LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 42.2
Stepping out, they walked to the main room. Red Tornado was there, watching something on the computer while Aqualad and Kon sparred on the floor. A quick look around with X-Ray vision and Kara saw the rest of the Titans scattered around the mountain.
Really, she should have made every wall impervious to her vision but, again, she currently lacked the necessary energy to fuel the shielding and she’d have to demolish everything if she wanted to cover it all with lead. So she had settled for masking only the exterior’s surface.
“Detective,” Red Tornado greeted in his usual monotone, turning away from the screen and causing both teens to stop their spar. “It is good to see you’re well. I confess I had some apprehension when Miss Zor-El said she’d provide an alternative teacher.”
“Long time no see Red, getting some much needed human interaction I see,” Bobo replied amicably, looking around the place with a critical eye.
“Greetings, I am Aqualad, leader of the Titans,” the Atlantean approached, extending his hand to the chimp with no hesitation. “I’m glad you could make it, Sir.”
“You’re a polite one aren’t you?” Bobo squeezed the offered hand, giving the boy a fang filled smile. “Bobo T. Chimpanzee, and drop the ‘Sir’, kid, you don’t need that with me.”
Looking to the side, Kara caught Kon’s frowning face as he approached his new teacher, slowly, very slowly. Walking closer, she wrapped an arm around his neck, pulling him into a friendly hug. “What’s wrong?”
“Did it have to be a monkey?” he whispered, fidgeting in place. “I hate monkeys.”
“First, chimps are apes, Kon,” Kara sighed, ruffling his hair while he struggled to get free from her hold. “Second, don’t be an asshole. I don’t think the Kents are raising you like that.”
“Yeah… sorry,” he finally escaped, combing a hand through his hair to put it back in place. “But… monkeys, ugh.”
“But nothing. Anyways, how are your powers? Any change yet?”
“Yeah, nothing big, but I’m jumping much higher than before, I don’t do as much damage when I land and using super speed doesn’t tire me as much as before,” he gave her a proud smile, opening and closing his hand as if feeling the power in his muscles. “I think it’s still growing too.”
“Great, if you begin to fly, call me. I don’t want to miss taking pictures of you smashing into everything around like a drunk as you try to control yourself,” Kon gave her a sharp glare, causing Kara to burst into laughter. “Just kidding, but flying is harder than you’d expect or, well, landing is. Call me.”
“Fine and I’ll try to be civil.”
Watching the boy approaching Bobo, Kara could clearly see how uncomfortable he was, not to mention the chimp himself. The detective gave her an exasperated look, but she just shrugged.
From the hallway, Kid Flash arrived running, slid to a stop and released a girlish ‘yip’ when he saw Kara, his face immediately flushing in embarrassment. Robin walked in shortly after, pushing him out of the way.
“Aww man, she’s here,” Kid Flash whispered, causing Robin to roll his eyes.
“Come on Wally, you’ve gotta get ‘traught’,” the smaller boy patted his back. “Besides, it was making Megan uncomfortable man, she helped you.”
“Yeah, and I’m kinda thankful, but did she have to do ‘THAT’, it’s playing dirty man.”
“You do know she can hear everything, right?” Robin snickered, causing Kid Flash to turn towards her and release another ‘yip’. "Besides, you apologized right? Heck, even I apologized; I kinda let the joke go a little too far.”
“What do you mean?” Kid Flash asked, narrowing his eyes at Robin.
“Man, you got any idea how stupid you sounded? I had to record it for later you know, I mean, ‘Megalicious’, seriously?” Robin quoted, snickering at his friend while patting at his belt. Then his face became a little more serious as he sighed. “Should have just called you out on it, but it was too funny, didn’t really think about how she felt.”
Ugh, stupid teenagers. Kara sighed, shaking her head and turning to watch as Megan and Kori made their way through the Mountain towards the main room, laughing with each other.
