Chapter 11: First Flight
Disclaimer: All things Supergirl/Superman belong to DC. No infringement is intended.
The Present:
There was a tremendous boom as a small but very invulnerable object impacted on the rocky ground. As the dust cleared, a shallow crater became visible, the form of a barely adolescent boy slowly getting back to his feet within it. A moment later another shape came down from the sky, far more slowly, and gently set down beside him.
"You are doing it wrong," Kara said, shaking her head with a smile.
"Obviously," Clark replied, angrily brushing the dirt from his clothes. "Otherwise I would hardly have hit the ground face-first."
"You are still treating it like a jump," Kara told him fondly. "You can't just jump out of gravity's reach, Clark! Our enhanced musculature allows us amazing leaps, but it has nothing to do with our ability to fly."
"I heard this lecture before, mom," he replied testily.
"Then you obviously didn't listen," she fired back, though her heart still melted every single time he called her mom. Clark knew now, after all. He knew that she was actually his cousin by birth, that his true mother had died along with their home world. He knew it all now and yet he still called her mom. There was no better feeling in the universe.
"You have gained excellent control over your strength and speed, Clark," she told him, "but there are more aspects to our powers than just. Look at this!"
She walked over to where a particularly large rock rested and easily lifted it above her head. She then walked over to where the rocky ground slowly gave way to packed earth and grass, still with the rock over her head.
"Look at my feet," she told her son, "and tell me what you see!"
Clark did as he was told, but the puzzlement on his face was obvious. "I don't get it," he finally admitted.
"I am carrying a rock that weights at least three tons, Clark," she patiently explained, "and I am now standing on relatively soft ground."
She raised an eyebrow at him, waiting for him to understand.
"And yet you aren't sinking in," he replied suddenly. "With that kind of weight, your feet should sink in."
"Exactly," she told him. "So why am I not sinking in?"
Clark looked puzzled again, trying to wrap his mind around it. "Because... obviously it's something to do with our ability to fly, right? I mean, are you using your flight power to compensate for the weight somehow?"
"Close," she told him, carefully putting the rock down again. "Our physical strength comes partially from the enhancing effect of the sun, yes, but we still can't circumvent physics entirely. I am not lifting this rock purely through muscle power, Clark. If I did, I'd be far more likely to simply tear off a portion of it rather than lift the whole thing."
She walked over to him and with every step she slowly rose a bit above the ground, quickly floating half a meter above it.
"The yellow sunlight charges up our cells and allows our bodies to project an energy field that constantly surrounds us like a second skin. It's the source of our invulnerability and also what allows us to negate the pull of gravity, both on our ourselves and also – to a limited degree – on things we are in contact with."
"Is that how you managed to lift that ocean liner out of the sea a few years back?" Clark asked, excited. "Lana told me that it should have been impossible, that the ship should have broken in half where you were holding it."
"Exactly," she told him, smiling proudly. "We basically expand our own energy field to negate the pull of gravity around objects we carry, in essence making them lighter. And it's that energy field, too, which allows us to fly."
Clark squatted down on the ground, huffing in frustration. "You make it look so easy, mom!"
"Years of practice," she said, sitting down beside him. "You should have seen me when we first got here. A Kryptonian's ability to absorb and use solar energy develops when we begin puberty. Yours kicked in slowly over time, but I was already a teenager coming here. I got a full dose of energy and the powers that come with it practically the moment I stepped out of the ship."
"I wish I go the fast version, too," Clark pouted.
Kara laughed, ruffling his hair. "Believe me, you got the better deal!"
The Past:
Kara slowly got back to her feet, spitting out dirt. Her ears were still ringing from the boom caused by her collision with the mountainside. And wasn't this a ludicrous notion all by itself? She had crashed into the side of a mountain and the first thing she complained about was ringing ears.
"This planet is going to drive me crazy," she muttered, picking bits of rock out of her hair.
Slowly getting back to her feet, she looked at the huge impact crater she had made on the mountain. Well, it seemed that the invulnerability thing was working, more or less. She felt a bit sore, but certainly not as if she had impacted a mountain at high speed.
"Seems you were right about that one, dad," she mused.
