrow walked in, he was limping, his bow was broken and his armor was dripping water everywhere but, behind him, Red Arrow and Arsenal dragged Red Torpedo's disabled body, a dozen EMP arrows stuck in a single hole on his armor.
"Don't get the computers wet." Kara scolded.
"I'm fine too, thanks for asking." Green Arrow said. His eyes then saw Prof. Morrow's severed head. "Well, when I heard the self-destruct sequence initiating, I just knew Morrow had lost his mind."
Behind him, there was a loud smack sound as both his sidekicks facepalmed in shame.
A minute later, Kara found the signal blocker and disabled it, their communications started working again and Kara checked on Bobo to see he was perfectly fine. Sitting on top of a disabled android, he was reading a document while puffing on his pipe.
"Well, what now?" Arsenal asked.
"Now I check if we got our objectives." Kara said and grabbed Morrow's head. Beside his decapitation, the robot wasn't all that damaged, she connected his head to the central computer and used Morrow's own systems to bypass his protections. The information she recovered was… annoying. "Alright, there's some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first?"
"I'd like to know the location of my former partner." The Shade asked, holding his cane with both hands. "I'd thought to trade a few words with him, and he wasn't one to use fetches when he could appear and gloat in person."
"He's not he-here." It was Brom that answered The Shade, his voice trembling from fear.
"He's alive then, else you wouldn't fear for him." The Shade lowered his glasses slightly and stared at the man. "Don't fear. I'm not one to kill without provocation and, despite the situation; I merely wish to speak with him."
Brom Stikk seemed incapable of making a decision, so Kara decided to push. "I didn't find his location on record, but I know he's sick. You're not gonna be escaping here Brom, who's gonna take care of him?"
Finally, the thin man realized his predicament, head lowered, he answered.
"He's bedridden, I watch over him while he's on life support." He gulped and told them the address. Morrow was being taken care of in a small home in this same city.
"Alright, that's taken care of, what's the good news." Red Arrow asked, losing patience with the cowardly man.
"Good news, we got everything we came here for, and more." Kara told them, a smile on her face as she imagined the amount of things she could learn from Prof. Morrow's notes in the intact main server. She had even gotten Firebrand's activation code. "We got Prof. Morrow's information, hundreds of spare androids and even Red Torpedo. Or should I say, Doctor Jim Lockhart. I doubt he'll want anything to do with heroics when he wakes up, but we still saved him."
"And the bad news?" Asked Green Arrow, his voice betraying how tired he already was.
"Prof. Morrow's android managed to make a copy of his memories and Red Torpedo's into his newest creation. Red Volcano was still incomplete but, with Morrow's memories and knowledge uploaded, he'll probably be able to finish the job himself." Kara leaned back and wanted to massage her eyes in frustration. "The android also thought we were hired by Professor Ivo to steal his research. He's going after Prof. Morrow's old rival in order to get revenge and a new base of operations."
"That doesn't seem like bad news to me." Arsenal dismissed the news. "I'd say, let them fight."
"The problem is: what happens when one of them wins? Red Volcano has all of Prof. Morrow's knowledge and skill in his memory. Unless one of them gets completely destroyed, the winner will get access to the loser's tech. I really don't want to see what happens after that."
Prepared as she was, there was almost nothing Prof. Morrow or his creations could do against her but, together with Ivo, they could achieve so much more.
Kara could already see it in her mind. With her luck, Red Volcano would win and she'd have to face the damn genocidal robot in Amazo's body. Even if Prof. Ivo won, he'd have access to Morrow's knowledge and be able to give Amazo an actual human level intellect, or even improve his tech, allowing the android to use all his abilities at once like in JL and JLU.
That'd be just great, now wouldn't it?
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Yeah, that's something that needs to be prevented ASAP. Golden Amazo is significantly more than Kara wants to be dealing with.
Chapter 25 - Interlude 3
Hey guys! First I'd just like to take a second to thank all my readers and, in particular, those who leave comments, point out mistakes and give their opinions. I really appreciate that and it really helps both motivate me and improve the fic.
Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy the chapter.
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Koriand'r felt her entire body lighting up with pain as the Psions bombarded her with synthetic sunlight. Tamaraneans could absorb, and even survive exclusively on sunlight, but everything had a limit, and Koriand'r could feel her own approaching.
She felt the light entering her body break through a limit and continue, more and more sunlight entered her cells. She felt like she would explode, the energy she had always carried with her pulsating inside her body and reaching a crescendo.
"X'hall's Breath!" She heard her sister scream in pain despite the metal wall separating them.
NO! Her mind rebelled. They would kill Komand'r! Her sister had been born sick, she could not absorb sunlight, and the very act caused her physical pain.
Her wrists strained uselessly against the manacles even as a stream of fire seemed to enter her very veins, Koriand'r screamed even harder.
Even with the pain she was feeling, Koriand'r heard the explosion in the other room, it was followed by a short struggle. Soon, she saw her sister break down the door and look inside her room.
Swallowing her scream, Koriand'r smiled on the inside, Komand'r was free. They could escape!
For a few seconds, her sister stared at her, her face impassive. Gritting her teeth, Komand'r turned her face aside and stepped away.
"Sister!" Koriand'r managed to scream through the pain.
Komand'r paused, without looking back, she lifted a hand and two bolts of purple energy flew from her finger, one hit the solar generator and stopped her torture, the other pierced through the machines around her and hit her right hand manacle, breaking through the reinforced metal and sending another jolt of pain through Koriand'r's body.
Lowering her hand, Komand'r stepped away from the door.
"Thank you." Koriand'r whispered as she heard Komand'r's steps running away. For a moment, she had believed her sister would leave her locked there to be tortured, the fact that she did not brought no small amount of joy to her heart.
Gathering her strength, Koriand'r pulled her arm away from the broken manacle, sending shards of metal flying through the room. Grabbing her remaining manacle, she pulled against it with both arms at the same time.
Koriand'r felt something rising inside herself. She channeled that feeling into her actions and, with a shout, her hands burst into green light as she ripped the manacle in half.
Directing her newfound power towards her legs, she felt the energy leaving her body. Green bolts of energy flew from her hands and exploded against the locks on her legs, it was not enough to destroy them, but the attack had damaged them enough that she could pull herself free.
A Psion security drone appeared on the door. "Prisoner 01245557841, do not resist, lethal force has been authorized!" The electronic voice commanded. Hands still glowing, Koriand'r looked at the robot and released twin bolts of light from her eyes, driving the robot back against the wall with surprising power.
The Drone tried to recover but, after a single step, it tilted sideways and fell down. Two more took its place, their weapons raised and already shooting lasers at her.
Koriand'r's training kicked in, she floated aside and grabbed a heavy apparatus hanging from the ceiling, with a powerful twist, she ripped the appliance off its support and threw it towards the drone on the right then followed it up with a pounce.
Her makeshift projectile hit the drone and crushed it against the wall. Her own punch was a perfect example of Okara's martial arts, her hand piercing all the way through the robot's head. Grabbing its disabled body, she used it as a shield against a hail of lasers from her right side.
Koriand'r grabbed the robot's gun and pointed it forward, pressing the trigger repeatedly, only for it to refuse to fire. It must have some security feature to prevent any prisoner from stealing it.
Looking at her own hand, Koriand'r thought about her energy bolt, she still felt the ultraviolet light just under her skin and, while she had never been able to use it as such before, gathering a bolt of light into her hand felt instinctual, almost as easy as flight.
The lasers kept hitting her drone and melting their way through its armor. With a warrior scream, Koriand'r held the drone with a single arm and charged her assailants, using her other arm to return fire.
Her starbolts were not strong enough to destroy a drone with a single shot unless she could hit their heads, but she was trained in the use of projectiles, and she still managed to destroy three of the robots before slamming her makeshift shield into a fourth.
Now in melee range, the drones stood no chance against her. She weaved between them like a cat and disabled their weapons with a single hit each. She also discovered that her new powers could increase her strength, allowing her punches to break through their armors no matter where she struck.
Twelve drones lay destroyed at her feet in less than a minute, woefully, that was far from enough. From the other side of the hallway, Koriand'r saw at least another thirty drones, led by an armored Psion.
She wanted nothing more than to slay the lizard where he stood, but she had no cover. The robots were also far enough, and in enough numbers, that she was unlikely to survive another charge.
Turning around, she flew away as fast as she could manage. Koriand'r hoped she could find an escape ship or, barring that, a less protected Psion she could capture.
Instead, she found an open area filled with robots and Psions, all of them armed and ready for her.
Stopping in place, Koriand'r felt her body sinking to the ground, she was not going to escape; there were too many and they were too well armed.
Closing her eyes, she remembered her sister had also escaped, Komand'r had always been physically weaker, but she had also been an even better fighter than her.
Yes, her sister would survive. Despite their differences, Koriand'r knew Komand'r cared about Tamaran. She would be a good queen.
"X'hall give me strength." She prayed. Her duty was clear. If she could not escape, she could at least keep as many of their defenses busy. She could distract them and, hopefully, buy her sister enough time.
The prospect did not scare her. Instead, Koriand'r felt her flight stabilizing, her heart filling with hope instead of fear. With a scream of fury, she charged her enemies.
Green energy gathered at her fingertips and on her eyes as she waved between laser shots and returned fire. Any enemy that got into melee range was quickly dispatched, with prejudice, and those far away were bombarded with starbolts.
Koriand'r felt the lasers start to hit her, despite her newfound strength, there were too many, and she was tiring. She fought, she screamed, she destroyed, every time she thought of giving up, Koriand'r remembered her sister, her family.
Koriand'r was acting more on instinct than conscious thought, her body hurt everywhere and her arms felt heavy. Then she noticed another woman suddenly joining the fight.
For a second, her flight faltered as she thought her sister had failed to escape, but she quickly noticed the woman had blonde hair. She was also devastating the enemies. This stranger had little skill, but was acting with overwhelming power and savagery.
Koriand'r quickly recognized the woman's prowess, how laser shots could not even cause her to flinch, how a single punch could shatter a robot as if it was made from glass. Changing her approach, Koriand'r started fighting smarter, eliminating hidden enemies and those who thought to reorganize their defenses.
She had hope. They could win!
The fight was brutal, and the woman, no, the girl, devolved into a mess. Her attacks became more brutal, her screams showing pain despite nothing in the room seeming capable of hurting her.
Koriand'r knew she was not a fighter, despite all her power the girl did not have the training. She had not been a warrior before this, but, after the battle, that would change. No one went through such an onslaught and remained a civilian.
When the fight was finally over and the girl was left blind to her surroundings, attacking a dead Psion in a fit of rage, Koriand'r approached her.
She was careful, she had seen what the girl could do, but she could not leave her alone, she could not abandon her here without help and in the state she was in. A simple touch on the shoulder was enough for the girl to turn her rage upon her.
Koriand'r stepped back, her arms raised in surrender, but her muscles were tense and ready for a fight. Despite all her power, Koriand'r knew she could subdue the girl if it was needed. She hoped it was not.
She was right, the girl's eye stopped shining with red light, and her arms dropped to her sides as she took deep, long breaths. Slowly, and with very deliberate movements, Koriand'r warped her arms around the girl and pulled her closer, letting her cry against her shoulder while holding her tightly for comfort. Just as she had hoped Komand'r would hold her.
"Do not cry, rejoice, our fight has destroyed most of the forces they were willing to send." Koriand'r told the girl with a reassuring smile, the girl ignored her, as if still lost in her rage. Grabbing her shoulders, Koriand'r turned the girl's face towards her. "Do not grieve, we are safe now. You are safe now." She said, and felt the urge to hug the girl which had so recently been turned into a warrior against her own will.
The girl's eye finally focused on her, and Koriand'r could see she was sane and calming down. The girl spoke, but Koriand'r could not understand a single word. Had the Psions captured someone from outside the sector?
Koriand'r was glad she could help with that, while the girl still would not be able to communicate with others, Tamaraneans would not have that problem. Koriand'r nodded in understanding and cupped the girl's face in her hands, her ability could be activated just by touch, but she was not that experienced, and a kiss would be far more effective, and far less likely to lead to mistakes.
Koriand'r kissed the girl. She was briefly surprised, but far from displeased, when the girl kissed her back.
.
.
.
"AHHHH!" M'gann gasped, causing Koriand'r to snap out of her memories and turn towards the blushing girl.
