Three weeks later, Kara hovered over the towering glass and steel structures of downtown National City. Fading sunlight glimmered and refracted in a wave of pinks, reds, and oranges. While flying at night was safer, and usually more fruitful for crime fighting, this was her favorite time of day. The deeper shades of light reminded her Krypton.
"I see you, Father," she murmured the words of the daily Invocation to Rao. "I thank you for your light and your care. I ask that you continue to guide my thoughts and my steps along the path you have chosen for me. I am your faithful servant and daughter even in the darkness of night."
Arms spread in supplication, Kara waited until the sun had completely disappeared from the sky before resuming her patrol. She weaved around buildings and watched cars and people stream in and out of the city.
There, hiding among the regular citizens, Kara spotted her shadows. They were there no matter what time of day or night Kara took to the sky as Supergirl. Tonight, she spotted only fifteen black-clad humans. Sometimes there were more: groups of ten or twelve agents. No matter the time of day, the location, or the number of troops, Alex was always there.
This group was the largest yet. Twin desires warred inside. One, to fly down and take their weapons the way she had the night of the fire. Another, to fly away so far and so fast they'd never keep up. Option two had been her standard response so far, and so far, it had failed.
No matter where Kara went, they found her. Alex's doing? Had she given the DEO Kara's identity?
As she stared at Alex and the other agents, Kara remembered that she and Snapper had opened up a third option.
"Have a seat," Kara told the two freelancers. They weren't part of her usual pool of photographers. She'd searched through a mountain of online magazines and websites for a specific set of skills. These were the best of the bunch outside of the top tier war correspondents and National Geographic.
Both looked out of place amidst the glitz and glass of the CatCo executive offices. "Why are we here?"
The question wasn't unexpected. Kara had been deliberately vague when she'd asked them to come in for an interview.
The thin, nervous young man who asked the question managed to meet Kara's gaze. "Snapping octogenarian grandmas and a Senator caught with his pants down isn't my life's dream."
Kara smiled. "Good thing that's not what I need you to do."
He relaxed slightly, fingers releasing their death grip on the arms of his chair. "So…"
Rather than respond immediately, Kara glanced at the older woman seated next to him. "Do you have any questions?"
She was harder to read, her face a blank mask. "No. You'll tell us when you're ready." There was a hint of mockery in the words. She had yet to make eye contact, preferring to examine the photos lining the walls of the office.
"I don't have time…"
"Shut up, Bob." Now the woman showed emotion: disdain – and a wry affection. "Keep it in your pants for once."
Kara bit her lip to hide a smile. She had to strike the right balance. "Maybe Bob's right. I've wasted enough of your time today." Sliding two sealed manila envelopes across her desk, Kara got down to business. "I want to hire you for a special project."
Fifteen black-clad men and women following Supergirl on a quiet crime night in National City? Snapper would put that above the fold, without a doubt. Especially if…
The air patterns around Kara subtly changed. It was the only warning she had.
A hard, metal form slammed into her. They tumbled, entwined, toward the nearest skyscraper. Kara fought the unforgiving arms banded around her body. She twisted and turned as much as possible, needing to at least slow their flight or alter their trajectory.
The National City Bank tower was still lit. People were working late.
She wrenched one arm free and slammed her fist into the thing clinging to her like a koala. Although she felt no pain, the energy rebound numbed her arm and hand. The tingling was worth it, though, as Kara managed to shove away from its hold.
Grabbing the armored man or robot (Kara didn't take the time to look more closely) by the shoulders, she shoved both feet down toward the ground and used that momentum to drive them up and away from the bank tower.
Kara paid for her success. Blow after blow landed on her torso and face. They didn't hurt, but they had enough force to change their course. "What are you?" she demanded, ducking another powerful punch.
There was no answer.
"I'm not…a fan of the strong, silent type." Kara managed a bit of separation and poured on the speed. Her plan was to get out of the city and away from the possibility of innocent deaths.
She almost made it. "Oh, come on!" Kara shouted on the heels of a pained grunt. Her opponent was wrapped around her again, and they were headed straight toward the ground, picking up speed with every second.
Nothing Kara tried worked. She couldn't get free, not by twisting or kicking. Her arms were trapped. Her hair whipped into her face and eyes from the rush of their descent. If she hit the ground like this, on the bottom and with the added mass of her attacker, would even her Kryptonian powers save her?
Kara needed a new strategy. Brute force had failed.
