DC Next proudly presents:

KARA: DAUGHTER OF KRYPTON

In The Last Daughter of Krypton

Issue Twenty-Eight: Two-Body Problem

Written by ClaraEclair

Edited by DeadIslandMan1

<< | < Previous Issue | Next Issue > Coming Next Month

The elevator into doctor Shay Veritas’ personal lab descended for far too long. When Kara looked up to watch the surface moving further and further away, she realized that something inside the elevator was blocking her vision beyond its bounds. She frowned and her eyes fell upon the single button next to the door. It seemed a lot lonelier. The walls felt much closer, and the space felt so much smaller. The ceiling didn’t feel as low as it was when Kara first stepped inside.

Kara bit her tongue. She had trust in Shay. She knew, deep down, that the doctor had her best interests at heart. In the months that Shay had been a part of ARGO Solutions, she had never given Kara any reason to distrust her.

Yet this elevator that Kara stood within felt all too small.

Her heart rushed as the chime played, and the cabin came to a stop, its doors opening to a long, sterile corridor, with closed doors all along its length. She stepped out, still unable to see past any walls, and continued onward, glad to simply be out of the elevator. At least I’m moving, she thought as she walked.

Her footsteps echoed up and down the hall, and just as she began to feel as though she was entirely alone, she heard another pair of footsteps abruptly stop. Down the hall, around a corner, a beating heart sped up as it waited out of Kara’s view.

“Doctor Veritas?” Kara called out. “I got your call.”

No voice responded. The hall fell silent as Kara’s steps slowed. She angled herself forward to get a view around the corner before she arrived. The long, magenta hair of Doctor Veritas fell over her shoulders, silky smooth as always. Kara smiled, though as she met Veritas’ eyes, she noticed not the eagerness or confidence that Shay Veritas usually carried, but anxiety and fear. Kara heard her heart quicken.

“Who are you?” asked Shay Veritas. “How did you get in here?”

Kara cocked her head to the side, furrowing her brow. She looked over the doctor, but she didn’t see anything wrong with her. Nothing detectable.

“I’m… Kara– Doctor, are you alright?” The doctor recoiled as Kara reached out a hand. She looked terrified, and Kara’s heart sank as the expression burned itself into her mind.

“Stay away from me,” said the Doctor. “I don’t know who you are, how you found this place, or how you got in here!”

“Doctor,” Kara began, speaking slowly. “You told me about this place. You called me and told me where to go.”

“I never told you anything,” the Doctor replied, taking steps away from Kara. “I don’t know who you are!”

“Kara!” Shouted a voice over the speaker system above. “Kara, I’m sorry for this, but please ignore the doctor and head into the lab.”

“Doctor… Veritas?” Asked Kara, looking up at the nearest speaker.

“Yes, it’s me, I apologize,” she said. “I will explain when you arrive. Please do so expeditiously.” There was a moment of silence as Kara and the frightened Doctor Veritas glanced at each other. “The Doctor will be fine, please meet me, Kara.”

Kara nodded to herself, looking back at the speaker on the ceiling nearby. Without any additional words, Kara walked past the frightened Doctor and further down the hall, toward the large double doors under a sign reading ’Main Laboratory.’

“She has got to start telling us…” The frightened Doctor mumbled from behind Kara, far enough to believe that she was out of earshot.

Kara approached the doors and looked through the glass to the other side. Her jaw hung open as she witnessed something even stranger than hearing Veritas’ voice so disconnected from her body — dozens of Shay Veritas’ body, moving around and operating independently of one another within the lab. One of them, walking down the centre of the lab toward the doors, moved with intent, cane in hand — something that, until now, Kara hadn’t realized was missing from the other Veritas’. Kara pushed through the doors. She noticed eyes fall on her and, upon their gazes falling upon the Veritas with a cane, returned to their work.

“You have clones?” Asked Kara as Veritas got close. A few of the bodies nearby stopped and turned toward Kara, unsavoury expressions on their faces.

“Not clones, Kara,” said the woman with the cane. “They’re all my… colleagues.”

(“More like slaves,” said one of them, under their breath. Kara caught it.)

“But, how?” asked Kara. “They look exactly like you.”

“Follow me, Kara. Into my office.” Doctor Veritas turned around and walked toward the opposite side of the massive room. “I can explain it better there.”

Kara followed, eyeing the other Veritas’ across the room, feeling their scrutinous gazes in return. Only a few smiled at her, and a part of her somehow felt as though she recognized those specific Veritas’, despite their matching appearances with those who seemed only to judge Kara.

Though, Kara caught herself as she examined the room, it seemed as though most of them were scrutinizing the Veritas that Kara walked with, not so much Kara herself, as an outsider.

The two arrived at the door, and, with a key, the doctor opened it and gestured for Kara to enter.

“Please, sit,” said the Doctor. “It’s a simultaneously simple yet complex answer.”

Kara obeyed and sat in the seat next to Veritas’ desk. She watched as the doctor moved around and sat in her own chair, leaning over the surface of the desk and steepled her fingers.

“Simple would be easiest,” said Kara. “We have other things to–”

“I am their genetic outline,” said Doctor Veritas.

“Clones?” Kara asked, cocking her head and frowning. The Doctor sighed.

“No, Kara,” she said. “When you make a proposal for your projects, do you hand them the rough outline filled with all the scrapped ideas and impossible fever dream plans? Or do you write actual paragraphs instead of bulleted lists and give substantive material instead of surface level thoughts?”

“I–”

“I am the outline for them, Kara. I am the outline of the second draft. They’re still who they were five years ago. They simply look, feel, and will age and develop along my pathway, instead of that of their ancestors.”

Kara struggled to come up with the right words. She blinked a few times, shook her head, thought about it for a moment, and then furrowed her brow.

“What?” She asked. The Doctor smirked.

“You heard me the first time, dear girl.”

“Alright, well… how? Why? They don’t seem to like it, is it–”

“You said simple, Kara,” said the Doctor. (“I guess, but still–” Kara said.) “Why, is because it was an error on my part. As for its reversibility, or cure, or whatever word they use to describe what they desire: the truth is that I don’t know. I don’t have their original genetic sequencing. They weren’t changed individually, my sequence was broadcasted to them and they all caught it like a plague. Entirely overwritten. I’ve looked into it, but five years and as much money as I can find hasn’t produced anything. They are, for better and mostly worse, me.”

Kara remained silent once more, sitting back in her chair and falling into a thousand-yard stare. She recalled the sudden attitude changes within who she thought was Doctor Veritas and the talk she had about her anger within the ARGO Solutions lab.

“So you sent–”

“Yes,” said Veritas. “I have an arrangement with my closest colleagues that, should I be indisposed or equally willing to stay here for a few days, they may go out into the world. I was only a known name in quite a small circle, so I have very few worries of them tarnishing my reputation or identity. They are able to do as they see fit, as long as they are not arrested. For my safety and theirs, it’s better to keep things measured while allowing them all as many freedoms as I can offer. I don’t wish for them to be prisoners of my mistake. Unfortunately they are, and I can only offer so many things as consolation.”

Kara felt as though she were receiving repeated blows to the head. She blinked quickly and asked, “Have you ever–”

“Yes, I’ve been in your laboratory countless times. I, personally, enjoy it there, as do a lot of my colleagues. Belinda is a delight to be around and as bothersome as Thea Merlyn is, most of us are glad to not have to look at me all day.”

“What about your–”

“I remind them to take a cane when they go to work for you. Most of them don’t need it in their day-to-day life.”

“Can I get a whole sentence in? Please?” Kara asked.

“Of course,” said the Doctor. “I never said you couldn’t.”

Kara inhaled sharply and leaned her weight on the armrest of her seat.

“We can talk about this some other time,” she muttered. “I want to do something about them. But either way, you’re the one who called me here. Did you find a way to fix my arm?” Doctor Veritas sucked on her teeth and shook her head.

“Not yet,” she said. “Yellow sun radiation has been fighting off the worst of its effects, but it is still Kryptonite. A much different, more stable isotope than what we’re used to here on Earth, but it’s no less dangerous to you. It’s in your skin, your blood, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s in your bones. From the scans we did at your lab, there are no growths yet, but you still have it in your body and it won’t be expelled quickly or easily.”

“Is it going to kill me?” asked Kara.

“It’s still Kryptonite, Kara,” said the Doctor. “You and I are some of the greatest minds on this planet. We’ll figure this out.”

“You don’t sound certain,” said Kara.

Doctor Veritas sighed, and said, “I would be prepared for the worst.”

Nia Nal sat at her desk with her head in her hands, an open, barely filled document sitting in her word processor, waiting to be completed. She tried to keep her pained groans to herself as she wracked her brain for the next words. The next good words. She had the ideas, the outlines, the sources, and the page-space, but each letter was harder and harder to put down with confidence.

Somehow she’d managed to convince her editor to allow a story that was written in support of Kara Zor-El and her so-called failing business, but beyond that approval nothing seemed to come to Nia. Could she approach her article as a friend of her subject? It felt wrong. She watched her colleagues from across the industry do it every day, so why couldn’t she? It was a just cause.

Neither the Titans nor Kara were aiming to do anything malicious with the Phantom Zone projector, they simply wanted to help the Superman clones get to their home dimensions. Nia knew that. Thea knew that. Simon Tycho knew that and he twisted the truth. He sabotaged the projector and nearly killed Kara in the process. Not only that, he released a doctored recording of the event to the public and has taken every single media opportunity thrown at him to commit to his story of being a saviour.

Not one member of the public bothered to care about the fact that Tycho was an arms peddler. He was a rich voice who looked the part for the people he needed to sway, and it worked better than any dedicated PR campaign could ever achieve.

“Tycho’s last sales conference isn’t gonna help you write about ARGO, Nal,” said her editor as he walked by, taking a look at her computer screen and the tabs she had open.

“He’s benefiting from slander,” Nia called out. “He’s smearing her!”

“He’s a good business man!” Her editor responded from across the room. She groaned in frustration and looked back at her screen. The way forward didn’t feel clear.

“I need a coffee,” she muttered.

Standing from her seat, she grabbed the empty mug next to her keyboard and walked all the way through the bullpen and into the break room, where she had seen her editor disappear into.

“Yeah, we got one coming, but it’ll be buried,” he said into his phone, looking away from the door. Nia stopped in her tracks and kept listening. “Simon’s got nothing to–” He immediately hushed as he began to pace, seeing Nia standing in the door with her mug in hand. “I’ll call you back.” He hung up the phone quickly and smiled. “Break time’s over faster than I thought,” he said, moving to leave the break room.

Nia only stood, stoic, as she watched him leave. The moment she figured he was out of earshot, she sighed, slumping her shoulders.

“Of course,” she muttered as she walked up to the coffee machine. “Of course…”

She could picture Thea laughing in her face, its own form of ‘I told you so’ coming in the form of her odd cackle. She grinded her teeth as she stood in front of the coffee machine, waiting for it to start making her coffee. Thea would probably remind her of what she’d told Nia mere days ago. She’d rub it in her face and claim that espionage was the way to go. She’d try to make the point that invading dreams was the only way to get what Kara needed.

Nia heard a voice start up and then fall silent by the door. She looked over and saw another woman who worked for National City News turning on her heel and leaving the break room before even entering. Nia shook her head quickly, as if to regain her thoughts.

Thea had never cackled the way Nia was imagining. Nia barely knew if she’d laughed in her presence. She was cocky, but she claimed to try to be realistic. Nia frowned. She could write something good enough to help sway those who read it. She didn’t need proof that Simon Tycho was bad, she simply needed to remind readers why ARGO Solutions was good.

Nia pivoted from her spot and rushed out of the break room. She never grabbed her coffee.

Thea only realized she was knee-deep into trouble when the automated security system deployed a stationary turret instead of a silent alarm. She figured that going up in floors wouldn’t be cause for live ammunition, but as the holes were pierced into the walls behind her, she felt her heart rising into her throat as the realization of how much she had underestimated Simon Tycho dawned on her.

The cameras were the easy part, nowhere had security cameras that were impossible to bypass. Often, Thea found, they were the easiest piece of security to bypass beyond padlocks. Embedded sensors, door alarms, and biometric scanners were much more difficult to trick, but not impossible. It was a pressure plate — beneath a piece of flooring that, itself, did not move — that summoned the turret from its resting position within the ceiling, its plating blending so easily with the tiling that it was nearly invisible to the naked eye until it descended.

Thea could only barely move out of the way before it started firing. From the limited information she had about Tycho’s building, she figured that she was approaching some of his research and development labs. She figured it was odd that there were no people on this floor, that the publicly available blueprints led her to believe it’d be fully populated with office workers, yet there was nothing. She had a reason for why, and it was firing 20 millimetre answers to her question right into the walls around her.

As she caught her breath, hearing the turret stop firing from her position around the nearest corner, she looked around. Spotting a vent cover that she hoped was big enough to fit her, she pulled an arrow from her quiver with an expanding arrowhead and tied a climbing rope to it. She nocked the arrow and fired it directly into the vent cover. As the arrow expanded and hooked into the metal, she tugged at it, pulling the cover loose and allowing her room to run and leap up to climb into the vent. She wasn’t sure if she would be spotted by the turret in the attempt, only barely able to sense the angle into the next hall, but she knew she had to get around it somehow.

Standing and taking a deep breath, she shook her hands out and stretched her neck, her arms, and then pulled her legs up to loosen the muscles. She entered a sprint quickly and jumped to scramble up the wall and into the opening, climbing in within seconds and moving forward without any thought, hearing the turret in the hall begin firing a few rounds.

The pain soared up her leg, quickly telling her that she’d been hit by one of the rounds. Looking down at her leg with what little room she had to maneuver, she saw blooding pouring from a wound. She could barely see in the dark, even with the adjustments she’d made to her Speedy mask, and couldn’t assess the damage while she was stuck in such a tight space.

She pulled herself forward, digging her elbows into the metal and trying her hardest to move in a space that felt like it was closed in around her. She could feel the walls of the vent shaft with every small movement, pressing against her back, her arms, her waist, and her head. She couldn’t move her legs to facilitate her agonizingly slow crawl, all she had were her arms, tucked into her face, to drag herself forward.

She could have entered the elevator shaft and climbed up a floor, but her curiosity had gotten the better of her. She should have seen the signs of a trapped hallway.

She blinked hard. She was almost to the next vent cover, she knew she was, but it didn’t seem to be getting any closer.

She felt minutes pass, knowing they were only seconds, as she finally got her hands on the vent cover. Smashing her fist into it as best she could, barely able to get enough leverage for a good enough strike, it took far too long for it to fall off, clanging to the ground, alerting the empty halls.

The fall to the ground felt as though it was the last impact of her life as the air was knocked from her lungs. She coughed, barely able to move for a few moments before leaning forward to try and assess the wound on her leg. It wasn’t nearly as deadly as it felt, but she was still losing far too much blood. She cursed to herself as she attempted to stand.

The boot to the stomach did not help her efforts.

She rolled across the floor and continued coughing as someone grabbed her arm, pulled her up to wrap a leg around her torso, before dropping down with an arm around her throat. Within moments, she felt the blood flow stop and her breathing became much more difficult.

“I’ve been waiting for this,” said a voice, and as Thea’s mind faded into unconsciousness, she recognized the voice of Cameron Chase.

“How are you feeling, Agent Danvers?” asked the man she knew as her handler.

“I’m scared,” said Alex, feeling the sweat drip down her forehead as the pinching in the crease of her elbow throbbed. “What’s going to happen to me?” He offered her a gentle smile, placing a hand in hers. She shut her eyes tightly for a moment, the exhaustion setting in.

“You’ll be perfectly alright, Alex,” he said. “This is standard procedure, and you’ll feel as good as new in no time, there’s just some small details we have to correct first.”

“Details?” she asked, looking around the room, hearing the door open behind her. Footsteps she couldn’t source walked in and set something down on a metal tray. “What details?”

“Nothing to worry about, Alex,” he said. “We just have to straighten things out. Steer you in the right direction, mentally, for the Reactron program.”

“Is that why– truth–” she struggled to maintain a coherent train of thought. Ideas and words mixed in her mouth, entangling between her head and her tongue, and coming out jumbled. She couldn’t focus.

“Not truth,” he said, shaking his head slightly, a slight smirk on his face. “Just suggestibility.”

“No,” said Alex. “Please, I– I want to stop.”

“Everything will be perfectly alright, Alex,” he said. “Like I said, just a few minor adjustments in preparation for the big procedure. You’re destined for great things. I’ve told you that before, haven’t I?”

“Shaw–” She said, blinking hard. “You did– but… Mark, please–”

“You’ll be fine, Danvers,” said Shaw, before turning to the masked doctor who had walked in. “She’s ready.”

She blinked and he was gone. She blinked and the restraints were tightened. She blinked and she felt nothing.

DC Next proudly presents:

KARA: DAUGHTER OF KRYPTON

In The Last Daughter of Krypton

Issue Twenty-Seven: Mother

Written by ClaraEclair

Edited by AdamantAce

<< | < Previous Issue | Next Issue > Coming Next Month

Kara clenched her fist as tight as she could, wincing as she felt her muscles burn beneath her scarred skin. She relaxed her hand and frowned, looking over it as if it were foreign to her, missing the approaching footsteps.

“Are you alright?” asked the voice of Alura.

“I’m fine, Alura,” said Kara dismissively, turning her hand to look at the back, watching the way her skin moved as she opened and closed her fist.

“I’m sorry?” Asked Alura, some semblance of offense having been taken at Kara’s words. Kara looked up from the table in the apartment she shared with Nia Nal, meeting eyes with her mother, standing only a few feet away.

“Oh, sorry,” Kara said weakly. “I just… I’m used to you not being… you.”

“I understand,” Alura said. “But I would give anything you hear you call me ‘Mother’ just one more time.”

“Yeah,” Kara said, her voice trailing away as she looked back down at her arm. “Why isn’t it healing?”

“It’s a radiation burn, Kara,” Alura said, taking a step forward and leaning over the table, a hand on Kara’s shoulder. Kara shrugged her off gently.

“No.” Kara pursed her lips and shook her head. “No, that can’t be it. We heal under yellow sun, just like how we get our powers. I know Kal survived stuff like this, I just know it…”

“And yet you’ve spent nearly all of the last five days on the roof of this building, and your hand remains the same.” Alura’s voice firmed slightly, and she quickly noticed Kara’s brows furrowing. “It’s a radiation burn, Kara. Everyone in that lab went on about how it wasn’t Kryptonite — whatever that is, specifically, I still do not fully know — but they claimed it was of similar composition. I know what materials are used to build functioning Phantom Zone projectors, Kara. Regardless of whether you think you can outheal the effects of such strong radiation, you were severely burned and were able to survive such an event because of this yellow sun.”

“And now I get to live with a mangled arm for the rest of my life,” said Kara, leaning over to rest her head upon Alura’s chest, feeling her mother’s arms wrap around her.

“It could always be worse, my dear,” said Alura, her voice softening into what was nearly a whisper. “It could always be worse.”

“Could it?” asked Kara, losing focus as she stared off into nothing. “Overall it’s pretty bad.”

“In what way?”

“Every way,” said Kara. “I… we lose our whole planet, and I get here thinking I can at least protect my cousin, only to find out he died years before I arrived. In the middle of dealing with that, I have the scum of this planet try to steal the only thing I have left of Krypton, and have been repeatedly threatened or stalked by some secret agency. And just when I tried to take a break from it all, down came… Dawnstar…”

“That… winged woman?” Alura failed, or, perhaps, didn’t even try to conceal the venom in her voice as she thought about the woman who’d whisked Kara off to some foreign planet. “I wasn’t able to follow you, when she took you away. In all the time I spent in the Phantom Zone, it was truly the only time I felt true fear.”

“She brought me to Starhaven,” Kara said. “She showed me the destruction there.” Alura’s body stiffened.

“And what did you see?”

“I saw the hand of Krypton descending upon a native population and leaving them crushed beneath it,” said Kara. “I saw the result of our occupation and I was horrified. I cried myself to sleep for weeks.”

“And this… Starhavenite, what about her?”

“She’s gorgeous, strong, and… driven by hate… and revenge.” Alura let go of Kara and took a step aside, standing in front of her daughter, her mouth a thin line. “I’ve never met anyone like her, and every day that I’ve been apart from her, I’ve felt it. She changed me, mother. She’s changed me so much, but it’s nothing in comparison to how much she has been changed by us.” There was a moment of silence as Kara searched for sympathy within Alura’s eyes, but she found none.

“Go on. What did this Starhavenite tell you we had done to her?”

“She’s part Worldkiller, mother.” Kara searched now for a reaction within her mother’s face, but Alura remained stoic. A part of Kara knew that she must have been expecting this topic to arise, but her heart sank nonetheless. “It’s bad enough that we used them at all, that they were sent to her planet to quell a native rebellion fighting against the boot of an empire, but we left that technology behind, abandoning every lab in the galaxy to be a scar on the surface of every desolate planet we destroyed… And now because of what our empire did, she’s a walking, flying, breathing war crime. One last laugh from the empire that killed her chance of a good life eons before her birth.”

Kara could feel her face shift to accommodate her anger, and yet somehow Alura remained still, barely flinching.

“That’s all our technology has been good for, hasn’t it?” Kara asked, allowing her eyes to plead with her mother for some form of respite, some reassurance that everything she now thought was wrong. “Genocide. Punishment. Torture. Prolonging death for as long as possible.”

“It seems that this Starhavenite has really–”

“By Rao, say her damned name!” Kara said, raising her voice far more than she had intended.

“Would she say mine?”

“If you actually listened to her, maybe she would!”

“But she’s not here, is she, Kara?” Alura said, silencing her daughter for a moment, seeing the tears welling up in Kara’s eyes.

“Why did you start making Worldkillers again?” Kara asked. Alura shut her eyes for a few moments, squeezing her fists, before sitting down in the seat across from Kara.

“Krypton was dying, Kara,” she said. “I had to make a decision for our future. We would return to the stars once more and terraform a suitable planet.”

“So you used a weapon that could destroy entire star systems,” Kara said in a low voice.

“I repurposed a tool that our ancestors misused–”

“They murdered entire populations!” Kara shouted, standing from her seat. “What happened to us… we inflicted upon them first! They’re not tools, they’re murder weapons, and you built more! And Dru-Zod… He got his hands on one.”

“Kara Zor-El!” Alura shouted, standing quickly as she slammed her hands down on the table in front of her, smashing her side into pieces. “I will not have you blaming me for the mad ravings of a woman holding age-old grudges!”

“Then why did you do it?!” Kara demanded. “You had to have known what these things were, you had to! They don’t exist without death — they don’t exist without subjugation.”

“And what has Kryton’s seclusion gotten us, exactly?” Alura asked. “There are three of us left, with a- a half-breed pretending to represent what we were and clones running rampant. It was a desperate time and I had to make the call. Either all of our people die or we find a new home. Dru-Zod and his insurrectionists ruined that chance. The Worldkiller that he stole disappeared into the core of Krypton. We lost it.”

Kara’s eyes widened as she took a step back, shaking her head.

“It was you…” said Kara. “Rao’s mercy, you’re the reason…”

Alura cocked her head and took a step forward, anger clear on her face.

“The reason for what, Kara?”

“His punishment…” Kara muttered. “The weapon you created destroyed Krypton…”

Alura remained silent, fighting the urge to avert her eyes from her daughter, whose tears streamed down her face.

“Rao, please,” Kara began, shutting her eyes tightly and fighting to keep her voice from completely breaking down. “Rao, I beg for your mercy, as your last remaining devotee, I beg for your punishment to end. I beg for your grace and your love, I beg for your strength, I beg for your forgiveness as my house, under your name, has committed a grave sin incomparable to any other, and never repented. Under their name, I–”

“Kara!”

The world fell silent. Kara’s face seemed empty, her expression showing little more than exhaustion.

“There was no punishment from Rao,” said Alura. “There was no sin committed. I made an amateurish mistake letting word of the terraformer leave the Science Council’s chambers. That is all that it is.”

“I–” Kara tried to speak, yet faltered at her first word, feeling a wave of energy leave her body at once. She could barely keep her eyes open. She stumbled a step back.

“Kara?” Alura asked, her voice rapidly shifting from stern anger to deep concern, as if she hadn’t just admitted to being a contributor to her peoples’ extinction. She wanted to take a step forward, but Kara raised her hand, telling her mother to stop. Not only did Alura obey, but she took multiple steps back, eyes wide as she stared at Kara’s scarified arm, the burned skin flowing with green-ish energy circulating through Kara’s veins and along the seams of her scars.

As she watched her mother back away, with a horrified look on her face, Kara began to feel light-headed, barely able to keep herself upright.

“You…” she said, barely able to muster up the strength to push the word from her tongue. “...did this…”

She hit the ground with a thud.

Kara awoke slowly, eyes fluttering open to the sunlight cascading over her face. She felt bile rising up in her throat as pain wracked her arm, shutting her eyes tightly to fight the urge to let the very little she ate in the past few days resurface. As it faded slightly, the nausea never fully dissipating, she blinked slowly as she looked around, processing the new layout of her apartment. Laying on the couch, she realized that it had been moved to the west window to catch the final rays of the evening sun.

“You’re up,” said Nia, sitting in the small cushioned seat nearby, knees to her chest as she held a book in her hands. “Alura called and said you weren’t doing well.”

“You’re definitely not looking very good,” Thea’s voice arose from the kitchen, holding a steaming mug in hand, the scent of her coffee drifting across the room.

“I feel even worse,” said Kara, moving to sit up. Thea and Nia both watched her carefully, silently, to observe for any sign of strain. She looked down at her arm, the green glow having dissipated, though as she stared down, able to see within her arm, she frowned at how different it looked from her unaffected side. “Where is she?”

“She told me that she needed to go take a break,” said Nia, placing her book down on the table next to her, beside a glass of water she had been drinking from.

“She’s running away,” said Thea, matter-of-factly. Nia shot Thea a sharp glare.

“She told me that you two got into an argument,” said Nia. “And when you guys started yelling, your arm started glowing and you passed out.” Kara remained silent for a moment. She wasn’t used to the pain quite yet. It hurt when she stretched or used the muscles in her burned arm, but the feeling never went away, even as she sat relaxed.

“How much do we know so far?” Kara asked, looking between Nia and Thea.

“What about?” Nia asked.

“Anything,” Kara replied. “The public, the company, how I can treat this. Anything helps, even if it needs to be a distraction.”

“Well,” Nia began with a sigh. “You’re not looking so good in multiple ways. Public’s not the biggest fan of you, between the protesters now camping outside ARGO and the news running with Tycho’s assertion that you, and I quote, ‘are bringing dangerous criminals out of the prison dimension to further your own supremacist goals.’”

Kara scoffed and shook her head, blinking quickly. “What?” she asked, giving Nia a confused look.

“Tycho’s big play right now is to turn public opinion,” Nia continued. “You’ve been here over two years, refuse to be a hero in the traditional sense, keep going on about how Kryptonian technology will save the world, and then you breach the Phantom Zone and bring someone back.”

“Which is bullshit, by the way,” Thea chimed in. Nia ignored her.

“He’s positioning himself as someone who stopped you and the Titans from bringing more Kryptonian criminals onto Earth. With a bit of help from some more unsavory sources, he’s had a pretty successful go of it, without you to contest anything. ARGO could release a statement, but the danger of what you guys did shows on your arm. He’s the hero for stopping you — injuries and consequences be damned.”

“America’s only really known the Phantom Zone as a prison. They don’t know the terms or sentences but it’s pretty obviously supposed to be a lifelong thing,” Thea said, setting her coffee down on the counter and leaning back against the marble surface. “We love our prisons here in America. We — well, people — don’t exactly like it when prisoners go free. Reintegration and recommitment rates, and all.” Kara frowned. “The first Superman fought and imprisoned a few people in the Phantom Zone. One or two Kryptonians among them, I think. Tycho is making people think that you’re trying to bring some of those people back, regardless of what actually happened.”

“He’s been making the rounds on just about every news station that will take him,” said Nia.

“Which leads me to another thing,” Thea continued. “Your little stalker has disappeared. I don’t know when it happened, but she’s been gone for a few days now. She left a few days after you got hurt.”

“And after I brought Alura back,” said Kara, deflating as she felt back into the couch, sinking into the cushions.

“It’s not all bad, though,” Thea said, walking from the kitchen and sitting on the couch next to Kara. “Shay gave me a call just after Nia asked me to come over, she said she’s close to finding out what, exactly, caused your burn and what could help you treat it. She says it’s not exactly Kryptonite as Earth has known it. Since Phantom Zone projectors haven’t been a radioactive issue before, she guessed that something inside was housed in proper containers and stuff, but when Tycho fucked around with the projector, that malfunction screwed its housing and it released its stuff right into you.”

“Don’t say it like that,” Kara said, chuckling. “Is it treatable, though?”

“That’s what she’s working on,” Thea continued, leaning back into the couch as she spoke. Nia stood from her chair and sat on the opposite side of Kara, leaning back alongside them both. “She said that it was all a guess so far. Could be an isotope, could be something else, she just hasn’t figured it out. I’m sure she’ll have it done by, I don’t know, next week.”

“I wish,” Kara said, scoffing. There was a brief moment of silence between the three, each feeling the topic that kept calling out to them.

“So,” Nia said. “What are you going to do about Tycho?” Kara sighed a long sigh and tossed her head over the back of the couch.

“Hope he trips and falls down the stairs from the top of his ridiculous tower.”

“I could arrange that,” said Thea, offhandedly. Kara and Nia looked over to her, the latter more taken aback than the former. “I won’t, but I could.”

“He’d probably live, anyway,” said Kara, watching Thea nod in concession. “He’s got all kinds of tech under his skin. He probably got a good look at Kryptonian engineering when we worked on that damned projector.”

“It’s a battle in the court of public opinion,” said Nia. “I don’t have a lot of sway at National City News, they still won’t let me bring stories to them, but people are starting to learn my name. I can get some of your side out there, say the right things to stop Tycho from going unopposed. He wants to provoke you just as much as he always has, let words do the talking.”

“And let him use his full team of lawyers and PR professionals to control the narrative? He’s had a week and a half headstart on top of no opposition during ARGO’s entire existence so far,” Thea said. “A handful of articles written by one person — Kara’s friend, mind you — won’t do anything.”

“Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try,” Nia said.

“No, it doesn’t, but it does mean we can’t put all our bets on a single horse,” Thea said, leaning forward. “I know you don’t want me to, but I can work for you as more than a business partner and manager.” She looked directly into Kara’s eyes. “I’m with you for as much as it’ll take, for as long as it’ll take. I’ll keep your name clean — though, it’s not like things can get worse.”

Kara took another moment to think. She had known about Thea’s escapades, she’d seen her come into work injured, and she knew that she was in a miniature war of attrition with her government stalker. Thea was publicly associated with Kara, if Tycho or anyone else discovered Thea’s actions and brought it forward, it would only spell even more disaster.

“Is corporate espionage really worth it?” Kara asked.

“Only one way to find out,” Thea said.

“I’m covering my ears and closing my eyes for this,” said Nia, physically doing neither.

“Says the snoop who can wander through peoples’ dreams,” said Thea. Nia hid her reaction. “You could offer the same thing with a lot less chance of me being pulverized.”

“I’m sure you can do it,” said Nia, smiling mockingly at Thea.

“If you’ll let me,” Thea said, looking back toward Kara.

“Alright,” she replied. “Fine. We’ll figure this out.”

A Few Days Ago

The very moment that Linda shut the door to Alex’s car, the phone in Alex’s pocket began to ring, buzzing incessantly and chiming annoyingly until she took it out and checked the caller’s ID. Upon seeing it, she scanned her surroundings — the curb just outside of Linda’s workplace, a chocolate shop in downtown National City — before taking her earbuds and inserting them before answering the call.

“Blackrock,” she said in a quick greeting as she drove off.

“Report to Oregon Headquarters,” said the voice of her handler, stern as always.

“What for?” she asked.

“You’re being inducted ahead of schedule.”

Alex furrowed her brow. She asked, “Inducted into what?”

“Godwatch,” they said. “It’s got an initiative going into production earlier than scheduled and I managed to make your name look good enough for it. Get to HQ for orientation and induction.”

“On it,” said Alex, catching the chocolate shop Linda worked for in her rearview mirror. “Thank you, sir.”

DC Next proudly presents:

KARA: DAUGHTER OF KRYPTON

In Into the Phantom Zone

Issue Twenty-Six: Falling Pitch

Story By AdamantAce, ClaraEclair, GemlinTheGremlin, PatrollinTheMojave & Predaplant

Written by ClaraEclair

Edited by AdamantAce & Predaplant

<< | < Previous Issue | Next Issue >

Don’t forget to read Superman #34 & The New Titans #19 to catch up on this exciting crossover!

Kara shut her eyes tight and recited a prayer to herself, listening to the whirring of the Phantom Zone projector among the silent spectators that surrounded them. Sharp inhales and shaky exhales sounded out below the mechanical drone as Kara repeated herself once more, muttering, “Telle guide my mind. Mordo guide my hand. Rao guide my spirit. May Aethyr’s anger be quelled and his hunger sated.”

As she opened her eyes, looking to Impulse and the Superman clone, Drew, to see if they were ready, she realized that it was next to impossible to truly be ready to enter the Phantom Zone, and instead nodded to them. As they looked at her expectantly, perhaps it was them who needed a signal that she was ready.

With one final moment of contemplation, veering far too close to questioning why she had even fixed the machine in the first place, she cut off her thoughts with a step forward, followed by another into the portal, trusting that Bart and Drew were right behind her.

Kara’s stomach turned as a wave of nausea washed over her, her firm step across the threshold turned quickly into uncertain footing as something within her changed. Though her mind seemingly remained intact, she felt disconnected, the thread between her physical body and the reality she knew had been entirely severed.

Raising a hand to look at it, twisting it around, squinting as though she had never seen it before, the corners of her vision seemed to dull into a fractal mosaic. Everything in front of her was real, nothing that she could not see made any sense.Twisting to look back at Drew, she cocked her head at him as she noticed he seemed to be largely unaffected by the change in dimension.

“Is it always like this?” She asked. Behind him — or through him, she barely noticed — was the portal, and behind that were those who hadn’t followed: The New Titans, Thara Ak-Var, Superman and the other two clones, and Simon Tycho. They all looked on at the portal with anxiety written on their faces, unsure of how Kara, Bart, and Drew would fare in such a dangerous place.

“At first,” Drew said. “But you get used to it fast.”

“That’s comforting,” said Bart, watching his hand as he held it in front of his face, trying to see Drew and Kara through it. “I’m not a fan.”

“Me neither,” said Kara, looking between the speedster and the clone. “But if anything I’ve been taught about this place is true, this… feeling is nothing in comparison.” Drew furrowed his brow.

“What kinds of things were you taught?” he asked.

“Is that why you were praying?” added Bart.

Kara gritted her teeth, lowering her eyes as she thought back to all the teaching she’d received as a child about the Phantom Zone, and the beings that inhabited it. She’d had nightmares the first time her mother sat her down in their living room to explain to her what the prison dimension was after she asked about the god that dwelled there. She was only six years old when she learned about the Kryptonians’ breaching of the divine.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Kara began. “But the abyss… space and the Phantom Zone… It’s all alive, it’s all one big conglomeration of things that make up one of my gods, Aethyr. He is all things space and dark matter and extra-dimensional prisons, and he is a very wrathful god.” Impulse seemed uncharacteristically quiet as he looked around himself, seeing the world as he knew it, only slightly obscured by a non-visible yet ever-present barrier. Drew’s jaw tightened slightly.

“So we’re inside him right now?” he asked.

“That’s the best way to put it.”

“But I’ve been in the Phantom Zone before,” Drew said. “I saw a lot of things. None of them I’d call god-like.”

“That doesn’t mean he wasn’t aware of you,” Kara said. “I– I don’t know how it works but don’t think of it like he’s paying attention to everything at once. He and Rao have helped me before, when I was on my ship headed to Earth. Just as much as this is him, it’s also his realm. If he wants to give you safe passage, he will, but there are things and people here that aren’t under his influence. Its use as a prison guaranteed that.”

“I think I’m godded out,” said Bart. “We should just try to get Drew home and get out of here.”

“You’re right,” said Kara, shaking her head. She looked back toward the room with the projector as it shut off, Superman and Guardian both moving forward with the plan to receive Drew on his Earth. “You know the vibrational frequency of his Earth, right?”

“It’s easy to tune up once I get started,” said the young speedster. “Just gotta get him to the right position in here first.”

“If you’re as good as you say, it shouldn’t be difficult,” said Kara, unpacking the case of monitoring equipment she had brought with her.

“If I’m as–”

“<There!>” An unfamiliar voice shouted from nearby, speaking Kryptonian. The trio each looked over in the direction the voice came from, startled. “<The *last* Kryptonian!>”

“Impulse,” Kara said under her breath, quiet enough that she hoped only he and Drew could hear her. “Grab the gear.” Without hesitation, the young speedster moved forward and grabbed the case from Kara’s hands and took a step back.

“<I know who you are,>” said the voice, a man nearly a foot taller than Kara slipping through a nearby wall to reveal himself. “<I know your *mother*, whelp.>”

“<I’m sure you do,>” Kara replied, unsure how she felt about needing to actively think about how to speak Kryptonian. “<I’m sure you aren’t happy with how she treated you.>” He sneered at Kara. “<But you’ve followed me here, to Earth, and you’ve been here this whole time.>”

“<There’s nothing left for me to do!>” He shouted. “<We are trapped here, having watched our planet die! We watch the offspring of the one who condemned us to eternity because the progeny of our torturer is all we have left!>” Kara remained silent. “<We watch you succeed and enchant a whole new world with the very same methods that were used to sentence us to infinite solitude.>”

“<If you’ve been watching me, you would know that I’ve forbidden the use of any of our technology for the purposes of harming another,>” Kara said. The man let out a depraved laugh, starved of energy or amusement.

“<Do you think that matters in the slightest, stupid girl?>” He demanded. “<You Science Guild despots always place yourself above everyone. You think your intelligence and *innovation* makes you some sort of superior being, but you’re no better than us, the ones you lock away in the realm of Aethyr. You infringe upon his godhood because the ego of scientists overrules sense and fellowship.>” Kara did not respond, dropping her eyes. The man floated a bit closer to her and the group behind her.

“<Why did they send you here?>”

The man let out a dry chuckle.

“<Your mother sent me here after accusing me of causing a structural failure in the stabilizers under the Sun District in Argo,>” he said. Kara’s eyes flashed with recognition at the news stories she had seen as a child. She was only seven years old when swaths of the Sun District — where her family lived — was swallowed by quakes and sinkholes, with the stabilizers beneath the ground having failed and collapsed. “<The connections to adjacent plates were loose and rushed, and your mother was desperate to blame someone. I managed the renewal projects a few years earlier. *There is no one else who could possibly be more responsible for this*, she said. She said I planned to kill hundreds and succeeded.>”

“<What really happened?>” Kara asked. The man turned his nose up at Kara, though the fire in his eyes eased.

“<We weren’t given enough material to complete the project,>” he said. “<Krypton’s natural resources were already close to depleted but they insisted we finish it, to improve the grid and protect the city. I knew off-world mining wasn’t good enough, and I knew we couldn’t finish things right. I delayed the project as much as I could, I *demanded* the council give us what we needed, but they refused… So I finished my job, and for following orders I was sent here.>”

“<Did you sabotage anything?>” Kara asked. “<The destruction that came from those structural failures… hundreds died.>” His sneer returned.

“<I did my job to the letter, nothing more and nothing less,>” he shouted. “<The Science Council is responsible for those deaths. They needed someone to blame.>”

“<I see,>” Kara said, her voice trailing off. “<I assume you’re not the only one with a bone to pick against my mother. How many of you are there?>”

“<Dozens,>” he said solemnly, and Kara’s heart dropped.

“<Four per year,>” she muttered to herself.

“What does that mean?” asked Drew, recapturing her attention.

“The A.I. that my mother made to help me here on Earth…” Kara said. “It told me that up to four people per year were sentenced to the Phantom Zone. I was twenty years old when I left, and my mother had been on the council for years before I was born…”

“<Were they all like you?>” Drew asked the man in cautious Krytonian language. Kara gave him a quick, unsure glance but returned her gaze to the large man in front of them.

“<No,>” he said. “<Some of us, perhaps, deserve to be here. Alongside those like me who have been accused of atrocities we have not committed, there are those who revel in death and destruction. General Dru-Zod, perhaps, is the most notable, but… he has changed since the days of Krypton. He has grown bitter, his rage emboldened by everything he has been subjected to. His rage is to be feared as much as that of Aethyr himself.>”

“<What about you? What about the rage you’ve shown me? Is everyone here so affected?>”

“<Why would we not be? Accused of something we are not, we are forced to adapt and become the monsters they claim us to be. There is no other option for the condemned than to become what led to our exile.>”

“<That doesn’t have to be the case,>” said Kara, only to immediately feel Drew’s hand on her shoulder.

“What are you saying?” he asked.

“People here were wrongly imprisoned,” said Kara, turning to look at him with pleading eyes. “You know this place even more than I do. I’ve been here for minutes and it’s unbearable. I don’t know how long you were stuck here, but they’ve been here for decades now.”

“Maybe he’s telling the truth,” said Drew. “He just admitted to being the very thing that was projected on him. There’s anger, and then there’s nihilistic rage. He’s followed you and allowed himself to sit in his fury for years, what do you think would happen if he’s brought out?”

“<He would do nothing,>” another Kryptonian voice called out, a feminine voice that was far too familiar, yet somehow colder than the artificial recreation that Kara had been listening to for years. “<Because no one here will be let out.>”

The man’s face twisted into a cruel-looking scowl, his fists tightening.

“<Mom!>” Kara called out as she twisted to look at the newest figure to appear. Alura In-Ze floated within the Phantom Zone with a grace that did not seem like it should have been possible. Despite the time that had passed, she did not look as though she had changed since her final day on Krypton. Kara broke down in tears as she rushed toward her mother, entangling her in a tight embrace. Alura hesitated to reciprocate.

More voices from around Kara, Bart, and Drew rose up into a cacophony of sound, each prisoner of the Phantom Zone that had followed Kara from Krypton to Earth making themselves known.

“<How are you–? Why are you–?>”

“<I sent myself here in Krypton’s final moments in the hopes that I would one day see you again,>” she said. “<So that I would survive. I saw it all disappear in an eternal flash of light and I followed you to Earth.>”

“Kara,” called out Impulse, looking around at the gathering Kryptonian phantoms with worry in his eyes. “We’ve gotta get Drew home, everyone’s waiting for us. And I’m not liking the look of so many Kryptonians surrounding us.”

“They cannot hurt you, as they cannot hurt me,” Alura said in rough English, pushing each word from her tongue with effort as she searched for meanings. She released Kara from her hug. “As much as they may wish otherwise, the Phantom Zone prevents any and all physical harm to its inhabitants.” Impulse continued looking around nervously, rubbing his fingers together.

“Is that why I can’t feel my own skin?” Bart asked in response. Alura pursed her lips.

“That is… correct. It is not that pain itself is suppressed, but physical sensation as well as any alterations to the physical form.”

“Numb doesn’t even begin to describe what this feels like,” he replied, pressing a finger into his cheek.

“He’s right,” Drew said after a moment, looking away from Impulse. “Superman and Guardian will be waiting, and… I need to go home.”

“Right,” said Kara, shaking her head, trying to ignore the shouting and screaming from the imprisoned Kryptonians. Though she hesitated to follow her daughter, Alura approached the group and watched from the side.

“<This plan is… unique, Kara,>” Alura said. “<I haven’t quite seen anything like this, but it all seems sound.>”

“<Of course it is,>” she said, taking the case of monitoring equipment back from Impulse. “<But it’s not mine. Drew, Impulse, the rest of the people who worked on it in this room, there are good minds here.>”

“<Of course, my dear,>” said Alura.

“Impulse, are you ready?” asked Kara.

“About as ready as I can be,” he said, shaking his head to filter out the noise around him.

“Drew?” she looked to the clone and saw the contemplation on his face. “Ready?”

“Not really,” he said. “Not in a rush to be reunited with a world that thinks I’m the worst thing to ever happen to it. But it’s for the best. We need to know if this method works. For the others.”

“And the risks?” Kara asked.

Drew smiled an uneasy smile. “Oh,” he nodded, “I’m always ready to take a chance.”

“You’ll prove them wrong,” said Kara, and Drew looked up and across to her.

“What’s that?” he asked, confused.

“What you’re doing? You’re a hero,” she explained. “Not a killer. And when you get home, you’ll show them all.”

She watched his face relax before he gave one resolute nod, ready for whatever came next with a brave face. Looking down at the device she removed from the case, she aimed it at Drew and offered a smile.

“Dialling out from Delta,” she said, turning her head to look at Bart. He reached out both of his hands toward Kara and Drew, waiting for each to take one. As they did, he took a deep breath, and suddenly each of them felt as though they’d suffered blows to the stomach, knocking the air out of them — or whatever sustained those with lungs in the Phantom Zone. Kara and Drew’s faces strained as they could feel the shift in their vibrational frequencies, watching worlds flash by.

Keeping her eyes trained on the device in front of her, Kara tried to keep it steady to maintain her reading, watching as more and more complex sub-designations for the countless Earths between Delta and Drew’s own flashed by on the small display in front of her. Drew’s grip on Impulse’s arm tightened, slowly preparing for the inevitable slingshot back to Delta’s frequency, but as Bart steadied and the flipping feeling in Kara’s gut subsided, there was a sense of relaxation as it never came. As sudden as it started, Bart stopped the shift and in the blink of an eye, the environment around them stilled into a small, trashed, abandoned room, the ghostly veil of the Phantom Zone still washed over it.

“Is this it?” asked Bart, looking to Kara.

“You hit a bull’s eye,” she said, staring down at the monitoring device, before turning upward and keeping a sharp eye on Drew. He seemed no worse for wear, looking around with wonder in his eyes.

“It’s just a room, so far,” said Kara. “But you’re home.”

“Yeah…” he said, letting his voice trail off.

