Kara read the information on her computer one last time before letting out a sigh. Dropping the device on top of the table she scratched at her good eye before looking at the android still on the bed.
Fixing and improving Firebrand had been a very interesting project. The android's new sunstone batteries more than tripled her previous output, the new alloy improved her armor by 54% and her new wiring should make her reaction speed nearly twice as fast.
Despite all that, Kara just couldn't reactivate her. It seemed like Dr. Morrow had put a failsafe in order to prevent anyone else but him from turning the android back on.
Kara's computers could brute force it, but the risk of activating another failsafe and damaging Firebrand's programming was just too high. Kara had wanted to rescue the woman and give her a second chance, not finish killing her.
Mad scientists were such bullshit. There was no way T. O. Morrow should, using Earth technology from over half a century ago, have been able to block a hacking attempt by a Kryptonian program. Unfortunately for Kara and Firebrand, nobody had told that to Dr. Morrow, so the old man had done it anyway.
Once again, Kara cursed herself for having morals. Things would have been so much easier if she didn't care about the android's memories and personality.
Pushing her chair back, Kara let her computer continue attempting to find a weakness on Dr. Morrow's programming without risking her core and decided to focus on something else, namely, giving the gynoid better senses.
Kara had wanted to turn her on as soon as possible but, since that wasn't going to work out, she could start developing the necessary equipment to give her an actual sense of touch and taste. Both things that Dr. Morrow had neglected since it didn't affect her fighting ability.
Integrating a complete synthetic somatosensory system under Firebrand's synthetic skin would take another full week, and that was only because Krypton already had such things so Kara didn't have to invent them, just adapt them to work with Firebrand.
The annoying beep of Kara's alarm finally made her stop and look at the time. She was almost late for Bruce's party.
Stepping away from the chair, Kara made her way out of her ship and looked towards her newly grown moon base. It was still only two small rooms sitting on the surface and had already delayed the completion of her ship by a week, but… moon base!
She sighed. It was such a pity that she hadn't been able to get her own teleportation network working yet. Krypton had had teleportation technology, but it required some pretty rare materials and she didn't have access to them while on Earth.
Rao, she didn't know if Earth even had them to begin with.
Arriving back at her apartment an hour later, she tidied her clothes and grabbed the door handle, with only a second of hesitation Kara opened it.
Kori was already waiting for her, a huge smile on her face and her eyes shining with unholy light. Kara froze, shivered and tried to close the door.
"Excitement! Ecstasy! Euphoria!" The Tamaranean princess almost shouted as she tackled Kara and forcefully dragged her inside the living room to stand amongst more than a dozen different dresses. "Friend Kara you have finally arrived!, Master Diana and Friend Troia have left a large amount of clothes for your discretion. Let us start with 'The Dressing Up', yes?"
Kara looked at the room filled with dresses and outfits of all shapes, colors and sizes, most of which left entirely too much of her skin exposed, before shuddering.
"Ah, I was thinking I'd just wear a sui…" she stopped talking as she looked at Kori's huge, puppy dog eyes.
"Please, what is the quandary bothering you?" Kori asked as she put her face uncomfortably close to Kara's.
Taking a step back Kara looked at the… she counted them, the 18 dresses arrayed around the room. She looked back at Kori's eager face and shinning eyes. Admitting defeat, she dropped her shoulders and breathed out.
"I guess I just don't know where to start." She didn't even finish the sentence before Kori was holding a red high slit dress in front of her body. "Alright, let's get this over with."
Using her speed she grabbed the dress and went to her bedroom before putting it on in less than a minute. Standing in front of the mirror, she lifted an eyebrow as her image starred back at her.
It looked incredibly good.
Stepping back out she saw Kori waiting for her, feeling slightly embarrassed Kara opened her arms and slowly turned in place, when she completed her turn Kori was already holding a second dress.
Kara just took it. She knew when she was beaten.
