Metropolis
"New blond bombshell on the block."
Click.
"Who is the mysterious new woman that appeared over the streets of Gotham this morning?"
Click.
"Exclusive interviews from those who witnessed the catastrophic battle in Gotham's skies, only on GNN."
Click.
"Superhero and media personality Booster Gold gives his opinion on the events in Gotham, tune in at eleven to–
Click.
"Where was Superman during this fight? How did the Justice League manage to quell this new threat? The United States government and the world want answers."
Click.
Lois Lane sighed heavily as she finally got sick of combing through the cable channels and switched the television off. Four hundred channels and all but the kid's networks and the shopping networks were talking about the woman who'd fought the Justice League and, if shaky smartphone footage was to be believed, had won. The same footage was reeling on every news media outlet both on tv and on the internet, Superman had gotten punched so hard he'd rocketed into the air like, well, a rocket and from there it had only gotten worse.
Lois knew better than to have turned on the tv and tortured herself with the news but she was on vacation from the Daily Planet and without any news from Clark she found herself either pacing or turning the tv on and off in a constant unhealthy cycle, searching for any updates to know what had happened at the end and how Clark was doing both physically and mentally.
He had been so excited to find a living relative and now this.
In truth, Lois didn't know if she should have been worried or sad for him. The young woman certainly didn't look like she'd been happy with Superman and if she had been pulling her punches then they had a lot to worry about.
Every part of Lois wanted to dig out the secret communicator that Clark had given her, which was attuned to a frequency below normal radio waves, to call and see if he was alright but as the daughter of General Sam Lane, she knew that when someone was in the line of duty the last thing you did was try to contact them before you were sure the peril was over. They had to be focused completely on their job and trying to reach them at a critical moment could be at least detrimental and at most utterly devastating.
Gritting her teeth, Lois forced herself to remain on the couch, knowing that if she got up she'd head straight for the communicator tucked away in their bedroom. Lifting the tv remote again, she resigned herself to the loop of turning the tv on and off in the endlessly vicious cycle she was on until she heard a key slide into the lock at the door and the dead bolt shift.
In a quickness that would have impressed the Flash, Lois bounded off the couch and was in front of the door just as it swung open, revealing Clark Kent in his business casual two-sizes-to-big clothing, wire rimmed glasses, and carrier bag that held his work laptop and papers.
Though Clark carried himself with a bit of a slouch and a slightly shy-country-boy air, he was a big man and his muscular frame took up most of the doorway.
Lois had often joked about Clark being the most delicate of bulls in a china shop but whenever he came back from a mission safe and sound all jokes went out the window. He was her husband and seeing him standing at the door was like seeing a soldier home from war.
"Clark," Lois breathed his name with relief.
"Lois." Clark smiled widely at her.
Like so many times before the pair closed the distance between one another and embraced in a tight hug. Lois felt tears come to her eyes but like most times, the tough-as-nails reporter blinked them away and drowned herself in love for her husband. He was safe. Another day had passed and they were reunited.
"I said I love you before you left for 'work' this morning, didn't I?" Lois asked. Though they were in their own home, they used code-talk just out of habit. After years of marriage, they had learned it paid to always be cautious.
"Of course," Clark chuckled. "You always do."
"Good. I'll say it again and again and again. I love you, Clark." She pecked a kiss on his lips then smiled at him. "I love you so much that I ordered your favorite tonight for dinner."
Clark arched a brow at her. "You knew I'd be coming home tonight and wouldn't be 'working late'?"
"Whenever I think you're working on a really hard piece down at the Planet, I need something to give me hope you'll be home before morning," she replied warmly. "It's how I keep the faith."
"I hope we have enough for three," Clark replied, his eyes twinkling.
This time Lois arched a brow. "Three?" she parroted in confusion.
Clark slowly backed away from Lois and it was only then she realized she hadn't turned his back away from the door. "Lois, may I introduce my cousin." Slowly Clark moved to the side revealing the woman that Clark and his allies had pulled from the Phantom Zone.
