Kara crouched under her bed trying to find where she had put her Rao be damned sunstone adapter, she just knew she had left it somewhere in her bedroom.
Then she actually remembered who she was and almost cursed. Using only one hand she lifted the bed all the way over her head and finally found the damn thing resting just beside the wall.
“There you are.” She gently kicked the device towards the middle of the room and lowered her bed back into place with a sight.
She really should have thought more about her actions, it would have been so much better to use her cousin’s Fortress of Solitude to get Firebrand back into a working condition.
In fact, she had been halfway towards the building before she realized she didn’t have a justification for how she knew about the android.
Now she had an inert android on her living room and had to make do with the technology she had on hand or in her spaceship, and not all of it was capable of interacting with human technology without help, even mad geniuses’ technology.
Kara grabbed the adapter and took the chance to also grab some discarded clothes lying around her room throwing them into the washing bin. Finally, she started to make her way back towards the android.
From ahead of her she heard the apartment door opening, then a little girl’s scream followed by a shout of “Shazam!”
Kara’s eyes went wide as the large superhero burst through her door, damaging the wall and breaking the wooden frame with a worried look on his face, electricity was still cursing through his muscled form.
“Miss. Zor-El! Are you alright?” his eyes looked all over the room taking in her messy bed, the books spread around the floor and a sunstone crystal floating above a pedestal in the middle of the room with cables spread all around it. “Are you aware there’s a body in your sofa?”
“Hi Billy,” Kara sighed and took the chance to mess up the kid’s hair, “It’s not a body, it’s an Android.”
“Ah, I didn’t know you could build an Android, Cool!” his serious expression melted from his face and he glanced at the damage he had done with a sheepish look, “Sorry about this then, I thought someone had attacked you.”
“Don’t worry about it.” It really was Kara’s own fault for leaving Firebrand just lying there anyways. “Is Kori with you?”
“Yeah, she invited me in after a joint training with Wonder Woman.”
“Great, come on then.” Kara made her way back towards the living room to see Kori looking at Firebrand’s body with a curious gaze, “Hi Kori.”
“Hello friend Kara, please, was this some vile miscreant you had to take down?”
“Nope, this is Dannete Reilly better known as Firebrand,” She told them as she kneeled in front of the Android and laid the adaptor against its back. “I guess you can call her Red Tornado’s older sister.”
The crystal tip of her adaptor pierced right though Firebrand’s false skin and connected to one of the cables inside her body. Quickly, it pressed itself against her form and started sending information directly to Kara’s computer.
“So… you can’t build androids?” Billy asked and Kara could hear the slight tone of disappointment on his voice.
“Billy, I can indeed build an Android,” Kara bragged and started reading the diagnosis from her device. “I’m not skilled enough to create a sentient AI like Firebrand or Red Tornado but I bet I can build a much better body than this one.”
Kara hadn’t completed her studies in Krypton but her home planet had been so advanced she could be considered a genius in both mechanical and electrical engineering, and at least decent in many other fields of study.
Not biology though, she had always hated biology.
“Shazam!” Billy said and turned back into his 10 years old body since there wasn’t anything dangerous “Cool… so, why do you have Red Tornado’s sister in your living room?”
Kara thought about her answer, how much did she want to tell the boy and how much could she get away with hiding?
By Rao, they had already found her with the android in her home; it was kind of too late to hide everything.
From the side, Kori released a gasp and turned her shinning green eyes towards her. “Exultation, Delight, friend Kara, have you rescued The Red Tornado’s sister from some nefarious villain and will attempt to reunite them?”
“I mean, I guess that’s kinda right?” Kara said, she had wanted firebrand as an ally but she wouldn’t keep her from meeting old friends if she wanted to. “I actually wanted Firebrand’s help with something but, giving her a second chance in life was a huge part of why I choose her.”
Kara had always thought Firebrand had gotten a raw deal in the show, sacrificing her life to save a friend only to be awakened several decades later, mind controlled, and forced to sacrifice herself again to stop Red Volcano.
At least Red Torpedo had gotten an entire life of his own before he was controlled by Morrow’s robotic clone and had to sacrifice himself to stop his younger brother.
