Alright, guys. The other story has officially been deleted and here is the new version of my old story, The Path Towards Hope. It's been completely re-written, a whole new story as far as the major plot-line goes. Some of it will still be the same, like the characters and some of the stuff I was going to add into the other story. How Ali came to be is still the same (which will be explained in detail in this story), it's still a SuperCorp story, but I just got so off track with the other story that I had to boot it. I've also removed a lot of stuff. It's no longer going to be a time travel story. It's just going to be set in the future where Kara and Lena got Ali and then, because I'm an ass and I don't know why I wanted to write it like this, Lena left both her and Kara. So, as you can probably tell, it's basically a brand new story and it's gonna be hella angsty and I'm making Lena the bad guy for a bit because I can and I want to. Also I realized that when I updated the other story to tell you when I would be deleting it, I forgot to mention that it would be the following weekend when I would be deleting it, so it seems like I'm a week off, but I wanted to give everyone as much time as I could to get the update.

It's finals week for me here, and I am taking summer classes this year, but there's only two and they're bi-term (6 and 8 weeks respectively and only one at a time), so I'll hopefully have some time to get this story on a roll. Just bear with me as the updates come. Let's go on this journey. Stay safe. Find this on Archive as well if you want. Favorite it, follow it, tell your friends about it. -Commander

Chapter One:

"Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say they were perfectly normally, thank you very much…"

In retrospect, openly reading Harry Potter on the bus might have been the reason why Ali was currently stuck rereading the first (and her favorite) line from the old and obviously worn book resting in her lap, attempting to ignore the whispers coming from the back of the bus. Or it might have been the fact that news had finally spread through the student body that Alura The-Nerd-Who-Skipped-Two-Grades-And-Has-No-Friends Danvers, was turning sixteen in two weeks and no one was coming to her party. Or it might have been the yearly swirl of tabloid magazines spreading useless dramatic crap about her family. All in all, it wasn't hard for Ali to figure out that most of the whispers were centered around her. That she could have done without her super hearing.

"…ten years ago today, apparently."

"Wow. Can you imagine one parent just up and -?"

Which is why Ali had quickly slipped her lead-lined headphones into her ears the moment she'd picked up the tail-end of the conversation happening on the opposite end of the bus between two girls, who's names she hadn't been bothered to remember, in an attempt to rescue the overall good mood she'd been in since that morning.

Her mother had, finally, agreed to letting her not throw a party for her sixteenth birthday. After months and months of begging and pleading, Ali had settled on making a deal with the elder Kryptonian. No party in exchange for a small get-together of their friends/family for their monthly game night that just so happened to coincide with the week of her birthday and a promise to spend the three months of summer in Argo City alongside her mother.

Ali had been elevated at the prospect of not having to deal with her peers this week, a point she had made to her mother and was most likely the reason as to why said mother conceded, and had she not agreed to meet with her aunt this afternoon after school, Ali wouldn't have had to get on this stupid bus that was taking her to the stupid building she loathed and she wouldn't have overheard the stupid gossip that she should have been used to by now and her stupid good mood wouldn't have been ruined.

Luckily for her, Rao must have been looking out for her after all, the bus lurched slightly as it came to her stop and Ali gathered her things as quickly as she could without tapping into her speed, stepping out onto the busy street of the business district of National City.

The sidewalks were crowded with men and women in suits and various forms of semi-formal clothing, all too occupied with their own thoughts and issues to pay any attention to the lanky brunette girl rooted in her spot and staring up at the building in front of her as if the structure had been capable of offending her in some way.

And to Ali, it basically had. There was a reason why she usually decided to steer clear of this side of the city, because the towering building was the big, fat fuck you, Ali sign that she could never escape or ignore. The building's presence, much like the family it was named after, was something she couldn't hide from no matter how hard she tried.

With a sigh, the brunette finally let her feet carry her towards the front entrance, ignoring the curious looks she was being given by (what she assumed) were the company's employees who obviously knew who she was. Apparently the business district was just as on-top of the media coverage as the rest of the city, and Ali had seen a few glimpses of her own face on the cover of at least seven magazines this week alone, so it was no surprise that everyone had stopped to see exactly why the illegitimate (and unwanted, Ali's thoughts reminded her) heir to one of the city's most powerful families was strolling into the building said family owned.

"Welcome to L-Corp, how can I help you?"

Ali had to give some props to the man sitting behind the large desk, who had only gawked at her for a split second before plastering a smile on his face to greet her. It was slightly comforting that he hadn't acknowledged of the obvious elephant in the room, unlike the others occupying the lobby around her.

"Yeah, uh, I'm here to see Samantha Arias."

"Do you have an appointment with her?"

"I think so?"

"Uh, what is…what's your name? I'll check to see if she put you down on her schedule."

Stifling a grimace at the man's slip-up, Ali muttered out her name before wishing for a giant hole to open up beneath her feet and swallow her as she watched the man type something out on his keyboard.

"Ah, yes. Ms. Arias did clear a space for your meeting, Ms. Danvers. Just head over to the elevators and head up, her office is on the tenth floor."

