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Reincarnated as Supergirl Chapter 4
🕑 Added 2022-10-26 02:04:06 +0000 UTCKara squinted her eyes and moved her hand with extreme care, every movement precise and calculated as she rotated the machine's arms and released another burst of radiation into the small piece of kryptonite, it flashed with green light for a second and then started to vibrate as it absorbed more and more radiation then exploded into hundreds of pieces which quickly lost their colors.
Taking her hands off the controls Kara wiped her forehead and sighed, she wasn't stupid enough to experiment with the radioactive rocks while in the same room, using remote control handles and cameras in a far away room, but it still caused her some stress.
She knew she should really be working on a prosthetic eye but, she couldn't bring herself to do it, she was still hopeful her eye would start to grow back despite it showing no signs of doing so and putting on a prosthetic could delay or even stop the regrowth.
Perhaps her healing was prioritizing her internal organs? She had been feeling better lately.
Glancing aside she saw her prosthetic leg was still only at 60% charge then checked her mining robots, they weren't very efficient since they were just repurposed security and maintenance drones but they could still find precious metals inside the asteroids and bring them back to the ship fairly easy.
It wasn't a long term solution but she wasn't looking to start a true mining operation anyway and could still get a fortune before they broke down.
Cat woman had finally called her two days after their meeting to accept the job but her asking price had been a little too large for what Kara had in hand, they hadn't thought they'd need 50 million in gold when they had first mined the asteroid belt, still it wasn't all that hard to do with the technology she had at hand.
Finally she looked at her data recovery program, the Psions had damaged the data crystals in her ship while trying to extract information from them and it was taking a long time to get it fixed.
Stretching her back Kara yawned and then went back to her experimentations, she had already managed to turn a tiny piece of kryptonite red by bombarding it with radiation and accelerating its half-cycle but any more and the damned rock simply degraded too fast to be of use, quickly becoming inert.
As a Kryptonian very few things threatened Kara and she wanted to be ready whenever one of them showed up, magic was already being dealt with by obtaining nth metal and it would even have the bonus of helping her finally heal but there was always a chance of another Kryptonian showing up.
As far as she could find her cousin hadn't dealt with general Zod yet and an evil doppelganger was always a possibility in DC, what with alternate realities and mad scientists.
So she was trying to find a way to deal with them and she doubted Superman would let her use the more… permanent solution, as a result she was killing some time trying to create golden kryptonite, relatively harmless to her people but able to reduce them to human level for a long period of time, perfect for safe incarceration.
She wasn't having much luck.
"Damnit!" she cursed as another small piece of kryptonite lost its color and stopped radiating any harmful waves, it hadn't exploded this time but Kara finally decided just radiation wouldn't be enough to create anything other than the red variety and that one only drove Kryptonians mad with rage.
Changing her approach she tried to increase the rock's half life instead, expending another hour and a half trying various ways of doing so until she finally got a nail sized piece of blue kryptonite on the table.
She memorized the precise method of fabrication before erasing it from the computer, even if she lost two entire days of data gathering and study Kara wasn't willing to allow anyone even the slight chance of getting their hands on kryptonite research.
Sending a drone to put away both red and blue pieces of kryptonite in small lead boxes Kara checked the more long term experiments with pressure and chemical baths making sure they were running correctly before pushing herself away from the chair and grabbing her prosthetic, with a turn of the wrist she locked it in place and wiggled her metal toes, the metal wasn't capable of transmitting sensations but she always felt better when she had all her parts in place, almost like she was whole again.
Putting on her socks and boots, Kara dropped down on the floor and cracked her neck. How strange, in both lives she had always wanted to fly and now that she could she had the odd desire to walk everywhere.
Looking over everything one last time Kara made sure the mining process was automated and working as expected before grabbing her respirator and walking towards one of the ship's hatches, then she flew out into space picking up speed towards earth.
She didn't fly as fast as she could or even constantly accelerate in order to let herself rest since it was a much greater distance than just from the moon but her mask allowed her to breathe easily and with no air resistance she let herself move with ease finishing the trip in less than two hours.
She had to bleed out some speed before reentry least she burn her new clothes but in another twenty minutes she was dropping down behind an alley in Fawcett City, the sun was still up in the sky so she was a little early getting home and, since she hadn't eaten in a day and a half, decided a little ice cream wasn't too much.