“Joy, I always knew you had a most righteous spirit.” Kori’s giant smile made Kara turn her eyes aside and blush from the praise. “Please, do you require any help?”
“Not right now.” Kara took another look at Firebrand’s body and sighed, “Look, can you two keep this quiet, at least for a now? I don’t want too many people finding out about me or what I am doing.”
“I… I don’t know, are you sure you’re alright Miss. Zor-El, you know the League can help you.”
“Aw, are you worried about me Billy? How cute.” Her equipment finished Firebrand’s diagnosis with a flash and sent the information to her tablet. “Don’t worry, Batman and some other people are gonna be helping me so I’m not doing this alone. Also, I told you to call me Kara already Billy.”
“Yes Miss Kara.”
“Ought I help you with your goal friend Kara?” Kori asked as she tried to read the information in the tablet. “It is avowed I am not a discrete person, but I can restrain myself if needed, and no villain yet knows of my existence, perhaps I could be of help?”
“Thanks Kori, but don’t worry about it.” Kara smiled at her but shook her head. “I know you’re very eager to work with the other sidekicks and learn about Earth. Plus, I actually trust you to protect and help to train my new family.”
“Truly? Has The Superman accepted Superboy as a member of the family then?”
“It’s a work in progress.” Kara said and sighed. “He let me bring the boy to meet his family this weekend at least so, there’s hope. Ah, his name is Kon-El by the way.”
“The Superman is a great hero, yes? He will not turn the boy away, even more so as you have acknowledged your familial relationship with him.”
“I certainly hope so.”
Looking over the information it seemed like Firebrand’s memory was intact inside the Android and Kara wouldn’t need to touch her programming, her supposed death was only a hardware problem.
Kara would need to take the heroine’s body into her spaceship to do the repairs but it was nothing beyond her abilities, or resources.
“Anyways, how goes the training?” Kara asked as she carefully settled Firebrand’s body into a chair and freed the sofa for her own use.
“Giovanni is great.” Billy said as he grabbed a bag of chips and started eating. “I thought he’d just lecture me but he’s actually teaching me spells even without transforming! Then we had a joint exercise with Wonder Woman.”
“Diana is a great teacher! Today we went to The Mall of Shopping and partook of some of humanity ancient customs, the sharing of frozen treats and procurement of varied clothing while sharing stories.”
“She took you shopping, then you had ice cream?” Kara asked incredulously.
“Indeed, Princess Diana said my martial ability was satisfactory and we should work on acquiring social skills!” Kori said while sucking on a straw inside a bottle of mustard. “She also informed me there will be a meeting in two days with the entire team.”
Well, she wasn’t wrong.
Taking in the information Kara nodded, the League was probably ready to give their sidekicks some freedom in two days then.
Kara wondered if they’d still form as a black ops team now that she had interfered, or would they become more like Teen Titans now that they had Kori?
“I’m gonna have to take Firebrand to the ship if I want to repair her.” Kara informed the two of them as she picked up the android once again and put on her blank mask. “Ah right, Kori, do you mind if Kon-El comes to live with us sometime this week?”
“I do not, the apartment is of considerable size and his presence will be greatly appreciated.”
“Right, see you later then.”
.
.
.
“Welcome back mistress Kara.” Said the robotic voice of her ship’s AI as Kara entered the bay.
Kara had been improving her ship’s capabilities a little bit every day since getting access to the Fortress and Kryptonian Tech.
She may not have access to military grade equipment but even civilian tech was an improvement over what the Psions had.
The ship was almost entirely covered in sunstone, with some of the mineral growing outwards from its side like a huge pimple. Kara had high hopes for how this particular project would turn out.
Sunstone was great like that, not only would it grow simply by absorbing sunlight, Kara could also program how it would develop making it take the shape of a second ship attached to the Psion’s vessel.
In a month or two she’d have her own Fortress of Solitude parked on the outer side of the moon.
Only, it wouldn’t have her cousin’s base of information and be mobile. Then she could throw the Psion ship into the sun and be rid of the last of those assholes.
“How goes the experimentation?” Kara asked, she hadn’t actually named the AI, it was far from being sentient and most of its programming was still made by Psions, she didn’t want to get attached.