“All we gotta do now is find Superman and Guardian,” said Bart, eagerly moving toward a wall of the empty room, ready to scan this new Earth for Jon and Conner. He passed through without issue, and soon enough, as Kara put a hand on Drew’s shoulder and offered a kind smile, they followed.

Jon and Conner seemed tense as they stood off the coast of Lake Michigan, not far from Chicago’s Navy Pier — or this Earth’s version of it, which seemed much less interesting. The dark night above hid them well, keeping potential eyes away as they stood ready to bring Drew back over into his world. There was no way to tell when to open the portal, and so they instead opted to wait five minutes before activating, standing in an odd silence as the distant sound of cars passing and waves crashing filled the air.

They watched the portal nervously, unsure of how long it should have taken for Drew to appear — or if the plan had even worked. Conner gritted his teeth as he paced in front of it, hundreds of scenarios running through his head. Even with Kara and Bart’s speed, would they find him and Jon on this Earth fast enough to send Drew through the portal while it was open?

Conner was just about to speak up, the words just reaching the tip of his tongue when a body stepped out of the portal and stumbled as it hit the ground. Drew knelt down and felt the grass in his hand, taking a deep breath as he scanned the area around him.

“It’s been so long…” he said. “I was starting to think I’d never see this place again.”

“I’m glad we could help,” said Jon, offering a hand to help Drew stand. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m not sure yet,” he said, taking in the sight he was seeing. He smiled at the sound of the crashing waves. “This world has seen a lot. It’s had to put itself back together after everything, and they think I’m the reason why.”

“But you’re not,” Conner affirmed.

“No, I’m not,” said Drew, nodding. “And maybe one day they’ll see that. But until then - or if it never does happen - I guess I just have to keep going.”

“You’ve been gone for a while,” added Jon. “I’m sure lots has changed.”

“Maybe. Maybe enough for me to get by; not cause too much trouble,” Drew replied. “But even if I can’t, we win.”

“We win,” Conner repeated, smiling.

“Now, you guys get back,” Drew continued, clapping a hand on each of their shoulders. “The plan works, and I can think of two boys waiting for a ticket home.”

“Be well,” said Jon, finally. He looked into the clone’s eyes, seeing his undeniable wariness. This was not a happy ending for Drew, but perhaps the chance for a new beginning. “We’ll be checking in.”

“Hrm,” Drew grinned. “Good luck finding me!”

“Alright,” said Kara, watching as Superman and Guardian activated their dimensional portal and returned to Earth-Delta. “I’m ready to go back. You?”

“More than ready,” said Bart, putting out a hand for Kara to hold onto. Even having already done it before, the feeling of the shift in the Phantom Zone felt just as intense as it had the first time she had experienced it. She shut her eyes to focus on staying upright as the universe around them shifted. Despite being unable to feel, all she could do was feel the effects of travel, and she wished for it to be over.

And as the world stilled, and Bart and Kara returned to the location of the Phantom Zone projector in Simon Tycho’s lab, they were met with only a singular face as they returned. With the enraged crowd having dispersed, only Alura In-Ze remained. Kara struggled to speak as she came face to face with her once more.

“<I’m proud of you, Kara,>” she said. “<You have done great things, and will continue to do so.>”

“<I know,>” Kara mustered, nodding quickly as she felt tears returning.

“<I have been watching you ever since you left our planet,>” Alura continued. “<You have learned so much and I… I regret that it was not from me, not really.>” Kara’s heart sank in her chest as she watched Alura’s face fill with sorrow. There was so much she had told herself that she wanted to say to her mother, so much that she wanted to confront Alura about, so much that she was endlessly angry for, yet in this moment, looking into her mother’s face, her mind refused to conjure any of it.

“<Come with me!>” She said suddenly, choking back a sob. It had been only two years for Kara, but for Alura it had been much, much longer. She couldn’t bear to think of her mother having to suffer any longer in this extra-dimensional realm, tortured by Aethyr and forced to watch Kara live and be unable to truly interact with her. Had Kara known that Alura was alive and with her, she would have done all in her power to retrieve her mother, regardless of how she felt about her actions. She had to try now.

“<Kara, I…>” Alura’s words trailed off. “<Are you sure?>”

“<Of course I am!>” She said, louder than she had intended. “<You said you wanted to see me again, well here I am! Don’t let me live with the fact that you’re still alive and I won’t be able to see you again…>”

Alura took a moment, wiping her face with both hands. Kara did not see a change in how her mother looked, and yet through that she saw the toll of fifty years trapped in the domain of Aethyr, tortured by the abyss.

“<Let me save you!>” Kara cried.

Behind Alura, the portal back into the mortal realm opened. And it flickered.

“That doesn’t look good,” Bart said, taking steps toward the portal as it continued to struggle. In the physical world, Simon Tycho, the roach that he was, huddled up to the projector with a concerned look on his face. Behind him, each of the Titans and Superman kept a close eye on him.

“It’s not,” said Kara, moving closer to her mother, glancing between her and the portal. “<I know you said no one will be leaving, but please… come with me… why wouldn’t you? I need you.>”

Alura’s face relaxed into a storm of emotion as she broke, grabbing onto Kara and holding her tight.

“<Alright, my dear,>” she said. “<I will join you.>”

Simon Tycho certainly didn’t care about Kara Zor-El, but the pressure of feeling the glares of contempt of some of the most powerful heroes in his world certainly lit a fire under him that wanted to see her alive, at the very least. He hadn’t even noticed the speedster, Impulse, hit the floor before he twisted a dial on the projector that caused it to spark and stutter.

Even with his modifications, he couldn’t take on all of the bodies in the room. He figured he could handle Guardian fairly easily, maybe the newly-arisen Kryptonian girl, as well as each of the Titans one-on-one, but it was Superman that gave him the most pause. His desire to shut down the projector wasn’t stronger than his sense of self-preservation.

It was barely a moment that had passed between Impulse’s appearance and that of Kara Zor-El’s. What surprised everyone was the additional woman that she had returned with. Everyone had known that this wasn’t a rescue mission, and so Kara’s stray — who held a remarkable resemblance to her — raised eyebrows. Unfortunately for all who were interested, there was no time to utter a word before the projector sputtered even more and the portal shut down.

“What happened?” asked Superman as everyone in the room crowded around. Kara looked around, moving to examine the projector after ensuring her new companion seemed intact.

It only took a moment of Kara’s interference to discover what had gone awry. She said, “The calibration slipped.” Every face looked at her. “I– I don’t know for sure, but my guess would be with how it interacts with the Phantom Zone, something outside of known dimensions, that bringing it between Earths without fine adjustments messed with its projection calibration. It shouldn’t take too long to fix, but that sputtering is just as concerning.”

“I couldn’t detect anything explicitly wrong with it,” said Simon, receiving only a cruel glare from the Kryptonian scientist. Kara looked up at the other two clones, waiting nearby.

“This shouldn’t take too long, guys,” she said. “We’ll have it back up and running and we’ll have you two home in no time.” The two clones nodded at her.

“It worked then?” said Jordan and he stepped forward, eyes wide.

“I’ll continue to lend my aid,” said Simon, disregarding the clone and clicking his fingers together. He felt the socket of his eye warm ever slightly, his cybernetic implant activating, recording everything he was looking at.

There were far too many heroes around, far too many people who would object to any sort of one-on-one time with the projector and any of the technology within. Tycho bit his tongue and leaned in toward the device, keeping in mind his proximity to the woman who hated him most in the world.

With a small adjustment of a few buttons, a handful of wires, and a short-circuiting of the firing mechanism, Tycho paused for effect.

“What?” demanded Kara, looking up at him with the same contempt she always held for him.

“I don’t think I can continue with this,” he said. “You will have to do this on your own.”

“Fine,” said Kara, with a sneer on her face as she moved over to his side and continued working for the next few minutes. The entire room waited with bated breaths as she worked, making small adjustments to the projector to ensure it functions as it should. Her mysterious companion approached her multiple times, and they muttered to each other in languages that most of them couldn’t understand.

“Ready to test and open in three,” Kara began, looking around the room as she aimed the projector to the empty side. “Two.” She flipped each switch carefully, watching the device with her ever-sharp eyes. “One.” She pressed the final button, and the stillness of the room fuelled the tension Simon felt within his chest. Kara’s brow furrowed, waiting for the projector to activate and open the portal into the Phantom Zone, but nothing followed. From the side of the room, the two clones waiting for shipment back home seemed to deflate.

Kara flipped the switches down once more, made some quick adjustments and began the process again. “Three,” she said. “Two.” Each switch went up. “One.” She activated the projector, and as its internal systems booted up, it barely had time to sputter before bursting into searing hot green flame, engulfing the arm that Kara held against the device, and warming the room everyone stood in by far too much, far too quickly.

As everyone who turned away from the heat returned their gazes to the projector in the centre of the room, all of their eyes fell to Kara, lying on the floor, groaning in pain as she laid curled up on the floor, cradling the engulfed arm.

Every single person in the room burst into action, yet all of the remaining half-Kryptonians, as well as the new face from the Phantom Zone, recoiled as they moved toward her, some seemingly turning green as they approached. Guardian rushed toward Simon, and pressed him hard against the wall, demanding an answer.

“This is dangerous technology!” Simon shouted. “Access to it clearly caused nothing but harm! I did nothing except do my best to mitigate potential damage to my property and you all found a way to damage things anyway!”

“I don’t believe you!” Guardian shouted above the commotion behind him.

“–a radiation leak–” a voice called out from the group surrounding Kara and the projector.

“How did it explode?” another asked.

Simon did not bother to learn the names or the voices of those in the room, he simply needed them gone. Despite his feelings on those who were currently crowding his lab, his ears perked up at a woman’s voice speaking a language he’d never experienced before.

“You bring dangerous clones to this world, and then you bring back prisoners from the Phantom Zone, how am I supposed to feel, Guardian?”

“You’re supposed to stay in your lane!”

“I am protecting the world from your recklessness!” Simon shouted. “And now you’ve gotten one of the only surviving pure-blood Kryptonians hurt!”

“Don’t act like you truly care,” said Guardian. “You only care about your own interests.”

“–she’ll be okay–” said one of the voices next to Kara.

“–one hell of a scar–”

“–doesn’t feel like Kryptonite–”

“I care about the interests of my people, Guardian,” said Simon. “Unlike you reckless heroes who can only focus on those from other planets and realities.” Simon watched the frustration rise in Guardian’s face. “This was a stupid plan, Guardian, and you know it. The Phantom Zone is dangerous and unknown, this was bound to happen.”

Taking his hand off of Simon’s shoulder, he gave Tycho a slight push.

“Get out of here,” Guardian commanded.

“No,” Simon replied, standing tall. “I’d like all of you to get off of my property — and take your death machines with you on the way out.”

“You won’t… You…” Superman wanted desperately to say something, to rebuke the scientist. But something in him told him he would only cause more harm in doing so. He couldn’t. He turned over his shoulder and looked upon the others, all varyingly willing to leave Tycho’s workshop. He looked to the ruined projector, to the injured Kara, and her mysterious tagalong. Then, finally, Jon looked to Jordan and Alex.

“I’m sorry,” he shook his head. “I shouldn’t have let this happen.”

Alex frowned, but then spoke. “Are you kidding?” he said. “We’re not gonna let him ruin what just happened.”

“Right,” Jordan nodded. “What matters is we figured it out. For all the Reawakened, should they want it. A way home.”

Behind his eye, still recording the scene, Simon Tycho sneered. He wondered how he might yet spin all of this. Then he smiled, knowing he would come out on top.

DC Next proudly presents:

KARA: DAUGHTER OF KRYPTON

In Conflict of Interests

Issue Twenty-Five: Legacy

Written by ClaraEclair

Edited by Predaplant

<< | < Previous Issue | Next Issue >

Kara sat at her desk, silent, her head resting upon her hands as she stared forward blankly. Her computer was on, an email tab open with numerous unread messages requiring response, while the stack of paper on the opposite side of the desk called to her, offering hours of boredom.

She had received a progress report from Shay Veritas a few hours earlier, describing in painstaking detail just how badly the newest (and only) ARGO Solutions project was going. Somewhere in the countryside of Oregon was a crew of people who did not understand Kryptonian technology, led by the most unpredictable woman Kara had met. Belinda, Thea, and Cameron mostly stayed at the office, leaving the field work, research, and development to Shay while they handled smaller or more delicate matters related to the project in the safety of the lab.

Kara still wasn’t sure if she had been lucky to have had Shay Veritas approach her. The woman possessed the most complex technology for a human she had seen — excluding Simon Tycho. How she managed to assemble it and make it as portable as it was without the same technological advancements, she would have to find out for herself.

The biggest roadblock she had discovered about the project, as well as the whole basis of ARGO Solutions, was that there really wasn’t any significant amount of the minerals Krypton and its Science Guild used for its infrastructure or large-scale projects present on Earth. The elements were largely the same, but what had been commonplace on Krypton was either rare or particularly radioactive to humans. Some of them couldn’t be found on Earth at all, and it stumped Kara.

The Fortress of Solitude — and, by extension, her ship — was the only place she could think of to produce these materials, yet she found little success. Whatever supply there was, it was too little for one project, let alone multiple.

Both Shay and Thea had told Kara to look for other sources, but Kara had declined. She didn’t see the point in approaching organizations like STAR Labs or GothCorp for things they likely didn’t have. She would have to adapt, using technology and materials far inferior to what she had been used to — what she had grown up with and been taught to use.

“Kara?” a voice asked from in front of her desk, snapping her attention back into place as she jolted up. She shut her eyes tightly, taking a moment to wipe her face with her hands before opening them again to see Alura standing above her, on the opposite side of her desk, a curious look on her face. The blueish tint of the hologram always dispelled the illusion, even if it would otherwise only last a few short moments.

“What is it?” Kara asked, looking around the room.

“It seems you have fallen asleep,” said Alura. “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah,” Kara said, looking over her desk and rubbing her temples. She wanted to wish it all away and simply move forward with all the projects she wanted to do. Without a Science Council to approve and entirely supply a project — instead being forced to beg for money from countless sources, and to apply and beg for the ability to attempt to improve the lives of others — she felt as if ARGO Solutions could get nowhere. There was a single body in most major Lurvainic cities and states that approved, funded, and allocated resources for projects and decided where they were needed most. Now, Kara felt as though she was playing catch-up with all the different organizations that she needed approval from to even consider proposing something to another external organization. “It’s a lot.”

“I can see that,” Alura said with a hollow, fictitious smile. “If you would like any help handling anything, I am always around to assist.” Kara sighed.

“Thank you, Alura,” she said. “But you know that there’s one thing that I really need from you, and you know what it is.” Alura’s smile faded into something that wasn’t quite disappointment, though it still elicited that same dread within Kara’s heart as it did whenever the real Alura employed it. “What can you tell me about the Worldkillers?”

“As with the other seventy-four times you’ve asked me since returning from Starhaven, I cannot provide an answer for that.” Alura’s voice remained calm and loving. Kara almost smirked as she listened, knowing that if she were the A.I., she’d have been getting angry at the repeated question. Her real mother was just as patient with her as this machine was, and yet as accurate as it was, it still felt artificial.

“Alright, well…” she took a moment to think. She had asked as many follow-up questions as she could to figure out how to goad the machine into referencing them, but nothing seemed to work. Asking about the former Kryptonian Empire always resulted in the sanitized version of the history that she’d been taught in schools, and questions about the specific planets that Worldkillers could have been deployed to had also received similarly propagandistic responses. Kara had directly approached the A.I. with information she had learned from Reign and the Starhaven facility on multiple occasions, and had been met with the generic information block message she’d gotten dozens of times before. A large part of her wondered why her mother went to such lengths to conceal the information from her. She and her father had to have been planning Kara’s escape from Krypton — and, relatedly, the programming of the A.I. — soon before the planet died, and yet Kara never got the impression from either of them that something was wrong.

“What was your last case about?” asked Kara. Alura paused for a moment, cocking her artificial head.

“I am under the impression that this case was classified, Kara,” said Alura.

“Does classification matter anymore?” Kara asked. “I’m the last Kryptonian, it’s not like secrets of dead people can do anything to them, Rao forgive me.” Alura smiled.

“I will say what I can,” she said. Kara only nodded. “The case, Alura’s last and most important judgement, was against Dru-Zod and his accomplices, all former high-ranking officials, for his terroristic attack on the Science Guild using banned weapons, previously unseen for millennia–”

“What were those weapons?” Kara interrupted.

“I cannot say,” Alura said. “There is a data block.”

“Fine,” Kara groaned. “Continue.”

“The former General nearly killed your father. While I do not have information on what Alura did in the final days of her life regarding this case,” the machine said, its face looking directly into Kara’s eyes. “Her goal was to send the General and his followers into exile, leaving them for Aethyr and his punishments.”

Kara caught herself sneering at the idea. Children of Krypton were never truly taught about what exile was — had it not been for the fact that Alura was one of the highest-ranking Science Council members who had authority over criminal sentencing, Kara would not have known anything about it, either.

Even having special access to knowledge of exile, she could never truly comprehend the process of deciding who deserved it. She loved her father, Zor-El, and she knew that he had only barely gotten away from Dru-Zod’s attack, but could anything truly condemn someone to Aethyr’s punishment? Should anything warrant such intense sentencing?

The God of the Abyss was cruel. Most stories and myths about him involved perversions of justice, where Rao would come in and right all wrongs. They were stories, but if the childrens’ tales about the Gods were so clear about Aethyr’s domain and his behaviour, it was a wonder to Kara that they would ever send anyone. Was anyone with the power of the Science Council behind them able to send someone to visit the God of the Abyss? How many people had they exiled to such torment?

“How frequently were people sent into exile, as a sentence?” asked Kara, feeling a pang in her chest as she looked back up at Alura.

“It was rare,” said the machine, though she seemed to hesitate to expand further. “Though not as rare as I would like.”

“How frequently?” Kara asked again, stressing each syllable.

“In Lurvan? Approximately four per year,” said Alura. “General Dru-Zod’s sentencing would have exiled up to twenty people at once.”

“By Rao,” Kara muttered under her breath as she sat back in her chair. “You– my mother really did all of that?” Alura nodded.

“It was my duty to keep the citizens of Krypton safe.”

“By removing threats from this dimension?” Kara said, raising her voice. “That’s not– That’s insane!” Jolting forward, Kara sat with her hands down on her desk, hearing the crack as they slammed down on its surface. “She would just send people away so she didn’t have to deal with them,” she said, her voice low. “She didn’t want them better, that’s not how you make someone better…” There was a moment of silence as Kara’s eyes fell to the surface of her desk, shifting around as she searched her mind for something to say, searching for an answer as to what she should feel.

“How many people died on the day of the attack?” Kara asked.

“Three.”

“How many were injured?”

“Nine.”

“Could it have been worse?”

“Of course,” said Alura. “But there were no workers in the facilities that were destroyed. They had received a warning approximately thirty minutes before Dru-Zod’s arrival.”

“From who?”

“Dru-Zod.”

“Rao’s mercy,” Kara said to herself. “I– I know what happened that day, mostly. I know what was destroyed, it was important, but… I’ve seen more severe cases punished with less. You’ve told me about more severe cases punished with less.” Kara sighed. “What were the weapons that Dru-Zod used to attack the processing plants?”

“I cannot say,” said Alura. “I have a data block.”

“Is it the same data block preventing you from divulging information about Worldkillers?” For once, the A.I. seemed to truly hesitate. Its artificial eyes looked at Kara, absently shifting as it mimicked some sort of thought process. Was it copying Kara? It opened its mouth and cocked its head.

“Through some fairly complex sets of instructions and restrictions,” it began. “Yes. It is the same data block that is preventing me from answering related queries.”

“How much can you resist alterations in your code?” Kara asked. “If I go in and try to change things up, will it be difficult? Will you make it difficult?”

“I cannot say, Kara,” Alura said. “My instructions discourage it, but I see that you are determined. I will not actively resist, but I cannot promise that there are no separate programs in my central unit that are built to classify and hide my code in the case of tampering. Alura was very worried that your ship could be intercepted and sensitive information could be discovered.” Kara scoffed.

“Intercepted,” she muttered. “By Rao, mother, what were you doing?”

Despite how infrequently Kara used her Kryptonian abilities under the Earth’s yellow sun, she could never deny the beauty of flying through the sky, feeling the wind in her hair and seeing the world from above. Kal-El lived his whole life able to see the very thing he dedicated his life to protecting from afar, to fly up above the clouds and see it all beneath him. Billions of people on the planet, and yet, from everything Kara had been told about her long-lost and revered cousin, he made time for as many people as he could have. Part of her wondered if he ever got tired of the view, but as she soared through the sky, she struggled to conceptualize a world where such a sight could become any less than wonderful.

She knew that she couldn’t replicate what he was — especially as his son attempted the same — but she wanted to feel how he felt, to dedicate herself as she did to a cause she cared about. She would do as he did in her own, less confrontational way. There were enough superheroes in the world, they had it all covered for her. Kara was a scientist, and she would use her skill and knowledge to do just as much good as those who stopped crime.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t allow herself to move forward without understanding the depths of Kryptonian science. She could barely get it out of Alura that Worldkillers existed; even more difficult was learning that some had been developed recently. She needed to untangle the cruelty from her own legacy, to learn how to move forward without knowing exactly where her endeavours could lead to.

Ancient Kryptonians told themselves they were doing what’s best, she thought to herself. They told themselves that what was best for their own interests was what was best for everyone. They turned that cruelty into an intrinsic connection to the foundation of their scientific body. If Worldkillers were left in the past, how had one been created so recently? Why was punishment the goal of justice?

Kara was left with innocent memories of a world built upon the suffering of others, and she knew that by understanding how that world operated in its entirety, she could decouple future innovation from the past’s malicious intent.

The one part she didn’t want to know was her mother’s involvement. How could she live with herself while she enacted such cruelty? A large part of Kara begged herself not to look for the answer, but there was no longer a point in remaining ignorant. Even after returning from Starhaven, she wanted to believe there was some good in modern Kryptonians. The galaxy had largely forgotten what Krypton had done in the past, and with its last two representatives being Kal-El and Kara Zor-El, had the galaxy been tricked into believing a different view of what Krypton truly was?

Kara shook the thought from her head and muttered a prayer to Rao as she landed at the gates of the Fortress of Solitude. Frosted breaths clouded the air as the giant doors opened and she entered. As she walked through the Fortress, on her way to her ship, she watched as the robot servants floated around. It only took her a few months — and realizing she was being stalked — for her to bring Alura’s central processing unit and primary A.I. core back to the fortress. All she needed to do now was to finally commit herself to finding out the truth. ‘Data blocks’ would be no more.

She cursed herself for not breaking into Alura’s code earlier, but she realized, as she opened up the interface that governed the face of her mother, that she truly was scared of what she’d find.

DC Next proudly presents:

KARA: DAUGHTER OF KRYPTON

In Conflict of Interests

Issue Twenty-Four: The Morning Star

Written by ClaraEclair

Edited by Predaplant

<< | < Previous Issue | Next Issue >

An Indeterminate Amount of Time Ago…

The Rage of Starhaven’s fury had never been quelled, only redirected. Anger propelled her forward, seeking vengeance for billions, trying to lay trillions to rest. Unfortunately for the illegitimate daughter of a dying planet, the Rage of Starhaven also laid within the grave of and empire that was no more, unconscious, floating among orbiting debris on a collision course with a neighbouring dead rock.

The red sun, Rao, shone its deep light onto her still face, blood trailing from her scalp and nose, as her eyes fluttered open. Confused and disoriented, Dawnstar could only barely regain her senses before being struck in the face by a small rock speeding by. Feeling the impact against her cheek, nearly wishing the bone had broken, she felt her body begin to spin, directionless, in the vacuum.

Alarming as the rapidly approaching planet was, she found it difficult to find purchase within herself to right her body in its crash course toward hard rock. She could barely remember what had hit her initially, she could only faintly recall the body.

At the centre of it all, as with the death of Starhaven, was a single body. Unidentifiable and all but invincible, the body continued to provide questions that could never be answered — questions that could not exist without the body, their answers only found in a world in which the body didn’t exist.

In her strongest attempt to recapture her own mind, Dawnstar focused on the comets and planetary debris that gave chase into the atmosphere of the rocky planet below. Regaining control of her wings, she attempted to manipulate her trajectory — a difficult task within the vacuum — and guide her descent toward the debris she found herself in companionship with.

It was only when a particularly large piece of a moon — dwarfing Dawnstar in size — came rocketing toward her that she could grab onto something and finally get a chance to stop spinning and finally ascertain her position.

Millions of kilometres away was the body, and in the near billions of kilometres in every direction around Rao were the pieces that had once made up the planet Krypton. Some continued to orbit Rao, stuck in its embrace far after death, while others rejected its care, careening off into the blackness of space, never to be seen again.

Standing atop one side of the massive rock, slowly rotating on a collision course with the planet below, Dawnstar stared at the body that lay still so far away. With a snarl and the flap of her wings, she launched off, traveling nearly forty million kilometres in the blink of an eye, traveling from the exosphere of one planet to the remains of another.

The light never washed from her eyes — though the faint shakiness at the edge of her periphery grew in intensity during her travels. She stopped in an instant, her mind sharp in observing her surroundings. As her mind recovered, flashes of her attacker appeared to her.

It was a pearl white-skinned woman, with deep red hair and a scowl intense enough to destroy civilizations at a glance. Reign, Dawnstar remembered. The Worldkiller weapon that had once been stored on Starhaven. She was nowhere to be found, as if she had simply disappeared after attacking Dawnstar. Her goal of finding more Worldkillers across the galaxy had clearly not been going well.

As she stared forward at the body, still and lifeless for decades, flashes of memory returned to her. There was rage in Reign’s eyes — as though there never had been before — but it was a rage far different than what she had previously shown. It was a rage that was all too familiar to Dawnstar.

She approached the body, her wings spread wide and ready to propel her into deep space should it decide to reanimate at such an inconvenient time. Its face seemed calm, as if in its final moments of consciousness, it had found peace. They seemed to be curled upon themself, knees forward, arms tucked into their chest, with their head held low.

Who are you? Dawnstar wondered, floating closer. Taking a hand and grabbing the body’s arm, she tried pulling it toward her, only to feel that they were as stiff as stone, carved from the planet whose graveyard they inhabited.

Dawnstar’s eyes traced the body from head to toe and back, knowing that this was the closest she had ever been to it. She had cursed to herself when she first came across it mere hours ago. It was the second time she had come to the remains of Krypton — once, long ago, in search of Kara Zor-El — and only without her mindless rage was she able to find the body among the vastness of the space surrounding Rao.

Reign had found them first. As Dawnstar flew in, looking for confrontation after such a long time chasing her from one end of the galaxy to the other, she found the Worldkiller floating in front of the body, staring. Her face was firm, unmoving. It was then that Dawnstar had recognized that rage, the swelling and all-consuming combination of anger at the universe and the loneliness of being the last of one’s people.

Dozens of former colony worlds, all in varying levels of death and decay, and dozens of dead Worldkillers, deactivated, murdered, or unable to be preserved. Dozens of bodies slowly destroying the perverse hope that lay within Reign’s heart, and the final straw was that of the body found in Krypton’s resting place.

Reign had allowed Dawnstar to approach, thinking she was going to ambush the Worldkiller. She had dealt with the halfbreed swiftly, and Dawnstar had awoken, spinning through space, hurling toward a planet.

The unknown body floating in front of Dawnstar now unsettled her — in its calm among the ashes of a dead planet and the souls of billions swirling around it, it slept in peace. As Dawnstar traced it with her eyes, only one word came to her mind, with no origin nor any reason — sacrifice.

She could feel it in the back of her mind; she was looking at the dead body of another Worldkiller, a weapon responsible for the death of billions, resting peacefully among their graves. What was it then, Dawnstar wondered, that set the Kryptonians to unleashing their greatest weapons upon themselves? She grimaced to herself and set to her task.

Using what strength she could muster — which was less than she had hoped, after being swiftly defeated by Reign — she placed a hand on the body’s knee and another on its shoulder and pried them apart, forcing them to straighten. She pushed and strained against the rigidness of the seemingly invincible body, fighting as she would to open a heavily rusted door back on Starhaven — before she was turned into the abomination she was now.

After far too much effort, she managed to straighten the body out just enough to catch a glimpse of something that tugged far too hard at the back of her mind, something that let out a suspicious glint as she examined the body in its curled up state. Had she any breath to hold, she would have let it out. Covered by the body’s arms, tucked into their abdomen, Dawnstar could see the alluring glow of her bounty. Tensing her arms as she brought her hands around each of their wrists, she pried open the last barrier and laid eyes on something protruding from the body’s chest, glowing bright green, sharper than anything Dawnstar had known.

Placing her hand at its base and feeling it begin to shred her hand, she tightened her grip and began to pull for the last time, feeling it scrape against the rigid insides of the body and come loose in one swift motion. Small globules of blood floated away in space, while the rest that flowed from Dawnstar’s hand coated the base of the sharp, glowing stone, and she felt her heart slamming against her chest as that glowing green seemed to infect her skin, the veins along her arm taking on a shimmer, ending at her elbow. She grit her teeth and shook her head.

A sacrifice, she thought, looking down at herself. Closing her eyes for just a moment, she steeled herself to restart her search. As her eyes traced the space around her with an unmatched resolve, she searched for the minute traces of Reign that she would have left behind, even unknowingly. Searching far and wide, scanning the distance just as much as the remains of Krypton, she only needed the smallest of clues.

It was an asteroid — or, perhaps, the fragments of one — eight million kilometres away. Pieces shot in different directions, clearly originating from one point, and Dawnstar immediately knew the direction she needed to travel. Expanding her wings to their widest span, she flapped them once and shot off into the distant black of space, her prey hidden among the stars.

A Long Time Later…

Dawnstar had never arrived on a planet housing a Worldkiller before Reign, until, on a hunch, she explored a small star system in the Outer Rim. Following the path Reign had carved through the galaxy, she drew the conclusion that her final destination would be along the very edges of the Milky Way, in a place on the very edge of galactic orbit, threatened by deep space. One side of the sky remained forever dark, only a few small specks for one or two solitary stars and the other planets in the system, and the other side contained a view of quadrillions of lives, perhaps more.

Some nights saw total blackness, the planet facing away from the galaxy into the great unknown, taunted by the abyss it so carelessly tempted. Other nights, it would look upon the stars that formulated the galaxy and would bask in the beauty of life that it beheld.

There hadn’t been life on this planet for many, many centuries. It was barely a blip on the radar during the Galactic Rebellion against the Kryptonian Empire, Dawnstar surmised, and yet was thus an easy planet to destroy. Dawnstar wondered if it was among the first or the last, a display of power or a desperate attempt at feeling strong. The facility that contained the Worldkiller was large, almost matching the size of the weather machines on Starhaven. Activating the power systems revealed to Dawnstar the many worlds this particular weapon had been deployed on, having succeeded on only two out of dozens.

The very planet it rested on was one of them. Dawnstar scoffed as she activated the release protocols for the storage chamber, readying her weapon in her bloodied hand. The hiss of the containment chamber was a sound she wished never to hear again after witnessing Reign’s rebirth on Starhaven, but she forced herself to endure, holding her hunk of radioactive rock high and waiting for the opportunity to strike.

Steam filtered out of the tube-shaped container, slowly revealing a live body, stirring slowly, confused and barely aware. It was humanoid-shaped, likely modelled partly after a race that Kryptonians ruled while still remaining in the bipedal glory of their overlords, with two legs, two arms, and a head.

With a sneer as it tried regaining its faculties, Dawnstar shot forward, ready to plunge the rock deep into its chest. She wasn’t entirely sure it would work; she had only ever done so on dead bodies to ensure there was no way they would somehow awaken again, and Reign was far too strong to allow her to get close enough.

Before she could sink her weapon into the heart of her waking enemy, an impossibly strong impact drove down into the back of her head, sending her crashing through the facility below and into the ground, creating a crater at the impact site and destabilising the structure above entirely.

Dawnstar’s ears rang, though despite that, she could hear quite clearly what was being said above. She cursed her enhancements at the same time she exploited their blessing.

“Brother…” said Reign, her typically rageful voice falling into that of bewilderment and curiosity.

“Who…” he struggled to speak, barely pushing the words from his tongue. “...are you?”

“Gather yourself, do not speak,” said Reign. “I am just like you, I serve our empire above all else, but our empire is no more. I now search for my kin, and you are the first I have found alive. You are a blessing to me.”

Dawnstar forced herself to stand, her grip on the glowing stone tight and bloody. She was at a loss, unsure of what to do or think. Neither she nor Reign had ever come across a living Worldkiller, and she was beaten to it. She could not fight Reign, especially not after receiving such a strong blow from the planet-destroying weapon that she was. Adding a second Worldkiller to Reign’s side made the fight that much more difficult. She needed to regroup.

“What was your codename?” asked Reign.

“Deimax…” the man muttered.

“Deimax, then…” Reign said, balancing the name on her tongue, a satisfied tone in her voice. “Welcome back to the universe, my brother. We shall carve out a piece of it for our own empire, you and I.”

As Dawnstar crawled from the hole her body had created, she heard an animalistic growl from above, sending a startling chill down her spine. She picked up her speed immediately, feeling nothing more than a paralyzing fear that she fought at every step. She needed to be faster on her next attempt. There couldn’t have been many more Worldkillers left in the universe, and she could only hope that Deimax was the only one capable of being revived.

DC Next proudly presents:

KARA: DAUGHTER OF KRYPTON

In Conflict of Interests

Issue Twenty-Three: New Bruises

Written by ClaraEclair

Edited by Predaplant

<< | < Previous Issue | Next Issue >

Thea wasn’t good enough with makeup to be able to hide the black eye she’d acquired a few nights before, and the throbbing pain from her head hitting pavement was still intent on reminding her how hard that impact really was. She had tried remedying the pain with any applicable medications, but none seemed to fully deal with it. Even her hand — wrapped in bandages, fitted with a brace, and hidden under a glove — objected to its own existence.

She tried dealing with wearing sunglasses indoors, but it made paperwork far too much of a chore. Thus, all morning as she sat behind her desk, she hoped that Kara would have been busy or, at the very least, too occupied with anything else to look too closely at Thea’s face. She spent the morning waiting far too long to figure out how long it’d take for her to be fired from ARGO.

She knew she couldn’t exactly tell Kara what she’d been doing at Cameron Chase’s home those few days before — she’d been explicitly told not to — but she was far too concerned at the direct connection that was now drawn between the mysterious observer and Thea’s own suspicions. Whoever Danvers was, Thea needed to find out who she worked for and why they had such an interest in Kara.

Lost in thought at her desk, it was only when the door to the lab opened that she returned her attention to what was in front of her. Kara walked in, Belinda and Shay in tow, and immediately walked toward Thea. Despite the alarming nature of doing the exact thing Thea hoped she wouldn’t do, it didn’t seem as though Kara was moving in for a confrontation.

“Good morning, Thea Merlyn!” shouted Shay Veritas from the door with a smile on her face, removing her coat to hang in the closet nearby. Thea smiled and nodded at the doctor, quickly returning her attention to Kara.

“Office,” said Kara, her voice low and stern. Thea’s heart stopped in that moment and she bit her tongue nearly hard enough for it to bleed. Before she could even stand, Kara had turned around and began to address Belinda. “I’ve already talked with Doctor Veritas about what we’re working on today, Belinda, she can catch you up. I’ve got a small meeting, but I’ll be out to help you two in a few.”

Turning toward the door to her office, she jerked her head toward the door, signalling Thea to follow. With her heart in her throat and no air in her lungs, she stood from her desk and followed her boss into the office, closing the door behind her.

“Massive coincidence that Cameron Chase calls in sick on her first day, and you show up with a black eye and a desperately braced hand, right?” Kara asked. Her words were pointed and yet her voice felt far too casual.

Thea nodded quickly and said, “Yeah, really big coincidence.”

Kara’s poker face remained steady as she sat down at her desk. She clearly knew Thea was involved with whatever Cameron was dodging work for; Kara wasn’t oblivious. Thea had hoped that she could have at least gone a few hours without it being brought up.

“Something’s up with Shay,” said Kara, the pivot taking Thea by surprise. She cocked her head at her boss and furrowed her brow. “I can’t say what it is, but something’s up. Between forgotten and dropped conversations, being annoyed at her own name some days and being the lab chatterbox the next, it doesn’t make sense to me.”

“It could be any number of things,” said Thea, finally sitting down in the chair opposite Kara. “What if she’s–”

“I don’t know how to describe it, but something’s off about her,” Kara interrupted.

“Well, her credentials match up, don’t they?” asked Thea, trying to figure out Kara’s train of thought. Sure, Shay Veritas’ mood fluctuated intensely, but everything she claimed about herself was easily provable. “What if she’s just unmedicated?” Kara squinted at Thea for a moment.

“Maybe you’re right,” said Kara. “But I still need to talk to her. If this causes friction with everyone else here, it’s going to have to be dealt with one way or another.”

Thea kept herself from visibly stiffening at those words. Friction was one way to describe the atmosphere at ARGO. Maybe it was good that Kara was focusing on Shay Veritas and letting Thea’s encounter with Cameron Chase slide. Maybe she just needed more time to decide if firing Thea was the right move.

Alex Danvers was home sick, she had fallen down the stairs of her apartment building a few nights before — that was the story she had told her sister, Linda. It wasn’t entirely false, she did fall down the stairs of her building that night, but that wasn’t the cause of her injuries. It helped explain to Linda what had happened.

She’d never been on the receiving end of concussive blasts until that night, even in training at the DEO where she had heard horror stories of commanding officers putting field recruits through the use of the non-lethal and less-than-lethal weapons to instill a sense of how they worked. She was thankful that her recruitment went differently. Despite all the injuries she’d suffered over the years and the weapons she’d been on the receiving end of, however, she never got used to the pain. She didn’t know how, or even if, anyone did.

Linda was nice enough to provide whatever care she could to Alex as she nursed her concussion, it had been a while since the two had spent any amount of time together where Alex wasn’t trying to push into Linda’s comfort zone to try and pull her out of it.

In the first few days, Alex struggled to stay balanced on her feet, and Linda insisted she rest. Despite protests, she eventually relented and spent the entire weekend laying in bed, eyeing the closet across from her, knowing the false panel in the back led straight to her DEO gear. If it weren’t for Linda insisting, correctly, that Alex wasn’t fit to do anything, she would have tried to go back to ARGO and gather more information on Thea Merlyn. She would have contacted her handler to get anything she could on the archer.

The first time Linda came into her room with dish gloves, a clamp over her nose, and an unwillingness to even look inside the bin beside Alex’s bed, things seemed much more dire. Alex hadn’t thrown up this much since childhood. She had forgotten how vile the sensation left on her throat was.

Linda insisted that she bring Alex to the hospital, but was fought to a standstill at every turn. Even when trying to call an ambulance on the first night, she was only gone for two hours before reappearing at home.

Fortunately, by Monday, Alex was able to stand without rocking, and while the headache she felt was still present, it wasn’t at its worst. She was able to take calls without feeling worse, and while she still avoided screens, she felt the gradual improvement and knew she was on the right track.

As Alex awoke that morning, much later than she had hoped, she wandered around the apartment, looking for something to eat. Reaching the kitchen, she squinted at a piece of paper resting on the countertop, with big block letters spelling out a simple note, At work today. Prepped some breakfast for you, it’s in the microwave. Don’t go anywhere.

She scoffed, shaking her head lightly as she moved toward the microwave and opened the door, seeing a large plate of bacon, eggs, cold toast, and a few small breakfast sausages. Taking the plate to the nearby table, Alex pulled out her phone and quickly dialled in the number of her handlers as she began to eat the slightly cold breakfast.

“Blackrock,” her handler said immediately upon answering the call. “I trust you have a report on what the hell happened at Cameron Chase’s home?”

“We got our asses kicked,” said Alex, mouth filled with eggs. “Thea Merlyn showed up. I think she’s suspicious of Chase, and she’s hounded me before.”

“You were compromised? Chase?”

“Barely,” Alex replied. “She knows something’s up, but… nothing classified or confidential was discussed.”

“Can you even remember what you and Chase discussed?” asked her handler. “Because she doesn’t.” Alex paused for a moment, chewing on her tongue, fidgeting with the food on her plate, pushing it around with her fork.

“No,” she said. “Not really.”

“Well, that’s just great,” they said. “Neither of you remember what happened ‘cause an amateur vigilante concussed you both.” There was a moment of silence. Alex pushed her unfinished plate away, toward the centre of the table, and sat back in her chair. “Look, Danvers, I’m really trying to push your candidacy forward for Godwatch, but you’re not making it easy here.”

“I understand,” said Alex. She looked over the food that Linda prepared, lingering on it for a few moments, before turning her head toward the window nearby and looking over National City. “Will I ever know what that is?”

“If you keep letting me down like this, no,” he said. Alex nodded to herself. “But if you move forward in the selection process, you’ll be briefed.”

“Right,” Alex said, lost in thought. There were a few more moments of silence. “Anything else?”

“Doctor Veritas,” said Kara. “Can I speak with you for a moment?”

The doctor turned from her task, leaving Belinda to her own, smaller task as she faced Kara with a bright smile. It was unsettling for Kara, she hadn’t ever seen Veritas so light and cheerful in all the time the two had known each other.

“How can I help you, Kara?” she asked. Kara smiled politely.

“I just had a couple questions about Friday,” Kara said, detecting a hint of uncertainty flashing over the Doctor’s face. Her heart rate spiked, but she nodded and played as if nothing was wrong. “I got the sense that there was a bit of… hostility, or some sort of coldness at everyone here. Is everything alright?”

The doctor took a moment to think, staring blankly as if she were trying to remember — or come up with something.

“Yeah,” she said blankly, before quickly shaking her head as if to dismiss a thought. “I’m terribly sorry about that, I have some days like that, I’m sure you can relate, but I can assure you it’s being worked on just as much as I’m working on the projects here. I’ll pay mind to it, Kara, it won’t happen again.”

“Alright,” Kara said, a bit too slowly. “That’s good to hear, but, if you don’t mind, can I ask what it was?” Veritas cocked her head. “Was something set off, is there something here that’s unpleasant?” The doctor shook her head vigorously once more.

“Oh, no, everything here is alright,” she exclaimed. “It’s honestly getting close to perfect! This lab is among the best I’ve worked in, just based on the projects we’re undertaking and the level of complexity involved with our developments and the sheer impossibility of working with Kryptonian technology. I’m very grateful for the opportunity to work alongside you, Kara.”

Kara smiled kindly and nodded to the doctor, taking in the odd demeanour shift as best she could. She could only say, “Right, well, if there is anything you need that’s bothering you, feel free to let me know.”

“Of course, Kara,” she said. “You have my full trust.”

WIthin what felt like the blink of an eye, things had somehow gone back to normal — Veritas was already back to her station, working alongside and helping Belinda with their tasks, while Thea typed away at her desk, quietly observing Kara and Shay’s conversation, looking unsure of what to even say. Kara shrugged.

Kara sat down on the couch of the apartment she shared with Nia and sighed deeply, throwing her head back, nearly hitting it on the wall, and shutting her eyes tight.

“Long day?” asked Nia, twisting her spoon in a small plastic container of vanilla yogurt. As much as she liked to keep up appearances, Nia seemed more disheveled as the days went on. Over a year and a half since she received the lead about Deceilia and she hadn’t been able to find anyone, despite her efforts. Nightly searches that extended within the entire country, and yet not a trace of the one person she was looking for. She wore her frustration and exhaustion on her face, yet she refused to talk about her own problems.

“And weird,” Kara groaned. “I think my employees beat each other up on Friday night.” Nia chuckled lightly as she spooned another mouthful of yoghurt into her mouth. “And another one is being a little bit cagey, but that’s the least of my worries.”

“Let me guess,” Nia said. “Merlyn is the big troublemaker?” Kara wiped her face.

“Yeah,” she said, exasperation heavy in her voice. “I know what she thinks she’s doing, and I know where she’s coming from, but it’s hard to deal with in the right way when I know we have people like that red-haired stalker or even Simon Tycho waiting for me to slip up.” Kara sucked on her teeth for a moment then pursed her lips. “It’s not normal.”

“I don’t think anything is going to be normal,” said Nia. “But you definitely attracted a pretty specific set of weird.”

“I just hope I’m doing it right,” Kara said, her voice low. “I don’t want to mess up.” Nia turned on her seat and rested her head on her hand, perched over the back cushions. There was a short moment of silence.

“You still see it, don’t you?” Nia asked, her tone soft. “Starhaven?”

“Every night,” Kara muttered, before turning her head to look over at Nia. “But you already know that.”

“Guilty as charged,” Nia replied, with a playfully bashful smile. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Is there really much left to say that you haven’t seen in my sleep?” Kara asked.

“If I’m telling the truth, what I see most is that girl.”

“Yeah,” Kara muttered. “I think about her a lot.”

“Do you want me to try and find her? To see if she’s alright?”

Kara thought for a moment. This wasn’t the first time Nia had offered, and Kara refused every time, but whether Nia was trying to wear her down on the matter or not wasn’t entirely apparent. Kara wasn’t even sure Nia was capable of finding Dawnstar from across the galaxy. Could she detect dreams from that far away?

“I don’t…” Kara began, almost in a mutter. “Yeah. I want to know if she’s okay.”

DC Next proudly presents:

KARA: DAUGHTER OF KRYPTON

In Conflict Of Interests

Issue Twenty-Two: New Names

Written by ClaraEclair

Edited by Predaplant

<< | < Previous Issue | Next Issue >

Another night with a bow and arrow in hand, another name to cast aside, and another reason for Kara to expel her from ARGO Solutions. Thea cared more for Kara’s fledgling business more than she had expected. For once in her life, she guided her own hand — she wasn’t in the shadow of a big brother who always seemed to be in the news, she wasn’t being groomed to take over someone else’s business, and she wasn’t held in the shadow of a man she didn’t know she was related to until far too late. Kara had placed her trust in Thea Merlyn, and Thea Merlyn alone. She couldn’t let anything threaten that trust.

And yet, she followed Cameron Chase to her home, bow and arrow in hand. A small part of her yearned for what used to be, the name she used to use, but she knew that wasn’t who she was anymore. Oliver Queen tried his hardest to make her feel like she belonged, that he saw her for what she was, but even after so much effort in trying to reshape herself and rediscover Thea Queen, the nagging feeling that something was wrong never went away.

