Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sadostia. A small planet in comparison to the countless others found in the Milky Way, so small that it’s globally run by what humans would call a unitary government. Not that it mattered much anyway, it was a hardly governable place. As opposed to the Terrans of Earth, who always have and always will believe themselves to be the center of the universe, Sadostia considered itself the exact opposite. It was a place for travellers, ragtag misfits, outsiders, mercenaries and nomads. All of which Kara Zor-El now was.

Sadostians on the outskirts of civilisation lived fairly quiet lives, keeping themselves far and away from the proverbial heart of the planet – Zuestea, its capital city. The vast majority of the planet’s income is made through intergalactic tourism. Outsiders outnumber Sadostians in their own capital city by a ratio of 2 to 1.

Somewhere between the city outskirts and city center sat The Zoma, the galactic equivalent of a bar. Owned and run by Zax Dupree and his wife, Elz, it was just nice enough to be accommodating to the financially sound, but just rough enough to draw attention from some of the less gentrified crowd. Unfortunately, it was the latter who had decided to show up tonight.

The Zoma stayed open late into the night, but it had just tended to its last customers and Zax was cleaning up. A knock on the see-through door stole his attention from the bar counter he was wiping. A group of five nomads stood at the door, but he simply signalled to them that shop had closed for the night. They knocked again. And again. Zax ignored them, something they did not take kindly to. They didn’t knock again, rather preferring to force the door open before closing it behind them. Zax knew all too well what this meant. He’d made good money tonight, of which all was about to be stolen.

“Got a problem?!” A large man at the center of the group with a green beard stepped forward, “Don’t wanna serve us?”

“Look, don’t want any trouble,” Zax replied, raising his hands.

“Well, sometimes trouble comes looking for you,” the man replied with a wicked smile, “I want your money, right now.”

“Don’t have cash.”

“Think I don’t know that, smartass!” he exclaimed, holding up a microchip in one hand while forcing a gun in Zax’s face with the other.

“Take it easy, choom,” Zax replied, slowly outstretching a hand to take the chip. Just as he was preparing to insert it into an access point, the bar received an unexpected sixth visitor.

One nomad had stayed by the door to be a lookout. It was usually an easy job, he just had to spot trouble and dissuade curious eyes from lingering. He did the former quite easily but there were a lot more than just curious eyes that needed to be dissuaded tonight. A blonde woman stepped to the door, grabbing the handle without noticing the man on the other side. She pushed once, then again harder before the nomad read the movement of her lips – “I swear it was ‘push’ the last time I was here.”

She then tried to pull to no avail once again. The nomad tapped the glass, and it was only then did she raise her gaze and spot him blocking the door. “I’m trying to get in, asshole,” she shouted.

He simply shook his head, raising the large machete in his other hand and gesturing for her to go elsewhere. She simply rolled her eyes and pushed much harder this time, forcing the door open with ease and shoving him back with so much force that he tumbled to the floor.

“What the fuck?!” The nomad leader shouted, now aiming his gun at her as the rest of his friends drew their variety of weapons, “Who the fuck are you?!”

Even if he’d been a 21^st century native of Earth, he might not have recognised her as she looked today. The long blonde locks that were once a defining aspect of her image had been shortened to a pixie bob cut now, and the red and blue suit had been replaced by a brown leather jacket and jeans. She hadn’t a care in the world as she strolled towards the counter, not even paying him a glance.

“Yo Zax, can I get a Slingshot?” she requested as she took a seat on one of the stools and placed her hands on the counter. Zax could tell immediately – She was buzzed out of her mind.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” the leader of the nomads shouted at her.

Without turning her head to look at him, she shrugged her shoulders and replied, “I just want a drink, Mr Greenbeard.” She waited a few more seconds as the room remained stunned into silence before getting up, “Don’t want to serve me? Okay, I’ll serve myself.”

She walked behind the counter and, possessing none of the patience nor wits needed to make the cocktail she requested, simply grabbed a bottle off the shelf and put it to her lips.

“Listen here, lady, if you don’t get the fuck out, I’m gonna-“ Mr Greenbeard couldn’t finish his sentence as the lady raised a finger at him while she continued chugging the entire bottle. Once the entire contents of it had been downed, she slammed it onto the counter and wiped her lips before finally looking at him for the first time.

“You were saying?” she nonchalantly asked.

“I was saying you’re gonna die if you don’t get the fuck out.”

Her eyes narrowed. “That’s a bit rude, don’t you think?”

“Kara-“ Zax spoke up but he was quickly shushed by her.

“Ssh, ssh, no, no, I got this, I got this. Trust me,” she replied, sending an affirming nod his way. She walked back around the counter, pushing Mr Greenbeard’s gun away before stepping right up to him and poking his chest as she spoke, “If you don’t get the fuck out, you’re the one who’s going to die.”

He slowly raised the gun again, this time pressing the muzzle directly under Kara’s chin. What would normally be a fear-inducing action simply drew stomach-aching laughter from Kara, “Please shoot me, I dare you! Come on, shoot me,” she said through her laughter.

“Oh, I’m gonna shoot you, alright. Just not here right now,” he replied, “I got a better idea. I’m gonna take you to a spot where no one will hear your screams and then me and my boys are going to take turns fucking your brains out. Maybe after that I’ll finally decide to put a bullet in your skull. How does that sound, you whore?”

The smile on Kara’s face quickly dissipated. In an instant, it seemed that she had entirely sobered up. The buzz in her head turned into rage coursing through her entire body. She swivelled her tongue around in her mouth, conjuring as much saliva as she possibly could before propelling it at his face. Greenbeard had finally had enough of Kara’s antics. After raising his free hand to wipe his eyes, he pulled the trigger…

To no effect. Kara’s head didn’t even budge. Not a single muscle on her face had even twitched as the bullet crashed into her chin without even causing damage on a microscopic level. She waited just a split second long enough to see the confusion on his face turn to fear before slamming her hand into his chest. Having used her full strength, his body flew across the bar, crashing into one of his companions. That wasn’t enough to stop his momentum, as the two bodies now clinging together flew into the far wall with enough force to shatter their spines and kill them instantly.

The machete-wielder at the door was Kara’s next target, as she sped over to him before throwing a single punch that separated his head from the rest of his body. With fear having overridden their capacity to reason, the two remaining men on the other side of the bar fired their pistols several times with full knowledge that their bullets would have no effect. Kara didn’t bother to speed over, rather choosing to take a brisk walk to watch their hopes to survive dwindle as the bullets bounced off of her. They ran out of ammunition by the time Kara had closed the distance between them, who grabbed both of them by the throat simultaneously. She effortlessly lifted them off their feet before slamming them down, splattering them across the floor.

And just like that, those five bastards were no more.

Kara casually dusted her hands before walking back to the counter and once again taking a seat on what was her usual chair. “Can I get that Slingshot now, please?”

Without missing a beat, Zax grabbed a glass and began preparing it, mixing the tonics with a sleight of hand. He sighed before speaking, “You didn’t have to do that, Kara.”

“They were going to take your money.”

“I would have been fine. Now, I got a wrecked bar and five mangled corpses I need to clean up.”

“Luckily, you know people who can clean it all up for you.”

“That costs money. Maybe even more than what they would have taken away.”

Kara pouted. “Ah, fuck. I’ll cover the costs.”

“You don’t have to do that either.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“You can down this,” he said as he slid the glass towards her, “And then be on your way back to your place. Safely please, don’t want you getting into any more trouble.”

“Whatever you say, hoss!” replied Kara before downing the drink in one swoop. She plugged her transaction chip into the access point, entering the amount she was set to pay before standing up, “Thanks, Zax! And sorry for the trouble.”

“All is forgiven,” he replied. The notification for the amount of funds he was transferred popped up in the display of his mechanical eye, “Kara!”

“I told you I’d cover it all!” she screamed back as she exited the bar, “Wooo!”

It had been more than 20 years since the last time Kara had stayed in one place for more than 6 months. Her stay in Zuestea was coming up on 8 months and for good reason. Contracts for mercs were fairly easy to come by and if you were a good one, which she was, the pay was great. With the place she had been renting out less than a 10-minute walk from The Zoma, she became a regular visitor. She started tonight there before moving to other bars in the district to appreciate the full range of alcoholic drinks that Zuestea offered before returning just in time to fend off the nomads. Tonight wasn’t the first time she had to do that for Zax, who always appreciated her efforts even if it meant he had to scrape blood and brains off the floor afterwards.

She stumbled up the stairs into her apartment building, having just enough wits to keep herself standing when she almost tripped on her own feet as she entered the elevator. Her initial thought process when choosing this area was that it was just nice enough but also just cheap enough for a quick stay. Despite it no longer being a quick stay, she hadn’t bothered to move to the more affluent area of the city. It wasn’t that far from here anyway. Anything or anyone that she needed or wanted from that area could reach her or be reached quickly. One such person was waiting for her in her unit and Kara was dying to get to her.

She fumbled with her access card in trying to get her unit door open, but the person inside heard her and opened.

Kara grinned, tilting her head to the side as she laid her eyes on the beautiful vixen before her. “Hey, Athena.”

“You’re late,” Athena replied, a hint of annoyance in her tone.

“It’s not like you have anywhere else to be right now.”

“True,” she replied, stepping aside to let Kara enter, “Drunk… again.”

“There aren’t many places in this galaxy where I can get drunk. So, I’m just taking advantage of it while I’m here.”

“I’m not judging. But if this is you on a normal day, I really fear for your organs on your birthday.”

“Ha, fun fact – I have two birthdays. Isn’t that something? Well, used to. I don’t really do the second one anymore.”

“Is that so?” Athena snorted.

“I’m not lying. Anyway, what’s with all this small talk? Just get over here already.”

Athena smirked as she heeded Kara’s command, who eyed her body from head and toe as she did so. The red hair, perky breasts, toned legs, Kara appreciated every inch of her. Dressed in shorts, a bra and a cropped jacket, the brazen clothing allowed Kara to feast her eyes on much of Athena’s skin, plenty of which was tattooed with beautiful patterns of flowers native to Sadostia. Much of Kara’s goofiness dissipated as she was being overcome by desire, staring at Athena’s body with a tangible longing. Her gaze only shifted up to Athena’s green eyes when her face was just a few centimetres away from her.

“You’ve been a very bad girl tonight, Kara,” she whispered as she pushed a few strands of Kara’s hair behind her ear, “You need to be punished. Problem is, I know you can handle pain. So, I’m going to have to resort to something a little… unconventional.”

“And that is?” Kara asked, placing her hands at Athena’s hips.

“Punishment by pleasure,” Athena replied, breathing heavily on Kara’s neck, “I’m going to make you come over and over and over again until you can’t handle it anymore. Until you beg me to stop.”

“That’s not punishment. That’s exactly what I want,” Kara purred, letting her breath tickle Athena’s ears.

“I know.”

Athena pulled back slightly so that she was face to face with Kara once again, briefly glimpsing at her eyes before bringing her lips to Kara’s. Kara’s hands slid down from the hips, grabbing a hold of Athena’s firm ass while she nibbled at Kara’s bottom lip. She stepped back to take off her jacket, giving Kara a second to take her own off as well. They met again and this time the kiss was far more visceral and bold than the first one. Kara opened her mouth and pressed her tongue against Athena’s lips, who accepted the invitation. With tongues in each other’s mouths and hands wandering over their bodies, their sexual buzz heightened to an even higher level. Kara felt her underwear become noticeably moist and she wanted more.

Athena K’aron was not a lover to Kara Zor-El. How the two became linked was through a simple ability to meet each other’s material needs. Athena needed money and Kara needed to get off.

As a high-profile sex worker that only serviced the wealthier individuals in the city, Athena was sceptical at first that Kara could afford her on a regular basis. Now, it had been five months since their very first meeting and Kara’s bank account hadn’t even come close to running dry.

Jumping from planet to planet, Kara had never settled down in one place long enough to start anything real with someone. Not that she wanted to. She’d been there, done that already and didn’t care to go through the hassle again. She did care to have a good time though. Her bisexuality wasn’t something that she fully explored during her time on Earth. Over the course of her intergalactic journey, she fucked both genders aplenty but never really developed a preference for one or the other. That was until she met Athena, whom she found irresistible from day one.

By this point in their arrangement, Athena could instinctively tell when Kara wanted to move on, so she pulled away and grabbed her hand, leading her to the bedroom that had seen many of their sessions. Kara tugged at her clothing with a fervour and Athena cooperated by undressing first. There was an impatience governing Kara, who was unable to control herself as Athena became bare in front of her. Her hands jolted forward to Athena’s breasts, squeezing them while taking her mouth to the hard nipples. She frantically dropped her level to help pull Athena’s shorts to the floor before undoing the straps of the heels she wore. Athena pulled her back up by the chin and began to return the favour. Unlike Kara, however, she took her time undressing her, appreciating every part of her body as a piece of clothing came off. Kisses started at the neck, moving to the shoulders before a short suction on each nipple. The series of kisses continued all the way down her abdomen until she squatted in front of Kara, undoing the buttons of her jeans and pulling them down slowly.

Now both almost completely bare, Athena nudged Kara down onto the bed and removed her boots. With all forms of clothing out of the way, Athena crawled beside Kara and placed her lips on hers again. She knew what Kara wanted, so she tantalisingly trailed her hand down Kara’s body. She fixated on each of her nipples for a moment, rubbing them before continuing the course. She felt it all, as the hand transitioned from Kara’s smooth skin down to a warm pool of moisture between her spread legs.

Athena ran her fingers up and down Kara’s entirety for a few seconds for bringing her hand back up. Her hand hovered in front of Kara’s face as she spread her fingers, showcasing the thick fluids that webbed her fingers.

“You’re so fucking wet already,” Athena gushed before placing her fingers in her own mouth, “You taste really good too.”

“Stop teasing,” Kara replied with an exasperated breath, losing whatever was left of her composure as the heat spreading under her skin demanded satiation, “Just fuck me already.”

With a wicked smile, Athena almost leapt back and pulled Kara’s legs towards her so that her head was firmly placed between them. She wasted no more time, immediately running her tongue over Kara’s lips several times before bullishly sucking on her clit.

For Kara, the first wave of pleasure began to sweep over her body. With the ardour of a restless beach, the waves began to cascade, each one gradually growing in intensity. Kara’s heavy breaths and subtle moans motivated the tongue on her even further. The licking and sucking stopped for a second, only to allow Athena to part Kara’s folds and slide her tongue into her. As a Sadostian, her tongue was distinctly longer than almost every other humanoid species Kara had encountered, and this fact alone was the only reason why she enjoyed being tongue-fucked by her. The tongue eventually moved back to Kara’s clitoris, finally fixating there as the final tidal wave of gratification began building at an immeasurable rate.

Her breathing became more erratic by the second and so did the words of profanity leaving Kara’s mouth increase as she neared a climax. One hand of hers pressed Athena’s head down while the other grasped at a handful of her own hair. Her subtle moans became louder and louder, finally turning into screams as the tidal wave crashed, a euphoric high having Kara feel as if she was floating.

Before she even had a moment to catch her breath, Athena leapt atop her, pinning her shaking body down and pressing her lips to Kara’s. They weren’t done with each other yet. Not even close. With a swift movement that went hardly noticed by Kara, Athena grabbed the vibration device that she’d strategically placed on the bedside earlier. It looked far different from the vibrators that Kara had encountered on Earth, but it did the job much, much better.

Kara was all but entranced and hypnotised. Four of her five senses were dulled, but her sensitivity to touch had been amplified a thousand-fold. At this point, Athena could do no wrong even if she tried to. Once again, she was by Kara’s side, teasing by tenderly pulling on her lips with her teeth. Kara’s breath hitched as a rumbling touch pressed against her center of pleasure, providing a rush of tingling sensations through her abdomen. The large head of the vibrator was large enough to stimulate her clitoris and opening at once. One hand grasped at the bedsheet beneath her, beginning to tear the fabric apart while her other now sat between Athena’s legs, cyclically stimulating her. She only had to wait half as long to reach climax this time, with the added sensation of Athena’s mouth working her nipples causing a second orgasm that had Kara convulsing.

With her legs still quivering from the two highs that had momentarily stolen control of her body, her eagerness took a different form. As much as Kara relished receiving, she was still a giver. She took the vibrator from Athena’s hand, pushing her on her back for the first time and whispering just one phrase into her ear with a heavy breath.

“My turn now.”

She wasted not another second in sliding down Athena’s body, placing hurried kisses all the way from her neck right down to her slit. Kara began with the point of her tongue, flicking back and forth on Athena’s clit. Noises were drawn out of Athena that Kara could tell hadn’t been paid for. Biting back groans, letting out giggles of delight, it was written all over Athena that Kara was the one client she genuinely enjoyed being with. Parting Athena’s lips, the moans became anything but subtle when Kara stuck two fingers inside of her before pressing the vibrator against her now swollen clit. With nerves striking fire and a pressure building between her thighs, Athena’s muscles tightened as she awaited the impending release like a spring that was being coiled. The burning fire in her abdomen raged, forcing a series of heavy gasps accompanied by a shuddering of her silky legs.

Free of any restrictions and with plenty of remaining energy, they were barely halfway through this ride. Such was the usual for their arrangement. One orgasm was often enough for Athena, having gotten used to having none with the majority of her clients. She stayed true to her word this night, making Kara come twice more until she literally couldn’t physically handle another peak. Kara was always more than willing to return the favour, but in the end, it was Athena’s job to please her, not the other way around. In the beginning, the reason for that was simply that Athena was the one being paid to do so, but now it had evolved beyond that for her. She genuinely enjoyed pleasing Kara. Athena loved sending her to sky-high euphoric heights before allowing her to crash down and then doing it over and over again until both of them were too fatigued to keep going.

Her arrangement with Kara differed from that of other clients in several more ways than one. Rather than bolting out the door as soon as the session was finished, Athena stuck around. They would lay in bed together afterwards, often times still nibbling at each other’s lips and running their fingers over each other’s bodies. She didn’t fully know why. To catch their breath was one reason, another being that their sexual chemistry frankly just made it difficult to untangle their bodies even after they were spent.

But there was definitely something beyond the physical that kept them close to each other. Love? It seemed inane and laughable to suggest in the face of their cynicism. Even friendship was a stretch, though Athena often felt that they were getting closer to that. Perhaps it was because they just needed it as two people both so lonely and isolated, lacking any single form of companionship in their lives apart from each other.

The crash tonight was amongst the worst that Kara had ever experienced. She plummeted from a high that was induced by multiple orgasms along with a deathly amount of alcohol. Sobriety had already begun to quickly set in due to her body’s expeditious ability to process anything that she consumed. The headache was just starting to set in as she and Athena had begun to separate from each other. Despite an exhausted body and aching mind, Kara willed herself up to a seated position on the edge of the bed. The half-full bottle of water on her bedside was emptied as she downed it in an instant.

“Still drunk?” Athena asked.

“I wish,” Kara replied.

“Always wondered how you’re able to sober up so fast.”

“My body processes alcohol fast.”

“And why is that?”

There it was. A dreaded personal question. They had usually been scarce between the two. All of the personal information they knew about each other had been blurted out rather than prompted with a question. At least, in Athena’s case. Kara had given her nothing. All Athena knew was her age, her occupation, and a rough estimation of how deep her financial accounts ran due to the amounts that she was paid. She had never been curious about a client’s personal information until she met Kara, who was an undeniable enigma. She began with what she thought were the most basic questions, such as her home world, how she became a merc and if she had family. The answer she was receiving now was the same one she always got – Silence.

She wasn’t going to chase answers, so she shifted to something that had been on her mind ever since Kara said it earlier in the night, “You’re funny when you’re drunk. You told me that you have two birthdays.”

Athena couldn’t see it, but Kara’s eyebrows flared. She finally blurted something out, but somehow found a little comfort in the fact that it took half of the district’s alcohol supply to get her to that point. A simple “uh-huh” was all Kara could mutter in reply, letting it out in a tone that didn’t help in getting Athena off her case.

“That was just drunk talk, no?” Athena asked. Silence, again, only this time it was more telling than any words Kara could have given her. “Kara, you’re not serious. Two birthdays? How does that work?”

Trying not to say too much was one of Kara’s great challenges in the earlier stages of her life. It was only in the latter half that she realised how much more difficult it was to not say anything at all. “One for the day I was born, the other for the day I… the day I landed on the planet where I lived for most of my life,” she murmured, her hazy mind finally deciding to give Athena a bone to chew on.

“And where was that?”

Kara snapped. “What’s with all the fucking questions? What happened to ‘staying out of your client’s personal life’?” she replied, having no desire to let Athena in any further.

“It’s different with you, Kara,” Athena coolly replied.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. From the first day we met, there’s a part of me that’s just always seen you as something akin to a friend.”

“I don’t pay you to be my friend, I pay you to fuck me,” Kara spat out, “I’m just a regular client who needs to get off, nothing more.”

“Regular client, huh?” Athena scoffed, “Regular clients don’t give me their guns so that I can stay safe when I leave their place. Regular clients don’t lie down next to me after a fuck and teach me swear words in different languages, and they definitely don’t pay me five times my premium charge for no reason.”

“Are you done?” Kara abruptly asked, having become irritated with Athena for doing nothing other than telling the truth.

Kara’s tone made it abundantly clear that the conversation would end here, and Athena had no qualms about that. They’d both gotten all they needed out of tonight. “Yeah, just about.”

“I need to get some sleep. You should probably get going.”

“Sure… Can I shower quickly before I go?” Athena asked as she rose from the bed.

“You know you don’t have to ask that,” Kara replied, slightly confused that she was requesting permission for something she’d done countless times before.

“I know.”

Having regained some strength, Kara rose from the bed to open the balcony door, stepping out and allowing the humid Zuestean breeze to brush over her naked body. After leaving Earth, she expected to go to places that looked nothing like Earth and shared nothing with it in terms of culture and custom. She did, but such places were less common than one would think. She would come to find out that many things were literally universally shared across societies. The unholy trinity of them had become Kara’s favourites – Alcohol, sex workers, and smoking. She’d indulged in the first two tonight, and now it was time for the third. She opened her box of smokes, lighting one up and inhaling before she leaned against the railing.

Her head dropped and she shut her eyes for a moment, becoming stuck in her own mind again. She hadn’t lived to be happy in years, rather only to be distracted from the pain and misery. When the alcohol couldn’t do that, she turned to Athena, who could send her to another realm with just the use of her tongue. Kara’s place was the furthest Athena travelled out of the city’s affluent area where she did most of her work, being an exception in that way. But that wasn’t the only way Kara was an exception, as Athena had pointed out.

What she said was true. Kara didn’t behave like a regular client. She did give Athena firearms to defend herself. She did essentially pillow-talk with her and always pay her fee multiple times over. Her reason for doing so was abundantly clear even though she tried to deny it. It was the same reason why she transferred extra funds to Zax for the damage to the bar and why she never took contracts which required the murder of an innocent person. Despite how cynical and desolate she’d become, despite how hard she’d tried to leave behind everything that was her time on Earth, there was still that part of her that remained. The part that stood for hope, help and compassion. She tried to reduce her identity to that of Kara Zor-El, the intergalactic mercenary, but deep beneath all of that still remained Kara Danvers, the woman who fought for justice… Supergirl.

Part of her could look back at her time on Earth fondly. There were countless happy memories and fulfilling relationships. After losing her entire home world, she found a new place with new people who made life worth living. Alex, Eliza, Nia, Lena, James, Barry, Kal, Oliver, Sara, Laurel, Lois… there were too many to name off the top of her head. There wasn’t a better group of people one could have chosen to give you a new sense of fulfilment and joy in life… temporarily. Because that was the difference between her and most of them. They were mortal. They were human. She wasn’t. It was around 2035 when she had to start confronting that fact, when their hairs started to grey and skin started to wrinkle while she looked identical to the day she’d first met all of them. Death was inevitable for them and Kara was aware of that, but that couldn’t prevent a piece of her heart from being ripped out each time one of them was buried.

One by one, she watched most of them age out, become weak and perish. Oliver Queen was the first of them to go from natural causes in 2056. After spending nearly three decades of his life fighting all kinds of threats, he’d accrued an incredible amount of brain trauma. The signs of CTE started when he was only 51 as his short-term memory started wilting. Then came the slurring of speech, tremors and long-term memory loss. Early-onset Alzheimer’s ate away at his brain function, rendering him bed-ridden and useless by the time he passed away. It always seemed unfair to Kara that the greatest strategist and thinker of them all lost his life to a disease that stripped him of his very ability to do those two things. By the time he passed, they had become strangers to him as he could only recognise his son, William.

James was next in 2063. Then Lois and Kelly in 2068. Sara and Laurel in 2072. Nia in 2079. Lena in 2081. The final straws came for her the very next year in 2082. With J’onn and Brainy having long since returned to their respective homes in Mars and the 31^st century, Barry and Kal were all that were left of Earth’s original protectors, the last of Earth’s heroes and the last of her friends. Both succumbed to old age after losing their powers. Kal had lost his powers a few decades prior after being exposed to gold kryptonite engineered by Lex Luthor. Barry’s case was… complicated. While being a speedster with a healing factor, he was still susceptible to taking damage faster than he could heal from it. That was exactly what happened in 2078 when his spine was snapped in half in a battle with Gorilla Grodd. She didn’t know the exact science behind it but losing his ability to run meant that his connection to the Speed Force slowly dwindled. His powers were what kept him young and without them, he aged forty years in the span of four. She laid them both to rest in the same week and it was then that she knew there was nothing left for her on Earth.

That was almost everyone… almost. There was one death that she exhausted all of her willpower in trying to forget, an impossible task given that it was the one that had hurt her the most. Not a single day passed by where Kara didn’t think of Alex. It never took more than five minutes after waking for a thought of Alex to pop into her head. She had lost Krypton, her entire homeworld when she was just 13, and she never thought it would be possible to experience despair like that again until the person who had become her whole world died.

Unlike the others, Alex didn’t die of old age. She didn’t get the chance to live for 80 or 90 years with the woman she loved, raise her children, meet her grandchildren, and then enter an eternal rest with her family by her side.

She was murdered in cold blood.

2031. Maxwell Lord’s hate for aliens and specifically Kryptonians had reached a point where he was becoming a threat to the security of every alien in the United States. It was meant to just be another Friday for Kara. She spent the day at CatCo, hovered above National City for a few hours and then returned to her apartment in the late evening. A delivery box had been dropped off for her earlier. “Strange, but whatever,” she remembered thinking of it. She changed out of her supersuit, switched on the coffee maker and grabbed a knife to unseal the box. The naïve side of her fantasised about all the better things it could be. A gift from a friend or a love note from an admirer. She couldn’t ever have possibly been more wrong. The box held a gun and just as she opened it, her phone received a live video transmission from a blocked number.

It was Maxwell Lord, brandishing a large knife next to a gagged, deteriorating Alex. It had taken him several years, but he’d finally figured out her identity, and her sister was paying for it. She knew Lord was incredibly resourceful and cunning but finding a way to take the DEO director hostage was something else entirely. He explained that the gun sent to her was loaded with a single Kryptonite bullet and issued her a simple ultimatum: Take the gun and shoot herself in the head or watch Alex die. She first tried to plead with him, attempting to reason and negotiate a way out of the predicament, but there was no way out. So, Kara did what anyone would do for the person they loved the most… She put the gun to her head and pulled the trigger.

That was supposed to be it, but Maxwell Lord had lied. The supposed “Kryptonite bullet” was just a blank. He heartily laughed as he watched Kara’s face become painted with confusion first, then shock before a subtle switch to fear. His next words still chilled Kara’s bones to this day – “Thank you, but I’m just going to kill her anyway.”

The transmission immediately cut after that, not giving Kara the chance to get another word in. In a state of disbelief, despair, fury and worry all at once, Kara flew out of her apartment faster than she had ever flown in her life. She had no idea where to go and no idea where to look, but her five senses worked overdrive in trying to find any kind of clue. That turned out to be an impediment to her. She was too erratic to process anything, let alone the thousands of smells and millions of voices flooding her mind. Eventually, she got a lock on Alex’s heartbeat, but it was nothing like how she’d become used to hearing it. The rhythm was off-tempo and the beats were slowing down… It was fading, and so was Alex.

Kara found herself in a Lord Technologies subsidiary building on one of the middle floors. It was completely restricted, sealed off from the rest of the building. Kara flew straight in, bursting through concrete walls with ease as she landed in the room where she felt the heartbeat was coming from. Lord had already escaped, but Kara could make out the unmistakable silhouette of Alex’s body on the floor. She ran over, turning Alex to face her, but it was already too late. An ungodly amount of blood pooled on the floor, having all spurted out from the large gash across Alex’s throat. Her lifeless eyes stared back at Kara, who could do nothing but remove the piece of tape over her mouth, cradle her body and cry. Cry until tears of blood started to run down her cheeks.

When Kara didn’t come into CatCo the next day, Nia tried calling her to no answer. She checked her apartment to find only the gun. Becoming increasingly worried, she contacted Barry and Clark to let them know that Kara was nowhere to be seen. 17 hours passed by the time Barry finally located her, speeding over to find Kara still on her knees in that room, still cradling Alex’s body in her arms.

“I promise you, Kara, we’re going to do everything in our power to bring that son of a bitch to justice,” Barry told her later that day. She appreciated the support, she really did, but he was mistaken. Kara didn’t want justice. She wanted vengeance. She wanted to kill him, and she knew that Barry, Clark and frankly none of her friends would ever allow her to do that. None, except Oliver Queen. She hadn’t said a word to anyone in those few days after Alex’s murder except him. He gave the usual words of support and compassion, but he recognised the state she was in all too well. For the first time in his life, he looked at Kara and saw a reflection instead of an antithesis, so he dropped the formalities and became candid with her.

“You want to kill him, don’t you?” he bluntly asked.

“Yes,” Kara replied with disdain.

“If need be, I’ll help you do it. But I have to warn you, Kara, once you take your first life, there’s no coming back from that.”

In the end, she chose not to drag Oliver into it and ended up not needing his help anyway. She tracked Lord down in just four days by herself and proceeded to do exactly what she planned to, without hesitation. She ripped an arm off first, then snapped a leg in half. She punched a hole through his chest, ripping his heart out and crushing it in her hand. The last life he had would’ve faded away less than thirty seconds after that, but that wasn’t enough for her. She wanted more. In those last few seconds where he still had consciousness, she wrapped her hands around his head, slowly squeezing until it was crushed into nothing more than a jumbled pile of fleshy goo. That was the first murder she ever committed, the first time she had ever killed in cold blood.

And just a few seconds after she’d gotten what she wanted, Oliver’s warning started to ring in her head. She met him again a couple of days after and it was the first thing he brought up.

“Was it worth it?” he asked.

“Yes,” Kara replied as confidently as she could. But Oliver saw through the mask she was putting on. He saw that she had been changed forever and simply pulled her in for a tight hug.

It was never the same after that. The biggest misconception about losses is that you eventually get over them. That couldn’t be further than the truth. In the end, the best you can hope for is just to be able to live with them. She was never as happy or bubbly as she used to be, but she found a way to be just enough of both with the people that remained in her life. Then, they started going too and it became too much to handle. Alex’s death changed her forever, and Maxwell Lord’s murder at the hands of Supergirl sparked a series of events that would change Earth’s relationship with aliens forever.

Lord had been tight with anti-alien government officials for quite some time, pouring millions of dollars into their campaigns. There had always been a tumultuous relationship between aliens and humans, but Lord’s death was the ammunition that those in power needed to widen the divide to levels never seen before. They portrayed him as a saint and lauded him as a martyr of the human race. Aliens started to become second-rate citizens, facing systemic oppression that all but took any semblance of freedom they had. A few years later, Clark would fail to stop a chemical attack from killing thousands in Chicago and the conversation would then fully shift over to heroes as well. The working partnership between governments and heroes slowly deteriorated, and laws were passed that prohibited their activities unless they were under full supervision and control.

Clark and Barry aimed for a compromise, but she and Oliver had none of it. They worked from the shadows, trying to do whatever they could when a situation arose before inevitably having to flee and shake government agents off their tail. The humans staunchly believed that their right to self-determination had been taken away by the very existence of superpowered beings and they were hell-bent on taking it back, no matter the method. Even though that kind of philosophy would end up driving their societies further into the gutter, they hardly cared. The Earth that she’d grown up with was vastly different from the one that she left in 2082. Heroes were gone. Most metahumans and aliens lived in hiding if they hadn’t sold their souls to work for their oppressors. The place that had once welcomed her with open arms cast her out into the cosmos, never to return.

Leaving proved more difficult than she expected at first. While she was the last of her kind, her closest friends still lived on through their children. Nora and Bart West-Allen, William Clayton, and her nephews, Jordan and Jonathan Kent. Maybe, she thought, she had to stick around for them because she owed just that much to their parents. After everything that they’d done for her, the very least she could do was keep a watchful eye over their children in a world that was now hostile towards them. Even more importantly, her niece was still alive. Esme was the last tangible piece of Alex still present in her life and because of that, Kara emotionally held onto her with the grip of an anaconda. But in the end, it was actually Esme who convinced her to leave. Kara pleaded a case for staying behind, but Esme reminded her that she no longer had any obligation to. She had given everything to planet Earth while it had taken everything away from her.

“You’re still here. And if you’re still here, I want to be here until…” Kara remembered telling Esme.

“You’ve been to enough funerals, Kara. I don’t want you to have to go through being at mine.”

And that was all Kara needed to hear to accept that it was time to leave. This funeral would be the one to fully break her. She had buried Alex, and to bury her daughter would be like burying her all over again. That, she wouldn’t be able to handle, and so she left the planet within the next week.

It was now 115 years since her sister’s death, but she remembered it like it was yesterday. She could still smell the distinct scent of Alex’s blood and feel her body becoming colder and colder in her arms. If she wanted to, she could even weep now like how she did that day, but she held most of it back. Just a lone tear rolled down her cheek as she took the last drag of her cig, which she’d smoked right down to the filter. She hadn’t fully satisfied her craving yet, so she flicked the spent one away before lighting another.

She’d lost everyone and everything that had ever meant something to her. She refused to get too close to anyone should she have to go through the pain of losing someone she cared about again. Here she was, wandering from planet to planet, making money by doing people’s dirty work for them. Besides herself, she had literally nothing and no one to live for. And if so, then what was even the point of living?

She thought about suicide before, multiple times. She could definitely find a weapon powerful enough to blast her head off. She’d passed by solar systems with red suns before, even done jobs on planets where she didn’t have her powers. There was nothing to stop her from flying into a red sun if she wanted to.

But for some damn reason, she hadn’t done it yet. If someone were to ask her why, she couldn’t give an answer. For some reason unbeknownst to her, she was still alive. Living a life barely worth living, yes, but living nonetheless. Perhaps there was a greater purpose behind her still being here. Perhaps she wasn’t done with this world yet even though she wanted to be.

Or perhaps, she simply didn’t have the guts to end her own life and was waiting for someone else to do it for her.

Kara became lightheaded as an awful taste of dirt entered her mouth again. She’d smoked her second cig right down to the filter as well. With a flick of her wrist, she sent it away and walked back into her room, closing the balcony door behind her. Athena was already fully dressed, having finished her shower, and was gathering the last of her belongings as she readied to leave.

“When would you like to meet again?” she asked as she zipped up her jacket.

“I don’t know. I’ll let you know,” Kara replied.

“Sure.” Athena turned and was halfway out the room door before Kara called to her.

“Hey… Be careful, okay?”

Athena nodded with a smile, before stepping out and going on her way. Kara climbed atop her bed, sliding under sheets and adjusting the pillow so that it sat perfectly below her head. As she closed her eyes hoping to enter a deep sleep, she wondered how sweet and easy it would be if she just didn’t wake up tomorrow.

But she did, and so began another day living a life not worth living.

Chapter Text

The day began like most did for Kara. She woke up, had a cigarette, showered and then was off into The Zoma. She had already gained a reputation as one of the best mercs around at the moment, so there was no need for her to go around begging for work. Fixers hit her up regularly with contracts and offers, and when she had the patience to do so, she’d go through them and pick whichever she was most willing to do. She had that luxury given how much money she had in her financials by this point. Having done two jobs over the past four days, she was in no rush to leap into another one. Some time off sounded good to her, of which the days would be mostly wasted away in bars while the nights would be spent in bed with Athena.

She walked into The Zoma at around Sadostian midday. It was far less busy than late night and held a rather sincere atmosphere with the few passive guests that were present at this time. Zax acted quickly to get the place cleaned up after last night’s debacle and mostly everything seemed to be in order… apart from missing furniture and a worker in the far corner of the room still scrubbing blood stains off the far wall. Zax noticed her immediately as she walked in, having already poured her usual morning drink that was something analogous to rum.

“Got everything cleaned up quickly,” Kara remarked as she took a seat on her stool.

“Yep. Surprised you remember what even happened,” he chuckled, sliding the drink and an ashtray towards her in one move.

“Not all of it. Mind reminding me?” Kara requested before taking a sip of the drink. She lit a cigarette as he began explaining.

“You barged your way in, took a seat right there and ordered a Slingshot while ignoring their death threats. Main man felt disrespected because you got in his face and then you killed them all after he said something you didn’t like.”

That was the one thing Kara fully remembered. The prick’s threat of rape was what set her off, and even though she remembered, she somewhat appreciated that Zax had the decency to not be specific about it. She knew just from the way that Greenbeard said it that she wouldn’t have been his first victim, and she took joy in knowing that he would never have the chance to even attempt to force himself on another person ever again.

