Notes:

So, I have some unfortunate news. January of last year, I started having some health issues. For a while, I was able to manage the situation, but in October, things kind of took a turn for the worse, my mental health has been going steadily down hill as a result. I'm not in immediate danger of dying, and I see a therapist and a psychiatrist on a regular basis, and I am hopefully on the road to recovery, but right now, I have to step away from working on Future Shock. The reason is simple. Writing this story is hard. It deals with a *lot* of dark and depressing shit, and working on it was starting to make the depression I'm already dealing with worse.

To be clear, I'm not abandoning this fic. I am just stepping away until I get back to the point where I can work on it without it being detrimental to my health This is the same thing I did back at the beginning of last year when I wrote Taking In Strays. The thing is, the buffer currently stands at one chapter, which means, you will get chapter 18 next week, and then... I don't know. It could be a month, it could be six months. I'm not going to start posting again until I have a significant buffer in place, but I honestly don't know when I will be in a place where it is safe and healthy for me to come back to this project.

I'm very, very sorry about this. I really, really want you guys to see what I've got planned, because I think it's a great story, but I just need time to recover, and that has to come first, or I won't be able to finish the story at all.

A final note. If you do see other stories go up from me during the hiatus, understand that those will be stories that are easier for me to write, because they aren't digging into the depths of my own mental illness the way Future Shock does. I just have to work on stuff that I can work on.

Thanks for all of your understanding, and I'll see you next week for chapter 18. Trust me when I say, you don't want to miss Sam being a big gay mess.


Wednesday, March 8th, 2016

Sam sighed as she looked at the mountain of work in front of her, wondering how she had gotten so far behind. It felt like she hadn't done any work at all in the last two days. It didn't make any sense, because she'd spent both days at her desk buried in the various projects she was working on. She'd gotten so absorbed in her work she'd skipped lunch both days.

She wondered if she was coming down with something. She didn't get sick often. She couldn't remember getting sick at all after Ruby had been born, but growing up, when she was feeling sick, she'd fall asleep just about anywhere, and she always woke up starving and feeling like she'd run a marathon, which wasn't too far off from how she felt now. The last two days, she'd been absolutely ravenous by the time she'd gotten home. She'd devoured meals that would have been big enough to leave even a Kryptonian satisfied and fallen asleep hours before she usually went to bed. Her whole body was stiff, and more than anything, she wanted five minutes on the couch. The problem was, five minutes would turn into all day, and she was so far behind, she couldn't afford to take a day off.

"Ms. Arias," Gabrielle said over the intercom.

"Yes, Gabrielle?"

"Ms. Luthor is here to see you."

"Send her in," Sam said, trying to think of some reason why Lena might be there. Whatever it was, it probably wasn't good news. Especially not with this Reign business going on. She looked up from her desk as Lena walked in, and the frown on Lena's face didn't ease her apprehension at all.

"Hey," she said. "Everything okay?"

"That depends on your definition of okay," Lena said as she sat down. "I'm worried about Kara."

"I think we're all worried about Kara," Sam said. "The woman goes through so much shit it's like watching Michael Phelps do laps in a sewage treatment plant."

"Thank you for that mental image," Lena said.

"What are friends for?"

"Helping me murder you in your sleep," Lena said, grinning.

Sam laughed and shook her head. "If you kill me, who's going to be there to say 'I told you so' when your latest hair-brained idea blows up in your face?"

"You say that like it wouldn't be a fringe benefit."

"Ruby would be really sad," Sam said.

"She'd help me hold the pillow I use to smother you," Lena said.

"This is true," Sam said. "So, what brings you by?"

"I'm not going to be available tonight, and my availability is going to be limited for the next few days. Possibly the next few weeks."

"Why?"

"Kara wants me, Lois and Eliza to go through the Chrysalis chamber," Lena said.

"Wow," Sam said. "That's big."

"I know," Lena said.

"Are you sure you're ready for that?"

"No," Lena said. "But honestly, I don't think waiting is an option."

"Why not?"

"Things are worse than we thought," Lena said. "The trip we took didn't go well. Are you familiar with The Butterfly Effect?"

"Yeah," Sam said.

"Some of the changes Kara made when she first arrived in the past have had unintended consequences. Massive ones. Things are worse than they were in the old timeline, and we have less time than we thought. And this whole Reign business, and we can't afford to beat around the bush."

