Reincarnated as Supergirl (YJ / DC)

Kara sat on the carpet in front of the sofa, her legs crossed under her as she focused on her meditation. Slowly releasing her breath, she opened her eyes and concentrated on the golf ball-sized marble resting a few meters in front of her.

 

Face still relaxed, she tried to move the marble, with her mind. Concentrating her mind into a single task with incredible focus, she willed it to move. Frowning, she focused even harder on the marble, actually leaning forward a little. It. Would. Move.

 

Then the marble suddenly did go flying across the floor, batted aside by a tiny paw. The offending feline followed closely behind it, his tail twitching from side to side with excitement.

 

“Dexter!” Kara growled and almost got up. Feeling her hair still firmly held in Kori’s hand, she sighed and settled back down, resting her head on Kori’s legs.

 

“Please, what were you trying to accomplish?” Kori questioned, her hands never leaving Kara’s hair as she braided a small strand of her hair on the side.

 

“Well, I have been able to use the Red Light of Rage twice now and, according to the Fortress’ analysis of the Psion’s little organ donation, I can also use the other parts of the light spectrum.” Kara relaxed against Kori’s body, giving up on her meditation and smiling as she looked at Dexter running around the room. “I was trying to use the Green Light of Will. Theoretically, it is the safest, although not the easiest.”

 

“Good choice, Friend Kara. You are a very willful individual.” Kori nodded and released her newly created braid, a satisfied smile on her face.

 

“Hey!”

 

“Speaking of willfulness, please, why have you not spoken with The Black Canary yet?” Kori frowned down at her, pulling hard on her hair and poking her in the forehead with a finger.

 

“Ouch, ouch, I will, I will.” Kara tried to bat the finger aside, but Kori wasn’t letting her. “I’m going out with Kal-El today. I’ll speak with her tomorrow, I promise!”

 

“Humph, I will be watching you.” Kori finally stopped poking Kara and started braiding a small strand of hair on the other side of her head. “Friend Kara, I only desire for you to be more ‘traught’. Speaking with The Black Canary will promote exactly such an outcome.”

 

“‘Traught’?” Kara looked at Kori’s proud face and thought about what she was saying before releasing a wail. “Nooooo, the pipsqueak is already polluting your mind with nonsense! Kori, listen to me because this is very important: ‘Traught’ is not a word, neither is ‘Aster’, ‘Whelmed’ or whatever other nonsense bird boy comes up with.”

 

“It is… not?” Kori's face was completely flushed with embarrassment.

 

Suddenly, Dexter jumped on top of Kara’s tights, the marble held firmly in his mouth. The cat looked her in the eye and dropped the marble into her hand, his tail twisting from one side to the other.

 

Kara didn’t know cats liked to play fetch.

 

Grabbing the marble, Kara put it on the floor and watched as Dexter’s butt started to wiggle. She flicked the marble, weakly, and it went flying across the room again, bouncing off the walls with a cat following closely behind.

 

Enjoying Kori’s hands in her hair, Kara let the silence stretch between them for a few seconds. Eventually, Kara started to grow uncomfortable and, just as she was about to open her mouth, Kori asked.

 

“Friend Kara, did your plans go amiss yesterday?” The Tamaranean finally asked in a worried tone. “You arrived fraught with anxiety.”

 

“I… Yes…. Yes, things went wrong, but also… not? I don’t know!” Pushing her back against the sofa, Kara lifted her arms up, her fingers curling into a sign of frustration. “From a tactical point of view, yesterday was a major success. It was just far too expensive.”

 

“I understand.” Kori gave her a bitter smile and tied the second braid with a small string. “In Tamaran, we tried to focus on the victories, and to honor the sacrifice of those lost by celebrating their lives, not grieving their losses. Please, can I help you in any way?”

 

Looking at Kori’s understanding face; Kara had to embarrassingly remind herself where her friend came from. Tamaran had just been through a very long and exhausting war and was now under Citadel control. Kori was most definitely no stranger to losses.  

 

“Don’t worry, you’re already helping.” Kara released a long breath and got up, stretching her arms and legs. “Plus, I already have enough people working on fixing things right now, don’t worry about it.”

 

The doorbell rang and Kara looked through the door to see Kal had finally arrived. She couldn’t help but snicker as she used the interface on her eye to unlock the door. “Come in, I’m just getting ready.”

 

Pushing the door open, a petite brunette woman walked inside the house, her long hair was tied into a bun and she had a delicate pair of glasses on her eyes. The disapproving look on her face was perfect to complete the librarian look.

 

“Really Kara, was this really necessary?” The older woman asked with an exasperated voice. “Captain Marvel said you used to just come through the windows before.”

