Chapter 41

DISCLAIMER: I have never been in Phoenix and, even if I did, this is DC's Phoenix, not RL Phoenix, the existance of Superheroes and villains changed a lot in every city of the world.

I have done a superficial search on the city, so a lot of things may seem similar, but I'll probably NOT look at it deeper on purpose because I don't want the city to be the same.

There are reasons I choose the city, but they have nothing to do with RL. Please, if anybody lives in it or close by, don't be offended, most of the crimes Kara will be stopping could happen anywhere and I'll try to keep general statements about the city to a minimum.

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Kara dropped in front of the robber, blocking his view of the couple trembling behind her, the boyfriend doing his best to keep the girl behind him.

It was only her second patrol in the city and the last one for the week. Kara wasn't willing to completely drop her tinkering to focus entirely on being a hero, so she had decided to do it twice a week, randomizing the days so people wouldn't adapt to her movements.

Keeping an eye on the weapon, she did a quick facial recognition search on the attacker and found two charges of robbery with a deadly weapon and videos of several crimes, from assault to attempted rape, his family had put him in a recovery clinic once, but he had run away right after getting 'sober'.

Right, no need to be gentle with this one.

The scent of drugs hit her nose soon after Kara dropped down and she noticed some spilled beer over the would-be mugger's shirt. She also saw his hands were shaking and his eyes were red

Kara always hated having to deal with drug addicts and drunks. In a way, it was their addiction that drove them to crime rather than malice, so she felt bad being too rough with them but, on the other hand, they hurt innocent people.

Still, there was only so much violence she'd allow the addiction to excuse and this seemed a pretty clear case where she didn't need to pull her punches. "Alright, put the gun down before I do it for you Richard. The police asked me not to ruin evidence like that anymore."

Instead of answering her or even surrendering like any sane person, the idiot shot her.

Huh, that was a first after she had revealed herself in the city. Most others had decided to give up as soon as she appeared.

Guess that security video of her moving in a blur and amputating a guy's finger had been an effective intimidation tactic.

With a sigh, Kara snatched the bullet out of the air even though it wasn't even gonna hit her, flying a whole meter over her left shoulder. She wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, maybe his finger had twitched and he had shot her by accident, but the gun continued shooting, unloading the entire magazine at her.

Snatching every shoot as they came —Only one was actually on target— Kara watched the last one coming for her and flicked it back, using enough control to aim for the man's foot. The camera in her costume already saving the video to send to the police.

"Stop shooting yourself Richard," she said blithely, walking calmly towards him, her boots hitting the pavement in large steps. "Rao, I know you're high, but this is pathetic."

"AHHHHH! Fuck! You fuchin' shot me!" He yelled, not even able to speak right.

"Really? You shoot at a freaking Kryptonian and complain when the bullet bounces back?" Shaking her head, Kara stepped on top of the fallen gun. Making sure not to crush it, she kicked it away from the man and pulled out a zip tie.

Securing the man's arms behind his back, she briefly considered his cursing form before ripping out a piece of his shirt and using it to gag his dirty mouth. Using her X-ray vision, she checked his foot where the bullet had hit him and nodded in satisfaction.

Kara had done her best to not flick the bullet fast enough to pierce his body, but her control still wasn't perfect and the impact could have broken a bone. Thankfully it hadn't, only leaving a huge bruise.

"Sorry for the scare. Are the two of you alright?" Kara said, finally turning towards the couple. The young girlfriend seemed to actually be doing better, while the man's limbs were trembling as his adrenaline crashed.

"Thank you! You're Superwoman, right?" the girlfriend asked in an eager voice. Kara swore she could see the woman's eyes shining as she almost pushed her boyfriend out of the way in a rush. "Oh my god, I need your autograph, Sidney is never gonna believe this!"

A little taken aback, Kara traded a disbelieving glance with the man, seeing his baffled face as his girlfriend seemed to completely ignore the fact she was almost shot at. "Ah, I actually prefer Supergirl. Superwoman would make me feel like I had to be mature when dealing with criminals."

