Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Phantom Zone was an endless void. Oblivion itself.

Time did not flow in a single path. It ebbed and weaved, waned and faded. Sometimes it just stopped.

There were no rules in The Phantom Zone—no laws.

It was pure chaos; insurmountable; uncontrollable; unfathomable.

Two ships launch. A planet explodes.

One arrived after in a field, found and saved.

Another was lost; alone. Drifting in the now, then and nevermore.

Freedom. It was free. She was free.

She landed. Crashed. Light glared at her. A different light in a different sky.

She looked outside and saw scorched earth and fire. Not a soul to be seen… and she could see far.

She opened her pod and took her first breath of this different air. It was tainted with smoke and burning.

She took her first step on this different ground. Earth.

Her name was Kara Zor-El. She was the Last Daughter of Krypton.

And she arrived before. Many, many years before.

Metropolis

“Impressive.”

The Man of Steel whirled around, his cape fanning out in his wake.

He was hundreds of feet in the air having just intercepted and destroyed several missiles launched at him by the latest big bad on the ground. So how come he heard a woman’s voice right behind him?

A whistle drew his gaze upwards and… he saw her.

A woman wearing a hooded cloak, a glistening metal helmet covering her head and most of her face sans her eyes and mouth. Lead-lined judging by its resistance to his X-ray vision, he thought.

What he did manage to see was that under the cloak the woman wore some kind of armour, sleek and light; versatile, seemingly made with interwoven pieces of metal over a navy long sleeved shirt with more layered armour on the left shoulder that went down to her bicep.

On her arms were steel gauntlets with gold edging that covered most of her forearm but left her hands free. Under the gold belt was a dark red armoured skirt stopping at mid-thigh.

Superman took all of this in within a tenth of a second but one thing made him stop and stare far longer.

While the rest of the woman’s armour was tinted a dark blue, there were slivers of metal on her front that were a dark red instead.

When he took a figurative step back he saw the whole picture. It was an angular shield with a large ‘S’ proudly at its centre.

He flew level with the woman, watching warily as her eyes—twinkling with amusement—tracked his movement. He couldn’t help but notice they were almost an incandescent blue behind the strange helmet she wore. Her exposed mouth was curled upwards, pearly whites on show in a wide grin.

The confusion he felt must have been visible on his face because the woman’s smile only grew as she raised both hands—empty—in a placating manner.

“Perhaps we could forestall the Q&A for a later date? Possibly after you take care of rocket man down there?” The woman’s smile did not dim for one moment as she flicked a wrist down towards the ground.

Like a dead tractor coming back to life, the farm boy turned superhero finally managed to formulate a semi-coherent sentence. “Uh- ah, Bloodsport?”

“What does hurting animals have to do with this?” The helmet glinted as the head it was on tilted slightly to the side, the woman almost sounded horrified.

“What? No! I mean he’s not Rocket Man- he’s Bloodsp—”

“Rocket.”

“No, Bloods—”

“No, rocket. As in ‘there’s a rocket incoming’.” The woman pointed down again and lo and behold there was a rocket coming at them.

Superman flew right at the missile, shrugging off the impact and subsequent explosion as he continued his rapid descent towards the ground.

He blurred out of sight for a moment, moving fast before stopping on a dime, going low inside his guard to shoulder-barge Bloodsport in the torso, launching the trigger happy man into the side of an abandoned truck. He followed up with a swift blow to the head, finally ending the fight.

He quickly stripped him of all his weaponry and gear, signalling the nearby law enforcement that had taken cover to deal with the man. There was someone he had to meet.

The Kryptonian looked back up, almost frantically searching the skies when the woman wasn’t where he last saw her.

“A little to your left, junior.” His incredible hearing picked up the amused tone and found the woman much higher in the air than she was before and getting further and further away.

Superman rose into the air, rising faster when he heard the woman speak again.

“Think you can keep up, Man of Steel?” The man in question scowled slightly at the mocking tone he seemed to hear and he could have sworn the woman’s teeth actually sparkled for a beat as she turned and flew off, leaving only laughter and the flap of her cloak in her wake, though not for long as the Kansas farm boy was in hot pursuit.

“Just you watch you… weird- lady… person?” More laughter reached his ears. This strange woman, seemingly right out of a history book and wearing the symbol of his House, was laughing at him. Alarmingly she also appeared to be able to fly much faster than him. I can catch her, I’m—

—in hindsight he thought of three things:

1. He should have been watching where he was going.

2. He should not have let someone goad him into following them to a random abandoned place outside of city limits blindly… ever. 

3. He should reeeaaally have been watching where he was going.

Because now he found himself lying in a newly made crater on the ground with a really sore face… and head… and whole body in general.

He looked dazedly upwards, squinting at the sun as two silhouettes—two? Yes, definitely two; he surely wasn’t hit that hard on the head, right?—hovered over him high in the air.

Superman’s ears were ringing, he had smacked into something metal, or rather, it had smacked him right in the face and he fell like a fly swatted right out of the air.

When the incessant noise died down in his ears he finally managed to make sense of what was being said.

“… that really wasn’t necessary, Diana.”

“I think it was, my dear Kara. It looked like the boy was about to try to smash your head into the ground.”

“So you smash his head with your very, very hard shield while also sending him to the ground?”

“Pre-emptive action is far better than a delayed reaction in situations like this.  Besides, he should have been watching where he was flying.”

The two touched down a ways away from him, still arguing—bantering?—so he tuned out for a moment to gather his bearings.

Exiting the crater, Superman faced the two women who looked like they had either come straight from a movie screen or were two very lost cosplayers.

One was a tall brunette wearing similar attire to the woman before sans the cloak and the inversed colouring of the armoured top and skirt. Also different was that the brunette’s armour was strapless and her skirt didn’t even reach mid-thigh… and there wasn’t much else going on in terms of the clothing department. Most alarming was the fact that she was armed with a sword and shield although the sword remained sheathed on her back.

Two pairs of red plated boots came to a rest in silence as what is probably the three most powerful beings in the universe came to a stand-off.

The stare-down was finally broken when the shorter woman slowly removed her hood and touched the side of her helm so that it receded into a bronze headpiece revealing that the woman was blonde with beautiful blue eyes and had a small smile gracing her face expressing some emotion he couldn’t understand. Sadness? Longing? Pride?

She shifted her dark red cloak that went just past her knees so that it rested behind her shoulders to bare the symbol of the House of El proudly on her armour.

Superman found himself speechless once again as the woman spoke. “I’ve waited a long time for you Kal-El.”

“H- how do you know my name? Who are you?” He managed to let out, his eyes wide and maybe his mouth was open just a little bit.

“Your little cousin does quite the impression of a buffoon, doesn’t he?” The brunette muttered at the blonde to which she rolled her eyes and hissed a quiet reprimand even as a smile tugged wider at her lips knowing full well the buffoon in question could hear them without trouble.

“Wait! What? Little cousin?” The Man of Steel spluttered.

“He’s not helping himself at all.” The shield-lady nodded sagely.

“Diana, please stop.” The shorter woman complained as she tried in vain to keep a serious face but couldn’t stop the quakes of laughter that escaped her.

Finally, she got herself under control and she took a small step towards Superman, her hands raised in a universal sign of peace. “I’m sorry, I- we are being rude. Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Kara Zor-El, daughter of Zor-El and Alura.”

“Zor-El? As in…”

“As in the younger brother of your father, Jor-El? Yes, Kal. I am your cousin.”

The woman approached Kal and hesitantly reached up and placed her hands on either side of his face. “You have your Father’s jaw but your eyes are your Mother’s, and so is the rest of your face. My Father always kidded to me that he thanked Rao you took after Aunt Lara rather than Jor-El.” She laughed wetly, sincerity and sadness in her eyes as she backed away and Kal found himself missing the contact.

He reached out a hand towards her and she smiled again, grasping his forearm for a moment before sliding down until they simply held hands; the grip strong but also gentle at the same time.

“How do you know so much about… my parents? Our world?”

“I was thirteen years of age when Krypton exploded. The last few years leading up to your birth, there were these waves of terrific quakes, volcanic eruptions; towers of fire would sprout out the ground like geysers… and then you were born and our fathers were always busy so I would care for you. Now I know it was because they were working on our pods...” Kara’s voice fell away, lost in thought.

The crunch of dirt brought both Kryptonians’ attention back down to Earth and a smile once again made its way to Kara’s face.

“Kal-El, my name is Diana Prince. It’s a pleasure to finally put a face to the name. Kara has anticipated meeting you for a long time.” Diana held out a hand which Kal reached out to meet but was surprised when the woman clasped his forearm instead. Very firmly.

