Chapter 2
If there was one thing Kara loved more than anything, it was the ability to freely use her powers out in the open. After years of hiding who she was it felt like she had finally taken an enormously strenuous weight off her chest and could for the first time in decades breathe normally. Even manipulating her own gravity field to fly at speeds reaching over 1,000 mph couldn't restrict her breathing as fiercely as those mental shackles.
"Are these tests really necessary? You do know that I'm practically-"
"The DEO requires all of its operatives to go through rigorous testing of both mentally and physically demanding exercises to test the limits of what our agents are capable of. It's not just because you are a woman, Ms. Starr," Director Henshaw explained calmly.
"Invulnerable," Kara emphasized. "Can you please not use my name when I'm in uniform. It kinda defeats the whole purpose of having a- you know- secret identity."
"I am not calling you that," Hank refuted.
"Why not? You call Kal Superman?"
"He's earned it," he said shortly, cutting Kara off harder than Vartox's ax. "I need to know you have full control of your powers. Stamina, speed, strength, everything that can push you to the limit. How can you be expected to improve if we don't know where you stand? Fire another salvo."
Power Girl cursed seeing another four missiles headed her way. She flew faster and caught one before pushing it to meet the missile about to hit her head on. Kara used the backlash of the explosion to help redirect her flight and dropped like a stone. The last two followed her and Kara swerved to reverse her flight and applied a quick burst of heat-vision to missile heads to explode prematurely. Her cape flapped dramatically in front of the explosion and she was happy to note that other than some soot, there were no imperfections.
This was not the first test she'd been through over the week. Starting on Sunday, Hank had her race around the entire California state border to compare the predicted speed Superman had displayed (where she was deemed slower by an astronomical amount).
Monday followed with an endurance test where she held her maximum weight of 225,000 tonnes (for the moment) for over an hour. Kal had once again beaten her record. Her arms felt like limp noodles for the rest of the day and it took Kara every ounce of self-control to not accept Alex's offer of a ride home to her apartment.
On Tuesday, she held her breath for 11 hours while sitting at the bottom of the ocean, a surprisingly relaxing test in all honesty once she got over the exciting fact that she was at the bottom of the ocean, and why hadn't she ever done something so amazing before? (Kal had not been at the bottom of the ocean for so long, but annoyingly he had been in Space fighting for four days once).
Wednesday was an agility test where she spent over an hour dodging several squads firing rifle rounds soaked in red paint, and what a smashing waste of government tax dollars that was.
Thursday had been a spar against Alex and a few other agents under 20% intensity of Kryptonite to get her used to fighting against multiple foes with equal strength. Her loss was hilariously one-sided, but the few shiners the other agents sported around the eyes and more than a few cracked ribs did earn her their grudging respect.
Friday was a reflex and memory test. Thousands of images went across the main monitor in the DEO and Kara was responsible for identifying faces, household objects, weapons, or anything else they could think of to trip her up. This was actually the easiest test of all since it mirrored some tests she'd taken back on Krypton as a child.
On Alex's insistence for her having a day off, Saturday and Sunday were "free" where she had hurried to work on all of her day job's backfill that had accumulated over the week. Alex was (un)surprisingly cross for how she had spent her days off, not heeding her words to "relax" and "have fun." If that wasn't the kettle calling the pot black, Kara didn't know a more apt metaphor.
"So," Kara asked her sister once she stood on solid ground again. "Did you have to dodge missiles for your tests?"
"I was given a randomized obstacle course in the dark while the evaluators had night vision goggles and rubber bullets. Believe me, they did not hold back. I had bruises on my back and legs for weeks."
"So you didn't fall down the stairs four years ago?" Kara asked rhetorically, smirking just enough to irritate her in the way only siblings could.
"No. No I did not. But the course changed after every time I failed and it increased in intensity every time. I beat the record by thirteen seconds."
Kara made a tone of acknowledgement, but it was kind of hard to compare that to missiles. Alex's glare had her shrinking back and raised her hands in surrender.
