Chapter 21

WARNING: my notebook died once and for all so next chapter may be delayed or suffer a drop in quality. really sorry about that.

______&&____

.

Fifteen minutes later, Kara was still feeling a little shaken. She and Kori watched as Kal used his frost breath to put out the fire's all around them. Unfortunately, the cold probably also killed the crops around the place.

Kon himself had woken up angrier than ever, but he had calmed down after a minute or two. As a half Kryptonian under sunlight he still had some impressive regeneration and the wounds Lobo had given him were already closing.

The largest chunk of the bounty hunter himself hung from Wonder Woman's shoulder, he was still only a head with the bare hints of a neck starting to grow. His hair was tied into a convenient handle and Wonder Woman had used her Lasso of Truth as a gag to keep him from talking.

"You sure you should be using a divine artifact like that?" Kara couldn't help but ask, after all, the Lasso was usually used to force people to talk, not the other way around.

"Do not worry. While this isn't exactly its intended purpose, I have to confess I hardly used the Lasso for a more satisfying cause." The heroine told them as she started looking around the devastated farmland. "I do believe even the gods would approve."

An old farm truck approached them from the direction of the city, the young man driving it parked just before the devastated area and got out. "Jesus, my crops!" without knowing what to do the man just grabbed at his head.

With the fires put out, Kal started floating down to talk with the farmer, a smile on his face.

"Tell him I'll pay for the damages." Kara whispered and saw the slight tilt of her cousin's head indicating he had heard her.

The damage of their battle was extensive, and the farmer's insurance probably didn't cover villain damage this far away from a big city.

"I'll start marking the area Lobo's blood has affected." Wonder Woman put a hand on Kori's shoulders and nodded. "Superboy, you willing to help me out by making sure I don't miss anything?"

"Yeah, sure." Kon pushed himself to his feet.

As Kal continued to explain to the farmer what had happened and how the League weren't going to leave him in the lurch, the two heroes started trying to mark a large area around the battle for incineration, the crops were already dead anyway and it was best to be sure no new Lobo's would grow from a piece of him they missed.

Kara wanted to help out as well but was still feeling exhausted, and confused.

Together with Kori they just floated up and went to sit on top of the half destroyed barn to wait and watch until everything was done. Kara would react to any strange noises and only Kori's presence by her side prevented her from fully freaking out.

"Sorry, you and Kon are missing the sidekicks' meeting." Kara apologized, but it only earned another hug from Kori.

"Absurdity, foolishness, madness. How could I abandon you after that-that zarbnoff… no, that glempork attacked you!" Kori said, her fists shaking with anger as she stared directly at Kara's eyes, suddenly she threw her arms around Kara's neck and squeezed. "I am so overjoyed you are safe, Friend Kara!"

Feeling Kori's arms around her body, and knowing her cousin was near to deal with any danger, Kara finally let herself sag into Kori's embrace, her entire body shaking. Squeezing her eye shut, she took in Kori's feel, her scent and her aura before pretending everything else didn't matter for a few minutes.

Slowly, Kori adjusted her position and laid Kara's head on her lap, gently caressing her hair and starting to make tinny braids.

Eventually, the two of them had to fly up, Wonder Woman held Kon by their side while Kal opened his eyes wide and released a controlled blast of heat vision, incinerating everything on the demarcated area. Turning it into ash to prevent Lobo's regeneration.

"Is it done?" Kal asked and Wonder Woman shook her head.

"No, we could not find his missing arm." She said as she grabbed Lobo's head from her shoulder.

"Well, I'm not seeing it either. I'll inform Batman but, at this point, I think we'll just have to deal with it when he shows up again." Kal sighed and turned his gaze to Kara and Kon's way once again. He looked back at Wonder Woman. "Accompany us to the Fortress? I know they're mostly fine, but I want to do another scan on them."

Diana gave Kal a kind smile and let him take Kon from her hands, holding Lobo by his hair she nodded. "Of course, I can make some time for this."

Together, all five of them flew as fast as they could towards the Fortress. Inside a planet's atmosphere there was very little difference in their speed and soon they dropped in front of the crystal structure.

