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Administrative Mishap [Supergirl/Worm]

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OxfordOctopus
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Aug 3, 2020

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Threadmarks  Sidestory  Apocrypha  Media  Informational  View content

Threadmarks: SEASON 2 - EPISODE 35 View content

OxfordOctopus She/Her
(Unverified Jackanape)

Aug 12, 2021  #3,300

EPISODE 35​
The meeting room Addy found herself in was like every other room in the D.E.O. building: nigh indistinguishable.
Gray concrete walls that were neither dark enough to call dark nor light enough to call light, a tiled metal floor that
had been scuffed down until it was edging towards tarnished, a metal ceiling with a long light recessed into it,
resembling a stripe of colour among the monotony. A metal meeting table, bolted into the very floor, sat in the center
of the room, and was hemmed in by a series of six chairs, one of which she had the discomfort of occupying.

Kara sat on the opposite end of one side of the table to herself, with Lena in the middle between the two of them,
whereas across from them, both Alex and J'onn had taken their own seats, leaving just one empty. Every so often,
Alex's eyes would flit towards the door, impatience warring over her face, the source of which was likely the fact that
Maggie was tucked away in the nearby medical bay, the large gouge that ran down her shoulder and across her
collarbone being looked after by the on-site medical staff.

There was, Addy thought, a tangible dividing line between their row - Lena, Kara and herself - and J'onn and Alex
across from them. The tension was most certainly there, and if anything had grown worse because of Kara's
revelations when it came to Project Medusa.

Lena was, of course, either tactfully ignoring the unspoken tension in the air, or otherwise unaware of it. Instead, she
was leafing through one of the small pile of papers J'onn had handed over to her, a perfect mask of neutrality on her
face even as what she read through, Addy knew, was every last bit of incriminating evidence they had on her mother,
who J'onn had said in no uncertain terms, was the most likely culprit for the attempt on her life.

Flipping the last paper over, Lena's eyes scanned the page in a quick burst, before finally, without so much as a
shaky hand, she settled it back on the table. Her expression didn't quite change, Addy could recognize that, but
something in it nonetheless hardened. The politeness in her neutrality faded, and all that was left was a sort of
distant cold facade; the person Addy knew and had come to respect tucked away behind mental walls, unwilling to
give anything away.

"And you trust the source of these?" she asked, voice crisp and composed, reaching down to tap the surface of the
papers with one painted nail.

J'onn, across from her, gave a single nod. His jaw firmed beneath her stare, though Addy struggled to put a reason
behind the action, other than perhaps discomfort with the topic in general. "Every last bit of it. Most of it was
compiled in-agency, Miss Luthor." His eyes flicked back down to the page for a moment, before returning to Lena's
eyes. "As far as we can tell, your mother is one of the masterminds behind this current incarnation of Cadmus, and
as you've read, we have good reason to believe she sent Hank Henshaw, another known entity within Cadmus, after
you."

Lena's eyes, in turn, flitted across J'onn's face. "Should I assume the resemblance you share with the man who killed
six of my employees - and wounded three times that - has something to do with that information?"

This time, the tightening in J'onn's jaw was easily applicable to a surge in anger. "That would be correct," he
admitted, with what sounded like great reluctance. "I retain this identity out of convenience, but when I first took it
on, I strongly believed Hank Henshaw was dead. I had seen it with my own eyes."

At that, Lena inclined her head, just the slightest amount, though her eyes never left his face. "He certainly did not
come back in one piece," she conceded in turn, voice grim. "Or with any good intentions."

Alex's eyes settled on Lena next, brows furrowing in a way tremendously reminiscent of Kara. "You're taking this
surprisingly well," she pointed out, voice not suspicious, or even judgemental, and more just sounding confused.

Lena merely shrugged, one of the first breaks in decorum Addy had seen out of the woman since Henshaw had fled.
"This itself? Not something I expected, I'll admit that much, but it also wasn't too far from my worries about what my
mother was getting up to, either."

"You had an idea your mother was getting involved in something like this?" Kara asked, her own voice touched by no
small amount of horror.

Thinking about it, this probably sank a whole lot closer to home for her than anyone had expected it to.

Lena glanced towards Kara - or, rather, to her towards Supergirl presumably - and the neutral mask loosened a touch,
her expression softening. "It wouldn't be the first time my mother has flirted with fringe, right-wing organizations like
this," she freely admitted. "This was also an ideology Lex hitched his cart to. Even if my mother only engaged with
the ideas and never bought into them, though at this point it seems she has, she would've reached out to his
contacts for practicality alone. She always cleaned up after his messes."

"If you had concerns about your mother becoming involved with a violent right-wing organization, you could've told
someone," Alex said, with a bit more tightness in her voice than Addy thought altogether warranted.

"Tell who, Agent Danvers?" Lena shot back, voice all ice. "And tell them what? Tell them that my incredibly wealthy
mother with a veritable army of lawyers might be getting up to something illegal? That she might be involved with an
anti-alien organization?"

Alex's jaw grit, but she said nothing.

Lena took that to continue. "Even if that wasn't already common among her earnings bracket, seeing as rubbing
elbows with fringe right-wing organizations is a hobby to the people my mother regularly interacts with, they couldn't
arrest her on any of that in the first place. Even if, for some reason, they could, she'd be out before the day was over
and the case would be thrown out a few weeks later."