"You're lucky you're cute or you would be in a world of hurt," Alex growled. Kara decided to do the smart thing for once.
"Yes, ma'am," she agreed before a beeping caught their attention.
"Did you need something, Winn?" Kara asked.
"There's a fire down at the port."
"Call the fire department?" Kara said.
"It's really, really bad. I hacked into the manifest. They're delivering thousands of pounds of crude oil. If it goes off…" Winn didn't need to finish. It would be a disaster.
"I'll be there in a moment," Kara said, blasting off with a sonic boom.
She arrived at several tankers on fire, constantly spreading more and more flames across the docks as the propane spewed from a massive rupture. Strangely enough the fire department was spraying water instead of foam to try to put it out, making the situation worse. The oil just stayed on top and continued burning.
Kara managed to freeze one of the smaller tankers with her breath, but the larger proved more resilient.
"You're just making it worse!" one shouted, as her breath gave the fire more oxygen. 'And what are you doing?' she wanted to shout, but withheld it in favor of looking for another alternative. The fire was getting closer to the ship and it might catch at any moment.
Kara burned the cables to the ship and tried to pull the ship away from the port, grabbing the bow and tugging with all her might. The good news, she was succeeding. The bad news, it was cracking the hull. Kara panicked, sending a blast of freezing cold at the sides to try and shore up the hull, but it was a temporary solution at best. She couldn't press the sides together like a wound and weld it shut with her heat vision because it would just ignite the freighter and she couldn't just tug the metal without causing a rupture somewhere else. What did she do? What would her cousin do?
The question left a bitter taste in her mouth, but it did stall the panic. She needed to seal it. Kara looked around with her x-ray vision and found an empty shipping container. A strange idea took hold that would hopefully work. She flew to the container and ripped it apart until she had the four full sheets of metal, leaving the doors on the ground before pressing the metal to the sides of the ship around the breach. Another application of her breath froze the metal and she was pleased to see it held. One down and three more to go. She worked quickly to seal the rest of the bow before finally floating back to see the rough patch job. She smiled as cheers rang out behind her. It was going to work!
Of course, that was when the bottom of the ship gave out. Her brutish manipulation of the metal having furthered the cracks and ruptured the hull which allowed a thousand gallons of oil to rush out. Kara swore as black started spreading through the port bay. Kara tried lifting the ship to see if she couldn't halt the spread, but the ship just cratered around her body and continued spewing oil. She just needlessly took an oil bath for no reason.
"Great. You know this is really great. I am pretty sure burnt oil is the new Chanel," she groused.
Karen decided to work from home that day, refusing to be the laughing stock in the office, but what she couldn't help was Power Girl being called the laughing stock of the city.
'Superhero or Eco-terrorist?' That was the news station's tagline. That really helped give a boost to her confidence and ego… not! It seemed Maxwell Lord was just as happy to state his belief on live television of how much of a failure she is as well as bashing her cousin in the process.
He was such a dick. She wondered if it was natural or if he trained at 'How Can I be a Raging Arsehole Academy?'
To make the week that much worse, her project to get clean water was failing to take off. There were very few companies who believed it would work and even fewer who believed they would make a significant enough profit to risk the investment of helping sponsor her idea.
Sometimes it felt like the world was collectively against her, Kara thought. But… she wasn't going to let that stop her. Kara stuck with what she knew. Technology. Computers. If she could build a functioning computer with the leftover scraps of a middle school science fair projects, she could certainly design a computer that outperforms everything on the current market with access to the best materials money could buy… if she went without electricity in her apartment for the next two months and canceled her vacation plans for the next five years because her rent wasn't cheap.
While her job pays well, it does not mean she was rolling in cash to experiment as much as she was going to have to. Kara sighed lamenting her loss of proper amenities for the next few months. "The sacrifices we make to achieve progress."
—O—
Karen Starr's contribution towards advancing the processing power of computers was a much larger hit than the clean water project (name still under review) that actually meant something to her, but in the end Karen was the reluctantly proud founder of StarrWare, a company devoted to exploring the limits of computer engineering. Or at least that was what she placed as her company profile and message online.
