A/N: Hello to all the DC and Marvel fans of the world wide web. After a short break in the story I think I'm starting to get my groove back with this on. And with it, the same can be said for the others in a similar situation.
I know a lot of you are looking forward to the coming installments, especially when the prospect of some good fighting it too good to pass up. And if there was one thing that I stick by, it's delivering to my readers.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
"So, apparently I'm fighting a robot tomorrow." Kara said as she, Winn and Matt were gathered in the closed off office in the CatCo building that they used as a kind of base on site.
The IT was busy typing away at one of the old, thrown out computers he picked up and upgraded while the spider-hero was crouched on the ceiling. "Anthoperformic entity." said Matt smirking, using the doctor who invented it's words.
"Yeah, that." Kara said, rubbing her forehead.
"You're testing out a new toy?" James asked, coming into the room and joining the conversation.
"Military, yeah." replied the heroine. "General Lane asked for my help. Even Lucy was there."
The tension in the room rose noticibly, James looked apologetic while Winn did his best to stay out of it. "So that is what her father's really doing here." the photo-journalist said, thinking back to the earlier conversation he had with Lucy. "Kara, you can say no to this."
"No, I can't." she said back. "I have to show them that I can be a team player, that my cousin and I can be trusted."
"By being the military's lab rat?" asked Matt, crossing his arms while remaining on the ceiling. "You have nothing to prove to them, Kara. If they're too stuck on themselves to see the good you're doing than it's their problem." he looked down at James, "Sorry, James. But your woman came off as a frosty witch when she met 'Supergirl'."
"Wait," Winn said suddenly, "If there's a robot fight, does that mean game night is cancelled?"
Kara shook her head, "No, no! Game night is the last shred of normalcy that remains in our crime stopping, alien fighting, DEO hacking lives. Game night survives. It has to." she said strongly.
James nodded, "Okay. Lucy and I will see you all there." he said before standing, patting Winn on the shoulder and sending a nod up at Matt before leaving the room again.
"You invited Lucy?" asked Matt as he dropped from the ceiling, flipping around and landing lightly on his feet.
"James did." said the blonde, putting on a smile so fake it could have been put on a halloween mask. "It'll be fun." she said too sweetly as he headed out as well.
Winn smiled until she was gone, "It will not be fun."
"Thanksgiving will look like a tea party in comparison." added the spider-hero, blowing out a long sigh and scratching the back of his head.
The IT turned in his chair, "So, you fight many robots back where you're from?" he asked.
"You could say that." replied Matt, "There was the time when an ancient AI gained sentience, built itself a body along with a massive army and had the ability to hack the world wide web and any other computer in existence in the blink of an eye. All while planning humanity's extinction."
He saw Winn turn pale and shrugged, "Ultron would have made Red Tornado one of his minions in a nano-second. Then tear it apart when it was no longer useful."
"...So...I take it you're money's on Kara then?" asked the IT, changing the subject.
Matt smirked as he headed for the door, "My money's always on Kara." he said over his shoulder before he disappeared throught he opening.
X
The rest of the day just snowballed down hill from there for Kara.
After the little powwo with the guys, she tried to go about her day as usual. But the arrival of Cat's mother had caused the mogul to be in a foul mood for the duration of her time at work. Taking her frusterations out on her assistant when things seemed to not go right and even throwing in how Kara seemed to be 'throwing herself' at Matt whenever he was around the office and that she should try to be more professional while at the office.
It was difficult, her already short fuse as of late getting ever shorter, but the heroine managed to keep her anger in check and tried to stay in good spirits as she returned home and prepared everything for game night.
Hours later, Winn, Matt, James and Lucy all arrived and went about the evening. Despite the tension from earlier, things were going well as the group of friends played a form of charades.
"Egg plant?" asked James, trying to figure out what Lucy was trying to project.
"Yes!" the Major cheered when he got the right answer as she picked another card from the deck. "Oh, uh, we always wanted to go here for vacation."
James clenched his eyes before snapping them open with the answer, "Machu Pichu!" he was rewarded with another cheer for the correct answer.
Matt took a swig of the beer in his hand, sending a subtle look toward Kara who was seated beside him as the couple continued to plow ahead in points.