“Are you from Krypton as well?” He asked, surprised at her strength and the fact that she hit him right out of the air. His face hasn’t quite forgotten that just yet.

Diana merely laughed. “I assure you I am of this Earth. I am an Amazon from the hidden island Themyscira.”

“Never heard of any island by that name.”

“Hence the hidden part.” Diana raised a brow at him as if silently challenging him. He promptly shut his mouth, much to Kara’s amusement.

“Perhaps,” Diana continued, “we should have this conversation someplace else? Preferably when and where we aren’t as exposed and out in the open?” Kara nodded in agreement, looking and listening around for any potential onlookers or eavesdroppers even though they were miles away from the nearest city. It never hurts to be cautious in the world of man as Diana has said many times in the past.

The women began to rise but Kal panicked for a beat, illogically worried that this would be the last he would see of his newly found cousin, grabbed Kara’s boot, halting her ascent.

“Wait! I have a place!” He called to her, hurriedly releasing his hold at Diana’s look.

The warriors looked to each other, a brief glance communicating a thousand words, a sort of telepathy without it being actual telepathy born from centuries of shared experience, friendship and sisterhood. They were warriors, tried and tested battle and shield sisters.

They nodded minutely before Kara looked back at Kal and she smiled. “After you, little cousin.”

He couldn’t stop the grin that tore at his face.

Superman flew back to Metropolis, an Amazon and a Kryptonian flanking him.

Now… how do I explain this to Lois…

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“Clark, sweetie…”

“Yeah, Lois?”

“Why is there two gladiator cosplayers in the living room?”

“Well… they’re not gladiators; gladiators are Roman. They’re actually Amazons which are Greek… and they’re not cosplayers, they’re the real deal…”

“… and why are they in the living room?”

“Uhhhm…”

“As Kal-El so eloquently put it, we are Amazons of Themyscira and as to why we are here: we had hoped to continue a discussion we were having earlier in a more private setting. Kara and Kal have much to get through.”

Lois blinked at the tall Amazon—more like Glamazon, you go girlfriend! Wow is that a lasso?—before making an ‘OK then’ face and, ever the reporter, she smiled and held out her hand. “Lois Lane, reporter for the Daily Planet.”

Diana smiled at the reporter, liking her spunk. “Diana Prince.” She said simply, shaking Lois’ hand before turning and gesturing to the other Amazon. “This is Kara Zor-El, my Amazon sister and Kal-El’s Kryptonian cousin.”

Lois blinked again, looking at the blonde, Kara, who grinned and waved sheepishly at her. Her sharp eyes noting down the S-shield on her chest. After another moment of processing and ignoring the huge implications that everything she knew about the world and the universe is wrong, she nodded.

“Right,” she said with a clap of her hands.

“You,” Clark, to this day, will deny he flinched “deal with this.” Lois gestured to the Amazons and the very real weapons. “I’m going to grab a beer. You ladies want anything?”

“Some water for the both of would be greatly appreciated, thank you Ms. Lane.”

“Just Lois is fine Diana. Can I call you Diana?”

The Princess smiled and nodded at the reporter which she returned in kind, flicking the Man of Steel in the ear as she passed to kick him back into gear. “We have guests, Clark. Be a dear and play host, please?” It wasn’t a request.

Diana set her sword and shield to the side of the long couch while Kara gathered her cloak to one side of her as they seated themselves, Clark doing the same on the single seater. Lois returned with the drinks promised—none for Clark, this isn’t a costume party Smallville—and the armoured Amazons, the reporter and the boy scout in blue settled down.

“So,” Lois started, a mischievous grin lighting up her face as she stared keenly at the warriors.

“What’s your story?”

Chapter Text

Like the Heavens itself had opened, a star fell from the sky. A celestial hammer falling, striking and crushing the side of a mighty mountain as it continued its Earthbound trajectory.

Finally, it came to a rest; scarring the ground where it passed.

The pod let out a pneumatic hiss as it slid open and its sole occupant heaved and released a breath.

Shakily, the Last Daughter of Krypton lowered herself to the ground, awed by the sheer amount of green around her and beyond the cliff-edge her ship landed by; the likes of which she had only seen in depictions of a rainforest planet in the Crystalline Archives on Krypton.

Krypton… it’s gone… it’s all gone.

Something inside Kara seemed to snap; the world was suddenly so loud.

Moving water from a river somewhere sounded like rolling thunder; wing strokes of colourful flying birds were like harsh claps inside her skull and the puttering of wildlife was a veritable stampede and riot.

The Kryptonian scrambled away from the edge and back into her pod, sealing it behind her as violent sobs rocked her form and she tried to get her breathing under control; tried to get some semblance of control.

Eventually, the world seemed to fall away and everything grew quiet once more.

My name is Kara Zor-El and I am now the elder of the noble House of El.

She had a mission; the most important task ever set upon her shoulders; the dying request of her Mother, Father and her Uncle Jor-El and Aunt Lara: Protect her little cousin.

She held her Mother’s necklace—it was hers now—to her heart and thought of Alura and her last beautiful heart-breaking smile.

I will not fail you, Mother. May you all rest eternal in Rao’s light.

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Though Krypton was not a warring race it was still a planet of fierce warriors. For not only were they strong and very skilled in combat, trained from the age of fifteen, but they also had the cunning and supreme-intelligence to reinforce their brawn. Kryptonians’ thought processes were faster, capable of thinking of millions of scenarios, problems, solutions, strategies and so on within tenths of a second after being presented with new information or situation.

While Kara would never have the chance to receive her combat training—as is required of every member of her House since it was one of the ruling Houses on Krypton and the time may come to fight—she had been thinking, studying, learning since before she could walk. By the age of three she was already capable of solving complex equations and her knowledge base only grew from there. She was a genius, a prodigy even among other geniuses.

So—emotions aside—Kara plotted her course of action.

Kal-El’s pod left not too long before hers. Her Father had told her that her coordinates had been interlocked with those of Kal’s so step-one would be to find his pod.

Her Mother had explained to her that she would acquire great powers on Earth and she had already seen and heard that first hand. She had been able to see for miles through the low morning fog, the canopy of the woodland and the trees themselves. It was rather terrifying to see the skeletons of the small and larger animals moving around.

There had to be a better way to find him than bombarding her newly enhanced faculties and potentially doing harm to herself or others. She didn’t even have a clue as to what she was now capable of.

Think, Kara, think!

She almost wanted to slap herself. The answer was literally right in front of her face.

Kara activated her pod’s command console and her HUD came to life. The Kryptonian re-arranged certain crystals until her ship began transmitting its beacon and she hoped that Kal’s pod would ping her back. She also started a search through different frequencies in case her cousin’s ship was already broadcasting but just in a different frequency.

Time ticked by, she tried to be patient but her mind was abuzz and so to stop herself from fidgeting, she decided to do something more productive: learn about the alien world that will be their new home.

Hours must have passed judging by the height of the yellow sun and how it had now burned through the low fog. According to the data the crystals had on Earth (and there was a lot), Krypton and this planet’s solar cycles were similar although Earth and its Sun were much, much younger than her home world and Rao.

Still, nothing from the beacon. She was starting to feel claustrophobic in the pod. Were the walls coming closer? No, that’s silly.

Kara opened her pod once more, the HUD disappearing but she knew it was still scanning and transmitting.

She breathed in the cool crisp air. Thankfully the fires had died down in the humidity and the worst of the smoke burning smell had been carried away by the wind, though apparently her nose seems to have exponentially improved along with her other senses because when the breeze stopped she was hit full force with everything.

Kara coughed and wheezed, trying to keep calm because panicking will only make things much worse. She concentrated on breathing through her mouth and the feel of the earth, the stones, the grass and rustle of leaves and then she heard it… voices…

Screaming…

She thought about Krypton; how she watched, helpless, as its citizens screamed and scrambled for safety as the world crumbled around them. But nowhere was safe. The whole planet was trembling.

She watched, helpless, as her Mother and Father held each other, how their brave smiles withered into sorrow as she shot past them…

She thought of her mission. Looking back at her pod, still scanning.

She decided.

It can wait a few more hours. I’ll be back.

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For the second time in her life, her world was fire.

The screaming she had earlier was that of a boy a few years older than her with dark brown skin wearing clothing from made of animal skins whom she now followed as she passed by the high wooden walls that surrounded a village with numerous longhouses. Everything was on fire.

The wounded lay on the ground; some were helping others try to breathe while others were running, crawling or trying to shift piles of burning debris. The cloud of smoke was thick and the cries of despair threatened to drown-out the sheer cacophony of the crackling inferno around her.