"No! You must not rely on your superhuman strength." General Antiope strode through the pairs grappling under the unforgiving summer heat.
Kara came to attention, barely breathing as Antiope loomed into her personal space. She didn't dare shift away or glance at the other women around them for support.
The next thing she knew, Antiope had locked one foot behind one of Kara's, gripped her by the shoulders, and dragged her to the ground in a single, smooth move. A knife appeared at Kara's throat. "If this knife could penetrate your skin, you would be dead."
Antiope hadn't stopped with that move. Kara had spent her years on Themyscira as the general's private student. That experience would hopefully save her now.
Kara couldn't use her arms; however, her legs were free. She wrapped them around her attacker and rolled her hips to the left. Kara felt a moment of give in its torso and did her best to follow her hips with her shoulders.
She thought she'd failed. It was like pushing a mountain. Then Kara noticed the stars overhead blur and change. There was no time to celebrate the win. Her new position on "top" gave her a perfect view of the ground rushing to meet them.
In the scant second left, Kara did her best to brace.
The impact slammed her into the metal body of the robot and then the ground. Nothing broke; it couldn't. However, Kara couldn't breathe. The sound of metal and flesh hitting compacted earth reverberated in her head and buffeted her hearing with wave after wave of noise. She staggered to her feet, hands pressed uselessly over her ears.
Nothing helped. Voices, cars, the hum of telephone lines and electrical wires, planes, dogs…Kara couldn't control it, and she couldn't shut it out. She dropped to her hands and knees.
A booted foot lifted her from the ground. Kara flew, not under her own power, across the abandoned parking lot where they'd landed. She tumbled head over heels until she hit the ground, leaving a Supergirl-shaped divot in the uneven asphalt.
The few streetlights in the lot allowed Kara to watch as her red-clad enemy stalked toward her again. He or it wasn't human. She could see the metallic shine of its face. A red funnel cloud spun where its feet had been, propelling it across the intervening space before Kara could recover.
It hit her over and over. It picked her up and threw her into the ground.
Kara was alone and helpless.
"Everything will be alright, Kara." Alura touched Kara's cheek. "You need to get in the pod. Remember, your father and I love you. We know you'll care for Kal-El." Her eyes brightened with tears, and Kara threw herself into her mother's arms. "I love you, Kara. Now, you must go!"
Alura pried Kara's arms from around her neck and pulled her toward a pod with the House of El crest on the side. Up ahead, Kara glimpsed the bright burst of light indicating another pod (Kal-El's) had already blasted off.
With Alura's help, she climbed into the cushioned seat and strapped on the safety harness. Kara had completed all of the flight training classes. She knew what to do next and pressed the sequence of buttons that closed the pod's hatch and began the launch sequence.
The force of the launch shoved her back into the plush pilot's seat, and Kara listened to the thunderous crack as her shuttle pod sped away from Krypton. This was only her third solo launch. She turned her head to watch her home in the distance…
What was happening?
Darkness covered the continent where Argo City should have been. Red flares burst from where Kara thought Kandor might be. Geography was not her best subject. She kept watching, one hand pressed to the glass hatch.
Another flash of light. This one blue-white. A percussion wave. She recognized it from a science experiment she and Zor-El had done when she was five. Kara smiled, remembering her father's excitement as he'd shown her how to create the original explosion in the test chamber.
The wave grew. Kara screamed, the sound swallowed by the dampening panels in the shuttle. It hit the side of the pod, causing it to spin. Kara screamed again, grabbing for the safety harness as it tightened to the point of pain around her torso. The stars whirled as the pod tumbled through space, and then…
No! Kara climbed to her feet with a scream of defiance. She wasn't that little girl stuck in a shuttle pod while her planet exploded. "I don't know who you are, but this ends now." She squinted, triggering her heat vision.
The laser beams stopped the robot in its tracks for a few seconds, then it continued.
"Not. Happening." Kara squared her shoulders and leaned forward. Her hands clenched into fists. "This is my city!" It was almost on top of her. Kara hit it with her heat vision again. She poured everything she had into turning the metal monster into slag.
Her heat vision didn't work! Kara took a step forward and screamed. Her eyes and face burned as the heat rose. The red monster's chest began to glow. Dull red, bright red, orange. Kara's body was on the verge of melting. Sweat slicked her skin and dampened her hair. She just needed a little more power.
Muscles taut with effort, Kara held her heat vision steady. One second. Two. Until the metal man disappeared in an explosion of white-hot particles.
