The dust cleared when the two exited the Phantom Zone and it was one of those good news, bad news situations. The good news was that they were out of the Phantom Zone and by all indications no one appeared to follow them. That was always good news; in fact one could argue that might be the best news of them all. The young dark haired wizard stood beside the blonde Kryptonian and they got a good look around at their surroundings.
The bad news was that he honestly had no idea where he was but thankfully Kara did, judging by the smile and look of recognition that crossed her face. The beautiful blonde took a long and appraising look around the crystal towers, soaking in the structures with her eyes before she spun around on her heel. The smile on her face was dazzling as her eyes.
"Welcome to Krypton, Harry."
This was a bit of news that surprised Harry and his expression turned towards her a little bit, before he offered one single question and he hoped that Kara could allow him the answer that he needed for it. His face crossed into a frown when he crossed his arms and he decided to speak an obvious statement.
"No offense, but didn't Krypton die?"
Kara smiled, that was actually a wise statement and she wondered if they had been sent to some alternate dimension where Krypton did not blow up.
"It blew up, according to Kal-El," Kara responded, actually she was there when it was about ready to destroy, twice even and she was sent to the Phantom Zone by Brainiac the second time around. Then she met Harry but naturally that was nothing that she had to go around. "This is….it seems so peaceful now, I can't believe this."
Kara mulled over the situation in her mind and came to only one conclusion when she continued to walk around to get a full assessment of her surroundings. There was no telling where she was but it was the when she was that was the problem; that was the thought that passed through her mind when she grasped his hand and the two of them continued to walk past the crystal structures. There was no mistaking about it, they were in Kandor.
Kandor before it got blown up the first time and restored shortly before she was born, she mentally noted.
"This is Kandor, the capital city of Krypton, this is….was my home," Kara whispered when she looked at Harry before she turned towards him and they met their gaze. "I….I'm not sure if we are still in the present or not. The Phantom Zone people did say something about it still existing, but it's kind of restored. I wonder what happened to it, it doesn't seem like….well it's not like we'll know until we take a poke around."
Harry looked around, impressed by what was before him. This was far more impressive than any place that he had ever been on Earth and then there was a quality about it and that was it was home, home was where the heart was. He wondered if he actually finally found a place where he belonged.
"How did Krypton get destroyed anyway?" Harry asked her, he wanted to know this because let's face it, planets did not just blow up. At least they did not blow up without a good reason, and his eyes were firmly on Kara to wait for the answer.
"The core of this planet, well it saw better days but it would have held for maybe fifteen or twenty more years, unless….well my father decided to take it upon himself to escalate the planet's destruction. He wasn't one to wait around and be patient for anything. He thought that he would fulfill some prophecy, the Prophecy of Rao. It's a long story, it's about two Kryptonians who would repopulation a planet and make it a New Krypton."
Harry didn't say anything but after all that he went through; he really, really, hated prophecies. They never ended up well, mostly because of the idiots that took them as the gospel truth.
Kara and Harry stepped forward a little bit to make their way into the city of Kandor, both of them looking on with wide eyes, albeit both of them looked on with wide eyes for extremely different reasons. Kara missed her home in many ways, not that she said it out loud and Harry was impressed with everything around him. Call him crazy but this was quite frankly kind of amazing. The young green eyed hero thought about everything he saw and was a bit struck with the amazement.
He thought about the first time he walked around Diagon Alley and he thought that was amazing. In hindsight, it was kind of dull and lifeless, like most of everything else in that world, which was amazing when one thought about it. Given that they had magic to spice things up, one could think that they could make things that were far more spectacular than they ended up being. Then again there were people in that world that lacked the aspect of having an imagination.
Harry shook his head when he walked next to Kara, that much was proven when there were wooden sticks that they were needed to perform magic. The more Harry thought about it in the Phantom Zone, wands helped train the raw magic but were not needed past a certain point. They should have served as training wheels to allow people to use magic but for some reason, people decided to throw them away. He figured that was because of how the Ministry was, they wanted to control everything and any innovation or thinking outside the box was discouraged by Umbridge and her thought police.
