章節 30: Chapter 30
WARNING: Chapter three has been updated. It doesn't change anything in the story, but should be much MUCH better to read.
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Kara sat on the carpet in front of the sofa, her legs crossed under her as she focused on her meditation. Slowly releasing her breath, she opened her eyes and concentrated on the golf ball-sized marble resting a few meters in front of her.
Face still relaxed, she tried to move the marble, with her mind. Concentrating her mind into a single task with incredible focus, she willed it to move. Frowning, she focused even harder on the marble, actually leaning forward a little. It. Would. Move.
Then the marble suddenly did go flying across the floor, batted aside by a tiny paw. The offending feline followed closely behind it, his tail twitching from side to side with excitement.
"Dexter!" Kara growled and almost got up. Feeling her hair still firmly held in Kori's hand, she sighed and settled back down, resting her head on Kori's legs.
"Please, what were you trying to accomplish?" Kori questioned, her hands never leaving Kara's hair as she braided a small strand of her hair on the side.
"Well, I have been able to use the Red Light of Rage twice now and, according to the Fortress' analysis of the Psion's little organ donation, I can also use the other parts of the light spectrum." Kara relaxed against Kori's body, giving up on her meditation and smiling as she looked at Dexter running around the room. "I was trying to use the Green Light of Will. Theoretically, it is the safest, although not the easiest."
"Good choice, Friend Kara. You are a very willful individual." Kori nodded and released her newly created braid, a satisfied smile on her face.
"Hey!"
"Speaking of willfulness, please, why have you not spoken with The Black Canary yet?" Kori frowned down at her, pulling hard on her hair and poking her in the forehead with a finger.
"Ouch, ouch, I will, I will." Kara tried to bat the finger aside, but Kori wasn't letting her. "I'm going out with Kal-El today. I'll speak with her tomorrow, I promise!"
"Humph, I will be watching you." Kori finally stopped poking Kara and started braiding a small strand of hair on the other side of her head. "Friend Kara, I only desire for you to be more 'traught'. Speaking with The Black Canary will promote exactly such an outcome."
"'Traught'?" Kara looked at Kori's proud face and thought about what she was saying before releasing a wail. "Nooooo, the pipsqueak is already polluting your mind with nonsense! Kori, listen to me because this is very important: 'Traught' is not a word, neither is 'Aster', 'Whelmed' or whatever other nonsense bird boy comes up with."
"It is… not?" Kori's face was completely flushed with embarrassment.
Suddenly, Dexter jumped on top of Kara's tights, the marble held firmly in his mouth. The cat looked her in the eye and dropped the marble into her hand, his tail twisting from one side to the other.
Kara didn't know cats liked to play fetch.
Grabbing the marble, Kara put it on the floor and watched as Dexter's butt started to wiggle. She flicked the marble, weakly, and it went flying across the room again, bouncing off the walls with a cat following closely behind.
Enjoying Kori's hands in her hair, Kara let the silence stretch between them for a few seconds. Eventually, Kara started to grow uncomfortable and, just as she was about to open her mouth, Kori asked.
"Friend Kara, did your plans go amiss yesterday?" The Tamaranean finally asked in a worried tone. "You arrived fraught with anxiety."
"I… Yes…. Yes, things went wrong, but also… not? I don't know!" Pushing her back against the sofa, Kara lifted her arms up, her fingers curling into a sign of frustration. "From a tactical point of view, yesterday was a major success. It was just far too expensive."
"I understand." Kori gave her a bitter smile and tied the second braid with a small string. "In Tamaran, we tried to focus on the victories, and to honor the sacrifice of those lost by celebrating their lives, not grieving their losses. Please, can I help you in any way?"
Looking at Kori's understanding face; Kara had to embarrassingly remind herself where her friend came from. Tamaran had just been through a very long and exhausting war and was now under Citadel control. Kori was most definitely no stranger to losses.
"Don't worry, you're already helping." Kara released a long breath and got up, stretching her arms and legs. "Plus, I already have enough people working on fixing things right now, don't worry about it."
The doorbell rang and Kara looked through the door to see Kal had finally arrived. She couldn't help but snicker as she used the interface on her eye to unlock the door. "Come in, I'm just getting ready."
