Chapter 93: Fever

Disclaimer: All things Supergirl/Superman, Wonder Woman, and New Gods belong to DC. No infringement is intended.

"Could she just be exhausted?" Diana asked, looking worriedly at the prone form of her best friend and sister. They had quickly taken her to the Fortress' medical bay and a Kryptonian scanner was currently going over her body, looking for any and all problems.

Kona shook her head in reply to Diana. "I don't think so. The Fortress' crystal construction allows the sunlight through in order to keep us charged up. Plus, she used her full super speed earlier and was strong enough to shatter a crystal wall with a single punch. If she were low on energy, all her abilities should decrease to the same degree."

The young girl's hand-wringing and distraught face belied the calm way she spoke those words. Diana quickly slung an arm around her shoulder, pulling her gently into her side. Kona gratefully accepted the contact. Ever since... that day, it seemed that Kara's daughter was being forced to grow up much, much faster than she should. If there was any way for Diana to take some of the load off her, she would.

The wound on Kara's hand had already closed, the bleeding had stopped. Exhaustion was clearly a factor, that was easily apparent for everyone, but there were too many things that did not add up, hence the anxious wait for the medical computer's diagnosis.

"Analysis concluded," the computer reported. "Kara-El displays extensive symptoms of exhaustion and lack of sleep. Blood analysis has also shown the presence of an infection in her blood stream."

"Computer, identify infection!" Kona ordered, gripping Diana's hand on her shoulder tightly enough that it almost hurt.

"Infection identified as Avarel Uthotis, common name: Bloodmorel."

"More information," Kona demanded.

"Avarel Uthotis is an infection native to the Scarlet Jungle on the continent Lurvan. It is a fungus that grows in the blood of animals. Microscopic spores permeate the skin and thrive within the bloodstream itself. The infection can lay dormant for years before becoming active. Common symptoms are high fever, bouts of incapacitation, vivid hallucinations, and chronic overexertion."

Kona paled. "How dangerous is this illness? Do we have a cure on file?"

"No known cure in database," the computer replied. "According to statistics, 92 percent of all known cases end in death."

Kona blanched, almost stumbling as all strength abandoned her. Only Diana's arm around her slim shoulders kept her upright.

"No," she muttered. "Please, no!"

"I'm here, Kona," Diana said, hugging her closer. "We'll get throught his! Computer, how did Kara contract this infection?"

"According to database, the fungus causing the infection is native solely to Krypton. Explanation with the highest probability is that Kara-El contracted this illness as a child on Krypton before the planet's destruction."

"It did say the illness can lie dormant for years," Kona muttered, clearly trying to focus on the information to keep her growing panic at bay. "Maybe... maybe her recent bouts of overexertion and the shock of... of losing Clark… maybe it caused the illness to finally become active."

Diana noticed Hippolyta stepping up at Kona's other side, also putting an arm around the girl.

"There is no cure to be found here?" the queen asked, directing the question at both her and the computer.

"Kryptonian medical science has never found a cure for the Avarel Uthotis," the computer repeated in an annoyingly calm voice.

Hippolyta looked at Diana. "Then we should take her to Themiscyra immediately."

"The Purple Ray?" Diana asked.

Hippolyta nodded. "It might be our only hope."

"What's the Purple Ray?" Kona asked, looking up at her, the barest shimmer of hope in her eyes.

"It's an Amazonian healing device," Diana explained to her. "It can heal most injuries and illnesses."

"Can it help mom?" Kona asked and Diana's heart almost broke at the look in her eyes.

"I hope so, Kona. I'm calling one of the Swan Planes here, so we can safely transport her to Themiscyra."

Diana had barely made the call, though, when the Fortress shook.

"What's going on?"

"Kona, Diana, we need you in the main lab," Adam's voice came over the com. "Kara's machine is acting up!"

Diana shared a look with her mother and Philippus. "We will take her to the island," Hippolyta assured her. "You take care of this and follow us when you can!"

"Okay," Diana said, then looked at Kona. "We're going to need you here, Kona," she told the girl. "I fear my knowledge of Kryptonian technology is somewhat limited."

Kona looked torn but finally swallowed and nodded. Diana was immensely proud of her.