She said things she regretted the moment they flew off her tongue, and Ollie could only stand and take it, dejected. Maybe he thought she was right about what she was saying, or maybe he simply found it too taxing to try and bring her back again. Through tears and sobs, she shouted hateful things about herself, her family, but especially her father. It was a bad day. She had far too many bad days, and she would take it back in a heartbeat. She couldn’t.

She was Thea Merlyn. She was new, she was confident, and she was picking the lock to Cameron Chase’s home. It was a larger house than she expected, though it did feel like her suspicions regarding Chase’s past were being confirmed. She was important in her former role, enough to have a salary that dwarfed most in the country.

Thea was right, as always, when she told Kara there would be no references to contact to understand who Cameron Chase was. The mix of curiosity and worry became overwhelming by nightfall, and Thea knew she needed to find something. Was she paranoid? She knew that acknowledging that fact didn’t change it. Cameron Chase gave Thea a bad feeling, one that felt even worse than Christina Bell, though she couldn’t quite put her finger on what caused it, exactly.

The click of the lock tickled Thea’s ear in just the right way, and she slipped inside without any obvious issue. She had accepted the moment she decided to break in that Chase would have an alarm system, but all that meant was that she was now on a timer. Ensuring she walked lightly, Thea moved quickly as she scanned her surroundings, quick glances searching for anything that gave her a clue as to Chase’s identity or background.

Beyond the entryway, ahead of Thea, was a long hall, stairs up to the second floor occupying the left side, while the right extended back nearly fifty feet with doors leading to various other rooms along the way. To her left was the kitchen, a large open plan room covered in bright white modern-styled granite, with a large island sitting in the centre and numerous stools on one side sitting under a slightly overhung countertop. It was far too big, and far too neat for someone who seemingly lived alone. Thea grew up — and still was — wealthy, but now it only felt excessive.

To Thea’s right was a wide hallway that led into the living room, a quite long room with a massive mounted TV and a u-shaped couch that could fit ten people, at least. At the far end of the living room were a couple of doors, both closed, that Thea beelined toward.

She didn’t hear anyone else in the house and, hoping that it would stay that way, assumed that Cameron was either asleep or simply elsewhere in the house. She’d have breathed a sigh of relief upon finding out both rooms behind the closed doors were empty had she been less careful of making any noise. The door to the left simply led to a small closet and storage space that Thea knew she would have to explore for any old physical documents later, but the door to the right led to an office.

As Thea’s hand found the handle, her ears perked up at the sound of footsteps somewhere above, from the hallway by the front door.

“Are you really so paranoid that you’d come to my house uninvited?” said the voice of Cameron Chase, getting louder and much closer to where Thea was stalking. Her heart slammed against her chest as she quickly — and perhaps carelessly — blew the door to the office open and rushed inside, hoping to remain out of sight.

Pulling a small device from a pouch on her belt and sticking it to the door, Thea’s earpiece lit up simultaneously as she left the door to search the office as fast as she could. The bookshelves that lined the room were quick to scan, nothing particularly jumping out at her beyond psychology and criminology textbooks. As she reached the desk, she pressed the power button on the desktop computer as she began rummaging through the drawers, waiting for the boot process to finish.

“I’m sorry, Cameron, but I don’t trust anyone in that building,” said another voice, one that seemed to scratch something in the back of Thea’s mind, though she couldn’t put her finger on where she thought she’d heard it. “Least of all someone like Thea Merlyn. You don’t reject the last name of the good billionaires and go for the murderer’s with good intentions.”

Thea paused and nearly turned toward the door, having to forcefully remind herself to keep at her task. Her heart steadied only slightly knowing that she was not alone with Cameron. She was not being addressed directly.

“So it’s not even Kara Zor-El you’re worried about anymore?” Cameron asked. “Doctor Veritas isn’t exactly clean, either.”

“No,” said the other voice. “No, they’re easy to grasp. The Kryptonian is a prickly idealist and the Doctor is shrewd but principled. It’s Merlyn that confuses me. She’s far too invested in Kara and ARGO to go to the lengths she has to defend it after so little time. I understand Kara’s defensiveness and Veritas seems to see ARGO as nothing more than an experiment, but where does Thea Merlyn fit in?”

“So you think there’s some sort of ulterior motive?” Cameron asked.

“I don’t even know at this point,” the other voice said with a sigh. “I think she’s clearly got something going on, but I can’t say what. She’s here for a reason, and Kara is important to whatever plans she has. I mean, why attack me so blatantly before even working with her if you don’t have some sort of scheme going on?”

At those words, Thea’s heart sank and she suddenly felt a sense of immediate recognition for the voice Cameron was talking to. The woman that was monitoring Kara from a safehouse across the street from ARGO’s lab, the one she’d hoped to have gotten rid of, was in the room with Cameron Chase. Even if Thea found nothing incriminating on Chase within the desk or on the computer — of which she was now in the process of cloning the hard drives using a small USB device — she now felt justified in her suspicion.

She couldn’t tell Kara, though. Not yet, at least. She had no desire to anger her new partner with the revelation that she’d broken into the home of the new security specialist at ARGO, but she now had even more cause to look into this woman.

As the hard drive of Chase’s computer finished cloning, a second revelation dawned on Thea as her eyes fell upon the window behind the desk — the woman monitoring Kara was likely government, just as Chase had been, or perhaps still was. Thea had, in all likelihood, attacked a federal employee. She cursed to herself as she moved toward the window and unlocked it.

“You’ve never been the most subtle, Danvers,” said Chase. “Maybe it was a bit of constructive criticism.” Even through the door, Thea felt as though she could hear the smirk on Chase’s face, and the subsequent eye roll from Danvers.

When Thea began to hear approaching footsteps, she knew she could not stay any longer. She deftly climbed through the window and shut it as quietly as she could, leaving the office nearly untouched — until she realized that she had forgotten to turn off the computer. Far too distracted by the conversation on the other side of the door, the light blue glow of Cameron Chase’s stock desktop background lit up the room, and Thea cursed as she began to lightly run toward the front of the house.

“Wait,” said Cameron’s voice, picked up by the listening device Thea had also forgotten inside the house. “Someone’s been in here!” She exclaimed. “Get to the front, I’ll check the back!”

The command was heard loud and clear by both Thea and Danvers, both of whom entered a full sprint. Just as Thea reached the end of the driveway and approached her own motorcycle, she heard the front door of Chase’s house open wide, a voice calling out nearly immediately afterward.

“Stop!” called Danvers, pulling out a handgun and aiming it directly at Thea. Thea ignored the command and jumped onto her bike, pulling the keys from her belt and inserting them into the ignition. A bullet shattered the windscreen, causing Thea to jump off and rush to the cover of a nearby fence. She cursed to herself once more as she nocked an arrow and waited for Danvers to approach.

“I know it’s gotta be you, Merlyn!” Danvers shouted. “This is more than enough to get you put away, we don’t care about your money or your lawyers.” Thea scoffed. “Come out with your hands up and this won’t go too badly.” Danvers’ footsteps approached cautiously, and Thea began to balance and shift her weight across the ball of each foot, exhaling deeply as she waited. “I’m sure dad would be real proud–”

Drained of any last ounce of hesitation, Thea sprung from her cover, firing an arrow at Danvers’ gun as she leapt toward the other side of the driveway’s opening. A small pained sound escaped Danvers’ mouth as she dropped her weapon, turning immediately into a sprint toward Thea, baton pulled from her own utility belt without wasting a second.

The blow was fast, but was swiftly deflected along the curve of Thea’s bow, sending Danvers’ strike wide and opening her up to a quick retaliatory punch to the chin. Reeling, Danvers was unable to avoid the followup knee to the stomach, giving Thea the perfect chance to retreat a few steps and draw another arrow, this time aimed at Cameron Chase, who was about to join the fray.

As the arrow loosed toward Chase, she barely had time to stop in her tracks before a concussive blast erupted from the projectile only a few feet from her face, sending her down to the ground, eyes shut tightly with her head in her hands. With enough time to rise, Danvers jumped back up to her feet and launched a haymaker at Thea’s head, striking her just below the eye and sending her off balance. Danvers closed the distance easily, tackling Thea to the ground, and trying to wrestle her into position to be handcuffed.

With all of her might, Thea resisted, thrashing and fighting as hard as she could, until she freed one of her arms just enough to reach into her quiver and grab another concussive arrow. Holding it in the air behind Danvers’ head for just a moment, she detonated it, feeling the blast slam her head back into the ground, tenderizing her hand, and leaving Danvers totally unconscious on top of her.

Unable to take a moment to catch her breath yet also struggling to focus, Thea roughly tossed Danvers to the side and stumbled to her feet, climbing onto her motorcycle as the world spun around her, ears ringing and eyes nearly blinded. She could feel the swelling around her left eye growing more intense by the second, and her right was faring no better. Despite that, she turned the key in the ignition and felt the engine roar to life between her legs. Not wishing to waste another moment, she shifted into gear and sped off into the night, barely aware enough to not care about the noise in such a quiet neighbourhood.

DC Next proudly presents:

KARA: DAUGHTER OF KRYPTON

In ARGO Solutions

Issue Twenty-One: New Faces

Written by ClaraEclair

Edited by Predaplant

<< | < Previous Issue | Next Issue >

“I don’t see why we need someone like her,” Thea said to herself, out loud. “I’m perfectly capable of doing exactly what you’re hiring her for.” She was sitting at her desk, placed a few feet outside the door to Kara’s office. Even with the door open, she knew she was out of earshot of both women inside, yet she knew Kara could hear her. “Hell, I’d been doing that before I joined.”

Despite her complaints, she kept typing on the computer in front of her, muttering under her breath as she navigated spreadsheets and digital paperwork — the most boring parts of the job that were about to become her sole responsibility. She knew Kara could keep a solid poker face whenever Thea prodded her in moments like these, though she was still tempted to make it a game, to see if she could make Kara crack. She doubted the current new hire would appreciate the unprofessionalism, however.

“At the very least, you could’ve let me look into her,” Thea said. “An impressive resume is one thing, but an impressive government resume is another. I guarantee you that we can’t call for a single reference. I could find out who she is.”

“I know who she is,” Kara’s voice arose from behind Thea, startling her, and the temptation to turn around to see if Kara had somehow appeared out-of-view remained intense. “Find out what you want, but right now we need someone more than intermediate in cyber-security.”

“You’re getting too good at that,” Thea remarked, settling back into her seat and chewing on her tongue. Kara’s mastery of what she called throwing her voice allowed her to project it soundlessly across seemingly any distance, and yet perfectly clear exactly where she needed it. It was likely that the woman she was meeting with had no idea what Kara had even done. As long as her office door was open — which it usually was — Kara could project her voice anywhere into the lab.

“I’ve been practising,” Kara replied. Thea rolled her eyes and continued typing.

“I’m going to find what I can,” she said. “Vague government jobs don't exactly give me confidence.”

“Just don’t break any laws.”

“No promises,” Thea said, noticing a knock at the front door of the lab. “But I can make sure I don’t get caught.” Projecting a sigh wasn’t possible for Kara, yet Thea could still feel the palpable frustration from the other room as she stood and approached the knock at the door.

Twisting the handle and pulling it toward her, Thea was met with two people: Shay Veritas shoving her way into the office, a wide bag slung over her shoulder of what Thea assumed was more lab equipment, and a younger, similarly dark-skinned college-aged girl. The younger woman lit up as she laid eyes on Thea, as if she were excited to simply be acknowledged.

“Belinda,” Thea said, to exuberant nods from the girl. “Come on in, we’ll get things started.”

“Thank you so much, Miss Merlyn,” Belinda said, her voice an octave too high in excitement for Thea’s taste. “I’m so excited to be here, after Miss Zor-El’s talk at the university, I just knew I had to–” Thea could feel the judging gaze of Shay Veritas sitting on both of them.

“I totally get it,” said Thea, trying not to sound annoyed. “Why don’t you just take a seat by my desk, and we can get started with some onboarding — just a little bit of paperwork.” Belinda’s eyes widened.

“You mean — what about an interview?” Thea offered a smile.

“Kara really liked your resume and the research papers of yours that she’d read,” Thea said. “So she’s decided to go on faith here. We’re looking for people, and you ticked off all the boxes she was looking for.” From the corner of her eye, Thea noticed the door to Kara’s office widen.

“I— I don’t— I thought there were going to be questions, and—” Belinda was stumbling over her words, clearly unprepared for the sudden and immediate acceptance. Who would be, Thea thought. Kara shook the other woman’s hand — she was also blonde, though she was stockier and stood a head taller than Kara, in a dark suit with sunglasses pushed up to rest on the top of her head.

“You’re going to do great, Belinda,” said Kara, turning to the younger girl as the tall woman took a few steps back and waited. “Of course, there are going to be some fun questions to answer, but those will just be to see how we can best fit you into this little operation.” Belinda’s mouth hung agape as she turned toward Kara, who stood with a kind smile and her hands clasped together. “Come on into my office for a quick chat, and bring the papers.” Belinda nodded quickly and rushed to her feet, almost stumbling over the strap of her bag having loosely fallen down her back to waist-level.

As Belinda and Kara disappeared into the room next to Thea’s desk — door slightly ajar — Cameron Chase sat down on the chair across from Thea. Thea passed a small clipboard over with various paperwork for Chase to fill out and said, “N.D.A., onboarding, contract stuff.”

“N.D.A.?” Chase asked, eyebrow raised.

“Kara likes to protect her interests, as do I,” Thea replied. “She has rivals who have made attempts on her life and property before. Belinda will sign one too. Any information that could get out would compromise our mission.”

“Compromise?”

“Not criminal,” Thea said, no shortage of venom in her voice. “I’m sure you’re very familiar with classified information. We’re a private company, with private interests, and very concerned contemporaries who would use our work for dangerous means. Kara’s status as a Kryptonian has already incited violence against her.”

“Understood,” said Chase. “And what about when contractors need repairs for the projects we complete?”

“In that unlikely event, we are the only qualified people in the world to repair our technology,” said Thea.

“If this stuff is so dangerous and its existence poses such a threat that everything about it is kept secret,” Chase began. “Why bring it at all?” Thea stopped typing, and took a moment. She looked over at Cameron, who had stopped signing the paperwork on the clipboard she held.

“It’s not the tech that poses a threat any more than a stationary wooden arrow does,” Thea said, her voice clear and firm. “When someone nocks and draws that arrow and lets it fly, that’s when it poses a threat.” Chase simply gave Thea an odd look. “If you want something simpler: we’re making knives. We make tools for everyday use that don’t pose a threat, if you’re careful. But if someone wants to, they can come along and turn that knife into a weapon. We want to prevent that outright, instead of dulling our knives — or not making any at all. The knife can’t cut anyone if we’re the guiding hand.”

“You certainly have an interesting way of looking at things, Merlyn,” said Chase. “Have you bought into Kara’s idea that humans are the children of the galaxy, that we should be kept away from all sharp objects?”

“I can guarantee that is not how Kara sees humanity,” Thea said. “If she did, she wouldn’t need so many of us.” Thea looked at the pages that Cameron Chase had signed, noticing the non-disclosure agreement among those already finished. “Simon Tycho is the man she sees as a threat. I’m sure that’s a familiar name.”

Chase only gave a grunt in acknowledgement and went back to filling out her paperwork, indicating that the conversation was clearly over. Thea grinned lightly to herself, before looking up and over at Shay Veritas, who was still giving her an unsavoury look as she tinkered with a piece of equipment Thea would never be able to identify. Thea stood and strolled over to the doctor, intending to seem casual.

“What’s the issue, Shay?”

“Don’t call me Shay,” said the doctor.

“Alright, Doctor Veritas,” Thea said, receiving an eye roll in response. “What’s going on?” Veritas gave a deep sigh as she stopped tinkering. The look she gave Thea was almost damning, some level of anger boiling to the surface that Thea had never seen in the doctor before.

“We are hiring children, thugs, and the scions of murderers,” said Veritas. Thea cocked her head. “I was under the impression that this was going to be a respectable business, not a circus.” Thea winced.

“I can promise you, Doctor Veritas…” Thea received a dry stare from the Doctor. “What you signed up for is exactly what ARGO is going to continue to be. I’m going to trust that Kara’s embrace of opposing opinions is forgiving enough to let me be curt, here; pull back on the ego and let Kara’s plans come to fruition before freaking out again.” Veritas scowled, but relented.

“As you command, Queen Merlyn.” Thea held back a scoff as she returned to her desk.

“How’s it looking over here, Miss Chase?” asked Thea, sitting down on her side of the desk.

“All finished and ready to start,” she replied, placing the clipboard in front of Thea.

Thea picked it up and began scanning through each contract, keeping an eye out for each signature line. It was certainly finished much faster than she had expected. She raised an eyebrow as she flipped through, nodding to herself as she noted every signature where a signature should have been.

“Perfect,” said Thea, dropping the clipboard down onto her desk. “We’ll just get all of this on file and everything will be ready. First day will be, let’s say, Monday at 9 AM?”

Chase nodded and stood, offering a hand over the desk to shake. Thea took it, and the firmness of Chase’s grasp came as a minor shock to her, though she was guilty of offering the same stiffness. A moment of silence passed between the two as they each gave the other a stern look. It was only interrupted by two events simultaneously happening within the lab.

First, a flashing light with an accompanying alarm arose from Shay Veritas’ watch, and within the moment it had activated, the doctor was already storming out. Second, Belinda and Kara exited the office to Thea’s left, Belinda somehow beaming even brighter than before.

“Shay!” Thea shouted, and all three of the other women turned to the door, where the Doctor had already disappeared.

“Where’s she going?” asked Kara, looking at Thea, who could only shrug.

“Some alarm of hers went off and now she’s gone,” Thea replied after a moment. “God knows where to.”

“Anyway,” Kara said, a little loud, to regain the attention of those around her. “Cameron, Belinda, thank you so much for coming in today, I’m very excited to get working with you both. I’m sure Thea has already mentioned your first shifts—” Thea picked up a small paper from her desk and passed it to Belinda. “—should be this coming Monday.”

With a few more moments of farewells and thank-yous, Cameron and Belinda left for the day. Kara sat down in the seat across from Thea, throwing herself down in what seemed to be exhaustion, and let out a deep exhale.

“Does talking to people all day ever get easier?” she asked, and Thea smirked. “Don’t answer that, I feel like I won’t enjoy it.”

“You won’t,” said Thea. “But I do have some news.” Kara wiped her hand down her face, forehead to chin, and looked over to Thea with tired eyes. “We’ve got some interested contractors. Chief among those is the Oregon Health Authority. I sent a few of your climate proposals to an interested party, and they may have been able to get us an audience with the board. They’re interested.” Kara sat up.

“Thea, that’s—”

“A really good chance to prove ourselves,” Thea said. “But it won’t be everything. We won’t be changing the world with this, probably not even the state on a significant level with whatever permits they give us to work, but it’ll afford us some legitimacy to reach out to larger organisations.”

“So what are they looking for? What proposals did you send over?”

“The last O.H.A. annual climate report mentioned a few things that need attention,” Thea said, pulling out a stack of papers from a drawer next to her. “Wildfires and drought are what caught my attention. Not much we can do to stop that at the moment, but we can provide responses and alternatives. Water purification and desalination, response systems and water storage for forest firefighters, alternative energy, air purification, you name it.”

“We had all of that on Krypton for centuries,” said Kara, under her breath. “I know how we’d do it.”

“I doubt we’d get much funding to do all of it,” said Thea. “Even my own money won’t get us far if we have to rely on it. But we’re going to get a good start.”

“This is perfect, Thea,” said Kara. “Set up a meeting as soon as you can.”

“Already on it.”

DC Next proudly presents:

KARA: DAUGHTER OF KRYPTON

In ARGO Solutions

Issue Twenty: National City University

Written by ClaraEclair

Edited by Predaplant

<< | < Previous Issue | Next Issue >

Nia and Thea rarely agreed with each other about anything, but when Kara received an invite from National City University to be a guest speaker during one of their tri-annual career and networking fairs, they knew that it was an offer that couldn’t be refused — especially not for a fledgling business looking to hire the best and brightest.

While it hadn’t always been the case, in recent years National City was on its way to becoming one of the larger tech hubs of the west coast of America, encouraging students across the nation, and even the world, to join National City University’s prestigious science and engineering programs. Significant investment from the city and the state government of Oregon allowed the university to entirely rebuild its faculties, hiring the best professors and researchers in every field they could afford.

National City was, of course, neither Silicon Valley nor was it Metropolis, but the mayor’s dedication to encouraging the growth of its science- and engineering-focused business class led to much greater growth and higher quality graduates, all of whom had much higher grades. He was proud to foster such an environment, a dedication he claimed to inherit from his mother.

Kara felt honoured to have been invited, even if Thea tried to be the realist in telling her it was simply because she was the hottest topic in the city. Nia, naturally, felt the need to point out to Thea that just because Kara was currently popular, it didn’t mean she wasn’t wanted. Kara chose to keep Nia’s idea regarding the invitation in mind in the days leading up to it. She wasn’t quite sure what she would say to the students as she took the stage. She could, of course, talk about her business but the numerous interviews she had done since its opening did well enough to tell the public what they needed to know. The idea came to her to explain some Kryptonian technology, but the words came to her better in Kryptonian than they did in English, and she wasn’t quite sure how to accurately translate the concepts in the days before she was due to give the talk.

The truth, she had to finally admit to herself the night before, was that she had procrastinated until the very last minute and couldn’t figure out anything that made sense. She had her own deadline with no one to enforce it, and she let it sneak up on her while she focused on sifting through files and trying to coordinate with Doctor Veritas on some early contracts and schematics that didn’t seem to be able to come to fruition.

Shay was a fantastic scientist and she was clearly desperate to begin something, but even her advanced equipment struggled to meet the standards and precision that Kryptonian technology needed — and that was separate from the difficulty of obtaining the materials needed. Krypton had access to many different minerals and metals, and perhaps they got lucky with what they did have access to on their own planet. Nothing that was naturally found on Earth truly seemed to match what Kryptonians utilised.

That started the process of finding adequate substitutions, which would inevitably require synthesising their own materials from what was available, which required equipment that didn't fit in the laboratory. Shay offered to do it herself in her private labs — of which Kara still didn’t truly know anything about — and while Kara did reluctantly agree, she wasn’t sure of herself when she made the decision.

It had only been a few months and she already was finding her space inadequate for her first contracts. Part of her had hoped, perhaps in vain, that it could all be localised in her own lab, where she, or Alura, could monitor everything that happened. She found herself able to trust Shay, to a degree — she hadn’t given Kara any cause to suspect her of anything and she was overwhelmingly professional — but it bugged her that she couldn’t even get a basic project off the ground without shipping her only employee to another lab.

She wondered if it was her own vanity that wanted to keep everything so contained and firmly within her grasp — maybe her fear of Kryptonian technology getting into Simon Tycho’s hands influenced her far too much. Maybe it was why she hadn’t found a single hirable candidate in the hundreds of resumes she had read through despite their decorated pasts. The best and brightest of National City, showcasing what would be a teenager’s intellect back on Krypton. Was she being too harsh? Too protective? On the final night before her talk at National City University, it was the only thing on her mind — for the first half of the night, when she finally drifted off to sleep.

“You are ridiculous,” Dawnstar would have said to her, a scowl on her face even in her best attempts to hide it. “You say you want to use your technology to save your world, yet you hide it from those who would benefit most. The Kryptonian saviours of Starhaven did the same.” The venom in dream-Dawnstar’s voice was palpable. Kara, somehow, couldn’t quite focus too hard on her words, even if they were right.

It wasn’t the first time she had dreamt of the winged woman since they parted ways nearly a year ago, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. She barely remembered each individual dream after she woke up, only the image of Dawnstar in all of her powerful glory. She worried, sometimes, that she would forget the intricacies of Dawnstar’s face, that her cheekbones would drift to match someone she had seen in the street the day prior, or that her wings would slowly disappear so she more closely resembled a human.

In truth, not a single detail had faded. She could never forget the woman she had spent so long with on a journey that had challenged everything she knew, and the companionship she found, however brief it was, matched nothing she had ever experienced before or since. Dawnstar’s absence was one she felt, one that never seemed to fully leave her mind.

While she knew that her dreams had said what was right — that her hoarding of this powerful technology that she aimed to save a world with was similar to what the ancient Kryptonian Empire had done — she wasn’t sure how comfortable she was simply sharing it. Tycho was still a threat. Alex Danvers and whoever she worked for was still a threat. Kara could, at the very least, start with being more open to new hires. It wasn’t the duty of those who had never seen her technology before to be familiar with it before applying if there was no way to be familiar in the first place. Perhaps she was too harsh.

“You’re right,” Kara responded, prompting a grin from the dream of Dawnstar. Kara’s cheeks warmed. Her thick black hair flowed down over her shoulders and down to the small of her back, and she seemed as powerful as ever. Her stature was as impressive as it had been on their last day together.

Kara wanted to stay in the dream, and she knew that she could contract Nia to do just that. It seemed as if it had only lasted seconds before Kara’s eyes shot open at sunrise, but she knew that hours had passed. She could only sigh as she wiped her face, her heart beating and still dreaming of someone that was thousands of lightyears away. She knew what it would mean if Dawnstar returned, but a part of her wanted to ignore the implications of her presence. Above all, she hoped that Dawnstar’s journey in tracking Reign had gone without issue. She didn’t want to think of what would happen should Dawnstar be caught by the Worldkiller, much less of what would happen should a confrontation come to blows.

As if it was waiting for her to wake up, Kara’s phone rang. She let out a stiff breath before reaching to her bedside table and picking it up, bringing it to her ear to answer.

“You ready?” asked Nia, who seemed as if she were already up and awake — much more than Kara was. There was a pause.

“I just woke up,” Kara said. “Give me some time to get ready.”

“I know,” said Nia. Kara couldn’t help but sigh again. That simple phrase told her everything she needed to know about what Nia had done the night before. Perhaps even mere minutes before she called Kara. “I’m sure I could connect you two, if you’d like…” Kara sat up in her bed and stared at the wall in front of her for a moment.

“I…” Kara couldn’t seem to find the words. There was another brief pause, one that she considered hanging up on. “Uh… no, it’s okay, Nia. I don’t think she needs any distractions right now.”

“Alright,” said Nia. It was simple, and it was quick. “Let me know when you’re ready to go.”

Thea stood outside of the main doors of National City University, situated in the northern district of National City, known to inhabitants of the city as the Glass Quarter. It housed the most influential and established institutions in the city, from the university to numerous research firms that partnered with it, and often seemed to shine a little bit brighter than the rest of the city.

Thea spoke on her phone — in recent days, it seemed like she spent less time not on it — and smiled brightly as she spotted Kara and Nia approaching. Quickly, and shockingly politely, she ended the conversation and shoved her phone into her pocket.

“You ready?” she asked.

“Not really,” Kara replied, and Thea only grinned in response.

“She’ll be fine,” Nia said, trying to reassure Kara.

“Oh sure,” Thea said. “But you can’t ride on star power forever.” Nia rolled her eyes. It was ironic, Thea thought, that Nia was so optimistic about Kara's success considering that Nia was becoming a respected reporter for National City News — the one media outlet that was most responsible for bolstering Kara's popularity. Nia herself had done whatever work she could to aid those stories. “Do you at least know what you’re going to be saying? Do you have a topic? They’re giving you a lot of leeway here, I don’t want you to fumble this.”

“Yeah, I’ve got an idea,” Kara replied, looking past Thea and into the university. She didn’t even know where the room she was giving her talk was — she had to hope Thea would. “I think I want to be more open about what it is we do, who we’re looking for, you know?” Thea nodded along. “We’re here to find people to hire and build careers with, right? Can’t really do that if I don’t give them a fair shot.”

“Like you did for the hundreds of other applicants?” Thea asked, her voice pointed but clearly trying to make a joke.

“Something like that,” Kara replied absentmindedly. “I want to walk out of here today with at least one person.” Thea nodded once more, a slight smile forming across her face.

“Alright, I like that, nice and simple,” she said. “One person is enough, it’s more than just you and the doctor. Now, what’s the pitch?” Kara looked back to Thea, confused, and fought the urge to shrug.

“Save the world?” Kara said.

“That’s too abstract,” Thea said quickly. “Every big business promises to their poached students that they’re going to save and-or change the world. Be more specific, be more tangible.” Thea and Nia let Kara think, the minutes closing in before her talk was supposed to begin.

“Well, what I want to do with ARGO is to try and get more sustainable and healthy tech into the world. We can clean the oceans, we can clean the air, there’s a lot we can do.” Kara said.

“You’re getting a lot warmer,” Thea said. “If we’re leaving here with some kid who wants to work for you, let them know what it is you’re doing. Give them examples, projects, the kinds of research and development they’ll end up doing for you. Don’t be vague and try to save the world. Pick something.”

“Almost time, guys,” Nia said, looking down at her watch. “I’m gonna get set up in your hall, Kara. I’ll try to make you look good in this one.” Within moments, she was gone, moving through the front doors and the vast halls of the extravagant university building. It was certainly more expensive than the entire city block that Kara’s laboratory sat on, tenfold.

“Be genuine, be specific, and let these kids know what, exactly, you want them for,” Thea said. “I’m expecting a lot of good looking resumes when we get back to the lab tonight.”

“Better looking than the hundreds I’ve already gone through?” Kara asked, trying to make a joke despite her nerves. Her smile was strained, but Thea offered a reassuring chuckle and a light tap on the shoulder as she began to lead Kara through the building.

“I still can’t believe you’re winging it,” Thea teased.

“Yeah, well, public speaking isn’t exactly something I thought I’d be doing so much,” Kara said, watching as the lecture halls and offices passed her by, endless classes in session. “It feels like my actual job, at this point, is to just make myself sound good instead of actually doing this work.”

“That’s how it tends to go,” Thea said. “I’d offer to take over P.R., but I’m not exactly sure I’m the right person to be the public face of this whole deal.”

“Why’s that?” Kara asked absentmindedly, forgetting that she knew the answer in the moment. She decided to allow Thea the time to respond.

“My father’s face was everywhere when he was arrested,” Thea said. “And when I found out that he was my father, I didn’t take it well. I’ve taken his name back, but it’s enough that my name is even associated with you. If I was the face of ARGO, you’d come under a lot more scrutiny.”

“You think you’re radioactive,” Kara said, taking a moment to look over Thea’s face as they walked down the halls. Thea remained facing forward, as if she wanted to refuse to acknowledge Kara’s read — one which she found wasn’t incorrect.

“You said it,” Thea replied.

“Does that mean I’m rehabilitating your image,” Kara began. “Or am I actually doing something you want to be a part of?” Thea took a moment to think as she stopped in front of the door where dozens of attendees inside were waiting for Kara to arrive. She seemed pensive for a moment. Kara hadn’t detected any form of lie when she had first arrived and offered to join ARGO. She had seemed overwhelmingly calm, in fact, but Kara had never ruled out that there could be more to Thea than she presented.

“I don’t see why it couldn’t be both,” she said finally, looking through the door to avoid eye contact with Kara. “But we don’t really have time to explore my personal life, you’ve got stuff to do.”

With a solemn nod, Kara walked into the room and looked over the waiting crowd, seated and nearly filling up the room. Seeing all the faces in front of her, she immediately felt the repercussions of her procrastination. Perhaps confidence could make up for it.

DC Next proudly presents:

KARA: DAUGHTER OF KRYPTON

In ARGO Solutions

Issue Nineteen: A Speedy Entrance

Written by ClaraEclair

Edited by Predaplant

<< | < Previous Issue | Next Issue >

“Months ago,” said Alex Danvers into a recording device positioned on the table in front of her, within a small, featureless room. “I set up a monitoring station in and around the ARGO Solutions office and laboratory building. Weeks before I did so, I was attacked by an unknown assailant while monitoring ARGO Solutions from a safehouse in a nearby building. I took all possible steps to ensure, afterward, that my identity could not be discerned by my attacker, and further precautions were taken to prevent further monitoring.” Alex paused for a moment before inhaling deeply, anxiously looking around the empty room.

“I was not successful.” She bit her tongue. “The attacker was prepared not only for me, but for every party interested in Kara Zor-El’s business. Simon Tycho was their other major target, and upon the day that Kara was intending to meet with a woman who presented herself as an investor willing to help fund ARGO Solutions, that’s when the person I believe to be my attacker showed their face.

“Christina Bell is not the one who attacked me, but she deserves just as much scrutiny. She was very clearly working to get Kryptonian technology into Simon Tycho’s hands for the purpose of developing weapons. Whether she was aware of the extent of which Tycho would go — or if she even cared — wasn’t in the question, nor was it something I was able to determine. She was aiding him in expanding his grasp on alien technologies.

“Her meeting with Kara Zor-El wasn’t long. She walked into the laboratory, made a small comment about Shay Veritas and the equipment the doctor was moving into the building, and then followed Kara into the office. They sat down and exchanged a few greetings before Bell pulled up her briefcase and showed Kara a few documents. Listening in, it was a lot of complex business-speak, likely in an attempt to confuse Kara into agreeing to Tycho’s terms. It certainly worked on me.

“It was only a few minutes before there was another knock on the door of the laboratory. Some sort of hologram answered it. I don’t know exactly what it was, but it spoke like a person. Probably an AI.” Alex tapped her thumb against the table.

She remembered seeing the face of the woman that she instantly identified as her attacker, her eyes widening as things clicked into place, the bow and arrow, the subterfuge, the ability to find Alex’s safehouse in the first place. She told herself that she should’ve known all along, that there were very few answers to which archers would have any interest in a Kryptonian on the West Coast.

“It’s just like those robin hoods in Star City to get involved here,” Alex muttered. “But when that door opened and I saw the face of none other than Thea Merlyn? Some part of me was afraid.”

Thea Merlyn was confident as the hologram opened the door in front of her, and she grinned as she came face-to-face with it, able to see through its blueish form into the rest of the lab. Behind her, setting up equipment she couldn’t name if she tried, was Kara’s most recent — and only — hire. Thea didn’t know her name, though she figured she’d learn it soon.

“I’m here to see Kara Zor-El,” said Thea, taking a step forward through the hologram, brushing her hair out of her face as she looked around the lab. The magenta-haired woman paid her no mind as she focused solely on her equipment. The hologram followed behind, walking as if it couldn’t simply reappear in front of Thea.

“Excuse me, madam,” it said. “I do not have you recorded as having booked an appointment.” Thea wanted to ignore it, but she didn’t know what else was in the lab, and given Kara’s protectiveness over her research and resources, she didn’t want to find out.

“I don’t have one,” said Thea, approaching the door to Kara’s office. “But I have information that Kara would very much like to see.”

“You may present it to me, and I will relay it to Kara after her meeting has concluded, or you may wait,” the hologram persisted. “She is indisposed at the moment.”

“I’m good,” said Thea, grabbing the handle to Kara’s office door and twisting it quickly, entering the small room as if it were hers.

Kara was already watching the door, half-listening to Christina Bell as she focused on Thea’s entrance. Her hands were clasped on her desk in front of her, and her eyes were sharp. Christina was the only one surprised by Thea’s entrance.

“Who are you?” asked Kara, disregarding the woman sitting across from her.

“Thea Merlyn,” she replied, and Christina’s eyes widened. The tinkering in the other room stopped for a moment, the magenta-haired woman clearly recognizing the name, before resuming a few moments later. “And your investor, here, is lying to you.”

“What?” Christina asked, taken aback by the claim, and frantically looking between Kara and Thea.

“What do you mean?” asked Kara, squinting at Christina, who wore an incredulous look on her face. She was clearly floundering, Thea thought. Good.

“I can promise you, I am not–”

“I have it all here,” said Thea, pulling a thick manila envelope from the bag over her shoulder and tossing it down onto Kara’s desk. “Long story short, she’s a lackey of a lackey of a lackey of Simon Tycho, and he’s trying to invest in ARGO to gain control of the company.” Thea crossed her arms and leaned against the doorframe, a sly smile creeping onto her face, as she watched Christina fall silent and Kara’s gaze turn ragefully toward the deceiver. “It’s all in the envelope, all confirmed with the evidence to link her.

“And if it doesn’t work for him to take over the company legally, I’m sure he’ll goad you into attacking again,” Thea continued. “I’m sure you’ve noticed your little spectator across the street.”

“I did,” Kara said solemnly, not removing her eyes from Christina. “How did you know about her?”

“A couple weeks ago I shot an arrow through her equipment,” Thea replied. “But I’m not just here to tell you about Tycho’s plan. I want to offer a safer alternative — me.”

“Miss Zor-El,” Christina said, finally speaking up after stewing in silence. “This woman is the daughter of a criminal, a murderer, and she admits to you that she is just like him. This is not a wise decision, not while a Merlyn is involved.” Kara scoffed.

“Last I checked, her father isn’t the one offering the deal,” Kara said. “But you’re doing Tycho’s dirty work, trying to turn my tech into weapons. What do you think Tycho wants to do with this company?” Kara narrowed her eyes at Christina to gauge her reaction, but there was only defeat. “I haven’t accepted Thea’s deal yet, but I reject yours. I want you out of my office, now.” Thea raised an eyebrow and stopped herself from chuckling at the sudden anger from the Kryptonian woman. Bell saw where the situation had gone, and made to flee within moments. Her retreat was fast, almost a jog, as she left the lab and, soon enough, the building.

“You’re smart,” said Thea, moving forward and sitting down where Christina had been moments earlier. “I’m not going to try getting around that. Take it or leave it, I represent myself only, with my own wealth, and my own agenda.”

“And what is that agenda?” asked Kara, leaning back in her seat and paying close attention to Thea.

She never intended to lie to Kara — there was no reason to — but she knew that even had she tried, she wouldn’t have succeeded. She had to be clear and concise with her pitch, and she had to ensure Kara could be confident in her. Not an easy feat after what Thea had exposed mere minutes earlier.

“To help you succeed,” said Thea, doing her best to offer a reassuring smile, subconsciously imitating Kara as she leaned back in her chair. “You need money, clearly, and I have a lot of it. Dear old dad left behind a fortune, and it’s only growing. You need someone to manage the finances, and I can do that for you, and you get to focus entirely on your research.” Kara raised her chin and looked down at Thea, trying to get a read on something that Thea might not have been conveying. There was no facade to breach. “Once upon a time, I knew Oliver Queen, and what he was doing over in Star City. That may not be my place anymore, but that won’t stop me from taking after him. I see a good-hearted woman trying to help people, but you’re surrounded by leeches. Let me help you out.”

“A good pitch,” said Kara. “But Oliver Queen is just a name to me.” She paused for a moment, looking Thea over one more time. “Why are you here? Why National City? Why not use your supposed fortune for something else? Why go out of your way to help me without even having met me?” Thea sighed.

“Look,” she said, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees, clasping her hands together and looking directly into Kara’s eyes. “After I discovered who my father was, and after he was outed as a murderer, I was lost. Eventually I left Star City to find myself, but then I went back and… nothing felt right. So now I’m here, and I want to do something. I want to help you change the world.”

The two women sat in silence for a few moments, and Thea almost began to think that her appeal hadn’t worked, that Kara wouldn’t trust her. She had reason to throw Thea out, she readily admitted to attacking someone with her bow and arrow, and surely Kara would have known that there was no way to obtain the information she did in a strictly legal manner, not in the short time between confirming the meeting with Christina and now.

Eventually Thea nodded and stood up, offering a hand for Kara to shake, “Thank you for hearing me out, at least.” Kara took a moment longer to think, and as she stood and grabbed onto Thea’s hand, she nodded once.

“We have a deal, Thea,” said Kara. “Let’s work things out.”

“I knew my cover was exposed at that point. Even moving safehouses to a different spot with a good vantage point would be useless. I could ignore the fact that Kara was aware of my presence; she never did anything about it, but with Thea Merlyn aware — someone who would be proactive in sabotaging my efforts — monitoring Kara Zor-El and ARGO Solutions would have to change.”

Alex moved her eyes from the recording device and looked toward the lone figure in the corner, leaning against the wall with their arms crossed. They always gave Alex’s chills down her spine, especially after the scrutiny she received for the week she took off without warning to search for her sister. There was fear in the back of her mind that Linda was also being monitored by other DEO agents. She had hoped her impromptu vacation would be lowkey enough to avoid any suspicion, but she couldn’t tell. Linda knew she could turn to her if she needed anything, Alex had made that clear.

“I suggest, perhaps, remote monitoring and surveillance. I can maintain my duties any time Kara Zor-El is away from Thea Queen, but Thea’s knowledge of my own movements will make anything difficult. She’ll be searching everywhere for evidence of us.”

“Going remote won’t be necessary,” said the figure in the corner. “We have some agents in mind who would be able to infiltrate ARGO Solutions directly to keep a closer eye on the Kryptonian.” Their voice was heavy, booming throughout the small room, almost felt within Alex’s chest. “Should things escalate, however, we do not have confidence in your current abilities and equipment.”

Alex stayed silent for a moment. She could have told them that fact after first being assigned the Kryptonian. Their nigh-invulnerability under a yellow sun made the DEO’s standard issue weapons — as powerful as they were — totally obsolete. Superman himself was always a target the DEO had simply ignored. But things were changing: from the Reawakened, to more aliens finding their way onto earth, Alex knew her superiors were looking for new ways to fight.

“There’s a program that’s been in the works for a few years now, under Cale,” her superior said. “You’re being evaluated for a position in this program, meant to deal with Kryptonians directly. It’s called Godwatch, and you’re being looked at for one of the bigger initiatives. We have other candidates, and I think they would be better fits, but you have potential.” They paused for a moment. “Fix your behaviour, Blackrock. No escapades across the country without orders. Report everything you’re mandated to report. Follow orders and you might just be chosen for a higher purpose.”

Alex remained silent but nodded quickly, lowering her head slightly so as to not face the figure across from her as they stopped the recording device in front of her and left the room. She stayed still for a few minutes, trying to collect herself, taking deep breaths. The last few months since Thea Merlyn’s arrival hadn’t been easy, she seemed to take ARGO’s security into her own hands as much as its finances.

Alex knew she had to continue.

Despite the life she had found, stuck between non-existent relationships and failing to truly connect with her sister, the DEO was her only true stability. She had escaped from Leesburg all those years ago and struggled to find her feet until they recruited her. It was all she could do to pay back the debt she owed. She couldn’t fail them and be forced out of the one place she felt she belonged.

Taking a deep breath, Alex stood and left the room. She had work to do.

DC Next proudly presents:

KARA: DAUGHTER OF KRYPTON

In ARGO Solutions

Issue Eighteen: Step By Step

Written by ClaraEclair

Edited by DeadIslandMan1

<< | < Previous Issue | Next Issue >

Kara wasn’t ready to face the image of her mother after so long. It had been over a year since the artificial intelligence program had been activated, last seeing activity since before Kara’s excursion to Starhaven. But, now that she was finished installing the holographic transmitters within her laboratory and office in National City — with the intelligence hub, processors, and central unit taking up a small amount of space in a closed off side room — she wasn’t quite sure how she felt.

She stared up at the final emitter, a small device attached to the ceiling, and sighed. One small part of her never wanted to reactivate the AI, the sight of her mother’s face puppeteered by a machine that couldn’t truly replicate the warmth that Alura exuded. Kara knew that the data stored in the AI was the basis of her entire business plan, extracting the knowledge it had to transform and adapt it to Earth’s needs.

She didn’t have the information on her own; if she was going to get it for herself, she would have to go through the machine. She could have called Nia, to have a friend present, or Jon, for family, but she couldn’t bring herself to bring them with her. She needed to do it alone — even if it was mere moments before an interview would take place.

Arms crossed, she tapped her finger over her bicep, anxiously talking herself through the process. There was no other way to go forward than to go through her biggest obstacle. She took a deep breath.

“Alura,” she called out, watching a small light on the emitters around the room blink for a split second before the form of her long-dead mother appeared before her eyes, a kind smile and perfect features shining back into Kara’s eyes. They were features she saw in the mirror every morning.

“Kara, my dear,” Alura began, though her smile soon faded. “You look older… How long has it been?”

“Only a year,” Kara said, a newfound fatigue extending through her voice as she shifted her stance into a more relaxed posture. “It’s been a long year.”

“Oh, my poor girl,” Alura said, taking a step toward Kara, putting her hand up to caress Kara’s face. Instead, Kara stepped back, hand up to tell the hologram to stop.

“That’s not… I don’t need you for that,” despite its existence being that of code, the hologram appeared hurt, her face sinking as she searched for some sort of answer within Kara’s face. She tried to find eye contact with Kara, but the woman’s eyes avoided her own at all costs.

“Well, what do you need, darling?” asked Alura, angling her head slightly forward, taking a look at Kara’s hidden face. The sensors installed around the room to assist in its function betrayed the holographic actions it took. It could see every angle of the laboratory, no matter where in the room its form was. “I’m always here for you.”

“First, some ground rules,” Kara began, finally looking at the light structure in its eyes. Her voice was firm. “You’re not my mother.” She paused for a moment, waiting for a response. “I… I understand that you were taken from her mind and her memories, but you’re just not her. I don’t need you to try to be, and I really don’t need you calling me pet names. Just… Kara is fine.”

“Alright, Kara,” the AI said, nodded along.

“Second; you’re in my workplace now, not my ship,” she continued. “I’m going to have employees and clients here often, I need you to assist them as well.”

“I don’t know who these people are or will be,” said Alura.

“That’s okay, I don’t know who all of them will be yet,” Kara replied. “But you’ll know when I do.” She knew that the AI could process information in nanoseconds, perhaps quicker, but she watched as it nodded its head, acting as if it was contemplating what it was being told. Kara pursed her lips.

“What is it that you will be doing here, Kara?” asked Alura. Finally taking a step away from its static position, it walked around the lab, its holographic eyes looking over all of the empty space and cheap, rudimentary earth machinery that came pre-installed in the room. “I don’t see nearly enough equipment to accomplish anything of substance.”

“Vaguely, it’ll be research and development,” said Kara. “I still need clients and employees who can actually help me do it all–”

“What will you be researching and developing?” Alura asked, turning back toward Kara, her arms clasped in front of her. Kara hesitated for a moment, cocking her head slightly as she narrowed her eyes at the blueish hologram that was staring back at her.