In the end Kara had to test every single dress there, the only surprise was the fact that it wasn't a completely unpleasant experience. With her speed it hadn't been that much of a time waste and she had enjoyed Kori's reactions.
Kara suspected she'd have enjoyed it far more if their roles had been reversed, but Kori wasn't going with her this time.
In the end, she chose a black cocktail dress with a single strap over her left shoulder, it was unexpectedly comfortable and left her feeling… elegant. She liked it.
"Sorry you can't come with me Kori."
"Do not worry. We can most certainly do 'The Clubbing' at another opportunity."
Kori waved her goodbye as Kara grabbed a thumb-drive with her business proposal and made her way towards the Zeta-tube. Getting to Gotham City, she called for a cab and let it bring her towards the party.
Gotham's newest fundraising was actually being organized at Wayne Manor, so she was absolutely sure to meet the billionaire at least once without attracting unwanted attention or suspicion. It was quite the circuitous way of doing things, but the point was that even if one of their identities was found out it wouldn't splash on the other.
Stepping out of the cab in front of the huge gates, Kara could already see nearly a thousand people in fancy clothes partying. She wondered just how many of them were part of the Court of Owls.
With her senses it was pretty easy to find Bruce, she also found someone else of interest amongst the guests. Selina Kyle fit in perfectly with the fancy nobles on the property.
Kara briefly considered which one to approach first. Bruce seemed to be really busy receiving guests while Selina seemed unable to stop herself and already had a large jeweled ring hidden in her purse.
"Hello, Selina. Decided to ditch the leather today?" She called from behind the cat thief, almost causing her to jump out of her skin.
Giving her a death glare, Selina grabbed a drink from a nearby waiter and drained it halfway in a single gulp. Narrowing her eyes, she practically hissed. "What are 'you' doing here?"
"Trying to hand in a business proposition to the host." Kara replied matter of factly. She had already revealed her identity to the woman anyway so there was no need for too many games.
"Haaa… I didn't think you would be after the Wayne fortune too. You didn't seem the type." Selina gave her an appraising glance, looking from her elegant shoes to the top of her black dress. "Shows what I know I guess."
Kara made sure nobody was paying attention to them before answering truthfully.
"I'll have you know I'm not after his fortune, I'm after my own." Kara tried to get her own drink only for the waiter to deftly avoid her hand and give her a disapproving glare. "Right, we're in the United States. Anyways, I have a proposal Wayne can't refuse, but it'd help keep my identity a secret if people think they know why I got the deal."
"Well, who am I to judge, it's not like I don't use my body as a distraction too." She laughed and leaned against the table while finishing her drink. "Have to say though, I would definitely recommend getting to know Bruce Wayne. He's wonderful in bed you know."
"Spare me the details..." Kara looked at Bruce again and had to admit, the man did fill his clothes well. She thought about Kori and sighed. "But no, I'm kind of interested in someone already."
"Well, good for you." Selina said and continued to look at the guests. "Are you gonna be stopping me today?"
"No, no I don't think I will." Kara answered after only a brief moment of thought. "Just try to target people who really deserve it, it shouldn't be hard in this crowd."
"I'll just avoid the waiters then."
"That seems about right." Kara cringed at some of the things she was hearing from the conversations around her. "You know what, want to dance a little?"
"Sure, why not."
Relaxing a little, Selina pulled her into the middle of the dance floor. Despite Kara taking the role of the male it was Selina who controlled the dance, being far more experienced and skilled.
She made sure to guide them closer to the older dancers or the ones who seemed most distressed at their presence, making sure to be particularly sensual around the most prudish of the lot even as she stole from their pockets.
Kara was actually having fun for a while when she finally noticed the important guests stop arriving and Bruce being freed from his responsibilities. "Say, wants to introduce me to the owner of the house?"
"Well, if you want people to believe your proposal was accepted because you were a good lay, a threesome would probably do it."
