Chapter 51: Aftermath

Disclaimer: All things Supergirl/Superman, Batman, and Green Lantern belong to DC. No infringement is intended.


Kara looked at the people sitting around the large conference table in the Justice League Watchtower. All the current League members were present, as well as the two Green Lanterns Sinestro and Gardner. Clark was also there, though she had reminded him that partaking in a post-mission briefing did not make him a full member yet. His pout had been adorable.

"First of all, thank you all for help," she began. "This was a dangerous mission and, as it turned out, had little to do with the safety of Earth, so Superboy and I are very grateful that you all aided us in ensuring the safety of Kandor."

"Is it safe?" Adam asked. "I mean, it disappeared again and we don't really know who was behind it all, do we?"

Kara simply smiled. "I... have a suspicion, but I am not yet confident enough to share it. Suffice to say I am reasonably certain that Kandor is safe. And you cannot imagine how much that means to Superboy and I, to know that some of our lost people survived. Thank you all!"

She was met with shrugs, smiles, and stoic faces, but she felt confident that the team she had assembled would be having her back, just as she had theirs, no matter what the future might bring. Which, if her suspicions were true, would be quite a bit.

"That said, there is something I think we should talk about," she continued. "Those of us who travelled inside Kandor experienced a sort of time-shift, which showed us glimpses of the future. Despite my previous experiences with time travel, I am not capable of saying whether what we saw was THE future or simply a possible future, but still. I would ask all who experienced it to share what they saw, if they feel it is something we should all know or might be pertinent to the future safety of Earth."

She looked around and J'Onn was the first to stand up.

"I found myself on the surface of Mars," he told them, "and before I could orient myself I saw a portal opening, similar to those Kara opens with her Mother Box, but larger. An alien army came through, carrying all sorts of equipment, and began setting up on Mars' surface. That was all I could see before I was wrenched back."

Kara nodded. "I took my Mother Box from an alien called Steppenwolf who tried to invade Earth 3,000 years in the past. I always feared that he or others from his race might give it another try."

"Was there any indication as to when this happened?" Batman asked.

J'Onn shook his head. "Sadly, no. It was day on Mars, so I saw no star constellations, and there was nothing else to indicate whether this would happen tomorrow or a hundred years from now."

Kara knew that Martians were very long-lived, so even factoring in that a future version of J'Onn had been present at the time of the vision, they could still be talking about a century and more.

"Then I guess all we can do is set up some kind of monitoring equipment on Mars," Hawkman proposed, "so we will be forewarned when these invaders come, whenever that will be."

Kara nodded and made a mental note to do just that.

"I found myself on an alien planet," she was next to reveal her future vision. "I didn't recognize it. It had purple skies, but that doesn't really narrow it down much. It was clearly the aftermath of a victorious battle, there were armed people all around me, cheering. Some seemed human, some not. Clearly we had just defeated someone, but that is all I learned before I was wrenched back."

Everyone absorbed the information, but there was really nothing to be done with it for now. Hawkman stood up next.

"I can only say that my vision was... personal. Something concerning Hawkwoman and myself. There was nothing of relevance to the League or the safety of Earth, I believe."

"Thank you," Kara said. "Sinestro?"

The Green Lantern looked up, looking a bit startled, as if she had wrenched him out of deep thoughts.

"I... I found myself involved in a battle between members of the Green Lantern Corps and... another faction, one that I am unfamiliar with. It was nowhere near Earth, best I could tell, so I doubt it has any relevance to you."

Kara narrowed her eyes. Sinestro seemed deeply troubled, his words did not really fit with the look on his face. She could hardly force him to unveil something that might well be deeply personal, though, so she simply made a mental note to keep an eye on the purple-skinned Lantern.

"Batman?" she turned to the final League member who had been inside Kandor. "What about you?"

Bruce's face was stoic, not an emotion to be seen. "Nothing of relevance to the League, I think. Just something... personal."

Despite being rather certain that her friend was holding something back, Kara let the matter rest. She trusted Bruce, he would tell her if it was something she needed to know.


Some hours later

Batman was sitting in front of a special stand-alone computer in his bat cave. It was completely isolated from the outside world, connected to no network, which was the only way to ensure total security, really. The data on this computer was too sensitive to entertain even a remote chance that someone might hack into it. When turning it on, one had only a single chance to enter the correct password and a thermal charge would ignite upon failure, melting the hard drive down into scrap.

This computer contained everything that Batman knew about the two most powerful beings currently living on planet Earth: Kara-El and Kal Jor-El, aka Karen Kent and Clark Kent, aka Superwoman and Superboy. Well, he would soon need to add a third file to this computer for Karen's clone daughter, but he hadn't gotten around to that yet.

Currently he was perusing his file on Clark Kent, Superboy, and musing on recent events. During the a sudden time shift in the time-lost city of Kandor, he had seen a vision of the future (or possibly 'a' future), where Alfred had given him a message to take back to the past. A message that he himself had told Alfred to deliver, knowing that at some point he would experience said time shift and a younger Batman would appear in the future to receive it.

How had Karen phrased it? Time travel makes one's head hurt. It certainly did.