"Great! You don't know how glad I am that you showed up!" The woman continued on, pulling a pen and a small book from her purse, eagerly handing it over. "Are you gonna be joining the Justice League? You have to; there are so few women there!"

"Not anytime soon?" Kara answered, but it was more like a question as she was feeling incredibly awkward at the woman's excitement, she hadn't even done anything big enough to earn recognition yet. "Who am I signing to…?"

"Amanda!" She almost yelled and Kara started signing the book. "God, Sidney couldn't shut up about getting Black Canary's signature, but I actually got a Kryptonian!"

Snatching the book out of her hands, the woman clutched it to her chest with one hand while pulling her phone out and furiously tipping into it.

"I- Ah, thanks," The boyfriend finally said, looking at his girl with a newfound understanding. "Should I… do something?"

"Can you call the cops? I could drop him in the station, but they'd have to come here anyway and you're gonna have to give your testimony."

"Right, right, I'll do that," suddenly, he winced as the girl's camera flashed and she took a selfie in front of Kara.

Seeing that things were under control, Kara patted the guy's back in sympathy and soared into the air, eager to get away. Stopping behind a cloud, she glared to the side. "Don't you dare laugh."

"I wasn't going to," Kal answered, a smile on his face as he floated closer.

"Does that happen often?" She asked, glancing down at the woman to make sure she wasn't going to do anything to the arrested man.

"You'd be surprised. Although it did take a little longer for me," he said, giving her a quick hug. "I once had an older man hug me and refuse to let go for nearly five minutes."

Kara tried to imagine a little old dude clinging to Kal's leg for five minutes and couldn't stop her snort of amusement.

"Hey, Mr. Adams was a great guy once he calmed down," He said, floating away from her.

Looking down at the girl taking a selfie with the bound criminal, Kara had the distinct impression her 'fan' wasn't as nice as Mr. Adams. Hearing the vehicle roll up, both their heads turned to the side and the Kryptonians watched the police car approach.

Kara had used a program to call the police as soon as she had seen the crime, but it still took some time for them to arrive and it was always better to have the victim call too just to make sure.

Finally, after the officers arrived and detained the man, the Els floated away to sit on top of a building. "So, why are you checking up on me?"

"What? I can't come to visit my cousin?" Kal said. Pulling on his cape, he revealed a small pocket and pulled out two pretzels, offering her one. "Pretzel?"

"I… did not know you had a pocket in your cape," Kara said, staring at her cousin as if he had grown a second head. "Since when did you have a pretzel pocket in your cape?"

"It's just an ordinary, non-pretzel pocket and I always had it," Kal answered, quickly finishing his pretzel and wiping his mouth. "Ma put it in the first one so I'd have a place to store my documents and I always kept it."

Huh, you learn something new every day. Kara had never considered how he carried things in his costume.

"Why are you here Kal?" She finally asked after the silence started to stretch between them. "I mean, I'm not complaining, but I didn't expect you to just show up all of a sudden. Weren't we gonna meet tomorrow anyway?"

"Lobo," he said, his face becoming serious for once as he lost his smile. "His regenerated clones are finally turning up. We managed to capture two of them, but they were assassinated soon after by a third riding a motorcycle. I didn't think you'd want to wait to hear this."

Kara felt a shiver go down her spine, her fingers digging into the building and leaving deep furrows. Rao fucking damn it, that annoying asshole again.

Would he be hunting her right now or would he prioritize himself? There really was no way of knowing.

"Did they say anything? The ones you captured, I mean."

"It seems like they're gonna be fighting each other for a while, but they could be lying," Kal said, his own hand closing into fists. "I'm glad to see you getting out, but now may not be the best time…"

Looking down at the city, Kara saw the cars and the people interacting with each other. She hasn't been incredibly active in the city, today being only her second patrol, but she had enjoyed it.

"No, I'm not stopping for him," she finally said, a hand going towards her nearly healed eye as she thought about who had put the bounty on her. "If he shows up, I'll deal with it, but I'll continue patrolling."

"Good… the League is doing its best to hunt him down, but I just wanted you to be ready," Kal said reassuringly, looking over the city. "If you need help, just call, alright?"