“Seventy percent of your projects have resulted in failure, another twenty two point thirty three percent have remained inconclusive and two new wavelengths of Kryptonite have been found.”
The computer informed Kara with no emotion on its voice, she’d have to improve that when she finished growing her new ship, the cold and robotic voice gave her the creeps.
“Which experiments were inconclusive?” She asked as she laid the android on top of a metal bed and started gathering the necessary tools to open her up.
“One of the Kryptonite shards is still being subjected to experimentation and the current computers can’t fully monitor the changes on the Nth metal samples.”
Well, seems like she’d have to get better sensors then, could she make something capable of monitoring magic too?
Cutting off Firebrand’s clothes Kara revealed the hole on her chest where Dragon King had shot her, at first look it really was no different from a normal human.
Since she was a Kryptonian, Kara didn’t even need protection equipment, she used a saw to clean the damaged section of organic material revealing the Android’s red painting underneath, then slowly cut her back open and revealed a myriad of damaged cables.
Thankfully, it seemed like the energy source for Firebrand’s flame control wasn’t damaged; only it’s connection to her central circuitry and other essential equipment.
It seemed like Morrow had made it so any large damage to her chest area that pierced her organic coating would almost immediately turn her off. It caused her body to appear dead and prevented anyone from finding out she had been an android.
“Huh, I guess it was better to just recover the android later and then change its face.” Kara muttered while working. “No need to risk revealing he had been able to infiltrate the Justice Society and get their guard up against his next attempt.”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Repairing all the damage was impossible and producing suitable substitutes would take time so Kara made sure to keep Firebrand’s memory and personality safe while taking out her pyrokinetick core for study.
In fact, instead of getting a substitute, she’d study Firebrand and reprogram some sunstone to be compatible to her core design.
Yes, the kryptonian technology would give Firebrand far more energy to work with and actually allow her to regenerate from damage while also making her more resistant.
A pity Kara didn’t have access to kryptium or she’d truly make Firebrand a monster.
Still, with how modular sunstone was, it would be easy to allow Firebrand to change configurations. Kara’s mind was immediately filled with canons and fire jets.
Wait, could she pack enough energy inside Firebrand for her to create a plasma sword? It would be hot enough to explode people like Kara had done with the Evil Eye but Firebrand could keep it as a last resort.
She was so giving the woman a plasma sword.
Three hours later she decided to take a break from working with the sunstone and take a look at the kryptonite variations, she was almost done with the damaged part of Firebrand’s circuitry but, she still wanted to swap everything else before waking her up into a new body.
Making sure to activate her radiation shield Kara looked through the reinforced glass and smiled when she saw the two shards of Kryptonite she had created. It would need testing but…
A smile grew on her face as she got the perfect way of punishing Kal-El for abandoning Kon-El like that. She was pretty sure Kon-El wouldn’t be able to appreciate the prank today but, in a few years, when he developed a little more?
Kara would take photos, so many photos.
Of course she’d have to think about something worse if Kal-El didn’t get his act together after their family meeting but, until then, she could take it easy on him. He was her little cousin after all.
Her phone rang on her pocked causing her to snap back to reality, pulling out the device she saw it was from Batman so, she hurried to answer.
“Speedy will be in Star City tonight, meet us there by 7.”
The Bat actually hung up on her before she could answer causing Kara to huff in annoyance. At least Dubbilex had already informed her, the G-Gnomes would be ready to work on Kon-El and Roy anytime she wished.
Satisfaction filled her, she tried not to think of the genomorphs as her minions, she really did but… it was hard.
“No, bad Kara, they’re sentient beings you’re currently helping escape slavery and fight against their oppressor, and you’re trying to be a hero anyway.” She chided herself as she looked at the time, she’d have to get moving soon if she wanted to make it. “Heroes don’t have minions, they have sidekicks.”
Could Dubbilex be a sidekick? He was certainly young enough for it.
Kara grimaced as she grabbed the respirator and opened the ship’s hangar, as a kryptonian she shouldn’t even need to breathe when under a yellow sun but, her damaged cells still needed oxygen far more often than she liked.
Stepping away from the ship, she started flying back to Earth.