 

“Yes, the keyword being: ‘before’. Flying through the window is okay when it’s an emergency, but using disguises is much safer, no matter how many protections I have on the apartment.” Kara said with a completely serious face, then she ruined it by snickering again.

 

Kal released a long, suffering breath and finally closed the door before deactivating the holographic projector. The librarian seemed to glitch for a second before she was replaced by Superman in his full costume.

 

“Alright but, did it have to be a sexy librarian? Didn’t you have a different setting?” Kal asked while nodding in acknowledgement at Kori with a smile.

 

It absolutely didn’t have to be the sexy librarian setting, no. Her own device had about seven hundred different settings on it and half of them were male. But Kara had only put a couple of female forms on her spare ones, and the sexy librarian was the most congruent and family friendly one Kal could be using.

 

“Considering that device was supposed to be used by me, of course it was gonna be female.” Kara lied shamelessly. Giving him a tight hug, she turned around and found both Kori and Dexter staring at her side by side. “I’m gonna go change clothes. Are you leaving with us Kori?”

 

“I am not, Master Diana will be occupied with political duties until midday, but the Titans will be meeting later in the evening.” Kori picked up the cat and lifted it on her lap, waving at Kara with one of its paws. “This morning, I will remain alone with Dexter!”

 

“Alright, have fun.” Walking towards her bedroom, Kara spoke without turning back. “You know little cousin, maybe if you had accepted some of my devices, I’d have a disguise projector for you and you wouldn’t need to use my spare.”

 

“Hey, I already agreed to wear the radiation shield.” Kal sighed from the living room.

 

“Humph, you’re lucky I decided to use the projector, not the Kryptonite.” Kara looked around the room and briefly considered putting on her armor, but she’d be with her cousin, he could keep her safe. Plus, she didn’t want to connect him to Forge in any way.

 

“Wait, what was that about Kryptonite?” Kal nearly yelled from the living room.

 

Ten seconds later, Kara started walking back to the living room while adjusting the collar of her public costume, her mask tied to her belt. Kal still seemed worried about the Kryptonite, causing Kara to smirk in amusement.

 

“Right, I had this entire thing prepared with pink Kryptonite, but I haven’t fully tested it yet, and then I got too busy with… things.” Putting her mask on, Kara activated her own holographic projector. Her body flickered and, in the blink of an eye, she was back to looking like she wasn’t wearing the costume. “Plus, you really stepped up with Kon and Match, so I decided to keep that little treat for later.”

 

“Kara, what exactly does this pink Kryptonite do? I only know about red, green and gold Kryptonite, and none of them are good news.”

 

Seeing the very worried look on Kal’s face, Kara gave him her most innocent smile. “Well, if you’re ready to start wearing the radiation shield, you won’t have to find out, now will you? Anyways, see you later Kori.”

 

“Farewell, Friend Kara.”

 

“Good seeing you Koriand’r.” Kal waved at her. Finally, he reactivated the projector, turning into the librarian once again and they left the building on foot.

 

“Is it really that uncomfortable?” Kara snickered as she walked beside her cousin.

 

He looked at her from the corner of his eye and shook his head in amusement. “I don’t actually mind, but I confess it’s really not my thing. Did you have to make it so hard to download new settings on this thing?”

 

“Of course. Can’t have anybody install malware on my devices, can I?”

 

“Right, I’ll pretend I believe that.” Kal snorted and opened the door of the building, letting Kara walk out into the street first. “Still, I’m glad to see you’re happier today.”

 

“It’s hard to stay sad with Kori around.” Kara thought about Kori waving her goodbye with Dexter's little paws and smiled.

 

“Oh really, why don’t you tell me more?”

 

Kara squinted her eyes at his teasing tone. The projection couldn’t perfectly duplicate his expressions but, if she squinted just right, she could use her Kryptonian vision to see his smug smile. “Right, maybe after you tell me about Lois. What exactly is complicated about that relationship?”

 

They continued making small conversation until arriving on an empty alleyway seven blocks away from Kara’s house. Checking that nothing was there to observe them, they both finally deactivated their disguises and quickly darted up into the air, moving just below the speed of sound.

 

Soon, they floated above the cover of the clouds, too high for anything to see them from the ground. Turning towards the hero, Kara asked. “Alright, where now?”

 

“I’m actually on call for the Justice League right now.” Kal scratched the back of his neck before pulling out a communication device. “I wanted you to come along because I really think you need to see something.”

 

“To Metropolis then?”

 

“No, we’re flying to Europe.” Orienting himself, Kal started flying towards the continent at a steady pace. Soon, they broke out of the city limits and Kal started picking up speed. “If you want to talk, use the comms. We’ll be flying faster than sound to arrive on time.”

