A dreadful thought had plagued Kara's mind all day as she anticipated her inevitable subjugation, "Kal's finally going to use the focus on me, and I'll be nothing more than another one of his pawns". No more than a month ago, she envisioned him to be humanity's savior, not it's oppressor. After Superman killed Brainiac and defeated Batman, he went about rebuilding the Regime he established not too long ago. Many heroes whom she had gotten to know during the battle against Brainiac were now either dead or enslaved to Superman's new power. By bonding with Brainiac's ship, Superman gained unimaginable power, equipped with the ability to control minds through a focus. Amongst the victims, Batman was the first to succumb to this power, and with him, any hope of resistance had fallen.
Kara curled into a ball as she pondered over Kal's offer, assist him in his conquest or be enslaved like the rest. Neither option appealed to her, and she no longer had any time left to ponder over her decision. From the corner of her cell, she ran through the possibility of escape, "There has to be a way out of here, I won't just sit quietly and be forced into this madness!". In spite of her mental rebellion against Kal, she knew deep in her heart that it was pointless. The red sun generator was fully operational, 24 hours a day, constantly suppressing her power. Not just that, she had no allies to rely on as many were now serving Kal against their will. Green Lantern, Firestorm, even villains like Bane and Captain Cold, Kal has managed to quell all forms of rebellion against his new regime. She hugged her knees tightly, with tears rolling down her cheeks, she uttered to herself "I'm sorry Jor-El, I couldn't save him. Jaime was right, I had no idea of what Kal was capable of."
"A little too late to say I told ya so huh?" whispered an all too familiar voice.
"Jaime?" exclaimed Kara as she got up and began looking around the room to find the source of that voice.
Jaime Reyes, also known as Blue Beetle, responded to her as he dropped from the ceiling and landed on the platform right in front of her cell. "Whassup girl! Ya missed me?" exclaimed Jaime as he walked closer to the controls with a spring in his step, fiddling with an array of dials and buttons.
"You'd wish! Still hanging with that bug I see…" responded Kara, expressing a happiness she hadn't known since her incarceration.
"Don't you worry, I'll get you out of here, right about… NOW!" and with that exclamation, the red sun emitters surrounding her cell were shut down.
Kara was completely taken aback as she knew Jaime couldn't have been able to shut down the security by himself…"How did you-"
"No time to explain, we have to move!" said Jaime as the prison alarms resounded throughout the entire base. Jaime entered various inputs to open the cell that imprisoned Kara.
He then looked over to her and asked, "Ever gone through a Boom-tube?"
"No? What is that?" responded Kara as she exited her cell, confused over everything that is happening.
"Well, there's a first time for everything then." A flash of white light suddenly flashed from his's hands and manifested itself into a portal. "After you m'lady" said Jaime as he gestured for her to enter the portal. Without any hesitation, Kara saw this as her only opportunity to escape and jumped straight into the boom-tube with Jaime following right after.
It was a surreal experience for her, one moment she was in the most secure prison in the world, next she found herself in some kind of underwater base. Her first thought was that she arrived in Atlantis, yet her surroundings suggested otherwise. The layout of the base was all too similar to Batman's Batcave. There was an array of computers set up within the center of the room, with a view overlooking the ocean floor just behind them. There were many scientists dressed in Atlantean colors operating on various pieces of equipment. On the opposite end of the room, technological constructs laid about in the form of armored suits, submarines and even various racks stacked with what appeared to be gadgets and weapons designed by Batman. With so much to take in, she barely noticed the presence of a new figure who had just entered the room.
"I see you made it through in time, that's good. We have a lot of work to do now that you're here, you'll be briefed shortly so we can get under way."
The person who said these words invoked a sense of anger and rage within her. The architect of her escape was none other than the King of Atlantis, Arthur Curry, otherwise known as Aquaman. If he had not helped Kal in the final battle against Brainiac, the world's current predicament might have turned out a little different. Summoning her renewed power, she flew straight into Arthur and delivered a resounding punch right across his chest, sending him flying across the room.
Arthur crashed into the submarine and exhumed a gasp of air as he attempted to get back up.
