Working Title

Rating: M

Characters: Lena Luthor, Kara Danvers, James Olsen, Samantha Arias...

Summary: In the year 2148, explorers on Mars discovered the remains of an ancient spacefaring civilization. In the decades that followed, these mysterious artifacts revealed startling new technologies, enabling travel to the furthest stars.

Four decades later, Lena Kieran Luthor is enrolled for academic study at the University of Argo, on the planet Krypton.

(The Mass Effect no one but my subconscious asked for)

Chapter 1

"Get your head in the zone, Olsen." Lena roared over the buzzing that seemed to be coming somewhere from the base of her skull.

Across the mat, James Olsen spat an unpleasant looking mixture of saliva and blood onto the floor and shoved himself back up to his feet. Taking advantage of the brief respite, Lena brushed the back of one arm across her forehead, smearing the sheen of sweat that had been developing there and cooling her immensely. The twinge at the back of her head pulsed again, sending a wave of pink and grey specks dancing across her vision. Even if he was on weaker form than usual, getting clocked in the back of the neck by a guy the size of James Olsen was going to have done some damage.

Shit, I really should have seen that move coming.

By the time the thought had crossed, unbidden, over Lena's mind, Olsen was back on his feet and moving towards her. Past Olsen's shoulder, Lena could see the thin crowd of onlookers intensely watching their bout. She always drew at least a few spectators while she was fighting, just part of the legend Lena had managed to build for herself over the year she had been in Argo City. University students, human or otherwise, it seemed, were prone to gossip.

James swung at her. A tightly wound, right handed jab that was so telegraphed Lena couldn't even begin to think why he had expected it to connect at all. Left arm snaking out, Lena wrapped her hand around his wrist, shoved downwards with all the force she could muster and used the momentum to follow it with her whole body. Lena went down, right leg bent at the knee and foot planted firmly on the ground as her left swung out and took James' legs from under him. The goliath of a man went down to the mat hard for the second time in as many minutes and Lena heard the air woosh audibly from his lungs.

Lena bounced back upright on the balls of her feet to the sound of groaning from out in the stands around the ring.

Apparently, it had been the day to bet against her.

The majority of the time, money seemed to pass in her favour. Most of the bets that were made around the training gym where she spent much of her free time were done with the knowledge of her skill. Though still people liked to bet against her from time to time, mostly in the hope that someone would get lucky and take her down. It was more or less an open secret among the student population at Argo that Lena was the best fighter on the field.

That, of course, came naturally when one had been trained by the Systems Alliance Navy.

Lena was aware of the amount of disruption her military training had caused when she had first joined up with the mixed discipline gym. It had been one of her first activities outside of her studies after she had arrived on Krypton. The training ran deep, even if it had only lasted a few months, and her body had been itching to experience combat ever since she had left the Sol System.

At first, she hadn't been specific about her history with the participants at the gym (which she knew was unfair), but after she had breezed through her first dozen fights while barley breaking a sweat, someone had put two and two together. After that, it was damn near impossible to find anyone who was willing to fight with her, even just to spar, but every time she did she drew a crowd. Those crowds would place bets, and every time she won (which she always did) one of the sharks in the crowd would make sure she got her cut. Lena never kept the money, the Alliance took care of all of her reasonable expenses, so the money would be sent back to Earth to benefit one charity or another.

James Olsen, when he had first asked her to spar, had appeared to be most everything Lena disliked in men. A little arrogant, too sure of himself, with a smile that left Lena entirely unsure whether he was hitting on her or not. Then, when he had shown himself a competent fighter and a reasonably decent person, he had become a friend. Almost a year later, and their fights always drew a bigger crowd than any of Lena's others.

"Come on, Olsen," Lena offered one wrapped hand out to James. "Get off your ass, you're embarrassing yourself."

"Go fuck yourself." James groaned, even as he took her hand.

Planting her feet, Lena pulled Olsen back upright, acutely aware that his breath was still a little sharp.

"Sorry about that last one," Lena said as they made their way towards the edge of the ring. "But honestly that punch was so obvious I felt the need to make a point."

James let out a small snort of amusement, and rubbed at his ribs with one hand. "Point well made."

Swinging herself out of the ring and down onto the padded floor, Lena started to move through her usual routine of post-fight stretches. Even if Olsen had gone down remarkably easily by his usual standards, Lena knew how important it was to keep her body as well oiled as she did her sidearm. A few months with the Alliance Navy, between bootcamp and her additional training as an engineer, had taught Lena the importance of keeping herself in top condition. Like with any of the machines on a warship, just one thing out of order within herself could lead to catastrophic failure if she was pushed too hard.

"What's wrong with you, anyway?" Lena asked, mid-way through a stretch. "You were half-asleep up there."

"Literally," James commented, flopping down onto a stool and grabbing his water bottle. "Spent the night on comms to my sister back on Earth."

"Everything good?" Lena asked, turning her attention to James in full.

Catching her concern, James waved a dismissive hand. "New girlfriend, couldn't get her to shut up."

The expression on James' face was somewhere between exhaustion, pride, and 'too much information' all at once, and Lena found herself unable to supress the laugh that bubbled up at it.

"Ahh, having a personal life, I vaguely remember what that was like." She smirked as she slipped back into her cooldown routine.

James got back to his feet, reaching for his towel to pat down some of the sweat coating his face. "Don't give me that shit, Lena. If there's one thing an attractive woman can have any time she wants it's a personal life."

"You mean a sex life."

"Same thing."

"Maybe to you, Olsen." Lena laughed, coming back out of her routine and rolling her shoulders.