Fawcett City in the afternoon was beautiful, it had a peaceful feeling Kara had only ever felt in Kandor when the military was away from the city, a sense that no matter what happened everything was gonna be alright, people walked the streets and just felt…safe, Captain Marvel was doing a good job.
"Whoa!" screamed a teenager as he almost hit her with his bicycle while she waited in line for an ice cream.
"Watch it you punk!" shouted a man behind her as he put a hand on her shoulder and tried to support her, unnecessary but Kara appreciated the thought "You alright miss?"
"I'm fine thanks" she told him with a wide smile before noticing the little girl hiding behind his leg while holding one of his hands "And who's this?"
"Anna" the little brunette squeaked from behind her father and hid her face on his pants causing Kara to laugh out loud.
Kara really couldn't see herself raising a kid like that despite how cute she seemed, perhaps it had been for the best that Kal El had found such caring parents as the Kent's.
The young father lifted the girl up into his arms and kissed her on the cheek before smiling at Kara "Come on honey, say hi to the nice lady"
"Hello" the little girl said and then buried her face on her fathers' neck before mumbling something.
"Nice to meet you too Anna" She said and couldn't help messing with her hair "heh, cute kid"
"Thanks," said the proud father, "I've never seen you here before, are you new?"
"Yep, just moved into the city a couple of weeks ago"
"Really, hope you like it here then"
They continued to make small talk as the line advanced, Kara asking about what to look out for in the city and him kind of bragging about his daughter, it wasn't anything important but she found it nice to be able to have a simple, normal conversation.
"Hey I think it's your turn" the father pointed and Kara saw he was right.
"Thanks, nice to meet you" she waved the little girl goodbye before approaching the ice cream truck and passing the attendant a bill "Get me a vanilla cone"
"Right away miss"
"Hi honey, did you wait too long?" said a female voice from behind her and Kara saw what was probably the girls' mother join them waiting in line, Kara got her cone and waved back one last time before leaving.
"Hi mommy, daddy was flirting with the pretty lady!" She almost spit her ice cream as she heard the eager little girl quickly tattling to her mother, lowering her head she increased her walking speed while snickering at the flustered man's response.
Kara should have know things were going too well, her experiments were going well, all her projects were working as expected she should have known something was gonna go wrong.
She saw Captain Marvel flying towards a tall building before being hit by a huge discharge of electricity and losing control to fall heavily into the asphalt four blocks to her right.
Damn was the Livewire or Weather Wizard in the city?
Using her X-ray vision Kara found the Captain already recovering before a discharge of electricity passed through the cables in the street hitting the Hero in the chest driving him back into the ground and leaving a blond teenager sparkling with electricity, her boot on his chest.
"Well well well, looks like you're not so Marvelous after all" the girl who couldn't be older than 14 gloated before the captain recovered and tried to grab her, then she disappeared in a flash of light only to appear in the sidewalk "Ha! He did say it wasn't going to be easy"
Seeing the girl lift her hands in the air and they start gathering another electric discharge the hero dodged "Sha… darn it!" he started to say but cut himself off, clearly not knowing how resistant the girl was and unwilling to really hurt her, he seemed to be holding back a lot even avoiding causing damage to his surroundings despite the battle.
Kara kept an eye on the fight as she started walking towards them, she wasn't really worried since Captain Marvel was about even with her cousin in power but it wouldn't hurt to be close by in case of any accidents… plus it was her first superhero fight she didn't want to miss it by getting distracted.
Both fighters started playing a kind of keep away game with the super powered teenager flashing away every time the Captain got close and he enduring her electrical discharges while grunting and grimacing, fortunately she didn't seem able to actually hurt him even when her revealing outfit shone with orange light as it channeled her power, the Captain quickly noticed it and started aiming for her suit managing to damage it without hurting the girl inside and causing her teleports to become erratic
One of said teleports fell short leaving the girl just a little too close to the hero and he managed to use his speed to grab her before she could reorient herself destroying the electronic devices in her suit and causing her to scream in frustration as she beat at his arms fruitlessly, her hair floating up as her electrical discharges became weaker and less controlled.
The fight seemed to be over when the girl grabbed at the captain's arms and they both flashed with electricity causing every lamp in three blocks to blow up and one of the generators in the closest lamppost to explode in a shower of sparks, then a thunderbolt hit them from above causing the closest windows to explode, when Kara's vision fully cleared she saw five stunned kids in the place where the two had fought.
