LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 29.1
Kara rested Talia’s unconscious body into the suspension chamber and activated it, sealing the woman inside while making sure she was unable to wake up.
Turning to the side, Kara saw Red Arrow’s body resting inside a second suspension chamber, with Clayface’s mutated body frozen inside a third one. Stepping away from the pods, Kara halfheartedly threw her tablet at the wall.
The Kryptonian tech bounced off the wall and hit the ground twice before slipping under a crystal desk, Kara sighed and dropped heavily into a chair, her eyes never leaving Red Arrow’s pod.
The boy was really dead. Kara had known it as soon as Faust opened his mouth. No, she had known it much earlier, when she had burst into the cave and been unable to hear his heartbeat. She had just refused to face it before Faust threw it in her face.
After the battle, Kara had to consider what to do with her newly acquired prisoners, and the mountain of documents and artifacts she had stolen from the League of Shadow’s base. She didn’t want to bring them to her home, nor could she risk her new company. That left her with the moon base or the Fortress. Kara had decided to use the Fortress.
It would probably mean explaining things to her cousin, but the Fortress was just better equipped to hold someone, and Kara refused to fuck up again.
Sitting on the chair, Kara felt the world starting to close in on her. What was she gonna tell Kal? What was she gonna tell Green Arrow?
Grabbing at her helmet, Kara tried to take it off, but Vortigar’s last attack had melted part of it and damaged the lock. Growing desperate, Kara nearly threw away her gauntlets and grabbed the helmet with both hands.
Her fingers found purchase on the deformed helmet and Kara pulled, her muscles strained for a few seconds and, with a loud ‘crack’, the helmet broke in half.
Breathing hard, Kara hurried out of the armor as fast as she could; only calming down when the metal protections were fully taken off. Sitting back down, Kara rested her head against her arms and tried to regain control.
For a moment, Kara centered herself, trying to use her lessons with Kal to recover. Slowly, her breathing returned to normal.
Inevitably, Kara glanced at where her tablet had ended up. Rao, she had to check on Dubbilex, tell Green Arrow, organize the Genomorphs at her factory…
Suddenly, a holographic projection snapped in place in front of her, showing her an image of Dubbilex resting inside one of the Fortress healing pods. It wouldn’t really do much for a non-Kryptonian, but it was fully equipped to deal with a long recovery period, it was comfortable, capable of monitoring his vitals, stimulating his muscles and easy to move. Karen sat by his side, her giant body already mostly healed.
A second screen quickly opened up, showing her Guardian, Danette and Dr. Lockhart sitting at a table and eating,
“Mistress Zor-El, I thought you’d want to check on your guests.” Jor-El’s AI materialized in front of her, his hands crossed behind his back. “I’d like to remind you that you aren’t alone.”
“Thanks.” Kara glanced at the AI and sighed. “Can you ask Kal to bring Green Arrow here? Red Arrow’s body is here and I think he deserves that I tell him in person.”
“I am informing master Kal-El now, do you need anything else?” The AI glanced at the pods, then towards Kara’s pile of loot thrown at a corner. “I could start cataloging the materials acquired from the League of Shadows?”
“Right, there’s that too.” Kara narrowed her eyes at the pile. “Yeah, you can start. You can use the reprogrammed Morrowbots if you need to physically move anything. I think I finished… seven of them? Yeah, seven.”
The pile contained thousands of documents, artifacts, art pieces and tech devices. Basically, everything Kara could grab from the League of Shadows’ base. Hopefully, the AI will be able to find some useful things there.
Turning back towards the desk, Kara pulled out her phone and called Erin once again.
She spent the next half hour getting the Genomorphs situation in order. Their housing below the Factory was almost ready, and Kara had bought a lot of the land around the small town.
G-Gnomes would still have to work overtime keeping curious eyes away, but Kara was convinced at least that part of the ordeal was gonna be alright.
Turning back towards the room, Kara saw seven white robots carefully taking the pile apart, separating and categorizing its contents under the watchful eye of the Fortress AI.
Kara’s eyes were drawn to a metal cylinder about a meter high. Pushing herself up, Kara grabbed the device and started analyzing it. The cylinder wasn’t made from lead, so she could actually see through it. Inside, millions of microscopic drones rested in neat little rows.
Connecting one of the Fortress cables to the cylinder, Kara made sure that the drones wouldn’t just activate, then opened the device and pulled out a single drone.
Damn, it was quite an interesting little device. Kara could actually do better with Kryptonian tech, or… well, she could do smaller. Still, its programming was impressive, and Kara made a mental note to hire the scientist who made it as soon as she could.
She was guessing that had been the woman Red Arrow rescued, Kara didn’t remember her name, but the micro robot should actually be ‘the fog’, created to infiltrate and steal information while destroying any and all materials in its path.
“Mistress Zor-El, master Kal-El has arrived.” The AI informed her, all seven of the robots turning their heads towards the door.
Swallowing hard, Kara gave one last glance towards Red Arrow’s body, then closed the cylinder and pushed herself up.
Sure, both Red Arrow and Green Arrow had also understood the risks of trying to be a mole, and Red Arrow hadn’t even been working for her when it happened, but it was still a devastating blow. One that Kara didn’t know how to explain.