“Hmm,” Kara hummed as she took a long drag on the cig, “Sorry about that,” she said, gesturing to the worker scrubbing away at the bloodstains.

Zax waved her apology off, “Don’t worry about it. I was more angry about the tables and chairs you broke, but you made up for that with a hefty recompensation.”

“Don’t spend it all on that. Get Elz something nice… and get me a refill,” Kara said before downing whatever was left in her glass.

“Already ahead of you on both those things,” he replied with a smile, placing another glass in front of her.

Most of the cities of planets she’d been to, including Earth, had some form of a customs and immigration process as soon as you entered the atmosphere. Usually, you’d receive a transmission from someone, other times you’d be confronted by other aircrafts. The former was the case for Ellis Reed’s spaceship as she entered Zuestea. The substandard universal translator she carried with her now had proved useful, a rarity during her intergalactic travels. After explaining that her visit would only be a few days at most, she was given coordinates to the area where she was told she’d be able to store her vehicle until it was time to leave. Her jaw almost dropped when she was told the price that came along with a parking bay, but she nonetheless agreed to pay the amount on landing. After all, this was the final stop of her long journey.

When she was a child, Ellis would often look up to the starry night and gaze in amazement upon the cosmos. As a child of the 22^nd century, however, there was no curiosity or inquisitiveness about what it was like out there or what life possibly existed beyond Earth. The existence of extraterrestrials had been confirmed more than 100 years before she had been born. “Human” society in some places on Earth was almost barely that. Europe and parts of Africa were where aliens were generally most welcome and well-assimilated into civilisation. Where she was from, that was far from the case. Metahumans, like herself, and aliens lived as second-rate citizens.

A normal job was never in the cards for her, but one would have never suited her rebel heart anyway. She couldn’t sit by as one man sat atop the throne, doing everything in his power to make the life of ‘supers’ hell. The meta gene hadn’t manifested in her older sister, Cody, but she was always there right beside Ellis in her fight. In fact, Cody was the more defiant one of the two, having gotten herself and Ellis into several precarious situations over the years that could have been avoided. Ellis never begrudged her for that, because there was always a reward at the end of it. Whether it was money, tech or just a huge middle finger to the corporations, it always made the hassle worth it.

Depending on where you were in the United States, you would have grown up with different interpretations of the history of enhanced beings on Earth. You could expect to see different opinions on what they meant to human society, ranging from disavowed saints to treacherous invaders. For Ellis, she’d been taught the latter in school. If you were a smart kid, you could see right through the agenda and find fairer interpretations of history elsewhere. For her, everything she believed was what her parents told her, and she knew she could believe their every word because of their lineage. Her bloodline was linked to a man who was inarguably one of the most influential humans in American history. She was enough generations removed from him to not feel immense pressure to live up to his legend, but sometimes, it did creep in.

Five months ago, the total amount of planets she’d set foot on was just one. Now, as she stepped onto Sadostian soil? Seven. Tracking someone she’d never met who was somewhere thousands of light years away was never going to be easy. The feeling of a strong magnetic pull towards a certain direction was almost entirely non-existent when she first set off on her journey. It was more like a thin string unnoticeably pulling her in one not-so-specific direction. That thin string tugged harder and harder as she ventured deeper into the cosmos, leading her to several different planets along the way.

Tracking someone was never an exact science, it was more like she was guided to a general area of where they were, and sometimes places where they had previously been. The glasses in the inner pocket of her jacket were a help in that regard. Similar to vibers, having an object that belonged to the person she was tracking aided her sense of direction. Other than that, all she had was an old picture, of which only a few of the dozens she’d shown it to had recognised the person in it. Interestingly, they always said, "She looks different now," and that she "ditched the colourful suit", making Ellis wonder if perhaps others didn't recognise her simply due to that.

The last person she showed it to told her that she might find who she was looking for in Zuestea, the capital of Sadostia. With the magnetic pull dragging her in that direction stronger than it had ever been before, she realised this was where her journey could finally end. She roamed the streets of Zuestea and having now visited several alien civilisations, the wonder had long since worn off. It was quite surprising for her to find the similarities in infrastructural design between planets. Customs, politics, cultures and inhabitants almost always vastly differed from Earth, but she had visited more places that looked similar to Earth than completely different.

She knew by this point in her voyage that the best places to ask around were places of common social interaction such as clubs and bars, but the first two of each brought no intel. The third bar brought luck.

"We're not open yet," the bartender said as she walked in.

“I just have a couple questions. Is there a fixer around?” Ellis asked, stepping towards him.

“You must be new around here,” he responded, to which she simply nodded, “What’s your business? Looking for work or something else?”

“Looking for someone. A merc, she’s an old friend. Just trying to find her and catch up.”

“You don’t look old enough to have old friends,” the bartender cackled, “Who is she?”

Ellis held up the photo for him, with his eyes immediately flaring upon seeing the long-haired blonde in a red and blue suit, “Holy shit! You ain’t lying, ‘cause she looks way different here. Dresses a lot better now though.”

“You know her?”

“Nah, but she was just here last night, nearly drank everything off this counter behind me.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know where I could find her? Where she usually hangs out, or anything?”

“Don’t have a clue. Sorry, kid.”

A voice boomed from the top floor above them, “She spends a lot of time at The Zoma.”

Ellis raised her head, spotting the man leaning against the railing of the floor above them. Dressed formally with neatly kept hair and a long grey beard, she assumed he was the fixer that ran the joint, “The what now?”

“The Zoma. It’s another bar not too far from here.”

“How do I get there?”

The bartender replied, “Take a left once you’re outta here. Straight walk until you see a little orange weapons joint on the corner, then take another left. Straight walk again, you’ll find it eventually.”

Hopelessly out of her element and not keen to make demands, Ellis decided that the somewhat vague information was enough, “Okay, great. Thank you!” she shouted to the man above them. She hastily made her way towards the exit, but just before she could step out, he spoke once again.

“If you’re lying and are actually planning to pick a fight with her, don’t even think about it. She’ll splatter your brains across the floor before you even think of making your first move.”

“Noted,” Ellis responded with a purse of her lips, realising that the stories her parents told her perhaps were no longer true.

For the sixth time this morning, Zax refilled Kara’s glass to the brim. Six to eight glasses were usually her cap in the mornings, not because she was getting too intoxicated, but usually because she just grew bored. She’d often return in the evening after an easy day’s work for a few more drinks and then be on her way again. That was the general cycle, with a day or two sprinkled in between where she drank the entire district dry trying to get drunk. Rinse and repeat. He figured that in her line of work, that was one of the few ways that she could truly handle the stresses and aches that came with it.

Over the years, Zax had seen a variety of different beings walk into his joint. With just a glance, he could tell if they belonged or were out of place. The next customer that walked in stuck out more than a nun in a brothel. If there was such a thing as age restriction on alcohol in Sadostia, she looked like she might not make it. He knew that looks were extremely deceiving, but everything from her body language, clothes and inquisitive facial expression signalled to him that she was on the younger side of things and didn't fit in this setting at all. He watched her gaze wonder, scanning the bar as if she was looking for someone until she fixated in his general direction. More specifically, on the person sitting just right in front of him.

“I think that girl is looking for you,” Zax murmured to Kara, prompting her to turn around for a quick look. The young girl was almost stuck to the ground, staring with wide eyes at Kara.

“Fuck, I hope not,” Kara replied, before downing her drink. She took one last long drag on her cig before putting it out in the ashtray and rising to her feet.

“Don’t worry about money,” Zax said, stopping her before she could pull out her transaction chip, “All on the house for last night.”

Kara scoffed, “Yeah, right.”

“I’m serious. You plug that chip in and I won’t serve you for two weeks.”

“There’s plenty of other places I can drink.”

“None of them know how to make your favourite cocktail, do they?” Zax replied, smirking.

Kara conceded defeat, but not before issuing a jovial warning, “You know I’ll get this money to you someday.”

She turned around to be on her way then, momentarily making eye contact with the frozen girl before averting her gaze. She still seemed shell-shocked at the sight of Kara, which greatly unnerved her. That meant she must know or have known Kara in some way for some reason, of which Kara thought was more than likely not good. It all seemed like a giant red flag, and so she sped up her stride and shifted her direction to avoid her. She was about to pass her and be out the door, but the girl stepped in front of her, blocking her path. Kara attempted to manoeuvre around her again, only to be blocked once more.

“Can I help you with something?” Kara asked with more politeness in her voice than she usually ever had if someone got in her way.

Ellis Reed stuttered through her words, “Oh my god… You’re…”

Multiple warning signs flashed in front of Kara. She could tell that her translator hadn’t been activated, meaning that the girl in front of her was actually speaking English. That meant that she was definitely from Earth, which meant that she probably had an idea of who Kara really was. And so, for the first time in years, a living, breathing reminder of her past life that she was constantly trying to escape was right in front of her.

“Get lost, kid,” Kara said, pushing past her to get out the door.

It took Ellis another second to get her legs under her again, allowing her to pursue Kara. “No, wait!”

“I said get lost,” Kara repeated more firmly this time, speeding up her walk.

“You’re Kara Danvers. Supergirl!” Ellis finally exclaimed. Within an instant, she felt a rough tug at the neck of her jacket, as Kara was now in front of her with a ghastly scowl and a firm grip on her.

“Don’t call me that,” Kara spat out.

“Kara Danvers or Supergirl?” Ellis bumbled in a manner that reminded Kara all too much about her younger self.

“Both. Now, I don’t know how you ended up here or why you want anything to do with me, but I suggest you run along back to Earth before you really piss me off. Understood?”

No reply came from Ellis. No words nor a shake or nod of the head. She simply stared back at Kara with wide eyes, who shoved her back before continuing her brisk walk away from her. The fearful shock that had paralysed Ellis finally loosened up, allowing her to pursue once again. She had travelled way too far to simply be punked.

“I need your help!” Ellis shouted as she began to catch up with Kara.

“Do you know what I do for a living?” Kara asked, quickly spinning around to stop Ellis in her tracks right as she had just made up the distance between them.

“I heard you’re a merc now,” Ellis meekly replied.

“Good, then you know that it costs money to acquire my services. How much do you have?”

“I don’t, I don’t have much-“

“Well then sorry, can’t help you,” Kara said as she turned to walk away once again. Ellis was persistent, continuing to walk behind Kara.

“It’s my sister. I need to save her.”

“Sounds like it’s your problem. If you don’t have money, why should I care?”

The question, in Kara’s mind, was rhetorical more than anything else. She knew the girl would throw some answer back her way, but she expected it to be the kind of bullshit that would have appealed to her 120 years ago. Instead, what came next pierced her gut like a sword. She would have never anticipated Ellis’ ensuing answer…

“Because I’m Oliver Queen’s great, great granddaughter.”

This time, it was Kara who was the one frozen in her tracks. The mere utterance of that name, one she hadn’t heard in 64 years, was enough to do so. But now, she felt an anger beginning to brew inside of her. The powerful cynical side of her threw her mind right into a thought that this girl was lying in an attempt to persuade her. And if that was the case, she was fully considering inflicting some serious harm. She slowly turned around to face Ellis once again.

“Are you fucking shitting me?” Kara said through clenched teeth.

“I’m telling the truth, I swear.”

“Fucking prove it then,” Kara growled, getting right up in Ellis’ face.

“Remember this?”

Kara watched as Ellis took a solitary step back and slowly reached into her pocket. She pulled out her heirloom, the one little object that she could show to anyone who knew what it was to undeniably confirm her heritage. Kara recognised it immediately but remained sceptical at first as Ellis held it up in front of her. Kara snatched it out of her hand and upon taking a closer look could confirm that it was genuine. The small rock shaped like an arrowhead, Buddhist inscription on one side and Japanese coordinates on the other. The hōzen that Oliver Queen had found on Lian Yu, first given to Thea, then to William and so forth down several generations until it was now in Ellis’ possession. It had acquired a few more microscopic chips and cracks over the years, but Kara spotted all of the ones that were there when she had last seen it. She analysed it down to the minutest details of the scripture carvings of which any subtle differences were clearly a result of standard wear-and-tear.

Kara became the speechless one. She simply gazed back at the young woman in front of her, a descendant of a man who had once meant so much to her. To ascribe her the role of a mere reminder of her past life would be a failure. She was more than that, much more than that.

“Will you talk with me now?” Ellis asked, now knowing that she had fully piqued Kara’s interest.

“Not here.”

Chapter Text

It was a long, hushed walk back to Kara’s apartment, with neither woman letting so much as a peep out of their mouths the entire way back. Ellis’ lips remained shut as she paced behind Kara, following her lead back to the safe meeting place that she assumed would give them apt privacy for the conversation that was about to follow. Ellis could tell without even looking at Kara’s face that her mind was a jumbled mess of emotions at the moment. Any reminder of the place that she had evidently tried so hard to leave behind was sure to send her into a frenzy, but the sole reason why she had found a way to calm that storm was because the reminder came in the form of a person, one who was a descendant of one of her closest friends.

Ellis eventually found herself in a quaint, though rather untidy apartment unit. But compared to her small joint back home, she would take this a thousand times over.

“This your place? Ellis asked as she entered.

“Yeah. There are some drinks in the cooler, uh, fridge if you’d like. The green bottle in there is non-alcoholic if you don’t drink or whatever,” Kara replied, walking to the window at the furthest end of the living area and shelling out an empty gaze.

“I’m fine, thanks,” Ellis replied, taking a seat at the dining table.

Another short silence followed, being broken by Kara before it got too uncomfortable, “I’ll be asking the questions, alright? And you’re going to answer truthfully. No bullshit.”

Ellis nodded, “Gotcha.”

“What’s your name?”

“Ellis. Ellis Reed.”

“How did you find me, Ellis?”

“I’m a metahuman. My power is psychic navigation and tracking. It was really difficult, the further I am away from someone, the harder and more exhausting it is to zone in on them.”

“How long you been looking for me?”

“Three months. What helps is if I have an object that belongs or belonged to who I’m looking for, that’s how I managed to find you so soon. Relatively speaking.”

“You have something of mine?” Kara asked, waiting patiently as Ellis reached into the inner pocket of her jacket, pulling out a pair of lead-lined spectacles. She tossed them to Kara, whose eyes struggled to deviate from them. Another relic, another reminder of her past. The hōzen, her old glasses… at this rate, she was fully expecting Ellis to cough up Barry’s ring next.

“Got them from Cora,” Ellis said.

“Esme’s daughter,” Kara remembered, realising she must have held on to them after Esme’s passing.

“Yeah. Things have changed since you’ve been gone. A lot.”

“Like what?”

“Ridiculous technological innovation. Rampant transhumanism. Climate change completely decimating entire regions. Corporations got their hands in everything, they seem to run things more than the government.”

Kara’s eyes rolled. “Saw all of that while I was still there.”

“It’s worse now. I’m talking alien tech reverse engineered, anti-ageing tech extending lives by decades, complete limb and organ replacement, weaponry that could probably do serious harm even to you. And Knight City is where it’s all on full display, out of control.”

“Knight City?”

“Oh, it was called National City when you were there. I’m sure you remember Joseph Knight. Renamed the city in his image.”

Joseph Knight. Kara hadn’t forgotten.

There was plenty of blame to go around for the progressive deterioration of National City, some of which could be attributed to Kara even. Knight, however, carried a lot of it. An American Polynesian born in 2035, he was given a better start than most in the cruel universe. The Togiola were one of the more influential crime organisations on the American West Coast. They weren’t near the top of the list, but they were a far stretch from the bottom of it. Their influence had stretched all the way up to Star City as well, causing her and Oliver to have worked together on thwarting some of their operations.

Joseph’s father, Fatu, sat at the head of the Togiola’s table. When the transition of power from father to son didn’t come quick enough, Joseph took matters into his own hands and murdered Fatu, usurping his throne. His vision for the organisation differed in that he craved power and status. He took the Togiola from strength to strength until they were the most powerful organised crime syndicate in National City, at which time Joseph began entering the political sphere. The last Kara had heard of him was through a news announcement that he was planning to run for mayor in 2083, which she now found out he had won and used his newfound power to stroke his ego.

“It’s hell now,” Ellis explained further, “The corpos all stay in their little safe zone while the rest of us are either exploited or left to fend for ourselves. It's one of the worst places in America to live. Period, let alone as an alien or metahuman. That is, unless you strike luck by finding the right work and still keeping a low-profile.”

“Knight still around?” Kara asked, remembering Ellis’ earlier mention of anti-ageing technology.

“No. He, uh, died in 2085. Name stuck though,” Ellis replied. She seemed to have second-guessed her words, becoming slightly flustered when cooking up her answer. It was subtle, something that not a lot of people would have picked up on. But Kara did and kept that in mind before moving onto her next question.

“Okay, what’s the deal with your sister?”

“Cody’s my older sister. Our parents were burned by the corp they worked for when I was 12. She’s taken care of me since, always tried to keep me safe from a world that’s out to get me. She was… taken.”

There it was again, the slight hesitation in her voice which Kara noted.

Ellis continued, “Taken by a megacorp. I need your help to break into a highly secure facility to get her back.”

“Why’d they take her?”

“They were after us because we hijacked one of their convoys to steal tech. She gave herself up so that I could get away.”

“How secure are we talking?”

“Maybe close to a hundred guards, armed and enhanced. Enhanced not just in metas, I mean humans equipped with the best cybernetics and weapons in the world. Like I said, stuff that might be able to put a hurting on you. Not just human guards, drones and mechs too. The place is a tower. Biometric scanners and nanocameras at probably every corner.”

“So, stealth wouldn’t really be an option?”

“The scanners would make us out immediately. If we fooled them, cameras pick us up. It honestly might be better to go in guns blazing. Use that element of surprise to our advantage.”

“Oh, so a suicide mission, basically,” Kara griped.

“Maybe.”

“Uhh-huh.” Kara finally stepped away from the window, walking towards Ellis and leaning closer, “Listen, kid, your great, great grandfather was one of my closest friends. I owe him a lot, more than you’ll ever know and be able to comprehend. And I hate to break your heart, but just because you are part of his bloodline doesn’t mean that debt is now conferred to you. I’m not travelling thousands of light years just to end up getting skewered in a suicide run. I gave 67 years of my life on Earth fighting to make things better and I accomplished nothing. I left for good reason, and I don’t ever plan on going back. I’m sorry, Ellis, I truly am, but I can’t come with you.”

“You’d really sit back and let an innocent woman die when she doesn’t have to?”

“It’s not my fight, kid, it’s yours. I’m sorry,” Kara said, turning around to go to her bedroom. She was stopped halfway there when Ellis spoke up.

“Guess it’s true… Never meet your heroes, right? You know, I heard two kinds of stories about you when I was growing up. There were the stories fed to us by the system. The ones calling you despicable, hateful, narcissistic. The ones that painted you out to be a murderer, a terrorist who had no respect for humanity’s self-determination. Then, there were the stories told to me by the people who once knew you. They told me about you all, Supergirl, Superman, The Flash, Green Arrow – The mighty defenders of Earth. Paragons of justice and hope. They told me how you might have been the best of them all. A woman who charged headfirst into dire situations without care for her own life so long as she could save those in danger. I heard all about how hopeful, inspiring, and admirable you were.”

The more Ellis spoke, the quicker the fire of rage that was inside Kara burned brighter. She was not intent on being condescendingly lectured by a human who had a superficial attachment to who she used to be. She found few things more disrespectful than people mistaking you for who you used to be, and for her, that meant mistaking her for someone else entirely.

“I came here wondering which stories were going to turn out to be true. Now I know. What happened to the woman in the other stories, huh?” Ellis asked with a hint of venom in her voice, standing up and approaching Kara, “What happened to Supergirl? The woman who stood for hope, help and compassion. And what, now you’re just a merc who only steps up when there’s a quick buck to be made? I can see that she’s still within you. Deep, deep down inside. Kara Danvers is still there even though you don’t want her to be.”

That was enough to finally snap Kara, who spun around to grab Ellis by the collar and tug her close. “Listen to me, you little shit! I am not who you think I am… not anymore.”

Ellis’ eyes stared back at hers with a tangible fear within them. That told Kara she must have gotten the message, so she shoved Ellis back before continuing.

“Just like you said, things have changed. I’ve changed too. I’m doing what I have to do to survive. I don’t think you know what it feels like to lose every person you have ever loved. You understand me? Everyone!” Kara exclaimed.

“I know that you should continue to fight in their memory.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Kara scoffed, “Fight in their memory for who? Maybe you haven’t fully realised it yet, but the world didn’t want us anymore. And yet we still gave everything we had to it. They all did until their very last breaths. “Hope, help and compassion”? Bunch of fucking bullshit. I accomplished nothing.”

“Accomplished nothing? You’ve been gone for 64 years, and you are still an inspiration to me and my sister and millions of other people out there.”

“Congratulations, I inspired you,” Kara sarcastically clapped, “You’re still living in a fucking hellhole under the boot of the elites. And just from the fact that you’re here in front of me right now means that you have it better than most.”

“Alright, you lost your loved ones. So, along the way, you must have lost the person who meant the most to you. The person who was your world. Cody is that person for me. Sure, you can’t bring back yours, but I’m asking you to help me bring back mine. You may not be willing to die in the process of doing that but I am. With your help, maybe I won’t.”

The shakiness in Ellis’ voice as she spoke told Kara just how much Cody meant to her. She wasn’t lying. She was willing to die to get her back. And the reference to Alex reminded Kara that she would have done the same if she had the chance. That was enough to stir the most empathy out of her in years, but it wasn’t enough to convince her.

“Sorry if I sound selfish, but after giving so much of myself to everyone and everything else for most of my life, it’s not a goddamn crime to put myself first for a change. There’s nothing for me in this… You must have known that coming here because while you’re naïve as fuck, I don’t take you for an idiot. So, why me? Why did you come all this way to find me, so sure that you’d be able to convince me to uproot whatever I’d have up here just to help you?”

“Because there actually is something for you in this.”

Kara scoffed. “And what is that?”

“A chance to finish what you started in 2031.”

The reference to an all too familiar date agitated Kara even further, “What do you mean by that?” she barked.

“I never told you who took Cody. She was taken by Maxwell Lord.”

Instantaneously, Kara felt a wretched twist in her stomach. “What?”

“Maxwell Lord is still alive. Or rather, he came back from the dead.”

“You’re fucking bullshitting me-“ Kara growled, pacing towards Ellis.

“I’m not lying! He’s alive.”

Ellis’ uneasiness when speaking earlier suddenly made all too much sense. The wretched twist in Kara’s stomach was now accompanied by a dull aching in her chest, while she became frozen in place by her now numbing legs. Ellis wasn’t lying, she was only speaking a truth that Kara would have so much preferred to be a lie. The images of that night 115 years ago were suddenly clear in her otherwise cloudy head. She could viscerally see it – Lord’s limbs scattered across the room, his crushed heart next to the jumbled mess of his brains amidst a floor painted red with blood. There was no way he could have come back from that.

“How?” Kara muttered.

“You gonna have to sit down for this.”

Still frozen in shock, Ellis gently nudged Kara to a chair before taking her seat once again.

“Right before you killed him, he started working on developing engrams, digital personality constructs,” Ellis began explaining, “A way to digitally copy someone’s mind and consciousness. He managed to develop a prototype right before you killed him, and guess whose mind was put on it?”

“His own.”

“There was just one problem. He hadn’t yet figured out a way to transfer the engram to another body. Veronica Sinclair, the lady who took over Lord Tech after his demise, she continued funding the program. Transportations into synthetic bodies have been unsuccessful, so he opted to find a real person for his construct, the only hiccup being that his mind would need to be compatible with the body, whatever that meant. The construct transfer procedure overrides the other’s person’s mind and thereafter assimilates control of their body. Lord eventually found that person…

“Joseph Knight. He faked Knight’s death, kidnapping him and transplanting his construct into Knight’s body. What happens when you mix a billionaire with a disdain for all aliens and metas with a megalomanic crime lord with grandiose ambitions of power? You get a fucking nightmare. Lord Tech has grown to be one of the biggest corps in the world and they fucking run everything. Lord basically has control over the whole city.”

Maxwell Lord and Joseph Knight. The two men Kara had despised the most in her life, the two men who were each responsible for taking the things she loved so dearly away from her, now fused into one. Knight’s mind being destroyed in such a way would have brought Kara solace if it didn’t mean that it brought Lord back from the dead.

“How the fuck did you and Cody get trapped in his crosshairs? Because you’re metas?” Kara asked.

“Only me. Cody doesn’t have powers. We heisted a Nitro Corp tech transport. We got away clean, but we were found a few days later. Thought it was them wanting their shit back, but it was Lord’s enforcers. I lied saying that they wanted me. They wanted her. Sinclair’s old body was deteriorating and Cody was marked as a bio-match for her construct. And the transfer was successful.”

“How do you expect to get her back if her mind has been wiped from her own body?”

“A few days after she was taken, Cody made contact with me through the Net. She told me that Lord Tech developed a program called Soulkiller. It creates a construct of the original mind, but at the same time fully separates the old mind from the body, effectively making it a blank slate for the next construct to then be programmed into. Cody, or her construct, I guess, told me that she escaped into Lord Tower’s cyberspace after she was hit with Soulkiller. Soulkiller is in Lord Tower, and so is the only tech that is capable of transferring constructs between bodies. If we could get in and get our hands on Sinclair, we could hypothetically transfer Cody’s construct back into her own body. That’s the only way I get her back.”

“And what about Lord?”

“He’s what’s in it for you. Like I said, finish the job you started. You help me get my sister back, I’ll help you end Lord for good.”

“I… I still don’t know. I don’t know, Ellis. I need, uh, I-I need a minute to think about it,” Kara stuttered, rising from her seat.

Ellis said something again, but Kara didn’t have the wits to comprehend it. She stormed into her room and out onto the balcony, attempting to control her now erratic breathing while her heart hastily thumped against her chest. The shock was still strong, having not even begun to subside. Her mind had become a muddled plight of mixed feelings that clouded any sort of thought process she was attempting. Her hands tugged at her scalp as she leaned against the balcony railing, squeezing and pulling at her hair. She didn’t know what to feel, how to react, how to think, or what she was going to do.

The destitute, sinking feeling in her abdomen became unbearable, stemming from the realisation that none of it had been worth it. That one day that had changed everything for her, the day she killed Lord… it was all for nothing. Whether or not it had been the right decision to take his life that day, she had at least taken comfort in knowing that she did do it. She took solace in knowing that Lord was dead and that he would never hurt anybody else ever again. And that had all been stripped away from her in the blink of an eye.

Her sense of time had been severely warped. She had no idea how long she stayed out on the balcony, but it felt like hours spent going back and forth in her mind.

Here she was with the descendant of one of her friends who was facing the same predicament as her. Another woman who had lost her sister to Maxwell Lord, but with the one difference being that there was a chance to get her back. The gun that she had put to her head that day was never loaded, but the one that she and Ellis had here right now might just be. But it didn’t seem like it to her.

Just as Kara had said, she had given everything and had everything taken away from her. She fought for so long for nothing. She had finally accepted that not every battle was hers to fight, and the truth was that if Ellis was any other ordinary woman whose sister was kidnapped by anybody else, Kara probably would have had less than a speck of inclination to get involved. But Ellis wasn’t any other ordinary woman, she was Oliver Queen’s great, great granddaughter. And her sister wasn’t taken by just anybody else, she was taken by the same man who had taken Kara’s sister away from her.

It was a second chance to make peace with her past. She hadn’t been able to save her own sister from Lord, but she could at least save someone else’s. The truth was she never felt true gratification from killing Lord. No more than a few seconds after the deed had been done, she felt hollow, like that it had meant nothing in the end. But she was different back then. She was fuelled by a blind rage that had sent her into a vengeful frenzy of bloodlust, and she was driven to kill him because she felt she had lost purpose. But now after her mind had cleared, she felt like she was thinking clearly, the clearest she ever had in decades. The prospect of killing him and making sure he stayed dead this time gave her purpose, something she thought she had lost forever. Her second chance at vengeance just seemed far, far too sweet to pass up.

Ellis hadn’t even noticed Kara return from the balcony, turning her head to see Kara leaning against the doorframe to her room as she gave her answer.

“I’ll help. Not because I really give a shit about you or your sister, but because I’ve got a score to settle with Maxwell Lord.”

Though Ellis would have preferred Kara’s help to come out of altruism, she never truly expected her motivation to come from anything but retribution. “Fair enough,” she replied.

“I’ll help you get Cody back so long as I get to kill Lord properly this time. That means destroying the backup constructs of himself he probably has stored somewhere. How would we do that?”

“Lord probably stores constructs on a subnet in the Tower. We could access it once we get in and destroy it.”

Kara nodded. “Give me some time to pack my shit. We’ll be out of here by sundown. I just need to make one stop before we leave.”

Chapter Text

Kara didn’t seem to appreciate Ellis’ help with packing her stuff much, but it at least sped the process along. Surprisingly, the amount of clothes Kara had was less than Ellis expected. Even more shockingly, Ellis saw the assortment of weapons that Kara had acquired over her years as a merc. As a girl who grew up on stories of the Maiden of Might, it felt almost traumatic to see the woman was once Supergirl with a gun in her hand. She watched as Kara filled a large duffel bag with several blades of different lengths, and pistols and rifles of both the plasma and traditional solid ammo varieties.

The majority of vehicles on Zuestea’s streets were self-driving. Wealthier individuals often used a premium cab service that was operated by an AI named Echo. It was offered through various levels of subscription, of which Kara held the premium service even though she seldom used it. An Echo cab picked them up, taking them a little further into the affluent area of the city and making a stop at another apartment building, one more refined than Kara’s. Ellis stood a couple of meters back to give Kara some space as she walked up to a unit door and knocked.

The door was answered by a slender woman with red hair, whose head tilted immediately due to the unexpected nature of the visit.

“Hey,” Athena greeted Kara, a hint of suspicion creeping into her voice.

“Hi,” Kara replied through pursed lips.

“What’s going on?” Athena asked, her eyes momentarily shifting to Ellis and lingering for a second before returning to Kara.

“I’m, uh, leaving,” Kara replied.

“What? Why?”

“You knew I was never going to be here forever. Got some shit I need to take care of right now.”

“This have to do with her?” Athena asked, gesturing to Ellis. Kara nodded. “Who is she?”

“Relative of an old friend. She needs my help.”

Athena nodded. Kara had told her she never planned to stay in Zuestea permanently and that she would eventually leave. Athena also knew that it would likely come out of the blue without much warning signs, which turned out to be the case right now. Yet, she still felt a hint of sorrow realising that this moment right now was the end of their association.

“So, this is it?” Athena asked.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“It’s been nice,” Athena beamed.

“Yeah, it has,” Kara responded, feeling a faint smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

Athena stepped forward, leaning in to place a gentle, soft kiss on Kara’s right cheek. “Fate willing, we’ll see each other again one day. Take care, Kara.”

“You too.”

Kara let her gaze rest on Athena for the last couple of seconds they were in front of her. The door closed, and then just like that, it was all over. She too felt a hint of sorrow, but she tried to focus on the relief that came with the end of their liaison. She noticed that they were getting too close, something which she couldn’t afford, so it was better for it all to come to a screeching halt here. The chances they did or didn’t see each other again seemed equally likely, but for a person like her, Kara felt that fate would choose the latter.

She paced away from the door, meeting up with Ellis again.

“Who was that?” Ellis asked as they began the walk back to the Echo car.

“An acquaintance.”

Ellis frowned. “She seemed a little more than that.”

“Acquaintance with benefits.”

“That makes a little more sense.”

Kara turned to Ellis and scowled. “What do you mean by that?”

Ellis held up her hands. “Nothing. Just must be someone important if they’re the only one you’re saying goodbye to.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Kara replied, shaking her head.

The drive to Kara’s spaceship didn’t take long. Compared to the ship that Ellis had been travelling in, it was a dream. It stuck out amongst the other vehicles in the large hanger area due to its bright white paint job and bigger size. The interior was just as beautiful to Ellis, with streaks of ocean blue patterns occasionally breaking up the white colouring.

“Damn, sweet ride. Past three months would’ve been a lot cosier in this,” Ellis remarked.

“Don’t worry, journey won’t be as long this time,” Kara replied, setting the bags down and making her way to the pilot’s seat, “B-line to Earth in this should be no more than two Earth-days, we're quite far so we're going to have to be sparing with jump points.”

Ellis followed Kara to the front of the craft. “Can I…” she asked, gesturing to the passenger seat next to her.

“Just don’t touch any buttons,” Kara replied with the sigh of a disgruntled parent that barely dulled Ellis’ glee.

The ship booted up quickly, showing no signs of rust despite eight months of inactivity. It glided smoothly in the air, so smooth that Ellis’ body hardly registered a difference once it had lifted off. They began moving through the planet’s several atmospheric levels as their altitude increased, and Kara couldn’t help but notice Ellis’ gawking out the windows. It occurred to her then that this was one of Ellis’ first few takeoffs. Kara had no reason to look back anymore. She’d lost count of how many planets she rose away from over the years. She had only ever looked back on two occasions, both times when she was leaving the two places she had considered her homes.

Soon, Sadostia was far behind them and they were out into the cosmos, their only view being bright stars far away that had probably long since died. Kara set the ship to autopilot and leaned back in her chair, paying little attention to Ellis. A silence between the two lasted for a good while before Ellis eventually decided to break it.

“If we’re going to be here for two days, we gotta find a way to pass the time,” she said.

“These chairs are comfy. Sleep it away,” Kara rashly replied.

“I’ve got some cards?” Ellis suggested.

“Haven’t played an Earth card game since… I don’t know, 2060-something.”

“I could refresh your memory.”

“I’d rather not,” Kara said, shaking her head.

While her first idea had been shot down, Ellis persisted with another attempt to engage with Kara. “We can just talk then.”

“Not exactly feeling talkative.”

“Okay... but I mean, you must have some questions.”

She wasn’t wrong, Kara did have questions, but not the kind that Ellis was thinking of.

“You said Lord basically runs the city. How so?” she asked.

“The only way to get by for most people is to answer to the highest bidder, and very few have more money than him. He’s got law enforcement and politicians in his pockets. His company has moved beyond tech manufacturing as well. Food, weapons development, water supply, energy, there’s no one aspect of the game which he doesn’t have skin in.”

“So, raiding the tower, how do we do it?” Kara asked, sitting up in her chair, “Do you have the building schematics?”

“No. Don’t think we have a good chance of getting our hands on them either.”

“So even if we get in, we don’t know where to go to do the construct transfer?”

“No, we don’t.”

“Great,” Kara sarcastically muttered, “At least you can lead us to Lord and Sinclair.”

“They spend a lot of their time at the tower. It’ll just be about picking the right time when they’re both there.”

“What guarantee do we have they won’t leave as soon as we hit the tower?”

“Hadn’t thought about that,” Ellis replied before pondering for a moment, “Not much.”

“Do you even know how to operate Soulkiller and facilitate a construct transfer?”

Ellis bit her lip. “No.”

“So, your plan is not even a plan. It’s really just an idea,” Kara responded, chastising her.

“Got any suggestions to improve it?”

“Get our hands on someone who works in the tower, force them to talk.”

“They’re not going to be of great use unless they’re important. And if they’re important, getting our hands on them is going to be quite difficult.”

“I was thinking whoever works on the construct transfers, a scientist or something. Someone we could force into directly helping us, or at least give us an idea of what we’re supposed to do.”

“Lord has kept public knowledge about the program vague. Very, very few people know a whole lot about it and the identities of those who work on it have been kept a secret.”

“What kind of contacts do you have? Are they the type that can point us in the right directions?”

“I’ve spent a lot of time on the streets. I know a couple of powerful people who might be able to help, but that comes at a price. I do have one person who would help for free, I just don’t know if they will.”

“You’re going to have to try them all.”

“Guess so… When I asked if you had questions, I didn’t mean about the plan.”

Kara raised an eyebrow. “What did you mean?”

“Like about how things have changed on Earth. Or just about me, you know. You still don’t really know enough to trust me.”

Well, she got that right. Kara still didn’t fully trust Ellis. She trusted her enough to help her, but there was still a lot else she needed to know that would serve her well. She decided to play along, throwing a series of questions at Ellis.

“How old are you?” Kara asked first.

“27.”

“And Cody?”

“34.”

“You got a partner? The romantic kind.”

“Sorta, but we’re not really together at the moment. It’s complicated.”

“As it usually is… Got any of those cybernetic enhancements you said were common?” Kara asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Ellis replied, rolling up her left sleeve. Her left arm had been replaced by a mechanical one, but one might not have noticed that if they weren’t paying attention. It matched perfectly with Ellis’ skin tone, with Kara being able to tell it ended just past her elbow joint due to the glossy texture fading away into real skin. A mechanical port rested just above the wrist from which Ellis proceeded to pull out a long wire. “Cyberlimb with a monowire attachment. Neat, right?”

“Not bad,” Kara nodded with approval, “How does it work getting one?”

“Well, if you’re rich, you have access to the best implants and safest procedures done by qualified surgeons. The rest of us, we’ve got to settle for ripperdocs. Basically, a ripperdoc is like a surgeon, engineer and doctor all in one, except they’re unqualified in all three.”

“Doesn’t sound very safe.”