The oldest looking girl recovered first, she shook her head and looked at her own hands in wonder before releasing a laugh.
"Ahahahahahaha, I beat Captain Marvel, I actually did it, how cool is that?!" then she released another thunderbolt towards an empty car and caused it to explode "And this power, we had never absorbed so much power before"
Kara's stomach dropped, she could put two and two together and come to a terrible conclusion, somehow this Livewire junior had absorbed Captain Marvel's powers, discarding her half eaten ice cream she flexed her foot and tried to alpha strike the oldest girl by going as fast as she could, somehow the girl caught her movement, her eyes widened and she released another thunderbolt right at Kara on reflex.
The strike hit her in the chest with the power of a truck arresting all her momentum and sending her flying back to hit a car causing the metal to bend around her, the hit drove the air out of her lungs and sent a jolt of pain all through her body somehow bypassing her natural resistance, worse, it carried enough of a charge to fry the electronics on her leg despite the isolation she had on it.
Crap, Marvel's powers were magic weren't they?
"Ugh" Kara grunted, then grabbed the metal around her and pushed freeing her body from the car and glaring at the girl, the little shit just laughed and lifted one of her arms to release another bolt.
Kara wasn't fast enough to dodge lightning but she could certainly dodge someone aiming at her, flying aside she watched the new attack hit the car and made it explode before having to fly up and dodge another bolt.
"Will you just stay put!" screamed the girl before stomping on the ground from anger and aiming another bolt towards Kara.
The Kryptonian dropped down from the air letting the thunderbolt pass harmlessly over her head and took the opportunity to charge right at the girl before she could gather another bolt, she was close enough she could slap some sense into her.
"Ack!" the girl screamed, her eyes going wide from fear and, just before Kara could hit her, disappeared in a flash of thunder hitting the clouds above them and discharging thunderbolts towards all directions, even Kara's enhanced senses couldn't see which was the real one.
With the immediate treat gone Kara grabbed the unconscious 10 years old boy in the middle of a charred street, she first checked his vitals and released a breath before turning towards the other three girls, they all looked like different versions of the same girl, one of them was crying in a sitting position her heart beating like mad from fright, she had slightly longer hair and no piercings or tattoos, the second had short spiky hair and used the same piercings as the original but had a wild look in her eyes and seemed very angry, the last one was still trying to recover, wearing the destroyed suit.
Kara guessed she was the original since there was nothing different on her body.
"Ugh… what happened" the boy in her arms asked while holding his head in pain so Kara laid him on the ground and prepared herself to fight, the little brats weren't that powerful but she was still wounded and they were damn fast.
"I… I was… wait Captain Marvel is a kid? Wha… how!?" the original girl asked dumbfounded while the wild looking girl started flashing before turning into a stream of electricity and flying into a nearby energy cable, her travel so fast Kara was unsure she would have caught the girl even if she didn't have to protect the unpowered boy, at least she didn't seem to have been supercharged like the older clone.
"Kara? What are you doing here?"
"Hi, fancy meeting you here Cap" Kara said and smiled in relief, at least the boy didn't seem to be damaged in any way.
"Oh crap!" he scrambled away from her before taking everything in, then he lifted an arm and shouted "Shazam!"
Nothing happened, he tried jumping up and screaming the name again but his body refused to change, then he noticed all three of them looking at him and scratched his neck sheepishly "Can we just pretend that didn't happen?"
"Suure" said the original girl then she looked from Kara, the Captain and her still crying doppelganger and sighed "Shit I didn't even want to do this but the others convinced me and now I'm hurting children, ugh I knew it was too good to be true"
The girl let herself fall on her ass and crawled closer to her double before putting an arm around her for comfort and covering her own eyes with a hand.
Kara didn't know how to deal with one crying preteen much less two, giving a glance to Cap's civilian identity just to make sure he wouldn't break out in tears on her Kara approached the twins and saying the first thing that came to her mind "Come on, let's go before someone else gets here, I have cake at home"
Flying while carrying three kids was kind of awkward but Kara managed it fairly easily and soon enough the more childish of the girls was giggling and in her arm with both arms open wide "Weeeeee" she screamed and almost wiggled free of Kara's grasp, it wasn't the stealthiest thing to do but at this point she was beyond caring.