Alex's face went blotchy, fists tensing, but a flat look from Kara smothered any retaliatory jabs the woman might've
been thinking up in the crib.

J'onn cleared his throat, giving them all an unimpressed look. Finally, his eyes settled back on Lena, and he folded
his hands in front of him. "As it stands, Miss Luthor, we have an idea as to what your mother was after. Isotope-454,
which was initially synthesized roughly a year before your brother was sent to prison. Are you familiar with it?"

Lena's face twisted up in confusion, but she nodded nonetheless. "I always kept an eye on the medical branch of L-
Corp, even before I was leading it," she explained, tapping her finger in a small rhythm against the papers on the
table. "Isotope-454 was being tested for use as a low-intensity cancer treatment due to its highly stable properties, I
believe? The idea was that it might be suited for use among incredibly fragile patients, like children, especially
because it could act as a carrier for other medicine without reacting. It was quite the breakthrough at the time."

J'onn seemed mildly impressed at that, but said nothing to confirm Addy's hunch. "To make this brief: your mother
got her hands on a means to manufacture an alien virus known as Project Medusa. It was designed to be incredibly
deadly to anything that wasn't Kryptonian, however she appeared to have found a means to modify it so that it also
now no longer affects humans, either."

The first crack in Lena's mask emerged. Addy would've missed it, had she not been watching everything happening
with rapt attention. It was just for a brief moment, a flicker of horror, of suddenly realizing something.

"The virus is fragile, however," J'onn continued, "and requires the isotope to survive an aerosolizing process. As it
stands, your mother is believed to be the main person behind the recent biological attack downtown, which killed
thirty-two aliens."

The mask fully slipped, and Lena looked more horrified than Addy had ever quite seen her. She said nothing for a
moment, lips slightly parted, showing just a bit of teeth, before with almost a violent twitch, the mask snapped back
into place. It wasn't quite able to smother all of the emotion, however, her hands shook almost imperceptibly, and
the look on her face was less 'perfectly composed' and more 'slightly unsettled' but, nonetheless, she managed it.

"And she needs the isotope to do something like this again," Lena said, fingers closing into twin fists. "I... had
assumed she wanted me dead to take control of the company, not... this."

J'onn and Alex both seemed to relax slightly at that, the display of emotion, raw and unfettered, loosening some of
the tension that had begun to develop with Lena's less-than-warm reception of them.

"We would appreciate it if you could tell us if there are any other storage facilities with the isotope," J'onn explained
calmly, looking her in the eyes. "We need to assure that she never has another chance to do what she did."

Lena nodded, one hand coming up to her chin, eyes narrowing in thought. "She did have to obtain a sample of it for
the initial attack," she mused, almost to herself. "I don't currently have the power in the company to destroy the
isotope and the project overall, nor would I, as it would tip my hand to my mother that I know what's going on. I do
have an idea, however."

J'onn motioned for her to continue.

Lena's expression turned more focused. "We give her exactly what she wants: an isotope," she explained, matter-of-
factly. "There's a very similar isotope that was developed alongside isotope-454, almost identical in every way
except for the fact that it's much less stable and will begin to split apart, which should render the virus inert. She
wouldn't know it was happening until she had already pulled the trigger."

"Are you sure we need to go that far?" Alex asked, this time a touch more naturally than she had been before. "It
would be safer to destroy what we can, and seal what we can't. You might not be able to destroy all of the research,
but the D.E.O. has a bit more pull than that."

Lena shook her head. "There's no way to put my mother away without blatant evidence like that," she pointed out.
"And if you don't, she's just going to try again with something worse next time."

"What if she finds out it's the wrong isotope before we get the chance to bring her in?" Alex replied, folding her arms
across her chest, still looking uneasy with the prospect. "We can't just let her slip away from this, like you're
describing, but this seems to be putting you at a lot of risk, and giving us a single point of failure."

Lena breathed out, a sharp, if not harsh noise. "My mother won't notice, because my mother is a woman who has
particular views on how people work, Alex," she said, even using Alex's first name this time around. The last dregs of
the tension seemed to ebb, though only the tension that was between J'onn, Alex and Lena. Addy could still see the
tension and pressure building around Kara, the way her body was tightening into something like a knot. "She still, to
this day, believes I testified against my brother because I wanted his job, that what I did was a power play. My mother
thinks I'm exactly like her, just that I'm better at hiding it, and have more levers she can pull to keep me in line."

"Can she?" J'onn asked, a challenge if Addy had ever heard one, but not one that was done with cruelty in mind. "This
situation is understandably very personal to you."

Lena smiled a humourless, hard smile. "My mother had that control over me when I was younger, but it all died in the
crib when I was fifteen and first asked myself why it was this way," she said, voice bitter. "It's been beneficial to keep
her assuming I'm as malleable as she wanted me to be. It's part of the reason why she backed off when I made my
bid for company CEO, rather than putting all her chips on herself. Alex, if I give my mother enough rope to hang
herself with and say she asked for it, she'll tie the knots to her noose with a smile."

