I was still in shock however as all I did was stare blankly at the thing before me, its red eyes and glowing chest were the only sources of light, as even the four moons were obscured by a thick blanket of clouds. But it was thanks to the fact that I was staring right at it that I was able to see it take aim at me in the glow of its own lights, this allowed me to dive out of the way, barely managing to avoid the retractable projectile. As I desperately started to scrabble away from the crater, It casually jumped out of the crater before I could even make it to my feet. I cried out in pain as one of its feet landed on my ankle, pain flaring up that limb as what had to have been hundreds of pounds of metal pressed down on it threatening to snap bone, assuming it hadn't already with the initial impact.

I could only watch helplessly, pinned to the ground as it once more aimed its palm at me, the sounds of the panicking civilains seemed to fade away to be replaced with the pounding of my heart. Suddenly the dark street around us was illuminated when a yellow spherical shield materialized around the robot, a red plasma bolt streaked across the street and splashed harmlessly around its curved surface, the darkness returning as the shield faded back into invisibility. The pressure on my leg disappeared as the robot turned away to deal with whoever had shot at it.

Now with my leg free, I got to my feet, nearly falling as my ankle screamed in protest of the action. I grit my teeth and limped away from the yellow and red flashes going on behind me. I only made it a few dozen yards when I was knocked off my feet by an explosion off to my right.

Shakily I got back up, my vision swam from hitting my head on the hard floor. I looked at what had caused the explosion only for my jaw to drop once I realized what the fiery wreckage of twisted metal was. It was an air speeder. It seems that even the vehicles were being affected by the power outage. 'And if the distant explosions were anything to go by, then it's affecting much more than just this area.'

Indeed, as I looked around, the cities skyline was completely dark.

I looked at the silver vambraces adorning my forearms. "Penny what the hell's going on!" No response, not even the smallest ripple in the smooth metal. "Penny?!" With a curse, I kept hobbling along, putting the worry I felt for my AI out of my head. The only thing I knew was that I needed to get off the streets.

Unfortunately, with the power out, none of the doors could be opened. Leaving all of us to run around in the killing field that was the open streets. With no other option, I decided to try and make it to my home, hopefully it would be secluded enough that I would have the time to try and force the door open or something.

I ran from street to street taking side paths whenever I would see those glowing red eyes. Often I would find the robots in the midst of fighting the police forces, it was easy to avoid those streets as the flashes of color lit up the entire street. I had actually seen a few robots be destroyed, but those instances were a rare thing as they only happened under concentrated fire from the less powerful blasters the police wielded. I could only assume the police communications were knocked out as well, since it seemed that those times where they were grouped enough to destroy the robots were just a matter of happenstance and not any actual planning on their end.

But for the most part, while the defenders gave it their all, they were still losing, and losing badly. For every skirmish I saw to be victorious, I saw at least triple the amount of defeats. The attackers though must have still had communication as I saw more than one close fight get interrupted by the sudden arrival of robot reinforcements. The amount of bodies I passed were innumerable, I stopped trying to check for survivors after the first couple dozen, once I realized the robots always went for headshots once they were able to.

Any survivors had already found hiding places. Very few people were still openly running around.

After what felt like hours I finally made it to the base of the hill that our home sat on. I climbed up the stairs that led up to the house using the railing to help alleviate the pressure on my injured ankle.

To my surprise, when I reached the top of the stairs, the front door opened with a hiss and the bright light from inside burned my eyes after so long traveling in the dark. I nearly fell back down the stairs in surprise, but a familiar metal limb wrapped around my arm and pulled me into the house, the door shutting behind me.

"Mistress Kara! I had been so worried for you!"

I stared in shock at the still functioning robot. "Kelex? How does the house still have power? Everything outside stopped working! Do you know what's happening?! Robots just fell from the sky, and then….then...people started dying and..and.." Words just kept pouring from my lips and I couldn't bring myself to stop. In fact, I couldn't seem to get enough air for some reason.

"Mistress Kara! You need to calm yourself and breathe. You are safe here." Kelex' voice was gentler than I had ever heard, its metal limb reached out and squeezed my shoulder comfortingly.