"What troubles you, Friend M'gann?" Koriand'r asked, feeling safe to use the superhero's name while in their mind connection, but making a mental remark to start utilizing their codenames while on a mission.
While the other Titans were still feeling uneasy at letting the Martian into their minds, Koriand'r had perceived how the girl was starved for a mental connection and freely let M'gann into her mind, even allowing her to make a deeper connection.
"Nothing!" M'gann shouted, her blush growing even more pronounced despite her ability to shape-shift.
Koriand'r did not understand, she knew the girl had been able to see her memory, at least the last moments of it, but, what could have caused such a pronounced reaction? Humans, and Martians too it seemed, were most peculiar.
"Everyone, are we ready?" Aqualad checked one last time.
"Ah, let's go already!" Kid Flash could barely contain himself.
With an effort of will, Miss Martian opened the ship's hatch and the attack team jumped down. As the team's leader, Aqualad would be acting as the field commander for this operation.
He, Robin and Kid Flash, had the correct training in order to lead a stealth operation, while Miss Martian's shape-shifting gave her a natural advantage, which ameliorated her lack of training.
Although Koriand'r had the correct training, stealth was not her specialty and Superboy was still far from being capable of infiltrating anywhere, they would stay on the ship and act as support, or reinforcements, as the situation demanded.
It was best if they were completely unwearied if they were needed.
All four of them released Kara's drones into the air as soon as they approached the Venom factory. The devices shimmered and disappeared from view, quickly spreading through the location and conferring an immediate display of the entire location.
Koriand'r and Superboy watched closely as the robots located every objective they had: Kobra himself was overlooking the operation, and there were at least four Kobra-Venom enhanced on the factory alone. Still, there were places deep within the factory they dared not infiltrate remotely.
"Crap, I hate when the villains are smart." Robin cursed as he looked at the computer on his wrist. "They don't keep any important information on the local servers."
"Alright, remember, capturing Kobra is the primary mission." Aqualad informed them through their communication devices.
That had been one of the first lessons The Captain Atom and The Green Lantern had given them. As some of the only heroes who had been representatives of a military not focused on individual prowess, they had been an indispensable constituent of the Titan's initial training.
"Yeah, yeah, we all remember the debriefing." Robin huffed. He was far too accustomed to working with The Batman. Having to communicate his actions was both inefficient and unfamiliar to him.
"Control, we will start the mission in one minute." Koriand'r informed The Red Tornado. Being the one responsible for monitoring the mission, Koriand'r held her breath and looked at the enemies locations one final time.
She gave them the signal. "Proceed!"
All four attacked at the same time, each one responsible for a few guards. Their enemies' surprise was total, and the attack left no chance for any escape, or even the raising of the alarms. A second later, Supergirl's holographic devices were thrown on the ground and immediately started replicating the guard's movements for the last minute, making sure none could notice their attack, at least not with a simple glance.
Koriand'r gripped the edge of her seat tightly and leaned forward, her heart pounding against her chest. She did not know having to act as overwatch could be so exhilarating!
"All targets neutralized, proceed." Superboy said on his comms. He too had to relax his grip on the dented chair.
Poor bioship, Koriand'r hoped she could not feel pain from such a small location. Then she gasped, had she just been pinching it? She really disliked when Komand'r pinched her. "Apologies." She whispered while gently patting her seat.
Using the drone images, Koriand'r and Superboy guided the four Titans through the facility, utilizing the holographic projectors to delay their discovery for as long as possible.
"I've located a shipment of Kobra-Venom, it seems ready for delivery." Robin called out over his comms.
Turning her head towards his screen, Koriand'r frowned. A large quantity of Kobra-Venom was neatly packed and ready for transportation, too large to be distributed locally.
Typing fast, Koriand'r opened a screen with the information Robin had been able to hack from the local servers. There really was no immediately important information, but there were records of an increase in security and change in guard locations every week at the same time.
Koriand'r quickly sent the information to the four of them and got up, crossing her fingers, she stretched her tense arms above her head, then behind herself and bent down. With how much tighter the security was going to get, Koriand'r knew she and Superboy would have to intervene.
"What're you doing?" Superboy asked with an uncertain voice.
"I always observe proper stretching techniques." She answered and grabbed her leg, pulling her feet up to her back, pressing her chest forward. "Come, Friend Superboy, join me."
"What do you think it means?" Kid Flash asked while punching out a minion and setting another holographic dummy.
"A sale." Robin answered, his voice becoming more animated by the second. "Come on, not only can we capture Kobra, we can get one of his buyers too. I'm really feeling the aster here!"
"Friend Robin, I do not see any flowers from the surveillance drones." Koriand'r commented as she finished her stretches.
"What?" Everyone asked in confused voices.
"Please, were you speaking of the cellular structure then? But, there must be so many, to be able to feel them…"
"No, I mean, aster as in, the opposite of disaster…" Robin explained in a frustrated voice.
"I… did not know the vernacular could be used in such a way." Koriand'r mumbled while blushing. She would have to search for the idiom later. Friend Robin was most confusing.
The mission continued, Miss Martian acting as lookout to keep anyone from noticing while Kid flash installed explosive devices on the factory's machines and Robin searched Kobra's documentations and personal computers, trying to find proof of other villain's involvement.
They had discussed simply disabling the produced drug supply, but, even without Kobra or Bane, the factory could still be used to restart Venom production, it was best to destroy it all.
Also, Robin did enjoy blowing up things.
Finally, a drone caught sight of an approaching helicopter, also, Kobra himself appeared. Flanked by two Kobra-Venom users, the cult leader left the building and walked calmly towards the Helipad.
"Main Target located." Superboy informed everyone. All four heroes quickly dropped what they were doing and converged on Kobra's location.
Robin just disappeared from view, his new stealth suit allowing his impressive skills to reach a new level. Aqualad threw a holographic display and hid inside it, a second later, Kid flash slid into place beside him.
"Alright, how're we going to do this?" He asked.
"Starfire, Superboy, how long until you arrive?" Aqualad asked.
"The bioship is already floating above the factory." Superboy replied, cracking his neck, he and Koriand'r stood in the middle of the ship and prepared to open the hatch.
"Have we identified the buyer?"
"We have not. The drones do not have a good view of the helicopter." Koriand'r informed them. She commanded one of the drones to approach, but the wind was disturbing its flight. "I could try and approach, but the drone's stealth can not overcome the harsh wind."
"Hello Megan! I'll try to take a look myself." Using her powers to camouflage her body, Miss Martian started approaching the helicopter from the air.
"Miss Martian!" Aqualad grumbled under his breath, but it was too late.
Kobra lifted an eyebrow and glanced up for a second. He took another three steps and then wiped his arm up, throwing a dagger exactly where Miss Martian was floating. Miss Martian was able to react in time, but the dagger still pierced her shoulder and she dropped her camouflage.
"Eliminate her!" Kobra shouted in anger, but he didn't move himself. Lifting his arm, Kobra spoke at a device on his wrist. "Nothing must disturb us, activate the jammers."
A batarang flew through the air towards Kobra, but one of his bodyguards blocked it with an arm. With a beep, the batarang exploded and covered them with a cloud of smoke, obscuring their visions.
"Attack!" Aqualad ordered, and that was the last thing he managed to say before their comms stopped working.
"Miss Martian, mentally connect us!" Koriand'r shouted in her mind and ordered the bioship to open her doors.
"I-I… just a moment!" Miss Martian shouted back, she pulled the dagger out of her shoulder and hid behind the factory while using her shape-shifting to heal the wound.
Grabbing the edge of the door, Superboy looked around and located one of the large Kobra-Venom guards rushing towards Aqualad's location. Pushing against the ship, he caused it to swing around in the air while he pounced on the giant man, smashing his entire body on the floor and causing the earth to shake under their combined prowess.
Koriand'r dropped out of the ship and floated in the air for a second to access things. The situation on the ground was chaotic, but she decided to focus on the helicopter which was turning aside to reveal a giant artillery piece.
Koriand'r shot a starbolt at the weapon, but the metal proved far more resistant than she had believed. A wave of bullets hit the ground causing it to explode in a shower of gravel.
Kid Flash had been waving between cultists, utilizing his celerity to steal their weapons and disable the lesser minions, but he stumbled on the impaired floor and fell down.
Another three shots of her starbolts disabled the aircraft's munitions and Koriand'r turned her face to the ground again.
Suddenly, a javelin flew towards her right from the helicopter she had already dismissed. Koriand'r reacted fast and floated aside. With lightning-fast reflexes, she grabbed the projectile midair and twirled it in her hand before throwing it back with all her strength.
It had barely left her hand before it exploded, only a few centimeters away from her body. The shockwave sent her hurtling right into the factory building, bursting through the roof and into the steel beams.
"A little help here!" Kid Flash's desperate voice shouted in Koriand'r's head.
"Kinda busy!" Robin yelled and Kori could feel his concentration. "This is totally not whelming!"
"Miss Martian, support Superboy before he's overcome. Starfire, help Kid flash!" Aqualad's voice overcame the chatter in their minds. "I'll help with Kobra."
Koriand'r was already moving. She burst through the factory's wall and took in the scene again. Robin was desperately fighting Kobra, but it was clear the cult leader was stronger and more skilled.
Superboy was facing four Kobra-Venom cultists. He was stronger and faster than then, but the cultists were more skilled, and the half-Kryptonian was getting overwhelmed by their attacks.
Kid Flash was also struggling with two Kobra-Venom cultists, and there were several people trying to shoot him. Usually, he could run circles around them, but his fall seemed to have contused his ankle, and he was far slower.
Koriand'r narrowed her eyes, "Leave, him, alone!" she growled, shooting the closest Kobra-Venom cultist with a green starbolt before slamming into the second one with a knee to the face.
Bullets pinged against her skin with bruising strength, but Koriand'r ignored them to fight the enhanced. Despite their size and appearance, they were competent martial artists.
"Thanks!" Kid Flash shouted.
"What about the buyers! " Robin shouted in their minds, but Koriand'r could feel Aqualad shaking his head.
"Priorities! Disabling Kobra is our main concern."
Focusing on the Kobra enhanced, Koriand'r weaved between their blows and hit them. Unfortunately, she had never personally battled a chemically enhanced regular human and didn't know how resistant they were.
Without the heavy hitters, Kid Flash was able to disable the remaining cultists, allowing Robin and Aqualad to fully focus on Kobra without having to worry about stray bullets.
When Koriand'r finally subdued her enemies, she saw the aircraft starting to fly up with the latest delivery of Kobra-Venom. A blonde man wearing a metal mask was supervising the lift off while using projectiles such as darts and javelins to assist Kobra.
The cult leader himself seemed to be trying to escape, but Kid Flash had joined the fight and, together, they were keeping the man from running away.
Koriand'r rushed towards the masked man, throwing starbolts at him to stop him from helping Kobra. Reaching him, they started fighting. The man was incredibly skilled, and he knew to avoid her blows instead of blocking them.
They danced around each other as Koriand'r disabled his weapons. Shooting a starbolt from her eyes, Koriand'r forced him to duck under the blast and leave himself open for a kick to the chest.
He tried to block her kick with an arm, but her strength blew right through it and hit his armor. At the very last second, the man had jumped up so that his body flew back.
Koriand'r was just about to follow him when she heard the beep coming from her leg. It exploded with incredible power for a device so small, sending her flying back.
She reoriented herself quickly, only a slight burn on her leg. But the aircraft was already flying away, the man hanging from a rope connected to a harness at his waist, one of his arms broken while the other held his wounded chest.
Koriand'r shot a starbolt at him but the helicopter swirled aside at the last moment and someone inside shot a missile at her. A second starbolt blew it up but, by the time Koriand'r could see again, the helicopter was already far away.
She flew after it, she was just about to start hurling bolts again when the vehicle revealed another compartment. In a second, the aircraft shot three dozen smaller missiles towards where the Titans were still fighting. Koriand'r did not even stop to think, letting the helicopter escape in order to intercept the projectiles.
"He's gonna make a run for it!" Robin shouted in all of their minds, as Kobra looked around and finally bought himself some space.
Throwing a bomb to the floor, Kobra caused a large black cloud to rise around them.
"No he isn't!" Kid Flash shouted. Already warned by Robin, he quickly ran around their location and used the generated wind to disperse the cloud.
Kobra had made surprising progress in his escape even in that short time. Keeping close to the ground like an ophidian he had almost literally been trying to scurry away, but the cloud dispersed too soon and both Miss Martian and Superboy were already blocking his path.
