Reincarnated as Supergirl (YJ / DC)

 

For a second, she expected to get hit by one of her cousin’s enemies, her muscles tense and her eye constantly glancing at the command to teleport away or activate the apartment defenses.

Nothing happened.

Flying high above the city, she looked down, taking in the small buildings and the even smaller people walking between them. The sun was still up in the sky and she felt it hitting her face, sending a pleasant feeling over her entire body.

Slowly, her muscles relaxed and she smiled. So what if she got attacked? Anybody who did that would regret the day they were born! She was ready now.

For a few seconds, Kara closed her eyes and concentrated on the city below her, trying to hear if there was anything wrong, but, as she had hoped, Fawcett City, when not in the middle of a supervillain attack, seemed surprisingly peaceful.

Satisfied that there wasn’t anything too dangerous, Kara started flying, slowly making her way away from the city while paying attention to see if there was anything she could help with.

Connecting to the internet, she looked to see if there was any supervillain in action and, when that didn’t give her any leads, started looking for disasters or larger crimes.

Well, despite this being DC, big crimes that would require her attention just weren’t that common, not ones that were reported on real time at least. Kara found the Flash patrolling Central City, and a few other heroes solving or having solved some crimes around the world.

Icon was fighting a lesser villain in Washington DC, Blue Devil had just subdued some kind of mutant in Taipei and both Captain Marvel and Zatara were taking care of a forest fire in Australia. Having saved anyone at risk, Giovanni was actually holding the fire back while the Captain attempted to cast a weather spell over the fire.

Well, Kara had wanted to get closer to normal people, she supposed she should choose a city and just… start doing a patrol or something.

She could have just stayed in Fawcett City, but she had the silly feeling that the city was already ‘taken’. And really, with someone like Captain Marvel already around, her presence there would be superfluous. No, another city would benefit far more.

Kara had done her research and while it was true that supervillain crime increased once a hero started patrolling a city, the data didn’t lie. A superhero’s presence tended to be very advantageous for a place.

Violent crime went down, police brutality and corruption dropped as good officers got support and felt more confident to fight against it. Drug trade diminished and even things like car chases or burglary tended to go down for months after a hero appeared. Even with the occasional super fight, the raw data was that less people got hurt and the city lost less money with a hero in it.

Of course, normal crime would eventually adapt, learn the hero’s limits. Which kind of crime they preferred to, or even could, stop, their working hours, how to distract them and so on. Still, it almost always ended up better than before, for many reasons.

Her chosen city was actually a fairly large one, and she wouldn’t really be putting up roots there, just patrolling sometimes. Flying high enough that she wouldn’t bother anybody, Kara caused a sonic boom as she flew towards her new destination.

Phoenix, Arizona, was one of the biggest cities in the US, and also one with a very high crime rate, losing only to places like Gotham and Bludhaven. All that and it somehow didn’t have any heroes currently working in it. The city got a lot of sunlight, a lot of crime and even had a convenient desert nearby where Kara could take the more destructive fights. It was an almost perfect stomping ground for her.

Arriving above the city, Kara actually stopped to look around a little, taking in the giant city grid. Hacking the police channels, she started monitoring the crimes in the city.

Wait, did she hear that right? Someone was actually robbing a bank not a minute after she’d gotten there? Positioning herself above the building, she used X-ray vision to see four men; two held large, automatic weapons and acted like guards while the other two were gathering the money.

One of the men was forcing a cashier to empty all the cash in the bank into large bags, while another was actually going from person to person, having them hand over cell phones and jewelry as fast as they could.

Kara actually snorted in amusement, robbing a bank only paid off if you could get to the vault, otherwise, you’d only get away with a couple thousand at most. At least nobody had gotten hurt yet. Really, it couldn’t possibly be worth it even when there wasn’t any superhero in the city.

Taking a deep breath, Kara let herself fall, the air hitting her mask and causing her hair to trail behind her. With a loud ‘boom’, she accelerated and, a second later, was inside the building with them, having grabbed the revolving door so it wouldn’t break as she entered.