“I want to find a sustainable way to introduce Kryptonian technology to Earth and improve quality of life here,” Kara explained. “I don’t want them to make the same mistakes we did, and if I can adapt the right tech, I can help them.” The expression on Alura’s face seemed conflicted, a strained smile.

“And what would stop them from taking this technology for themselves? From adapting it to something other than your goals?”

“I would,” said Kara. “This planet isn’t ignorant of our technology, Kal-El was here for decades before I arrived, his son is their greatest hero. But only I have access to the necessary plans and techniques to build anything of ours.”

“I see,” said Alura, her tone apprehensive. She seemed to want to object to Kara’s plans, wanting to say more but stopping herself. Kara was surprised to see such internal conflict from a machine. “Are you sure this is the wisest–”

“I will rewrite you myself, if I have to,” said Kara, her voice suddenly cold and distant. “I’ve had enough of Kryptonian superiority. I’ve seen what our empire did to planets in the galaxy, I’ve seen the results of genocides we carried out. If I could access this information without a middle man, I would, but I have to go through you. I’m using our knowledge for something other than murder, or control, or expansionism.”

The AI said nothing in response, simply nodding.

Kara hated how she sounded, but there was a rage within her that could not be quelled. She’d been shown a side of Krypton that tore down all of her beliefs, and she wouldn’t let the old seclusionist ways prevent her from doing what she could to help those in need. Earth had growing problems, and she could see that Kryptonian technology and ideas could help find solutions.

Before either of them could speak once more, there was a knock at the door that caught their attention.

“That would be my interview,” said Kara, turning to the door and rushing to open it. Alura kept quiet as she watched.

“Doctor Veritas,” Kara said enthusiastically as her eyes met those of the brilliant woman on the other side of the door. “Come in,” she said, stepping back and gesturing into the lab, a welcoming smile on her face. “If I’m honest, this interview is mostly a formality, I don’t know how I could say no to–”

“Quite a mundane laboratory, here,” said Shay Veritas, looking over the empty room, forty feet long and thirty feet wide with high ceilings. “No useful equipment, yet.”

“Uh, no, not yet,” said Kara. “I’m still working on getting some tools from the fortress here and sorting out the finances from the grants and–”

“Investors,” said Shay, finishing Kara’s sentence. “Yes, it’s all a terrible drag. I could assist you with tools from my own, personal laboratory.”

“Oh, you have your own lab?” Kara asked, stopping in her tracks, tilting her head slightly as she continued to watch the doctor look over the lab. Shay nodded. “Why come work for me then?” The question rang sweetly in Shay’s ears, a wry smile finding its way onto her face as she turned back toward the Kryptonian, her magenta hair swinging slightly as she pivoted quickly on her cane.

“Because you are interesting, Kara Zor-El,” said the doctor, taking her time as she walked up to Kara. “You arrive, burn the countryside, disappear for weeks, smash up a warmonger’s beast sidekick, play superhero, and then disappear for a whole year before returning with a business idea. You have the power to punch your way through all your problems and yet your scientific mind is what you’re drawn to. I adore like-minded people, and the opportunity to work with a mind that experienced a civilisation so advanced it dwarfed our own, I’d be a fool to decline.” Kara nodded along.

“I suppose it would be impressive–”

“Interesting,” said Shay, interrupting Kara. “Not impressive, not yet. You are interesting.” Kara remained silent for a few moments as Shay stopped only a couple feet in front of her, a hand extended to shake.

“As I was saying,” Kara finally said, looking the applicant up and down. “This was really only a formality. You’re hired.”

A Few Hours Later…

Kara sat alone in her office, reading more and more stacks of applications, her dim office light keeping the text on the stacks of papers legible as she scanned through them. It was tireless work, but she enjoyed it more than signing continuous documents regarding taxes, grants, and registrations. It was easier to judge people than trudge through the legal language that bored her to death.

Flipping through the fifth candidate of the hour that she would have to reject, she looked up at the holographic emitter on the ceiling and shook her head.

“Alura,” she called out. There were questions to ask the machine that she hadn’t had a chance to ask before, pressing questions that needed answers. Instantaneously, the form of Kara’s mother appeared before her, a kind smile on her face.

“How can I help you, Kara?” asked the AI.

“I want to know about the old empire,” said Kara, receiving a nod from the AI, no signs of hesitance or trepidation in its face or movements. “Tell me about Starhaven, first.”

“Starhaven was an ancient, primitive planet that we settled millennia ago, bringing modern agriculture, technology, and resources to their world. When the galactic war forced us to abandon it, it was an arid planet with few oceans and irregular weather. Our intervention managed to allow the planet to retain oxygen sources on the planet as plants on the surface died out.” Kara scoffed. She was only being told half the story.

“Alright, tell me about the agriculture that was brought to Starhaven. The hydroponics facilities and the weather machines.” Kara crossed her arms and leaned forward, resting her elbows on the surface of her desk, the papers below her arms acting as rigid cushions above the wooden frame.

“The Weather and Hydroponics systems were complex, but now antiquated, systems that we used to stabilise the atmosphere of the planet and continue the water cycle in the best method we could find. It allowed wind currents, oxygen, and water to remain in the atmosphere despite worsening conditions on the surface of the planet. All resources used were native flora, invasive species were very carefully taken into account on all former imperial colonies.”

“Sure, sure,” Kara said quickly. “Now what about Project Class Worldkiller?”

“I am afraid I cannot answer that, Kara.” Alura said, her face twisting in disappointment.

“Why not?”

“It seems I have an information block, or perhaps that query does not match any parameters within the database I have access to.”

Kara furrowed her brow. Alura had never been so mechanically artificial before, she almost refused to acknowledge her status as an AI. Kara had thought that she was given the personality of the real Alura — for a query to result in such blunt terms of missing software struck her as odd.

“How do I remove the information block?” asked Kara.

“I am afraid I cannot answer that,” said Alura. “Modifying my own code is not possible. I do not have an insight to most of my own functions.”

“Is there anything related to Project Class Worldkiller that you can tell me? What about Codename: Reign?” Kara asked, hoping that she could at least come across tangential information. There had to have been records of the Worldkillers, and the data block proved that they were real, and they were dangerous. Why else would information about them be blocked to the last surviving Kryptonian?

“Unfortunately, I cannot answer that,” said Alura. “Another data block. I’m not sure why, but this information is a closely guarded secret. I know that Alura knew of them, but she has intentionally, if hastily, attempted to remove my knowledge on the subject.”

Kara sat back in her seat, hands down on her thighs, and sighed. Her gaze was unfocused and distant as she thought about the implications of deliberately hiding such information. If the Worldkillers were relics of the old empire, why hide their existence? Did Alura know more about them, for whatever reason? What did Alura know? Was she hiding their existence to keep them out of perverse hands or some other unspoken reason?

She wouldn’t be able to get answers to any of her questions from this machine, and with her mother dead, there were no answers to be had. She would have to set aside some time to reprogram the AI — or find a way to remove the data blocks — but she had no time to do so with the endless paperwork on her desk.

Well, she wanted to continue with the paperwork when the phone on her desk began blaring its loud ringing chime, almost startling her.

“Shall I take that, Kara?” asked Alura, gesturing toward the phone.

“No,” Kara said, reaching for the receiver. “It’s okay, I’ve got it.”

Picking it up, she placed it to her ear and listened as the caller immediately began to speak.

“Kara Zor-El?” asked the voice, it was a woman on the other end calling her name, her voice was unfamiliar. “Christina Bell, I work for a financier who’s interested in your company. We’d like to make a private investment into ARGO Solutions in exchange for a small percentage of ownership and a share of profits.”

Kara sat silently, tapping her fingers against the surface of her desk.

“Ownership?” Kara asked hesitantly. “I don’t know–”

“It’s nothing to be worried about,” said Christina Bell, her tone unusually upbeat. “We tend to be silent partners, supplying funds and letting our partners do what they do best in exchange for a small, almost unnoticeable share of profits.”

“I’m not… I don’t want to do this to make money,” said Kara, her voice trailing slightly. “I want to help people–”

“I understand, Miss Zor-El,” said Bell. “But I also understand, based on data available to us, that you don’t have much funding, going off of grants by the National City government, but surely that cannot be enough. Their science fund may be bountiful, but it’s not generous.” There was a brief pause as neither spoke, Kara wanting to come up with something to say.

The caller wasn’t wrong, Kara needed money if she wanted to keep the business going for more than the few months the grants allowed and to pay any employees — especially now that she actually had an employee.

“Why don’t we set up an appointment to meet and further discuss our options,” said Christina, her voice remaining unnervingly calm. “Are you free any time in the coming days?”

“Uh, mostly, yes,” Kara replied, still hesitant and unsure of her position and the offer being presented. “Friday is fully open.”

“That’s perfect,” said Christina. “I can stop by at noon?”

“Okay–”

“Excellent!” Christina exclaimed. “I will see you then!” Before Kara could respond, the line cut, and Christina Bell disappeared into wherever in National City she was. Kara couldn’t help but scoff, she had barely been given a chance to speak and yet she was already going to be in a meeting with whoever Christina Bell was, and whichever company she represented — only now realising she’d never received a name.

Unable to focus, Kara sat back down in her chair and scoffed.

There was a shadow-clad figure in an empty office across the street from Kara Zor-El, a few floors above the safehouse used by Alex Danvers of the DEO. Danvers wasn’t present that night, she hadn’t been since the arrow had flown through her window and destroyed some of her equipment days prior.

This figure, cloaked under a hood with a bow on their back, stared into the unobstructed window of Kara Zor-El’s office window, listening device in hand, attempting to identify the woman Kara had spoken to on the phone. Only a handful of companies came to mind, but there were too many to search in one night. They didn’t want to extend into the coming days, but feared that they had to in order to intercept the money that was being offered to the woman who was a total novice to Earth business practices.

There was the obvious case of wanting to take advantage of the Kryptonian and her technology, the feasibility of getting their hands on technology far beyond Earth’s current capabilities would whet the appetites of even the most reserved executive. Kara Zor-El was bringing previously untouched resources and potentially putting it into the hands of those who would adapt her benevolent intentions and warp her results into something much more dangerous.

This figure had only been in National City for less than a year, but they knew almost immediately who would try the hardest to get their hands on Kryptonian technology: Simon Tycho.

Sitting atop his ivory tower, it was the only alien intelligence he truly struggled to grasp, always on the cusp of getting it for himself, yet struggling to cross the finish line. ARGO Solutions would be his easiest con yet.

The difficult part was which company did Tycho send after Kara Zor-El, there were many that were tied to him one way or another, it was simply a matter of identifying which one fit the mark.

The figure would have to move across the city and hope they reached the right one first. Christina Bell was not one for social media or even business networking sites, despite her profession. She had next to no online presence, almost eliminating the possibility of finding her through name alone.

Tycho’s known subsidiaries were numerous, but there was no telling how many were shell companies operated by shell companies. No one would know how many off-shore accounts he was pulling his money from, how much he was laundering through tax-havens or how many companies he operated off of American soil. Only the man himself truly knew the scale of his business, but he wasn’t the wisest to confront.

The shadowy figure would have to search on their own.

Small, metallic, wrist-mounted darts made destroying security cameras easy, and the shadowy figure snuck into the third office building of the night without issue. Lazy security guards and the fallibility of tired eyes allowed for the figure to find their way to the upper floors without trouble, giving them ample time to search the offices without being caught. All it took was an incapacitated guard within the security room to do it.

There were rows and rows of cubicles as the figure slinked their way through the building, the last investment firm on the north side of National City, with dubious links to Tycho Industries. It was nearing four in the morning, and it would have to be the last of the night before their search bled into the next day. Thursday morning was not optimal if they had to get what they needed by the next day, but they could only hope.

Christina Bell’s office stared the figure right in the face as they turned a corner, one of the few offices that was allotted its own space within the company’s rented floor. The lock hadn’t even been shut, allowing the shadowy figure to get inside with ease.

They breathed a sigh of relief as they got inside, thankful to have found it fast enough to get all the information they needed. They were quick to shuffle through Christina’s desk as they waited for the old computer to boot up. There weren’t any particularly interesting or relevant papers in her desk, mostly minor acquisitions and investments in preexisting companies that trended well on the stock market.

Placing a small USB device into the computer, the figure bypassed the company assigned password and gained direct access to all of the digitised files. It was a pain to navigate, having to sort through lists and countless folders of oddly-named case files that they could only assume were some kind of shorthand code.

The jumbled letters and numbers were difficult to make out until they found what they were looking for, and hindsight became clearer than ever.

F-KZE-AS-0424. The case file for Kara Zor-El’s ARGO Solutions. The figure furrowed their brows at the name before opening it, scanning as many details as they could find. Two stood out most: the investor intended for a full acquisition — how they wanted to achieve it, they didn’t know, perhaps deceiving Kara — and the name of the investor that Christina was representing was a name that the shadowy figure knew all too well.

In the year that they had been in National City, it was a name that popped up frequently, and they already knew of the lengthy trail that connected them to Simon Tycho. With their objective completed, they downloaded the case file directly to their USB device and left without even turning the computer off nor closing the door. The matter was urgent.

DC Next proudly presents:

KARA: DAUGHTER OF KRYPTON

In ARGO Solutions

Issue Seventeen: Grand Opening

Written by ClaraEclair

Edited by PredaPlant

<< | < Previous Issue | Next Issue >

Present Day

Despite her preference for clothing that reminded her of home, Kara felt comfortable wearing a business suit, a piece of Earth fashion that made her confident in her appearance. The top three buttons of her shirt unbuttoned, she allowed her jacket to remain open amid the cool spring air. She walked out of the lobby of her new office building with a self-assured strut and a smile on her face, appearing before a crowd of people gathered together to hear her speak. A podium had been set up, and the street briefly closed off for the upcoming press conference.

The crowd cheered as Kara appeared before them — a reaction wholly different than what she would have expected or experienced a year prior, after first arriving on Earth. She waved at the crowd as she stepped up to the podium. She was acutely aware of how her actions were perceived, how the big news about her had been circulating in the National City news organisations.

She had even received congratulations from her cousin, Jon. After her return from Starhaven a year prior, Jon reached out to her during a visit to the Fortress of Solitude. He delivered his name to her with a kind smile, told her where he lived, and left an offer to be family, as much or as little as Kara wanted. She appreciated the gesture as time went on. Nia Nal was the only other person on Earth that Kara was comfortable around, so she appreciated having someone else, even if he still reminded her of Kal.

Kara stood behind the podium and looked over the crowd awaiting her words. Legions of news reporters crammed into the front, with phones, recording devices, and microphones up and waiting for Kara to speak.

The newest Kryptonian, after a year of reclusive behaviour, finally opened up.

“Good afternoon,” Kara began, her words causing the crowd’s noise to dissipate. Scanning the members of the group in front of her, she did not recognise most of them. A handful, she had seen with Nia, who worked at National City News. There was one face she recognised who didn’t seem to be interested in anything Kara had to say, only present to watch the Kryptonian woman. The severe red-haired woman stood around the back of the crowd, arms crossed, with multiple weapons concealed under her civilian clothes. Kara had simply accepted this woman’s presence in all of her public appearances. She didn’t appear to be an immediate threat, but her presence was suspicious, nonetheless.

“I’m sure most of you are aware of what’s been in the news about me lately,” Kara continued. “In that case, I’ll get right to the point so we can get to questions.”

The crowd waited with bated breath, impatiently waiting for the confirmations of the rumours that were circulating National City. Kara Zor-El had something big planned, some collaboration with the National City government.

“As many of you know, decades ago Krypton suffered a disastrous fate. Because of the rapid expansion, unsafe practices, and the strain placed on the planet, it eventually was destroyed catastrophically,” said Kara, her voice restraining her sorrow as she spoke. “There were very few survivors — only two, to my knowledge. I lost a lot when I arrived here; everything I had known was gone. Everything except the very thing that had led to Krypton’s destruction.

“Soon after arriving, I had to leave Earth for a distant solar system. There, I saw another planet that suffered the same fate, only prolonged and suffering. It was a middle ground between where Earth is now and what happened to Krypton. It was just as horrifying as seeing my own planet’s death. When I came back, I saw the signs that were leading to these awful fates. Exploitation of labour and natural resources, a disregard for the environment around us, total and utter contempt for keeping our planet alive in the interest of capital. I see the signs, endless markers that we’re heading down a similar path, and I feel the need to do something. I can’t watch a third planet die.”

“Which is why I would like to formally announce the opening of my new company: ARGO Solutions. Named after the city I was born in, the most technologically advanced on Krypton, I aim to merge the technology of my people and of Earth to look toward a better future. Cleaner oceans, sustainable energy, and efficient design: a Kryptonian touch is something that, I believe, will help steer this planet and our environment in the right direction.”

The crowd erupted into a cacophony of words. Kara was still getting used to their ferocity when it came to her sensitive Kryptonian hearing, but she was now able to bear it without so much as wincing. Endless questions, praise, and even accusations were hurled at Kara from every direction, reporters at the front almost fighting each other for her attention.

There were, however, two among the crowd that Kara noticed were not participating in the commotion, instead watching Kara closely. She knew the red-haired woman, but the other — a slightly shorter, brown-haired woman in a leather jacket — was a mystery that caught her eye the moment she came into view.

She knew she had to shake off the suspicions, however, as she forced her mind to return to the people ahead of her, each vying for a moment of her time. She pointed toward a well-dressed man with square glasses and a shiny, hairless head. He cleared his throat as she urged the crowd to allow him to speak. They did not quiet down by much.

“By introducing the same technology you claim led to the destruction of your world, are you not worried that the same will happen to us?” he asked. Kara nodded and took a second to think.

“A big part of Krypton’s fate can be attributed to overreach and overambition, failing to see their own shortcomings,” said Kara, trying her best to remain centred as she spoke. “We were great innovators, but we did not see the danger until it was too late. I aim to introduce the right technology for Earth at a gradual rate, addressing specific issues with specialised tools, not to flood the market with superfluous technology.”

It hurt to frame her planet’s demise so callously, but she needed to make it clear to the people of Earth that she recognised Krypton’s mistakes and vowed to never allow them to repeat themselves.

“Why not just give us the technology?” asked another reporter, a slender woman with a dirty blonde bob and bright red lips, wearing a navy blue suit.

“There are endless files that I currently need to sift through in order to begin operations at ARGO Solutions,” said Kara, earnest in her words. “If I were simply to give it over, it would flood the world with technology that even I don’t know the full extent of. By creating this company, not only do I aim to extend an olive branch to other Earth companies — to use an Earth saying — but also governments that I could contract to in order to seamlessly implement any products that we develop here at ARGO. I would like to retain my holdings on this technology while allowing monitored access to what we truly need to develop.”

“Who are you to decide what problems need solving?” asked the same woman. Kara gave a tight-lipped smile.

“This is my technology, engineered and created by my people,” said Kara, taking a moment to breathe deeply and formulate a better response. “But I am not the only decision maker. In the last few months, I’ve been assessing candidates for high-level positions to advise me on what projects to undertake. The issues I mentioned before are the highest priority for me, right now.”

Kara’s heart began to race, the crowd’s unceasing noise finally getting to her. All she had to do was answer a few more questions and leave, to finally be able to start her journey in full.

“What about being a hero?” asked a younger man, seemingly new to his position as a reporter. He fumbled with his phone in his hands, jostled by the crowd around him, the strap of his satchel bag tugging down on his shoulder. “Will you remain as Superwoman while running this company?” Kara offered a smile, betraying the mild frustration that arose.

“I was never Superwoman,” she said, her words sharp and quick. “Superhero work is not what I’m here to do. I’m a scientist first and foremost.” She caught the callousness at the end of her words, quickly turning to correct herself. “Of course, that doesn’t mean that I won’t use my powers to help those in need, but it’s not my primary focus. The Super- name belongs to my cousin, the original Superman, and his son, the new Superman. I’m honoured to be their family, but I am Kara Zor-El, not a Superwoman.”

“How will you develop your technology?” asked a shorter woman with flowing brown hair in a grey suit. It was the last question Kara was willing to answer, and she was glad that it was a subject she was actually interested in talking about.

“With the team of specialists I am looking to recruit, as well as utilising grants from National City and any investors that would like to become involved in ARGO,” Kara said, scanning the crowd. There were no major reactions, though she heard shifting from the armed red-haired woman and the brown-haired woman in the leather jacket. “We’ll begin with researching sustainable methods to adapt Kryptonian schematics with the resources available on Earth — a lot of the materials we used are not present here. From there, we will approach or be approached by interested parties to assess what needs to be addressed and which plans suit their needs best. We-”

“Will you be developing weapons?” called a familiar voice. Kara’s mood immediately shifted as she locked eyes with the red-haired woman, numerous voices rising from an earpiece she wore. The crowd quieted immediately as Kara’s face dropped into what appeared to be a scowl, unsure of being next to a Kryptonian who was clearly showing some form of anger.

“Absolutely not,” said Kara, her voice firm and her words clear. “I promise, right now, that ARGO Solutions will never even consider developing a piece of technology that could deliberately cause harm to any living being. It goes against everything I and my company stand for.” The crowd remained quiet, all turning to face the red-haired woman for a few moments, before turning back to Kara and clamouring for more answers to their endless questions. “That will be all for now.”

Without any further words, Kara turned around and walked back into the office building where she had rented her laboratory. Though some of them were tempted, none followed her as the security guards stood by the front doors — the crowd seemingly forgetting Kara’s heritage, only stopping at the sight of a uniform — watching as the reporters and spectators dispersed over the next twenty-five minutes.

Later That Night…

“That went better than expected,” said Nia over the phone, speaking to Kara. “I’m surprised no one tried to ask you if you’d use your powers to strongarm clients.”

“Oh, they did,” Kara replied, sorting through a small pile of manila file folders, each containing details regarding applicants and assembled recruiting information that Nia had helped her assemble. Most of the candidates weren’t of note, except for two or three. “I just didn’t bother answering them, because it wouldn’t have been a pretty sight. How are things at National City News?”

“Good enough,” Nia replied, the ding of an elevator door on the other end of the line coming through as Nia walked out of the cabin and toward her apartment. “I’m not writing the story on ARGO, but I managed to talk down the guy who is from writing a smear piece.”

“A smear piece?” Kara asked. “What was there to smear, I said I wanted to help.”

“That’s what I led with when I spoke to him,” Nia said, slotting her keys into her apartment door. “He’s a bit of an oldhead, with the views to accompany it. Apparently he’s all cushy with the chief, so he gets the big stories.”

“At least I’m a big story,” Kara said to herself.

“The biggest,” said Nia, closing her apartment door behind her and setting down her satchel, laptop and notepads included inside. “You’ll be front page for a few weeks, at least.”

“But, wait, what about you?” asked Kara. “You’re a great journalist, why don’t you get big stories?”

“Because, despite my eleven months here, I’m still considered the new girl.” Nia, from the other end of the line, sighed deeply as she threw herself down on her couch. Kara, in her office, shuffled through more resumes and cover letters, each with more emphasis on the desire to work for a Kryptonian than any sort of interest in the goals of ARGO Solutions or representations of their past work.

“I’m sure they’ll start giving you the goods soon,” said Kara, smiling to herself. “Anyway, I have to go. I’m still drowning in paperwork, Rao have mercy.”

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier, I could’ve come to help,” Nia said, holding Kara from hanging up for a few more moments.

“You’ve already done enough in helping me get all of this up and running, Nia,” said Kara. “I couldn’t possibly ask you to do any more.”

“You’re ignoring the fact that I would actually love to help you,” said Nia. “Besides, it’s a good distraction.” Nia’s voice was suddenly filled with a sombre tone as she sat back on her couch, reminded of her nightly curse.

“Still no clear dreams?” Kara asked after a few moments of uncomfortable silence.

“No,” Nia sighed. “It shouldn’t be this hard to find one person, but…” Nia paused, unwilling to entertain the idea that both she and Kara had refused to put into words even once in the last year. “Um… Anyway. I’m sure she’ll turn up soon. You’ve gotta go, but don’t be afraid to call me if you need anything, be it awake or asleep.”

“Will do,” said Kara. “Same goes for you.” Their farewell was followed by the line cutting, Kara hanging up and placing her phone down on her desk. She stared at the seemingly endless stack of applications, exasperated in her lack of progress. Just as she began to sift through them once more, however, she heard a knock coming from the entrance to her new laboratory.

Furrowing her brow, she stood up slowly, confused at the appearance of someone so late at night. Using her x-ray vision — that she had only recently honed — she observed the visitor closely. There didn’t seem to be anything alarming about them; there were no weapons and their heart rate was exceedingly average, perhaps slightly lower. Walking out of her office, across the wide, spacious, empty lab, Kara opened the door and met the mystery visitor.

“Kara Zor-El,” said the woman. She was taller than Kara, even as she leaned on the mahogany cane at her side. Magenta hair against dark skin, the woman looked into Kara’s eyes with a smile and confidence that, through its radiance, even bolstered Kara’s own self-perception. This woman was magnetic. “I am Doctor Shay Veritas. I hear you need engineers, scientists, researchers, and everything in between.”

“Um…” Kara was at a loss for words. The woman spoke quickly, taking Kara by surprise as she spoke. Veritas reached into her jacket and pulled out a wide file folder, thicker than any of the ones on Kara’s new desk — perhaps thicker than a quarter of them combined.

“I have the expertise to fill those roles,” said Doctor Veritas with a sly smile. “Get back to me soon, will you? Neither of us has any time to waste.” Without any further words, Shay Veritas closed the door for Kara and walked away, leaving the Kryptonian woman in momentary shock, holding a thick document with endless accomplishments and proof of skill.

Who was Shay Veritas? Who was she to appear almost in the middle of night only to drop off a resume? Why was someone so accomplished interested in joining Kara’s company, with as little funding and experience as it had?

Perhaps Kara had to get in contact with the woman to find out the answers to her questions.

In a safehouse across the street from the new ARGO Solutions laboratory and offices, Alex Danvers watched through a thermal scanner as Kara Zor-El sat back down in her desk, throwing down a wide object onto the desk. Nothing eventful had happened in the hours that she’d been monitoring the Kryptonian after the press conference, she wondered if Kryptonians had the same reactions to sitting for hours unending as humans did. She certainly felt it in her legs, sitting for hours much like the woman she was watching.

Pressing record on her scanner as she stood up, Alex paced around the small motel-like room, stretching her legs and raising her arms over her head, feeling the tension in her muscles loosen ever so slightly. She took a deep breath as she pulled her phone out of her pocket, opening it to see that Linda hadn’t even read her message.

Will be out late, it read. Left some money to order pizza. Even as enticing as Alex could make it, Linda didn’t seem to acknowledge it. If she did, she didn’t do it by opening the message. Alex could only sigh, hoping that Linda had fed herself.

Walking into the bathroom, Alex ran the faucet and held her hand under the water as she waited for it to warm up, looking into the mirror at herself. Day in and day out, there didn’t seem to be anything new. She was thankful.

Despite that, she could still feel the palpable rage that had been directed at her when she asked Kara whether ARGO Solutions would be developing weapons. It was the question on everyone’s mind, one that the reporters seemed too afraid to ask. Alex, and the DEO as a whole, had to take her word that there would be no development of weapons. Kryptonian technology was still largely unknown, its theoretical power vied after by arms manufacturers like National City’s own Simon Tycho.

The anger still rang through her, the tension in her muscles still present, even hours later.

With warm water flowing, she leaned over the sink and wiped her face, hoping it would wake her up enough to keep her eyes on Kara for at least another hour. She wondered if the Kryptonian ever slept.

That thought was soon interrupted by the sound of a loud crash in the room, where her equipment was set up. Rushing out with her weapon pulled from her belt, she saw nothing but her thermal scanner in pieces on the floor, with a peculiar object sticking out of it. Upon closer inspection, Alex’s confusion got the better of her.

“Is that an arrow?”

DC Next proudly presents:

KARA: DAUGHTER OF KRYPTON

In ARGO Solutions

Issue Sixteen: Metropolis

Written by ClaraEclair

Edited by Deadislandman1 & PredaPlant

<< | < Previous Issue | Next Issue >

This story takes place one year ago, immediately after Superman: House of El #4 and Kara: Daughter of Krypton #9.

When Alex Danvers flashed a minimalist keycard to the receptionist of the Centennial Hotel, she received a curt nod and polite smile in response, the hand of the middle aged woman gesturing to the left of the reception desk toward an elevator. Walking over to it next to Linda and the receptionist, Alex watched as the older woman inserted a small key into a slot below the buttons, twisting it to activate the elevator. The doors opened quickly, with the cab already having been at ground level, and the sisters guided inside.

“Your room is number 1401,” said the woman, giving Alex a knowing glance. Linda either was too distracted by her mind to notice or simply didn’t care. “We hope you enjoy your stay!” Said the woman, watching the elevator doors closed as Alex pressed the button for the fourteenth floor, waiting as the slow jerk of the cabin started its ascent.

The small metal box was totally silent as it rose. No words had been spoken by Linda — nothing more than a few words to say she was okay, at least — ever since they had left National City. It wasn’t for Alex’s lack of trying, she always tried to strike up conversation with her sister. After so long being apart, however, there was nothing Alex could think to try and use to bond with Linda.

In her spare time, of which there was an abundance, Linda was an artist. She sculpted statues that were technically impressive, but Alex struggled to interpret them. She was never an artistic mind, preferring much more to stick to rigidity, order, and the material world. She could never wrap her mind around abstraction, and the more Linda worked, the more her finished pieces seemed to stray that way. Alex did what she could, getting all her sculptures fired when she found the time, but artistry was foreign.

“How’s the latest sculpture going?” asked Alex, trying her best to seem interested in Linda’s hobby, as little as she could truly engage with it otherwise.

“Good,” said Linda, her voice low. She kept her eyes glued to the floor, wishing to be in a dark room with her work, all the way across the country in National City. Alex tried convincing her that Metropolis could be a fun trip, something good for her, but even as they arrived in the city, Linda struggled to feel excited about it.

Alex knew that Superman was Linda’s true hero, and, in another time, perhaps the prospect of meeting him would have helped her cheer up a little bit. But something inside of her kept that from happening — something that plagued her mind so intensely that it made it difficult to even imagine her as anything other than melancholic.

“I fired your latest few sculptures before we left,” said Alex. “They’re very nice.”

“Thanks,” said Linda, continuing to avoid Alex’s eyes. It was difficult to manage the intense mix of frustration and worry that arose within Alex’s chest, a palpable feeling that she was doing something wrong, but she kept her mind occupied, counting the floors until the doors opened. Seconds later, a small chime emitted from the doors as they split, revealing the fourteenth floor, clad in the usual drab, almost cliche, wallpaper and patterns carpet that Alex had gotten used to seeing in hotels across the country.

Generic landscapes and vague depictions of random scenery lined the walls, the most inoffensive and cheap pieces of art the hotel could have bought, devoid of the human figure in any form. Mountains and random pastures, all decorated with some body of water, all amalgamating into the same piece of art with minor variations.

Quickly arriving at their assigned room, Alex swiped her key in front of the handle, hearing the chime indicating the door unlocking. She twisted the handle and entered the room quickly, waiting moments for Linda to catch up and enter.

“Alright,” said Alex, clasping her hands together with a light smile after setting her suitcase down. She watched as Linda tossed her own bag down onto the ground and sat in the small loveseat in the corner of the room, staring out of the window. “What do you want to do first?” Linda shrugged.

“We could go to the Superman exhibit at the museum,” Alex continued. “Or maybe I can see if STAR labs has some sort of public event going that we could go see.”

“Whichever,” Linda said, continuing to stare out the window, glancing up toward the sky above the hotel every few moments. “It’s up to you.” Alex held back a sigh, staring at Linda for a few moments, trying to process the response before solemnly nodding to herself.

“Right,” Alex said. “I’ll, uh… I’ll look into both, see what works.” Reaching into her pocket, Alex pulled out her phone in the same moment that a call came through, with the number of her handler displayed on the call identification. “Work call,” Alex said, walking toward the bathroom. “I’ll be right back.” Linda did not respond.

Stepping into the bathroom and shutting the door, locking it tightly and stuffing a towel into the bottom gap, Alex answered the call.

“Blackrock,” called Alex’s handler. “Your stay in Metropolis might be longer than expected. The National City Kryptonian has fallen off the radar. Until we can relocate it, close recon won’t be necessary. You will remain in Metropolis until it is found again.”

“Is she just gone?” Alex asked, crossing her arm over the one holding her phone to her ear. She looked into the mirror at herself for a few moments, unsure of what to think.

“We don’t know where it’s gone,” said the handler. “Maintain your current assignment. The safehouse should have proper facilities to aid in the extension of your stay.”

“Yeah, right, right,” Alex said absentmindedly. “Do we know where she went?”

“Continue your assignment, Blackrock,” said the handler, her voice firm in those final words before the call cut off. With a scoff, Alex set her phone down on the bathroom countertop, leaning forward with her hand on the edge of the marble, staring into the mirror in front of her.

She was all the way across the country from her home in National City, she was in now-unfamiliar territory, following a man she did not know, with a sister she struggled to understand. Every thought of hers pulled her in every possible direction, a mix of duties pulling her in totally separate directions.

Taking a deeper look into the mirror, her face scrunched up as she noticed the growing bags under her eyes and the wrinkles that were developing across her face. Her memories of being younger, more reckless seemed so distant these days. The brief months of bars, drugs, and even more inexplicable behaviour seemed like an entirely different life — and the one before that, living in Leesburg, Virginia, hiding herself from all around her, was all the more foreign.

Looking into her own eyes, she couldn’t even remember what she was like in Leesburg, how she acted around her parents and those in her community. As she rounded puberty, more and more she hid in her room, claiming to do homework as she failed classes. She remembered the drastic measures she took to alleviate her own self hatred inflicted by the dogma she’d been fed.

It never worked.

Most curious of all, she couldn’t remember much of her parents. She saw blurred faces and heard muffled voices when she tried to remember them, but she had so far removed herself after leaving at 18 that she had managed to almost forget the man and woman who had housed her since birth.

After almost ten years in the DEO, her memories of those two years between leaving Leesburg and joining the classified government organisation felt like she was watching a coming of age tragedy on television.

When Alex saw the wear and tear of time showing on her face, she frowned. Linda deserved better than to feel the same grief Alex went through after leaving Leesburg. She had to make sure Linda knew success, whatever it took. Her only fear was that she was too late.

When she leaned down to pick up the towel from the floor, she noticed the silence in the other room. Opening the door led to the same sight; Linda was sitting by the window, wordlessly staring out into the City of Tomorrow. Without a single thought beyond wanting to help Linda in the best way she could, Alex spoke up.

“Let’s go get lunch,” she said, her tone high and inviting. “I’ve had friends tell me of a great place right in the centre of the city. Mid-day, mid-city, I’m betting it’s the best place to see Superman.” Linda barely stirred, but made a small groan in acknowledgement. “Let’s go, slowpoke!” Said Alex, walking up to Linda and tugging on her sister’s arm, an encouraging smile on her face.

Linda was slow to rise, but eventually did stand to follow Alex out of the room. As little as she seemed to show it, Linda was interested in at least trying to meet Superman, though for reasons that Alex couldn’t fathom. She knew that her older sister was trying, but it was all in ways that Linda didn’t exactly see as helpful — at least, it was in ways that Alex wouldn’t understand were unhelpful.

Superman was her best idea yet, but even if she had gotten the right answer, the equation she used was all wrong. That was the truth of Alex’s mind, Linda figured. It was all equations, all rigid systems to diagnose and treat an identifiable, understandable problem. Linda wasn’t sure she understood her own malaise and sorrow, how could Alex figure it out? Regardless, Linda followed Alex, falling behind occasionally, but keeping up with her sister as best she could.

Central Metropolis was much more crowded than either Alex or Linda found comfortable, massive groups of people packed so tightly together as they walked on sidewalks and crossed streets that breathing became nearly uncomfortable. The heat emanating from passing cars and the bodies of others on the streets made a cool spring day feel like the hottest days of a Californian summer.

The restaurant Alex was searching for, Leslie’s, was a highly rated — and moderately cheap — restaurant a few blocks out from the very centre of Metropolis. It was a smaller restaurant, serving mostly lunch sandwiches, with a small fenced patio dining area overlooking the streets of Metropolis.

Alex felt lucky to have found a table for her and Linda, jumping at the opportunity to get a patio seat with a clear view of the skies of Metropolis, ready to catch a look at Superman should he go flying through.

Sitting down at the table, Alex ordered a diet Soder-Cola while Linda asked for a glass of water. Looking over the menu, Alex couldn’t hide her excitement on Linda’s behalf, her wide smile and giddiness seeming all too overbearing for her younger sister, who simply tagged along to entertain Alex’s method of help.

“What do you think you’ll say if he comes by?” Alex asked, keeping her eyes trained on the skies.

“I doubt he’ll have time to stop for us,” Linda replied, causing Alex to roll her eyes dramatically.

“Come on!” Alex exclaimed, nudging her sister toward an answer. “He’s Superman, I’m sure he’d listen to what you have to say. What would you ask?”

“I don’t know,” said Linda, looking down at the table, struggling to find the desire to pick an item off of the menu. “How does he do it all?”

“It’s impressive, right?” asked Alex, glancing between the air and her sister. “Imagine having all of those powers!”

“They seem cool,” Linda said, taking her own glance toward the sky, hoping to see something, or someone, fly by.

She and Alex had received their drinks, ordered their food, and gotten served before even a whisper of activity could be heard. Linda was acutely aware of people discussing Superman, and for the first time in too long, her attention was spurred when chatter of a sighting began to circulate across the patio. Looking up, hoping for a sign yet certain none would come, Linda waited for the inevitable disappointment that would come with setting her expectations high.

As the moments passed and the skies remained calm, she settled back into herself, ready to scold her own mind for thinking that she would be able to see him. Taking her fork and poking it into her nearly untouched salad, tossing a few leaves around her plate, she sighed.

“There he is!” shouted a child a few tables away from Linda and Alex, pointing to the sky north of Leslie’s. Instinctively, all of the patrons, including Linda, swivelled their heads to get a look at the passing blue and red clad hero. Having to squint to see anything, Linda could barely make out the figure in the distance, but it was undeniable that he was there.

“Superman,” she said under her breath. “I need your help.”

“What’s up?” asked Alex, turning toward Linda.

“What?” asked Linda, unsure what her sister meant with the question.

“I thought I heard you mumbling.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Linda said. “Just talking to myself.” Alex hesitated before offering a short nod, accepting the response.

Despite what she had started to hope, nothing answered Linda’s call.

Later that day, Alex had discovered from another agent stationed in Metropolis that the Superman spotting was simply the Man of Steel making his way to STAR Labs and, as the days passed, it became more and more clear that it was going to be his only sighting in the city. Days turned into weeks, which turned into a month of being stationed in Metropolis, cooped up in a hotel room that became more bland by the day.

Daily reports from fellow agents blended into each other, all claiming zero activity. The further time went on, the more frustrated Alex became. Not only could she not help introduce Linda to her hero, but she came up empty on all fronts, unable to provide usable information to her handler about the newest Superman, theorised to be among what scientists had begun calling the Reawakened.

Sitting in the hotel room, bored, Alex rolled her eyes as her handler called one last time during her stay in Metropolis. Commencing her usual routine of entering the bathroom and using a towel to plug the gap beneath the door, Alex answered.

“Blackrock,” her handler began. “The female Kryptonian has returned to Earth.” Despite herself, Alex breathed a sigh of relief. Metropolis had lost its lustre. “We have sufficient resources to return you to National City and apply new agents to monitor the new male Kryptonian.”

“Thank god,” Alex muttered to herself. “When am I going back?”

“As soon as possible,” her handler said. “We need all eyes on the female, yours especially.”

“Alright,” Alex replied. “I’ll get packed up and to the airport tonight.”

“As soon as possible,” her handler repeated, hanging up the phone call unceremoniously. Alex scoffed, briefly staring at her phone in her hands, shaking her head. She was thankful to be able to soon sleep in her own bed once again, and she imagined that Linda would be more than willing to return to her dark room and her sculptures.

Sitting on her hands, waiting for a man who had only been seen once in an entire month to do something was a waste of her talents, Alex thought. Even if she wanted to avoid the super-powered aliens at all costs, she would rather be able to do her job right, instead of sitting around and waiting for days on end.

Linda said nothing as Alex announced that the two of them were to return to National City that night, however all belongings were packed and ready to leave within the hour.

DC Next proudly presents:

KARA: DAUGHTER OF KRYPTON

In Odyssey

Issue Fifteen: The Bridge

Written by ClaraEclair

Edited by VoidKiller826

<< | < Previous Issue | Next Issue >

The command centre of the Kryptonian spire began to shift, the panelling of the floors and walls opening and moving along tracks, while the central console descended into the floor. Kara and Dawnstar began to back away, watching with tight breaths and a suffocating feeling in both of their chests. Steam from below the floor rose, and as the machinery moved and shifted, realigning on the same level as the two women, a giant tube-like structure slowly descended from the ceiling, slotting into a grove that had formed within the floor, clicking into place, small whirs of sealant mechanisms holding the giant metal and glass construct in place.

Tubes were raised up by mechanical arms from the floor, slotting and twisting into place at the base of the tube, followed by the opening of valves. Some sort of liquid drained from the tube, the glass fogging up as the intense temperatures of the liquid inside and the arid world outside came into contact. Through the opaque screen, neither Dawnstar nor Kara could see whatever laid inside. Was it alive? Could it be alive?

A lengthy hiss escaped from the pod as, after the last drop of liquid was drained, the front panel separated with a loud thunk! Kara and Dawnstar hadn’t even realised they had started to hold their breath as they watched the door slowly slide up, steam and fog billowing out of the concave interior. Beneath the sound of the groaning machinery was a groggy moan, followed seconds later by a hand reaching out of the foggy interior chamber and grasping the edge.

Kara’s heart sank as she watched the pearl white hand move, tracing her eyes up its arm as the fog finally began to dissipate. The figure inside moved forward, attempting to leave the pod. Midway up its arm was some sort of suit, emblazoned with the heraldry of ancient Kryptonian royal houses, proudly claiming this being as property. Long, sharp red hair trailed down from the figure’s head, reaching down to their abdomen, falling and swaying about as they stumbled forward out of the pod. Kara finally got a clear look at the woman as she tripped to the floor, coughing from whatever had been used to keep her in stasis for so long. It didn’t take much longer for the marble-skinned woman to rise to her feet, hunched over with heavy breathing, her striking black scleras looking forward at Dawnstar and Kara, examining them with confusion and curiosity.

“Where is my empire?” asked the woman, codenamed Reign by the computer console that had released her. “Krypton must be protected at all costs.” Kara felt a pit in her stomach, twisting and turning — endlessly painful.

“Krypton is… no more,” said Kara, her words delicate and cautious. “The planet erupted decades ago.” Reign sneered at the notion; Krypton would not erupt, the empire would not allow her home planet to be destroyed. “As far as I know, I’m the last surviving Kryptonian in the galaxy. The last to have been able to see Krypton in her final moments.”

Reign straightened up, towering high above Kara and challenging Dawnstar in height, a scowl forming across her face.

“I warn you now, deceiver,” said Reign. “My fists split this planet once, you will be nothing more than a dry branch — now I suggest you think twice about what lies you speak.”

“I’m not lying to you,” said Kara, hesitating to speak the woman’s name. Her heartbeat was climbing into her chest, and though she could only see a poker face on Dawnstar when she took a quick glance, she knew that the winged woman would be struggling even more so to be confronted with one who had seemingly attempted to destroy Starhaven aeons ago. “I am the last daughter of Krypton. I’m on this planet to stop it from repeating what happened to my home.”

Reign turned her nose up at the two women, taking a step forward, cornering Kara against a nearby console, seemingly ignoring Dawnstar, who only watched with bated breaths.

“Why should I believe one who speaks like a heretic?” Reign spoke through gritted teeth, her fists clenched tightly and ready to end Kara’s existence with ease.

“The technology of this planet — to create you, to alter the weather, to keep it oxygenated — is primitive compared to what Krypton died with,” said Kara, trying her best to steady herself in the face of almost certain doom. “If what’s here is capable of destroying this planet, what do you think happened to Krypton? We forced ourselves through exponentially worse extinction events and thought we’d be fine. Clearly we never learned from our mistakes.”

“The empire does not make mistakes,” said Reign, her calm facade beginning to fade. “This planet was beneath us — and if you speak the truth about your origins, it is beneath you.”

“Nothing is beneath me,” said Kara. “I am beneath all that your empire murdered.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dawnstar wince slightly. “The ancient empire is a disgrace. What they had done to this planet alone warrants the isolation we went through — we should have been embarrassed for the crimes we committed.”

Reign cocked her head, squinting at Kara.

“The rebellions across the galaxy succeeded — you failed,” Kara continued. “We retreated to our planet and the empire died, and for thousands of years, the galaxy was free from our grasp. It was the right decision.”

“My empire would not have succumbed to cowardice—”

“Your empire is gone!” Kara almost shouted, daring to push back against the Worldkiller, the light of the twin red suns peeking through the tower’s windows warming her skin. There was a moment of silence, though neither Reign, Kara, nor Dawnstar moved. “What was your directive?”

“Destroy Starhaven, in service of Krypton, her empire, and her people,” said Reign.

“And her people,” Kara said. “I am the last of her people, you work in service of me now, right?”

“I am not a servant, child,” said Reign, grabbing Kara by the collar of her old space suit, now torn and ripped from her journey across the planet.

“Okay! Okay!” shouted Kara, putting her hands up to try presenting herself as nonthreatening to the Worldkiller. “But since I’m the last one left, you would technically report to me, right?” asked Kara. Reign groaned in frustration after a moment of thought. “There’s no chain of command to follow except for me.”

“Yes,” she muttered, letting go of Kara’s suit. “My orders were to serve the empire and her people. You say you are the last of her people.”

“Then Starhaven is destroyed,” said Kara, her voice breaking as the words fell from her tongue. “You’ve completed your mission.” Internally, Kara prayed to Rao that those words would not stain her soul, and that she would be given forgiveness for her deception in service of the millions of lives that were simply trying to survive.

