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Legal Disclaimer: I do not own or pretend to own the intellectual properties and trademarks of DC Comics, Warner Entertainment, or their new parent company: AT&T. But I refuse to go down quietly as the AT&T moguls gut DC and shut down the printing press. Although, the digital comic format may yet survive in reprint form. But after the fiasco that was DC Universe, I doubt it.
After the acquistion of Time Warner, DC's parent, and the capitalization of its debt with interest AT&T now owes in excess of 900 billion dollars US. DC Comics generates on average 156 million dollars a year whereas merchandising yields 1.2 billion per capita year on average.
AT&T needs to produce 70 billion in interest payments by the end of the fiscal year in September, 2021. So they would rather sell or shutter low yielding assets rather than have them forcibly sold off by lenders. Berlanti Production's Arrowverse and other DC television properties being the bright spot in AT&T's DC world.
AT&T has already sold off the Warner Games division which threatens the future of further Rocksteady collaborations and any future DC gaming beyond those titles already in the pipeline.
So, in short, life will soon be messy regarding the future of new, original material from DC Comics.
And:
I tend to liberally "borrow" character profiles and art from the Earth-27 wikia created by Roy Westerman with art there principally coming from digital artist Phil Cho. Other creators and artists are found there as well and I will specifically list any cover art with creator citations as I utilize them. In short, this is the single most comprehensive retelling of all things DC, Young Justice and beyond I have encountered. In short, it's worth your time to explore.
In the suburban city of Garalagos on Raan, Kal-El, or Clark Kent as he usually thought of himself, anxiously sat by Maxima and let her crush his hand as she underwent the trials of labor. He'd been absent for the birth of their first daughter, Kalea-El, and throughout her life. He wasn't going to miss the birth of their second child, another daughter which made three for Clark, and this time he'd vowed to stay with Maxima and the emerging Thara Kal-El throughout the rest of their lives.
Kal-El, the Superman of Earth, had found his great love with Lois Lane before she died. And then a second Lois Lane with his own powers had appeared from a doomed Multiverse most never remembered having existed at all. But Lois had escaped the clutches of the despotic Lord Superman, who'd been killed by Galatea before his universe was erased during the Crisis of the Multiverse. The new Lois hated and feared Clark.
He'd tried an abortive marriage with Princess Diana of Themiscyra. Alexandra had been the sole bright product of that union. And when Diana returned to her island kingdom to become queen, she took their daughter with her before he could discover her true name was Elissa Wayne and she was actually Batman's daughter. The Amazon's embassy to the United Nations had sent him the writ of divorce.
He'd had a brief torrid affair with Barda Free that broke a lot of furniture and angered half the tenants in his apartment building. And then Maxima returned and they discovered romance coupled with sex. And this time Maxima had abdicated from the throne of Almerac and had converted the empire to an elected republic. With both Lois and the Lana Lang from her Earth serving as a Superwoman, Matrix turned Linda Danvers being the second Supergirl, and Sharon Vance revived from the dead as Strange Visitor, Clark opted to leave with Maxima when she departed this time.
And Maxima had chosen Raan, the Switzerland of the Milky Way. Surrounded by hostile powers, Raan had rebuffed Mars, Thanagar, the former Gordanian Empire devoured by the Khunds and the Dominators, and even Almerac's empire under Maxima. But everyone declared Raan's neutrality and united in a defense pact to keep Raan's highly advanced technological secrets from the Dark Circle that had swallowed nearly half the galaxy, and some said beyond the Milky Way.
Kal-El had revealed the Dark Circle's Apokoliptan leaders as frauds at Papal Center on the Temple Mount at the heart of the Dark Circle's territory. But Glorious Godfrey and Amazing Grace had such a hold on the worshipers' imaginations, they embraced the Papal Father and Secret Sister even more fervently once their identities were disclosed.
With hundreds of Dark Circle conquests rebelling against Papal Center, its holding were no longer so vast. But their reach extended to Daxam where the population largely worshiped Darkseid even in the face of his apparent death at the hands of his own daughter, Grail. And their belief was unwittingly justified. For Darkseid was not dead. He would endure a thousand year regenerative slumber before reawakening in the 31st Century to threaten the Legion of Superheroes, Justice League Action, and the United Planets as a whole with the Daxamites' planetary population as his army.
Thara left the womb with nary a cry. The med techs were startled and scanned her incessantly, leaving her parents rattled and afraid.
"Is there a problem?" Maxima had closed her legs and ruffled her gown.
"No, she's just unusually quiet. And even more unusually, she doesn't seem exhausted by her journey."
Superman and Maxima exchanged knowing smiles. If Thara was like Kalea, she'd display the best and strongest traits of Kryptonians and Almeracians. Maxima was proto-psionic so she should have sensed her daughter's thoughts. Not read them but be aware they were there. But like Kalea before her, Thara's mind was closed to Maxima.
She sighed, "It seems Thara already displays your and Kalea's thick skulls."
As a child Kalea had used this block to constantly sneak up on her mother at the most inconvenient times. Maxima did not relish another nine years of that. If Thara did display Maxima's heritage, she would grow at a phenomenal rate. Almeracian children grew twice as fast as comparable humans. Kalea was ten years old and presented as an eighteen-year old human. Of course on their ninth year, Almeracians' surging growth spurt reversed itself to a crawl and they aged so slowly as to be almost imperceptibly aging for hundreds of years. Maxima herself was twenty-years old and looked it. When she'd first met Superman she'd merely been fifteen years old.