Kona was doing her best to focus on the task at hand to the exclusion of everything else. No thinking about Clark, no thinking about mom, no thinking about anything but the machine in front of her. The machine was still humming along, energy crackling over parts of it, and the occasional tremor going through the floor it stood on.

"I am no slouch in the tech department," Adam said, "but I have to admit this thing is utterly beyond me. I can barely tell what most of it does apart from the main power source, but where the power is actually coming from? No clue!"

"Mom theorized that the Motherboxes of the New Gods are powered by zero-point energy," Kona explained, her eyes tracking what were clearly power lines through the machine's construction. Not for the first time she cursed the fact that she lacked the vision powers of full-blooded Kryptonians. X-Ray vision would make this a lot easier. "Even in Kryptonian science, though, it's purely a theoretical construct, they could never make it work."

"Looks like Kara did," Batman said, studying the readouts on the machine's control console. "The machine is not hooked up to any outside power source, nor can I make out any traces of radiation that would point to fissionable materials inside it. Whatever energy that thing is running on, it seems to literally come out of nowhere."

"Any idea how to turn it off?" Diana asked, the Amazon clearly out of her depth. She was proficient enough when it came to handling the advanced technology both the Amazons and the League had access to, but she was no scientist.

"Not really, no," Kona admitted. "We could try and remove the power source from inside it, but the entire construction is so jury-rigged, I am not sure how we could even reach it without disassembling half the machine."

"I could try and phase it out," J'Onn offered.

"Bad idea," Kona told him, studying the readouts of the Kryptonian scanner in her hand. "The energy is phase-shifting, somewhat like a hyper drive or the kind of force field that Brainiac used. If you try to phase through that, you'll get scorched, J'Onn."

The ground rumbled again. For the briefest of moments there was the barest shimmer of a circle made of energy hovering in mid-air in front of the machine, before it vanished again.

"The machine is trying to create a Boom Tube, I think," Kona said. "The tremors are probably caused by disturbances in the fabric of space."

"Will they get stronger?" Batman asked.

"Probably. I'm scanning a continuous energy build-up inside the machine. If we cannot get that energy discharged, either by actually opening a Boom Tube or some other way, we could be looking at a catastrophic overload."

Kona slumped, the firm grip she tried to maintain on her emotions slipping. "I'm not sure I can do this without mom," she admitted. "I have no idea how..."

A thought suddenly occurred to her.

"Kona?" Diana asked, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Have you thought of something?"

Kona looked up, meeting Diana's eyes. "We have two people here on Earth who know about Motherboxes and Boom Tubes! Barda and Scott Free!"

Batman came over to join them. "Are we sure it's wise to bring them here? Kara was always very restrictive in who she allowed in here."

"It's my Fortress as well," Kona said, trying to convince herself that she was doing the right thing. "And I don't want to see it blown up!"

The adult League members briefly looked at each other, then nodded.

"I'll get them here," Adam said, turning around and running toward the Fortress' hangar. "They're still staying at the Hall of Justice in Metropolis. I'll be back as quickly as I can."

Everything around was red, a deep, scarlet red. There were red trees in front of her and they looked diseased and dying. Everything around her looked dead. The grass was desiccated and dying. There was the barest hint of ruined buildings in the distance. When she looked up, she saw a red sky and the huge red disc of a sun above her.

"Rao?" she whispered. "Am I home?"

She tried to fly, but her feet refused to leave the ground. She felt heavy, as if chains were binding her to the earth below. She felt sweat run down her brow and her hands were shaking.

"Where am I?" she asked. "Kona? Diana? Where are you?"

"Finally stopped running, Kara-El?" someone asked her. She quickly twisted around, but there was no one there. Just the desolate landscape with the burning red sun above. No one was alive in this ruined world.

"You have been running for over seventeen years, Kara-El," a different voice said. "Running from the death of your world."

"Who is saying that?" Kara yelled, turning around, but finding no one.

"You should have died with the rest of us, Kara-El," the voices shouted. "It was your destiny! It was all our destiny!"

"Kryptonians are extinct! It is time for you to join your people!"

"No," Kara yelled. There was no one around her, but the voices were everywhere. The desolation seemed to grow worse as she watched, the sun growing ever brighter. Sweat was running into her eyes and she just started running, feeling heavier with every step.