Though the footage of the girl in the sky had been blurry and grainy at best, the girl, now, looked nothing like she had on the news. Clark wouldn't have dared brought her back to their apartment if she had. Her hair was now brunette instead of the gold it had been. Her eyes were gray and Lois couldn't tell if she was wearing contacts or not but it was a distinct possibility. She had the look of a Metropolis University student with jeans, a blouse, thin jacket, low heeled brown boots, and a plain black backpack hung over her shoulder, a look, she knew, that had probably been given to her by Wonder Woman when she went out in the world as Diana Prince.
The girl hung outside of the doorway awkwardly, unsure if she should have walked in and shut the door or not. Her eyes looked about curiously, as if not certain what to make of the apartment or the two people in front of her.
Lois stared at the young woman with only a slight undercurrent of shock. This had been the girl who had been wailing on her husband this morning and now she was at their front door and Clark was admitting her as a guest.
Granted, Lois didn't know what circumstances had led up to the fight, but she didn't quite feel the excitement Clark felt. Still, she could tell that Clark was happy and that made Lois happy. Everyone knew Lois took a moment to warm up to anyone anyway. It had taken her half a year to warm up to Clark and now look where they were.
Lois smiled warmly, and pushed away her bad feeling about the girl. There would be time for scrutiny later but she wouldn't voice that to Clark so soon. "Well, come on in, Clark's Cousin," she invited. "Our home is your home."
The girl shuffled inside and closed the door behind her. Her eyes had stopped looking around the entry to the apartment and now looked Lois straight in the eyes with a scrutinizing and measured stare. It wasn't a threatening stare, but one that seemed to Lois as if the girl was judging if she were a threat or not.
"So, you got a name?" Lois asked as she returned the stare in kind. If there was one thing that could be said about Lois it was that very little intimidated her.
The girl remained silent. She was still judging her, Lois realized. She hadn't made up her mind yet about if Lois truly was a threat or if she could be easy around her.
An awkward silence nearly encapsulated the trio until Clark stepped, desperately trying to beat back the tension building in the room. "This is… well, she calls herself Angel," Clark explained hesitantly before looking at Kara. "Angel, this is my wife Lois Lane."
Angel looked from Lois to Clark, her intense stare vanishing only to be replaced with perturbation. "You married a human?"
"I did, yes." Clark smiled warmly at Lois and gently touched her arm. "And it was the best decision I ever made."
"If you were going to marry one why didn't you marry Wonder Woman?" Angel asked bluntly. "At least she's not fragile like the other humans."
Lois's mouth hung swung open at the audacity of the comment. She would have been angry and rightly so had she thought Angel meant to speak the words in a disrespectful manner but the girl had said them, not realizing the insult. It had come out as a simple fact, not filled with malice.
Clark coughed into his hand as if trying to abolish the awkwardness that had suddenly come back with a vengeance. "Wonder Woman is friend but I was never interested in her romantically. Lois is the love of my life."
Butterflies filled Lois's stomach the same way they did every time Clark said something heartwarming. Her stunned expression softened and she stood up on her tiptoes and gave him a peck on the lips. "Smallville, you always know what to say and when to say it."
"I… I have to call him Smallville here?" Angel asked, uncertain as to why Lois called him that. She looked at Clark and said, "I thought I could call you just Clark when you looked like… this…." She gestured to the plain blue button down and his slacks. "And Superman when you are in those other clothes."
"That's how it works but Smallville is just a nick-name Lois calls me when I'm Clark Kent and not Superman," Clark explained.
"Why?" Angel asked.
Clark shrugged. "Just habit."
"You didn't want to call me Sand-for-Brains but she can call you small?" Angel persisted, genuinely not understanding.
"Smallville," Lois replied somewhat protectively. "It's where he's from. It's not an insult. It's loving."
Angel looked at Lois in confusion.
"Look, names aside, why don't we get you settled in and then have some dinner," Clark suggested. "We'll lay down a few ground rules for being around the apartment then see where we go from there."