Kara stopped and looked at a billboard, her eyes studying it intently.
Harry noticed this and saw the strange symbols on it, trying to make heads or tails out of everything that he read. The writing was something that he did not understand, although given time and motivation, he suspected that it would not be too hard to piece everything together. At least he hoped that it would not be too hard to piece everything together. He grabbed Kara's hand and turned towards her.
"So, that's your language, I take it?"
Kara nodded her head in response. "Well, I think we've found out where we are. We're in….well the Krypton calendar is kind of different but if we line it up with your Earth years; we should be in the year 1961 or 1962, somewhere around there. I wasn't even born yet and I'd imagine that you weren't either."
Harry shook his head, no he was not born yet, but he did smile a little bit when he thought about the situation at hand.
"And Krypton is over twenty years from being destroyed," Kara responded when she crossed her arms and walked forward on the ground. The blonde took a moment to read the billboard. "Not much has changed, well except for some of these buildings going down because of a civil war, of course this city gets destroyed about five years from now and they rebuilt it in less than a year. It's amazing, that tower was beautiful, and now they'll be turned into dust, a shame really."
Kara paused before she asked a question of Harry that had been going over in her mind.
"Harry, do you think….since we're here, we could save Krypton?"
That was a deep question that Harry did not know the answer to but he did understand that any meddling with time was risky business. One could argue that it was next to impossible to change the past, at least that's what he heard.
On the other hand, what they went through was unprecedented; they popped out of this Phantom Zone Dimension and into the past. Harry did wonder if Lois and Clark were sent back to the right time. His magic combined with the Kryptonian technology and a subliminal desire to be as far away from his world as possible led to them showing up on the planet Krypton in the past that much was for sure. Plus he figured that Kara's desire to return home also played into this, he could pick it up how her eyes lit up when she talked about her time on that planet, at least before it exploded.
"Kara….I don't know," Harry responded when he wrapped his arms around her and stared into her eyes. "I….we'd be kind of foolish not to try but at the same time, it's going to be hard because sometimes things are set in stone in the past. What I'm worried about is when you're born on this planet."
Kara did not think about that, would she disappear into nothingness? Yet, there had to be some reason why they were sent from the Phantom Zone to Krypton of the past but she was trying hard to figure out what that reason would be. The blonde cleared her mind of all thoughts, when she looked up at Harry, her eyes looking into his. She rested her head on his chest a little bit, when they stood on the streets of Kandor. The crystal structures flickered and there was a cool breeze going around them.
"So….now what?"
Harry shook his head, before he grabbed Kara's head and tilted it back, before he captured her lips into a kiss. Kara returned the kiss; it actually eased her nerves a little bit and made her think more clearly. Or at least make her focus more on the worry that despite being here, any attempt to save Krypton's destruction would be all for nothing because it was fate that Krypton would explode. The two continued their kiss but Harry offered a theory that he remembered reading about time travel.
"We could have ended up in an alternate time stream as well."
"Hmm."
Harry decided to explain this to Kara. "Time travel, technically speaking, you can't change anything about the timeline you are in, it has to already happen. It is some quirk in time-space that prevents temporal paradoxes. However, if someone goes back in time, it creates a branch on the time tree. We go down a different path and make different decisions, but it's not our native timeline. That might prevent two different versions of us from existing to be honest with you but again, it's uncharted waters. Tails of time travel have been around, many theories, but I don't know how much of it is true. Mostly, it's guesswork."
Kara nodded her head, she understood it perfectly, and it made sense. She branched off of her native timeline, never to return back to it again. She only had the solitude of knowing that Lois and Clark made it safely back home but now they were in uncharted waters. For all intents and purposes, Kara and Harry disappeared out of that timeline and went into this one off to the side. Exactly where they would go from here, she had no idea.
"C'mon, my family, they have an estate somewhere close to here."
Kara did not understand why, but she wanted to see a glimpse of it, she figured that around this time, her grandfather ran the estate. He died when she was very young of a disease that robbed him of his intelligence and made him unable to remember basic information like dates or even his own name. It was kind of frustrating to see such an intelligent man have his intelligence stripped away like that and be unable to take care of himself.
