AN – My health issues have kept me from writing regularly, but hopefully I can hop back up on the horse, and ride again! This is my second attempt at a Supergirl fan fic. Those that have read my other work can see if it stacks up to that.
Just a note, the story combines comics continuity with that of the TV show, most notably that all the Arrowverse characters are on the same Earth, like in the comics all the Earth One characters are on Earth One, characters like the original Huntress that's Helena Wayne, the daughter of Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle, are on Earth Two, the Crime Syndicate is on Earth Three, and so on. Daxamites have the same powers Kryptonians do, with no weakness to Kryptonite, but with the weakness to lead, like in the comics. Also, this story is an AU story, a "What if Earth had been destroyed, and Alex had been sent to Krypton?" story. Other than that, it's mostly TV show continuity. I hope you enjoy and thanks for reading!
Supergirl: The Last Daughter of Earth
Chapter 1
Earth was dying. In a matter of months, perhaps even weeks or days, the bright blue little marble of the Sol solar system would be no more. The natural resources of the little blue planet were rapidly being depleted. The continued drilling for oil, strip mining, global warming, and other such endeavors and phenomena had long been predicted to eventually be the Earth's downfall. For decades, scientists and other specialists had sought to get the governments and people of Earth to realize that they were sharpening the guillotine for their own metaphorical beheading, but mankind had refused to listen.
Earth has been here for billions of years, and even if this were to happen, it'll never happen within our lifetime, or the lifetime of any descendants that will come after. They'll find a way to fix it, so we're good to keep using the resources until then, these were the thoughts of the majority of the humans inhabiting the beautiful cloud dappled sphere that spun around the yellow star.
The relentless mining and drilling had majorly adverse effects on the surface, crust and mantle of the planet itself. The global warming phenomenon, despite certain groups' fervent belief that "global warming" was so much bullshit being spouted by scientists and "tree huggers" and couldn't possibly be real, had shifted the weather patterns in the Atlantic Jet stream, which not only affected the weather in and around the Atlantic Ocean, but had a significant impact on the weather patterns of the entire planet. The polar caps were slowly melting, resulting in more flooding, more cold water finding itself trickling into the warmer water of the ocean further removed from the ice shelf, which affected temperature and weather alike.
As if that weren't enough, there had been several population booms, occurring much more frequently than they had at any time in prior history, which taxed the planet and its resources even more. The population of Earth had surpassed seven billion souls, and was rapidly encroaching on eight billion. At the extreme end of estimates, the kindest estimate stated that Earth could successfully support perhaps ten billion people. However, this would necessitate everyone on the planet becoming a vegetarian, and would require the complete elimination of livestock, in order to make maximum use of the amount of arable land that existed on the planet. This wasn't likely to happen in any stretch of time that anyone could predict, so that number was shorn down considerably, to only perhaps eight to eight and a half billion people.
Man's lifespan had increased significantly through science, learning how the effects of environment and lifestyle affected a human being. Through refinement of how food was produced and preserved, and the identification of and treating or eradicating virulent diseases, the lifespan of the average human being had effectively doubled over the course of two centuries. It was predicted that as Earth neared its "carrying capacity," that Mother Nature, God, whatever power you ascribed to, would step in and once more significantly reduce Man's lifespan, in an order to restore some semblance of balance to the runaway planet.
As the population had grown, not only had the need for food and fresh, potable water increased proportionately, but so had the need for energy, fuel, and other resources, which bolstered the lives of each and every individual on the face of the planet. This, of course, increased the strain that was being viciously and brutally put upon the world, and it seemed like no one could hear the blue marble's choking, and death throes, rapidly approaching. In other words, mankind was a condition that was rapidly and inexorably transforming from a symbiotic relationship with their world into a parasitic relationship, which could only end in death, either for the planet, the people, or both.
Mankind was killing their world, and in turn killing itself. And none of them heeded the words of those trusted to provide knowledge, or the evidence that was on display all around them, as evident as the very noses on their oblivious faces, for every person of all ages to see and take note of, if they but only paid attention to their world around them. Humankind had fallen prey to the folly of putting off until later, and putting onto the shoulders of a future generation, the healing and repair of their home. Their only home.