Even Kal-El, who aged half as fast as human after his eighteenth year looked twenty years older than Maxima. Which he was actually thirty-years her senior but she liked older men. Despite their metabolically charged aging processes in youth, Almeracians emotionally developed just as slowly as humans. So during Maxima's fateful meeting with Superman she'd acted like a willful teenager. Which was precisely what she'd been.
Kalea was a bizarre mix of ancient wisdom and maturity and churlish childishness. Neither parent could honestly fathom their oldest daughter but they told themselves platitudes assuring themselves that they did. They told themselves who she was based on their expectations. But Maxima's were darker and far more realistic.
"Your daughter is hungry. Would you like to feed her or use a nutrient pack?" the med tech asked.
Maxima blanked.
"Ahem, she wants to know whether you prefer breast feeding or a bottle," Clark interpreted for the former empress.
"Where are the wet nurses?" Maxima was bewildered.
"Milady, if you wanted the service of a wet nurse, you should have brought one with you," the tech tsked, "I thought you were already parents."
Clark was understandably embarrassed, "We haven't been hands on."
"Obviously," the tech snorted and used a holographic screen and slid it to Maxima, "Here are are options for nanny-bots."
Clark tentatively bottle fed Thara while Max looked through options and options for the options. The tech made encouraging comments and guided Kal-El through the feeding process.
"Now you must burp her," the tech said cheerfully and draped a towel over Clark's shoulder. He soon learned why. Thara contentedly drifted to sleep afterwards as Kal-El held the precious commodity.
"I can take her now if you wish," the tech offered.
"No, we're good," Kal-El refused to surrender Thara to her.
"Goddess, Kal! There are so many useless options to choose from," Maxima was discontent.
Maxima received a healthy monthly stipend from Almerac's Republic as its former imperial ruler that founded the democratic state. She also had her own vast accounts accrued from family lineage and her portion taken from taxes and budgetary concerns. In short, Maxima could support every governmental expenditure on Almerac proper for several months before her coffers ran dry. And her holdings were off Almerac in case of a coup or the new Republican Council of Ministers and Senate opting to rob her.
The elected Presider had seemed reasonable enough to realize the people adored Maxima as the woman who saved them from the Democratic Revolutionaries and led them to safety through four successive wars. Of course, Kalea had been her greatest weapon in every one of those struggles.
"What about that one?" Kal-El inquired, leaning over Maxima's head.
"Hmm...a database of children from one million species. What about Almerac?" she mused aloud, "Haha! This is the one!"
She authorized the purchase despite Clark still gulping at the price. He could see a future where Maxima faced making some budgetary concessions as her immense fortunes had been squandered. And there were no guarantees the stipend from Almerac wouldn't dry up.
The nanny-bot floated into the room moments later and imprinted Clark, Maxima, and Thara into its database seconds later. Kal-El still refused to relinquish Thara.
"It looks good on you," Maxima mused.
"What?" he asked.
"Fatherhood," she told him.
"If only I'd known Kalea had been born," he wistfully mused.
"Kal, you had every opportunity to come with me. Twice," Maxima scolded him.
"I didn't even know you were pregnant when you left," Clark complained.
"Neither did I," Maxima told him, "But after six weeks of constant sex, what did you think would happen?"
"I just never thought it would happen," Kal-El confessed.
"And that's always been the problem between us. You never saw the obvious possibilities. You were always so judgmental and self-righteous," Maxima scolded him.
"Max," he sighed, "The past can't be undone."
"But it guides the present and the present shapes the future," Maxima stated, "So keep the stick out of your ass."
"You've been listening to Kalea," Clark realized.
"She isn't wrong about this," Maxima warned him.
"It was never that simple," Superman complained.
"Yes, it was," she said matter-of-factly.
"You could be right," he allowed.
"I always am," she said without her inherent arrogance.
Maxima went home that night but Thara was held for observation for three days. When the parents returned home with their daughter, Kal-El still bristled at the sight of the security team Maxima had hired to defend the house.
"We can handle any intruders," Clark continually argued.
"Not the one I'm worried about. At least the guards will survive long enough to alert us to her presence," Maxima was getting used to holding Thara. It was almost addictive.
"Are you really that worried about Kalea coming here?" he had to ask again.
"Kal, our daughter is a mass murderer. She killed all life on dozens of worlds in my name. And I condoned it," Maxima lamented, "Her casualty list numbers over fifty billion sentients. That's more than the history of Almerac's military. And she bears grudges against the two of us and Kalea never, ever forgets a slight. Thara is the perfect tool to use against us. And what happens on one of our innumerable humanitarian missions and we can't bring Thara along because its too dangerous? These sentries carry weapons of Almeracian design that can kill either you or I. Which means they can kill Kalea."
"But can she find us off Earth and away from Almerac?" Kal-El wondered.
"Kal, she's a bounty-killer for the High Tribunal's Ministry of Execution. This what she does. And she already knows we're on Raan," Maxima reminded him of the bug that had overheard their planning to leave in Kalea's flat in London.