Listening to its word I took a deep slow breath, holding it for a moment before releasing it. Now a bit calmer, I realized that I must have been hyperventilating after the harrowing experience I had been put through in the city. I had never seen people die before, let alone on such a large scale. The only time I had ever feared for my life, well, I had died. So I’d never actually had to deal with the aftermath of a near death expirience.

"I'm sorry," Taking another deep breath I continued. "I-, do you know what's happening?" I stared at the floating robot hopefully.

"No need to apologize Mistress Kara. Unfortunately, I do not know exactly what is happening out there as it appears that the entirety of the planet has gone dark. The cause of the power failure was a cyber attack so massive in scope that it dwarfs anything ever previously recorded. The result was that everything connected to the net was put into a forced shutdown mode."

I winced at those words, almost every single piece of tech on the planet had some sort of wireless capability. My brows furrowed as I looked around at the still functioning lights. "Then how is all of this still running? Or you for that matter."

"Mistress Kara!" Kelex sounded almost scandalized "This is the ancestral home of the House of El. Generations of the brightest minds of Krypton have grown up in these halls and almost every single one was involved somehow in contributing to the defenses. I believe it wouldn't be egotistical to say that this house is one of the most secure structures on the planet. The moment the security systems detected the attack it cut itself off from the net. Though admittedly the virus proved to be a rather tenacious one and managed to take a few of the house’s systems down before it was cut off. Would you like a list of the affected systems?"

We left the foyer and walked deeper into the house. "No, at least not yet Kelex, I have more important queries. Do you know what happened to the military? I only saw police forces in the streets, and yes I’m aware that the fleet is currently at the edge of the system, but our ground bases should have scrambled forces by now. Were they affected by the virus as well?" I hoped I was wrong, as if that was the case then that meant that the fleet in space would have no way of knowing an attack was occurring on the planet with all of our communications down.

"The Kryptonian fleet left Krypton approximately seventeen hours ago in response to an armada of enemy ships jumping into the system. Their onboard computers should be more than capable of defending against the virus, however, since all comms are currently shut down, the fleet is most likely unaware of the attack planetside. I have no concrete information on what happened to the military bases. However, I calculate that there is a ninety eight percent probability that most if not all the bases are currently under some form of siege, or have been destroyed with an orbital strike as there is currently nothing to contest the enemies position above the planet. As when the attack began, my sensors picked up faint tremors in the ground that are consistent with those generated by kinetic impactors."

I went pale, freezing for a moment as I realized the true horror of the situation. If the enemy managed to drop hundreds of troops from orbit without them being intercepted then what was to stop them from just razing the planet from orbit? The reason such tactics were not usually implemented was that in most cases planets don't just sit around while you drop multi-ton rods of death on them. But with no real means of fighting them at our disposal…Kryptons doom could be a matter of hours away, not the years I had assumed.

Taking a moment to gather myself, I closed my eyes and calmed my once more erratic breathing. Now wasn't the time to panic, now was a time for action. Once I had managed to calm myself, I opened my eyes. "Kelex. Tell me all the systems that are down at the moment." While the robot proceeded to list all of the affected systems I made my way to my room.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

A total of twenty seven systems had been knocked out, most of them thankfully were inconsequential, however three of them were more than slightly worrying given the situation. "The medical wing, defensive weapons, and all the sensors are down?" I had hoped that maybe I had heard wrong or maybe the AI had somehow been mistaken, its verbal confirmation however crushed those hopes.

Think Kara! Think! There has to be something we’re missing here. Something that can hel-

A bout of inspiration stuck me forcing me to stop in my tracks. "Wait...Kelex you said that communications were down? But we still have that tight beam communication laser on the roof right? We could use it to contact the fleet." I remember having to convince my family to not scrap the outdated piece of equipment years ago, they said no one used such archaic methods of communication anymore. But I had wanted to keep it since, well it’s a giant laser, who doesn’t want a giant laser?

Kelex’ form rippled for a moment in thought. "Yes. But while the laser is operational, I fail to see how it would prove helpful, the defence fleet has no sensor arrays that would be able to recieve the data."