She could not have predicted that the demand would far outweigh her initial supply. Overnight her prepaid orders went into quadruple digits as several small tech companies ordered a complete overhaul of their standard computers. Kara was at her wits end as she hurriedly built over two hundred a day using her superspeed, but it wouldn't- couldn't- last.
As a one woman show, Kara was doing everything in her power to ensure the customers received their purchases, but knew that it wasn't sustainable. She needed help. She alone couldn't save the world and she knew that it equally applied to running a company as well.
She called past interns she had hired to her IT job who were surprisingly more than willing to jump ship when she called for help and before her eyes Kara watched as her simple little work table from her apartment room evolved into a storefront downtown as it expanded. But while watching her company grow was an exciting venture, life brutally reminded her that not everything was perfect.
—O—
Kara knelt down to inspect the corpse stabbed with a discolored blade-needle-thing inside Plastino Chemicals. It was a stinger, Kara realized after a more thorough reevaluation.
"What is she doing here?" Kara caught at the edge of her superhuman ears, as she inspected the stinger, or rather as the forensics team ripped it out of the corpse and she was forced to give them a look that demanded she get an up close inspection of said stinger before they reluctantly held it out towards her. She missed Alex's reply because the niggling sensation in the back of her head was telling her she'd seen this before. Although not in person, she corrected herself.
"This whole factory specializes in chemical manufacturing. Sodium hypochlorite, ammonium nitrate," Hank said quietly, but to Kara it may as well have been shouted in her ear.
"They can be used to create a bomb," Alex concluded.
"A chemical bomb that will spread further than the initial blast. Hundreds of thousands of people will die if he gets his hands on any more of it. We need to find this alien before it's too late," Henshaw growled.
Kara frowned. Why did those chemicals sound so familiar? She eyed the stinger again and her eyes dilated in triumph. Combined with the stingers impaled in the bodies there was only one alien species she could think of that did this. A hellgrammite.
Back at the DEO, Kara was explaining her findings. "They're capable of camouflaging themselves into any shape they want, including humanoids. They are ambush predators and can see near perfectly in the dark."
"So we are dealing with an almost undetectable insect with a penchant for chemical warfare," Hank said, before muttering. "The president said this job would be boring when I signed up."
"If we want to take him down, we need to figure out where he might be headed next," Power Girl spoke up, looking at the mugshot of the hellgrammite on the main monitor in the operations room.
"We are not a 'we', Ms. Starr," Hank said. "You were allowed to investigate the crime scene because Agent Danvers said you were a potential resource that could aid us in tracking this alien murderer down. You are not an agent. But more importantly, you don't have the training to hunt down these criminals. You are more likely to cause further harm than you are to aid us in capturing them. A recent oil spill ring any bells?"
"I took down Vartox."
"Indeed, and you both destroyed the structural integrity of the power plant you fought in while doing so. They were forced to demolish the surface levels and are completely rebuilding. Congratulations, everyone's electrical bills will rise almost 150% in the next few years," he said sarcastically.
"What I think the director is trying to say is that he wants to know you can handle yourself in the field," Alex interjected. "Which means you and I are going to be spending a lot of quality time together."
"Huh… I don't think that's what he was saying at all," Kara said softly as she followed behind Alex to a separated, specialized training room. The emitters on the walls activated the moment she closed the door and Kara felt herself growing weak.
"This room again?"
"18% intensity today. It will weaken you to the same levels as that of a human without being permanently harmful. As long as you are in this room we will be equals. You may be faster than the speed of sound, Kara, but if you don't know how to act then you can have all the time in the world and it still won't change anything.
"For the next few weeks, instead of putting out fires or saving cats from trees you will be coming straight here after work and we are going to be sparring here," Alex said.
"I did that one- okay, eight times," Kara defended. What? She liked cats. Don't judge. Cats are cute.
Kara looked around the room at the emitters and pondered, "You said this will make me equal in strength to you?"