The two heroes were a little battered, Superboy's costume had several dents in it, but they had proved superior to the Venom enhanced cultist they had fought.
Koriand'r finished destroying the missiles and floated down to face the cult leader. Kobra took a look at the Titans and gave a resigned sigh. Straightening his back, he lifted his arms with a smirk on his face. "I surrender."
"No shit." Kid Flash said.
Robin just threw another batarang at the man's face. Kobra grabbed the weapon midair and it released a small green cloud, causing the cult leader to collapse face first to the floor. Everyone looked at him.
"What? It's safer this way." He shrugged.
"Pity the buyer escaped." Kid Flash sighed. "And they took so much of the drug too."
"About that," Robin smirked. Pressing a button on his wrist he deactivated the holographic displays revealing all the disabled cultists, and also revealing a large quantity of the Kobra-Venom dumped to the side of the factory. "Since they had already prepared the drug for transport so conveniently, I thought it best to move it away for the moment."
"So, what did they carry away?" Miss Martian touched down on the floor and asked.
"A tracker." He snickered. "Well, I also had to fill it with some random crap for weight, and a holographic device to keep the disguise."
"Nice!" Kid Flash lifted his hand in the air and Robin high-fived it.
"Do you think they'll check on the drugs before arriving at their location?" Superboy asked, making them all trade glances.
"Communications are still blocked." Aqualad informed them after checking.
"I'll contact the mountain!" Miss Martian called and hurried towards the Bioship.
"I'll look for the signal blocker." Kid Flash ran towards the Factory.
"Hey," Robin called for Koriand'r's attention. "You don't think Supergirl is gonna be mad I let the villains take some of her devices? I know Batman hates when that happens."
"Do not worry, Friend Robin. Supergirl has installed assorted means of self termination in all of her devices." Koriand'r nodded with a smile. "It will most likely explode after some time, or if they attempt to study it. She will not care."
Robin and Aqualad traded unease glances then looked at their own costumes and the teleporting devices at each other's backs. "Now, when you say it will explode, do you mean the…"
"Come, Friend Robin, this is a victory and I was informed that, after victories, it is custom to do the partying!" Koriand'r grabbed Kobra by his coat and hoisted him onto her shoulders. "I am most eager to have some mustard with pizza on the bottom!"
The mustard party was magnificent, and it became even better when The Batman informed them the League had been able to pursue the signal. The villainous enemy Koriand'r had faced was identified as Sportsmaster and had been arrested by Wonder Woman herself.
They had also found a most villainous sanctuary where animals were being experimented on in India, a member of the UN charter, so the Justice League had been able to interfere. The Batman suspected the villain, The Brain, to have been involved but the mastermind had still escaped.
Feeling somewhat enervated, Koriand'r arrived home, and that very prospect already brought a smile to her face. Taking a quick shower, Koriand'r paused in front of Kara's room.
The blond was already sleeping, her body in a fetal position, her arm curled under the pillow. She had a frown on her face and her entire body shook. Dexter stood on top of her body, his claws kneading at her shoulders.
Stepping inside the bedroom, Koriand'r sat down on the bed and, carefully, laid beside her best friend. Kara did not wake up.
"You are safe now." She whispered at Kara's ears and, when her friend's hand grabbed at her shirt, Koriand'r lay down on the bed beside Kara and held her tightly against her body until the girl stopped shaking.
Koriand'r felt the cat curling into a ball between their bodies and smiled. Closing her eyes, she fell asleep.
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Koriand'r felt her entire body lighting up with pain as the Psions bombarded her with synthetic sunlight. Tamaraneans could absorb, and even survive exclusively on sunlight, but everything had a limit, and Koriand'r could feel her own approaching.
She felt the light entering her body break through a limit and continue, more and more sunlight entered her cells. She felt like she would explode, the energy she had always carried with her pulsating inside her body and reaching a crescendo.
"X'hall's Breath!" She heard her sister scream in pain despite the metal wall separating them.
NO! Her mind rebelled. They would kill Komand'r! Her sister had been born sick, she could not absorb sunlight, and the very act caused her physical pain.
Her wrists strained uselessly against the manacles even as a stream of fire seemed to enter her very veins, Koriand'r screamed even harder.
Even with the pain she was feeling, Koriand'r heard the explosion in the other room, it was followed by a short struggle. Soon, she saw her sister break down the door and look inside her room.
Swallowing her scream, Koriand'r smiled on the inside, Komand'r was free. They could escape!
For a few seconds, her sister stared at her, her face impassive. Gritting her teeth, Komand'r turned her face aside and stepped away.
"Sister!" Koriand'r managed to scream through the pain.
Komand'r paused, without looking back, she lifted a hand and two bolts of purple energy flew from her finger, one hit the solar generator and stopped her torture, the other pierced through the machines around her and hit her right hand manacle, breaking through the reinforced metal and sending another jolt of pain through Koriand'r's body.
Lowering her hand, Komand'r stepped away from the door.
"Thank you." Koriand'r whispered as she heard Komand'r's steps running away. For a moment, she had believed her sister would leave her locked there to be tortured, the fact that she did not brought no small amount of joy to her heart.
Gathering her strength, Koriand'r pulled her arm away from the broken manacle, sending shards of metal flying through the room. Grabbing her remaining manacle, she pulled against it with both arms at the same time.
Koriand'r felt something rising inside herself. She channeled that feeling into her actions and, with a shout, her hands burst into green light as she ripped the manacle in half.
Directing her newfound power towards her legs, she felt the energy leaving her body. Green bolts of energy flew from her hands and exploded against the locks on her legs, it was not enough to destroy them, but the attack had damaged them enough that she could pull herself free.
A Psion security drone appeared on the door. "Prisoner 01245557841, do not resist, lethal force has been authorized!" The electronic voice commanded. Hands still glowing, Koriand'r looked at the robot and released twin bolts of light from her eyes, driving the robot back against the wall with surprising power.
The Drone tried to recover but, after a single step, it tilted sideways and fell down. Two more took its place, their weapons raised and already shooting lasers at her.
Koriand'r's training kicked in, she floated aside and grabbed a heavy apparatus hanging from the ceiling, with a powerful twist, she ripped the appliance off its support and threw it towards the drone on the right then followed it up with a pounce.
Her makeshift projectile hit the drone and crushed it against the wall. Her own punch was a perfect example of Okara's martial arts, her hand piercing all the way through the robot's head. Grabbing its disabled body, she used it as a shield against a hail of lasers from her right side.
Koriand'r grabbed the robot's gun and pointed it forward, pressing the trigger repeatedly, only for it to refuse to fire. It must have some security feature to prevent any prisoner from stealing it.
Looking at her own hand, Koriand'r thought about her energy bolt, she still felt the ultraviolet light just under her skin and, while she had never been able to use it as such before, gathering a bolt of light into her hand felt instinctual, almost as easy as flight.
The lasers kept hitting her drone and melting their way through its armor. With a warrior scream, Koriand'r held the drone with a single arm and charged her assailants, using her other arm to return fire.
Her starbolts were not strong enough to destroy a drone with a single shot unless she could hit their heads, but she was trained in the use of projectiles, and she still managed to destroy three of the robots before slamming her makeshift shield into a fourth.
Now in melee range, the drones stood no chance against her. She weaved between them like a cat and disabled their weapons with a single hit each. She also discovered that her new powers could increase her strength, allowing her punches to break through their armors no matter where she struck.
Twelve drones lay destroyed at her feet in less than a minute, woefully, that was far from enough. From the other side of the hallway, Koriand'r saw at least another thirty drones, led by an armored Psion.
She wanted nothing more than to slay the lizard where he stood, but she had no cover. The robots were also far enough, and in enough numbers, that she was unlikely to survive another charge.
Turning around, she flew away as fast as she could manage. Koriand'r hoped she could find an escape ship or, barring that, a less protected Psion she could capture.
Instead, she found an open area filled with robots and Psions, all of them armed and ready for her.
Stopping in place, Koriand'r felt her body sinking to the ground, she was not going to escape; there were too many and they were too well armed.
Closing her eyes, she remembered her sister had also escaped, Komand'r had always been physically weaker, but she had also been an even better fighter than her.
Yes, her sister would survive. Despite their differences, Koriand'r knew Komand'r cared about Tamaran. She would be a good queen.
"X'hall give me strength." She prayed. Her duty was clear. If she could not escape, she could at least keep as many of their defenses busy. She could distract them and, hopefully, buy her sister enough time.
The prospect did not scare her. Instead, Koriand'r felt her flight stabilizing, her heart filling with hope instead of fear. With a scream of fury, she charged her enemies.
Green energy gathered at her fingertips and on her eyes as she waved between laser shots and returned fire. Any enemy that got into melee range was quickly dispatched, with prejudice, and those far away were bombarded with starbolts.
Koriand'r felt the lasers start to hit her, despite her newfound strength, there were too many, and she was tiring. She fought, she screamed, she destroyed, every time she thought of giving up, Koriand'r remembered her sister, her family.
Koriand'r was acting more on instinct than conscious thought, her body hurt everywhere and her arms felt heavy. Then she noticed another woman suddenly joining the fight.
For a second, her flight faltered as she thought her sister had failed to escape, but she quickly noticed the woman had blonde hair. She was also devastating the enemies. This stranger had little skill, but was acting with overwhelming power and savagery.
Koriand'r quickly recognized the woman's prowess, how laser shots could not even cause her to flinch, how a single punch could shatter a robot as if it was made from glass. Changing her approach, Koriand'r started fighting smarter, eliminating hidden enemies and those who thought to reorganize their defenses.
She had hope. They could win!
The fight was brutal, and the woman, no, the girl, devolved into a mess. Her attacks became more brutal, her screams showing pain despite nothing in the room seeming capable of hurting her.
Koriand'r knew she was not a fighter, despite all her power the girl did not have the training. She had not been a warrior before this, but, after the battle, that would change. No one went through such an onslaught and remained a civilian.
When the fight was finally over and the girl was left blind to her surroundings, attacking a dead Psion in a fit of rage, Koriand'r approached her.
She was careful, she had seen what the girl could do, but she could not leave her alone, she could not abandon her here without help and in the state she was in. A simple touch on the shoulder was enough for the girl to turn her rage upon her.
Koriand'r stepped back, her arms raised in surrender, but her muscles were tense and ready for a fight. Despite all her power, Koriand'r knew she could subdue the girl if it was needed. She hoped it was not.
She was right, the girl's eye stopped shining with red light, and her arms dropped to her sides as she took deep, long breaths. Slowly, and with very deliberate movements, Koriand'r warped her arms around the girl and pulled her closer, letting her cry against her shoulder while holding her tightly for comfort. Just as she had hoped Komand'r would hold her.
"Do not cry, rejoice, our fight has destroyed most of the forces they were willing to send." Koriand'r told the girl with a reassuring smile, the girl ignored her, as if still lost in her rage. Grabbing her shoulders, Koriand'r turned the girl's face towards her. "Do not grieve, we are safe now. You are safe now." She said, and felt the urge to hug the girl which had so recently been turned into a warrior against her own will.
The girl's eye finally focused on her, and Koriand'r could see she was sane and calming down. The girl spoke, but Koriand'r could not understand a single word. Had the Psions captured someone from outside the sector?
Koriand'r was glad she could help with that, while the girl still would not be able to communicate with others, Tamaraneans would not have that problem. Koriand'r nodded in understanding and cupped the girl's face in her hands, her ability could be activated just by touch, but she was not that experienced, and a kiss would be far more effective, and far less likely to lead to mistakes.
Koriand'r kissed the girl. She was briefly surprised, but far from displeased, when the girl kissed her back.
.
.
.
"AHHHH!" M'gann gasped, causing Koriand'r to snap out of her memories and turn towards the blushing girl.
"What troubles you, Friend M'gann?" Koriand'r asked, feeling safe to use the superhero's name while in their mind connection, but making a mental remark to start utilizing their codenames while on a mission.
While the other Titans were still feeling uneasy at letting the Martian into their minds, Koriand'r had perceived how the girl was starved for a mental connection and freely let M'gann into her mind, even allowing her to make a deeper connection.
"Nothing!" M'gann shouted, her blush growing even more pronounced despite her ability to shape-shift.
Koriand'r did not understand, she knew the girl had been able to see her memory, at least the last moments of it, but, what could have caused such a pronounced reaction? Humans, and Martians too it seemed, were most peculiar.