Clark mulled it over, "Just to totally change the subject, Kalea is a bounty-killer. Is that why she changed her hair color?"
"You mean why was it dark like yours? Or the magenta highlights?" Maxima seemed amused.
"Both actually," he clarified.
"Her hair drastically began to darken after her first meeting with you and after the Techno Union turned her into a cyborg. She hated her newfound hair color because it made her resemble you. So she started dying it from ages seven to nine. I can only guess that she tired of doing it. As for the highlights, magenta is one of her favorite colors."
"But it draws attention to her. And as a bounty-killer, shouldn't she try to be invisible?" Clark didn't understand.
"While you sat on your parochial little planet, Kalea has developed a fearsome reputation as a mass murderer. It is hy she was tortured so severely on more than occasion. Why she bears all of those awful scars and why, I think, she wants her prey to know she's there for them. It increases the challenge of the hunt."
"So she's a psychopath," Clark said grimly.
"No," Maxima corrected him, "A psychopath is directed to commit evil acts by internal forces that cause the individual to no longer recognize right from wrong. A sociopath knows right from wrong and habitually chooses to be evil and inflict death and pain. Kalea knows what's right and doesn't give a fark.She's a textbook sociopath."
"That's encouraging," Kal-El complained.
"I'm not trying to encourage you, Kal. I'm trying make you aware enough that you can save your life when she comes for us," Maxima counseled him, "And Thara's life as well. She needs to be protected from her sister."
"And you?" he wondered.
Maxima wore a slight smile, "I can defend myself."
And Kal-El recalled when she'd beaten him senseless upon their first meeting.
Three months later, he heard a great deal of cursing coming from the kitchen area. Clark entered in far enough to lean against the open archway leading into the space. Maxima was cursing out the food synthesizer...again.
"How can you always be out of farking paste you farking piece of shit?" Maxima growled at the machine.
Thara sat nearby and had began, as a result of her Almeracian growth rate, to begin parroting words, "Fark! Fark! Shit!"
"Yes, it is," Maxima agreed with her.
"Can I help or are you just going to smash it to pieces...again?" Superman asked her.
"It's out of farking protein paste again," Maxima not quite shouted.
"I gathered that," he said while Thara sang to herself, "Fark. Fark. Fark."
"Then do something about it!" she irritably demanded.
"I'll be right back," he smiled and winked at Maxima. Which just made her fume even more. Great Rao, sometime he just loved to push her buttons.
Getting to and from the supply dispensary only took sixty seconds each way. But the line at the store delayed him by thirty minutes. He knew Maxima would be stewing. But he purchased a five hundred pound canister of paste.
When he returned he hadn't noted the absence of the usual guard detail yet as he switched out the hundred pound canister they'd used up and plugged in the five hundred pound replacement. It was the largest canister they sold or he would have gotten a bigger one despite barely fitting the five hundred pounder in the basement. When he emerged he realized the silence was deafening.
Upon inspection with his X-Ray Vision he saw every guard was down. Dead was the more accurate term. He looked into the house and saw Maxima was down as well and he couldn't spot Thara.
He smashed his way in and through to reach Maxima. Her lifeless eyes stared ahead and she lay in a pool of her blood. Her neck having been expertly slit open and the seams of flesh cauterized so they could never fuse back together and heal. He dully, the urgently realized, Thara was gone and so was nanny-bot.
He summoned the police and they began an investigation. But he knew who the murderer was. He relinquished the tracer code for nanny-bot and the police services began a system wide search for the robot using its locater beacon. It was designed to be found that way if it and Thara were ever separated from Clark and Maxima.
Adam Strange took it upon himself to brief Superman, "I'm sorry. I really am. It was obviously an expert assassination and you and Maxima have an extensive list of enemies."
"I already know who did it," Superman said flatly, his voice devoid of any feeling or emotion, "Were there any Almeracian vessels in the area? Particularly scout or courier craft?"
"A courier boat was outside the solar system transmitting regular mail traffic. Of course it used its phantom drive to disappear and ostensibly reappear at Almerac before you returned home," Adam explained.
The Almeracian phantom drive was the envy of the known galaxy. Ranking alongside the Raanian Zeta Beam for instantaneous travel. Adam was disturbed by Superman's lack of emotion. He'd seen thousands of people in shock before. Clark wouldn't be thinking rationally until he processed his grief. Which was harder to do knowing his young daughter had been kidnapped rather than killed.
"We have to wait and see if there will be a ransom demand," Adam urged.
"There won't be. This is an open invitation to pursue. And the destination is clear," Superman droned on.
"You're thinking it's Almerac?" Adam fretted. He knew where this would end.
"Yes. It's obvious. The murderer wants me to follow her," Kal-El said firmly.
"But why kill their former empress? The population loved Maxima," Adam was confused.
"One person didn't. The most able to reach her," Superman was still devoid of feeling, "She has my daughter. Her sister, I'm getting one back and the other brought to justice."
"We can try her here if you can bring Kalea-El back. But she's a national hero. Extradition will be next to impossible," Adam warned him.
"I don't need extradition treaties," Superman finally displayed anger, "I need the use of a Zeta Beam."