In slow motion, Kara watched both criminal guards turn their weapons towards her; a quick glance around showed her there were at least thirty civilians trembling on the floor.

Kara immediately noticed a father with a large bruise on his cheek from the butt of a rifle, his hand desperately holding the mouth of his crying child closed as he did his best to protect him with his body and keep the child quiet. The boy’s eyes were wide with fright and his entire body was trembling.

Rushing forward right as one of the men started to press the trigger, Kara grabbed the barrel of the gun and pulled, ripping it out of his grip without much care. The action actually amputated the tip of his trigger finger, sending it flying and dislocated both of his wrists.

With a sigh, Kara briefly watched the finger flying off. Ugh, she probably shouldn’t have done that. Humans were so fragile.

Snatching the finger out of the air with one hand, Kara turned to the second man holding an assault rifle and threw her newly acquired rifle with the other, being more careful this time. The weapon hit him in the chest with just enough strength to cause him to drop his own gun and fall on his back, completely out of breath. A quick blast of heat vision melted the barrel of the gun, rendering it useless.

He was wearing a bulletproof vest; the projectile didn’t even break any bones.

Grabbing one of the first criminal’s arms, she used her X-Ray vision to look at his wrists and moved the bones back into place, causing the man to fall to his knees and shout in pain.

Still grabbing his arm, she opened his hand and put the amputated finger in the middle of his palm before curling his fingers around it. “Here, keep it safe, will you? They may be able to reconnect it later.”

The man gave her a terrified glance, desperately scrambling away from her, but Kara saw that he wasn’t going anywhere so she dismissed him.

“Who the fuck are you!” Screamed the third guy, he had pulled one of the civilians to her feet and pressed a gun to her head. “Nevermind, drop to the ground! Now! To the ground or I’ll kill her!”

Kara glanced at the last criminal, still holding a bag halfway filled with money, the man hadn’t taken out a gun himself and kept glancing between her and the exit with a desperate look on his face.

Turning back to the more immediate threat she considered him. “No.”

“What?” The man asked, as if he couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t obey. Well, not every criminal had faced a superhero, maybe he was one of those. “I said, get on the ground, you fucking cunt! Who the fuck do you think you are, the Flash?! I’m warning you, I’m gonna blow this bitch’s brains out!”

Kara made sure to keep her eyes on his trigger finger, but she did take a quick glance at a nearby mirror. Yep, still wearing her Supergirl costume. “So, you see someone wearing a big blue costume, a huge S on her chest… and your first guess is The Flash? How?” She asked, genuinely curious.

“Oh shit,” the guy without a weapon said as the realization hit him, and Kara could actually see the muscles on his ass cheeks contracting in fear. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!”

“Alright, drop your weapon before you do something you’ll regret. You haven’t killed anybody yet,” Kara argued, she could have just taken the guy out, but she wanted to see if he’d incriminate himself more. “You’re already going to jail; don’t make it harder on yourself.”

The sentence for bank robbery was already harsh but, if he was the kind of person to shoot a hostage, Kara wanted him gone for as long as possible. Then she noticed the look of absolute fear on the woman’s face.

Ah, crap. Again, she was focusing more on the criminal than on their victims. With another sigh, she rushed forward and gripped the handgun, crushing the weapon in her gloved hand before throwing it towards the last criminal sneaking his way towards the exit. He froze in place as the crumbled ball hit the floor right in front of him.

Her other hand gripped the man’s face, blocking his mouth as she manhandled him away from the hostage. “Ah, sorry about that ma’am, I shouldn’t have even let him take you as hostage. Don’t worry; you were never in any danger.”

“What?” The woman asked, collapsing into Kara’s arms as the relief hit her. “Oh thank you, thank you!”

Slowly getting up from the ground, the woman’s husband embraced her and Kara let her go, dragging the criminal by his face and away from the couple. The idiot was still doing his best to punch her, even taking out a knife and trying to stab her, but she just ignored him.

“So, are you gonna run?” She asked the last man standing, she had already seen he only had a single handgun on his vest, but he didn’t seem interested in pulling it out.

