LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 45.1
Kara appeared a few kilometers away from the city, her platform sparking as some kind of energy field seemed to have blocked and re-directed her teleportation, the very fabric of the world appearing to bend away from the city.
For a second, she just stared at the being slowly pushing its way into her reality, her mind growing foggy at the sight. Grabbing her head, she managed to turn away and regain her bearings.
What in Rao’s name was that? At least she had seen that the fighters were mostly safe for the moment. All of them were still locked in battle, but none seemed truly hurt. Kara was quick to look for her friend and found Dani fighting from atop of one of her shields, releasing blasts of fire or cutting away with her sword when a tentacle got too close.
Taking a breath, she looked again. This time she braced herself and what she saw seemed to lose a lot of its power, the tentacles and spots of light no longer mesmerizing to her. Stupid cognitohazards.
Above the city, surrounded by clouds, was a large, sickly green portal from which several tentacles stretched down. Some of said tentacles seemed to grip the edges of the portal, constantly trying to stretch it wider, but most struck down at the struggling heroes.
Dani, a Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Doctor Fate and Red Tornado were fighting it off, doing their best to destroy the portal while being harassed by Klarion and two demons Kara didn’t recognize.
At the city’s edge, Kara saw Jay Garrick running around. While he could probably reach the fight somehow, he wouldn’t really be as effective without flight, so he was doing his best to save as many people as he could and was prioritizing getting them out of immediate danger. Unfortunately, even with how small Salem was, there were just too many civilians to move.
What… was she supposed to do? Kara had been in several spars, she had been in two life or death fights and she had been working on getting used to acting like a hero, but this was just too much. Screams of terror filled her ears as humans desperately fled the fight or hid from it, crying like children, some WERE children.
She had thought that Mr. Mind’s attack had been bad, his lightning bolts had done a lot of damage and set buildings on fire but, despite how things appeared, because she and Kori had been in the city, there hadn’t actually been all that many casualties.
This was much worse. The only saving grace was that Salem was much smaller than Fawcett City, with less than a 100 thousand people. But the creature that was pushing itself out into reality was so massive the destruction had started to spread to nearby towns.
With another command from her armor, the larger teleportation platform used by the Genomorphs appeared at her side filled with drone boxes. With a single order, five thousand drones took flight, going straight towards the city to help with evacuation.
She had considered calling on the Karabots, but most of their battle programming was still a result of code she had reused from Morrow’s work and she didn’t trust them close to civilians. She’d have to fix that soon.
The drones wouldn’t be able to block even a stray shot from one of the powerhouses battling, but the resulting debris? The aftereffects? Those were just as dangerous to a normal human and they were more than capable of dealing with that.
Looking at the cloud of drones, Kara knew it would not be enough. She had thought she had made too many, going way overboard on their production to create a long term reserve for the League, but it wouldn’t be enough.
Stepping forward, both platforms teleported back and Kara burst into action, having finally shook off her indecision and flying directly towards the city. At the midpoint, while hidden from view by one of the larger buildings, she opened the armor, separating from it and continuing to fly wearing only her Supergirl costume.
The armor immediately fell heavily to the ground, its front closing again as it cracked the street under its weight. The limited AI assumed control and started modifying its main weapon. Usually, it would act as a powerful railgun but, thankfully, she’d had the foresight to develop equipment meant to fight off anything from an alien invasion to freaking Eldritch Kaiju.
Changing into her teleport gun would only take a few seconds, but the more devastating forms took longer, both because they were even more complex and as a safety measure. She didn’t want anyone getting trigger happy with some of the configurations available… even herself.
Without Kara in the driver seat, the armor was only 36% as effective, but she only needed it to guard the cannon while it was being deployed. She was gonna bring out one of her recently acquired trump cards.
Unfortunately, most of her heavy weapons’ capabilities couldn’t really be unleashed inside the atmosphere thanks to certain safety devices she’d put in, others would need far too much time, but she had been waiting to test something new.
Kara had made improvements after her raid at Infinity Island and she was eager to deploy it in a real battle. She had tested the device extensively, but never at this scale.
Without pause, she burst into a house, not so much breaking the walls as just… pushing them out of the way as a human would push water. One hand caught a barking dog by the waist while another grabbed a young teen and cradled him to her chest before bursting out.
Not even a second later, one of Klarion’s blasts of magic hit the house, causing it to explode and rain debris all around the street. The boy was screaming the entire time, but she didn’t actually have time to calm him, just dropping the kid on top of a shield and moving on.
Above her, she saw one of Klarion’s magic spells turn into a claw, it enlarged itself and grabbed an entire hospital, ripping it out of the ground and throwing it up with a maniacal laugh.
It seems like the bastard had given up on harassing the heroes and, instead, started trying to force them into prioritizing civilians. At the same time, both demons disengaged and flew down, releasing red blasts of power towards the small city.
Kara batted a car out of the air, saving two girls it was about to hit before throwing some of the last drones on her costume at them before taking in the monsters, her mind working overtime to analyze the situation.