He could tell that she was still very frusterated with everything that happened in the last day, and no matter how hard she tried to bury it, anyone who knew how to look could see that she was doing all in her power just to stay the same bubbly person she usually was.
The others were oblivious to this, but even Toxin was picking up the negativity flowing off the kryptonian. "Time! That's time!" Kara said when the timer finally ran out, James and Lucy racking up more points with their impressive team work.
"11." Winn reported, being the score keeper for this particular game since there was an odd number of players this time around.
"Wow, you guys make a really great team." said Kara.
"It helps when you know your partner so well." Lucy said, pulling James in and kissing him deeply.
"Hay you two!" Matt exclaimed making them jump apart, "Don't be doing the freaky on Kara's couch, I sit there once in a while." The timer was reset and the spider-hero was up with his own cards while Kara prepared to answer.
"Alright, most feared dino in the past." he said seeing the answer.
"Uh...Uh...T-Rex?!" the blonde shouted.
"Boom!" Matt said flipping to the next one, "We saw this movie last week, two brothers, catholic, vigilantes-"
"Boondock Saints!" Kara exclaimed, getting it correct again.
"The one place I think is overrated."
"Las Vegas!"
"A state that's high in the middle and round on both ends."
"Ohio!"
The back and forth went on for the duration of their turn, coming to an abrupt and when Matt had the card that had Kara's cousin as the answer. "Whoa guys," Winn said adding it all up, "11 as well. That puts you in a tie with James and Lucy."
"Would have put it one ahead if we had just another three seconds." Matt said, tossing the answer card on the table, "Kara would have gotten 'Superman' easy."
"You could have just said Jimmy's special boyfriend." said Lucy jokingly which got a couple laughs around the room. "I, uh, met his little cousin today. Supergirl." she continued when the laughter died down.
"Oh, you did?" asked James. "And what did you think?"
The Major shrugged, "I wasn't that impressed." the statement sent all of the good vibes fleeing from the room. "It's like, when you meet a movie star in person and you realize, 'is that it'?"
Looking out the corner of his eye, Matt saw Kara tense, a flash of hurt cross her eyes when she saw James just sitting there and not defending her other persona in any way. This didn't fly well with the spider-hero at all.
"That's a pretty nasty assumption from someone who only met her once." Matt said clearly, eyes locked on Lucy as she stopped talking.
"I've read the same reports about her that my father received, compared to her cousin-"
"Words on paper are biased at best if they aren't from a trustworthy source." the spider-hero interrupted. "And comparing people and saying that they aren't as good as someone else, even family, is disrespectful."
Lucy sat up straighter, all humor gone from her stature while James looked uncomfortable. "You seem adamant at defending Supergirl." she said with a little sharpness to her tone, her Major persona coming into play.
Matt matched her stare and didn't back down, "I'd prefer to stick up for others when someone is railroading their good name. All while holding up some imaginary standard that they should aspire to."
The tension in the room started to get thick, the other three watching the verbal spar between the two closely incase it got out of hand.
"It is our job to monitor possible threats to civilians." Lucy said strongly. "Despite how much she claims to help, we can't ignore the fact that she could be a danger given what she is capable of."
Leaning back in his seat, the spider-hero crossed his arms and tilted his head. "Do you have a firearm on you right now, Major?" he asked making the woman pause.
"Excuse me?" she asked.
"Just a simple question. Do you have one on you?" Matt asked again.
The Major nodded toward her bag, "I have my sidearm in my purse." she said honestly.
"So, then, I should consider you a danger." he said narrowing his eyes, "You have a means to bring me harm, so I should consider you a threat."
"What are you trying to get at, Matt?" asked James, trying to understand where he was coming from.
"The way I see it, the only reason people consider either Superman or Supergirl threats is because they have powers beyond what we can understand and are able to use them. Something that could prove a danger to others. However, if someone possesses a way to bring harm to someone else, like a gun, and has the ability to use it, shouldn't we put them in the same catagory?"
"It's not the same." said the Major.
Matt gave her a look, "Why? Because they're alien? Non-Human? They're different so we should immediatly consider them dangerous without really giving them a chance, right?"
Standing from his seat, he finished off his one and only drink before speaking again. "For someone so high up on the chain of command, you're very close minded, Major Lane."