Angel shrugged. "Fine by me." Angel paused, her attention suddenly diverted to Clark. She stared at him, Lois noticed, with the same intensity she had given to Lois a few minutes before, then she rolled her eyes. "Really, I know she's your wife but do you have to think about that right now?"
Heat suddenly rose to Clark's face. "Angel–"
"Wait, you can see his thoughts?" Lois cut in.
"She's a telepath," Clark explained quickly. "Along with the regular powers I have, she has others. It's a long story, I'll have to tell you later, Lois." He coughed awkwardly into a fist. "You shouldn't be peering into people's thoughts unannounced, Angel, that's rude."
Angel frowned. "I don't know how to control it yet," Angel protested. "And even if I did, your thoughts started blasting out, I didn't go in."
"What did you see?" Lois asked curiously.
"Lois, I don't think–"
"He was thinking about everything he wanted to do with you once you both went to bed," Angel replied with her same bluntness.
Clark turned a deep shade of embarrassed red but Lois smiled coyly at him and hooked her arm around his. "Don't worry, Smallville, once we get everything settled, you can show me everything that was running through your mind."
8888
The Cayman Islands
"Twelve hours ago, a new power house arrived in Gotham City–"
Click.
"The Justice League's battle in Gotham today caused more than fifteen million dollars in damage. Experts debate on how this will effect the economy of a city already in the throes of an economic downturn."
Click.
"One body was found today in the wreckage of Gotham's abandoned subway. The body has been identified as serial killer Angelo Marco, also known as Gotham's Angel of Death."
Click.
Pilots flying over Gotham claim to have spotted another battle high in the sky. Witnesses state that the heroes in the air were none other than Superman, Shazam, Steel, and others known to work with the Justice League in times of dire straits. What were they doing up there while the battle raged below them?"
Click.
Fingers steepled under his chin, Luthor swiveled his high-backed metallic chair around and looked out the window to the spotless white sand beaches stretched out before him. The two dozen television screens behind him all continued to play but one by one he had turned their sound off so that he could think in the silence of his secret lair.
Though to most people the Cayman Islands were a place known for its vacation destinations and banks where corrupt businessmen hid their ill-gotten wealth, it was, in fact, a series of islands that Lex Luthor owned and used as his base of operation when he was out of Metropolis. He had many such islands dotted around the world, many of them unknown to even Batman, but he used the Cayman Islands as a place where he could be out of reach of many hands and yet still keep his own fairly active around the world without seeming to have retreated to lick his wounds.
As far as the media was concerned Lex Luthor had gone on a luxurious vacation to relax after the stressors of being arrested and accused of crime that he had not committed. He had been all smiles and waves as he had boarded his private jet, but now on the island, one that technically part of the Cayman Islands but was not located on any maps, he stewed and seethed and let the revelations of this new mystery woman swarm over his thoughts.
Though J'onn J'onzz the Martian had attempted to wipe his mind clean of the things he had witnessed within the Fortress of Solitude while he had been aiding Superman, the Martian could not begin to calculate the intellectual powerhouse that was Lex Luthor.
While Lex Luthor's memories were a little hazy about that day and some patches were missing, he was slowly recalling the memories using daily hypnosis and deep meditations to bring back all that they had thought they'd wiped from his mind. Memories, Lex knew, didn't actually get stolen or wiped clean like a chalkboard after class. They remained, pushed deep and locked in a sarcophagus of the mind but Lex Luthor had easily found his way back to them and day by day they came rushing back so that he nearly had the full picture of all he had seen.
He had new schematics for weapons, new Kryptonian know-how, and above all he had all the pieces of the puzzle for what he had seen in the Fortress of Solitude regarding Superman's history and how he had really come to earth.
Now that he knew what he knew so much more added up. No one simply sent a lone baby out into space and hoped for the best. Even a super powered child would have limited protection and would be subject to the influences whoever came across them. No Kryptonian would have sent a child out into space to land on a planet that could be filled with murderers and sadists and tyrants all alone.
Superman's entire history had been a lie. His father hadn't been the genius inventor or the herald to shout of Krypton's doom. He had been a greedy bureaucrat who invented junk, no better than a corporate big wig trying to appear to be more than he was.