It might have just been down to them spending most of their time together either riding high on the adrenaline from a fight or bathing in the crash afterwards, but conversation had always flowed easily for them both. Her circle of friends at Argo was admittedly meagre, and was more or less confined exclusively to other humans, and she always found it a little difficult to talk to them in a meaningful way. Prior to that, there was only one person in her life that Lena would have been willing to acknowledge as a friend, and that was a whole bank vault full of emotional mess she had been avoiding since she had transferred to the reserves and left Earth for Krypton. The strange, easy-going flow with James during and after a fight was something simple, and Lena valued that.

"Just watch your damn feet next time," Lena told him. "We both know you've got the bulk to put me on my ass with a few decent hits but you're never going to land them if you keep letting me take you down like that."

James rolled his eyes fondly at her. "L, we both know that I don't let you do shit. You wanna put me on my ass, I'm going on my ass."

"Yeah, but this could be so much more rewarding for both of us if you actually made me work for it once in a while." Lena winked at him.

At the beginning of their friendship, James had hit on her once or twice. As much as Lena had hated it at the time, once she had affirmed to James that she was, in fact, very much into women, he had stopped entirely. Somehow though, flirting had become a, admittedly strange, part of their friendship. It tended to confuse the hell out of people who didn't know them, that they weren't an item, had never even come close, but flirted relentlessly with each other. To the two of them though, it was just another part of the fun they had.

In lieu of a real response, James simply flipped her the bird.

"So, Thursday, are we in for our usual—"

At that point, Lena had entirely tuned out of everything James was saying. Her gaze had shot over his shoulder and landed on a figure that most definitely did not belong in a place like their gym.

Elegant curves, a lithe frame underneath grand robes that identified everything about her. Science guild, high standing family, some culturally aware part of Lena's subconscious spat out the information. Her higher brain functions were focused on drawing her eyes over every line and curve of the body of the kryptonian across the room. She was bathed in light from outside, spilling in through the open doors behind her. Blonde hair, tied up in a no-nonsense ponytail accentuated the delicious angles of her jaw and the faint traceries of her collar before it was hidden up the formality of her dress.

"Who is that?" The words came out of her lips without Lena ever having intended to say them.

James fixed her with a curious expression before he caught the direction of her gaze and turned to face it. Immediately, his posture tensed up and he snatched up his omni-tool from on top of his duffle bag, snapping the device around his wrist and sending it flaring to life.

"Shit, I'm late. She's my tutor. She's going to kill me."

James started shoving his towel into his duffle, followed by his water bottle. Attention falling from the figure across the room, Lena turned her eyes to James.

"Olsen. What's her name?" Lena found her gaze drawn back up to her as she said it.

The kryptonian had seen James, her attention was now on him in full, disapprovingly gesturing at her omni-tool, as if he needed the reminder he was late. Lena found herself trying to rearrange the hairs that had fallen loose from her own tight high bun into something more respectable.

She's not even looking at you, dumbass.

Shifting into a stance more becoming of an enlisted member of the Alliance Navy, Lena licked her lips, and tasted salt.

Fucking sweat, shit, I must look ridiculous.

James chose that moment to look back to her and Lena didn't need a mirror to know her cheeks had started to turn red.

"Jesus, L, really? God I swear you're as subtle as krogan in a stealth suit."

Embarrassment briefly overriding her attraction to the blonde across the room, Lena reached out and clipped James across the ear. Entirely unbecoming of a sol Alliance, and Lena could hear her old DI bawling her out for acting like a petulant teenager, but she couldn't help it.

"Please tell me you're not sleeping with her," Lena managed to regain enough composure to quip. "Because I really don't want to have to fight you for her."

James let out a deep chuckle, and slung his duffle over his shoulder. "No, I'm not. Kara's not exactly…wired that way." He commented with a wink.

Kara.

The name sounded delicious as it wandered through Lena's mind. Forcing herself not to get lost in reverie, Lena focused back on James.

"Then you can get me her number?"

James raised an eyebrow. "If I get you her number, can I watch?"

For a moment, distracted as she was, Lena didn't fully recognise what James had said. It took the smile splitting his lips as he fought back a laugh for the words to land with her. Once they did though, Lena found herself unable to bite back her own laughter. A smile taking over her face, Lena tapped a joking punch into James' shoulder.

"You're a fucking pig, Olsen."

That only made him laugh more. "You love me though."

With that, James snapped to attention, gave her a mocking salute, then spun on his heel and headed out towards the mysterious Kara. Lena's gaze was fixed on them, following James until he joined her, then locked onto Kara as she walked out of the gym, the whole while talking to James in muttered tones that (if the look on his face were anything to go by) clearly bespoke a bollocking. The last thing Lena was able to note, was the tantalising way the kryptonian's hips swayed under the pristine fabric of her dress.

Down girl.

Pressing thumb and forefinger hard into the spaces between her eyes and nose, Lena shoved the torrent of hormones and irrational emotion down with an effort worthy of applause. When she opened her eyes again, there were coloured blots dancing around in the spaces where her thumb and finger had been, but the kryptonian was no further from her mind.

She really needed a cold shower.

CODEX ENTRIES

The Systems Alliance: The representative body of Earth and all human colonies to the rest of the galaxy.

Omni-Tool: A handheld or wrist-mounted device that combines a computer microframe, sensor analysis pack, and minifacturing fabricator. Can be used for battlefield and civilian purposes.

Krogan: A species of large reptilian bipeds known across the galaxy for their aggression and combat prowess. Largely, krogan will be found working as mercenaries.