The DEO Meets Supergirl

Agent Susan Vasquez was beginning to be concerned. The long time Alpha team leader was the senior team leader in the National City office and she was not easily perturbed. But her boss had sat in his office for the past two days, leaving the site office operations in the hands of the acting Deputy, her colleague and friend, Alex Danvers. While Director Henshaw had previously taken what he called 'retreats' from time to time, he had always told his senior team leaders why he was doing it.

This time he hadn't said a word, and Susan Vasquez wondered what her boss could be up to as she walked to the break room to get her dinner. She was just opening the refrigerator when the internal PA system dinged the 'Attention all hands' signal and she heard the Director's voice.

"Now hear this. All onsite strike and watch team members report immediately to the operations cave."

Before he had finished, Vasquez was walking quickly down the corridor. Her dinner could wait.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

As she reached the operations cave, Vasquez saw three people come into the cave from the elevator corridor on the other side of the room. Two of them she knew; the Director and Agent Alex Danvers were walking on either side of a young blonde woman dressed in a female version of Superman's costume, complete to the cape and stylized S. Before they were a quarter of the way into the room, every eye was riveted on the girl in red and blue.

"So Superman's California cousin has finally decided to step up to the plate." Vasquez thought.

When Director Henshaw reached the central desk, he stopped. "Good evening, this is a Top Secret, compartmented briefing, code name Supergirl. As you will have noticed, we have a visitor today. I'd like to introduce you to Superman's cousin, Supergirl, who will be working with us as a consultant. As some of you may have guessed, she arrived on earth twelve years ago in the spaceship that is now displayed over there. She was met by Superman on arrival, and he arranged for her to be adopted by a family he knew. Both Superman and her family advised her to conceal her powers in favor of living a normal American life, which is what she's been doing until very recently. But I had identified our guest shortly after her arrival, and have maintained a watching brief on her and her family ever since. When she decided to use her powers to save flight 237 last week, I decided to reach out to her, to ask if she was planning to do anything like that again. She told me that she will be coming out publicly in the near future, doing for National City what Superman has done so well for Metropolis. Because of that decision, I decided to let her know something about our operation here and about our Fort Rozz problems, and I also promised her some training assistance to help her climb the superhero learning curve a bit faster than Superman did, in return for helping us out when we need her. So don't be surprised if you see her around, or get tasked to help her in a training exercise. We hope she'll be able to work in with us within a few weeks. I won't tell you the name she's been using here, but her Kryptonian name is Ms. Zor-El."

Supergirl picked up her cue. "Thanks for the introduction, Director Henshaw. I hope to get to know you all in the next few weeks. I know I'm new to this, but I promise you I'll do my best to live up to Superman's example."

The director finished the meeting: "And now, teams, you are dismissed to regular watch stations. Supergirl, if you and Agent Danvers will come to my office?"

OOOOOOOOOOOOOO

As they entered the office, Hank closed the door and gestured them to chairs.

"Thank you for coming, Kara. As I said before, we can use your help."

"You're welcome. I talked to Superman the other day. He spoke highly of you, confirmed your story and sent his regards. And, like me, he was curious about what training support you might be able to offer a Kryptonian."

"In our discussion the other night, I told you that about 200 Fort Rozz prisoners had escaped before the backup team was able to get there. We've since recaptured 73 of them. You might be wondering how we did that since most of them are Kryptonians."

"Alex and I were talking about that on the way here. She mentioned that you'd recaptured some of them, and I asked her how you'd done it. She told me about the kryptonite you use. That's good to know if I go off the rails."

"Although kryptonite is a useful tool, it isn't our biggest advantage." Hank replied, "That advantage is a power all of us have, but most of us don't use very well. And it's something we can train for. If we are better at it than the Kryptonians we're trying to capture, we can mitigate the effect of their powers. And it helps that most of them are criminals and don't give any attention to this ability."

"What is it?" Kara asked.