Sure enough, Kara and Harry peered in the window, with an indivisibility charm being used so no one could see them. Kara saw a glimpse of her father, he was in his late teenage years at this point and then she saw Jor-El. Her grandfather stood, tall and she could not believe how cold he was. Could he be the reason why the brothers had a fractured relationship in later years, or at least part of the reason?
Kara did not really have any time to think about it, although the glimpse into the past was something that she appreciated. Harry stood next to her, the two of them smiling when they stood next to each other.
"So now what?" Harry whispered to Kara.
"There's some kind of convention downtown, the Kandorian Academy is bringing out a new invention with their top student….no way!" Kara breathed when she read the statement on the newspaper she picked up, brimming with excitement when she did.
"What is it?" Harry asked, but Kara grabbed Harry by the hand and sped him off.
"I'll explain later, but…. I don't know, this is amazing."
Now Harry found himself curious about what was so amazing and hoped that Kara would tell him in due time. Now they made their way off to see this convention and what Kara had in mind. The blonde seemed rather excited and Harry could not spit out two words to ask her what was up. She dragged Harry halfway across the city with her super speed, before they reached the convention, getting in easily thanks to the fact that they were invisible and could sneak past the guards.
Magic could be useful sometimes, Harry reasoned.
A young cadet of the Kandorian army named Zod stood in the background, he had great expectations and one day he would not be the one kneeling before his commanding officer. Rather, he would make other men kneel before him but now he was off basic training and watching the press conference like the rest of the planet. Whether they were watching through the Kryptonian Broadcast System or in person, it did not matter. All Zod knew was he was here and he was interested at what this discovery was. The press conference would change the world and it would be changed for the better.
Zod wished to be in the center of that change.
Kara watched excitedly when Harry stood next to her. He had to admit, his girlfriend's excitement was contagious, even though he had not the slightest clue what she was excited about. He suspected that he would find out all too soon. The green eyes of Harry Potter shimmered with thoughts of what was on the line. The young man stood firmly on the ground beside Kara and turned his head towards her.
"One of the top students of her year at the Kandorian Academy, to discuss a revolutionary breakthrough of science and technology, that will revolutionize the Kryptonian race, please welcome, Alura In-Ze."
Harry watched the young woman walk on the stage and curiosity filled him. She looked like she could be the spitting image of Kara, she had the same blonde hair, the same beautiful blue eyes, and lovely figure, the only difference was that she had her hair tied back a little bit and she wore glasses. Other than that, she could be the spitting image of Kara, standing them side by side, they could be twin sisters.
"Kara is that…."
"Yeah, that's my mother," Kara whispered when she looked at Harry with a bright smile before turning back towards her mother. "She died….when I was young, I could barely remember her other than pictures."
"Mine too," Harry stated, when he locked arms with Kara and the couple smiled when they watched Alura make her way to the stage.
Alura bit her lip a bit nervously, she had to be honest with herself, she was worried about how this advance would be perceived. And worried about how people would interpret its aptitude. She only made this public because it would get her the credits she needed to graduate. It was completely by accident that she discovered this; an accident with a transporter device brought her to an alien planet underneath a yellow sun. Underneath the yellow sun, she received extraordinary powers, that caused her to run faster, jump higher, hear better, and shoot beams of heat out of her eyes.
The funny thing about it was that if she would have heard about it, she would have assumed that it was witchcraft. Which was funny given the other powers that she was hiding, because of how they were forbidden on Krypton, not she had much of a chance to practice them anyway. Magic was an interesting thing but she had to practice it in secret what little chance she had to do so, otherwise she would be locked up by those who did not understand her. Everyone did not understand everything. All of her children would receive the gifts likely, although she would have to take measures to protect them, only to make sure their powers only came out when they met someone who would understand them.
"How would you like it if you had powers beyond your wildest dreams?"
