"The Forbidden Fruit."
By James Carmody.
Disclaimer: I do not own either of the copyrights for the stories I'm drawing on in this, neither the Superman/Supergirl universe, nor "Buffy/Angel universe", and I forfeit any financial gain from this forever. I also am not Dante, so I do not own the "Divine Comedy".
Summary: What if something else somehow, telepathically, provided Max Lord with the recipe for Red K that he used in an attempt to trap and poison the terrorist gang that Kara's uncle was heading and hit Kara instead- turning her into a bully?
Chapter 1.): Poisoning of Temptation.
It is said in some texts that an ancient, and very highly immoral alien being manipulated the first human family into taking a fruit- perhaps drugs- and that messed us humans up; what if that thing's been trying that in other areas, on other self-aware aliens, if they even exist?
Rupert Giles in the Buffy series says, rather repeatedly, that the First is, quite literally, Satan itself- if so, then that immoral seraphim has been at it in many different areas, and times untold before- here we delve into such an event again.
It is also said that that evil entity likes to let those it "recruits" to get the credit, it really doesn't want any credit for its actions whatsoever…
"Oh, come on, you can't leave me here…" Glory complained, tricked and tied to the bed of her "boyfriend" the First Evil, as he left towards the office in his HQ in Perdition's capital city of Pandemonium right across the "Hellmouth Gateway", the "yard gate" that led right into its own capital region, ironically planted right nearby one of the most liberal states in the US, or perhaps not so ironically… as it liked to buy humans off, and leftist education has long emphasized emotional happiness over learning, sadly; and thus messed up the education of US citizens for many decades.
The First, the Red Tsar of Perdition, glanced causally over his right shoulder as he stopped at the doors to his bedchamber, where he'd used handcuffs to bind his "girlfriend" Glory, to the bed- she was fully clothed, though he did wonder privately how she'll get out of that trap, her hands were on either side of the bed, too far to reach her midsection vertically, and she was wearing her favorite high heels; how she planned to get any leverage was beyond this evil genius "Oh, can and will, Glory" it said, smirking, and winked at her as he shut the door, trapping her in the room.
His "live-in girlfriend" trapped in the bedroom of his dwelling, the real Prince of Darkness, Lucifer itself, then headed over to a terminal to transmit a concept it'd come up with for a modification of the "forbidden fruit" concept it'd used on Adam and Eve, the effects of which it'd even tried to snag Christ into letting it serve as His "field commander" for His conquest of this planet- that had not worked, the First had suffered its first true defeat, and only true defeat, at His hands- as He'd proven completely uninterested in its offer, but there were always others it could use to accomplish its purposes.
Oh, it'd thrown everything it had into bagging Him; even citing the consistent and constant corruption humans were completely mired in, referring to humans as "a weak scum species"- in concept only, but that was that, now it was less mired in arrogance and was after a more "practical target"; Non served as a viable means to accomplish its goals, he was too idiotic to resist, and served this perverted Tsar's ambitions as a "useful idiot" as its "colonists" had described the liberals in the nations that opposed them… Non was merely a means to an end, and Max Lord's intellect, however, plus his genocidal desires towards these alien refugees served its own ambitions. As the First worked, it snickered to itself; if only Max understood that in the grand scheme of things, Supergirl, Superman, and their kind- all of them, even those terrorists the humans and their alien allies were contending against were mere small-fry compared to what's coming!
But the two factions were too blinded by a desire for violence, and that was a desire it had its operatives, both human, and nonhuman, stoking constantly with all sorts of abuses, neighbor against neighbor, that sort of thing- but this whole situation required something *special*, and that sort of "special" is domestic violence, even purely emotional, in fact, that may be the best kind, the First calculated as it made some modifications to its suggestion of a perfect chemical weapon that'd give the humans the edge they'd need in this conflict- not that it'd do them any good whatsoever when his own master-race came into play, but there was someBody Else it feared, and didn't want to risk engaging yet, not until it was sure it'd win against His followers- but to do so, just about all means of the Supernatural reinforcement of virtue had to be removed from play; and that'd include ruining the Church. That was another story, right now was sheer opportunism on its part, and that's the fun part for the First, it knew!
Later, upon completion of the necessary calculations, it spoofed the telepathic "internet address" to send it under a false ID, and transmitted the data across the gateway to the human realm to Maxwell Lord, to give him just the right inspiration to make Red K, and mess up the synthetic K, to poison Kryptonians… the effect would serve as something very similar to drunkenness on humans- and then just sit back and watch as the dominoes fall, or cities fall, depending on how much damage gets accomplished when you neutralize a kryptonian's conscience!
The effects, as the First and Glory soon observed, she still hadn't unbound herself, it astounded him, were sure interesting, to Comrade Secretary General Lucifer and his lover, Glory, as it turned out that Kara Danvers turned into a sheer and utter bully for a time; and they had a few laughs at her expense, especially the tears that it brought out on the parts of both Danvers sisters.
"Yep, nothing like a good domestic fight to liven up one's day…" the First chuckled, with his hands behind his head- he looked exactly as he'd have prior to his fall, astonishingly handsome, but exceedingly creepy.
"Not to mention their tears, too." Said Glory with a wink. "Say, how'd you come to that conclusion of how to mess her up like that?" she asked as they watched on a monitor the sequence of events that were happening and the sheer grief in Kara's mindset and psyche.
"How'd humanity get so messed up in the first place?" it replied- very few of the inhabitants of the realm of Perdition even believed the First existed- it was something more of a myth or legend to them than a real being, but that anynomousness is what that monster desired, it allowed itself to work as needed, without "fans" begging for autographs and the like- oh, appeals to pride appealed to it, but the monster wanted to avert drawing attention to itself… and the reason, not that it'd let anybody know this, or like them to know this, is that it's on the run- but it had tricked the first humans to basically take drugs it dealt, the result was the same effects of Red K to a kryptonian: weakness of character, willfulness, it was the forbidden fruit all over again "How'd you think?" it replied with a wink.
In effect, as Alex had suspected, and she was going to be humiliated more than she could imagine for messing up its plans, but Maxwell Lord apparently had developed a deity-complex, and megalomania of the first order, and that mixture was potent, and allowed the First to "message him", but it also rendered him gullible enough to buy its' subtle hint that he was the one who did it.
It even went for broke: it really had tried to convince Maxwell Lord to be happy he'd corrupted such an alien, and to be proud of his power he now held over Kara, Alex's sister, to hold her soul in the palm of his hand- the effects of that were yet to be seen, but it was promising, despite his apparent, and sad, statements to the effect that he was "sorry" for what he'd done to her.
However, the fight between Kara and Alex was oodles of fun for it, and served as loads of entertainment for Perdition's citizens, as well as Kara's other misbehaviors during her "pride episode" where she ran rampant with arrogance!
The End? Maybe, maybe not…