Kon seemed annoyed he had to be carried around, but Kal laid a hand on his back and smiled. "I used to have to walk everywhere too. Only got my flight when I was, what, twenty?"

Kon stared at Kal for a second then nodded with a small smile on his face. "Thanks."

"Don't worry too much about it. Heck, Batman doesn't have any powers and he gets around just fine. I'm sure you're gonna adapt before long." Kal opened the fortress and they all walked inside even as he continued talking, almost as if he wanted them to distract them from what had happened. "I remember I even beat the Flash in a race once… don't think I can do that again, I'm a lot slower now that I don't run so much."

"Clark, you do know the Flash let you win that race, right?" Wonder Woman asked with amusement causing Kal to turn on her with a surprised look.

"What? Slander! I won that race fair and square!" He said in indignation.

"It was for charity Clark, he let you win once." Wonder Woman said with an amused smile on her face.

"Lies!" He mock-shouted, then saw the Fortress AI manifest in front of them. "Alright, prepare the healing pods for Connor and Kara please."

"As you wish Master Kal-El," the image of Jor-El said and turned towards Kara. "Miss Kara, I took the liberty of getting one of your spare prosthetics ready for you."

Kara traded glances with Kori and finally released her hand, a slight blush on her face. "Alright, were you able to recover my leg?"

"Yes, the Kryptium casing is perfectly fine, but the sunstone inside it had to be completely replaced." Jor-El's image said and Kara nodded, using her flight to stay on her feet.

"How long is it gonna take?"

"Again, I took the liberty of scrapping the damaged sunstone and placing one of the spare sunstone crystals inside, it will only take a few hours in the solar chamber before it is finished growing."

Kara nodded; she had programmed a few spare crystals with the configurations of her leg in case it was ever damaged. In a solar chamber, the crystals should be able to absorb sunlight much faster and develop at an accelerated pace.

Kal accompanied Kon inside one of the rooms while Jor-El guided Wonder Woman towards the emergency cells inside the fortress so she could finally drop Lobo off. A second manifestation of Jor-El guided Kara towards another of the healing rooms.

Stopping right at the entrance, Kara gulped and turned towards Kori. "Keep me company?"

"I will not leave your side, Friend Kara." Kori said as she followed her.

Looking at the healing pod awaiting her, Kara took a few deep breaths and squeezed Kori's hand. Finally, she gathered her courage and took her damaged clothes off, stepping into the pod and laying back against the comfortable seating.

"In-In the fight against Lobo, I…" Kara almost choked at her own words, after a second she swallowed and completed her sentence. "Lobo said there was an important organ inside me and I also showed a new power while fighting him, something not common to a Kryptonian. Can you take a deeper look at it?"

"Certainly, Miss Kara Zor-El." The AI nodded and briefly looked aside as if it was reading something. "I have to say, it is entirely possible this is simply a different manifestation of your Kryptonian heritage. There are thousands of possible powers a Kryptonian can manifest under yellow sunlight radiation and would therefore not register as abnormal to my programming previously, but I will certainly look into the matter."     

"Thank you." With that said, Kara gave Kori one last look and let the pod's door close.

She thought she'd be able to stay awake for the entire time but, once the pod started healing her, she was quickly hit with the sheer exhaustion she had been holding back and fell asleep.

.

.

Kara woke up with a startle. Her hands immediately started banging against the lid of the pod with frantic hurry as her mind flashed back to her time under the Psions.

With a strong kick she sent the lid flying and jumped out of the pod, falling down to the floor and hyperventilating.

"I am awake!" Kori shouted as she slipped from her chair and fell to the floor, "I am here, Friend Kara, you are safe."

Seeing her friend with dark bags under her eyes, Kara finally calmed down. She let herself sit down and lean against the pod before sighing. At least she only damaged the lid. The Fortress could fix that fairly easily.

Banging her head against the pod, she noticed her shaking hands and grabbed at them, forcing her limbs to stop trembling. Only a second later did she feel Kori's own hands grabbing at hers and squeezing.

"How long was I out?" She finally asked.

"Nearly twenty hours. Truthfully, you were completely healed in seven. However The Superman and I decided to let you sleep a little longer."

