Chapter 7: With Blackjack
It was afterwards that Superman explained what had been going on with the random alien attack. They were a race of parasitic aliens that had infiltrated the planet years ago, and were only now making their move after tricking him into removing the world's nuclear missiles so they couldn't defend themselves.
Yeah, that plan didn't exactly work out for them as they were forced to retreat after heavy losses and their factories destroyed.
The attack also revealed to Superman that he can't protect the world on his own, which Kara gave him a 'I told you so' look at that. So he and a number of other superheroes were coming together to form a planetary protection squad.
From what Mew understood of the other heroes they were; A fast guy, Captain Glow-in-the-Dark, Hawkgirl, Batman, Bikini-Woman, and another alien. Kara did protest at not being included, but Superman explained that he needed her in Metropolis for when he was away. She wasn't happy about that, but knew it was pointless to argue with him.
Of course that ended less than a week later when she learned that the first mission the 'Justice League' went on was to space court. Kara was rather smug about that as she and Mew fought Toymaster while her cousin was probably being grilled in a witness stand.
And while they might not be allowed to go on Justice League missions into outer space or somewhere, Superman did say that Metropolis was their turf now. A point that Mew was happy to point out in length when they came into town.
"So,how exactly are you so muscular anyway?" Mew asked as she and Kara sat out of view near LexCorp Tower. They were told to keep a look out while the 'big boys' did their thing with Lex Luthor inside. "I've seen how much you eat, so I would expect some more fat, but no. Do you do squats with the Kent's tractor or something?"
"Nope, nothing like that," Kara grinned as she lifted up her arm and flexed it. "This is all me. Clark said it had something to do with how the yellow sun affects our bodies, but I'm not complaining."
"People must be so jealous," Mew commented as she poked the arm, this caused Kara to raise her brow at the irony of that sentence.
"This coming from someone with shapeshifting magic," Kara pointed out as she lowered her arm. "You can-" She stopped speaking as her head snapped towards the building, her eyes locking on as an odd shaped hovercraft was going up the LexCorp building. "Time to go." She said as took off.
When she reached the craft, it was nearly to the top floor but she put her foot on the empty cockpit roof and halted it's upward momentum. The engines began to grow louder as they tried to keep going upwards, but couldn't push past her.
"Man, these Justice League missions are so exciting," Mew dryly stated as she teleported herself onto the jetcraft and sat on the wing. "First a court appearance, then a diplomatic meeting, and now air traffic control?"
"Yeah, thinking that they got the short end of the stick with that idea," Kara shrugged as she began to descend to the ground, taking both Mew and the craft with her. "I prefer just some good old fashion butt-whooping."
"We can only hope," Mew said as the craft touched the ground. Lifting her hand with an orb of crackling electricity in it, she touched the metal of the craft just as Kara removed her foot and short-circuited the jet, causing the engines to die.
Much to both of their disappointment, no fight ended up taking place. In the middle of Luthor's escape through some secret passageway he had built in, the man had a stroke and Superman rushed him to a hospital.
Kara couldn't help but laugh at the irony when Cap… Green Lantern told them that.
So with their work done, the girls went to get some donuts.
"Couldn't have happened to a worse man," Kara stated as she bit into a strawberry donut. "You haven't had to deal with him yet, but trust me, the man is obsessed with Superman. It's Superman this, and Kryptonite coated that."
"Did Superman do something to him?" Mew asked, snagging her apple cruller from the box she bought.
"No," Kara shook her head in annoyance. "Nothing. He just doesn't like the idea of Superman even existing, and doesn't even hide it." What went unsaid was how Luthor most certainly hated her as well, but not to the extent of his hatred for her cousin. "Trust me, he will try and find a way to blame his hospital stay on Superman."
"Hope he stays away for good this time," Mew commented as she finished her cruller and grabbed another. "I wouldn't want to be stuck dealing with a guy like that."
xXx
It was only a few days later that Mew got to taste the irony of what she said. Coming back from patrol with Supergirl after reports of Luthor and a gorilla villain named Ultra-Humanite had escaped from prison, she had come back to the Pawn Shop in darkness.
"That's odd," Mew frowned as she looked around the darkened room, only able to make out the faint outlines of the items in the storeroom she slept in. 'Devon usually keeps the place going for a while longer than this…' She glanced at the stairway and made her way up to check to see if he was okay.
Halfway up, she could see light coming from underneath the door at the top, telling her that it wasn't a power outage that took out the lights. Once at the top, she turned the handle of the doorway and opened it up.
"Good evening Mew," Lex Muk Luthor was sitting on Devon's couch, leaning back casually as he smirked at her. "Or should I call you Unova?"