“It isn’t. Gotta find the right one or you might die on the table. I got lucky finding mine, he’s good.”

“And that thing on your neck?”

Ellis’ brushed the piece of cyberware embedded below her left ear with her fingers. “It’s a neural port,” she said as she pulled a cable out of a slot, “You use it if you need to read datashards or jack into The Net, get deeper into cyberspace. Connects directly to my cyberdeck.”

“Cyberdeck?”

“Cyberware operating system connected to your brain. The better your Cyberdeck, the more you can do. Hack quicker and better, get better quality implants, etcetera.”

“What do you do with it?”

“Mostly hacking. I’m a netrunner. I can sort through tons of metadata, hack systems, interfere with other people’s cyberware, override a vending machine to get all the snacks you want without paying.”

“Nice,” Kara smiled, “You ever taken a life?”

The abrupt shift from rather benign and harmless questions stunned Ellis into a momentary silence. Nonetheless, she answered truthfully. “Yeah, I have.”

“With that neat wire, your hands or a firearm?”

“Firearm. Why is that relevant?”

“There’s a level of detachment when you just shoot someone. Something like the projectile takes the life, you just pulled the trigger. But when you cave someone’s head in, snap their neck or drive a blade through their chest, there’s no type of acquittal. You showed the true guts needed to go through with it.”

“Your point?”

“I’d feel a little safer going into battle with someone who’s killed with their bare hands before,” Kara chirped.

“Barry Allen never did and you had no problem being at his side.”

Kara snorted. “Eventually even he had enough and phased his hand through Eobard Thawne’s chest, but I don’t blame you for not knowing that. So, a netrunner, that’s something you do for a living?”

“Corps have their own netrunners. I make my scratch as a merc.”

“A merc?” Kara scoffed, “So, what was with all that shit you gave me for being one?”

“On the streets of Knight City, it’s either sell your soul to a corp, join a gang, or try to forge your own path. I’m sure you can guess which is the most enticing. So, yeah, I’m a merc, but it’s because I didn’t have much of a choice. You did.”

“You don’t know that,” Kara shot back, “Don’t throw stones from a glass house, kid. Your hands aren’t any cleaner than mine.”

“Nobody’s hands are clean, but it’s important how they get dirty. We don’t take gigs from corps, only local fixers, and we try to steer clear of innocent targets.”

“Sure, Ellis, whatever makes you feel better.”

“How long were you on Sadostia for?” Ellis asked, seeking to change the topic before she or Kara got too agitated.

“Eight months.”

“Only?”

“I’ve never really settled down in one place. I’m always jumping around.”

“By yourself?” Ellis asked, a hint of dejection creeping into her voice.

“Yeah, by myself,” Kara replied nonchalantly.

“Sounds lonely.”

“Sounds peaceful,” Kara replied while reaching into a pocket and pulling out her box of cigs. She put one to her lips, but became mindful of her companion, “Do you mind?”

“Your ship, your rules,” Ellis shrugged, giving Kara the go-ahead to light it. “You said you owe Oliver Queen. How so?”

“Nothing super specific. He just did a lot for me. Saved my life more than once. Good friend, teammate, even a mentor at times. We both rejected subordination to those in charge and when they came after us for it, we stuck by each other’s side and looked out for each other’s backs.”

“Just a perfect duo, huh? Balanced each other out. When he got a bit dark, you gave light. When you were too idealistic, he was there to be more realistic.”

“Something like that.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Kara noticed a sly smile creep onto Ellis’ face.

“I also heard that you and him… kinda…” Ellis said, tiptoeing around a blunt statement, “You know…”

Kara scoffed, shaking her head. “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”

“Not even if it was from people who knew both of you?”

“Listen, it wasn’t easy doing what we did. When you were as constantly stressed as we were, you had to find a way to release that tension, you understand?”

“Of course.”

“Oliver Queen and I used to fuck because we had needs and didn’t have anybody else. There’s no more to it than that.”

“That’s not exactly what I heard.”

“Well, you heard wrong,” Kara quickly retorted, “I was actually there, so you should take my word over whoever’s.”

“Sure,” Ellis replied through pursed lips, though Kara could tell she wasn’t fully convinced.

Eventually, her willingness to engage with Ellis in conversation dwindled down and so did their discourse. Seven hours had passed since they left Sadostia. Ellis felt that Kara had actually undersold the chairs to her. They were extremely comfortable, so much so that she had passed out quickly and was currently fast asleep. For Kara, nothing was comforting to her right now. She couldn’t put her mind to rest.

Floating through space, staring out into darkness and sitting with nothing but your thoughts never got easier. It was an easy recipe to get stuck in your own head and dwell on thoughts that otherwise would have been fleeting.

At that first moment when she met Ellis, Kara could tell she was starstruck. It wasn’t just about meeting your hero but it was also something like finding a long-lost family member. She, Oliver, Barry, Kal and the Legends were family first, an alliance of heroes second. That’s what made them strong, but also all the more painful to lose one by one over the years. Now, Ellis was here, someone distantly connected to that family arriving with her own perceptions of who and what they were, and who and what she is. Already, Kara could tell those perceptions were slowly being broken. She came looking for Earth’s most inspiring hero and found only a boozing, smoking has-been.

But she didn’t care to live up to those past expectations. The stories Ellis had heard were just that now - Stories. Though they may have been exaggerated, she doubted they had been completely bastardised. Beneath the sensationalism lay the truth, but that was a truth that Kara no longer lived. To her, whatever Ellis had heard might as well have been fiction, including the nature of her relationship with Oliver Queen.

The part where he was an asshole to her in the beginning had probably been left out, and what happened in the following years had probably been hyperbolised and exaggerated. That was the way Kara chose to think of it. Her downplaying of what her friends truly meant to her first started when their deaths started to near. She thought that attempting to think of them as less would make losing them easier. It never did, but it was a habit that persisted even long after they had perished.

Despite a shaky start, she and Oliver Queen slowly started developing a good rapport with each other. She saved his life from a Dominator first, then he saved hers from her evil Nazi counterpart a year later. When mutual threats arrived on their doorsteps, they worked together to bring them to justice. From 2019 onwards, Barry made it a mission for the heroes to get together more often without a world-ending threat being the motivation behind it and that increasing interaction on a consistent basis helped her and Oliver find out that they were more similar than they initially thought. And they weren’t like Barry and Kal or most of the others in the regard that they were the only two who couldn’t find a steady partner. They got close, but she lost Mon-El after he got sucked into a wormhole that sent him to the 31^st century and Oliver couldn’t make things work with Laurel Lance.

That made it inevitable for them to be magnetically pulled closer and closer to each other until one night they found themselves together on the bed of a fancy hotel suite. They attempted to keep it a secret at first. They didn’t know how the others would react to it and it also wasn’t really their business unless it began to affect the team. They managed to be discreet for a few months until Barry needed Kara’s help with an alien convict, speeding into her apartment to find her and Oliver topless as she was undoing the belt of his jeans.

“Kara, I… Oh shit, sorry!” she remembered Barry exclaiming as soon as he entered, quickly turning around to allow them to cover up.

“Fuck, Barry, you really need to learn how to use doors,” Oliver scolded him.

“What’s going on?” she asked, buttoning up her shirt that Oliver quickly handed back to her.

“I just, I- I- need your help with something, but it can wait a few minutes if you guys need to finish up or… How long has this been going on for?!”

From that day forward, Barry always made sure to call before visiting and knock before entering.

Barry never minded it. Kal was a little more displeased. He saw Oliver as a polar opposite to him in terms of their ideologies and psyches, reminding him a little too much of Bruce in some ways. Kal was worried about that rubbing off on Kara through Oliver rubbing off on her in a different way. He did rub off on Kara… in both ways.

Some saw Kal and Barry working with the authorities as selling out, but she didn’t. They had families and she couldn’t fault them for putting their safety first. She and Oliver just couldn’t do it. Neither of them held strong faith in institutions. Kara had seen first-hand how the Kryptonian elites’ greed cost them their entire planet and she saw Earth heading down the same road. With her and Oliver having only run into walls trying to change that, they were more than happy to just continue on their own terms. Although that meant constantly being at odds with the powers that were, they knew they could always count on each other to be there if and when they needed it.

But was there more to it than that, like Ellis was suggesting? Kara tried not to remember it that way, but the lies she often told herself could only mask the truth so much. They trained together, exchanging knowledge and skills. They were there for each other in the most difficult of times, providing support in whatever form they needed. Soon, they found themselves caring for the other as something more than a teammate or friend. But love seemed dangerous to them, so they never outright crossed that bridge. When they themselves took care to never call the other their lover, how could anyone else say that for them? Or was that just another one of those lies that she had duped herself into believing?

It hardly mattered, because Oliver was in the past, and she was trying to grapple with the future ahead of her. She was only now realising how difficult it would feel returning to Earth. From what Ellis had told her, the place would be unrecognisable, and the worst elements of it that she’d fled from had become even more ghastly. There was the simplistic, poorly thought-out plan which was sure to take a permanent toll on either one of them in some way. Just the thought of getting her hands on Lord again was almost enough to cast such concerns aside… Almost. The cynical, analytical side of her mind prevailed this time, leaving her wondering if coming along had been the right call.

It wasn’t worth it killing Lord the first time. Would doing it again be worth it?

“Didn’t sleep?”

Kara was pulled out of her thoughts by Ellis’ voice, turning to see her peeking with sleepy eyes. “Can’t sleep,” Kara replied.

“Why?”

“Thinking about what’s ahead.” One thing that Ellis said had been dwelling on Kara’s mind ever since she heard it, and she decided to inquire about it now. “You said you were told stories about me.”

“Lots. Some from my parents, some from Esme.”

“What did they tell you?”

“How you almost sacrificed yourself flying Fort Rozz into space. How you, Superman, Green Arrow and the Flash fought off Nazis, alien invasions, Doomsday. Cool stories, but they weren’t my favourites. Those were the stories about Supergirl. The stories about Kara Danvers resonated way more with me. When a little girl dropped her ice cream and you sped away to get her a new one. When you fought the legal system for four years trying to get an innocent man off death row. When you saved a stray cat seconds before it was about to be run over.”

“What about the bad stories?”

“That the invasions only happened because of your presence. How the problems you solved were actually created by yourself. That you had no respect for humanity’s wishes.” Ellis paused for a moment before continuing, “That you murdered Maxwell Lord in cold blood… Did you?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Why?”

Kara swallowed the lump in her throat. “Because he took the most important thing in my life away from me.”

“He’s the one who killed your sister, isn’t he?” Ellis asked. Kara nodded. “And that’s why you’re helping me? To make sure he doesn’t take mine as well?”

“Yeah.”

Chapter Text

The next 45 hours of travel felt like they had passed by rather quickly. Over that time, not a whole lot more words had been spoken, something which rather disappointed Ellis. It stemmed from the fact that the Kara Zor-El she heard about was far different from the one in front of her right now. She would have loved to spend hours on end just talking to her, picking her brain about any and everything. She would have done just that with the “old Kara”, but this “new” one? Just a couple of conversations with her were enough for Ellis to embrace the silence between them and let it be.

It's not that Ellis didn’t expect Kara to be different and blamed her for it. The more Ellis sat beside Kara, the more she slowly began to understand, and became even more amazed that Kara was even still alive today. The survivor’s guilt set on by her curse of immortality would have been enough to drive most people into complete lunacy, if not towards suicide. Becoming as cold and calloused as she seemed was probably the best-case scenario for someone like her.

Much of the journey was slept away by Ellis, finding the passenger seat to be an extraordinarily comfy spot compared to her previous ship. She was woken up with two frugal slaps across her face from Kara, who told her that they had almost arrived.

She watched Kara as they began to near Earth, seeing her constant and now familiar indifferent gaze ever so slightly change into one that subtly conveyed distress as the blue planet became clearer and clearer.

“Did you ever think that you’d be back here?” Ellis asked.

“Never,” Kara replied, her eyes wandering to Mars, “What are Martian relations like with Earth?”

“Mutually non-interactive. We don’t meddle in their affairs, they won’t meddle in ours.”

“J’onn J’onzz still alive?”

“No idea.”

Kara switched the ship back to manual piloting to guide them to the dark side of Earth. The outlines of the USA’s coasts remained visible due to the specks of light stemming from heavily populated areas. Kara knew exactly where to go. Having flown many times across the West Coast, the shape of the coastline had been burned into her memory and it didn’t take her long to zone onto their destination.

“I’ve seen photos of how the city looked in the past,” Ellis said, “It’s different now.”

“Think I won’t recognise it?” Kara asked.

“You won’t.”

Ellis’ words seemed to carry the substance of a warning, something which Kara tried to ignore as they entered the atmosphere and began their descent. An array of clouds blocked their initial view of the city, and just before they broke through them, Ellis offered just a few final words to mark their arrival at their destination.

“Welcome to Knight City.”

Kara felt her heart momentarily stop beating for the first few seconds after she laid her eyes on what was once her beloved city. It had grown at least three or four times in size, with large skyscrapers and concrete infrastructure stretching out over what used to be a beautiful landscape. She tried to spot familiar buildings, but it was impossible as new buildings had popped up while old ones had been renovated beyond recognition. Arrays of neon lights around the vast city center’s skyscrapers were blinding, contrasting with the even larger, more destitute areas that surrounded it, which seemed to be shrouded in darkness. Aerial vehicles were scattered like fireflies in the airspace around buildings, oftentimes passing through the large holograms of different kinds being projected in the skies.

One building stood above all others in the center of the city. It stood so high it almost brushed the clouds at its very highest point where two words glowed brightly – Lord Technologies.

“You good?”

Ellis’ inquiry almost fell on deaf ears. Kara had become hypnotised and only just managed to catch on to the question being posed to her.

“What? Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Just… taking it all in,” she replied, her words getting caught up in her throat.

“Head East, past the city. There’s an abandoned airstrip where we can park this thing.”

Kara followed Ellis’ directions to the airstrip, landing the ship in a neatly conspicuous hanger. Ellis had prepared well for their arrival, having hidden her car away in the corner of another hanger. The drive back into the city took no more than fifteen minutes.

Seeing the city from above brought shock and hypnotism. Seeing it on a street level brought misery and despondency. They passed through desolate areas upon immediate re-entry with worn-down buildings and a homeless camp at almost every third stop-street.

But as they got closer and closer to the city center, it became more of a methodically structured metropolis. Every fourth person Kara could fixate her eyes on had a visible implant. Some implants were more aesthetically pleasing than others, like chrome arms or legs, but others had entirely restructured their faces with cyberware, appearing more machine than human. Everywhere she looked, there was a screen or hologram screaming something at her with a plastic optimism. Perhaps the most downright disturbing images for Kara were the holographic projections of trees on walkways where she remembered real trees once stood tall. The more she watched the people of Knight City, the more she wondered if they were holograms too. Just like the holographic images, the people seemed programmed in their movements and very nature, carrying lifeless expressions in whatever they did.

They finally passed by a place which Kara could recognise. Just like the rest of the city, real trees had been replaced by holograms, but other than that, the bay seemed like it had hardly changed. She spotted a large metallic figure in the distance, remembering that her statue had once stood there. It was still up when she’d left, and there was a tiny part of her that hoped it still would be. As they drove closer though, her realistic assumption that it had long since been taken down proved correct, but it hadn’t just been taken down. It was replaced.

“Is that…”

Ellis glanced at Kara to see where her eyes were fixated, eventually shifting her own to what was a statue of Maxwell Lord, in the form of Knight’s body, erected in the exact same place where Kara’s had once been.

“Yeah, that’s him,” Ellis somberly replied.

Kara’s stomach churned while burning at the same time as she glanced at the statue. The removal of her statue to be replaced by his own conveyed a truth that it had taken her a long time to figure out: It was never just about getting rid of Kara and taking away everything she cared and stood for. Lord had a God complex. He was jealous that Kara was everything he wasn’t and he so desperately wanted to be acknowledged like how she had been for the longest time. Part of the reason why he hated her was because she didn’t acknowledge her own power. She lived an ordinary life while downplaying the fact that she was a god amongst mortals, and he believed that to be a waste of her supreme abilities. She didn’t want to be worshipped, but he did, even if it meant forcing an entire city at gunpoint to bend the knee to him.

At the very center of the city were the richest, a small group of elites who were all human. At the edge were the lowlifes, where the poorer humans and a lot of metas and aliens resided. Ellis’ apartment building stood somewhere between the two. It wasn’t quite as perilous as the edge, but nowhere near as furbished as the center. Garbage still littered the streets and criminals lurked at every second corner. Every time Kara could catch a glance at a neck, she spotted a neural port. It seemed to be a necessity to exist in the city, as she would come to find out that just like in outer space, all money was now digital. She didn’t feel like she was back on Earth, nor did a single ounce of her feel like she had returned to the place that was once her home city.

She felt the furthest away from home she’d ever felt. National City was long gone.

Welcome to Knight City.

The splash of cold water on Kara’s face was the fifth in just as many minutes. Each time, she hoped it would wake her up from this nightmare. Each splash came with the hope that it would jolt her to consciousness, and she’d wake up in a profuse sweat back on Sadostia. But this was reality, a reality she had chosen to face. There was no turning back now. She stared long and hard at the soul in the mirror opposite her, coming to grips with that fact.

Her hearing caught on to another muffled voice engaged with Ellis outside of the bathroom. Ellis had contacted the person she said could help them for free. He hadn’t sounded too happy on the phone but agreed to meet up with them. From the sounds of things, he still wasn’t happy.

“A merc? Are you out of your goddamn mind?! Even if I had a week, I couldn’t list all the reasons why venturing off-planet to recruit mercs for this is a terrible idea,” Kara heard him say.

“Maybe I wouldn’t have if you weren’t such a pussy to help me do it,” Ellis replied.

“Yeah, Ellis, I’m scared to do it. I’m scared because I know that you’re going to die in the process and I don’t want you to.”

“Not if you help me. We have this merc as well now, so I’ll be fine. You’re just going to have to work with her.”

Kara realised that was her cue to introduce herself, opening the bathroom door and stepping out.

“How’d you even convince this poor woman to come alo-“ The man’s words were cut short as he laid eyes on Kara.

He and Kara appeared a mirror image of each other in many ways. They were paralysed into silence for the first few seconds upon seeing each other, with both their eyes widening and jaws almost dropping. Both were stupefied at the sight of the other, but there was a single difference in that he was overcome with an emotion of which Kara possessed none of for him – Anger. Pure, unadulterated rage.

His name eventually left Kara’s mouth.

“Jordan?”

There was never a chance for this to be a joyful family reunion. Jordan Kent was propelled entirely by his fury as he sped over and swung his right hand directly into Kara’s jaw. The powerful blow knocked Kara to the floor. She hadn’t tasted her own blood in quite some time and spat out what had spilled into her mouth from a large gash on her inner cheek. The Kryptonian blood in her nephew slowed down his ageing process just like it had hers, but he did look different compared to the last time he saw her. He still looked a bit boyish with a modest physique in 2082, but he had since matured.

“You’ve got some fucking nerve coming back here,” he spat out.

“Is that how you greet your family?” Kara quipped back, spitting out blood once more before rising to her feet.

“Call me family but you didn’t even have the fucking decency to say goodbye before you left. Before you gave up.”

The truth was that she couldn’t bring herself to. She knew that he and Jonathan would plead with her to stay, and that they would have had the best chance of anyone to convince her to. It’s not that she didn’t have the “decency” to say goodbye. Decency was the wrong word. Fortitude seemed more accurate. Kara didn’t have the fortitude to say goodbye to their faces and still do what she needed to despite how they would have reacted. She only told Esme and Nora about her departure, knowing that they would relay the information to anyone else who would need it.

“You call it giving up, I called it retirement,” Kara replied.

“The least you could have done was stick around for his funeral,” Jordan growled, “He passed in ‘92, put him next to mom and dad. He would have liked you there, you know.”

Kara immediately knew that he was referring to his brother and her other nephew, Jonathan. His relationship with Kara had always been stronger than Jordan’s. She didn’t exactly know why, but perhaps it came from living in other people’s shadows. It took her a long time to shed the label of “Superman’s cousin”, become her own person and forge her own legacy. For Jonathan, he was always in Jordan’s shadow. Jordan’s powers manifested naturally, but Jonathan didn’t have such luck. He was set to live an ordinary life in an ordinary body while his brother would be extraordinary. Kara had never felt like she regretted leaving Earth but coming face to face with the fact that she hadn’t been there for one of her last relatives in their dying moments challenged that notion.

“Sorry that I wasn’t,” Kara apologised earnestly.

Jordan was in no mood to be cordial as he cussed Kara out again. “Don’t apologise, you bitch! We still needed you. If you had stuck around, maybe things wouldn’t have gotten this bad.”

“Sure, keep telling yourself that.”

Jordan’s self-control which kept him from sending another fist her way was almost broken by her nonchalant reply. Unable to handle the sight of her anymore, he turned back to Ellis. “You really couldn’t have picked anyone else in the fucking universe?”

“I was the only choice,” Kara quickly retorted, “I’ve got a stake in this.”

“You don’t have shit!” Jordan exclaimed, sticking his finger in Kara’s face, “You don’t get to after being gone for 64 years.”

“Lord took Alex away from me,” Kara snarled.

“And you got your revenge. Things are different now. You don’t belong in this city. Hell, you don’t belong on this planet anymore.” Jordan turned back to Ellis, “Good fucking luck. I’m not working with this pathetic waste of space,” he said of Kara before pacing towards the door.

“Jordan-“ Ellis tried to call him back, but he resisted.

“You’ve really done it this time, Ellis! Fucked up big time,” he shouted, chastising her with his parting words before he shut the apartment door behind him.

Somehow, that had gone even worse than Ellis expected. Jordan had told her himself how it bothered him that Kara left without saying goodbye, but she never expected such a volatile reaction in both physical and verbal manners. If she didn’t know him better, she would have thought that this would be the end of it and that his help was lost.

“Sorry about that,” Ellis turned back to Kara, “I should’ve told you-”

“Don’t sweat it,” Kara cut her off before she could finish the apology, “That ‘Mr Complicated’?”

“How’d you know?”

“I’m perceptive,” Kara replied, shrugging her shoulders while wiping the blood that was still trickling down a corner of her lips.

“He’ll come around, he just needs time.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yeah. He knows I’m not fucking around now, so he won’t let us go into that tower without being there himself. He’s the only help we’ll have for the actual raid.”

If his help was a guarantee like Ellis said it was, that would be a huge boost to their chances. While Kara didn’t expect her relationship with him to mend over the next few days, she still felt she could trust him to contribute to the mission. Yet, hearing that he would be the only help for the raid struck a thought in Kara’s mind. If Ellis was close with Jordan, she figured there had to be a chance that they knew of other metas who would be willing to tag along. Two, in particular, came to mind.

“You heard of Nora and Bart West-Allen?”

“Heard?” Ellis smiled, “I’ve met Nora.”

“Where are they now?”

“Nora’s still in Central City, but she’s retired now. Bart… he was killed a few years back. That’s another reason why Jordan is so mad at you. He feels Bart might have lived if you had still been around.”

Kara shook her head. “As usual, everything is my fucking fault.”

“You heard him. He sees it like you abandoned us.”

There was just an ever so slight hint of vitriol in Ellis’ voice, one that Kara was perceptive enough to pick up on.

“Do you?” she asked.

Ellis waited a second before replying, contemplating the best way to give a truthful answer. “You did leave, Kara. That’s the truth.”

The attempt to put it euphemistically hardly went over with Kara. She could too easily tell that Ellis, though not as intensely as Jordan, felt the same way. Not that she could blame them for it, but it still annoyed her. She fell back onto Ellis’ couch and took out a cig, but she was quickly shut down.

“No smoking in here,” Ellis quickly chided, “My apartment, my rules.”

Reluctantly, Kara tucked the cig behind her ear and shoved her lighter back into her pocket. While Kara was happy to wait for Jordan to come around, she wasn’t keen to sit around and do nothing while they waited for him.

“What can we do in the meantime?” Kara asked.

“Let’s go to the tower. Let me show what we can expect at the ground level.”

Of all the things that had changed since Kara had left, the only thing that hadn’t was the name of the area where she had once stayed. Midtown was a large area, encompassing much of the middle ground between the city’s luxurious center and penurious outskirts. It was the border between the two extremes of the city. It represented the notable, but otherwise somewhat marginal middle class who could just about escape poverty but never have a chance to taste luxury. Gang activity and crime were common, but it seemed to be mitigated by a central gang above all - the police. 

On the outskirts, crime was rampant and gangs controlled everything with little to no law enforcement, while the city center, named Morgan Plaza, was a safe haven for the elite. Kara could immediately tell when they were out of Midtown and into Morgan Plaza. The cars appeared grander, the buildings became pristine and the people looked much different, appearing more youthful and often possessing stylish gold implants that were clearly of vastly superior quality than those available to the rest of the population. Crime at a street-level was completely non-existent, with police and private security vehicles constantly patrolling or being parked at nearly every street corner.

Almost nothing had been recognisable to Kara upon her return, but the setup of a little joint just a couple of blocks away from Lord Tower caught her eye. Its startling familiarity stopped Kara in her tracks for a few seconds as it became her sole focus. The glowing sign above read “Fire and Ice”, but she remembered it to once be Noonan’s. The common meetings with her friends here, the countless amount of potstickers eaten, grabbing coffee for Cat Grant every day… the hundreds of memories that had been made here started flooding back into her mind.

“Remember this place?” Ellis asked.

“Was something different when I was around,” Kara replied coolly, brushing off any indication that it had once meant something to her.

Kara most assuredly knew this was a suicide mission the second that it had been brought to her. Jordan’s hesitancy to go through with it strengthened that belief, but upon seeing the security measures in place around the tower first-hand, Kara realised that perhaps even “suicide mission” was putting it lightly.

“Keep walking. We don’t want to appear suspicious for even a second,” Ellis muttered, with Kara following her advice as they walked past the tower on the opposite side of the road.

The area in front of the actual entrance into the tower was barricaded off by large metal walls which brandished several cameras and active turrets. At the wall was the first security checkpoint, where a platoon of guards and four large mech drones were stationed.

“First layer of security,” Ellis began explaining, “You need to present a digital access tag to get in. If you can’t or it doesn’t work, those guards, mechs and laser turrets all light you up. You make it past that, there’s another checkpoint at the door. There’s a biometric scanner you have to walk through when you enter. Profiles are stored on the Lord subnet, which has ICE that’s damn near impossible to break through.”

“ICE?” Kara asked.

“Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics. Net security software, like firewalls. We could fabricate the access tag, but that biometric scanner will make us out immediately. Then we’ve got to worry about a hundred other armed personnel and drones inside.”

They continued walking until the edge of the street, where they still had a view but were just far enough to be inconspicuous to watchful eyes.

“Turrets aren’t just at the wall. They’re all the way up the building to deter aerial attacks as well,” Ellis added.

“So, assuming we can make it past all of this into the building with all security dealt with, we’d still need to get our hands on Sinclair without harming her and make our way to Soulkiller even though we have no idea where it is,” Kara said.

“Yeah. But at least we know Sinclair and Lord are in there.”

Kara shook her head. “Jordan’s a pussy, alright, but not because he doesn’t want to go through with this.”

Upon returning to Ellis’ place, they only had to wait a couple of more hours for Jordan to make his return. The knock at the door came while Kara had taken her first bite of a beef burger, albeit a synthetic one, in 66 years. The texture of the meat had become greatly unfamiliar to her, having never found anything on her intergalactic travels that replicated anything quite like it. It was almost enough to turn her off the burger after her first bite.

Kara peered towards the door, seeing through it with her x-ray vision to confirm that it was Jordan. Ellis answered it, allowing him in. The dour expression on his face slowly turned into a scowl as his eyes immediately locked with Kara’s again.

“Look who’s back. Gonna punch me again?” Kara quipped.

“No,” Jordan replied, “No, I came back to shoot you.”

Kara grinned, deriving some pleasure from poking at his nerves. While he was merely joking, Kara in truth wasn’t entirely sure if he would be able to stop himself from putting hands on her again. She pushed her plate away as he and Ellis approached, standing up to be ready to evade any strike that came her way.

“And?” Ellis asked.

Jordan sighed. “Let’s get a couple of things straight. Number one – I still hate you,” he said to Kara, “And number two – This plan is our only option, but it is still dumb as fuck. I don’t want you to die, Ellis, and you’re right that you probably won’t with Kara and I by your side. So, I’ll help.”

“Thank you,” Ellis expressed her gratitude with a half-smile, “We need a couple of things before we take the tower.”

“What are they?” he asked.

“A supervirus, one that can disable the tower’s security systems and give us a much better shot getting in.”

“That’s impossible. Lord’s ICE is too tough, there’s no way we could breach it from the outside.”

“I know that,” Ellis immediately retorted, “But it won’t hurt looking, you never know what we might find.”

“I’ll make some calls, but don’t expect anything.”

“Just do what you can. Also, we have no idea how the construct transfer procedure works, how to do it or where Soulkiller even is in the tower. We need to find someone who we can get that information out of, perhaps a scientist who worked on it.”

Recognition flickered in Jordan’s eyes. “The guy you’d be looking for is Konrad Jensson. I did some probing while you were gone. He’s the bioengineer who developed the procedure and perfected it.”

“Where can we find him?” Kara asked.

“Finding him is the least of our problems. That’ll be easy, getting our hands on him won’t be. There’s nobody that Lord cares about more than himself, but Jensson is up there. After Sinclair, he’s the most important person to him. He’s never without a security convoy wrapped around him and once we make contact, if we do, Lord will know immediately and he’ll be on our tail.”

“We’ll just need to act fast,” Kara replied, “There’s no way we should go in that tower blind.”

“Can you hone in on him?” Jordan asked Ellis.

“Sure,” she replied.

Ellis took a seat, relaxing her posture before pressing her fingers to the side of her temple and closing her eyes. If someone was near, she didn’t have to concentrate nearly as hard and her powers worked almost passively. She immediately sensed that Jensson was nowhere close in proximity. Kara and Jordan waited patiently, but rather awkwardly as they waited for an answer from Ellis, both taking care to avoid glances at each other.

“He’s not in the city,” Ellis eventually said, opening her eyes, “Few hundred miles away, at least, but I feel like he’s on the move. He’s hard to pin down. It could take us a while to find his exact location.”

Using her powers wasn’t the only way to track someone down. Jordan could see the cogs in her head turning, searching for a solution to their dilemma. Her eyes eventually lit up but did so cautiously.

“I can see you have an idea,” he said.

“Maxxine,” she replied.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Who’s Maxxine?” Kara asked.

Ellis explained, “Maxxine Moonlight. One of the top fixers in Knight City, but her influence expands beyond the city. I’ve done jobs for her before. She could give us more precise intel on him.”

Jordan was less enthusiastic about the idea. “Yeah, but you know how it is with her. She’s not going to do anything for you unless you can do something for her.”

“We could always back out of the deal,” Ellis replied.

“Okay, fine, just don’t trust her for a single second.”

Maxxine Moonlight owned a nightclub called Empathy not far from Ellis’ apartment building. Midtown, by virtue of its placement, attracted souls from both ends of the city. Empathy was a place that attracted a few more of the corpos than lowlifes, those suits that wanted a rough-ish joint to get a little dirty while still enjoying some sheltered security. In the city that was now a vessel of unfamiliarity to Kara, every now and then she saw something partially, vaguely recognisable – Certain buildings that had maintained the same structure, restaurants that had only undergone name changes, intersections that were just as busy as they were decades ago due to the same faulty traffic light settings.

Each of these pieces started to come together to form a bigger picture in Kara’s mind. She slowly began to realise that she wasn’t just in any other ordinary part of Midtown. When she finally arrived at the entrance of Empathy, analysing the surrounding area and the building itself in relation to the city center, she realised she was in the one part of Midtown where she had formed most of her dearest memories. The former Hammersmith Tower, the very building in which she’d once lived, had been converted into Maxxine’s nightclub and base of operations.

“Fuck.”

The curse involuntarily escaped Kara’s mouth with a heavy exasperated breath.

“What’s wrong?” Ellis asked.

Kara dismissively shook her head. “Nothing,” she replied, “We going inside or what?”

While the lady at reception indicated that an entrance fee was required tonight, one of the guards recognised Ellis as a merc who had done business with Maxxine before, allowing them to enter free of charge. The interior design of the building had been completely broken down and rebuilt to serve its new purpose. Ellis directed Kara to a completely transparent glass elevator, taking them to the club at the very top of the building.

The nightclub itself possessed a ground and upper floor with balconies. It appeared that the rougher crowd settled on the ground floor, while the balconies above were reserved for the corpos and other high-rolling patrons. Although the interior had been completely broken down and rebuilt, Kara still managed to trace her eyes to the area where apartment 4A used to be. Surprisingly, it was the only room that hadn’t been completely demolished. It was now an enclosed glass box that sealed off a small portion of the balcony, with a slender woman inside it watching the proceedings below.

Tonight was a night that was far busier than others. A circular cage had been set up in the middle of the ground floor with two combatants locked inside in a duel. One of the combatant’s fiery red skin made it blatantly obvious that he was an alien. That fact didn’t prove to be much help against his opponent though, who bossed him around the cage with his superior strength. While the red alien was in good shape, his opponent dwarfed him in stature, possessing the mass of a bodybuilder without an ounce of fat on his body.

“What’s this all about?” Kara asked.

“Maxxine runs fights. Aliens vs Metahumans. Some agree to do it, some are forced to,” Ellis explained.

The contest was a mismatch from the start. The red alien had never stood a chance against his bigger, stronger, more experienced opponent. After beating the alien from pillar to post, the meta ended the contest grimly by ripping his opponent’s lower jaw away, killing him and spilling blue blood all over the canvas. He raised his arms and roared triumphantly in victory, that moment being the one where Ellis and Kara’s eyes flickered back up to the lady in the glass box. Her gaze was now transfixed on them, having somehow singled them out from the crowd.

“That’s her,” Ellis said.

Kara followed Ellis up the separate staircase to the office. If it weren’t for the advanced anti-ageing procedures of the 22^nd century, Maxxine would have aged to about 60, but she looked to be not a day above 40. In a sharp suit and with straightened shoulder-length silver hair, she looked the part of a corporate bitch who exploited those weaker than her without actually having the standing of one. As Lena Luthor once told her, the only thing worse than a corporate bitch is a wannabe corporate bitch. Maxxine immediately took a step back from the glass pane and turned to them as they entered.

“Well, well, well, look who the cat dragged in,” she crowed, speaking to Ellis and snubbing Kara. “Here I was thinking that you made hefty scratch from the scraps of that Nitro Corp transport and fled to a tropical island. Without your sister, of course. Sorry about that, by the way.”

While a heavy blasé weighed on her voice, Ellis heard a hint of empathy in them and appreciated that. “Thanks.”

“What happened, sweetie?” Maxxine asked, taking a step towards them, “Did you run out of money? Or did you finally realise the cold, harsh truth that once you become a part of this city, you’re tied to it for eternity? No matter how far away you run, no matter where you go, it’ll always find you and slowly reel you back in.”

Though she hadn’t even looked in Kara’s direction yet, her words seemed to be directed exactly at her. Having changed her look and been gone for 64 years, someone other than Lord recognising Kara hadn’t been a concern. Kara sensed the uneasiness developing in Ellis because of that. She was feeling it too, but it was stifled by her incensed disgust at what the place she once lived in had become. She would have rather the whole building be demolished than turned into what it was now.

“Who is your dashing friend?” Maxxine asked, finally turning her gaze towards Kara, “What’s your name, darling?”

While it appeared that Maxxine didn’t recognise her, Kara wasn’t about to risk tempting that by giving out her real name. The element of surprise was going to be one of their most useful weapons in the raid, and it couldn’t be lost at any cost. A series of names ran through Kara’s mind in a second.

“Thara,” she replied, settling on the one that belonged to her childhood best friend.

Maxxine stepped forward towards Kara until they were mere inches away from each other. Maxxine’s head edged around to Kara’s left, her breath caressing her neck.

“You smell… entrancing,” Maxxine exhaled rather suggestively. Though it had appeared to be a seductive gesture, her gravitation towards Kara’s neck was merely to confirm that she did not have an installed neural port. Nobody in Knight City lived without one, and that was a dead giveaway that Kara did not belong.

“You’re not from around here, are you?” Maxxine continued, “There’s a flavour on you that I can’t quite put my finger on, I guess you could say, it’s… out of this world.”

“I’m from Axan,” Kara declared, bringing up the first planet that came to mind.

Maxxine grinned. “Interesting… well, I’m sure it is, wherever it is. So, Ellis, why are you and Thara here?”

“We need your help,” Ellis replied.

“Oh, of course you do,” Maxxine replied, finally stepping away from them and taking a seat at her desk, “Need scratch? I’ve got new gigs, moderate risk, but decent pay.”

“No scratch, just intel.”

“Intel, you say. On who or what?”

“Konrad Jensson. He’s a bioengineer who works for Lord Tech. We need to know where he is and how he’s travelling.”

The mention of Lord Tech seemed to strike a nerve with Maxxine, whose coquettish mannerisms suddenly halted. “What business do you have with him?”

“He has information we need. We just want to talk with him.”

“That sounds a little more personal than business. Personal is messy, and I don’t like messy. Tangling with Lord Tech is for lunatics who have a death wish, of which I am not and do not have.”