"That's great," Sam said, trying not to panic at the idea that they were even further up shit creek than she'd thought. "What can I do?"

"Kara's going to move us into a new building. A single tower for Danvers International, LCorp and CatCo. Something defensible. You should have an invite to a shared document laying out design requirements. Go through it and see if you have anything to add. Lucy's working on getting the waivers so we can build it this weekend. It's going up in Little Krypton once we get the clearance from the Governor."

"I'll take care of it as soon as we're done."

"Good. Now, there's something else, and this is big."

Sam sat back in her chair, worry creeping up her spine. Lena didn't do what other people would consider small, so if she considered something 'big' it usually fell in the realm of 'life-altering' and sometimes edged up into 'world-changing'.

"What is it?"

"You know I think of you and Ruby as family, right?" Lena asked.

"Yeah," Sam said. "We feel the same way. You know that."

"I don't want to lose you. Either of you. But if I do this, Sam, I'm going to live a long time. Kryptonians don't age under a yellow sun."

Sam nodded, wondering if this was headed where she thought it was, and not sure if she was excited or terrified by the thought.

"I… I um… I asked Kara if she would… If you and Ruby could go through the procedure too."

"What did she say?" Sam asked.

"She's going to talk it over with Ursa. They're trying to set up rules for who gets offered the procedure and who doesn't. It's a complicated issue, because there has to be a lot of trust involved. The power they're handing out is dangerous. Kara thinks Ursa will be open to the idea, but I thought I should check with you first. See if it's something you would even want."

"I don't know," Sam said. "I mean, it's a lot, Lena. That kind of power."

"I know," Lena said. "I just… I love Astra, and I want to be with her. But I don't want be without you and Ruby."

"Let me think about it, okay?" Sam said. "If it were just me, it would be one thing, but Ruby… I have to consider what this would mean for her, too."

Lena nodded. "I know. I understand. But please consider it."

"I promise," Sam said.

Lena reached across the desk and squeezed Sam's hand. "I have to go," she said. "I have a lot to do before tonight."

"Okay. You take care."

Lena nodded and gave her hand one more squeeze before she got up and headed for the door.

"Lena," Sam said.

Lena turned around.

"Whatever happens, I love you. Even if you were the worst girlfriend ever."

Lena laughed. "Second worst," Lena said. "I never fell asleep going down on you."

"I hate that you're right," Sam said.

"I always am," Lena said.

"And there's the Lena I know."

"Sam," Lena said.

"Yeah?"

"I love you too," Lena said.


Clark squeezed his eyes shut, trying to keep out the light, but it was no good. It never was. Not when you could see through your own eyelids in half the spectrum. He stared up at the unfamiliar ceiling, watching the slow ebb and flow of heat through the material that let him trace the course of the air ducts and electrical wiring as he focused on regaining control of which part of the spectrum he was actively seeing, slowly forcing his eyes to shift back into the visible, where his eyelids mostly shut out the light. Not completely, but enough for him to ignore. Enough that would let him fall back asleep, if he weren't someplace unfamiliar. He took in a slow breath and listened to his surroundings, and immediately latched on to one sound that let him know he was safe. Lois's heartbeat was there, and it was slow and calm. Lois was with him, and she was not afraid. He opened his eyes and smiled as he looked over at her.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey, Smallville," Lois said, and Clark felt dread. He knew that tone, far too well. That was Lois's bad news tone. He sat up, and the sheet that had been covering him fell down and pooled at his waist.

"Easy, Smallville."

Clark looked around, taking in the room, and realized they were in the medical hall in the Solarium. "What are we doing here?" he asked.

"You've been in the regeneration matrix for the last two days. Do you remember why?"

Clark frowned as he thought back, trying to place the last thing he remembered before waking up. The first thing that came to him was pain. Pain like he hadn't felt since he fought Doomsday. A memory of a woman came with it. A woman in a mask, with a perversion of a Kryptonian coat of arms on her chest. The mark of a demon. A Worldkiller.

"I remember a fight," Clark said. "A woman named Reign. She killed Leslie, and she hurt a lot of other people."

"Leslie's okay, actually," Lois said. "Reign just overloaded her powers. Apparently, if she gets too much power dumped into her, she can't hold a physical form until she discharges some of it. Kara knew how to fix it."

"What about the rest?" Clark asked.

"Most of them were released earlier today," Lois said. "Winn had to have his legs regrown, and Artemis had to have her face and eyes regenerated. Reign broke your back. She damn near tore you in half when she did. But you're right. Someone did die."