It took another half-an-hour of conversation for everyone to come to a general agreement, after which Lena was not
slow to leave. She, as Lena explained, had to make the entire act convincing, make it seem to Lillian that her stay at
the D.E.O. was not one of mutual benefit, but rather an iron-fisted government overreaching and losing her trust as a
consequence.

They had all agreed that it was unlikely that Lillian knew her identity had been leaked, as the knowledge had been
kept away from anyone below a very particular clearance bracket. Effectively, the people who knew consisted of
Addy herself, Kara, Alex, J'onn, two upper-management agents who J'onn had very deeply vetted, and Winn. They
couldn't be quite too sure if their efforts to root Cadmus out had worked completely; it had seemed like J'onn had
gotten every compromised agent he could, but they still had to hire, and sympathies were more easily hidden than
active collaboration.

The weakest link in the chain was the operative term here, and as of this point, the chain was short of links and
particularly durable.

And so, off Lena had gone, with a plan in mind and a role to play. The wounded party, the person who had been
attacked, went to the government for help, and then had been browbeaten by suspicious agents using her family
legacy as a truncheon. Her mother would reach out to that, Lena had explained; Lillian could smell weakness like
sharks could blood, and would respond accordingly.

But they had yet to leave the room. Lena had, of course, been escorted out, but just when the woman was out of ear-
shot, Kara had shut the door to the room and told everyone they needed to talk.

That had been a little over a minute ago.

The room was quiet and tense, Kara having retaken her seat and was really looking at J'onn, at Alex, with more focus
than Addy had seen her give to anything that wasn't edible and ordered from local take-out places. Alex still skirted
glances at the door, looking increasingly impatient, but willing to see whatever had Kara so solemn through, and
J'onn had a completely blank expression, which meant that whatever he was feeling, there was a lot of it to go
around.

Finally, with a breath, Kara's eyes skated up to the ceiling. "I don't think it quite sunk in, before all of this chaos
erupted," she said, almost to herself.

J'onn blinked at her, glanced at Alex, who looked just as confused as he was, before turning his attention back to
Kara more directly. "I'm sorry?"

Another long breath, and Kara's head swivelled back down to stare at J'onn and Alex both, with all the weight she
could muster behind it. "I'm not sure I can work under the D.E.O.'s authority going into the future," she said, matter-of-
factly.

There was a moment of confused silence.

Then, Alex nearly jerked out of her seat, a horrified look on her face. "Kara, what—"

Kara raised her hand, cutting the commentary off before it could even truly begin. Alex's mouth clicked shut, and
Kara took the chance to speak. "You both did something genuinely reprehensible. You put a woman away for her
species, and both of you will get away with it without consequences," she said, voice firm enough to hide whatever
she was feeling beneath each syllable. "And the fact that you can is killing me."

J'onn's face tightened, and his stare darkened. "You belong to, and participated in, the same systems as we did," he
pointed out firmly. "In that case, why is this only coming up now?"

Kara just shook her head. "You know, I've been thinking a lot about actions, J'onn. I've seen the consequences of
them, you could argue I'm a walking example of them." Her posture shifted, shoulders tensed, and her fists
tightened. "My family is full of people who thought they were doing the right thing, fuck the consequences. My
mother, Aunt Astra, Non, even my father now. Fort Rozz, Myriad, and Medusa—these are all calamities that lay at the
feet of the well-intentioned."

Kara took in a breath, let it out, but nothing about her body relaxed with the gesture, as she so often did. If anything,
it hardened.

"I can see the same thing happening here, J'onn. I can see that you're only going through with rehabilitation
programs because the president twisted your arm to do so. You obviously dislike the notion, and you think the end-
all to the problem of alien refugees and criminals is locking them up and throwing away the key." Kara gestured to
the walls around them, to the door, the ceiling, to Alex and J'onn both. "You're better than Cadmus, but is that good
enough? Being better than a genocidal terror cell hell-bent on killing all aliens on Earth is not a particularly high bar
to cross."

"That's unfair," Alex bit back in, voice sharp and simmering with hurt. "We're more than just that, we treat aliens like
people—we're trying."

"But do you, Alex?" Kara asked, voice dropping an octave, going harsher. "Because I remember distinctly it wasn't
that long ago that you told me you could count the number of 'good' aliens on one hand, and that included myself
and Addy. You weren't always like that, Alex, and I hope to Rao you won't keep being that way in the future, so
something had to cause that change, and I'm currently sitting in the bowels of it."

Alex flinched, as if she had been struck. "That's—that's not... I phrased it wrong. It was because of my line of work, I
don't—I don't get the chance to be around aliens who don't try to kill me."

"And that's kind of the point, isn't it?" Kara mused softly, if not kindly. "You can be better than that, and I know that the
D.E.O. is going through restructuring, but I don't know the end of it. Times are changing, Alex, things can't remain the
way they are. Each new skeleton the D.E.O. puts into a closet is going to be one that someone, eventually, will have
to dig out, will have to bear witness to what you did and cast judgement, and I don't want any part of that."

Alex said nothing, though, and only just managed to look away, face twisting in a blend of emotions Addy couldn't
put a word to.