“Didn’t you always say you had a soft spot for me and Cody?”

Maxxine pouted. “Indeed, and I still do. You’ll have what you need in no less but no more than 24 hours. But… nothing comes for free in this city, especially not with me. I think it’s only fair that if I scratch your backs, you scratch mine.”

“What do we need to do?” Kara asked.

“Just you, Thara. Just you… I see you caught the ending of the main event. That was our defending champion, Xenon. He’s been running through the competition with ease this year and I happen to know some very, very wealthy individuals who will pay good money to see him lose not just a fight, but his life.”

The proposition seemed simple enough. Kara would have to fight and kill Xenon, and they’d get the information they needed. Ellis remained cautious though.

“Could Thara and I have a moment to disc-“

“I’ll do it,” Kara blurted out, interrupting Ellis.

“Excellent. Tomorrow at midnight. You’ll get the intel after. Now scurry along, I’ve got other business to tend to,” Maxxine said, sending them away with a wave of the hand.

Kara walked away somewhat happy. They were assigned a task much easier than either of them were expecting, or at least it seemed that way to her.

“You shouldn’t have agreed to it just like that,” Ellis scolded Kara, following her down the stairs to the bar.

“Why not? All I have to do to beat somebody up and then we get what we need. Sounds like a steal to be honest,” Kara said as she took a seat on a barstool. She called a bartender over, requesting the strongest drink they had before turning her attention back to Ellis, “No shit, the way she was looking at me, speaking to me… I thought she was going to ask for a night with me.”

“Would you have done it?” Ellis asked.

Kara thought for a second. Rather cheekily, she tilted her head with a smirk and downed the shot that had been placed in front of her, drawing a chuckle from Ellis.

“Look, we still could have bargained, maybe figured out something a little less dangerous for you.”

Kara raised an eyebrow. “You consider cage fighting dangerous for me?”

“Against Xenon, probably.”

“What’s so dangerous about him?”

“Did you not just see him rip a dude’s jaw right out of his face?”

Kara shrugged her shoulders. “Wouldn’t let that shit happen to me,” she said before downing another shot.

“He’s strong, quick, experienced, ruthless. Hasn’t lost a fight in three years. If he doesn’t kill his opponent, he at the very least cripples them.”

“Huh,” Kara muttered as she digested the information, “Still don’t see why I should be afraid of him.”

“You really didn’t hear a single thing I just said?” Ellis carped, becoming irritated by Kara’s indifference.

“Ellis, I’ve been dropping people with my fists for like 130 years. You seriously don’t think I can take him?” Kara replied while lighting a cigarette.

“Your collection of guns says you’re out of practice. And I don’t think that cigarette and those shots are going to do your body any favours for tomorrow.”

“What good was it bringing me here and then not having faith that I would be able to handle whatever is thrown at me? Lighten the fuck up, Ellis.” Kara turned to the bartender, “Hey, can I get something for her? Something light. Sorry, you don’t strike me as a heavy drinker.”

“Probably because I don’t drink at all. Just a Sage Blue for me,” Ellis indicated, requesting something non-alcoholic.

“Don’t drink, don’t smoke, you sound like no fun. No wonder you and Jordan got along,” Kara remarked.

Ellis rolled her eyes. “Very funny.”

“Why didn’t it work out between you two?” Kara asked earnestly.

“A few reasons. He’s too busy doing his own thing, covering more than one city on the West Coast. I’m busy here. He feels like he needs to live up to his dad’s legacy and that he’s always failing to do just that. We only met a few years ago, which bothered him because he felt like he should’ve been there for us from the beginning. Between trying to be a hero everywhere and managing the farm, it just got a little too difficult for us.”

“He still has the farm? Thought it would have been gone by now.”

“He would never allow that. Not with his parents and brother buried there.”

“So, it sounds like the hero life has come between you two?”

“Yeah, that’s partly to blame.”

“Now you get it. If you want to be a hero, don’t have time for that relationship shit,” Kara spat out.

“Jordan’s dad was married,” Ellis retorted, “So was Barry.”

“Think it was all sunshine and roses?” Kara replied, squaring up to Ellis and looking her dead in the eyes, “Their relationships with their families suffered because of their profession. Lois and Iris were put in danger multiple times, and Barry and Kal weren’t always there when their children needed them. You said it yourself, he’s got daddy issues. In the end, they found a way to keep it afloat because they had someone to ground them and hold the fort while they were away risking their lives.”

“So, what, you and Oliver could never find that person?”

“No, we couldn’t, and not for lack of trying. But we had each other and that’s all we needed.”

“How exactly did it start between you two?”

Kara scratched her head trying to think back over a century ago. “Shit, I think it was 2019? We’d known each other for a few years at that point. Was a night out, everyone was there, but they all left before me and him. Was just the two of us at the bar talking for a while and then shit, next thing I know we’re in a bed. Met again two weeks later at a game night, same thing. Started meeting up frequently after that.”

“Did the others know?”

“We kept it on the low at first but eventually they found out,” Kara replied, pausing for a moment to take a long drag of her cigarette, “It’s the strength, right?”

“What?”

“Jordan’s got super strength, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah?” Ellis replied hesitantly, completely unaware of where Kara was taking the conversation.

“So, he had to be careful when you guys used to fuck?”

Ellis grimaced. “Fuck, Kara, did you really have to say it out loud?”

Kara shrugged her shoulders. “Just wondering. I mean, I had to control my strength with Oliver. And trust me, it wasn’t easy with him. Your great, great grandfather knew what he was doing.”

“I’d like to change topic now. That would be great.”

“Still awkward to openly talk about sex in 2146. Some things really do never change.”

Chapter Text

A good sleep evaded Kara on her first night back. Ellis’ couch was snug enough, but she found it impossible to feel at ease in a godforsaken place. Oddly enough, she felt she hadn’t even seen the worst of it yet. She knew that how jarring things seemed from her small glimpse was just the tip of the iceberg that demonstrated the hell that most Knight City residents had to live on a daily basis. One thing that she was glad about was that she didn’t have to be here for long. Their relatively simple plan meant that it wouldn’t be long before it was all said and done. If she survived what was to come, Kara hoped to be off Earth again in a week, except this time there would be no bittersweet feeling about leaving.

“This is fucking dreadful,” Kara chided as she chewed on the rubber piece of egg in her mouth, “How could you possibly fuck up scrambled eggs?”

Affronted by Kara’s less-than-complimentary remarks, Ellis sneered at her. “Tastes just fine to me.”

“Feels like I’m chewing on an unseasoned eyeball,” Kara remarked, pushing her plate away after just one bite.

“Sorry, Kara, only the corpos get organic eggs. Rest of us have to settle for synth.”

“Only shit cooks blame the ingredients,” Kara teased her, “Is the coffee synth?” she asked, taking a whiff.

“No,” Ellis replied, rolling her eyes. Kara took a sip. It wasn’t the best coffee she had ever had, but it was decent enough to satiate her craving.

Ellis rose from her seat, walking over to Kara’s weapon bag and opening it, “Which gun do you like the least?”

“I like all of them.”

“Okay, which is your least favourite?”

Kara got up from her seat, singling out a golden plasma pistol she hadn’t used in months. “This one. Why?”

“My monowire needs replacing,” Ellis replied, “Know someone who can help, but I need to make a trade for it.”

Kara raised her eyebrow. Although she was hardly attached to a piece of iron, she felt somewhat offended that Ellis would give it up for something rather trivial in her eyes. “That gun is worth more than every monowire that’s ever been made put together.”

“I also owe them for helping me steal a spaceship. That’s not exactly a debt I can repay in scratch.”

“Fine,” Kara groaned, reluctantly agreeing to give up the pistol.

“Come with. Though you might want to leave the leather jacket behind.”

“Why? Where are we going?”

Within Knight City, it wasn’t often that you felt the full brunt of the Californian desert heat. Humanity’s greed prevailed in the 21^st century when they failed to take action over their increasingly damaging environmental footprint, one of the consequences of such being temperatures steadily rising to unprecedented heights. The heat was one of the reasons why Knight City was so much more alive at night, with the temperature significantly cooling once the sun set. Now past the city limits and into the Californian desert, Kara was feeling it, particularly because Ellis had chosen to retract the roof of her car for their short journey.

It always felt like there was a cloud hanging over Knight City. It was no place to start a family or raise a child. The air was difficult to breathe not just because of pollution, but with it being shrouded in a mass of hedonistic, malicious malevolence. But out here in the desert, it felt different to Kara. The sandy air was soothing. The wind brushing her face and weaving through her hair was reposeful. Ellis probably didn’t enjoy the sun beating down on her skin so much, but it was the most relishing thing Kara had felt so far upon return. She glanced back for just a second at Knight City, seeing a showcase of the worst traits of humanity and a ghastly reminder of everything that had caused her to leave it behind.

Ellis explained that they were heading to a nomad camp a couple of miles away from the city. Nomadic clans had become trademark features of the West Coast. Kara understood why easily. Knight City wasn’t the only abhorrent place with people that so desperately wanted to leave but didn’t have the means to themselves. Working around those constraints meant banding together with people just like you, pooling together what you had to make the journey out and then survive it. Hundreds of nomad groups existed now, ranging from small groups to established clans with a rich history of tradition. Every now and then, nomads made a stop at a resourceful city, staying for a few weeks or months to take whatever they could from it before being on their way to the next place.

The Coyote Clan were the group Ellis had developed a rapport with. She had once done a gig which involved tracking down and recovering one of their members with her powers, a deed that their leader, Jerome, greatly appreciated. They’d been outside Knight City for more than five months now, an unusually long time for a clan to stay but one that made sense given the amount of contraband they were acquiring and smuggling to make their living.

Kara wasn’t sure what to expect on arrival. She expected something akin to a gang, expecting to be warned by Ellis to avert her gaze and let her do all the talking to avoid sparking an unnecessary conflict. She spotted the camp from a few hundred meters away, first seeing several vehicles all parked off to the right and a couple of watchtowers with snipers before taking note of more than a dozen tents all varying in size set up. The closer and closer they got, Kara somehow felt less and less worried. Once Ellis had parked off and they were out of the car, Kara felt the least threatened she had since arriving back on Earth. No eyes were suspiciously lingering on them nor was anybody apart from the lookouts brandishing their guns. Some nomads seemed busy at work, others were lounging around enjoying the day. A group of children were huddled in front of a makeshift basketball hoop playing a tightly contested game, while a boxing ring was set up further away with two men sparring inside.

A scruffy, unkept elderly man approached her and Ellis, holding up two large packets of dust for them. “Hey, hey, could I interest you in some authentic Tiger Claw Powder? Very good for sickness, performance, everything.”

Ellis ignored him, but Kara couldn’t help but bite on the bait. “Authentic? Bullshit. Tigers went extinct in 2042.”

“Authentically synthetic, I meant,” the man stuttered, “Just as good as the real thing, I promise.”

“Don’t mind Daniel,” a voice called out to them from afar, “He’s a straggler we picked up recently. Bunch of shit up in his brain, but a whole lot of good in the heart.”

“Hey, Jerome,” Ellis greeted him enthusiastically, giving him a firm handshake. The geometric tribal patterns of ink painting his chest, arms and back were instantly recognisable as a Hawaiian style. Hawaii was a far cry from the dream destination it once was, having too been overrun by corporations and filthy politicians, so it wasn’t difficult for Kara to envision how and why he would have ended up here.

“Honestly thought you wouldn’t be back in time before we moved on,” Jerome said before turning to Kara, “This who you went looking for?”

“Yeah, this is Thara. Old family friend, the person I went to look for.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” he said while cordially extending a hand.

“She comes bearing gifts,” Ellis said, handing Jerome the plasma pistol with an accompanying small bag of ammo cartridges, “For helping me get the ship.”

“Holy shit!” Jerome exclaimed, expressing the enthusiasm of a child that was opening their Christmas gift, “Come on, Ellis, you didn’t have to.”

“Don’t worry about it. Can’t get your hands on something like that on this planet,” Ellis bragged.

“How does it work?”

Kara answered, “Just like a regular pistol. One cartridge gives you 30 blasts, and you’ve got about 20 of ‘em in there. 500 shots should last you a good few months if you don’t waste them.”

“Ooh, this is sweet! Can’t wait to test it out.”

“We’ve still got a couple of things we’re hoping you could help us with,” Ellis said.

“If you can get me another pistol like this, then sure,” Jerome replied. Kara turned to Ellis, subtly shaking her head to let her know that she wouldn’t be parting with any more of her beloved weapons. Jerome picked up on it, letting out a chuckle. “I’m just playing, I’m just playing. What’s cutting?”

Ellis held up her left arm. “My monowire’s busted, just wondering if you had a good replacement for me.”

“I’ll send you to our ripper, Jean, she could tell you.”

“Cool. Also, Thara here is fighting at Empathy tonight.”

Jerome’s smile disappeared for a second. “Against Xenon?”

“Yeah,” Kara replied, unworried.

Jerome shook his head. “Yo, I gotta give you this pistol back if you want a chance at beating him.”

“She knows how to handle herself, trust me,” Ellis replied in Kara’s defence, “She’s just… a little out of practice. You can imagine when you have a gun like that at your side, you won’t be using your fists a whole lot, right?”

“Yeah, I can imagine.”

“Could we get her a couple of rounds with your best?”

Kara immediately turned to Ellis, taking off her sunglasses so she could look her dead in the eyes. “Is this the real reason you dragged me out here? I don’t need sparring, Ellis.”

“Come on, please. Humour me.”

“Am I not doing enough for you?” Kara scorned.

“Hey, a little practice never did nobody any wrong,” Jerome retorted, shrugging his shoulders, “We don’t got a Xenon but we’ve got some quick heavy hitters that can prep you for tonight.”

Ellis pleaded with her eyes. “Thara…”

For the second time today, Kara felt that she had been forced into doing something she didn’t want to by Ellis. “Fine, whatever. I’ll do it.”

“Hey, Rosey!” Jerome screamed, catching the attention of the larger man in the ring, “C’mere!”

Rosey, like Jerome, was of Polynesian descent too, sporting a similar set of tattoos. However, that was the only similarity they shared in the physical sense. Jerome was lean and ripped, looking to weigh no more than 180 pounds. Rosey, on the other hand, seemed nearly twice that with thick legs, a big belly and meaty arms.

“Talofa,” he jovially greeted Kara and Ellis, his voice booming with geniality.

“Rosey, meet Thara,” Jerome gestured to her, “She’s fighting at Empathy tonight. Think you can give her a couple of rounds of sparring?”

“Ah, uce,” Rosey sighed, dropping his head.

“What’s the matter?”

“You know I don’t like sparring with women,” he replied.

Though he spoke from a place of concern and tenderness, Kara found herself to be a little offended by his sentiment. “Why not?” she challenged him.

“Man, putting my hands on a woman like that? Don’t feel right in my heart.”

Kara scoffed. “Only thing about your heart you should be worried about is your cholesterol levels.”

Ellis drove her elbow into Kara’s ribs, while Jerome’s jaw dropped. “Shit, you gonna let her talk to you like that?” he attempted to instigate.

Rosey was unbothered by Kara’s attempt to pick a fight with him, simply smiling back at Jerome before replying, “Sticks and stones, uce.”

“Come on, just a couple rounds. Look man, she’s not from around here,” Jerome said, gesturing to the sky with a swirl of his finger, “I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

Jerome’s insistence and Kara’s boldness eventually won Rosey over. “Alright, just a couple rounds.”

The ring was a bit smaller than a traditional 7x7 and it didn’t help matters either that Rosey took up quite a lot of the space that Kara would have liked to use to move around. The canvas below creaked whenever he took a step, making Kara wonder if it was going to collapse at any moment under him. Jerome and Ellis sat with interested eyes at ringside, with Ellis’ monowire attachment being worked on by the nomad ripperdoc. A few other nomads had gathered around the ring as well, equally intrigued to see what this seemingly undersized outsider had for their best fighter.

“Just to let you know again, Miss, this is very uncomfortable for me,” Rosey attempted to reassure her, “I’m going to take it easy, alright?”

“Sure,” Kara replied as they began to circle each other.

From the get-go, his fighting background became blatantly apparent to her. Rosey’s size and build prevented him from utilising a huge arsenal of kicks, not that he needed them when he had more power in his fists than most other people had in their legs. Kara noted he had a good footwork pattern, though he was heavy on his front foot. He seemed a bit lighter on his feet than she would have expected, but she felt bored standing in front of him.

He stuck to his word, throwing out a rather slow and lazy jab that Kara would have seen coming from a million miles away even if she didn’t have super reflexes. She easily slipped it and threw a counter uppercut into his abdomen.

As soon as the punch landed, Kara realised that Ellis was right. She was out of practice, but not in the way that Ellis thought. Kara hadn’t thrown a punch with care to fully control her strength in years. Rosey was sent flying back upon impact, crashing into and snapping the ropes before landing outside of the ring. A large cry was let out by the crowd around them and Kara was worried that she had just accidentally killed him. She let out a breath of relief when she saw him slowly get back up to his feet.

Jerome turned to Ellis and whispered, “Looks like your girl is the one who has to take it easy. You owe me a new ring now.”

Ellis raised her free arm. “Ka… Thara!”

Kara didn’t know how to reply other than shrugging her shoulders apologetically. “Sorry,” she meekly said as Rosey climbed back up onto the ring.

“No, no, it’s okay,” he replied, still trying to be somewhat affable, “Well, you’ve forced my hand now.”

The small crowd that was previously around the ring had turned into the entire camp. Everyone had dropped whatever they were doing to come witness the rest of the bout which was initially meant to be nothing more than a light sparring session. They threw out cheers for Rosey, encouraging him and requesting that he return the favour to Kara.

Kara shifted her focus to now using this duel as an exercise to rediscover that control she once had over her strikes. Rosey, however, felt like he now had something to prove. Kara hadn’t just come over and knocked him on his ass, she also literally destroyed the ring he ruled over. Immediately, Kara knew that his sentiment of going easy on her was truly long gone. Though her reflexes enabled her to dodge all of his following punches, she realised that he was a lot faster than he looked. Despite what first impressions you might get upon first glance, he wasn’t a slouch by any means.

He was also quite smart with his strike selection and reads. He adjusted to Kara’s movement quickly and made sure to lay in a few of his hardest blows upon seeing that she was still a little hesitant to throw back. Even though Kara managed to raise her right arm in time to block a left hook, the power behind the strike still pushed her to the other side of the ring. She misread his following right hand, believing it to be a right hand aimed at her face and moving her head when instead it thumped into her chest. This time, she was the one who was sent tumbling out of the ring and into the crowd, which erupted with cheers.

The chants of “Rosey!” rubbed some salt in the fresh wound on her ego. Even though she wanted this to be nothing more than practice, she still wanted to make a statement by outclassing Rosey on his home turf. Wanting it both ways, she took a deep breath before hopping back into the ring, attempting to clear her mind to allow her to do both. Rosey wasn’t waiting for her, opting to rush her immediately as soon as she was back in the ring. She was having none of his eagerness to cram her against the edge of the ring, waiting until he was in distance to slip his first punch before pushing him back to the center of the ring.

She marched forward towards him, pointing towards the centre of the ring. She was met with a smile in reply, indicating that he was more than happy to go toe to toe in the middle. At first, working in the pocket was a dream for Kara. She treated Rosey like a punching bag. Her superior speed and reflexes allowed her to avoid many of his punches, rolling and blocking most of them before returning with counters that had been drilled into her muscle memory more than a century ago. Her first few counters hit Rosey a little harder than she wanted, but she found herself able to get a good grasp on her strength quite quickly.

Rosey, although being treated like a punching bag, made sure to remind Kara that he could actually punch back. While she had to hold back with her combinations, he had the luxury of knowing she could take his hardest blows and made sure to take advantage. Kara landed three or four punches in a row to his body, and he saw his opportunity when she momentarily compromised her footing. He swung his right hand into her temple, hitting her with enough force to daze her for a second.

Kara wasn’t stunned for long. She quickly recovered, parrying his follow-up shot before returning with her own that had more power behind it than her previous ones, knocking him back. The crowd had come alive, vigorously cheering and shouting in appreciation for the unexpected battle they were being gifted.

Rosey, upon realising that he wasn’t going to be able to beat the fast and durable Kara in a striking battle, opted to try his luck with his size. Boxing was his forte, but with not many people bigger than him, he could often boss them around if they ended up in a grappling situation. Kara stepped within arm’s reach, allowing him to feint a punch before rushing forward to wrap his arms around her. He easily lifted her up before slamming her into the canvas below, making sure to collapse on top of her as well to make her feel the full brunt of his weight.

The best way to sum up this fight would be two opponents realising that looks were very deceiving. Kara believed Rosey to be a slob at first glance, while Rosey thought he could overpower a slender lady whom he had no idea was a Kryptonian with over a century of battle experience. He was initially able to take advantage of his top position and land a few elbows on Kara’s head, but she quickly lifted him up off her with ease. She effortlessly pushed him over to the side before grabbing a hold of his left arm. Rosey surprised her as well by demonstrating the appropriate defence for an armbar, clasping his arms together while Kara was at his side with a grip on one of his arms.

Jerome had no doubts that Kara was going to eventually pry Rosey’s hands apart and sink in the armbar from which she would have no problem breaking his arm. With Kara having gotten in plenty of practice and the crowd having gotten their entertainment for the day, he quickly jumped from his seat and rushed over to them.

“Woah, okay that’s enough!” he said, tugging Kara’s forearm to get her to let go. A part of her wanted to go through with it anyway, but she decided against it and let go before rising to her feet. Rosey stayed down for another second, catching his breath before being helped up by Jerome. He was wearing the wounds of their contest, breathing heavily with some bruising and a few cuts on his face while Kara appeared unscathed by it all. The crowd had fallen dead silent, holding their breaths as they watched the aftermath unfold.

“You alright?” Jerome asked him.

“Yeah,” Rosey replied in low spirits. Rosey stepped forward to Kara, who was unsure what his reaction would be. “Been scrapping for 30 years and never been hit that hard,” he said placing his hand on her shoulder, “Fa’aaloalo. Respect.”

He gestured for the crowd to show her respect with his other hand, and they followed his request as they began to applaud. Kara slapped Rosey on the chest as a reciprocation of respect before walking over to Ellis.

“Feel better about my chances now?” she asked with a smug grin on her face.

Although they had gotten what they wanted out of their visit, Kara and Ellis found themselves planted in the nomad camp for the rest of the day. Jerome had insisted that they stay for the rest of the day, something which Kara didn’t fight against. That surprised her. She came back to Earth with an attitude of doing everything as quickly and efficiently as possible. She thought once they got what they needed that they would be back on their way to the city, off to do whatever else they needed for the mission. Less than an hour in the nomad camp pulled in Kara to the point where she didn’t want to leave it.

She had long since grown disillusioned with humans. Knight City put humanity’s worst foot forward. She would have never expected this one little nomad camp out here in the Californian desert to plant a seed of hope in her black heart. She found a group of people who seemed to not just care only about themselves, but rather treat everyone around them with respect and love. That feeling of being in a family with great love was one that had long been lost to her. She had forgotten what it felt like, at first not knowing what that tiny but growing ball of warmth in her chest was as she spent more time amongst them.

The sun had begun setting over them. She watched the nomads sing and dance around a campfire under the orange sky as plates of food started to be passed around for dinner. Rosey was the center of attention, making a fool of himself with clunky dance movements that were no doubt a result of him being piss drunk. She sat further away from the group around the fire on a smooth rock, looking on as Ellis overdramatised her reactions to a story being told to her by a young boy no older than six.

“Here.”

Jerome joined Kara, handing her another six-pack of beer bottles. Another, being the keyword. He kicked the other twelve empty bottles around the rock away as he took a seat next to Kara. “You drink a helluva lot.”

“Can’t get drunk,” Kara replied, opening another bottle, “At least not on this planet.”

“Must be nice.”

“Actually, the exact opposite,” Kara quipped, “Heard Rosey call you uce earlier. Is he your brother?”

“Not by blood, but he might as well be. We been on the road together since we were kids. It ain’t always easy living the way we do. He’s been there by my side since the beginning, helping me get through it all.”

“Still seems a whole lot better than being stuck in that shithole,” Kara replied, shifting her gaze towards the city.

“Comes with its own challenges,” Jerome replied, shrugging his shoulders. “The most important thing for us is to be a family. The good of the whole family comes first. Got people of all kinds here from all different places, all got our own values and perspectives that can clash. Plenty of squabbling, in-fighting, disagreements, but we constantly have put that aside for the betterment of the whole family. It can be difficult.”

“At least it’s still a family,” Kara replied. An involuntary tremble in her voice evoked a sense of sorrow in Jerome, as it made him realise that she was someone who didn’t have one anymore.

The little boy that Ellis had been talking to waddled towards Kara. His skinny arms seemed to be struggling to support the weight of the huge plate stacked to the brim with food in his hands.

“Hello!” he beamed, holding the plate out to her, “This is for you, Miss Thara.”

Kara, for no reason other than to relieve him of the burden of carrying the heavy plate, quickly grabbed it. “Oh, thanks, but I’m not hungry,” she replied, putting the plate down to the side.

“It’s tradition after a fight for our winner to have a big feast after their victory,” Jerome explained, “How do you think Rosey got so fat?”

The little boy spoke up again. “You’re the first person I’ve ever seen beat up my daddy.”

Kara felt her heart drop. “Oh… uh, sorry?”

“It’s okay, because when I’m bigger, I’m going to get revenge. Promise you’ll come back to fight me?” he requested with an innocent zeal.

“Sure,” Kara replied.

“Promise?” he asked, holding out his pinky finger.

“Pinky promise,” Kara chuckled, wrapping her pinky around his.

“Thank you!” he exclaimed before running back to his father.

That warmth that was brewing in Kara’s chest had fully blossomed, now radiating through her entire body. A moment followed where she realised not just how she felt, but that the smile on her face was genuine. A truly genuine smile. She tried to think back to when was the last time she had one, but her memory to turned up blank.

“That’s Caleb,” Jerome said, “He’s definitely going to hold you to that promise. Are you leaving again after you help Ellis with whatever shit she’s dealing with?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Can’t blame you for not sticking around. Don’t know if you know, but this city once had a great hero and even she didn’t.”

Kara’s smile dissipated in an instant. She disguised it with a sip of her beer bottle.

“Or at least, that’s what I think,” Jerome quickly added, “Sometimes I look up and wonder if she’s out there somewhere, having found a new home and living a sweet retired life.”

At another point in her life, Kara might not have been able to hold back a giggle at the fact that Jerome was gazing up at the stars while the person he was talking about was sitting right next to him. At this point though, there was no giggle or even a thought of it. She found it rather sad actually. He didn’t recognise her in the physical sense, but that didn’t matter as much as who she was now. She could have been in front of him right now in the suit and cape with her long hair back, but he would have thought she was an imposter.

“Or she’s dead,” Kara replied.

“A bit pessimistic, but I guess you’re probably right.”

She didn’t mean it in the literal sense. She was, after all, sitting right next to him and didn’t mean to throw him off by referring to herself in the third person. Supergirl was dead. The “Maiden of Might” perished long ago. All that remained was a shell of the person who had masqueraded as her. When did she die?

Kara knew the day and the exact moment. The 12^th of November, 2031. When Alex Danvers had been laid down to rest in her grave, the Girl of Steel went along with her.

Chapter Text

“Why do you do it?” Kara asked Ellis.

The drive back to the city from the nomad camp seemed to be taking an eternity. They stayed longer than what was truly necessary, having less than an hour until the fight now. Truth be told, Kara couldn’t quite understand how she felt about the experience. She felt like she didn’t want to leave the camp, but at the same time was relieved to have left. She had given up on humanity so long ago that the plain kindness she was treated with made her… uncomfortable. It was somehow jarring to meet a group of people who seemed to care about each other without having any wicked ulterior motives.

“Do what?” Ellis replied.

“Stay.”

Kara saw how the nomads treated Ellis, how they respected her and how she was never made to feel like an outsider among them. By virtue of her association with her, she had been granted that same amiability as well. She had no doubt that if Ellis went back to them tomorrow, they would welcome her into the family without hesitation and she could leave the mess that was her life in the city.

“What are you trying to achieve here?” Kara continued, “You know people who could get you out of this mess, you had chances to escape this life a long time if you really wanted to.”

“Who said I wanted to?”

“That’s my question. Why don’t you want to?” Kara clarified.

“Same reason why Jordan still feels like he has to live up to his dad’s legacy,” Ellis replied, “Someone has to fight the war against entropy and look out for the ‘little guy’. We’d stop if we could, Kara, really, but something in us makes us feel like we can’t.”

“You are the ‘little guy’ here, Ellis. Nothing changes no matter what you do. Believe me, I’d know. I lost count of how many sex trafficking rings I shut down just to end up finding another brothel with another group of maimed 15-year-old girls, violated and mutilated beyond recognition. I spoke at countless United Nations conferences and nobody listened when I told them that if they didn’t stop running this planet to the ground, Earth would be headed towards ubiquitous turmoil and disarray. And look where we are today. You can spend the rest of your life ‘sticking it to the corpos’, they’ll still win. They always do.”

Kara wasn’t entirely wrong. Ellis wasn’t naïve enough to not recognise that, but something about her concluding point just didn’t sit right with her. “Well, maybe it’s not about winning,” she retorted.

“Then what?” Kara scoffed.

Ellis sighed, taking a moment to think how to best articulate her response. “Every tangible aspect of humanity has been commodified and commercialised to the point that our very existence has been made impersonal. It’s about saving some unconquerable aspect of the ‘human spirit’ because quite possibly the most ‘human’ thing we can do is to fight back against the insurmountable,” Ellis defiantly argued.

“Who the fuck taught you that bullshit?” Kara frowned.

“You did.”

Kara was stunned into silence for a moment, before shaking her head with a chuckle of disbelief and incredulity. The irony of an alien having been seen as an exemplar of ‘humanity’ was not lost on her. There was a lot that distinguished her from Ellis, but Kara would be lying if she said she wasn’t reminded of her younger self at times. Feeling courteous because of that, she chose not to crush her with the uncomfortable truth that the moment she had felt the most ‘human’ was when she had brutally taken her first life.

“Saving the world is impossible, Ellis,” Kara said instead, “The best you can hope for is to save yourself. And this isn’t the way to do that.”

“I’m not sure leaving would be either.”

“How do you know?”

“Did it work for you?” Ellis asked Kara, turning to face her.

She wasn’t being snarky. Kara heard no vitriol or contempt in her voice, nor did she see any now in Ellis’ eyes. It was merely a genuine question posed with the hope of an enlightening answer, but Kara didn’t know if she could give one. She pondered for a few moments. She could say yes because she was still here, alive, but that was hardly an adequate answer. The fact of the matter was that she had lost so much along the way, not just the extrinsic things which she had loved, but the intrinsic parts of herself that were so distant to her now. Whenever she looked at a picture of her younger self, she saw someone that ought to be someone else, an entirely different person, and when she looked in the mirror, she sometimes didn’t even know who the person staring back at her was.

All Kara could do was turn away, the ensuing deafening silence giving Ellis the despondent answer she was hoping she wouldn’t get.

“Name?”

Upon arriving at Empathy, Kara and Ellis were directed to a small backroom to prepare for the fight. The announcer for the evening was there to ask for introduction details and to give her a rundown of proceedings while she wrapped her hands.

“Thara,” she replied.

“Full name,” he clarified.

“Thara Ak-Var.”

“Homeworld?”

“Axan. Andromedan Galaxy.”

“It’s no holds barred. No rounds, no time-limit, you’ll fight until you can’t no more. Nothing is off-limits. You’ll walk out first. Any questions?”

“Have you asked Xenon what he would like for his last meal?” Kara calmly replied.

The announcer guffawed. “That’s the spirit. Though I believe that question would be better suited to you.”

Kara smirked. “You want to make some scratch? Bet your life savings on me tonight.”

The announcer nodded with a scrunch of his face, admiring her confidence while having no faith that she would survive the upcoming contest, “Sure.”

He left the room, giving Kara and Ellis a few moments to themselves.

“How’d you come up with Thara Ak-Var?” Ellis asked.

“She was my childhood best friend back on Krypton.”

Ellis nodded. “Remember what we said, alright? Don’t take him lightly.”

“Yeah, gotcha,” Kara replied, pressing a finger to her right eye to rub some crust away.

“Not going to stretch, or…” Ellis asked.

“Don’t need to.”

“Okay. Good luck out there.”

Ellis tapped Kara on the shoulder before she then left as well, leaving her to her lonesome.

Believe it or not, this was far from Kara’s first cage fight rodeo. She’d received all types of gigs from fixers and clients in outer space. Theft, espionage, transport, rescue, terminations and in a few cases, stepping into a cage to fight someone. Even before that, she remembered going undercover in an alien trafficking ring on Earth and eventually finding that many were being forced to fight to the death in gladiatorial contests to entertain their captors.

The co-main event had just wrapped up, the canvas was being cleaned, and Kara could feel the buzz emanating from the crowd outside.

While she usually had the luxury of being able to rely on her powers, it was repeatedly emphasised to her by her mentors that she needed to be prepared for the worst-case scenario wherein she wouldn’t be able to. Assuming worst-case scenario right now that Xenon would end up being stronger and faster than her, she still wouldn’t feel any less confident about her chances. He hadn’t the years of experience and skills she possessed, and so she unenthusiastically twiddled her thumbs and fiddled with her hand wraps while waiting.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for the main event of the evening!”

It was almost time. She spent most of her life fighting all different kinds of threats with unique powers. In the latter part of her life, she often used guns and blades to dispose of adversaries. It had all grown somewhat tiresome to her. A part of her had now grown to relish the purity of two combatants stepping up to each other with nothing but their fists, elbows, knees and shins to settle their business. In another place for another purpose, she might have actually been a little excited for what lay ahead, but all that she cared about now was advancing her mission.

“A friendly reminder that looks are all but deceiving. Our challenger may not exactly appear all that deadly, but I can promise you she is going to bring the fight tonight. In fact, she is bringing it all the way from the Andromedan Galaxy! A native of the planet of Axan, introducing Thara Ak-Var!”

That was her cue. She rose and paced towards the door, shoving it open to vehement boos from the hostile audience. She stoically made her way along the path towards the cage door, ignoring the profanities being thrown her way and the drunkard proclamations that she was about to be killed.

“Now, introducing our reigning, undisputed, undefeated champion! A reaper of souls, a gladiator, an immortal amongst mortals, Knight City’s very own… Behold, the Almighty Xenon Grady!”

Contrasted to Kara, Xenon’s entrance was far more theatrical. She had walked out to no music, while his song started with gladiatorial drums before transitioning into a mix between a dramatic orchestral and fast-paced, hard-hitting electronic beat. The crowd erupted into cheers as he stepped out onto an elevated platform, stretching out his arms and performing his signature pose for the crowd before marching towards the cage. While he enjoyed the adulation, he only shortly indulged in it before focusing his gaze on Kara and her alone.

“Last meal, huh?” he asked with spite in his tone as he entered the cage.

Kara grinned. “Was it any good?”

“Ask the Lord when I send you to Him.”

“I would if He actually existed,” Kara quipped back, riling him up some more. In her eyes, she was already one up on him on the mental side of things. He was for sure underestimating her but was now also going to fight angry and unhinged.

The bell rang.

Kara hadn’t a second to ease into the fight as Xenon came charging at her. She was able to pivot out of the way just in time to avoid him, but he quickly spun back around to face her again. He was offended on two levels: The first being that Kara was taunting him, showing no respect, and secondly that she was even considered a worthy challenge for him. He truly had no idea who he was up against and, just like Kara, was underestimating his opponent. That underestimation resulted in two different approaches to the contest. Kara was too relaxed, being happy to sit back and see if Xenon had anything for her. He, on the other hand, wanted to take her head off as soon as possible.

He pressed forward, sending out a variety of telegraphed power punches the first few of which Kara was able to evade. However, he was a little faster than she anticipated and was able to adjust his form in seconds. The first punch that touched Kara just grazed her cheek, but the second landed flush on her jaw. Having never seen it coming and not braced for the impact, she felt his strength first-hand as she found herself drop to a knee. Her vision blurred for a split-second, coming back to spot a concerned Ellis cageside.

A kick crashed into her abdomen, lifting her off her feet and flying into the cage wall. He was on her again like a rabid dog, crowding her space and throwing combinations mostly aimed at her head but alternating to the body every now and then. Kara hadn’t been hit in a fight this much in years and had to admit that she had grown unfamiliar with the pain of repeatedly being punched in the head. She had only been dazed for a moment, and while Xenon was more powerful than she expected, he still was no match for the countless other foes she had encountered in her lifetime. Her ability to stay composed in the chaotic storm due to experience eventually prevailed as she became cognisant of Xenon’s strike patterns. She saw him overcommit on a hook, ducking under it and swivelling around him to jog back to the center of the cage.

She ran her fingers over her face, feeling around to check if she’d been cut anywhere. As she expected, no blood had been drawn.

“That all you got, bitch?” she taunted him again, raising her arms nonchalantly.

He came rushing forward again but opted not to throw strikes this time. This time, he dipped his level and aimed for her gut with his shoulder, hoping to spear her to the ground. He still thought that he held a strength advantage over the slender woman in front of him, a misconception that would be proven wrong quickly. He made contact with Kara’s abdomen only to feel as if he’d run into a brick wall. She worked her arms under his, securing underhooks before effortlessly shoving him to the floor.