Did the girl know this, Lex wondered intently? How could he use this knowledge to his advantage? Had Superman told her anything? Had the fight broken out because of bitterness or something else? A thousand plans were all dancing in Luthor's mind and a thousand, thousand more outcomes were playing out all at the same time as he lost himself in thought.
"Who is the girl?" a deep voice asked from behind Luthor.
How had one of the television's sound come back on?
Irritated, Luthor moved a finger towards the sound buttons built into the arm of the chair, then froze, his finger hovering less than an inch about the mute button. The deep, serious voice had not been a news caster on a media outlet.
Slowly turning around, Lex's eyes found the screens he had left on mute completely altered. Most of the two dozen tv screens were now black and the ones that weren't all worked together to create one big red Omega symbol.
Shock nearly pounced upon Luthor's face before he settled into a casual business air. "You're coming to me for information, Darkseid?" Luthor snorted contemptuously. "And here I thought gods were omniscient."
"Your insults do not concern me Lex Luthor. I have seen the events of earth through my own means and they intrigue me. She has the powers of Superman and more. Who is the girl?" Darkseid asked again, the grim finality of his voice never once wavering.
Lex leaned back smugly in his chair. "I don't give information out for free and certainly not to cosmic despots."
"You have your own plans, then," Darkseid replied. It wasn't a question and Lex didn't pretend like it was.
"I working on a few things," he admitted, knowing the vagueness would do nothing more than irk the new god. He had to use his upper hand as long as he could after all. "You're at the disadvantage of ignorance Darkseid and you know it. Leave this to me."
"Anyone who spent a moment looking upon the battle can tell she holds some malic towards Superman, I wish to know why."
Luthor snorted again. "Don't insult my intelligence, Darkseid, if you knew that then you'd know everything and, as we've already established, you don't."
"I know you failed in your last attempts to be rid of Superman," Darkseid replied.
Even though the tone remained the same, Lex could all but picture a small, nasty smirk appear on Darkseid's granite-colored face. "As if your last one didn't fail either? How'd that mind wipe machine work out for you?" Lex shot back.
"Aptly said, Luthor," Darkseid agreed. "Our separate plans have always failed and I believe that alone they would fail still. But together, once chance to bring the girl to our side, I do not see how we could falter."
"You're coming to me with an alliance?" Luthor queried incredulously. Though both of them were major foes of Superman they'd never worked together before. Their visions did not align and their egos could barely fit in the same galaxy, let alone in a partnership. "Why would I want to ally with you? You want to conqueror earth and as it so happens so do I. We both can't be master of this world."
"Earth shall fall to me eventually but I have what you do not and that is eternity, Lex Luthor. Superman's presence is a beacon of light not only to earth but to the entire cosmos. His defiance against me is intolerable. Should Superman be allowed to live his legacy will no doubt live on and grow. Others with similar powers will come and they'll be inspired by him. When that occurs, earth and other planets who follow his example shall ever evade my grasp. The spirit of the last son will linger if it is not snuffed out in a way that denies earth its hope. When hope is gone and Superman lays dead and cold then earth shall be ripe for the conquering. You may keep it and even if you have some intentions to keep your line onwards in ruling you may keep it still, but someday your line will end and Darkseid shall then make your world into an image of his own."
Lex wasn't fooled for a second about Darkseid's lies. He would break his word the moment he saw fit and no doubt with Superman gone he would renege and claim earth from Lex Luthor then and there, but if he thought he was somehow less than the man of steel then he would be sorely disappointed.
He was more than Superman's equal and he was vastly superior to Darkseid.
Still, Lex supposed, it would be interesting in working with Darkseid and he would take pleasure in humiliating the god of Apokolips.
Smiling faintly, Lex steepled his fingers back under his chin and said, "Well, Darkseid, what exactly did you have in mind? If your plan is any good, perhaps we can work together after all."
8888
Metropolis, one month later
"Three men were caught last night trying to break into the Metropolis Museum of Fine Arts."