Her dad and uncle Jor had uploaded their entire research into the computers of the escape ship. Everything they had known about Earth and all their theories about the effects of the yellow sunlight on Kryptonian physiology. That Kryptonians had the ability to metabolize sunlight through their cell structure was nothing new, everyone back home had known that. It was the reason the Kryptonians had still worshipped their sun, Rao, as a god despite having been a highly enlightened, advanced civilization. Rao had been a red sun, though, close to the end of its life cycle. Its light was nowhere near as potent as the one coming from Earth's sun, Sol. So back on Krypton this ability had made the average Kryptonian somewhat stronger, faster, and tougher than your average human, but not by much.
The El brothers had speculated that Sol's far more potent sunlight would enhance her strength and speed, as well as supercharge her senses. That was certainly true. She still had trouble controlling her senses unless she really focused, especially in direct sunlight. And she was definitely strong, very strong, which came with its own set of problems. She had broken at least a dozen doorknobs so far and was incapable of eating with utensils without destroying them. Getting the hang of that was proving to be very, very hard.
There were clearly some things, though, that the El brothers had not foreseen. Things that Kara had experienced several times now, though never on purpose. The foremost thing being that she had woken up several times to find herself floating near the ceiling of her room. Every single time she fell back down the moment she came fully awake, so for a while she had considered it a dream. Then Martha had seen it, too, though, which meant it was real. Somehow, some way, she was able to fly.
She squatted down to think. Clearly jumping was not the answer. She could jump extremely high by now (though her landings still had plenty of room for improvement), but no matter how hard she struggled, she didn't stay up there. Which was logical, of course. Cleary her ability to fly had nothing to do with muscle power. There had to be more to it.
She closed her eyes, trying to relax. There were some things she had noticed during the past few months as she tried to get a handle on her powers. She was easily lifting things that should tip her over, given that her weight was only marginally higher than the average human teenager's was. So clearly she was doing more than simply lifting with muscle power.
Did it have something to do with her invulnerability? That was clearly the result of her cells being supercharged with yellow sunlight, given that she had been perfectly capable of getting hurt back home. She tried to focus on the energy running underneath her skin, trying to picture it. Could this energy somehow lift her up? Somehow negate the pull of gravity?
She opened her eyes again, only to let out a yelp as she found herself floating half a meter off the ground. A moment later she tumbled back down. The impact didn't hurt, but it was still kind of embarrassing to end up on her ass again.
"Okay, so I'm on the right track, I think," she muttered to herself, getting up to try again. She was going to fly, damn it!
The Present:
"How long did it take you until you could fly?" Clark asked, having listened to her recounting. He had a hard time imagining his mom as a lanky teenager with barely any control over her powers. As far back as he could remember she had always been in full control of her abilities.
"The better part of a year," she confessed. "I had long since mastered all my other abilities, at least to the point where I wasn't breaking stuff or setting things on fire with my eyes, but flying eluded me for a long, long time. I did manage to float now and then, but never with any control and never more than a few seconds before I lost my focus. It was only once I began to really understand the process behind it that I finally managed to gain control."
"So you figured it out all on your own?" Clark asked. "The whole thing with the force field and that it negated gravity? I'm not sure I'd ever have thought of that."
"I had quite a bit of background to fall back on," she said. "Your dad and mine had studied the phenomenon as far as it was possible without actually being under a yellow sun themselves and it gave me a lot of pointers. The actual doing, though, well, that was all trial and error. I lost count of how many times I ate dirt and damaged mountainsides before I finally had it down."
Clark chuckled. "I'd really have liked to see that."
"Just remember I have plenty of baby photos of you, young man," she told him sternly. "Many of whom Lana hasn't seen yet, too."
Clark paled a bit, quickly changing the topic. "So... you basically meditated on the energy in your cells to get it down?"
"Basically, yes, though I'm not sure it qualifies as meditation. It was more about learning to focus on something that is part of your body. It took me a long time, as I said."
"Any pointers for a short cut?" he asked hopefully.
She opened her mouth as if to shoot him down, then stopped, frowning. "There might actually be a way. I'm not sure it will work, but we can give it a try. Give me your hands!"
Shifting so that he was sitting directly facing his mom, Clark reached out and the two clasped hands. She closed her eyes and he did likewise.