It took some time to finally reach Star City, Batman hadn’t actually left her an address but, with how good her hearing was, a little bit of concentration was all she needed to sense him and Green Arrow talking on an empty rooftop.
She gently stepped into the roof and saw both heroes waiting for her there, Batman was busy reading something on his communicator, but Green Arrow was pacing from one side to the other, his arms crossed and his fingers digging into his skin in a way Kara was sure would have drawn blood had he not been wearing gloves.
“You’re here,” the Bat simply said as he glanced at her. “Speedy should be here in half an hour.”
“Why would he come here?”
“Across the street is one of Brick’s bases of operation… Speedy is trying to gather information on his activities and will be here to install monitoring devices.” Green Arrow said as he finally stopped pacing and scratched at his tired face with both hands. “He’s still using some of my supply spots for equipment.”
“So, are we just capturing him them?”
“You’re the one who found Roy, Big Blue’s cousin right?” Green Arrow said and actually warped his arms around her body in a heartfelt hug. “Thank you.”
“Ah, yeah…” Kara was left without knowing what to say, she patted the man’s back and looked towards Batman but he was ignoring her. “Sooooo, the Bat managed to keep you from killing Luthor?”
She really had no idea what to say.
“Yes, God knows I wanted to, but…” releasing her, the man stepped away and shook his head as if it would help dispel his anger. “I don’t even know what I should do. I think I know the clone for almost as long as I trained Roy.”
Kara turned her eyes away from the awkwardness of the situation, what could she say to that.
“Are we taking him to Manhunter or the Genomorphs?” She finally asked Batman, the man glanced at Green Arrow for a second and turned off his computer.
“I spoke with Manhunter, while he could deprogram the clones he informed me the Genomorphs would be a better, safer choice.” Kara lifted an eyebrow at this information.
“Isn’t John far stronger than them?”
“Yes and, if we wanted to break his mind, that would be useful.” Batman said as he approached the two of them. “Manhunter informed me unraveling, and even finding, such commands is more about knowing the mind you’re working with and being careful than raw power.”
“And the genomorphs have far better knowledge of the clone’s mind.” Kara realized as the man explained, but Green Arrow was still unsettled by the idea.
“Don’t worry, Manhunter promised he’d look over their work once it was done but, the genomorphs really are the best option in his opinion.”
Not that Batman himself seemed to be any happier about the prospect, from the way his body tensed at the thought. He probably still didn’t trust the Genomorphs.
“How’re we capturing him?” Kara asked.
If she had been alone she probably would just use his mental commands against him, she still remembered the clone would freeze if she said “Broken Arrow”, but the information wasn’t anywhere on Cadmus computers so, she couldn’t justify using it. She had already messed up enough no need to make everybody even more suspicious.
“I’ll try talking with the boy.” Green Arrow said as he scratched at his beard. “Clone or not I still trained him for years, he’ll listen to me.”
“In case Green Arrow fails to convince him and Speedy manages to escape, we’ll intervene and subdue the boy.” Batman said and handed her a small black injector. “This should cause him to pass out in a few seconds, we can’t risk him escaping and warning his handlers, willingly or not.”
Kara nodded and they all retreated inside the building to wait for Roy to arrive, Green Arrow started pacing again while Batman just continued reading something. Kara started thinking about her future.
She had been making do with asteroid mining and selling gold in pawn shops but it wouldn’t work for much longer, there are only so many pawn shops in the world before she had to find some, even less legal, other means.
There was also only so much gold she could sell before she crashed the market.
More than that, hauling gold back and forth just took too much time and felt like grunt work, there were far better things she could be doing.
Hmmm, how would she go about creating her own company anyway? She’d have to get an Earth identity and documents, then start hiring people who weren’t too arrogant to work for a young woman.
There were so many kryptonian devices that could improve life on earth. It would still take a lot of work to adapt it so human’s themselves could both understand, and produce, the technology but she could really make a difference.
She smirked, it would be so satisfying if she could use her own company to corner the market and drive Lexcorp into bankruptcy.
Better yet, she could work towards buying Lexcorp and turn it towards improving the world instead of killing Superman. By Rao, with how much more advanced Krypton had been she could even succeed.