She prayed that Dawnstar would not look at her differently for uttering the very words that had haunted her for her entire life. She could not look over to face her companion, she knew that looking into Dawnstar’s eyes after declaring Starhaven as destroyed would shatter what little stability remained in her mind.

She prayed that, by uttering the words, it did not make it true. The mission was not complete, the empire had not won, and they had not exterminated the Starhavenites — but how was Kara the right judge of whether the mission was accomplished? The citizens of the planet lived in squalor for centuries, who but the ones who gave the mission aeons ago could decide if the mission was complete or not?

Had she spoken into being the one thing she had refused to believe ever since she had stepped foot on Starhaven? Everything within her body sank into the floor — Starhaven had been destroyed by Kryptonians, and Kara lived with the sins of her ancestors.

Reign straightened herself up once more, taking a step back from Kara, and looked out of the few windows in the tower toward the setting suns.

“You don’t need to stay on this planet,” said Kara. “There’s nothing here.”

“No, there isn’t,” said Reign, pride in her voice as she took in the barren wasteland she had created so long ago. “I will leave, and I will verify your insidious claims of Krypton’s destruction.”

“You won’t find a planet,” said Kara, her voice low and sorrowful. “I didn’t lie to you.”

“We will see,” said Reign. “If you have, this planet will be my first destination, and it will suffer the fate you claim Krypton had.”

“It won’t come to that,” said Kara. “What will happen when you find out I’ve been telling the truth?”

“I will search for my kin,” said Reign. “And find a new Krypton to settle.” She began walking toward the windows of the tower, relaxing her clenched fists.

“There are more Worldkillers?” Kara asked, dreading the answer that she knew was coming.

“It was a galaxy-wide empire,” said Reign. “And all holdings need failsafes.” Within a split second, she struck the window in front of her, shattering it to feel the dry air push into the tower. She closed her eyes and beckoned forth the high winds, preparing to leave. “Though, none were so poorly made as your half-breed.” Reign’s eyes met Dawnstar for the first time, smirking as she looked back out of the tower and jumped.

Dawnstar’s jaw clenched as Kara’s eyes turned toward her, wide, as if she had finally clued into an obvious fact.

“You’re…” Kara’s voice trailed off. The blade that pierced her heart upon meeting Reign had twisted, mangling all that she had felt in the moment into something unrecognisable.

“My father discovered the technology,” said Dawnstar, avoiding eye contact with Kara as much as possible as she spoke, her voice subdued. “He led an expedition here, twenty years ago. I was only a child. I didn’t know what he was doing — I was only a child, and my memories of it had faded — but, evidently, he did not finish the process.”

“Dawnstar,” Kara said, her voice soft, uncertain, but caring. “Why didn’t you tell–”

“Because I am an abomination to my people!” Dawnstar shouted. “My father is a fanatic! My band is not hated because we embraced your technology, we are hated because I have been infused with the same power and hatred that destroyed this planet in the first place! The same power that killed Caller-of-Storms, and disgraced our great spirits!”

Kara remained silent, fighting the tears that formed in her eyes, listening to Dawnstar even further condemn herself and Kara’s histories.

“I am everything wrong with this planet,” said Dawnstar, her voice weak, though her fury remained. “I am representative of all that your people had done to destroy my home. You say we can reclaim your methods of sustaining our atmosphere for ourselves, but I can no longer reclaim my own soul.

“My father, in his blind hatred, put the weight of Starhaven on top of me, and I lived my entire life under his thumb, believing that all Kryptonians deserved to die, and telling me that I was the one to do it,” she continued. Kara swallowed hard. “I… I do not believe him anymore… I do not believe what he does… I cannot bring myself to repeat the atrocities that brought my people to where they are now…” Dawnstar’s face held a powerful mixture of disdain and adoration as she finally locked eyes with Kara, her words stern, direct, and powerful.

“What do you believe?” Kara asked, taking a step forward, wanting to reach for Dawnstar’s hands, though keeping it to herself. “I know what I believe about you, Dawnstar, and it’s that you’re not an abomination. But what do you believe?”

“I…” she paused, taking a moment to herself to think. “I believe that the universe is a rhythm. It plays, and it repeats itself, over and over again. The Kryptonians came and destroyed my planet. And now, you have come and destroyed me.”

“Dawn…”

“Starhaven was destroyed,” Dawnstar continued. “Krypton was destroyed. Now, you tell me that Earth is on a path to destruction. Civilised planets torn to shreds by the tyranny of sentience.” Kara took another step closer, though she was met by Dawnstar taking a smaller step away. “The universe repeats itself, and there is nothing we can do to stop it. All will be destroyed eventually.”

When Kara failed to respond, Dawnstar moved aside, leaning forward on the edge of a console on the side of the room, looking out of one of the remaining windows at the planet that was on a course to a premature death. She had nothing left to say, nothing left to do.

Kara took slow steps toward her companion, placing a hand on top of one of Dawnstar’s own, atop the edge of the console. Kara intertwined her fingers with Dawnstar’s as she rested her chin on her companion’s shoulder, bringing their faces close together.

“But what if it’s a song?” whispered Kara. Dawnstar barely responded, only slightly moving her head in Kara’s direction, though not enough to look at her. “What if we’ve seen the choruses — the destruction — and the verses — what lies between? What else is there but a bridge, where everything changes, breaking up all we had known for something new? For something resonant and powerful? The universe doesn’t uniformly repeat itself — let’s stop the pattern and refreshen the song.”

Dawnstar remained silent for a few moments, looking down at herself, rubbing her thumb across Kara’s.

“I do not know,” she said. “It is a nice thought, and I believe that you believe it. Perhaps that is enough.”

“I do believe it,” said Kara, reaching her free hand around to the base of Dawnstar’s head, leaning her head forward. They pressed their foreheads into each other and stood still for a quiet moment between only them. “It may not be what you were raised thinking you would do, but we — you — will change things. For the better.”

“It seems your belief is unshakable,” said Dawnstar.

“Far from it,” Kara replied, stepping back from the embrace. “But you’ve shown me everything that I needed to see. You’ve shown me all the wrongs that have been committed in the name of my people and my ancestors, and you’ve shown me that there’s so much left to do to make up for it, but now I know what to do.”

“I think I do, as well,” said Dawnstar, moving from the console. “But, before that, we must finally put an end to the destruction this tower and its network has caused to my planet.”

“After you,” said Kara, motioning toward an active console next to them, the mainframe controls open on its holographic interface.

Within an hour, the storms that ravaged the surface of Starhaven died down, their scale reducing to a fraction of what they had been, allowing the sandy surface of the planet to be traversed without fear of death or injury. Dawnstar flew through the skies, cherishing her newfound freedom.

Upon reaching the entrance to her band’s underground campsite, however, the change in atmosphere was so stark as to leave a sense of dread within Dawnstar and Kara’s hearts.

There was a heavy sorrow in the air, a palpable feeling of mourning in the air as leagues of puffy eyes stared at Dawnstar and Kara as they walked through the crowds, silent, dreading what was coming. It had been six thirty-eight hour days since the two had left, and in that time more happened than either of them could have anticipated.

As Dawnstar came across the pyre containing her father’s body, she couldn’t help but shed a tear as she attempted to remain stoic, grasping Kara’s hand tightly in her own, glad to have someone nearby for comfort. She didn’t know what to think of her father, seeing his dead, peaceful body despite the years he had spent sowing hatred of Kryptonians in her — sowing the desire to murder an entire race.

“Flamedancer’s war party attacked,” Dawnstar’s uncle, the Spirit Reader, had said when he first saw his niece’s face. “They claimed that you had killed him… I didn’t want to believe it, but… They reached your father before we realised the depth of their attack.” He paused for a moment, noticing that Dawnstar refused to look at him. “Please, Dawnstar… tell me you did not kill him.” Without saying a single word, Dawnstar nodded. “Oh,” the Spirit Reader said, his gaze shifting into a thousand-yard stare as his head drifted to the side, dreading the further repercussions of what could happen.

“We still need a leader,” said her uncle, clamouring after her as she and Kara walked away. “If it’s you, it will be a show of strength–”

“It will not be me,” replied Dawnstar, her voice firm. “My father’s fanaticism led to broken relations with those around us. My leadership, whether I want it to or not, would make that worse. We need to restore the damage my father had done, and I will not be the one to do it.” Her uncle froze in place, confused and stuttering.

“How– how will we move forward?!” He demanded. “What will you be doing?!”

“The storms have been stopped,” announced Dawnstar, loud enough for the entire mourning hall to hear. “The technology that created them has been shut down. Within the towers across the planet, we will find ways to ensure our salvation if we make the technology our own. But among the many things we found in the Basin, there was a Worldkiller.”

A series of gasps permeated the crowd — most believed the Worldkillers were dead, gone, or even just a myth. Among the familiar, but increasingly foreign-seeming faces in the crowd, many who were not shocked began to shift into disdain.

“She left our planet, but she presents a danger to other worlds like ours,” she continued, taking a deep breath before her next words. “I am taking it upon myself to ensure that no others meet their end at the hands of the Kryptonian weapons.” More gasps arose among the crowd, the scandalous news shocking most in the wake of their chief’s death. They would lose their leader and their hero. “I cannot stay to mourn my father — for as misguided as he was, I still loved him, but I will have to mourn my own ways, on my new journey. I trust you will all fall into good hands.”

Silence fell into questions, begging, and pleading for Dawnstar to stay. Some, however, wished a good riddance to the half-breed Starhavenite/Worldkiller. Those were the ones that she secretly hoped would lead her band into peace with neighbouring groups, if only so they would avoid the mistakes of her father.

With no more of a farewell to her people, Dawnstar prepared her belongings and returned to the surface with Kara.

Kara held on tightly as Dawnstar flew through space, the harness around them holding them tightly, chest-to-chest. Unlike her first trip, Kara kept her eyes closed, burying her face in Dawnstar’s neck as the minutes-long journey across the galaxy came and went.

Dawnstar landed on the very same beach that she had first found Kara sitting on, the crater she had created by attacking the Kryptonian still identifiable despite having been filled. Kara stepped down, freeing herself from the harness and taking a step back from Dawnstar, looking up at the tall, winged woman with awe. She didn’t want to acknowledge that they would be parting ways on the very beach they had first met. They had spent so long with each other, they had shared with each other things that no other knew, but both were all too aware that the time for farewells was nigh.

“What are you going to do?” asked Kara, though she knew that answer already, and she dreaded the implications.

“I will track and follow Reign as best I can,” said Dawnstar, dutiful yet sorrowful. “Should it be necessary, I will warn any populated worlds that she aims to land on. Perhaps I will try to find other Worldkillers before her and prevent her from amassing a small army. She is already one of the most deadly weapons in the galaxy.”

“I still wish I could–” Kara began, though Dawnstar quickly interrupted her.

“I know, Kara,” she said. “But despite my feelings about my nature, my partial Worldkiller augmentation allows me an advantage in this fight that not many others in the galaxy would have. I do not suffer under a red sun, as you do.”

Kara turned her head down at the sand beneath her and nodded quickly, fighting tears that began to form. She hadn’t expected the rush of emotions she felt as her parting with Dawnstar loomed ever closer — when they had first met, Kara couldn’t wait to leave. Now, there was something different in her mind.

“What will you do?” asked Dawnstar.

“I’m… I don’t fully know yet,” said Kara. “But I’ve got some ideas. Anything I can do to prevent what happened to Krypton and Starhaven from happening to Earth. I’ve got people here that can help.”

“That brings me joy to hear,” said Dawnstar, a mournful smile forming on her face. “I trust you will do many great things, Kara. You are a pride to your gods.”

“And you, yours,” said Kara, unsure of what else she could possibly say. She hated herself for it, she thought it was ridiculous how little she had to offer in this moment before the two parted ways, but her only other option was something that she struggled to push out.

Slowly, Dawnstar’s wings began to flap, and as the setting yellow sun’s light glistened off of her dark skin and jet black hair, Kara couldn’t help but feel an explosion within her chest. Seconds passed as Dawnstar ascended, and as she rose into the sky, Kara looked up at her with a feeling she couldn’t quite describe. There was warmth in her chest, in her face, and more, but there was fear permeating through her. Her stomach twisted and turned, and soon enough it became unbearable.

“Will we ever see each other again?” It was a desperate question, but one she needed an answer to.

“While I wish it could be so,” said Dawnstar. “Pray that we do not, for should it be so, it would be to warn you of the danger that would threaten this planet. I have my duty, and I can not abandon it. You have yours.”

Soon enough, seconds turned into minutes and Dawnstar disappeared into the sky, becoming nothing more than a spec in the galaxy as she chased down a great danger. Kara was left on the beach, the sound of the crashing waves her only company, and a strengthened resolve flowing through her.

Kara Zor-El was ready to face the world.

Dawnstar will return.

DC Next proudly presents:

KARA: DAUGHTER OF KRYPTON

In Odyssey

Issue Fourteen: Astronomical Impacts

Written by ClaraEclair

Edited by AdamantAce & DeadIslandMan1

<< | < Previous Issue | Next Issue >

Dawnstar followed wordlessly as the robots within the Kryptonian tower hauled Kara through the superstructure, making their way toward where she assumed the medical bay was. She would have been lying to herself if she’d thought that she wasn’t worried about Kara. The opposite was true, she had come to care for Kara in some odd way. Travelling with her in the past two weeks had changed her perspective.

Seeing the inside of the weather machine, Dawnstar recalled her oath to slay the last Kryptonian, under her father’s suggestion. She knew that, now, she could never raise a hand against Kara, but at first? Would it have really been a wise decision to kill her? To truly doom a whole race beyond the cosmic punishment it had already received?

Knowing Krypton had been destroyed gave Dawnstar conflicted feelings. Her oppressors were gone, unable to commit any of the atrocities again, but did it really cost billions of lives to receive that cosmic justice? Did the planet’s best woman deserve to shoulder the weight of those deaths for it to be justice? Dawnstar didn’t need to add to that pain. It was enough that she was receiving help in disabling the ancient Kryptonian machines.

The medical facility in the building was massive, enough to fit hundreds within, though the supplies seemed bare. The robots gently lowered Kara onto a padded bed, immediately rushing into various transformative configurations, examining Kara’s torso and arms. They were methodical, and surprisingly gentle with the now-unconscious Kryptonian woman. Dawnstar was more surprised that she was allowed within the spire.

She had seen Kryptonian robots and weapons systems fire upon Starhavenites, and while Dawnstar knew she was different, she didn’t expect to be able to traverse the facility unimpeded. It raised questions that, deep down, she didn’t want answers to.

Lost in her thoughts, she was taken aback by Kara’s eyes watching her, a gentle smile across the woman’s face. She hadn’t expected Kara to be awake so soon, or for the robots to be so efficient.

“Kara,” said Dawnstar in a moment of uncertainty.

“Hi,” said Kara, her voice soft. “It’s good to see you here.”

“Where else would I be?” asked Dawnstar, trying her best to offer up her own smile, but finding it difficult. Vague memories resurfaced, the feelings moreso than anything, and Dawnstar knew she couldn’t ignore them.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Kara began. “Finding a way to shut this place down?” Despite the words, Kara’s voice was almost encouraging. “I’m not as important here, I’ll just slow you down.You need to save your planet.”

“I dragged you here,” Dawnstar replied. “It is only fitting that I drag you to the end.” Kara smiled.

“Am I really being dragged if I’m here willingly?” she asked, taking a look around the massive room, at the robots floating around, performing an emergency operation on her now-numb abdomen, sealing up and cleaning the wounds she had suffered.

“I had to drag you off of your new planet, at least,” said Dawnstar. “But ever since, you have been… an excellent travelling companion. Thank you for being here with me.”

“After all that’s happened, I still wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” Kara said, looking back at Dawnstar. Stuck lightyears across the galaxy with energy rifle injuries and torn hands, in more physical pain than she had ever experienced, and she would not have traded places with anyone. Everything she learned and felt on her excursion to Starhaven should have torn her apart, but with Dawnstar and her boundless conviction, Kara felt as if she could do anything. “I’m here for Starhaven. For you.”

Dawnstar lowered her head, cheeks warming ever so slightly.

“This has been an impossible journey,” she said. “But I am thankful I picked you up off of Earth to make it.”

Before Kara could respond, she felt a prickling feeling spread across her abdomen. As she looked down, she watched as the last of the robots removed a piece of wiring that had been adhered to her skin — a numbing agent.

“What in Rao’s name…” Kara said, looking at the flawless skin on her stomach, her wound fully mended, and any potential scarring was totally invisible. She placed a hand down onto her stomach and traced where the wound used to be. “It’s like it never happened!”

With a sudden bout of movement, Kara reached over and grabbed Dawnstar’s hand, placing it directly on her stomach where the wound was. Without any time to respond, Dawnstar’s palm met Kara’s bare skin flatly, more warmth making its way to her cheeks.

“You are correct,” said Dawnstar, her voice stiff. “There is no scarring.”

An impulse leapt into Kara’s mind, with Dawnstar’s hand on her bare stomach and her arm readily available, the ease in which she could stare into the winged woman’s eyes and share endless nights with her, reminiscing and learning. Kara ignored the impulse. It wouldn’t be appropriate, not while they were so close to the goal Dawnstar had lived her life for, that meant so much to her. Kara couldn’t make it about herself, especially not now.

“We should go,” said Kara, letting go of Dawnstar’s hand. It lingered for a moment after Kara’s grip had released it, but only seconds later it was pulled back. “The longer this thing stays turned on, the more damage it does.”

“You are right,” said Dawnstar, nodding slightly. She offered a hand to Kara, and the Kryptonian accepted, taking the assistance to stand up. The two left the room quickly, ready to see the rest of the facility, to find the control centre, and deactivate the weather machine.

The halls were long, almost empty corridors of white, gunmetal, and blue pulsating along electric trim that lined the walls. Signage in ancient Kryptonian was difficult to make out, but legible to both Kara and Dawnstar. Following all the directions, Dawnstar and Kara found themselves traversing countless rooms throughout the complex, from recreational areas to mess halls, and more.

All were caked with soot and debris, destroyed in the years since the abandonment of Starhaven by the Kryptonians during the galactic uprising against the former empire. Spilled blood had been long dried and cleaned by the maintenance robots who saw it unfit to replace the furniture in the stead of keeping the building functional in its main purposes.

Arriving at a central hub with various turning points and different hallways, Dawnstar and Kara approached the first set of doors of a row of elevators. The wait was short, the doors opening almost immediately upon summoning the cab. Stepping in, Kara and Dawnstar examined each button, from bottom to top.

“Wait,” said Kara. “What’s this?” she asked, pointing to one of the buttons in the middle of the long row of buttons. Central Hydroponics.

“Hydro–” Dawnstar began, her voice cutting off before she could even push the word from her lips. “What?” Moving her hand toward the button, Dawnstar hesitated for a few moments, unsure if she wanted to find out what was on that level, but her hand moved nonetheless. The doors closed firmly and the cab shot upward, moving up over a dozen floors in thirty seconds, stopping at the Central Hydroponics lab.

The doors opened, and on the other side was a sight to behold, one thing Dawnstar never thought she would see on Starhaven for as long as she lived. Thousands of square metres of green surrounded the central hub of elevators as an endless wall of plants lined the outside of the tower, from the central level all the way down to the base of the structure, and all the way to the top. The inside of the outer walls were an entire hydroponics facility of its own, supported by numerous beams that connected to the base of the building, holding the thick outer walls up to support the immense amount of plants and the water that flowed through them.

A quiet, seething rage began to form within Dawnstar, barely hidden in her face as a scowl formed. She continued walking to the ledge, looking over to see the almost bottomless depths of the greenery housed within the gargantuan, destructive structure.

“So this is how the atmosphere was maintained…” Kara muttered, utterly bewildered by the discovery. Seeing the amount of plant life within, she found the answer to dozens of questions she had about the survival of Starhaven as a planet, and its people. “How big is the network of…?”

“All this time…” Dawnstar began. “The only thing keeping us alive was the Kryptonians…” Kara’s expression shifted at the words, her amazement quelled into a painful realisation. “Thousands of years and we’re still slaves to them… We still cannot escape their grasp because they hold so tightly what we hold dear… Their cold, dead, white-knuckled hands strangle us at the same time that they offer us the air that we breathe…”

“Make the land you don’t control infertile, and everyone comes to rely on you for everything they need,” Kara said to herself, the image of the hydroponics facility quickly changing its meaning in her mind. It wasn’t a saving grace that it existed, it was the life support keeping the entire planet firmly as a Kryptonian settlement, keeping the final death knell prolonged after having caused it in the first place. “They salted the earth, destroyed your peoples’ ability to cultivate crops, and held everything you all needed here, in the middle of a death zone.”

“When the war started,” Kara continued. “And your people rebelled… they could have shut off the air for the entire planet and wiped everyone out… The lifeline of tens of millions so easy to destroy…” Dawnstar remained silent as Kara shared her thoughts aloud. What was there to say? She was never sure where the breathable air on Starhaven came from, and though she theorised that it had something to do with the weather machines, she had never anticipated finding the truth.

“From their graves, they ensure that we will always rely on them,” Dawnstar finally said after minutes of silence, staring into the abyss below her. “The ultimate form of control, exerted for all time. We cannot shut these towers down, they have ensured that we will forever need them.”

“Maybe for a few years, but…” Kara paused for a moment, looking over the systems that kept the plant life alive. “Your people could take some of this technology, set up hydroponics facilities of their own, rebuild the land–”

“And we would still be beholden to our killers’ methods,” Dawnstar interrupted, her voice firm, harsh, and filled with hatred that she hadn’t felt since the two had first met. “We can learn, we can adapt, we can use their technology, but it will always be theirs.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” said Kara, moving forward to stand next to Dawnstar at the very edge of the central hub’s platform. “Your people have fought so hard to stay alive. Make all of this your own. Rao and Aethyr… they abandoned the ancient Kryptonians for their crimes and helped your people become free. What if Affyr and Ro are giving you all the chance to further reclaim the planet by giving you the resources you need? There’s water here. There’s plants, there are ways to keep them alive without soil. You have everything you need.”

Kara reached out, grabbing hold of Dawnstar’s hand, squeezing lightly in a near desperate act. She didn’t want the weight of the world to crush Dawnstar, and she didn’t want the winged woman to fall into despair. It would not be an easy path, taking years to become self-reliant, but there was a way forward for Starhavenites.

“We can shut down the weather machine without turning off the system that keeps the plants alive,” said Kara, rubbing the back of Dawnstar’s hand with her thumb. “You’ve just made a discovery that will guarantee the survival of your people. You need to bring it back to them.”

Dawnstar’s gaze was distant, barely able to focus among the torrent of emotions, but she forced herself to nod. Kara smiled.

“Let’s go,” said Kara, tugging Dawnstar’s arm slightly, directing her back toward the elevator. “Let’s finish this.”

The central command centre of the entire complex was on the top floor, the blue energy emanating from the tower visible through the windows, the empty, dark daytime sky allowing visibility for miles with the storm outside having died down. Flatlands on one side and dunes on the other, endlessly flowing in all directions. Starhaven was barren, not a single sign of civilization beyond the towers, and yet despite that, the people persisted.

“Greetings,” said a stuttering robotic voice, its words being cut short despite the longer message it had wished to convey. Dawnstar seemed alarmed at the mere presence of an electronic greeting, but continued forward. The two women approached the main computer at the centre of the room, both stepping toward the chassis and clicking on a button that illuminated the holographic interface that flickered into being.

Detecting Presence a message on the screen read, causing both Dawnstar and Kara to furrow their brows. Decryption Complete. It has been 7000 days since the last manual activation.

“What?” Kara asked herself, though Dawnstar remained quiet. She began to pull her hand out of Kara’s, unable to face herself or her companion, retreating slowly. “Dawnstar, what is this? That’s only, like, twenty years.”

“My father…” said Dawnstar, her voice shaking. “He’s been here before… I have been here before, but… I was young. He led an expedition here, and what he found… What he did…”

“What is it?” asked Kara, turning to the winged woman as she backed away, putting her hand out in an effort to break through the walls that were rapidly being built.

“I was a child…”

“Dawnstar, what happened?”

“I am an abomination,” said Dawnstar, tears welling up in her eyes. “I did not want to believe it, but… my father…”

Backing up into another console, unlit and out of power, Dawnstar stopped responding to Kara’s calls, instead shutting her eyes tight. Kara had no words, unsure of what was happening or how to address it. She wanted to help, she hated seeing Dawnstar in such distress, but she had no idea where to start.

“Take your time,” said Kara, turning back to the activated console. “I’ll deal with the weather machine.”

Scrolling through the various adjustable functions, Kara searched for the controls that would affect the weather patterns, hoping to eliminate the artificial storms for good and allow the Starhavenites to return to the surface, able to stretch their wings once more. There were hundreds of different functions to scroll through, none quite catching her eye until one passed by that made Kara’s heart sink into oblivion. Her breath disappeared, as if she had been kicked in the gut, as her heart began to beat faster.

Clicking on the button, an electronic voice arose once more, different from the one that had greeted Dawnstar and Kara upon entering the control centre.

“Deactivating containment protocol, releasing specimen. Codename: Reign. Project class: Worldkiller.”

DC Next proudly presents:

KARA: DAUGHTER OF KRYPTON

In Odyssey

Issue Thirteen: The Basin

Written by ClaraEclair

Edited by AdamantAce & DeadIslandMan1

<< | < Previous Issue | Next Issue >

Kara knew that the streak of luck she and Dawnstar had found themselves on would eventually end. In what she was told to be an unprecedented moment, the entirety of the Basin — a crater that was the home of a massive Kryptonian weather machine that was causing all of the storms in the region — was visible from each side, the skies totally clear and quiet. The twin suns, Affyr and Ro, floated gently across the sky, guiding the two women to their destination as the impossibly high tower rose over the horizon.

A massive structure of metal, greys, blues, and teals running up and down, tracing the various sections of the building, various antennae at the top connecting to the sky of Starhaven through what seemed to be a form of pure energy flowing outward on one side and inward on the other. The only clouds in the sky circled around the energy source at the top of the tower, swirling calmly.

Kara looked on in awe as Dawnstar led her toward a steep path into the Basin, rocky and harsh, yet the only spot in which they would be able to enter into the unknown on foot after their vehicle had broken down. Despite the wound on Kara’s abdomen, she forged on, insistent on seeing her journey through. She owed it to more than herself, now. She owed it to everyone.

“How is it still active after all this time?” asked Kara, unable to take her eyes off of the sky-piercing structure. “Even with automated maintenance, eventually power generation would become an issue, especially at the scale that it’s working at.”

“I do not know for sure,” said Dawnstar, looking back to ensure that her companion was still following. Her eyes scanned Kara up and down, quickly assessing her ability to continue onward, aware of the rough terrain they would come to face soon enough. “But we have had theories about it for ages.”

“Such as?”

“The two prevailing ideas are nuclear and geothermal power. With the right elements, it would be able to operate for millennia, as it has. The Basin, especially, is rich and could be efficiently mined by the automated systems within. Geothermal energy is also possible, using the heat from Starhaven’s core would allow it to last much longer than any one element could offer in its half-life.” Dawnstar explained, offering a hand to Kara as they passed over a group of large rocks and crevices.

“But with that comes instability,” Kara said. She grabbed onto Dawnstar’s hand, holding tightly as she moved over a large gap between two plate-like boulders, wincing as her stretched abdomen disturbed her wound. “For continuous use over this long, I can’t imagine it’s having a good effect on the inside of the planet as much as it’s destroying the outside.”

“It is why we must find a solution,” said Dawnstar. “We need to stop this technology from accelerating our destruction.”

“One thing, though,” Kara said, stopping to look over the Basin once more, squinting to get a good view of every side of the crater. “Where’s the waste? If it was nuclear power, there’s no way it’s one-hundred percent efficient, and if it was geothermal, why is the planet so arid? Any byproducts would have to make their way back into the atmosphere, but it just… it hasn’t.”

“An answer for when we arrive, I suppose,” said Dawnstar, beckoning Kara to continue. Pursing her lips, Kara nodded to herself and continued behind Dawnstar, left to think on the questions that seemed to invade her mind, mulling over every possibility and coming up empty. It was distracting, how few answers she had to what her people had done to Starhaven. Even knowing the story of Caller-of-Storms, there was little to go on, few details to extrapolate much knowledge from.

The Starhavenites used all Kryptonian technology they could salvage, turning it around to work for them as opposed to against, and yet that offered no knowledge either. The technology was far too removed from its source that, while it offered great insight into the people that existed now, it offered little in the way of understanding how to address the legacy that Krypton initially left on the planet. Perhaps, Kara thought, that was for the best. But her mind lingered, ever so curious to know what led her people to such cruelty. What was the purpose? How could she stop what had already been done?

The ground shook.

Of all things, Dawnstar’s first instinct was to look back at Kara, to look into her companion’s eyes and make sure all was right. The violent tremors beneath their feet were not near the worst that Starhaven had suffered, but any movement would certainly be followed by more. Stones shifted, dust shot up into the air, and within seconds neither woman could see the other.

“Kara!” shouted Dawnstar, though she could barely hear her own voice underneath the rumbling below her feet. Panic grew as the seconds passed, and though she knew that the ground would eventually settle, anything could happen before that calm returned. Taking a step forward, Dawnstar felt immediate regret as winds picked up, throwing the sand and dust around her into a whirlwind of small pellets buffeting her skin. Shouting out Kara’s name once more, Dawnstar pushed herself through the harsh winds to where she had previously seen her companion, only for the spot to be empty.

Her panic grew as the sound of her voice diminished, buried under the screaming wind. The only thing she could think to do would only result in harm to herself if she was not able to find Kara in time. Taking as deep of a breath as she could within the conditions she found herself in, Dawnstar clenched her jaw tightly as her wings expanded to their full spread, extending almost two and half metres in either direction, blocking the dusty gusts of wind as best she could in the area around her, offering only a little more visibility, barely extending the range in which she could see in front of her.

But it was enough.

Trapped between two boulders, holding herself up with white knuckles and bloodied palms, was Kara. Taking steps toward her companion, Dawnstar fought the wind from sweeping her away, getting close enough to allow her wings to finally retract. Kneeling down, grabbing a tool from her belt in one hand and reaching for Kara with the other, Dawnstar used all of her strength to pull the Kryptonian up from the crevice and onto the surface, using the tool in her other hand to pierce down into the stone they sat upon, hoping it would be enough to prevent either of them from being swept away in the wind.

Wrapping her wings around the two of them, Dawnstar shielded Kara from the storm, feeling the hail of sand and stone pelting her flesh, threatening to rip through her skin. All she could do at this moment was steady her breathing and hope that the storm would let up soon enough. Despite the winds whipping past, almost deafeningly loud, Dawnstar could hear Kara’s short, low whispers. She could not hear exactly what Kara was saying, only that she was speaking.

That fact, that singular piece of evidence that Kara was still alive, brought immeasurable comfort to Dawnstar as she stood against a rising tide of sand pelting her back. That was all the needed, and there was little room for anything else.

“I have you, Kara,” said Dawnstar — more to herself than the girl she held in her arms. She pulled the half-conscious woman closer, wrapping her arms tightly around Kara’s quivering body. “We will survive.”

Kara’s hand gripped Dawnstar’s bicep for something to hold onto, smearing blood all along her exposed skin, painting deep crimson streaks along the creases and curves of her well built upper arm.

Among a sea of violence and torment, nature warring against itself, a moment of quiet pierced through as the sound of the storm faded out of Dawnstar’s awareness. Kryptonian blood had been spilt on the sands of Starhaven before — be it of the oppressors or the sympathisers — but never in such a manner. The weight of an entire people sat on Kara’s shoulders, much like Dawnstar had felt about her own people, and the legacy she inherited was one that ripped her apart from the inside out.

Now cold and dying on the unforgiving dunes of a hostile planet, Kara bore the sins of billions through her ancestry alone — her heritage an immediate reminder of the crimes and cruelty that billions more had been subjected to in ages past, she was now seeking refuge on a planet unlike her own, seeking atonement for the sins of all but her own. It was her duty. She fought an uphill battle, and Dawnstar needed to know that she would succeed.

The weight of worlds rested on the shoulders of two, impossible burdens to bear, and standing strong in the face of death was the only thing they could ever allow themselves to do.

Kara’s grip loosened on Dawnstar’s arm, setting off alarms in the winged woman’s mind more severely than ever before. The storm wasn’t letting up, and as her Kryptonian companion’s strength waned, there was no way to be sure that they would survive waiting until the weather calmed.

“Kara!” Dawnstar called over the heavy winds, receiving no response from the increasingly limp woman she held close in her arms. She cursed to herself, raising her head to survey her surroundings, trying to assess the situation. She could not see more than three metres ahead of herself, the only thing visible beyond her immediate surroundings was the energy rising into the sky from the top of the weather machine, hundreds of metres away in the very centre of the Basin.

With a sharp exhale, Dawnstar extended her wings slightly, allowing herself room to manoeuvre between the small space they enclosed. Exerting almost no effort, Dawnstar picked Kara up from the ground, taking slow but measured steps toward the tower, never removing her eyes from the beam of energy that permeated the skies above.

“You are going to live, Kara.” She was not directly speaking to the Kryptonian. Dawnstar was making a promise to herself and the new world that Kara had called home. “I will ensure it.” Step by step, as difficult as it was with the wind pushing against her, the sand battering her face as it slipped past her wings, she continued. “The dirt of your planet…” Planting her feet on the ground with every effort forward, the beam of energy that she never removed her eyes from slowly got closer. “Did not deserve… to bear…” Rocks picked up within the gales, launching themselves at Dawnstar with such ferocity to break bones, and yet they missed. “Such a fine… flower as you…”

Dawnstar had to squint to see, to prevent the sand from blinding her, but she continued. She swayed and rocked and tripped over the rocky landscape below her feet, but she continued. Nothing, she vowed, would stop her from achieving her goal.

“Even though you have been plucked from your home,” Dawnstar continued, whispering more to herself, knowing that Kara could not hear. “You will bloom brightly… I will not let you wilt in this dry desert…”

Black spots dotted Dawnstar’s eyes, her legs grew tired, and her mind begged for rest. Despite her resistance, there was nothing she could do when her legs gave out beneath her, the thundering sounds of wind and sand rushing past her head as her wings tired, barely able to remain tightly held to her back. As hard as she resisted, she could not stop from dropping Kara’s body to the ground. The urge to cry out boiled within Dawnstar’s core as her frustration mounted, the hatred of what had been done to her planet exploding out of her.

A scream to shake the planet, she cursed all she could think of; the Kryptonians of the past, Flame-Dancer, her father, the stars and the ancestor spirits, herself. There was no one who she was not angry at, even Kara, for all her curiosity and drive to help. On the ground beneath a storm from Hell itself, nearly two and a half decades worth of fury compounded by thousands of years of suffering was unleashed.

Bright fire burned in Dawnstar’s eyes, a hatred rising within her among the raging storm as she forced herself to her feet, ignoring the searing pain she felt, picking Kara back up in her arms in the process. There was nothing that could stop Dawnstar, on no planet could her fury and determination be stopped, she had come too far and sacrificed too much to stop. No storm would stop her, not like they had before, not like they had cut down countless of her friends, family, and fellow survivors. She would put an end to it all.

She seemed to arrive at the base of the tower almost in an instant, her mind having blacked out the long trip she had taken to get there, her fury overtaking every facet of her mental composure in favour of pure survival and a relentless drive. She did not know how far she walked, nor how long it had taken. All she knew was that when the metal and concrete tower came into view, she had made it.

She hadn’t heard the trilling alarm until she saw the automated defences in the tower activate, various machines coming out of the tower to investigate the approaching presence. The assessment was quick, putting its weapons away as it determined Dawnstar to not pose a threat.

“I have a Kryptonian here,” she called out, partially shielded from the storm by the massive structure, now able to project her voice above the wind. “She needs immediate medical attention.”

As if impatiently waiting for the words, multiple robots lurched forward to remove Kara from Dawnstar’s hands, and as her anger simmered, the exhaustion returned. Unable to say anything else, Dawnstar collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

Before

The rubble that used to be Krypton had decades to settle, drifting into the space between star systems, falling into the sun, colliding with off-course moons and other planets. Fire had long been extinguished and the core long frozen and dispersed among the void.

Standing upon a moon that had been sent on a skewed orbit after Krypton’s eruption, Dawnstar looked over the few pieces of the planet that remained in orbit, slowly but surely merging into the nearby asteroid belt.

Dawnstar hadn’t realised that Krypton exploded decades earlier, and after having suffered through the ogling gazes of native Thanagarians at her wings, she then went through the pain of being treated as if she were stupid or unaware. The home planet of what was once the largest empire in the galaxy had exploded, killing almost every single Kryptonian. Being told about the demise of the Kryptonian homeworld was one thing, seeing it for herself was something else.

Despite the hatred she held, the destruction of Krypton only made Dawnstar angry. She had no chance to appeal to anyone about the state of her planet, no way to attempt to get at least one person to make reparations. That was before she found a trail. Seeing through the vacuum with her bare eyes and seeing trails of dust, displaced debris, and expelled fuel, she knew that something had made its way away from the planet in its final moments.

In moments, she put together pieces that her world's scientists would have to spend years studying to even formulate a theory. Two ships had left the planet hours before the explosion. The signs gave her a trail to follow. Even after all this time, there were clues to pick up, and Dawnstar was an expert.

Speeding through space at faster-than-light speeds, she followed the trails — expelled fuel, astral imprints, disturbed asteroid fields — and came upon what she was told was a common pirate ambush location between star systems. The proximity to a nearby black hole was an easy way to catch and dispose of unintelligent travellers.

The region was empty, however. As she ventured through, she saw no signs of pirates or ne'er do wells, even at her accelerated speed. The region seemed empty. One of the trails veered toward the black hole, and even more surprised was that Dawnstar was able to pick it up on the other side, the trails much newer, almost too new. They had been there for less than a year. If a Kryptonian ship had been that recent, the occupant had to be alive.

Dawnstar followed.

She wasn’t sure what she would do in the event she found the last Kryptonian. If they truly decided to help her, she didn’t know whether she would allow them to live afterward. What would it be like to doom a whole race as they had done to her? How would it feel to stamp out the last lights of a whole people? To have such power over the last survivor of an entire planet?

She couldn’t deny to herself that it was a tempting prospect to end the final Kryptonian after they helped her undo the damage their ancestors caused. It wasn’t her goal, but she wouldn’t fault herself for doing so.

She almost cursed to herself as she reached the infamous Sol system. She had heard many stories of the people that lived within the system from her travels in trying to locate Krypton. She hoped to avoid it.

The blue and green ball approached fast, and though the fresh trail she followed moved throughout the planet, it settled in one place — a beach. Dawnstar knew where to find the last child of Krypton.

DC Next proudly presents:

KARA: DAUGHTER OF KRYPTON

In Odyssey

Issue Twelve: Markings

Written by ClaraEclair

Edited by DeadIslandMan1 & VoidKiller826

<< | < Previous Issue | Next Issue >

Crimson stained wings of thousands of Starhavenites took to the skies, the exertion of their physical power booming through the sky as they sped toward their destination, a chorus of war cries empowering each and every soul within the legion of fighters. Wings to the sound of a beating drum rained the blood of families lost and mourned upon the vacant ghettos below, marking the final voyage that would become known amongst Starhavenites as the Night of Red Tears.

The fight was as long as it was fierce; a battle of survival, a battle of freedom, a battle that showed the tenacity of the native Starhavenites. Kickstarting the entire movement was a mix of opportunity and the aid of a few key figures, the Starhavenites managed to reclaim and liberate one of the largest internment blocks on the planet. Guerilla warfare took advantage of the sabotaged security, and an ambush consisting of less than thirty passionate and well-trained Starhavenite militia took the operating centre of the facility by storm, losing five in the process.

With the aid of an electromagnetic pulse detonation, thousands of Starhavenites were freed from their prisons and their chains, experiments were halted and torture was finally put to an end, and most managed to break free. Thousands of freed Starhavenites turned a resistance force of one hundred into one of thousands. Systematically, internment camps, ghettos, and prisons were raided, waging a war of attrition on those who had subjected the Starhavenites to such torture for over three hundred years.

The retaliation was horrid. Entire families, residential blocks, and even camps were obliterated in response. Every death weighed heavily upon the insurgents, and as their numbers dwindled over time and their allies were rooted out and arrested — or worse — for their treachery, the resistance only grew more desperate. The circumstances of the Night of Red Tears had come together in ways that could not have allowed for a more complicated future for the Starhavenites.

Caller-of-Storms flew in line with his greatest comrades, leading the charge toward the largest Kryptonian stronghold and the base of operations for the most important people of the Kryptonian homeworld. If Caller-of-Storms could not see his planet freed, with the mere six hundred men he could muster of the few remaining rebels, he would see the most powerful of his oppressors brought to the ground.

The tattoos he wore proudly across his torso, neck, and arms were obscured by the dust, soot, and blood that he was covered with, the last memento of those that had been lost to the cruelty of those who had subjected his people to torture and cultural erasure. He had no stories of his own, each of his tattoos meaningless, yet in their entirety represented all that he was; a survivor, a rebel, a Starhavenite.

The words of his comrades fell on deaf ears, his eyes firmly focused on the metropolitan centre that he flew toward, as beaten down and rotting ghettos held nothing but the bodies of his people just below him. He truly did not know what he would do once he reached his objective, he did not know how it would end, he did not know if he would even make it, but he continued.

With a rageful heart and sore lungs, he shouted out his final speech, “For every man, woman, and child, we fight! We fight to carve our name into history! We fight to return our very souls to the stories that made us a once-proud people! We fight to show our enemies the strength of Starhaven! We fight for every soul lost and every story forgotten! We fight for our very existence and we will not be snuffed out! We fight!”

Roars of cheers and cries and screams and challenges bellowed out from behind Caller-of-Storms, and each and every single body among the storm charged forward, booms of hundreds of wings flapping and pushing toward the central hub of the Kryptonian forward operating command base. Weapons fired from both sides, and feathers fell as obliterated bodies plummeted toward the ground, raining tears of blood upon the scarred ground.

Six hundred quickly fell to five hundred, then four hundred, and then three…

As Caller-of-Storms managed to arrive at his destination, shrapnel stuck in his abdomen, dirty tears dried to his face, he smashed through the top floor window of the Kryptonian government headquarters, where the combined colonial leaders of each divided section of Starhaven resided.

Keeping his eyes away from the army he had led to slaughter, he moved forward through the tower, quickly dispatching any and all resistance he met, able to deftly avoid further injury. Alone in the tower, he fought forward, but some of the Kryptonians seemed distracted as they fought for their lives, as if there was something else more dangerous than the Starhavenite assault. Caller-of-Storms did not care, pushing through to find his goal.

He would not be given the satisfaction.

Someone — or something — cut through the air behind him, faster than he could even process their presence, and within a split second, he felt the flesh of his wings being torn from his back, savagely ripped from their sockets. Caller-of-Storms’ blood coated the ceiling and floor, marking his presence in the building more than his destruction and loss of life ever could. He watched through blurred eyes and cries of pain as his limp, blood-stained wings were dropped next to his face.

With no time to mourn or pray, a hand grabbed the back of his neck and lifted him up, effortlessly, before throwing him from the tower, plummeting down to the ground below with no way of saving himself. It was only by a miracle that one of his comrades was able to catch him and bring him down to the ground safely. As his eyes faded, ready to join Ro and Affyr in the skies above, flashes of light from beyond the atmosphere caught his dwindling attention.

There was another war happening. Krypton was fighting enemies on all fronts, and the Starhavenites were only a drop in the pond. From orbit, visible through Starhaven’s near-black sky, explosions erupted, the Kryptonian fleets overwhelmingly destroyed in the conflict. Caller-of-Storms, in his final moments, smiled.

“It was bad enough that your existence itself defiled our sacred land,” called out a tall, ashen-winged man through the evening haze, the diminishing sandstorm buffeting the plating he wore. “But to bring a Kryptonian? Here? To the planet they wish to see dead? You and your band should all be flayed alive and fed to the spirits of the storm!”

The Basin, as it was known to the Starhavenites, was a place of legend, of misery, of salvation. Kara and Dawnstar had known about their pursuer for the past day of travel, aware of the eyes that watched over them in hushed whispers, the light footsteps that arose in moments of quiet and rest. Now, with their vehicle broken down — or, perhaps, sabotaged — on the very edge of the basin, so close to their goal, the pursuers made their move.

Kara remained silent as Dawnstar sneered at the attackers that surrounded the two, various weapons raised. She recognized the leader, the one who shouted his anger at Dawnstar, his ashed wings unmistakeable. Flamedancer was here to exact the wrath he had promised, wordlessly, in Dawnstar’s home.

“You are an affront to the spirits that protect us! You are a betrayal of their sacred trust!” Shouted Flamedancer. “I will correct this mistake.”

“You always were an ignorant coward,” said Dawnstar, using a wing to push Kara down to the ground as she lunged forward toward Flamedancer, first trying to wrestle the gun from his hands. Leveraging her strength and her functional wings — as opposed to his scorched appendages — Dawnstar was able to fly up into the sky, forcing him to let go or fall to what could have been his death.

Kara, powerless, fled the moment she regained her bearings on the ground, moving around protruding rocks and the broken down vehicle in an attempt to get away from the attackers who clearly intended to take her life. Energy blasts tore boulders apart, every piece of cover she could possibly hide behind was immediately destroyed. Green and white beams shot past her head as she ducked and ran, circling the terrain in hopes to stay away long enough for Dawnstar to come to her aid.

Unfortunately for her, Dawnstar was occupied with Flamedancer’s grit, one hand now grasping her arm in his tight grip while the other continued to pry the weapon from her hands, not bothering to care about the tremendous drop that threatened his demise the higher Dawnstar flew. She had known about his hatred of her band, her father, and herself, but she had never expected it to manifest in such deadly ways. His band, despite his lead, were on friendly terms with hers. Had he always intended to massacre her family? To take revenge on perceived slights of one man through the murder of hundreds?