'Ah, rotten berries,' Mew swore internally at that as she walked into the room, glancing around but saw no sign of Devon. There were signs of a struggle with the dining room table being upturned and food laying on the ground, but no blood, which she took as being good.
"Your… friend? Employer? Whatever he is to you," Lex waved his hand dismissively. "He is to you, is safe." As if that was his que, Humanite walked out from a door in the hallway with a tied and gagged Devon, a gun to the man's head. "Now can I trust you to sit and listen to my deal, or shall I cut this meeting short?"
Mew stood there for a moment as she thought over what to do, and decided it was best to hear this human out first. Making her way over to the flipped table, she picked up one of the chairs up before sitting on it, positioning in a way she could see both of the villains if things went bad.
"Good," Lex said with a smug expression as he pulled out a laptop he had next to him. Opening it up, Mew could see still framed images of both her in her Kanto form and Unova appearing in the light she gave when transforming. "Now, you are going to listen to me unless you want your alien friends to find out about this."
Mew could help but frown at that, a weird constricting feeling appearing in her chest at that thought of that happening.
"And what do I need to do to make sure that doesn't happen?" Mew decided to play along, not really sure what she was feeling at the moment but pushed forward anyway.
"I just need you to repeat what you did to Superman on the roof all those months ago," Lex said in an amused tone as he spoke of the event, pressing a button on the laptop brought up a still of her as Unova electrocuting Superman. "But on a grander scale. I plan on taking the Justice League down for good and for that, I need my own team." He explained, a wave at his hand towards Humanite to show he was a member of said team.
Now that was something that Mew wasn't expecting, but she had to admit that the offer was tempting, even without the blackmail. A chance to fight the Justice League, a group of this world's greatest champions? She thought that Lex might want her to steal something as Unova, but a fight was much more her speed.
A grin pulled at her lips as she opened her mouth, ready to accept except… her chest felt too tight. Closing her mouth, she began to frown as she tried to figure out what was going on with her right now. She had been in plenty of fights, some as the attacker and some as the attacked.
She knew it wasn't because she was fighting Superman, she now knew enough weaknesses about him from her months working under him to know what forms could take him down. Running through the list of Justice League members in her head, she found she had no issue with fighting any of them but still felt hesitant to fight Superman despite knowing she should be able to win.
'Do I not want to harm him?' Mew pondered the thought, but could easily see her fighting the man. She didn't even see a problem to turn into Unova again and just steal that cape back from him. The more she thought about it, she didn't even care if Lex told them she was Unova. She wasn't a hero, she was doing it for fun…
And because she was helping a friend.
'Kara?' Mew's brow furrowed as she thought of her friend and the constricting feeling in her chest came back. Was that why she didn't want to help Lex, because of her? She tried to imagine her fighting Kara or even stealing from her and the constricting feeling in her chest grew worse.
She.. She couldn't fight Kara?
No, that wasn't it. She simply couldn't bring herself to hurt Kara.
'Whatever this feeling is, it won't let me do this,' Mew realized as she looked up at Luthor. 'But it also won't allow me to let that proof exist.' So, she decided to choose an option that Luthor never knew existed.
Leaning back in her chair, Mew put an amused smile on her face.
"While playing as Unova again would be fun. I don't think that form will be much help for you," Humanite pulled back the hammer to the gun, the threat clear but Luthor held up his hand at the gorilla, already hearing the message Mew hid in her words.
"So if not that form, then what form do you believe can help?" Lex asked as he leaned forward, his fingers steepled together.
With the bait now taken, Mew knew they wouldn't shoot Devon for her shifting, so she Transformed in the only form she knew that could help her at the moment; Uxie. At the sight of the small twin tailed pokemon, Luthor frowned at the sight, not sure how something like that form could help before he simply stopped thinking all together.
Everyone in the room other than Mew suddenly went slack as their eyes glazed over.
'Foolish human,' Mew chuckled to herself as she went to work and began to mess with the memory of everyone in the room. 'Better humans than you have tried to bend me to their will, and they failed.'
She began by erasing the passed few minutes from their collective minds while rewriting Luthor's and Humanite's memories so they had broken into the Pawn shop to ditch their prison uniforms and to something less conspicuous. They then broke into the upstairs so Luthor could access LexCorp files and remove incriminating data he knew that existed, but in reality, those files would be the ones containing the connection between Unova and herself.
As an added safety, she also removed their memories of her and Unova being the same person. Even if the evidence is gone to prove it, they could still become a pain if they spouted that secret to someone like Batman.
With their memories rewritten, Mew teleported away so that her work could play out. Part of her debated if she should capture them or not, but she had a matter she felt was more pressing at the moment.