"Thinking better. We systematically train our people to improve our abilities to observe, orient, decide and act. The process is called the OODA loop. We aim to improve our peoples OODA performance by improving both the quality and the speed of their decisions. Since the Fort Rozz criminals' powers are controlled by their minds, if we can work through the OODA loop faster than they do, it doesn't matter what other abilities they have, they can't react to what we're doing to them in time for it to matter."

"Also, the DEO requires rigorous physical and psychological testing of all its operatives. Relying on a superhero can be a liability in the field unless we know that you are in full control of your powers, your stamina, strength, and speed at all times. And since teamwork gives us a major advantage when we fight individual aliens, you'll need to know how we work so you can fit in with us when we work together."

"Now I've spent the last couple of days designing a training program for you. If you'll give me each of your Saturdays for the next three months, I'll run you through a training program that will speed up your OODA decision making process to our levels. At the same time, it will help you get a better feel for when and when not to use your powers and also which powers to use in any given situation. Does this sound workable for you?"

"Sure. But I can't come next Saturday. Alex and I have to go out of town. Is it OK if I come the week after?"

"No problem. Where are you going."

"To see our Mom. She wants to see Alex, to make sure she's OK" Kara replied.

I'll give Alex the first week's assignments in case you get a chance to work out. But to start with, we need to get a baseline of where you are right now. So, if you both will come with me?"

They walked out of the office and down a corridor. Hank put his hand on a plate by a door and it opened into an octagonal room with a raised platform in the middle.

"I'd like to begin by having our training officer get a sense of where you are in unarmed combat." Hank said, as he turned and walked out the door.

"Training officer, who's that?" Kara wondered as she followed her sister up the steps to the platform.

"Me," Alex replied as she turned and punched her sister in the jaw.

Taken by surprise, Kara fell full length. When she opened her eyes the room was bathed in a sickly green glare. "How did you do that?" she asked.

"Kryptonite emitters," Alex replied. "They're only at eighteen percent. Not enough to permanently harm you, but enough to weaken you and make this a fair fight. Now come at me, and you don't have to hold anything back."

For a moment Kara watched her sister. Then she tried to move in a circle around Alex who turned with her. Then she charged. Her sister blocked her and flipped her.

Alex said, "Again," as Kara got up.

The sisters went through the same ballet, three more times. The first two times, Alex used a different move to take Kara by surprise. The third time she let Kara start to throw a punch but countered it before it landed and sent her sister to the floor.

"Your windup leaves you open for a counter attack," she commented. As Supergirl got up, Alex looked away. Kara rushed her, and found herself flipped again.

"You are relying on your strength without technique. When you are facing a superior opponent you need to use your strength against them."

Kara nodded and the ballet went on until Alex repeated one of her moves. To her shock, Kara grabbed her arm, threw her down and pinned her.

"How did you know to do that?" Alex asked.

"Wrestling team. Eliza wouldn't let me compete but she did allow me to act as manager. And if I see something done once, I can do it myself."

The sisters continued sparring for the next twenty minutes before Alex called time. At the end Kara, was exhausted and depressed. She'd only been able to counter her sister's moves on less than five occasions.

"Thanks," said Kara. "That was rough. Maybe I'm not DEO material after all. I think I know why my cousin prefers to work alone."

"You're not that bad, you know."

Kara stared at her sister.

"I've never been taken down in an introductory lesson by someone who's never fought before. And I noticed that every time I used a new move I'd get by your guard, but every time I repeated a move, you'd have a counter ready. That's unprecedented for a beginner. Don't give up on yourself quite so fast. I think you'll do well."

"You're not just saying that to buck me up, are you?"

"No," said Alex as Hank walked back into the room.

"So how did your sister do?"

"Quite well actually. I don't think we'll have any problems getting her up to speed. She didn't know a single move to start with, but after she'd seen a move once, she was able to counter it, sometimes quite effectively."

"That's good. Then we'll see you a week next Saturday, Ms. Zor-El?"

"That's right," replied Kara.