Alura said this statement and everyone looked interested but skeptical all of the while. She supposed that she could not blame them. Had she been on the other side of this situation, she would have been skeptical as well. Be that as it may, Alura pressed forward with her findings.
"A few momnths ago, I made my way to a planet with a yellow sun as opposed to the red sun on that of Krypton. I'll be honest with you, it was tricky to deal with everything and adapt, even if the natives were friendly. At least they didn't want to attack me for what I was, so I suppose they might be considered friends of the Kryptonian race. But despite that fact, I made it to that planet and allow me to demonstrate what I did."
Alura wore on her neck a necklace that could filter the red solar radiation into yellow. She closed her eyes and she zoomed from one end of the lab, to the other end of the lab.
"I'll also tell you that the Kandorian military representative in the front row is wearing underwear with little hearts on them," Alura stated when she focused her X-Ray vision on the man in question who shifted in an uncomfortable manner while they laughed. "And I can do…well I can do this, you see."
Alura lit the candles on the table with her heat vision and got applause when she did that.
Kara smiled; her mother was the one that stumbled on the theory that yellow solar radiation gave Kryptonian super powers. Of course, there seemed to be one power that she did not have or perhaps that she was not exhibiting and that was the power of flight.
"I also believe that the yellow sun will have healing abilities that will cure any disease or ailment for a Kryptonian," Alura responded when she looked at the crowd who applauded. "I believe that we can create a yellow solar generator and revolutionize Kryptonian medicine, stamping out disease in the next five years."
"And what of our enemies?"
Kara heard the voice well, that was the voice of her father, Zor-El, who popped up at this moment. Alura regarded Zor-El only with the barest amounts of interest. She politely nodded and made a motion for him to continue.
"We could use these powers to crush them and prove the superiority of the Kryptonian race over all others," Zor-El responded when he looked at the Kandorian Army Representatives who nodded. "We could be mighty beyond all, no one would oppose us."
Alura frowned, that was not how she intended her find to be used at all. She wanted to use these powers to help Krypton, not enable them to hurt their enemies. She turned around and consulted her notes; she understood that there were fail safes involved. Radioactive chunks of the Kryptonian core tinted green could bring super powered Kryptonians to their knees and radioactive chunks of the planets core turned blue could strip them of their powers temporarily. Red had the interesting effect of acting as a super powered drug that would drastically alter the brain chemistry of any super powered Kryptonian who came in contact with it.
"No, Zor-El, this technology should be used to benefit Krypton and bring us closer together."
Jor-El was the one that spoke up in turn and his younger brother turned towards him, eyes narrowed. It would be just like Jor-El to speak out in turn and add his own idealistic spin to the actions. Then again, he was always their father's favorite, while Zor-El was treated like the lesser of the two. It was always Jor-El and his scientific achievements and it was hard to throw away that level of that resentment.
The man himself, he knew of the effects of the yellow sun years ago but he did not make his findings public. He hoped that Alura did not open the door to something dangerous by doing so. She would forever be credited as the person making that discovery, for better or for worse.
Alura bit her lip a little bit, to be honest, she had her reservations for putting this technology out on the table in the first place. It was one of those times where she had some serious doubts about whether or not it could work. She shared it with her mentor at the academy who convinced her to share it and hinted that it could allow her the credit for an early graduation, not to mention opening doors that she might not have access to otherwise.
With opening those doors, she could very much open up a Pandora's Box and she understood that Kryptons, despite the fact they thought themselves to be stoic, could be very emotional and very irrational when they wanted to be. She could not lie to herself when she said that she would be like this as well. Her emotions got the better of her at times as well. The blonde blew her hair out from in front of her face and nervously chewed on her lip a little bit but her eyes blinked a little bit.
"The technology as it was, it's not fine-tuned yet and without more experimentation, we won't figure out what the consequences would be long term," Alura warned everyone when she decided to add on. "Both on a physical manner and an emotional manner as well, it hasn't been properly determined what the long term effects of yellow sunlight could do."