High in the Mesosphere, she floated isolated from the rest of the world as she thought about what had happened earlier.
'What was that feeling earlier?' She tried to figure out, her mind troubled by this unknown. 'And how is it connected to Kara?'
xXx
Mew did not sleep that night as she tried to puzzle out this issue. She could imagine herself doing a large number of things that could bring about the end of the world, enslave the people, or simply wipe out the known universe so she could make a new one like she did several times before in her own universe.
Except when it came down to Kara, and she didn't know why.
Was it because she wasn't a human that she felt like this, since Kara wasn't one of her own creations? But that wasn't the answer, since she could imagine the end of these aliens she has discovered since coming to this world and would only feel pity that they would no longer exist.
Perhaps it was because Kara was a friend then? That answer also didn't fit her as well. Mew had taken on disguises before to make friends with her creations many times before, but they would simply come and go, their names and faces faded away with time.
Deciding that this line of thought wasn't helping her, she decided to think back when she first met Kara at The Club. They talked, had some fun drinking and partying and went back to the Kent's Farm. That Kara, the one back then, Mew didn't think she would have minded fighting or stealing from her.
Then when Mew thought of the next night, in the barn, she felt… something. It was the night that she had told Kara that story, the same one she only told to her eldest creations. But she didn't tell her that story for the same reason she did for her own creations, as a way to distance herself from them, but instead to be closer to someone.
The story of her origin was meant to let her creations know that she was different from them, but she had given the same story as a way to relate to Kara being the only of her kind. Kara, a girl she had found alone in the city and couldn't feel free in her home.
Did… Did Mew see herself in Kara and that was why she cared about the girl? Mew too was the only of her kind, and even in a world of her own creation she was never truly free there. Only able to explore the home she had created in disguise or invisible, or else risk being attacked by her own creations as they attempted to capture her.
Mew could only float there as she came to this realization and felt an odd sort of happiness at that. Despite being different in so many ways, Mew couldn't help but see herself by Kara's side for the foreseeable future. And it wasn't due to boredom or some game, but because she simply wanted to be there with her friend.
Kara was a friend, an equal, a partner. Someone who actually knew Mew and accepted her, and she had done much the same to Kara.
Mew was practically giddy at this point as she shifted to her Kanto form and began to free fall back a dozen or so miles back to the city below. Everything suddenly felt so different to her now; the morning sun, the air whipping past her face, the city itself. Like she was actually now noticing it all and all the small details that she had dismissed.
As the city grew closer, she began to angle herself to fly towards their meetup point. Once she got close enough, she summoned a bubble shaped Barrier that cushioned her descent as it stretched at her impact before flinging her back up where she reorintated herself upright.
"Well, that's one way to make an entrance," Kara said in amusement at the sight as she floated nearby. Noticing the wide smile on Mew's face, she had to comment. "What's got you so happy today, hoping that we find Luthor and his money friend before the League today?"
"Nope, that's not why," Mew shook her head as she floated up to Kara. "Did some thinking last night, and I realized something."
"Oh, and what's that?" Kara asked with a raised brow, but her answer came in the form of a hug. "Uh, what's this all about," She was a bit surprised by that but returned the hug anyway out of habit.
"You, Kara, are my best friend," Mew simply stated as she enjoyed the moment.
"Do you have other friends?"
"Nope," Mew answered honestly.
"Then I'm the best by default," Kara smiled at her own reasoning before pulling Mew off of her. "Let's hope your good mood lasts through the day. Clark got a report that Luthor and Humanite robbed a pawn store last night so we will be checking the area around it for clues."
"Lead the way," Mew gave a mock salute as the two took off, her good mood easily lasting for the rest of the day.
xXx
It was two days later that Superman came by to bring them up to speed on what was going on. Turns out that Luthor was dying and was trying to go out in a blaze of glory by taking out the Justice League with him before his Kryptonite Poisoning got to him. The man had created an Injustice Gang to fight the League, but ended up escaping when the two clashed.
And now Batman was missing after he went to investigate a potential lead, so it was time for all hands on deck. Which included Kara and Mew helping out now, despite Superman still having reservations about including them.
"Do we have any leads?" Kara asked as Superman finished telling them what they needed to know. "Any possible safe houses, or secret labs of Lex's?"
"No," Superman dejectedly admitted as he shook his head. "We captured one of the villains that were working with him, but he isn't talking." Looking over at Mew, he decided to take a shot in the dark with his next question "You wouldn't happen to have a form that can locate people, would you?"
"Not in the way you are wanting," Mew admitted aftering thinking over the request. "But I can give us some more eyes to help search the city." She offered as she held up a hand with a glowing white orb in it.