Green Arrow Burst through the door fully geared in his superhero costume. “Where is he?!”
Behind him, Kal stepped into the room and quickly took everything in. His eyes flashed towards the three pods and he frowned before turning his gaze toward Kara’s face. Kal’s frown immediately went away. “Green Arrow.” Kal spoke softly.
The Archer whirled on him, looking at Kal’s face with some semblance of hope.
Kal put a hand on Green Arrow’s shoulder, with a sigh; he closed his eyes and gave a very small shake of his head.
Green Arrow’s bow clattered to the ground, his face became a mask of anguish as he grabbed on to Kal’s arm and almost collapsed. “But… I…” Using Kal’s arm as support, Green Arrow turned towards Kara, looking confused and in pain. “Where… where is he?”
Kara glanced at one of the pods, causing Green Arrow to run towards it, collapsing to his knees at its side.
Kal didn’t say anything, he just walked towards her and cupped her face in his hands, lifting her chin up, he stared at her face for a few seconds to make sure everything was alright with her. Once he was certain everything was fine, he gave her a relieved hug.
“I-I just…” Kara attempted to explain things, but she couldn’t gather her thoughts.
“Shhhh, foolish little cousin.” Kal chided, his voice filled with affection, but also frustration. “How many times do I have to say that I'm here for you? You don’t have to do things alone. In fact, please don’t.”
Kara snorted at just how heartfelt that last part was. Pushing her face away from his chest, Kara sighed, avoiding his eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to worry you.”
It was Kal’s turn to snort in amusement, squeezing her tighter, he rested chin on top of her head. “Sorry to tell you cuz, but you don’t seem to be very good at that.”
“What. Happened?” Green Arrow’s voice trembled with anger; one of his hands was still on top of Red Arrow’s pod, while his other one was tightened into a fist. “Tell me everything.”
Kara did. She told them everything to do with Red Arrow’s death and her raid on Infinity Island. She explained about CADMUS, showed them the video of The Light attacking, as well as the recordings from her own armor.
Both Kal and Green Arrow watched everything without saying a word, but Kara had a pretty good idea of their reactions. Keeping a poker face was far from enough to keep things from a Kryptonian’s senses.
After watching the end of Kara’s fight with the demon, Green Arrow kept staring at the holographic display for almost a full minute. Finally, he asked. “How did they discover CADMUS?”
“I don’t know.” Kara scratched at her face. “Luthor was gonna discover it sometime, but everything was perfect, it should have taken at least another month for him to even grow suspicious.”
“You’re not the only one working against them.” Kal pushed himself up and started pacing around the room. “Batman was gonna bring this up on the next League’s meeting. There seems to be at least three distinct villain groups working behind the scenes.”
“What?” Kara looked at him dumbfounded. There wasn’t supposed to be any other secret society in YJ. Instead, the first fight she had was with the Monster Society of Evil, and now there was a third one too. Rao damn it!
Banging her head against the desk Kara cursed herself, this was DC, of course there was gonna be more than one evil cabal around. With her luck, there would be at least a dozen. “Does he know who they are?”
“Not yet, he was only able to find out some of their actions.” Kal opened a holographic window using the Fortress AI; it showed them a map of the world with at five colors indicating several incidents. “Batman thinks that they’re actually getting in each other’s way. Captain Cold was arrested together with three other cold powered villains about a month ago. It was obviously a part of some kind of scheme yet, only a few days ago, he was found immolated inside his room.”
“Someone killed him, and they did it before he could execute whatever plan they had in mind.” Kara whispered while looking at the map.
Right there, over Belle Reve, were three blue spots marked with cold themed villain names, and Captain Cold’s name, as a scarlet red spot. Taking in the entire map, Kara saw only a few other red spots in it but, if Kara traced a line between the five spots on the US, she easily formed an enormous pentagram over the entire country.
That… really didn’t look good.
“I don’t fucking care about that!” Green Arrow raged, smashing his hand on top of the desk with as much strength as he could manage. “I want to know about The Light and how can I hurt them. No, I need to know!”
“Green Arrow…” Kal looked at him for a few seconds.
Green Arrow just stared into Kal’s eyes, unflinching. Eventually, he turned back towards Kara. “And don’t you try bullshitting me, you know more than you’re letting on.”
“Know? Yes, can prove? Not so much.” Looking from Green Arrow’s eyes towards Red Arrow’s coffin, Kara released a tired sigh and waved both hands through her hair. Finally, she glanced at the Fog on display. “Say, what exactly happened at CADMUS?”
“Green Lantern, Batman and me arrived in time to catch them in the act, but Brain had a teleporting machine with him.” Kal shook his head sadly. “We managed to arrest some of their minions, but the leaders escaped.”
“And Luthor?”
“We arrested him, but Luthor is an average human, it’s pretty easy for him to claim he was forced.” Kal leaned against the desk and looked up, his voice filled with frustration. “We managed to justify detaining him for his own protection but, at this point, it’s just a minor inconvenience.”
“So, he’s still being held?” Kara smiled as a plan started to form, it wasn’t the best plan, and it wouldn’t be decisive action against The Light, but she really needed a win, no matter how small, and Green Arrow needed an acceptable target before he snapped. “Well, I think I know how we can hurt them…”