"I can't attach my name to that, and I refuse to enable it," Kara continued, pulling her own gaze from Alex with a
pained look of her own. "If it keeps coming to things like these, I can't stay here anymore, or work with you. I had no
part in M'gann's capture, and I know you could've done it with or without me taking the strain off of your organization
for more routine arrests of alien threats, but I hate having to wonder if it's maybe you, and not the people robbing
banks, that I should be watching. I've been constantly looking over my shoulder, looking for injustices from the
people I have to rely on to have my back. It's exhausting, Alex, and I can't keep doing it."

J'onn breathed out into the silence. "Are you certain of this?" he asked, voice terribly void of emotion.

"I'll stick around for this last mission," she said, slowly. "I'll work under you for it, but after that? Everything is going to
have to be case-by-case. I can't be part of this system, because I refuse to be part of the reason why it persists."

J'onn looked so terribly tired, so pained. His eyes wandered between the two of them, looking at Addy for any sign of
emotion that she knew better than to give away. "I won't be able to protect you, if you stop working for us," he said,
ever-so-quietly.

"If your protection is like this? I don't want it," Kara replied, just as quietly.

Despite the softness of her voice, J'onn recoiled like he had been hit. He couldn't quite hide the pain on his face
quick enough for any of them to miss it, not even Alex, who seemed consumed by her own thoughts.

"What of Addy?" Alex asked, shaking her head as though to clear the fog from her mind. "She's—"

"Sitting in front of you," Addy cut in, unimpressed by the attempt, for what little of one there was. "I am capable of
making my own decisions, Alex, and I can speak for myself. I work with the D.E.O. as an extension of Kara's duties,
nothing more, and nothing less. If Kara no longer wishes to work with you, neither will I. I may understand why J'onn
did what he did, and understand the mindset he fell into, but Kara will come first, and if there's anyone who needs
protection, everyone here is intelligent enough to know it most certainly is not me."

J'onn gave them both a long look, resignation bleeding back into his expression. "My protection, it isn't just... literal.
It is legal. I have been keeping you both from legislation or political action by making you part of the agency. If you
break from us like that, you may be confined by the law in strict, absolutist terms."

Kara shook her head, a distant, almost absent look stretching over her face. "It never stopped my cousin when it
happened to him, did it?"

And she was right, it most certainly hadn't. Clark was quite literally banned from the airspace of nearly twelve states,
as they had legislated him as the equivalent to a military airplane, and did not consider him to any extent part of the
American airforce, which was understandable, considering he very much wasn't.

Nonetheless, whenever a catastrophe or some problem would emerge there, he would go down, ignoring all the
many, many laws he was breaking and the endlessly hurled threats of retaliation, fix the problem, and then leave.

Unsurprisingly, very few states even attempted to bring him to court, and the ones who did rarely stretched it out,
seeing as every other year Clark had to save the planet in some capacity.

The last bits of energy bled out of J'onn, and for the first time in her life, Addy watched the man almost slump.

"If... that is what you wish."

The rooftop they found themselves on was not the tallest in the city, nor was it the most well-designed or particularly
appealing, but it was, among other things, in the center of the downtown area. Around them, for miles, a metropolis
spread out in vast towers of glass and steel, slowly reducing in size until they became merely very tall buildings, and
then, finally, smaller ones.

The sky was clear, and the air was scented with salt, drawn in by a storm off deeper in the ocean funnelling brine-
thick air along the coast of California.

The late afternoon sun hung low, a bloated egg ready to turn orange, then red, as it ducked below the horizon. Lena
had said nothing would happen today, and at the earliest might be tomorrow night, but was possibly later, so the two
of them didn't really have anything to do.

Kara had led her here wordlessly, saying nothing, and Addy had given her the peace she desired.

But it did not last, she knew.

"Addy," Kara asked, glancing her way from where she was leaning on a vent, looking out over the city. "Did I do the
right thing?"

There were several ways she could approach that, so it was owed some amount of thought behind it. She let the
question hang in the air, therefore, as she gathered her thoughts.

"There are pros and cons to your decision," she decided, going for the simple fact, seeing as she doubted Kara
wanted her personal opinion on much of it. "The D.E.O. has lost two powerful pieces on their board. I have been
working from the assumption that part of the D.E.O.'s independence has come from us being under their employ. In
the end, we are both threats, and the fact that they had leverage over us meant the government was more
comfortable, and therefore willing to give the D.E.O. more freedom than it might otherwise. Now that we've left,
however, they can be judged without our presumed backing."

Kara frowned. "I never backed the D.E.O.," she said, sounding confused.

"You didn't need to," she replied matter-of-factly. "Working with the D.E.O. is, in this world and the one I existed in
previously, its own form of endorsement. Heroes operate under a sense of righteousness to the public, even if that
may not be the truth. Our presence and willingness to cooperate gives an agency like the D.E.O. a degree of
legitimacy in their actions. By leaving, we put that legitimacy into question.

"Our leaving is itself its own form of statement, one that indicates neither of us wants to be involved with the D.E.O.
currently," she continued, glancing back towards the skyline that stretched out around them like towering mountains.
"It is as much of a statement as staying had been, as inaction is its own form of action. By doing nothing to change
the system, people assume it is not something that needs to be changed in the first place. That we approve."

"Neither of us could change anything," Kara pointed out, sounding increasingly frustrated. That was not the intention,
but she did seem to be getting it, if not the actual point Addy was trying to convey. "Protests might get us
somewhere, but demanding change was never in the books for us. We weren't upper staff, we weren't J'onn."