Click.
"Sources claim Titan's Tower in Jump City is finally undergoing much needed renovations."
Click.
"C'mon down to Hero's Hamburgers, home of the Batman Belly Buster, the Superman Supreme, and the Green Lantern Fries and tell 'em that Booster Gold sent ya!"
Click.
"A new hero of the sea was spotted off the coast of California yesterday. The media in Camarillo has dubbed the new protector of the coast Tidal Wave."
Click.
Kara pressed the off button on the remote and watched the screen go dark, relieved to see nothing about herself in the strange box of ill omen that Clark and Lois called the tv. She hadn't liked seeing the footage of herself being played over and over on the screen as men and women speculated about her as if she were like Superman and Batman but the public seemed to have a short memory and now there was neither hide or hair of her existence on the tv.
Many weeks had now gone by while she, Clark, and Lois had settled into a comfortable rhythm around the apartment and waited for the media attention to die down. Kara's or Angel's sudden appearance had readily explained away by her being a cousin on Clark's adopted mother's side come to visit all the way from Montana. Like him, she was supposedly a country girl and a little shy. She spent most of her time on a ranch in the middle of nowhere and didn't have many stories to tell that were all that different from Clark's boring stories about living in Kansas.
Very few people were actually interested in Clark's family tree and Kara was glad they didn't really pry or want to know about horses or hay or all the empty space out in Montana. Well, one of the human's Jimmy Olsen did, but he always seemed curious and more than a little annoying.
Beyond getting into the groove of life in Metropolis while attention around her abated, Kara was subjected to lessons to control her gifts via members of the Justice League who came and went in various forms and figures throughout the weeks. J'onn J'onzz had come in the form of a maintenance man and had stayed to help teach Kara her telekinetic and precognitive skills. Sometimes she went to the Watchtower where she'd be put through a series of tests to gauge her strength level.
On her last venture up to the Watchtower they'd run out of tests to give her on the station. Every test they had she easily overcame and currently Batman was trying to construct more. She'd managed to keep up with the Flash, slowing just shy of breaking through the speed force. She couldn't match him there but she came damned close.
In addition to those skills, they'd run her through a gamut of tests with different colored Kryptonite and Zatanna had gauged just how deep her defense of magical attacks went. She wasn't impervious to magic but she had the capability to withstand weaker magics. After a series of tests they'd determined that Zor-El had come across an Arcturan spell book of some sort and had used that upon the child in vitro. Arcturans were an alien species known for their magical abilities and Zatanna could sense a strangeness to the magic the same way a hero from earth differed from a hero from Krypton. They could match power but one was unquestionably alien in heritage. It was only a guess but it was the best they could do.
Beyond tests, training, and getting to know Metropolis a little when she went out with Clark, Kara didn't have much freedom. A few times they had let her go out on her own and didn't chaperone her but on those rare occasions she had a curfew of ten and could never go beyond certain amount of city blocks. Some people would have balked at the strictness but she never broke the rules or curfew nor did she really go outside to enjoy the city when she had the opportunity. It wasn't that she was too shy or too afraid to venture out into the city it was just after her first week on earth Kara had come to one grim and grisly conclusion.
She absolutely hated earth.
Part of it was that she barely understood the nuances of the planet and the other part was that she just really didn't like the people. The ones she had met in the subway she had liked but those weren't the people that Clark and Lois associated with. Those were the people they tried to expose or stop; those were the people other earthlings avoided becoming like, yet they lived lives ruled over them by those who took their money and called it taxes or made them abide by rules they didn't like or made them fight other countries even if they didn't want to. How was a thug taking away someone's dollars he didn't earn different than when the government did it or when human conned another for something they didn't need and called it 'business'?
How could they say they didn't take from the poor and were kind when there were hungry, ragged men and women on every street corner and living boxes?
Why did they throw a man in jail for trying to make money by robbing a bank so he could have a rich life when everything around them told him if he didn't have a rich life with a woman on his arm and a shiny car in his driveway that he was a failure? What was there to lose? Why was he bad for striving to get an unattainable dream by doing it the only way one could before they were saggy and gray?