Lucy stood up as well, sending Matt a glare that would have frozen him on he spot. "I think I better go. I have an important meeting tomorrow and I can't be late." James stood as well, offering to walk her to her car, sending a smiliar look to the hero as the couple headed out the front door.
Winn breathed out awkwardly before standing up as well, "I'd better head out too, it's getting late." he checked his watch and it was barely nine in the evening. But that didn't stop him from leaving either, since game night looked to be officially over.
The two heroes were all that was left in the now silent apartment. Matt let out a deep sigh and ran hand through his hair, "Sorry, didn't mean to spoil game night." he said, sitting heavily back on the couch beside Kara.
"No...it's okay." she replied taking off her glasses and rubbing her eyes, "It wasn't really going all that well in the end anyway." she had hoped that their last piece of normality would remain intact, but it seemed it was doomed to crash and burn from the start with how things were.
Kara looked at Matt who leaned his head back against he back of the couch and was staring at the ceiling. "You didn't have to defend me like that."
"Someone had to." he replied. "I know you can't given it's your identity, but I refuse to just sit there and let someone who doesn't know what they're talking about trash your good name because they're too far up their daddy's ass. And I hated the way both of them treated you today."
"They weren't so welcoming with you either." said the heroine.
The spider-hero shrugged, "I'm used to a bit of bad publicity. With the Dailey Bugle back home flaming me and Peter every other day you're just prone to let it roll off your back."
Kara remembered what he told them about the New York newspaper company and the owner who had it out of Matt and his mentor, along with any other hero or mutant that did everything in their power to help others. It made her very thankful to be working for someone like Cat in comparison.
"What's your take on tomorrow? The test?" she asked.
"I think you're going to kick that robot's ass. If the General is trying to flex some kind of humanity superiority over what you can do, he'll be sadly disappointed." Matt replied with a knowing grin. "All those training sessions the two of us have had should give you a better edge, but remember to try and keep a clear head and think about your moves and how to counter your opponents'. It may be a machine programmed for combat, but there's no way to know what it'll be capable of."
The kryptonian nodded, "I'll keep all that in mind, I have good teachers afterall." the two of them laughed as they lapsed into a comfortable silence. "So, game night's officially over. You don't have to stick around."
"What? And rob you of my charm and good looks?" Matt asked with mock hurt, placing a hand over his chest which caused Kara to laugh. "Seriously though, I'll stick around a bit longer. You look like you could use some company."
Kara smiled thankfully as they settled in and enjoyed what was left of the evening together.
X
The next day at the DEO base, all of the agents, soldiers and military officals were on site.
Kara stood with her arms crossed in her Supergirl costume, staring across the small field at Red Tornado who stood looking right back, unblinking. "I don't say this often, but I'm craving a good fight right now." she said to Alex who was standing beside her.
"Just try to keep a clear head, okay?" said her sister, after trying to talk the blonde out of it before everything was set up. "You got this." Alex added, believing in Kara's abilities.
The older woman patted her shoulder before heading off toward the command tent where everyone was gathered, watching the camera feeds of the soon to be battleground.
"I got 20 bucks on the android." said a nearby male agent.
"50 on the alien." said Alex.
"Ditto, 'crunch' 'crunch'." everyone looked over to Matt who was in his own costume. Sitting on a nearby stack of crates with his mask pulled up to his nose and eating a bag of popcorn. Seeing the looks, he shrugged, "What?"
"If at any point I don't like what I'm seeing, I'm ending this" Hank said, ignoring the commentary in favor of focusing on the matter at hand.
"Which I would completely understand, if you had any authority over me." General Lane said sternly before turning to the doctor who created the android. "Doctor Morrow, you can begin."
The man nodded as he typed commands into the console before him.
Outside, Red Tornado raised its head. Its HUD locking onto Supergirl as its hands started to spin at an alarming rate. Raising its arms, a miniature tornado blasting from each limb which caught the heroine by surprise and sent her flying into the air.
Tracking her movements, the android raised its hands again and fired several small missiles at Kara. Small explosions making her stagger lightly as she glared down at her opponent.
"Perhaps she's not taking this seriously." Lucy spoke in the viewing area, sending a look at her father. Matt glared at her from the back before going back to the screen.