Taking the visitor's pass from the counter, Ali hurried towards the elevators, letting out a collective sigh once she was on the other side of the closed doors. Why she had agreed to meet with Sam here, Ali didn't know. Right now she was siding with temporary insanity or a brain aneurism, something that had altered her ability to make this insane trip out here instead of requesting that her for-all-intended-purposes aunt meet her somewhere else.

Thankfully, though, she was out of sight of the prying eyes of the public and only had to deal with her aunt's secretary, who she easily smiled and waved to before slipping into her aunt's office only to hesitate slightly when she caught sight of said aunt looking slightly panicked as she held her phone up to her ear.

"Uh, actually, I'm going to have to call you back. My next appointment just walked in."

Ali raised an eyebrow as she dropped her bag off near the door, watching as her aunt quickly said her partings to whoever she was on the phone with. "You could have finished the call. I wouldn't have minded."

Her aunt stood up, brushing her comment off as she rounded the desk. "It wasn't important. It was, uh, just a quick check in with one of the other…offices."

"Ah, it was the Metropolis office then, huh?"

"What? No. It was just…okay, yeah, it was the Metropolis office."

After accepting her aunt's hug, Ali slumped down into one of the plush chairs in front of the paper-covered desk. "You didn't have to end the call just because I came in. I still would have waited. Even for Metropolis."

Ali watched as her aunt retook her seat behind the desk, smiling sadly. "Sorry, kiddo. I just didn't want to make it weird for you."

The brunette couldn't keep the venom out of her voice as she fought back the urge to roll her eyes. "Yeah, well, you can thank Metropolis for that."

Across from her, her aunt's sad smile simply stayed in place. "How are you holding up this week, kid?"

With a shrug of her shoulder, Ali glanced away from her aunt's gaze. She hadn't meant to sound so harsh moments ago. It was always a negative side-effect that came with talking about the "Metropolis office" (as they'd begun to refer to the whole messed-up situation as). "I'm fine. Been trying to keep busy with school."

"Still sitting comfy at the top one percent of the class?"

"Oh, come on. Is there anyone Mom hasn't told?"

Her aunt's light laughter was enough to wash away any remaining negative thoughts about…everything. Their conversation flowed just as usual, most of it about random things and just catching up. It wasn't often that Ali saw her aunt outside of game nights or other events that required her presence. L-Corp kept her busy, but never busy enough to at least call her every week to check in.

It was nice. Her aunt was the only thing keeping her tied to that side of her heritage, and there wasn't a day that could go by that Ali wasn't thankful that a plane to Metropolis hadn't taken her aunt away from her as well.

"What's the plan for the big sweet sixteen? Are you having a party?"

"No, actually. Mom finally relented and we're just going to have some cupcakes on game night in a few weeks."

Ali watched as her aunt smiled slightly. "What did Kara make you promise to agree to if you're not having a party?"

"I have to spend the summer in Argo City with her, which honestly isn't that bad to begin with. It's been too long since we last visited or since Uʒeju came down."

The older woman laughed lightly, reaching down behind her desk. "Well, make sure you take plenty of pictures. Ruby will want to see them. And speaking of your birthday, I have something for you. And your mother, by extension."

Ali took the sealed, manilla envelope from her aunt, turning it over to see her name scribbled on the front of it in an elegant script. "What is it?"

"Honestly, I don't know. It came from the Metropolis office this morning. I was just asked to see if you'd take it."

The brunette dropped the envelope onto her lap, looking down at it with confusion as her shoulders slumped slightly. "Oh."

"I can give it to your Mom, if you want me to."

Using some of her speed, the brunette was up and out of her seat in an instant, tucking the envelope into her bag and resisting the urge to set it on fire with her laser vision. "No, it's fine. I'll just give it to her myself. I should probably get going, I've got a lot of homework to do and…stuff, ya know?"

"Ali-."

The brunette waved her aunt off, successfully keeping her from finishing a sentence the teenager knew would end up being full of pity and yet another attempt to spare her feelings. As if sudden contact after ten years of radio silence wasn't going to end up tearing her apart on the inside. "No, Sam. It's fine. Don't beat yourself up over it. It's cool. I'm cool. We're cool."

After receiving a quick hug from her aunt and excusing herself from the office with a promise to call the next night, Ali passed through the rest of the building with a quicker pace than she normally would have when in the presence of humans. But as super as half her genes were, she could feel the bag slung over her shoulder weighing her down with every step she took, as if the thing were filled with Kryptonite and was specifically sent to fuck with her mentally and emotionally.

It was a feeling she'd spent the majority of her childhood feeling and fighting, the nagging thoughts and doubts and memories that had made up her nightmares for years following raised voices, slamming doors and a one-way-ticket to Metropolis. It was the same feeling that occurred every silent holiday, every unacknowledged birthday and every year that she watched her mother's light fade just a little bit more.

It was a feeling Ali had been bottling up, taking it and using it as fuel to succeed in school, to make her mother smile as often as she could and to pretend her own heart wasn't laying shattered on the ground at feet just so she could one day show up and say screw you to the world, to the tabloids, to fucking Metropolis.

Which is why Ali had slid the un-opened envelope under her mattress, wanting more than anything to burn the thing when her mother wasn't around, but knew she couldn't. Because despite the anger, the confusion and hurt…Ali wanted to know why her other parent had walked away on her at six-years-old and never looked back.