Clark stared at Lois, turning over the possibilities in his mind. If Jason was dead, Bruce would never forgive him, and the same could be said of Arthur if it was Kaldur'ahm. Siobhan had been there to, even though she had no business being there, and he would never forgive himself if she was dead. She was his partner, and he was supposed to protect her, and teach her. Not let her get herself killed. He braced himself for any of the possibilities, not sure which would be worse.

"Clark, James didn't make it," Lois said.

"What?" Clark asked, sure he'd misheard somehow. He was sure she'd said James didn't make it, but that wasn't possible.

"James didn't make it," Lois said. "When Reign broke your back, he tried to get to you."

"No," Clark said. "No, Lois, no."

"I'm sorry," Lois said, as tears started to spill down her cheeks. "He tried to get to you, and Reign slapped him across the bullpen. His head hit one of the windows. The ones that were designed to stop a punch from you or Kara."

"No," Clark said. "Lois, stop it."

"He died instantly," Lois said. "He was moving so fast when he hit, he never would have felt anything."

"No," Clark said.

"It was painless. It had to be painless."

"No." Clark shook his head, refusing to believe it. He couldn't believe it. He wouldn't. James wasn't dead. James couldn't be dead. James was his friend. James was his best friend. James had been there for everything. "Not James. He can't… he can't be…"

Clark couldn't say the words, because they couldn't be real. He closed his eyes, trying to shut out the world, but his chest hurt the way he had when Darkseid had thrown him down and stepped on him. Like the very life was being crushed out of him. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't speak, he couldn't…

James couldn't be dead.

He felt Lois's arms wrap around him, felt her hugging him, and he heard the sound of the first sob echo off the walls as the weight of what he had lost settled in on him.


"Are you okay?" Alex asked as Kara stood, staring at the balcony door.

"Yeah," Kara said. "Just wondering how mad Cat is going to be."

"I don't think she's mad. I think she's worried about you. We all are."

Kara closed her eyes and nodded as she took a deep breath. She recited the Torquasm Vo calming mantra to herself a few times, using the familiar words to soothe away her worry before she opened the door and stepped inside.

"Kara!" Carter shouted, and Kara couldn't stop herself from smiling as she bent down and held her arms out, catching him as he ran over, and pulling him into a hug.

"Hey kiddo," she said.

"Hey," Carter said, squeezing her as tightly as he could. "Were you out hunting Reign?"

"Sort of," Kara said. "We went to talk to someone who we thought might know something about her."

"Did they?" Carter asked.

"A little bit," Kara said. "I've got a couple of leads. We'll find her."

"Are you going to fight her?" Carter asked, and Kara could hear the worry in his voice. "She's really strong."

"Yeah, she is," Kara said. "But I've fought stronger, and I'm still here. And Winn, Astra and Lena are going to make me a new suit that will help."

"Really?" Carter asked.

"Really," Kara said. "Where's your mom?"

"She's in the office," Carter said. "Aunt Maggie is with her."

"Thanks." She kissed Carter on the forehead, then looked over at Ruby and Krypto. "Hey, you two."

"Hey," Ruby said, while Krypto let out a small whine.

"Really? That's what you're going with?" Kara asked.

Krypto tilted his head and raised one ear slightly, giving a small sniff.

"Is that so?" Kara asked.

Krypto narrowed his eyes and let out slightly lower-pitched whine.

"Hey! You even think about it, and I will tell Bruce who used the Justice League credit card accounts to pay for the Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and Crunchy Roll Subscriptions at the Fortress of Solitude."

Krypto dropped his head onto the couch and whimpered.

"That's what I thought," Kara said. She turned to Alex. "Come on."

"What was that about?" Alex asked as Kara led them down the hall towards the office.

"Onion rings," Kara said.

"Onion rings?" Alex asked.

"Yeah. He loves them, but they're bad for him," Kara said.

"He's Kryptonian. I'm pretty sure he'll survive an onion ring or two."

"It's not him I'm worried about," Kara said. "It's all the people with the super-powered sense of smell." She stepped through the door to the office and smiled at what she saw. Cat and Maggie were sitting across the room from each other with a stack of pizza boxes between them. Both of them were about three quarters of the way through a large Hawaiian.

"Oh, God. I hate how good that smells," Alex said.

"There's plenty more," Maggie said as she splashed Cholula on a slice.