The idea of colonizing the moon, other planets and celestial bodies within reasonable reach, had been discussed for years, but instead of implementing a plan to phase resources into researching ways to travel further and faster into space and making such possibilities something more than simple discussion, they'd ignored the urgency and let their space programs fall into disuse, and virtual dismantling. When the programs were still active, the planning for eventual reaching out into the cosmos and colonizing distant (distant for simple Earthlings, anyway) worlds, moons, or even asteroids was a viable plan that could have been worked towards saving the denizens of Earth. Instead, apathy had destroyed the human race, and the world upon which they lay sprawled, feeding their own demise unwittingly and unknowingly, simply because they refused to listen and believe.
Mankind had condemned itself, and the beautiful planet called Earth, to death and destruction. It had taken billions of years for the lovely little world to mold, gel and form into the lush, pristine globe it had been when mankind had started abusing it. It'd only taken a small handful of centuries to bring it to the brink of destruction. It had taken only a couple of centuries to ramp up that abuse, destroying the world as surely as a hammer destroys an egg with one swing.
The young brunette sitting at the kitchen table with her parents, in a modest house in the sleepy town of Midvale, California, had known these things. Like her parents, she could see the evidence clearly, but all the urging in the world would not sway the majority of the planet into listening and acting upon what they heard. Alex Danvers found it incomprehensible that so many insightful, intelligent, and influential people could completely and totally miss what she saw, with very little experience and practical knowledge, at the tender age of fourteen.
Jeremiah Danvers, Alex's father, sipped from his orange juice, and took a considered breath before looking up at his wife, Eliza, and his daughter, Alex. On the small TV in the kitchen, CNN was reporting the recent rash of hurricanes and tornadoes springing up, not only in the United States, but all over the world. The causes were, of course, debated back and forth into the realm of banality, an exercise in absolute uselessness. The effects were similarly brought up, scoffed at, and dismissed, with the ease and swiftness of stupidity.
Finally, after a couple of moments of ridiculous debate, he turned to his family and let out a long, heavy sigh. "Look at these people. The end of the world is racing towards us at alarming speed, and they're squabbling, trying to sound like 'experts.' If this is the predominant mentality on this planet, maybe it's for the best that in a short while, it will be gone, along with this social disease they call humanity," he grumbled quietly in disgust.
"Jeremiah," said Eliza, shaking her blonde head slowly as she put her own fork down, and reached over to touch her husband's hand. "It's probably not just that they're too blind to see it, or intelligent enough to recognize and understand what they're seeing. They're probably scared out of their wits, and are trying to convince themselves there's nothing to be afraid of. What people don't understand, they fear, and what they fear, they run from it, ignore it, or try to convince themselves it's not real. You know that as well as I do."
The dark headed man nodded softly, turning his hand to squeeze the slender hand of his wife gently. His expression was still sour, but there was the barest hint of relief in his dark eyes. "I know, hon, it's just that world's our situation has been explained, laid out, and shouted out so many times, and they just haven't listened. Not at all," he said, giving his daughter a light, half hearted smile. He doubted she was convinced, but he figured you couldn't blame him for trying.
"If it means anything, Dad, I listened," said Alex quietly as she finished up her breakfast, and neatly put her utensils on her plate, and then got up and deposited them in the sink. "I've tried to convince my teachers, and other kids at school what's going on, that it's coming a lot sooner than they think it is, but who listens to a fourteen year old girl? I can tell you who. Nobody. Zilch. Zero. Nada. At best, I get told to hush, that I don't know what I'm talking about."
"Of course it means something, honey," replied her mother, who wrapped her arms around the young girl, and kissed the top of her head. Across the table, her father smiled and nodded, but he had that far away look he got when he was deep in thought. Eliza glanced at him, then at Alex, and back at Jeremiah before adding, "In fact, that's why we've been working on something, something we've kept a close secret."
The glance wasn't lost on Alex, not even remotely. She'd been told so many times to not go out to the lab outside that had been converted from the guest house and garage in the back, and though curiosity had been virtually burning her alive, she'd obeyed her parents. "Working on something? Is that what you two have been doing out in the lab? Is that why you've both spent more time at home than you have at work for the past year or so?" she asked boldly. "What is it? What's out there?"