Taking another deep breath, Kara noticed she had both her leg and eye back, looking down at her leg she wiggled her toes to test their motion and nodded in satisfaction.

"And you, were you awake the entire time?" Kara asked, seeing the bags under Kori's eyes.

"I did not wish for you to awake and be alone." Kori said, glancing at the pod's lid piercing the ceiling and causing Kara to snort. "The pod of healing does resemble a Psion device."

"Thanks… What would I do without you?" Together, they got up from the ground and Kara found an empty bedroom for Kori to rest.

Despite her increased resistance, Kori had been awake for nearly two days now and her dislike of the situation didn't help. Tamaraneans were incredibly vulnerable to negative emotions, it made them weaker.

"Are you certain you do not need me any more, Friend Kara?" Kori asked even as her eyes struggled to stay awake.

"Don't worry, I'm feeling much better already. Just rest Kori."

After Kori finally started resting, Kara waited a few minutes just thinking about things before asking the room. "Did you find anything in the examination?"

"Certainly." Jor-El materialized at her side, his face impassive as always. "It seems like your body has fully integrated the alien organ inserted into it, it's no longer inert."

"What exactly is it doing then?" Kara asked.

Jor-El briefly glanced at Kori before starting to talk. "The organ seems strangely similar but not exactly equal to Tamaranean biology, it is constantly releasing a minimal level of psionic energy and, while this is only a hypothesis at the moment, said energy seems to fluctuate with your mood."

"So it gets stronger the angrier I get?" Kara asked, feeling both tired and curious.

"Incorrect, it still needs further observation, but seems to react to any strong emotion." The AI said with an amused smile. "Even then, the fluctuations are very small and it would need an extremely large emotional response to manifest."

"Well shit." Kara couldn't help but say, leaning back on her chair she snickered, her laughter grew louder and louder until she had to put a hand over her mouth to stop herself from waking Kori up. "What the hell were those stupid lizards trying to do?"

"Apologies Miss Kara, but the Fortress does not have that information at the moment."

"Of course it doesn't. It would be too easy if it did." Kara wanted to curse, if only she specialized in biology.

Ah, who was she kidding, if she had the necessary knowledge to solve this particular problem she was probably gonna have to deal with a rogue AI or some problem with her soul instead.

"Uncle, please, scrap that power-armor I ordered built," Kara said after a few moments of thinking. "I'm gonna have to start from scratch."

"Miss Kara, I hope you're not thinking of using the blue star radiation suit?" Jor-El looked at her with enough disapproval on his face to almost make Kara wince. "You know it may increase your powers, but it will also vastly accelerate the deterioration of your damaged cells."

"I'm not going to be using it constantly, or really, before I'm fully healed." Kara defended, and already started considering the modifications she'd make. "But I NEED to have the option. I can't allow myself to be that vulnerable again."

Jor-El sighed and shook his head. "May I suggest you speak with Master Kal-El first?"

"Good idea, I'm gonna ask him to incorporate some of the weapons we discarded. Maybe unlock that file with the really dangerous tech."

"That… was not what I had in mind Miss Kara and you know it." Jor-El tried to intimidate her with his stare for a few seconds, but she kept in mind he was not the head of her house and he gave up when she wasn't responding. "Very well, I'll start the modifications."

Kara spent the next few hours modifying her plans for a power-armor, including a variety of things such as energy weapons strong enough to stun even a Kryptonian and various prototypes based on the teleporting grenade Kara kept in her eye.

She also started working on turning her drones into teleporting grenades; it would make them slightly bigger and less stealthy, but the ability to destroy a cubic meter and a half of space around themselves more than made up for it.

As she continued tapping into the screen of her device Kara saw a hand grabbing at her arm and stopping it, causing her to notice she had been shaking again. Staring at her trembling limb she willed herself to stop, squeezing the device for a second or two before finally looking up and meeting Kal's eyes.      

"Come on. Let's talk where we don't risk waking up your friend." He nodded towards the exit.

"Fine." Kara barked, already feeling insecure.

She was supposed to be the older one, the one looking over him. Not the one who needed help every Rao be damned time.