Kara snorted, but didn't deny it. Mostly, she was amused to see Selina still didn't seem to know Batman's identity despite having dated Bruce before.
The man himself was inside the building talking with a kid Kara had never seen before. The boy was about 13 and looked somewhat small for his age, wearing a fancy suit and a tie.
Hmm. It seems like Richard Grayson was in the house.
Bruce caught sight of them approaching and lifted an eyebrow at Selina, then a second one when he recognized Kara in her arms. "Hello Bruce, wonderful party you're throwing. Have you met Kara before?"
"Selina… good to see you again, and I can't say that I have. It's a pleasure to meet you." With a smooth smile Bruce held Kara's hand and lifted it to his lips laying a light kiss on top, Robin grunted in disgust causing Bruce to introduce him. "This is Richard Grayson, my ward."
"Kara Danvers. It's an honor to meet you, Mister Wayne." Kara said with her best smile, and then turned towards the boy. "And you too Mr. Grayson."
"Ugh, you can just call me Dick, everyone does." Robin dismissed her greetings under the disapproving glance of his mentor.
"Oh, I'm really sorry." With the kindest smile she could manage, Kara put a hand on the boy's head and bent down, making sure to accentuate how much taller she was. "Frankly, I know kids can be cruel, but there's no need to call you names. Hang in there young man."
Selina snorted and even Bruce had a glint of humor on his eyes as Robin was left speechless. Before he could recover Kara got up and turned back towards Bruce.
"I really wanted to talk with you, Mr. Wayne., I'm sure I can manage to make it worth your time."
"I see. I can definitely make some time for you after the party."
"UGH! This is totally not whelming." Turning away from them the boy wonder lifted his arms and started walking further inside the mansion. "I think I'm done here, I'm going to my room."
Once mostly alone, Selina almost threw herself on Bruce's arms. Leaning on his chest she kissed him on the cheek and smiled. "Well, my work here is done so I'll leave the two of you alone to talk. See ya later Bruce."
The both of them watched as the woman walked away with a distinct feline movement to her waits. Finally, Bruce turned back towards Kara. "I'm surprised you know Selina."
"I can't say I really know her, but I liked her club and met her at the party." Kara commented, still staring at Selina's back. "You know, I think she's planning to steal from everyone in the party."
"What are you here for Kara?" Bruce questioned while ignoring her unnecessary comment and dropping the pretense of a Casanova.
So he already knew she was Catwoman… interesting but not surprising.
"Exactly what I said, I wanted to present you a proposal without having to wait years and your reputation gave me a good excuse." Kara replied. Fishing inside her own purse she pulled out the drive with her proposal and handed it to him. "Don't worry, this is strictly business related."
"I appreciate you trying to keep both things separated but, next time; just send it through your cousin." He told her as he pocketed the device. "If an alibi is needed I'm far better prepared to create it."
Well shit, Kara could see he was kinda right. Not that her own excuse was bad, but Batman had trained his entire life for it and, if she remembered right, even Alfred had been a secret agent before.
"Fine by me. Didn't really like slinking up to you like this anyway." Passing a hand through her hair she adjusted her dress and sighed, "Should I stay until the end of the party now?"
"No, you're not important enough for people to pay attention to you and, even if they do, they'll just assume I had you over another time. I have let them believe that often enough."
"Fine, do look at it, I'm sure you're gonna find it lucrative."
Leaving the mansion Kara made sure to keep a wide smile on her face. It wasn't very hard since her memory of meeting Robin was still fresh on her mind.
Damn Shorty making eyes at Kori… in the future… probably.
Shaking her head to dispel that strange train of thought, Kara considered how to get home, deciding to go for a short walk towards the teleport instead of just flying there.
Gotham City may be incredibly dangerous at night, but not for someone like her. In truth she was kind of disappointed, she had half expected some disaster to hit the party while she was still there and start a crisis for Batman.