"Yes? Why, scared you can't fight someone on equal ground without your powers?"
"Quite the opposite, actually," Kara said. "It means I don't have to worry about going all out. For the first time in a while I don't have to fear a handshake might break someone's bones, a sneeze won't send someone flying out a fifty story window, and the less said about gym showers with all the different types of visions I have the better."
"You know, sometimes I forget just how much you have to think about in your daily life," Alex said quietly, placing a hand on her arm.
"I couldn't have done it without you. You and your parents-"
"-our parents!"
"Our parents," Kara rephrased with a smile. "I would not have adjusted so well to Earth without all of your support. I don't think I say it enough, but thank you."
"Ah, that's sweet," Alex said, smiling.
Kara didn't see the punch coming until it was too late. She was sent stumbling onto the mat as she cradled her aching jaw.
"Ow, the hell?" she cried.
"Lesson number one. Always have your guard up."
Kara grit her teeth in frustration.
"You said the emitters were only at 18%?" Kara asked finally.
"Yeah, why?"
"Push it up to 25%. I might be fighting against aliens stronger than me and I want to improve myself. This will hopefully help bridge the gap. After all they have had nearly a decade to hone their abilities. Now I have to achieve the same in less than a year."
"Probably less. But are you sure? 25% will more than just weaken you. Kara, this… It will hurt."
"I know."
It was startling how much only seven percent change can feel. Kara felt the increase of irradiated light as her skin started to grow clammy and irritated. Was this like sunburn? She had never felt such a thing before. Her home in Argo City had a shield that stopped the harmful ultraviolet rays from hurting them; all the cities in Krypton held them.
"Now that's more like it," Kara grunted. Then she lashed out to punch Alex in the face as payback… only to trip as Alex slid her foot behind her ankle and pulled. Kara was glad she was so flexible, otherwise dropping down into a full split might have proven painful.
"Lesson number two. Don't blindly rush in. Anticipate how your enemy acts, what their preferences are. Do they have any weaknesses you can exploit? Wounds? Old scars that inhibit their movement?" Alex lectured, circling around the ring with her arms raised up in anticipation.
"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" Kara asked, sending a quick combo that Alex easily blocked or deflected before unleashing a harsh counter. Kara wheezed when another punch slammed into her stomach and lost her breath. Alex backed away to give her a moment to recover, but Kara took the chance as an opening. She tackled her sister to the ground and tried to land a fist, but Alex had trained how to break out of such holds and with a easy flex of her thighs and turn of her hips, Kara was flipped over and Alex sat on top of her with a large grin.
"Nice one. Surprise attack."
"Lesson number one," Kara grinned back.
"Yeah. You always were a quick learner." Crunch.
"Fuck!" she swore, cradling her nose.
"Or maybe not," Alex goaded. Kara took the bait. Alex caught her forearm on the next punch and dragged her forward to flip her over her shoulder in a judo throw. Kara slammed down onto the sparring ring with a quiet groan.
"Your technique is non-existent. You need to learn to use the enemy's strength against them."
"That's easy for you to say. I've always been the strongest one in the room. It is not exactly easy to reconfigure your entire mind to fight someone differently!" Kara shouted.
"Then it's a good thing you don't have much experience fighting. It means you don't have too many bad habits. You'll learn. It'll just take some time."
"But how many people will die in the time it takes me to learn?" Kara asked softly. For once… Alex didn't have an answer. Kara needed to learn faster to save more people. The fire within her burned brighter than ever. She rushed in again without a word.
—O—
Power Girl was still learning. That was what the people of National City collectively understood as they watched her failure to contain the oil spill. It didn't lessen the disaster, but they knew it would (hopefully) be only temporary. So the new heroine decided to fight crime the only way she could without royally screwing up, she started with the easiest crimes and disasters she could find and worked her way up.
It was a lot like creating a brick house. She started with the foundation and then slowly built the walls for support. If she was the builder in this analogy, then the issues were the walls and people were the roof–if she didn't rebuild or fix the broken walls then the roof would cave in and there would just be a mess. The worst thing was that she was only one person, and no matter how much repair she did, there would still be issues on the wall and things slipping through the cracks.