Through the chaos she heard the boy’s voice again. She didn’t really know how, logically, she had never been to this planet and never seen or heard of its many dialects of which she learned there were many in her perusal of the data crystals—she would later learn that even in her sleep she had been learning about Earth from the crystals—but she instinctively knew and understood what the boy was saying.

He was calling for his mother.

Not caring for even a nanosecond that her white Kryptonian robes were thoroughly getting blackened by the soot and ash, she ran after the boy, not noticing or simply disregarding the looks she drew.

Her stomach rolled as some debris fell towards the boy but was surprised at his agility and grace as he tucked and rolled, neatly avoiding the wreck and continuing on to navigate the rest of the burning longhouse and getting out the other side.

Kara followed, finding that she wasn’t at all bothered by the heat of the fire and that she could jump high as she did so to get over the flaming rubble. So, thick skin and high-jumping, huh? Not now, focus!

She rounded the corner and finally caught up with the boy who was futilely screaming and pounding at a door having finally reached his house and found his mother.

“Stand back!” she yelled, unknowingly and instinctively in the boy’s native language as well.

The boy whirled towards her, hope in his eyes at the prospect of having more help in reaching his mother. He ignored the fact that he had never seen this girl before and that she looked weird with light hair and skin and strange clothes. He just wanted to reach his mother.

He also ignored the fact that with what seemed like a very small push, the door basically blew open. He just knew that it was open and his mother was right there and she was hurt and she was trapped.

The stranger followed him inside and he essentially latched on to one particularly heavy looking beam among the many that lay atop his mother and tried to lift it with little success. Then, the stranger came to his aid once more and lifted the beam up over his head and moved it to the side.

He couldn’t help but gape a little bit until the girl looked to him again, “We need to hurry or the roof will come down on us!”

Nodding, they scrambled to move aside the wreckage much to his mother’s distress as she pleaded for them to run.

Kara’s heart stopped at the sound of groaning. Her head jerked to the ceiling and the world around her came to a screeching stop. For all the millions upon millions of neurons that flared in her brilliant mind, she acted with no thought; just pure instinct.

In the fraction of a second she had to do something, she took a harsh intake of breath and then blew.

The burning ceiling that began to fall towards them seemed to change its mind as it went up and out instead and Kara threw herself over the boy and his mother to shield them from the smaller pieces that still rained down on them.

Mother and child could only stare as this outsider, a stranger in every sense of the word, seemed to perform impossible acts, as if she were a spirit sent by the God of Life himself.

They were broken from their reverie when the blonde moved the last sizeable beam and looped an arm around the mother. The boy joined her, muttering assurances to his weakening mother, and quickly but carefully they dragged his mother out the door just as the rest of his house began to fall down.

More help came. Other villagers seeing the commotion and his bloodied and wounded mother lying in his arms. The boy only caught glimpses of the stranger through the tangle of limbs around him as the girl looked out at the rest of the village.

He wondered idly as his mother grew slack in his arms, whether he would ever see her again as the White Spirit ran right back into the fire.

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The Kryptonian had lost track of how long she spent in that village, helping blow out fires with her newfound arctic-breath, pulling people out of gutted ruins with her strength, trying to save as many as she could, but even with all of her new gifts she couldn’t save them all.

Her whole planet exploded and everyone she ever knew is dead now but this was the first time she had ever seen a dead body. It wasn’t like the bodies of her fellow Kryptonians whom she watched and prayed as they flew away in ceremonial pods to enter Rao’s light; those were clean, preserved and given the best and finest the living could give to the dead for their next life.

These bodies were burned, charred; their eyes glassy and faces frozen in perpetual agony. She lost track of how many there were, but she would never ever forget.

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The world was in turmoil, it seemed.

That was what she learned when she befriended the boy whom she first met and helped. Unfortunately, his mother hadn’t survived, her wounds too great for even the best healers in his village. Though Kara didn’t know her that long, or at all really, she shed a tear for her loss. She heard the pain and desperation in her voice as she pled for them to leave her and run. A mother’s love knew no bounds. She knew that well.

The boy introduced himself as Ratonhnhaké:ton—she sounded it out a few times as Ra-don-ha-gay-don and the boy nodded in approval—and they met again in one of Kara’s many journeys around the forest and back to her pod. The scans had gone out a few hundred miles, the radius extending further and further out every passing day while Kara searched on the ground and on rare occasions, the air when she jumped so high she thought she may never come back down. She had hoped that it was some sort of malfunction or that her cousin’s pod was somewhere that her scans couldn’t reach so she had to go get him herself.

But even her hope was dwindling. Something must have gone very, very wrong. She knew that when Krypton exploded her pod had been caught in the blast. Her last memory had been of a swirling light and then nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Ratonhnhaké:ton had been tracking her for a while after she left his village and had seen many of the feats she was able to accomplish, further reinforcing in his beliefs that she was a good White Spirit. Kara had tried as best as she could to explain where she had come from, pointing out where her star was among all the others in the night sky and showed him her ship.

That didn’t help much. Ratonhnhaké:ton and many of his villagers had seen the sky light up before the sun had even risen. They heard the mighty thunder as her ship hit the mountain. Still, he stopped bringing it up so often at the girl’s protests.

He saw her state of dress. What was once crisp and white was now blackened and dirtied by the multitude of Kara’s adventures in the few days she had been on this planet. He asked her to follow him, the blonde did, thinking that they would return to his village but instead they ventured further south than she had ever gone. They found a dirt road mostly used by horse-drawn wagons, hunters, travellers and peddlers and followed it.

Along the several hour journey through the forest—Ratonhnhaké:ton called it ‘The Frontier’—Kara had many questions for Ratonhnhaké:ton, mainly about who he was, what he did and what was happening in the world. They respectively avoided the topic of their homes and families.

They eventually found and caught up with a peddler heading into Boston and her new hunter friend reached into his satchel to sell an assortment of animal pelts and other hunting spoils he had collected for a reasonable amount of pounds, “The accepted currency around these parts.” Ratonhnhaké:ton explained lowly, switching from English back to his native language.

Kara’s very keen eyes caught the edges of a map folded into the peddler’s book as he settled back into his seat and the horse wheeled the wagon away.

“Wait, sir!” She called out to the man, speaking English as naturally as she spoke Kryptonese. “May I see your map?”

“Planning to get lost are you little girl? The Frontier is no safe place to be just wandering about.” The peddler advised even as he handed the map over and the blonde nodded and smiled her thanks.

Kara could only stare, confusion masking her face as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing.

“Something wrong, lady?” The peddler asked.

The Kryptonian shook her head slightly and pointed at the map. “Where’s the rest of it?”

“The rest of what?” The peddler was now getting confused as well as Ratonhnhaké:ton looked at the map himself over her shoulder but saw nothing wrong with it.

“The rest of the map. Where is everything west of… Louisiana?” In fact, well over half of the map, the very shape of the land was indistinguishable from the map of Earth she had studied in the crystals. The large printed words ‘UNKNOWN LANDS’ glared at her. Dread pooled in her stomach as the doubts she had been having roared back to life with a vengeance. Rao please let her be wrong.

The man laughed uproariously, jolting the two teens slightly.

“We got plenty enough problems on this here side of the Frontier what with the Crown and all that; gotta sort this mess out before we go looking for more messes to deal with out west.” He took the map back from her loose grip.

“You’re not from around these parts, are you girl?” The peddler looked at her with an amused smirk.

“Something like that. Everything’s just a bit… alien, to me.” Kara smiled sheepishly.

“May we ride into the city with you on your wagon, sir?” Ratonhnhaké:ton asked politely and the peddler looked at them thoughtfully.

The Mohawk boy was a hunter, by the quality of the pelts and spoils he offered he was very handy with the bow and arrows, knives and tomahawk he had on his person and yet he stood almost protectively beside the girl and not an ounce of hostility came from him despite his formidable appearance. Not unless something or someone troubled his strange friend, he guessed.

The girl was an oddity. Even dirtied as they were, he had never seen any clothing like hers and though her questions were odd, even as young as she looked he couldn’t deny that both she and the hunter were intelligent. Their speech was fluent and smooth, their English clear and understandable. They were not fools and he liked to think of himself an honest and honourable man… but he still needed to make a living.

“Tell you what,” he gestured to the back of his wagon. “Give me £50 for the fare and I’ll throw in whatever clothes and shoes that fit the girl you find back there.”

“Deal.” The hunter shook hands with the peddler and the teens climbed onto the wagon.