Guess even in DC those things don't happen every day, it just seemed like it when you're reading from the comics. There probably wouldn't ever be charity galas in Gotham if every one of them got attacked by madmen.
In fact, after the way things had turned out as soon as she got to the planet, Kara had been expecting to constantly get attacked every time she looked out of the window.
Kara knew her luck would run out eventually, but she was enjoying the peace and quiet in the meantime.
Walking through the city she couldn't help but hear cries for help and stopped four muggings and a shootout by using her speed to just steal the weapons involved and stun the criminals with a VERY light tap to the head without anyone even seeing her.
She briefly wondered what people would think the next day? That the Flash had been in town?
Then she heard two punks laughing and joking as they hit something, stuffed it into a bag and were walking towards the bridge to throw it.
Rao be damned, she hated animal cruelty.
She arrived at the bridge and watched the bastards from behind, turning her head sideways to consider how she'd deal with them.
"Damn, this cat's going crazy man! Ahahahaha."
"Come on, you think it's gonna die when it hits the water or when it drowns?" one of the assholes filled with too many piercings asked.
"Who cares, just throw it." The second one said and grabbed for the bag.
"I do." Kara finally interjected as she kicked the mofo off the bridge and watched him sailing down. "I don't think it's high enough to kill him, but do you think he knows how to swim?"
"What the fuck are you doing, bitch!" The remaining asshole shouted looking from his belly flopping friend towards her face with a hateful glare.
"Yeah, I agree you should totally go help him."
Grabbing the bag out of his hand, Kara lifted the second mofo by the collar and flung him out of the bridge. "Hmm, I guess both of them can't swim."
Kara gently opened the bag to find an extremely angry, light blue cat. The kitty immediately went wild trying to scratch her but Kara ignored its attempts. "Shhhh, it's alright, the bastards are gone now. Look."
The cat just tried to take out her eye, its claws bouncing off her fake one without leaving a scratch. Kara held it close to her chest and slowly started petting it while looking at the two bastards desperately trying to survive in the river.
Eventually, one of them managed to reach the riverbank and drag himself out of the river, but the second one finally lost his strength and started to truly drown. Kara waited a few seconds then sighed and saved the bastard.
Grabbing both assholes, Kara saw they had soaked drugs inside their pockets and dropped them on top of a police car.
The cat had finally calmed down and was actually starring at both guys as if it held a grudge, his sharp claws digging into Kara's arm with barely contained rage. Kara petted it again until it relaxed and calmed down.
"Ah, you're a good kitty after all." She called out in a stupid voice as she looked at its collar, a little metal plaque in the shape of a fish with its name and owner phone. "So you're Dexter, come on let's see if we can't find your owner."
Finding Dexter's owner was easy, Kara just called the number and got the address. Unfortunately the woman was dead and it had been a policeman who took the call.
Kara let the cat see its owner one last time and managed to convince the Police to release some of its things that weren't in the same room the crime had happened, but the cat couldn't stay in the midst of a police investigation.
Kara looked at the exhausted cat as it slept in her arms and couldn't bear to leave it. New cat in hand, she had to fly back to Fawcett City since he wasn't recognized by the Zeta-tube network and then spent the rest of the night getting it adjusted to her apartment.
The next week was busy but otherwise uneventful. Dexter got into a few fights with Kori, but the Tamaranean eventually won the kitty over and he seemed to be getting better. Still incredibly aggressive, clawing at everything he could reach, but also incredibly needy when sleeping on her bed.
Kara trained with Wonder Woman another two times, both of which were entirely focused on diminishing collateral damage and protecting civilians.
Bobo called her and said he had some new information about The Light, but The Shade hadn't contacted her and Green Arrow had asked her for a little more time for Roy and his clone. With Firebrand still out of commission Kara didn't mind the delay so much.
She had gotten the detective trying to locate Dr. Morrow's location, but that too would take some time.