Alex dropped down next to Maggie, and Kara sat next to Cat. Each one grabbed a pizza box off the stack. Kara glanced over at Cat.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"I know," Cat said. "I'm not mad. Eat first, then we'll talk."

Kara nodded and tucked into the pizza. The four of them ate mostly in silence, polishing off the rest of the pizza along with a large strawberry cheesecake, a Tiramisu, two Rhubarb pies, two chocolate pecan pies, and a pan of brownies. Once Kleenex had cleared away the debris, Kara leaned back on the sofa and waited.

"Do you want to have this conversation in private?" Cat asked.

"I don't want to have this conversation at all," Kara admitted, "but, honestly, we should probably get Susan and Leslie in here too. Leslie because she's going to be out there with me, and Susan because she's still Adult Supervision."

"Nimda, could you ask Susan and Leslie to join us?" Cat asked.

"I will relay the message," Nimda said.

"Speed," Alex said.

"Power lines," Maggie replied.

The words were barely out of Maggie's mouth when Susan and Leslie appeared in a crack of electricity from one of the reinforced power outlets in the room.

"Damn it!" Alex said.

"The Vegan Bakery over at the corner of Orange and Palm," Maggie said.

Alex frowned.

"You should make her take you to Café Sunflower," Kara said.

"That's a good idea," Maggie said.

Alex glared at Kara. "Traitor."

Kara laughed and looked over at Susan and Leslie, who were both smiling at Alex's misfortune.

"Have a seat," Kara said.

Susan dropped down next to Maggie, and Leslie perched herself on the arm of the sofa next to Susan.

"What's up?" Leslie asked.

"We were going to have a discussion about what happened this morning in the dream chamber. I thought you two should be here for it. Susan as Adult Supervision, and Leslie as the one most likely to kick my ass if I actually lose control out there."

"I still don't want that job," Leslie said.

"You're still one of the few people who might be able to pull it off," Kara said.

"Aren't you getting a new suit designed to stop my powers?" Leslie asked.

"Just trying to make in interesting for you," Kara said. "Wouldn't want you to get bored."

"We can argue about that later," Cat said. "Right now, the question is, what's going on with you, Kara?"

Kara shrugged. "I'm not sure. I didn't even realize anything was happening until you said something about it."

"You don't remember mentioning the New Genesphere when you were talking about the Argo Twilight?" Cat asked.

"I do," Kara said. "But I don't remember calling Myara Gideon, and I didn't realize I called you Sara until you pointed it out."

"Has anything like this ever happened before?" Cat asked.

"After Apokolips," Kara said. "Sometimes I would get confused about who was dead and who wasn't. Desaad made me watch everyone die so many times. It got hard sorting the real deaths from the fake ones."

"What did you do then?" Maggie asked.

Kara thought about it for a moment, trying to decide if she should lie. She knew she couldn't. She'd promised Cat she wouldn't ever lie to her again, and she wasn't going to break that promise, no matter how much the answer would hurt. "I tried to kill myself," Kara said. "Sara and I had a fight over an op. I made a decision she didn't like. I forgot that Bernadeth was dead. Forgot that I had killed her. There was an orphanage. That's what they called the Fury training camps. I took a squad, and I blew it up. Because Bernadeth was training a hundred Czarnian children in that camp. And Czarnians are tough, and they're hard to kill. By the time Desaad and Darkseid's sorcerers were finished with them and Bernadeth had finished their training, they would be unstoppable killing machines that were stronger and faster than I was. Except Desaad and Bernadeth were dead, and I killed a hundred children that we might have been able to save. And when I realized what I'd done, when I realized how dangerous it was having someone like me around with a broken mind, I went to the armory, and I checked out a pistol, and a I loaded it with a Kryptonite bullet."

"What happened?" Susan asked.

"A New Genesian medic spotted me and realized what was going on. She stopped me, and she used her Mother Box to help me."

"The bandages Mar Novu mentioned?" Cat asked.

"Yeah," Kara said. "You know how I taught you how to partition off your mind, to place a piece of your consciousness into that partition reciting the Torquasm Vo mantra that allowed you to manipulate the rate of solar energy flow from your cells?"

"Yes," Cat said.

"That trick works because of way the Kryptonian mind is designed. We've been manipulating our physiology for thousands of years, and our brains have been designed to run dozens of parallel processes. It's like a computer with multiple CPU's, and the trick I taught you assigns one of those CPU's to the specific task of repeating the chant and holding your energy draw at a specific level while the rest of the CPU's work the way they normally would.

