Chapter Text
Kara Zor-El
Crime Alley. Gotham City. New Jersey
2015AD.6.2. 12:43AM
"Batwoman!" Kara had screamed, just before it had happened. The gun went off, a near-blinding light, and Lena Luthor dropped the gun in alarm.
Martha was gone. There wasn't even a molecule left of her anywhere on the ground, and no discernible place she could have gone to.
She was gone.
It struck her completely motionless, and then she physically dropped to the ground when Lena had come over to her with the piece of Kryptonite. She looked up to the Luthor, who was grinning in her victory.
The piece of Kryptonite was forced out of her hand when a piece of asphalt had hit it, like a marble hitting another one across the alley they were in. She was quick to stand and picked Lena up by the collar.
"Where is Batwoman? What did that gun do to her?"
With the same smug smirk, Lena shrugged. Kara saw red, and it took all of her willpower to keep herself from melting Lena Luthors' brain. She threw her down the alleyway and into Mr Graves. She stalked towards them, too angry, then stopped just before the gun that had been dropped in all the excitement.
Kara picked it up and looked it over, wondering just what it was that she was going to do about it.
Take it to the Watchtower and analyze it was the obvious answer. It was what Martha would have done immediately. She put the device under her belt, and went and grabbed Luthor and Graves, hauling them up by the back of their collars. They struggled, but for a Kryptonian, it was weak effort.
She took a moment to search for the third criminal, honing her hearing to the few blocks between herself and what must have been freedom, but she couldn't hear anything other than the normal comings and goings of the delapidated and near abandoned neighborhood.
Leaving the two in the hands of the authorities and notifying them of the crime scene, she sped her way to the nearest teleport, and came up to the Watchtower in an instant. M'yri'ah was at the monitors, as she was most days.
"Call Iris," She told the Martian, "I need the lab."
She left the main hall of the Watchtower, and began to go there herself. Iris zipped past and was waiting in the Watchtowers' lab when she arrived moments later. Kara presented the strange gun to her.
Iris handled it carefully, placing it in a chamber so that the scanners could look through it, "What's this then?" She asked as she began the machines up.
Kara frowned. She didn't want to talk about it, but in telling Iris, at least she wouldn't have to repeat herself. As soon as the Speedster knew, she'd tell everyone.
"Batwoman and I were fighting against Luthor, Graves, and a third unknown assailant. This... gun... whatever it really is, went off in Martha's face."
"Is Martha okay?" She asked, her words speeding up in the alarm, but Kara, being Kryptonian and having access to high speeds herself, could understand her perfectly.
She looked away, she didn't want to even say it, "Martha is gone."
"She's dead?" Iris let out a strangled half-yell, she dropped her clipboard, eyes going wide as saucers. If she had even been only half-surprised, she would have caught the clipboard halfway to the ground, but it clattered down at their feet.
"I don't know, she just... disappeared."
Iris gave a huge sigh of relief, clutching at her chest in an almost over-dramatic fashion, but Kara could hear her heart beating quickly. She didn't bother counting the beats per second, but it was for a little while a lot faster than normal, akin to when Iris was sprinting.
The Speedster turned back to the scanners, "Well, have you tracked her comm?"
"Not yet, it slipped my mind. What do the scans show?"
"It's difficult to tell what this is used for. I don't think it's used for straight up disintigration, but it really just depends on the power source. It will be very hard to determine it's purpose what-so-ever without it."
"What do you mean without it?" Kara asked.
"Well, it's not here, and the internal aspects of it are also quite damaged as well."
Kara studied the strange gun again, looking it over more thoroughly now, "I'll go search for the power source. You keep scanning it, and I'll tell M'yri'ah to search for Martha's signal."
Iris nodded, totally entranced by the object, and Kara went back through the halls of the Watchtower and back to the teleporters. She related to M'yri'ah to search for Martha's signal and then went back as close as she could to Crime Alley, and flew within the blink of an eye to the place.
Lena Luthors' black car still sat in the alley, the police hadn't even gotten there yet, and there was the power source, just lying in the middle of the alleyway. Kara picked it up and examined it, but it appeared to be broken. It wouldn't help right now anyways, so she tucked it away in her belt.
Her comm piped up, M'yri'ahs' voice came through.
"I have searched for Batwomans' comm signal, but the search has had no results."
The only time the computers would not be able to pick up on a comms' signal, would be if the comm was destroyed or off planet. In either situation, there wasn't much room to hope that Martha was still alive. Kara stood there, standing awkwardly and dumbfounded in the empty alley.
"Superwoman?" M'yri'ahs' voice came through the comm again, "Are you hearing me? The computers say that the comms are working-"
"I heard you," She sighed, "Inform the others, Martha's gone."
"Gone?" The Martian asked, "I have heard that the word 'gone' is sometimes used in place of deceased. Is Martha truly deceased?"
"I don't know. I-" Kara nearly choked, "I think she might be. Tell the others."
"I will," She said. The channel closed, and Kara spent several minutes standing in the alleyway, feeling numb. They'd never lost anyone before in the League, and she'd never lost anyone that she could count as a friend in her entire life. She would have never thought that it would be Martha – careful and always prepared Martha.
There was a lot of work left to do, though, while M'yri'ah and Iris were telling the rest of the League of Martha's fate, she was left with something much worse.
She went through the skies as though she were sliding, and it felt as though she was flying through nothing, not even fog, pollution, or atmosphere. It was like whenever she flew through the vacuum of space, It was too cold for her, much like going over Gotham and knowing that Martha Wayne was dead and would no longer walk among the streets that were her home.
Kara touched down just outside of Wayne Manor, taking careful consideration that nobody saw her. Martha would have wanted it that way.
Alfred answered when she knocked, and his happy demeanor vanished when he got a look at the expression of her face. It was left unsaid, he already knew as soon as he'd seen her.
But Kara could still hear the goings-on of Kate inside – Martha had been training her niece to be her partner in crime-fighting – she'd just gotten back to Wayne Manor from her rounds about Gotham, and was waiting in the kitchen for her Aunt and mentor to return.
Kara stepped in, Kate's eyes turned to her, smile on her face.
"Aunt Martha with you?"
"No."
There was a long moment of silence, and the smile dropped from her face.