"Do it," Superman gave her permission to do whatever she had planned. He had a friend/team member missing and would do almost anything to get him back safely.
Smiling at that, Mew began to let a stream of Unown come from the orb in her hand. The two aliens were surprised to see what could be best described as a twisted form of the alphabet with large eyes beginning to swarm around them. Their large white eyes staring at them and only rarely blinking.
When enough were summoned, Mew dismissed the orb and addressed the eyes floating around.
"Find Batman," She ordered and the Unown scattered into the city, thankfully there was no window for them to break this time around. Turning to address Superman, "If he is within the city, I should know shortly." Superman remained silent for a moment before speaking up.
"I remember reports of flying eyeballs, back during the Darkseid incident," Superman commented, leaving the question unasked but Mew understood it and nodded her head in admittance. "So that's how you were able to find us when we escaped from the military base then."
"So you can just spy on people just like that?" Kara asked with a frown, the sight causing the weird feeling in Mew's chest again.
"Nothing like that," Mew was quick to dismiss that thought. "Those things possess a very simple mind and will follow through with whatever order they are given and just that order. Once they have done it, they become inert." She explained quickly, the feeling in her chest going away when she saw Kara accept the answer.
"Any idea how long it will take them to find him?" Superman was concerned for Batman and it was showing. Luthor was his problem and now he was dragging others into it.
"Not really," Mew admitted with a frown. "Should be a few hours, but that would be my guess if he was still in Metropolis. If he was taken out of it he is that way, about five blocks." She suddenly switched mid sentence and pointed off to the North-East.
Superman had to blink as his mind processed what he just heard. In a flash, he had Mew in his arms as he flew off into the direction she indicated, ignoring the indiginfied squawk that Kara gave at suddenly being left behind.
"Lead the way," Superman said as he flew through the air, forcing himself to hold back from going full speed or risk hurting Mew.
"Alright," Mew called back over the winds whipping past them before pointing a bit to the side. "It's more that way." Superman corrected his course and they were over where her Unown found Batman.
Setting her down on the building, Superman went quiet as he mentally called out to J'onn, Kara found them shortly after.
"Thanks for leaving me behind," Kara snarked as she pouted at the two.
"Don't blame me," Mew waved her hands in defence of herself. "Your cousin just swept me away. Mrs Lane won't be too happy to hear about him carrying around other ladies though," She joked, causing Kara to smirk as she looked at Superman, completely oblivious to the conversation as he was talking to J'onn in his mind.
"Alright, the others will be here soon," Superman declared as he finished his conversation and stared at the ground, using his super vision to look over the inhabitants inside and finding Batman on a lower level of the building. He could see Batman wasn't alone down there but… unless Cheetah could kill with her tongue, his friend was safe.
"What should we do when they show up?" Kara asked, hitting her fist against one another to show she was ready for a fight.
"Nothing yet," Superman instructed as he looked at the two of them. "While Batman doesn't seem to be in any imminent danger, we still need to get him out of there and-" He stopped speaking when Mew suddenly vanished before reappearing with Batman in metal restraints and a startled Cheetah holding on to him.
Moving quickly, Superman put his hand over Cheetah's mouth before she could shout. She looked like she was going to put up a struggle before seeing who it was that had a hold of her. Knowing she couldn't win, she held up her hands in surrender.
"Mew, that was very reckless of you," Superman chastised the girl, but part of him was relieved to have Batman out of there after spotting the Joker in the building. Nothing good came from having that madman near his friend. He could only frown at how Mew shrugged his words away as poked at the metal restraints holding Batman.
"Need some help?" Mew offered as the man squirmed around in his restraints, but didn't give her a reply. The reason came shortly after the restraints somehow popped from around his left arm, and with that hand free, he was out in no time. "Can you teach me that?"
"No," Batman's reply was short and to the point as he stretched his stiff muscles. "You have contacted the others?" He questioned Superman and received a nod. "Good." He went silent from that point onward.
All that was left after that point was to wait for the others. Mew took Cheetah from Superman's hands as she summoned plant vines to bound and gag the villain for the time being, making sure she didn't become a problem in the near future.
Thankfully it was a mercifully short time before the rest of the team arrived. Other than Hawkgirl, the girls didn't really have too big of a grasp on what the other League members were like from their one meeting a few days ago.
Wonder Woman seemed nice, if a bit strict in how she talked
Flash was rather laid back and the most talkative of the group.
J'onn was reclusive but spoke with good manners.
Green Lantern…
"What are the kids doing here?" He asked Superman.
He had a tendency to suffer from Foot-In-Mouth.