The club fell almost dead silent. Nobody would have expected Xenon to be manhandled by a woman half his size, and that embarrassment caused him to leap back to his feet and swing another wild punch. Rather than move out of the way this time, Kara simply caught his fist in her hand. The silent crowd let out an audible gasp, becoming restless as they started to realise that the reign of their champion might actually be coming to an end.

Xenon himself became paralysed through shock and fear. He didn’t know how to react as Kara tightened her grip on his fist. The next thing he knew, he felt as if his hand was trapped under a hydraulic press, with Kara squeezing until his bones were crushed. His loud cry of pain was cut short when two punches and an elbow crashed into his face, shattering his nose and both orbital bones. A knee flew into his abdomen, fracturing his sternum and robbing him of his breath. The fight was over just like that, within seconds, and he collapsed to the floor a broken and defeated man.

Kara glanced up to the glass panes on the second floor, spotting Maxxine give her a nod to go through with her task. Mercilessly, Kara dragged Xenon off the canvas, wrapping her arm over and around his neck so that it rested directly underneath her armpit. With an uncaring tense, his neck snapped instantly.

The room was far from empty, but it sounded so. The ring announcer was even so stunned by the events that had unfolded before him that he was late to his cue to announce her as the winner. Some people in the crowd cheered, others were contemplating their life choices after having placed most of their savings on Xenon. Kara wondered if she had been too brutal after looking back up at a stupefied Maxxine, stunned by what she had just witnessed. Ellis rushed over to Kara, meeting her just as she took her first step down out of the cage.

“Are you okay?” Ellis asked with misplaced concern.

“I’m fine,” Kara replied, undoing the bloody wraps on her hands, “You should see the other guy,” she joked.

“Don’t think I want to,” she replied with a grimace.

They wasted no time heading for Maxxine’s office after leaving the cage. It took them a little longer than they wanted, having to swim through the crowd just to make it to the staircase leading up to the office.

“I did it,” Kara stated as she and Ellis barged into Maxxine’s office.

“Mmm-hmm,” Maxxine replied slowly. She was sat at her desk, fixated on something on the monitor in front of her.

“Where’s the intel?” Ellis pressed.

“Right here.”

Maxxine raised her left hand, holding up a datashard. Ellis stepped forward to move ahead and take it, but the cohort of several guards in the office immediately drew their weapons, taking aim at Kara and Ellis.

“I knew there was something off about you from the moment we met,” Maxxine said, standing up and turning her eyes towards Kara, “Something that told me you weren’t exactly who you said you were. Pretty unique way you chose to break Xenon’s neck, wouldn’t you say? Now, where have I seen that before?”

Maxxine put the datashard down before pressing a button on her keyboard. The video she had been intently watching projected into a hologram in front of Kara and Ellis, the short 6-second clip looping after one playthrough. Kara recognised the displayed sequence immediately. She had been there at those very docks just a little further down dealing with other goons while the green-hooded man in the clip fought off several others. They watched as he skilfully picked apart the group of assailants attacking him, knocking them off one by one until just one remained, whose neck he snapped in a manner identical to how Kara just did.

He was the one who had taught her the move, after all.

“You and he were tight, weren’t you, Thara Ak-Var?” Maxxine asked before dramatically overcorrecting herself, “No, no, no, that’s not who you are… You are Kara Zor-El. Never did I ever think that I would get to see you in the flesh.”

“We did what you asked, Maxxine,” Ellis protested, “Just give us the intel and we’ll go.”

“I don’t think so. Now I know why you two are tangling with Lord. You still have a vendetta against him,” she jibed, pointing at Kara, “No worries, you’ll see him soon. In fact, he’s going to be very, very happy after I drop you off at his front door. As for you, Ellis… you still have a chance to walk away.”

Kara slightly turned her gaze towards Ellis. She was intrigued to see what kind of answer Ellis was going to give. She had grown so bitter that she still didn’t fully trust her and in some weird way, she partly hoped that Ellis would walk away, having the wits to save herself while leaving Kara to her own dilemma.

But that bitterness in Kara, one that she hated seeing widespread in her former beloved city but also rested within her, was proven wrong this time. Ellis stood her ground, giving the type of defiant answer that a young Kara would have given, letting it out exactly how she would have a century ago.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Ellis scorned, “I don’t abandon my friends.”

Maxxine sighed, letting out a breath reeking with heavy disappointment. “That was always the problem with you and Cody. Too damn stubborn for your own good.”

Kara spoke up this time, grabbing Maxxine’s attention. “Hey, Maxxine. One last request before you go through with this?”

“Go ahead,” Maxxine replied with a condescending curiosity, unaware that Kara’s orbs were heating up beneath her closed eyes.

“Go fuck yourself.”

Kara lifted her head, opening her eyes and letting out a beam of energy towards Maxxine’s chest. The fire burned through her heart, the intense pain and shock rendering her numb before she collapsed to the floor and struggled to take in her last few breaths.

Ellis had been vigilant enough to decipher exactly what Kara was planning to do, having already been preparing to whip out her new monowire and give it a test. As soon as Kara let out her heat vision, Ellis jerked her arm to draw out the monowire before ducking and wrapping it around the arm of the goon with a gun to her head. She slid behind him, using the momentum to pull him to the floor before throwing several punches to the back of his head.

Kara had the liberty of superspeed, preventing the other goons’ shots from reaching Ellis as she did so. She grabbed the first one by the collar, tossing him out of the glass box and out into the club. He landed atop the fence line of the cage, the mesh digging into his abdomen as his fall drove him into it. The next goon had his throat grabbed by Kara, who with an easy flick of her wrist completely spun his head around by snapping his neck. Another managed to get a few rounds of fire off, the bullets hitting Kara’s back to little effect before Ellis picked up one of the other’s guns and put a few rounds into his skull.

Screams had begun ringing loud from the floor below as the crowd scattered, attempting to find a way to escape the ensuing chaos. Ellis tossed a gun to Kara, who used it to blow the skulls of guards on the opposite side of the balcony off. The club had gone into a lockdown with Maxxine’s death, forcing the crowd below to just drop to the floor or scramble to the sides in the hopes that they wouldn’t become collateral in the ensuing fight. Whatever guards were still stationed up here stood no chance against Kara and Ellis.

“I’m a netrunner,” Kara remembered Ellis saying. Though she explained what she meant by that, she hadn’t a real clue until she could get the chance to see it in action. She watched as an electronic glow sparked in Ellis’ pupils as she focused on a guard, just a couple seconds passing before his cyberdeck erupted, a fire engulfing the left side of his head. He collapsed to the floor in agony for a few seconds before the flames melted his brain, rendering him no more.

There were at least ten more guards on this level that they had to deal with while trying to figure a way out of the place. If they were too far, Kara put a bullet in them. If they were close enough, she pulverised them with her bare hands. Ellis didn’t have the luxury of bulletproof skin, so she preferred to stay behind cover and use her hacks or fire at their attackers. Preoccupied with their assailants and with the large elevator being shut down, she was more concerned with her survival rather than immediately finding a way out. Eventually, her cyberdeck’s RAM would be exhausted and she would run out of bullets, but Kara was her saving grace in that regard. They couldn’t put a scratch on Kara as she mowed through each and any one of them that dared to get in her path.

What they didn’t know was that there was a secret staircase that led up into the club, reserved only for security personnel. They managed to take a momentary breather when all of the guards already on the level had been dealt with, but the secret doorway opened and out came flooding over 20 more. They were the heavy hitters, dressed in full combat gear and armed with assault rifles. Kara could have dealt with them all if she wanted to, but it wasn’t just about her. Ellis could likely be caught up in the crossfire and Kara wasn’t prepared for that possibility to come to fruition. The time for fighting was over, it was time to flee.

Kara sprung back and wrapped her arms around Ellis, who had just managed to use the last remaining RAM on her cyberdeck to trigger a grenade on one of the guards’ belts. She hadn’t time to process what ensued in the following seconds, only feeling Kara’s arms wrap around her before there was a shattering of glass and an ensuing freefall. Kara had propelled herself through the glass panes looking out into the city and now they were falling several stories down towards the ground. Having not flown in years and without much time to adjust for a soft landing, all Kara was able to do in the air was spin around to make sure that she took the brunt of the crash into the concrete below them.

The grenade above detonated, presumably killing most, if not all of their adversaries above. The tar road cracked as Kara landed, the fall hurting a little more than she expected as she felt a faint dull pain spread across her back and head. Kara gently let go of Ellis, sliding her off before perching up on an elbow next to her.

“You alright?” Kara asked with concern.

“Fuck,” Ellis strained, grimacing in pain.

Kara thought she had a perfect wrap around Ellis but hadn’t fully gotten around her left arm and protected it from the fall. Her cyberlimb had been crushed in the impact.

“Ellis, your arm,” Kara hurried to her feet, rushing to help Ellis who gripped what remained of her cybernetic arm while panting through her agony.

“I need to see a ripper,” she huffed, “Vic. Take me to Vic.”

Victor Vektor. Back in his heyday, he was something of a street legend of Knight City. A former heavyweight boxer, he once ruled the roost when it came to fisticuffs in the city, but as he aged and left that life behind, he put the technical expertise he acquired through the years to good use by becoming a ripperdoc. Now, he was the best ripper in Midtown, perhaps even the best in the city for those without corpo privileges. Every single one of Cody and Ellis’ implants had been done by him and while he, like Maxxine, possessed an affinity for them, his aid came without the need for self-gain. He was the closest thing to a father figure they had after their real one was murdered, having helped them get by whenever they came to him for help.

His clinic was situated in a back alley behind an erotica shop, conspicuous that way by design. A camera hung above the sliding gate and door, with Kara knocking hard several times and waving to the camera with her free hand while the other held Ellis up. They didn’t have to wait very long for the door to swing open, with Vic immediately fumbling for the right key from his chain to the sliding gate.

“What the fuck did you do this time, Ellis?” he scolded her.

“You’ll find out in a minute,” Ellis replied, barely able to get the words out.

“Can’t stay out of trouble to save your fucking life, huh?” he spat back, immediately taking Ellis from Kara and helping her inside.

The inside of the clinic was hardly what Kara was expecting. While it was no state-of-the-art medical facility, being dimly lit in an orange hue with antiquated furniture and rustic walls, it seemed fairly well kept and Vic’s machinery seemed of good quality. He immediately placed the pale Ellis on the operating chair before handing her something resembling an oversized asthma pump.

“Here.”

Ellis put the nozzle to her mouth, pressing the button on the side as she took a deep breath.

“What’s that?” Kara asked.

“Dorph airhypo,” Vic replied as he assorted his tools and fetched a replacement cyber-arm from a backroom, “Dorph short for endorphins. Painkillers, anaesthetic, you get the idea.”

While slightly stressed about Ellis’ well-being, Kara sat back and held faith that Vic would do his job. She watched as he detached the crushed arm before attaching the new one, also taking the time to save her new monowire and attach it to her replacement limb. It all took less than 10 minutes, allowing Kara to realise her concern was somewhat misplaced and let out a sigh of relief.

“There you are,” Vic said as he added the finishing touches to the new cyberlimb, “Good as new.”

“Coffee?”

Kara had been lost in her gaze upon Ellis, who had fallen asleep after the procedure on the uncomfortable operating chair. She had already made the call to Jordan, telling him exactly where they were and what had happened. Vic appeared next to her with a cup of coffee in hand.

“Thanks,” she replied, taking it from him as he sat on his chair while she leaned against his work desk, “Got an ashtray?” she asked. He wasn’t a smoker, so all he could hand her was a half-cracked small bowl. “That’ll do. She going to be okay?”

“She’ll be back to 100% in a few hours,” Vic replied, “She seemed worse than she actually is. She just needs to rest the shock off.”

Kara didn’t request further elaboration. She was starting to understand the logic behind implants now. She allowed herself to imagine what it would feel like if your cybernetic limb, linked to a processing system linked to your brain, had been instantaneously crushed after falling several stories off a building. An electric pain would probably follow, as the damage to the limb severed its connection with your cyberdeck and probably caused it to malfunction until the limb had been replaced.

An uneasy silence had developed between Vic and Kara, his gaze flickering to her every few seconds as she smoked away. He eventually decided to break it, bluntly stating the reason behind his slight discomfort.

“I know who you are.”

Kara was taken aback by his sudden statement, locking eyes with him as she tried to decipher what he meant through his blank tone and blank gaze. “Got a problem with that?” she sternly replied.

Vic casually shook his head. “Just want to know why you’re back.”

“I’ve got a score to settle.”

“Let me guess… Maxwell Lord?”

Kara didn’t reply, instead just taking a long drag of her cigarette while staring ahead.

“Killing him once wasn’t enough for you?” Vic continued.

“It would have been if he hadn’t fucking come back to life,” Kara hissed.

“Is that how she ended up like this?” Vic asked, gesturing to Ellis.

“Maxxine Moonlight. Went to her for intel and she double-crossed us.”

“Wouldn’t have expected it to go any other way. Terrible woman,” he shook his head, waiting a few more moments before speaking up again, “Thought you were Cody at first glance on the camera, but then I remembered that’s not possible because… she’s gone as well now. That’s what this world does to good people. Chews them up, eats them away until they’re no more. There’s no escaping it, it’s always just a matter of time.”

He leaned forward towards Kara, gaining her full undivided attention as he stared dead into her eyes.

“Promise me one thing: When you go after Lord, don’t just kill him. Don’t settle for a penny when you could empty the entire vault. Erase that motherfucker from history. Destroy everything he’s built. Burn that fucking tower to the ground. You understand me?”

Kara stared back at him with conviction. “I wouldn’t have come back to do anything less.”

Several heavy knocks then struck the door, prompting them to turn their attention back to the cameras. Kara recognised the figure at the door to be Jordan.

“That’s him,” she said, giving Vic the go-ahead to open up for him.

Jordan sprinted in, rushing over to Ellis immediately, who had awoken from her sleep but remained groggy. “Ellis! Are you okay?” he asked, placing a hand on her cheek.

Ellis waved him off. “I’m fine, really. Don’t stress about it.”

After allowing himself to decompress for a second and let go of his concern, Jordan turned back into his old self as he began scolding Kara and Ellis.

“Were you two out of your fucking mind?!” he exclaimed, shifting his gaze between the two of them.

“She double-crossed us, Jordan,” Kara retorted with vexation.

“Did I not warn you about her?” Jordan replied, now leaving Ellis’ side and walking towards Kara, “And fuck, Kara, did you really have to kill her?”

“She knew my identity. She was going to expose us, and we would have been dead in the water before we knew it.”

“Well, look where we are now. Ellis is fucked up, we got the blood of one of the top fixers in the city on our hands and no intel on Jensson.”

Kara shook her head, holding back the urge to lodge her knuckles in his mouth. She got it, Jordan didn’t like her, but it was tough to constantly sit back and be berated by him.

“You’ve seriously got no fucking faith in me, do you?” she asked, genuinely seeking an answer.

“Why should I? You don’t really care about Ellis or Cody, you’re just in it for Lord. Seems like all you’re good for these days is killing. Certainly did plenty of that tonight.”

Kara sighed. “Talk all that shit and then you wonder why Jonathan was my favourite nephew,” she quipped back, revelling in the momentary satisfaction of riling him up before reaching into her back pocket and flicking the datashard towards him, “Here you go, asshole.”

Ellis sat up. “You got the datashard?”

“Yep. Swiped it before we got out of there.”

Jordan held the shard in his fingers, examining it closely while clenching his jaw in an attempt to hide his embarrassment. He gestured to the computer on the desk, turning his gaze to Vic to ask for permission.

“Can I…”

“Sure, kid,” Vic replied, sliding out of the way to allow him to insert the datashard into an access point. Ellis, having regained most of her strength, rose up from the operating chair and walked over to the monitor. The display started as a map with a dotted line tracing towards Knight City before it turned into a 3D animation, showing a convoy of three AVs flying towards and entering Knight City.

“This is Jensson’s transport route,” Jordan realised, “He was in Florida, but he’s arriving back in Knight City tomorrow afternoon. Three AVs, told you he’ll be wrapped around security,” he replied.

“What’s stopping me and you from just knocking them out the sky?” Kara asked,

“These AVs are equipped with advanced aerial-deterrent systems. As soon as we get close, we’ve got missiles coming our way that’ll knock us out the sky. Not only that, but they’ll call for backup and once that happens, we can kiss our chances of bringing Jensson in goodbye.”

“The convoy passes right by the Dulstan Power Plant past the city limits,” Ellis said as she paused the animation before pointing to the model of the station, “That’s our opening. We can rig the power plant to set off an EMP once the convoy is in range. Communications will be fried, weapon systems and engines will shut off. We’ll just need one of you to catch the one he’s in.”

“What do we do once we’ve nabbed him?” Kara asked.

“We can’t head back into the city,” Jordan replied, “Too many cameras, too many eyes, he’d be profiled in a second. There’s a little motel three miles north from the station, we should be safe there for a little while.”

Vic had been sat next to them, quietly listening to their plan while intently watching the animation. He took off his glasses before speaking.

“Sabotage a corpo power station. Jump a corpo transport. Kidnap a corpo suit. One way or another, this sounds like it only ends in disaster.”

Chapter Text

With the power station having only drone security, Ellis and Jordan were able to get past them with ease, rig it and flee before any sort of backup arrived. A bypass for the detonator had been set up, meaning the only thing that they needed to do was set it off at the right time and Jensson’s AV would drop from the sky like a dead fly.

It was too easy. All of it. Every mission she ever set out to do, every plan she ever tried to carry out, none of them went perfectly. Something, no matter how small or big, always went wrong as an unaccounted-for variable threw a wrench in the works and forced her to improvise. Ellis seemed confident that it would all work and Jordan was cautiously optimistic about their chances. But Kara’s gut instinct was telling her that this might be a mistake and her gut instinct was hardly ever wrong. However, it was their only opportunity, so they had no choice but to try take it.

Now, they were just waiting for Jensson’s arrival. Parked off on the side of a mountain pass road, they were a few miles away from the station, but it was clear in sight. Her preparation for the worst caused her to bring one of her sniper rifles along for Ellis to use in case she needed to cover her and Jordan while they went in to bag their target.

“Assuming you make it through all of this, what happens then?” Jordan asked from the passenger seat, staring at Kara in the back through the rear-view mirror.

“You already know the answer. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have told me that I don’t belong here anymore,” Kara replied, “Or have you had a change of heart? Want me to stick around?”

“Quite the opposite. I’d be happy to never see you ever again,” Jordan spat in reply.

“You know what? I think I feel the same way.”

“I would prefer if you two squabble some other time,” Ellis interjected, “We’ve got to focus.”

Jordan scoffed. “Hard to do that with the stench of alcohol and cigarettes coming from her.”

If there was one thing Kara wasn’t going to do, it was sit back and take all of the shit he was spewing her way. If he wanted a verbal spar, he was going to get one. “Since we’re talking about stenches, perhaps I should bring up how you stink of failure. Face it, you were never cut out to fill your daddy’s boots.”

He spun around to face her, glaring with eyes of furious contempt. He wasn’t ready to let her off the hook with the last word.

“You want to talk about failure? You’re the living, breathing embodiment of it because every person you ever loved is six feet under while you’re still here.”

“Jordan!” Ellis tried to cut him off, but Kara didn’t want her to.

“No, Ellis, it’s okay,” she said, “Let him get it all out.”

“They all died for something and you’re here living for nothing. You haven’t changed, no, you’ve always been like this. You just hid it well. The universe has slowly scraped little bits of your façade off until you could finally reveal yourself to be the pathetic, narcissistic, cowardly failure that you are. Where were you when Lex shot liquidised gold Kryptonite into Dad’s veins? Where were you when Barry had his spine snapped in half?” he barked, “Where were you when Maxwell Lord took a knife to Alex’s throat? That’s right, you were nowhere to be found. So, you tell me who’s the failure here?”

“I think he’s here.”

Ellis’ words finally brought an end to the berating that Kara was being subjected to. She was no more than a second away from wrapping a hand around Jordan’s throat and jamming her thumb into his windpipe, having to curl her hands into fists to resist the temptation to do so.

Ellis needed binoculars to make out that three AVs hovering against the backdrop of the darkening blue sky, but Jordan and Kara easily identified the convoy with their enhanced vision.

“That’s them, alright,” Jordan added, “Get ready. Any second now.”

Ellis’ grip around the detonator tightened, though she found it difficult to keep a steady hand. Her palm stuck to the device because of the sweat that had begun piling as soon as she spotted the convoy. Feeling nervous before a gig was normal, but this wasn’t any ordinary gig. Without Jensson, her mission to get her back sister might as well be dead in the water.

“Easy,” Jordan said, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder to calm her.

Seconds became minutes as she watched the convoy edge closer and closer within range of the station. She fancied herself a patient person, but a lot of that fortitude had been stripped away when her sister had been from her. It felt agonisingly slow waiting for the AVs to get to the perfect position.

“Now,” Jordan said, prompting her to jam her thumb onto the detonation button. The plethora of antennae running around the station and into the city began to combust one by one leading into the massive energy unit in the center of the station, letting out one final burst that dwarfed all others.

What did Kara warn them about again? It all seemed too easy.

The AVs’ systems didn’t completely shut off. While the engines buckled for a second, they were only partially damaged by the EMP. Rather than prompting the quick free fall that they were hoping for, what followed was a semi-controlled descent.

“Fuck. The engines are still running,” Ellis croaked.

Kara squinted her vision, spotting the turrets on the sides of the AVs come out. “Weapons systems look like they’ve engaged as well.”

“Comms?” Jordan asked, “If they can call for backup, we’re fucked.”

While a corpo transport was likely to be on a secure frequency, Ellis desperately toyed with the settings on one of her eavesdropping gadgets. Several settings turned back nothing but static until there was finally a hit.

“... not going to make it to the city. Looks like it’ll land just a few klicks from our current position.”

“Just keep your iron on hand, don’t know if they’re going to be friendly.”

The voices were instantly recognisable to Ellis, but it took Kara a little longer to discern the familiar tones and indentations.

“That’s Jerome and Rosey,” she eventually realised.

“Caleb, stay in the car, alright? Don’t get out unless we say so.”

“They probably want to help the survivors without knowing it’s a fucking corpo transport,” Ellis said, a trembling shake in her voice as she realised two of her allies were walking into a slaughterhouse with there being no way she could contact and warn them.

Ellis was panicking, but that very unbothered bearing that added to Jordan’s detestation of Kara was what proved to ultimately be most useful in this scenario. That attitude was largely influenced by her having seen and done everything. There were no more nerves, no panic, no impediments to her decision-making. She and Jordan made eye contact, letting each other know with just a look what had to be done.

“I’ll get them, you go for the AVs,” Kara said, immediately jumping out of the car as did he. “Ellis, cover us with the HMG.”

Jordan lifted himself off the ground, hovering in the air next to Kara to ready himself for flight. He turned to her with a waiting glance, expecting her to do the same. She hadn’t flown in years and had no intention of ending that streak even in this situation. He was rather baffled when she burst into a run towards the nomad cars in the far distance. He tried to rationalise it by thinking that she thought it was best to approach the grounded vehicles on land whereas he had to take flight for the AVs, but he knew it was far deeper than that. Her defiance to lift her feet off the ground and suspend herself in the air was rooted in her desire to leave everything she once was in the past.

As Jordan took flight and neared the AVs, he was allowed to better make out the features of the people inside the convoys with his x-ray vision. As expected, Jensson was in the middle of the three, but he was accompanied by nearly a dozen armed men as well as foot and air drones. The ADS tracking systems were able to compute and process information at a speed nearly equal to the brain of a speedster, and the missiles and laser turrets were designed to neutralise such a threat in time. He was spotted once he was within a couple hundred meters distance, immediately having to spin and shimmy in the air to avoid the first few missiles that came his way. He couldn’t avoid them all as a projectile finally struck his abdomen, the blast knocking him out of the sky.

From the mountain pass, the two nomad cars looked like ants crawling across the rocky Californian desert. They were already dangerously nearing the firing range of the convoy, who no doubt had already spotted and identified them as a threat. Kara ran as fast as she could, galloping along the golden sands and leaving a trail of dust clouds behind.

Jerome and Rosey’s vehicles were already too close in proximity and the AV at the head of the convoy fired a missile from its nose directed at them. Kara’s plan to grab them and bolt them to a safe distance wasn’t viable anymore, so she slightly adjusted her plan and running line. Her attention was redirected to the airborne missile ahead of the vehicles now. The split-second at which she was within leaping distance, she propelled herself off the ground directly in front of the missile, taking the hit on her lower back. While she succeeded in absorbing the brunt of the blast as she intended, the sheer power of the missile caused a shockwave that was still powerful enough to shove the two nomad vehicles several meters away, flipping them upside down.

Kara had taken Ellis’ forewarning about improved human weapon capabilities seriously before, but feeling it first-hand proved to be an entirely different challenge now. She’d been hit with missiles before. None of them felt like this. She and Jordan both found it challenging to get to their feet after taking their hits, feeling as if their muscles had been deadened by the impacts they endured.

She immediately rushed over to Rosey’s vehicle first. She quickly scanned Rosey with her x-ray vision, seeing that his heart was still beating before prying open the back door to attend to Caleb. He was still disoriented, unable to process any of the words she was shouting at him. He was unresponsive but conscious, mostly unhurt and alive, more than which she could say for the nomad next to him whose heartbeat was now non-existent.

She hadn’t another second to assist them before a spray of bullets punched her back. Bullets too… They didn’t feel like tickles anymore. They were concentrated pulses of energy slamming against her flesh. She whipped around to see three armed men, all with their guns aimed at her. The convoy had landed and they were intent on establishing a safe-zone, but this time, Kara saw it all coming. She either dodged or caught every bullet that was sent her way, weaving through the chaos of pellets in front of her to make it to within arm’s reach of them.

The first combatant had his head knocked off his shoulders with a single punch from Kara, the second was flung several hundred feet into the air with his screams as he rose and then fell being drowned out by the sound of more gunfire and explosions. The third combatant, with an implanted metal arm, was able to get a punch in on Kara, striking the back of her head and knocking her to the ground. Before she could get up to get her own hit back in, she saw the combatant’s head disintegrate before her eyes. She looked to her far right where the plasma pulse came from, spotting Jerome with her old pistol in hand accompanied by another nomad.

“Thara?!” he called out to her.

More gunfire rang out, this time sounding a little closer and prompting Kara to shift her gaze up high to her right. An aerial drone had targeted them and having already fired, Kara rushed over in a vain attempt to shield them from the gunfire. She couldn’t make it in time to the other nomad before a bullet blasted a hole through her chest, but she managed to wrap her arms around Jerome and spin him, taking much of the gunfire to her already beaten and bruised back before placing him behind the cover of his overturned car. Her eyes became heated with a blue fire, turning back towards the aerial drone to slice it in half before turning her attention back to Jerome.

“Fuck,” he attempted to scream, his words coming out as nothing more than a muffled groan. She hadn’t been able to shield him from every bullet, looking down to spot a chunk of his thigh missing. Kara ripped a sleeve off his jacket before tying it above the wound to slow the tremendous bleeding.

“What the fuck are you guys doing out there?!” Kara screamed, “You fucking idiots! I’m getting you out of here!”

“No!” Jerome protested, barely being able to raise his arm to gesture to the other vehicle, “Get Caleb!” he exclaimed as he placed her pistol back in her hand.

Kara quickly surveyed the situation. The convoy had smartly realised that the real threats weren’t the nomads, but rather she and Jordan. He was pinned down badly by the majority of the convoy’s forces while the nomad vehicles were being largely left alone for now. Rosey and Caleb were struggling to undo their jammed seatbelts and were sitting ducks without the ability to free themselves.

She pushed the pistol back into Jerome’s hand before speaking, “Cover me!”

She paced over to Rosey’s vehicle, helping to drag him out of the vehicle first. A bone protruded below his right elbow, a compound fracture having pierced through the skin as he moaned in agony while Kara helped him out of the vehicle. She rushed him back to his feet, pulling him up and propping him against the vehicle as support.

“Rosey! Rosey, look at me!” she said, drawing her second pistol from her holster and handing it to him, “I’ll get Caleb!”

He understood her instructions immediately, a subtle nod affirming that to Kara as he tried to compartmentalise his pain and focus on keeping an eye out for them. The young boy, having finally become aware of his surroundings, was petrified. He tugged at his seatbelt incessantly while weeping, even jolting back in fear as Kara appeared by his side.

“Caleb, hey, hey, it’s me,” she reassured him, “Remember me? The lady who beat up your daddy?”

Slowly, his cries died down as he recognised a familiar face.

“I’m here to help, okay? Let go,” she instructed as she gently pulled his hands away from the seatbelt. With a single jerk, she was able to tear it off him before quickly shifting her hand to his shoulder, catching him, “I’ve got you!”

Before she could get a proper grip on him to speed him out of the vicinity, gunfire rang out next to her again. She quickly but gently let Caleb drop down before springing up to assist Rosey. It was too late. With just a pistol and firing with his unfavourable arm while in excruciating agony, Rosey was riddled with a spray of gunfire before he had a chance to take out even one adversary. Kara dipped back down to shield Caleb from any stray gunfire, having to sit back and watch bullets blow pieces of Rosey’s flesh all around her until one finally blew his head apart.

Plasma blasts flew from behind her, taking out three of the several adversaries. Jerome drew the attention of the foot drones, while the two remaining humans were still fixated on Kara. She flew forward to engage them, ripping one’s mechanical arm off and then using it to smack the other man several feet away. With the mechanical arm still in hand, she found a place to dispose of it, driving it through her adversary’s stomach. Before she could shift her attention back to Caleb, a powerful blast emanated from behind her.

She turned to see the aftermath where Jerome’s car once was. The upheaval from the blast consisted of dust, metal, blood and pulverised flesh. Jerome too was no more.

In less than 15 seconds, she saw two good men slaughtered right in front of her. That would have propelled her into a berserk if a grenade hadn’t immediately been fired into the back of her head. The concussive force of the blast sent her flying several meters through the air. She was dazed, disoriented with her vision going black for a few seconds before she found just enough control to struggle back to her feet.

When she did, it appeared as if the chaos had died down. Gunfire seemed distant, as Jordan must have drawn the rest of the forces away with the nomads and Kara thought to be no more. She stumbled momentarily as she got up, having to wait another second for her vision to clear. At this very moment, Konrad Jensson seemed a distant thought. Her mind had been solely focused on ensuring the Caleb’s safety.

Upon regaining full control of her senses, she found both of them.

Having seen that Kara wasn’t put out yet, Konrad Jensson had dragged Caleb out of the car and was now standing with his one arm around the neck of the boy and a pistol in his other. He put the pistol to Caleb’s head, stopping Kara dead in her tracks just as the thought of rushing him occurred.

“Take one more step towards me and I’ll pull the trigger!” he exclaimed with a strange tranquillity.

Kara lowered her voice. “Tell me you have a shot, Ellis.”

With the forces mainly targeting Jordan, Ellis had been providing cover to him from the mountain pass. She turned the scope of the HMG towards her right, hoping to pinpoint Kara’s location only to be met back with a sight of a thick grey smog.

“Smoke’s blocking me out.”

Kara glanced over her shoulder. The ruins of the nomad car had all been set alight by the explosive that destroyed it, creating a thick fog that obstructed Ellis’ line of sight.

“I’ve made the call. My friends will be here in a minute,” Jensson said, “All you have to do is stay put for sixty seconds, and I’ll let the boy live.”

Though the gun on Caleb’s head was being wielded by someone else, his life was in her hands. There was no one else to rely on, no one else to help her make a decision. She could attempt to rush him with her superspeed, but her window of opportunity was too small. The chance of him being able to perceive the slightest change in her demeanour and pull the trigger was high with the distance between them being a little too far for Kara to make it to Caleb in time.

“I’m here for you. I don’t give a fuck if you shoot the kid,” Kara scorned in an attempt to snuff out if he was bluffing.

But Jensson remained cool, a sadistic will speaking through his eyes. “Are you sure about that? Are you really willing to sacrifice his life for mine?” he asked.

There wasn’t a hint of sarcasm in his words. He almost seemed to be asking genuinely, testing Kara’s resolve and moral compass. When she remained silent without moving a single muscle, he found her answer.

“Thought so.”

These were the choices that Kara had become glad to not have to make anymore. Jensson was a vital cog in their plan to get Cody back and end Lord. Caleb was just someone she had met yesterday. On the surface, all he had done was hand her a plate of food and put a smile on her face. But he was a child. An innocent juvenile who had yet to be marred by life’s trials and tribulations, yet to be corrupted by the darkness of the desolate world he had been brought into and yet to become someone unworthy of compassion and love. And that smile he had put on Kara’s face was the first genuine one she had in years.

She thought nothing would get in the way of her mission of vengeance. She had force-fed herself the notion that she was an uncaring, unlovable and bitter former hero who was long past her prime. She spent so many years telling herself that after giving up so much for others, it was time to put herself first at every turn. But here she stood, having to choose between her mission and the life of someone else, and she couldn’t compel herself to choose anything other than the latter.

“Caleb,” she called to him, grabbing his attention, “You’re going to be okay. I promise.”

All he could do was nod back, with a faint glimmer of hope in his teary eyes ever so slightly easing Kara’s worry. Jensson seemed rather surprised at Kara’s willingness to let him go. Her words of reassurance even seemed to draw a wry smile out of him. Every muscle and bone in her body ached, not just because of the damage she had taken in the battle, but she had to stand by while there was a gun at Caleb’s head. She so desperately wanted to burst forward and definitively make sure his life was safe, but all she could do was sit back and… hope. Something she hadn’t done in a long, long time. So long that now as she tried to do it, she almost felt disgusted with herself.

But with Jordan’s battles not over yet, the chaos of his fight spilled towards Kara’s vicinity. A broken aerial drone came hurtling down from the sky above, heading straight for Jensson and Caleb. He spotted spot it and shifted away from danger as the drone crashed, but that was the opportunity that Kara had been waiting for, hoping for. Now, she had already burst into a gallop towards Jensson.

Even a woman with her speed felt as if she was going too slow at times. Each step felt like it took an eternity. The world was in slow motion around her. There were very few people who could perceive things at this speed.

What Kara didn’t know was that Jensson was one of them.

His cyberdeck coupled with eye enhancements allowed him to process things and react faster than most. He wasn’t at the level of a speedster, but he was just fast enough to have realised that Kara was hurtling towards him. His finger began to pull back on the trigger and Kara’s fears began to realise. She cursed her legs, feeling as if they weren’t moving fast enough as she watched the trigger edge closer and closer to the point of no return. She found herself just a meter away from them as the trigger was pulled all the way back.

She reached out with her hand in desperation, attempting to grab a hold of the gun before it was too late.

The gunshot echoed across the desert. Kara crashed into Jensson, shoving him back several meters while undoing his grip on Caleb, who slumped to the floor on his side.

“No,” she let out under her breath.

She dropped to her knees, turning Caleb over on his side. She was hoping, hoping that he would be alright, hoping that the bullet would have missed and that he would be unscathed.

She turned him over only to find white eyeballs that had rolled into the back of his head. In reality, what was left of it.

“Caleb. Caleb!” she pleaded, cupping her hands around his shattered skull as blood poured into her hands. Just like the last time Kara held a dead body in her arms with blood staining her hands, she felt an extraordinarily crippling feeling of failure. But this body was different. It was small. Just… small. It was once a tiny vessel for a soul that had managed to inject a drop of warmth into Kara’s cold, cold heart for the first time in decades, and that soul was gone now.

The feeling of failure became fuel for a fury that propelled her to her feet. She didn’t care about the mission anymore. She couldn’t look past the fact that a young life had been taken, and for that, she wanted Jensson’s head.

“You fucking bastard!” she growled, marching towards him with the intent of ripping his head off.

She wouldn’t have the chance, as a dart flew into Jensson’s neck. He immediately dropped to the floor, losing consciousness in less than a few seconds. Jordan appeared by Kara’s side with a tranq gun in one hand, the other on Kara’s shoulder to stop her from advancing forward. He glanced at Caleb’s body for just a second before turning his eyes back to Kara. She stared back into them, finding in them a lack of hostility for the first time since she had been back. She found a sympathetic consolation, one that mourned the loss as well but attempted to console her.

“What's going on? Guys?”

Ellis spoke up over comms, her view of their scene still being blocked out by the smoke.

“We’ve got Jensson,” Jordan replied, gulping heavily before continuing, “He shot the kid.”

“He what?!”

“Kid’s gone, Ellis. Gone. So are the nomads. We couldn’t save them.”

Chapter Text

The sun had since descended over Knight City. The sweltering heat of the desert turned into a chilly breeze and the glow of the night city lights were in full show. Distant but growing rumblings of thunder signalled that a storm was imminent.

The second half of their plan hadn’t experienced any hiccups thus far as they fled to the Sunset Motel discreetly. Ellis and Jordan were inside their room with Jensson. Kara stood outside, leaning against the door as she nursed the wounds of battle. The energy from her legs had been sapped out as they felt numb. Her back ached with specks of purple bruises from the bullets scattered across it, some of them trailing to her arms. It wasn’t just her body that ached. Deep inside her chest, a clamp of misery tightened around her heart. She could do nothing other than stare at her red, blood-stained hands.