Addy shrugged. "You're correct in that assessment, but the view doesn't change."

The words finally seemed to click for Kara, and a look of dawning comprehension spread across her face. "It wasn't
about us."

Addy inclined her head in a nod. "It never was. People look in on these systems from the outside, incapable of
seeing the internal workings, see our presence, and do the one thing they shouldn't: they assume. It is an
unfortunate folly of human perception, a bias that infects all things. Because we left, the D.E.O. will be put under
harsh scrutiny. Even if we parted on better terms, whether because of retirement or something else, it still would've
happened. It would be seen as going against them."

"That's..." Kara hesitated, frowning, her face pulling through a series of increasingly tight expressions. "That's unfair,"
she said at last, voice so very quiet. "I just wanted to help, I... wanted to work with people, rather than against them,
and I had problems with the D.E.O. in the first place, I never agreed with some of their policies, especially before the
Alien Amnesty Act."

"I would not say this is a personal failing, Kara," Addy pointed out, and tried to keep her voice kind. "The D.E.O.
provided services to us that were invaluable. They took me out of a research bay and gave me a life to grow into, and
they have also kept us from open scrutiny. Neither the D.E.O. nor the government at large recognizes vigilantism as
anything but criminal activity, and both of them currently have an adversarial relationship with Superman. We were
spared similar struggles or conflicts on account of the fact that they paved a way for us to work within their
systems."

"That doesn't make up for what I... even if by proxy, endorsed, Addy," Kara said, a bit stiltedly.

Ah. No, she was misunderstanding. "You never endorsed it, Kara," Addy said politely. "That is other people's
perception. You are equivalent to a celebrity in every sense of the word, it is just that you are also one of the most
powerful entities on the planet. None of this is your fault."

Kara stared at her for a long, long moment, before letting out a tired sigh. "I should've done it sooner," she said
solemnly.

"Regret the past if you must, but there is, without some considerable energy investment, no chance at changing it,"
Addy pointed out.

Kara's lips twitched at the latter half of that statement, for whatever reason.

Just because time travel was in theory possible in this universe - as, to a degree, it had been in her last one - didn't
mean she was particularly capable of it, but then it was good to ensure people got the facts right.

Kara shook her head after another second, looking back out over the city. "I still should've pulled the plug on this
sooner. I've seen hints of how everything was becoming like the problems I keep finding among my family, and how
organizations like the D.E.O. can be so easily corrupted or misused. It was just... easier, having a team to work with,
and not having to actively fight the government. Maybe, though, the writing on the wall has always been there."

There was a pause.

"After all, it wasn't like the D.E.O. extended an olive branch to me. They brought me in at gunpoint."

Addy startled, glancing at her. "They did?"

Kara nodded, a rueful twist to her face. "Just about shot me out of the sky on my first patrol. Gave me the option of
working with them or not doing this superhero thing whatsoever. That was a pretty big red flag, but then the D.E.O.
was an actual secret agency at the time, and not whatever half-public thing they have going on now."

"That is still distressing," Addy insisted. "If not unexpected."

"J'onn took a while to grow on me, I'll admit," Kara said. "Surprising how little it takes for me to start struggling to
trust him, too."

For a time, there was only silence.

But Addy knew she had something to speak about, something to say. She glanced down at her hands, flexed the
fingers of her fleshy one, tried to imagine what it had felt like before today, how the peaks had been less high in her
strength. She had adjusted already, but...

"I believe my body is changing," she admitted, and wasn't sure how she felt. She had been... gladdened, in a word,
when it had happened during the comatose period, but that came back to the fact that without it, the body would've
remained that way without exceptional circumstances. It would've taken a miracle - and one could argue the gene-
editing treatment was about as close as she could get to one - to bring her out of that state, because Taylor's brain
had been rendered fundamentally braindead by the entire process and strain of the events following being shot in
the head.

But... it was changing more now. How much of Taylor was left, in this body? She wasn't sure, she still looked like
Taylor did, though she had already noticed other changes. Her skin was paler, no longer tanning into the slightly olive
tinge Taylor's had taken on, because all of that energy was being diverted to her cells. It left her looking like she had
never seen the sun in her life. There were other things—but they were not things she could discount as simply what
Taylor would begin to look like as she aged. Higher cheekbones, a sharper chin, lidded eyes that didn't look so gawky
without the forever-present glasses Taylor had worn for most of her life.

Had Addy as she was now been compared to Taylor just before Gold Morning, they wouldn't look truly identical
anymore. Very closely related, yes, but not... twins. Not the same person.

Because, in the end, she wasn't the same person. Hadn't been for a very long time, both mentally and physically.

"What do you mean?" Kara asked, sounding a mixture of curious and worried.

"My senses are significantly sharper, and they tend to focus on things now. At the moment, they had been much
stronger, and while they've weakened since the fight ended, I can still hear people talking below me." She couldn't
quite make out words exactly, but the fact that she could at all meant her hearing had eclipsed what humans were
capable of by no small amount. "My strength is greater, but again not as strong as it had been mid-fight, and... the
power of my abilities are much more sensitive. There are higher peaks to my strength, but they feel exponential and
harder to control."