"Come on, Kara. Think outside the box." he thought as the heroine shot toward the ground, and burrowed beneath it. "There you go."
Red Tornado looked at the ground, loosing track of it opponent and started to walk around in an attempt to relocate her. The android stopped and turned, hearing the ground churning behind it just before Kara burst out of the Earth and took it off its feet.
Landing a few meters away, the heroine stomped up toward Red Tornado as it got up to its knees. Delivering a powerful right cross to its face and keeping it down.
The droid managed to get back to its feet and swung at her, but Kara blocked and delivered another strong hit to its face. Blow after blow delivered as her actions were fueled by the anger she had built up inside. Her vision tinting red around the edges as she kept slamming her fists into Red Tornado.
"It's sustaining massive system damage." said doctor Morrow seeing the readouts from the droid. "Pull the plug, now."
Alex pressed her earpiece, "Supergirl, you've won. Stand down."
But Kara wasn't listening, too lost in the haze of fury as she continued to beat down the android.
Red Tornado raised its arm in an attempt to grab her, but a blast of freeze breath had it encased in ice before being broken off completely.
"Supergirl, that's enough! Stand down!" Hank's bellowed order rang through the comms. The heroine stood, breathing heavily with her fists still clenched tightly at her sides while the android knelt before her. Sparks flying from its severed arm, its frame shuttering as it started powering down.
All of a sudden, its eyes blazed bright yellow before it launched into the air and took off at speeds that only Kara herself could have reached.
Everyone ran out of the viewing tent and looked around for the missing unit while Alex and Matt ran over to the kryptonian. "Are you hurt?" asked Alex.
"No." replied Kara as she tried to find Red Tornado with her super senses.
"She must have triggered his emergency self-preservation function." said Morrow as he tried to figure out where it went. He looked up after he couldn't locate it, "It's in stealth mode, completely undetectable."
"Don't you have a tracker on it? Or some kind of kill switch to shut it down?" asked Matt when he and Toxin couldn't locate the droid either.
"We never believed this kind of response could happen after the last tests that had been recorded." said the doctor.
"That would be a no to both." said Toxin with a mental eye-roll.
"This is your fault!" General Lane bellowed, pointing.
"You asked me to fight it!" Kara shouted back.
"And thanks to your recklessness, you've unleashed an unstoppable killing machine on National City." the man bulldozed on, placing the blame all on the heroine.
Matt had had enough and stepped between them and leered dangerously at the General through his eye lenses. "Why have her fight it at all if this was going to happen?!" he demanded. "Or was that your plan? Your pet science project malfunctions because brain-trust over there skipped corners in the safety department and you need someone else to blame for your division's screw up?!"
"I'd watch my tone, if I were you son." the General said with a sharp tone.
"Or what, General?" the spider-hero fired back, "The way I see it, it was your project that made this thing. You went as far as to get the President to sign off on an order to force Supergirl to fight it. And it would seem that you didn't take into account the possibility of system malfunction in the field which could result in a death machine being unleashed on an unsuspecting populace."
He took a step back away from the man and crossed his arms, "The fault isn't with Supergirl, General Lane. It's you. And right now our priority should be tracking that thing down before it starts tearing everything apart, not throwing around blame."
"Spyderman's right," said Hank. "Our first priority is tracking down Red Tornado."
The group quickly dispersed and headed for the entrance to the DEO headquarters. Matt turned to Kara who was looking out across the desert toward National City with a troubled expression on her face. "You okay?" he asked, coming up to stand beside her.
"No." she replied shaking her head, "I...I don't know what happened. One minute everything was fine, and then the next..."
Matt touched her arm drawing her attention his way, "You just need to be careful with your anger. It's a powerful emotion and one that can be either an asset, or a hindrance to folks like us. Trust me, I've seen the best and worst it can do in others and myself."
Kara went to say something when Alex called out to them, bringing them back to the present. "Come on, let's go find ourselves a robot." said the spider-hero as they headed inside.
X
After spending several hours at the DEO, doing whatever that could be done to track down Red Tornado and coming up empty. Matt and Kara had returned to the city to go on with the rest of their day.
The kryptonian going back to work while the spider-hero decided to call in sick to Stan so that he could swing through the streets to clear his head.