Still standing in place, the man looked down at the destroyed handgun, then to his former companions and swallowed, hard. “Nope, not me, never!” He hurried to say, furiously shaking his head from side to side.

“Good. Then do me a favor and put that handgun on the counter, will you? Then help zip tie your friends,” Kara commanded, throwing him a bag of zip ties she kept in one of her costume’s pockets.

He obeyed, very efficiently at that, quickly tying up his three companions and even using his mouth to pull a zip tie tightly around his own wrists.

Well, look at that, an almost sensible criminal. Kara had always found it silly how people kept shooting at her cousin in the comics. Come on, if a freaking Kryptonian tells you to surrender, unless you’re Lex Luthor or Black Adam, you damn well better surrender.

She supposed it could be that people, even criminals, just always trusted Superman to be kind and never take things too far but there’s always a chance that it was an alternative version, an evil clone or a mind control situation. Did you really want to risk it? With a Kryptonian?

Well, it could also be that criminals just surrendering when he showed up wasn’t very interesting in a comic book and, in reality; the situation was far more common than she expected.

“Who are you?” A fat security guard finally asked as he got up from where he had been hiding behind a desk, his partner quickly talking on a radio.

“You can call me Supergirl, not very original, I know, but it’s kind of a family tradition at this point,” Kara joked, extending a hand and helping an old woman to her feet.

“Are you really… you know?” He continued, glancing to the El house crest on her chest and quickly back up to her face. “I mean, I never heard of Superman hurting a criminal.”

“Yep, he’s my cousin. Probably gonna be working with him sometimes. Let’s just say I’m not as experienced in restraining myself or as kind as he is,” Kara just shrugged her shoulders at the man. Patting the old woman down, Kara paid attention to see if her body really was doing well, but outside of a slightly accelerated heartbeat from the action, she was surprisingly fit for her age. “Are you sure you’re feeling fine ma’am?”

“Yes, yes, thank you sweetie,” the old grandma adjusted her dress and grasped for her purse, but it wasn’t there. “Oh my, have you seen my purse, it’s yellow and…”

Suddenly, her computer caught a police chase happening at the other side of town. A man seemed to be doing drugs and, once pulled over, decided to try and make a run for it. The police didn’t know if he was armed or not.

“Here it is ma’am,” Kara flashed towards the fallen purse and handed it over. Glancing around, she looked at the kid crying on his father’s chest, but already saw the panic was starting to fade. Good.

Nodding to herself, she noted that the security people were keeping an eye on the guns. A quick check on everyone’s heartbeats and their positioning later, she was sure that nobody was gonna hurt the subdued criminals anytime soon. Raising her voice, she said. “Sorry people, duty calls!”

Bursting out of the bank, she found the footage from a news helicopter and followed it to quickly arrive at the location. A quick search on the internet later and Kara saw that the vehicle was actually stolen.

Such a pity. She was looking forward to dropping on top of the car and scaring the hell out of the guy. There were two police cars following after the guy and other officers were doing their best to stop traffic so he wouldn’t hit anybody.

Flying down, Kara just grabbed the car by the rear bumper and quickly lifted it into the air, her bioelectrical field keeping it intact. Looking inside the car, she saw the man actually reaching for a gun so she threw the vehicle up and adjusted her grip.

“Ouch!” The man yelled as he hit his head on the ceiling, but he still reached towards the weapon that had fallen on the passenger seat’s floor.

Smirking, Kara started shaking the car, hard. The man hadn’t put on a seatbelt so, soon, grunts and swearwords increased in frequency as the man hit his body just about everywhere for half a minute.

“Oh god, I’m gonna throw up!”

Well, we couldn’t have that. Turning the car on the side, Kara opened the driver’s door and shook the man out of the car. He fell half a meter to the floor, hitting his side and promptly turning around to release the drugs on his stomach all over the pavement.

Right behind her, both police cars came to a stop, their tires screaming as they parked around her and four officers jumped out, pointing handguns towards her and the man on the floor while hiding behind the car doors.

“Drop your weapon!” One of the officers yelled, so Kara slowly floated away from the druggie and, carefully, laid the car down. “On the floor, get on the fucking floor!”