"Everyone, are we ready?" Aqualad checked one last time.
"Ah, let's go already!" Kid Flash could barely contain himself.
With an effort of will, Miss Martian opened the ship's hatch and the attack team jumped down. As the team's leader, Aqualad would be acting as the field commander for this operation.
He, Robin and Kid Flash, had the correct training in order to lead a stealth operation, while Miss Martian's shape-shifting gave her a natural advantage, which ameliorated her lack of training.
Although Koriand'r had the correct training, stealth was not her specialty and Superboy was still far from being capable of infiltrating anywhere, they would stay on the ship and act as support, or reinforcements, as the situation demanded.
It was best if they were completely unwearied if they were needed.
All four of them released Kara's drones into the air as soon as they approached the Venom factory. The devices shimmered and disappeared from view, quickly spreading through the location and conferring an immediate display of the entire location.
Koriand'r and Superboy watched closely as the robots located every objective they had: Kobra himself was overlooking the operation, and there were at least four Kobra-Venom enhanced on the factory alone. Still, there were places deep within the factory they dared not infiltrate remotely.
"Crap, I hate when the villains are smart." Robin cursed as he looked at the computer on his wrist. "They don't keep any important information on the local servers."
"Alright, remember, capturing Kobra is the primary mission." Aqualad informed them through their communication devices.
That had been one of the first lessons The Captain Atom and The Green Lantern had given them. As some of the only heroes who had been representatives of a military not focused on individual prowess, they had been an indispensable constituent of the Titan's initial training.
"Yeah, yeah, we all remember the debriefing." Robin huffed. He was far too accustomed to working with The Batman. Having to communicate his actions was both inefficient and unfamiliar to him.
"Control, we will start the mission in one minute." Koriand'r informed The Red Tornado. Being the one responsible for monitoring the mission, Koriand'r held her breath and looked at the enemies locations one final time.
She gave them the signal. "Proceed!"
All four attacked at the same time, each one responsible for a few guards. Their enemies' surprise was total, and the attack left no chance for any escape, or even the raising of the alarms. A second later, Supergirl's holographic devices were thrown on the ground and immediately started replicating the guard's movements for the last minute, making sure none could notice their attack, at least not with a simple glance.
Koriand'r gripped the edge of her seat tightly and leaned forward, her heart pounding against her chest. She did not know having to act as overwatch could be so exhilarating!
"All targets neutralized, proceed." Superboy said on his comms. He too had to relax his grip on the dented chair.
Poor bioship, Koriand'r hoped she could not feel pain from such a small location. Then she gasped, had she just been pinching it? She really disliked when Komand'r pinched her. "Apologies." She whispered while gently patting her seat.
Using the drone images, Koriand'r and Superboy guided the four Titans through the facility, utilizing the holographic projectors to delay their discovery for as long as possible.
"I've located a shipment of Kobra-Venom, it seems ready for delivery." Robin called out over his comms.
Turning her head towards his screen, Koriand'r frowned. A large quantity of Kobra-Venom was neatly packed and ready for transportation, too large to be distributed locally.
Typing fast, Koriand'r opened a screen with the information Robin had been able to hack from the local servers. There really was no immediately important information, but there were records of an increase in security and change in guard locations every week at the same time.
Koriand'r quickly sent the information to the four of them and got up, crossing her fingers, she stretched her tense arms above her head, then behind herself and bent down. With how much tighter the security was going to get, Koriand'r knew she and Superboy would have to intervene.
"What're you doing?" Superboy asked with an uncertain voice.
"I always observe proper stretching techniques." She answered and grabbed her leg, pulling her feet up to her back, pressing her chest forward. "Come, Friend Superboy, join me."
"What do you think it means?" Kid Flash asked while punching out a minion and setting another holographic dummy.
"A sale." Robin answered, his voice becoming more animated by the second. "Come on, not only can we capture Kobra, we can get one of his buyers too. I'm really feeling the aster here!"
"Friend Robin, I do not see any flowers from the surveillance drones." Koriand'r commented as she finished her stretches.
"What?" Everyone asked in confused voices.
"Please, were you speaking of the cellular structure then? But, there must be so many, to be able to feel them…"
"No, I mean, aster as in, the opposite of disaster…" Robin explained in a frustrated voice.
"I… did not know the vernacular could be used in such a way." Koriand'r mumbled while blushing. She would have to search for the idiom later. Friend Robin was most confusing.
The mission continued, Miss Martian acting as lookout to keep anyone from noticing while Kid flash installed explosive devices on the factory's machines and Robin searched Kobra's documentations and personal computers, trying to find proof of other villain's involvement.
They had discussed simply disabling the produced drug supply, but, even without Kobra or Bane, the factory could still be used to restart Venom production, it was best to destroy it all.
Also, Robin did enjoy blowing up things.
Finally, a drone caught sight of an approaching helicopter, also, Kobra himself appeared. Flanked by two Kobra-Venom users, the cult leader left the building and walked calmly towards the Helipad.
"Main Target located." Superboy informed everyone. All four heroes quickly dropped what they were doing and converged on Kobra's location.
Robin just disappeared from view, his new stealth suit allowing his impressive skills to reach a new level. Aqualad threw a holographic display and hid inside it, a second later, Kid flash slid into place beside him.
"Alright, how're we going to do this?" He asked.
"Starfire, Superboy, how long until you arrive?" Aqualad asked.
"The bioship is already floating above the factory." Superboy replied, cracking his neck, he and Koriand'r stood in the middle of the ship and prepared to open the hatch.
"Have we identified the buyer?"
"We have not. The drones do not have a good view of the helicopter." Koriand'r informed them. She commanded one of the drones to approach, but the wind was disturbing its flight. "I could try and approach, but the drone's stealth can not overcome the harsh wind."
"Hello Megan! I'll try to take a look myself." Using her powers to camouflage her body, Miss Martian started approaching the helicopter from the air.
"Miss Martian!" Aqualad grumbled under his breath, but it was too late.
Kobra lifted an eyebrow and glanced up for a second. He took another three steps and then wiped his arm up, throwing a dagger exactly where Miss Martian was floating. Miss Martian was able to react in time, but the dagger still pierced her shoulder and she dropped her camouflage.
"Eliminate her!" Kobra shouted in anger, but he didn't move himself. Lifting his arm, Kobra spoke at a device on his wrist. "Nothing must disturb us, activate the jammers."
A batarang flew through the air towards Kobra, but one of his bodyguards blocked it with an arm. With a beep, the batarang exploded and covered them with a cloud of smoke, obscuring their visions.
"Attack!" Aqualad ordered, and that was the last thing he managed to say before their comms stopped working.
"Miss Martian, mentally connect us!" Koriand'r shouted in her mind and ordered the bioship to open her doors.
"I-I… just a moment!" Miss Martian shouted back, she pulled the dagger out of her shoulder and hid behind the factory while using her shape-shifting to heal the wound.
Grabbing the edge of the door, Superboy looked around and located one of the large Kobra-Venom guards rushing towards Aqualad's location. Pushing against the ship, he caused it to swing around in the air while he pounced on the giant man, smashing his entire body on the floor and causing the earth to shake under their combined prowess.
Koriand'r dropped out of the ship and floated in the air for a second to access things. The situation on the ground was chaotic, but she decided to focus on the helicopter which was turning aside to reveal a giant artillery piece.
Koriand'r shot a starbolt at the weapon, but the metal proved far more resistant than she had believed. A wave of bullets hit the ground causing it to explode in a shower of gravel.
Kid Flash had been waving between cultists, utilizing his celerity to steal their weapons and disable the lesser minions, but he stumbled on the impaired floor and fell down.
Another three shots of her starbolts disabled the aircraft's munitions and Koriand'r turned her face to the ground again.
Suddenly, a javelin flew towards her right from the helicopter she had already dismissed. Koriand'r reacted fast and floated aside. With lightning-fast reflexes, she grabbed the projectile midair and twirled it in her hand before throwing it back with all her strength.
It had barely left her hand before it exploded, only a few centimeters away from her body. The shockwave sent her hurtling right into the factory building, bursting through the roof and into the steel beams.
"A little help here!" Kid Flash's desperate voice shouted in Koriand'r's head.
"Kinda busy!" Robin yelled and Kori could feel his concentration. "This is totally not whelming!"
"Miss Martian, support Superboy before he's overcome. Starfire, help Kid flash!" Aqualad's voice overcame the chatter in their minds. "I'll help with Kobra."
Koriand'r was already moving. She burst through the factory's wall and took in the scene again. Robin was desperately fighting Kobra, but it was clear the cult leader was stronger and more skilled.
Superboy was facing four Kobra-Venom cultists. He was stronger and faster than then, but the cultists were more skilled, and the half-Kryptonian was getting overwhelmed by their attacks.
Kid Flash was also struggling with two Kobra-Venom cultists, and there were several people trying to shoot him. Usually, he could run circles around them, but his fall seemed to have contused his ankle, and he was far slower.
Koriand'r narrowed her eyes, "Leave, him, alone!" she growled, shooting the closest Kobra-Venom cultist with a green starbolt before slamming into the second one with a knee to the face.
Bullets pinged against her skin with bruising strength, but Koriand'r ignored them to fight the enhanced. Despite their size and appearance, they were competent martial artists.
"Thanks!" Kid Flash shouted.
"What about the buyers! " Robin shouted in their minds, but Koriand'r could feel Aqualad shaking his head.
"Priorities! Disabling Kobra is our main concern."
Focusing on the Kobra enhanced, Koriand'r weaved between their blows and hit them. Unfortunately, she had never personally battled a chemically enhanced regular human and didn't know how resistant they were.
Without the heavy hitters, Kid Flash was able to disable the remaining cultists, allowing Robin and Aqualad to fully focus on Kobra without having to worry about stray bullets.
When Koriand'r finally subdued her enemies, she saw the aircraft starting to fly up with the latest delivery of Kobra-Venom. A blonde man wearing a metal mask was supervising the lift off while using projectiles such as darts and javelins to assist Kobra.
The cult leader himself seemed to be trying to escape, but Kid Flash had joined the fight and, together, they were keeping the man from running away.
Koriand'r rushed towards the masked man, throwing starbolts at him to stop him from helping Kobra. Reaching him, they started fighting. The man was incredibly skilled, and he knew to avoid her blows instead of blocking them.
They danced around each other as Koriand'r disabled his weapons. Shooting a starbolt from her eyes, Koriand'r forced him to duck under the blast and leave himself open for a kick to the chest.
He tried to block her kick with an arm, but her strength blew right through it and hit his armor. At the very last second, the man had jumped up so that his body flew back.
Koriand'r was just about to follow him when she heard the beep coming from her leg. It exploded with incredible power for a device so small, sending her flying back.
She reoriented herself quickly, only a slight burn on her leg. But the aircraft was already flying away, the man hanging from a rope connected to a harness at his waist, one of his arms broken while the other held his wounded chest.
Koriand'r shot a starbolt at him but the helicopter swirled aside at the last moment and someone inside shot a missile at her. A second starbolt blew it up but, by the time Koriand'r could see again, the helicopter was already far away.
She flew after it, she was just about to start hurling bolts again when the vehicle revealed another compartment. In a second, the aircraft shot three dozen smaller missiles towards where the Titans were still fighting. Koriand'r did not even stop to think, letting the helicopter escape in order to intercept the projectiles.
"He's gonna make a run for it!" Robin shouted in all of their minds, as Kobra looked around and finally bought himself some space.
Throwing a bomb to the floor, Kobra caused a large black cloud to rise around them.
"No he isn't!" Kid Flash shouted. Already warned by Robin, he quickly ran around their location and used the generated wind to disperse the cloud.
Kobra had made surprising progress in his escape even in that short time. Keeping close to the ground like an ophidian he had almost literally been trying to scurry away, but the cloud dispersed too soon and both Miss Martian and Superboy were already blocking his path.
The two heroes were a little battered, Superboy's costume had several dents in it, but they had proved superior to the Venom enhanced cultist they had fought.
Koriand'r finished destroying the missiles and floated down to face the cult leader. Kobra took a look at the Titans and gave a resigned sigh. Straightening his back, he lifted his arms with a smirk on his face. "I surrender."
"No shit." Kid Flash said.
Robin just threw another batarang at the man's face. Kobra grabbed the weapon midair and it released a small green cloud, causing the cult leader to collapse face first to the floor. Everyone looked at him.