They travelled on the road in silence, both men respectfully had their backs towards her while Kara rifled through the wagon, eventually finding a loose puffy armed plain white blouse, sturdy-looking dark brown trousers and the smallest boots she could find. She tucked the large blouse into the equally large trousers which thankfully had a drawstring that she pulled tighter around her waist. She folded the excess length of the trousers and tucked them into her new boots as well.

“How do I look?” Kara asked her friend as she waved her arms around her, admiring the puffy sleeves.

“Very silly when you do that.” Ratonhnhaké:ton laughed as the blonde pouted but soon the two were smiling at each other. Even through all the darkness and pain they had been through in such a small amount of time, they found that there were still things they could smile about and the two felt a strong camaraderie between them.

“You clean up pretty well, girl.” The peddler turned to face them, taking the conversation and laughter as indication she was decent. He held out a hand. “The name’s Jonathan. Jonathan Alcott.”

“My name is Kara Zor-El, this is Ratonhnhaké:ton.” The blonde smiled.

“Radon- what?”

“Ratonhnhaké:ton” the Mohawk repeated as he neatly packed the Kryptonian’s dirty clothes and boots into his satchel.

“Saying it twice real fast ain’t helping just so you know.” Jonathan could only laugh as half an hour of hilarity and chaos ensued when two teenagers tried to teach the old peddler the pronunciation of the hunter’s name.

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As their few days stay in Boston stretched into several weeks, it became apparent that it would only take a very small push before widespread violence finally erupted between the colonial citizens and the British Army.

At least once a week after dark, Kara would slip out of the spare rooms on the top level their new friend Samuel Adam’s print house where she and Ratonhnhaké:ton had been allowed to stay after they drew the man’s eye when they showed they were quite handy at defeating several tax collectors that were brutally attacking a man for refusing to pay—or rather, the Mohawk hunter showed finesse and agility in combat; Kara just tried not to hit people too hard or simply pulled the men away, sending them flying. They were subsequently hunted by the Regulars for a short time after that until Samuel intervened and helped them.

Kara would always make sure to tell her friend when she would leave before she walked to an empty and quiet part of Boston near the outskirts. Once there and after ensuring there was not a human soul around, Kara ran at super-speed until she hit the Frontier where she could use the trees as cover for when she took off and finally flew.

She would make the trip back to Boston from her ship within the hour. Even knowing that it was probably futile, Kara still had one spark of hope that eventually, maybe not tomorrow or the next day or the one after that but eventually, her scans and transmissions would pick up another Kryptonian ship entering the atmosphere.

She was right, after all. Something had gone wrong during her journey to Earth. She had arrived at her designated coordinates, that being Earth, but she had arrived in the wrong time. And she hadn’t a clue what the ‘right’ time was.

Kara was now living in the North American Colonies, 1773.

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For Ratonhnhaké:ton, the tipping point was when he learned that agents of the British Government were turning their sights to claim the land which his recovering village stood without their consent.

Trying to stop her friend from doing anything brash, Kara went out to gather information using the diplomacy skills she learned as a member of the House of El and the information she had on the intricacies of politics in Colonial America.

She eventually returned to Samuel’s newspaper print house and reported her findings: That the main income of the British Government and Army came from the East India Company’s direct shipments of tea into the harbour.

Samuel left, asking them not to do anything hasty lest they get themselves killed while he gathered a few ‘friends’ to draw up a plan of action.

They found out a few weeks later after several failed meetings and diplomatic negotiations what ‘The Plan’ was and it involved… throwing tea into the water…

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After several trips back to Ratonhnhaké:ton’s village, all done within a day since Kara carried the hunter on her back when she ran and flew. The hunter was not pleased.

“I can run and jump through the trees!”

“And I will just hover around looking silly waiting while you look around for the next best tree to jump to!”

“That is not—”

“And bears! You could be eaten by bears! Or cougars, or wolves, or…” and so on until the hunter admitted defeat.

They returned to Boston and handed out the disguises and paints to Samuel’s friends, The Sons of Liberty who wished to send a message that England could not ignore.

Now clad in their Mohawk-villager disguises (Ratonhnhaké:ton having simply changed back into his normal hunting gear that usually drew too much attention), Kara, Ratonhnhaké:ton and several men of The Sons of Liberty stood outside the Old South Meeting House as they waited for Samuel Adams’ signal while Kara listened in on his whole speech.

“This meeting can do nothing further to save the country!” The signal.

Samuel exited the Meeting House and bade them farewell and good luck.

Their procession grew when more men spilled out their homes and taverns, having been clued in on ‘The Plan’.

They arrived at Griffin’s Wharf and boarded the three ships, the Dartmouth, the Eleanor and the Beaver carrying the precious cargo. Kara and Ratonhnhaké:ton made sure to stay by each other’s side aboard the Eleanor, both watching each other’s backs and not wanting any harm to come to them—though Ratonhnhaké:ton acknowledged that it was rather silly since he had seen this girl walk right through fire, jump from the top of waterfalls on to solid ground and have a knife break against her skin but he merely shrugged at her and said that it was the thought that counted.

A large mob had formed all along the docks as citizens roared and cheered their support, it was total chaos; a cacophony of ruckus that threatened to overwhelm the Kryptonian’s senses even as she easily hefted a large crate of tea in each hand and threw them into the waters below.

Though there were hundreds if not thousands of eyes upon them, Kara still couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched. She pulled the hood over her blonde head of hair down further.

Adrenaline spiked in her veins when she heard the dreaded call, “Regulars!” someone roared over the noise. Heads turned towards the entrance of the wharf where the crowds began to part. Over the peoples’ heads they could see the ends of the bayonet-tipped muskets swaying as Redcoats began swarming the dock.

The stand-off was broken when a gunshot was fired. From which side it came from no one knew but from then on, all hell broke loose.

Kara heard the shuffling and clink of metal on metal behind her and turned to see a line of British Regulars coming up behind them on the ramp of their ship. With Ratonhnhaké:ton occupied fighting off three Redcoats at the same time Kara picked up a crate and hurled it at the soldiers, the crate smashing on impact and sending the men tumbling into the drink.

The Kryptonian didn’t know for how long they fought or when she got separated from her friend in the mayhem. She was too busy either throwing tea or putting the rudimentary combat lessons the hunter had given her and a bit of her enhanced strength and speed to good use whenever a Redcoat dared to come at her or point a gun at her and those around her.

The feeling of the hairs on the back of her neck set her on edge and she broke from the trance-like state she had been in she searched the sea of bodies on the ships for her friend and resorting to her X-ray vision when she was unsuccessful.

There!

Ratonhnhaké:ton had somehow found himself over on the Dartmouth where he and two other men were cornered, a firing line of five Redcoats taking aim at them and Kara’s eyes flared.

It was like that fateful night in the burning village.

Time stopped and Kara just moved.

One second she was a ship away, the next, she was knocking down the two Patriots and then covering her friend’s body with her own just as the muskets fired.

The bullets passed harmlessly over the heads of the two on the ground and bounced uselessly on Kara’s back. They gawked as the little body of a—girl? Yes, it was a girl—slowly turn towards them and the men may have soiled themselves when they saw her eyes glowing a demonic red under the hood like hellfire begging to be unleashed.

The angry Kryptonian moved with the force of a storm; a tempest personified.

The men saw nothing but a blur as the muskets were ripped from their hands and sent over the side with a splash before they suddenly found themselves also following their guns into the water.

“Are you alright?” Kara frantically scanned the hunter’s body for injuries but aside from a few cuts and bruises he seemed fine and he said as much.

“What happened to ‘stick together’?” she punched the Mohawk in the arm, her concerns turning into annoyance as the boy grinned sheepishly as he rubbed his now sore arm. Did she really have to hit him so hard?

“I… got carried away?”

The Kryptonian’s eyes narrowed and the hunter wisely apologised and tried to distract her by pointing out her eyes were glowing again. It didn’t work.

The fighting eventually dwindled down as the Regulars became outnumbered and outgunned.

Finally, Ratonhnhaké:ton and Kara held the last two crates in their hands. They grinned to one another as they symbolically raised it above their heads and threw them into the harbour. Cheers rose all around them and Kara’s hearing picked up something about… teapots?

“Let’s go!” Ratonhnhaké:ton tapped her on the shoulder and ran off, the blonde on his tail. The patriots on the ship also began dispersing to avoid the reinforcements that would no doubt be arriving soon.

Kara slowed from her leisurely pace (a full-on run for Ratonhnhaké:ton) as she passed by a building.

She could have sworn she saw something catch the sunlight and heard movement on the roof.

Kara’s gaze snapped back down to the street when she heard her friend call her name, having noticed that she was no longer running with him.

With one last glance at the rooftop, she jogged a little and caught up with the hunter.