Eliza laughed thinly and held up her hands, "Hey, easy there, Tiger. Yes, it's what we've been doing out there. Your father and I decided a while back that if the governments of the world weren't going to listen, then we would just have to do something ourselves, no matter how small it might be." Her voice and eyes were sad, and her hand came to caress Alex's cheek softly, like she was about to go on a trip that would take her away for years. The young girl hated when she'd get that look on her face, but lately, she'd been wearing it a lot.
Jeremiah got up, wiped his mouth and pushed his chair in. With his keys in hand, he waved her and Eliza to follow him. As they walked across the backyard, he turned and tried to smile, but didn't quite make it. He placed the key in the door, punched in the code on the pad, and waited, then turned the key and opened the door.
"We originally pitched this to the government, who we hoped would make our pitch to the other governments of the world as well, but bureaucracy reared its ugly head," he said, leading them both into the lab proper, and then beyond. As they went along, he flipped on lights, and finally, they were at the door to what used to be the garage, but now was a large workshop and room that served several purposes. He paused, his hand on the door, ready to push it open.
Eliza laid her hands on Alex's shoulders, and squeezed gently. "We've known that this time was coming eventually, and we'd been planning for it since before you were born. But now, with all this abnormal weather activity, it's just a matter of weeks, if not days, before the tectonic disturbances start. Once that happens, we've reached the absolute point of no return. It won't be simple seismic disturbances and earthquakes. It'll be the world tearing itself apart at the seams."
Alex felt her chin drop, leaving her mouth open as she stared at her parents, her eyes moving back and forth. She was trying to speak, but she felt her mouth and throat go as dry as any desert on the face of the planet. This wasn't just something they were hurtling towards like a barrel about to go over the falls. They'd already gone over and were in freefall. When the world's barrel hit, it was going to obliterate, and the world right along with it. Even though she knew this to be a fact, it was still barely comprehensible or imaginable.
"But Mom," she finally got out, every word a struggle against the hyperventilation that kept threatening to overtake her. "You and Dad…you're a bioengineer. I know that isn't the only thing you know, sure, but…but are you really absolutely sure? I mean, geology and stuff isn't your usual area of expertise…" Alex trailed off, hoping, praying that her parents were wrong, that they still had some time. The world couldn't be ending this soon, could it?
Jeremiah's hands came to rest on her shoulders, and he turned her to fix her gaze with his. "Alex," he began with a serious tone. "We're absolutely sure. Believe me, we wish we were overestimating the conditions and that we would have time to save everyone just as badly as you do. But we don't have that time. That time is right here, and before you can blink, it's going to be a lot closer. Your Mom is a bioengineer, yes, but that's not her only discipline. Like me, she's got a very well structured and broad expertise in several sciences. We're sure. I wish like hell we weren't, sweetheart."
Alex trusted her parents with her life, with anything and everything, but this was just too big to wrap her head around. It was one thing to know it was going to happen, and happen soon. It was quite another to realize that you're measuring the time you have left in less than a year, maybe even less than a season, or less than a full moon cycle. She kept looking between them and she could feel the bottoms of her eyes welling up with moisture. She was suddenly cold and terrified inside.
"We brought this proposal to NASA and the President," said Eliza, gently nodding her head in the direction of the space beyond the door her father was standing in front of. "If they'd acted on it with the urgency and immediacy that they should have, a sizable portion of the world might have been saved. Optimistically everyone, but that's undeniably a dream rather than a possibility, and we knew that going in."
Jeremiah grunted, and shook his head. His face was getting that agitated scowl that Alex had seen too many times to count when he wrestled with a huge problem, or when something was interfering with his work. "But they didn't take us seriously, unfortunately. They started quoting budgets, manpower and man hours, and every other business objection you could make, and telling us that it was not only impossible, but ludicrous to think this would ever even have a chance of being undertaken. 'Nobody in their right mind would fund this craziness,' they said."