"Don't worry, if he shows up here he's gonna regret ever being born," she said, squeezing her hands into fists and letting the ground dust from the building fall down between her fingers.

"So, why here?" He asked, changing the subject before Kara could get even angrier.

"Well, no one particular reason, it just has a lot of things I was looking for," She answered with a shrug. "I mean, there's crime everywhere, but there are no heroes here and the desert gives me a good place to fight in case someone powerful shows up. Also, it's a great place for one of my solar farms, probably gonna open a branch here sometime in the future by the way. Say, did you have a deal with the police in Metropolis before forming the League?"

"Not explicitly, no," he shook his head and leaned back, his legs swinging over the side of the building as he remembered. "I mostly just stopped crimes as they were happening, so the police got a lot of witnesses."

"Huh, but you did bust some crime rings and such, right? How did you manage to get them arrested?"

"Investigative journalism," Kal smiled and winked at her. "I got some of my first scoops by exposing things from my actions as Superman. After that, it became common for reporters to follow up on my actions if they wanted to be in the papers, which helped out a lot in police work."

"You sneaky bastard, that's got to be cheating."

"Well, it worked didn't it? I had to find a way of making the arrests stick," he laughed and looked up at the clouds. "Speaking of, Lois is dying to get an interview with you."

"Hmmm, hard pass, thank you very much," Kara glared at him, the last thing she wanted to do right now was talk about herself. She barely managed to talk with Black Canary, much less a reporter.

"Hey, I didn't say you should do it. I was just warning you she'll probably come looking soon. She can be persistent when she gets something in her mind."

"Right, thanks for the warning," pushing herself away from the building, Kara floated away. "Are you staying for much longer?"

"Ah, no, I just wanted to check on you and tell you about Lobo in person," He shook his head, pushing himself back into a sitting position. "See you tomorrow for Torquasm training?"

"Yeah, I have a meeting before that, so I may be a few minutes late, but I'll be there," Kara nodded, already starting to focus back on the city to look for another asshole trying to hurt people.

"Great, good to see you cuz," he quickly put a hand over her head, messing up her hair and, before she could complain, flew away, breaking through the clouds before accelerating back towards Metropolis.

Watching him for a second, Kara decided she had no interest in becoming a reporter herself. Well, she could probably write an AI to do the writing for her, but really, it was probably best if she did call the Chief of police for that talk.

Ugh, she had been hoping she wouldn't have to do that, he'd probably ask her to stop scaring the hell out of criminals and that was half the fun of the whole thing.

Checking the time with her mask, she decided to do it on her next patrol; it was already too late to bother people today. Kara stayed in the city for another two hours, making sure to film every arrest she made so there wouldn't be too many problems.

Finally, she was done for the day and flew back to Fawcett City. At her speed the flight only took 20 minutes or so. Entering the house, she took off her clothes, putting the metallic cube on top of her desk and climbed into the bed.

A grunt of annoyance from Kori caused her to freeze in place, but the Tamaranean didn't wake up, so Kara gently squeezed under the covers.

Like a mouse-trap, Kori's arms and legs snapped closed around Kara's body, pulling the blonde closer to her naked body, and nudging her nose into the back of Kara's neck.

For a second, Kara debated changing positions, but then she felt Kori actually starting to purr, sending a tingling feeling down her back and making her feel completely safe.

Suddenly, Dexter jumped on top of them, climbing her shoulders before lying down and starting to knead with his claws while biting into the blanket and purring as well.

Kara gave up, she was defeated. Closing her eyes, she leaned back against Kori and went to sleep.

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Lena Luthor looked good. Damn good even, despite the clear exhaustion Kara could see.

She could have easily been a model in another life, looking older than Kara by about five to ten years but only in the sense that she looked more mature and responsible. Her hair was tied into a bun and she wore a pair of thin designer glasses; mere accentuations to the stern look she naturally gave that screamed battle tested competence.

Upon entering, she took a second to scan the restaurant in search of Kara, who would be surprised if the Luthor wasn't simultaneously casing all the other customers as well. Taking a bite from some cookies she had ordered, Kara watched as a waiter quickly approached and led the businesswoman towards her table.