"What are you doing here! If not for you, none of this would have happened!" screamed Kara as she was still seething with anger from Arthur's betrayal.
"I guess I deserved that, but let it be known that if given the choice, I would have sided Kal all over again, Brainiac needed to be killed." Arthur's attempts at reasoning fell on deaf ears as she could only focus on her rage at his decision. She flew straight into him, crashing them both deeper into the submarine. Following a series of punches, she threw him out of the vehicle into the center of the room. Arthur picked himself slowly, all too aware that this was to be the expected reaction. "I see you need to blow off some steam… Very well, allow me to assist you in this endeavor!" With that being said, Kara prepared herself to trade blows with the King. As they stood across one another in the room, Arthur was the first to engage. He swung his trident for an overhead strike, only to be dodged by Kara. Realizing her powers are starting to come back to her, she began to make full use of them. She advanced on him with a constant heat vision blast that forced Arthur to block with his trident. Following that attack, she rolled forward and began landing a series of quick punches, ending with an uppercut that left the King of Atlantis flat on his back. Jaime stood in the background as he watched all that unfurled, desperately calling out to them to stop the fighting. Arthur finally had enough of the beating and began to strike back. He got up and rushed at her with his trident, striking multiple hits in quick succession. Luckily, Kara has steel-like skin, otherwise that move might have had a much deadlier effect. As she began to spar with him up close, she knew she was in trouble so long as that trident was in play. Just before Arthur struck the final strike from his trident rush, Kara blew a cold breath of air that froze him in his tracks, she delivered a kick that juggled him in mid-air. She flew up to grab him, and forcefully dragged his body across the floor, forcing him to relinquish his hold of the trident and concede to the battle.
As she stood over the defeated Atlantean, he got up and conceded the battle. "I hope you've finally gotten that out of your system. We have other things to deal with right now. Atlantis is now under Superman's rule, and we have a solution to overthrow his new Regime." She could not believe it, first he sides with Kal and now goes against him, this King clearly doesn't have his principles straight.
Noticing her emotional outburst, Jaime attempted to calm Kara down. "Hey, I know it doesn't seem like we can trust him, but he's been helping us with a legit plan to stop Superman. We can deal with him after but right now, we gotta stop this new Regime."
Upon hearing those words, she felt conflicted. Was she truly willing to trust Arthur on this matter? Was there a plan to stop her cousin? Regardless, she was out of options. Begrudgingly, she acknowledged Jaime's words, "Fine, I'll play along for now, we have a common objective. Allies for now but I will deal with you once this is over."
"Fair enough, perhaps I should allow Barry to elaborate the plan since he was the once who planned it in the first place."
With that being said, a sudden red streak of lightning entered the room, in the form of Barry Allen. He clearly looked weathered and exhausted, the past few months have not been kind to Barry. There were dark rings under his eyes, he seemed to have lost some weight and he clearly looks to have been working on something that took a few years off his life. "Kara! It's great to have you back kid, I hope.. Oh boy, what the heck happened here?" Barry was clearly surprised at the mess that had happened while he was away. Kara was equally surprised to see Barry still around, she had thought him dead following one of Kal's subjugation battles. "Barry! You're… alive! I thought Kal.." she exclaimed with confusion. "Fastest man alive remember? Kal didn't actually see me die, just a building collapse on me. Long story but point is I'm here now, and we have a lot of work to do to stop the new Regime."
They moved on to another chamber of the facility as Barry began elaborating on all that had happened over the last few months. A week after Brainiac's defeat, Aquaman's marines had discovered a hidden Insurgent base run by both Lex Luthor and Batman. It was here that they discovered the prototype designs Lex had hidden for an inter-dimensional portal to other worlds, built with the intention to seek help against Superman. Over the past few months, Barry who was presumed dead, collaborated with Atlantean scientists to reverse engineer the portal, even collecting enough speed-force to power the machine. Realizing they needed more assistance for the plan to work, he hatched a plan with the scientists to rescue Kara, hence how Jaime managed to shut down the red sun generators and used a boom-tube to help her escape. Now with all the pieces prepared, there was just one problem.