Pushing the door open, a petite brunette woman walked inside the house, her long hair was tied into a bun and she had a delicate pair of glasses on her eyes. The disapproving look on her face was perfect to complete the librarian look.
"Really Kara, was this really necessary?" The older woman asked with an exasperated voice. "Captain Marvel said you used to just come through the windows before."
"Yes, the keyword being: 'before'. Flying through the window is okay when it's an emergency, but using disguises is much safer, no matter how many protections I have on the apartment." Kara said with a completely serious face, then she ruined it by snickering again.
Kal released a long, suffering breath and finally closed the door before deactivating the holographic projector. The librarian seemed to glitch for a second before she was replaced by Superman in his full costume.
"Alright but, did it have to be a sexy librarian? Didn't you have a different setting?" Kal asked while nodding in acknowledgement at Kori with a smile.
It absolutely didn't have to be the sexy librarian setting, no. Her own device had about seven hundred different settings on it and half of them were male. But Kara had only put a couple of female forms on her spare ones, and the sexy librarian was the most congruent and family friendly one Kal could be using.
"Considering that device was supposed to be used by me, of course it was gonna be female." Kara lied shamelessly. Giving him a tight hug, she turned around and found both Kori and Dexter staring at her side by side. "I'm gonna go change clothes. Are you leaving with us Kori?"
"I am not, Master Diana will be occupied with political duties until midday, but the Titans will be meeting later in the evening." Kori picked up the cat and lifted it on her lap, waving at Kara with one of its paws. "This morning, I will remain alone with Dexter!"
"Alright, have fun." Walking towards her bedroom, Kara spoke without turning back. "You know little cousin, maybe if you had accepted some of my devices, I'd have a disguise projector for you and you wouldn't need to use my spare."
"Hey, I already agreed to wear the radiation shield." Kal sighed from the living room.
"Humph, you're lucky I decided to use the projector, not the Kryptonite." Kara looked around the room and briefly considered putting on her armor, but she'd be with her cousin, he could keep her safe. Plus, she didn't want to connect him to Forge in any way.
"Wait, what was that about Kryptonite?" Kal nearly yelled from the living room.
Ten seconds later, Kara started walking back to the living room while adjusting the collar of her public costume, her mask tied to her belt. Kal still seemed worried about the Kryptonite, causing Kara to smirk in amusement.
"Right, I had this entire thing prepared with pink Kryptonite, but I haven't fully tested it yet, and then I got too busy with… things." Putting her mask on, Kara activated her own holographic projector. Her body flickered and, in the blink of an eye, she was back to looking like she wasn't wearing the costume. "Plus, you really stepped up with Kon and Match, so I decided to keep that little treat for later."
"Kara, what exactly does this pink Kryptonite do? I only know about red, green and gold Kryptonite, and none of them are good news."
Seeing the very worried look on Kal's face, Kara gave him her most innocent smile. "Well, if you're ready to start wearing the radiation shield, you won't have to find out, now will you? Anyways, see you later Kori."
"Farewell, Friend Kara."
"Good seeing you Koriand'r." Kal waved at her. Finally, he reactivated the projector, turning into the librarian once again and they left the building on foot.
"Is it really that uncomfortable?" Kara snickered as she walked beside her cousin.
He looked at her from the corner of his eye and shook his head in amusement. "I don't actually mind, but I confess it's really not my thing. Did you have to make it so hard to download new settings on this thing?"
"Of course. Can't have anybody install malware on my devices, can I?"
"Right, I'll pretend I believe that." Kal snorted and opened the door of the building, letting Kara walk out into the street first. "Still, I'm glad to see you're happier today."
"It's hard to stay sad with Kori around." Kara thought about Kori waving her goodbye with Dexter's little paws and smiled.
"Oh really, why don't you tell me more?"
Kara squinted her eyes at his teasing tone. The projection couldn't perfectly duplicate his expressions but, if she squinted just right, she could use her Kryptonian vision to see his smug smile. "Right, maybe after you tell me about Lois. What exactly is complicated about that relationship?"