"Kid?" Kara was offended as she walked towards the rude man before Superman appeared between them.
"John," Superman spoke with a stern voice, making it clear this kind of issue had happened before. "They helped me locate Batman before rescuing him from Luthor."
"They are too young to be dealing with these kinds of criminals," John frowned as he looked them both over. "It was one thing to have them stand guard, but actually letting them deal with those like Lex?"
"Hey, I've faced worse than him before," Kara tried to force her way through Superman, but the guy held her back. "And with Mew, there's no villain we can't handle." That comment caused Mew to smile.
"Plus, we've already captured one of the members as well," Mew added as she pointed out the gagged Cheetah. "So they are down two members and their hostage has been removed." She then indicated to Batman. "Their group is on its last legs by this point."
John stared at her for a moment before he met eyes with Superman. The two seemed to have a silent conversation before Superman sighed and looked at the girls.
"You two should go home for the night," His words were not what Kara expected to hear.
"Wh-" Her shout was cut off by Batman covering her mouth, expecting the outburst and not wanting to alert the nearby villains. She looked prepared to remove the arm violently but Superman continued to speak.
"I do trust you, both of you, to take on our normal villains," Superman continued, trying to explain his reasoning. "But Luthor is another story, even more so when I saw the Joker down there with his group." That bit of info caught most of the League by surprise and caused Kara to stop as well.
"Fine," Kara said bitterly as she pushed Batman's hand away as she turned away from her cousin. "But you can't keep me away from this stuff forever Superman." She added as she took off.
Mew shot the man a frown as well before she took off after her friend.
Following his words, Kara flew away from the city to the Kent's Farm but she didn't go on the trip alone this time as Mew followed her. Part of her wanted to tell Mew to go back home, but she could also use her as someone to vent to at the moment.
"That was completely unfair back there," Kara complained as they flew. "We could have helped them, but noooo. Instead we are sent away because they think it's too dangerous."
"Probably just gonna bust down a wall and get into another fight," Mew added as she picked up speed so she could fly backwards to look at her friend as they spoke. "Have you seen the videos of them actually fighting? They tend to be rather...slugfest."
"Well, I can't say much about that," Kara snorted as she looked at her friend. "Mine and Clark's powers tend to be very punch happy."
"True, but that's where I come in," Mew pointed out. "When the situation calls for something special, I tend to have a form that could help us out. Like I could have several forms that could have let out a form of sleeping gas that would have knocked out the villains if we got it in the vents."
"Yeah, with some of your forms, you could be a lot more helpful to them than me," Kara bitterly stated as she began to pick up speed. Not liking where Kara's thought process was going, Mew was forced to pick up her speed as well to keep up.
"Kara, I don't think you understand how amazed I am by you at some points," Mew's words caused Kara to slow down, wondering where she was going with this. "I will admit that I have a lot of forms that help me fight, but you eclipse almost all of them in speed and strength. And even then, I have no form that could match both of those at the same time." The next words Mew knew were only technically true, but said them anyway. "If it came down to a straight up fight between me and you, I'd probably lose."
"Are you kidding me?" Kara asked in disbelief as she looked at Mew. "I've seen you fight before, and some of those forms have some really weird powers that I don't think I could stand up against."
"That's only because you don't know those forms as well as I do," Mew explained as she continued. "Like remember when I turned into Tyrantrum, that one you called a T-Rex? Yeah, super weak against the cold."
"Is that an Ice Age joke?" Kara wondered, a smile tugging at her lips.
"Nope, just don't like the cold," Mew said before she began to list off other forms she used. "Onix, the giant rock snake, can't stand touching water. Mareep, the sheep, throw enough dirt on it and can't shoot electricity. Metagross, the crystal spider, fire will start to melt it. All of my forms are like this, you guys just don't know the weaknesses."
"Oh, and what is this form's weakness?" Kara smirked teasingly as she looked over her Kanto form.
"Bugs, Ghosts, and Dark," Mew answered honestly.
"You're afraid of the dark?" Kara seemed surprised by that, misunderstanding what Mew meant.
"Dark Magic," Mew clarified, it wasn't exact, but it was the closest she could explain it to her friend.
"Oh," Kara said simply as they flew in silence for a bit before speaking up. "So, bugs? I wouldn't have imagined you being one of those types of girls that would freak out when a cockroach would appear." She couldn't help but find the image amusing.
"Kara," Mew looked at her friend in a deadpan expression. "I've been on a world where I've had to deal with cockroaches about six feet tall and could bend steel with their legs. You don't want to know how big the other bugs were."
"I-" Kara wasn't too sure what to say to that. "Let's never go there."