Did she know any smart businessman beside Luthor in the DC universe? She’d need one of those as CEO if she wanted to take him on no matter how good her tech was.
She knew she had gotten the advantage over Luthor and the Light right now but she’d need some smart people on her corner when they started plotting against her.
Suddenly, Kara's head turned towards the side and she immediately looked through the building to see an arrow poking from the side of the brick wall, a thin rope tired too it.
Not even a minute later Speedy came sliding down the rope, using his bow as a handle.
Green Arrow traded glances with the two of them and nodded, then left the shadows of the building and started walking towards his sidekick.
Roy had leaned over the edge of the building and was watching Brick's employees working on the illegal building.
"Hello Roy, I heard you aren't answering your friend calls?"
Roy's head turned towards his mentor and snorted, "If they want to play house with the League I won't stop them, but I have real work to do."
"Come on Roy, you know that's not what the League wanted to do." Green Arrow sighed and sat on the edge of the building. "Look kid, you know that's not why we kept you from the space station."
Kara grimaced, noooooo, don't call him kid you idiot!
"Don't patronize me!" Roy slapped his mentor's hand and stepped away, "I don't need you cuddling me when I know I can do better. I'm tired of your bullshit."
"Roy… look, we really need to talk alright"
"There's nothing to talk about!" The boy snapped and pulled out another arrow from his quiver, "first you keep me away from any important mission, now you're even interfering when I'm doing something for myself. Stop trying to keep me down!"
It seemed like Roy really was done talking because he shot his arrow towards a street lamp, a second rope trailing behind it and growing taunt when it hit something solid.
For a second Kara though nobody would do anything and got ready to catch Roy herself as he put his bow over the cable, then Green Arrow moved with surprising speed.
A second arrow flew straight at the line and cut right through it, causing the cable to snap and almost making Roy fall on his ass.
"Look Roy, we really need to talk." Green arrow's only answer was an arrow to the face.
He dodged the projectile and closed the distance between them, using his bow as a club to hit Roy's legs and cause him to fall down.
"Stop it kid," he jumped over Roy's sweeping kick but got a punch to the stomach while in midair. "Uff, think about what you're doing, this isn't you Roy!"
Turning towards Batman Kara asked "Should we step in?"
"No, Green Arrow has it handled."
"We're just here to watch?"
"We're here in case he manages to escape, or has reinforcements." Batman said and finally turned away from whatever he was reading to watch the fight in silence.
Green Arrow and Speedy traded blows, using their bows as weapons to try and disable each other, but Kara could see they weren't trying to really hurt each other.
"Enough!" Roy managed to push Green Arrow away.
Faster than Kara thought possible they pulled arrows from their quivers. The kid was faster and shot his arrow at his mentor's feet, then jumped away to avoid the result.
It exploded, expanding foam and covering a large part of the rooftop in an instant.
Green Arrow had been ready, he knew his protégée was actually a faster shot than him and was already twisting aside before the foam had covered him, then he released his own arrow which split into four ropes to encircle Speedy.
The boy was still in the air and couldn't dodge, but he still managed to interpose his bow between the arrow pieces and stop the rope from completely locking his arms.
Falling to the ground, Speedy managed to reach another arrow and started to cut the cable but Green Arrow was faster.
Grabbing speedy's bow with both hands the older man pressed the boy down into the ground.
Roy tried a few tricks such as using gadgets in his legs or fighting dirty, but Green Arrow had taught him everything he knew and managed to overcome it all.
"Sorry about this Roy." The archer said and pulled away from his protégée, an empty injector in his hand.
"How…?" Roy asked in the ground, his voice already failing him, with a hurt look on his face, he only managed a single other word before falling unconscious. "Why?"
"Come, were taking the Batplane towards Cadmus."
"Not gonna use the zeta-tubes?" Kara asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Two risky, Speedy had access to the network, there's no way to know how compromised it is."
Approaching the sleeping boy Kara made to grab him but Green Arrow stopped her.
"No, let me do it." He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and got up from his sitting position, "Damn, I'm not as young as I used to be."
He looked down at Roy and sighed deeply, his face becoming a frown. "Sorry kid."