One of the creatures looked like an enormous blob of fat with red skin, flying everywhere and releasing blasts of red energy that seemed to corrode the materials wherever they hit, turning them to dust.
The second was even bigger, but he was filled with muscles and, instead of flying aimlessly, seemed to stop midair and close all four of its eyes, causing a different weight to settle over the city. Kara growled at the very sight, having the sudden urge to attack him.
Gritting her teeth, she looked from the fight to the falling building, her entire body aching to start hitting things but, with a curse, she flew towards the falling civilians. Her drones wouldn’t be able to stop its drop, so she’d have to do it.
In the second it took her to decide, her cousin actually burst onto the scene, catching the entire hospital on his shoulders and stabilizing it with his bioelectrical shield, keeping the building whole and the people inside mostly safe.
Unfortunately, it seems like she wasn’t the only one to notice his arrival. The fat demon roared and flew towards Kal, four red eyes filled with glee as he attacked. Kara couldn’t have that; the ridiculous blob of fat wasn’t going to touch Kal, the very thought made a fire of anger fill her chest.
The demon had been hurt during the initial fighting, blood was flying from an open wound on his chest, he was missing an eye and there were burns all over his skin that looked raw, but he was still sharp enough to notice her as they flew towards each other.
With a laugh, he simply sent a blast of power from his eye that she dodged. When she approached, he seemed surprised, grunting in annoyance before trying to punch her, clearly underestimating her power and skills.
Kara was angry and, for some reason, being dismissed like that only increased her rage. Lightning fast, she ducked under the blow and grabbed his face, squeezing his fat cheeks and shutting his mouth while continuing to fly past his body, carrying him straight to the middle of the city’s park.
The whiplash was enough that Kara heard something snap on his neck, but the demon still managed to punch her side before trying to blast her with a red beam of energy from his eyes as she dug her fingers into his fat, the Nth metal in her gloves completely blocking the attack.
Her costume’s nano-machines hardened under the body shot and she knew some of them had been destroyed, but her Kryptonian resistance barely noticed the impact. Then they hit the ground.
Kara didn’t want to destroy the city, even as angry as she was, she didn’t want to cause more deaths. That meant that, when she smashed the back of the demon’s head down against the ground, her bioelectrical field spread on instinct, blocking the vast majority of the damage.
She still destroyed most of the park, causing the earth to ripple, trees to be uprooted and creating a large crater, but she didn’t bury the bastard several kilometers under the ground or collapse any of the nearby buildings.
Releasing his twitching body, she looked up, seeing Wonder Woman engaging with the Chaos Lord once again as Fate tried to beat the eldritch abomination’s tentacles back with glowing ankhs of light.
Suddenly, a flash of emerald green light filled Kara’s vision as the Green Lantern present exploded in power, cutting off most of the tentacles, leaving them burning with green fire and wounding the muscular demon.
“Supes, how about we tag!” Green Lantern yelled as he manifested dozens of WWII artillery pieces and opened fire on the portal, the attack doing terrifying damage to the creature, but still unable to pierce through all its defenses.
Her cousin had put down the building he had been holding on the ground, being very gentle so as to not hurt the people inside. Immediately, Flash ran inside, starting to help several patients that had been wounded in the upheaval.
Glancing around, Kal saw that Klarion had already caused far more damage and, even wounded, the second demon wasn’t making it easy, his cuts already healing as he spread his power over the city.
While the demon wasn’t physically moving, he was clearly using some spell because the civilians on the street had started to scream and rage at each other, fighting for hiding locations or because someone had ran ahead of them, their panic easily turning into mindless anger, with those closest to his location being affected first.
Flash was running as fast as he could, separating fights while Kara’s drones interfered, locking insane civilians inside isolated shields.
Still, Kal didn’t hesitate, trusting the older hero and sending a blast of heat vision while flying up towards the regenerating tentacles, his attacks driving the creature back momentarily. In exchange, the Green Lantern Kara recognized as Alan Scott dropped on top of a four story building, lifting his sword in front of his face and closing his eyes.
For a full second, Alan gathered his willpower, taking a deep breath and relaxing inside his armor. Finally, he opened his eyes and inverted the grip on the sword, his voice starting to gain strength as he spoke his Oath. “And I shall shed my light over dark evil. For dark things cannot stand the light, The Light of the Green Lantern!”
In a single motion, he pierced the building, driving the sword down to the hilt and dropping into a kneeling position. Light exploded from the weapon, pouring down the skyscraper and spreading over the city in a wave of fire almost faster than Kara could see. The fire covered the buildings and streets, forming a burning shield that consumed any attack sent its way.
Under her feet, the fat demon screamed as the flames hit his body, enveloping it in burning chains. Kara meanwhile didn’t feel a thing, the flames touching her body and washing over it harmlessly.
With a grunt, one of the demon’s fat hands grabbed her leg and she felt something draining out of her, her stomach growling as she started to become hungry.
With a snort, she stomped on the demon’s face as hard as she could, breaking most of the bones in his face and stopping his spell while also launching herself up towards the second creature, a snarl in her face.