In their haste to escape, neither saw the figure watching from the shadows.

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They laid low and waited with baited breath the next few days after the Destruction of the Tea in Boston as everyone seemed to be calling it. They were half expecting Regulars to burst through the doors of the print house and arrest them for taking part in the events of that day but it seemed the disguises have done their part and the officials were unable to collect enough evidence to carry out any arrests.

After the fifth night of there being no arrests made Kara felt that it was safe enough, even though the tensions in Boston had reached even greater heights, to make her biweekly pilgrimage to her crashed ship.

What she saw when she arrived confused her greatly.

She slipped into the pod and double-checked the HUD to make sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her.

Her beacon had pinged something far into the Atlantic Ocean but it wasn’t the Kryptonian ship she had been hoping or waiting for.

As far as Kara knew, the best forms of communication anyone had were either the word of mouth, messenger runners or pigeons and letters. No one had even the barest clue what a radio was and the most she had seen of electricity was when Benjamin Franklin was showing off his fancy new lightning rods.

So how in the world could something out in the ocean have picked up her transmissions?

Perturbed, the Kryptonian lifted herself out of the pod and closed it behind her. She started to fly into the sky when she felt something wrap itself around her ankle and the next thing she knew; she was being hurled into the ground below.

Her impact made a crater and left her dazed, stunned that something could catch, let alone throw her down from the air. Then, the rope tightened and started dragging her into the trees. Kara clawed at the ground in a panic, unable to find any purchase.

With a shout, her eyes flared to life and the Kryptonian unleashed two beams of pure energy and heat into the treeline. Her concentration was broken when the beams came right back at her and the blonde was sent flying into the cliff side. Her head was knocked back by the blow sending her heat-vision astray and wildly into the tops of the trees and the cliff, easily cutting through everything and sending a shower of rocks and burning logs down over her hunched form as she clenched her burning eyes shut.

The small mound of debris exploded outwards as the Last Daughter of Krypton emerged from underneath and flew high into the air—

Where she was abruptly punched in the face and sent hurtling back down near her pod again.

“It may not seem like it now but this is for your own good!”

A woman—the epitome of beauty, grace and untold power—hovered over the downed Kryptonian with a shield in hand while a sword remained strapped on her back.

Kara scrambled to her feet when two more women wearing the similar type of armour appeared not too far away. “Who are you?” She knew her voice was uneven at best, she recognised that she was not only outnumbered but completely and utterly outgunned and outmatched.

The hovering woman landed, no doubt about it that she was their leader. “I am Princess Diana of Themyscira and we have been searching for you for a while now.”

“Themyscira? What- how did you find me? What are you?”

“We are Amazons, born of this Earth whereas you are clearly not and we have been graced with blessings of the Gods which allow us to perform the great feats you witnessed. As for how we found you,” Diana gestured to alien ship behind the young girl.

“We knew something had fallen to Earth from the stars but we believed it to not be of any concern. Then, weeks later we began to receive a strange signal that grew stronger every day—your beacon. My mother, Queen Hippolyta sent myself and my sisters to investigate and here we found your empty ship.”

“We did not know who you were and whether you were a friend or a threat to this world. We searched for days until we came to the city where you had been staying.”

Kara sifted through her memories and recalled all the times where she had lately felt on-edge, feeling like the eyes of the world were always on her. It must have been these Amazons all along.

“But you said you didn’t know who I was…” Kara trailed off, thinking of all the times she may have shown she was not as human as she appeared to be until it came to her. “The destruction of the tea.”

Diana smiled lightly and nodded. “You showed heart in that fight; the way you defended your friend and how, even in the rage you were in—with all your powers and abilities—you did not take a single life or dealt any lasting harm.” Then Diana face hardened slightly.

“But you also showed, both that day and this night, how little control and experience in combat you have.” She gestured to the scarred mountainside and the smouldering forest around and below them. Kara opened her mouth in protest but Diana beat her to the punch.

“How close were you truly to hurting those men that threatened your friend? How close were you to burning them, cutting them to pieces with your eyes as you did to those trees and the mountain?”

The Kryptonian’s mouth shut with a click. She had been moments from releasing her heat-vision on the Redcoats; she had felt the seemingly endless well of power behind her eyes but she had tamped it down and smothered it at the last second, realising what was about to happen, what she could have done to those men.

The Amazon took her silence as confirmation of her suspicions and she slowly approached the girl, finally resting a gentle hand on her shoulders. Kara dropped her head in shame and guilt.

“Let us help.” Diana urged the girl softly. “Return with us to our island, it is paradise. There you will not be alone, a Goddess among men who will never understand that a girl such as yourself is destined for greater things. You will be among sisters with abilities not unlike your own. Who better to train you than us?”

“But I’m not alone,” Kara countered. “I have a friend, Ratonhnhaké:ton. I can’t just leave him behind, especially not with everything that’s going on with the British and the colonies.”

“He cannot come with us to Themyscira; no man is ever allowed on the island, but…” Diana raised a hand, forestalling the girl’s response.

“Come with us to the island; let us train you and when war comes—and it will come; you and your friends’ actions that night at the harbour were so bold, so daring that it will have many and long lasting consequences that will shape the very land that which you stand on—you will return, no longer the young, lost girl that you are now but a fierce warrior, a force of nature with all the power in the world and beyond and the skill to wield it wisely and you can protect those you wish to protect and defeat those you wish to defeat.”

Diana stepped away the girl with so much potential, giving her room to think. The warriors waited patiently. After all, they had all the time in the world.

Kara rested a hand on her pod as she looked out over the valley. If she used her enhanced senses she would be able to see the village that was burning not so long ago, the night she met one of the best people she had ever known. She looked to the stars, there were so many that night. She thought of her cousin out there somewhere, eventually he would come and she would protect him. She would have to. The Kryptonian had learned the hard way just how dangerous this world could be; how violence always seemed to just a wrong word or look away.

She needs to get better, be better so she could protect them. Kara spent so much time just fumbling around in a fight, trying not to kill or hurt anyone too much while Ratonhnhaké:ton moved like a hurricane, whirling and wading through his opponents—he didn’t kill, just incapacitated them due to her urging. That night on the harbour when they had been separated, he had come close to being gunned down and she had been on the verge of accidentally killing people. That was unacceptable to her.

Kara held the familiar necklace to her heart and she imagined what her mother would have said to her had she been standing beside her now. The blonde let out a small chuckle when she figured it would be along the lines of ‘follow your heart’.

“You will do extraordinary things.” Alura smiled at her daughter, moments away from sending her away forever.

Finally, she turned back to the waiting Amazons and Diana couldn’t help but smile at the new fire that had kindled in the young girl’s eyes.

“I will come with you but… there’s someone I have to say good-bye to first… and I need to take my pod with me.”

Diana nodded, expecting as much. “Meet us here at sunrise after you have said your farewells. I will carry your ship to Themyscira when we leave.”

The blonde nodded gratefully and turned to fly off but was halted once more by the Amazon’s voice.

“I have given my name but have yet to receive yours. What is it?”

The alien turned in the air to face the warriors and she smiled. “My name is Kara Zor-El, the Last Daughter of Krypton and the noble House of El.”

Diana smiled after the girl flew off. The Princess sensed great things to come from the girl.

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“We will see each other again someday soon. When the time comes and you need a kick up the backside, I’ll be there.” Kara told him with a watery laugh.

Usually he would save face and deny showing any emotion but this was Kara and he’ll be damned if he denied that the girl had an impact in his life. Even in all the darkness of the world and what they had been through, the loss they had experienced, Kara was the light.

A storm was coming; he could feel it in his bones. But he would rest, he would wait and he would train and be ready to fight like Kara will be. He will be damned if he wasn’t there to see Kara return and be the light in the storm.

Ratonhnhaké:ton finally reached the top of the cliff, heaving himself over the edge and he stared for a moment at the flattened ground where the vessel that had carried his friend across the stars had been.

Shaking off the sadness and pang of loneliness, he smiled when he sighted a reasonably large boulder nearby and he removed the hammer and chisel from his satchel. He was by no means a skilled carver—it was Kara who had the affinity for the arts—but he needed to leave a better mark than some flattened dirt and grass to show his friend had been here.

And so he worked that whole day, the rhythm of hammer, chisel and stone carried by the wind until finally, his work was done. Written in stone in his native tongue:

On this here Earth, A Spirit fell from the Stars. A Guardian. A Protector.

She watches over us All.

The most striking of all was the large and painstakingly carved ‘S’ inside an angular shield.

Metropolis

To say that the two reporters were shocked would have been a gross understatement.