"'Fund?' Seriously? They were concerned with how much it was going to cost? What difference could it possibly make how much it'd cost, when if it wasn't done, there wouldn't be any money to pay anyone, or anyone to collect it? Are these people just, like, brain dead?" asked Alex in incredulity, her voice rising sharply in pitch as the disbelief and utter shock ran through her entire being. "The 'cost' would be their lives, and the lives of everybody on this planet. The world's ending, and they want to pinch pennies because they think they're going to be around to collect money, or that there will be any money to collect, instead of wanting to save their asses so they can worry about how much money they didn't get later? God, these people are so…so…"
The elder Danvers looked at each other, and despite the gravity of the situation and conversation, they couldn't help but laugh internally at their daughter's spitfire attitude and spunk, not to mention the more than apt description that she couldn't seem to give voice to. She was definitely their child, each thought. She was passionate, intelligent, determined, and possessed of a spirit that didn't know the meaning of giving up and not trying. Those qualities would probably be the most important factor in saving her life. At least part of them would survive in Alex. There would be some possibility for a future for the human race.
"Yes, they are," confirmed Eliza, trying not to smile at Alex's fire. "I think it's time for you to see the physical manifestation of all our hopes," she continued, and nodded for Jeremiah to open the door they were standing in front of. The sound of winds whipping through the trees was very loud and prominent suddenly. Storms were popping up more and more frequently, and more and more suddenly, lately. Just earlier that day, there were seven hurricane cells forming like a litter of puppies being born to a mother. There were four in the Pacific, and three in the Atlantic, the potential of destruction spread over an area that stretched from south of Australia to as far north as the Arctic shelf, if they were as severe and large as they were postulated to become. The potential for destruction could be even more widespread if those cells gave birth to others.
The Danvers all entered the large shop area, and Jeremiah flipped on the lights. Ahead of them was some sort of scaffolding, almost like a roller coaster track sitting on the ground. On top of that was a sleek, fast looking shuttle like vehicle, large enough to hold one person with reasonable comfort, it seemed. Lights on its hull were active and lit, and it was obviously much more than a simple shell. She'd never seen anything like it, not outside a good sci fi movie anyway.
Her parents noticed her shock, and the fact she seemed to be trying to form words, but so far, it just wasn't happening. Her father moved closer to the ship and laid his hand affectionately on its side. "We'd proposed recycling and reprocessing metal from all over the world and combining it to build large ships, much like this one," he said, rubbing his hand along the port side of the ship. "This was…is…just a prototype, a 'proof of concept' so to speak. The engines are a form of ion and fusion propulsion, capable of much, much faster travel speeds than anything ever built before by human hands."
Alex drank all this in, and kept moving her eyes between her parents and the ship. At her father's explanation, she held up a hand. "Wait, wait, wait…ion and fusion? How the…? We've never developed anything past simple nuclear and atomic propulsion, and even that was more theoretical than actual. Where in the world did you come up with a way to create something like this?"
Her parents glanced at each other. There was no mistaking that Alex was the child of scientists. In school, when her attention was focused on her work instead of some boy or girl, or something that interested her, she was brilliant, working on the same sort of levels as her parents, potentially. "Remember the man that asked your Dad to work for him in the FBI as a scientific consultant?" asked Eliza, as her hand returned to Alex's shoulder. Her daughter nodded softly, still trying to take it all in.
"Well, imagine my surprise to discover that that man didn't work for the FBI at all, but instead an organization called the Department of Extranormal Operations, or DEO. It's a high level top secret organization that concerns itself with alien activity, and helps friendly aliens, and acts as a sort of police force for aliens that aren't so friendly. Needless to say, the general public and even most of the government and military don't even know they exist. It's sort of like Area 51, but a hundred times more complex and secret," said Jeremiah, as he kept his voice quiet, even here.
He let her drink that all in, and start attempting to process it before he continued, "Imagine my further surprise when I discovered that he wasn't just the director of the DEO, but that he was secretly an alien himself. An actual, real Martian, not this hokey stuff you see in bad sci fi movies. I don't think anybody but your mother and I know he's an alien."
"A Martian?" Alex deadpanned. Her speech was nearly all monotone, as her mind tried to assimilate this knowledge as completely as she could. "Like, from Mars? Like for real from Mars?" Every time she thought she'd been slapped with something too incredible to believe, her parents outdid themselves.
"Yes, dear, aliens are real, and there are real Martians," answered Eliza, as she reached up to touch her daughter's face again. "Hank…his real name is J'Onn…knew what we know, and he wanted to help us try and save our people, so we wouldn't fade from the universe the way his own people have. So, he shared very advanced Martian technology with us, and helped us build a crude version of the types of engines his own people's ships used."
