21 Chapter 21 - Kara Zor-El

Percy's Living Room

Percy extended his hand for her to shake and introduced himself formally. "Well Kara Zor-El, nice to formally meet you. I'm Percy Jackson, and this is uh, my apartment." She looked a little confused at Percy's outstretched hand and reached out her hand, face down and lightly placed it on his." He raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything about it.

"So, you're obviously from a different world. Do your people just randomly crash land on planet's oceans randomly?" He joked, but quickly noticed that she looked rather devastated with that comment and looked away, brushing her hair behind her ear.

"My planet Krypton was destroyed. The council was adamant that it could be saved so it didn't order an evacuation to on of our abandoned outposts, but it proved to be futile. My uncle made a pod for my baby cousin so he could land on Earth, and my parents made me one so I could watch over him. I didn't want to leave them behind but I knew I had a responsibility to my cousin to keep him safe, so I had to leave," her voice grew soft as she slowly trailed off.

Percy mentally slapped his forehead and called himself an idiot. Her whole planet was destroyed and her he was making jokes without knowing. "Kara, I'm sorry, I didn't know."

She turned back to face him and lightly smiled. "It's alright, there's no way you could've known. Plus technically, it was a long time ago."

He decided to try and move on from that. "You said you're here to protect your cousin, should he be landing here sometime soon?"

"No, he came here way before me. When our planet exploded, the shockwaves knocked my pod off course and I ended up in the Phantom Zone. It's a place where time doesn't exist and I was frozen there for a really long time. Just a couple months ago, for some reason my pod got knocked out of it and auto corrected course back to Earth, where you can obviously tell I landed."

"The Phantom Zone sounds like a scary place honestly."

"It probably is, but bc I was frozen it seems like I went in and straight out. The only way I knew how much time had passed was because my pod was calibrated to Earth years before I left. 27 Earth years I was there."

"Holy Hades, that's a long time to he frozen!" Percy should know, Perses Froze him for two weeks and that was miserable, but he was also conscious for the whole time. So maybe she actually got the better deal here.

She just shrugged, "Maybe, I didn't age though so I'm still technically 18."

"That post makes sense. So your cousin is already here then, right?"

"He should be, his name is Kal-El."

"Hmm, I've met a ton of aliens since I've been here, but nobody with that name. It is a big planet though so maybe we can find him."

"You'd help me find him?"

"Of course! Though, you probably shouldn't go around announcing that you're an alien to the public. There's a bunch of mixed opinions about them at the moment, with the Justice League and all."

"Justice League?"

"Yeah, a group of super heroes defending and saving the planet. They have a bunch of cool powers and amazing abilities. I'm actually a recently new member myself."

"Woah, Krypton had stories about extraordinary people but they weren't actually true, just made up for entertainment. To think there's a whole planet with super powered individuals, that's kind of cool."

"Well, it's actually just a very small percentage of people. Not everyone has superpowers here. That would get really chaotic, real quick. Trust me."

"Still it works definitely be cool to have a super power." She turned around to get a full look at the apartment, then turned back to him. "This is a nice place you have here, you sure I can stay here? What is someone is suspicious about a random person living here with you?"

Percy shrugged and sat on the couch, motioning for her to also take a seat. "Honestly, only one person knows I live here, and it's because she's the one who picked out this place. I like it, but other then her, I don't get visitors."

Kara's face turned slightly red and she looked at the TV, which was off. "She seems like a nice person. Who is she?"

"Well, her name is Diana, and she's my cousin. She's sort of like a government diplomat, at least that's how she describes it. Honestly, I have no idea what she does for her day job, really. But she's cool."

Kara looked back at him and smiled, "Yeah, she seems really cool. Hopefully I can meet her some day. By the way, can I ask you a question?"

Shrugging, he nodded, "Sure, shoot."

"Well, how do you know how to speak Kryptonian? As far as I knew, no one else in the universe spoke it anymore unless they were from Krypton, and my father had told me that this planet wasn't as developed as ours, and that they were still arguing whether or not life in space even existed. It was just weird for you to start speaking a technically dead language. When you switched languages, it was a little startling."