"What? It's safer this way." He shrugged.
"Pity the buyer escaped." Kid Flash sighed. "And they took so much of the drug too."
"About that," Robin smirked. Pressing a button on his wrist he deactivated the holographic displays revealing all the disabled cultists, and also revealing a large quantity of the Kobra-Venom dumped to the side of the factory. "Since they had already prepared the drug for transport so conveniently, I thought it best to move it away for the moment."
"So, what did they carry away?" Miss Martian touched down on the floor and asked.
"A tracker." He snickered. "Well, I also had to fill it with some random crap for weight, and a holographic device to keep the disguise."
"Nice!" Kid Flash lifted his hand in the air and Robin high-fived it.
"Do you think they'll check on the drugs before arriving at their location?" Superboy asked, making them all trade glances.
"Communications are still blocked." Aqualad informed them after checking.
"I'll contact the mountain!" Miss Martian called and hurried towards the Bioship.
"I'll look for the signal blocker." Kid Flash ran towards the Factory.
"Hey," Robin called for Koriand'r's attention. "You don't think Supergirl is gonna be mad I let the villains take some of her devices? I know Batman hates when that happens."
"Do not worry, Friend Robin. Supergirl has installed assorted means of self termination in all of her devices." Koriand'r nodded with a smile. "It will most likely explode after some time, or if they attempt to study it. She will not care."
Robin and Aqualad traded unease glances then looked at their own costumes and the teleporting devices at each other's backs. "Now, when you say it will explode, do you mean the…"
"Come, Friend Robin, this is a victory and I was informed that, after victories, it is custom to do the partying!" Koriand'r grabbed Kobra by his coat and hoisted him onto her shoulders. "I am most eager to have some mustard with pizza on the bottom!"
The mustard party was magnificent, and it became even better when The Batman informed them the League had been able to pursue the signal. The villainous enemy Koriand'r had faced was identified as Sportsmaster and had been arrested by Wonder Woman herself.
They had also found a most villainous sanctuary where animals were being experimented on in India, a member of the UN charter, so the Justice League had been able to interfere. The Batman suspected the villain, The Brain, to have been involved but the mastermind had still escaped.
Feeling somewhat enervated, Koriand'r arrived home, and that very prospect already brought a smile to her face. Taking a quick shower, Koriand'r paused in front of Kara's room.
The blond was already sleeping, her body in a fetal position, her arm curled under the pillow. She had a frown on her face and her entire body shook. Dexter stood on top of her body, his claws kneading at her shoulders.
Stepping inside the bedroom, Koriand'r sat down on the bed and, carefully, laid beside her best friend. Kara did not wake up.
"You are safe now." She whispered at Kara's ears and, when her friend's hand grabbed at her shirt, Koriand'r lay down on the bed beside Kara and held her tightly against her body until the girl stopped shaking.
Koriand'r felt the cat curling into a ball between their bodies and smiled. Closing her eyes, she fell asleep.
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If you like my work, take a look at my other novels or my patreon and Ko-Fi. You can support me for a single dollar.
Thanks for my patrons : Xhaustedhero, Iori Daemona Angel, AlliterativeArts (Eric Faust), Lynx of Chaos, Comics, Davvy chappie, Ian Michael, WanderingDaemon, GrumpyJustGrumpy, Travis cox, Rootbeerguy, High Priest of Torga, James Williams, Michael Neal, Felrook, Kenzie, NotableRonin, Josh Orton, stanley seymour and AjiTae for supporting my work!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Kara "Codependency? Couldn't be me haha" Supergirl is at it again folks
GhostKing 666
Bringing Nightmares to life evey minute
You know, considering the simplicity of the "experiment" that was performed on the two of them, it always confused me that Tamaran didn't exploit the hell out that particular method of creating Tamaraneans super soldiers.
Sure the process hurts like a motherfucker and even carries a risk of death if you make a mistake on how much you can overcharge the prospective super soldier, but considering what the Gordanians and Citadelians have done to the Tamaraneans, they'd still have a massive list of volunteers.
An army of enhanced Tamaraneans who are faster, stronger and tougher than normal, who can also fire energy blasts would be the strongest army in Vega.
Sure the process hurts like a motherfucker and even carries a risk of death if you make a mistake on how much you can overcharge the prospective super soldier, but considering what the Gordanians and Citadelians have done to the Tamaraneans, they'd still have a massive list of volunteers.
An army of enhanced Tamaraneans who are faster, stronger and tougher than normal, who can also fire energy blasts would be the strongest army in Vega.
Chapter 26 - Interlude 4
Ah, sorry for the delay, those last days I was really busy and forgot to update the fic. Real sorry about that.
Also, just started posting my other story, Will of The Force, a Star Wars / Worm fanfic right here in SV if you guys are interested.
Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy the chapter.
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Dubbilex stared at the grave with an impassive face. He was currently wearing the guise of a young woman, unwilling to connect his Donavan disguise with this particular trip.
He really didn't know how he should be feeling right now.
In front of him rested his… mother? Sister? DNA donor? He supposes the third option was probably the most accurate. The others implied an emotional or familial connection that just wasn't there. They had never even met after all.
Ace had been a little over twice his age when she died and, according to the documents he read, her powers had been what caused her death. Dubbilex had since gotten all the genomorphs a new medical check. The results weren't good.
It seemed like his entire race had an expiration date, a little over twenty years with the proper care. He really didn't know what to think about that.
Most humans lived about seventy to eighty years these days, but there were alien races that lived much longer… and much shorter lives.
Shaking his head, Dubbilex kneeled in front of the grave and deposited the flowers he had been holding. It had been… interesting to meet Ace, in a manner of speaking, but it didn't really change his life.
No, it was important to remember her, but his focus should be on his still living brothers and sisters. Discovering just how short their lives would be gave him a new drive. He couldn't keep wasting time anymore.
"Thank you brother." He nodded towards Kon-El, the young man who had volunteered to accompany him, and he appreciated the gesture. "Let us return, I still have much to do."
"Kara's keeping you busy?" Kon-El asked with some interest.
"Indeed, managing both CADMUS and her company is difficult, I do hope she will find a new CEO soon." Dubbilex said as they left the cemetery.
"Starfire is starting to talk about organizing an intervention." Kon-El grimaced. "I don't think Kara's gonna react well to that."
"No, I suppose not." Dubbilex smiled thinking about his employer's continued efforts to escape her therapist. "I'll warn her that her time is running out."
"How's Kraig doing?"
"He still misses you, but he's adjusting well to the outside world." Dubbilex told him. The little G-gnome had been one of the first to volunteer at Kara's new factory. "I dream of the day we can walk freely but, clearly, that is still a work in progress."
"Is there anything I can do?" Kon-El asked, feeling Dubbilex's frustration.
"For the moment? No." Dubbilex shook his head and turned towards his brother. "However, when the time comes, I hope you can stand with us as we reveal ourselves."
"I… of course." Kon-El said with some hesitation.
Dubbilex could see his brother wanted to fit in, that he was willing to give it up for the sake of their race spoke well of his character. Laying a hand on his shoulder, Dubbilex smiled. "Don't worry brother, I have spoken with Kara and Batman, there is still much to be done before we're ready to move. When the time comes, I know you will be ready."
Kon-El nodded. His shoulders relaxed as they got into the car.
Dubbilex kept the image of the woman until he stepped into the Zeta-Tube that delivered him to CADMUS's door. Finally, he dispersed it and simply made himself invisible to anyone looking his way, trusting Kara's tech to keep his image from any cameras.
Once inside, he relaxed his control and felt at home, surrounded by his family. He nodded towards Beth as she stepped out of her power generator and stretched her limbs, electricity leaving her body until she was no longer shining with power.
"Going to the Cafeteria?" He connected to her mind and asked.
"Yes, just finished a shift." Beth flicked all her limbs, getting rid of the last sparks of electricity. "Want to come? Benny and Karen will be joining me there."
"Yes, I haven't eaten anything yet." He decided to take some time before starting to organize CADMUS's latest reports. He was eternally thankful for Kara's help but, since a little over a week now, it had been nearly impossible to get her away from her workshop.
"You work too much, should I have a talk with the boss lady? Kryptonians aren't immune to lightning, I could give her a lesson." Dubbilex snorted, no genomorph would hurt Kara Zor-El, of that he was certain, but Beth liked to joke about it.
"No need, it shouldn't be much longer before we have things in order." He dismissed her concern. It wasn't the time to be slowing down.
Eating a nice meal at the cafeteria, Dubbilex smiled as he saw the genomorphs and human researchers interacting as if it was normal. The human's G-gnome handlers didn't even have to do anything.
At the beginning, the human workers had found it strange to see the genomorphs free, walking around, having breaks and eating amongst them but ultimately, the G-gnomes only had to interfere a few times, and that interference was minimal.
Instead of mind controlling the humans, which many of them, including Dubbilex himself, were loathe to do, they just used their telepathy to inform Dubbilex, and he pretended to be their superior, berating them for releasing company secrets and reminding them of their work contracts.
Kara's tech intercepted any electronic report, and, since they still believed the genomorphs were under their control, the humans adapted quickly. Not to say there weren't some unpleasant individuals, but they were few and far between.
Sitting down at his desk, Dubbilex relaxed his body on the comfortable chair and used his telekinesis to lift the physical reports he had to sign. He read them one after another, and signed them with only a minor effort of will, his pen moving in the air with incredible skill.
Since finding out his own… origin, Dubbilex had been using his powers more and more. Ace had been able to grow from only being able to alter the perception of those who met her eyes, to warping reality in an area around herself.
Dubbilex doubted he could reach that level of power, and he certainly didn't want to share her fate, but he was being careful and already noticed a large growth of his abilities, telekinesis came easier and with more skill. His telepathy was already effortless and now it grew in range and finesse every day.
He felt nearly twice as strong as he was before Kara had freed him, and that was far from his limit. Never again would he be unable to help his people. He refused to stand by once more.
Dubbilex was a natural pacifist, he did not wish for conflict and, more importantly, he would not start conflict. But, he wouldn't stay quiet if his family was attacked or enslaved, not again.
Leaning forward, Dubbilex opened his own laptop, one given to him by Kara so nobody could hack it, typing his password, he waited until the computer finished scanning him, reading his fingerprints, retina, body shape and even his temperature, then started working on his CEO responsibilities, making sure the factory would be able to produce their first prototype on time.
Suddenly, his screen flashes red and the notebook starts releasing an incredibly annoying noise, a single click later and Dubbilex was redirected to the cameras outside CADMUS. For a moment, he couldn't see anything, then Kara's tech changed to heat signals revealing several assailants.
Reacting immediately, Dubbilex stretched his power, connecting to several people inside the facility. "Guardian, this is an emergency, start the evacuation procedures, abandon the upper floors and focus on the remaining genomorphs. Erin, make sure to retrieve everything and destroy any information on our creation or other sensitive projects. All others, start making your way to the genomorph cave."
He didn't wait for their answer and cut the connection, focusing back on the cameras. He recognized a few of their hidden enemies from Kara's documentation, while most of them were too well hidden, Hook and Black Spider weren't as skilled as the others.
The League of Shadows was here.
From the main road, a black car arrived and parked right in front of CADMUS, Lex Luthor himself stepped out of the vehicle, pulling something from inside his suit, he pressed a button and Dubbilex saw CADMUS' own security be completely disabled, every camera stopped working at the same time.
Thankfully, Kara had long since provided an alternative surveillance system in the form of her drones. Some of the genomorphs had also disconnected a few of the security features from the central CADMUS' system, making them work independently. Then a small, cylindrical robot with a brain appeared from the other side of the car, a large gorilla with a red beret following closely behind.
The gorilla was carrying a large metal pole on his shoulder, with a grunt, he drove it into the ground and the entire thing unfolded, revealing some kind of antenna. Dubbilex ordered a few of the drones to come closer for a better look.
The drones registered a pulse as it was released from the device, several warnings started activating on his screen and, before he could react, a bullet hit the closest drone. In quick succession, all the drones on the outside of the building were disabled.
Pressing a button, Dubbilex ordered them to self-destruct. Unfortunately, at least a dozen of the devices had completely stopped responding before he did. Kara still had incorporated defenses against tampering on every device but, with so many spares, they would have far too many tries to break through her defenses.
The drones weren't actually that important, but Kara absolutely hated losing any advantage she had, and Dubbilex could already see the young Kryptonian becoming paranoid of her own tech being used against her allies.
