LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 56.1
“Titans, today I’m here to give you a very important mission,” Kara said, her hands locked behind her back in a military parade rest position, legs evenly spread as she stared at the team gathered in the Mountain’s grotto. At her side, a pedestal with a box covered in black cloth.
Everyone stood a little straighter. Their last mission had been both important and very dangerous, with two members of the League of Assassins protecting their target. Even now, Psimon had an inhibitor collar around his neck as he served a sentence in one of Qurac’s prisons.
Despite being rescued by Kori, Sphere had still bonded with Kon, the boy helping repair some of the damage done by the scientists in Byalia while Dr. Spencer, the damn woman, was working in collaboration with some of StarLabs scientists on Queen Bee’s pheromones.
Kori herself only had an amused smile on her face, the Tamaranean princess knowing Kara well enough to realize when she was having fun.
For a second, Kara couldn’t help appreciating her girlfriend. The girl had taken off her boots and was resting her legs on the water of the grotto. The Amazonian costume left most of her well-defined tights exposed and really accentuated her curves.
At her side, Miss Martian blushed, her eyes glancing between the two girls with what Kara recognized was a knowing look. Focusing on the girl, she narrowed her eyes in suspiciousness but shook her head and continued.
“These,” she said, pulling out six small, cylindrical devices. A little smaller than a hand, they were slightly larger on one end, “are your new essential equipment. They will help you tremendously if anything goes wrong.”
“So, you’re already expecting things to go wrong, good to know,” Robin nodded.
Rushing ahead, Kid Flash spared a nervous smile towards Kara before grabbing the devices and distributing them. “What is it? Did you make us Lightsabers like Red Tornado’s sister? Cool!”
With a click, Miss Martian activated her device and a bright beam of light filled the room, illuminating everything she was pointing at. In front of her, Kon frowned. “Huh, that feels odd.”
“I see you’re not taking my lessons to heart,” Kara frowned right back at him. “Why exactly aren’t you wearing your radiation shield?”
“Because we’re at the mountain?” he looked at her in confusion.
Kara’s frown turned into a glare, causing the boy to flinch and Miss Martian to turn off her device, the light immediately returning to normal.
“Is this a red sunlight lantern?” Robin asked, fiddling around with his device and causing Kon to frown as he tried to lift from the ground.
Unfortunately, the red light had affected him enough that he couldn’t fly.
“Yes,” Kara nodded, quickly turning back to Kon. “And, if you were wearing your radiation shield, it would have quickly sensed that and activated, preventing your cells from absorbing too much of it. It seems I’m gonna have to start testing you guys after all.”
Kon groaned. “Oh shit.”
“I feel for you, man,” Kid Flash patted his shoulder in sympathy.
“Why do we need red sunlight lanterns?” Miss Martian asked. “Are we training against you or Superman?”
“As I said, I have a mission for you,” Kara said, stepping closer to the pedestal.
Grabbing the black cloth, she pulled it off the cube, revealing a cage with two white rabbits sleeping inside it. The light from the grotto woke them up and they lifted their heads, noses sniffing around with curiosity.
“Those are Subjects 1 and 2. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, will be to watch them.”
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AN HOUR EARLIER!
The grave was a small thing, only a tiny ceramic cross with a collar pinned around the base, the ground still disturbed from where Kal buried his pet.
Finding the location had been easy, at least for her. In the middle of the empty landscape, it stuck out like a sore thumb… and she could eliminate an entire half of the Moon since Kal had said it could be seen from Earth.
Kara floated in front of it, her feet a few centimeters above the ground as she looked at the name on the cross, Fuzzball. Pulling her hand out of the pocket, she stared at the small orange rock she had created.
Her radiation shields were active, but the stone was a rare example of kryptonite that had no detrimental effects on kryptonians anyways. In fact, the radiation did not affect sentients at all.
At first, Kara had tried for platinum kryptonite, but all the data she had indicated it simply couldn’t be made from the green variant. It was better to say green kryptonite was made from platinum and reversing the process was beyond her current ability. Maybe in the future, when she further explored the entropy equipment the Fortress had.