The meeting was supposed to be an informal thing. A quick pit stop in the middle of Lena's busy day for a promising young businesswoman to pitch her a new idea, or at least that was what Kara hoped it would look like from the outside.

She didn't really need a lot of time to talk with Lena, Kara doubted she'd manage to steal the woman away from her brother's company in a single afternoon anyway. The dark side had its claws sunk deep into this one. But, she could lay the first seeds of temptation and that was good enough for now.

Of course Kara had done her homework beforehand. Lena, like her brother, was both a great businesswoman and a great inventor but, as the younger sibling, she was always forced to be one step behind.

She had managed to stay clear of her brother's more… questionable business deals and even fought against some of his decisions, but she didn't have much support in LexCorp thanks in no small part due to Lex's manipulation of the chess pieces involved.

Currently, she was working as the CEO of LexCorp Robotics, but the vast majority of what she created was under the broader LexCorp name, not her own. In effect, despite her talent, very few people even knew she existed, always overshadowed by her egomaniacal brother.

Kara watched as the woman approached and couldn't help admiring her. Lena didn't quite have the same athletic build as Kori, but she obviously took care of herself and exuded an air of authority the Tamaranean just lacked, even if the latter did, technically, have far more power than Lena, probably in all aspects.

"Miss Kara Danvers, you went to a lot of trouble to arrange this meeting," Lena opened when she arrived at the table, taking a second to stare at Kara with an appraising look. "I'm surprised you even managed it. Despite your most recent accomplishments, your company isn't big enough to normally get a meeting with me in less than a month."

"I have my ways, Miss Luthor," Kara replied with a polite smile as the waiter pulled a chair for the business woman. "To be honest, I'm more surprised you accepted the offer on the first try."

"The fact that you managed to get such a huge deal closed with WayneTech drew a lot of attention," Lena answered as she settled herself. "In truth, I wasn't going to accept this meeting, but the designs for your solar panels are absolutely brilliant, and I do require at least one intelligent conversation in my day to day."

"Thank you, you should see the finished product," Kara lifted an eyebrow at that last sentence. Giving the woman some time to order her own drink, she continued. "Still, I wasn't sure you'd be able to make it, what with all of LexCorp's latest troubles."

"I… actually, that was part of why I accepted," Lena said with a tired and frustrated voice. "I needed a break from dealing with all that…"

"Well, I'm glad I could help out," Kara said with obvious faux chipper. She honestly felt a bit guilty though, a lot like those scam businesses that created a problem just to swoop in and offer a solution later. The woman was clearly exhausted if she was letting comments like that escape in an introductory business meeting. "Should I get right to business then?"

"It would be for the best, yes," Lena said. Thanking a waiter when he handed her a cup of coffee, she sipped the dark roasted brew and relaxed a little. "I have read everything there is to know about you, Miss Danvers. Which is another way of saying there is incredibly little to find, but one thing I could gather was that you're very direct in your business dealings. So, please, present your proposal. I'm eager to see what you could bring to LexCorp."

Kara narrowed her eyes at the quick turn in atmosphere. Was what she'd said earlier not something Lena had accidentally let out after all? She was a Luthor; she could very easily be trying to seem more familiar and open to manipulate a younger, talented business owner.

Really, it wasn't like she had revealed any great secret, everyone knew the state LexCorp was in right now.

"Actually, I'm not really interested in LexCorp, I'm interested in you," Kara said, smirking a little at the woman's subtly raised eyebrow. "I'm offering you a job, Miss Luthor, a job as the CEO of my company."

"You're… actually trying to poach from LexCorp… You are aware we're one of the biggest companies in the world?" Lena said with an all-too-perfect tone of disbelief. Taking another sip of coffee, she let her amusement show as she decided to indulge Kara. "Ignoring the disparity in capitalization, intellectual property and human resources and the fact that the company you're trying to poach me from literally has my brother's name on it. Why would I work for you? The only things you have to your credit are a few circuit boards, a couple of old buildings and new solar panels that, if you'll forgive the pun, haven't truly seen the light of day yet."