During the course of Kara’s retelling, the Amazons had shifted from water to tea while their hosts had sat, enraptured by the words coming out of the older Kryptonian’s mouth.

Lois, as usual, was the first to come out her daze and she laughed, smiling brightly at the blonde woman. Clark once again would deny that he jumped at the sound of her voice.

“That is absolutely brilliant! You’re telling me that you were there when American history was made! You and your lot were behind the Boston Tea Party! Ha! You helped shape the nation!” Lois crowed excitedly.

Kara could only laugh and smile sheepishly. “I was just there to help my friend stop the sale of his land and to keep an eye on him.” she explained to the still grinning reporter. “I didn’t know it would become such a big deal and be the start of everything.”

Diana scoffed slightly, looking amusedly at the blonde. “I did. And I told you as much didn’t I?”

Kara shrugged and made a non-committal noise as she pointedly sipped her tea. The older Amazon laughed and shook her head at the younger’s antics.

“Wait,” Clark finally processed the barrage of information and something stood out to him. “Did you actually come back? When the American Revolution finally broke out, did you actually come back and fight?”

Kara nodded sadly, her expression growing distant, a faraway look in her eyes. “Yes I did. I trained hard and faced the Trials of the Amazons and succeeded. I returned to America and searched for my friend. I helped him out from time to time on his mission and kept him from going off the deep end at other times.” Kara summarised vaguely.

Clark looked horrified. “You went to war when you were just a teenager?”

“A teenager trained by the best and fiercest Amazon warriors, each with thousands of years of experience. A teenager blessed by Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom and War herself.” Diana said sternly in Kara’s defence. “We would not have sent her off to war had she not been prepared.”

Kara smiled gently at her cousin, touched at the concern he felt for her even only after meeting her a few short hours ago. “Tell me, Clark.” She interrupted the staring match that had erupted between her friend and her cousin.

“How old were you when you started using your powers? Did you use it to save someone? To protect a friend?”

Lois smirked, knowing the older Kryptonian had the Kansas farm boy beat on that. “Smallville was 15 and he caught saved Lex Luthor’s life when he crashed his fancy-ass Porsche into a river, isn’t that right cupcake?” The reporter chirped happily, patting the speechless man on the back loudly before getting up to get more coffee and tea for them.

“The only thing different between our finding ourselves and use for our powers are the circumstances. The world was already on the brink of war when I arrived. I’m now very grateful that you didn’t arrive on Earth when did. I don’t know what I would’ve done.” Kara smiled her sad-yet-happy smile before she playfully frowned and kicked him lightly on the shin. “I’m still miffed that you took so damn long getting here though. I waited centuries. Very rude of you.”

Lois laughed, having heard the tail-end of their conversation when she returned and handed out more drinks.

“Okay, okay I’m okay now.” The reported calmed herself down, this was probably one of the best days of her life; she learned that there was an entire race of super-badass female warriors; there was another living Kryptonian and said Kryptonian happened to be a part of history and finally, the three most powerful being on the planet were all in her living room sipping tea and coffee. How was this her life?

Oh, right. Alien Kansas farm boy, duh. Shame I can’t write about this… Lois hmmed lightly as squinted at the only man in the room and Clark started feeling irrationally worried.

“Anymore Earth-shattering news you can tell me, Kara? What else did you get up to being the immortal Kryptonian-Amazon that you are?” The reporter leaned in, sipping at her coffee.

Kara hummed as she formulated a response and Diana rolled her eyes and smirked behind the rim of her mug.

“Well… at the top of my head… I was there when the Declaration of Independence was signed, World War One…” Kara nudged Diana next to her who rolled her eyes more pointedly and nudged the younger woman back. “And I watched as the Berlin Wall fell.”

Lois really shouldn’t have asked just as she was drinking her coffee.

Chapter Text

“Your mother is a very kind woman.”

Kara flew in wide lazy barrel rolls around her cousin, her arms and fingers spread outwards as she enjoyed the fresh Kansas air flowing through her fingers and hair that was free from her helm and hood. She whistled a tune at a flock of birds flying beneath them and laughed when they seemed to whistle back.

Clark couldn’t help but smile at the sight. Even though his face was still flushed red from blushing furiously after his cousin and mother finished their talk, he couldn’t deny how happy he felt at the knowledge that he had a living blood-relative to add to his small Earth-family and that he wasn’t so alone in the skies anymore.

“Yeah, she is. Did you really have to tell her you used to change my diapers?”

As he had expected, Kara and Martha had gotten along like a house on fire. In hindsight, he should have better prepared himself for when the two women had met.

“Yes. That was very necessary.”

“Okay.”

First it was Lois and Martha, then it was Lois and Kara and now it was Martha and Kara. Why were all the women in his life ganging up on him? God help him if all three of them are in the same room…

Clark sighed in defeat but the smile never left his face.

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Not too long later, the Kryptonians caught the faint scent of the sea and knew they were only a few minutes away from their destination at the speed they were flying.

“Hey Kara…”

The companionable silence broken, Kara was drawn from her quiet musings and she smiled invitingly to the younger man.

There was so much more he wanted to ask but he was already slowing down as he led the way through the skies of Midvale. He hoped Kara would be sticking around for a while; he wanted to know so much more about her, them, their planet, his birth parents. It would be so much better hearing from her; her stories were real—personal. That wasn’t something any of the crystals in his Fortress could offer. He made a mental note to bring the elder Kryptonian there later but for now, he asked the question that was at the forefront of his mind.

“…where’s the scary shield- I, uh- I mean, where’s Diana?” Clark had a foreboding feeling that the elder Amazon didn’t like him very much. His face could attest to that.

Kara laughed, not unkindly, at the apprehension in his tone. “Oh come on, she’s not that scary…”

Clark gave her a disbelieving look.

“…once you get to know her.” Kara finished, a sheepish grin on her face. “Anyways,” Kara said with a loud exhale and another barrel roll and coming to a rest on Clark’s left.

“Diana is off reconnecting with our old contacts and gathering our credentials, old or new I’m not too sure. It’s been awhile since we’ve been back to Man’s World for reasons that aren’t mission or stop-the-world-from-ending related so we will need to see if any of our old friends and allies are still around…” Kara trailed off thoughtfully.

Clark could only stare again in amazement. It was shaping out to be a habit when he was around his cousin. With the way Kara acts with her lively gesticulations and smiles that can light up a dark room it was so easy to forget that this young woman who appeared to only be in her mid-twenties was in fact a centuries old warrior with a nigh-infinite amount of knowledge and experience.

“So you’re staying…”

“For a while, yes.” Kara smiled at Clark who brightened up considerably.

He looked at the land passing by quickly.

“We’re here.”

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For even the casual observer, the sight of one flying caped alien was enough to stop anyone in their tracks and just stare. It was advisable that this wasn’t done while one was in the middle of a road or intersection.

But now there were two of said flying caped aliens and they came to a graceful landing in the spacious and neatly trimmed lawn of a quaint two-storied home by the seaside with a balcony, dark roof shingles and brick chimney stack.

A broad-shouldered dark haired man and a slimmer blonde haired woman emerged from inside the house and approached the pair.

Coming to a stop, Clark finally introduced the two. “Kara, this is Doctor Jeremiah Danvers and Doctor Eliza Danvers. They are the scientists that helped me better understand my powers.”

Kara smiled kindly at them even as she subtly sized up the two as she had been trained to do and coming to the quick conclusion that they were good people. “My name is Kara Zor-El.” She shook hands with the scientists who were looking at her armoured attire with great.

“That’s the House of El crest, any relation to Clark?” Jeremiah asked.

Kara’s smile grew. “Clark, or Kal-El as I knew him on Krypton, is my younger cousin.”

The scientists’ eyes widened and they looked to the man in question who merely beamed and shrugged his affirmation.

“How is that possible?” Eliza spoke. “Clark didn’t say anything about another pod landing on Earth and he’s been here for 24 years.”

The elder Kryptonian nodded, her smile lessening slightly. “I was 13 years old when Krypton was destroyed. My pod was launched after Clark’s and it was caught in the blast. There was a malfunction with my ship’s Warp Drive that sent me into a region of space where time was distorted. I landed on Earth centuries before Clark and a lot has happened since then…” Kara stopped talking when she saw the scientists’ mind-blown appearances.

After a moment Eliza finally shook her head with an amused expression as she poked her husband in the side and pushed his slightly ajar mouth closed. “Come on honey. Let’s invite our guests in; we can pick the Kryptonians’ brains later.”

Jeremiah cleared his throat. “Um, yep good idea, dear.”

As the scientist led the laughing trio back inside the house, Kara caught a silhouette watching them from the second floor window in the corner of her eye.