She entered her apartment and dropped all three of them on the ground before throwing herself face first on the sofa and releasing a loud groan.
"So… what now?" whispered the boy beside her head and she waved him away like a fly.
Turning in place Kara started fiddling with her fried leg, taking off her boot and trying to manually disengage the locking mechanism with one hand while waving the boy away with the other "you're the hero you find out what's going on"
In frustration Kara managed to get a nail between the jammed locks and rip them free finally getting the destroyed leg out of her body, the prosthetic itself seemed to be a total loss but at least the port seemed to be salvageable so she wouldn't need a new surgery.
15 minutes later Kara pinched the bridge of her nose and could already see the headache coming, long story short the girl was called Amy and she could absorb electricity but hadn't been able to truly use her ability until someone made her a power suit and told her to fight Captain Marvel and the stupid girl actually did it, thinking the worst that could happen was she lost and, as a minor, would get a slap on the wrist.
To make matters worse the girl suffered from multiple personality disorder and, when she absorbed the Captain's power, her body had split into four "So… who are those personalities again?"
"Ah… only Amber has a name really" Amy told her while trying to appear smaller by keeping her head down
"Amber is the mad one right?" Kara asked while massaging her aching stump in annoyance.
"She's… she's not mad! She's just… angry" Amy protested and took another bite of her sandwich before grumbling "she's the one who always protects me"
"Fine, so we have the 'protective one', the 'childish one'" Kara pointed towards the other girl who was happily eating cookies in the kitchen while swinging her legs on the stool "and the one who ran away was what?"
"I - I don't know she just… always wants me to do dumb things, like… she's kind of impulsive"
"Errr… turns out everyone in the league is busy right now" Billy told her as he finished texting on his phone, Kara released another groan, a louder one this time, she just knew it was gonna be her problem to fix this "So, I think I know why I can't transform, I think Amber absorbed the power of Zeus so I can't use the magic lightning to summon my transformation"
Kara looked from Amy to the little boy and lifted an eyebrow "And it has to be magic lightning, normal lightning won't do?"
"Still can't believe Captain Marvel is a kid" Amy whispered to herself and finished her meal, licking her fingers she asked "can… can I have another one?"
Kara nodded and Amy eagerly started opening the fridge, looking closer Kara noticed the girl was far too thin, her ribs visible under her suit and her limbs more like sticks, damn her bleeding heart she was gonna have to do something about that too wasn't she.
"I don't know, this never happened to me before" Billy said and dropped down besides her on the sofa "I mean, we can try right?"
"I'm not hitting a ten years old with lightning!" Amy shouted in outrage from the kitchen before lowering her head again as if afraid she was gonna get hit.
"Didn't seem to bother you when hitting Captain Marvel with lightning" she joked and the girl flinched.
"I… I didn't think I could hurt him" the girl said her voice barely above a whisper "and that was mostly Amber anyway"
"Well thankfully both missing personalities don't seem to be doing any damage" Kara said "Amy do you think you could face them if they make problems?"
"I… ah, Amber was… was the one who always dealt with problems" the girl said with a shaking voice "I'm too weak, too ugly, too useless, I… I'm only good for my power"
The girl quickly started to tremble in place her nails digging into the flesh on her exposed tight until they drew blood, Kara didn't know how to react
"Amy!" Billy cried out and held her hands tightly with his own snapping her out of her funk "Amy you're not weak or useless, you fought me, you defeated me, nobody weak could do that, besides you're far from ugly"
Looking at Billy's eager expression Amy couldn't help but take some deep breaths and calm herself, then she gave a little giggle "I didn't think heroes were supposed to cheer up their villains"
"Ugh alright enough sweetness already" Kara mocked them, she had lost a very expensive prosthetic, had a killer headache and was probably gonna have to fight someone with the power of Zeus; to say she was in a foul mood would be a huge euphemism "Do you at least have any idea where your two missing doppelgangers would go?"
"I don…" Amy started to say when an enormous thunder rattled Kara's windows and every light in her apartment went out.
Looking out of the window Kara saw another 10 meters wide thunderbolt hit the top of a building and blow every one of its windows leaving a short, spiky haired teenager with several piercings on her face laughing maniacally on top of it, the girl lifted both hands up and rained thunderbolts down on the streets at random "Nevermind, I think I found her"