Kara stared at her for a time, before nodding once. "That sounds like something we should look out for. Kal said he'd
be fixing up and reprogramming Kelex, so we could head around soon? Get a medical scan done to see how you're
progressing."

Addy breathed in, then out. "That would make me feel more comfortable," she freely admitted.

"Until then, though..." Kara trailed off, glancing in the direction Addy knew their home was in. "We should go back
home, get some rest. We're both tired, we've both been through a lot, and neither of us has slept a whole lot recently.
We need rest."

Addy, honestly, was not in a place to disagree.

In the end, it took less than twenty-four hours for Lillian to take the bait.

The deep dark of midnight shrouded the sky, which Addy had come to learn that, despite the comical amounts of
light pollution, thanks to the uptick in her abilities she could now make out stars that would've been otherwise
blocked. Not that she was out this late for star-searching, of course.

Addy landed next to the wharf, the ocean lapping at the edges of National City. The area they were in was near the
commercial end of the docks, which meant most of the dock spaces were huge, expansive concrete stretches, with
no wood in site, to account for the vast amounts of cargo that would be coming in and out daily.

Kara landed next to her, just as silently as she had, huddling behind the towering metal crate that cut them off from
the concrete stretch that Lena had marked for all of them to come to. At the same time, the police and D.E.O. agents
were supposed to be surrounding the area on foot, keeping to hidden locations, refusing to show their hand before
Lillian could give herself away.

Kara glanced towards her, eyes flitting for a moment before they glanced over her eyes, the only part of her body
that was actually visible at the moment. She didn't keep them for long, thankfully, but did reach out to touch her
shoulder and nod once.

It wasn't quite a signal, but then they didn't have any prepared. They were to wait, then confront Lillian once she
compromised herself. Everyone had a role in this, and everyone was waiting for Lena to do hers.

For minutes, their only companion was the sound of eddying tides, sloshing against the side of the dock area, the
tides pulled back and forth by the cresting full moon.

Then, so faintly at first Addy almost thought she had misheard, came the sound of heels. A click, click, click, two
pairs of them, at that, walking across concrete, coming towards their destination.

Another minute passed, the two sets of heels walking in silence, growing ever closer.

Finally, there was another sound of movement, the sound of ruffling fabric and something hitting the ground with a
hard thud.

The wind whistled through the air, picking up for a moment before abating.

"Some mothers wear lockets with pictures of their children," Lena said, her voice crisp and clear in the almost
deafening silence. "You wear the keys to a bazooka."

Someone - Lillian, presumably - clicked her tongue reproachfully, another series of clicks of her heels leading her a
bit away, where there was a sudden chorus of beeping, technology being primed. "It's a rocket launcher," Lillian
correctly tartly, her voice distinctly mocking, and not in a teasing way. "...And, it's yours. Prove you're with me, Lena.
Unleash Medusa, and end Earth's alien menace once and for all."

There was the sound of jingling keys, then more clicking as heels met concrete. Across from her, Addy watched
Kara's face go tight, strained, but not angry. More worried than anything else.

There was another long beat of silence.

"In the end, I've always been a Luthor, haven't I?" Lena said, sounding like she wasn't speaking to anyone in particular,
other than herself.

"More than you know, dear," Lillian replied with a deeply unpleasant amount of relish, of pride.

There was a sharp creak as metal moved, shifted against plastic, and then a sharp, warning beep. Seconds later,
things started to rattle, the ground giving the slightest shudder as whatever it was began to work.

And that was their cue.

Addy turned the invisibility of her costume off and stepped out from behind the crate just as Kara herself did.

Next to both Lena and Lillian, sitting in the dead center of the concrete loading bay, was a weapon's platform. It
wasn't particularly big, and nothing that couldn't be towed behind a truck, but on it was a single, sleek missile, the
bottom of which was catching flame, beginning to ignite and fire.

Then, ignition caught, and there was a roar as the missile was shot like a bullet from the platform, which rocked back
in response. High into the air it went, turning quickly into a speck on the horizon.

"You're too late, Supergirl," Lillian said, her smile broad, not even referring to her.

Addy didn't mind. They would be getting to know each other very closely soon.

"No, we're not," Kara said, simply. Her eyes were hard, but tellingly, they didn't even bother to look at the rocket.

And, as though rehearsed, that was the moment Lena stepped away from her mother, towards the two of them.
Lillian glanced her way, her eyes widened minutely, pupils shrinking.

Around them, agents and police officers began to file out from behind buildings, out through what little tree cover
there was. Guns were raised, semi-automatic weapons plentiful, and even more than that, the D.E.O. contingent
came with an entire fleet of alien weaponry.

Nobody was taking any chances.

"What did you do?" Lillian hissed, eyes narrowing as she focused on Lena.

Lena looked back at her, expression detached. "I gave you an isotope, mother," she explained, voice neutral. "Just not
the one you wanted."

From the agents, J'onn stepped out, marching forward. Once he came in range of them, his eyes flitted over to Addy,
lingering on her. "You're still doing this, and giving us what information you can, correct?" he queried, voice calm.

Addy nodded, stepping towards Lillian. Unsurprisingly, as her psychic presence bathed over the woman, she was
shielded. She wouldn't be for long, but it was still frustrating they were trying to work around her like that. "I keep my
word."