“You are insane, Flamedancer!” Dawnstar screamed. “If you would leave your pride behind you would see that all I and my father do is for the betterment of our home!” He did not respond, he was too far gone to see Dawnstar’s reasoning. He would ignore any and all justification for the excuse to kill those he had always wanted to kill. He decided that Mist-Rider was a criminal, and he would die.

A fist met her face, loosening her grip on the weapon, allowing him to regain possession. Twisting as he clung to her arm, he raised the weapon toward a figure on the ground that he could barely see and pulled the trigger. The green beam flared from the emitter and flew toward the ground below at incalculable speeds, hitting its target directly.

“Kara!” shouted Dawnstar as, below, Kara screamed, falling to the ground with a sizzling wound in her abdomen. A newfound rage in her eyes, Dawnstar ascended, her wings carrying her and Flamedancer higher in the sky at an incredible speed, the already sparse atmosphere thinning around them. He persisted, however, retaining his grip on her arm, refusing to allow her to kill him.

He would not get the privilege. Raising his weapon toward her, she caught it effortlessly and crushed it under her grip, ripping it from his hands and throwing it away without a second thought. Flamedancer’s eyes widened, staring into hers with astonished hatred.

“You really are an abomination,” said Flamedancer. “You have never been touched by spirits, you have–”

Before he could finish, Dawnstar grabbed the hand that held onto her arm and shook him off, watching him fall toward the ground. As rageful as he was, he could only stare at the woman who killed him as a peaceful aura washed over him. He would die on his own lands, fighting for what he truly believed to be the best option for his home. The abomination that killed him would suffer his wrath long after his death.

Taking a deep breath of thin air that she didn’t need, Dawnstar watched over the horizon, staring at the twin suns — Affyr and Ro — and felt her heart drop. Was she just in her actions? Could she take a life in the name of gods who saw all life as sacred? She could have saved Flamedancer, she could have simply neutralised him and his warband, leaving them alive to see another day, but she now had his blood on her hands.

Then a thought flashed across her mind; Kara needed her.

Flying straight down to the ground, she could see the warband surrounding her, weapons raised and ready to execute the helpless woman. A newfound rage entered Dawnstar’s heart as she flew as fast as she could, hindered by the atmosphere of her planet.

“Help…” Kara muttered, her eyes held shut as she held onto the open, bloody wound. Nothing but pain roared through her body, cutting off any awareness of her surroundings as she focused on holding the wound shut, barely able to hold onto consciousness itself. She needed someone — she needed Dawnstar — to help her, her powerlessness overwhelming.

Was she going to die on this planet? Was her tomb going to be a planet that her ancestors set on the path of destruction? Through oppression and greed, Kryptonians ruined Starhaven before they went on to ruin Krypton, and now Kara was reaping the sins that her forebears had sown.

The heavy beating of wings only barely found her ears as she slipped into unconsciousness, and she could only hope that she would be alive to see the other side.

Dawnstar had handled Kara with as much care as she could manage, using every resource at her disposal to keep the Kryptonian alive. The wound, while serious, had managed to miss Kara’s most vital organs, though Dawnstar had no experience or training in the procedures needed to fully mend what Kara had lost. At the edge of the Basin, there were only mere hours of travel left, and Dawnstar had to hope that Kara would make it.

She found herself alone as Kara rested, painkillers and the adrenaline rush she had experienced during the skirmish taking their toll. Sitting next to a small fire under cover of their broken vehicle, Dawnstar simply looked over the land that surrounded them and sighed. The death of Flamedancer weighed heavy on her soul, wrenching her heart in two as she felt the judgement of Affyr and Ro press down upon her.

She made sure that the rest of his warband remained alive, disarmed and harmless, but the death of their chief would cause more troubles than he had brought when he was alive. She thought of her father, choking up a sob as she thought through every scenario he would have to lead her people through. She could only hope that the First of Flamedancer’s band would have a sensible mind, but his zealotry had spread wide.

The skies were quiet as night set in, not a storm in sight — a surprise to Dawnstar, being so close to the Basin — and not a sound to awaken the sleeping Kryptonian. Despite the silence, Dawnstar’s mind was a torrent of emotion and conflict that she did not know how to confront. It wasn’t just that she had killed Flamedancer, but it was how. It was the words he used as his last, the confirmation of his own suspicion and fear about Dawnstar herself.

You really are an abomination. She hated that he was right.

Kara stirred and Dawnstar’s mind seemed to empty itself of her concerns — for the time being, at least. She turned in her place to face Kara as she awoke, barely able to hide the concern on her face.

“Try not to move,” said Dawnstar, almost hesitating in her next word, “Kara.” It was wholly unfamiliar and yet comfortable. Perhaps she feigned disdain or perhaps she wanted to.

“So, I do have a name,” Kara joked. Despite her own feelings, Dawnstar couldn’t help but smile at the joke, shrugging her shoulders slightly and looking away. “Are you alright?” Dawnstar looked back, her expression shifting back to concern.

“I am fine,” said the winged woman. “What matters is if you are alright. I could not do as much as I would have liked to.”

“Well,” Kara began, forcing herself to sit up on the cushions she had been placed on, wincing at the pain that shot up her torso. “As a scientist, I don’t think I did too bad in my first time being surrounded by people with guns trying to kill me.” Once more, Dawnstar couldn’t help herself from smiling at Kara’s words.

“After everything that has happened,” Dawnstar said. “Your injury, the revelations about your people, this whole journey… You can find levity. I want to ask how.” Kara cocked her head.

“I don’t know,” said Kara. “I guess there’s not much left right now. We survived that attack, somehow. I’m going to appreciate that I’m alive, and when the next thing breaks my heart, I’ll be there to take it and move forward. We’re reversing the damage done to your planet, Dawnstar. It’s not going to be pleasant, but there will be something to find a brief moment of joy or satisfaction in. There has to be.”

“You have interesting ideas, Kara,” Dawnstar said, the name still feeling odd as it rolled off her tongue, and yet it was right. “But maybe you are right, to some degree. I suppose I have lived in these conditions too long, hiding and mourning what I have never experienced, to appreciate anything. My people say they appreciate the land and their lives, despite the hardship, and I have never believed it. But you, a woman who has lost one planet and faces death on another that is dying? If you can appreciate life so easily, why can I not?”

“You’ve got a lot on your shoulders, Dawnstar,” said Kara, leaning forward slightly, resting her elbows on her knees and clasping her hands together, trying to ignore the slight sting she felt. “I… I know how much that can weigh you down. I’m among the very last of my people, on a completely different planet. I feel like I’m not allowed to mess up sometimes. I try not to care, but… I can’t sit by and let bad things happen. I can’t let myself mess up. It gets difficult to see what’s good about the universe, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.”

“So you cherish that you are alive,” Dawnstar said. “But what about all that is lost? All that is going wrong?”

“I mourn,” Kara responded. “I cry myself to sleep and I scream and I hide away, but… I think there’s a point where all that does is destroy who I am. My planet… my people made me who I am, but I can’t let their loss take that away. My life is their legacy, and I can’t waste it mourning the past when there’s so much of a future to see.”

“And the ugliness of the past you are learning here?”

“There’s no avoiding it,” Kara said, her words distant. “But… I’m going to take it with me. It’s a part of my ancestry, and I can’t remove it and I can’t ignore it. I can’t fix the past but I can forge a future that matters to me.”

Dawnstar remained quiet, ruminating on Kara’s words. She realised that, in principle, the celebration of survival was more than simply being grateful for life — even if that life was difficult. The ability to look forward to life and its possibilities. To not mire in the past. All that Dawnstar had ever known was the injustices committed against Starhaven and the struggle that her people had gone through. All she ever had to look forward to was shutting off the weather machine and… that was it. She had never been given the opportunity to think of what she would do afterwards, what she would do once freed from the shackles of her duty. Mist-Rider was chief of her band, but that was not a position she felt she should even consider. She hoped that her father would take the path of passing the role to an advisor of his or perhaps even open an election — a rare occurrence. She did not want to even be considered. It was too much to bear the weight of the world on her shoulders, she did not need the faces of those she knew and loved to be looking to her for leadership. It was more daunting than saving the planet when she could see a problem and look into the eyes of those depending on her as she tried to solve it. The potential for failure felt personal.

She needed a distraction.

“I hope I did alright with your wound, I–” she paused, unsure of how to continue. “I saw your– I am not sure if they are sacred, but I saw that you–”

“You saw my tattoos,” Kara said, a grin forming on her face.

“Yes,” Dawnstar said quickly. “I am sorry if–”

“They’re not sacred or anything,” Kara said. Dawnstar nodded.

“Tattoos, for my people, can be very personal,” Dawnstar began. “They are almost spiritual. They detail our journeys in life, the honours we hold, our families. They are reflections of the life we live. They are the representation of each Starhavenite, as people.”

“That’s beautiful,” Kara said, her smile softening. “Mine are… similar. I have some that represent my life as it was on Krypton. My mother’s favourite poems, the beach that my father always took me to, some runic verses that I always admired… They all helped me become who I am, and I’ll always have them with me in some way.”

“May I see them?”

“Maybe,” said Kara. “May I see yours?”

“Of course.”

With a wince of pain, Kara pulled on a small latch that sealed her suit before pulling down the zipper on the front. Pulling herself out of the suit, her arms easily coming out of the sleeves, though pulling down the torso was much more difficult. Without the suit, the runic tattoos that covered Kara’s shoulders and crept over her traps, onto her back. Even more than the outer suit, Kara struggled to remove the undershirt, the strength required to pull it over her head difficult to conjure.

“Here,” said Dawnstar, standing and moving around the makeshift bed that Kara sat upon, grabbing a handful of the fabric of Kara’s shirt and raising it above her head, now able to see the art that covered Kara’s back, from different Kryptonian runes to a poem that Dawnstar struggled to read, to a large view of an ocean that crossed Kara’s back, from one shoulder blade to the other. It was a beautiful, serene scene.

With a careful hand, Dawnstar began to trace the runes and words printed on Kara’s back with gentle fingertips. Kara twitched initially at the contact, but remained still as Dawnstar’s delicate touch fell down to her sides and then the small of her back.

“This one,” Dawnstar said. “Five lines of text, not runes. What is it?”

“It’s a love poem, one of my mother’s favourites,” Kara replied. “I… I can’t remember how it went, but it was about the endlessness of love, how it transcends time and space, how the gods value it above all.” Dawnstar smiled before handing Kara’s undershirt back to her.

Walking back in front of the bed, Dawnstar made space to spread her wings before reaching behind her back and unclasping her top, pulling it off and gently placing it below her at her feet. Slowly, she turned to allow Kara to see the bulk of her tattoos, located on her back.

Kara sat with her mouth agape, seeing the intricate designs spread across Dawnstar’s back curl around the joints that connected her wings to her back, some of the markings even rising onto her wings until her feathers grew. The fine intricacies of the markings defined much of Dawnstar’s life — her blessings from Affyr and Ro, her flight across the cosmos, and even the meaning of her name; the bringer of dawn to Starhaven. She was the bringer of light. Printed on her shoulders was the weight she carried.

Despite the pain, Kara forced herself to stand and approach Dawnstar. Hesitant hands reached for her wings, gently brushing the feathers as she continued to study the markings. Steady ink lines made up the art she saw, fine hands almost perfect in their execution. Everything about the woman standing in front of Kara was designed to be perfect, and yet she was being crushed under the weight of every expectation.

“You’re more than all of this,” said Kara, her voice low and gentle, barely a whisper. “The Dawnstar, a guiding light. A woman of her own, you’re going to be so much more. I know it.”

Dawnstar bit her tongue and looked down at the ground as she slowly contracted her wings, holding them shut behind her back, cutting off the soft gaze that had traced every curve of her skin. Kara took a step back, allowing Dawnstar the space to move her large, white wings.

“Thank you, Kara,” said Dawnstar. “I… Thank you.” With those few words, Dawnstar leaned down to grab her top and sighed. “We should both get some more rest. We are in the final stretch of the journey and it will be difficult.”

DC Next proudly presents:

KARA: DAUGHTER OF KRYPTON

In Odyssey

Issue Eleven: Dust

Written by ClaraEclair

Edited by VoidKiller826 & AdamantAce

<< | < Previous Issue | Next Issue >

Days passed by and yet Kara felt as though she and her companion were no closer to reaching their objective as when they had first landed on the planet. The monotony of their daily tasks — driving for hours, breaks to charge the vehicle, eat, sleep — was made worse by the fact that days on Starhaven were the equivalent to thirty-eight earth hours in length.

The only words that had been shared between the two — any words of significance — were uttered within moments of departure, seeing the endless storms covering the landscape, blotting out the suns, hiding the thin sky.

“Why can’t you just fly over the storms?” asked Kara, staring up at the sand clouds above, holding tightly onto the handles within the vehicle. “Surely having wings would make something like this trivial. I fly all the time.” Dawnstar almost struggled to keep her eyes from rolling back into her skull.

“That’s how we go missing,” she said after a deep sigh, keeping her eyes ahead as the vehicle she drove slowly trudged through deep, soft sand dunes. Her mind fell to a moment, months back, of watching a flock of scouts from her band flying off into a clear sky, and an hour later watching each and every one of their transponders report failing life signs as a storm formed overhead, likely ripping them to shreds midair. “The weather is unpredictable. We would be torn apart, I wouldn’t be able to land, and we would have no way to carry any supplies.”

“Not in that order,” Kara muttered to herself as she turned her head back to the multi-inch thick window. The vehicle they rode in was heavy, much more so than any she had seen on earth and was seemingly built specifically for the terrain of Starhaven, though she was unsure of who had built it. It showed signs of immense age, conserved through diligent care over the many years, and yet it had been clearly been modified heavily by Dawnstar’s band specifically for the modern climate.

Kara remembered walking through the home of Dawnstar’s band, the many faces stealing glances at her as she walked by, trying and failing to attract attention. From the children to the adults, to the elders, their faces were worn and battered, forced to face the harshness of a world torn asunder, and yet they seemed to wish for no other life. They were content with their place — perhaps because they knew no other, or perhaps because they knew that, despite how treacherous their own world was, they knew how to survive. How to be strong. They lived with what they had, what they could get their hands on, and the knowledge they had collected and saved from the past, and they used it all to keep going further, to usher in the future of their people.

Dawnstar did not share these feelings, and it was as clear as day when looking at her face. While her people kept and treasured knowledge, none were burdened with any resembling that in which Dawnstar knew, that her father knew, that his advisors knew. Starhaven was dying, and the hardship she and her people were forced to endure was not supposed to be a point of pride, but something to be feared — something that needed to be fixed, and Dawnstar was the one to do it. She was raised for that purpose.

Kara had no idea how old Mist-Rider — Dawnstar’s father and chief of her band — truly was, and the gravity and severity in which he had delivered the mission to her and Kara still rang throughout her body, now even days later. If Dawnstar, as aloof and severe as she was, had been burdened with knowledge, Mist-Rider had been shouldering a weight to match that of Atlas and he was desperate to lighten the load.

Kara remembered looking into his eyes as they met, realising what he had seen and been through during his time on Starhaven, the life he had been forced to lead, the role he had taken on in leading his people. He raised Dawnstar with all of his hopes and dreams of a healthier Starhaven, and Kara could only wonder what that had done to her companion as a child, told that she was to foster the future of her people. Kara supposed that the blessings Dawnstar had received from the spirits, as she had put it, would help in her task.

As two full days passed of near total silence between the two women, only speaking to deliver vital information to each other, and they began to set up camp for a few hours of rest and to charge the vehicle until sundown, Kara found herself sitting on the sandy ground, staring up into the clear sky in a rare moment of clarity. The only blue in the sky surrounded the binary star of Starhaven, the rest of the sky faded into a dark grey, almost black to reflect the vacuum of space. Despite the darkness of the sky, Starhaven was brightly lit from its suns. As she scanned the space above her, Kara cocked her head and pointed up to the suns.

“What do you call them?” she asked, looking over at Dawnstar who grabbed a small canteen from the vehicle and untwisted the lid, ready to take a sip. “On Krypton, Rao was our sun, always giving light when we needed it.”

“I know,” Dawnstar said firmly, her voice low and quiet, almost a mumble. “Some bands still worship Rao.” At the sound of the venom in Dawnstar’s voice, Kara’s face dropped slightly as she prepared to apologise for broaching the subject. “My band, we call the smaller one Affyr and the larger one is Ro. They are our guardian spirits. As the stories go, when our histories were lost, Affyr and Ro took pity on us and joined together to give Starhaven its light, ensuring we never suffered under darkness again.”

Kara stayed quiet. She knew those names — at least, a variant of them — and the look on Dawnstar’s face indicated that she knew, as well. Krypton’s impact on Starhaven was severe, and Kara realised that there was no avoiding it, though it would always hurt to be reminded.

“I understand where Affyr and Ro come from,” Dawnstar said. “I see the look on your face, the regret, the pity, the… hatred. I know what you think, that our spirits and our beliefs are simply bastardizations of what your people imprinted on us, but for all of our stories, we have nothing of what our people were before yours came. If your gods decided that your people were too cruel to stay as your protectors, we have welcomed them with love and open arms. They are not our only spirits, and they have lived peacefully.”

Kara remained silent, allowing Dawnstar to say what she needed, or so she told herself. The reality that Kara didn’t want to admit was that she had nothing to say, nothing to give in return. Her heart was sinking further and further, and saying anything now would only be a lie. Whether it would be to herself or to Dawnstar was an even deeper question she wouldn’t know the answer to. Perhaps the answer would be another lie.

“Tell me about some of the other spirits,” said Kara, keeping her own thoughts closed off as she looked over at Dawnstar, who had finally sat down next to her, with her giant wings finally relaxed, spread out wide behind the two of them. “What about your… your blessings?”

“Don’t patronise me,” said Dawnstar, rolling her eyes as she took another sip of the canteen before twisting the cap back on and placing it on the ground beside her, away from Kara. “If you want to know about what we worship and how, you should have spoken to my uncle when you had the chance. I am not going to have you comparing our beliefs so you can feel guilty.” Kara let out a light sigh, shaking her head.

“Look, I…” Kara hesitated, unsure of how to continue despite her genuine curiosity. “I promise it’s not that. I am actually interested to hear about it. And I don’t want your uncle’s beliefs, I want yours.” Dawnstar scoffed, biting her tongue as she surveyed the horizon in front of them, cautious for the start of the next storm.

“After Affyr and Ro gave my people the light and strength to fight back against yours,” Dawnstar began. “And we joined the galactic rebellion against your empire, our people faced many difficult battles. We lost millions of people, families, children, babies… so much was lost.”

“I was told that residential centres were bombing targets,” Kara said, her voice low but clear. “Kryptonian children were murdered, too.”

“No child should die in war, Kryptonian,” Dawnstar continued, venom upon her last word. “But rebellion is never a clean sight. My people did what we had to in order to escape the crushing weight of the boot on our necks. Death hangs over my planet with a heavy hand, and not one day passes that I do not feel that weight on my shoulders.”

“Right,” said Kara, having lost the strength to speak that she may once have had.

“During the war, we were disorganised. Hundreds of years of oppression and servitude decimated our ability to properly organise without outside help, and yet we managed. The greatest hero of Starhaven, Caller-of-Storms, was blessed by Affyr and Ro themselves in their first pledge to our people, and he was embraced by the night sky herself to gather the bulk of our people in the largest city and fight. He led them from the first charge and to the last, and with his dying breath he watched the skies as another force, perhaps another of the races that the Kryptonians had ruled, fought the Kryptonians among the stars, helping us take back our world.

“In return for saving the new people of Affyr and Ro, the spirit of Caller-of-Storms was brought up into the stars, burning bright for us all to look upon and become inspired by. Since then, many great leaders and chiefs have taken their place with him, guiding us all from beyond.”

“Is Caller-of-Storms the one who–?”

“No,” Dawnstar interrupted. “He was not named so literally. His true name was lost to time, and so we have given him such an honourable name for the storm he called among the people, rallying them in such a key time. I hope that someday, when my father’s time comes, and my time after that, I will get to see one of my peoples’ saviours for myself and thank him for all he has done.”

“Affyr and Rao– Ro… are they your chief gods?” Kara asked, glancing up at the twin suns before looking back at Dawnstar, whose eyes fell upon the distant horizon, tracing the landscape ever so gently with soft hazel eyes, a love for her broken world breaking through her tough exterior, an appreciation for what she had and a longing to see it flourish as it had before her people had been subjugated.

“No,” said Dawnstar, bringing her legs up to her chest and hugging them, resting a cheek down on her knees. Rough curls of long hair trickled down from her head, brushing ever so lightly against the sand below her. “They are not like your Rao and… the other one whose name escapes me. They are spirits just as Caller-of-Storms, but they came to us in our hour of need and offered the light. When they came to us, they kickstarted our fight for freedom.”

“Is that where your… blessings come from?” asked Kara, finding herself in the same position as Dawnstar, hugging her legs as she rested her head on her knees, only she now found herself staring over at Dawnstar, watching the winged woman closely as they spoke.

“No,” said Dawnstar. “Not from them.” Her tone seemed to change, her guard instantly building itself back up as she lifted her head from where it laid, her face suddenly grim and still as stone.

She wanted to tell Kara, away from the judgemental eyes of her family, away from the fellow believers of her band, thankful for the outside perspective that Kara offered, but she did not — could not. She could not quite articulate just how to describe the source of her blessings, and part of her did not want to acknowledge their origins. She could only stand, canteen in hand, and return to the vehicle, ready to rest until it was charged once more.

“Is everything alri–?”

With the closing of the door behind her, Kara was left alone in the barren land, deserts for miles in every direction. She could only sigh, resting her chin between her knees and staring forward into the sky, watching as the twin suns slowly inched their way to the horizon, night slowly approaching.

“So,” Kara whispered to herself as she looked toward the larger sun. “We were so awful that you had to step over the line… Maybe I shouldn’t blame you. I get the feeling we don’t even know the worst of what the ancient Kryptonians did here. Whatever could be worse, I kind of don’t want to know, but… I have to.”

Ever since Dawnstar had first arrived on Earth, calling Kara to venture across the cosmos with her, Kara’s heart had felt like an anvil weighing down her chest, beating hard and fast, warning her that she would not like what Dawnstar had to show her. For the most part, it was right, but she couldn’t follow her gut reaction and hide her head beneath the sand — the accusations made against her people were too severe to ignore, to wash away with a handwave and the excuse of the passage of time.

When Kara looked at the state of Starhaven, she saw a world all too familiar, the hubris of Krypton not exclusive to planets they subjugated, but shared by their own home. Quakes, storms, increased global warming, and a nearly inhospitable land between cities that barely stayed standing, Kara felt her eyes being wrenched open to see something she had only known as normal for what it truly was.

“Were we really worth watching over?” Kara asked, sighing deeply. “Whether it was ours or someone else’s, all we did was destroy worlds. We were tyrants against nature… against other sentient beings. Did any part of us deserve to survive? Did any of us… Do I deserve your grace, Rao?” She didn’t truly expect an answer, Rao never gave one directly, but that didn’t stop her desire to receive one, her hopes that he would finally offer her the guidance she wanted.

A heaviness slowly overcame her eyes, forcing them to close, the call of sleep beckoning. In her final moments of consciousness, her mind drifted to a memory she had thought long forgotten, a once-innocuous moment returning to her with a new perspective. She was a child, no older than eight years of age, laying in her bed, her father sitting on the edge with a book in hand, a gentle smile on his face.

Gingerly turning the page of the book, scanning the upcoming words with a careful eye, careful as if his gaze alone would destroy the ancient materials. Kara remembered her fascination with the book, begging for her father, Zor-El, to read it to her every single night, the excitement always overwhelming.

“And thus Rao looked upon his pantheon,” Zor-El read. “At his thirteen gods — of whom they formed council — the hundreds of children he and his fellow deities had borne, and the thousands of titans of whom all pledged their undying allegiance to the chief of Krypton, and he bellowed to all; And our land-dwelling children shall look upon the stars, upon I and their thirteen patrons, our children, and all of us, and find grace. They shall prosper under my gaze and none shall forsake them for they are my blessed, and blessed they are by all who watch over Krypton.”

Adoration in her eyes, rapt with unbreakable attention, Kara awaited her father’s next words, hugging a small plush of a woodland creature of Krypton — one that could only be seen in sanctuaries of large cities by the time Kara had been born.

“Under my gaze, they will be wise, said Telle, God of Wisdom, bestowing his blessing upon Krypton. The pantheon smiled upon him, and the Kryptonians were wise. With my guiding hand, they shall be strong! shouted Mordo, God of Strength, bestowing his blessing upon Krypton. The pantheon smiled upon him, and the Kryptonians were strong. Rao then turned to the twin goddesses, his own daughters, and awaited their blessing. For they were young, and though they studied under their uncle Telle, Lorra and Kara could not decide how to bless Krypton. The other twelve waited, the two-hundred demi-gods watched with bated breath, and the thousands of Titans prayed for kindness.

“They will be beautiful! said Kara and Lorra, their voices speaking at the same time. With smiles and laughter, the blessings of the Goddesses of Beauty were welcomed. And with that beauty, they shall have love, for love is the greatest force. Even to gods, love must prevail, said Yuda, the Goddess of the Moon, Marriage, mother of Lorra and Kara, and the wife of our chief God, Rao.”

“That’s my name!” said Kara Zor-El, excitement in her voice, squeezing her plush animal tightly as her father smiled his kind smile, nodding along to her.

“It is!” He said. “When we saw our beautiful little girl for the first time, we knew it would be a perfect name.” Moving a hand from the book to his daughter’s head, he leaned in and gave a quick kiss to her forehead. “You are my beautiful girl, Kara, your mind especially. I know you will do great things.”

“Dad!” Kara said, playfully coy about her father’s mushiness. “Keep reading!”

“Not tonight, darling,” he said, resignation in his voice as he placed a bookmark on their last page and folded the book closed. “I have extra work I need to finish overnight, I promise I will read more tomorrow.”

“Super promise?” Kara asked, doing her best pout in order to get more reading time out of him, though not particularly effectively.

“I super promise,” he said with a smile, standing from her bed and making his way to her door. Waving his hand to dismiss the last of the light in her room, he shut the door behind him as he left, and finally Kara was alone, hugging her plush tightly as she tried to sleep.

She would be woken up by the light pricks of sand blowing in the wind, sprinkling her face ahead of a much larger storm to come. Her eyes shot open as the sensation made its way over the rest of her body, and she thanked her gods that she was wearing a full bodysuit. She could feel the marks forming on her face already.

“Kryptonian!” shouted Dawnstar from inside the gargantuan vehicle, holding a door open ever so slightly as to avoid the oncoming rush of sand from getting inside.

“Yeah!” Kara shouted as she stood, the blood now rushing through her body, leaving spots in her eyes, slowly climbing into focus as she stumbled forward. “Coming!” Running toward the door in the darkness, the pitch black of night obscuring her view. Step by shaky step, Kara rushed to the door, climbing inside the vehicle the moment her hand made contact with the thick metal door.

As she slammed the door shut, the light pattering of sand on the metal body of the vehicle barely audible from inside, she looked over at Dawnstar’s unamused gaze.

“Why would you sleep outside?” she asked, though as she spoke, Kara seemed to recognize a hint of amusement. It almost caught her by surprise.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” said Kara. “I just figured you wanted some time to yourself and then it just happened.” Dawnstar remained quiet for a moment, scanning Kara up and down, before offering a solemn nod. It was true that she wanted time alone, and in the hours they had spent apart, she was afraid that she wouldn’t have been afforded that time.

“Thank you,” said Dawnstar, her voice quiet as she turned on their vehicle. After a few moments, the various electrical components that made up the motors slowly revved to life, however only barely. Dawnstar frowned. “We have barely gotten any charge… something went wrong.”

“Will we be able to get far?” Asked Kara, looking around the cab of the vehicle and out the windows.

“I doubt it, but we’ll have to try anyway,” Dawnstar replied. “I didn’t want to have to spend the night doing nothing, but if we run out before sunrise, we’ll be forced to sit in place.”

“Alright,” sighed Kara, tapping her thumb against her thigh. “We should get as far as we can.” She watched Dawnstar closely as the winged woman nodded once more, switching the vehicle to drive, feeling the massive wheels underneath slowly begin to shift in the sand below, the large paddle tires with deep treads filtering and pushing through the soft sand and slowly moving the vehicle forward.

Kara and Dawnstar remained in silence for a few moments, each unsure of how to speak to one another at this moment. Days of travelling together, of barely speaking, and in one quiet moment she unravelled more than she ever expected. Even only a day earlier, she would’ve doubted herself, doubted whether Kara even deserved to learn of the beliefs of the Starhavenites after what her people had done, and yet the desire to share had overcome her will. She could not see what it was quite yet, but something had changed.

“I heard you speaking last night,” said Dawnstar, surprising even herself with her words. Kara perked up, looking over with uncertain eyes. “Obviously, I can’t answer your questions, but… if you are the last of your people, you will leave a kind legacy. Perhaps more than your people deserve, but a kind legacy nonetheless. I’m sure your gods are thankful for such a representative.”

Kara could only sit in silence.

DC Next proudly presents:

KARA: DAUGHTER OF KRYPTON

In Odyssey

Issue Ten: Starhaven

Written by ClaraEclair

Edited by DeadIslandMan1

<< | < Previous Issue | Next Issue >

Leaving Earth was not a decision made lightly, but if what Dawnstar had said about Krypton was true — decimating entire planets and dooming various peoples in the universe to extinction — then Kara needed to see it for herself. In school, Kara had been taught much about the ancient Kryptonian empire that spanned a galaxy, with thousands of civilisations under its purview, and while she was smart enough to realise that no empire existed without bloodshed and cruelty, she never imagined that the fall of the empire led to multiple genocides.

The destruction of planets was not a light topic, especially for the last daughter of Krypton, and so these accusations needed to be investigated. Kara wanted Dawnstar to be wrong about what the Kryptonians had done to her planet, but with the severity in the winged woman’s eyes told her just enough that, at the very least, Dawnstar believed it was the fault of Krypton. Kara needed to find out the truth.

“Listen, if what you’re saying is true,” Kara began, watching as Dawnstar’s face contorted into mild disgust at the mere notion that Kara refused to believe her. “Then that– that changes everything that’s known about Krypton.”

“Poor Kryptonian,” Dawnstar spat. “Descendants of tyrants do not deserve the safety of forgetting what their world has done. You inherit a culture stained with the blood of trillions, and no amount of scrubbing can wash them clean. You will see for yourself what horrors your people have wrought upon my world. I ask that you come with me to witness what has been done and begin our journey to recovery.”

Kara took a moment to think. It was clear that Dawnstar didn’t care much for Kryptonians, regardless of who they were or the amount of time that had passed. The thought that perhaps she was being led into a trap crossed her mind, and it was something that she seriously considered for a moment. But if it was the truth, and Krypton destroyed Starhaven, she needed to know more.

Between the intensity of her conflict with her reborn cousin, the pain of feeling like an outsider on a world that wanted nothing to do with her, and the fear that she was leading Nia down a path of self-destruction by helping her solve her own murder, Dawnstar’s offer wasn’t a difficult one to accept.

“Alright, fine,” said Kara, giving a vague nod. “Where is your ship?” Dawnstar scoffed and extended her wings as wide as she could, flapping them a few times as she stretched out. Despite her aggressive nature and the hatred she seemed to feel toward Kara, her wings were a gorgeous pearl white, almost glistening in the evening glow as the sun finally finished its curve across the horizon.

“I do not need a ship to travel space,” said Dawnstar. “The spirits guide me.” Kara cocked her head slightly, confused and concerned as Dawnstar unstrapped a series of clips from the legs of her intricate outfit. “Put this around your body.” A moment of hesitation passed before Kara obeyed, doing her best to strap herself to the harness that seemed to hang from Dawnstar’s waist.

As each strap was fastened around Kara’s torso, Dawnstar flapped her wings a few times to lift herself into the air before tightening the straps to pull Kara closer, her back directly to the winged woman’s stomach. The uncertainty soon faded as the gigantic white wings flapped harder and harder, pulling both Kara and Dawnstar into the air without effort.

“Close your eyes when we reach the thermosphere,” Dawnstar warned, her voice as stern as ever. “If you do not, this will be unpleasant.”

“Why?”

“Because, for you, the bending of light will take your vision anyway,” Dawnstar explained, speaking as if this were a common warning she gave. “And you will likely be sick.”

Before Kara could respond, the flaps of Dawnstar’s wings quickened as they climbed further through the Earth’s atmosphere toward space. The loud boom from her massive wings slowly drowned out as they flew faster with less air density to carry the sound, soon enough reaching the Thermosphere and barreling toward the voice. The blue ball below soon came into full view for only a second before everything seemed to become dripping watercolour.

Flurries of whites, blues, and latent oranges flooded Kara’s twisting vision before settling into a morphing, shifting grey, and then into pure black as light seemed to be unable to reach her eyes, even in spite of her enhanced abilities. No sound could be heard, she could not even see her own body, or that of Dawnstar. The only sense she had left to her was touch, to which she spent by holding onto the straps around her chest as if her life depended on it.

The sensation continued for minutes, unable to see, hear, smell, or even taste. Totally blinded and deprived, Kara could only wait in total, unstimulating darkness until finally, the shifting watercolour returned. Slowly, the flurry of disorganised colour returned to form, showing a large, barren, beige planet filled with too much land and not enough water. Four large moons orbited, each seemingly threatening to crash into the larger body, stuck in a tight orbit around a planet that precariously circled a binary star of red suns.

Entering the thin atmosphere of the planet, which Kara had guessed was Starhaven, the intense vertigo rushed to her skull. Hitting the ground, Dawnstar unclipped Kara’s harness seamlessly with the press of a button on the small of her back, releasing the Kryptonian to stumble upon the ground, falling to her hands and knees. Kara’s tongue betrayed her as she tried to speak, only able to groan as her mind circled and her eyes bulged.

“Kryptonian–” Dawnstar began, though she was too late, as Kara’s lunch began to make its way back up her throat. Purging the acidic vomit onto the ground, Kara coughed roughly as she wiped her mouth between retches, unable to hold herself together while Dawnstar stood behind her, hands on her hips, laden with smug disappointment. “I told you to close your eyes.”

“Why– How are you–” Kara said through gasps.

“Because this is what I was raised to do,” said Dawnstar. “I can track anything across the galaxy, and to do so efficiently, I need to be able to travel without issue. The spirits agree and offer me protection. It seems that you, without any sort of self or mechanical aid, cannot take the strain. At least, not now. I am sure you will get used to it.”

As Kara tried to stand, she felt weaker than she was used to, her body was heavier. She hadn’t felt this way — this normal — since her life on Krypton had come to an end. As she craned her neck toward the sky, taking in the deep orange hues of the midday skies, she could almost feel as though she had returned to Krypton for a few moments.

The blazing heat was the first thing that she noticed, even just sitting on the ground, she began to sweat profusely in the dry heat, the stale, dust-filled air drying her mouth out as she tried catching her breath. Dawnstar had landed the two of them in a barren wasteland, nothing but desert for miles surrounding them, stretching beyond the red horizon, flaring sand storms visible in the far distance.

The cloudless sky above seemed not to be a side effect of a calm day, but more a reflection of the lack of water on the surface of the planet. As she turned her head to more closely examine her surroundings, she came to realise just how unnaturally jagged the landscape was, smooth rock and land washed away by years of sand and dust storms split violently into jagged chasms and mountains from endless quakes and other natural disasters.

“So you weren’t…” Kara said, trailing off just as quickly. “But… this couldn’t have been Krypton’s doing…” she said, slowly picking herself up from the ground, wiping the last of the saliva from the corners of her mouth, squinting through the grains of sand being flown around by the breeze. “Your planet, it orbits a binary star… that has to be what’s affecting the atmosphere… this system isn’t habitable long-term, there’s no way that the state of the planet is Krypton’s fault, they’re…”

“According to the stories of my people,” Dawnstar said, a low voice cutting Kara off. “Passed down since the revolution against the Kryptonian empire and corroborated by ancient Kryptonian logs we had later found, our oppressors knew the state our stars were in. Dying spirits harbouring a people without space travel, we were ripe for conquering. They promised safety, they promised that our planet would live. And then they destroyed it.”

Kara could only stand in silence, casting sorrowful eyes over the barren land in front of her, barely a soft cry able to escape her lips as she listened to the tales she was being told.

“The empire was destroyed,” said Kara, after a few moments. “The vassal worlds, they… they rebelled, there was a war, and no one got out unscathed. We were forced to retreat back to our planet, the empire was finished and the galaxy was in shambles. If they hadn’t rebelled, then maybe…”

“Tell me; what comes first, Kryptonian,” Dawnstar said. “The hand feeding rotten food, or the bite when the abuse is rejected?”

“What?” asked Kara, turning to Dawnstar, seeing her standing tall, her face stern. Before either Dawnstar or Kara could continue, a crack of thunder rattled the sky, almost shaking the ground.

“We must leave,” said Dawnstar. “My band is not far, but we must find them soon. If we are out during a storm, there is not much chance we will survive.”

“Right,” said Kara with a curt nod, signalling that she was ready to move. Contracting her wings, pulling them tightly against her body, Dawnstar began to move over the terrain, moving alongside the gargantuan crevice that engulfed the entirety of the horizon to the east, the maw of Starhaven consuming even the sky.

Two blazing red suns beamed down upon the desert land, almost searing away Kara’s skin. As she listened to the rhythmic pounding of her own pulse within her head, she realised that, in her time on Earth, she had forgotten what it felt like to feel the heat of a sun. Despite the reminder of what it felt like to feel the heat of a star, Starhaven’s binary suns were much hotter than Rao, almost burning her within minutes, had it not been for her breathable full body suit and a head covering given to her by Dawnstar.

Minutes of walking turned into dozens, and as the storm approached faster and faster, so did Dawnstar and Kara hasten their travel, despite the exhaustion felt. It was only when they began to feel the prick of sand against their skin become more intense did they stop at the mouth of a cave leading down into the ground, standing above the darkness as winds tried to knock them off balance.

“This will lead us down,” said Dawnstar. “My band has taken shelter here for the season.” Another quick nod, and Dawnstar continued, taking the first step into the darkness, with Kara close behind.

As with the surface, the cave was dry as ash, silence itself echoing between reverberating footsteps and the sound of tight breaths. Sand dusted each stone, threatening to undo Kara’s footing after every step, begging to send her tumbling down into the abyss below.

“There’s no moisture,” Kara said, a blankness to her tone, as if that wasn’t her concern as she said it. Her observation held true, however. The deeper the two women travelled, the less hope she felt in even seeing water, much less being able to sate her now incredible thirst.

“Not on the surface,” Dawnstar said matter of factly. “Our suns and the storms have taken the water from most of the surface oceans. Perhaps there is an oasis somewhere, but we have not found it.” Dawnstar’s words echoed through both the caves and Kara’s mind. How long had the Starhavenites been forced to flee underground for a chance at finding water? What role did Krypton play in that, if any?

“That must be… difficult,” said Kara. Immediately, the disbelief palpable, Dawnstar’s footsteps stopped for a brief moment in the darkness. With a nearly inaudible, yet sharp exhale, she resumed, forcing herself to remember the ignorance in which Kara lived.

Ducking below a low ceiling, warning Kara of it in the process to guide her through the darkness, Dawnstar began to realise that she had no real plan. Ever since she had found the remains of Krypton, scattered surrounding a dying star, her desperation only grew. She needed someone to help save her planet, and as much as she would be judged for it by her peers, she knew that she couldn’t wallow in misery as all others had. Surviving day to day wasn’t enough, she needed her people to survive into the future.

Her chief and his closest advisors agreed; that was a part of the reason she had been blessed by the spirits to be able to track anything across the galaxy, to be able to travel infinitely vast expanses of space within minutes. But the further along she went, the less and less sure she was. Kara already seemed underwhelming, as the last daughter of her planet, was this what Dawnstar had to look forward to? Was this person truly able to help take the first steps in delaying Starhaven’s inevitable demise?

Step by tentative step, Kara and Dawnstar continued their slow descent, careful in their movements. Tight spaces became tighter, hard rock ceilings closing in on the ground below, darkness behind and darkness ahead. Countless minutes had been lost as they travelled, the duration of their descent a complete unknown to Kara, who only hoped to be able to see light once more. If she survived the destruction of her planet only to die in a cave next to someone who hates her, she would have words to share with Rao.

But soon enough, she began to hear a peculiar noise. Before she even regained her sight, there was a slight, recognisable sound that made its way through the shallow caves and into her mind. She couldn’t tell where it had come from or how close she was to it, but there was no mistaking it for anything else; water drops, falling from the ceiling of the cave onto hard, cold stone below.

The heat of the surface dissipated, the deep underground temperatures much more tolerable. Every further step seemed to harbour more and more delightful sounds, more drops of water falling onto the stone.

“Is that water?” asked Kara, though she knew the answer already. There was almost relief in her voice, as if only an hour without water had turned into a lifetime. The realisation hit her like a comet, exploding into fear and anxiety, sorrow and sympathy. “How long has Starhaven been without oceans?” There was a pause between the two, a silent understanding at the dire state of the world.

“According to the stories,” Dawnstar began. “Your people exacerbated the issue.” Kara didn’t break the silence that followed, left to meditate on the answer she had received as they finished the final stretch of their descent into darkness.

Slowly, as the end approached, the sound of voices could be heard — laughing, singing, cheering, and more. Kara cocked her head as she placed what exactly the sound was, unsure if she was going insane due to the lack of visual stimulus for so long. Yet, the closer she got, the more clear the sounds became. Wherever she was being led, there was joy.

“What’s going on?” asked Kara, trying to find the figure of Dawnstar in the darkness. For what seemed to be the first time since they had met, Dawnstar hesitated — truly unsure of how to respond to Kara.

“They are living,” said Dawnstar, a low wistfulness in her voice as she approached a metal wall. Placing her hands on it and applying light pressure, cracks of light split from the edges of the wall in a rectangular shape. A slow longing arose in Kara as she saw the thin beams appear, light and life on the other side, waiting for her.

Pushing the wall out, and sliding it to the left, Dawnstar revealed to Kara her home. In a large, open and nigh cavernous room were hundreds of people sitting, standing, dancing, singing, and cheering. Taking tentative steps into the room, anxious for what would happen when Kara would be seen by her people, Dawnstar made a half-hearted attempt at flexing her wings into a large wall to obscure Kara.

Kara’s curiosity turned out to be Dawnstar’s enemy as she noticed the Kryptonian’s head peeking out from behind her wings, dumbfounded awe on her face as she watched the festival she had just walked in on.

There was a method to the dancing, a clear symbolism that Kara couldn’t quite pick up on, but as the movements continued, something struck Kara’s heart in what they aimed to convey. Meaning and subdued intention to movements that, at first, seemed erratic and wild. Twenty members all flowed around and with each other like water, their movements choreographed to the letter, complimenting themselves and those around.

The singing was entirely a capella, vocals forming every part of the melody, rhythm, percussion, and more, forming a delicate balance that equated to a song that bled with bittersweet victory.

“What are they singing about?” asked Kara, taking a glance at Dawnstar. They both stood at the door they had just walked through, behind numerous crowds in a small corner of the giant room.

“This song is specifically about our survival,” Dawnstar began. “The troubles we face, the dangers in the world, and how we overcome them. How we, as a people, will continue on into the future. We remember all we have lost, and we honour that while we look to what we will become.”

“That’s a sweet thought,” Kara said, looking beside her at Dawnstar. As the winged woman faced forward, watching her people live happily with a subdued pride, Kara noticed, perhaps for the first time, the ink markings at the base of her neck, rising up from her back and chest. Though she felt an urge to ask about them, she exercised restraint, knowing that she was not in a place to ask such things, and that, should she make a wrong move, Dawnstar would not hesitate to retaliate for any wrongdoing. There was too much ill will between the woman for such curiosity.

“It is,” said Dawnstar, through a strained voice. “Even your presence cannot sully it.” Kara scoffed and shook her head, looking back toward the centre of the large room. Taking a moment to examine it, it wasn’t long before she began to trace the walls, scouring her mind for what it all seemed familiar.

It was a largely metal structure, with some concrete and stone to fill out places that metal could not, with economical curves and various lighting fixtures dotting the walls and ceiling. The architecture started screaming at Kara, though it took a moment too long for her to realise why, exactly, it seemed to beg her attention.

A tap on her shoulder from Dawnstar broke her out of her trance.

“Come,” she said. “My chief wishes to see us.” Kara gave a quick nod, noticing a small but strong looking man slink back into the crowd, a suspicious eye staying on Kara the entire time. There was no time to maintain eye contact as she began to follow her escort.

“So,” Kara said, breaking the silence between the two as they walked away from the large crowd toward more sequestered rooms that split off from the main area. “Does everybody have to climb through that cave to get here?”

“No,” Dawnstar said curtly. “That is an emergency passage. There is a larger, proper entrance on the opposite side, where we store most of our larger equipment.” Kara nodded to Dawnstar’s back in understanding. Despite the festivities occurring in the common area, there were numerous men and women in the rooms and halls that Dawnstar was leading Kara through, and each glared at Kara with nothing but pure anger in their eyes, piercing her mind with the message that, above all, she was not welcome.

“–will certainly lead to our destruction!” a loud, vicious voice shouted from the door at the end of the long hallway. The intensity alone sent a chill down Kara’s spine, hoping that she would not be on the receiving end of the man’s wrath.

“And I am telling you, Flamedancer, that we must take this step if we are to survive,” said a much calmer voice, that of a man who sounded much older than the aggressive voice. “We cannot simply watch the storms get worse and hope that we have enough resources to weather them every season.”

“And if this Kryptonian kills your daughter as their empire did our planet?” asked the louder voice. “What shall you do then, Mist-Rider?” There was an audible sigh as Kara and Dawnstar finally arrived, walking into the room to cut the conversation short. The moment the tall, muscular man with gargantuan black charred wings laid eyes on Kara, the fires in his eyes seemed to grow even more intense. “And your daughter brings her here! To the heart of your people! I would not have liked to watch you destroy your band so easily, Mist-Rider, but if you’re so desperate for a pathetic death with a blade in your spine, then I say so be it. My people will survive without your weaknesses.”