"Well, you wouldn't have to desperately lie to protect said brother's oh-so-good name, for one," Kara took her own sip and leaned forward on the table. "Tell me Miss Luthor, just what has LexCorp done in the last 5 years? What has it really achieved?"

"We have achieved more than you can ever imagine… I have to say, you haven't started well," Lena sighed, but didn't start revealing company secrets to Kara. Still, she looked down to her coffee and took another sip. "Still. This place really is good, I just love the coffee here. It would be a shame to just walk out without finishing my cup so you have until I finish it to convince me."

"Hmmm, yes, I guess you did achieve a lot in your own way. As CADMUS was one of your investments one can look at what they made; an entire new race of genetically designed sentient beings," Kara praised, causing Lena to flinch at the unspoken accusation. "And yet where are the products? Where are the cloned organs? The cures for diseases? It doesn't take much imagination to know how much value is being left on the table, but your brother had scientists capable of creating a new race and he used them to fight Superman… How many of LexCorp's other projects has he turned to that same goal? How many of its inventions ever end up in civilian hands anymore?"

"That… is not a completely inaccurate view," Lena nodded, taking another sip and pausing to think. "Still, let's for the sake of argument say I agree, why wouldn't I attempt to change things from within my own company? Why would I agree to work for such a comparatively small business?"

"Do you really think you can make changes? With Lex there? How much do you really think he'd ever let anyone but himself dictate the company's direction?" Kara asked rhetorically, sensing from Lena's demeanor exactly how much. "And that's before we get into LexCorp's dual class shareholder structure. The board would never be able to oust him without you and to openly defy him would have consequences. Besides, Danvers Enterprises is far better positioned than you may think. Did you know we managed to hire a sizable number of the scientists from CADMUS? I spoke with Caldecott Industries earlier this week and managed to secure a deal to produce a new lab, one that will actually use the knowledge acquired at CADMUS for more than just playing Supervillain."

"I have absolutely no intention of stopping at producing solar panels, Miss Luthor. That was simply the first step. What I'm offering you is a chance to get out from under your brother's thumb," pulling out a small flash drive, Kara pushed it across the table towards the older woman. "You said I have no idea what LexCorp has achieved lately. You're right, but that was because nobody has any idea. It barely does anything exciting or innovative these days."

The flash drive contained some of the more promising projects Kara had decided to drop, for one reason or another. Things that she wouldn't actually mind being stolen, but that were good enough to show Lena a peek at what Danvers Enterprises, or well, Kara herself, was working on.

Lena finished her coffee, a fingertip tapping the memory stick in thought. "I take it this is to further tempt me?"

"Of course," Kara said shamelessly, finishing her own drink and ordering another. "Can you imagine it, Miss Luthor, actually making a difference? How long can you stay under Lex before some of his dirt starts falling onto you?"

"I'll think about it," Lena finally said, grabbing the flash drive and putting it in the inner pocket of her blazer. "This… was not what I had expected, not by a long shot."

"Take as long as you want," Kara replied, pretty happy with the meeting. She could see how angry Lena was at Lex.

Kara wasn't actually sure she had managed to tempt Lena enough but, even if she hadn't, she was pretty sure the woman was planning on making some kind of play against her brother in the near future. And really, anything that caused trouble for Lex was a win in her book.

Who knows, LexCorp had lost over 39% of its stock value since Kara had started releasing their dirt to the world, Lena may actually have a chance of ousting her brother if things went low enough and she could get enough outside investment.

"I'll be in contact," paying for her own drink, Lena walked right out of the building, but Kara could see her eyes glancing down at the flash drive in her pocket as she walked back towards her office.

With a tap of her finger, Kara dropped the interference field around her table. Watching Lena through the building's walls, Kara smiled when she caught her pausing to look back towards the coffee shop.

Picking up another cookie, she bit another piece off and absentmindedly whispered. "Come Lena, I know there's good in you; Lex hasn't driven it from you fully."

Looking at the clock, Kara left the building in a hurry; she was already late for training with her cousins.

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