"Leave me alone," she screamed. "You are all dead!"

Themiscyra, the home of the Amazons, was not just a single island. The main island, which housed the Amazon's capitol city and palace, was surrounded by half a dozen smaller ones. One of them was the Island of Healing. This was the place the Swan Plane carrying Hippolyta, Philippus, and Kara headed towards and landed on.

"She is burning up," Philippus said, carrying the woman she still called Goddess in her arms. "Help her, quickly!"

Paula, the head scientist of the Amazons, motioned to put Kara on a table. The moment Philippus was clear, Paula activated the Purple Ray. Kara's body was bathed in a purple glow, even as Paula walked over to the control console to study the readouts.

"Suffering Sappho," she muttered. "She is radiating heat like a furnace. Increasing the potency of the Purple Ray!"

The purple glow intensified to the point where Kara's body was hardly visible anymore.

"Can we help her?" Hippolyta asked, stepping up beside Paula.

"Too early to tell, your Majesty," Paula replied. "We shall do whatever we can, but physiologically Kara is not an Amazon, she is an alien. Normally the Purple Ray would have little trouble burning any kind of infection out of someone's blood stream, but we have no experience with the Kryptonian physique."

Hippolyta nodded. "Do whatever you can, Paula. We owe it to Kara. And to her daughter Kona as well."

She turned away and took the Justice League communicator out of a pocket of her dress. Diana had given it to her to keep them appraised of Kara's status. Activating it, it took but a second before the face of J'Onn J'Onnz appeared on the small screen.

"Your Majesty," he greeted her. "The others are busy at the moment. Any news?"

"Nothing yet," Hippolyta told him. "Our scientists are doing what we can. I just thought... someone should go and get Kara's parents. Bring them here. Just... just in case."

J'Onn studied her for a moment, then nodded. "I will take care of it myself. Can Jonathan Kent and myself visit your island without any problems?"

Hippolyta nodded. "Yes! Kara's family has the right to be here."

J'Onn nodded and signed off.

"This is amazing," Scott said, studying the giant machine in front of him.

"Yeah, we already went over that," Kona Kara-El said, impatient. "We need to turn it off! Can you help us with that?"

Scott looked at her, seeing that the young girl was clearly close to her breaking point. Small wonder, he mused. She had lost her brother to Darkseid and if what little the man called Strange had told them on the way here was true, her mother was currently in bad shape.

"I... I am not sure," he admitted, continuing to study the device. "The Motherbox we used to escape from Apokolips was a very old model that I stole. I fiddled with it to get it working properly again, but I am not a scientist. I just... well, have a talent for making things work somehow."

Princess Diana, apparently called Wonder Woman by the people of this world, looked over at Barda.

"What about you?"

Barda just shrugged. "We Furies were occasionally issued Motherboxes for missions, but we never got to wear them permanently. I know how to use them, but that's it."

Scott studied the cobbled-together mess in front of him, amazed that it was working at all. The same nearly instinctual insight that allowed him to disable just about any security system, move past any trap, and escape from every confinement enabled him to quickly spot the problem. Power was building up, more power than the rather shoddy construction would be able to contain before too long. It was trapped and needed to be released. The circuitry near the top of the machine bore a very, very faint resemblance to the part of the Motherbox that was used to create Boom Tubes, but Scott was far from certain that it would ever work. There was a hiss and a snap in the air as energy discharged and briefly formed a circular pattern in mid-air, only to vanish again.

"Can't we just destroy it?" Barda asked, patting the Mega Rod at her belt. "Easiest way in my experience."

The man called Adam Strange shook his head. "No, too dangerous. With the amount of energy already built up in there, it could take out half the polar ice cap. Would lead to worldwide devastation. And before you ask, it's too fragile to lift it out of here and throw it into space."

Scott blinked. "That... was not what I was going to ask next, actually. You guys throw things into space regularly?"

Strange shrugged. "Mostly Kara or Diana."

"This machine will stay here," Diana added. "We will need it eventually for when we go after Darkseid!"

Scott froze, staring at her.

"You are insane," he muttered. Barda could but nod, looking a bit pale.