 

With one large burst of speed, they broke through the sound barrier, accelerating to the maximum speed they could safely go without cooking everything around them while inside the atmosphere. Kara enjoyed the wind hitting her face for a minute or two as they started flying over the ocean before Kal spoke again.

 

“By the way, I know you didn’t want to get directly involved in this. Sorry to spring this on you out of nowhere.” He briefly glanced at her flying by his side and continued. “You can just stay out of sight if you don’t want people finding out about you.”

 

“Don’t worry, I made this costume so I could appear in public and help out. It’s about time I debuted anyway. It should only make The Light more worried and confused.” Lowering her altitude a little, Kara stretched her hands down towards the water and glanced back. Her hand was still quite a few meters above the waters but, behind her, the water rose almost two meters in the sky from the displaced air. “Say, do you mind that I kept calling you Kal? I know you were raised with your human name, but it’s just… I first met you as Kal and, since you don’t really use the name, it doesn’t affect your secret identity.”

 

“I confess it’s taken some getting used to, but I don’t really mind, at least not when I’m out in costume.” Glancing at the waves she was making, Kal couldn’t help but laugh. “I really do love flying, it’s very… relaxing.”

 

Eventually, they approached the European continent and they had to fly up in order to not disturb anyone. “What are we doing anyway?”

 

“Relief effort. There was a drought in East Africa and, while we did what we could to stop it, there’s still some shortage of food in the region.” Kal said and started going down towards a large harbor. “The League organized some food deliveries but, with military operations in the area, League presence is sometimes necessary. Also, I always take some deliveries there myself.”

 

Dropping down on the ground, Kal walked towards a fat woman wearing safety equipment. “Hello, everything ready?”

 

“Superman, yes we have the containers ready for delivery.” The woman handed Kal something to sign, then lifted an eyebrow as Kara decided to drop down by his side and stop hiding. “Even you? I swear every hero nowadays has a damn sidekick.”

 

Kal glanced at her and smiled. “My cousin actually, I’m just showing her the ropes.”

 

“Call me Supergirl. I tried to come up with another name, but everything good was just too… villainous. So I just decided to adopt my cousin’s unimaginative naming convention.”

 

“Hey, my father named me that.” Kal protested and handed the document back to the woman. “Actually, he named me Superboy first and then I grew into the new name. So you’re really following after me.”

 

“Alright, I just got the ok from the boss.” The woman said, cupping a hand over her ear where there was a phone. “You’re free to go.”

 

“Want help?”

 

“Actually, yeah, it’ll make things much faster. Just wait for me to lift it out of the water and then you can help me fly it there.”

 

Saying that, Kal flew into the water, causing a splash to fly up into the air. A few seconds later, a giant ship started rising out of the water, thousands of red containers piled on top of it.

 

Kara waited until Kal had gotten it a hundred meters up in the air, then she nodded towards the woman and flew under the boat, bracing it on top of her shoulders and helping lift it up.

 

It weighted… a lot, a whole fucking lot. Kara felt her muscles straining as she tried to help out and she could just imagine her face going red. “Supergirl, you’re taking on too much weight, let me take the lead and just help out a little.”

 

With a sigh of relief, she felt the weight decrease, then she followed Kal’s lead as they started flying south. At first, things were kind of awkward but, soon, they started coordinating better and the boat started picking up speed.

 

Together, it took them almost two hours to carry the damn thing towards its destination. Kara’s limbs were starting to ache, and she felt her breath starting to come short, her only consolation was that even Kal seemed a little tired from the effort of carrying such weight for so long. Sweat started to accumulate on his face and he started to take slow, even breaths.

 

Below, Kara saw thousands of people starting to make a racket, shouting and laughing as they noticed their approach, most of them were children. Kal’s target was the ocean, but the crowd ran after them, trying their best to keep under the shadow of the boat.

 

“Alright, you can release it now.” Kal nodded her way, allowing Kara to release the giant ship and drift back in the air. The entire weight of the thing settled on Kal’s shoulders and he slowly started lowering it into the water.

 

From high up in the air, Kara watched as the authorities did their best to contain the crowd while preparing to unload the ‘very’ overloaded ship. All of them were laughing and cheering.

 

Kal broke out of the water with another giant splash, clearly making a spectacle of it as he stepped down amongst the people, letting them hug and climb on his body. Most children didn’t even come up to his chest and he caressed their unruly hairs with a smile on his face before motioning for her to approach.

 

Kal spoke in a language she didn’t understand, lifting one of the kids up onto his shoulders and pointing at her, causing the crowd to turn her way. Awkwardly she waved at them and watched as Kal mock whispered something to the kids, causing them all to laugh.

 

She narrowed her eyes at him. Now she’d have to start learning other languages. Couldn’t have her cousin whispering about her to her face!