The brainy blonde hoped that would convey to them the dangers of what they were trying to do but her race could be a stubborn lot when they wanted to be. That reflected in the next few answers they were given. Alura rocked back slightly and heard these statements echo in her ears next, fearing that would happen.
"Nonsense, we could test it on the field, through training, there is no reason why Kryptonians shouldn't be their very best."
Alura decided to throw the ace up her sleeve she had.
"Any permission to use this technology will have to be done by me and I refuse to sign it over for military applications. I hold the patents after all. Especially when the intention is to lord over the people of other planets and the people of this planet, to satisfy some desire for Kryptonian superiority. You'll find that the pioneering technology for the yellow solar simulator is in my name and I'm the only one who has the ideas to make it work. So you're out of luck if you want to use this as a tool for war."
Kara smiled, she trained with her powers before coming to Earth under a yellow solar energy simulator but she assumed that her father was the one that invented that particular object. Or at least that was the assumption that her father allowed her to have. Now upon further review, that was her mother's little invention and Kara could see how resourceful her mother was. It made her death absolutely more tragic.
And half made Kara wonder if her mother's death had to do with people trying to get their hands on her inventions.
"Perhaps we should discuss this matter, over dinner," Zor-El responded, with a calculating smile on his face.
Alura smiled, she knew his game by now and refused to be drawn into it. "No, I'm afraid not Zor-El, while I find your attempts to continue to ask me out interesting and amusing at some cases, this is not the time nor the place for them. And my answer would still remain the same as it always had."
Zor-El grimaced.
Zod meanwhile looked intrigued and saw this brilliant young woman for what she was, an asset that could allow him to rise up the ranks of the Kandorian Army. He was barely fit for scrubbing the armor of his superior officers at this present moment but if he convinced her to allow him access to this yellow solar technology, he would be a pioneer and would rise up the ranks, with the people browbeating him answering to him. All shall kneel before Zod.
All he needed was to formulate a disaster where she would need saving and he would look the hero. Thankfully plans were already in motion in his mind, despite being a young Cadet wet around the ears, Zod had a strong mind. He promised to find a way to win the favor of this brilliant science prodigy and use her technology to make the army of Kandor invincible, crushing all of their enemies.
Jor-El meanwhile was intrigued by this technology; he felt that it could benefit people in the long run. Of course he feared that such a power could potentially go to the head of people without a strong moral grounding. He was not sure where he got this inspiration but he believed that with great power there needed to be a certain amount of responsibility yielded. And the greed exhibited by his brother, along with several members of the Kandorian army and a few of the other scientists alarmed Jor-El. Perhaps he could work with Alura to make sure the technology was safe guarded and did not fall into hands that would misuse it.
Kara smiled when she watched her mother field questions. By all indications, her mother was intelligent, but she had no idea that she was this bright. It was endearing to see her mother and Kara wished to speak to her, really for the first time.
"I can see where you get your brains and your beauty," Harry responded when he looked from Alura to Zor-El. "Because it's most certainly not from your father's side of the family."
"No, Jor-El is fine, a bit arrogant at times, but most geniuses are," Kara responded when she looked back at Harry. "Although he isn't too bad here, but I guess….I don't know."
Kara knew what her father was but this was the past. What happened yet did not happen and she saw the bright expression on her mother's face. She was so full of life and optimism; she died when Kara was three years old. Her father did not keep pictures of her around, and Kara figured that was because there were too many bad memories. However, she wondered in the back of her mind if there was a different reason.
Alura left the conference, frustration flickering through her eyes. She thought that things could have gone better but if she got through to one person with her words and changed the world, than it would be for the better. The blonde science prodigy understood that better than anyone else and she kept walking, picking up the pace and a more fluid tempo when her strides increased and she continued to walk.
A group approached her from behind, which allowed Alura to remain alert and focused.
"We wish to have a word with you."
Several muscled goons walked towards Alura and crowded in her personal space.
"Sorry, press conference is over," Alura responded when she stepped to the side, when one of them grabbed her by the arm. "Let go of me you…."