"Raan and Almerac aren't exactly sympatico," Adam sighed, "Aiming a Zeta Beam at them would constitute an act of war. The Parliament won't go to war over Maxima's murder and Thara's kidnapping. I'm sorry."
"Then what do you suggest?" Superman seethed.
"Can you even be certain it was Kalea leaving on a courier boat? Records show no shuttles or other vessels approached it," Adam pointed out.
"A protective shroud would insure Thara's safety. The nanny-bot doesn't require life support. Kalea just needs oxygen to make the journey and is fast enough to close the distance in the time frame."
"I have additional news that will just make this harder," Adam hesitated, "The coroner found Maxima was eight weeks pregnant. The child was a genetic male. It didn't survive her death. The neck wound was obviously cauterized by a beam of searing heat. Survival was impossible."
"All the more reason to get to Almerac. Now," Superman grated.
"The best I can do is get you aboard a commercial ship heading to Almerac. The journey, using conventional hyperpace drives takes three weeks. That's the very best and least I can do," Adam offered.
"I'll pack a few things from home. Alert me when you have a berth available," Superman was stony again.
Adam Strange prayed to deities he didn't believe in as the Kryptonian left. The crushing weight of knowing his own daughter committed this unspeakable crime would've hobbled Adam. And he saw it was consuming Superman. So who would the superhero be after the inevitable confrontation?
The journey, he learned, would take four weeks to reach Almerac. Four long weeks of doubt, fear, frustration, and blinding rage. However he was given access to the comm array so he researched several levels of Almeracian society. And he contacted Karen Starr, who as Galatea and Power Girl, had become Kalea' closest friend.
"Kalea said she was living in the Ghetto. There's probably multiple slums on Almerac but Kalea didn't refer to it n a general sense. She used it as a place name," Power Girl's image told him, being transmitted from Justice Society headquarters, "Like the Warsaw Ghetto during the Nazi occupation."
"Can you tell me anything else? I imagine any fragment of information can help find her faster and get Thara back," Superman almost pleaded. This despite his former disapproval of Power Girl and his animosity thata derived from it. Yet again, though, she was rescuing him from Kalea.
"She and Marcus organized the Democratic overthrow of Maxima's government before Kalea turned and placed Maxima back on the throne and they did so from the slums. Given Kalea's attachment to Marcus' memory despite being his executioner, I wouldn't doubt Kalea has retained control over that apartment and probably resides there now.
Kalea's shift from aggressor to murderer of loved ones began with Marcus. She's never gotten over killing the love of her life but she also maintains the absolute necessity of doing so. When she last visited Earth, she wanted my help after three months of tracking down the meta-human traffickers. She told point blank that if I opposed her she'd kill me to get through to her targets. And that was regardless of how she termed it of us being 'besties'," Power Girl explained.
Superman shook his head, not the audacity of the statement but the slang used. Kalea kept track of human culture. Not surprising since Almerac had an observation post orbiting Jupiter. In her time on Argo, she'd taught herself to read and write Kryptonian. From there, she voraciously read the histories of Krypton and its lost colonies as well as the House genealogies.
"Thank you you, Karen. You always aid me despite my ill treatment of you," Superman sighed.
She smiled in a forgiving way, "Maybe some day you'll understand I'm not your enemy."
"Hopefully," Superman acknowledged before signing off. But the mystery of Galatea's involvement in Lord Superman's death still concerned him. Galatea had been cloned to specifically kill him and Kara In-Ze, her progenitor. Karen and Kara embraced each other as sisters now. And Power Girl was one of the most embraced and celebrated superheroes by the world, the Justice League, and especially the Justice Society whom she called family.
Maxima had been right. Kalea never forgot. The first time Kalea overthrew Maxima, she took the throne for herself. Gaining the military's support by pledging to deliver easy spoils, she launched an invasion of Earth. The military was there for conquest to enslave the human race and weaponize meta-humans. Kalea simply wanted revenge on her father. She'd made an obscure comment and promise to herself that she would make him her footstool when they first met.
And she captured him, flayed him open, and did indeed make him her footstool as her heavy boots sank into his open, bleeding flesh. J'onn Jonzz had rescued Diana, at that time the only serving Wonder Woman, from Kalea's sexual assaults on her. Galatea freed Superman and carried him to safety.
He'd had one of his fleeting reconciliations with Galatea after that. He'd forgiven and accepted her several times but something always arose to make him suspicious of her motives and intentions once again.
He was aware of the impending landing as the freighter began to shudder as it burned its way down the atmosphere. He was familiar with the pattern after the three previous landings en route to Almerac. He gathered his belongings and slipped away. But immigration controls scanned his physiology and facial recognition identified him. Superman wasn't as well known by sight but he was infamous as Maxima's lover and Kalea's father.
He was detained at the port while additional security agents were called forth. He could see the kryptonite bullets they were loading into their weapons, "Is there a problem, officer?"
"We've had some disturbances brought on by Kandorian separatists," the inspector told him, "Given your pedigree, I doubt you'll be trouble but we take precautions now anyway."
"Understood. I'm trying to locate someone in the Ghetto but I don't know the way,"
he told the Almeracian officer.
"Business?" the inspector asked.
"A family reunion of sorts," Superman told him honestly.