"That's how I survived Desaad's torture chamber with my mind… Intact isn't really the right word, but close to it. I built up partitions in my mind, and I let him tear them down. But I held on to one thing. I hid away one thing that matter to me more than anything else. I let him destroy entire parts of me, but I hid the core of who I was, the thing that made me a hero, away. He never touched it.

"But when I took that wall down, all the damage he did was still there. The medic helped me put the damaged parts of myself into a box. She used her Mother Box to help me partition off the parts of my mind that were too damaged to function correctly. It was supposed to be permanent.

"You've all met the Survivor. The person I became during the battle of Little Krypton. In order to become her, I put up a partition between my intellect and my emotion. I close off the parts of myself that feel. That care. And then I just give her a task. A goal. A mission. It's like programming a computer. You set mission parameters and objectives, and she'll accomplish the mission, no matter how much it costs.

"But there is another partition. Another version of myself. I call her the Godslayer, because she's the part of me that killed Desaad, that killed Bernadeth and Gilotina and Lashina, and ripped Darkseid's eyes out. She's what Desaad made me into in that torture chamber. She's a Fury. A monster made out of months of torture. She's all the most broken parts of me. What I become under the influence of Red Kryptonite. What I become under the influence of the Red Lantern Ring. And when I walled her off, I knew who I was again. I knew where I was again. I knew when I was again. And I knew who was alive and who was dead, but now the wall is cracking."

"Can your Mother Box repair it?" Susan asked.

"Maybe as a stopgap, but if it were that simple, Mar Novu would have pointed us in that direction. He's a useless /:zhaolium im zhaoghao/ but he's trying to help, in his own way."

Cat threaded their fingers together and squeezed tightly. Kara looked over at her and could see Cat working herself up to talk about something she didn't want to. "What is it?" she asked.

"Diana suggested something. A healer who works with traumatized Amazons. I told her no."

"Why?" Kara asked.

"She said that sometimes people come out of the process changed. That they come out of the process healed, but sometimes they're not the same person they were before. I told her no, because I love you, and I don't want to lose you."

"I'm not planning on going anywhere," Kara said.

"I shouldn't have made the decision for you," Cat said. "You're in pain, and this could help."

"If we can't find a better way, I'll talk to Diana about it. Okay?"

Cat nodded.

"Do you have any ideas about how to find a better way?" Susan asked. "Because, I've got to admit, I'm not comfortable with you going out as Supergirl if you're compromised. Especially not when you're facing off against someone who put your cousin down."

Kara looked over at Susan. "I don't have any ideas for a long-term solution yet. I have a Band-aid we can slap on the problem to buy some time, but when it comes to Reign, we don't have a lot of options. You saw Nia's dream. There are five of them, and the legends say that only a Worldkiller can kill a Worldkiller, and I'm the only Worldkiller we've got."

"I saw the dream. I also saw them kill you, and it didn't look like it was an easy death. Kara, even if you weren't my friend, you are literally indispensable. If you die, you take the whole multiverse with you. Maybe all the multiverses, if Darkseid breaks through the Source Wall."

"I know," Kara said. "Great Rao, I wish I didn't know. Somedays all I want is to be able to die in peace."

"Don't!" Cat said.

Kara turned to her, shocked by the harshness of Cat's voice until she took a moment to think about what she'd said. "I'm sorry," Kara said. "Cat, I…"

Kara stopped and took a deep breath, reciting the Torquasm Vo calming mantra to herself a couple of times while she organized her thoughts. "I'm sorry. I don't want to leave you. I don't want to leave any of you. But sometimes the weight of everything is just so much."

Cat squeezed her hand tight enough that it actually hurt. "We're here, Kara."

"I know. I do. I'm just tired. I feel like I've been carrying the wait of entire worlds on my shoulders since the day I got in that pod, and I just want to put it down."

"To be unimportant," Cat said.

Kara nodded. "Nimda, I need the Caskets."

There was a flash of light as the transmat deposited the featureless white case that Kara used to store the caskets. She reached out and opened it, then took out the Blue Casket. "One good thing I can say about Mar Novu is, he puts his toys away when he's done playing."

"Is that my ring?" Cat asked.

"It was, but you don't need it anymore, so…"

Kara opened the Casket, and the Blue Lantern ring floated up out of it, and hovered for a moment, then shot towards Kara's hand and slid onto her finger.