General Lane's attitude toward Kara seriously rubbed him the wrong way, even more so with how he was so willing to place what had happened with the android on her even though he was the one that pushed to have her fight the stupid thing.
Whatever his issue was with Kara and her cousin, it was severly effecting how he acted around the heroine. Whether it was fear, distrust, envy or all three it didn't matter, his friend wasn't some experiment to play with when the military made a new weapon, then a scape goat when the damn thing breaks.
Jumping off his current webline, Matt touched down on a flagpole and looked down to the busy streets below. The sun setting in the distance painting the city in an array of reds, pinks and oranges.
Ever since he'd gotten back he'd kept a sharp lookout for anything that resembled Red Tornado. The General wanted the thing scraped before it could cause any damage to the city or its people.
Doctor Morrow had been strongly against it, but that had been before Lane fired him infront of everyone for his failed project and he left the DEO and hadn't been heard from since. Something about the man put the spider-hero on edge and had him seriously considering tracking the man down and making him give up all the information he knew about the android.
"If I were a highly advanced battle droid built by the military for a secret project, where would I go?" Matt wondered outloud.
"Radio Shack?" Toxn offered humorisly.
The spider-hero shook his head as he scanned the area again before something caught his eye. A red blur out of the corner of his eye that disappeared around a couple tall buildings. "Alex, is Supergirl out and about right now?" he asked into his earpiece.
"No. She's still at CatCo. Why?" replied the agent over the comms.
"I think I may have found our runaway robot." Matt said back before diving off the flagpole and web-swinging toward where he had seen the movement. Crossing the distance quickly and keeping his eyes open for anything out of the ordinary.
And to his surprise, he found Red Tornado standing on a rooftop edge staring out into the city. "I got eyes on Red Tornado." the spider-hero reported as he landed on the same roof right behind the synthetic.
"Copy that. We're sending a team out to assist." Hanks voice came over the line, "You are to deactivate the android by any means, Spyderman, and keep it from threatening the public."
"Got it, Chief." As if detecting the new presence, the android turned slowly. Glowing eyes zeroing in on Matt while standing completely still. But there was something about it that was different from the last time it had been seen.
"It's got a new arm." he thought looking at the now complete limb, "Either this thing can self repair...or someone fixed it."
"Won't matter when we tear it apart." said his other.
"Alright, Red Menace," Matt said taking slow steps toward the android. "Not sure if you understand english or just binary but I'll lay this out as simply as I can. Shut yourself down, or I'll turn you into a human-sized jigsaw puzzle."
Red Tornado slowly tilted its head to the left, eyes never leaving the hero as it seemed to be thinking...
It's hands shot up and started spinning, sending out a pair of wind vortexes that blasted across the roof at Matt.
Thinking fast, the hero fired a webline from each hand to either side of the rooftop and held on as the powerful gusts shoved him off the edge on the other side. The webbing holding strong from their anchor points as he waited for the right moment.
When the android cancelled its attack, Matt pulled on both weblines and catapulted straight toward Red Tornado. Bringing his legs up and slamming both feet into the synthetics chest and knocking it into open air.
Flipping himself round, the hero fired two more weblines that attatched to the android and brought him back within striking distance. His fist driving into the back of the synthetics head just as another vortex shot out from its legs .
Matt had only a second to grab onto Red Tornado before it shot off through the air, arms tightening around its neck while the wind whipped around them.
The synthetic weaved in and around buildings, doing its best to dislodge its 'passenger' as it took sudden sharp turns and even dove toward the ground. But Matt wasn't going to give up that easily, bringing one of his arms back and forming sharp points at the tips of his suits fingers before driving them into the android's back. Trying to hit a sensitive point that would help deactivate it completely.
"Spyderman, report." Hank said in his ear.
"Little busy!" the hero said back over the rushing wind, driving his clawed fingers into Red Tornado more. Tearing through the mesh that made up its outerlayers and into the cybernetic components within.
Small sparks shot out of the android, its frame shuttering as something was damaged inside its body. The synthetic stopped flying and dropped like a lead weight. Matt braced himself on the things back until the last moment before he jumped off, Red Tornado crashing into the ground in the middle of a nearly empty parking lot. Its body forming a small crater on impact.