Batman wasn't exactly comfortable with the topic of time travel, simply because there were too many question marks involved. He knew of Karen's travel into the past, for example, a journey that had apparently been pre-destined because she ended up saving the life of Hippolyta, a woman she had already met 3,000 years later. Then there was the matter of Kandor, of course, and the suspicions that Karen and he had about the perpetrators of its abduction from Krypton.

Karen had also told him about her meeting the being calling itself Metron when she had attempted to prevent the destruction of Krypton in the past, as well as her experiences with the Legion of Superheroes in the 30th century. From all these encounters, Batman drew the conclusion that time was not immutable. History COULD be changed, otherwise Metron would not have bothered stopping Karen, and the Legion wouldn't have gone to the past to protect Karen from Mordru. The consequences of actually doing so, though, were apparently (and unsurprisingly) highly unpredictable and potentially disastrous.

Which left the question, of course, what could possibly have motivated some future version of himself to risk changing history by sending that message back to the past?

"Don't let them take Clark", he muttered, repeating the message the future version of Alfred had given him. It wasn't exactly much to go on, as he did not know who 'them' were, when it would happen, and what 'taking Clark' actually entailed. He could only assume that his future counterpart had known that the time shift would only last a few seconds and that there wouldn't be time for a longer, more detailed message. Still, it frustrated him.

He could imagine multiple scenarios, of course. One, someone would take Clark and end up killing him. The consequences of that were easy to imagine. As good a person as Karen was, she would tear the world apart to get at whoever had hurt her son. Two, someone would take Clark and somehow turn him against his family and allies. The consequences of that scenario were potentially even worse. Or three, Clark would somehow be taken away to parts unknown, thereby distracting Karen and the Justice League from something important.

He could easily come up with half a dozen more scenarios, but without more information, there wasn't really any point to it. The only sensible thing he could do for now was to keep a very, very close eye on Clark Kent.


"An entire city of Kryptonians?" Kona asked, eyes wide. "Really? All of them like... like us?"

Kara nodded. "And you can be very proud of your brother," she said, looking over at Clark. "When the city threatened to tumble from orbit, he flew in and lifted it back up."

Clark's cheeks reddened a bit and he ducked his head bashfully. "I didn't do it alone," he insisted.

"No, but you slowed its descent long enough for the rest of us to come in and help you," Kara told him. "I am very proud of you, son."

"I wish I could have been there," Kona said, looking a bit forlorn. "I could have helped."

"I know, sweetheart," Kara said, brushing her hand through Kona's golden locks, something she caught herself doing quite often recently without consciously thinking about it. Kona didn't seem to mind, quite the opposite. Physical affection was something the young hybrid had never before experienced, after all, and seemed positively starved for. "But we still haven't fully tested the range of your powers yet, never mind in outer space. It would have been too dangerous."

"I had to wait years until she finally let me come along on missions," Clark told her. "You can wait a bit longer, super-short!"

Kona swatted at her brother, a tiny crack telling Kara that her hand broke the sound barrier doing it. "Watch it, SuperBOY!"

Kara couldn't help the large grin on her face. Despite Clark's initial resentment of the situation, her two children had bonded very quickly during the last few days and were already behaving like every brother and sister she had ever seen on TV. She couldn't be happier.

"What happened to Kandor?" Kona asked, settling down again. "Where did it go?"

"I think the question should be 'when' did it go," Kara told her. "And I am reasonably sure that it travelled to the future."

"So, we will... will we see it again then?"

She nodded. "I hope so, Kona. Because I am very much looking forward to showing both of you a real Kryptonian city one day. It's part of your heritage."

Kara leaned back on the couch, her daughter leaning into her side, her son sitting relaxed on her other side. And somewhere out there was an entire city of her people, alive and well. The last daughter of Krypton closed her eyes, smiling. For today, at least, all was well.


Thaal Sinestro was sitting in the guest quarters that the Justice League had offered him on the Watchtower and contemplated the green ring that was currently lying in the palm of his hand. He had worn that ring for many years now and had never regretted putting it on. In fact, he had fully expected to wear it for the rest of his life until, at some point in the distant future, he would die in the line of duty like his friend Abin Sur.

Now, though, for the first time he doubted.

He had seen a vision of the future. A future where he was apparently no longer a Green Lantern, but a member of another group. A group that utilized yellow energy and was apparently opposed to the Green Lantern Corps. A group that fought against the Corps.

Guy Gardner had called him a traitor.

Sinestro was not a rooky Green Lantern. He had studied the power of the green light extensively and delved deeply into the knowledge database on Oa. He knew about the emotional spectrum, how the base emotions that comprised all sentient life were represented by different colors of light. Green was the center, representing the power of will and the ability to control one's emotions.

Yellow was the light of fear, that which Green Lanterns had to banish from their minds in order to retain control of the green light. Fear was the mind-killer, the Guardians of Oa preached, fear made even the most intelligent sentients do senseless and abominable things. Fear was the greatest weakness a Green Lantern could have, should he allow it to control him.

But if one were capable of harnessing the power of fear... he clenched his fist, the edges of his green ring biting painfully into his palm.


End Chapter 51

Author's Note: Just a short chapter to wrap up the Kandor storyline (for now), and remind people that this story is still alive. Sorry for the long break, but the muse was not cooperating. I have more than enough ideas for future chapters, but getting them down on paper (digitally speaking) is proving a bit difficult right now. I hope to get back into the swing of things soon.