"Oh," was the reply and then directions were forthcoming.
Later the security services officer discussed it, "I didn't realize Kal-El had family on Almerac."
"What do you call Kalea-El, you idiot?" came the explanation.
"But in the Ghetto?" one asked.
"No one knows where she lives. Maybe she is in the Ghetto. No one but him would look for her there," a fourth reasoned.
"Ohh," the other other three digested it.
After two days of searching and bribing locals, Superman learned of Kalea's habitation. Before entering, he viewed the interior with his X-Ray Vision. No one was in. And accommodations for infants had made. He was furious. Kalea was hardly the nurturing type. Nanny-bot was fine for general care but Thara still needed the touch of a warm, caring person.
He severed the locks with his heat vision and entered into the dragon's lair. He patrolled and inspected Kalea's territory. And he found himself in the back bedroom when the door reopened. Kalea whistled at the job done to the locks. But she sounded rather nonchalant about it. Considering the neighborhood, it was probably a regular occurrence.
He used his X-Ray Vison to observe while she placed a bag of fruit on a small table. She smiled, "You can come out now. I can hear you breathe and your X-Ray Vision tingles."
He'd forgotten that Almeracians could sense Kryptonian and Daxamite vision powers. She lobbed a piece at him as he emerged. She took a bite of her own oblong produce, "Panty raid?"
He colored despite himself. And although he hadn't eaten in two days, he didn't trust any food she offered. She wore a knowing smile.
"You're learning. Never trust food offered by the enemy," she recited.
"Are we enemies?" his cold lack of feelings had returned.
"At the very least, don't you think?" Kalea took another bite, lounging as she leaned against the wall, "So, you're here over mother and Thara's fates."
"At the very least," he parroted her. She found it amusing.
"Did you kill Maxima," he ground between his teeth.
"Damn straight," she gloated which just agitated him further.
"She was your mother," he angrily stated.
"Since when?" she was baffled.
"She loved you," he declared.
Kalea chortled, "As long as we're telling fables, here's a good one. You know I had an unhappy childhood detached from my mother and feared by my caretakers because I was the Crown Princess and mother's wrath constantly dismissed them to the mines. Thanks to your incompetence, I was made a cyborg at a time when cyborgs were so hated in my society they were literally torn apart, machine and flesh, in the streets."
Kalea stared him down, "Mother made it illegal to harm cyborgs. So that made the violence prosecutable but the hatred was still blind and glaring. I was a freak in the Imperial palace. I was wretchedly lonely and only had one friend, Marcus. He fled to avoid internment because of his political views. I experimented sexually and basically laid anyone that could stand to be near me. I was a novelty to passed around from courtier to courtesan. And then I plotted and schemed and got near mother and nearer to the generals. And I took her throne and threw her in the lowest dungeon. In what they termed, the Hole, because there no light and no fixtures and especially no plumbing. I wanted her to rot in her own shit."
"I went to Earth and you had a reckoning. But the humans, despite being inferior in every way, put up heavy resistance and my troops suffered greater losses than anticipated. So, my fleet general mutinied, I was captured, and you and mother conspired to exile me to my death on Argo. Marcus found me, we returned to Almerac and overthrew mother...again," Kalea was intentionally prickling his anger, "Then Marcus went power mad and began executing everyone for no reason. So I restored mother to the throne, executed my one, true lover, and I ended up as Maxima's secret weapon through one invasion and four defensive wars. This time I was willing and I did things you're too squeamish to learn about all in mother's name and for Almerac. And now the grand Republic is one of them most feared powers in the galaxy. Mostly thanks to me."
"The people learned to love me because of the Democrats. The Monarchy learned to love me for saving and restoring the empress to her throne. The Republic adores me because I abdicated the throne after mother agreed to walk away," Kalea wrapped it up.
"That's it? This is all a popularity contst?" Superman was disappointed.
"You're not listening. You never do," Kalea chastised him, "I serve my people and they'd singled me to do what I'm best at rather than tread lightly and pray I don't do it at home. But, the benighted Republic realized the masses are nostalgic for a monarch. The movement is so strong the Presider actually found me here and pressured me to step up and become their talking head. But, my salvation came in the form of Thara. I told them I had a baby sister, literally, and they could raise her up to be their perfect token empress. So I came to collect and mother objected. I take it you saw the results."
"You sold your sister into slavery?" Superman's anger finally broke its dam.
"Yup. But comfortable slavery," Kalea defended herself.
"You did all this murdering and kidnapping so you could avoid being a figurehead royal?" Superman raged.
"And for once, you listened," Kalea gloated again.
"How could you be my daughter?" he shouted at her.
Kalea wss still quite calm, "I keep asking people that. How can I be the daughter of a man that pussies out of every hard decision? And can he even get it up? I guess you've at least got proof of that times three. How's it fell know you have three daughters that will always hate you for abandoning them?"
His rage fomented and his eyes began to glow red.
"Puh-leez," Kalea was dismissive, "We know you can't kill anyone outside the Pocket Universe. And I've done worse crimes than Zod could ever have imagined.
Superman barely registered that Kalea knew about his own murdering Zod, Ursa, and Non in Glorith's Pocket Universe for committing the genocidal slaughter that killed every human on the planet Earth. And he didn't care. His own daughter had admittedly done far worse.