However her caution finally paid off. After a couple weeks of no incidents (except for busting a random guy's car in a car chase) the news outlets finally started turning around a new leaf in their opinions of her. She was finally being seen as "National City's Golden Girl."
"Because of you there's another criminal headed off to the slammer!" Winn called out excitedly as she finished her heroic acts for the day, giving her an enthusiastic high five that nearly sent her into giggles. He always did know how to make her laugh.
"Well I could not have done it without your impeccable hacking performance," Kara said in a pompous tone with a mocking curtsey before finally descending into laughs. Winn's grin broadened at the sight of her megawatt smile. Golden Girl was right on the money, he thought.
A knock at the door drew their attention and Winn panicked as Kara opened the door whilst still in her suit. On the other side of the door was both Alex and an awkward looking James.
"You told them?" the two boys asked in complete befuddled unison.
"Kal-El told James and Winn is my best friend."
Alex side eyed the both of them before pursing her lips, indicating to all of them what she thought of the matter.
"You don't agree," Kara scoffed. "Of course you don't."
"I just don't think you realize what it means to tell them who you are," she cautioned.
Kara watched as Winn made an obvious excuse to escape the situation as James got dragged along out the door by the fleeing computer nerd.
"Winn is not going to tell anyone and James… Well I don't think he would like to see two angry Kryptonians after him, so he'll undoubtedly keep his mouth shut."
"I know they won't talk, the DEO has already investigated them."
"You've been stalking my friends?" Kara demanded.
"Standard procedure for potentially recruiting a new member has us background check their nearest relatives and those they interact with on a daily basis. As both a potential future agent as well as being an alien, the DEO just decided to be a bit more… thorough in their duties."
"You will stop stalking them this instant."
"Okay," Alex said, putting her hands up in surrender.
"That was surprisingly simple," Kara said suspiciously. "What are you planning?"
"No plan. We just already know everything and have deemed them not a threat except for a possible information leak."
"That's… creepy," was the unanimous reply.
"I promise I won't let the DEO stalk your friends anymore, but as your sister I still have the right to research any of your boyfriends, deal?" Alex challenged playfully to break the mood.
Kara bit her lips as a smile threatened to appear.
"No."
"I hear a yes?"
"No!" Kara said louder.
"Perfect. You will tell me when your next date is and I will be right over," Alex said, pushing her sister to admit defeat.
"Why do I put up with you?"
"Because I'm your sister and you love me."
"Do I really?" She asked with a mock consternation.
"You-" Alex stopped as her phone rang. "Danvers. I got it. I'll be there in a few." Alex sighed, turning to Kara and said, "I've got to go. We'll call you if we need you."
Kara scoffed once the door was closed. "'If we need you.' Right."
—O—
The next morning had an abrupt surprise phone call for Kara by an admittedly reluctant Winn. Apparently Cat Grant did not hide her desire for an interview from her workers by dropping an ultimatum on James's shoulders in the center of the office that he would give her the Kryptonian heroine's "number" or he would be forced to seek Metropolis for work.
While their friendship was still new, that did not mean that Kara valued it any less and she could not let someone else suffer over something as meaningless as an interview. Right?
Kara clenched her jaw at the blatant abuse of power. She was forcing James to make a dishonorable decision if he valued personal loyalty over his desire to remain employed. It was despicable. She had half a mind to go over for the sole purpose of slapping her… or better yet to go there and just ignore the woman while sitting in her office. That was sure to destroy her monstrous sized ego faster than any physical or verbal lashing. However the day only worsened when her next phone call came from Hank Henshaw of all people.
"Ms. Starr, there's been an incident. Your sister has been abducted," he said, making Kara's veins fill with ice. "How soon can you get here?"
Kara was changed and out the door before anyone knew she was gone. A seismic wave was left in her wake on take off in her haste to arrive sooner.
"Why was I not called?" Kara demanded an explanation when she arrived at the DEO.
