I woke up to a burning sensation coming from my arm. I looked down to see light, shining through Kara's thin curtains, slowly searing my skin. I screamed and scrambled onto the floor. Kara quickly sat up and realized what had happened. She ran around the bed and pulled the thick curtains, she normally had open, over the window.
Kara kneeled beside me and we both watched as the burns healed almost magically. She looked at my arm and lightly touched where the burn had been to see if any damage had stayed, "Are you okay?"
I nodded. "I'm fine now."
She pulled me to my feet and strolled into the kitchen. "Next time you sleepover, I'll make sure to close all the drapes."
The words "next time" brought a smile to my face. Kara closed the rest of the curtains so I wouldn't be burned again. I followed after her and sat down at the breakfast bar. She was making her coffee and I was content just watching. Without her suit and makeup, she still looked gorgeous, if not more beautiful. Just being close to her was all I needed to make my heart flutter.
She noticed my staring and blushed, her cheeks turning bright red. "Why are you staring at me?"
"Just admiring your beauty."
Kara smiled as I smiled right back. She finished brewing her coffee and took a seat next to me, pulling an apple from the bowl in front of us. She began chewing and tried to speak through the apple chunks. "I am not beautiful. I'm a mess."
I leaned forward so our faces were mere inches apart. "A beautiful mess."
She swallowed her apple chunks and set her cup on the counter. I never moved from my position as she leaned forward, placing her lips on mine. I kissed her just as ferociously, my hands cupping her face.
Kara got closer to me and I had to lean back on the stool so much so I fell onto the floor with Kara landing on top of me. She grabbed my wrists and held them beside my head. I playfully tried to fight her off, but I let her continue to hold me down. "You like being up there, don't you?"
"Yeah, I think I do."
She continued to grip my wrists as she leaned down to kiss me. I took this chance to flip her onto her back so I was on top. I held her down in the same fashion she had held me. "Never underestimate your opponent."
I began to lean down to kiss her when the door shot open. Alex got a foot in the door and stopped in her tracks. "Kara, we need you at the…"
The sound of Alex's voice made us separate immediately. Kara and I blushed in embarrassment as we quickly stood up, taking a few steps from one another. Alex crossed her arms and a big smile appeared on her face. "I can go if you guys want some privacy."
"No, no it's fine." Kara quickly said, fixing her hair with her hand. "What is it you need?"
Alex smiled. "There is a glitch on the DEO computer. Brainy is looking into it now, but we believe Toyman could be behind it. I was told to come get you in case things got hairy."
"I thought he blew himself up." I asked with confusion.
"I don't know how Toyman did it, but Brainy believes he's behind the malfunction. Whatever it is, we need Supergirl and Vamtrona. I have a highly tinted DEO van waiting right outside the doors. So, be prepared to run." Alex began for the door, but turned back to say one last thing. "I'll leave you two to get ready."
Alex laughed to herself as she left the apartment. Both of us quickly got ready and didn't bring up what just happened. Both of us were still red in the face about it so we just decided to push it out of our minds. We suited up and prepared for the perilous journey to the car.
On the way to the main floor I had to maneuver around all the windows, which was manageable, but the trip from the doors to the car was a different story. The car was 20 feet from the doors, but the sun was at its peak and there were no clouds in the sky. We made it to the edge of the door and I hesitated.
I knew running to the car wouldn't cause me to burn to death. I might start smoking though and having people see me do that would cause suspicion. Kara noticed my fear and came prepared with a blanket. She placed it over my head and arms.
Kara secured it in place. "On the count of three, we'll run to the car. One."
"Two."
"Three."
Alex held the car door open as I quickly threw myself in the backseat, only smoking a little. Kara could have flown to the DEO, but she decided to get in the car with me so we could travel together. Alex secured the doors and got in the driver's seat.
We arrived at the DEO in only a few minutes and when we arrived, all hell's breaking loose. Every monitor in the room was static. We approached the comms area when the main screen's static morphed into a face. Winn came from the other room just as his face appeared on the screen; Toyman's face.
"Hello, everyone. You may wonder how I got on your screen if I'm dead. Well, simply, I'm not dead. A simple code sent me into the computer in my truck, which you brought here. All it took was one jump and now I'm a virus on your tech." He cackled with a smug smile. "Once I get enough power, I will have access to all the technology in this city and maybe even the world. For now, the DEO will have to do. I hope you all like The Wizard of Oz."