They continued making small conversation until arriving on an empty alleyway seven blocks away from Kara's house. Checking that nothing was there to observe them, they both finally deactivated their disguises and quickly darted up into the air, moving just below the speed of sound.
Soon, they floated above the cover of the clouds, too high for anything to see them from the ground. Turning towards the hero, Kara asked. "Alright, where now?"
"I'm actually on call for the Justice League right now." Kal scratched the back of his neck before pulling out a communication device. "I wanted you to come along because I really think you need to see something."
"To Metropolis then?"
"No, we're flying to Europe." Orienting himself, Kal started flying towards the continent at a steady pace. Soon, they broke out of the city limits and Kal started picking up speed. "If you want to talk, use the comms. We'll be flying faster than sound to arrive on time."
With one large burst of speed, they broke through the sound barrier, accelerating to the maximum speed they could safely go without cooking everything around them while inside the atmosphere. Kara enjoyed the wind hitting her face for a minute or two as they started flying over the ocean before Kal spoke again.
"By the way, I know you didn't want to get directly involved in this. Sorry to spring this on you out of nowhere." He briefly glanced at her flying by his side and continued. "You can just stay out of sight if you don't want people finding out about you."
"Don't worry, I made this costume so I could appear in public and help out. It's about time I debuted anyway. It should only make The Light more worried and confused." Lowering her altitude a little, Kara stretched her hands down towards the water and glanced back. Her hand was still quite a few meters above the waters but, behind her, the water rose almost two meters in the sky from the displaced air. "Say, do you mind that I kept calling you Kal? I know you were raised with your human name, but it's just… I first met you as Kal and, since you don't really use the name, it doesn't affect your secret identity."
"I confess it's taken some getting used to, but I don't really mind, at least not when I'm out in costume." Glancing at the waves she was making, Kal couldn't help but laugh. "I really do love flying, it's very… relaxing."
Eventually, they approached the European continent and they had to fly up in order to not disturb anyone. "What are we doing anyway?"
"Relief effort. There was a drought in East Africa and, while we did what we could to stop it, there's still some shortage of food in the region." Kal said and started going down towards a large harbor. "The League organized some food deliveries but, with military operations in the area, League presence is sometimes necessary. Also, I always take some deliveries there myself."
Dropping down on the ground, Kal walked towards a fat woman wearing safety equipment. "Hello, everything ready?"
"Superman, yes we have the containers ready for delivery." The woman handed Kal something to sign, then lifted an eyebrow as Kara decided to drop down by his side and stop hiding. "Even you? I swear every hero nowadays has a damn sidekick."
Kal glanced at her and smiled. "My cousin actually, I'm just showing her the ropes."
"Call me Supergirl. I tried to come up with another name, but everything good was just too… villainous. So I just decided to adopt my cousin's unimaginative naming convention."
"Hey, my father named me that." Kal protested and handed the document back to the woman. "Actually, he named me Superboy first and then I grew into the new name. So you're really following after me."
"Alright, I just got the ok from the boss." The woman said, cupping a hand over her ear where there was a phone. "You're free to go."
"Want help?"
"Actually, yeah, it'll make things much faster. Just wait for me to lift it out of the water and then you can help me fly it there."
Saying that, Kal flew into the water, causing a splash to fly up into the air. A few seconds later, a giant ship started rising out of the water, thousands of red containers piled on top of it.
Kara waited until Kal had gotten it a hundred meters up in the air, then she nodded towards the woman and flew under the boat, bracing it on top of her shoulders and helping lift it up.
It weighted… a lot, a whole fucking lot. Kara felt her muscles straining as she tried to help out and she could just imagine her face going red. "Supergirl, you're taking on too much weight, let me take the lead and just help out a little."
With a sigh of relief, she felt the weight decrease, then she followed Kal's lead as they started flying south. At first, things were kind of awkward but, soon, they started coordinating better and the boat started picking up speed.
Together, it took them almost two hours to carry the damn thing towards its destination. Kara's limbs were starting to ache, and she felt her breath starting to come short, her only consolation was that even Kal seemed a little tired from the effort of carrying such weight for so long. Sweat started to accumulate on his face and he started to take slow, even breaths.