This shocked Percy, he definitely thought he was speaking English this whole time, and he thought she was too. "Wait, you aren't speaking English? I don't know Kryptonian, I just thought you knew English for some reason."

"Uh, nope. We were the only planet to speak it, which is why I found it weird when I could suddenly understand you. Hold on, you thought you were speaking your native tongue? You don't know more then one language by any chance?"

"I mean, I actually know three. English, Ancient Greek, and Latin, the last two being dead languages. I was kind of born knowing them because of my family, sort of."

"Weird, maybe you just have a thing for lost languages or something. Well if you didn't know you were speaking my language, that means other people probably won't understand me then. How are we going to fix that?"

"Great question, I honestly don't know." Percy suddenly realized she said something odd. "Wait, did you say 'lost languages?'"

"Um, yeah? Why?" Percy was beginning to have an idea, and if this worked, he couldn't wait to tell Diana. Oh Schist, Diana! How was he going to explain this to her? That some random alien space girl was going to be staying with him until further notice? Oh well, he'll cross that bridge when he gets there. He really wanted to test this idea out, and if it worked, maybe she could instantly learn his language. Hopefully, otherwise she might think he's weird. Which he probably was, but that was irrelevant.

"Kara, I know this might sound weird, but I might have a way to instantly teach you my language."

"Why would that be weird? On Krypton, we had devices that instantly translated alien languages after hearing a few sentences. Do you have something like that?"

"Uh, no? Wait, if you had that, why wasn't that packed on your pod? I mean, that seems pretty useful if you're going to an alien planet with an alien language."

"My planet was in the process of getting destroyed. I'm not entirely sure, but I'm guessing the language barrier wasn't as high on the list of priorities as say, I don't know, saving your only child and hoping your species can live on?"

"Oof. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. But this isn't a device, it's more like, another power I have. I think."

"You think one of your powers can instantly teach someone a language?"

"Well, I'm not entirely sure. Some of my powers I'm still trying to figure out. Maybe this is one of them. I don't know, it's a lot to explain but I think it's worth a shot."

Kara shrugged and nodded, "Sure, I definitely don't get it, but I guess it's worth a shot. But you're definitely going to have to tell me what other powers you have."

"Sure, but I want to try this real quick. I'm going to have to put my hands on your head, is that alright?"

She looked a little hesitant, but she still agreed. Percy put both his index fingers and middle fingers together and lightly placed them on her temple. He then closed his eyes and started to concentrate. He thought about his Domain of Lost, which he still didn't understand fully, but he was sure that was the reason he could understand her. He thought about his language, English, and how beneficial it would be for her to learn it here. At first, he felt nothing, but after a few moments, he started to feel a slight feeling in his brain, like something wanted to be transferred from his brain to hers. He focused on that feeling, and he imagined a link forming between their brains. After visualizing his Language transferring to her, he heard her gasp. He quickly snapped his eyes open and looked at her.

"What happened! What's wrong?"

Kara just stared off into space, her eyes suddenly seeming unfocused. Actually that wasn't it, she was actually looking out the window, and it looked like her eyes were trying to focus. She blinked a few times before putting her hands on her head and shaking it.

"That was weird. I think I know your language now, but my vision suddenly changed, I could see through walls and I could hear everything for a second there. All the people on the street, next door, above us and below us. It was weird."

"Yeah, I don't think I did that. Well the language thing, yeah, but the vison and hearing? Definitely not me."

"Huh." She looked around the living room and turned back to him. "Well, it was weird, that's for sure. On another note, I think that your power thingy worked!"

"Yeah, me too. Honestly didn't now what would happen, if anything because I had never tried it out before, but something you said had made me think I could do it. How I did it though, well that part beats me to be honest."

"But you did it though. That's so awesome! You didn't need devices or anything."

Percy blushed and rubbed the back of his neck. "It was nothing, really."

"You know what I think?"

"What's that?"

"I think," she pointed a finger at him, "that you are a little to modest. It's kind of refreshing, though."