"We still don't know the full capabilities of your powers yet. We didn't want to risk it."
"And my sister? She's an expendable risk?"
"No," Henshaw growled. "But I trust her. This time things just happened to not go as planned. All agents are aware of this possibility. I didn't call you here to argue over this. I-" Henshaw's face tightened uncomfortably before he bit out, "I need your help."
Kara blinked at him. He was asking for help? Henshaw? The prideful and alien hating Hank Henshaw asking for her help?
"What do you need me to do?" she asked immediately.
"We need to broaden our search. Satellite imaging and drones are scouring the city for her, but we could use an extra set of eyes. Especially the type that can see through multiple buildings at once."
"I'm on it." Kara hesitated at the exit. "I want you to know I'm only doing this for her."
"I know." They shared a reluctant nod. Temporary truce.
As Kara desperately flew through the streets overhead she searched as quickly as possible, scanning each building with a glance to discover if she was there before jumping to the next one. On and on she went until she heard it.
Kara. Kara. Kara. The near silent whisper echoed through the deafening city traffic. She followed it to find Alex laid out in the center of a warehouse completely still with a small trickle of blood on her forehead from a recently induced injury.
"Alex?" she whispered horrified until she noticed the barely perceptible rising of her chest. She was just unconscious, thank goodness. Kara heard the whistling sound of air being displaced behind her. She turned and caught the stinger between her fingers to glare venomously at the being who harmed her sister.
"You!" Kara raged after the alien as he tried to jump to safety but Kara snatched his leg and chucked him into the ground with enough force to crater it and roared as she slammed her foot down onto- and into- his chest. It made a sickening crunch throughout the warehouse as dust swirled away from the force of her blow.
Kara stood numbly over the alien she had just defeated… It was like swatting a bug. It didn't give her any sense of relief to know he was gone, she was just happy to know Alex was alive. Discolored blood spilled around the corpse as her lips quavered. She swallowed the lump forming in her throat even as the air started to feel painfully thin.
"How much you've grown, Little One," a voice called behind her. Kara startled at the achingly familiar voice. She spun around and felt her breath hitch further. The same face of one of few people who haunted her worst nightmares and livened her brightest dreams.
This wasn't real. She was under an illusion. It had to be. Was there another enemy nearby capable of making her see things? She had to know. She had to.
"Wha- what? Aunt Astra. You're dead. You are supposed to be dead. Everyone's supposed to be dead? How? How are you alive?" she croaked.
"I wasn't on Krypton when it perished. All thanks to your mother," General Astra spat. "She imprisoned me in Fort Rozz."
"That is only for Krypton's worst criminals…" a sinking feeling destroyed her hope of having a happy family reunion with someone she held dear to her heart. "What did you do?"
"What did I do?" she repeated. "I spoke the truth. I confronted Krypton's defective council and attempted to get our people to stop falling for their lies, to wake up and see the truth… that Krypton was dying. Your mother lied to our people that everything was fine, everything was going to be alright. Did she not tell you of how she conspired to send me away when I threatened to expose the council's lies? She destroyed my credibility and had me thrown into the same prison where she sent all of her problems.
"I tried to save our planet, our people, and she had me banished. My name was tarnished and stripped from the House of In-Ze. I am now only Astra, General of Krypton."
Kara Zor-El felt her cheeks becoming wet as she beheld her Aunt's tone, the cold- almost detached inflection that spoke volumes more than her already heart-wrenching words. To be banished from your house is the highest form of disgrace. And her twin sister was responsible. Her own mother was responsible.
What had she done? What had Astra done to make her own sister hate her enough to strip her of her family name?
"I remember all the nights we spent together. Whenever my mother was away at work you would be there, helping- teaching me even more than my studies."
'I was closer to you than my own mother,' went unsaid, but a flicker in Astra's eyes said she caught it before she ruthlessly crushed it beneath an iron veneer.
"Then let me continue your education," Astra said. "Your alliance with the humans is misplaced."
"No," Kara whispered. Don't do this. Please.