He released an inarticulate cry of rage and slammed into Kalea with speeds already exceeding that of sound. His hands gripped around her throat as they smashed through her outer wall, and then others, over a dozen times. Her right cross nearly dislocated his jaw. And that was her metal arm. Her organic left arm was far more powerful.
And he had to be aware of her natural left eye since she had his vision powers including Heat Vision. The very thing that had killed Maxima.
Her knees began to strike his torso. Again, he was grateful hers had been amputated and replaced with cybernetics. At her natural strength she would have already broken several ribs as her piston action was precisely aimed to maximize damage.
Then she wildly twisted out of his grip and plummeted to the street before using her flight powers to halt her descent. And then she seemed to merely vanish.
He swept in every direction, in every dimension with his heightened senses. Kalea was...gone. And suddenly she had grip in his hair and jerked his head back. Her knee nearly shattered his spine. As he reeled from that she wrapped her left arm around his neck and her right across his face to grip his jaw. And he realized she was going to break his neck. Kalea wouldn't, now or maybe ever, hold back. This was a simple fight for survival.
He flipped backwards over her head. But before he could press his own attack, she spun and drove her right fist into his nose. He felt blood mingled with snot dribbling down but he was blinded by his watering eyes. He could count himself fortunate that Kalea was right handed and utilized her cybernetic arm as her principle weapon when it came to combating a foe with her hands. Then a metal knee wrapped in synth flesh hammered straight into his balls. Superman threw up on top of everything else.
She was behind him again. He spun her using his super hearing to pinpoint her heartbeat. He drove his own knee in the small of her back and he heard a whuf of air escape her lips.
This time he turned and had fallen into the gawking crowds. And since he wasn't wearing his ridiculous tights, she couldn't spot him. Then erupted erupted out from a passel of beggars he'd been coining to draw them in as cover and his uppercut sailed out of the sprawling metropolis.
She returned and saw how idiotic he was because he hovered in the same place and hadn't chased her down to finish her off. Soldiers began lining street and were loading kryptonite into rifles.
Kalea smirked at him, "You're an enemy combatant and I'm a national hero, what'cha gonna do?"
He realized how perfectly she'd crafted this trap. And everything was a trap. She'd lured him here, to her, on a planet that had invaded Kandor and repulsed a Kandorian invasion. It was in the national psyche to fear and hate Kryptonians. And she'd successfully baited him into publically attacking her. He was now public enemy number one.
"I'll give you two days to find transport off of this rock. After that, I find you and end you. It's what I born for," Kalea offered.
And he used to believe that was Galatea's role. But he had no intention to leave. Not without Thara. He sped off faster than the patrols could see.
For two days he skirted the outskirts. Always searching for the same thing. He went without food and without sleep. The seasonal rains didn't deter him. He finally found the district he was searching for when Kalea returned.
He'd begun to wonder what was more detrimental to Thara. Would it be successfully rescuing her and raising her part-time as a single parent? Ma and Pa were getting to old for child rearing.
Kara had been a handful but at she'd been a teenager, despite the jeopardies to sanity that could bring. Kara had arrived with a greater scientific and technical knowledge base than most humans would ever acquire. But she needed to acclimate. And Ma and Pa Kent were patient and kind of enough they steered Kara into responsibility and accountability. And Supergirl Kara had been revered on Earth in both the 21st and 31st Centuries. Now she was an intergalactic hero as a Darkstar and faced down Ma and Pa's unexpected disapproval when she married both Kyle Rayner and Carol Ferris.
Or was leaving Thara here the optimum solution. She'd be cared around the clock, every need being met. While it was true that she might only ever receive superficial love he had to believe one caregiver above all others would genuinely love Thara for who she simply was.
"Why so glum, chum?" Kalea floated above and beyond him, "Surprise! You've wandered like sick puppy looking for a place to die these past two days."
Superman glared at her. Her manic grin definitely indicated she was out of her head.
"Aw, Pops, you look made that I found you so easily ten minutes after you took off. I told you, over and over again, this is what I do," Kalea snickered, "Aren't ya proud?"
The part that truly irritated him was that he'd never noticed her trailing him at all.
"I was sadly thinking maybe Thara's best chance at happiness is here," he glumly told her.
Kalea was livid, "Just when I thought you'd a grown a goddamn spine. If you resisted I was going to offer you a ride home and arrange visitation rights. This bullshit is why I hate you. All of your daughters will hate just because you pussy out of everything!"
She was nearly screaming at the end.
"You're making so killing you is the only way to end this," she said miserably.
"You don't have the balls," she spat.
Kalea never saw the right cross coming. But after crashing through several buildings she landed several blocks away and impact velocity tore a furrow as she skidded through and down the street.
"Lady Kalea!" a patrol officer exclaimed.
"I'm not Lady anything," she snarled
"I can have men here in less than five minutes," he declared.
"No!" she snapped, "This an Affair of Honor. Do you understand? It's a family matter. Kal-El is off limits. Pull everyone back and stand down."
he hesitated and she snarled again, "Do we have a problem?"
The hapless officer called in and the Commandant of Security Services authorized the action on Kalea's stipulation. Affairs of Honor were a rarity now that the Democrats had decimated the Nobility.
