A/N #2, PLEASE READ: So a few days past I received a review from a guest, leaving me unable to reply, so to them if they should read this, or anyone else for whom the other note below, which has appeared on every one of these prelude stories, has not settled, as the review demanded "What's with the weird arrowverse one-shots? Just write a full story." these stories, along with the ability to start putting awareness that the big story was coming, are set to allow me to share and for any of you so kind as to read to have an establishing of this alternate universe which will be the setting of the 100-day/chapter story Once More Unto the Breach which will serve as this year's countdown to the new seasons (for the third year running :)). The prelude stories give space to some needed exposition that would have otherwise clogged the main story and would have needed to be rushed.

We are now on to the final preludes, the last of which is to go up on June 30th. After this, the big story is set to premiere July 15th 2018, the final chapter to go up on the day the last of the four shows premieres, this year being Legends of Tomorrow, on October 22nd 2018.

A/N: I was meant to start writing and posting these back in January, however life happened, and progress didn't happen, so now here I am, a little over two months late but finally kicking things off! This coming July, as I've done for the past two summers, I'll be leading a 100-day countdown story set across the Arrowverse (featuring Supergirl, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, and Arrow). I decided to do things a little differently this year. For one thing, the entire 100 days will be a single story spread over 100 days, one chapter to every day. And for another, the more planning I did, I saw the possibility and the need to lay in some ground work in the form of preludes.

Twenty-four prelude one-shot stories, six each to the four series (again, it was meant so that each month from January to June would have one of each show, but now… yeah ;)), posted every 5 (or 6) days.

The story this will all be leading to, Once More Unto the Breach, is an alternate universe story (not another Earth, ha :D), which will soon become evident enough. It's very possible you do not watch all four of the shows, but I highly encourage you to seek out the other preludes, as they will help to fill in this world I'm very excited to share with you guys!

Alright, enough chit chat, let's go! If you have any questions, send them my way and I'll be happy to answer them!

THE PEOPLE'S HEROINE
Prelude to ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH
(21 of 24)

Location:
BREACH EARTH, HAVEN QUARTER
(ARGUS designation)

For a year now, they had been calling her Kara Danvers, ever since she had come to this place that was supposed to be her home. It still didn't feel like the name belonged to her. They had told her about a father she'd lost, but she wouldn't have known his face if they'd shown it to her. She had been reunited to a mother and a sister who, tearfully happy to see her as they were, were complete strangers to her. It didn't matter how many pictures and videos they showed her of this other girl that was supposed to be her. It didn't matter at all. Because she knew nothing of her. So how could it be her?

Oh, she looked like her, for sure, the way she'd done at that age at least. And the times tracked, eleven years gone since her parents had found her, eleven years since this other Kara had been gone, believed dead… And her name… the only thing she'd had to hold on to, when she'd first awakened inside Stein Labs.

She'd been fourteen years old, at least that was what they had estimated when they had found her. With the war all around them, it would have been all too easy for anyone to assume she had been a victim of some attack or another, finding her on the brink of death as she'd been. But somehow they must have seen something in her that was different, special, because rather than to have her taken to a hospital they had taken her to the labs where they worked. Over the years they had told her the story a few times, how they had worked so relentlessly to restore her, along with their boss, who owned the place. They were not going to let her die. And finally, thankfully, they had succeeded.

Theirs had been the first faces she'd ever seen. It would be some time before she would get to call them mother and father, but even before then, from that day she'd woken up there with them, they felt like they belonged to her, and she belonged to them. Her parents… the doctors Laura and Eliot Zeta. They'd had no children of their own before, and still, the way they'd looked at her then… Maybe they knew she was meant to be theirs, too.

She'd still been weak upon awakening, but when they'd asked her for her name, she had told them… Kara… Her name was Kara… and that was all she had to tell them, because there was nothing else to tell. She remembered nothing. Not where she'd come from, how she'd been hurt, not who she'd ever been before this day. No home. No family. Just one name and an aching body feeling distress. But the Zetas had been there, day to day, nurturing her, making her feel less alone and frightened. The man she'd come to call her father would have her call him El instead of Doctor Zeta, and the woman… As devoted to her work as she would be, whenever Kara would appear nearby, observing her, she would smile and invite her to come forward, that she may tell her about what she was doing. Kara would stand there, and she would listen, and as she did she would feel at peace. With each of them she'd found solace, and it worried her less not to have any recollection of her past.

The only person she'd found herself intimidated by in the beginning was Martin Stein, the creator of Stein Labs. It wasn't that he was bad in any way, no, but he just… he didn't seem to know how to be around her. Even after she'd fully recovered from her injuries, he still would look at her like she was a patient… or a project. Either way, she would get spooked sometimes, with the way he looked at her, and she would hurry off to wherever she might find one of the Zetas. It had gotten better over the years, though the feeling had never completely left her.