Ellis and Jordan were unsure of what to do. They knew they needed to interrogate the currently unconscious Jensson, propped up on a chair, but with Kara around, they weren’t sure if it would be possible.

“Think you can contain her?” Ellis asked him.

“Probably,” Jordan replied.

“Probably?” Ellis raised an eyebrow.

“She won’t get past me,” Jordan affirmed more confidently this time, readying himself for Kara to storm back in as soon as Jensson regained consciousness, “Do it.”

Ellis put an injection gun to Jensson’s neck, this one containing an antidote to the serum they hit him with earlier. It woke him instantly with a fright. His gaze flickered back and forth between his new surroundings and the two of them as he took quick but heavy breaths. He felt relieved for just a second when he realised Kara was not in the room, but that relief didn’t last long as the door swung open and she rushed in.

He flinched when it looked as if she was set to burst towards him, but she was stopped in her tracks as Jordan quickly wrapped an arm around her. She still attempted to break free of the grip and push forward, but Jordan was able to keep her at bay, amusing Jensson.

“Still upset, darling?” he asked nonchalantly.

“He was just a kid,” Kara snarled in reply, “Just a fucking kid!”

Jensson shrugged his shoulders. “People die every day, most of them unimportant. He was largely insignificant in the bigger picture of this world.”

“You fucking bastard!” Kara shouted.

“That’s enough, Kara!” Jordan exclaimed as he shoved her back, letting go of his grip but stepping in front of her, “Get it together. You know why we’re here.”

Reluctantly, Kara took a step back, conceding that their planned conversation with him go ahead. Jordan remained wary of Kara, adjusting his position to be next to her with a watchful eye and a hand ready to pull her back if she couldn’t control herself.

“Who are you people and what do you want?” Jensson asked.

“We’ll be asking the questions, dipshit,” Ellis warned, placing a chair in front of him and sitting down, “How does Soulkiller work?”

“Soulkiller? Why do you want to know?”

As expected, he asked another question. As punishment for not heeding her warning, Ellis slapped him across the face. “What did I just say?” she reminded him.

He rubbed his cheek, attempting to soothe the pain before answering properly this time. “It’s straightforward, no? Makes an engram of someone’s mind before erasing it from the body, leaving it an empty vessel, a sleeve, for the next construct.”

“And then how do you transfer a construct into that body?”

“It’s a very complex procedure. I wouldn’t be able to put it into layman’s terms for you.”

“He’s lying,” Kara barked, prompting Jordan to place an arm in front of her as a precautionary measure.

“You better keep that vile woman away from me,” Jensson demanded.

“I can’t hold her back forever, so you better start talking,” Jordan replied.

With a heavy sigh, Jensson did so. “I wasn’t lying. The procedure is multifaceted. Multiple systems and programs all run to initiate Soulkiller and then facilitate the transfer. The body has to be prepped in a cooling chamber before the transfer can begin. If you don’t, the brain will be fried, melting away during the procedure.”

“How do you choose new bodies for an engram?” Ellis asked.

“It’s based on neurophysiological and biological compatibility. The more a new sleeve resembles the old one on a molecular level, the more chance that the transfer will proceed smoothly without side effects. If you try transferring into an incompatible body, it will more than likely fail. If it doesn’t, then you will likely die a painful death with your body slowly ceasing function as it begins to attack itself until you are no more.”

“Is it possible to do a retransfer?”

“Meaning?”

“Wiping the new construct from a sleeve and then transferring the old one began into it? In other words, giving someone back their own body.”

Jensson’s interest peaked. He leaned forward in the chair, appearing to be thinking hard about the potential outcomes of a procedure that had never been before. “In theory, certain factors depending, yes. Why is this your concern?”

“Remember Cody Reed?” Ellis asked.

Jensson thought for a moment before a wicked smile spread across his face. “Miss Reed, yes. The new sleeve for Sinclair.”

“She’s my sister. I want to get her back.”

“Interesting. And you plan to do this how?”

“Storming the tower. We know Soulkiller is there, just not where exactly. So, where is it?”

Jensson broke out in a laugh of disbelief, shifting his gaze between the three of them as he did so. “I sincerely underestimated just how stupid you three are. I thought coming after me was lunacy, but you surprise me with perhaps the stupidest convictions someone has ever held. Cody’s engram was destroyed after the procedure was done.”

“It wasn’t. She escaped into the Tower’s subnet and that means I can retrieve her engram and give her body back to her. Where is Soulkiller?” Ellis repeated.

“In a lab.”

“Where’s the fucking lab?!” Ellis raised her voice, growing impatient with him.

“Does it really matter if I tell you or not? Perhaps I should, if only just to see you miserably fail and get butchered in your vacuous mission. But no, I think I won’t.”

Ellis traded the injection gun for one loaded with bullets, putting it to the side of Jensson’s head. “How about now?”

“You think the very man who cultivated immortality himself is afraid of death?” Jensson replied with a chuckle, “Kill me today, I see you tomorrow in a new body. Don’t bother to threaten me with torture either. I have just activated the pain nullifier in my cyberdeck. I won’t feel a thing no matter what you do to me.”

“I could jack in and disable it.”

“Perhaps. But that would take time, and time is not of the essence. You must hurry if you still plan to go through with your mission. Lord will soon find you. Never mind that, do you know what it’s like to live your whole life in a physical body only to then become a digital construct stuck in cyberspace? Your sister is slowly going insane, losing herself to a digital world without substance. Even assuming that you would be able to storm the tower, get Sinclair and make it to the lab… You might find that your sister’s construct is no longer a true engram of who she once was.”

Kara’s thin patience wore out. She had seen and heard enough from him. “This is fucking bullshit! You’re going to pay for what you did.”

She charged forward only for Jordan to wrap his arms around her once again. “Kara, stop,” he pleaded as he pushed her back, “You heard him. There’s no point in killing him.”

“I don’t care if there’s no point, he needs to pay.”

“No, we might still need him. Kara… no,” he said, speaking in a softer voice in an attempt to placate her.

“I’ve got the blood of a fucking child on my hands because of him!” she snapped. Despite her insistence, Jordan wasn’t willing to budge. He wouldn’t let her spill Jensson’s blood despite the heinous sins he had committed, and that was when she decided she had enough, “You know what? Fuck you. Fuck both of you!” she screamed at Ellis as well, “I’m fucking done.”

She shoved Jordan back before turning around and swinging the door open.

“Kara,” he attempted to call her back to no avail.

“I’m done,” she said once more, before storming out and slamming the door behind her.

Ellis swapped out the serum in the injection gun back to the tranquilizer fluid, putting it to Jensson’s neck and putting him to sleep once again. “Let her go, she needs to cool off,” she said, pulling out her connection cable from her neural port and plugging it into Jensson’s.

“What are you doing?” Jordan asked.

“Seeing if I can pull anything of use off his cyberdeck.”

“Let me know if you find something.”

“Still no news on that virus?” Ellis asked, hoping for a positive answer while knowing that the chances of one coming back were zero.

Jordan sighed, “Nothing but dead ends. This was our only lead.”

As soon as Kara was out the door, she burst into a sprint across the Californian desert. She had no end goal in mind, only that she needed a way to let out the frustration and anger that had been building inside of her. She eventually came to a stop when the city looked to be nothing more than a speck of light in the far distance.

Back in the car, Jordan hadn’t been wrong. Clark, Barry, Alex… now, Caleb’s name could be added to the list. A galaxy’s weight of emotions piled onto her and it became unbearable. Anger, sadness and desolation, emotions she had become all too familiar with but never felt this overpowering. This time, so overpowering that it completely crushed her, forcing her to collapse to her knees. It wasn’t the first time in her life that she felt like she was at her wit’s end, but this time felt different.

Returning to Earth had been a second chance. On the surface, it was just a second chance to kill Lord again and for sure this time, but it was so, so much more than that. Killing Lord wasn’t just personal, it could end his grip over her once beloved city and perhaps give… hope. It would give hope to the people that their oppressors could be toppled and that there was always a chance things could change for the better. It was a second chance to right her wrongs, to save lives that she otherwise wouldn’t have. She didn’t want to admit that outright, having tried to shove these notions deep down and reduce her return to nothing more than a blind lust for vengeance. But she couldn’t keep lying to herself and ignore them anymore.

All she could think about was holding that young boy’s pulverised head in her hands, leaking blood and brains out as she stared into the white of his lifeless eyes. It was all she could see. The image had been burned into her brain the moment she saw it. That was it, right there… The image of her failure.

She scorned herself for coming back to Earth.

She should have known that nothing good was going to come out of it. At the same time, staying on Sadostia to continue living the way she had for the past 64 years seemed grim. Nothing about her existence made sense to her anymore as an inner conflict tore her apart, forcing her to revisit the question she had been grappling with for decades…

Why the fuck was she still here?

Why hadn’t she been granted a heroic death or a chance to grow old with a family and pass peacefully? Why had Rao, out of everyone to have ever lived, chosen her to carry out this fate?

She searched and searched for the answer without ever realising that she was the answer. This was only ever meant to be her fate because she was the only soul capable of carrying its burden. No one else could have taken this path and still been standing here today. She had been broken into a million pieces countless times only to find a way to put herself back together in a way that no one else could have. Anyone else would have imploded, but she was still here with a grip on her sanity. A loose, fading grip, but a grip nonetheless. For all she had done, for as much darkness that had consumed her, there still remained that dim light within her, pushing her forward. She was still a paragon of hope and resilience, scraping and crawling her way through hell seemingly without any purpose other than to just keep moving forward.

It took her a long time to find the strength to get back to her feet, but once she did, she began running again, this time back to the city. She knew where she was going, but she wasn’t sure what compelled her to make her way there. Perhaps, she thought, it was because she had spent so much time trying to forget her time on Earth that her mind was forcing her to remind herself why she couldn’t, and more importantly shouldn’t.

She arrived at the former National City Cemetery. It had long since been filled to capacity and was no longer in use. The pleasant neighbourhood it was once near had gone to shit and the grounds hadn’t been maintained in years, but she needed to see them just one more time. She remembered exactly where each of the graves were. Lena Luthor, she visited first. Then Nia Nal. Winn Schott. James Olsen. Cat Grant.

21 miles east of Star City was the next closest stop. She didn’t bother to check up on the city. She ran straight to the former Queen Mansion, which had been converted into an orphanage by the time she left Earth. She arrived to see the estate still fairly well-maintained, bringing her just a drop of joy as she realised that it was still operating. At this time of night, nobody was around to stop her from advancing towards the six gravestones out back. She didn’t care for the first two, Robert and Moira Queen. The rest of them were what she came for.

Oliver Queen. Thea Queen. William Clayton. Roy Harper.

Then, it was the visit she was dreading. Midvale was next. The run there felt painful and slow. Heavy rain poured down, but she didn’t care as she agonisingly took laboured steps towards the grave of the person whom she had loved the most in her entire life.

Alex Danvers was buried next to her mother. Rather, Eliza had been buried next to her daughter, having had to bear the unfortunate pain of losing her child. She watched as a mother in the distance shooed away her child and scurried away at the sight of Kara, unfazed by the rain. One wouldn’t have noticed with the rain, but after just a few seconds of being in front of Alex’s grave, tears started streaming down her face.

Every memory they had ever had together ran through her mind, from the first moment they met each other until the last time Kara held Alex in her arms. The sibling bickering, the arguments, the laughs shared, the times when they found comfort in each other at their low points… it all came flooding back and Kara struggled to contain herself. A part of her almost regretted coming back to visit Alex, but she wouldn’t have felt right in her heart if she left again without doing so. She stood in front of Alex’s gravestone for nearly a half hour before she found the courage to move again.

Barry had been buried in a cemetery within city limits. She was pleased to see Central City resemble something closer to a liveable place. It was a sight for sore eyes after all that was in her face in the past few days was the grim Knight City. Unlike Knight City too, the statue of The Flash had been kept up as well. She experienced a moment of solace as she took it all in, feeling a hint of joy that at least Barry’s legacy was intact. With the day having taken a heavy physical and emotional toll on her, she found herself having to drop to a knee in front of Barry’s grave.

Her moment of tranquillity was interrupted when she sensed a presence behind her. She turned her head to glance back, spotting a woman with a curious gaze on her. Neither of them could make out the other’s facial features well in the poorly lit graveyard, but she slowly started to walk directly towards Kara.

“Hey,” the woman called out in a pacifying tone devoid of any danger.

Kara recognised the voice immediately. She quickly rose to her feet, pacing away from Barry’s grave.

“Hey, wait,” the woman said again, increasing her pace to catch up with Kara.

She wasn’t a threat, but Kara knew exactly who she was and didn’t want to face her again after all these years.

“You were at my father’s grave.”

Kara wanted to run, but she couldn’t. Not only could Nora West-Allen easily catch up to her, but she didn’t want to anymore. She was tired of running. Running away from her problems, from people, from her feelings, from her thoughts, from her struggles… she was tired of it all.

She stopped in place, having to press her fingers into her eyes to stop the tears that were welling. She sensed that Nora was no more than a few feet behind her now and forced herself to turn around and face her. Nora almost lost her grip on the small pack of flowers she had been holding in her left hand.

“Kara?”

Kara nodded, wiping the tears from her cheek with a finger. “Hey, Nora,” she meekly replied, unsuccessfully attempting a smile.

Nora West-Allen didn’t bother with any more formalities. She simply let the flowers drop to the floor before rushing forward to embrace Kara in a tight hug. When Kara told Nora she was leaving Earth forever, Nora believed her without any doubt. It was difficult having to say goodbye to someone she idolised and had mentored her, but she understood. Unlike Jordan, she had no resentment or contempt. She had long since had to make peace with the probable reality that Kara had somehow died out there in the universe by now, likely having spent her last moments alone.

Nora felt elation upon seeing a woman who had meant so much to her still alive, but painful compassion upon seeing her in this current state – Dishevelled, tearful, blood staining her clothes and hands. Kara sheepishly wrapped her arms around Nora, having forgotten how to reciprocate a genuine embrace with someone she deeply cared for. Kara’s coy reciprocation of the embrace made Nora realise this was a hug that she more than needed.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” Nora said in disbelief as they separated from the long embrace. She cupped her hands around Kara’s cheeks before pulling her in for a hug again, this one a little shorter. “Kara, what’s going on?” she asked with concern.

Kara found herself unable to articulate any words, only being able to shrug her shoulders. Seeing that Kara was distraught and battered, Nora set aside any potential further line of questioning.

“Come on,” she said, gently wrapping a hand around Kara’s arm, “Let’s talk somewhere else.”

“We’ll have two Flash’s, please.”

Although CC Jitters had long since expanded into a franchise with multiple shops across the country, “The Flash” was still a drink only available to Central City’s residents.

“I didn’t think they’d still be serving those after all this time,” Kara smiled.

“It’s been their most popular drink for over a century. They’re never going to scrap it,” Nora replied.

Some CC Jitters stayed open 24/7 like this one, others operated on regular hours. There was no better place for her to bring Kara than here. She needed the warmth, literally and figuratively, and having guessed that she had just recently been in Knight City, needed to be in a setting that was absent of any form of plight. Nora ran back to her place to grab a clean jacket for Kara, also directing her to the bathroom where she finally washed the blood off her arms. They sat in silence for a few moments, with Nora not pressing Kara to talk and allowing her to open up when she felt comfortable doing so.

“I heard you retired?” Kara eventually asked.

“Yeah, been quite a few years now. As a speedster, one of the most difficult things to do is to take things slow and just enjoy the moment. Retirement forces that, so it took some adjusting but I think I’ve got the hang of it now.”

“Hey, I’m, uh,” Kara stuttered through her words, “I’m really sorry about Bart.”

Kara’s tone was more apologetic than compassionate, coming across as if she felt responsible for Bart’s death in some way. Nora simply brushed her off with a warm smile. “You don’t have to apologise, Kara. We knew the risks of that life. I made it out, he didn’t. That’s just the way it goes.”

“Is that why you retired?”

Nora nodded. “He was my day one partner-in-crime. Or partner-in-justice, I should say. I went on for a little while longer without him, but I just couldn’t do it.”

They paused their conversation momentarily when the server brought them the drinks. Kara’s eyes immediately fixated on the little lightning bolt drawn in the foam of the drink.

“When did you get back?” Nora asked, getting Kara’s attention back.

“Just a few days ago,” she succinctly replied, “Did you ever get the people who killed Bart?”

“I left that up to Jordan. I’ve seen how the pursuit of vengeance can poison hearts. I didn’t want it to poison mine. And I can see… that poison is running through your veins right now,” Nora said with heavy sorrow, “I knew that if you were still alive, it would only be a matter of time before you heard about him and came back. How did you find out?”

“Ellis,” Kara replied, “She found me, came asking for my help.”

“Help with what?”

“Lord took Cody. He’s used her body as a sleeve for someone else’s construct. We plan to get her engram back into her own body.”

Nora had been stunned into silence. It took her a few seconds to process the revelation before she found the ability to let out a single word. “How?”

“Storming the only place we can do the procedure… Lord Tower.”

Nora’s eyes flared before she slowly shook her head. “Kara, that’s suicide.”

“It’s our only chance,” Kara sighed in desperation, “The blood wasn’t mine. We hijacked a convoy today trying to get to the scientist who created the procedure. But the fucker didn’t give us anything.”

Nora sat in silence for a few moments, looking past her initial disapproval of their plan. She shared a very similar pain to Kara in having lost her sibling, a pain that Ellis was now experiencing as well. It was a pain that could never fully be quelled unless you could bring them back to life. Unlike her and Kara, Ellis had a chance to do just that.

“You guys should have told me about this sooner,” Nora said, “You can’t be going at it just the two of you.”

“It’s not just the two of us. We’ve got Jordan as well. We had a plan, it was right fucking there!” Kara’s voice raised, “Get Jensson, figure out how the procedure works, get a virus that could cripple the tower’s security systems… But it all fucking failed. We’ve got nothing. Seems like it was always meant to be a suicide mission.”

“The virus would have never worked.”

“You think we didn’t know that?!” Kara snapped, before swallowing the lump in her throat and apologetically lowering her voice, “Sorry. We knew it was a long shot, but we were just hoping for… something.”

Kara felt her eyes becoming watery again, gently wiping at them with a finger before continuing.

“I failed to save a child today. I can’t have any more lives on my conscience. I’m not letting Ellis and Jordan into that tower without being sure they’ll make it out alive. I should’ve listened to my gut feeling that this was doomed from the start.”

Nora felt tears forming in her own eyes as she listened to Kara’s shaky voice and watched her tear droplets fall. She thought she had seen her idol and mentor at the lowest point in her life, right before she left Earth. She prayed that Kara would find a new sense of purpose in the cosmos, perhaps finding a new home and finding a peace that she had long since lost. But it was clear that the universe had not been kind to her. The Kara in front of her now was scarred several times more than the one she had last seen, a broken soul that had been shattered into a million more pieces.

She could only provide comfort by wrapping her hand around Kara’s, gently rubbing her bruised knuckles with her thumb. But Nora didn’t want to stop there. She began straining her mind to think of possible ways that she could help them. Nothing came to mind initially. It was hard to have hope when the once most hopeful person you knew had lost all of it.

But Nora still tried. She tried and tried, trying to reach the deepest archives of her mind to remember or think of something that could restore some hope. One finally came to mind and while she wasn’t sure it would amount to anything, she felt she needed to give it a try.

“Kara… I think you’ve been looking at it the wrong way. You don’t need a virus, you need an AI. A really powerful AI.”

Kara squinted her eyes. “An AI? Where could we even get one?”

A small smile crept onto Nora’s face. “I know just the place.”

S.T.A.R. Labs. After all these years, it was still up and running as a research facility in the middle of Central City. Just like Jordan with the Kent Farm, this place was more than just a building or piece of land to Nora. Even though it was no longer the headquarters of a speedster hero, she worked tirelessly to ensure the company continued to make meaningful contributions to various scientific and medical fields. It was a way for her to uphold her father’s legacy by continuing to do whatever good she could without a supersuit.

Much of the building had undergone several renovations, mainly to enhance the aesthetic and make it feel more welcoming inside. The metahuman prison in the pipeline had been scrapped, and the only part of the building that remained untouched was a single room. Hidden behind a wall in the west wing of the building, Kara was the only other person on the planet that knew of its existence besides Nora and Jordan. Nora herself hadn’t entered the room in a few years, having to take a few moments to remember exactly where on the wall its entrance was.

Inside the Time Vault, a case stood next to the projector, with the lack of light forcing Kara to look closer to see what was contained inside. Three rings, each coloured differently – White, Red, Purple. The systems took a couple of seconds to boot up, eventually lighting up the room in a bright white light while a blue holographic projection of a smiling face appeared in front of Kara and Nora.

“Hey, Gideon,” Nora enthusiastically greeted.

“Hello, Nora. Kara Zor-El, it’s quite a pleasure to see you again after all these years,” the AI warmly replied.

“Good to see you too,” Kara nodded.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” Gideon asked.

“We wanted to know if you would be able to help us with something,” Nora began, “It’s to do with Lord Tower.”

“Lord Tech’s Soulkiller program. Do you know what that is?” Kara asked.

“Of course.”

“Good. I need to get into the tower to facilitate an engram transfer. The problem is that there’s no way in for us besides guns blazing, but if the tower’s security systems aren’t disabled, me and my friends are going to be killed. We thought we could find a supervirus that could do that for us, but such a thing doesn’t exist. Could you possibly help us?”

Gideon froze for a few moments, seeming to ponder whether she was capable of aiding them. “I believe so. If you could give me access to the tower’s subnet, I should be able to temporarily assume control of all of its systems.”

“Could you find a way for us to do the engram transfer?”

“Once I’ve taken control of the subnet, I’ll have access to all of its data. I’ll have access to all of the information on the procedure, and with control of the systems, I will be able to facilitate the transfer myself so long as you have the body ready for the procedure.”

Kara felt a wave of relief and thrill radiate through her body, pressing her hands to her face as she revelled in knowing that perhaps she hadn’t come this far for nothing, that maybe she hadn’t failed just yet.

“How would we give you access to the subnet?” Nora asked.

“I’ll copy my program onto a datashard. All you would need to do is insert the shard into any of the tower’s access points.”

As Kara stood there, her thrill momentarily turned into something more sinister. Her demons reminded her of the exact reason why she had come back and she harkened back to those incensed words that Victor Vektor had uttered to her in his clinic.

“Don’t settle for a penny when you could empty the entire vault… Burn that fucking tower to the ground.”

“Gideon,” she called out, “Could you destroy the subnet after we’re done with the transfer?”

“Maybe, but I can’t say with absolute certainty. Destroying a subnet of that size might be a step too far for me. I’ll only know for sure once I’m within it.”

Gideon still seemed a little unsure of herself, but those words were enough for Kara. Burning the tower down physically might not be on the table, but the prospect of potentially destroying the subnet and rendering Lord’s empire toothless seemed far more rewarding.

“I need to get this back to Jordan and Ellis,” Kara turned and said to Nora.

“I’ll quickly grab the datashard and then we’ll go together,” Nora replied, before surprising Kara by taking a step towards the glass case and taking out her purple ring.

“What are you doing?” Kara asked.

“You guys could use the extra pair of helping hands.”

“No. We didn’t come to you because we knew you were done with all this.”

“There’s no better reason to come out of retirement than this.”

“Nora, remember what I told you? I can’t have any more lives on my conscience.”

Nora smiled before placing a hand on Kara’s shoulder. “I thought you’d changed so much, but you’re still the same old Kara deep down inside, thinking that the responsibility of every life out there is in your hands. Kara, this is my choice. You’re my friend, and friends don’t let each other walk through hell alone.”

“You’re so much like your father,” Kara marvelled, placing a hand on Nora’s cheek. “I don’t know what we would have done without you.”

“Good thing you’ll never have to know.”

Chapter Text

“Here.”

Jordan placed the wrapped burger in front of Ellis, taking a seat next to her on the dining table of the motel room.

“Not hungry,” Ellis blankly replied.

“Unlike me, you actually need to eat to function. Please,” he requested, sliding it closer towards her.

Half-heartedly, Ellis opened the wrapper and took a single bite of the burger before putting it back down. She glanced at her watch to check how much time had passed since Kara had stormed out, “Been a couple of hours,” she said, “Wonder where she went.”

Jordan softly chuckled. “A little earlier today, I would’ve said she hopped on her ship and ran away again.”

“You’ve been a real asshole to her since she got back,” Ellis chastised him, “All that shit you said in the car… she didn’t need to hear that.”

Jordan sighed. “I know. I don’t want to hate her, Ellis. She’s my aunt. I couldn’t imagine a Thanksgiving or Christmas without her for most of my life. Best gifts I ever got were from her. Some of my best childhood memories are with her… So, with all that said, you can imagine what it felt like when she up and left without even telling me to my face.”

“She’s had to say goodbye to every person she’s ever loved. Have you never thought that maybe she didn’t have it in her to do it one more time? That maybe it was better that way for both her and you to not have to go through that?”

“Maybe,” Jordan nodded, finally beginning to shed his selfishness, “It was difficult seeing her like that today. I guess it reminded me that she isn’t the heartless bitch I painted her out to be.”

A gust of wind outside the door interrupted their conversation. Jordan used his x-ray vision to quickly identify Kara but then realised she hadn’t returned alone. It only took him another second to make out the other person, immediately rushing to the door.

“Kara, you’re back,” he said before pausing, “With Nora.”

“Been a minute, Jordan,” Nora smiled.

“What are you doing here?”

“Here to help. Seems like you guys need it.”

Jordan glanced at her hands, immediately making out her ring and shaking his head, “Uh-uh, we’re not dragging you into this.”

“I’ve already had this conversation with Kara and I really don’t feel like rehashing it,” Nora ranted, “I’m helping whether you like it or not, so are you going to let us in or leave us out here?”

Reluctantly, Jordan stepped aside to let them enter. Ellis was elated to see another friendly face in Nora, promptly rising to her feet to embrace her. “It’s so good to see you,” she beamed.

“You too,” Nora reciprocated, “We’re going to get her back, I promise.”

“We know how to get past the security systems,” Kara optimistically jabbered, “We’ll use an AI. It’ll take control of the systems and disable them.”

“Good idea, but it’s not like we can just go shopping for one powerful enough and willing to do that for us,” Jordan remarked.

“Don’t need to, already got her,” Kara replied, placing a small portable projector on the floor in the center of the room.

Ellis raised an eyebrow. “Her?”

Nora placed the datashard in one of the projector’s slots, instantly booting it up and prompting Gideon’s face to manifest in front of them.

“Gideon?” Jordan gawked.

“Hello, Jordan,” she replied.

“Hi, I’m-“ Ellis awkwardly tried to introduce herself, but Gideon quickly interjected.

“Ellis Reed. Daughter of Zeb and Sofia Reed. Great, great-granddaughter of Oliver Queen.”

“Okay, Gideon, Kara says you can shut down the security systems for us. How?” Jordan asked.

“By giving me access to the Lord Tower subnet. The datashard Nora has just needs to be inserted into any access point in the tower, then I could hypothetically assume control of its systems, shutting down security measures as well as facilitating the engram transfer you wish to do.”

“Hypothetically?” Jordan questioned.

“There is a slim chance that I would not be able to break through the tower’s ICE, but I consider it an unlikely scenario.”

“This your idea?” Jordan asked, turning to Nora, who nodded. “You’re a fucking godsend.”

“It’s not just about the security systems or the transfer,” Kara chimed in, “Gideon can destroy Lord Tech’s subnet.”

“Potentially,” Gideon quickly added, “I’m still not sure if that’s within my capabilities.”

“The point is that she could be able to. You know what this means, right?” Kara asked, stepping forward towards Jordan, “We’re not just killing Lord and getting Cody back… This is our chance to destroy the very foundations upon which his empire is built. Lord Tech would be left in ruins, it would collapse and its grip over millions of lives would be let loose. This is not just ‘sticking it to the corp’, it’s us putting a fucking knife in its throat.”

“As long as it doesn’t come at the cost of Cody,” Jordan replied.

“Of course,” Kara agreed, “We still need to find a way through the initial checkpoint and into the building. But once we’re in, we just need to plug that datashard into any data access point and we’ll be cruising.”

“I’ve got good news on that front,” Ellis replied, “The digital access tag needed to enter the tower? I managed to pull it from Jensson’s cyberdeck. Give me some time to modify it for one of us, we could get through that first checkpoint easily.”

“What are we going to do with him?” Kara asked, turning her gaze to Jensson’s unconscious body.

“He might still be useful,” Jordan firmly replied, affirming that he was to be kept alive, “I made a call to some friends. He’s going to be taken to a secure holding facility in BC where he’ll spend the rest of his days in a cold, dark cell.”

Kara didn’t protest. She knew that a quick death was a gift that Jensson didn’t deserve. He deserved to die slowly and the thought of him rotting away in a dreary corner for the next few decades, if he could even last that long, was enough to appease her.

“What next?” Nora asked.

“We should stay here for the night,” Jordan said, “We head back into the city tomorrow, do some more recon of the tower and then hit it tomorrow night.”

More reconnaissance of the tower didn’t give them anything other than the exact amount of adversaries stationed outside. 2 large mechs, 10 men, 10 ground drones and 5 aerial drones all on constant alert. The second checkpoint looked to be less heavy on security, but they knew there were at least a hundred more combatants inside along with a variety of turrets.

In concept, the plan was simple. Jordan and Nora would pass by the first checkpoint using the modified access tags. The second checkpoint got a little more tricky, as the biometric scanners wouldn’t take very long to identify them both as supers. Once that happened, Jordan would need to hold off the ensuing security forces for just a few seconds as Nora sped over to the reception desk’s access point with Gideon’s shard in hand, plugging her in and allowing her to take over the system. She could then turn the drones and turrets against their own, help eliminate squadrons and allow Kara to bring Ellis into the tower before it was placed on lockdown to prevent Lord and Sinclair from leaving. Once the engram transfer was complete, Nora would speed Ellis and Cody out of the building to safety while Kara and Jordan then went for Lord.

Even with all the drones and mechs down, the army of cyber-enhanced psychos would be ready to mow them down at every corner. There was the chance that Gideon couldn’t assume full control of the tower’s systems and security measures such as turrets and meta-dampening fields could still be active, in which case Nora and Ellis would lose their greatest advantages. However, Jordan and Kara, along with her array of alien weaponry, were considered the equalisers in that regard. If they found themselves in trouble, Jordan had two special airhypos loaded with doses of solar energy. If they were compromised, they could take a swig and amplify their abilities for a short while, but they only had two, one each, so they couldn’t be wasted at an inopportune time.

They were just a couple of hours away from going through with it. They had already all been assigned their roles and weapons. Now, it was just time to mentally prepare. They were all well aware that this could be their last couple of hours alive. Nora was fidgeting with her ring, only now fully realising the significance of putting that suit on again. Ellis was doing nothing other than scrolling through her entire album of photos of her and Cody. She had thought about this for months. Nothing else mattered to her more than getting her sister back. It seemed a pipe dream all this time, but now, it was tangible. It was within her reach, right there ready to be grasped. This was the moment in which she had to make it all count, and being completely honest with herself, she wasn’t sure she could. But she was sure of one thing, and that was that she would be damned if she didn’t die trying.

“Where’s Kara?” Jordan asked, returning from his last scouting of the tower and immediately noticing that she wasn’t with them in the apartment. Ellis gestured with her head to the open window.

For Jordan, all he felt right now was shame and regret. Just a few days ago, he had been given the opportunity to reunite with all that was left of his family and heritage, and he had squandered it. He had chastised Kara, belittling and pushing her away at every turn, displaying a complete lack of empathy and compassion towards her. That all changed just that instant he looked into her eyes after Caleb had been shot. Within them, he saw an immeasurable weight of survivor’s guilt crushing her, a soul aching from the loss of more lives than he could imagine. He saw whatever pain and hurt he had felt multiplied by a thousand in her, which then turned back to him and bludgeoned him awake from his hate. He needed to make things right with her, knowing that he might not ever get another chance at doing so after tonight.

He stepped out onto the thin ledge outside the window, glancing towards his right to see Kara sitting on a beam that stretched towards the next building.

Kara, just like Ellis, sat with thoughts of her sister. Unlike Ellis, she didn’t have a whole album. Instead, she just had a lone picture. She and Alex sat on the couch of her apartment, their arms around each other with Kara’s legs stretched over Alex’s and her head resting on her shoulder. Both of them beaming, buoyant, full of life… It felt like a million years ago, and yet also like it was just yesterday. Killing Lord seemed to feel more like revenge for herself than vengeance for her sister. She needed it. She craved the satisfaction of ripping him limb from limb again, and it wasn’t what Alex would have wanted her to do. If Alex was here, she would have wanted nothing more than for Ellis to get Cody back, even if it meant sacrificing her own life to do it.

Over the past few days, Kara had seen glimpses of herself in Ellis, mostly her past good but some ever so small flashes of her current bitterness. She had the chance to be the help that she didn’t have. If they couldn’t get Cody, she could see Ellis going down the same path that she had and she couldn’t allow that to happen.

She noticed Jordan just as he was a few feet away, shimmying across the ledge towards her. They shared a glance of eye contact, followed by a placating half-smile.

“Hey,” he said as he neared.

“Joining me for a smoke?” Kara asked, taking a drag on her cigarette as she placed the picture back in her pocket.

“Oh, no,” Jordan chuckled as he took a seat next to her.

“What’s up?” Kara asked.

Jordan took a moment to reach into a pocket of his jacket, pulling out a picture of his own and handing it to her. “Remember this day?”

Kara immediately recognised it as the living room of the Kent farmhouse. A sizeable, overly decorated evergreen conifer served as the backdrop to the group of people smiling in front of it. Kal, Lois, Lucy, James, J’onn, Alex, Eliza and her, standing in the center holding the 6-year-old twins, Jonathan and Jordan, in one arm each.

“Christmas, 2016,” Kara remembered.

“Best Christmas I ever had,” Jordan reminisced, “Over the past week, I’ve said a lot of things I shouldn’t have. It’s pretty obvious that I was never able to deal with you leaving. Only way I did was by trying to hate you for it, but deep down, I don’t. Never have. You’re the only family I have left. I don’t want us to be on bad terms. I’m sorry... about everything.”

Kara Zor-El had become accustomed to hiding agony, now so good at it that sometimes she herself didn’t even realise that she was hurting. Only now, as Jordan apologised, did she realise how much he had stung her in the past week. However, that made her appreciate his sincere apology all the more. The feeling was mutual. Kara may have thrown her jibes back at him, but there was never a genuine resentment beneath it.

There was a point in time when she could have been a good mother and experienced the joys of being one, but she had never had the opportunity to have children of her own. She did, however, have her nephews, the closest thing possible to her own two baby boys. She remembered the countless drives and flights to see them at every chance she could. She remembered promising to help Kal and Lois protect them from the dangers that were brought upon them by their identities. In a different time, she would have leapt towards Jordan right now and embraced him in a hug so tight that it would have killed a non-Kryptonian, but now, she could only try to express that kind of emotion in the only way she had become used to.

“You’re a fucking prick, you know that?” Kara jested with a slight smile, “A whiny, annoying little shit, but I forgive you. I know I should have seen you before I left, but I just didn’t have it in me. It felt easier to just turn my back and go. For the record, I didn’t love you any less than Jonathan. The reason why it may have seemed like I was there more for him was just because he needed it more. I lived in your father’s shadow for a long time, and Jon always lived in yours. He needed someone who understood that feeling, someone who could help him deal with it. And now, you’re the one in Kal’s shadow. Jordan, you don’t have to be what he was. No one could ever fill his boots or live up to his legacy, you don’t have to try to just because you’re his son.”

“Then why do I feel like I need to?”

“Because you’re your father’s son. He wanted to do the impossible too. And he damn near did sometimes, but even Kryptonians have limits,” Kara chuckled.

“Are you really going to leave again after we’re done?”

“I said goodbye to this planet a long, long time ago. Coming back has just reminded me why I left in the first place. I wish I could be able to stick around, but I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Where will you go?”

Kara pondered her multitude of options, unable to settle on one right now. “I don’t know. I’ll worry about that after we’re done. That’s assuming I survive.”

“I’m sure you will.”

“You don’t have to be optimistic for the sake of it. Just say it like it is, even with Gideon and Nora, we might be fucked.”

Though he would have liked Kara to be a little more hopeful, he found a strange appreciation for her bluntness. Knowing that she would be gone soon, one way or the other, he knew he needed to make the most of this short third chance with her, so he figured to do it in the way that best suited her.

“Well, then I guess I’ll have that cigarette,” he replied with a smile. Kara obliged as she handed him a cig and her lighter. She watched as he almost put it to his lips the wrong way around first before correcting his error and setting it alight. He reacted exactly as she guessed he would. The first drag and subsequent inhalation burned his throat with the ashy taste dirtying his mouth, causing him to begin coughing.

“This shit’s terrible,” he grunted.

“You can hand it back if you’re going to complain,” Kara replied.

“No, no, I’ll see it through.”

No more words needed to be said between them. They traded one last smiling glance before taking comfort in the serendipitous silence that was only ever broken by more coughs from Jordan and then giggles from Kara.

Once they were both done with their cigs, they made their way back into the apartment. Jordan immediately made his way over to a water bottle, while Kara took a seat next to Nora.