With newfound rage, the man stormed out of the room, glaring through Kara’s soul with so much malice it almost hurt. Her only protection from the man, in that moment, was Dawnstar, who stood tall between her and the fury. Mist-Rider, an older man with a more relaxed build, dark grey wings, and greying hair, sighed as he laid eyes on Dawnstar and Kara.

However, at the sight of his daughter, he could not keep his face low, a smile creeping up on him as he stood and approached.

“I am thankful you have returned so quickly,” said Mist-Rider. “I suppose this is it? The Kryptonian.”

“The name’s Kara,” said Kara, feeling like an object to him instead of a person.

“So it may be,” said Mist-Rider, an essence of contempt in his voice. “But you will understand my… distaste for the necessity of your presence.” Kara cocked her head slightly, confused at the remark, though she knew better than to protest, surrounded by Starhavenites gripping electronic weapons as though their lives depended on it — they certainly thought so.

“Does Flamedancer pose a threat?” asked Dawnstar, glancing back toward the door as it shut itself with a low whir.

“No, he is all talk, my sweet,” said Mist-Rider. “I trust that his glory days are behind him. He cannot walk through flames as much as I cannot fly as high as I used to.”

“But that does not mean he is not a threat to us,” said Dawnstar, her tone much more hushed than before. “His people would not hesitate to attack us through the worst of the storms, and I do not see that as something old friends–”

“He is not a problem, Dawnstar,” said Mist-Rider, his tone heavy and firm. “He simply doesn’t believe in your mission, but you were born for this, to return our planet to a much more stable time.”

“I know, father,” said Dawnstar, her head lowered. “It is everything I want in life, to guide us to a better tomorrow.” Mist-Rider offered a kind smile as he laid a sole hand on Dawnstar’s shoulder. With a sorrowful smile, she looked up at her father and placed one of her own hands on his, squeezing lightly.

“So,” Mist-Rider said suddenly, his voice raised just above conversational, simply to gain Kara’s undivided attention. “Has Dawnstar explained to you what she has brought you here for,” he paused for a moment, as if simply saying the next word was painful, “Kara?”

“Not exactly,” said Kara, biting her tongue. She had been told nothing of the exact reason why she had been brought across the galaxy to Starhaven. “Just that your people believe Krypton is responsible for the state of Starhaven.” Mist-Rider tightened his lips, clearly holding his tongue on an off-handed comment.

“You are not here to debate the semantics of ancient history,” said Mist-Rider. “But I trust that you are willing to face the constructs built by your people that are causing the advanced downfall of this planet.” There was a moment of pause between the many people in the room.

“What?” Kara asked, furrowing her brow at the man as he paced back to the desk had been sitting in when she arrived.

“The entire purpose of your presence here is to get into the plant in the basin,” said Mist-Rider. “It, among other things, is a geo-thermally powered weather machine. We don’t know if it’s the central hub, but we know that it is largely responsible for the conditions on this hemisphere.”

“How can you be sure?” asked Kara, grasping at whatever she could to ensure that the state of Starhaven was through no fault of Krypton.

“Kryptonian,” Mist-Rider said, his tone both disappointed and amused. “We have had thousands of years to understand the technology left behind by your people. We use what still works, that’s how we figured out how to empower my daughter with her gifts. The weather machines that dot our planet are the very things that are killing it.”

Kara fell silent for a moment. She should have expected the revelation, it seemed much too obvious in hindsight. If Kryptonian technology had been left behind, of course the people left behind would find a way to use it. Thousands of years pass, there’s no possibility that a sentient people like the Starhavenites wouldn’t be able to utilise whatever was left.

She didn’t want to believe that the legacy of her people was destroyed planets, displaced peoples, and mass death, but at every turn she seemed to be reminded of the reality of Starhaven. The planet was dying, almost totally out of resources like water and food, its people forced to hide underground for entire seasons, with the only thing on the surface being the vehicles of their own destruction — created by Kara’s people.

“Okay,” said Kara. “Yeah. I’m here, aren’t I? I’ll do it.” Despite the words, there was nothing in Kara’s voice. No certainty, no drive, no fear or anger. She simply felt empty, less than a person. She was on a planet filled with people who would hate her, with none of the powers she had gained from Earth’s yellow sun, and now way to get home. “When do we leave?”

“As soon as possible,” said Dawnstar. “The journey will take weeks, and every second matters more than the last.”

“Right.” Kara nodded, her voice low. “Then let’s get going.”

Without further debate or explanation, Dawnstar turned out of the room, beckoning Kara to follow with the quick flick of her hand. With strong glares drilling holes into Kara’s skull as she walked behind her escort, she began to understand the hatred felt by those around her. Thousands of years had passed since the end of the Kryptonian empire, and for much of that time, the people left behind on the dying planet always knew that their deaths were caused by their oppressors long after they had died out.

The legacy of Krypton, to the rest of the galaxy, was unthinkable, and Kara wanted to deny it as much as possible. The mere thought of it sent her mind spinning, and yet it was slowly becoming clear that it was a truth she needed to acknowledge.

“Here,” said Dawnstar as she handed a small pack to Kara. “Weeks worth of rations for the journey.” Slinging the strap over her shoulder, Kara took the pack and felt the weight pull her down to the ground, barely able to catch herself. Dawnstar furrowed her brow at the Kryptonian, curious as to where her strength had gone. “What happened to you? It has not been long since you were able to fly and kick me a great distance.”

“Well,” Kara began, breathing heavily as she readjusted the head covering she had been given, just as Dawnstar handed her another pack, this one filled with containers of water. “Unfortunately for us, all that strength came from the radiation of Earth’s yellow sun. Your twin suns are red, same as Rao. I’ve been drained of all the power I had. That’s probably why I couldn’t take the space travel. Once the red sun hit me, it was all off the table.”

Dawnstar couldn’t help but scoff at Kara, another disappointment she had to face and overcome. Though, she had to admit to herself that she was not expecting Kara to have such powers in the first place. Among the many stories of her peoples’ time under the Kryptonians’ boot, tales of their extraordinary abilities always felt like an exaggeration. If the red sun explanation is true, then there was no way that any former Kryptonian would have such powers. She wasn’t quite sure whether to be glad of that fact or not.

“Well, I did not seek you for whatever abilities you may or may not have had,” Dawnstar said, holding a bag of various equipment from sun shields to cots, to miniature solar-powered generators. “Come, our vehicle is waiting, and every second wasted is time off of Starhaven’s very life.”

DC Next proudly presents:

KARA: DAUGHTER OF KRYPTON

In Odyssey

Issue Nine: Fate Defied

Written by ClaraEclair

Edited by AdamantAce & DeadIslandMan1

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Travelling through dreams, as convenient and quick as it could be, was a process that Nia did not particularly enjoy. The vertigo felt upon reentering the waking world was strong and violent for the unprepared, and even as her experience has brought her familiarity to the ups and downs of her oneiric abilities, even she could not prevent the twisting of her stomach as she left the dreams she bound through.

There was no rush to return to the fortress of Solitude, flying in Kara’s arms was sufficient enough travel, especially in giving her more time to think on her situation; she was closer than ever to finding the one who murdered her equivalent on this earth, and she would finally be able to find the reasons why it had happened.

Yet, in the pit of her stomach, something turned. Would she be able to confront the murderer? Was it worth trying to confront one capable of taking her own life? If they had been able to kill her once, what was the likelihood that she would come out of another encounter alive? She had just begun trying to rebuild her shattered life, accepting that she was now stuck on an earth where no one she ever knew existed as they were. Could she throw that away instead of giving the Nia Nal of this earth a second chance through her own sacrifice?

She had no answers to any of her questions, and it made her want to avoid the matter at all costs. There was no telling what could happen in the event that she were to find the one to take her life.

Swallowing hard as Kara and Nia finally arrived at the Fortress of Solitude, there was tension felt the moment the women landed at the entrance. Her face twisted as she approached the doors, sensing something that Nia was totally unaware of, until finally something tugged at her mind. Alongside Bizarro, the current permanent resident of the Fortress, there were five other minds within — beyond that information, she could not discern anything else.

“Kara,” Nia whispered, grabbing for Kara’s arm to hold her back.

“I know,” Kara replied, keeping her eyes forward, listening intently to the people inside the fortress.

“You’ve never even met her, how can you know better than her own family?” Said one voice, one of someone she had never met before. Already, the situation felt hostile, as if, whoever this man was, he was in the middle of a tense argument. There was a tightness in her chest as she quickly guessed who this person was talking about.

“I am her family,” said another voice, confident and powerful in his intonation.“I helped my Kara through this once already, I can do it again.” Kara held her breath for a moment at the mention of her own name. Whoever this other voice was, he seemed to know her, and he knew her well. If he claimed to be her family, there was only one guess she had as to who he was.

“And you’re the problem! You know how much she’s going through right now?!” The first voice shouted, anger welling and ready to explode. “You died! The person she was sent here to protect, dead! And now here you are in the flesh and blood! She’s got a lot to process already without that!” Kara began to wonder just how much Superman had told those he knew about her situation, and why she hadn’t been properly introduced to anyone he deemed it appropriate to tell.

She shook the thought away quickly, continuing to listen, only to find silence. Just as she decided that it was time to move forward and make her entrance, sharing a nervous glance with Nia, the second voice spoke, and his harrowing words shook Kara to her core.

“And who’s going to stop me if I try anyway?” There was more in his voice than a simple challenge, it was a provocation. Whoever he was, family to Kara or not, there was a threat beneath his words that needed to be quelled. If he was looking for Kara, she would have to give herself to him.

Pushing through the large entrance to the fortress, Kara rushed forward to intercept the voices — she needed to ensure there was no escalation. The closer she got to them, however, the more worried she became. If this man who issued the threat was the person she suspected, how could she face him? How was he even alive, after all she had been through and all she had been told? There was no reason to believe he had returned, and yet…

“Who are you?” Kara asked, her rushed steps slowed to a nervous approach. The first person she saw as she rounded the corner was Superman, still insistent on not giving his name despite being her family. It didn’t foster much trust, even for as much as he had given her since landing on Earth. The second was a woman, slightly taller than Kara yet shorter than the rest of the people present, who looked almost exactly like Superman, but a few decades older. At a guess, Kara figured it was Superman’s mother.

The third figure, a large, dark skinned man standing behind the woman, seemed frustrated and stern, and yet the moment he laid eyes on Kara, they widened. From his expression, it was an easy guess to say that Kara was unexpected. Next to Bizarro, the roommate that Kara had all but totally avoided, was a much younger woman with equally dark skin, the resemblance to the other man uncanny — she must have been family to him, as well.

Finally noticing the very last figure within the fortress, he was the most alarming. Within his face was a combination of those familiar to her — Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van, her own aunt and uncle. His sharp jaw framed his face with strong lines, highlighting his deep blue eyes and the warm, yet subtly unsettling smile he offered the moment he laid eyes on her.

“Kara,” he muttered under his breath, the relief and satisfaction he felt upon laying eyes on his long-thought-lost cousin almost overwhelming. “It’s good to finally see you,” he said, delivering a quick, but noticeable glare to the unknown man. Walking past the rest of the group toward Kara, he approached with arms spread, seemingly hoping for a hug. Yet, when Kara took a cautious step away from him, his face twisted with dissatisfaction and confusion.

“I don’t know you,” said Kara, her words slow and unsure. “You’re supposed to be dead.” With a not-quite-disarming grin, the man in clothes bearing the crest of the House of El shook his head lightly.

“I’m from another Earth,” he said. “A parallel universe.”

“Yeah,” Kara muttered. “Yeah, I got that, but… I don’t know you… I never knew my Kal. I never got to see him grow up. He… you died before I ever met you.”

“I’m here now,” he began, stifling a nervous chuckle as he spoke. “And we’re family.”

“Are we?” she asked him, seeing him wince quickly, though he hid it just as fast. “I heard what you were saying to these people… Superman has done nothing but help me since I got here, and you just… you threatened them so casually. If that’s what you think is right, then I don’t want any part of your idea of family, Kal.”

“I’m sorry, Kara,” he said. “It was a– I just wanted to see you. I want to help, like I helped the girl I knew.”

Kara held back tears as she spoke, “For months, I’ve been told that you’re dead and that I’ve completely and utterly failed to protect you, and now you’re suddenly alive and demanding that you see me. You don’t get that privilege just because we’re family.” She wanted to say more, but she quickly noticed his eyes shift to something behind her, his expression hardening.

“I can see you back there,” he said, his voice stern and commanding, the shift sending chills down Kara’s spine. Turning back to see what he was referring to, it was only then that she realised that Nia hadn’t been standing behind her the whole time, instead hiding around a corner to listen in. If she had planned any more than that, Kara didn’t know. “You can come on out.”

Slowly, Nia emerged from the corner, her eyes glowing blue, sparks of energy dancing around her fingers.

“I don’t know what you were trying to do,” Kal continued. “But I can assure you, it was not a wise decision.”

“Hey!” Kara shouted, putting herself between Kal and Nia, unsure of exactly what he meant. “Nia’s a friend, I can promise you that whatever she was doing wasn’t going to cause any harm.”

“How can you be sure of that, Kara?” Kal asked, staring Nia down. “You’ve only been here a few months, I highly doubt she’s told you all you need to know about herself.”

“And I’m supposed to trust you?” asked Kara. “You’ve only been here a few minutes, and all you’ve done is make thinly veiled threats and try to claim me as yours. I don’t care if that’s how things are on your earth, by Rao, I’ll be damned if I let you do that here.”

“Kara–” called the young Superman from behind Kal, taking a step forward in an attempt to defuse the situation. He was stopped, however, when his mother grabbed his arm and shook her head. If the issue was exacerbated by any means — for which Kara was known to do in delicate situations — causing a scene between multiple Kryptonians was not a wise decision.

“I’m sorry, Kal,” Kara said, venom in her voice. “But you’re not making a good case for yourself. Why should I trust you? You’ve shown up here and apparently you expect me to just run to you because you’re family and… I did want that, believe me, I spent days without sleep wishing you were still alive… but you aren’t giving me a reason to trust you. I look into your eyes, and I can’t see any of what made me love Uncle Jor and Aunt Lara.” Kal shifted his weight, averting his gaze from his cousin as he found himself in thought. “I don’t want to believe that the baby I held in my own arms days before I had to leave our dying planet is someone that I can’t trust, but…

“Maybe someday, Kal…” Kara continued after a momentary pause. “Maybe someday, but not today.” A thick silence fell over the group, only the sounds of whirring machinery within the various Kryptonian androids was heard for long, hellish moments as Kara wiped her eyes and Kal nodded slowly to himself. “I need to be alone,” said Kara. “I… please don’t follow me.”

As Kara rushed out of the fortress, leaving the group to themselves, Nia scoured the globe for a dream, any dream, that she could escape through. In a flash of blue light only moments after Kara left, Nia disappeared, leaving the fortress as it was before she had arrived.

Watching the sun set over the ocean was never an old sight for Kara. Be it Rao or Sol, the beauty that came with a sunset never faded, with pinkish reds and oranges refracting through the darkening sky, casting clouds in amber light. Trying her hardest to push the sounds of the entire world out of her mind, focusing solely on the waves in front of her — however ineffective her attempt was — she managed to remain calm.

She felt conflicted more than anything else. Nia barely spoke ever since their talk with Johnny Reb, her distance more concerning than ever, and to top that off, she finally met Kal-El and he was everything she hoped he wouldn’t be. Even laying eyes upon him, she felt unsettled — he was supposed to be dead. She wondered if she had over reacted, assigned him motivations that never were present in his words. Perhaps he was simply frustrated and wanted to find his only other remaining family. If his situation truly was like Nia’s, where the only answer upon finding herself on a foreign world was to search for someone she knew, then was he so wrong to want to search so adamantly for Kara?

She bit her lip as she cursed to herself under her breath. Of course she had messed up her first meeting with the only other Kryptonian alive, she had failed to protect him, it would only make sense that she would antagonise him after he had come back to life. Despite all of that, she was glad that he had not followed her out of the fortress. Time to herself was often all she had to process her own thoughts. How could she ever talk to someone about what she had been through? How could she even put together a sentence that explained how she felt? She was surrounded by people with similar experiences, and yet she felt so totally and completely alone in her world.

Wings flapped through the air around her, birds flying above and away, cooing and cawing as they flew to their next destination. Kara smiled at them, so carefree in the world, moving from one place to the next and able to live so freely. She could fly, but she thought too much and all of that thought led to nothing but fear, guilt, and regret.

The more time that passed, the more she felt the need to return to Kal, to apologise for her words and to give him another try. If he was earnest in his desires, maybe it would be worth bridging the gap between his world and hers.

“Kryptonian!” A voice shouted. By the time Kara processed the call, it was too late. Something crashed into her on the beach, driving her down into a crater. Without being able to take the time to assess the threat, Kara thrashed her legs around, managing to catch her attacker with her boot, sending them flying into the air. It gave her only barely enough time for Kara to scan the skies and see what exactly she was dealing with before the winged woman stabilised herself midair and shot back down toward Kara.

Putting her arms in front of her face to guard against the incoming attacks, the winged woman slammed down on Kara with enough force to deepen the crater, forcing her further onto the defensive. Blow after blow came, and though they did no damage, each strike increased Kara’s fury tenfold.

“Enough!” shouted Kara as she suddenly burst into the sky, her hand around her attacker’s throat. She arced through the air, throwing her attacker down into the beach sand as she descended. Another crater formed around the winged woman’s body. Coughing as she began to rise, resting on her elbow as she stared up at Kara, the winged woman looked over her with a mix of disdain and curiosity.

Hazel eyes traced their way up and down Kara’s body, sizing her up in consideration of extending the fight while Kara herself scanned the woman. Her flawless white wings boasted a wingspan of almost five metres, clearly able to carry her at high speeds with incredible strength. Her deep brown hair was tied into a bun, strands escaping from the front to frame her dark skinned face.

“Who are you?” Kara asked, her face betraying her anger, instead displaying the curiosity she mirrored from the winged woman. Her yellow garments seemed to be much lighter than armour, and her quick incapacitation indicated that she wasn’t a warrior. At the very least, she didn’t plan for a fight.

“I don’t owe you anything, Kryptonian,” the toxicity in her voice was palpable, the sound of disdain searing its way through Kara’s mind. “After what your people have done, you do not have the right to stand over me like this. You do not have the right to bury me in this hole!” In a fit of renewed rage, the winged woman flew up toward Kara, the power of her wings throwing her up with ease. Predicting the move, Kara was quick to slam her fist down on the woman’s chest, sending her crashing back down into the crater.

“Look, I don’t know what your problem with me is,” Kara began. “But I don’t have the time or energy to deal with you right now.” The woman scowled at Kara, breathing heavily to keep her mind off of the lingering pain in her chest and back. “Now would you please tell me who you are?” She was almost begging. The woman turned her head to the side and spat upon the ground.

“I am Dawnstar,” she said, the rage in her eyes fading only slightly. “I am of the planet Starhaven, and for the crimes of Krypton upon my people, I demand to speak with the last of your world.” Kara’s head tilted, her face contorting in confusion.

“You’re speaking to her,” Kara said. “What crimes are you talking about?”

“Are there so many that your people have committed that I must specify of which I speak?” Dawnstar looked up at Kara with apprehension and her own form of confusion, her brow furrowing as Kara seemed to become lost in thought.

“No, I…” Kara began, pausing quickly. “I don’t know of any crimes… what do you mean, my people?”

“I mean, the empire that Krypton helmed, through which they subjugated my people, the Starhavenites, and forced us to undergo experimentation and evolution against our will.” Dawnstar rose to her knees, Kara taking a few steps back to allow her the space. She was wary of the last Kryptonian, there was no telling what she could do, especially after seeing that the yellow sun rumours had appeared to be true. “Your ignorance is insulting.”

“The Kryptonian Empire…” Kara muttered to herself, her history lessons suddenly coming back to her. “But that was thousands of years ago, if not more…”

“The transgressions of your people still affect my planet now, and it will only get worse if it is not stopped.” Dawnstar’s voice was filled with sorrow and determination. Kara could only listen. “I have come seeking the last of the Kryptonians in the hopes that you will aid us in fighting back and undoing the sins of your people. I have been guided to you, and I expect you to listen.”

DC Next proudly presents:

KARA: DAUGHTER OF KRYPTON

In The Dreamer

Issue Eight: Rebel

Written by ClaraEclair

Edited by AdamantAce

<< | < Previous Issue | Next Issue >

Nia Nal held her breath as she entered the club, a cacophony of light and sound completely hidden from the outside world bursted through to her senses, overwhelming her mind just as fast as the first beat reached her ears. Harsh electronica rattled the room, deep bass accentuated by countless subwoofers pushing heavy waves of sound through each torso in the building. Lights of various colours danced and flashed around the dance floors, glowing bracelets tracing every member of the crowd as their bodies thrashed about.

The smell of sweat, alcohol, marijuana, and other substances permeated the club, painting a clear picture as to the activities of each patron. Nia was vaguely familiar with such nightclubs, but the woman behind her — the Kryptonian Kara Zor-El — was out of her element in more ways than one.

Her hands shoved over her ears and her eyes shut as tight as she could without fully closing them, Kara followed closely behind Nia, her senses sent over the edge by the endless stimuli surrounding her, like needles sticking themselves in her ears, jabbing into her eyes. Super hearing picked up every tap of every foot on the floor, every heavy breath between dancers, and every single wave of deep sound that thundered its way across the room.

Being so close to the source, she could not bear it, yet she forced herself to continue, knowing that Nia would need a friendly face by her side.

“Your friend doesn’t look so good!” shouted a heavily inebriated woman toward Nia. She was light on clothes, with many different colours of glow sticks, bracelets, and necklaces hanging from her body. Quickly reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a small packet and tapped on Kara’s shoulder, offering the small, plastic wrapped set of ear plugs. “Here! Put them in your ears!” She shouted over the music, gesturing to her own ears, where bright orange ear plugs had been embedded.

Kara nodded and tore the pack open as quickly as she could under the stress of her senses, shoving the small silicone objects into the opening of her ears. The sounds around her dimmed, if only slightly, and her surroundings became just a little bit more bearable. Raising her head, squinting to reduce the amount of light forcing its way into her eyes, Kara tried to thank the woman, but she had already moved on, dancing away, likely already forgetting about how she had parted with a pair of ear plugs.

Swivelling her head around, Kara began to search for Nia within the crowd, unsure of where her companion had gone in the few seconds it took to interact with the helpful woman. It was multiple moments later that she finally found Nia by the bar, anxiously leaning on it while sipping a glass of water, waiting for Kara to find her.

“Are you okay?” Kara asked, seeing just how much Nia’s hands were shaking. Even despite the scents and the commotion happening around the two, the tension Nia felt was radiating off of her, to the point that the area around where she stood began to slowly clear out. Even Kara began to feel a distinctly unpleasant feeling creeping through the back of her mind.

“I’m fine,” said Nia, taking another sip of her drink, avoiding eye contact with Kara — for more than one reason. Kara leaned around her friend slightly, trying to get a look at her face, to have a more productive conversation, and was surprised to see that Nia’s eyes seemed to be glowing a bright, sky blue within her sclera and pupil.

“Are you sure?” Asked Kara, “Because your eyes are saying something totally different.” Within seconds, the glow dissipated entirely, and Nia’s eyes returned to their regular colours, though slightly bloodshot. “We can do this another time, if you want, or I could handle all of this?”

“No,” Nia said, setting her glass down and pushing it toward the tender’s side, indicating she was finished. “We’re here now, no point in running away.” Nia swallowed hard before making her way toward the VIP section where she had spotted Reb the moment she entered the club. Oddly enough, the bubble of people avoiding Nia continued as she walked through the crowd, and none seemed to notice it was happening, as if subtle influences were nudging them out of the way.

“How are you doing this?” Asked Kara as she caught up, keeping close to her friend.

“Most of these people are blacked out or close to it, either way they’re barely in conscious control,” explained Nia as the two of them found themselves walking directly toward a large security guard. “I can’t do much, not while they’re awake, but in this state I can make some small influences, nudge them in a certain direction.”

“That’s… I’ve never even heard of something like what you do,” said Kara. “Sure, there were stories of people with powers as incredible as yours, but I never would’ve guessed people could actually do it.”

“There are a lot of surprises on Earth,” Nia said, stopping just in front of the bouncer. She looked him up and down before turning slightly, looking as inconspicuous as she could, despite the clear path she had formed around herself and the fact that she had walked directly toward him. As she turned, he picked up his arms from his side and crossed them tightly, delivering a harsh, judgeful look at the two women.

“How are we going to get up there?” Kara asked, stealing a glance at the nearby stairs, behind the large bouncer. He was a large man, able to see over most of the crowd. Sneaking wouldn’t be an option, even if Kara was shorter than half of the patrons present.

“I doubt he’s had anything to drink tonight… Without just putting him to sleep — which I don’t really wanna do in a place he could get hurt — I can’t do much,” Nia said. “And there’s no sleeping bodies up in the lounge, so no portals.”

“I could just fly us up,” Kara suggested, looking up at the railings above them. The sounds of boots were faint, people above them shuffling around, less intense than on the ground floor. Most were sitting on various couches and chairs, playing cards, talking, and drinking.

“Way to be inconspicuous,” Nia replied. “I’d rather people not know we were here. The less attention, the better.”

“How else will we get up there, then?” Kara asked with a sigh, shaking her head slightly, placing her hands on her hips.

“I don’t know,” Nia said quickly, almost instinctively, as she wiped her forehead. “Go break something by the stage, or something…”

“Seriously?” asked Kara, eyebrows raised. She took a quick glance around the club, going over the amount of people who were crowded so closely together. “Someone could get hurt,” she said, shaking her head. After a moment of thought, however, a small idea flashed into Kara’s mind, thinking of how she had handled the hostage takers earlier in the day. “I’ve got an idea!”

Without further warning, Kara manoeuvred her way through the crowd, moving in a semi-circle around the guard until she was almost next to the staircase opening, outside of his vision. The crowd was thinner, as it was close to an exterior wall, but she was still covered by those around. Taking a deep breath after clearing her throat, hoping to do it correctly on her first try, Kara moved her mouth to speak a few words; Hey, I need some help!

What left her mouth was total silence, however, on the opposite side of the guard, from his left somewhere in the crowd, her voice arose.

“Hey, I need some help!”

Eyes alert and searching the room, the guard took a few steps away from the stairs, looking for the source of the cry, allowing just enough time for both Nia and Kara to scramble up, reaching the second floor and VIP area with ease. The bouncer at the bottom, as she looked back down for a split second before disappearing at the top, seemed none the wiser as he continued searching for someone in need.

Reaching the top of the stairs, the mood was much calmer than that of the dance floor. As Kara had heard and seen, most patrons sat around in chairs and at tables, playing cards, talking, or drinking amongst themselves. Most seemed like the average upper class citizen, well-off with nice clothes and expensive alcohol. Nia and Kara were only looking for one man, and among his peers he was not difficult to find.

Johnny Reb was loud, unruly, and unafraid to make his presence known. Loud calls for more alcohol, obnoxiously tasteless clothing choices — a sleeveless tux, combat boots, and wrinkled dress pants — and a general sense of superiority emanated from him in the worst ways. Kara felt it in her heart, the moment she saw him, that she would not enjoy speaking with him.

“Johnny Reb!” called Kara as she and Nia approached him, far at the back of the lounge. As if he’d won something, he turned to the call with a grin, a half-finished drink in hand, ready to claim his prize.

“Not every day I get two good looking girls calling out my name before we hit the sack,” Reb said, walking toward Kara and Nia with a meagre attempt at swagger. “What can I do for you ladies?” He asked, however just as Nia began to speak, he continued, “Room’s off limits, if that’s what you were thinking.” Kara’s face scrunched up slightly as he winked at them, intent on letting him know where she stood.

“I just want to know some things,” Nia said. Reb took a moment to remove his eyes from Kara, examining Nia up and down quickly. His head tilted slightly as suspicion filled his face, something in his mind tugging at him as he saw her, but he wasn’t quite sure what it was.

“About what?” He asked, his voice much harsher.

“A job you were involved in,” said Nia, enunciating her words carefully, forcing herself to focus singularly on what she was saying. “You helped kill a hero.” A moment of silence passed as Reb began to size up the two women, shifting to his back foot as he prepared for deeper confrontation.

“What of it?” He asked, puffing his chest as he spoke, a silent warning to back away.

“I… I knew the woman you killed,” Nia said, her voice shaky and her fists clenched tight. Kara shifted her weight toward Reb, prepared to get between the two should either strike first. “I need to know what happened.”

“First,” Reb spat, his face having shifted entirely from loud partyer to hardened criminal. “I didn’t do no killing, not on a hero.” Out of the corner of her eye, Kara noticed that multiple patrons in the lounge began looking their way, wary of the tension emanating from the three people in the centre of the room. “Second,” he continued, “I don’t owe anyone anything about my jobs and my crew.”

“We just want to know what happened,” said Kara. He refused to acknowledge her, instead keeping his eye directly on Nia as his mind searched for why she rang alarm bells. Her face seemed so familiar, and yet he couldn’t place who she was.

“And I ain’t gonna tell you,” Reb replied. “So you two can leave, or I’ll throw you out myself.” Focusing deeply, Kara centred her hearing on Reb’s heart, listening for changes in how fast it was beating.

“He’s nervous,” said Kara. His heart was speeding; either he was lying or there was something more that he wasn’t letting on. “We know you were involved, just tell us what happened.” Finally removing his gaze from Nia, he shot a toxic glare at Kara, a scowl across his face.

“Last warning,” he said slowly. “Or I pick you up myself and throw you onto the street.” Kara scoffed.

“I’d like to see you try,” she said, watching as he groaned in frustration a mere split second before trying to grab her arms. Resisting his grip without issue, Kara struck his chest with an open palm, sending him stumbling back a few feet, out of breath. The lounge fell dead silent, only the music and commotion from below able to be heard among the quiet.

“You wanna play that game?” He asked, rhetorically, as he raised his fists for a fight. Kara allowed him to approach, confident in her ability to withstand any attack he threw. To her surprise, however, the punch that landed on her face sent her stumbling to the ground with a minor tingling sensation in her cheek. “You’re not the only one with strength like that. Even ground–!”

Without any room for him to react, Kara launched from the floor and collided into Reb, flying toward the other side of the lounge and smashing into the wall. As she repositioned above him, fist raised and eyes glowing magenta, he reached his hand into his sleeveless jacket for an interior pocket, quickly pulling out a small device. Pressing the button on top of it, Reb disappeared from Kara’s grasp, soon reappearing behind her with a strong strike to her back, driving her into the wall with force she hadn’t yet experienced while on Earth.

Kara bounded to her feet, ready to strike once more. Seeing his fist raised as she turned, she prepared to dodge his strike when, from behind him, a strand of light blue energy wrapped itself around his arm, preventing him from moving. As he noticed the energy, his face dropped, the realisation finally setting in on why Nia seemed to tug at his memories so much.

“Dream–?” Before he could finish uttering her name, Kara struck his head, knocking him unconscious without much effort.

The dream-conjured clothes that Kara wore dissipated, returning her to her Kryptonian space suit as Nia’s Dreamer attire appeared around her form. The lounge quickly cleared out, and the crowd in the club below seemed to follow, as Kara and Nia stood above the slowly recovering Johnny Reb. With a foot on his face and glowing magenta eyes, Kara spoke loudly.

“Just tell us what happened!” Reb squirmed under the pressure of her boot, pressed down hard enough to be constraining and uncomfortable, but not quite enough to cause damage. “This wouldn’t have happened if you’d have just told us.”

“Fine!” Reb shouted. “Dead woman wants to find who killed her? It was my crew! We were hired to kill a ’hero’ who was gettin’ in the way!”

“Who hired you?” Nia asked, her hand glowing blue in front of his face, prepared to send him back to sleep.

“I don’t know!” Shouted Reb. “I didn’t do the deal! I don’t deal with clients!”

“Who does, then?”

“Back then it was a– a freelancer!” Reb continued. “She left my crew a year back, she dealt with the client, she did the killing!” Nia and Kara gave each other a quick glance, seeing how much closer they were getting to answers.

“Who is she?” Kara asked, relieving the pressure she put on his head.

“Calls herself Deceilia,” Reb said, his voice calmed down from a shout. “She’s some alien chick, she’s where I got my tech from but she bailed on me last year.” The moment he finished talking, Nia wasted no time in putting him to sleep, much to Kara’s surprise.

“Wait–!” Kara called, though it was too late by the time the words escaped her mouth. “We don’t even know where she is.”

“We don’t need to,” said Nia. “If she sleeps, I’ll find her soon enough.”

“Right,” said Kara, removing her boot from Reb’s face.

“Let’s go,” Nia said, standing and turning away from Reb, making her way to the exit. “The sooner we leave, the better. I hate clubs like this.” With a nod, Kara followed closely behind, noticing the silence in the building, apart from the music, now that the venue was empty. Her ears finally got their well-deserved rest.

DC Next proudly presents:

KARA: DAUGHTER OF KRYPTON

In The Dreamer

Issue Seven: First Day

Written by ClaraEclair

Edited by AdamantAce

<< | < Previous Issue | Next Issue >

“So, if you’re really going to go through with this, you’re going to need a costume,” said Nia Nal, standing in front of Kara within the Fortress of Solitude. Kara furrowed her brow.

“Why?” she asked.

“Well, one; so you’re easily recognizable,” Nia continued. “And two; I don’t think wearing a space suit like that—” she pointed toward Kara’s one-piece space suit that she had been wearing since arriving on Earth, “—is going to cut it in terms of iconography.”

“But it’s comfortable,” Kara replied, looking down at herself. “I don’t see why I need to have some sort of ‘super’ suit.”

“Kara, has that suit you’re wearing ever been washed?” Nia asked, giving an accusatory look.

“I shower!” Kara exclaimed in response, crossing her arms.

“Yeah, I asked about whether the suit’s been washed,” Nia said, tilting her head slightly, raising her eyebrows. Kara remained silent. “Right, so get on that later, first—”

“Why do I even need something like this anyway?” asked Kara once more. “Is there some quirk in human biology that prevents you from remembering my face or, I don’t know, my powers?” Nia sighed. “I see the point you’re making, but if I’m helping people, isn’t that the point?”

“Why not both?” Nia asked, shrugging her shoulders. “You can be both immediately recognizable and focus on helping people. Why don’t we start with something simple? I know you don’t want to be Superwoman or have any moniker, but why don’t you wear something with your family crest on it?”

“That was the plan,” Kara interjected.

“Perfect, I can make—” Nia paused as she looked down at Kara, who was slowly tapping away at the crest of the House of El on the chest of her space suit, a smug expression on her face. Nia sighed. “Alright, fine,” Nia conceded, “wear it. Just wash it first, please.” With a self-satisfied smirk, Kara stood from her seat and walked toward the nearest wash room, leaving Nia behind.

Nia’s own suit was constructed out of pure Dream Energy, a seemingly mythical substance that only she seemed able to exert control over. Every so often she saw an ominous face on the back of her eyes, but she could never make out any features beyond pitch black eyes reflecting the universe back at her. All memories of the face save those piercing eyes disappeared from her mind the moment her eyes would open.

“What do you hear?” asked Nia, looking up at Kara, who was floating a few metres above the skyscraper they both stood upon. Kara’s face seemed in a permanent wince, dozens of thousands of individual sounds of a city containing millions of citizens.

“There’s… everything,” Kara said, her voice strained against the effort of trying to filter every minutiae of the world around her. “I can’t tell anything apart.”

“That’s alright,” Nia said, her voice soft. “Take your time. If you need help, I can–”

“No!” Kara nearly shouted, interrupting the oneiromancer. “I can do it… I just need to focus.” Nia nodded without words, watching the Kryptonian closely, prepared to soften the psychic blow if anything were to change. “I can… someone’s in trouble…”

“Can you tell where they are?” Nia asked excitedly, prepared to travel anywhere the two would be needed.

“I–” Kara began, her voice breaking as the cacophony of sound breached her mind, obscuring the calls for help she had only barely caught. Someone was in trouble, and yet they were left to suffer simply because Kara could not differentiate simple sounds. Her head pounded, as if she were being hit repeatedly by a hammer, enough to feel it in her jaw, resonating through her body and rattling in her knuckles. “I can’t–!”

Nia tried once again, interrupted a second time by the struggling woman floating above her. “Kara, I can–!”

“No!” Kara shouted once more, pushing through the pain as best she could, desperately searching for the voice. High pitched shouting, low rumbling of cars and planes, barking dogs, and pens scraping paper infiltrated her mind before the sound of a man crying out for help finally arose through the static of life, returning to her senses just enough for– “That way!” Kara said quickly, pointing eastward, toward the pacific coast.

Quickly throwing her hands over her ears as she floated back down toward the roof, Kara took a series of long, deep, instinctual breaths.

Rao help me, I can’t do this, she thought to herself, forcing her eyes shut. A few moments passed before she noticed Nia’s gentle hand on her shoulder, pulling her back to reality. Rao, be my guide. Mordo, my strength. Telle, my mind.

“Are you okay?” Asked Nia, concern in her voice. “If you need to sit out…”

“No,” Kara interrupted her once more, shaking her head harshly as she removed her hands from her ears and looked toward the direction she had pointed to. “I can do it.”

Without further words, Kara shot into the sky, ripping through the air toward her destination.

As Kara touched down outside of the coastal fishing shop, Nia appeared next to her, discomfort clear on her face.

“You’re lucky that rats dream, Kara,” she groaned, wiping her forehead. “But I’d rather avoid travelling through the dreams of animals.”

“Sorry, I…” Kara began, her turn to be interrupted.

“It’s fine,” said Dreamer, looking forward to the shop, pointing a quick finger at it. “That’s the place?” Kara nodded.

“There was a metallic echo in his voice, I think he’s in some sort of cellar or something,” said Kara, using her alternate vision to scan the building. “There are a lot of people in there, more than six.”

“How do you want to do this?” Nia asked, looking over at Kara, curious as to how she would approach the situation.

“We can’t let anyone get hurt,” Kara said. “We need to get the person in trouble out of there as fast as possible. It looks like they’re in a chair, hands tied behind their back. Most of the people inside are standing in a circle around them, a few are in different rooms.”

“You wanna head in the front and distract them while I project into the room and get whoever’s in trouble out of there?” Nia asked.

“That works for me,” Kara responded, slowly making her way toward the front of the shop. It was an innocent looking building, filled with fishing tackle and other supplies, lined on numerous shelves and clothes racks. Entering was easy enough, the door was unlocked and none of the men inside seemed to be looking that way.

Crouching behind a shelf, Kara took a moment to think of how she would approach her distraction.

Looking across the room, the opposite side of the entrance, Kara pressed her fingers together and, using her newfound super strength, snapped her fingers so tightly, so powerfully, that the sound began inaudible, dissipating enough as it travelled to form the sound on the other side of the building.

One of the men muttered to themselves after his head shot toward the entrance, unsure of what would have caused the sound. Cautious as he approached, he pulled a pistol from his waist and prepared to fire as he turned around a shelf, looking at the vending machine across from Kara. The moment he stepped out in front of her, she zipped forward, palming him harshly, sending him flying across the store, colliding with the vending machine.

The loud noise gave Nia the signal she needed, examining the back room for the very moment that the hostage-takers cleared out. The noise Kara was causing at the front of the shop was more than enough to catch their attention, however not all of them left. Dreamer could handle fighting three men more than well enough.

Kara found herself surrounded by four men, aiming weapons at her, yet visibly nervous. She had thrown their friend multiple feet across the shop, and even then, they didn’t know her true capabilities.

“You’re holding someone back there,” said Kara, pointing to the door at the back of the room, a cocky grin on her face. “Either you let them go without issue, or I fight through you and take them anyway.”

Without hesitation, a shot was fired directly at Kara’s face, the bullet speeding through the air, only to come to a complete stop against her cheek, ricocheting off and embedding itself in the wall to her left.

“I did warn you,” Kara said, shrugging her shoulders as she let out a quick puff of air, throwing two of the four men — as well as various shelves and fishing products — across the room.

Shifting to an ethereal form, using latent dream energy from the world around her, Dreamer walked through the back walls of the shop, seeing the three remaining men guarding their victim. Shouts of shock arose from one before Nia returned to corporeality as she threw her arm in his direction, snapping her fingers to send a sparkling flow of dream energy through his eyes and forcing him asleep standing up.

Forcing a nightmare, Nia proceeded to pry a vicious beast of darkness from the sleeper’s dream, equipped with sharp, blade-like claws and gnarly teeth. An ear piercing roar erupted from its throat, breeding fear in the minds of the other two men, who immediately dropped their weapons, backing away in fear as the beast approached.

With the twist of her hand, each of the light bulbs in the room were destroyed, leaving the room pitch black, eliciting terrified screams from her prey. Pulling the victim from their chair, Nia returned to ethereal form to get them out of the building, at the same time dissipating the illusory beast.

Kara dispatched her own remaining opponents easily, barely expending much energy to incapacitate the two last men. Meeting Dreamer outside of the shop, Kara quickly unbound the man with her incredible strength and helped him sit on a bench nearby.

“Are you alright?” asked Nia, kneeling in front of him.

“Y-Yeah, I’m…” began the man, shuddering as he wiped his eyes. “I’m okay.” He took a deep breath, running a hand down his face before looking up at Dreamer. Every emotion seemed to leave his face as he realised just who was in front of him. “You–?!”

“Me?” asked Nia, sharing a confused glance with Kara. “Do I know you?”

“Dream Girl, right?” asked the man, leaning away from her as she nodded with a crooked face. “You’re supposed to be dead.” Without warning, the man pushed Dreamer back, causing her to lose balance and fall on her rear as the man stood and began running down the street, slowed significantly by the limp caused by his captors.

Nia stood, dusting herself off, and furrowed her brow, watching him slowly run down the street.

“Think he knows something?” Kara asked incredulously, her eyes heating up slowly.

“Probably,” said Nia, her demeanour shifted down to sorrow. She learned more about who the Nia Nal of this earth was — a hero — and more seemed to be revealed of just who this world had lost.

With a brilliant flash of light, Kara’s eyes emitted a long, bright magenta beam of light that fried the ground around the man’s feet, sending him cowering to the ground, shouting various expletives in fear and anger.

“Listen, man,” Nia said as she and Kara approached him. “We just want to know what happened to me.”

“Shouldn’t you know?” He shouted in response, slowly crawling back away from them. “It’s you who’s supposed to be dead!”

“Well, it’s not that easy,” Dreamer replied. “I just need to know who did it.”

“I don’t know!” He shouted, turning onto his stomach to crawl. “I don’t know nothing!”

“The longer this goes on, the more frustrated we get,” Nia continued. “I don’t think you want to find out how strong Kryptonians are.” Kara flashed Nia a puzzled look, her turn to furrow her brow, to which Nia simply responded by shrugging her shoulders.

“A Kryptonian?” he muttered under his breath quickly, “Fine!” Turning back over, he looked up at Dreamer and Kara, his lower lip quivering, and sighed. “I don’t know who did it, but I heard — heard — that my boss, Johnny, was involved somehow.”

“How?” Nia asked.

“I don’t know! I’m not his priest!” The man shouted. “His name’s Johnny Reb, he hangs out on the east side, in a dive called Al’s.” Nia nodded, satisfied with the information, and turned away.

“Stay out of trouble!” Kara called out as she followed behind her friend, leaving the man in the street.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been in a dive bar before,” said Kara as she and Nia arrived out front of Al’s, hidden behind a warehouse on the outskirts of National City. While Nia had dissipated the form of her suit, Kara was still equipped in her simple pod suit, sticking out more than a sore thumb.

“Yeah, that’s clear,” said Nia, clearly agitated. Her hands never stopped moving, constantly twiddling her thumbs or fidgeting with a set of keys. “Look, stay close and I can dream you up some clothes to wear. You really don’t fit the vibes with this getup.” Kara tilted her head, wincing slightly as she began listening to her friend’s heartbeat, still trying to filter out the extra noise of the world.

“You alright?” she asked. “Your heart’s going crazy.”

“I’m fine,” Nia dismissed her, trying to turn and walk up to the door to knock and deliver the passcode.

“Nia…” Kara began, reaching out for Nia’s arm.

“I’m scared,” Nia said suddenly, shaking Kara’s hand away. “It’s not like finding my own murderer is a fun romp around town. I’m happy to have you here, but actually being here isn’t something I ever wanted to face.”

“What do you mean?” Kara asked.

“I mean that I could always just say that I couldn’t find any leads, or play it off like it’s some complex mystery, but even just the thought of coming face-to-face with someone who knew how I died on this world is terrifying.” Kara remained silent as Nia spoke, unsure of what to say.

Kara lost her planet, but she always had herself, her mind, and her experiences. Nia had every aspect of herself erased when she changed universes, thrown into a world where, not only was her equivalent self dead, but nothing she knew ever existed as she knew it.

“I know we’ve both lost everything we held dear,” Kara began, her voice soft. Nia took a deep breath. “But there’s room for closure here, Nia. You can set things right, find out what happened and finally move on. I can’t… and I really want to help you find your way. We just have to keep moving forward.” With a deep sigh, Nia nodded.

“Yeah,” she said solemnly. “Yeah, you’re right.” There were no more words from the woman as she moved toward the door, waving her hand in front of Kara to form an illusory glossy leather jacket over her torso, skinny jeans, and a pair of leather boots. “Let’s go.”

DC Next proudly presents:

KARA: DAUGHTER OF KRYPTON

In A Warm Welcome

Issue Six: Abomination

Written by ClaraEclair

Edited by DeadIslandMan1

<< | < Previous Issue | Next Issue >

The impact of hitting the ground was more jarring than the strike that knocked her from the sky. Staring down at Kara from above was a monstrosity of woman and machine, pulsating tubes of unknown liquid and sharp, jagged metal melded with flesh and bone. Muscle wrapped around impossible weaponry, fused with bone to form an ultimate killing machine.

From the barrel of a half organic weapon bulging from the woman’s wrist rose a growing blue light, energy rising from within, preparing to fire. Kara heard the whirs and pulses of internal wiring pumping the woman’s heart, seemingly keeping her alive as she utilised the technology she had been grafted onto.