At least things had turned out positively there. Kori seemed to have taken M’gann under her wing, despite technically being younger than the girl, and they were getting along very well.
Finally, Bobo seemed to have enough of Kon’s grunts as they spoke, approaching the boy and standing in front of him.
“I’m sorry; do I make you feel awkward? Put you out of your comfort zone? Get over it, boy,” the ape scolded, patting Kon’s side and turning towards the newcomers. “You think I’m happy here? Playing babysitter? I’m a talking, intelligent Chimpanzee, kid. I don’t have a comfort zone. I’m here to teach you so stop being a baby.”
Leaving Kon behind, Bobo greeted the rest of the Titans, waiting until everyone was in the room before beginning his instruction. Kara hung back with Red Tornado, trading a few polite words with the android.
Not for the first time, Kara considered if the machine-man would let her open him up. His core was probably far better built than Mr. Twister and he was a newer model than either Dani or Red Torpedo, she could definitely learn something.
Still, how does one go about asking someone if you could ‘vivisect’ them? Would it help if she offered to make the same improvements she did on Dani?
Red Tornado hadn’t been built to imitate humans, so he probably didn’t have the same programming she did, making the adaptation much harder, but Kara could probably do it.
“Alright folks, now that you’re all here, I guess I can start,” looking at the Titans, Bobo reached for his cigars again, but sighed when he didn’t find them. “Maybe I can even teach BirdBoy some things the furry couldn’t.”
“Ah, sir, wouldn’t it be better to do this at the crime lab?” Robin took the chance to ask.
“Hmmm, a crime lab at home base. That’s convenient,” Bobo scratched at his face and shook his head. “But no, I’m a more… hands on kind of guy. We’re going out, come on.”
Walking back towards the Zeta-Tube, the ape was quickly followed by the rest of the Titans, Robin walking closer, amused to hear someone badmouthing the Bat for some reason.
“You… don’t have a crime lab?”
“I have a magnifying glass and a hat,” he snorted in amusement, barely looking back. “Kid, again, talking chimpanzee here. Half my clients don’t pay me and it’s not like I can sue them for it, the courts don’t protect animal rights that way. Labs cost money.”
Watching the entire team leave, Kara waved them goodbye and turned back towards the android, considering the best way to open his armor.
“Will you be staying at the Mountain, Miss Zor-El?” Red Tornado finally asked and… was that a hint of apprehension she heard in his voice?
“Ah, yeah, I have to make some adjustments to the safety features,” she looked around, considering all the sunstone seeds she had in the building that weren’t getting enough energy to grow.
“Very well, with the Titans out of the Mountain, I too have a personal appointment. I take it you will not require my company?”
“No, go ahead. I’m probably gonna be working until they’re back anyways.”
Despite saying that, the android stood in place for a few seconds, his metallic face impassive. Finally, he seemed to gather himself and spoke again.
“I… thank you Miss Zor-El,” he spoke slowly, his words without inflection, but Kara could hear the emotion anyways. “I was not aware I still had family, I had long considered my father to be dead, much less a brother and sister.”
“So, you spoke with Dani,” Kara commented, her friend still hadn’t given her an answer about becoming part of the team, but it seems like she was getting her life back in order. “It was nothing. You know, if you want, I can help build you a new body, something closer to Dani’s?”
“… I will think on it. If you will excuse me,” nodding his head, Red Tornado too walked towards the Zeta-Tube.
Kara observed him going, following him through the walls until he disappeared after being hit with a Zeta-Beam. Finally, she was alone in the Mountain.
Thinking about what Billy had said, Kara quickly made a short trip back home, grabbing Dexter and bringing him into the Mountain with her. Without too many people here, he could explore and smell the Titans without getting too stressed or crowded.
She let the cat explore for a little bit, putting one of her drones on watch to follow him around. Of course, all of the defenses were already calibrated for his presence.