“You know you still have time to back out if you want,” Kara remarked, a part of her wishing that Nora decided to do so. Instead, Nora shook her head.

“What’s the point of having superspeed if you’re only going to use it to run away from danger instead of towards it?” Nora replied.

“Some might argue that’s the whole point of it.”

Nora shook her head with a smile, “Not for a West-Allen.”

Kara’s vigilance and enhanced senses felt the subtle, steady increase in vibrations before the others. She didn’t think much of it initially, chalking it down to another AV passing by close to the building. However, when they reached an intensity greater than what she had ever felt before, it raised suspicion. It got to a point where the others tangibly felt them too until an AV come to a stop outside Ellis’ window. Its door flung open instantly before Kara spotted an armed man throw a sticky explosive device towards the window.

“Get down!” Kara screamed, rushing towards Nora to shield her while Jordan did the same for Ellis.

Her quick reaction might have saved their lives as the device blew apart the wall, exploding and flinging shards of metal debris in their direction. The AV hovered closer to the large breach, allowing the eight men inside to step into the wrecked apartment. Before Kara had a chance to react, a collar glided through the air and wrapped around her neck. It tightened in an instant, but that was the least of Kara’s concerns. The immediate burn was soon replaced by a terrible piercing into her neck as the collar released powerful electric bursts. Her neck muscles spasmed first before the currents travelled down her back, leaving her writhing in pain on the floor as she found herself unable to tug it off.

Considering the circumstances, Jordan had found himself in quite a lucky position. The next collar had been flung in his direction, but having dived towards Kara’s stockpile of weapons, he quickly grabbed one of her pistols and shot it out of the air before it could reach him. His next shots were aimed at the first group of three men that had entered. The plasma blasts burned through their armour, dropping them one by one. He was forced to take a couple of bullets to the chest to shield Ellis, but he soldiered through the hits to drop the rest of the adversaries in front of him. Once they were dealt with, Ellis jumped out from behind him and grabbed the heavy sniper, rushing to the breach to take aim outside. Two more AVs hovered around, but her marksmanship allowed her to shoot out the engines of both and send them hurtling down towards the streets.

Despite being in pain herself, Nora crawled a little closer to Kara. With a vibration of her hand, she cut through the collar, finally allowing Kara relief and giving her back the ability to breathe. Jordan rushed towards them, initially seeking to check on Kara.

“I’m fine,” Kara let out in a strained voice before Jordan could say anything. She attempted to get back to her feet, but she could only get to her knees, still needing a few more seconds to regain control of her body.

“It’s Lord. He’s found us,” Jordan trembled.

Nora grimaced as she glanced towards her leg, prompting Jordan to do the same. Kara hadn’t been able to shield her from every piece of debris, as a large metal shard had embedded itself above her knee. She let out a cry of agony as she pulled the shard out to let her healing process start, but she knew full well that running was going to be off the table for the next few minutes.

Ellis scouted the streets and airspace around them. Every intersection she could see was blocked off by a platoon, while the airspace was now being flooded with drones. She was able to pick off a few of the closest ones, but they couldn’t remain here as sitting ducks any longer.

“They’re all over the fucking place,” she said in exasperation.

Having regained most of her strength, Kara stumbled back to her feet and began processing the situation they were in. Nora was compromised, unable to run, while Ellis’ human body had no chance of standing up to the tech and firepower they were up against. She and Jordan could mount a defence, but they had been taken by surprise and she was weakened, so it was only a matter of time before they would be brought down and subdued. There was only one option in Kara’s mind, as had become usual.

“You guys get out of here,” she said, “I’ll draw their attention, lead them away while you escape.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Jordan attempted a protest, but Kara shut him down immediately.

“Lord wants me more than any of you and chances are he wants me alive. All attention will be on me and that’ll give you less resistance getting away.”

Jordan really wanted to argue more, but he couldn’t waste vital seconds trying to change Kara’s mind. He wouldn’t have been able to even with a few hours at his disposal, so he resigned to her impromptu plan and lifted Nora to her feet.

“You hold on long enough for me to get back,” Jordan growled.

Kara ran over to her stockpile, quickly shoving everything in the bag and exchanging it with Ellis for the heavy sniper. With both Ellis and Nora wrapping an arm around his waist, Jordan burst into flight. They were still far from safe, as a squad of drones quickly shifted course and started to follow them. Kara lifted the sniper, picking off most of them until she ran out of bullets. Without any more ammunition to load, she dropped the sniper to the floor before leaping out of the building herself.

She leapt up towards the roof of the building ahead of her, struggling to make a soft landing as her muscles were still spasming. She couldn’t draw every drone away from Jordan, but she knew that most of them would be drawn to her on Lord’s command if she made enough of a commotion. She heated her eyes before spinning around to let out her heat vision and set much of the roof on fire. The bright glow of the blaze along with the cloud of smoke emanating from it served its purpose as a call to arms, drawing the attention of two drone squadrons.

Her hunch that Lord wanted her alive was proved true when the circling drones began firing electric plasma blasts, clearly designed to incapacitate and disarm rather than kill. Her reflexes allowed her to dodge the first few that came her way, remaining on the rooftop for a few more seconds until every drone in the vicinity had surrounded her. Now being their sole target, Kara leapt up and over the drones before landing on a neighbouring rooftop.

The chase ensued over the skyline of Midtown, an army of unmanned tech aircrafts pursuing Kara as she hopped from rooftop to rooftop. Now and then, she saw the opportunity to leap at a drone or blast it with her heat vision, allowing her to worry about one less stream of electric blasts coming her way as she led them in the opposite direction of that which Jordan had gone. It was a risky game she was playing, decreasing her rate of movement to a pace slow enough to let the drones stay focused on her. It was a stroke of luck that the drones weren’t using homing ammunition, but luck always ran out. The self-adjusting firing algorithms of the drones eventually allowed them to win the chase, as they tracked Kara’s now predictable movement patterns and began firing where they expected her to move with greater accuracy.

She was caught between jumps. Two blasts simultaneously crashed into her back as she was mid-air. The force of the blasts knocked her out of the sky, sending her tumbling down as her spatial control was disrupted while the electricity numbed her muscles. If there was ever a time for her to fly again, it would be now. She only had a few seconds before she would crash onto the hard Knight City streets, but that would have been more than enough a century ago. She spun and squirmed in the air, attempting to regain control of an ability that had ironically become alien to her.

It seemed for a moment she might, but just like when she had jumped through the panes at Empathy, Kara failed. Her faculty of flight had become lost to her, and so was everything that it had once represented to her. Having fallen a few hundred feet down, she hurtled down and slammed into the tar road, shattering the ground as she landed face first.

The velocity of the fall had been enough to daze her. She hadn’t time to recuperate before another electric blast hit her leg. She possessed just enough wherewithal to slide away from the second one before slicing apart the drone with another stream of heat vision. The army of drones had descended as well and now with a numb leg, Kara could only stumble and fire back with whatever solar energy she could muster in her eyes. But her undivided focus on the drones caused her to forget that Lord had more than a machine army at his disposal.

The next second, she felt a concentrated pulse of energy burst into her neck, dropping her to the floor again. The bullet hit her with enough power to make her feel as if she had gone through freefall and crashed again, only this time it was amplified to another degree. The effort to get back to her feet, though valiant, was unsuccessful as she was subject to another barrage of electric blasts. Even then, with electricity burning through her blood vessels, muscles spasming and head aching, she fought to rise.

A platoon of a dozen men had surrounded her on the floor, each brandishing guns that housed no bullets nor plasma cartridges. They fired in unison, letting out a steady stream of pure, concentrated sound waves that overloaded her sense of hearing. With an already sensitive, enhanced sense of hearing, Kara’s ghastly shrieks of pain were only muffled out by the sonic cannons. From the second they hit her, they pierced her eardrums and began pulsating through her brain, making her feel as if her head was going to pop at any second. It felt like she was under the waves for hours before they finally stopped, but by then, the damage had already been done. Feeling as if her brain had melted inside her skull, she lay motionless on the floor, staring blankly into the distance through blurry vision as she found herself unable to will her body to fight.

Now, it was time to meet the Devil.

Chapter Text

Kara had succeeded in drawing most of the attention away from Jordan as he fled with Ellis and Nora, but a few drones had lingered and continued to pursue them. It took Jordan a long time to fully shake them off his tail. They were almost halfway up the West Coast before they could be sure that they were in the clear, allowing Jordan to quickly drop Ellis and Nora off at a safe house in Sacramento before bursting back towards Knight City at full speed for Kara.

As he had dreaded, he had been too late. By the time he got back, clean-up had already commenced and the night was resuming as usual. The propaganda machine was in full swing as news projections across the city detailed a successful capture of an unnamed international fugitive that was hiding out in the city. Ellis and Nora eagerly awaited his return, the latter of whom was optimistic that he would return with Kara by his side, but Ellis knew the truth. She could sense it, feeling Kara and Jordan’s energies far apart as he began his return.

Nora hopefully rose from her seat as Jordan flew back into the safe house, but her spirits were swiftly crushed when she saw he was alone. Jordan couldn’t bear to look either of them in the eye as he arrived, realising that everything that he had called Kara – pathetic, bitter, full of anger and a failure – all applied to him now. She was his last remaining family member and the last connection he had to his father, whose legacy was one that Jordan spent every minute of every day trying to honour and hold up. Failing to watch Kara’s back meant he had failed to do just that.

“They got her. I was too late,” he choked in disbelief, “God fucking dammit! Fuck!” he screamed as he turned to the nearest wall and punched a hole through it.

“She’s being held in the tower,” Ellis said, tuning into Kara’s weak psychic energy, “She’s alive, Jordan.”

“Not for long,” he muttered in reply.

“Then we don’t have time to waste.” Ellis sprung up out of her seat, rushing to Jordan and placing a hand on his cheek, “Hey. Snap out of it. She needs us. We’ll take that tower and get her back as well.”

Jordan shook his head. “That’s the thing, Ellis… We can’t. I don’t know if we can take the tower and save both of them. We might have to choose… Kara or Cody.”

“No, we don’t. We’ll fight with everything we have to save both,” Ellis confidently retorted, “It’s what your father would have done, Jordan. Nora and I go for Sinclair. You go for Kara.”

“Splitting up could kill us.”

“We’ll be fine. We’re survivors, we’ll make it through this.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Ellis took a moment to think of the best answer. The truth was that she wasn’t sure. From the start, this plan never seemed to be one that they would walk out of unscathed. One of them, maybe even all of them could die in the process of carrying it out. But even in the face of the impossible, she wouldn’t lie down and take the easy route. There was something within her that compelled her to believe that they could do just that – the impossible – and it was something she had learned from the very woman who had given herself up to allow them to get away.

“I’m not,” she honestly replied, “I just have hope.”

Kara slipped in and out of consciousness while being transported to Lord Tower. Another collar around her neck kept her weak and relief only came once she was dragged into the empty room which would hold her captive. When the collar came off, the red sun lamps were switched on, basking the room in a cherry hue and beginning the process of draining every bit of her power. She was forced to stand in the center of the room, being pulled up by her arms as the chains cuffed to her wrists attached to the roof. A slowly increasing burn spread through her shoulders, back and chest as the pull forced her upright.

Several guards served watch over her as she was left to be softened by the red lamps, feeling more and more of her power being zapped away every minute. She felt like she stood for an eternity before the door to the room finally opened once again. An increasingly intense pounding began thumping in her chest as she realised it was finally time.

Maxwell Lord stepped in, and the two came face to face for the first time in 131 years. With whatever strength she had left, she tugged forward, attempting to break free of her constraints and wrap her hands around his throat. Even though a titanic rage exploded in Kara’s being, it wasn’t enough to quell her pain and exhaustion. She couldn’t break her restraints and was forced to remain in bondage as Lord slowly stepped towards her.

“Kara Zor-El,” his deep voice slowly boomed, “It’s been a long time.”

Joseph Knight was physically everything that Maxwell Lord wasn’t. There weren’t much other bodies that Lord could have picked that appeared more different than his original. Knight was of Polynesian origin, and while Lord had never been anything close to an imposing figure, Knight had been blessed with the genetics of a Greek God. His Herculean frame couldn’t even be hidden by the neat suit, as Kara could make out his robust muscles even through the clothing. He possessed a thick, well-kept beard that faded into long, black hair that was neatly tied into a bun. While the tangible body in front of her bore no resemblance to the previous one that the person inside of it had inhabited, Kara stared deep into his eyes and saw that the bastard really was inside there.

“Fuck you,” Kara spat back. Lord smiled, amused by her expected defiance. He began circling her as he spoke.

“I knew this day would come. A lot of people thought you died, but I didn’t believe that, no. I knew that you were out there somewhere. I knew that it was just a matter of time before you came back. Before we met again.”

He stopped as he was in front of her again.

“I knew you were here,” he said, taking in a deep breath through his nose as he closed his eyes for a moment, “I could sense it, I could feel it… Something was amiss in this city for the past few days and I just knew it had to be you. I’ve got a lot of questions.”

“I’m not telling you shit,” Kara growled back.

Lord smiled again. “We’ll start with an easy one then. Why did you come back?”

“I came back to kill you.”

“Oh, I’m sure you did, but there’s more to it. Maxxine Moonlight. The nomads. Konrad Jensson. Been doing a lot of running around with your nephew and uh, what’s her name… Ellis?”

“You took my sister away from me. I wasn’t about to let you take hers as well.”

She saw the realisation hit Lord as his mouth opened and he nodded. “Cody Reed. That’s what you wanted with Jensson. You want to put her back in her own body. I hate to break it to you, but Cody doesn’t exist anymore. Her engram was destroyed after the procedure.”

Kara held back a smirk at his smug ignorance. He had no idea that Cody’s engram was somewhere in the subnet of this very building, eagerly awaiting her moment of liberation.

“Where is Jensson?” he asked.

Kara replied with a question of her own, “Where are my friends?”

“They got away, but I’ll find them soon. Perhaps, I’ll let them off if you tell me where Jensson is.”

“A monster like you isn’t capable of mercy.”

Lord despicably cackled. “A monster? You’re calling me a monster? You, Kara Zor-El, the woman who ended my first life by literally ripping me apart limb by limb? The woman who has spent the last sixty years of her life as a mercenary? Here’s what you never understood,” he grunted, taking a step closer to her, “You and I are more alike than you have ever thought.”

“I am nothing like you,” Kara rebuked.

“There it is. You probably fancy me a liar, yet you stand there and say things like that. See. That’s your problem, Kara. You have always been a hypocrite. We lost control of this planet the day you and your cousin and the rest of your little friends showed up. You went out there every day, every night, thinking that you were saving lives, thinking that you could empower us when you were just too fucking blind to realise that you were doing the opposite. How arrogant were you to think that you could lead us? There was only ever one person who was meant to lead humanity to salvation and that was me!

“Take a look around. This world belongs to me now. I sit at the head of the table. This is my kingdom, and nothing happens in this city without me catching wind of it. All I have done is simply allowed humanity to take control of its fate once again. You never should have come back, but I’m glad you did because now I have the chance to make you feel as helpless as I and every other human on this planet have because of people like you. And now, you finally have the chance to acknowledge me as the rightful leader of not just this city, but of this whole damn planet. Acknowledge me.”

Lord’s impending fury hit its boiling point as Kara remained silent. He couldn’t hold himself back any longer, bursting towards her with a fist and striking her across her jaw.

“Acknowledge me!” he screamed as he sent another fist crashing into her face. “Acknowledge me! Acknowledge me! Me! Me!” he screamed a final time, grabbing her by the hair with one hand and using the other to batter her face several times.

Without the benefit of her powers, the blows all mangled her. Several cuts opened up on her face and she felt a swelling begin below her left eye due to a fractured orbital bone. And yet, despite being battered and bruised, she wasn’t broken just yet. She refused to acknowledge him. That was the thing that he had never understood about her. It wasn’t her physiology or powers that made her. It was her will that defined her, her unbreakable spirit. She chose to be silent again as she stared back at him, knowing it would rile him up more than any words could.

He stepped back, wiping the blood from his hands with a handkerchief as he brought his rage under control. He didn’t want to kill her just yet. While there were search parties all over the country looking for her friends, he was cognisant of the fact that they could be hiding in plain sight and were planning on coming for her. In that case, she needed to remain alive, but he wasn’t done tormenting her just yet. He pushed aside his blazer, pulling out a large knife from its sheath at his waist.

“You know what this is, don’t you?” he taunted her, recognising the despair and fury form on her face, “This is the very same knife that I used to slice Alex Danvers’ throat open. You’re from the House of El, a family that once stood for a whole lot more than what you are now. What would your mother and father think of you today? You wore that crest on your chest trying to live up to them, but you failed, and it seems like you’ve forgotten about everything it stood for. I think you need a reminder of your failures,” he scolded her as he stepped forward, “A permanent reminder.”

He walked until he was right in front of her, staring for just a moment into her eyes before lifting the knife. It first pierced the center of her chest, shallow enough to not be fatal, but deep enough to cause her unimaginable agony. He slid the knife across her chest, carving out the House of El crest with gaping lacerations into her flesh. She bit her tongue trying to muffle her screams and remain stoic, but even her pain threshold was exceeded as she yelled in agony. He took his time with it, finding pleasure as a sadistic artist shaping his masterpiece out in the flesh of the one person he hated the most in the entire universe.

By the time it was done, Kara had nearly passed out from the pain. And there it was, her family crest on her chest once again, this time a scarlet letter burning with scorching heat as blood flowed from the gashes, running down to stain the rest of her white vest.

Re-entering the city was not an option for Jordan and Ellis. The number of eyes looking for them would result in them being made out almost immediately, a scenario in which they would be highly unlikely to escape again. However, they had only been found out because of the trail they left behind from Jensson’s capture, and none of the squad members that attacked them were carrying anti-speedster weaponry, so they were sure that Nora hadn’t been identified.

Jordan and Ellis sat a mile past the city limits, hidden in the mountain range and uncomfortably having settled for sending Nora alone into the city. She dressed well for her part, wearing a sharp corpo suit. She gave them updates on her position through the comms device hidden in her ear right up until she was in front of the first checkpoint to enter the tower’s premises. She hid all of her nerves behind a cold-blooded gaze that was met by the immediate suspicion of the guards on duty.

“What do you want?” one of them asked.

“I’m here to see Ms Sinclair. Alva Industries, here to discuss business,” she replied, handing him the datashard with the modified access tag.

Without even bothering to scan the shard, he tossed it back to her. “Sorry. We’re on high alert at the moment. No one gets in.”

“Push him,” she heard Jordan say.

Nora feigned anger. “This meeting was scheduled weeks in advance. Scan the damn shard, it’ll verify who I am.”

“Plans change, tough luck. Come back another time.”

Nora continued to persist. “You are making a mistake of unfathomable proportions. Our business cannot wait, but I wouldn’t expect you to understand that. Critical thinking is probably above your pay grade.”

The guards weren’t having her persistence in the slightest as they all raised their weapons at her.

“We won’t ask again,” he growled, “Get the fuck out of here. We don’t care who you are, we’ll blow you to pieces right here.”

The plan had fallen apart at the very first stage. Getting past the first checkpoint, even though it looked intimidating, seemed to be the easiest part of the whole deal. They knew things wouldn’t go as expected, that they would have to improvise at one or maybe several points but having to do it so soon spelt trouble.

“Nora, get back!”

Spotting movement in the corner of her eye, Nora glanced up to see Jordan in the sky flinging an immensely large boulder towards them. She immediately shifted back at the last second, watching as the guards were crushed. The entrance had been broken open too and she immediately knew what she had to do. She heard Jordan bark the instruction in her ear, but he never needed to as she instantly burst into full speed towards the second checkpoint. Time slowed down around her, allowing her to waltz past those who couldn’t react quickly enough to stop her. The turrets had already activated and began firing the instant the first checkpoint had been compromised, but Jordan attached himself to the back of a large mech and manoeuvred it around, using it to shield himself and Nora from the fire coming their way.

Jordan had dropped Ellis off on a rooftop close to the tower, which was just far enough away for her to be mostly safe while allowing her a good view to help him with a sniper while he fought off the mechs, drones and guards that were now swarming him. The change in circumstance had forced him to use the solar airhypo now. With the vast array of turrets also firing at him from every direction, he had slim chances of not taking serious damage before Gideon shut the systems down. The hypo supercharged him momentarily, granting him extra durability to tank shots and extra power to deal with the platoons in front of him.

Ellis did her best, shooting out adversaries behind him, drones above him and occasionally blowing apart a turret if she had the chance, but there was little chance he’d find reprieve. Every drone that was taken down was immediately replaced by another. Shooting out a single turret felt inconsequential when dozens of others still continued to fire. The supercharge was slowly wearing off, meaning the hits started to feel a little more painful and were only going to compromise him more and more.

For as fast as Nora was, the split-second delay between the boulder impact and her run had her walking a fine line in her attempt to get to the front desk. The building’s security measures activated instantaneously, one such measure being an electromagnetic field which dampened metahuman powers. If she didn’t get to the desk before the field hit her, she would lose her powers in the middle of her run and tumble forward to her death. She could slow down before getting to the desk, but that would open herself up to gunfire. It was a choice that she had to make in literal milliseconds. She zipped past the two guards at the second checkpoint, seeing five more past them around the vicinity. She was sure they had noticed her with their enhanced reflexes from their cyberdecks.

She decided to take her chances with fighting them off rather than chancing it with the dampening field. She halted her momentum a few meters before the desk, realising she had made the correct choice when the field hit her an instant later and she felt her powers fade. She hadn’t walked in empty-handed, however. She immediately drew a plasma pistol from her back holster and spun around, opening fire on the guards before they could on her. She wasn’t the most proficient with handheld weapons and never had been. Some of her shots went astray, but just enough of them hit their targets before the cartridge emptied. The six guards either dropped, had holes blown through their chests or limbs burnt off, allowing her just enough time to run to the desk and place Gideon’s shard into the first access point she saw.

She waited no more than a second for a monitor to boot up and display Gideon’s face on-screen.

“How long, Gideon?” Nora asked.

“Just a few more seconds.”

“Nora, update? Jordan’s getting torn to shreds out here,” Ellis asked.

“Just a couple more seconds.”

As a speedster, time always felt like it was moving slowly for her, but even without her powers, the seconds dragged. She knew that every explosion and every shot fired outside was only putting Jordan in more peril, and feared that it could be too late by the time Gideon was in.

Finally, the building lights dimmed before being turned into a light blue hue.

The turrets stopped firing, the drones shut down and the mechs collapsed, finally giving Jordan a breather as the heavy pressure on his chest forced him to hunch over. Blood dribbled from his nose as he took in a couple of deep breaths through his mouth, but there was no time to waste as he immediately leapt into the sky, snatching Ellis and bringing her back down to ground zero with him as he sped into the tower. The doors slammed shut and were barricaded by a heavy wall once they were in, signalling that the building had been placed on lockdown.

“Where’s Kara?” Jordan asked Ellis as they rendezvoused with Nora.

Ellis closed her eyes for a second as she pinpointed Kara’s exact location. “Underground,” she replied, “Sinclair is up top.”

Jordan took another deep breath before placing a hand on her shoulder, “Be careful, okay?”

“Let’s go get them back.”

The red sun lamps had fully drained Kara of her powers. Her mouth had gone dry after being filled with blood. The grief of every ache had been multiplied a thousand-fold as the cuts on her face throbbed. Her chest burned, smouldering with the intensity of a sun as it felt like her flesh was still being ripped through. She had been left in the room alone to wallow in her anguish. Her mind went to the darkest corners as the worst voices in her head started to torment her.

But she couldn’t give up here. Was her story really meant to end submissively dying alone at the hands of a man like Lord? She couldn’t let it end here. She wasn’t who Lord said she was, not even close. He thought he was torturing her by carving her family crest into her chest, but he ended up just reminding her exactly who she was. She was still Kara Zor-El, daughter of Zor-El and Alura In-Ze, and she would be damned to die a coward’s death.

Her moment of opportunity arrived sooner than she anticipated. The red sun lamps flickered before going out, then being replaced by a dim light blue hue. She waited a few seconds to see if the door would open, but nobody came through. The lamp shutdown all but signalled that Gideon had assumed control of the building and Jordan, Ellis and Nora were in. Without exposure to sunlight, her powers wouldn’t come back quickly if they even came back at all. She couldn’t power her way out of this predicament.

She had learnt how to become less reliant on her powers over the years, but it was like fighting against her innate nature to not use them. It was extremely rare when she never had them, being able to count just the handful of times in her life when she had completely lost them. Luckily, she had received training from her mentors who had been very insistent on prepping her for a day like this.

In fact, the situation she found herself in right now was one that one of them had experienced himself and specifically prepped her for. She had seen him demonstrate this escape, and despite having never tried it before while also being extremely physically compromised, it was her only shot and she had to try take it. She looked up at the ceiling, noting that the chains were attached to two metal hooks riveted into the ceiling.

Using the strength she had left, she clasped her hands around the chains before agonisingly lifting her legs up until she was hung upside down like a bat. Her chest flared with agony as she did so, forcing her to take a momentary breather before gripping the chains and pulling herself up closer and closer towards the ceiling until she was right up to it. And then, she let go.

She let herself fall, the chain links clicking until there was a sudden jolt and halting of her momentum mid-air before she fell to the floor. The hooks that the chains had been attached to snapped out of their rivets, freeing Kara of her restraints. The jolt had unfortunately tugged harder on her left shoulder, which now throbbed with an immobilising pain. She was sure a few tendons had been torn, but she fought through the pain and scrambled to her feet, grasping the chains once again.

A guard came bursting through the door, but Kara swung the chain at his head, knocking him to the floor before rushing over to wrap her arms around his neck. She snapped it with a strained twist before quickly grabbing a pistol and turning it to the gauntlets on her wrists, shooting the chains off. Now completely free of restraints, Kara fired at the first guard that appeared at door, riddling him with bullets as she emptied the clip.

Another quickly appeared behind him, but with the magazine empty, Kara found herself a sitting duck.

She braced for the incoming fire in what would have been a futile attempt, but to her luck, no such fire came. Instead, the guard’s head was blown off by a plasma blast. She rose to her feet, cautiously stepping out of the doorway to take a peek where the shot had come from. Jordan stood at the end of the hallway, prudently still aiming with the pistol before realising that it was Kara who had stepped out.

“Kara!” he shouted out, sprinting over towards her.

The burst of energy she had pulled from the depths began to dwindle. She attempted to walk towards him but could only take a few unaided steps before she felt her legs giving out beneath her, remaining upright only by leaning against a wall. Jordan reached her just in time to grab her, stopping her from completely falling over. He had seen the blood on her chest but now was utterly mortified as he fully made out the carvings from which the blood had seeped out of.

“Where’s Ellis? Nora?” Kara immediately asked, noting that Jordan was alone.

“They’ve gone after Sinclair,” Jordan replied before taking out the second solar airhypo and placing it in Kara’s hands, “Here.”

“Go help them.”

Jordan immediately shook his head, “I’m not leaving you.”

“Jordan-“

Kara couldn’t get another word as he cut her off, insisting that he couldn’t leave her to what he believed would be her certain death.

“No, I’m not leaving you again!” he exclaimed, tightening his grip on her arms.

“Jordan, listen to me,” Kara sternly pleaded, “Lord is my mission. Mine, not yours. They need you more.”

“And if you die?”

“I’ll drag him down to Hell with me.”

Again, it was Kara’s insistence that prevailed, but for a different reason this time. They had no choice earlier when they were ambushed. Kara had guessed right when she thought that Lord didn’t want to kill her yet, but that wasn’t the case now. Even with a boost from the hypo, she would eventually be weakened and possibly unable to even make it to Lord before she succumbed. But this was her mission, one that she had accepted could end this way the moment she agreed to help Ellis back on Sadostia. And Jordan was finally understanding that now. She needed this. She needed to end him or at least die trying. Cody had always been their main priority, Lord was just a bonus for them. But for Kara, it was everything.

So, no more words needed to be said. Jordan simply stepped back and placed the pistol in Kara’s other hand before speeding off, and she was alone again. The sounds of rapid footsteps and shouts started to echo in the hallways. The entire building has been thrown into disarray and Jordan had taken out a few of the guards on this level in his pursuit to find Kara. But there were still probably dozens more on the way to Lord.

After a last heavy exhale, Kara put the hypo to her mouth and inhaled.

Immediately, the burst of solar energy into her system reinvigorated her. Most of the pains and aches had been dulled, and much of her powers, though still stifled, were restored. The sounds of the building were amplified to a thousand as her vision suddenly became crystal clear, also feeling the gashes on her chest start to heal and her left shoulder tendons partially reattach. She was able to zone in her hearing within just a couple of seconds, quickly picking up on Lord’s voice. She wasn’t able to pinpoint his exact location, but he was still on this sublevel.

Springing forward off the wall, the first group of guards that ran into her didn’t even have the time to aim at her as she fired away with her plasma pistol, blasting them to shreds. The next few were either sliced apart or burned through by her heat vision. Without Lord’s exact location, she would often come to a crossroads, not knowing exactly which way to go in the underground maze to get to him. But a soft, almost unnoticeable voice in the back of her head, one that didn’t seem like her own began compelling her to take certain directions.

The guards proved no serious challenge as she battled her way through them. Now and then, a bullet spray hit her or a guard got close enough to strike her, but the supercharge from the hypo allowed her to push through any adversity and obliterate those who attempted to stand in her way. The crest carved into her chest that stained her body red with blood had become a source of empowerment rather than pain. The underground hallways of Lord Tower became a canvas, with blood and guts spraying everywhere to paint the picture of a fallen angel with a broken wing descending into Hell and fighting her way through hordes of demons to do battle with the Devil himself.

And eventually, after slaughtering all of his minions along the way, she found herself at the gateway to his throne, ready to take his soul.

Gideon turned the drones within the building against the guards, helping to eliminate a few and keep some more occupied. However, fighting through the still plenty horde of soldiers was taking a wholly unnecessary risk now that Nora had her superspeed back. Ellis had pinpointed Sinclair’s exact location to be in her office on the 102^nd floor. While Jordan had gone off to find Kara, Nora immediately wrapped an arm around Ellis and sped up the endless flights of stairs. She whizzed them past most of the guards in their path, sometimes stripping them of their anti-speedster weaponry with a free hand before continuing to the destination.

When they arrived on the floor, sounds of gunshots and barked instructions echoing in the hallways confirmed that Gideon had done her best to preoccupy Sinclair’s detail with rogue drones. They followed the resonating chaos to its source, finding the initial group of seven guards having been brought down to three in their continuing firefight with four drones. Nora sped over to strike two of them unconscious, while Ellis blasted the remaining one’s head off with her pistol.

“That’s everyone on this floor,” Gideon spoke through the drone.

Ellis took a second to hone in on Sinclair’s exact location, “This way,” she said to Nora as she turned around and sprinted further down the hallway right up to the large door at the end of it. “She’s in there. Gideon?”

“The door seems to have a manual locking mechanism that’s not connected to the subnet. Sorry, I can’t open it.”

“You ever phase through something before?” Nora stepped forward to ask Ellis.

“No.”

“This will feel a little weird. Gideon, keep watch,” she instructed as she wrapped an arm around Ellis’ shoulders. With no warning or countdown, the sensation of a changing vibration unexpectedly came over her instantly. Within the span of two seconds, she felt her state of being warp from physical to intangible as Nora sped forward to phase them through the door.

All sense of weight and palpability returned as Nora halted once they were through. Still adjusting to her senses being restored, Ellis had no time to process the fact that Veronica Sinclair had been anticipating their arrival and waiting to strike the minute they came through. The electric blast flew towards them before they could react, hitting Nora square in the chest and shoving her back with a shock. No second shot was fired, giving Ellis a second to spot Sinclair at the other side of the room, dropping the large rifle she had just used.

“Nora?” Ellis latched on to her with concern, but she was relatively unharmed. That gave Ellis slight relief but it was entirely distressing to Nora, who immediately felt the connection to the source that powered her cut off.

“My speed,” she muttered in reply.

“Anti-speedster gun,” Sinclair explained, “Knew it would come in handy one day.”

Ellis turned her full attention to Sinclair. She always knew this was going to be the most distressing part of the mission for her. The conflict arose quickly, where she wanted to feel joy upon seeing “Cody” again but then having to remind herself that it was just her body, now nothing more than a vessel for a different pilot.

“You must be the sister,” Sinclair remarked as she locked eyes with Ellis, “Your sister’s body is beautiful, but I’ve had to make a few upgrades.”

Sinclair casually rolled up the sleeves of her office shirt before allowing her cyberarms to unfold and reconfigure to allow two large blades to sprout out of her forearms. It was an improvement to her, but to Ellis, it only stoked the rage of disgust even further. It was an act of desecration against the body of her sister, a body that didn’t belong to Sinclair. The challenging part wasn’t necessarily bringing Sinclair down. It was about bringing her down without causing substantial trauma to the body. It needed to still be viable for the procedure but having to hold back exposed them to significantly more danger and harm.

Knowing that it was only a matter of time before Nora got her speed back, Sinclair lunged towards her first, hoping to take her completely out of the equation. She swiped with her right blade, but Nora was able to backstep to get out of range. Sinclair turned her attention back to Ellis, rotating her arm around to fling the blade in Ellis’ direction. Ellis had the luxury of a cybernetic arm of her own, using her left arm to block the blade and hooking it over Sinclair’s arm before spinning around to whip an elbow into Sinclair’s temple. Nora flew back into range to grab a hold of Sinclair’s other arm while Ellis then kicked out Sinclair’s leg, dropping her to a knee.

Nora and Ellis both fully understood that the key to winning this fight was getting rid of the blades. With both of Sinclair’s arms immobilised and her stance compromised, Ellis attempted to hold her in place while Nora quickly drew her pistol and took aim at the blade’s connection joint to the rest of the arm. Two quick shots from the powerful plasma pistol were all that was needed to blow the blade off the arm. Sinclair, however, still fresh in a fight that had just started, proved too strong to hold any longer. With the agility of a cat, she swung her body up and around to get back to her feet while also breaking the grips on her limbs. She rode the momentum to continue spinning back to face them and with Nora closest to her, raised her remaining blade high and brought it down in a quick slash that was almost imperceptible to the untrained eye.

Nora hadn’t time to fully move out of the way. Sinclair’s speed and nimbleness took both of them by surprise and she realised just a few split-seconds too late that a blade was coming down towards her. The only step back she could manage saved her life, but at the expense of one of her limbs. Effortlessly, the blade sliced clean through her left arm. The first sensation that came was a piercing. Then, with thousands of nerve endings being destroyed, the burning starts, overwhelming Nora’s brain with millions of pain signals. She collapsed to the floor, wailing as she reached for the remaining quarter of her forearm just below the elbow.

Ellis’ first reaction was to scream out her name in concern, wanting to rush towards her. Momentarily distracted, she lost awareness of her positioning and found herself desperately jumping back to avoid the swipe aimed at her stomach. Just like Nora, she had reacted too late. The edge of the blade trailed along her abdomen, slicing an inch deep across her belly. Had she attempted to move any later, the blade would have penetrated deeper and her clutch at her belly would have been the only thing stopping her insides from spilling out in front of her. In agony, she stumbled back until her back hit a wall. She was just able to sidestep away from Sinclair’s stab aimed at her gut, having done enough to remain cognisant of her surroundings and wary of her opponent.

Although staying at a distance made her more susceptible to the blade, Ellis had no choice but to retreat away as she tried to clear her mind from the fire of hurt that was clouding her mind. She was allowed a few extra seconds of relief with Sinclair initially struggling to dislodge her blade stuck in the wall, but before Ellis knew it, Sinclair was free and back on her with an agenda to slice her into pieces. Fighting a fight like this without the freedom to maim was unfathomably treacherous. Nora had already lost an arm and Ellis had gotten off relatively easy with a large gash, but the momentum of the fight seemed to be trending towards both of them succumbing.

Having regained her wits, she was able to block the next swipe before stepping forward and hooking her left arm over Sinclair’s at the bicep again. With a grip in this close range, the blade was a non-factor, which allowed Ellis to throw two knees into Sinclair’s chest. Although Sinclair’s left arm had been damaged and without a blade, it was still operational, allowing her to return with a punch right behind Ellis’ ear, disrupting her equilibrium. She shifted her focus to the wounded abdomen next, throwing several strikes directly at the gash before having her nose bludgeoned by a headbutt from Ellis.

The excruciating fire at the end of Nora’s arm hadn’t yet subsided. Her vision still seemed disrupted and the blood that was pouring from the stump was making her head feel increasingly light. But with adrenaline still coursing through her soul and a spirit that was yet to give up, she crawled towards her severed hand to retrieve the pistol that it was still grasping. She had no intentions of aiming it anywhere other than Sinclair’s other blade, hoping to shoot it off just like how she had done the other one, but the window of opportunity to do so was scarce.

Ellis and Sinclair were tangled in a clinch, shoving each other around the room and engaged in a close-range brawl. An ill-timed shot from Nora could kill either of them, but it seemed inevitable that Ellis would lose the clinch battle with her more severe wounds, resulting in an eventual break which would give Sinclair the chance to deal a fatal blow. With each second that passed, Ellis came closer to the edge of the cliff that was death, but Nora had no choice but to wait for the perfect moment to take the shot.