A few seconds later, he found out what went wrong. While Brain's device couldn't destroy Kara's drones, or even disable them. It could disrupt their stealth, making them easy pickings for the trained assassins.
Ordering the remaining devices to hide themselves in the ventilation or any other tight space, Dubbilex reprogrammed them so that any movement less than a meter from them would trigger their self-destruct. This way he'd be able to keep an eye on the Light's progress while minimizing the chances that they could capture more of the devices.
Grabbing a tablet, Dubbilex got up from his chair and almost ran from the room. Hopefully, they could all be out of this place soon, leaving the Light empty handed.
The first five floors were completely evacuated before the Light even entered the building. Some data and experiments were left behind, but really, the upper floors were left for anything they did not mind leaving behind anyway.
All their personnel started gathering beneath the last floor of the facility, where the genomorphs had opened a large cavern they could use to escape.
Around him, Genomorphs lead humans towards the evacuation area, taking the humans away was a risk, but there was no way to know if the Light wouldn't kill them and blame his family as a power play.
Checking his tablet, Dubbilex finally had the names of the entire raid team.
Leading from the front was Lady Shiva. He had disabled the elevator so the assassin and martial artist was running down the stairs with astonishing speed, followed closely behind by Cheshire.
Behind them, and running much slower, were Ubu, Hook and Black Spider. They tried to keep up, but the two females were just too fast.
Lex Luthor seemed to have decided to wait outside, Dubbilex managed to send one of the surviving drones outside to watch him, but the man rested calmly against the car, messing with his own cell phone.
Brain, Ra's al Ghul and Ocean-Master walked calmly around the facility, as if they didn't have a worry in the world. Dubbilex made sure to save the footage of it. At least he could prove they were working together.
Dubbilex tried to send a copy to Kara's computer, but something was interfering with communications to and from the facility. He almost wanted to smirk. So they thought themselves safe.
Reaching the last floor, Dubbilex grabbed one of Kara's portal communicators and activated it. He sent all the information towards her computer, while also sending a copy to his own device at the company. He also sent out a call for help, but the device only connected to a single place, and there was a chance Kara would notice the warning too late.
They hadn't thought they'd be found out so soon, but there had been too many things to do. Kara had given him the first device she produced, but they had forgotten to get more.
At least he had gotten the footage out. It was not definite proof, but Dubbilex was happy to take any chance of causing Luthor problems.
Guardian arrived at his side. The clone had been keeping watch on his own device, and his face didn't seem as satisfied as the situation demanded.
"Is there a problem?"
"There's too many, it's taking too long to get everyone safely to the other side, and they're advancing too fast." He frowned as he watched Lady Shiva punch through a door and throw daggers at the few defenses his family had managed to restart. "We'll have to delay them."
"There are still some working defenses on the lower floors. Are you sure they won't be enough?" Dubbilex asked.
Karen stepped at their side and grunted causing the both of them to turn towards her. She used a large claw to point at her own device. Dubbilex's eyes widened.
It seems like, while they had been paying attention to the vanguard, Brain was working on opening the elevator doors. "The elevators are still disabled, even if he reactivates them; we made sure they were too damaged to move."
"Brain is too good a scientist, and Ocean Master is a mage. They will find a way." Guardian said while Karen just shook her head.
"Very well, Guardian, focus on giving me cover, I'll delay them for as long as I can." Dubbilex said.
Karen grunted. Her voice was much harsher than before. Dubbilex knew the G-Trolls had impressive size and strength, but they had no training and, as the Titans had proved, that made all the difference.
Most G-Trolls were gentle beings, even more gentle than other Genomorphs, only Karen had been willing to train and defend her family.
"Are you sure, sister?" He asked. The G-Troll didn't even stop to think about it, she nodded and grunted her confidence. "Very well, try to stay out of sight. A surprise attack can give us a large advantage."
The elevator shaft only went down to the 48th floor. Dubbilex chose a large room on the 50th floor for their confrontation. There were large support pillars and a giant open space. The room used to house thousands of cages that perpetually drained his family of their electricity. Nobody would come to check on them for weeks.
Once the Genomorphs were free, most G-Sprites decided to destroy the cages and never again step into this place. Dubbilex had left it empty since then, it was a low enough floor to be blocked from most employees, and he didn't need the space.
Dubbilex closed his eyes and breathed deeply, concentrating fully on the moment. There was a chance that Kara or someone else would get here in time, but, if he was truthful, he welcomed the chance of fighting them, the chance to defend his people himself instead of cowering and putting all his hopes in others.
He also sent an order to Kara's devices, since he no longer needed to watch the upper floors, it was best that they be destroyed before The Light had the time to search for them.
Lady Shiva and Cheshire were the first to arrive, followed closely behind by Hook, Ubu and Black Spider. Instead of attacking, Dubbilex used his telepathic illusions to trick them. While he wanted to fight them, his family was more important, delaying them was the true goal.
The assassins wandered the floor in circular patterns, running as fast as they could, only to end up at exactly the same place.
Lady Shiva was the first to notice, stopping in place and closing her eyes, the assassin tried to use her other senses to find out his location. Dubbilex didn't let her. The very moment she stopped moving he attacked, putting pressure on her mind without revealing his location.
Lady Shiva frowned, but her mind was too strong and Dubbilex couldn't overcome her defenses while also keeping his location hidden. Unfortunately, Cheshire too noticed them, throwing several needles towards Guardian.
The man managed to block the attack, but that was enough to break Dubbilex's illusions and reveal the both of them. Guardian attacked. Trading blows with Cheshire and actually driving her back for a few seconds.
Dubbilex kept his focus on Lady Shiva, bombarding her mind with his power since he no longer had to affect the others or hide his position, causing her to stumble back.
Hook shot his weapon at him. The large metal hook connected to a chain flew straight towards his face and finally forced him to stop his attack, with a telekinetic blow Dubbilex smashed the hook to the floor with so much force it broke the chain and caused the ground to explode in shards of concrete and ceramic.
From one of the pillars, Black Spider shoots webs at his body. Dubbilex motioned with his hand and a piece of the damaged floor rose in the air, the sticky red substance struck the physical barrier and stopped.
The boulder was too heavy for him to throw with any speed, but it was already damaged and he had been working on finesse. A simple application of his power broke it apart, creating hundreds of smaller projectiles. Another wave of his hand sharpened their tips before he sent them flying as fast as possible towards all five enemies.
The attack forced Ubu to stop his charge and dodge aside, Lady Shiva recovered fast enough to jump back, Black Spider was pierced in the leg by a projectile and fell down, and Hook turned his back, tanking the attack with his armor but leaving himself open.
Another wave of his hand, Dubbilex telekinetically grabbed the discarded hook and used it to pierce through its owner's ankle then dragged him through the air and threw him against Cheshire.
The ninja jumped away and regrouped with Lady Shiva while Ubu and Black Spider hid behind a pillar.
Guardian had held his own, but there were several needles sticking from his shield and helmet. They nodded to each other.
Lady Shiva and Cheshire attacked, throwing a wave of knives and needles which Dubbilex blocked with ease. The needles stopped dead in the air, while the daggers were parried aside. Wiping his hand to the side, Dubbilex actually hit Black Spider with one of the needles causing the Assassin to stumble and letting Guardian smash his shield on the man's face, knocking him out.
Ubu engaged with Guardian, while Dubbilex desperately tried to keep both female assassins away, using the discarded daggers and rubble as projectiles, then a flash of light caught his attention and he had to step back, letting a magical projectile pass him by and explode against a pillar.
"Well, well, well, it seems like you're having trouble here, how peculiar." Brain said in an electronic voice. The large gorilla walking by his side just grunted.
"Lady Shiva, why haven't you eliminated him?" Asked Ra's al Ghul, his hands hidden behind his back.
"He's a powerful telepath and telekinetic, I would overcome him, but he managed to delay me until now." The lady assassin said in a calm and even voice, as if their fight had never happened.
Guardian actually subdued Ubu and stepped back, his face was filled with sweat and he was desperately trying to catch his breath. Seeing his situation, Dubbilex nodded and opened their mental connection.
"Thank you for the support Guardian, retreat before it's too late."
"What about you?"
"I can delay them for a few moments more," Dubbilex looked at his eyes with confidence then focused back on their enemies. "Karen, it seems like we can't avoid it."
Looking at the three new enemies that had arrived, Dubbilex was happy to see they weren't in a hurry to finish this. All three of them just observed the situation, and didn't show any signs of wanting to act themselves.
With a wave of his hand, Dubbilex sent Ubu flying back towards Shiva and Cheshire, forcing them to dodge while getting pelted with anything he could get his telekinetic grasp on.
They had learned not to use projectiles, and Dubbilex was exhausting himself to keep them away. He couldn't keep it up for long, but even they couldn't advance under his attack and he managed to block them for nearly a full minute.
"Enough, I'll deal with him." Ocean-Master shouted and pointed at him with his spear, releasing another blast of magic.
Dubbilex was already moving, stepping aside without a lot of movement while sending a stone towards the villain.
Ocean-Master destroyed the stone with a wave of his spears and charged, moving with incredible speed towards him. Dubbilex started walking backwards and, when Ocean-Master was nearly upon him, Karen attacked.
From the start of the fight Karen had been waiting behind one of the pillars, feeling anxious, now she used all her nervous energy on a single, devastating punch.
Dubbilex swore he could see the villain's eyes widening as the punch approached. Lifting his spear, he had enough time to form a magical shield, but the blow was so strong the shield exploded into shards of light and Ocean-Master's body was sent flying.
The G-Trolls were big. Dubbilex would go so far as to say they were giants. Taller, larger and heavier than elephants, their every movement had enough strength to match most supers. And in case that wasn't enough, Karen wasn't a normal G-Troll.
Once it was clear Dubbilex couldn't deal with them by himself, Karen had consumed a G-Troll sized dose of the last Blockbuster serum they had. Her muscles were twice as big, her tusks sharper than ever and her very skin could barely contain her power.
Blockbuster could make a normal human match a G-Troll, used by a G-Troll. Dubbilex believed she could match Superman, at least in strength alone.
Stepping out from behind the pillar, Karen's feet shook the ground. With some concentration, Dubbilex used his telekinesis to raise his body until he was standing on her shoulder.
Karen roared, her voice driving them all back with the sheer power.
"Fascinating." Brain said, still with his confident voice.
At his side, Ocean-Master picked himself up, he spit some blood on the ground and cracked his neck. Suddenly, he shot a new blast from his spear and Karen wasn't fast enough to dodge.
The magical attack hit her in the arm and blasted all the way through, Dubbilex could see the exposed bone from the wound and Karen roared again, this time from pain.
Telekinetically keeping himself above her. Dubbilex had to focus his entire power on blocking Ocean-Master, keeping the tip of his spear pointed away from Karen's body with any means he could as the G-Troll fought the others by herself.
Her power meant that all but Ocean-Master couldn't survive a single hit, unfortunately they all knew how to fight a super strong opponent, and they were all too fast for her. Even with Ra's and Brain staying back, her wounds started accumulating.
Lady Shiva herself was cutting through Karen's body like a madwoman, weaving between Karen's attacks without even stepping back. Several times, the assassin managed to climb Karen's body and attack Dubbilex himself.
His chest was hurting from a deep cut, and his left arm had stopped working when it was pierced by Shiva's sword. Dubbilex also felt himself weakening, finding a needle piercing the back of his knee.
Karen was a mess. She must have been cut almost a thousand times, and there was blood all around her on the floor. She was breathing hard, one of her tusks missing from when Dubbilex almost couldn't completely redirect one of Ocean-Master's attacks.
Finally, he knew they couldn't hold on any more. In a desperate move, he stopped disrupting Ocean-master and blasted everyone around them with a wave of telekinesis, Lady Shiva, Cheshire and the Gorilla flew back, but one of Ocean-Master's magical blasts hit him in the side, blowing a hole through his body and destroying at least some of his organs.
Dubbilex feet slipped from Karen's shoulders, his telekinesis no longer able to keep him in place. Karen caught him in a large hand just before he hit the floor, unable to even speak, he ordered in her mind. "RUN!"
She ran, the enemies were about to follow them, but Guardian must have been watching the fight, because he activated the last defense, using the explosive charges to collapse the ceiling just as they stepped into the stairs towards the lower floors.