The 'good' humans of Metropolis seemed to overlook those things and cling to their daylight jobs in clean offices so that they could be overlorded by those far more ruthless than any boss she had ever met in the Zone and be subject to the will of men and women who had lied, cheated, and stolen to get into power all so they could be aghast at the people who lived lives that weren't nearly as different from their own as they supposed. It was this attitude of the citizens of Metropolis that made her hate earth and made her feel unwanted. Humans like Lois or Batman or Wonder Woman fought against her type of people, but the life they fought against was the way she'd lived all her life and understood far better than she'd ever understand the human way.
She didn't understand why she couldn't just go into a store and take a jacket she liked or slip a wallet from a man and take his money. In the Zone if you were slow and weak you got what you got.
It honestly seemed to work the same on earth except they liked to sugar coat the reality of it. They'd rather take everything you own by showing you a piece of paper and having police officers do it. If anything happened to you that cut off the flow of your money or prevented you from working a job you hated the good people with smiles at the banks and at the stores turned ruthless. As far as Kara knew, you couldn't go to a bakery and tell the people you were hungry and had no money. You couldn't go to the store and tell a clerk there you were cold and didn't have money to buy a coat. They'd shoo you out the door without a second glance or call security. The people who ruled and had everything were absolutely ruthless so why couldn't the rest of humanity be ruthless back? Why was robbing someone at knife point bad and robbing someone at penpoint acceptable?
Kara just didn't get it.
She could have loathed earth for its startling contradictions all on its own but the people, however, were only the start of it. For all the earthlings she didn't understand, she didn't understand her cousin more.
Kal-El was not the evil man she had thought he was, but he was much worse.
He was inept.
Day after day he put on this show of being an earthling. He could have been a boss, a leader, a king and yet, when she watched him through the window of the apartment, she saw him walk amongst the humans, bumbling and nervous and pushing up his glasses. Everyday people who didn't know him bumped into him or got his name wrong on the daily. Cars splashed water on him when it was raining and people yelled and shook their fists at him when he was too slow crossing the street.
He could have ruled the world with an iron fist but he took on the role as a protector and servant of the people.
Atal'amar would have been ashamed of such a sight.
No. Kara shut her eyes and tried to block her mentor out of her mind. She could not think about Atal'amar. She had to act like the good humans acted. It was what the League expected of her. That was her gang now and she could not disappoint them. Batman was the leader now and she knew what he expected. She was to prove herself and then they would trust her. Then would come more freedoms.
If she pretended humanity on a whole didn't annoy her, if she showed she could be loyal then she could probably even move out of Clark and Lois's apartment, maybe even slip away to where Batman couldn't even find her and live her life as she saw fit.
Kara smiled a little at the thought and let herself float away on that day dream when the world shivered under her.
Kara's ears pricked at a sudden, faint sound almost like a rumble of thunder but when she moved over to a window in the apartment the sky was clear.
A strange, wary feeling took Kara thrall as her eyes searched the sky. She couldn't exactly put her finger on it but she knew something was coming. Then, yes, she saw it.
A small pin prick of white light shimmered in the sky then suddenly the light expanding into a gargantuan black opening. The boom thundered out again and right before her eyes dozens on dozens of more portals opened up.
Black oblong ships sailed out of the portals as well as winged creatures wielding futuristic guns.
The sky began to darken with the multitude of flying creatures pouring out of the portals, then another boom and another portal, far bigger than the others, opened up and a ship far grander than all the others floated out. Kara narrowed her eyes, zooming in her vision to the grand ship. On the outside of the ship were two flags with a strange part circle all in red on a field of black fabric. Around the base of the large flags were a host of men and women in various colorful costumes like the heroes of earth but they barely drew Kara's eye. Instead, standing apart from them all, on the very end of the ship's prow was a tall, granite colored humanoid. His legs were spread in a power stance and his arms were held behind his back. His face was impersonal, devoid of all emotion, and his eyes were as red as blood.