"Kara Danvers of Earth and Krypton, you have the ability to instill great hope."

Kara felt the light of hope flowing through her as her Blue Lantern uniform manifested itself. The tension and grief she'd felt for weeks receded, and it felt like a weight was lifted off her shoulders, and she let out sigh of relief as she lifted the power battery out of the Casket. She sat it on the table and pointed the ring at it.

"In fearful day. In raging night. With strong hearts full, our souls ignite. When all seems lost in the war of light, look to the stars, for hope burns bright."

"You can still use it," Cat said.

Kara nodded. "I still have hope," she said. "The ring didn't stop working for me until…" She looked over at Alex. "It never worked for me after you died."

She felt Cat lace their fingers together again, and she squeezed Cat's hand.

"The ring will help. It's a Band-aid though. Not a long-term solution. But right now, we just need to find Reign and deal with her and the rest of the Worldkillers."

"Okay," Susan said. "But from now on, you see Dr. Foster every day. Monday through Friday. Saturday and Sunday too, if she'll do it. I want a confirmation email after every session."

"Okay," Kara said.

"You miss a session and I will bench your Kryptonian ass."

"Susan-"

"No. This is not up for debate. You are mentally ill. You need treatment. You are going to get the best treatment we can provide while we look for a permanent fix."

"Fine," Kara said. "We'll start with Fiona Byrne. She's an empath, and her abilities work on Kryptonians."

"She works for Beacon of Hope, right?" Susan asked.

"Yes," Kara said.

"Do you think we should read her in first?" Susan asked.

"Let's see if she thinks she can help. If she can, we'll read her in so she knows what she's getting herself into."

"Any ideas for how to proceed if that doesn't work?" Susan asked.

"Not yet," Kara said.

"Where did you go this morning?" Susan asked.

"Sanctuary," Kara said. "I have the stasis cells from Fort Rozz tucked away in a pocket dimension that can only be accessed through a special transmat portal in the lower levels of Sanctuary. Jindah Kol Rozz is in one of the cells."

"Who?" Susan asked.

"She's a Priestess of Yuda-Kal my mother prosecuted. My father used her research to turn me into a Worldkiller. I thought since she was trying to recreate them from Black Zero's records, she might know something."

"Did she?" Cat asked.

"Not really," Kara said. "It was pretty standard supervillain stuff. Come to the dark side. We have cookies. Worldkiller blah, blah, blah. I could make you a god, if you just bow down and worship me, blah de blah. If they ever remake Star Wars, she should audition for Palpatine."

"It wasn't a complete waste of time," Alex said. "We got a pretty solid idea of the fifth Worldkiller's power set, and we got their names. Purity, Pestilence, The Flower of Heaven, and the Immortal."

"Flower of Heaven?" Leslie asked.

"It's a translation of an old Kandoran word for lightning. And the War Queens' bodyguards were called the Immortals. Reign is their leader. Purity is the one with sound powers. Pestilence is the one who causes diseases. The Flower of Heaven controls electricity. And the Immortal is your basic damage sponge. Doomsday, only an actual threat."

"Kara, Doomsday beat Clark to death," Alex said.

"Clark has a glass jaw," Kara said. "Darkseid used to throw entire armies of Doomsday clones at us. I fought the real thing a few times too. I wasn't impressed."

Leslie laughed, but the rest of them all gave her a look, and Kara just shrugged. Doomsday had lost any horror he'd once held for her a long time ago.

"You're not going to fight them alone," Susan said.

"Susan-"

"No, Kara. You gave me the authority, and I'm using it. You don't fight them alone. You don't go anywhere without Leslie, Alex and Maggie. End of discussion."

"Fine," Kara said. She turned to Cat. "Do you have the wish list for the new CatCo building?"

"I have lists from all of the CatCo department heads. We will have the lists from LCorp and Danvers International by the end of the day," Cat said.

"Where are we on the permits and waivers?"

"Lucy said everything is squared away with the state. We're just waiting on clearances from County."

"Good," Kara said. "I'm going to bring in Krypton Inc. and Rescue Inc. as well."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Cat asked.