Lillian, at least, knew who she was. Not her civilian identity, of course, but who Administrator was. What she could
do. Her face paled at an impressive rate, going ashen and waxy as she took a step away. Her head swivelled back to
Lena, who knew much the same, and rather than receive any sympathetic looks, Lena just looked away, face grim.

Lena had agreed to it too, after all.

Before she could close the rest of the distance, there was a shout. Agents were thrown from where they were
forming ranks, tumbling down with yells of surprise, scrambling back as Hank Henshaw emerged from behind the
crowd himself.

"No!" he bellowed, whipping his arm around to catch a gun as its barrel raised to point at him, shattering the entire
thing with just a swing.

"Contain the prisoner!" an agent barked, which was a rather good point. Unfortunately, the man didn't have much
time to revel in his distinction, as Henshaw responded to the demand with a kick to his torso, sending him toppling
into the water.

"Henshaw, don't let them take me!" Lillian yelled out, already moving back, looking to run. "Take me out if you must,
but don't let them use me!"

With that, she did turn in full and try to run.

Unfortunately, Lena was faster. With a single lunge, Lena closed what was left of the distance, grabbed her by the
arm, and yanked her mother in, stabbing a taser into her side.

Lillian dropped, spasming, with a sharp scream.

"I said I was a Luthor, mother," Lena murmured sadly, just barely audible behind the shouts and banging as Henshaw
rapidly made his way towards them. "It's over."

Hank threw himself at them, Kara getting ready to intercept him as the distance between them closed.

Instead, J'onn slammed into Hank in the air, sending the both of them toppling to the ground. J'onn lashed out,
throwing Hank away, back into some of the metal crates and away from the agents.

J'onn looked back at them, towards Kara, towards her, and Addy could pick out the sheer fatigue on his face, the
stricken nature of it. With a breath, he shook his head and turned back, just in time to see Hank Henshaw pull
himself up and break another agent with a slam of his fist, shattering a woman's arm with only a glancing blow.

J'onn looked at Henshaw, and what little softness Addy had seen in his expression died. "You called me a monster
once, Hank Henshaw," J'onn said, his voice coming out tinged by an accent Addy had only heard of him during his
most emotional, his most sentimental. It was a slight lilt, an indicator that English was not his first, nor would be his
last, language.

His body flickered, red light beginning to sweep across his torso, his arms. His body rippled, then, a more fleshy
protrusion, as it grew. The dark, warm flesh of a man she knew was swallowed up by the pale, lifeless flesh of a
White Martian, growing ever-larger, ever-taller. His form stretched out and up until he was at least ten feet tall, easily
taller, and towered over Henshaw with palpable wrath.

Henshaw was not a small man by any equation, but the comparison made him look like a child, and the way he
inched away from the hulking, grotesque form of a White Martian was not helping it any.

"If you want a monster," J'onn declared, voice coming out slurred, not used to the muscles in his jaw. "Then so be it!"

There was a sharp, inhuman roar, and J'onn blurred. His figure slammed into Henshaw with force that was normally
reserved for Kara, scattering the metal crates around them like wet cardboard, torn apart with great, horrible shrieks
of noise. Henshaw yelled out, glowed with blue energy, and in response J'onn fitted a hand around his torso and
punched him deep enough into the concrete to leave an impact crater.

And then he did it again, slamming down, just in time to get knocked back by the flare of blue light, his grip
slackening and Henshaw managing to pry himself free.

Around Lena and Lillian, agents - no longer held down by Henshaw - arrived, quickly dropping to the limp Lillian and
fitting heavy, alien-proof cuffs over her wrists. The woman didn't look entirely aware of her situation for a moment,
before clarity kicked back in, possibly drawn back into consciousness by the slamming and banging from Henshaw
and J'onn meeting in close quarters combat.

Addy spared one last look at the fight, just in time to see Henshaw burn holes into J'onn's chest - somewhat
unsuccessfully, as it didn't seem too deep - with the beams he could produce from his eyes, before turning back to
the procession of agents and following them towards where the van would be located.

Lena followed after them quietly, standing next to Kara. They couldn't risk Kara not being there to escort them, as
Addy would be indisposed dealing with Lillian's memories, so they had to leave the fight to J'onn, for better or for
worse.

The sound of the fight grew distant, but never dim, as they walked. It took maybe thirty seconds to arrive at the van,
where the back doors were pulled wide open, revealing Alex standing in the back of the vehicle, arms crossed and
scanning over the group.

With that, one of the agents shoved Lillian less than softly into the van, the woman crumpling face-down onto the
floor until she was hauled up by furious hands and maneuvered towards a seat.

Kara glanced back at Lena, lips pursed. "We'll be back in a couple of hours to debrief with you," she said.

Lena just nodded.

"Would you be so cruel, Lena?" Lillian called out, voice utterly acidic. "You would just leave me to be—what, dissected
like a frog by these people? Do you want my money, what I've earned so much? Was Alexander not enough for you?!"

Lena just looked at her sadly. "It's nothing you've not done to someone else, Mother. You wouldn't understand my
reasoning even if I told you it, because you can't imagine I wouldn't be exactly like you."