The screen went black and screeching could suddenly be heard from behind us. We all turned around to see a hoard of flying monkeys whiz into the room. Everyone got to work destroying them. Kara blew them apart, I smashed them with my fists, and Alex, including the other agents, began shooting the vermin down. When it was all clear, we went into a red alert.
Brainy got to work trying to break down the firewall Toyman had built around himself. Alex got to dechipping the weaponry so the Toyman couldn't get to them. Winn, Kara, and I decided to head to J'onn's as he might know more about what was going on. We prepared to leave when I heard the only voice that truly made my skin crawl. "Carly, may I speak with you for a moment."
I turned around to find Lex peeking his bald head out of the conference room. Kara and Winn stopped walking and looked over with concern. I assured them I would be fine and to wait outside for me. They weren't happy about it, but starting a fight now would just make things worse. The two headed outside as I made my way across the landing.
He motioned me to enter as I walked past and took a seat at the table, Lex sat down across from me. I was the first to speak. "What is it you need, Lex?"
Lex cleared his throat. "I know you'll never trust me, but we are on the same side, Carly. Leviathan and now this Toyman are an issue that needs to be dealt with for the betterment of the world. Don't you think?"
I smiled smugly as he was. "Leviathan and Toyman are threats, but so are you. I would rather work with my friends to defeat the bad guy than to work with a man who can't touch anything without killing it."
Lex intertwined his fingers. "I may not be good, but the people out there are worse. Sometimes your enemy's enemy can be an ally. You just gotta take the risk."
I leaned forward with a grimace. "Last time I trusted you, you shot me with an energy beam and I was knocked unconscious. Sometimes risks aren't worth it."
"Don't pretend you're some angel sent from heaven. No one is perfect." Lex said with a sly smile. "I know what kind of urges you have. I know what kind of killer you are."
"I've never killed anyone."
"Yet." Lex said as he leaned closer to me. "We both know what you are capable of. I know a great deal about your species. I know what kind of carnage you can inflict when you're hungry. The Black Plague struck in 1347, killing a third of the european population. Do you really think it was just a disease? Vamtronians took many lives during that period, ripping people to pieces."
My anger was rising. "Shut up..."
Lex continued. "You might not have killed yet, but I know you want to. When I took Superman's spot you held me in the air with a look of murder in your eyes. That same look reappeared when I was trying to persuade Novu to be on my side. You push those feelings down deep because you're afraid I'm right."
My hand shot out with lightning speed, wrapping around his throat as I looked at him with dark eyes. His expression changed to a smile as he looked at my vampiric face. His hand came to my wrist, but he didn't push me away. "Your reaction just proves my point."
I gritted my teeth as my fangs retacted, my eyes returned to normal, and my hand left his throat. "I may have those urges, but I'll never act on them because...I'm not you."
I got up from the table and began for the door. I got to the entrance when Lex yelled after me. "You can deny it all you want, but you're just like me, Carly. You're no hero and one day you'll realize I'm right."
I stormed out of the room without looking back. I knew Lex was trying to get a reaction out of me. He wanted me to give in and become a monster just like him. I was starting to believe him and I couldn't let myself go down that path, I just couldn't.
I got halfway down the stairs when I noticed Brainy walking up the opposite way. I grabbed his arm so he would stop. "Was this whole Toyman attack planned by Lex?"
Brainy nodded with a sigh. "Yes, it was, but I have it under control. No one is going to get hurt on my watch."
"Yeah, you better hope so." I said taking a few steps before turning back to look at him. "He isn't trustworthy, Brainy. He likes to egg me on and one of these days I may just snap. Don't let him do the same to you."
Before Brainy could ask more I made my way outside to Kara and Winn. Both looked concerned at my sudden tense expression, but I tried to explain I was okay. When we arrived at The Tower, J'onn was already at work trying to figure out how the Toyman did what he did.
J'onn saw us enter and motioned for us to join him at the main table. "I may not be as saavy as Brainy when it comes to computers, but I think I know how he got in."
I asked first. "How?"
J'onn pushed a button on his remote and a long sequence of numbers, letters, and symbols appeared on the screen. "He got in using this."
"What is that?" Kara asked scanning the sequence with her eyes.
"That's a computer modular code." Winn said as we all looked at him with confusion. "It's sequenced in a way to draw power. Whoever enters the code gets sucked into the computer or device they entered it into. Typing it backwards from the inside, brings you back."