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“Hey Supes.”

“Alex.” Clark greeted the teenager coming down the stairs warmly and they slapped hands before clasping their fingers together and then finished off with a fist-bump.

“So who’s your super-friend here? Your sidekick? Supergirl?” Clark went bug-eyed and frantically shook his head at the teenager over his cousin’s shoulder but stopped immediately when the blonde turned her head to give him a quizzical look and instead smiled innocently at her.

Kara rolled her eyes in good-nature at the man and turned to address the teen and feeling like she’s introduced herself for the nth time that day alone. “My name is Kara Zor-El, Elder of the House of El. Kara is just fine.”

“Alex Danvers.” The girl shook the woman’s hand as firmly as she could even as she squinted at the very pretty blonde, analysing her and gathering all the facts she knew.

“How come you’re the elder when Clark’s been on Earth since he was a baby?” Alex challenged and Kara grinned at the girl’s fire and inquisitive nature.

“I grew up on Krypton and though my appearance suggests otherwise, I am actually closer to three hundred than I am to thirty.”

“What are you, immortal?” she pressed, mind working furiously with the new information.

“Kryptonians age at a much slower rate here on Earth and there is also the matter of my being an Amazon, so yes, I am immortal.”

“Amazon? As in like the Amazons in Greek Mythology?”

“Exactly that… sort of. The stories didn’t exactly get everything right.”

Eliza quickly stepped in to interrupt the interrogation her daughter was starting with the Kryptonian.

“Relax sweetie, remember to breathe.” Eliza jokingly massaged the teen’s shoulders to staunch her coming protests.

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After a quick meal in which Kara insisted she help knowing full well just how much food one, let alone two Kryptonians can put away so Eliza was treated with the rare sight of a fully armoured Kryptonian-Amazon expertly wielding a knife and making quick work of the assortment of vegetables and proteins she had set out while the older blonde—Eliza was still trying to get her head around that—regaled tales of the many Feasts of the Five she had been honoured to partake in.

A lull in the conversations around the dining table proved to be all the opportunity Alex needed to launch her next wave of inquiries.

“So if you’re invulnerable how come you need all that armour?” She asked, tapping the pauldron on Kara’s left shoulder with a finger.

Even having only known the girl for a few short hours, Kara found that Alex Danvers had already endeared herself to the Kryptonian, sensing the utter brilliance and fire within the girl.

“I find that it never hurts to have another form of defence to rely on. While yes I am invulnerable to most conventional and… unconventional weapons and physical attacks, it is those of the more arcane and mystical kind that I need better protection against.”

“Arcane and mystical meaning…”

“Magical, occult, supernatural.”

“Magic.” Clark said, looking sceptically at Kara. “We’re vulnerable to magic.”

Kara chuckled at the expressions around the table before she answered more seriously. “Yes, Clark. Magic exists and it can harm us. Never underestimate any sorcerer you may come across in the future should you meet one. I found out that lesson the hard way and would not wish that upon you when it can be avoided.” The elder Kryptonian told him sternly with a raised brow in a very Diana-esque fashion and Clark found himself merely nodding without further question.

The scientists who had been listening with great interest thought that that had killed the mood but Alex proved to be unrelenting in her pursuit of knowledge barrelled on with her interrogation.

“One thing that’s been bugging me… and you don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to…” Alex glanced hesitatingly at Clark and then Kara.

Sensing the more sombre nature of the question, the two shared a glance before nodding encouragingly at the teen.

“If you have been here centuries before Clark… how come you’ve only shown up now? Why not as soon as his pod landed?” Alex phrased it as carefully as she could but Kara still found herself wincing slightly as if in pain and smiling through it morosely.

Finally, Kara spoke again. “There is no real excuse. Diana and I were away from Themyscira when your pod landed...” the blonde glanced up towards her cousin who smiled at her reassuringly, no accusation in his eyes. He had had a good childhood, if a bit confusing and trying at times but he had his friends and family to guide him through.

“… it wasn’t until weeks later when we returned that we were informed of… a ship, landing on Earth. I left immediately for where your pod last transmitted a signal before it cut-out but you and the pod were long gone along with any trails for me to track.”

Kara paused for a moment, thankful that no one seemed to notice her brief hesitation even as she recalled those terrible weeks where she had searched tirelessly day and night for any sign of her baby cousin, fearing the worst; that he was found by unsavoury people who wished him harm; that he was at that very moment being dissected for study and experimentation as a few shady organisations and humans she had encountered in the past were all too keen to do to aliens; or even worse than that still, he was found by the…

Her spiralling trail of thought was interrupted when a warm hand covered hers. It was Kal’s.

“Hey, I’m alright. I was found and raised by some of the best and kindest people in the universe. I’m right here; alive and kicking and totally bad-ass.” Clark laughed and Kara playfully rolled her eyes and she flicked him in the arm.

“Anyways,” she said, brightening up again. “Diana eventually came along a few weeks later to drag me back to Themyscira and I learned from a very good friend of mine who had it on good authority, Lyla Michaels the Harbinger, that you would be alright and that you would have rather… colourful times ahead; so, I chose to wait just a while longer to find you and reveal myself until Harbinger’s vision came to fruition.”

“And now here he is, the Boy Scout in blue. I swear when he started getting called Superman he was actually going to go for the ‘strongman’ look with the underwear on the outside. Thank God Lois was around. She’s a gift to mankind.” Alex muttered into her glass of juice, cocking an unimpressed brow at the now-sulking alien.

Jeremiah pinched the bridge of his nose while Eliza walked away with her dishes shaking her head with a fond smile and Kara just laughed.

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The Kryptonians left with a promise to return at another date. Kara giving her word to the youngest Danvers that she would teach her more about the stars and planets after the girl overheard her compliment Jeremiah on how his telescope was powerful enough that when paired with her microscopic vision, she could more easily distinguish the red sun Rao from the other twinkling lights in the sky and Alex had watched as the blonde taught Clark where he could always find their birth world’s star.

They entered Lois and Clark’s apartment in Metropolis and found the Amazon and the reporter chatting friendlily, drinking tea and coffee respectively on the kitchen island.

Diana raised her mug in greeting while Lois simply gleefully volleyed a question at the blonde Kryptonian.

“Is it true a giant Skolopendra nearly ate you every time you got close to it so you ended up just making a giant whirlpool around it and then froze it in a huge ball of ice and then threw away the ball of ice?”

Kara gaped at the grinning reporter for a second before she looked to the elder Amazon and found her to be smiling her unfailing Mona Lisa smile.

“Diana! That was just meant to be between us!” She complained and the Princess’ smirk twitched around the corners.

“There is a lesson to be learned in that encounter,” this time the Amazon looked directly at Clark who shifted slightly under the brunette’s piercing gaze. “Brute force should not be the be-all end-all of any fight. If the same tactic does not work twice, and it rarely does, be more cunning and try the smarter approach.”

“Besides,” Diana turned and winked at the embarrassed Amazon, “the story never fails to amuse those it is regaled to.”

Kara stared wide-eyed at her mentor, horrified. “How many people have you told that story to?”

Diana simply rose from her seat and placed her empty mug into the dishwasher. “Come. Our contacts have come through and we have accommodations prepared for us and business to attend to in the morning. Ms. Lane, thank you for your hospitality.” She nodded to the reporter or smiled back.

“Anytime.”

The Princess flew gracefully out the tall apartment window and the younger Amazon was quick to tail after her.

“Wait! Diana! How many people know that story? Diana!” 

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Metropolis – The Next Day

“Okay, I don’t get it.” Clark said abruptly as they walked in Metropolis Park.

They were both dressed in civilian clothing, Clark in his typical plaid shirt, plain coat, tie and glasses while Kara wore beige slacks, a plain white button-up blouse and comfortable flat shoes with her hair in a neat pony tail. A far cry from her usual formidable armoured appearance but it did not take away from her powerful aura—if anything, it enhanced it.

The reporter also noticed that the woman wore a thin metal bracelet around each wrist and if it was anything like the helmet Kara wore with her armour that retracted into her headpiece, he had a feeling that these bracelets could also turn into her gauntlets.

“You don’t get what?” She asked as they purchased two ‘hotdogs’ but only after Clark assuaged her fears that it was made of actual dogs.

“Diana.” He said simply as he squeezed ketchup and mustard onto his and Kara’s food and declaring it the ‘American Staple’.

“She doesn’t like me much, does she?”

Kara hummed thoughtfully as she chewed and formulated a response. “Well… it’s not so much that she doesn’t ‘like’ you but more so that she doesn’t approve… of the way you do things.”

“The way I do things? You mean as Superman?”