Kona stalked towards him, her eyes shimmering with tears, but hard as ice. "What we do later on is none of your business, Scott Free," she growled, causing him to take a step back. "Right now, your job is to help us turn off his machine! You want to stay here on Earth? Well, then you better help us make sure that there is an Earth left to stay on!"

Scott swallowed, but finally nodded. "I... I will try. I just can't promise you..."

The girl who was two heads smaller than him grabbed him by the front of his clothes and lifted him up into the air with no effort. From the corner of his eye he saw Barda start to move, but Diana stepped into her path.

"I don't need promises, Scott Free," Kona growled, her voice shaking. "My brother is gone! My mom might be dying right now! This machine could blow any minute and cause world-wide carnage! So start working, Scott Free! Your people are supposed to be gods, right? Well, so be it! Be a god, Scott Free! For I really need a MIRACLE!"

"Where is my daughter?" a voice rang through the laboratory. Paula and Hippolyta both looked up to see two newcomers entering the room. Martha and Jonathan Kent stormed inside, paying little attention to the armed Amazons accompanying them, their eyes fixed on the center of the room. Another male human entered behind them and Hippolyta needed a second to realize that this was the Martian, J'Onn, wearing his usual human guise that made him look like an older, male version of Kara. Paula and the other Amazons present gave the men suspicious looks, but focused on their tasks.

"Welcome to Themiscyra, Martha and Jonathan, J'Onn," Hippolyta greeted them. "Kara is right here. We are doing what we can to help her."

Martha seemed to barely hear her words, just storming forward to kneel beside the prone form of her daughter, grasping one of her hands. Jonathan and J'Onn stopped a step behind her, looking at the Amazon queen.

"How is she?" Jonathan asked. His voice was deceptively calm, but Hippolyta could easily see the stress and worry in his eyes.

"The Purple Ray is killing the traces of the Kryptonian fungus in her bloodstream," Paula told him. "It is slow-going, unfortunately. Kara's near invulnerability makes it difficult, the force field around her body is blocking out some of the ray's wave lengths."

"Will she make it?" Jonathan asked.

"It could go either way at this point," Paula admitted.

"Oh, Karen," Martha said, clutching her daughter's hand. "We are here! Please, come back to us!"

Kara shifted on the bed, clearly agitated, and fresh drops of sweat were forming on her brow. Her lips moved.

"What is she saying?" Jonathan asked, leaning closer.

"I am not dead," Kara muttered. "You cannot keep me here! I am not dead!"

"Her thoughts are in turmoil," J'Onn said, extending his hand before him. "She is experiencing vivid hallucinations."

Martha brushed her hand across Kara's cheek. "Dearest God, she is burning!"

Kara flinched upon the contact and suddenly her eyes opened. She sat up, causing Martha to topple backwards to the floor.

"Get away from me!" Kara screamed. "I am not dead!"

"Karen," Jonathan carefully approached her. "Honey..."

Kara's eyes began to glow red.

"Supergirl?"

Kona almost jumped right to the ceiling when the voice suddenly sounded behind her. Turning around, she saw the shadowy form of Batman standing behind her. His face was as stoic as ever, though there seemed to be the tiniest bit of a smirk there.

"How did you sneak up on me?" she asked, exasperated.

"Trade secret," he simply said, sitting down beside her. "I need your help with something, Supergirl."

She cocked her head. Her mother was possibly dying, an alien calling himself a god was trying to turn off a potentially world-breaking machine, and she was so strung out she could barely think straight and the only reason she wasn't speeding off to fly to Themiscyra was that she was needed here. Of course Batman knew all this, so whatever he wanted had to be important.

"With what?"

He paused for a moment, almost as if he was uncertain what to say. Finally, he drew back his mask, revealing his full face. Kona was shocked for a moment. She knew, of course, that Batman was Bruce Wayne, her mom had told her about that. This was the first time, though, that Batman had actually taken off his mask in front of her. There were dark bags under his eyes, he was unshaven, and looked like he hadn't slept in days.

"Ever since that day," he began, seeing no need to specify which day he meant. There really was just one 'that day' for all of them. "I have been trying to figure something out. You know what happened when we visited the city of Kandor, right?"