"How did you…" I began
Winn sighed. "I created it." A look of grief appeared in his eyes. "Look, I thought it would be cool. Why just play a video game, you know, when you can be inside of one? I'd stay up past midnight trying to think of different ways to express Premack's theory of the mind in this little blue notebook. My dad finally caught me with it and asked me what it was. I thought he was going to be mad, but he seemed...proud. Of course, now I know it wasn't pride, it was greed. The night the police finally came and took him away, I went to look for the notebook. It was gone. Turns out that he had taken it and left in its place a little toy monkey."
Kara placed her hand on Winn's shoulder and squeezed. "I'm sorry."
Winn nodded. "It's okay because I know the code by heart. If we can find the command center then I should be able to get inside and delete the Toyman."
"I already found it." J'onn announced as a map with a red dot appeared on the screen behind him. "The signal is coming from a computer in an old toy factory on the southend of town. Plus a rain storm has covered the city, no sunlight in sight."
The plan was simple. J'onn would stay at the tower while Winn, Kara, and I would go to this command center and hopefully stop another attack from occurring. We traveled across town, which was so much easier now that the sun was covered by rain clouds. Winn led the way with a sensor that would go off when we would be close to the source.
We zigzagged through the halls until we came to a giant room at the end of a long hallway. We entered side by side as Winn placed the sensor in his bag. His hands were inches from the keyboard when the pixels on the screen morphed into a face, but it wasn't the Toyman that looked like Winn.
Winn's eyes went wide with shock just as ours did. "Dad?"
"Nice to see you again, Winslow."
Winn's face went cold with crossed arms. "Explain yourself. Digitizing my
consciousness was my dream. A dream you stole."
"Fine. But when that other Winn digitized himself, he used the underlying code that I'd written, plus my hardware." Winn's father explained. "Now, I managed to translate 80% of myself before I died, but he must have paired it with some sort of future tech, because when he came online, I did too."
"And now you wanna help us?" Kara and I asked at the same moment.
He nodded. "Yes. I'm trapped in a backup drive, and the only way I can do anything is if you release me."
"I'm sorry. Are you insane?!" Winn yelled with poison on the tip of his tongue. "Oh, wait, yes. Clinically, you are."
"If we let him go, he will do what he always does and wreak havoc everywhere." Kara pointed out.
Winn's father interrupted. "That's not true! I mean, it was my original plan, but this other Winn is planning to do things that are beyond the pale. I've seen it in his code."
Winn rolled his eyes and began typing, "Yeah, well, that's why I'm going to delete both of you."
"Winslow, don't." His father warned with actual worry in his voice. "I wanna help and you can't beat him alone. You have to trust me."
Suddenly, the tablet Brainy insisted we bring with us began beeping. Winn continued working as I pulled the tablet out to see the DEO was calling us. I pushed the talk button to see a frantic Brainy.
"Brainy, what's wrong?" I asked, Kara and Winn coming over to see what was the matter.
"The Toyman got into our tech." Brainy yelled as he knocked a flying monkey onto the floor. "He has control of the monkeys again and has now upgraded to the Lexo Suits. We need your help, now."
The call went dead. Kara decided it was her job to go back to the DEO to help. I wanted to go with her, but she wanted me to stay with Winn in case things didn't go as planned. Kara flew out of the room as I returned to Winn's side. The code was typed, all he had to do was press enter, go into the computer, and delete both toymen.
He hesitated and I knew why. "Winn, are you sure about this? Deleting the Toyman is one thing, but your father? He might be a horrid human, but he is still your dad. Are you sure you want to do this?"
"I'm the only one that can."
He swallowed the spit in his throat as he pushed enter. A beam of light left Winn's head and shot into the computer, causing Winn to fall to the ground limp. I had no idea what to do so I made sure he was comfortable and sat with him. I wanted to do more, but I knew Winn could do this. I believed in him.
Ten minutes after he went in, the beam of light shot back at his body and he sat up with wide eyes. I ran around so I could grab hold of his hands and pull him to his feet. "Did you do it?"
"I did…" Winn's eyes began to fill with tears. "My father saved me. He let himself get deleted for...me."
I brought Winn in for a tight hug as he cried into my shoulder. I heard footsteps and looked over to see Kara in the doorway. Her eyes asked if he had won and I nodded to reassure her as I continued to hug Winn.
After Toyman was taken care of, Kara went to have a chat with Alex and I needed to blow off some steam from Lex this morning. I was in one of the training rooms punching a dummy. Winn appeared in the doorway, causing me to lose focus. I turned to see him enter just as I punched the head off the dummy.
"Night right hook." He laughed
I awkwardly blushed and picked, the now decapitated, head off the floor and set it on the table beside me. I turned back toward him. "Well, I've been practicing. Hopefully in a real fight, I won't actually decapitate the person."