"Oh," was all Percy could say before both of his pets walked out of his room and into the living room, probably to inspect their new guest. Nosy pets. He still loved them though.

The mythical cat and dog seemed to mystify Kara though. She squealed, honest to goodness squealed in delight. "By Rau, what are they? They are so cute!" She knelt on the floor as the two creatures came up to her and she started petting them both, and for some reason, this made Percy smile. "Those are my pets, Small Bob and Mrs. O'Leary. the small one, Small Bob, which is dumb I had to specify because you probably could have figured it out by the name. Uh, yeah. That one is my cat." Percy turned bright red but Kara just giggled at him and kept petting them both. Percy breathed a sigh of relief, because that was dumb. "The other one is my dog."

"Well, I love them both! Weird names you chose though. Why'd you pick those for their names?"

Percy stayed silent for awhile before answering, thinking back a long time ago to two of his friends. "Well, Mrs. O'Leary belonged to a friend of mine, and before he died he left her in my care. Small Bob is named after another one of my friends, Bob, and he named him that because the cat took a liking to him and it was the first thing he thought of. After he died, I thought Small Bob was gone forever, but when I went back to Tart-" He stopped himself mid sentence, realizing he almost told her that for a bit he was in literal Hell. She gave him a weird look at his story but said nothing, waiting for him to continue. He took a deep breath, "When I went back to the place where we found him, he found me and kind of just, followed me. So yeah, um, that's how they got their names." He again rubbed the back of his neck and laughed nervously.

"I'm sorry about your friends," she said in a small voice.

"Don't be. They died a really long time ago, and I've accepted it a long time ago also. I still think about them sometimes, and sometimes I just feel guilty."

Kara just nodded, petting both animals as she did. "I know how you feel. I feel guilty every day. To me, It was only less then a year ago that my planet was destroyed. I may have only been 18, but still. I can't help but think, maybe there was something I could have done to help my Uncle and Father convince the council that the planet was in danger, that it couldn't be saved. Maybe, if I would have tried a little harder, we could've convinced them to order an evacuation, and maybe our race could have been saved." Her voice started to trail off into a whisper and her bottom lip started quivering a little bit, "Maybe if I was a little more brave, then maybe..."

She stopped petting the two animals and buried her face in her hands, starting to cry. Percy didn't want her to beat herself up about it and went to sit next to her on the floor, putting his arm around her. "Hey, don't beat yourself up about it. It seems like your family did everything in their power to save your home world, it's not your fault that the council was stubborn, and it's definitely not your family's fault. Don't beat yourself up about things you couldn't change, and let's focus and getting you acclimated to this world and finding your cousin. How does that sound?"

Kara still crying, but slightly less now, nodded and leaned her head on his shoulder. "How will I even know what he looks like now? He's an adult now, older then his older cousin! What am I going to do if I can't find the only family I have left in the universe?"

Percy pulled her a little closer and spoke softly, "Don't worry, we will find him. I might know a couple people who could help. But if he came here as a baby, he might not even know that he is Kryptonian. He might think he's and Earthling, and someone could have adopted him. I don't know how we are going to do it, but we'll do everything we can to find him."

She nodded and then asked him a question. "Why are you helping me? You only just met me."

Thinking about it for a second, he answered her, "Well, I kind of know what it's like to be in an unfamiliar place with almost no one to rely on. Hades, that was me when I got here. I honestly wouldn't know what I would do if I hadn't stumbled on Diana in this reality and what would've happened had she not taken me in."

"Your cousin isn't from your original reality?"

Chuckling, he shook his head. "No, no she's not. If she was, thing's might have gone differently back home, that's for sure."

"If she's not from your reality, how are you guy's even cousins?"

Laughing, he just shrugged. "Honestly, it's a long and complicated story."

"You are going to have to tell me about that sometime."

"Maybe, maybe I will." When she didn't respond, he looked down and noticed she had fallen asleep. He smiled softly, thinking to himself. 'Just maybe...' he leaned his head back against the couch, falling asleep, with Kara on his shoulder, Mrs. O'Leary's head in her lap fast asleep, and Small Bob in his lap, purring contently.