Discovering the world around her, beyond the safety of the labs had been something of a shock. Any child alive today in this place knew about the war that surrounded them, they knew how to live in this place, staying out of danger in what way they could. Almost all of them grew up with one thing in mind. Someday they would become soldiers. Someday they would join the fight. This was something so bound to their lives that even as they grew they were preparing. Many of them learned combat techniques, trained with weapons, delved in the world of science as it may aid the effort. Stein and the Zetas had been of this variety. Although they generally devoted their own knowledge to aiding the people, not advancing the fight. This kept them separated from many others, who would look down upon pacifism.

Kara had been scared at first. She never liked to leave the labs. The only times she went without as much of a fuss involved her having been invited to visit the Zetas' home. She had followed them, feeling as secure as she had yet to manage to feel. The home she found there had been a revelation. As safe as the labs were, the home had a different air of safety… peace, warmth… When she had first walked in, a part of her never wanted to leave again. It was small, the outside outfitted for security but the inside for comfort. Laura had showed her around, while El made them something to eat. Soon they would sit together, eating the wonderful food while they told her about how they had met and come to be together. She had never been happier since her waking. Later she had fallen asleep on the couch… She had never slept so soundly.

She had dreamed. Wonderful dreams with birds, flying through the air… Black and white…

It had never been the outright intention for the Zetas to take her in, but after finding her they had done their very best to try and identify who the amnesiac young girl was and who she had belonged to, but if she'd had parents, they were nowhere to be found. Records were not always accurate or up to date, but for young Kara to have not a single trace to follow… What would it mean? There were options. It could be that the name she remembered was not in fact her name, or, if it was, then it wasn't the name on her birth certificate. It could be that her parents had kept her off record. This wasn't uncommon, parents not declaring their children, so they might not grow up to be pulled into the war. It could be that the records were destroyed, that her parents were already dead and she had been a street orphan… They were common, too, unfortunately.

One way or the other, it was very likely that Kara had no one to go back to, and with that being the case, within half a year of her being found, nearly as long of her living with them, the Zetas had officially adopted her as their daughter. Having no other memory but of the two of them, from the moment she'd opened her eyes in Stein Labs, having grown closer to them by the day, Kara had been ecstatic when they had told her. They were already all the mother and father she could have asked for, and now she got to call them as much.

The next couple of years under their wing, Kara Zeta had flourished. Her memories were not looking as though they were ever going to return to her, which left her having to reacclimate herself to the reality of the war around them. She had started out shadowing her parents, their scientific efforts. She still feared the world outside, and getting to learn and to help, with her parents, with Stein… it was enough. At first at least…

She didn't spend all her life behind doors, of course, and when out of doors, coming into contact with other people, others her age, she'd be faced with a whole other way of life. And those other kids, they would see her and it would be as though they knew. She had not fought a day in her life, had never held a weapon in her hands… and that made her into something lesser, she could see it in the way they looked at her. Some of them had been particular in their accusations toward her, challenging her at every turn. Her parents insisted that she never needed to sink to their levels, but she couldn't ignore it forever. And one day she'd been shown just how ill prepared she was… with results as painful as they were unexpected, for all parties involved.

One day, while sent off on her own, off on an errand for her parents, her 'accusers' had cornered her. They had fallen on her with fists and feet, elbows and knees… She'd been sixteen, and scared, and every blow had felt like the world got louder, and louder, and louder… And then she'd seen the flash of a knife and it had gotten very quiet, her entire brain screaming 'no.' Only the cry that came out of her throat was not a word but a sound, piercing and puissant. It hit the tall girl with her knife and propelled her, far away, knocked the boys aside, too. And in the shock of the moment, Kara had picked herself up off the ground and run, as fast as she'd ever run, back to Stein Labs. The pain in her limbs was forgotten for the span of that run, through the hidden door of Stein Labs she had long been taught to use, and off to where she knew she might find her parents. Her legs had given out before she'd made it there, bringing her down into a heap of burning lungs and trembling hands, but it was alright… She'd made it to safety… She'd made it…

The Zetas had found her, El had carried her to where they might tend to her injuries. She told them what had happened, right up to the part about how she'd gotten away. That one she'd intended to keep to herself, but then they could see she was holding something back, and before long she had unloaded the tale of the strange cry she had made and what it had done to those who'd attacked her.

Tests had been run, once she'd felt ready to submit to them. All she could know for sure in the beginning was that something about her was different, and that the stress of the event had somehow triggered that difference to manifest itself. More than that, it could happen again… she could learn to control it. She'd been unsure in the beginning, but then it had dawned on her that maybe this was exactly what she needed. They were all so sure she could contribute nothing to the war effort? Well maybe they were wrong… maybe she had something… and maybe it would set her apart from whatever they could do.