"Now, what I'm going to do is to use my powers to make us both float off the ground, Clark. And I want you to focus on what it feels like. Try to feel the energy as it envelops you and negates the pull of gravity around your body."
Clark nodded and tried to focus. There was a tingle running over his hands where his mom touched him, a tingle that went up his arms and seemed to slowly spread over his body. He started a bit when he felt himself lose contact with the ground.
"Focus, Clark," his mom reminded him. "Just focus on the feeling of the energy on your skin. Can you feel it?"
"Yes," he nodded. He did feel it. It was the slightest of sensations, so light he was sure he would have missed it had he not concentrated so hard. His mom had often taken him flying and he had never noticed that feeling before. Well, he had been too busy thinking how awesome it was to fly.
Focusing his thoughts once again, he tried to get a taste (it was the wrong sense, but he couldn't think of a better word for it) of the feeling. The energy tasted familiar, which was a given seeing how often he had flown with his mom before. But it wasn't just that.
Barely noticing that his mom let go of one of his hands, he focused inwards. There was energy inside him, too, he knew that. But he had never really focused on it before. It had been an academic knowledge. His cells stored energy, which gave him strength, speed, and toughness. Nothing more to it than that.
He imagined it like a nimbus of energy, a bright glow that spread outward from somewhere inside him to envelope his body. With his mom's energy already dancing across his skin, it felt natural to "answer" with his own energy, which flowed outward and embraced its kin.
"Open your eyes, Clark," he heard his mom say.
He did as he was told and gasped. They were soaring high above the ground, going at a speed hardly exceeding that of a bird. He gasped again when he saw that his mom was not carrying him as he had first thought, but was instead flying beside him, only the tips of her fingers touching his hand.
"You're doing great, Clark," she said, smiling. "Don't lose your focus now!"
He nodded, doing his best to keep his thoughts together. He was flying. He had flown before, but always with his mom's arms around him. This was so very different. He could feel the energy across his skin, could feel it shrug off the pull of gravity below him. It was glorious.
"Ready to try it without the training wheels?" his mom asked. "Just remember to keep your focus. Don't bother with any fancy flying or anything yet, just keep concentrating and try to stay aloft."
He nodded, swallowing heavily. He could do this. He could!
He let go of his mom's hand and immediately started plummeting towards the ground. He screamed, his focus shattering, and a moment later there were arms around him, taking him back upwards. He blushed in embarrassment. He had been so sure he could do this.
"Don't worry too much, Clark," his mom reminded him. "I needed a year, remember? You're going to have this down before long, I'm certain. Now let's try this again!"
The Past:
Kara shrugged off the pull of gravity and soared upwards at ever greater speed. She couldn't help but scream in delight at the feeling, knowing she was more powerful than the massive pull of the planet behind her. She had done it, she was finally flying!
Higher and higher she soared, she could feel the air getting thinner. Soon she would have to stop, she realized, but she couldn't bring herself to. She took a deep breath, figuring she would go as high as she could before her air ran out. The blue sky was darkening, giving way to the deep black of space, and Kara was amazed to find that she wasn't feeling any need for air.
This is so AWESOME! she screamed inside her head, lacking the air to do it externally. Her flight was taking her farther and farther upward and she could easily see the curve of the planet by now. And what a beautiful planet it was. She finally levelled out her flight path and turned, looking back at the world that was her new home now. Hers and Kals. This was their home, for better or worse. She no longer felt the pull of its gravity, but she was tied to it nonetheless.
Kara floated high above the world, gazing at her new home, and vowed that she would do whatever it took to make sure that this beautiful world would remain safe. Earth would not share the fate of Krypton, she promised, not if she had anything to say about it. Kal would live a good, long, and peaceful life here. She would make sure of it.
And one day she would take Kal up here with her and the last children of Krypton would watch the sun rise over the horizon of their new home world together.
End Chapter 11
Author's Note: Sorry for the relatively short chapter, but seeing as I completely skipped over Kara's development of super powers in chapter 1, I decided to incorporate some of her experiences in this and future chapters in the form of flashbacks. There might be further flashbacks in the future to show more of teenage Kara, as I'm not really following a strict timeline for this story.