"I need a Command Center. I know I'm trying to delegate more, but if I'm going to lead three major corporations, run a government, fight a war and be Supergirl, I need to put as much of that in the same place as possible. Right now, we're running Krypton Inc, Rescue Inc and the Kryptonian government out of Kandor Tower, CatCo out of the CatCo building, LCorp out of the LCorp building, the war effort out of Sanctuary, the Justice League out of the Hall of Justice, the Titans out of the Titans building, and Supergirl is all over the place. If I can move as much of that as I can into a single location, concentrate our command and control, it will help, a lot. The Kryptonian Government will have to stay in Kandor Tower, and a lot of the war effort will have to stay at Sanctuary for security reasons, but we could put a transmat gateway in our office."

"That could work," Cat said.

"I was thinking we could do an executive suite with offices for you, me, Lena, Sam, Susan and Ursa, then back it up against the command and control center for Rescue Inc, and integrate Justice League and Titans command and control into a single command and control network. I thought we might also start recruiting a few of the independent heroes. Maybe reach out to Blue Beetle, Nightshade, the Question, and Icon and Rocket."

"I'll miss the bullpen, but Vicki can run it easily enough."

"I was thinking we might leave her in place as Editor-in-Chief," Kara said. "I need you for something else."

"Oh?" Cat asked.

"I want to start reaching out to other governments. See if we can get them to sign on to a universal bill of rights for humans and aliens in exchange for the release of Kryptonian technology to signatory countries. I also want to see if we can start establishing Little Krypton-like enclaves in other countries, complete with a protected Embassy in each one."

"We can reach out, but money is going to be an issue if we start setting up more cities."

"I know. I was thinking we could use you real estate connections to address that issue. If we can get Sunstone construction legalized as part of the exchange, we could start building Luxury condo buildings and office towers and use those for funding the enclaves."

"That would work," Cat said.

"I was also thinking we could start approaching individual states and cities about low-income housing projects. We could put up Little Krypton-style towers, complete with internal food production, shopping centers, malls, movie theaters, schools, adult education and job training facilities. Basically turn each tower into a complete community."

"We could do that with the Luxury condos as well," Cat said. "Expensive restaurants, boutique shopping, live theater, opera and ballet. There are tons of ways to generate profit when you have rich people piled together in a small space."

"And we can take all that lovely profit and use it to fund more of the low income towers and raise their standard of living," Kara said. "I like it."

"So do I," Cat said. "Can I ask why the sudden push to go international? Are you that worried about the break with the DEO?"

"I'm worried about that, but that's not the reason I'm looking to reach out to other governments. I'm a lot more worried about this Agent Liberty. Cadmus was a fear response by a bunch of angry, paranoid old men whose first response has always been to carpet bomb first and ask questions later. PHAN was Lex's private little collection of bigots and psychos. But if this Agent Liberty is a genuine groundswell of anti-alien sentiment, we need to get ahead of it."

"We need to do something about Miranda Crane too," Cat said. "She's been whipping up a lot of anti-alien sentiment, and the job losses caused by the introduction of Kryptonian technology is giving her fertile ground."

"Can you handle that?" Kara asked. "I can do social media posts and videos if you need me to, but I can't run a media campaign right now. Not while I'm focused on Reign, and I need to deal with Reign so I can move on to the Green Lanterns."

"I could just fry her," Leslie said.

"No, you can't," Susan said. "We already discussed this. There are no conjugal visits in metahuman detention facilities."

Leslie sighed. "You never let me have any fun."

"I'm pretty sure you'll get to have all the fun you can stand when we go after Reign," Kara said.

"Fine," Leslie said.

"Any particular approach you want me to take with Crane?" Cat asked.

"My gut instinct is to go scorched earth, but I'm not sure if that's the best approach, so I'll let you decide how to approach it," Kara said. "As long as she goes away, I don't care."

"Do you want me to go after this Agent Liberty too?" Cat asked.

"Yes," Kara said. "We can't go through another Cadmus."

"I know," Cat said. "I'll deal with it."

"Thank you," Kara said.

"I hate to bring this up, but Clark woke up a about an hour ago. He's going to go talk to James's sister about the funeral, and he wanted to know if you'd like to go with him," Cat said.

Kara sighed. "I should."

"What's that tone?" Cat asked.

"Kelly," Kara said. "In the old timeline, she and I were Facebook friends. Well, Kelly and Kara Danvers were Facebook friends. We met at James' funeral. She was angry. She blamed Superman and Supergirl for James getting killed."

"And you accepted that blame, because you blamed yourself," Cat said.

"Have you ever seen me not blame myself for something?" Kara asked.