Then he lifted the boy in his arms and adjusted his mask with unusual gentleness.
The flight towards Cadmus was a quiet one, Batman wasn't exactly talkative even in his best days and even Green Arrow didn't seem up to talking.
Finally, Kara couldn't stand it anymore and spoke.
"Don't worry, we're fairly sure we can undo the mental commands without causing damage."
"Thanks, but what about Roy, the original one I mean?" He covered his face with both hands and quietly screamed for a few seconds. "God, this is such mess."
"You do know Kal-El's Fortress is creating a cloning facility as we speak right? Human body parts are far easier to make, Roy can have his arm back in a few months." Then she tapped her metal leg with a finger causing it ring. "Until them I can make him a substitute."
"Ugh, didn't we have enough of a mess with clones already?"
"Well, it's not really the same thing." Kara explained. "Krypton didn't deal with full on cloning of sentient beings, the religious guild came down on that really hard, but we could create tissue samples, organs and limbs for medical purposes, we used the patient’s own DNA to prevent rejection."
"So, you'd just… grow him a hand?"
"It wasn't my area of expertise but, I think it was more like… building him a new hand using biological material?" She said, but it was more like a question, the entire thing wasn’t really common back then, it was not like many kryptonians even needed such medical procedures in the first place. "I never really saw it in action."
"Right… sometimes I forget you guys are aliens with interstellar travel and other such things." He shook his head and lay back against the seat. "And... thanks, I'm sure he'll appreciate that."
An hour later Roy was inside one of the genomorphs pods with ten G-gnomes all around him, their little horns glowing brightly as they worked.
"How long is this going to take?"
"Once we knew the situation my brothers were able to locate several of the G-gnomes responsible for the initial work on the boy." Dubbilex told the worried hero. "None of us were responsible for his mental commands but we are familiar with his mind, it will only take a few hours to undo his commands."
Turning back to Kara, Dubbilex continued speaking.
"Once we are done here it should be easy to go over our brother Kon's own mental commands, in about the same amount of time."
"Thanks Dubbilex, we appreciate it."
"One last thing, one of my brothers informed me there was yet another clone of the boy on the facility."
"What?" Green Arrow whirled around to stare at the genomorph and even Batman started paying attention. "Where is it?"
"It seems like Guardian himself was an aged clone of Roy Harper the light decided to use as a bodyguard. We have already started looking over, and scrubbing away, any commands on his mind."
"Fuck!" The hero cursed and kicked the wall with his full strength, only his steel caped boots preventing his toes from breaking. "Godsdamnit!"
Batman turned away from the room and Kara decided to follow his example, leaving the incensed hero alone to vent his frustrations.
"You know what; I think I can let them recover for a week or two before I pitch my idea to them." Kara commented to the caped crusader. "As long as the light doesn't find out we have their mole I'm not in a hurry, and I do need some more time to improve my plan."
It was not like Kara had anything on paper yet, she had an idea she wanted to pitch to them, but it would take a long time to iron out all the little details and refine the idea into a working plan.
Without turning her way, Batman eventually started talking almost in a wondering tone.
"Over the years I have come to trust the League, we aren't perfect, we aren't infallible, and this showed just how much such failure can cost, but I have come to trust it enough that I don't need to watch over their shoulders for everything they do."
Kara wondered why he was speaking like this, yes the Justice League needed to be better, but he didn’t actually own her the explanation.
“That means I’ll be trusting Green Arrow to act as your connection to the League. I’ll be too busy restructuring the League to micromanage your team.” He said and finally turned around to look her in the eye, his eyes were hard and filled with a newfound conviction. “That also means I trust Superman enough not to immediately disable and interrogate you, despite all your little slips and the inconsistencies in your story, don’t make me regret it.”
Kara gulped, despite being a Kryptonian and having all sorts of contingencies in her costume, the Bat still managed to be intimidating.
As the hero started walking away from her Kara watched his retreating back remember something else and lifted a finger to call his attention but couldn’t bring herself to speak, Batman stopped anyway. “What?”
“Ah, I kinda need some human documents?” She told him and the Bat nodded.
“I’ll hand them to Superman when I next see him.”