"It's a one-way portal, meaning that once you go through, you can't come back the same way."
Kara felt a sense of dread as this didn't seem like a solid plan. What was the point of travelling to another world if they would only end up trapped there? "However, we've managed to construct a mother box that can let you travel back to our dimension, but you can only use it once. The reverse engineered product is imperfect, but it definitely works so make sure you use it when it counts alright?"
Despite various odds stacked against them, Kara was hopeful. The plan albeit imperfect, was their only solution to stopping her cousin, and she would stop at nothing to save him from himself. Barry goes on to conclude the debrief, "This mission requires a small team. Me, Kara and Jaime will be the ones taking the journey to this parallel dimension we have found, and hopefully with a bit of luck, bring back the forces we need to stop Clark."
With a renewed sense of vigor and hope, Kara stood up with determination, "Alright, it's time to take the fight back to the Regime!" Knowing that Kal had certainly gone too far, she was more than determined to finally bring it down and bring Kal back to the right side of justice.
As the rag tag team of allies returned to the portal room, they were met with an unexpected surprise. Standing right next to the portal waiting for them were two prominent Regime members, Cyborg and Black Adam, alongside a contingent of regime soldiers who held the Atlantean scientists at gunpoint. "You think your tech couldn't be traced? I specialize in boom-tube tech!" exclaimed Cyborg. Caught completely unprepared, Kara knew that they needed to take them down here and now if there was any hope of stopping the Regime. "Kara! Jaime! Get the scientists! We'll hold them off!". As Barry exclaimed those words, he and Aquaman, along with a contingent of his guards engaged the Regime's "heroes" and their troops. It was utter chaos as both sides battled it out for control of the portal. Kara and Jaime managed to take out the team holding the scientists and got them to prep the portal right away. While Kara and Jaime defended the scientists, Barry and Arthur engaged with Cyborg and Adam respectively. Barry tried to use his enhanced speed to his advantage, striking cyborg from various directions, keeping the regime officer disoriented from all sides. In an attempt to counter this, Cyborg summoned a drone in the sky that crashed straight into Barry, sending him flying in mid-air. This gave Cyborg all the leverage he needed as he began to rain an array of precise punches on Barry, followed by a strong power fist uppercut that sent Barry flying, followed by a strong downward power fist that crashed him straight into the ground. Arthur fared no better as Black Adam kept his distance, launching a barrage of lightning strikes that ultimately wore Arthur's stamina out. Just as they were defeated the portal lit up a bright white light, connected to the alternate dimension.
"We did it!" exclaimed Kara. With a sudden flash of light, a nova laser struct the console controlling the portal, causing the gateway to behave strangely. With the console damaged, it had caused the portal to change from a bright white, to an unusual emerald green. "NO!" Kara cried out, as the portal seemed to point to a different destination now. Kara looked over to the direction of the laser, and found both Barry and Arthur beaten down to the ground. Mustering the energy he had left, Barry called out to the two young heroes, "Go! Bring back this world's freedom!".
At that moment, Kara and Jaime knew they had to take a leap of faith. Surrounded and outgunned, the portal was their only solution. "Looks like we don't have a choice Jaime." "See you on the other side chica."
"You ain't goin nowhere!" exclaimed Cyborg as he launched a sonic boom at the portal. With determination in their hearts, Kara and Jaime jumped through the portal, right before to blast destroyed the gateway. As they hurled through the strange wormhole, Kara could only wonder what strange lands awaited them beyond this portal.
In what seemed like forever, Kara awoke and found herself at a temple. It seemed to be influenced by Asian architecture, with statues of dragons and lions situated across the courtyard. As she struggled to get up, a mysterious figure approached her. The man was dressed in a commanding black garb, had glowing orange eyes and wore a bamboo hat. She knew at that moment, she was not in a parallel dimension as this person emanated a sense of power beyond anyone she had met before. As he got closer, he introduced himself, "I am Raiden! Protector of Earthrealm! And you appear to be an invader from Outworld!" Though uncertain of her surroundings, Kara knew one thing about this man as she muttered to herself, "Clearly you are not friendly."