"That's a good goal."
We both burst into laughter as he came to lean against the table I was leaning on. I saw the look in his eyes and knew he was going to say goodbye. "You're going back to the future, aren't you?"
He nodded. "I have to, my family's waiting for me. I've been saying goodbye to everyone and thought I would save you for last."
"What an honor." I said with a joky smile.
He smiled in the same manner. "I don't know how long I will be gone and I know before I left the first time we were becoming good friends. You were just a human techie like me and now look how far we've come." Winn motioned around us. "I live in the future and save the world as a Legionnaire and you're a hero fighting alongside Kara. We've stepped up I think."
"A lot has changed in a mere three years." I said as my smile faded.
Winn noticed my sudden drop in mood and bent his head into my line of vision so I would look at him. "Carly?"
"Yeah…"
"I know you think becoming a vamtronian is a curse, but I don't see it that way." I looked over at him as he shrugged. "You get to fight as a hero, instead of sitting at a desk, rotting. The sun might complicate things, but you're a hero in your own right. I mean you have a super suit, which is way cooler than mine by the way."
I laughed as he continued. "Just because you drink blood does not mean you are any less a hero than anybody else. You don't have to let it define you."
"I'm just worried that Lex was right…" I said crossing my arms. "He has jabbed at me on multiple occasions, including this morning, that one day I'm going to lose control and hurt someone I love. That the darkness in me will come to light and I will become the monster I was meant to be. Sad thing is, I'm starting to believe him."
"You are not a monster, Carly. I can promise you that."
"Are you sure about that?" I asked, biting my lip. "I'm like the alien equivalent of the vampires in movies. Aside from being alien in origin and having a different name, I am a vampire. Vampires always get the short end of the stick. Burn in the sun, murderous cravings, outliving your loved ones. My situation is not a blessing, Winn. The powers are amazing and I am so happy I can fight alongside Kara, but I am also terrified of myself."
Winn moved in front of me and placed his hands on my shoulders. "You don't have to be afraid. You only live forever as a full vamtronian, as a half vamtronian you just age slower. Like you age up another year every 3 years." I looked at him with confusion. "The future has a library dedicated to different aliens. If you become a full vamtronian, then you never age, but since you are still half human you age a slower rate."
I sighed. "Well, at least I got that goin' for me. I won't look 24 when everyone I love is 40."
"Carly, listen to me." Winn said with reassurance. "Don't look at this like a curse. Try to look on the bright side of things or you will never continue living your life. As long as you drink blood regularly and are not seriously hurt then you have nothing to worry about, okay? I believe in you. You will never be what Lex tempts. Don't let him get into your head."
I nodded as Winn pulled me in for a hug. I didn't realize till now how much I truly missed Winn. We had been really good friends before he went to the future. Both of us worked as techies and both of us had a crush on Kara. He got over his and I never did. He had no idea about my feelings, but I knew about his, which just made our friendship more inviting.
He pulled back with a teary smile. "You are a hero, Carly. Don't let anyone else tell you different."
"Goodbye, Winn."
"Bye…"
Lex was working in the conference room looking at the losses of today as Brainy entered the room. Brainy took a seat across from Lex and explained the situation. "I was able to pick apart the codes that you desired from the attack this afternoon."
"That is excellent news. Is there anything else to report?"
Brainy nodded. "There is minor damage to the building and tech, aside from your Lexo Suits, so rebuilding will be an ease. Sadly, Alex has decided to leave the DEO, permanently."
"A pity." Lex said with a fake frown. "Well a congratulations is in order then, Director Dox. You will now take Alex's position."
"Thank you for the opportunity." Brainy said with little to no emotion. He rose from his seat and got to the doorway when something came to mind. "Can I ask you something, Lex?"
"Of course, what is it?"
Brainy turned toward Lex. "Why are you constantly putting Carly on edge? I heard some of the conversation you had this afternoon and I am curious as to why you do this. If you are trying to seem like the good guy, why make Carly angry?"
"Because I have plans for her." Lex said, rising from the table. "She has abilities that can be quite useful if you know how to use them. I edge her on to make her uncomfortable, easier for her to mess up. The more uneasy she is the better suited she'll be when I turn her into my secret weapon."
Brainy shook his head. "She would never let herself lose control."
Lex laughed. "Who said she had a choice? I'm working on something that will throw free will right out the window and Carly will be my test subject." Lex placed a hand on Brainy's shoulder. "And you're gonna help me do it."