Karen didn't stop, her blood flying all over the place as she carried him down, down into the secret cave. Dubbilex was barely conscious, but he used the very last of his powers to telekinetically pinch his wounds close. He was sure it was doing even more damage, but the effort kept him from bleeding out.
Karen finally reached the last cave and collapsed to her knees, Guardian managed to catch his body as it dropped from the G-Troll's hand "Dubbilex!"
"Le-let's… coff… go." Behind him, the ceiling collapsed, Ocean-Master dropped from the hole and fell, making a superhero landing.
Lady Shiva soon dropped lightly by his side, the same calm expression on her face. Ocean-Master lifted his trident and the entire world flashed as Guardian smashed the button for Kara's Kryptonian teleportation device.
It was built to let Genomorphs go from CADMUS to Kara's factory. Fully made with Kryptonian technology and materials, not only was it powerful enough to take them all away, but it would also act as a transportation vehicle, not a platform, teleporting with them and leaving nothing behind for The Light to study.
It had taken several trips, and even longer for the people to move, but they had bought enough time for all CADMUS personnel to teleport away.
It was with a sense of relief that Dubbilex passed out.
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If you like my work, take a look at my other novels or my patreon and Ko-Fi. You can support me for a single dollar.
Thanks for my patrons : Xhaustedhero, Iori Daemona Angel, AlliterativeArts (Eric Faust), Lynx of Chaos, Comics, Davvy chappie, Ian Michael, WanderingDaemon, GrumpyJustGrumpy, Travis cox, Rootbeerguy, High Priest of Torga, Michael Neal, Felrook, NotableRonin, Josh Orton, stanley seymour and AjiTae for supporting my work!
Also, just started posting my other story, Will of The Force, a Star Wars / Worm fanfic right here in SV if you guys are interested.
Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy the chapter.
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Dubbilex stared at the grave with an impassive face. He was currently wearing the guise of a young woman, unwilling to connect his Donavan disguise with this particular trip.
He really didn't know how he should be feeling right now.
In front of him rested his… mother? Sister? DNA donor? He supposes the third option was probably the most accurate. The others implied an emotional or familial connection that just wasn't there. They had never even met after all.
Ace had been a little over twice his age when she died and, according to the documents he read, her powers had been what caused her death. Dubbilex had since gotten all the genomorphs a new medical check. The results weren't good.
It seemed like his entire race had an expiration date, a little over twenty years with the proper care. He really didn't know what to think about that.
Most humans lived about seventy to eighty years these days, but there were alien races that lived much longer… and much shorter lives.
Shaking his head, Dubbilex kneeled in front of the grave and deposited the flowers he had been holding. It had been… interesting to meet Ace, in a manner of speaking, but it didn't really change his life.
No, it was important to remember her, but his focus should be on his still living brothers and sisters. Discovering just how short their lives would be gave him a new drive. He couldn't keep wasting time anymore.
"Thank you brother." He nodded towards Kon-El, the young man who had volunteered to accompany him, and he appreciated the gesture. "Let us return, I still have much to do."
"Kara's keeping you busy?" Kon-El asked with some interest.
"Indeed, managing both CADMUS and her company is difficult, I do hope she will find a new CEO soon." Dubbilex said as they left the cemetery.
"Starfire is starting to talk about organizing an intervention." Kon-El grimaced. "I don't think Kara's gonna react well to that."
"No, I suppose not." Dubbilex smiled thinking about his employer's continued efforts to escape her therapist. "I'll warn her that her time is running out."
"How's Kraig doing?"
"He still misses you, but he's adjusting well to the outside world." Dubbilex told him. The little G-gnome had been one of the first to volunteer at Kara's new factory. "I dream of the day we can walk freely but, clearly, that is still a work in progress."
"Is there anything I can do?" Kon-El asked, feeling Dubbilex's frustration.
"For the moment? No." Dubbilex shook his head and turned towards his brother. "However, when the time comes, I hope you can stand with us as we reveal ourselves."
"I… of course." Kon-El said with some hesitation.
Dubbilex could see his brother wanted to fit in, that he was willing to give it up for the sake of their race spoke well of his character. Laying a hand on his shoulder, Dubbilex smiled. "Don't worry brother, I have spoken with Kara and Batman, there is still much to be done before we're ready to move. When the time comes, I know you will be ready."
Kon-El nodded. His shoulders relaxed as they got into the car.
Dubbilex kept the image of the woman until he stepped into the Zeta-Tube that delivered him to CADMUS's door. Finally, he dispersed it and simply made himself invisible to anyone looking his way, trusting Kara's tech to keep his image from any cameras.
Once inside, he relaxed his control and felt at home, surrounded by his family. He nodded towards Beth as she stepped out of her power generator and stretched her limbs, electricity leaving her body until she was no longer shining with power.
"Going to the Cafeteria?" He connected to her mind and asked.
"Yes, just finished a shift." Beth flicked all her limbs, getting rid of the last sparks of electricity. "Want to come? Benny and Karen will be joining me there."
"Yes, I haven't eaten anything yet." He decided to take some time before starting to organize CADMUS's latest reports. He was eternally thankful for Kara's help but, since a little over a week now, it had been nearly impossible to get her away from her workshop.
"You work too much, should I have a talk with the boss lady? Kryptonians aren't immune to lightning, I could give her a lesson." Dubbilex snorted, no genomorph would hurt Kara Zor-El, of that he was certain, but Beth liked to joke about it.
"No need, it shouldn't be much longer before we have things in order." He dismissed her concern. It wasn't the time to be slowing down.
Eating a nice meal at the cafeteria, Dubbilex smiled as he saw the genomorphs and human researchers interacting as if it was normal. The human's G-gnome handlers didn't even have to do anything.
At the beginning, the human workers had found it strange to see the genomorphs free, walking around, having breaks and eating amongst them but ultimately, the G-gnomes only had to interfere a few times, and that interference was minimal.
Instead of mind controlling the humans, which many of them, including Dubbilex himself, were loathe to do, they just used their telepathy to inform Dubbilex, and he pretended to be their superior, berating them for releasing company secrets and reminding them of their work contracts.
Kara's tech intercepted any electronic report, and, since they still believed the genomorphs were under their control, the humans adapted quickly. Not to say there weren't some unpleasant individuals, but they were few and far between.
Sitting down at his desk, Dubbilex relaxed his body on the comfortable chair and used his telekinesis to lift the physical reports he had to sign. He read them one after another, and signed them with only a minor effort of will, his pen moving in the air with incredible skill.
Since finding out his own… origin, Dubbilex had been using his powers more and more. Ace had been able to grow from only being able to alter the perception of those who met her eyes, to warping reality in an area around herself.
Dubbilex doubted he could reach that level of power, and he certainly didn't want to share her fate, but he was being careful and already noticed a large growth of his abilities, telekinesis came easier and with more skill. His telepathy was already effortless and now it grew in range and finesse every day.
He felt nearly twice as strong as he was before Kara had freed him, and that was far from his limit. Never again would he be unable to help his people. He refused to stand by once more.
Dubbilex was a natural pacifist, he did not wish for conflict and, more importantly, he would not start conflict. But, he wouldn't stay quiet if his family was attacked or enslaved, not again.
Leaning forward, Dubbilex opened his own laptop, one given to him by Kara so nobody could hack it, typing his password, he waited until the computer finished scanning him, reading his fingerprints, retina, body shape and even his temperature, then started working on his CEO responsibilities, making sure the factory would be able to produce their first prototype on time.
Suddenly, his screen flashes red and the notebook starts releasing an incredibly annoying noise, a single click later and Dubbilex was redirected to the cameras outside CADMUS. For a moment, he couldn't see anything, then Kara's tech changed to heat signals revealing several assailants.
Reacting immediately, Dubbilex stretched his power, connecting to several people inside the facility. "Guardian, this is an emergency, start the evacuation procedures, abandon the upper floors and focus on the remaining genomorphs. Erin, make sure to retrieve everything and destroy any information on our creation or other sensitive projects. All others, start making your way to the genomorph cave."
He didn't wait for their answer and cut the connection, focusing back on the cameras. He recognized a few of their hidden enemies from Kara's documentation, while most of them were too well hidden, Hook and Black Spider weren't as skilled as the others.
The League of Shadows was here.
From the main road, a black car arrived and parked right in front of CADMUS, Lex Luthor himself stepped out of the vehicle, pulling something from inside his suit, he pressed a button and Dubbilex saw CADMUS' own security be completely disabled, every camera stopped working at the same time.
Thankfully, Kara had long since provided an alternative surveillance system in the form of her drones. Some of the genomorphs had also disconnected a few of the security features from the central CADMUS' system, making them work independently. Then a small, cylindrical robot with a brain appeared from the other side of the car, a large gorilla with a red beret following closely behind.
The gorilla was carrying a large metal pole on his shoulder, with a grunt, he drove it into the ground and the entire thing unfolded, revealing some kind of antenna. Dubbilex ordered a few of the drones to come closer for a better look.
The drones registered a pulse as it was released from the device, several warnings started activating on his screen and, before he could react, a bullet hit the closest drone. In quick succession, all the drones on the outside of the building were disabled.
Pressing a button, Dubbilex ordered them to self-destruct. Unfortunately, at least a dozen of the devices had completely stopped responding before he did. Kara still had incorporated defenses against tampering on every device but, with so many spares, they would have far too many tries to break through her defenses.
The drones weren't actually that important, but Kara absolutely hated losing any advantage she had, and Dubbilex could already see the young Kryptonian becoming paranoid of her own tech being used against her allies.
A few seconds later, he found out what went wrong. While Brain's device couldn't destroy Kara's drones, or even disable them. It could disrupt their stealth, making them easy pickings for the trained assassins.
Ordering the remaining devices to hide themselves in the ventilation or any other tight space, Dubbilex reprogrammed them so that any movement less than a meter from them would trigger their self-destruct. This way he'd be able to keep an eye on the Light's progress while minimizing the chances that they could capture more of the devices.
Grabbing a tablet, Dubbilex got up from his chair and almost ran from the room. Hopefully, they could all be out of this place soon, leaving the Light empty handed.
The first five floors were completely evacuated before the Light even entered the building. Some data and experiments were left behind, but really, the upper floors were left for anything they did not mind leaving behind anyway.
All their personnel started gathering beneath the last floor of the facility, where the genomorphs had opened a large cavern they could use to escape.
Around him, Genomorphs lead humans towards the evacuation area, taking the humans away was a risk, but there was no way to know if the Light wouldn't kill them and blame his family as a power play.
Checking his tablet, Dubbilex finally had the names of the entire raid team.
Leading from the front was Lady Shiva. He had disabled the elevator so the assassin and martial artist was running down the stairs with astonishing speed, followed closely behind by Cheshire.
Behind them, and running much slower, were Ubu, Hook and Black Spider. They tried to keep up, but the two females were just too fast.
Lex Luthor seemed to have decided to wait outside, Dubbilex managed to send one of the surviving drones outside to watch him, but the man rested calmly against the car, messing with his own cell phone.
Brain, Ra's al Ghul and Ocean-Master walked calmly around the facility, as if they didn't have a worry in the world. Dubbilex made sure to save the footage of it. At least he could prove they were working together.
Dubbilex tried to send a copy to Kara's computer, but something was interfering with communications to and from the facility. He almost wanted to smirk. So they thought themselves safe.
Reaching the last floor, Dubbilex grabbed one of Kara's portal communicators and activated it. He sent all the information towards her computer, while also sending a copy to his own device at the company. He also sent out a call for help, but the device only connected to a single place, and there was a chance Kara would notice the warning too late.
They hadn't thought they'd be found out so soon, but there had been too many things to do. Kara had given him the first device she produced, but they had forgotten to get more.
At least he had gotten the footage out. It was not definite proof, but Dubbilex was happy to take any chance of causing Luthor problems.
Guardian arrived at his side. The clone had been keeping watch on his own device, and his face didn't seem as satisfied as the situation demanded.
"Is there a problem?"
"There's too many, it's taking too long to get everyone safely to the other side, and they're advancing too fast." He frowned as he watched Lady Shiva punch through a door and throw daggers at the few defenses his family had managed to restart. "We'll have to delay them."
"There are still some working defenses on the lower floors. Are you sure they won't be enough?" Dubbilex asked.
Karen stepped at their side and grunted causing the both of them to turn towards her. She used a large claw to point at her own device. Dubbilex's eyes widened.