"Well, there was-"

"We do not talk about the Justin Bieber incident!" Kara said.

Cat laughed and leaned over, pressing a kiss to Kara's cheek.

"I can talk to her, if you'd like," Cat said.

Kara shook her head. "No. I'll do it."


"Are you sure you're ready for this?" Kal asked.

"I'm pretty sure I'm not," Kara said as they walked down the hall to the door of James's apartment. "But I owe it to James."

Kal nodded. "I don't know what to say."

"The truth," Kara said. "Just tell her the truth. What happens after that is on her."

"I will never get used to this part," Kal said.

"I hope you're right, Kal." She reached out and pressed the button for the door chime and waited. The door opened a minute later, and Lucy stared out at them.

"Hey," Lucy said.

"Hey," Kara said. "Is Kelly here?"

"Yeah. Kelly, and James's mother," Lucy said. She stepped back, opening the door wider to make room for Kara and Kal. "Come in."

They both stepped inside and Lucy closed the door behind them, leading them into the dining room where Kelly and James's mother were setting.

"Kelly, Tiana," Lucy said. "Supergirl and Superman are here."

They both looked up from the pile of paperwork laid out in front of them, and Kara felt a sinking feeling in her stomach at the look on Kelly's face. It wasn't the anger she'd seen at James's funeral in the old timeline, but there was a certain hesitation and uncertainty there.

"We're sorry to interrupt," Kara said.

"Nonsense," Tiana said. "Come in and sit down."

Kara, Kal and Lucy all sat down at the table. Kara noticed Lucy took the seat next to Kelly, which was a bit of a surprise, but honestly, she didn't know anything about their relationship at all. She'd been too lost in her own pain to pay a lot of attention in the aftermath of Cat, James and Jeremiah's deaths.

"I don't really know where to start," Kara said. "I'm sorry doesn't really seem like enough."

"Why did this happen?" Kelly asked.

"I don't know," Kara said. "I know that I have enemies. Any time you try to push for change, to make people's lives better, you make enemies of the people who benefit from the status quo. But this is something different. The woman who killed James… She shouldn't exist. There was a war, on Krypton. Thousands of years ago. I don't know of anything in Earth's history to compare it to. But one of the factions in the war decided that Krypton was irredeemable. That we had committed crimes too great to ever be forgiven. And they created biological weapons to exterminate all life on Krypton as punishment for our sins. We don't know a lot about them, but they called themselves the Purifiers. We called them Worldkillers. They failed their mission. They started fighting each other, and according to legend, they killed each other. History is a little more vague on the point. But not so long before Krypton died, a woman found the records of the group that created the Worldkillers. We thought we caught her before she could recreate them. We thought that her followers died along with our world. But Reign is here, so either history and legend are wrong, and the original Worldkillers have been in hiding all this time. Or this woman or her followers managed to recreate them, and now one of them is here, on Earth, looking to complete her mission. My guess is that she came looking for me because I'm the current leader of the Kryptonians."

"Why weren't you there?" Kelly asked.

"Kelly!" Tiana said.

"It's okay," Kara said. "If she needs to be mad at me, that's okay. I can take it. But to answer your question, I was off-world."

"Lucy already told me that part, but why were you off world?" Kelly asked.

"Kelly…" Lucy said.

"It's okay," Kara said. "There are things going on that the public doesn't know about. The attacks last week are part of something bigger. After the attacks, I got a message from someone asking me to go somewhere and meet with them because they had information about the people behind those attacks. We were supposed to be back Monday morning, but we were delayed. We didn't get back until Tuesday morning."

"If you were there, could you have stopped her?" Kelly asked.

"No," Kara said. "She's faster than I am. Stronger than I am. More powerful than I am. If I had been there Monday, I would be dead. James might not be though. If I had been there to fight her, it's possible no one else would have gotten hurt that day."

"But she wouldn't have stopped that day, would she?" Kelly asked.

"No," Kara said.

"If she's stronger than you, is there anyone who can stop her?" Kelly asked.

"I'll stop her," Kara said. "If I had been there Monday, I wouldn't have known what I was dealing with. I would have been unprepared. I would have underestimated her. That would have gotten me killed. But now, I know what I'm up against, and I've killed things stronger than her before. I will find her, and I will put her down. You have my word."

"Good," Kelly said.


Translated from the Kryptonian:

!.:zhaolium im zhaoghao
Literally: It fucker
Semantic: Motherfucker