The words were exactly what Kara had been fearing, praying she might be wrong, that her aunt was still the kind woman she knew back on Krypton. She knew whatever was about to be said next wouldn't change anything, no matter how heart wrenching it was going to be. Her aunt stood on the opposite side as her. Her aunt knew her well even after all these years and saw the line being drawn within her mind.
"Do not stand against me." It was a plea wrapped within a threat. Don't force me to hurt you, Kara. "I let one planet die. I will not fail a second."
Kara clenched her fists. She forced down the despair, forced down the hope, forced down the happiness of seeing Astra alive once more. Then she leveled the most caustic and venomous look she could bear onto her visage.
"This planet… is not your home. I will stop you… No matter what I have to do," Kara choked out.
"So be it, Little One." It was as sorrowful as it was icy as the general banished her feelings of attachment as one did an errant string of lint.
It was the match that lit the powder keg; both exploded into motion. Kara lashed out with a punch while Astra led with a low kick. Kara barely floated over the swift foot and kicked Astra's exposed leg, sending the general tumbling away in surprise before she took to the air as well.
"You've grown much indeed," she whispered. Her eyes glowed blue and Kara sped to the side to dodge the superheated beams and tried to deliver a left cross but the General expertly ducked and slammed a monstrous fist into her ribs, armpit, and then lower back as she pivoted around her. Kara gaped at the surge of pain but still had the mental capacity to knee her aunt in the face, and grab Astra by the back and throw her away to the other side of the warehouse hard enough to soar through the wall.
Kara disengaged in hopes of leading the fight away from Alex as the fight spilled out into the street. Their fight descended into more of a brawl as they grappled in the air and punched each other as hard and often as they could, forgoing dodging in favor of striking the other with increasing intensity.
Astra landed another strong punch that sent Kara gasping and hurtling through a building and out the other end. People screamed in terror when her landing crumpled a car with an indentation of her body. But their fear was nothing compared to what they felt next when two lasers ignited the car around Power Girl and they dove to the street to avoid the massive blast.
Astra slowly floated above her, acting as if she had all the time in the world. Perhaps she did. Astra had already proven her combat ability was leagues above her own.
Kara was unmarred by the explosion, but the destroyed remains of the car offered her an opportunity. She swung the blackened hunk of a car like a tennis racket, finally landing a significant against her Aunt who was launched straight into the ground in the world's fastest serve.
Kara followed with a hand that caught her aunt's jaw and repeatedly slammed her deeper and deeper into the earth until Astra caught her wrist with bruising force. Kara had just enough time to realize she was screwed before being flipped onto her stomach with her arm latched behind her back as Astra's knee pressed deeply into her spine. Kara desperately attempted to fight her off all for naught. She only managed to turn her head just in time to watch the snap before the wave of agony bloomed in her brain. Kara screamed and her rage acted as fuel for an intense beam of heat vision that sent her Aunt back into a wall.
Kara weakly cradled her broken arm before squaring her jaw. She had a moment free and she wouldn't- couldn't- squander it. So with a whimper she swore never happened, she stuck it between her knees and tugged harshly, pressing against the break with her free hand. The squelching and rigged vibration of bone on bone sounds was worse on her ears than the original break as Kara fought a shudder of revulsion down her spine.
Kara turned to see Astra once more levitating above her without a hint of injury, staring down at her with those eyes! Kara snarled and pushed away the fact that she still wasn't recovered to jump at her Aunt and hit her with everything that couldn't be suppressed any longer. Astra took the blow with hardly a flinch, knowing how to lessen a punch and coldly gazed back.
Kara could see the words in her eyes. Is that it? Is this really all you're capable of? How disappointing.
With fury mounting, Kara struck again, and again, and again, and again, but Astra withstood it all. Kara screamed, throwing everything she had at her. The crunch of bone and blood on Astra's face brought a fleeting sense of satisfaction… until she realized it was her hand that broke and her skin that'd split.
Her lips trembled. This wasn't how it was supposed to go.