Kara followed Kal towards the same table they once had breakfast on, two glass bowls of ice cream waited for them.

"I'm not a kid. You can't placate me with ice cream." Kara grunted, but sat down and started eating it anyway.

It may not placate her, but it was still ice cream.

Kal just gave her a look and smiled. "I'm not trying to placate you, just to make you feel better, is it working?"

Kara scooped another spoonful of vanilla ice cream and sighed. "Yes, kinda. I'm still gonna be filling my armor with enough weapons to blow up the moon." She grumbled before taking a third bite. "Lobo may have been the fastest to track me down, but I really doubt he's gonna be the last."

"I know." Kal said, dropping his amused smile for a more serious look. "And we're gonna deal with them when they show up. Until then, I won't stop you from improving your armor."

"You won't?"

"Well, I'll stop you from putting a nuke inside it, but I won't stop you from using the Fortress resources to improve it as long as you don't use it recklessly." Picking his own bowl Kal started eating his own ice cream earning a glare from Kara. She had wanted to eat both of them.

"Alright, so what are we gonna talk about?"

"You know, I thought you weren't gonna be getting into those kinds of fights. In hindsight that was kinda foolish of me, but I thought you were just gonna act as tech support and your training with Diana would be enough. I was wrong."

"Hah, that makes two of us!" Kara snorted in bitter amusement and oddly poked her spoon at the ice cream.

"Yes, well… I already spoke with Connor. Seeing as the both of you can't stay away from trouble I'm offering to personally teach you how to fight." Leaning over the table Kal continued. "It's going to be after his school hours, but I'm gonna be teaching him Kryptonian martial arts every day from now on and I want you to be there too."

"Would it even help all that much?" Kara asked with uncertainty. It's not that she didn't want to learn, but she doubted she could get good enough in a short amount of time. "I mean, I don't have ten years to train with you."

"You'd be surprised. Torquasm Vo and Torquasm Rao were made to be mastered in ten to twenty years by Kryptonian warriors, but that was on Krypton." Lifting a hand Kal poked at his temple and smiled. "Yellow sunlight improves more than just our strength, you know. Not only do we think faster and better, even our muscle memory is created faster."

"So… I can be some kind of master in months or something?" 

"Not… exactly? In truth I'd say I'm only above average if we're only talking about skill." Kal leaned back, his hand flashing forward and snatching his ice cream from the table just as Kara was about to steal some of it. "What both disciplines have taught me is how to use my powers to their fullest."

"What do you mean?"

"You know just how good our senses are. Most of the time I have to block most of the things I see and hear, letting them become almost like white noise in the background in order to stay sane." He told her as he finished his cup and laid it to the side. "With Torquasm Rao I can process all that information and act on it almost on instinct. It allows me to use the full extent of my powers in a fight."

"Torquasm Vo, on the other hand, is a completely mental discipline. John tells me it taps into my latent psychic power, and it does allow me to fight off mental influences and even some specific magical effects."

Of course, during Kara's upbringing as well as in her last life had heard about these Kryptonian martial arts, but she had never been able to fully understand them. "So, one just allows you to fight better but doesn't improve your skills per see, while the other is a mental defense?"

"Well, let me ask you this, Kara: how do you fly?"

"I just… will it?" Kara answered, flight was almost second nature for her now, and it wasn't really any strange power or propulsion system. She wanted to fly, she believed she could fly, so she flew.

"Exactly, it's mental. Now this isn't really the goal of Torquasm Vo, but greater control of my latent psychic power does give me certain advantages." With a smile on his face Kal gently touched the cup with just the tip of his finger causing it to slowly float up as if flying by itself. "It used to be that I had to hold something in my arms to make it fly, now I can just touch something and extend my protection field. I think that, if I fully master the art, I could make something fly without even touching it by extending my field at range."

Kara already knew about the protection field, it was how she could catch a plane and prevent it from crumbling around her, or allow her to carry a normal person in her arms while flying extremely fast. If she could use that actively instead of just on instinct… "Well damn."

"Hah, even under yellow sunlight it still won't improve you immediately, but I bet that, in six months to a year, you can become a competent fighter. You won't be defeating Diana or Bruce in a contest of skill, but we do have our tricks to make up for it."