She hadn't mentioned this to her parents or to Stein, knowing their stance on the whole thing. They were scientists. They did not get involved in that way. But as weeks and months passed, Kara's cry quickly became something more than a fear response, something she couldn't control. She learned to control it, got stronger, and knowing that… it made her proud. One night, she decided it was time to put herself to the test. After she was sure her parents had gone to sleep, she was going to sneak out. She wasn't sure what she'd do, but she'd do something, and they'd know she wasn't some coward.

Her mother had busted her before she could go anywhere, and in the ensuing conversation – Kara pleading her case, her mother trying to convince her to stay – she had learned the truth about her abilities. They were not her abilities. They were a side effect. There were some things about her early days among them they hadn't told her about. All they would say was that she had come from 'another place,' and however she had ended up here with them, it had left her halfway susceptible to this change. And then when they'd brought her to Stein Labs, when they'd all worked to save her, they'd effectively taken her the whole way into this change. They couldn't know what it would mean, but they told themselves they could keep it controlled. It had stayed that way, locked inside her, and it might have stayed that way, but then she'd been attacked, and it had been such a stresser that it had broken through the barriers and let this ability spill from her.

Kara had felt at once betrayed. How could she not? They had kept all these things from her, worse yet, they had tried to make her normal when she wasn't. She had this power in her, and she could do something with it, but them… they'd been scared, or… or jealous… They didn't want her to help, they just wanted to keep her behind doors. Well, that wasn't going to happen.

Soon, the very people who had been against her, who had come at her that day and attacked her, became something else to her. They became associates, allies… friends. Not the friends anyone would have recommended her having, but then if she couldn't trust her family anymore, then who else would it be? They would work together, and before long, her story and her deeds would come to be known near and far across their war-torn world. She was helping. The people loved her, and it only made her want to do more.

For years she did, becoming further and further entrenched in the whole situation, all the while alternating between trying to distance herself from her parents and their lies but also finding she was unable to permanently close the door on them. She loved them. That was what made the betrayal hurt more, but also what made her want them still in her life. They didn't approve of a lot of the things she did, or at least how she did them… but they loved her, too. And so they would try again, and try, and try… until the next time they'd have a blow out and she'd disappear for another few weeks.

Then one day she'd met Seeker. That was the only name the girl would give, but Kara didn't care. She could call herself whatever she wanted. What interested her more was this rumor that the girl had something of a gift herself. Kara couldn't say she understood what it was all about, but the little she had heard about had been enough to pique her interest. The one who'd told her about this Seeker girl had said how she was able to cross into other worlds. It all sounded like nonsense, but what place did she, with that cry of hers, to judge what did or didn't make sense? And plus… ever since she'd heard about this Seeker's supposed powers, she hadn't been able to stop thinking about what her mother had once told her, about how they'd found her when she was fourteen.

When she'd found the girl in question, there was a very strong urge in her to convince her by force to help her sort out whatever truths there might have been to her tale. But instead she gone the way of open honesty, the way she knew would make her mother and father proud, even as she was seeking to find where she'd come from… who she'd come from.

Seeker had come through for her. One day, she had found her out and about, and she'd offered her a ride across a breach. That was what she called it, a breach. She claimed this was the place she'd come from, that she could feel it off of her. It was as much as she could do, the rest would be in her hands. She had thanked the girl, vowing she would repay this kindness someday. And then Seeker was gone and Kara… Kara was alone, in a strange land.

Blue skies… bird song… the scent of flowers and the air… even the air felt lighter, free of the dread pervading everything she'd grown up around for eleven years. It felt like a dream… like her dreams… But it also felt so foreign, so wrong, and she maintained a firm apprehension as she explored this place… this place that strangely looked as though it could have been her old city, if they fixed all the broken things, broken people… If this was where she had belonged, shouldn't she know where to go? Her memories had never resurfaced, not in all those years, and it had never really bothered her, really, it hadn't. But she was here now, and it left a tightness in her chest, like she should know, but she didn't… She felt nothing. It made her want to scream, tear this whole idyllic place to pieces.

But then maybe she wasn't near as clueless as she thought she was. Because of all the places she could have gone that day, she had ended up in the place where, eleven years before, she had ended up pulled through that breach, shortly after witnessing her father's death. It wasn't a particularly significant place, not to anyone… except to one person, a person who would visit the place every so often, to think of the tragic events which had happened here, to think of her lost father, lost sister…

They were neither of them the girls they had been at the time, and one of them had no memory at all to even chance at a recognition. But the other… The other saw her standing there, and under the doubting features of the young woman stood a few feet from her, she found the features of a little face she had kept forever imprinted into her mind's eye.

Alexandra Danvers had found her sister again. And Kara Zeta was home… for better or for worse.

THE END

Check out the next prelude, coming June 20th!