Still, orange kryptonite would serve her goal well, she just wasn’t sure it was a very good idea.
Ever since he told her about his cat, Kara had been unable to forget Kal’s words. Dexter was a silly, aggressive thing, but she had grown extremely attached to the cat, the very thought of losing him felt like someone tied a massive piece of kryptonite to her chest.
The worst was that she couldn’t even count on old age taking him, that she could accept. Instead, what if, back then, her programming mistake had been with one of her automatic defenses, not just the kryptonite Box?
It was improbable, yes, she took far better care with those, but she didn’t think she’d mess up the box too.
What if someone attacked her home while she wasn’t there, or even while she was there, but they used overwhelming force? Kara could see more than one villain killing the cat just to spite her.
Putting the stone back in her pocket, Kara flew back to her base on the other side of the natural satellite. She rested the stone on top of a small platform in her safe and activated the dimensional lock.
Stepping away, she walked into the garden room and stared at the pair of rabbits she had there. Pulling out her computer, she carefully checked them again.
One of the young mothers at the pet store had tried to say hamsters were better pets, at least to start with. They were easier to take care of and shorter-lived, so it wasn’t a long commitment, but the idea of creating super-rats seemed particularly stupid. No, rabbits at least didn’t eat meat.
The pair were females, spayed and from the same litter so they may get along better and spayed. Fortunately, their reproductive organs showed no signs of regeneration despite a whole day of exposure.
If they did regenerate and try to breed, they’d still have to find males and Kara could drain their powers with gold kryptonite. But they were a control pair, made to verify if there was anything wrong with the procedure both in the short and long term.
Hopefully, if they showed anything wrong, she’d be able to fix it before Dexter started suffering.
Sitting at her computer, she typed for another half an hour, double and triple checking her work before grabbing the components and carefully assembling the neural transmitter.
Contrary to the usual design, this one didn’t let the user interact with electronics or connected one’s mind to the internet. No, it still monitored mental activity, but its primary function was very different.
The neural transmitter also looked like a small horn… because it amused her.
Opening the cage, Kara let the rabbits out, picking Subject 1 up and fixing the little horn to his forehead. Carefully, she released the animal on top of a wooden platform, gave it some food and looked at the resulting data.
No unusual brain activity, good.
Carefully, she activated the device, watching for any changes in thought or behavior, there weren’t any. Great, the device wasn’t supposed to mess with the brain, just the bioelectrical field.
A kryptonian always had the field active around themselves, and the protection automatically extended to any clothes they wore, it shouldn’t be impossible to make it extend to everything the rabbits touched too.
Using an automatic pincer, Kara pinched the thin wooden surface of the platform; the metallic tips didn’t pierce the fragile wood despite the literal ton of pressure her robot used. She smiled.
Kara wanted to strengthen Dexter, but she wasn’t blind, he was far from docile. Extending his protection field to anything he touched should prevent him from turning every stranger he met into paste without compromising his defenses.
Hopefully, with time, such measures would be unnecessary but, for now, she didn’t want her kitty killing civilians… Villains that attacked him were fair game, so the device would temporarily deactivate if it was attacked with enough strength to cause actual damage.
She had already made lenses that blocked heat vision and shouldn’t irritate his eyes, all that remained was to see if there were any adverse effects on the subjects before empowering him.
Fixing a second neural transmitter to Subject 2, Kara registered their brain activity and nodded. Now, who could she push the super-rabbits on? Kara had no desire to raise the cute little things.
Putting them back in the cage —not that it could really keep the pair if they wanted to escape, but it made carrying them more convenient— Kara covered it with a black cloth and teleported back to the Mountain, the place was reinforced enough to deal with the creatures if they went wild.
Also, she had sunlight lamps all over the mountain and they could easily be adjusted to red. As long as the rabbits weren’t exposed to yellow sunlight too much they shouldn’t be able to develop the full width of kryptonian powers, or at least not at full strength.
There was also a lovely grotto where they could make their homes and minion… No, unpaid inter… A team of brave heroes to watch over such dangerous creatures.