Jeremiah sat down on a bench and ran his hands back through his dark hair. "He helped with the whole ship, honestly. He helped us build a cryo sleep unit inside the ship as well, and controls to regulate it, and time when it would activate and when it would bring the passengers back to consciousness. It's all very safe, and it'll be easier for passengers to travel over great distances, without worrying about growing too old in space, or running out of food during the trip."
Alex was staring at the ship, and even touched it tentatively, and ran her hand along its smooth surface. "So, it can make long trips, and you just take a nice nap while it does all the work, and then it wakes you up, like a smart alarm clock, when you're where you're going?" she asked, turning to look at her parents over her shoulder. The metal was smooth, smoother than anything she'd ever felt before. She assumed it was some sort of alloy that the Martian had taught her parents to make, or maybe it was its own element, native to Mars but not Earth.
Eliza sat down beside Jeremiah and took his hand in hers, giving it a gentle squeeze as he spoke, "Pretty much, yes. We've done some extensive sky searching, and according to our own data, and the data from the NASA Spitzer space telescope, we've found a cluster of stars that have several planets that are within their stars' habitable zones and can support human life, though some conditions may be different, such as greater or lesser gravity, different filtering of light and heat, slightly different percentages of oxygen and nitrogen, that sort of thing. There's one we're aiming for. It has a star similar to the sun, and it has the best chance for something like home. Nearby is a red giant, which has a planet a bit larger than Earth, so its gravity is probably a bit stronger, and the atmosphere may need a little adjustment for a human to adapt to it, but in either event, the entire cluster is promising."
"How long would you be asleep if it was set to go to the star system you're talking about?" asked Alex as she climbed up and started looking around inside the ship. It was, indeed, very small, barely big enough for one person without being cramped, but there didn't seem to be any way the three of them would fit without being squeezed in like sardines, unless there was part of the ship she couldn't see.
"About ten years, give or take," answered Eliza, as she watched Alex, along with Jeremiah. "You'd be asleep through most of that. You'd go into sleep after you'd gotten your course plotted and set, which it should take about three days before you reach the point where you'd engage the main drive. It should bring you out of cryo sleep a day or so before you reach planetfall. Since the governments of the world didn't see this project as worth going ahead with, and saving a significant portion of the world's population, we're going to preserve our family and race with this ship. At least some part of humanity will remain in the universe."
Alex frowned and turned, pointing over her shoulder with her thumb as she climbed back down. "I hope that thing's roomier inside than it looks from out here, especially if you're serious about sending this thing out for real," she said, her eyes travelling from her mother to her father. "There's no way in the world the three of us will fit in that forward cockpit section. We'd be all crushed against one another. So, how are we going to do this, anyway? Dad in the cockpit, and you and I in sleeper chambers inside the body of the ship? We're not too close to the engines, I hope. That just doesn't seem like it'd be a good idea."
Her parents looked at each other, and their expressions were odd. They grasped each other's hand as they looked back up at Alex. The emotions playing across their eyes were varied and flying through one after the other, impossible to get a read on just one. "We're not going, Alex," replied Jeremiah. "There was no time to build a larger ship, and this one is just the prototype, so we're not going. We can't go."
"But you just said we were going to preserve our family, and make sure at least a small piece of humanity survived?" Alex asked, clearly confused. She didn't understand at all. The crack of lightning outside and the subtle rumble of the ground beneath their feet made each of them catch their breaths in the back of their throats. "It seems like your estimates were a little off. That ground shaking means we've got not months, weeks or days, but probably hours?"
Jeremiah was already up, and reaching inside the cockpit, making sure everything was working properly. His voice came from the inside of the half alien ship, "Yeah, it's just a matter of hours now. Those subtle rumblings are going to give way to total tectonic collisions and rifts in a day, at most. The planet is going to tear itself apart, and implode in on itself. Between its own magnetic field being severely disrupted, and the forces of gravity that keep the system in the proper positions, it's going to be like crumpling up a piece of paper and throwing it in a trash can."
Eliza took Alex's shoulders in her hands, and kissed her forehead softly, then pushed an errant strand of dark hair from her daughter's face. "We are going to preserve our family and save a small piece of humanity, Alex. We're not going on the ship. You are. We're saving you. You're the only one we can save. Its far, far too late to save anyone else"