Below, Kara saw thousands of people starting to make a racket, shouting and laughing as they noticed their approach, most of them were children. Kal's target was the ocean, but the crowd ran after them, trying their best to keep under the shadow of the boat.
"Alright, you can release it now." Kal nodded her way, allowing Kara to release the giant ship and drift back in the air. The entire weight of the thing settled on Kal's shoulders and he slowly started lowering it into the water.
From high up in the air, Kara watched as the authorities did their best to contain the crowd while preparing to unload the 'very' overloaded ship. All of them were laughing and cheering.
Kal broke out of the water with another giant splash, clearly making a spectacle of it as he stepped down amongst the people, letting them hug and climb on his body. Most children didn't even come up to his chest and he caressed their unruly hairs with a smile on his face before motioning for her to approach.
Kal spoke in a language she didn't understand, lifting one of the kids up onto his shoulders and pointing at her, causing the crowd to turn her way. Awkwardly she waved at them and watched as Kal mock whispered something to the kids, causing them all to laugh.
She narrowed her eyes at him. Now she'd have to start learning other languages. Couldn't have her cousin whispering about her to her face!
"Kara, help me unload the ship?" Kal shouted when the kids finally started dispersing.
"Sure, where do you want the containers?"
"Just follow the harbormaster's directions."
Kara nodded and flew at the boat, a crane was already pulling out containers, but it was taking a long time to pick each one up. Grabbing one of the red rectangles, she lifted it and quickly found a man signaling at her.
"You know, I don't usually help with the unloading but, with your help, I made it in almost half the time." Kal released a container two meters beside her own and cracked his neck. "If we finish this fast I can even carry the ship back today."
"Why deliver it yourself? I doubt this was enough for everyone to eat." Kara looked at the thousands still watching them. "Not if the whole country needs help."
"It's not. But even with the Justice League helping alleviate it, the drought still happened, and there was almost a famine because of political reasons. Batman and Wonder Woman had to work extremely hard to get through their delays." He explained while flying back to pick another container. "Our presence here stops anyone from getting ideas, and the UN support means that, if we have to fight off a local government, people around the world are relieved, not scared."
They unloaded a few thousand containers in about ten minutes before Kara's sensitive ears heard the announcement through Kal's Justice League comms.
"There's a large flood happening in Brazil, can anyone respond?" Said Batman's voice.
"Green Lantern here, I'm currently on Mars, but I can be back to Earth in five minutes."
Lifting his fingers to his ear, Kal answered. "Superman here, finished early with the delivery, I can be there in a few minutes."
Waving at the people, Kal flew up until he reached a safe distance from the ground, then accelerated up, Kara followed after him until they reached a much higher altitude than before.
Without a lot of resistance from the air, they could accelerate even faster, to the point that, only four minutes later, Kara caught sight of the green trail as John Stewart entered the atmosphere in a straight line towards their destination. Another few minutes and they started going down.
The flood was… powerful. Waves of water were running through the streets at an extreme speed and carrying cars and debris through the city. Kal didn't even wait to coordinate things, immediately plunging through the waters and coming up with a half drowned man before releasing him on top of a building and moving on.
To the side, Kara saw Green Lantern lifting a couple of kids onto a green platform. "There's a mining dam a few kilometers out of the city." He told both of them using his communicators. "Can you check if it's compromised?"
"Let me take a look." Kal turned towards the direction and concentrated for a few seconds, then exploded into action, flying straight towards it in a hurry.
Looking around herself, Kara was momentarily lost as to what to do. On instinct, she opened her pouch and released a couple hundred of her civilian drones, then she saw part of a small building collapsing.
Flying fast, she smashed through the concrete and saved a man wearing only a pair of small shorts, pulling him out and into the rain before grabbing a blanket and throwing it on top of him.
Her drones started sending information directly into the interface on her eye. Monitoring a large part of the city and highlighting the areas where human life was at risk.
There were too many.
Looking to the side, she saw Green Lantern using his ring to slow down the waters and stop most of the debris from continuing down the streets even while he rescued another couple from inside a drifting car.
Plunging into the waters herself, Kara lifted a small dog on her arms and floated up, her prosthetic eye flying at astonishing speeds as she used it to deliver her orders.