It seems like, while they had been paying attention to the vanguard, Brain was working on opening the elevator doors. "The elevators are still disabled, even if he reactivates them; we made sure they were too damaged to move."
"Brain is too good a scientist, and Ocean Master is a mage. They will find a way." Guardian said while Karen just shook her head.
"Very well, Guardian, focus on giving me cover, I'll delay them for as long as I can." Dubbilex said.
Karen grunted. Her voice was much harsher than before. Dubbilex knew the G-Trolls had impressive size and strength, but they had no training and, as the Titans had proved, that made all the difference.
Most G-Trolls were gentle beings, even more gentle than other Genomorphs, only Karen had been willing to train and defend her family.
"Are you sure, sister?" He asked. The G-Troll didn't even stop to think about it, she nodded and grunted her confidence. "Very well, try to stay out of sight. A surprise attack can give us a large advantage."
The elevator shaft only went down to the 48th floor. Dubbilex chose a large room on the 50th floor for their confrontation. There were large support pillars and a giant open space. The room used to house thousands of cages that perpetually drained his family of their electricity. Nobody would come to check on them for weeks.
Once the Genomorphs were free, most G-Sprites decided to destroy the cages and never again step into this place. Dubbilex had left it empty since then, it was a low enough floor to be blocked from most employees, and he didn't need the space.
Dubbilex closed his eyes and breathed deeply, concentrating fully on the moment. There was a chance that Kara or someone else would get here in time, but, if he was truthful, he welcomed the chance of fighting them, the chance to defend his people himself instead of cowering and putting all his hopes in others.
He also sent an order to Kara's devices, since he no longer needed to watch the upper floors, it was best that they be destroyed before The Light had the time to search for them.
Lady Shiva and Cheshire were the first to arrive, followed closely behind by Hook, Ubu and Black Spider. Instead of attacking, Dubbilex used his telepathic illusions to trick them. While he wanted to fight them, his family was more important, delaying them was the true goal.
The assassins wandered the floor in circular patterns, running as fast as they could, only to end up at exactly the same place.
Lady Shiva was the first to notice, stopping in place and closing her eyes, the assassin tried to use her other senses to find out his location. Dubbilex didn't let her. The very moment she stopped moving he attacked, putting pressure on her mind without revealing his location.
Lady Shiva frowned, but her mind was too strong and Dubbilex couldn't overcome her defenses while also keeping his location hidden. Unfortunately, Cheshire too noticed them, throwing several needles towards Guardian.
The man managed to block the attack, but that was enough to break Dubbilex's illusions and reveal the both of them. Guardian attacked. Trading blows with Cheshire and actually driving her back for a few seconds.
Dubbilex kept his focus on Lady Shiva, bombarding her mind with his power since he no longer had to affect the others or hide his position, causing her to stumble back.
Hook shot his weapon at him. The large metal hook connected to a chain flew straight towards his face and finally forced him to stop his attack, with a telekinetic blow Dubbilex smashed the hook to the floor with so much force it broke the chain and caused the ground to explode in shards of concrete and ceramic.
From one of the pillars, Black Spider shoots webs at his body. Dubbilex motioned with his hand and a piece of the damaged floor rose in the air, the sticky red substance struck the physical barrier and stopped.
The boulder was too heavy for him to throw with any speed, but it was already damaged and he had been working on finesse. A simple application of his power broke it apart, creating hundreds of smaller projectiles. Another wave of his hand sharpened their tips before he sent them flying as fast as possible towards all five enemies.
The attack forced Ubu to stop his charge and dodge aside, Lady Shiva recovered fast enough to jump back, Black Spider was pierced in the leg by a projectile and fell down, and Hook turned his back, tanking the attack with his armor but leaving himself open.
Another wave of his hand, Dubbilex telekinetically grabbed the discarded hook and used it to pierce through its owner's ankle then dragged him through the air and threw him against Cheshire.
The ninja jumped away and regrouped with Lady Shiva while Ubu and Black Spider hid behind a pillar.
Guardian had held his own, but there were several needles sticking from his shield and helmet. They nodded to each other.
Lady Shiva and Cheshire attacked, throwing a wave of knives and needles which Dubbilex blocked with ease. The needles stopped dead in the air, while the daggers were parried aside. Wiping his hand to the side, Dubbilex actually hit Black Spider with one of the needles causing the Assassin to stumble and letting Guardian smash his shield on the man's face, knocking him out.
Ubu engaged with Guardian, while Dubbilex desperately tried to keep both female assassins away, using the discarded daggers and rubble as projectiles, then a flash of light caught his attention and he had to step back, letting a magical projectile pass him by and explode against a pillar.
"Well, well, well, it seems like you're having trouble here, how peculiar." Brain said in an electronic voice. The large gorilla walking by his side just grunted.
"Lady Shiva, why haven't you eliminated him?" Asked Ra's al Ghul, his hands hidden behind his back.
"He's a powerful telepath and telekinetic, I would overcome him, but he managed to delay me until now." The lady assassin said in a calm and even voice, as if their fight had never happened.
Guardian actually subdued Ubu and stepped back, his face was filled with sweat and he was desperately trying to catch his breath. Seeing his situation, Dubbilex nodded and opened their mental connection.
"Thank you for the support Guardian, retreat before it's too late."
"What about you?"
"I can delay them for a few moments more," Dubbilex looked at his eyes with confidence then focused back on their enemies. "Karen, it seems like we can't avoid it."
Looking at the three new enemies that had arrived, Dubbilex was happy to see they weren't in a hurry to finish this. All three of them just observed the situation, and didn't show any signs of wanting to act themselves.
With a wave of his hand, Dubbilex sent Ubu flying back towards Shiva and Cheshire, forcing them to dodge while getting pelted with anything he could get his telekinetic grasp on.
They had learned not to use projectiles, and Dubbilex was exhausting himself to keep them away. He couldn't keep it up for long, but even they couldn't advance under his attack and he managed to block them for nearly a full minute.
"Enough, I'll deal with him." Ocean-Master shouted and pointed at him with his spear, releasing another blast of magic.
Dubbilex was already moving, stepping aside without a lot of movement while sending a stone towards the villain.
Ocean-Master destroyed the stone with a wave of his spears and charged, moving with incredible speed towards him. Dubbilex started walking backwards and, when Ocean-Master was nearly upon him, Karen attacked.
From the start of the fight Karen had been waiting behind one of the pillars, feeling anxious, now she used all her nervous energy on a single, devastating punch.
Dubbilex swore he could see the villain's eyes widening as the punch approached. Lifting his spear, he had enough time to form a magical shield, but the blow was so strong the shield exploded into shards of light and Ocean-Master's body was sent flying.
The G-Trolls were big. Dubbilex would go so far as to say they were giants. Taller, larger and heavier than elephants, their every movement had enough strength to match most supers. And in case that wasn't enough, Karen wasn't a normal G-Troll.
Once it was clear Dubbilex couldn't deal with them by himself, Karen had consumed a G-Troll sized dose of the last Blockbuster serum they had. Her muscles were twice as big, her tusks sharper than ever and her very skin could barely contain her power.
Blockbuster could make a normal human match a G-Troll, used by a G-Troll. Dubbilex believed she could match Superman, at least in strength alone.
Stepping out from behind the pillar, Karen's feet shook the ground. With some concentration, Dubbilex used his telekinesis to raise his body until he was standing on her shoulder.
Karen roared, her voice driving them all back with the sheer power.
"Fascinating." Brain said, still with his confident voice.
At his side, Ocean-Master picked himself up, he spit some blood on the ground and cracked his neck. Suddenly, he shot a new blast from his spear and Karen wasn't fast enough to dodge.
The magical attack hit her in the arm and blasted all the way through, Dubbilex could see the exposed bone from the wound and Karen roared again, this time from pain.
Telekinetically keeping himself above her. Dubbilex had to focus his entire power on blocking Ocean-Master, keeping the tip of his spear pointed away from Karen's body with any means he could as the G-Troll fought the others by herself.
Her power meant that all but Ocean-Master couldn't survive a single hit, unfortunately they all knew how to fight a super strong opponent, and they were all too fast for her. Even with Ra's and Brain staying back, her wounds started accumulating.
Lady Shiva herself was cutting through Karen's body like a madwoman, weaving between Karen's attacks without even stepping back. Several times, the assassin managed to climb Karen's body and attack Dubbilex himself.
His chest was hurting from a deep cut, and his left arm had stopped working when it was pierced by Shiva's sword. Dubbilex also felt himself weakening, finding a needle piercing the back of his knee.
Karen was a mess. She must have been cut almost a thousand times, and there was blood all around her on the floor. She was breathing hard, one of her tusks missing from when Dubbilex almost couldn't completely redirect one of Ocean-Master's attacks.
Finally, he knew they couldn't hold on any more. In a desperate move, he stopped disrupting Ocean-master and blasted everyone around them with a wave of telekinesis, Lady Shiva, Cheshire and the Gorilla flew back, but one of Ocean-Master's magical blasts hit him in the side, blowing a hole through his body and destroying at least some of his organs.
Dubbilex feet slipped from Karen's shoulders, his telekinesis no longer able to keep him in place. Karen caught him in a large hand just before he hit the floor, unable to even speak, he ordered in her mind. "RUN!"
She ran, the enemies were about to follow them, but Guardian must have been watching the fight, because he activated the last defense, using the explosive charges to collapse the ceiling just as they stepped into the stairs towards the lower floors.
Karen didn't stop, her blood flying all over the place as she carried him down, down into the secret cave. Dubbilex was barely conscious, but he used the very last of his powers to telekinetically pinch his wounds close. He was sure it was doing even more damage, but the effort kept him from bleeding out.
Karen finally reached the last cave and collapsed to her knees, Guardian managed to catch his body as it dropped from the G-Troll's hand "Dubbilex!"
"Le-let's… coff… go." Behind him, the ceiling collapsed, Ocean-Master dropped from the hole and fell, making a superhero landing.
Lady Shiva soon dropped lightly by his side, the same calm expression on her face. Ocean-Master lifted his trident and the entire world flashed as Guardian smashed the button for Kara's Kryptonian teleportation device.
It was built to let Genomorphs go from CADMUS to Kara's factory. Fully made with Kryptonian technology and materials, not only was it powerful enough to take them all away, but it would also act as a transportation vehicle, not a platform, teleporting with them and leaving nothing behind for The Light to study.
It had taken several trips, and even longer for the people to move, but they had bought enough time for all CADMUS personnel to teleport away.
It was with a sense of relief that Dubbilex passed out.
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Nice.
Hell of a good fight scene although I am confused why The Light is here in such strength. Usually they act through patsies or minions, and only rarely all together like this.
Hell of a good fight scene although I am confused why The Light is here in such strength. Usually they act through patsies or minions, and only rarely all together like this.
GhostKing 666
Bringing Nightmares to life evey minute
This is basically a total failure for them. What did they get out of it? The building and maybe some of Kara's drones? In exchange, all their targets escaped, all important data was transferred and wiped, and video and eyewitness evidence of them working together.
And even worse,
I really don't know what they were expecting from this. At the very least Luthor should have been nowhere near the building, the man's basically a noncombatant in Young Justice.
And even worse,
They got Luthor on camera. They have Luthor showing up, pulling something from inside his suit and all of CADMUS's security shutting down right when he presses a button on it during a major super villain attack.
I really don't know what they were expecting from this. At the very least Luthor should have been nowhere near the building, the man's basically a noncombatant in Young Justice.
Exactly, Luthor only shows up on scene when he personally feels that it's an absolute curb-stomp of a guaranteed victory, nothing will even approach him, no witnesses will see him, AND there's something happening that he needs to personally attend to and doesn't trust anyone else to do for him.
So this tells us:
1) They were very much not expecting there to be any resistance whatsoever. Luthor probably thought bringing more than one assassin to sweep the place was overkill.
2) They were not expecting the security enhancements, and even when they did encounter them, still thought there was nothing "seriously" changed.
3) Luthor wanted something he thought was still in the building, personally, and does not trust his co-conspirators to retrieve and deliver it. Something he feels he will have no difficulty retrieving himself.
Luthor likely wanted to retrieve Match from his secret hiding spot. Obviously, he's going to be disappointing, but right up until he discovers the empty secret room, he's going to be unbearably smug. Then? Not so much. And the only clue he'll have to go on is the remains of a few shot-up drones that may or may not have been recovered for analysis. Which his co-conspirators may or may not even let him see, depending on how annoyed they are with him by the end of this mess.