Ellis, having noticed what Nora was planning to do, set up the chance to exit from the grapple safely by throwing another headbutt into Sinclair’s nose, nearly crushing it this time. Her momentary pause from the blow allowed Ellis to drop down and slide under her right arm before shoving her away. Now fully separated, Nora needed no more than a second to adjust her sights and pull the trigger.

The plasma blast burned through the blade’s connection lever, separating it from the arm. With the main threat neutralised, Ellis ran forward to whip an elbow into the back of Sinclair’s head, further disorientating her. Whipping out her monowire, Ellis wrapped it around Sinclair’s neck, pulling back and squeezing. Sinclair wasn’t ready to concede yet, knowing full well that she would lose her second lease on life if she gave up, but her squirms did nothing to disrupt Ellis. The wire was firmly wrapped around her neck with an unrelenting grip, and Sinclair could do nothing as her trachea was squeezed shut, depriving her of oxygen until she lost consciousness.

Once the fighting squirms had completely stopped and she felt the body begin slumping, Ellis unfolded the wire, letting Sinclair drop to the floor. She gave herself a moment to take a breather before turning her attention back to Nora. She was already starting to go pale from the blood loss, having lost much of her energy and still being crippled by the excruciating pain. Not knowing when her powers would return, stopping the bleeding now was imperative, so Ellis ripped a sleeve off of Sinclair’s shirt before rushing over to Nora to wrap a tourniquet above her bicep.

She was momentarily startled when the sealed door was ripped off its hinges but was allowed to let out a sigh of relief when Jordan stepped through. The relief quickly turned into worry when she realised that he had returned by his lonesome. Kara was nowhere to be seen.

“Where’s Kara?” Ellis asked with a sharpness that made clear her fears.

“She’s fine,” Jordan quickly replied before kneeling next to Nora, “Fuck. Make sure you wrap it tight.”

Ellis had already tied the tourniquet as tight as possible. She was now fully focused on Kara, pressing Jordan further about her, “Jordan, where is she?!”

“She’s fine, Ellis,” Jordan repeated more sternly, “She took the hypo and went after Lord. I’ll go back for her once we get to the lab. Gideon, where is it?” he asked, turning around to the drone guarding the door.

“It’s underground, even deeper than where Kara was being held,” Gideon replied.

“Lead the way. We haven’t got time to waste,” Jordan said, helping Nora to her feet before hoisting Cody’s body onto his shoulder.

The energy boost from the hypo was only temporary. She had used up much of her strength and power in just getting to Lord, and the wounds of battle were starting to bear on her again, but she didn’t care. She was ready to bash down the door to the room he was in, but she didn’t have to as they opened for her. The room was empty, barren except for the imposing figure that stood at the far end of it. The lighting was dull, the biggest source of it coming from the large holographic display in front of Lord that displayed all of the information pertaining to the state of the tower.

“I underestimated you,” Lord muttered, turned away from Kara as she limped in, “I don’t often make mistakes, so I should’ve seen something like this coming.”

“It’s over, Lord,” Kara mocked him, “She’s going to destroy the subnet and burn your empire to the ground.”

“No,” he grumbled through clenched teeth, furiously shaking his head in denial as he spun around to face her, “No, no, my netrunners are onto her. They’ll rip her from the system, we’ll get back control and then I’ll kill all of you. Starting with you, right now.”

The bun tying up his long hair had been let down. The suit had been discarded for tactical pants, his shirt removed to put his herculean physique on full display. With a new, more powerful body for him and with her being weak and wounded, it seemed a somewhat fair fight to Kara. It wasn’t going to be as easy ripping him apart now, but she still intended on doing just that. Just the sight of him was enough to stoke her fury to a level she had never thought was possible, and that feeling was no doubt mutual.

Lord initiated the battle, speeding forward with a quickness that caught Kara off-guard. His swift changes of direction initially baffled her, resulting in him quickly landing a perfectly placed punch landed that made Kara wobbly on her legs. He didn’t just look the part now. She had felt the power of his strikes earlier but chalked it down to her unpowered state. He must have been holding back even then. His obsession for power in all of its forms resulted in the installation of subdermal cybernetic enhancements beyond the scope of anything else seen on the planet.

His kick came just as she recovered, not aimed at her head or abdomen but in between. His leg whipped into her chest, not only splitting apart the partially healed gashes on her chest again and striking with enough force to lift her off her feet and send her flying through the air before a hard landing in which her head snapped back against the floor. The breath had been knocked out of her while she was reliving the burn of her chest being ripped apart again.

“What’s the matter, Kara?” Lord taunted her, “You thought you could just waltz in here and tear me apart again?”

He ran forward to punt her in the head as she slowly got up to a knee, but she was able to get out of the way. She leapt forward with a punch of her own, but he ducked under it and spun around to land another powerful right hand. Not as well-placed as the previous one, but the power was still bludgeoning as she stumbled back. Now overconfident, he marched forward with a telegraphed combo this time, giving Kara just the opening she needed to dodge his strikes before exploding forward with an elbow to his temple. She whipped it across in a slicing motion, opening a large gash next to his left eye.

He had come to fancy himself a god. His body had been untouched for 61 years, not carrying a single blemish as he had crafted out an image of formidable perfection. The feeling of his own warm blood running down his skin incensed him all the more because it had been caused by someone who he perceived to be a false god. He rushed to reengage her with wild, quick combinations of strikes. Some of them got through, but she found her opportunities to evade and counter when she could, and with each more strike he took, his illusion of perfection was chipped away and he became more erratic.

He had trained 61 years for this day and enhanced his body in every way he could, even possessing the luck to have captured her beforehand and weakened her before the fight. Both had more than a century’s worth of rage fuelling their spirits, but it was only Kara who was able to not let it cloud her ability. She knew how to use those emotions to her benefit, adding power and viciousness to her strikes without compromising her technique and composure. What she was lacking right now in strength, she made up for it with smarts and skill as they traded strikes. They bludgeoned each other without remorse, opening more gashes and bruising each other with strikes that would have killed most others.

The only thing keeping them in the fight was their mutual refusal to give up in the face of excruciating pain and adversity, their iron wills dismissing any thoughts of submission. That was usually something seen as commendable but not for them. Their iron wills were born from the most unholy of places. They refused to give up because they were undying in their conviction to take the other’s life. They wanted nothing more than to kill the other right here, right now, and neither was willing to be denied that. It was a case of whose body would give up first and, in this case, Kara was the one at a disadvantage.

Her body had endured more anguish and abuse than it ever had. Her durability was diminishing faster than his with every strike absorbed. Blood was seeping out of her chest again, colouring her entire shirt red. Eventually, her slowing reflexes and harrowing agony allowed Lord to get the upper hand, as single-strike successes turned into two, then three until a four-punch combo finally dropped her. The final strike, an uppercut, snapped her head back as she collapsed, crashing to the floor again.

Lord hadn’t gone untouched himself. Rather than pouncing on Kara, he used the break in the action to catch his breath while clutching at his aching abdomen with a fractured left arm. Hunched over, it took a great effort to rise as he groaned loudly while doing so before taking a big step further away from Kara. He knew better than to think she would so easily accept defeat, but he wanted it that way. He wanted her to expend every last ounce of energy only for it to all be in vain when he took her life. He wanted to revel in that satisfaction of tormenting her in every way possible, and he had one last way to do that. With his cyberdeck linked to the holographic projection system, he was able to signal the hologram with no more than a thought.

Kara’s murky eyes cleared as she watched the projected image take form right in front of her. A woman. Perhaps the best person she had ever known. The image that had haunted her every day for the past 115 years. The hologram of Alex, strewn across the floor, gagged, beaten and with a deep slash across her throat. Those lifeless eyes stared back at Kara and all of a sudden, she found herself taken back to that ghastly night.

“It’s a shame, isn’t it?” Lord said, “She was a good woman. Her only fault was that she loved you.”

“That’s not a fault,” Kara growled back in disgust, “That’s exactly what made her human. Love. The ability to give it and receive it. Something that you lost a long time ago.”

He didn’t bother responding. Rather, he reached into the sheath strapped behind his back, pulling out his treasured knife again. It was the same knife he used that night, no doubt about it, but the one change he had made to it since then had gone unnoticed by design. He pressed his finger to the bottom of the handle, causing a green glow to slowly creep up the edges of the blade until they all radiated green. Without any hesitation, Kara agonisingly forced herself up off the ground onto her feet. She already felt her remaining power starting to be zapped by her proximity to the Kryptonite-laced blade. It was only going to get worse as he got closer, but she didn’t care. It only gave her a new source of resolve because now, she knew exactly how she wanted to kill him.

He leapt forward with a swing. Kara dodged it. He faked a high swing before going low, tricking Kara and slicing across her left calf. The kryptonite edges cutting into her skin not only set her veins alight but sent shockwaves through her leg, causing her to fall to the floor in anguish. Somehow, she found an otherworldly awareness to roll away from the stab aimed at her chest and again forced herself up, now adjusting her stance to take weight off her compromised leg. With her movement impeded, she couldn’t move out of range as well and was forced to stay close and try to block or evade the swipes coming her way. Eventually, the blade grazed her skin again, this time on her already damaged left shoulder.

She could tell he wasn’t very experienced with a blade, at least not by her standards. He hadn’t made overt mistakes with his movement yet, but it was only a matter of time before he did, and she was prepping herself to pounce on that moment when it arose. She saw his combat inexperience shine through again as he became frustrated with his inability to land the killing blow. Placed swipes became more like uncontrolled swings, one of which Kara was able to duck under and then fling her fist into his ribcage. The cracks were audible, all three of them. Lord hunched over in pain and Kara pressed forward.

She easily leaned back out of the way of his next wild swing before adjusting to get the right angle to whip her leg up at his left arm, driving her shin into the already compromised bone and shattering it completely.

Just like that, in the blink of an eye, it all slipped away from Lord. The pain had become too excruciating for him. He almost had Kara exactly where he wanted her, but his arrogance and inexperience had cost him the one thing he wanted more than anything else while handing that thing for Kara right to her. His body became slow and weak while his mind began crumbling. He saw the deep, dark hole he was about to fall into and chaotically tried to get away from it, desperately swinging the blade in all directions to keep Kara away from him.

Eventually, the trajectory and speed of the swipe was all wrong, allowing Kara to catch his hand, twist it back towards him and drive the blade into his chest.

The puncture zapped his breath, sending him into a paralysing shock which was only compounded by the vile headbutt Kara flung right into his nose, breaking it into several pieces. She pulled him closer, driving the blade deeper, straight through his heart. She stared deep into his eyes, making sure that one of his last images would be the sight of his worst nightmare coming true. But she wasn’t done just yet.

She ripped the blade out of his chest before raising it to his neck. She channelled every bit of rage, despair and hate in her body into a viciously slow, chasmic slice across his throat, giving him the very same death sentence he had given Alex with the very same weapon he had used on her.

Blood spurted from his throat as she let his body drop to the floor. When she killed him the first time, it was quick and brutal, probably even painless to an extent as the acute shock of her vicious blows numbed his brain, preventing it from processing the pain. Back then, it was all over before he knew it, but now, he was dying slowly, aware, in agony, and bowing down to her. Her eyes never left his as she watched him grasp his throat in vain while twitching on the floor, gurgling and choking on his own blood.

Remarkably, he still found it within him to grotesquely mutter a few more distorted words.

“It doesn’t matter,” he choked, “You’ll never get this planet back. Earth, Knight City, they’ll always be mine. Forever. My kingdom.”

Kara couldn’t say he was wrong. She didn’t have a place on this planet anymore. Where he was mistaken was that she even wanted or needed it back. He had done everything in his power to take everything away from her and had almost succeeded – her second home, her dreams, legacy, the person she had loved the most, maybe even her honour – but he couldn’t take the one thing that defined her above all else…

Her name. He couldn’t take away who she was.

“You can keep it,” Kara replied, dropping the knife, “I am my kingdom.”

Lord’s mouth twitched, appearing as if he wanted to get the last word in, but none more were said. Blood had stopped pouring from his throat because his punctured heart couldn’t pump anymore, but whatever was already there had pooled up and was drowning him. His tightened, constricted chest subjected him to a horrifying squeezing sensation inside as his lungs were now unable to move. He was slipping away, slowly being pulled to his demise as his eyesight faded, the last image being that of the person who had now delivered him to death’s doorstep for the second time, this time permanently.

Kara’s eyes never left him until the gurgles and twitches stopped, only turning away when she was sure that the last hint of life had faded from his body. He was gone, and she could be sure this time. If Gideon couldn’t destroy the entire subnet, she would at least isolate the copies of his engram and destroy them. The last ounce of adrenaline in her body dwindled and the revolting pains, some sharp and some dull, all started to become even worse. Every shred of energy, every bit of fight she had left in her had been drained, and she was exhausted beyond any sort of breaking point. She found it within herself to limp towards a wall before collapsing against it, sliding down to the floor to sit as she finally breathed free of the grip he had possessed over her soul for the past 115 years.

With her laboured breaths heavy and one hand pressed against her chest to stifle the bleeding, she reached into her back pocket to pull out the picture of her and Alex. She gazed upon it now, finally without an accompanying sense of heavy sorrow crushing her but a strangely empowering sensation of fulfilment. In a way, it wasn’t just Kara being set free, but Alex too. She could fully rest in peace now, and while she probably would not have approved of what Kara did, she would have… understood, at least. And she would be nothing more than accepting of her sister finally finding the serenity that she never thought she would get back.

It seemed like she gazed at the image for hours before the blissful silence was interrupted by a loud bang at the door. Kara heard hands pry into it before it was ripped from its hinges and tossed away. She wasn’t alarmed in the slightest, having already seen that it was Jordan with her x-ray vision. He immediately ran over to Kara, only paying a glance towards Lord’s body before turning his full attention back to her. He eased his approach as he neared, noticing the picture in Kara’s hands and kneeling beside her with a gentle touch on her shoulder.

“You alright?” he asked. He got the slightest hint of a smile in reply, one which he reciprocated before lightly shifting his hand under her armpit, “Let’s go, they’re waiting for us.”

Kara struggled to get up on her own accord, having to be lifted to her feet by Jordan with an arm over his shoulder to support her weight as he gingerly guided her to the elevator. Gideon lowered them to the deepest level which consisted of nothing more than a narrow hallway with two large doors at the end, sliding open then closing and locking again as they entered the lab chamber. The first thing that caught Kara’s eyes were the four horizontal pods with heaps of wiring attached to them. One more pod appeared different from the rest, standing vertically to the left away from the others. Several large monitors were stationed above each other behind the sets of pods in the center of the room.

Much to her joy, she spotted Ellis and Nora, the former of whom ran to her immediately in relief.

“Kara!” she shouted, halting her speed as she realised crashing into Kara would be agonising for her and instead carefully embraced her. Kara squeezed back with the little strength she had regained before following her to the monitors. Nora was seated on one of the open pods hunched over, forcing Kara to narrow her vision to see the missing limb and blood still slowly dripping from the end of it.

Feeling that she was able enough to walk unaided now, Kara pulled away from Jordan before walking over to Nora, both of them acknowledging each other with strained smiles.

“Hey,” Kara greeted her as she placed a hand on Nora’s shoulder, “Need a hand?”

“Fuck you,” Nora replied through a hurting chuckle before she and Kara embraced.

Gideon’s face formed on the monitors as she began speaking, “The body is prepped and I’ve isolated Cody’s engram. I can begin the procedure.”

“Go ahead,” Ellis instructed.

An audible mechanical whirring began as the pod with Cody’s body lit up in a bright blue hue. Even Nora and Ellis, without the benefit of super-hearing, picked up on the fluctuating electric buzzes as lines of codes fluttered on the monitors while the transfer began.

This was the moment Ellis had been waiting for, the moment she had been dreaming of for months. This was the culmination of everything she had been working to, and the one thing that was going to make the suffering, pain and fighting all worth it as she finally got to reunite with the one person she would choose over the world. She couldn’t contain her excitement as her breathing became more ecstatically erratic with each second that passed by. It was a one-in-a-billion shot that they seemed to have made work, and she just couldn’t wait for the pod to open up and allow her to embrace her sister again.

And then, it all shut down. The mechanical whirring was halted. The electrical buzz faded. The lab’s lighting returned to normal and the pod had lost its blue hue. Ellis rushed towards it, impatiently tapping her hands on the glass.

“Gideon, open it. Wake her up,” she babbled with child-like joy.

But no immediate reply came. The pod remained shut. After a couple of seconds, Gideon finally spoke again.

“I’m sorry, Ellis.”

“You’re sorry about what?”

“The procedure was unsuccessful. I can’t bring her back. I’m sorry.”

None of them understood or grasped what she had said at first, wondering if they had misheard. The others were too stunned to even say or think anything as their hearts dropped, but Ellis was sent into a furious rage.

“Why the fuck not?!” she screamed as she approached the monitors, “You said you could do it!”

“I could have, regarding the body was still viable. The procedure affects and alters the neurophysiology of the brain. Having already undergone a transfer, Cody’s brain has been irreparably changed and is no longer the same as it once was. When you factor in the cybernetic enhancements that were made to the body as well… It’s become incompatible with her engram. The body is no longer recognisable as hers.”

“No, this can’t be happening,” Ellis cried, digging her nails into her head as tears began welling in her eyes, “You’re telling me it was all for nothing?! Everything we did, it was just… all for fucking nothing. There’s gotta be another option,” she pleaded, “Something that we can do!”

Gideon remained silent for a few seconds again, something that was mistaken for an answer in itself but was rather her contemplating whether it was a good idea to divulge the information at her disposal to Ellis. In the end, she decided it wasn’t her place to decide for them.

“Ellis, the vertical pod to your left. Enter it.”

Despite being confused at first, Ellis obeyed Gideon’s instructions and marched over without care. She entered the pod while Kara, Jordan and Ellis simply looked on as the panels lit up and began spinning around her. After more revolutions than any of them could count, the panels eventually stopped and Ellis was allowed to step out again.

“Hmm…” Gideon let out as she analysed the data she had collected.

“What?” Ellis hissed.

“The results are as expected. As Cody’s sister, you possess many similarities to her on a neurophysiological and molecular level. Your body is compatible with her engram, but it would come at the cost of… you.”

“I’ll do it,” Ellis immediately gawked, ripping off her tactical jacket and attempting to pry open another pod with her bare hands.

The others had finally found a way out of their desolate trance, with Jordan being the first to speak and rush towards Ellis, “No, you can’t.”

“I’ve got to bring her back.”

“At what cost? She wouldn’t want you to sacrifice yourself for her,” Jordan protested, grabbing Ellis’ arm. She quickly spun around, attempting to free herself from his grip in vain as she shoved him.

“It doesn’t matter if I go, just as long she’s back,” Ellis snarled, “It’s the only way.”

Jordan objected again, unwilling to budge an inch, but so was Ellis. Kara listened for a little longer before she zoned out of their bickering. She found it hard not to sympathise with either of them. She would have been behaving exactly like Ellis if she was in her position, but in Jordan’s absence, she would have taken his place and been trying to convince her against it just as he was doing now. It still felt surreal to have come this far just to fail. Her pursuit of vengeance seemed trivial now. The Kara from a few weeks ago would have crumbled here, adding this to her long list of failures and wallowing in a pit of despair. But now, having remembered and truly accepted who she is, she didn’t.

She had made the promise to Ellis to get Cody back. She had sworn to be the person that she didn’t have when her sister was taken, and she was dead set on staying true to that. “It’s the only way,” Kara remembered Ellis saying, fixating on it.

“What if it isn’t the only way?” Kara interjected, halting Ellis and Jordan’s dispute, “What if I do it?”

They seemed taken aback by her suggestion at first before brushing her off without taking her seriously.

“You’re Kryptonian, your body wouldn’t be compatible,” Jordan replied, “It wouldn’t work.”

“How do you know for sure?” Kara replied.

“Jensson never mentioned anything about cross-species transfers,” Ellis said.

“Exactly,” Kara retorted, limping over to the scanning pod and stepping inside, “Gideon. Scan me.”

“Kara, we didn’t come here to trade lives,” Jordan chided, “Gideon, don’t listen to her.”

“Just do it,” Kara demanded.

Gideon complied and the panels began spinning around Kara, scanning her for a few seconds longer than Ellis. It was a long shot, for sure, Kara knew that, but they hadn’t come this far to accept failure so easily without trying every possible option. She stepped out of the pod once the scan was done, walking over to Jordan and Ellis as they waited for Gideon to explain the results.

“Remarkable,” Gideon eventually said, “While Kara isn’t a fit for Cody, she’s partially compatible with Ellis, meaning I could do a dual procedure. Cody’s engram could be transferred to Ellis’ body, while Ellis would take Kara’s body. Though I must emphasise – partial compatibility. The transfer might fail, and if it’s successful, Kara’s body will likely reject Ellis, seeing her as an intruder. The body will begin to attack itself and Ellis’ condition would slowly deteriorate over several months until she is no more.”

“Several months? More specific, how long are we talking?” Jordan asked.

“Around seven months, maybe eight, per my calculations.”

Ellis and Jordan still seemed uneasy, but Kara turned to them without hesitation, “Ellis, we’ve got to do it.”

“No,” Ellis replied, pacing towards Kara, “I want her back but it doesn’t have to come at the cost of you. She’s my sister, it has to be me.”

“Ellis-“

“No, we just got you back, we can’t lose you again,” Ellis wailed, “It has to be me!”

“Ellis, I am done,” Kara sighed, placing her hands on Ellis’ shoulders and leaning in, “I’m done with everything. I’m tired… tired of living for nothing. I’ve been looking for a way out for years, and this is my chance. My chance to die for something. I promised I’d help you get Cody back. This is it.”

A part of Ellis understood. For years, she had only ever seen Kara through pictures of the youthful, exuberant woman in blue and red, but that woman stood in front of her now as a tortured soul with a broken body who had endured several lifetimes of anguish. But even this woman in front of her right now was still her hero. It was one thing to be a descendant of a great hero, it was something else to take their power and directly have to honour them.

“I don’t know if I can. Your body, Kara,” Ellis sobbed, “I can’t… I can’t be you.”

Kara shook her head with a warm smile, “You don’t have to be. You’re worthy of this power, Ellis. More worthy than I’ve been in a long time.”

“What if it’s for nothing? What if I just die in a few months and you gave yourself up for nothing?”

“I know that you’ll find a way to stop that from happening,” Kara replied, not just to reassure her but because she truly meant it, “I’ll get you your sister back… let me reunite with mine.”

Ellis had all but begun weeping and hid it by burying her face in Kara’s shoulder as she pulled her in for a tight hug. She had a vice-grip around the woman who had been her greatest source of inspiration, not wanting to let her go. Kara didn’t rush her either, remaining in the embrace without moving away for as long as it took for Ellis to finally let go, placing a hand on the young woman’s cheeks to wipe away her tears as she did so.

Nora came forward next. She hadn’t spoken a word till this point, finally doing so as she embraced Kara, “Thank you for everything. If… when you see my dad, tell him I said hi.”

Kara acknowledged her request with a nod and then it was Jordan next. Ever since they had reunited, she had only ever seen him tense with a tough exterior, not unlike herself. But his gaze was averted as she approached him, his eyes staring blankly at the floor as she saw him try to hold back the tears that were beginning to form in them. She raised his eyes to hers with a gentle nudge on his quivering jaw before moving her hand to his cheek. He simply placed his hand over hers, grasping it as he let the tears roll down.

“You don’t have to do this,” he trembled.

“It’ll be okay,” Kara calmed him, her voice shaking as well as her eyes became watery too. The man in front of her now was about as close to a son as she ever had, and she could feel it through the pain of this goodbye compared to the others. His hard exterior was finally broken as he allowed the tears to come running down his eyes while he embraced her. This time, it was Kara burying her face in a shoulder to hide her sobs, only letting go once she felt she finally had control of herself again.

“It’s been a pleasure knowing you, Kara,” Gideon said finally.

“You too, Gideon.”

Kara walked over to the pod that had opened for her, gingerly setting herself upon it. Of all the ways she had envisioned dying, this was the one she never thought of. Of course, she never thought she would enter her eternal rest in a place like this for this purpose, but it was about the peace that she felt as she lay down. It was all done. The fighting, the pain, the sorrow, the burdens, they were all gone. She was free.

She thought the goodbyes were done, but that voice in her head, the same one that had guided her through the tunnels, popped up again. This time, it was clearer, more distinct… deep and soothing, comforting.

“Kara…”

She recognised it immediately, letting out a breath in awe. “J’onn…”

“My beautiful daughter,” he shakily said, weeping as well.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t see each other again,” Kara whimpered with regret.

“You have nothing to apologise for. We’ll reunite one day.”

“Goodbye, J’onn.”

“Rest easy, my child.”

The anaesthetic had already started to disperse in the pod, but Kara hadn’t noticed. She savoured each breath she took, knowing they would all be her last. Death didn’t frighten her, nor did it feel uncertain. Even if there was nothing after it, the peace and quiet seemed just alright. But she had hope, and hope gave her certainty that she was going to see her family again, in some way, in some form.

And so, she closed her eyes, letting out her final, free breath as she entered her tranquil, eternal rest.

Chapter Text

[3 MONTHS LATER – KENT FARM, SMALLVILLE]  

“Alright, ready? And go.” 

The large pieces of scrap metal came flying at Ellis from every direction as Jordan ran circles around her and tossed them. She shot down the first three with her heat vision and then adjusted for the final three, waiting for them to come within arm’s length before punching them away. The naked human eye wouldn’t have noticed anything with the speed at which it had all occurred, but Jordan had seen everything he needed to.  

Just as his father had helped Kara, and they both had helped him, he was here now helping Ellis adjust to her powers and learn how to control them. It always began with the overwhelming of the senses, having to teach her to zone the noise out and moderate her touch. She was at the somewhat fun portion of her training now, where she got to punch and blast things, but it was still often a frustrating experience. She could hug someone without crushing them and grab a mug without shattering it, but finding the exact precision needed when in a precarious situation was still proving to be a challenge. He examined the pieces of metal, seeing those she had hit with heat vision being burnt clean through and the ones she punched being broken into smaller fragments. 

“Still gotta tone it down a little more,” he said as he approached her. 

“Strength or heat vision?” Ellis asked. 

“Both.” 

“I’m trying my best, Jordan, it’s not easy,” Ellis sighed out of frustration. 

“I know,” he replied with a soft tone, “We’ll go again.” 

After a long day of training in the fields, rest finally came when the sun began setting over Smallville. The orange hue tinted the landscape, providing a view that Ellis had yet to get tired of. Perhaps it was a notch below what she’d seen in space, but it was far and away better than the metropolitan, concrete jungle she had spent most of her life in. 

Waking up in not just a new body, but a Kryptonian one brought intense shock and anguish that she never thought was even possible. All of her senses and nerves were overstimulated and her mind couldn’t handle it at first, constantly blacking out and coming back during their escape from Lord Tower. It was all a massive blur, the only aspect of the whole ordeal she could partially remember being her former body looking over her at some point. It had gotten slightly more normal fully seeing “herself” and not just through a mirror, but it was still always going to be a little weird.  

Cody’s initial adjustment was far less strenuous than Ellis’, but it was by no means easy either. She had been stuck in cyberspace for a long time, having lost idea of what it felt like to exist in material form again. It took her a while with the help of some meds to get semi-comfortable in her new body. It was still a struggle every day adjusting to new aches, new internal processes, new cyberware, but she was doing well for herself. Nora had been fitted with a good-as-new cyberarm and gone back to her mundane life in Central City, popping in now and again to check up on them. 

Both she and Cody had taken steps to retain something of their past selves, the most obvious and easiest being their hair. Cody had dyed hers blonde, while Ellis had done hers black and let Kara’s short cut grow out so that it now rested just at her shoulders.  

It was only a few days after the procedure when she became fully cognisant of her surroundings. Immediately, she felt intense cravings for alcohol and cigarettes. She had managed to kick the former by now, but the cigs proved harder to get rid of. Gideon had succeeded in destroying the subnet, effectively ridding Lord Technologies of all of its data, assets and power. Not only was Lord gone too, but his empire had crumbled as well. 

The collapse of Lord Tech left Knight City in a state of anarchy, setting ablaze a forest fire that sparked hope for regrowth in the aftermath of it. For decades, it was the epicentre of a world overrun by corporate colonialism, a place where both human and alien lives were bought and exploited with impunity. Corporations had stolen and withheld the pen that people used to use to write their stories, but now it had finally been handed back to them. The best they could have hoped for was that people would have more power to control their own destinies, and now they did. 

After everything that had gone down, Ellis and Cody decided it was finally time to leave Knight City behind once and for all. There was no point sticking around when there was nothing truly tying them down to the place anymore. Their lives had also been flipped entirely on their heads, now living in different bodies and being seen as different people by others. They had done what they had set out to do after all. They did more actually. They spent most of their lives fighting against corporations and the control they had over people’s lives, and they ended up taking down the biggest one of them all. That was enough for them to realise it was time to go, leaving behind their legacy as legends and then disappearing to move on to the next stage of their lives.  

Smallville was a good place to start anew, far away from anything even close to resembling a city. Jordan had cooked up new identities for them, and while Ellis still spent most of her time at the farm, Cody had taken up a position as a secretary at a nearby daycare. Totally mundane, a far departure from their former reality, but honest and tranquil. To think that less than a year ago they were gunning down gang members and now they were living in the countryside. It seemed quiet to them, almost too quiet. Few cars, no gunshots, no strife. Tech was rudimentary out here compared to what was common in Knight City, but it was never too simplistic or outdated to be of no use to them.  

Gideon’s warning had proven true quickly. Kara’s body was rejecting its new master and beginning to attack itself. It started with headaches, which slowly got more intense and sharper. Then, the random stomach aches, followed by sporadic vomiting and nosebleeds which were becoming less sporadic and more frequent. And now, as she lit up a cigarette, she noticed her hands ever so slightly starting to tremble. 

Jordan and Nora immediately began searching for some kind of solution. Jensson hadn’t been of much help, having never studied a case like hers before. He wanted more time to study her and to be able to do so without restrictions, which they couldn’t allow. He could only recommend strong doses of immunosuppressors, which would lessen the symptoms and maybe slightly delay her inevitable demise, but not for long. She had been to S.T.A.R. Labs numerous times for scans and evaluations and Nora had made it a top priority of its scientists to work on her case. They didn’t seem to have made much progress, with results being inauspicious thus far. 

“Thought you said you cut that out,” Jordan said, noting the cigarette in Ellis’ hand as he joined her on the porch, leaning against the railing with her. 

“Almost. Haven’t fully shook it yet, but I’m down to one a day,” she replied before taking the cold bottle of water he was offering, “Thanks.” 

“Don’t be too hard on yourself for today. Took me a while to get full control of my powers,” he said, attempting to reassure her with a smile that slowly disappeared, his face becoming painted with concern, “You’ve, uh…” 

He tapped his nose, prompting Ellis to swipe her finger across her own to find blood beginning to stream from it. She quickly reached for a tissue in her back pocket to wipe it.  

“I’m running out of time,” Ellis groused, dropping her head, “Any updates?” 

“I’m waiting on a lead, I’ll let you kn-“ 

“Cut the shit, I’ve heard that before. Give it to me straight.” 

Jordan sighed, “Contact struck out. Had nothing for us. But I told him to keep at it.” 

“It’s been three months, Jordan. I’ve only got four left.” 

“We’ll find something, Ellis. I know we will. I promise we will,” he declared. 

Same old, same old, she had heard it a thousand times before. She had been thinking about a different way to find a cure for a while. Even Earth’s current advanced technology was still far behind that of other civilisations. Three months and very little progress, she couldn’t continue sticking around and hoping for a breakthrough out of nowhere, not when there was another option. 

“I don’t think the solution is here,” Ellis replied. 

“What do you mean?” Jordan asked. Ellis simply raised her gaze, fixating on the stars above, but Jordan rebuked, “Seems like a long-shot.” 

“Still a better chance than running into dead-ends every week here. It’s got to be out there, Jordan. Someone must know how to fix this,” she said with a heavy breath, “The sooner I leave, the more time I have to go find them.” 

“I don’t like this ‘I’ talk,” Jordan replied with a raised eyebrow. 

“You can’t come with, you have to hold down things here. And Cody, she has her own problems to handle, her own body and life to adjust to. I’ll be fine by myself.” 

“What if you don’t find anything?” 

Ellis paused for a few seconds. She hadn’t really paid attention to the idea that the search out there would come up short as well. 

“If I don’t find anything, I’ll make sure I’m back before it’s time,” she replied. She flicked away the cigarette and raised her hands behind her neck, undoing the hook of Kara’s necklace. She placed the necklace in Jordan’s open hand and then closed it with her own, “I’ll come back for it. I promise.” 

“Where will you even go?” he asked. 

“Kara had some friends on Sadostia. Maybe that’s a good place to start. I’ll figure it out from there. I’ll leave tomorrow. Don’t tell Cody, as far as you know I up and left myself without telling you.” 

“Why not?” 

“I know her. She’s going to try to stop me from leaving and I don’t want to get into an argument with her about it. Please, Jordan.” 

“Okay,” he agreed. 

Ellis decided the best time to leave was a while after Cody had left for work. Kara’s spaceship was stored in one of the empty barns nearby. She had already packed her two large bags, mostly full of clothes but with some firepower as well. It wasn’t just about staying alive for the sake of it. This was her last shot, her last chance to ensure that Kara didn’t die for nothing and that her sacrifice wasn’t wasted. She had trusted Ellis with this power and she couldn’t squander it at any cost. 

She found the ramp into the ship already down. Odd, but perhaps Jordan had checked up on the ship last night and forgot to close it, so she slowly walked up without much care, not even realising as she threw her bags down that two others were sitting next to the fridge as well. 

“Like I’m about to let you do this alone,” the tender voice spoke, coming from the front of the craft. Ellis’ vision snapped towards it, seeing Cody get up from the passenger seat, “Really thought you could leave without me?” 

“Without you?” Ellis asked, confused. 

“Jordan spoke to me. Said you told him not to because I’d try stop you and I’ve got my own shit to deal with. Fuck all that, only thing I’m worried about is you.” 

Ellis had foolishly misjudged her sister. It should have seemed obvious that after having fought every battle they ever had by each other’s side that Cody would want to be with her for this one. But she still felt like this was her mission, her responsibility and no one else’s. 

“It could be dangerous,” Ellis replied, “We could run into serious trouble. You’ve got a new lease on life, you can’t squander it. I’m a walking corpse anyway. And what if… what if we don’t find anything?” 

Cody glared right back at Ellis, probing deep into her eyes and speaking firmly. “Then I’ll be with you through it all. That’s what sisters are for.” 

Ellis couldn’t argue with that. Her sister’s words struck right home in her heart, reminding her why she had gone through all the trouble to bring her back in the first place. They had always had each other’s back since day one, having never strayed apart from each other’s side because, for the longest time, they were all that they had. They were going to do this together, like always. She walked over, wrapping Cody in a tight embrace, tighter than she ever had before making her way to the pilot’s seat. 

“I see you’ve made yourself at home already,” Ellis remarked, spotting the paper bag and crumpled burger wrapping on the dashboard. 

“Long journey ahead. I’ve got a whole lot more stuffed in the fridge.” 

“Well, this is Kara’s ride, so I suggest you treat it with a little more respect. Clean that up.” 

Cody scrunched her face as she scoffed, “Don’t get all bossy with me. Just because you’re now in an older body doesn’t mean I’m not still big sister.” 

“Right,” Ellis chuckled as she fidgeted with the buttons in front of her, “How much more are back there in the fridge?” 

“About twelve or so.” 

Ellis raised her eyebrows, “You better not eat them all. That’s my old body, treat her with respect too.” 

“I have been. It’s quite nice, I must say,” Cody replied, jokingly examining herself. 

“Must be nice that your new body isn’t killing you,” Ellis grimly replied. 

“Ellis,” Cody called to her, drawing her full attention, “We’ll find a way to fix this, I’m sure of it. A little hope, please?” 

“Where’s all this exuberant optimism coming from?” Ellis shook her head in disbelief, “It’s quite unlike you.” 

“Can’t say for sure, but I’ve got a theory,” Cody replied, sitting back, “Maybe Soulkiller doesn’t fully erase the person within. Whoever takes over takes on some of the characteristics of the old person inside. That’s maybe why I’m a little more merry and you’re a little more gloomy… But you’re still you, new body or not. And that’s all you’ll ever need to be once we get this fixed.” 

Still, even with her sister’s defiant optimism, Ellis wasn’t fully convinced. Roaming the cosmos searching for something they didn’t even know existed was the longest of long-shots without even considering that they only had four months to do it. To her, it seemed a little more the case that Cody was in denial about the possibility of failure rather than outright hopeful. 

But she knew that was too bleak of an outlook. Kara herself had been hopeful in her last few moments, so the least that Ellis could do was to have hope as well. She did her best to shun the pessimistic voices in her head and just breathe in the possibility of a new life ahead of her, one that stretched past the next four months. 

“Yeah,” Ellis agreed. 

The two sisters shared a warm, wide smile before Cody leaned back in her seat while Ellis continued calibrating the ship’s settings. Only a few more switches, and then the ship’s engines began whirring to prepare for take-off. Just before that, she reached into her pocket, pulling out the picture of Kara and Alex Danvers and gazing at it for a few seconds. 

She set it against a dial on the headboard, and she was off into the stars to find out what fate had planned for her.