A second later, she had to return to the waters and lift an entire car on top of a building and out of the street, an entire family inside it. A little girl almost jumped out of the window, screaming desperately for her little dog.
Still sending orders to her devices, Kara unconsciously drifted down until the girl could grab the dog, squeezing it tightly against her chest while it licked her face. Kara was just about to fly away when the little girl grabbed her coat.
Kara glanced at her drones and didn't see anyone in immediate danger, so she looked at the little blonde girl. The kid had dried tears on her face, but there was also a huge smile there and it brought a warm feeling into Kara's chest.
Only three minutes later, the evacuation platform teleported at her side. It was using several of her projector to remain invisible in order to prevent anyone from identifying it, but it also carried thousands of her devices.
The platform released her equipment, allowing them to fly up in the air before teleporting back without anyone noticing. All around her, thousands of her drones had rearranged themselves into shield generators.
Finally, she really started working. Forgetting about her own body, Kara accelerated her thoughts as much as she could and started using her information to direct her drones.
Shield drones plunged into the waters or under cars before activating their shielding and lifting out of the treacherous waters. Others glued themselves to eroded buildings and blocked the water from doing any more damage, stabilizing the buildings and preventing their collapses.
Kara sent a dozen drones into a bridge and had them protect its support pillars so it wouldn't collapse, then used the remaining time to rescue people and animals caught in the flash flood.
Seeing her effectiveness, Green Lantern nodded at her and flew up, entering the dark rain cloud above and starting to use his ring to actually disperse the kilometer long cloud, gathering the water inside it into a giant green water can.
Kara did a double take, then shrugged and continued working, if it helped him maintain the construct, who was she to judge its form.
It would probably cause some ecological backlash, but better than if the precipitation continued feeding the waters.
Kara's drones started blaring a warning and she turned her attention left, where a large part of the landscape just started… sliding down, taking people and poorly constructed buildings with it.
Kal finished fixing the dam and flashed back to the city, flying as fast as a bullet and cutting a hardened path into the hill with his heat vision. The trench helped guide the mudslide away from the center of the city, while Kal rescued the people trapped underneath the mud.
Kara saw him working and immediately directed some of her drones to help, quickly lifting the people above the mudslide on her devices while also creating a shield wall to block its advance. In less than a minute, they had rescued almost two hundred people but the mud was starting to overflow Kara's devices.
Taking a deep breath, Superman blew a wave of ice over the mud, then did it again, freezing the entire thing in place so that Kara could retrieve her shields without fear of collapse. The insta-iceberg would eventually have to be dealt with, but was no longer an emergency.
Together, all three of them worked relentlessly for what felt like a century. With Superman and Green Lantern helping, the population was soon mostly safe from the flood, but they still worked hard to prevent more property damage.
Hit with a killer headache, Kara rested her forehead against Kal's chest, the both of them floating above the city and watching as the waters fully drained. According to her drones, there had only been two fatalities: an old couple caught on the streets before even Green Lantern had arrived.
Despite the destruction, Kara's drones already informed her they had saved the city, the citizens in it and spared them more than two hundred and fifty million dollars in damages.
At their side, Green Lantern finished releasing the water he had gathered into the river, downstream, making sure to do it slowly so it wouldn't overflow.
To wrap things up on her end, Kara ordered her shields to start lowering back, releasing cars, animals and people back on the city. The streets were still covered in mud and debris, the buildings still heavily damaged, but the people didn't seem to care, hugging each other or their pets and cheering as the heroes looked up from above.
"So, was this what I was supposed to learn? That places like this have been skimping on their civil engineering; playing the odds that they'd get bailed out when, not if, things went sideways with their infrastructure? Or how to help out in a flood?"
"Well, that second one's always important, but no… Kara, look at them." Kal nodded down at the people, some already starting to clean things. "Look at how many we saved today."
"Ninety-three, at least by my software's estimation, the others would have survived." Kara massaged her temples and deactivated most drones, ordering them to gather into a single mass so she could carry them away.
"Kara, you've been focusing too hard on the villains. I wanted you to see this, to understand this." Kal motioned at the people, then looked into her eyes, his face filled with pride. "Villains don't really matter, well, they matter in that they too are humans, but hitting them isn't important, defeating them isn't really the goal. The goal is to protect people."