Landing on top of a white, panel van in the corner of the lot. Matt hopped down to the asphalt and approached where the android had landed. Sparks were coming out of a couple joints and its eyes were now dark meaning that it was offline.
Once sure that the synthetic was down, he pressed his earpiece. "Call in a tow truck, we got a wreck here." he reported.
"Can you confirm Red Tornado is down?" asked the Director.
Matt looked at the android, then gave it a swift kick in the midsection. When nothing happened he turned away from it. "It's a confirmed pile of salvage, Chief."
Red Tornado laid motionless in the crater it had made, sparks still shooting from it at various intervals. Its dark eyes flickered a few times, body shuttering before the sparks stopped firing and its eyes flared brightly as it came back online.
Standing up slowly, the synthetic turned toward the distracted hero and raised its hand. Matt's spider-sense went off a moment too late as a vortex slammed into his back, sending him across the parking lot and crashing into the side of a red volvo.
"Spyderman? Spyderman are you there?!" Hank demanded when their conversation came to an abrupt end.
"Ow..." Matt muttered as he pulled himself back to his feet, glaring at Red Tornado as it stood where it had blasted him off his feet. "Director, I gotta call you back." he said, ending the transmission and moving toward the android.
"Alright wind-bag, kid gloves are coming off now."
X
Meanwhile, Kara had found herself in the unusual predicament of being in some fancy resturant at the bar with her boss.
Returning to work earlier after the fight with Red Tornado, she was met with Cat's barrage of mean rants at her supposed incompetence at her job. And try as she might, after all that had happened with the fight, the General's constant berating and now with her boss coming down on her harder than she ever had before, she couldn't take it anymore.
Kara Zor-El Danvers snapped.
Her anger getting the better of her as she lashed out at Cat Grant of all people, telling her off for her mean comments and her berating when she works so hard without any complaints. When it was all over, and she realized what had happened she had been horrified. Expecting Cat to fire her right on the spot.
Instead, the media mogul told her to forward all calls and invited her out for drinks so they could 'talk'. The heroine had expected a number of things for her outburst, but this had not been any of them.
"Here's the thing, Kiera," Cat said after taking a long drink from her martini. "Everybody gets angry. Everybody. And there is no pill that will erraticate that particular emotion. I know this, because if there were such a pill, I would be popping those babies like pez."
"Ms. Grant, I'm so sorry. I'm...really sorry about before and-" Kara started before she was cut off.
"You apologize too much, which is a separate, but although not unrelated, problem." the mogul said turning to her. "No. This is about work. And anger. Whatever you do, you cannot get angry at work. Especially when you're a girl."
The bartender came by and dropped off two more drinks that had the heroine shaking her head. "Oh, no, no thanks. I'm still working on my first one." she said before Cat picked up both and took a drink from each.
"Sorry, did you want another?" she asked casually.
Sometime later, the two women had moved to a small lounge to continue their conversation. Cat going on about how when she worked for the daily planet the head editor had thrown a chair through a closed window, but she couldn't do the same, in any context less it cause her carrier and standing be in jeapordy.
"Then what do you do?" asked Kara.
"You find a release." the mogul replied, her word slurred slightly from the alcohol, "You need too...take up some boxing, start screaming at your housekeeper, but the real key, Kiera, is that you need to figure out what is really bothering you."
She sighed, "For example; I am so furious with my mother so I took it out on you. And You're so mad at me, but...and this is the important part, you weren't really mad at me."
Kara looked confused, "Actually, I kind of was." she admitted.
"No. Uh uh," Cat said back, "You were really mad at something else. And you need to find that anger, behind the anger. And you need to figure out what is really making you mad."
The heroine looked down at her hands, her boss' words echoing in her head as she tried to figure out what had her so upset the last couple of days.
Sure there had been a lot put on her in such a short period of time, and she was getting easily irritated more often then usual...but the question was why. What was different to end up causing such a change in her emotions.
While she had been thinking, Cat had finished off her fourth drink. Not even registering the inebriation that was settling in as she ordered a fifth. "I will admit something to you." she said snapping Kara from her thoughts. "I think that whatever is going on between you and that boy, Mike, needs to be worked out between the two of you."
"W-What do you mean, Ms. Grant?" asked Kara, adjusting her glasses and doing her best to hide her darkening face.