"That's fine. We don't need them to get any data, only the beam."

"The beam? How wou-" Kelex twitched for a second as it realized what I had in mind. "Oh...I see. That might actually work."

I grinned at Kelex. "Exactly! We don't need to send them a message. Just get their attention. After all, nothing gets your attention quite like a five petawatt laser hitting you from behind. And even if we miss, their sensors will at least alert them of the beam passing them."

"I have already calculated their most likely positions given their last known trajectories, we can fire the beam in a sweeping pattern for approximately seven point five seconds. I calculate a direct hit on at least one of the ships to be about 36%."

I blinked at those numbers. "Only seven point five seconds? And why such a low chance of hitting them? Can't you see them from here?"

Kelex stared at me for a moment, I swear he was about to sigh. "With all the sensors and communications out, I need to extrapolate their current location and come up with a viable targeting solution using an image with a four hour light delay. Adding to the difficulty is the fact that at the moment Wegthor is blocking our line of sight, but thanks to its fractured nature in approximately five minutes and sixteen seconds a gap will appear for seven point five seconds that would allow us a clear view of the other side, but the gap is small enough to limit the size of the sweep which in turn lowers our chance of getting a direct hit even further. We could wait for Wegthor to move if you wish? However, that would take nearly three hours. And as it would take four hours for the beam to reach them at the edge of the system I would not suggest that option."

"Okay. Fire the beam when the gap appears. Put as much power into it as the emitters will allow. I don't care if you melt the damn thing in the process. We need to do everything we can to ensure they don't miss our signal. The fate of Krypton might just depend on it."

"Yes, Mistress Kara. I suggest you vacate the premises before firing the beam. With the city currently shut down, such a large expenditure of energy will be like a beacon to the enemy. And with all the defensive measures of the house down, I do not believe it would be wise to stay."

"Sure thing Kelex. Let me just pick something up from my room and we can be on our way." I said as I got to my door, I actually ended up walking right into the metal door and falling on my ass. "What the-!" I mumbled holding my nose. "Why isn't the door opening?"

Kelex answered immediately. "All the sensors are down at the moment. That includes the biometric scanners. You will need to manually open the door." If I didn't know Kelex was a class three AI and incapable of it I would have sworn he sounded amused at my situation.

I quickly got off the floor and entered my room, putting on the circlet I commanded a metal box to rise out of the ground and come to rest on my bed. Etched into the top of the box was the house of El crest, pressing my palm onto the crest I flinched as I felt it prick my hand. After a moment the box opened with a hiss. I retrieved its contents and laid them out on the bed. A pair of plain unadorned bronze-colored vambraces rested before me.

I jumped in surprise when Kelex spoke over my shoulder "What is that Mistress Kara? It’s not logged in any of our files."

"That's because I didn't want anyone to know about it." I cringed as I said the next part. "..it's not exactly legal."

"I see...I'm assuming it can help our situation somehow? I don't imagine you would waste time coming back for it if it was useless." Kelex didn't even sound phased at my apparent law-breaking...Although in hindsight, I suppose that shouldn't have surprised me considering how long Kelex had served our House. Sometimes rules need to be bent a little to make scientific advancements.

"Honestly? I'm not really sure what it will do. I'm not even sure if it will even turn on, let alone work as intended. It's a prototype I slapped together a few weeks ago in my spare time while working on the sword." That said, I made to put them on and quickly found a problem.

Penny was currently wrapped around my wrists, and since she was in lockdown mode I had no way of getting her off. I couldn't even use the circlet to control her since the Liquid Geo that made her up was specifically designed to only react to a specific frequency. No liquid geo field emitters on Krypton, including the ones in my room, used that specific frequency. I did that as a safety precaution so it would be impossible for anyone to affect her accidentally or otherwise.

But now, what at the time had seemed like a great idea, was now a great detriment. "Kelex, do you think you could remove Penny without damaging her...or me for that matter?"