Kara looked down at the happy people below, she remembered the smiles and laughs from the kids in Africa. Finally, she looked at her cousin and thought about Kori.
"Kara, I don't win a fight when I hit the villain hard enough. I win it when I keep him from hurting anyone." Caressing her hair, she floated away from her, his cape waving in the wind.
"You're saying yesterday was a huge loss then? I didn't save Red Arrow."
"No, I'm saying Red Arrow won, he saved Dr. Roquette. And he probably helped save a lot of other people with his actions." Looking up, Kal released an exhausted sigh. "Yes, the price he paid was too steep, but he won, even if he didn't defeat or kill his enemies. Please, don't start focusing solely on revenge or on defeating and killing your enemies and lose focus of what you really care about."
Kara kept quiet as they flew back, thinking about her actions. In truth, the reason she had started planning against The Light was because she wanted to protect Kal, she wanted to finally fulfill the goal her parents had left her and protect him from them.
Unfortunately, Kal was kind of right. She had been focusing far too much on eliminating The Light and forgetting that their defeat had never been the goal, not really.
Damn, even if she did defeat them all, even if she managed to kill Klarion, kill Vandal and Luthor, then what? It was not like Kal would stop having to face enemies. And she had already seen that there was far more in this world than just The Light.
Yes, neutralizing The Light was still important, and some of them still needed to die, particularly Klarion, but they shouldn't be her sole priority, or even her first one.
"Thanks Kal, I think I'm gonna be taking a break for a few days, try to put my thoughts in order and rest…"
"And finally talk with someone?" Kal interrupted, squinting at her.
"Yeah, yeah, Kori's already bothering me about that. I'll speak with Black Canary tomorrow." She waved his concern away with a snort. "Still, I just thought you'd be stopping robberies, fighting supervillains and talking people off ledges, not… all this, I think I needed this."
"Oh, I still do a lot of that, don't worry about it. You know, I even met Jimmy trying to do that." They dropped back under the clouds, floating just a little above the city of metropolis.
"Jimmy was trying to kill himself?" Kara lifted an eyebrow.
"Well, no. But I was a very new hero, and I had just arrived in the big city. What was I supposed to think when I saw a boy standing on top of a building?" He turned away from her with some embarrassment. "Turns out he was new too, and only wanted to see the sunset. He was my first friend here."
Suddenly, Kal frowned and looked down, his eyes shining red as he released a wave of heat towards a corner of the city. "Speaking of robberies."
Looking down, Kara saw a young man crying out; the gun in his hand heating up enough that it actually hurt him. A second later, the couple he had been threatening managed to subdue him and call the police.
"So, when are you gonna tell the Titans about Red Arrow? Also, what're you gonna do with the prisoners?" Kara finally asked. "Talia al Ghul and that mud monster I froze on the fortress?"
"Haaaa, we decided to talk with them in private. Batman, Flash and Aquaman are gonna be telling their apprentices in person before talking with the team as a whole." Kal shook his head with sadness. "And, well, Talia actually doesn't have any active warrants after her, and we don't even know that monster's name, much less if it has committed crimes."
"You're letting them go free?"
"Batman wants to talk with Talia, and he may be able to do something, but…" Kal shrugged, clearly annoyed too.
"Well, I just got a lot of scientists from CADMUS, and they will probably need a new job. I can pitch a chance at fixing himself to the mud guy." Kara wondered aloud, Clayface really hadn't done anything as a supervillain, and she didn't know if he had any story as a member of the League of Assassins. "Do you mind if I keep Talia for another day or two? I want to check something before handing her to Batman. And cover my tracks too, if I can."
"Can't say I'm very comfortable with that but, if it's only for a few days..."
"Thanks for not forcing the issue, Kal. I just want to check some things first." Kara stared down at the busy city, then back up into the sky, enjoying the orange color of the sunset.
"Alright, that's about it for today. Want to have dinner with me?" Kal asked, somewhat unable to hide his eagerness at having dinner with his new cousin.
"Sure, let me just warn Kori, but I think she was gonna stay with the Titans anyway."
.
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