She nodded. "Mom said you all experienced brief flashes of the future."

"Exactly. I never told anyone what I saw. I was in the Batcave, roughly ten years or so in the future, judging by the age of my friend Alfred. And he told me something. Something that, apparently, my own older self had instructed him to tell me when I appeared from the past. He said 'Don't let them take Clark! Whatever happens, don't let them take Clark!'"

Kona's eyes widened, trying to wrap her mind around the implications of Batman sending himself a message through time.

"After Clark...," he continued, "well, after that day, I started thinking. Why would I send myself such a message? Such an unclear warning? Why wouldn't I say something like 'don't let Clark fight Steppenwolf' or 'keep Clark from jumping in front of Kara'. Why wouldn't I say anything to keep Clark from being killed?"

He stared intently at Kona. "I think the answer is in the wording. I said, 'don't let them TAKE Clark'! I used the word 'take', not kill, not murder."

Kona's mind ran a mile a minute and she needed but a moment to realize what he was getting at. "You think that Clark wasn't killed," she said, paling. "You think he was taken."

He nodded. "If we assume that this warning actually comes from this timeline and not some kind of alternate future, then it's the only explanation that makes sense to me. I couldn't prevent the event, otherwise I wouldn't know of it to warn myself, but I could provide the necessary clue for us to figure out what's going on."

Kona nodded, even though the circular logic made her head hurt.

"What do you need from me?" she finally asked. If there was even the slightest chance that her brother was alive...

"I have been trying to find proof. Any kind of clue toward this being more than wishful thinking on my part. I analyzed the ashes that remained at the scene, but the results were inconclusive. I looked at the footage of every traffic camera, recording, news report, everything, but there was nothing new to be seen. I was ready to give up, but today I realized there was one more thing we can try."

Kona looked at him, puzzled, so he continued. "When we came here earlier, Kara said that her bracelet computer had recorded the energy signature of those Boom Tubes. I am hoping that, maybe, it recorded even more than that. Maybe those recordings will help us figure out whether Clark's supposed death was actually just some elaborate hoax to make us believe he died."

Kona's gaze wandered over the console, where her mom had left her Super Wristwatch. Could it be true? Could there possibly be something on there that would tell her that her brother was not dead? She barely dared to hope.

"I... I am not sure I can do this, Batman," she stammered.

He put a big hand on her slim shoulder.

"I know you can, Kona. You are Kara's daughter; she has been tutoring you in Kryptonian technology since you came into her life. You have her scientific mind. And you are also the daughter of one of the smartest human beings alive. We need those smarts now, Kona."

Taking a deep breath and trying to get her hammering heart back under control, Kona nodded and walked towards the console.

"Get down," J'Onn yelled, tackling Jonathan Kent to the ground. The Amazons, trained warriors all, reflexively did the same, and with Martha already on the ground the only thing harmed by Kara's sudden eruption of heat vision was the wall behind them. Within heartbeats the solid stone wall shifted from grey to red to white and finally blew apart.

Kara jumped off the bed and floated in mid-air. Her skin glistened, slick with feverish perspiration, and there was no recognition of her surroundings in her eyes. Instead she ranted at empty air.

"I won't die," she screamed. "Not yet! Not until he pays!"

"Karen, please," Martha yelled, but her voice was barely heard over the screaming of her daughter. Kara moved, floating forward and out of the building. J'Onn scrambled off the ground, shifting back into his default appearance, and quickly followed her.

"We need to calm her down somehow," Paula yelled after them. "Or the overexertion will kill her!"

Outside Kara moved her head from side to side and trees all along the shoreline burst into flames. She howled and a hurricane slipped from her lips, uprooting bushes and trees, causing a sandstorm along the nearby beach.

J'Onn stared at her as she hung in the air above him, burning like a supernova approaching its crescendo. Sweat ran down her face, immediately vaporizing in the heat from her eyes.

"That's how the illness kills," J'Onn muttered to himself. "The fever, the hallucinations, it drives the host to burn itself out until it dies from sheer exhaustion."

"We need to calm her down," a voice beside him agreed. He looked and saw that Jonathan Kent was at his side. "Can't your telepathy do something? Kara told me you always manage to calm her down when she has one of her panic attacks."