Kara nodded before explaining. “Clark, we do not mean to offend or insult you. Diana is not only the Princess of Themyscira but also the best and fiercest warrior, the Champion of the Amazons and she has been my mentor and shield-sister for centuries. If you truly wish to continue on your path as the protector of the Earth, then I want nothing more than to help you and that includes telling you where you can do better.”

Clark sighed, not exactly expecting their walk during his break to turn into a lecture but he knew there was wisdom in his elder’s words. She spoke from experience far beyond his two-year tenure as the Man of Steel and several more years of bumbling around with his powers during high-school.

“If I may elaborate further?” Kara asked, not wanting to push the younger man too soon, their relationship was still so new.

Clark nodded.

“Take your fight with Rocket Man, for example.”

“Bloodsport” The reporter corrected automatically before smiling sheepishly. “Sorry. I work at a newspaper; I have to get these things right.”

Kara rolled her eyes fondly before continuing. “Take your fight with Bloodsport, for example. I was watching from above the cloud cover for a while. Why did that battle have to last as long as it did?”

Now he was confused and Kara picked up on it.

“The man was calling you out. He chose a public place to challenge you, purely for the sake of the fight and to kill you. He was dangerous and yet you faced him head on. Why not utilise the element of surprise and end the fight before it began? You could have used your incredible speed and appeared right behind him and knocked him out with a well-placed blow to the back of the neck or his temple.”

“Why did you wait until after I had revealed myself and he had launched numerous missiles before you decided to defeat him with two blows?”

He could not find an answer to that and Kara’s point was made clear to him.

Clark’s watch beeped, jolting him from his contemplation. He had five minutes to return to the Daily Planet and he smiled apologetically at his cousin who nodded understandingly.

He disposed of their napkins before hugging her tightly, for once he didn’t need to worry about hurting someone with his strength and Kara returned it in kind. The reporter murmured his thanks in her ear; she had given him a lot to think about.

“Right,” he backed away and checked that he had his ID and bag with him. “So, you’ve got mine and Lois’ numbers on your phone?”

Kara removed the little rectangular device from her pocket. “Yes sir, I do.” She wiggled the phone slightly.

“Okay, give us a call if you need anything, alright?”

“Likewise, now get going before you are late, little cousin.” Kara laughed when the reporter jumped and checked his watch again.

“Right! Good point, I’m off. See you later?”

“Yes you will now go!”

“Yep going now.”

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In fact, Kara saw his cousin much sooner than they both anticipated and not in the way the elder Kryptonian would have liked.

She and Diana were sitting in a café enjoying a quick snack and drink, watching the hustle and bustle of the city around them, having finished another round of re-establishing and reconnecting with their old contacts and making new ones.

Kara’s keen hearing tuned out the ceaseless honking, chattering and pattering of Metropolis around her as she focused in on the mention of ‘Superman’ in the television inside the café. Diana having noticed the blonde’s sharpened gaze look towards the screen herself and the two watched along with all those inside the café as the Man of Steel fell to the ground, an armoured man standing not too far away from him.

The man’s chest piece seemed to flare before bolts of energy sizzled along his arm and fired from his gauntlet, striking Superman and launching him further away and he was slow to get up while his assailant steadily walked approached him.

Diana looked to the tense blonde beside her and she led her away from the crowd by the arm. “Go. Be smart.” The Amazon told the woman and the Daughter of Krypton launched into the skies, the clouds splitting and a clap of thunder the only sign that she came that way.

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Superman was struggling. He had been taken by surprise as he was dealing with a multi-car pileup on the highways leading in and out of Metropolis when he was hit by what must have been pure energy.

It hurt and the blows kept coming leaving him dazed and unable to breath or gather his bearings.

He just managed to get his hands and feet beneath him when he was once again struck in the ribs, this time by his attacker’s boot and damn did he feel that. He also felt when another bolt of energy hit him in the face, launching him into an overturned car that was thankfully empty.

The Man of Steel tried to get up, he really did, but his limbs were responding sluggishly as he watched the man’s chest piece glow more violently, the air around him becoming more charged as it crackled with energy.

He braced himself for the blow… but it never came.

Before him stood his cousin in full battle regalia.

And she was angry.

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Kara Zor-El surveyed the scene below her.

She watched as her little cousin was thrown back again and again, feeling his pain as if it were her own but and the only thing that stopped her from recklessly charging in was the age old battle instincts ingrained into her very being and Diana’s parting words. “Be smart.”

So Kara watched and waited for a few heartbeats longer, studying the armoured man; and that was all he was, she realised. A man wearing a suit of armour granting him the enhanced strength required to throw her cousin around and what seemed to be the power source of the suit was ostentatiously on display at the very centre of the man’s chest piece.

His primary attack came in the shape of the bolts of energy fired from his gauntlets, both of which derived their power from the glowing core on his chest piece. It all came back to that glowing core.

Now Kara had a plan. It was time to attack.

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Just as the man finished charging his gauntlets and fired, Kara landed in front of her downed cousin and counteracted the concentrated burst of energy with her own twin blasts from her glowing eyes.

The ensuing explosion blew the man back a good distance away while Kara held firm, her cloak fluttering behind her in the wake of the concussive blast as she blocked the worst of the force from her cousin with her own body.

Her eyes continued to glow angrily under her helmet, ready to fire should more blasts come their way.

The man recovered and launched himself at the Kryptonian with surprising speed, firing all the while—no doubt aided by his suit—but it was nothing that surprised the blonde and she met him readily mid-way, blocking the blasts with considerable ease with her own gauntlets.

He threw a right hook at her head which she easily countered with her gauntlet before she curled her arm around the offending appendage and locked it to her side and she launched her own quick counterattack, two of which connected with the man’s unprotected stomach that left him hunched over, held up only by his arm locked firmly to the Kryptonian’s side.

The warrior’s knee connected with the man’s chin, launching him away from her cousin and towards her target—an overturned truck. Kara flowed with the direction of her strike, launching herself into the air so that the sun was directly behind her, concealing her approach until she landed directly over her dazed opponent.

With one quick and precise movement, Kara’s hand darted forward and ripped the glowing core out of the man’s chest piece. Just as she suspected earlier from the nature of the energy bursts and how, the core was radioactive.

Kara quickly moved to the truck, keeping as much of the core covered with her hands as much as possible to lessen the amount of radiation that escaped. She could only thank Rao that it wasn’t Uranium or Plutonium that she was holding since there was no lead readily available nearby. She would have to make do with what she had.

Reaching the truck, she tore the windshield off and heated it with her heat vision until it was malleable and she repeatedly wrapped and packed it around the glowing core before finally sealing the newly formed case with more heat and pressure.

The make-shift case of glass and plastic would hopefully be enough to block off the worst of the radioactive particles—the alpha and beta particles at the very least—until she could acquire a proper lead container.

Grabbing the truck’s front bumper for good measure, brought it over to her downed opponent and bent it around the man’s torso and left him for the proper authorities to deal with.

Finally, Kara gave a new meaning to speed-walking as she appeared the next second right next to the younger Kryptonian and slung his arm across her shoulders and murmuring words of encouragement so that he would rise to his own feet with her assistance.

Together, the Last Children of Krypton rose skyward and disappeared.

The whole affair was caught by a certain photographer, reporter and the news helicopter in the air.

 National City

Later that night, after sitting through an hour of Lois berating Clark and thanking her while Diana watched on vaguely amused, Kara sat, drinking alone in a seedy bar across the country waiting for one of her contacts to show up.

Her contact revealed their presence by depositing two glasses of alcohol next to her own empty one as he settled on the seat across from her.

“I have a present for you.” The blonde placed a heavy metal box on the table, welded shut with extreme precision. “Spoiler alert: its radioactive.”

The man nodded and moved the box aside. He leaned forward and steepled his fingers, just staring at her.

Kara met his gaze unflinchingly, not backing down. Eventually the man broke the silence.

“That was reckless.” He said finally. “You have taken away our element of surprise and secret weapon. You.”

The blonde nodded, knowing things will only get harder from now on. “My cousin was dying. What would you have me do, J’onn? Let the last of my blood family die?”

J’onn J’onzz—in the guise of a dark skinned man and former director of the D.E.O. Hank Henshaw—only sighed and shook his head. If he had been in her position, he would have saved his family too.

“Then get ready for war. Your family's enemies are now your own; and they know you’re here now.”

“We will be ready. It would not be the first time I have gone to war.”

And J’onn believed her as he glimpsed the battle-hardened warrior, the survivor, beneath the sunny disposition as the blonde smiled determinedly at him as she stood to leave; dropping a few bills on the table.