"Is there any help we can offer?" the officer hesitated to ask.
"Call the Ministry of Infrastructure," she told him, "There's about to be a lot of property damage."
Superman had found the sewer grate to the tunnels leading to the lower dungeons beneath the palace. When he and Maxima had been imprisoned in them, he'd spotted them. Maxima had shut them down after being a guest of them twice over. The detention centers replacing them were still inhumane by American standards but they did serve as an active deterrent to crime.
The lower levels were sparsely guarded. His destination was the uppermost spire. It was the most heavily defended site in the Republic. The Imperial Suites occupied the zone. And that's where Thara would be raised if he didn't rescue her.
In an interesting twist the elected Presider didn't occupy a room in the palace. He reached Thara's apartment with a minimum of fuss until he reached the suites. Fortunately the sentries went down quietly. When he burst into the apartment, the handmaidens proved they were equally adept bodyguards. He was gentler with them but equally forceful. He trussed everyone up and bundled Thara's caregivers away in Maxima's old, cavernous closet.
Nanny-bot recognized him and handed Thara over. She was awake and alert. And with her mother's prodigious growth spurts, she even looked older after a month apart.
"You are sooo predictable," Kalea leaned in the archway leading to Thara's room, "And please, lets not insult the moment by you pretending to make cow eyes at my sister."
"Kalea," Super,man said stonily, "We both know you won't harm Thara."
"Why's that?" she grinned.
"Because then you'd be on the hook to be empress," her father replied.
"Congrats. You listened for the first time ever," Kalea pushed off the archway.
"We can talk this out," he reasoned.
"We've talked. Yatta, yatta. It was nauseating. Let's fight," Kalea looked eager, "You have got to be pissed outta your mind to think I want to hear any more."
Superman was weirded out by her Yiddish but he saw London's influence in her brand of English, "Look you don't want to end up empress, I get that. But you can leave with me and Thara and still avoid that fate."
"And be Poppy's good little girl listening to your moralizing sermons until I gagged to death on them?" Kalea mocked him.
"Kalea, please," Superman pleaded.
"When did you ever do a nice thing for me other than take me out once for pizza?" she archly inquired.
He knew then there was no reasoning with her. Ever again.
"Tell you what, if you can kill me, you already have an escape route through General Hero at the Scout Yards. You just have to survive to take it," Kalea counter offered, "Frankly, I don't think you can. And you're not the first parent I've killed this month."
She was determined to inflict greater and greater amounts of emotional pain to manipulate him into an all or nothing showdown. But she'd known he'd come here. Which meant she'd probably arrived first yet she gave him some moments with Thara. He couldn't wrap his head around the enigma that was Kalea-El.
"Meet me on the roof," he told her.
"What is it with you and rooftops?" Kalea was exasperated.
"Fewer potential casualties," he explained, as if she cared.
"Like plowing through domiciles is any more discriminate," she snorted as she strode away.
Clark said what could be his farewells to Thara and released everyone from the closet. Then he exited to meet his fate.
Superman and Kalea hovered above the city. Kalea looked bored, "Make your play."
"I give that up to you," he retorted.
"Fine," she even sounded bored but exploded into action.
She stayed close in to maximize her lifetime of hand-to-hand combat training versus his barely-counts-as-boxing style. They slowly sank to the streets far below. Although the nearby windows were made of transparent aluminum rather than glass, they shattered from the thunderclaps of the two titans battling to the death.
The security services had been on standby and spotters had alerted the ground forces of the imminent arrival of father and daughter. They'd evacuated a thirty block cordon around the palace. As Kalea had requested. Despite her flippancy, the fight was between family and no else need get hurt or die.
Again, Superman felt grateful that her cybernetic limbs weren't as powerful as her natural ones would have been. They were still has powerful as Maxima had been in the glory of her prime. Before she was cut down by her own daughter.
He tried to hate Kalea but she just confused him. He overheard soldiers regarding the massive evacuation Kalea had demanded be undertaken prior to this confrontation. So despite her glib remarks, she still cared about the people. But why was she so desperate to be seen as nothing but a monster?
She sank beneath a roundhouse blow and took his legs out from beneath him. But he only fell halfway before he caught himself and floated there. He came up with a swing and he saw her smile cruelly. She ducked under his arm and drove her right elbow into his kidney even as she drove her right knee into his diaphragm. Even with his augmented recuperative abilities he knew he'd pissing blood for hours.
But Kalea wasn't finished. She rounded back to face him and clamped his head still and used her knees to piston action his face. Superman could hardly think through the blinding pain and blood but he managed to take hold of her waist and shove her as hard as he could. Her heels literally dug in but she still ground through twenty feet of permacrete.
Superman assumed the military hadn't fired because of the spectacle. Kalea was a mythical figure on her home planet. And his reputation proceeded him and Maxima had found him worthy enough to sire two children with. But Kalea hadn't easily won this battle. Despite both parties evident fatigue, they were still fighting.
Kalea had hurt Superman to a far vaster degree than he was willing to show. Even Kalea was far cagier now rather than the blustery bravado designed to further provoke him. That nagged at him. Kalea was a fighter, true, but she was essentially a tracker and an assassin. So why provoke him into a direct conflict? While she could end up killing him, she'd had multiple opportunities to end his life with little to no resistance. He was beginning to feel killing him was the consolation prize. What was her true objective here?