"It didn't have to be this way, my little star."
"Don't!" Kara choked, her throat burning with the need for air that her lungs couldn't quite manage. "You can't call me that now! Not after what you've done; with what you're planning!"
"And what is that exactly? Why resist when you remain ignorant? I intend on saving this world. Like you… Only… better."
It felt like a corkscrew being driven between her ribs, slowly worming its way through in infinitesimal increments at a time, savagely peeling bone apart in its wake.
Kara grabbed Astra's uniform and hatefully smashed her forehead into the general's nose.
At last Astra moved, clenching her leaking nose in an uncontrollable spin before a crunch echoed as she forced cartilage and bone back into place. Then she turned back and smirked through the gushing blood coating her lips.
A chill went down her spine. It was a look Kara had never seen on her aunt's face; one solely leveled at the armies Krypton has waged against in the past. Kara's chest constrained further as the need for air became consuming. She had to get out of here. She had to run. She had to flee!
Kara was moments from turning to fly away when she heard Alex's soft and calm puff of an exhale. No, she swallowed. No, she couldn't run away. Not this time. Not now. Not when her sister remained in harm's way. She couldn't lose another relative. Not again. Not again. Not again!
Kara latched onto the fledgling feelings of determination and used it as a shield against that damned smirk stuck to Astra's lips. Alex had to live. Kara's hands stopped trembling–when had they started? She grit her teeth and squared off as her aunt smiled broader at her defiance.
"Good. You're going to need that resolve if you are to face what's coming."
A threat? Or was it a warning?
"I missed you," Kara bit out, causing Astra to blink and unconsciously shift slightly into a ready, but non-confrontational stance. "I mourned you for a decade… And yet you were here all along… waiting.
"A single appearance and I would have left everything and everyone behind… because that's how much you meant to me. And now you come back… and you say these things to me… How the hell am I supposed to react to this? Why are you DOING THIS TO ME?" she screamed, bawling, panting for the air that would not, could not come.
"Kara," Astra raised her palm-
Crack!
Astra staggered, instinctively reaching for her shoulder in bewilderment before her flight capabilities failed her and she dropped like a stone.
She clamped her hands around her ears as the sickening squelch of the bullet striking her aunt echoed within her canals in a futile attempt to disperse it. She heard the bullet strike skin, twisting and tearing its way through both flesh and the crack of shattering bone as Astra's face twisted in agony. Her outstretched arm became limp and crashed into a minivan below with a sickening bang and didn't get up.
Kara made an animalistic whine as she gazed down at her aunt. Her feet threatened to send her one way, but her head reminded her that Alex was bleeding from a head wound and she could die if she didn't start moving right this instant. Her eyes swiveled back and forth.
Her fingers tightened in her hair until it felt like she'd pull it out from the roots.
Damn it. Damn it. Fucking shit! Why? Why did it have to be this way?
She roared but it did nothing to dispel the sensation eating away at her chest. Kara Zor-el rushed to her sister, sweeping Alex up in a gentle grip, mindful of her injuries, but firm enough to not lose her as she raced off, trying her best to not make any unnecessary swerves or jostles on the way back to the DEO's medical bay.
As she swept past, she spotted an agent with a bolt action sniper rifle filled with rounds of Kryptonite, loading another green round into the chamber with a distinct chink to her ears. It echoed with the hollow sorrow of a funeral bell and Kara buried her face into Alex's neck. She couldn't look. She didn't even want to hear it, but she couldn't shut it off. Her powers refused to heed her efforts of silence as the trigger was pulled and another radioactive bullet was aimed with unairing accuracy for her aunt's prone form, right for the heart.
—O—
[AN: I always hated how easily Kara was able to brush off her Aunt. Astra was shown to be really close to Kara in the flashbacks, and yet she discarded that relationship right off the bat. Yes, later in the season there was more of an honest exchange, but it felt... flat. People and emotions are complicated, I mean I rarely say what I'm feeling honestly to friends and family, so I get it but... ugh (sighs). I wish it was more visceral. You know?]