Nodding, she went back to her current goal. She could have done this with people here, but she had the odd feeling that they wouldn’t approve. Still, she needed a way of getting energy damn it, a lot of energy!
Walking down into the Mount’s grotto, Kara let the security features check her identity before opening a secret path further down.
Her cousin and Green Lantern had carved out the mountain’s insides to create Mount Justice. They had put the entire structure in place by themselves and hidden it from the world. With her tech, Kara had done much the same to expand it further down, creating more rooms inside the Mountain.
Reaching her destination, she saw the crystalline walls, not unlike the Fortress itself, and the central shaft. The ten meter wide hole was made by a device that, instead of retrieving materials, had compressed it beyond current Earth’s capabilities and used it to reinforce the walls.
It had taken days to dig all the way down, consuming the vast majority of the energy she could produce at the moment and leaving the Mountain temporarily under-protected. Thankfully, the device was fairly easy to make, something common back on Krypton and she had just… left it working while she focused on other projects.
Stepping into the shaft, she let herself drop a little more than a kilometer down where she arrived at a second, much wider chamber. Using the sensors and her own Kryptonian senses, she did one last check of the turbines and water reserve, making sure the structure would be able to withstand the persistent pressure.
Satisfied, she flew back up. A small seat and a computer lifted from the floor and Kara sat down, starting to monitor the progress. It was ready, the power plant had finished being built and all that remained was activating it.
Rhode Island was not the ideal location for such construction, it was firmly in the middle of the North American Plate and, while it had several small faults, there were no major ones, much less any convenient volcanoes.
Still, all of that was barely an inconvenience when one had access to Kryptonian tech. Finally, Kara made the last checks necessary, momentarily redirecting away most of the energy being used on Mount Justice for her safety measures and pressed the button.
With a hiss, the locks opened and the pressure pushed a limited amount of magma up from the shaft, letting it pool into a giant magma chamber below the water reserve. The amount perfectly controlled by a system of sunstone locks to prevent overflow and control the pressure.The toxic gasses generated were slowly gathered for use in some traps up top.
Quickly, the heat started boiling the water, turning it into steam and activating the turbines. She had energy! Enough energy to dramatically accelerate her projects and, in only a few days to a week, fully activate all of Mount Justice’s defenses!
Eventually, a meow under her feet revealed that Dexter had had enough of exploration and was already asking for her attention. Adjusting her posture, Kara let the cat jump on her lap and caressed his fur, causing him to start purring.
Really, who knew that creating an artificial volcano under Mount Justice would be one of the safest options of generating energy?
Also, she could probably build a way of flooding the mountain itself with lava in case it was ever taken over, destroying the computers and incinerating, or at least inconveniencing, any attackers.
Kara had considered a lot of options, from simply installing a nuclear reactor to breaching into the Bleed to steal energy from alternate universes, but everything had its drawbacks and her level of tech made several options equally viable. Of those, the artificial volcano was on the high end of expensive and took a little longer to build, but it was actually safer in the long term.
Also, the Bleed thing was reaching a little. It was both the most expensive and the most dangerous option to make.
She had a few misgivings about the whole thing, but using a small amount of magma to generate geothermal energy was so completely different from harvesting the core directly that the comparison to her homeworld and its fate hadn’t even occurred to her until the construction was almost complete.
Kara wasn’t exactly sure why her version of Krypton had exploded, she hadn’t had access to her uncle’s search, but, in the comics, it was often because of harvesting the planet’s core for energy.
Still, she wasn’t exploiting the core, just a minuscule amount of the magma from the mantle. Those were completely different things.
Leaning back on her chair, Kara scratched Dexter behind his ears and smiled as she watched the turbines gaining speed and started to produce energy.
The first things that came online were the shielding that prevented anyone from sensing the increased activity. After that, the artificial sunlight lamps started working, feeding energy directly to her sunstone seeds. The remaining features would come online as the energy was produced and the defenses finished growing.
Now, how would she explain this to the others again?