J'Onn shook his head. "The fever and hallucinations have clouded her mind; I can see her thoughts, but I cannot reach her. She does not hear me." He frowned, his gaze meeting that of Jonathan. "But maybe she will hear someone else."

Jonathan quickly understood what he was planning and nodded. "Whatever you think can save her, J'Onn! Let's do it!"

J'Onn clasped Jonathan's hand and concentrated. Above them in the air, Kara screamed even as she burned.

"I think I've found the problem," Scott Free announced, tearing Kona from her thoughts. Unable to do anything about the machine right now, she had spent the last half hour studying the readouts from her mom's Super Wristwatch, going through everything the Kryptonian scanner had recorded during that day. So far the only thing she had achieved was to revisit the trauma of that horrible, horrible day.

"We can turn it off?"

Free was currently floating in the air, thanks to two small flying discs he was standing on, looking at the top portion of the still-humming machine. Kona quickly joined him, shortly followed by Diana. He pointed at something inside the half-finished casing.

"That circuit over there is causing the feedback loop," he explained. "It should feed energy into the coils creating the Boom Tube warping effect, but it somehow got bent out of shape, possibly during the rushed construction. So instead it is now sending all the energy back into the main capacitors. We need to reconnect it to the coils." He sighed. "The only problem is the amount of energy currently running through it will fry anyone who comes into contact with it."

"Good thing I'm invulnerable then," Kona muttered, moving forward.

"Wait a second, Kona," Diana stopped her. "This might not kill you, but it will certainly hurt. There is an easier way."

Kona didn't understand what she meant until the Amazon princess took the golden lasso from her hip. Kona's eyes immediately brightened.

"Cool! Let's try it!"

Diana quickly threw her lasso, the golden rope moving towards its target as if guided by her will, and quickly wrapped around the circuit Free had indicated. She then handed the other end over to Kona, who narrowed her eyes in concentration.

Kona had vigorously trained her tactile telekinetic power and now managed to use it regularly without blowing up the things she wanted to move. Her power flowed along the indestructible (and thankfully non-conducting) rope and reached the circuit. With but a thought, Kona began to bend it toward the coils Free had indicated.

"Just a little more," Free said. "Connect the end to the very bottom of the coils!"

"Will it actually create a Boom Tube then?" Diana asked.

"Huh? No, certainly not! It will just make sure all the energy it has built up is safely discharged."

"Discharged where?" Diana asked, more insistently this time.

"Uh…," Free looked around. "Um, good question. Uh, upward, I think?"

Diana quickly darted down to the ground and touched one of the crystal controls that could be found in every room. Thankfully whatever Kara had done to lock them all out of the Fortress did not seem to extend to the inside. The Fortress still recognized Diana as an authorized user. A moment later the ceiling of the laboratory began to reconfigure, the crystals moving apart and opening up towards the outside.

Not a second too soon, too. The circuit connected to the coils and a moment later a bright flash of energy discharged from the top of the machine, a huge bolt of power travelling straight up. The spectacle lasted no more than two seconds, though, before the energy faded, and the machine finally stopped humming.

"Is it safe now?" Kona asked, looking a bit winded. Bending the circuit had taken a lot of strength and focus and she was quickly running short on both.

"We still need to shut down the power source," Free told her. "But at least we won't get another power buildup like that. At worst it will keep firing energy bolts up into the air."

"Regular energy bolts into the sky," Kona muttered. "From a Fortress that's supposed to be hidden and secret. Great!"

The giant red sun colored everything a bright, scarlet red. The grass shriveled, dead birds shrieked with dead voices. The shades of dead people cried and raged, and Kara was running, screaming, even as every muscle in her body cried out for rest.

Suddenly two shapes appeared directly in her path.

"More phantoms?" she screamed, skidding to a stop. "I am not like you! I am not dead!"

"Karen, it's us!" a voice said. Some distant part of her mind found it familiar, but she ignored the feeling.

"No, get out of my way!"

The shapes became more distinct, one of them developing a green hue. A green hand reached towards her, gently touching her shoulder.

"Karen, you know us! Please, you must stop!"