"Why won't you simply die?" Kalea snarled.
"I don't think you want me to," he confronted her.
"What do you think the farking point of this is?" she was livid again.
"I don't know. But you're lying and have been lying through all of this," Superman accused.
Still, they'd been honest to enough to cut loose. Superman had only unloaded on Darkseid and the Daxamite called Supreme to this extent before. But Kalea refused to give him time to reconsider.
She rushed at him but she'd made her attack sloppy enough he deflected it and hit her as hard as he could. She started to sail back where she'd come from but he caught her cybernetic arm to jerk her towards him and bent his elbow to cross brace her chest and slammed her into the permacrete beneath them.
Her eye was glassy while her cybernetic eye was still, and always, clear. She came to though as he drew his fist back for one final blow, "Do it."
It wasn't her words that startled back to reality but the pressing need behind them. She screamed at him, "DO IT!"
She wanted him to kill her. That had been the farking point all along. He satisfied himself with knocking her out. He knew she'd never forgive him but she already hated him.
"I'm done," he announced to the encroaching security troops, "I'm not killing my daughter. I just want my other one returned to me. And then let me leave and I'll never return."
"You don't quite understand," the Commandant approached, "The Tribunal and the Presider authorized this duel under the ancient code of the Affair of Honor. Kalea engaged to secure that we wouldn't interfere. Now she's lost. She has twelve hours from this point to exit Republic space or she will be detained and publicly executed. It's a barbaric custom but it's still the law."
Superman never felt so weary, "I'll take her with me. Now, about Thara?"
"The government is willing to sponsor visitations but Thara Kal-El is the constitutional empress. She will not be leaving," the Commandant sounded just as weary.
Superman reeled. He was leaving Almerac with his daughter. Just the wrong one. Kalea had gambled everything on making him kill her. And she lost everything. Including any hope of him ever reconciling with her. And he doubted Raan could contain her long to try her. Forced exile once again seemed her fate.
He scooped her off the pavement. Kalea felt broken. As broken in body as her demented mind. And he flew off with her in his arms.
He recognized the scout ships at the yard since Kalea invariably used courier boats and scout ships to move around the galaxy. Hero waited for them. She seemed relieved.
"So she lost. And you spared her," Hero was overjoyed in a professionally restrained way, "I have a ship waiting."
She shrugged out of her uniform jacket and blouse. Superman paused, "General?"
"Not anymore. Not as soon as I allow Kalea aboard this vessel," Hero explained, "The entire crew is prepared to go into exile with her."
He'd never imagined his broken daughter could inspire such loyalty. Hero pushed him along, "Now get aboard. We'll take of getting you to Earth."
The scout would take several hours to depart Almerac's solar system, twenty seconds to reach Earth's solar system, and a few hours to navigate it to reach the Moon where Superman could disembark. Kalea came awake with a start.
"The hell?" she desperately looked around and noted her father seated and observing her, "Oh, it's you."
"I'm thrilled too," he admitted.
"Hero threw her career away, didn't she?" Kalea groaned.
"The whole crew did. A frightening display of fierce loyalty for a self-proclaimed simple bounty-killer," Superman was frankly amazed by it.
"I'm not a dick to everyone," she mumbled.
"Now, honestly, why? Why try to force me to kill you?" Superman wanted frankness and nothing else from her.
"Because my entire life I wanted to commit suicide and no mission, no peril, ever achieved that. And I'm too chickenshit to do it myself," Kalea confessed for the first time in her life.
"Judging by these people, that's a good thing," Superman offered, "But frankly I wish you would just kill yourself. I only brought you with me so I wouldn't be responsible for your death by leaving you on Alermac. That, and I thought exile would torture you more than death. Seems I was right."
"Now this side of you I can respect," Kalea ventured.
"It makes me sick but it doesn't change anything," he started to rise.
"I didn't mean to kill mother," Kalea blurted, "She wouldn't listen to any argument and she just kept staring at me with those sad eyes. She pitied me and I lost control. Afterwards it seemed the best reason to die."
"I'll say this once, When I leave this ship it will be the last time I ever see you. Preferably when I leave this cabin. Roa forbid we ever actually meet again because I won't be held accountable," he stiffly rose and angrily stormed out of her cabin.
For the second time in her life, Kalea sobbed until she could sob no more.
Kalea dutifully avoided him and Superman exited out the airlock near the moon. He had enough air in his lungs to make the trip to Earth. He'd never given hope on someone before but he had no hope for Kalea. Furthermore, he didn't want any. She was dead to him in every way other than she was still breathing. He set course for the Fortress of Solitude to discover what had happened on Earth since the Crisis ended and he and Maxima returned to Raan. That had been nine months ago. And quickly discovered that trouble had arisen in the form of Glorith, the supposed savior of time.
This culminates storylines stretching back to Kalea's first appearance in Justice League Family Ties: DCAU Series Part 8. Every appearance revolving around Kalea since that point from the DCAU Series into the DCAU Anthology. I try to make the Anthology stories interconnected yet stand alone. This explains the extensive back story. But it's all a mere fleck of paint.