LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 39.2
“You… want to go somewhere called ‘Superbabes’?” Kara asked aghast, refocusing on the conversation with no small amount of disbelief.
“Yes! Servers pay homage to Superheroes by dressing as them -although Friend Alice does dress as a villain- and most dishes are named after them too,” Kori nodded her head eagerly.
Lifting an eyebrow at what she was hearing, Kara couldn’t help but to do a quick search on the internet. She was left feeling strangely conflicted, her feelings struggling between jealousy, amusement and curiosity.
“Kori, you ate at a strip club? With Amber? Isn’t she underage?” Kara had so many questions. Worse, she didn’t even know if she wanted them answered.
Was… was there a male version of this too? One with Kal in it? No! Don’t think about it!
"Joy, excitement, eagerness, I have always thought Earth's prejudices against showing one's body to be primitive, but to think there were entire clubs dedicated to freeing themselves from such constraints!" Kori started floating above the seat, only held in place by the belt around her chest. "Friend Amber and I have only eaten there during the daytime, it did not have such a feature then."
"... Yeah, that's not exactly the reason why they strip like that. Or the reason they dress as Supers, for that matter."
An explanation later and Kara actually felt bad about Kori's shattered expectations. That people actually charged money in exchange for affection was so alien it hadn't even occurred to her and it was also, apparently, incredibly offensive.
Parking close to the Zeta-Tube, Kara looked at Kori's pout and tried to cheer her up. "Hey, maybe it's not just about the money. Some courtesans consider it art, or maybe they just like bringing joy to others and the job is just convenient?"
"Do you really think so?"
Unable to lie, Kara sighed. "Not really, it's probably just about the money, but who knows? Stranger things have happened."
"Thank you, I appreciate the attempt." Kori said, her voice making it clear that it hadn't helped all that much.
"You sure you don't want me to drop you off at the apartment? There's still a few hours before the rest of the Titans get out of school, so there should still be some left-over ice cream there, right?"
"I do not. Partaking of frozen milky treats is meant to happen as celebration, not to placate my disappointment," Kori shook her head, stepping out of the car with Kara. "I prefer to spend my righteous anger on more productive activities."
"You actually brought ice cream to celebrate…" Kara couldn't find her words.
"Indeed, it was a very long but successful hunt!"
Kara just stared at her girlfriend. She was not prey, Rao damn it! Narrowing her eye, Kara mumbled. "You do know I can build a tickle machine, right? It's extremely easy."
With a kiss, Kori placated her, cutting off her evil plans of ticklish retribution before saying goodbye and disappearing with the Zeta-Tube.
A second later, Kara herself teleported, appearing near Central City where Danny had spent the night in a hotel room. Quickly, Kara found the gynoid waiting for her in a nearby coffee and lifted an eyebrow at her creamy cappuccino and large assortment of desserts.
"What? You gave me fully working taste buds, I'm just testing to see if there was anything wrong," Danny said, avoiding her eye with some embarrassment. “I never knew deserts could be so good.”
“Good to see you’re making good use of it at least,” Kara snorted, while Danny asked someone to put the remaining snacks in a bag. “You sure you’re up for it? I mean, I know I was the one to ask, but you don’t NEED to do this if you’re uncomfortable.”
“Nope, you promised me flying, I was always jealous of our flyers in the JSA,” She said, paying for her meal. “I already bragged about it with Jay too.”
Trading a quick hug, Kara found a hidden corner and used her phone to call a smaller version of her teleporting platform to their location, the bigger one being too attention grabbing and still used by the Genomorphs.
A second later, they stepped out of it inside her side of the Fortress. Danny quickly looked around in curiosity, seeing several men working and moving things all over the room. One of them, wearing a red and white striped shirt and a large, brown beard, offered to take her bags.
“Ma’am, welcome. Are you here to oversee the operation?” He asked in a gruff voice.
“No, I’m going to be installing one of the wind cores, you guys just continue getting ready.”
“Right away Ma’am,” he gave them a quick nod, put the bags on top of a crystalline table and moved on further inside the Fortress.
“Wasn’t this supposed to be the Fortress of, you know, Solitude?” Danny asked with a curious tone as they walked towards Kara’s own laboratory.
“Well, don’t know if Kal can still call it that, what with me here, but those guys are just my Karabots. I’ll have them posing as construction workers at my new house,” Kara explained, arranging the location for their quick operation, it shouldn’t take more than an hour or two. “I just ordered them to be fitted with synthetic skin and a basic AI this morning.”