The mogul rolled her eyes, "Please, Kiera. You may think that you're hiding it well, but you're not. I've seen the way you look at him when he shows up. That...goofy smile you get when he steps off the elevator like some love-struck school girl. It's almost sweet...in a diabeties kind of way."
"Matt and I are just friends, Ms. Grant." the heroine said, which her boss merely hummed and took a sip from the martini infront of her.
"Keep telling yourself that. But it's quiet obvious that he's smitten with you." that bit of information had Kara perking up in a not so subtle way, "Come now, Kiera. He comes around and brings you lunch out of the blue, he hangs off your every word, and above all...he respects you. Despite his unusual mannerisms and his infuriating defiance when I give him a hard time, I can see that he is a good man...and one that you shouldn't let get away from you."
Kara's thoughts were once again filled with things that she needed to sort out, and she was thankful for the silence she and Cat had lapsed into so that she could come to terms with a few things and figure out how do deal with it all.
X
Another car was blown across the parking lot, the wreckage in a barrel roll before coming to a sudden stop against a concrete wall.
Matt came down, having leapt over the car when it was sent in his direction and delivering a powerful uppercut to Red Tornado. The synthetic staggeing back a step, but remaining upright when it threw a punch of its own only to have it blocked and countered with a left-cross that snapped its head to the side.
Bringing its other arm around, the android found its limb caught in the hero's strong grip. Spinning around and bringing the arm over his shoulder and, with his enhanced strength, flipped the synthetic over and slammed it to the ground.
Pulling his arm back, Matt launched a punch that would have caved the bot's head in; But Red Tornado reacted first. Blasting wind from its hands and launching it across the ground and out of the way just as the fist came down and burrowed into the asphalt.
"Fast." the spider-hero thought, yanking his hand from the ground. "Gotta slow it down." Bringing both hands up, he fired a barrage of impact webbing that started covering the android. Binding its arms together and making it hard for it to move while leaving it open for attack.
Arms shifting into tendrils, Matt swung them forward and ensnared the synthetic further. Picking it up and slamming it into the ground on one side of the parking lot and repeating the action again on the opposite side.
Pulling on the tendrils and launching forward, he delivered a thunderous kick to Red Tornados chest. Sending the android into a wall and imbedding it there.
"You know, for a supposedly advanced combat unit. You're way too slow." Matt said as he approached the entrapped android. "Guess that's Karma for wasting the tax-payer's money."
The synthetics head snapped up, tilting toward the air as if hearing something in the distance. A blast of wind ripped through the concrete, dust and debris flying in all directions forcing the hero to shield himself.
Now free from its confinement, Red Tornado summoned a vortex around its legs before shooting off into the air. Gaining speed and height as it disappeared behind several buildings.
"Dammit..." Matt muttered as he tried to track where the android had gone. "The whole not being able to fly bit is starting to bug me."
"I need a status report, Spyderman." Hanks voice came over his earpiece.
"Tin can bugged out and I lost sight of it." the hero said back as he fired a webline and took to the air himself. "I'm going after it, but I don't think I'll be able to catch up with how fast it was going. Whatever got its attention, it was really moving."
X
"Thank you for dinner, dad." Lucy said as she, her father and James left the resturant where they had spent the evening together.
The General smiled at his youngest daughter, "My pleasure." he said, taking her hand and blocking James from doing it which had the younger man looking affronted. Even though Lucy believed the night had gone well, he knew different.
The Lane patriarch had made it perfectly clear that he didn't think James was good for his daughter or her carrier in the military. And had the strong belief that she would choose the path she had taken in her life.
However, if there was one thing James Olsen was it was dedicated. And he wasn't intending on giving up on Lucy after having just gotten her back.
A gust of wind picked up making the three of them look up, surprise taking over their features when they found Red Tornado hovering above the street ahead of them ontop of a mini twister, glowing eyes leering down.
Through its HUD, the android locked onto the General as the word 'Terminate' appeared on screen.
A/N: Both Spyderman and Supergirl took a shot at Red Tornado, but the thing is a lot more durable than first thought. And with the droid targeting the General, they need to bring it down before it causes too much damage.
The next chapter will the last part in the 'Red Faced' episode in the series. Drop your reviews and it'll be posted in no time.