"I see."

Kal seemed happy to just talk with her, explaining a few tricks he could do with his powers that Kara hadn't thought about and telling her about beautiful spots she could fly to if she wanted to relax.

Finally, Kal sighed in frustration. "Hah, this is much harder when it's personal."

"What is it?" Kara asked.

"Kara, I really wanted to wait until YOU decided to talk about it, but you know I had access to the Fortress medical scans right?" Kal tried to extend a hand to hold Kara's, but she pulled away from him, feeling exposed. "I know at least some of what happened to you."

Kara's first instinct was to tell Kal to go fuck himself, but she managed to stop herself and think about things. "So what, it's over Kal what do you want me to do about it?"

"Talk with someone, it doesn't need to be me Kara, but you don't need to go through this alone."

"Do You need to talk with someone every time something happens?" She grumbled while shifting her eyes away.

"Yes, not always mind you, but even I have to ask for help sometimes." Kal said with a tired, haunted voice as he remembered things. "Nowadays I just talk with Ma and Pa, but it was hard to accept some things when I was starting out."

Kara just stayed quiet, it's not like she hadn't needed help from a psychologist in her previous life. She knew how much it could help, but she had wanted to be stronger.

Finally, as she saw the concern on her cousin's face, Kara nodded. "Fine, I guess I can talk with someone."

She'd have to search for a good psychologist VERY carefully. Far too many of them turned out to be supervillains in DC.

"You know, Black Canary is a licensed therapist and she has personal experience our kind of problem." Kal said as if he could read her mind. "And I can indicate several others if you need it."

"Right, I'll think about it." Kara said with a tired voice and poked at the remains of her ice cream, it had melted while they talked.

After further discussions, planning and ice cream placation, Kori woke up after only two hours of sleep and the both of them returned to their apartment. Billy had been there to feed Dexter but he had no wish to stay any more time than necessary with what he called the DEMON CAT, all caps.

The two women eventually got settled in but Kara wasn't able to fully relax, her mind was filled with far too many thoughts. What had the Psions put inside her? Did they already know where she was or had Lobo been working by himself? Could Torquasm Vo help her control this new power? Had she actually used the Red Light of Rage and had that attracted Atrocitus' attention? Was he even a thing here?

A loud and indignant meow, caused her to turn to Dexter. The cat lifted his tail in the air and started guiding her to the bathroom sink before meowing again.

"Dexter, you have your water fountain, it's right there!" Kara huffed and pointed at the small fountain connected to the socket. Kori just snickered from her place on the couch.

"MEOWWWWW!"

"Fine, here." She slightly opened the faucet letting just a trickle of water run down the sink. Dexter just continued to look at her. "Right, of course you want me to lift you too. Alright, but you have to pay the toll."

Grabbing the cat, Kara squeezed it tightly against her chest, earning herself a few more meows and scratches of indignation. Toll paid, she dropped him next to the sink and watched as he drank the water for a minute or two.

Sitting on the carpet of the floor, Kara pulled her mobile computer out and continued working on improvements to her armor. She wasn't going to leave the house without at least some heavy protection.

At her bedroom, her device started printing a mixture of new bomb-drones and full-stealth cameras to refill her wasted devices. Eventually Kara noticed her hands had started shaking again, but then Dexter jumped on her lap and started kneading her clothes while purring and her shaking stopped.

"Silly cat." She complained, but started petting him anyway. Her hand going through his fur calmed her down by a lot. "Billy is completely wrong, you're a good kitty."

Still tired and laying on the sofa, Kori smiled as she watched them and finally went to sleep.   

.

.

_______&&___

if you like this story, think about reading one of my other works. Also, think about giving me a tip if you have some spare change by supporting me on patr eon.com/CapCaverna

A shout to Xhaustedhero, AkumaSmaG, Iori Daemona Angel, AlliterativeArts (Eric Faust), Icewing, Comics, DERMONIAN, Davvy chappie, Banh Bao, Ian Michael, WanderingDaemon, Scott, Tony Martinez, Travis cox and Chaos for supporting my work!