Kara stumbled and fell. Her vision returned to normal. Well, kind of normal. The parking lot was darker, and the cacophony of sounds was silent. She got to her feet, wavering.
"Supergirl!" People lined the once empty parking lot. A few had cameras. Most held up cell phones. They cheered and waved.
She managed to wave back and noticed her hand and arm trembling. Rao, she had to get away before her audience noticed – or Kara simply collapsed. Jumping into the air was more difficult than Kara expected. She gained altitude slowly, as if she once again carried a commercial plane balanced on her shoulder. No matter how hard Kara tried, she couldn't rise high enough to fly over the few skyscrapers between the parking lot and her apartment building. She glided sluggishly among the buildings, barely able to respond to the smiles and waves from those working late of the offices she passed.
Three blocks from home, Kara plummeted to the ground. She thankfully landed with more control than when the red monster had been shoving her out of the sky, but that didn't keep her from grunting when she dropped into an alley. She stumbled to her hands and knees.
"Ouch!" Kara winced as she used a rough brick wall to help her stand. She was filthy, but her uniform remained intact. Touching both ear studs, Kara hoped no one noticed that she wore a superhero's body suit with a pair of polished brogues. Maybe Bruce could design a way to keep her normal clothes stored somewhere on or under the suit.
For now, she'd have to walk home and pray to Rao that it was too late for most people to still be wandering the sidewalk.
Kara flung the alarm clock across the room. It couldn't be time to get up already. She'd just gotten home, right? She reached for her phone and cried out. Holy Rao! Everything hurt. Even her hair.
The clock hadn't lied. Kara needed to head to CatCo. Especially because Cat, Snapper, Diana, and Bruce had blown up her phone while she slept. Diana and Bruce, at least, inquired how she felt and wanted details of last night's fight.
Call me, Kara. I am worried. The news showed you falling from the sky and using your heat vision. Diana had firsthand knowledge of Kara's struggles to use that particular power.
Bruce's comments were more…oblique. The suit looks good on you. Lucius and I are working on some tools to help with staying in the air and cushioning a fall if all else fails. Rest, ice, compression, and elevation. It always gets me back in fighting form the morning after.
The messages from Cat and Snapper, though, were all urgent business. They were ready to run the first segment of the story Kara had given to Snapper. They needed her at the office hours ago to help with a photo spread of the fight and the black-clad commandos following Supergirl.
Showering and dressing took forever. Kara couldn't seem to move faster than a Yerratian feexacle coming out of hibernation. She even called for an Uber because the thought of her usual morning drive to work seemed like too much effort.
She even bypassed Noonan's. She'd eat after meeting with Cat and Snapper. Waving at Ken, the morning guard at the security desk, Kara badged through the turnstiles and did her best to run for an available elevator.
A weird smell tickled her nose as she lunged into an elevator car as the doors began to close. Barely getting a hand up, Kara sneezed. What in the name of Rao was that? She peered at the people in the car using the shining metal of the door. No one made eye contact or even spoke, but Kara's nose said it was more than likely the sweating, balding man to her left. The people around him kept edging away.
She sneezed again and glared at the numbers above the elevator door. Why, today of all days, were they stopping on every floor? By the time Kara stepped out onto the twenty-fifth floor, the tickle in her throat had become a burning ache and she'd added coughing to her list of problems.
Nearly stomping in frustration, Kara braved the gauntlet to Cat's office. She spotted Snapper (minus his cigar), Cat, and another woman huddled around Cat's desk. The scene screamed tension and breaking news.
Kara barely acknowledge Cat's assistant as she slipped into the office.
"Was there a line at Starbucks?" Cat snapped. "Or did that car of yours break down?"
Perfect. A Cat Grant Tantrum before coffee or breakfast. Kara opened her mouth to respond – and coughed instead. "Sorry," she mumbled through another round of hacking.
Cat's upper lip curled in disgust. "Don't you come a single step closer. If you're sick, you need to leave. I won't have you spewing your germs all over this office and infecting the rest of my staff."
"I'm not sick." Kara hadn't been ill since leaving Krypton, one of the best benefits of Earth's yellow sun. Then, as if to mock her boast, Kara coughed and then sneezed.
The unknown woman held out a tissue. "My sister's dating a reporter at the Planet in Metropolis. He doesn't get sick often, either, but even the strongest immune system breaks down under the right conditions." As Kara plucked the tissue from her hand, the woman continued, "I'm Lucy Lane, CatCo's new General Counsel."