Kelex inspected my wrists for a moment. "Yes Mistress Kara, while I cannot awaken Penny, I can access her Bios and change her form. Just a moment." A pair of small tendrils extended from Kelex touching both bracers, and after a few seconds of nothing happening, the metal started to ripple and slowly detach itself from my arm, combining to form Pennys default form of an apple-sized sphere.

I grabbed her and gently placed her in the box "You'll be safe here Penny." I whispered to my friend unsure if she was able to hear me or not. I sealed it with a tap on the crest and put it back under the floor for safekeeping.

With how busy I had been working on the sword, I hadn't even been able to test the bracers. Literally putting them in the box while they were still warm from the Matter Forge.

I snapped the bracers onto my wrists, shivering slightly as the cool metal pressed into my skin. Taking a deep breath to calm my nerves, praying that they actually worked, I tapped the bracers together five times in rapid succession. I shut my eyes and waited for them to activate. Seconds ticked by with nothing happening. Slowly I opened my eyes and stared at the bracers. "They should have activated already. I guess they don't wor-" The bracers made a slight humming sound making me freeze and stare with bated breath. Slowly a luminescent House of El crest began to flicker to life on the bronze surface. Shining with a bright golden light.

Instantly I could feel the effects. My ankle which had been throbbing sharply in pain was now starting to fade and I could feel my tired body begin to fill with strength. I had never felt so good! I could feel the power coursing through my veins. It was heady and intoxicating. It-it was...actually, it was starting to get a little uncomfortable. The warm and comforting sensation that was emanating from my wrists was starting to get almost unbearably warm. A quick glance at the vambraces showed that the glow from the El symbols was stable. I dropped to my knees in sudden agony as it suddenly felt like I had molten magma injected into every cell in my body. The change was so sudden and harsh that I didn't even scream. My vision was starting to swim as I writhed on the floor, but I was able to see Kelex lean down and slam my wrists together.

Like a switch, the pain disappeared immediately leaving me to gasp for air. "Thank….you….I’m not sure what just happened."

Kelex reached down and helped me off the floor. "Mistress Kara. My sensors indicate that the device was emitting artificial yellow sun radiation. Is that analysis correct?" Seeing my nod it continued. "Then the answer is simple. Sunlight that is not the same as Rao is incredibly poisonous to Kryptonians."

I stared at the robot in confusion, but before I could open my mouth a loud bang reverberated throughout the house. "What was that?!" I hissed at Kelex.

"Something blasted the roof doors open! Come! You need to leave, now!" A tentacle wrapped around my arm and dragged my stumbling form out of the room. We barely made it ten feet down the hall before a voice rang throughout the house. "KARA!" A voice I recognized immediately. I ripped my arm out of Kelexs grip and ran towards the voice.

As I turned the corner I could see the source of the voice running towards me. "Mom!"

We met in the middle and hugged each other tightly sinking to the floor together. "Kara! Oh thank Rao you're safe!" We spent a few moments just hugging. Eventually, she pushed me away to inspect me. "Are you hurt at all?"

I took a moment to take stock and shook my head. While the bracers had hurt me they also healed my ankle and all the cuts and scrapes I got from my run through the city. "No. I’m fine mom, but how are you even here? You were on Argo when the attack happened!"

She nodded "I was, but I managed to get down here with an experimental stealth ship of your father's. Everything went smoothly until I came in for a landing. The communication laser fired as I crossed in front of it. It barely clipped my wing but it caused me to crash land on the roof."

I winced when she told me what happened, "Sorry Mom." I proceeded to explain my reasoning for firing the laser.

Her eyes widened and she brought me in for another hug, and kissed my crown. "You brilliant daughter of mine!" She laughed.

Kelex must have caught up with me as I heard his voice behind me. "Mistress Alura. You need to take Kara and leave. The laser undoubtedly drew attention. This location is not secu-" He didn't even get to finish his warning before the wall next to us exploded inward sending us flying into the opposite wall, I slammed into it headfirst, stars exploded across my quickly fading vision. The last thing I saw before my vision faded to black was my mother standing before me facing the smoking hole, and a pair of fiery red dots floating amidst the smoke.