At her side, she saw two of the officers jumping on top of the still throwing up car thief and pulling his arm back to put cuffs on him, screaming orders all the while.

Floating in the air above the car, Kara lifted both hands up in a non threatening gesture. “Please, don’t shoot. The bullets are just gonna bounce off and I’m gonna have to catch them before they hit somebody. I don’t want to bother.”

“Get on the…!” One of the officers started to yell, but the second one interrupted him and shook his head. “What!?”

“John, remember our meta-human classes,” The man whispered, holstering his weapon. “Stop pointing your gun at the flying brick, man. We use hollow points for Christ’s sake, it’s not gonna do anything.”

The first man just looked at his gun for a few seconds and then, slowly, lowered the weapon, holding it pointing to the floor with his finger off the trigger.

Kara lowered her arms and floated closer, stopping just a couple of centimeters above the road to watch them arrest the man and search the vehicle. It wasn’t even damaged by her rough handling, her field keeping it mostly intact.

“Sorry about that, I take it you’re a new hero?” The officer came closer, still keeping a wary gaze on her.

“What gave that away?”

“Well, a villain wouldn’t have lifted their arms, and the Superman inspiration is pretty obvious,” the man said, giving a brief glance at her suit as a third police car arrived. “What’re you called?”

“Supergirl,” Kara answered, crossing her arms behind her back as she floated. “The branding kinda goes too well with the costume and the power set.”

“Hmmm, hey, John, didn’t we have a Superwoman here a couple years ago?” He called out to the man checking the car.

“Yeah, but she didn’t have any powers,” The officer called back, still frowning as he spoke on the radio. “Tried to do a Batman, but she got shot in a month or so, another precinct arrested her for vigilantism after that.”

“So, anything to do with you?” The officer asked and Kara noticed that the others were kind of giving them space. Was that part of the meta-human classes he’d mentioned? She’d have to look into that.

“Well, since Superman is actually my cousin, that’s really unlikely,” Kara answered, her head turning towards the side as she heard a car crash in the distance.

A quick glance on her computer and Kara quickly found a camera watching the accident revealing that, while it had greatly damaged the two vehicles, both drivers were already getting out of the cars on their feet and there were no other people involved.

“Huh, what’s with the mask then?” The man asked, lifting an eyebrow at her.

“Seriously? I say I’m Big Blue’s cousin and your first question is about the mask?” Kara breathed in frustration. “Do you have any idea how much trouble my cousin goes to in order to keep his secret identity? I mean, it’s not really anything big, but he does a lot of small, annoying tricks, a mask is just easier.”

“Really? I always thought he was just a shape-shifter or something,” The policemen shrugged, watching as one of his partners forced the criminal inside a car. “Kinda like the Martian dude, you know? Anyways, you got super-strength, speed, heat vision and all that like the big dude?”

“Is there a reason for all those questions?” Kara asked suspiciously, despite his calm attitude, she could see the tension on his body and how hard his heart was beating.

“Gathering information… and, well, trying to form a good relationship,” the guy shamelessly admitted. “Pretty standard with a new meta-human, or alien I guess. At least when we don’t stand a chance of arresting them for vigilantism. Are you staying in the city or just passing through?”

“Probably staying, why?”

“Well, I’d really suggest you call the Chief sometime in the near future,” the guys said, pulling out a small piece of paper from his pocket and writing a number on it before handing it over. “I mean, in a lot of places the department absolutely hates their resident heroes, but it’s always best to have a good relationship.”

“Right, I’ll probably do that soon,” Kara commented, feeling quite odd at the interaction. Really, she had never thought about forming a relationship with the local law enforcement. Did Kal have some kind of deal in Metropolis before forming the League?

Folding the paper, Kara put it on one of her coat’s inner pockets. Seeing that things were done here, she nodded to the officer and floated up, quickly catching sight of a drug dealer in a corner over a dozen blocks away.

A slight smile curled Kara’s lips upward. Time to scare the crap out of him. She’d just have to be careful not to go too far.