Alura decided that actions spoke louder than words and she kicked her would be captor in the shin. Unfortunately the necklace she wore only worked for a short time and her powers burned out a long time ago. So while she would have liked to super speed out of here it was not going to happen. The blonde found herself in the arms of several large men and she struggled to get free of them.
"We won't hurt you, just tell us where you're keeping the prototype for your little solar energy simulator," one of the goons stated when he twisted Alura's arm when she struggled out.
"Someone put you up to this," Alura responded when she looked at them before she added in a crisp voice. "And I'll spell this out for you simpletons in small words that you should hopefully be able to understand. No, let me go."
Alura knew that was not going to happen, she was still in the tight grip of her captors and they held her. She kicked her feet a little bit, her heart beat steadily against her chest but she refused to break out at any time. The blonde scientist thought that there could potentially be a more dangerous situation if she put her mind to it. Although to be fair she struggled to think of one as her heart beat against her rib cage faster and faster yet.
Kara and Harry exited the science exhibit, smiles on their faces but then they stopped. The young wizard turned his head towards Kara, who saw her mother struggle against the grip of her would be captors. The blonde stood for only a second and she was not going to let this one go.
Like a blur, Kara shot forward and with a crack, her fist knocked one of the captors in the face, causing him to fly backwards. He landed hard against a crystal tower with a crack, his blood spilling against the magnificent structure. One of the goons did not see her, as she sped around and they tried to attack her. The two goons knocked each other out, cracking their fists against their faces. They dropped down to the ground, completely out of it.
Alura watched with wide eyes, it seemed like she was not the only person on this planet to figure out how to harness the red sun and filter it into yellow rays. Although this girl, whoever, she was, she was amazing. The scientist could not get a clear shot on who was saving her but she was happy at the rescue never the less. The blonde zipped around when she tripped her enemies one at a time, knocking them down.
Harry offered his own contribution to the attack and sent them flying backwards, before he locked hands with Kara and they flew away. The charms worked as Alura did not seem to see her face but she looked up towards her saviors, a million questions going through her mind.
"Wait, don't leave yet!"
Alura walked up to the side of the building, wishing she could climb up. She had not harnessed the power of flight yet and was wondering how they pulled it off. The blonde scientist looked up at them with wide eyes.
"I want to thank you um….I don't even know who you are."
Kara wondered what to say.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
Alura smiled. "Trust me, with the imagination that I have, there's no limit to what I believe."
"How do we know you'll even believe us or we can even trust you?"
Harry decided to stand on the side of carefulness and Kara turned to him, before whispering in his ear. It was only if that Harry and Kara could hear it with their enhanced super hearing with the the blonde whispering in his ear.
"I believe we can trust my mother."
Harry hoped so, she did seem to be more trustworthy, while Zor-El looked a bit shifty. He was going to trust his gut and hoped that this time it would not steer his wrong. Nine times out of ten, his instincts did not steer him wrong.
"How about you meet me away from prying eyes?" Alura suggested to the pair of them, when she squinted to try and get a look at their faces. Yet it was easier said than done, there was some mysterious force that was blocking her sight from properly seeing her faces.
She wondered if it was some kind of magical spell.
"That would be great," Harry responded and Kara nodded in agreement.
"How about the In-Ze estate, do you know where that is?"
"Yeah, I know where it is," Kara answered, she never stepped one foot inside. The grandparents on her mother's side died a long time ago but she found out where it was to visit their graves, much to her father's disapproval as she remembered rightly.
"Great, you're amazing… like some kind of Supergirl or something."
Kara smiled, she had her first fan and it was her mother.
"And you're amazing too, I'm wondering….well we'll talk about it, the three of us."
"See you later," Harry responded with a smile that she caught.
"Yeah… stay save out there M…Alura," Kara answered when she looked at her with a bright smile, even though Alura could not quite see it.
"I will," Alura responded when she looked at them before she turned around. Her scientific curiosity was bubbling over, they figured out how to fly, that was the one power that she could not quite get right. Alura turned around to walk off, hoping that they would meet her later. She supposed that there was no reason why they would not but there was also no reason why they would even meet her.
She could only wait and see.