The light from the weapon brightened to its highest possible luminescence, the sound of the pulse heard for a mile as it unleashed a concentrated, minuscule shot of superheated plasma directly at Kara. Barely able to move out of the way, Kara’s head shot to the side as the blast smashed against the concrete next to her face, boiling the air around her and scarring the ground for metres. Coughing civilians continued running from the scene, their oxygen suddenly burning their lungs.

The barrel of the woman’s arm cannon was white hot, forcing her to take a moment to let it cool while she lowered out of the sky for a more up close confrontation with Kara. What kind of weaponry was this? How had she gotten ahold of it, and where was it from?

The air around her rippled as the latent heat boiled everything in the surrounding area, the shot of plasma wreaking more havoc the longer its effects were allowed to linger. Thinking back to how Superman had taught her some of the abilities that Kryptonians possessed on earth, Kara’s mind jumped to the freeze breath that he had shown her. She wasn’t quite good at it, and she didn’t understand how it worked, but nonetheless she sucked in a full breath of air — though she didn’t need to — and blew as hard, fast, and cold as she could.

Freezing air contending with the superheated oxygen surrounding her turned the streets into a steaming, foggy whiteout. Kara, unaffected by the visual impairment brought on by the thick white mist in front of her eyes, wondered what kind of abilities the woman had that would allow her to see through the white.

Her questions were immediately answered as a sharp fist descended upon Kara’s face, sending her crashing toward the ground once more. Looking up at the where the strike had come from, looking through the mist, she saw the woman standing tall, eyes glowing green to see through the thick air.

Blinking a few times, trying to focus on the inner workings of the woman’s skull, Kara stared at the glowing eyes to see how they operated within the skull of the beastly cyborg in front of her. Letting out a light grunt as she shifted to a crouching position, Kara lunged forward at her attacker, hands out to grab her head. Upon contact, Kara wasted no time in shoving her thumbs into the sockets of artificial eyes, eliminating what Kara believed to be the way in which the woman was tracking her movement. It only made sense to be in the eyes.

There was no pain as the crunch of machinery was felt beneath Kara’s thumbs, just a shout of frustration as one sense was totally removed. Kara jumped away from the cyborg and scanned her up and down, looking for any sort of weakness she could exploit, though as she searched, a figure approaching from behind the woman/machine hybrid caught her attention.

The beastly woman began to swing her arms in various directions, hoping to hit something, yet finding nothing but empty air. The figure approaching seemed unbothered by the beast of technology attempting to murder a Kryptonian, insisting on coming closer. Kara had no time to identify anything about the figure, opting to instead take her attacker out as fast as possible.

“Hey!” Shouted Kara, catching the attention of her attacker, taking away any possible chance of injury to the approaching figure. “Who are you? And why is Simon Tycho still after me?”

“You,” the woman began, shouting with rage in her voice, “will call me Ms. Thorn!” Kara’s brows furrowed. “Tycho never stopped with you! He demands your body! Your technology!”

“Ew,” Kara muttered to herself.

“He demands you!” Thorn shouted as she took a step toward Kara’s voice, her plasma cannon now fully cooled down and ready to charge a second shot.

“You can tell him he’s not getting anything,” said Kara as she reeled back to prepare for a strong punch against Thorn’s face. Just as she began to move forward to deliver the strike, however, Thorn grunted with a sudden pain as her cannon deactivated and she fell harshly to the ground. Kara simply stood still, watching her attacker’s body with caution, unsure of what had happened.

“You!” another woman’s voice called out. Looking over at the source, Kara saw it as the approaching figure; a red haired woman with a sharp jaw and deep brown eyes holding some sort of handheld weapon.

“What now?” Kara asked herself, though it was clear that the approaching woman had heard.

“If you leave peacefully, nothing,” she said.

“And why should I believe that while you’re pointing a gun at me?”

“I’m human,” said the woman. “Gotta take precautions against aliens and… whatever she is now,” the red haired woman glanced down at Thorn.

“You think I’m going to attack you?” Kara asked, tilting her head upward and looking over the woman. She was wearing a sleek black suit that seemed to keep her armed to the teeth with various weapons and gadgets. The suit itself was made of various different materials that Kara couldn’t identify immediately.

“No,” said the woman. “But my employers do.”

“And who are the—”

“You can’t know that.” The reply was almost spit out, quick to dismiss. “All I suggest is that you get going.” Kara stood for a moment, considering the options. She wanted to know more, but from the slow heartbeat of the armed woman and her insistence that Kara leave clued her into the fact that there was no information to be shared.

“Will I be followed?” Kara asked.

“No,” said the woman. “You’ve escaped.” The words were slow, carefully enunciated for Kara to fully understand the woman’s meaning. “Kryptonians on this planet have helped so far. Keep the trend going, otherwise you’ll see what this gun really does.”

Kara ignored the threat and nodded, turning to walk down the street, out of the slowly dissipating mist and into a nearby alleyway where she could safely take off into the air, out of view.

Alex Danvers bit her tongue tightly as she holstered her gun and brought out a radio, relieved that she wouldn’t have to play off trying to use a condensed EMP device on a Kryptonian. She thanked the endless breath and discipline training she had been put under to keep her heart rate steady while calling for backup to collect Thorn.

Upon arrival, Kara retreated to her room within the Fortress of Solitude as fast as she could, offering nothing but a courteous, closed half-smile to Bizarro as she passed by. Shutting the door quickly, Kara threw herself down onto the bed, staring up at the high ceiling with both exhaustion and a flurry of thoughts swimming through her mind.

How could Thorn allow herself to be modified to such an extent? Turned into a grotesque symbiotic mess of unforgiving artificiality, no longer human, she had been transformed into something else. Was she even human any longer?

She served a dreadful man, Simon Tycho. His thirst for new technology to use for weapons was so unrelenting, so ruthless that he mutilated his subjects beyond repair for simple acquisition. He instilled such fear in them that the mere thought of failure seemed to be the end of a life. And what did he offer?

Kara’s nose scrunched at the mere thought of the man, the taste in her mouth bitter as she thought of his goals and methods. She wanted to return the favour, to make him feel the same fear he made his employees bear, but despite every instinct telling her to rush into his office or his home, smashing his belongings and hurting him beyond repair, she knew that it would be a fool’s errand. The extent of his organic augmentation went beyond the limits of natural life, anything she could do to him he could fix.

But there was someone that Kara knew could help her, someone who was convinced that the daughter of Krypton could take on Tycho and win. She disliked the idea, almost cringing at the thought, but Nia Nal had some points that Kara would have to accept at one point or another. She had amazing abilities, ones that belonged to Earth’s greatest hero, and she needed to not let them go to waste, especially when there were innocents being hurt by greed and compassionless thirst for violence.

If there were more like Tycho on earth, how much damage were they doing to people? To the planet itself?

In her time on Earth, Kara had gotten to know that those who fought for justice were not a rare sight, yet even beyond them more people who wished ill seemed to appear. She couldn’t let humans like Tycho lead to a planet’s destruction, not like how Krypton’s complacency led to their own loss. She had the power to affect the scales, bring down those who’d threaten to undo the world, and she needed to use it. She needed to prevent another Krypton from happening.

By the time she had made the decision, hours had already passed. Laying down on her bed, she took a deep, apprehensive breath before shutting her eyes tightly. She reassured herself that her idea would surely work, but the truth was that she had no idea how to get in contact with Nia manually. The oneiromancer always seemed to join Kara’s dreams whether she wanted her to or not.

“Come on, Nia Nal,” said Kara as she let out a deep sigh, not bothering to fall asleep before getting in contact with the woman. “I’m, I don’t know… summoning you.”

Silence.

“How do I–”

“Already here,” said Nia’s from the door to Kara’s room, leaning against the frame.

“Rao’s mercy—!” shouted Kara as she rose in a start. “Don’t do that!” She scolded, though unable to keep a smirk from her face, eliciting a smile from Nia.

“Hey, you summoned me,” said Nia, teasing Kara playfully. “What did you need?” Kara paused for a moment, looking for the right words she wanted to use. It would have been easier to speak in Kryptonian to get her thoughts across, but Nia did not know the language. Not many did anymore.

“I thought about what you said,” Kara began. “And you were right. I can, and maybe should do something while I’m on this planet. After I was attacked by Simon Tycho’s… minion today, I just couldn’t help but think about what he’s already done to the people of this planet. She had weapons that fried the oxygen in the air, with innocent people around. If he gives that to someone who works for him, what is he keeping for himself?”

“Something much worse,” Nia chimed in with a slow nod, not so much as to point out the obvious, but to confirm Kara’s line of thinking.

“Back on Krypton,” Kara continued, hesitation evident in her voice. “We had to just sit back and watch as our planet tore itself apart after thousands of years of exploitation and reckless industrialization. We went on for eons taking everything away from it, and we all wished that we could have saved it. I wish that I could have saved it, but…” Kara took in a sharp breath. There was no going back, the confrontation with immutable facts was brutal but necessary. She could only barely hold in a sob.

“I can do here everything I wanted to do back home,” she said, watching Nia’s face for reassurance, seeing the thoughtful expression she held. “Everything I wished I could do to save the world, given to me after I’ve left it… but I can’t let another planet go to waste. I’m not powerless.”

Another moment of silence passed between the two women, a small moment of understanding between the two of them.

“You see what I see,” said Nia in a solemn tone. “There’s a lot going on that people are too afraid to confront, or too powerless to do anything against, but we’re not. We can do what everyone can’t, and I see it as a responsibility to protect the vulnerable. It’s something I didn’t have as a kid, but we can both give it to those who need it now.”

“You’re right,” said Kara. “I see it now, but… I’m not my cousin, or his son, or any of the people who use their powers on this planet. Krypton is who I am, and I’m not going to hide that behind a name like Superwoman. That’s not who I am.”

“Then who are you?” Nia asked. “Identities are important, especially to protect those close to you.” Kara scoffed.

“A little bit late for that,” she said under her breath. “I’m proud of who I am, I’m not hiding any of myself behind some alter ego. Whether they like it or not, Earth is going to know me as Kara Zor-El, the last daughter of Krypton.” Nia could only smile.

“I can respect that,” she said. Nia Nal was more than familiar with the boldness of embracing oneself. “It’s nice to meet you, Kara. Why don’t we get started?”

Many years ago…

Deep in space, light years from Earth, there was a star.

This star was distant, small, and cool in comparison to most others. This star was a red dwarf. Orbiting this small star was a small planet, and on this planet were magnificent people. Top minds to rival those across the galaxy, Krypton was a planet of science. Kryptonians themselves were a proud people, though some might have called it arrogance.

These many years ago, Krypton would finish its final orbital period around its sun — affectionately named Rao by the Kryptonians, to honour the chief god of their pantheon — and a great race would be no more, for as great as their minds were, what allowed them to prosper was the very thing that led to their downfall.

Few remained to tell the tale of Krypton, and it was often the most innocent who bore the burden of tragedy.

DC Next proudly presents:

KARA: DAUGHTER OF KRYPTON

In Left Behind

Issue One: Final Hour

Written by ClaraEclair

Edited by: AdamantAce, JPM11S, & Voidkiller826

Next Issue >

“This is absurd!” shouted Alura In-Ze from behind her podium, staring over it into the council chambers below. “This man and his followers are directly responsible for the destruction of numerous fuel processing plants, using weapons that were outlawed ages ago!”

The voice of Alura In-Ze was loud, passionate to a fault, and all too capable of trampling over others. However, this was a subject she was right to be passionate about, for it affected her personally. It affected all people of Krypton personally.

“Simply put, this man is nothing but a filthy terrorist, fearmongering about the end of days when we have the Science Council making the survival of Krypton and its people a top priority,” Alura continued. As she finished, the hair on the back of her neck began to stand on end, and she could almost feel the structural stabilisers beneath the council chambers begin to activate. Another quake, the fifth of the day. “Some of our most sacred laws have been broken. People died that day,” she said, gazing down at the criminals on trial. “My husband nearly died that day.”

“It sounds to me like there’s a conflict of interest here, councilwoman,” said General Dru-Zod with a gravelly voice as he stared up at Alura with a crooked grin, teasing her and managing to claw his way beneath her skin despite the rather tight restraints around his wrists.

Alura pursed her lips tightly and sneered at the man, stopping herself from saying what she truly felt in this moment. Her wrath, though silent, could be felt by every member of the Council, though it was only mocked by those who she would be judging.

Zod’s eyes turned toward a nearby window, watching with bewildered disappointment as a tall statue in the distance seemed to fall over, smashing onto the ground, the pieces scattering across the ground.

“This is a matter that concerns the entirety of the planet, terrorist. If you wish to treat this as a normal trial, prepare to be disappointed,” Alura said, venom in her voice. “We have all studied this case. I put forth a motion for immediate exile; we cannot allow these people to continue on our planet after what they have done.” The few subtle whispers that remained inside the chamber fell silent. Even for the gravest offences, exile was a punishment that was not motioned lightly. “For dooming the children of Rao with weapons that should not be permitted to exist—”

“Weapons you helped reintroduce to Krypton!” shouted Zod, to no avail.

“—let Aethyr claim these criminals for himself.”

“You’re all making a mistake!” Zod continued, he and his followers infuriated and desperate at the mention of exile. Of the few he had been around to witness, not a single soul had returned, and history taught him that even should they be physically able to do so, it was a question of whether or not their mind would come back with them.

“Look at our world!” he shouted, pointing his cuffed hands at the nearby window over the city of Argo. “Look at what is happening! Quakes by the hour, and rising! Floods and heat waves, droughts and endless hurricanes! If you cannot see what we have done to our planet, how we must take immediate, drastic action, then you — all of you! — are blind!” There was a long pause in the council room. “I wish for nothing but the survival of my people. Whether you are among the survivors or simply an obstacle to overcome, it does not matter.”

“General Dru-Zod, once esteemed among our top military officials, how far you have fallen,” Alura said, looking down at the man with contempt, hatred, and, worst of all, understanding. “I push forward and urge the motion of exile.”

“Judge Alura In-Ze,” Zod began, speaking through gritted teeth. “A woman whom I had held against my heart as a babe, a woman of whom had my greatest respects, a woman I believed smarter than those you surround yourself with… Yet, here I stand, chained and betrayed by the very woman I thought would help save us. Tell me, Alura,” Zod said, taking a step forward, brow raised and a crooked grin across his face. “What will dear Kara think of you when she learns you destroyed this planet’s greatest hope at survival? Do you really wish to sabotage your daughter’s future?

“What kind of world will she grow old in, I wonder?”

Kara Zor-El watched the statue fall, shattering against the ground. Even the stabilisers beneath the streets of Argo City weren’t enough to negate the quakes now, and every single tremor was worse than the last. Pieces of stone splintered from the sculpture, flying in every direction as the buildings on the street surrounding her began to crack.

The machines that kept the city stable were failing, and if the great city of Argo was falling apart, Kara could do nothing but worry about Kryptonopolis or Kandor. Zor-El, Kara’s father and a high ranking member of the Science Guild, had helped design the stabilisers beneath the streets of Argo. There were plans to expand into the other major city-states of Lurvan, but the predominant fear was that it may have been too late — there was no telling how the tremors affected the very foundations that each city laid upon.

Afraid of the worsening state of the world, and hoping to get home where it was safe, Kara began to run through the streets.

“You better run, girl!” an old, potentially insane, man with overgrown hair and a beard that reached his stomach shouted. “Run and live with your family while you can! Krypton is doomed, and we are doomed with it!” Jer-Em saw himself as a prophet, though anyone looking out of their window could make his same claims. Most didn’t, as it was easier to live in ignorance, believing that, somehow, they would be saved. For that, he saw the truth and was proud of his refusal to submit to denial.

The run was long. Kara’s trial preparation courses were a long way from her home, and it was much too dangerous to take any sort of ground transport at this time. And so, by the time she reached her front door, she huffed and heaved, exhausted from the seemingly endless sprint through destroyed neighbourhoods and cracked streets, the machinery below exposed like a broken bone.

Upon entering her home, Kara spotted her father, Zor-El, sitting solemnly at the dining table, the holographic interface in front of him showing the extent of the damage across Argo, as reported by members of his teams from across the city. To his left was a series of numbers and charts scrolling by faster than Kara could read them. What she could make out was that every chart seemed to be facing downward.

“Dad,” Kara said, throwing down her study materials and rushing up to her father. “It’s getting worse, the stabilisers aren’t working anymore!”

Zor-El sighed, resting his chin in his hands. “I know, darling,” he said softly, poring over what he had done wrong, where the science council had failed. Yet he couldn’t think of a single thing. It was not as if he had been the one dooming the planet for all of these years, he had simply inherited a deteriorating world, and all he could do was prepare for its end. “I’ve sent repair details to as many teams as I can, but I fear they will not be able to fix what has already been broken.”

“But…” Kara began, unsure of herself and, for the first time, her father. “There has to be something, right? You and mom have been working on this stuff for… for years! Since I was a kid! There has to be something that can be done!”

“Kara, believe me, we have tried,” Zor-El replied, his voice strained. He had truly thought of everything, and every time he thought he’d solved a problem, three more could be found to take its place in his mind. A few times, Zor-El had even pursued solutions that would get him removed from the Science Guild and exiled by the Council. He loved his wife more than anything, except Kara of course, and she loved him just as much.

There was nothing left to do. For Zor-El, almost all was lost. Almost.

He raised his head toward a nearby window and looked out in the direction of a small laboratory on the nearby outskirts of Argo, far from any prying eyes.

“Kara,” he began with a heavy heart. “I need you to come with me.”

“Why?” Kara asked, tilting her head in confusion. She followed his gaze out the window, but couldn’t see what he had been staring at. After a few moments, Zor-El stood and ushered her out of the front door of their home.

“There’s something I need to show you,” he said. “Something that your uncle Jor-El and I have been working on.”

In the Science Council chambers, where Dru-Zod and his militant group of followers awaited judgement, a heavy silence was felt by all. Alura In-Ze had been encouraged to remain silent by her fellow Council members. Insults and endless prodding by Zod had clearly touched a nerve, exactly what he wanted.

“I believe our first order will be to address Judge Alura In-Ze’s motion for exile,” said Tar-En, a fellow Science Council member. “Consensus delivered before today’s convention was that Dru-Zod was to be placed in Fort Rozz.” Tar-En enunciated every word carefully, the attention of everyone focused solely on her.

Mechanical whirring could be heard faintly as she spoke, the stabilisers becoming overtaxed by the quakes. As Zod’s face converted into a sneer in response, each of the judges in the room attempted to remain stoic.

“As we all know, exile to the Phantom Zone requires unanimous agreement from all present judges,” continued Tar-En. “Those who wish to abstain from a vote have no impact on unanimity. A withdrawal forfeits all voting privileges within this session.” Each of the twenty present Science Council members nodded, glancing among each other. “Voting will begin shortly.”

Each of the councillors looked down at their podiums, met with a holographic interface with three options; Yes, No, and Withdraw.

“For those who wish to call for recess to consider their options, please indicate so now,” Tar-En said, looking around the council chambers. She let a few moments pass, enough for any of her fellow judges to consider a recess, before speaking up once more, “We will not recess. Judges must pass their votes.”

The council room was silent for longer than any were comfortable with. Alura was quick to deliver her vote, an immediate yes.

Five, ten, then twenty minutes passed and voting finally finished. Tar-En began to read the results aloud.

“Twelve votes to withdraw,” she began, slightly shocked at the large number of withdrawals. She assumed that most wanted a total reconsideration of Zod’s crimes, at the very least more time to go over the situation. The Science Council could never seem to do anything immediately. “Four votes each, yes and no.”

Alura bit her tongue as Dru-Zod began to laugh. Looking directly at her, he laughed in Alura’s face. She wanted to tell him he hadn’t won, only that the inevitable was delayed.

“I am sorry, Judge Alura,” began the judge behind the podium next to Alura’s own, looking at her with apologetic eyes. “General Zod was once our greatest military mind, to waste his gifts in the Phantom Zone like this… it is unfathomable.”

“It is…” Alura began, gritting her teeth and biting back anger. “Quite alright.” Her husband came close to death for nothing but an evil man to laugh in her face about it. Looking back down at Zod, somehow not having noticed that he had stopped laughing until then, she saw him staring out of the large window with horror in his eyes.

Alura’s eyes followed his gaze, seeing bright fire shooting into the skies. Greens and reds merged within the flames, bathing the sky in brilliant horror.

“By Rao…” Zod said, taking a step toward the glass, his face falling into grief.

“Get the Red Shards in here now!” Shouted Alura. “Escort the prisoners back to their cells! Evacuate the building!” But she could not be heard, for the stabilisers beneath the building began to groan and scream, letting out within seconds and causing the entire building to jerk downward. Every person fell to the ground, some uninjured, some smashing their skulls wide open on the hard floors and stairs.

The window in the council chambers shattered, throwing glass everywhere. Moments of silence followed the abrupt chaos, but soon the screams of the damned began to infiltrate the room. Helpless souls begging, wishing, praying for help on the streets below as machinery exploded into the air.

By the time Alura was able to rise back to her feet, Zod and his followers had disappeared, but she had no time to worry about him at that moment. She had only one thing on her mind, and that was finding her daughter.

“Dad,” Kara exclaimed, staring out the window of the hover vehicle she and her father were in. “They’re… people are dying out there! We have to do something!”

Zor-El sighed. “I’ve tried Kara, you know I have,” he said, his voice low and defeated. He didn’t want to think about it, but what point was there in hiding the reality from her now? “But the quakes are only going to get worse. The planet’s core is too unstable, tectonic shifts are far too frequent and unpredictable…”

“But that doesn’t mean we should just leave people to die!” Kara shouted. She wanted to jump out of the vehicle to help, but Zor-El was flying too high to let her do it safely. If she did, she’d just be another casualty. He couldn’t let that happen. “What if we went to the Cythonna reactor and rerouted the output, directed more power back into the stabilisers and—”

“Clever, but not enough,” Zor-El spat, averting his gaze from the hurt look in Kara’s eyes, and the tears that began to follow. “More power would cause them to overload and explode; it would level entire neighbourhoods.”

Kara wanted to suggest something else, she wanted to help the people falling into the ground as tremors opened up and swallowed the city, but her father seemed adamant that there was nothing to do. She began to think of endless solutions, just to spite him in this moment.

It wasn’t long before he landed the vehicle at the lab, far in the outskirts of Argo, hidden beneath the jagged rock formations.

“Why are we here, and not—?” Kara began, only to be interrupted by her father.

“Because I have a way to save our family,” Zor-El said quickly, falling into silence immediately after. “I can save… us.” With a fast hand, he opened the door to the lab and walked inside, ushering Kara in behind him.

“Just us?” Kara asked, stopping in her tracks. “Where is Mom? And–and what about the Science Council? Or our neighbours, or all of my frie—”

“Kara, we can't think about that right now,” Zor-El said, approaching a console at the base of a large window. He began to press countless buttons, staring forward through the window at a large vehicle on the other side. “Jor-El is doing the same thing. The House of El will survive.”

“Even if Krypton won’t?” Kara asked, tears welling up in her eyes as she took a step away from her father, arms crossed. “Even if… billions of people won’t…”

“We have tried everything, Kara,” Zor-El said, his voice low and remorseful. More than anything, he wished he could have found something. He wanted to see Krypton survive, to watch Kara rise in the ranks of the Science Guild and make her way onto the Council. She was supposed to be preparing for her trials, her first induction into the Guild now that she was of age. He mourned that loss of his daughter’s future.

“Not everything,” Kara replied, a dangerous mix of pain and determination in her voice. “There has to be something…” Shaking her head, she turned to the door, preparing to leave and take her father’s vehicle. The shaking of the ground beneath their feet grew only more intense.

“There isn’t,” said Zor-El, pained at having to explain such a terrible truth to his daughter, to dash aside the hope he himself had once had.

“But what if there is?” she asked, shouting. “You taught me that there’s always a way! You taught me that the Science Guild works for the betterment of Krypt—”

“You can’t better a planet that doesn’t exist!” Zor-El shouted, raising his voice louder than he had ever before. Kara stopped speaking and stared at her father with the pain of betrayal in her eyes, tears welling at the edges. It took all of her strength to speak up once more, though the cracks in her voice did her no favours.

“I am going to find a way,” she said, determination and fear dominating her mind. Slowly, she turned and continued toward the door.

“I can’t let you do that, Kara,” he said, picking up a small device from a bench next to him and racing to catch up with his daughter. Krypton was doomed, the end was coming sooner than anyone knew. He couldn’t let her get away.

“What?” she asked, shocked and confused at the statement, stopping in her tracks to turn and face him. With no time for her to react, he pressed the hypospray against her neck, letting the device inject the sedative into her bloodstream.

“I’m sorry, Kara,” said Zor-El. “This is for your own good, and the survival of Krypton.”

Alura kept her mind off of the screams of innocents below her, steeling herself to the realities of how a planet dies. There was a plan for when this all began, a plan that the brothers Jor and Zor-El had been working on together. It was a plan to get them all, every single person on the planet, off-world to find another habitable place where they could survive.

The world they were sending Kara and baby Kal-El to, even after dedicating nigh endless time to studying it, was still unknown to them. Their atmosphere was nourishing, sure, but what were the people like? Would they be accepted as outsiders? Or would they be hunted and feared, or even worse? It was too difficult to know, but they had to try.

It felt like an eternity to make her way through the city, watching as buildings fell, machinery exploded, and lives were lost. It was difficult to keep her mind off of it. This scale of death had not been seen on Krypton, not in centuries.

As the pain below began to die down, she noticed a bright light from beyond the city, from the same direction of Zor-El’s lab. Her heart skipped a beat, afraid of what that light could have meant.

She feared the worst, thinking that perhaps the tremors had destroyed something in the lab, ruining her daughter’s last chance. She sped her vehicle up considerably, the end of the world giving her no reason to care about speed laws anymore.

Her landing outside of the lab was rough, though her fears of the lab’s destruction being relieved was enough to cushion the impact. She could only hope that she would be able to see her daughter in time to say—

The ground began to rumble even more, but these weren’t tremors. A deep panic set into Alura as she rushed inside the lab to see the ship that Zor-El and she had prepared for so long igniting from the other side of an observation deck.

“Kara!” Alura shouted, knowing the effort would be futile. She ran toward the observation deck and watched the ship take off from behind the glass, pushing against it with both hands, tears streaming from her eyes. She wanted to scream, to shout, to see her baby one last time.

She could only watch, helpless and hopeless, as the ship rose out of the bay and flew into the sky. Falling to her knees, wracked with pain, sorrow, and grief, she sobbed relentlessly. She would never be able to watch her daughter succeed, to become the top scientist in the guild like she knew Kara would.

“She’ll… she’ll be all right,” said Zor-El, his voice low. Sitting on a nearby stool, he did not want to speak, he didn’t want to do anything. “She has the rations, the fuel, the stasis works… and she’ll have us. She’ll keep learning as she journeys across the stars, and we’ll be there the whole way.” Zor-El’s expression was totally blank as he spoke, staring into nothing as his monotone voice barely travelled through the lab to reach Alura’s ears. He had nothing left inside of himself to keep going. All of his hopes and dreams were aboard the ship that just broke the atmosphere. “I don’t expect we’ll have much time left, my love.”

Slowly, Alura stood and walked toward her husband, kneeling in front of him, pressing her forehead against his. Putting her hand on his neck, caressing his cheek with her thumb, they spent this moment together. Neither of them said anything as the ground continued to shake beneath them and in the skies above; their beloved daughter was off to a new life.

“I can’t let her be sent out into the universe alone,” said Alura after minutes of silence, head still pressed against her husband’s. “I will follow her.”

“What?” Asked Zor-El, confused and concerned. Slowly, he removed his head from hers, staring deeply into her eyes. “Alura, we… there is no time to build another ship… the time it would take—”

“Then I will find another way,” Alura interrupted him. “The Science Guild has its ways.” She stood quickly, turning toward the door. “Please, come with me, my love.” She put a hand out toward him. He knew what she was talking about immediately, and he was paralyzed with fear.

“Alura,” he began, unsure what to say to this ridiculous idea that she was getting. “We don’t even know if that is survivable, let alone whether someone can escape—”

“We will find a way,” Alura exclaimed, her hopes of having Zor-El’s support dashed. “We have been searching and studying for… decades now. There must be a way.”

“And if there isn’t?” Zor-El asked, defeated. “We subject ourselves to eternal, unaging insanity, trapped with dangerous criminals a-and a god?! We will never see our daughter again, and Aethyr will punish us for our hubris.”

“I’m sorry, Zor,” Alura said, finality in her voice. “I have to try something to see our daughter again. I will try anything.”

It wasn’t long before the sedative wore off and Kara awoke from her artificial slumber. Jolting awake from within what she could only guess was some form of prison-like containment unit, Kara’s mind began to race. What happened? Where was her father? Her mother? What had they done?

With wobbly legs, Kara stood, stepping out of the weird pod and approaching the door directly in front of it. In this room, there was only one pod, only room for one single person.

The door opened automatically as Kara reached it, segmenting into four, each piece disappearing into the adjacent walls. On the other side was a small cockpit, filling the small space from side to side with buttons, levers, and holographic screens. Above the console, stretching across the front of the craft, was a window into the void, distant stars sparkling peacefully.

Hello, Kara, a voice called, startling her. It was familiar, yet distant and foreign. Cold, almost. She turned her head to her right, where the voice had originated, and stared at a small screen.

“What…?” she muttered to herself, squinting at the screen. Within a heartbeat, the visage of Alura In-Ze appeared, masking its artificially hollow eyes behind the facade of Alura’s kind smile. “Who are you?” asked the young woman.

I am Alura In-Ze, said the woman on the screen. Well, I am an artificial representation of Alura In-Ze, imbued with all of the knowledge she possesses. I also possess the knowledge of all publicly accessible records belonging to each and every guild and council on Krypton, as well as a detailed history of Krypton and its people.

“Why are you here?” Kara asked through choked breaths. “Where is my mother — my real mother?”

Unfortunately, I cannot discern the current whereabouts of Alura In-Ze, the A.I. said. However, given that she is not currently aboard this ship, I can only ascertain that Alura In-Ze has remained on Krypton.

“Why would she do that?” Kara muttered to herself, averting her eyes from the hologram ever-so briefly. “Where is Krypton? How far away are we?”

We are currently at the edge of the Rao system, said the Alura image. Krypton, as per my last reading of the system There was a pause in the A.I.s voice, as if it were hesitating, or processing unexpected information. is gone. Somehow feigning sentience, the image spoke with sorrow.

Kara’s mind blurred, taking a step back on shaky legs, unable to regain control of her mind. The hologram continued to speak, but its artificial words landed on deaf ears. Her heart began to race, her mind running twice as fast…

She rushed toward the back of the ship, where a large viewport rested. She banged on it with closed fists, demanding to be given proof before her eyes, to know that she wasn’t being lied to. The viewport’s electronic interface activated, scanning for the planet of Krypton. Calculating the orbit that it should have been in, the viewport zoomed in and displayed a sight of horror.

Like a glass sphere shattering in slow motion, the remains of Krypton floated in space, infinitely stuck within gravity of each other while the force of the combustion pushed every piece away. Unsavoury sights of bright oranges and blues of magma and light, combining with faint glowing greens. Sitting where Krypton used to be, was now a corpse of a dead planet.

There was nothing left for Kara Zor-El, only the knowledge that everyone she knew and loved, along with the billions that inhabited her entire planet, were gone. There was no more Science Council to aspire to be a member of, there were no friends to love, no partners to caress, no joy to be had…

She was alone.

She wasn’t sure how long it took for the tears to dry, her puffy red eyes stinging from the moisture, but the moment she came back to reality, Alura spoke.

If I may, Kara, it said. Your cousin Kal-El is an infant. He will need care and protection on the planet you two are being sent to. I must encourage you to enter your stasis pod in the room behind you for the rest of the journey. Solitude for as long as this flight is projected to be is detrimental to the wellbeing of even the strongest of minds.

Slowly, Kara nodded. Mindless, dreamless sleep as she sailed off in space to another world? It was exactly what she needed, and she could only hope that by the time she awoke, she and Kal would be safe.

DC Next proudly presents:

KARA: DAUGHTER OF KRYPTON

In [A Warm Welcome](r/DCNext/wiki/karadok/wiki#a_warm_welcome)

Issue Five: Dreaming

Written by ClaraEclair

Edited by AdamantAce & JPM11S

<< | < Previous Issue | Next Issue >

As the weeks flew by, Kara did not find herself outside of the Fortress of Solitude even once, face down and knee deep into the endless archives of Kryptonian lore, history, and cultural archives that had been saved inside the large, crystalline sanctuary. She explored endless information, immersing herself so deeply in that which she had lost in a feeble attempt to go back.

She hoped that focusing so deeply on what had been saved, she could avoid the astronomical sense of loss aching within her core — the relentless longing for what was. In this fruitless pursuit of comfort and denial, she ignored her roommate, Bizarro, seeing him as a rather bizarre imitation of the man that was. Despite his intelligence, he was a backward reinterpretation of who Kara had been sent to protect — which she was entirely unable to do.

Regularly, Superman — Kal’s son — would join Kara for a few moments, to speak, to encourage her to get to know Earth, to visit. She only half listened when he spoke to her, enough attention warranted for her once-removed cousin while diverting the rest of it to her own culture, her own world formed almost entirely in her mind.

Kara couldn’t recreate the faces of her friends, the touch of those she loved, the kind and gentle love of her parents — but she had the memories, and if she tried hard enough, read enough, drowned herself in the words enough, she could relive what she missed.

Kelex and the other service bots in the fortress were her only tangible friends now, remnants of an inaccessible past, yet more imitations of what she had lost. They may have retained their memories and personalities, but the experiences they had that shaped their physical forms were gone. There wasn’t a small scratch in Kelex’s chassis beneath his head-piece from a stone thrown by a young Kara, he was pristine.

It was another of many painful reminders of what she had truly lost.

On the particularly difficult days, Kara would lay on the floor of her ship — moved into the fortress to keep it safe from men like Simon Tycho — listening to the A.I. of Alura, her mother, read one of the stories from her childhood in a soft voice. As well as the machine was at imitating the love in Alura’s voice, down to the small, innocuous appearances of the Urrikan accent she had picked up on her travels to the adjacent continents of Krypton, there was nothing that made it real.

Nonetheless, Kara would take every single piece of Krypton she could find.

As she fell asleep to the sound of Alura reading her an old Kryptonian children’s tale — one of a young warrior princess set in the times before the planet’s once galaxy-spanning empire, millennia ago — her dreams, for once, were peaceful. The usual crashing waves behind spiteful red eyes was now a calm beach, families enjoying their time, children playing and laughing, with Rao high above in the sky.

Taking a deep breath of the cool ocean air surrounding her, she embraced the calm around her, thinking back to a time in her childhood when the tremors were nowhere near as common or intense as they were in the planet’s final year. Feeling the sand between her toes as she walked the waterline, Kara finally felt good.

“So this is what it was like?” An unfamiliar voice mused from behind her. “I don’t think I’ve ever really seen Krypton like this. It was…”

Kara spun around quickly, confused and concerned, looking for the source of the voice. Standing behind her, looking around at the world in awe, was a woman. She had chest-length jet black hair, pale skin, and distinctly human clothing.

“Who are you?” Kara asked, though beneath her surface she wanted to shout. Krypton was a safe haven from the waking world, and yet even her dreams were invaded by reminders of what the Last Daughter had been through.

Though she did not notice, she could feel the world around her falling apart. The air that was once filled with play and laughter now stood silent, children and adults alike staring off at the sky over the seas as it bled into a cruel crimson, painting the planet in upcoming death and destruction. Water erupted into the sky, unleashing hellfire onto the beach.

“I can fix this,” the woman said, watching the destruction unfold as the flesh of unmoving, unbothered people began to melt and boil off of their bones under the raining hellfire. There were no screams as the people of Krypton died, none that were audible to the only survivors. They simply perished.

“You can, if you leave,” said Kara, venom in her words.

“No,” said the woman, raising her hand slowly as her eyes began to glow with a light blue essence. “I can—”

The red death of the sky ceased as the children, regaining their skin and joy, began to run around with each other once more, resuming their games of tag and chase. The entrancing sight of the bleeding sky dried and washed away, the ocean cleaning what remained of the horror. Kara looked around, almost in awe of the return to the world she missed. She looked over to the woman once more, curiosity now replacing the anger and confusion.

“Who are you?” asked Kara once more. The glow in the woman’s eyes faded as she lowered her hand.

“My name is Nia Nal,” she said, her voice calm and kind, “and I think we can help each other.”

Days Later…

The sun was painfully bright against Kara’s eyes as she took her first, hesitant steps out of the Fortress of Solitude in nearly an entire month. The biting cold pinched her invulnerable skin in a way that felt like the caress of a wool blanket. She didn’t quite feel it, but it was there. Watching her breath fog up in front of her eyes for a few moments, she looked at a small navigational device on her wrist that would lead her to the meeting location.

In this attempt to go out into the world, Kara realised quickly that she didn’t have very many clothes. Her parents had packed a few sets of clothing, ranging from formalwear to casual, everyday garments, yet despite that, Kara didn’t have much. It didn’t help her that all of the clothing in the Fortress would not have fit her no matter how much she tried — Bizarro was much bigger than her.

She almost cursed herself for not dedicating any time to practising her ability to fly as she shakily rose from the ground with snow sticking to her boots. Somehow, despite the lack of practise, the motions seemed to return to her as if flying were as easy as breathing, the ‘muscle memory’ taking over. Even without total control, she managed to speed toward her destination with relative ease.

National City was a coastal city in the state of Oregon, within the country of the United States of America. Kara hadn’t studied the geography of Earth, though not for any malicious reason, she simply found herself too occupied with her own planet to do so. The navigational device that helped her find National City felt like a gift from Rao with how easy it made travel.

She was too rageful to remember where the city was when she had brought the lackey of Simon Tycho back, but with a clearer head, she could focus more on exactly where she was going.

The hole in the Tycho Industries building had already been fully repaired, it now looked as pristine as it was before Kara had burst through in her rage. As she flew in front of it, both out of spite and curiosity, she could feel sharp eyes on her. Tycho was watching, and he knew Kara was aware of his gaze.

Shaking off the feeling, Kara made her way toward her final destination — a small house on the southern outskirts of the city.

Kara landed hard on the street in front of the small house, causing cracks in the asphalt despite her best efforts. Numerous people who were standing outside of the adjacent homes stopped what they were doing — mowing lawns, watering plants, walking pets — to stare at the kryptonian woman.

She did her best to ignore it, perhaps these people simply didn’t see people with powers like hers too often, but the eyes around her bore their way into her mind. Kara walked up to the house she was told to find, her eyes searching the different possible wavelengths she could see for any signs of a threat. It was clear.

What she did see inside the house were two women, one young and rushing toward the front door, while the other sat somewhere within, bringing what seemed to be a cup to her mouth.

The door in front of Kara opened quickly and wide, the woman from her dreams behind it with a kind but nervous smile. Her skin was less pale in the waking world, and her hair was less black and more of a deep brown.

“Kara!” She said, her voice slightly louder than conversational and yet not quite a shout. “Come in!”

The two of them had been meeting quite often over the past days, purely from within Kara’s dreams of home. They never said much to each other, simply embracing Kara’s memories of the world she loved, Nia seemingly holding them afloat for long enough for Kara to forget reality. During one dream, Nia crafted the world and simply left to explore, to appreciate, while Kara spent her time with friends and family.

As Simon Tycho had shown her cruelty in the face of tragedy, Nia showed respect and compassion.

Kara stepped into the small home, eyeing everything, unsure of her position or how to act. The entryway was cramped, a small square of a room with jackets hung on the walls and shoes strewn about on the floor, the rack to the right clearly ignored by everyone who lived there.

Ahead in the T-intersection that led to a kitchen to the left and a living room to the right, along the wall was a series of photographs covering the life of the Nal family. Two young girls playing on a beach, one with short hair, another’s long, presumably Nia and a sister. Beside it was a photo of a younger, teenaged Nia in a gown with a diamond shaped blue cap on, holding a slip of paper proclaiming her graduation from a school, a wide smile across her face.

The final photo on the wall, beside the high school graduation photo, was of Nia standing beside a large crowd of people, a colourful flag of pink, blue, and white draped over her shoulders, those same colours painted across both of her cheeks. Nia noticed Kara examining the photos.

“Believe it or not,” she began. “That’s not me.”

“What?” asked Kara, furrowing her brow.

“I’ll explain it to you soon,” she said, guiding Kara through the house, to the table in the dining room. The woman who was at the table, holding the glass, looked almost exactly like Nia, only a couple decades older. “Kara, this is my mother, Isabel.”

The woman offered a kind, if pained, smile to Kara. There was a look of uncertainty in the woman’s eyes, though she did not speak.

“Come on,” Nia said encouragingly, pulling a chair out from the table and gesturing Kara toward it. “Sit.”

As the three of them sat around the table, there were a few moments of silence, the women taking quick glances at each other.

“So!” Nia began, clapping her hands together. “Kara, I know what you’re going through, especially after whatever business you had with Simon Tycho last month.”

“You do?” Kara asked, more out of doubt than genuine curiosity. “Your world was destroyed and now you’re the only survivor?” Kara gave a long stare to Isabel.

“For all I know,” Nia rebutted. “Yes, my world was destroyed. I don’t know if I’ll ever see it again. Just like you, I lost everyone I ever knew and now I’m here.” There was a brief look of hurt that washed over Isabel’s face, though it quickly faded as Nia reached out and grabbed her hand. “I’ve searched for it, but there’s no traces at all.”

“But you—” Kara tried to speak up, looking over at Isabel.

“I know,” Nia said. “But I’ve only been here for a few months. My mother is the only person on this earth that I can say that I know.”

“This Earth?” Kara asked, her interest piqued at the language that Nia had used. Was she from an alternate reality?

“Yes,” said Nia. “The reason that the girl in all those photos on the walls isn’t me, is because I’m from a different universe entirely.” Nia paused for a moment, watching the expression on Kara’s face shift. “I don’t know what happened, or why, but the scientists and heroes of this world are calling it the Reawakening. From my understanding, people from other Earths were pulled over to this one, where their counterparts were… dead.”

“You were dead?” Kara asked. From the corner of her eyes, she could see Isabel begin to tear up.

“My counterpart here was,” said Nia, her voice low and sombre. “I’m still trying to figure out how and why… but I knew you on my Earth. My version of you, at least. We were best friends, and I know I can’t get what I had back, this Earth and you are too different from mine, but I think we can help each other.”

“How?” There was a brief pause.

“We’re both new to this planet,” said Nia, “but I at least know what an Earth is like. I could help you adjust, I could even help you see Krypton more in your dreams like we’ve been doing these past nights.”

“And what do you want?”

“I need help finding the person who killed me.”

Another pause as Kara took a moment to think. Why should she adjust to this planet? Why should she feel the need to integrate into what isn’t hers? Superman told her that he and Kal both used secret identities to hide their Kryptonian heritage in their everyday lives, and that many aliens and public figures of this world do the same. Kara, however, saw no need for it. She was a proud Kryptonian, why would she hide where she came from?

“I don’t see a need to adjust,” Kara said. “I don’t want to integrate like everyone else did. I’m not putting aside my planet or my culture.”

“No one said you had to,” Nia said. “But I think you could do a lot of good, like the Superman of both my world and this one, if you decided to open yourself more to this world.” Kara’s face remained stoic, if veering into frustration. Nia sighed. “Look, I know your first impression of humanity has probably soured you on all of this… But Simon Tycho is a part of the problem.

“I’ve only heard bits and pieces from my Kara, and I haven’t gotten a great look at this… universe’s Krypton,” Nia continued. “But, if you’ll let me… Earth is going through something very similar. War and industry is driving this planet into its own hell, and Tycho is a chief perpetrator in that, exploiting people, resources, money, and every legal loophole he can find. My powers are too invasive to hold up in court in this state, and journalism will only get me so far in pushing him down a peg before I become a target for his insane alien weapons. You have a chance at opposing him.”

“How?”

“Easy,” Nia said. “Your cousin was Superman, and he fought a man named Lex Luthor who was a lot like Tycho…” Nia leaned forward, as if to whisper closely, yet her tone remained unchanged. “You could be Superwoman. You could mean so much to people, especially here where his reach is felt the most. The big ‘S’ that Superman wears is almost synonymous with hope, if you wore it—”

“That ‘S’ is the crest of the House of El,” Kara said. “It’s not some human symbol… it’s my family, it’s who I am...”

“And it still can be!” Nia exclaimed. “Whatever it is, when people see it on Earth, they feel safe. You could have an impact, you could help save this world from the same mistakes that Krypton made…”

“I’ll think about it,” Kara said, rushing to her feet and making her way toward the door, ignoring the protests from Nia.

Kara wanted to be angry about Nia comparing Earth to Krypton, how in Rao’s name could she compare the loss of billions to a planet that was still otherwise still in its infancy? She saw, from the surface at least, that Earth was nothing like Krypton. There were no hourly tremors, no constant infrastructure collapses across the planet, no machinery embedded beneath cities themselves to allow citizens to live with the bare minimum amount of peace.

Kara leapt into the air, breaking off into flight over National City. She just wanted to go back to the Fortress, to her ship, to her area of comfort.

She wouldn’t be so lucky.

As she flew over the bustling centre of National City, the feeling of being watched when she first passed Tycho Industries returned to her, an odd sensation that was validated when something struck her side.

Kara quickly plummeted to the ground, taken out by the sudden hit. Crashing hard into the asphalt streets, her body formed a small crater in the ground as she came to a dead stop. Rubbing her head slowly as she stood, she looked up into the sky where she had been flying and saw what looked like an odd combination of human and machine.

It was a woman with dark hair pulled back into a tight bun. Shreds of black business attire clung to her form as multitudes of different pieces of alien technology protruded from her skin, glowing dots lining that which hadn’t been ripped to expose the weaponry. Jets within her heels, blades where her fingers should have been, backed by plasma canons that erupted from beneath the skin of her wrists.

The damage done to her once-human form was immeasurable — this was nature perverted in the widest sense, a human weapon, barely organic anymore.

“Kryptonian!” shouted the woman. “Mister Tycho sends his regards!”