Danny gave her a disappointed look, almost facepalming. “Really, Karabots? That’s what you went with?”
“Hey, they’re just the retrofitted Morrowbots, and I really don’t have the best naming sense,” Kara shrugged while the room started changing, a crystalline bed growing in the middle as well as several pieces of equipment rising from the floor where they were being kept. “I could either waste a day or two trying to come up with a better name, or go with Karabots. I choose to not waste my time.”
“Very practical of you to not waste a full day on naming one thing,” Danny snorted, finally focusing on the small, round core held inside a transparent crystal casing. “Is that a ‘KaraKore’ then?”
“No, I just call it a wind core. Again, I could come up with a fitting acronym, but why waste time. It’s a core, it makes wind,” Kara answered with a distracted voice as she carefully took the piece of equipment out of the casing. “I managed to replicate Mr. Twister’s device fairly easily, but this one was actually built with some of my own supply of Nth metal. I had it separated for testing, but decided this was a better use. It should make flying even easier, and actually give you some magical protection.”
“Is that fine? Even back then, we knew that kinda metal was very rare,” Danny asked while laying down on the bed.
“It’s probably fine, and the piece was small enough it shouldn’t really cause any problems,” Kara said, causing the bed to rise until she could drag some cables to Danny’s back. At their approach, her skin seemed to part by itself and a connection port formed. “Just… Well, I heard that, in its pure form, the metal is actually sentient, so, if you start hearing voices or feeling changes in your programming, warn me.”
“Wait, what’s that abou- Ack!” The woman yelped as the cables connected, sending a small electric charge through her body and causing goosebumps to raise on her synthetic skin.
“Sorry about that, I’m lowering your sensitivity right now,” Kara said, using the computers to change some of Danny’s settings. “You shouldn’t really be able to feel pain, but the operation would be really uncomfortable without this.”
“No, I want to hear about this sentient thing first! What the fuck are you putting inside me?” Danny grumbled in annoyance, but didn’t get up from the bed.
“Don’t worry about it, I use the metal myself,” Kara smiled at her. “Even if it does form a connection, the metal tends to form a symbiotic relationship to the user, but it’s such small amounts here that that shouldn’t happen. I wasn’t even gonna mention it, but I thought your reaction would be funny.”
“Right, very funny,” Danny grumbled, allowing Kara to lower the bed and pull her shirt up to her chest, revealing most of her belly.
With a command from her computer, Kara caused a plate to lift from Danny’s armor, revealing her insides. Kara could actually do it with her own hands, but the equipment was delicate enough that she preferred to manipulate it with some tools to be more precise.
It wouldn’t actually cause any problems otherwise, but Kara did like looking at the neat wiring and perfectly positioned components. It was strange, Kara didn’t mind if her bedroom was a mess, but her devices? She absolutely hated it.
“Damn, this’s odd to watch,” Danny eventually commented as Kara continued to carefully install the core, connecting it to Danny’s own fire core in several ways while maintaining their independent functionalities. “It’s one thing to know I’m an android, another to actually see it.”
“Wants me to turn you off for a little bit? You don’t have to watch it you know,” Kara offered again, her tongue actually poking out of her mouth as she carefully formed the connections on the cores.
“No, I didn’t say it was bad. Just strange,” Resting her head back against the bed, Danny stopped trying to see the operation and looked at the robots walking through the Fortress. Two dozen were already covered with synthetic skin and wearing clothes, but there were several more of them standing in neat little rows. “Fuck, how many of those things did you manage to loot from father? Are you actually building more of the things? What do you even need them for, building an army?”
“... No?”
“Kara, why did you just hesitate to answer?” Danny asked, her eyes slowly leaving the rows of robots to stare at her friend. “And why did your answer sound like a question?”
“No reason, don’t worry about it,” Kara quickly answered, perhaps a little too quickly. “Busy now, have to concentrate.”
“Kara…” Danny sighed, closing her eyes for a second. “Fuck it, I owe you my life Kara, if you need help, just ask for it.”
“Don’t worry, I don’t need help, just time,” Kara commented absentmindedly, she had used it as an excuse to change the question, but working on such advanced tech really did require concentration. “I’m perfectly capable of taking over the world by myself, but thanks for the offer.”
“WHAT!”