Even better, Kara and Kal had spent two entire days going over the information on Kryptonian technology and Kara had managed to convince Kal to not destroy every doomsday weapon in it. He had refused to build anything too powerful, but if a planet- eating monster showed up they could make something useful in only a day or two.
Kara had also gotten the Fortress to build her an emergency armor. It wasn't anything too impressive since the Fortress only had a very limited amount of the materials needed. That and Kara wanted to keep it in reserve in case it was needed for something else.
In the meantime, her company was getting back on its feet. With access to new funding Mr. Blackwell turned out to be a surprisingly competent manager.
They had an appointment in a few days to hash out the details, but Kara could already see it was gonna work out as soon as Bruce finished analyzing her proposal, maybe she'd get Dubbilex involved too. It would be mostly his people working there and his management could make her life easier until she found a fitting CEO, or at least a COO to run the day-to-day.
"Mrraw!" Dexter protested and tried to sink his claws into her tights as Kara tried to move him out of her lap. He couldn't hurt her, but her clothes were paying the price for defiance against the little overlord.
"Sorry Dexter, I have to take my little cousin to a meeting today."
She finally pried the cat away from her pants and he hung bonelessly from her arms. His first plan thwarted, the kitty looked at her with huge eyes and started purring, almost forcing Kara to put him back down and accept being late.
Fortunately, Kara resisted his mind control powers and let him down on the sofa while getting up. "Sorry, I really have to go."
Taking the closest Zeta-Tube to Smallville, Kara put on her mask and started flying the rest of the way towards the farm. Kon had his first reunion with the sidekicks today and Kara had promised Kal she'd be there for him.
Well, with everything going on, she had forgotten to make a public costume so she wouldn't be meeting the rest of the team herself, but she'd at least bring him to Kori and the two of them could arrive together.
Approaching the farm she started concentrating on the noise coming from there, quickly locating Martha, Jonathan and Kon talking about the day he had ahead of him.
Kon really seemed to love the Kents. He found the farm's lack of noise calming and farm work to be very relaxing. Having already raised one super-strong kid they had experience with his problems and Kon seemed calmer and calmer every time Kara visited.
Seeing as she was a little early, Kara slowed down and just enjoyed the sensation of flying. There was nothing better than the sheer pleasure of the wind passing over her body at high speeds, or even just letting herself drop in freefall then recovering at the last second and flying up again.
Her mind was concentrating so much on the farm she only heard someone approaching her from behind when it was too late.
A shiver on the back of her neck was Kara's only warning, she reacted on instinct, turning around and protecting her head with an arm just catching a brief glimpse of a long chain as it hit her in the shoulder with so much force it shredded her jacket and made her cry out in pain.
The chain wrapped itself twice around her body until the sharp point of a hook hit her just above her collar bone. Though unable to break through her skin it still left a bruise and made her lose control of her flight. Suddenly, her enemy whipped the chain down.
She hit the ground with a bang, immediately using Wonder Woman's teachings to try and stop herself, but still creating a hundred meters wide crater.
Furious at the cheap shot, Kara grabbed at the chain with both hands and, seeing as they were in the middle of nowhere, returned the gesture, whipping whoever had just attacked her down into the ground and creating a second crater, one twice as big as her own and lifting another cloud of dust into the air.
From the middle of the dust cloud she could hear a very amused male laugh, then the owner of the chain started pulling on it to drag her closer.
Gathering her will, Kara put everything she had on her flight and tried to resist the pull, when that didn't help she got worried.
Finally, the cloud dispersed and she could see who was attacking her, there was only one thing she could say. "Ah shit."
_________&&&
A shout to Xhaustedhero, AkumaSmaG, Iori Daemona Angel, AlliterativeArts (Eric Faust), Icewing, Comics, DERMONIAN, Davvy chappie and Phillip Nguyen for supporting my work!
A huge thanks to Eric Faust for helping improve this chapter too.
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