"You are dying," the other voice said. Some part of her wanted to trust that voice.

She shook her head, hair and droplets of sweat flying every which way. "No, you want to trick me! You want me to give up! I will not give up! I will find Darkseid. I will fight to the end!"

She tried to shove past the two figures, but they were no more real than shades and she stumbled, falling right through them. One of the figures was beside her, trying to hug her, now miraculously solid.

"Karen, please," the voice told her. "You are burning up from the inside. The fever pushes you on, taking your body to the limits. Beyond its limits. You keep fighting, it will kill you!"

"He is right, Karen," the green shade said. "If you want to survive, you must stop and rest!"

She shook her head, tried to push the hands away, but did not have the strength for it. "No! No! I cannot... the fever… everything is so hot..."

"Ignore the heat, Karen," the voice told her, arms now around her, familiar arms. Arms that had held her through panic attacks, sadness, and fear. Arms that promised safety.

"Just be still," the green voice agreed, a soothing voice that rang through her head like a cool breeze, calming her overheated mind. This, too, felt familiar. "We are here! Everything will be all right! Just sleep!"

"So much to do...," she muttered, even as her eyes started to close. "I need to... I have to..."

"You need to sleep, kid," her father's voice told her, rocking her in his arms. "We'll take care of everything else tomorrow. Just sleep. I'll be here the whole time."

"Okay, dad," she muttered, her eyes closing.

When the Amazons and Martha, who had sprained her ankle in the fall, made it down to the beach a minute later, they found Jonathan sitting in the sand. Kara was curled up against his chest and deeply asleep, J'Onn watching over them.

Scott Free sat back on the ground, sighing deeply.

"I think we're in the clear," he said, wiping his brow. "No more highly visible energy bolts from the secret fortress!"

Diana patted him on the shoulder. "Thank you for your help, Scott Free."

He shrugged. "Like the kid said, we want to live on this planet, so keeping it in one piece is really in our best interest."

Diana walked over to where Kona was slumped over the control console, the girl having fallen asleep a few minutes ago. She gently shook her awake.

"Kona? Kona, wake up!"

"Wha…?" the girl started, looking up at her with bleary eyes.

"The machine is powered down," Diana told her, smiling. "And we got word from Themiscyra. Your mother is resting now and it looks like she will be just fine."

"Really?" the girl said, a smile on her face. "Oh thank Rao… God… whatever, just… thanks!"

"We can go there right now if you want," Diana told her. "The Fortress is safe, everything else can wait until later."

Kona nodded, struggling to get up. "Yeah, okay. I was looking through these recordings, but I haven't really found anything new. Only the specific frequencies of those Boom Tubes and mom had already programmed that one into the machine, so..."

Her voice trailed off, her eyes glued to the screen in front of her.

"Kona?" Diana asked, worried. "What is it?"

"The frequencies," Kona muttered. "She recorded the specific frequencies each time a Boom Tube was opened. Each time!"

"What are you talking about?"

Kona's eyes rapidly moved across the readout in front of her before she suddenly sat back, a look of wonder on her face.

When Kara woke up on the next day, free of the fever, the first thing she saw was the face of her daughter smiling down at her.

"You feeling better, mom?" she asked.

Kara slowly raised her hand, putting her palm against her daughter's cheek. "Somewhat, baby girl."

"That's good," Kona said, leaning her head against Kara's hand. "And I think I have something that will make you feel even better."

Kara looked at her, confused.

"What do you mean?"

Kona beamed down at her. "He's alive, mom! Clark is alive!"

End Chapter 93

Author's Note: A surprising number of reviewers apparently believed that I had actually killed Clark. Good to know I could make you believe that. Just remember, death is hardly ever permanent in comics. At this point I think Uncle Ben is the only named character in comics to actually stay dead.

The Blood Morel is a canon illness from Krypton, introduced by Alan More in DC Comics Presents #85 from 1985. In that story Superman fell victim to the illness and was cured by the Swamp Thing. The Amazons' Purple Ray has been a staple in Wonder Woman stories from the very beginning, namely Wonder Woman #1 from 1942. Its exact capabilities have varied wildly over the years, though.

Up next: Brainiac, Luthors, Boom Tubes, and New Gods, oh my!