Before this could stretch on for any longer, Addy stepped up onto the bumper and then into the back of the van,
crouching as she navigated down the aisle of seats, sitting down once she was directly across from Lillian. The
other agents filed in after her, taking the seats nearest to the door, though Kara remained outside, to follow after the
van from the outside, just so she could see any threats coming.

The doors shut, and the interior light turned on as Alex settled down closer to the agents than Addy.

The van's engine chortled to life, wheels turned, and they started to move, gravel crunching beneath wide tires.

Lillian looked at her, for really the first time.

Addy could find nothing in her eyes but hate. It was, she decided, an odd experience.

"I have rights—"

"None of which pertain to what I'm about to do to you," Addy replied simply. "Which, while a worrying oversight, will
undoubtedly be corrected within the next few term periods, given cohabitation between aliens and humans
continues."

With that, she reached out, took Lillian's hand, and broke the woman's shielding with practiced precision. It was, she
reflected, becoming easier to find the weak points in such equipment, so at the very least she didn't need to waste
most of her energy to do it.

Lillian's face spasmed in pain, not unexpectedly, and she opened her mouth to say something.

Addy didn't give them the chance, and pulled both of them down, down into the mind of a woman who she didn't
want to know, but would soon have uncomfortably intimate knowledge of.

Addy did not particularly like feeling exhausted. It was, even after all the time she had spent with unfortunately
mortal concerns for food, drink and sleep, incredibly unnerving and uncomfortable. The notion of fatigue was not
something she had been forced to explore until rather recently, and she would like for it to go away.

Unfortunately for her, things rarely worked that way.

The amount of time it took to go through Lillian Luthor's pertinent memories - particularly those related to Cadmus,
as Addy had very little interest in reviewing her more civilian memories, especially ones related to Lena, as next to
none of them were pleasant to behold - and then to convey those memories first verbally and then directly into a
spread-sheet for the D.E.O. had not been small. In fact, by the time it was all over and done with, the sun was rising,
and Addy's head felt a rather lot like someone had stuffed it full of cotton.

"Thank you again, for your cooperation," Susan said gently, the softness on her face belying the fact that the woman
was muscularly built, butch by every definition of the word, and more than capable of snapping someone's neck.
"The location information would be invaluable alone, but you've managed to get us the identities of not just the
people behind the tests, but the ones they were testing on."

The exit to the D.E.O. building at large was just paces away, fitted into the end of yet another long concrete corridor.
The door itself, she knew, led into an alleyway somewhere behind the building itself, with the door made to look like
a very basic if heavy security door that wouldn't look out of place attached to the back of a laundromat.

"We'll also be extending the information you gave us on the Kryptonian captive to Supergirl," Susan continued, voice
rather more careful around that topic. Cadmus had gotten its hands on a Kryptonian, that much was for sure,
someone by the name of Jax-Ur. The details on him that they'd given her were sparse, but going by the look on
J'onn's face when he'd confirmed the information, she couldn't imagine that they found anything good. "As well as
Superman, if only because we need all the information we can find on him."

Addy nodded once, feeling almost queasy from the fatigue in her limbs. Let it be said: she did not like staying up all
night, as productive as the period was. "I will keep that in mind," she replied diplomatically, what with the other
people in the room.

Behind Susan - because evidently she could no longer be trusted to be contained by just Susan - was a team of four
armed, helmeted agents who had spent every waking moment on their walk to the door watching her. She was
rather displeased by their insistent staring, but was in no place to do anything about it, or at least to do anything that
wouldn't cause a diplomatic incident the likes of which she was not particularly inclined to deal with.

Susan hesitated in front of her for a moment before reaching into one pocket and dragging out a small card. Holding
it out towards her, Susan smiled. "Look, if you ever want someone to talk to, you can reach out to me with that
number."

Glancing down at the card, Addy maneuvered her sole functioning arm - as the prosthetic had run out of battery
somewhere in the realm of two hours ago - and took it, flipping it over. The card itself was for a sofa retailer, but in
some of the blank space on the back, Susan had penned a number, area code and everything.

Blinking sluggishly, she glanced back up at the woman in question. "Is this being offered in your capacity as a D.E.O.
agent?" Because if it was, she was going to decline it. She might like Susan and think she was moderately more
tolerable than most people, but she did not need a minder from an agency she no longer worked for.

Susan shook her head. "No, to be honest, Addy? You've grown on me. A bit like a fungus, I'll admit—"

Addy scrunched her nose, frowning. She was not a fungus.

"It's not a bad thing, Addy," Susan continued, catching her look with a chortle. "You're a very unique person, and I've
grown to like you as a person, rather than just an asset. I can respect your willingness to stand with Supergirl, and I
can doubly respect Supergirl for standing for her own values. The fact that she left isn't a net negative, if she had
remained but still chafed under what we were doing? It would've caused bigger problems further down the line."

She wasn't wrong, Addy could acknowledge. Better your enemy be the one on the other side of the field, not behind
you and in range of a sudden betrayal once things go too far.

"I do this job because I am really fucking good at it," Susan admittedly blatantly. "I was really fucking good at being in
the secret service, too, but that didn't pan out so well. This type of thing? It's where my passion is, and it's where I'm
talented. Which is why I'm staying and not jumping ship, but that has no bearing on this. If you need help? My wife
and I can be that help for you, even if it's just to talk."

Staring back at the card again, Addy gave it a considering look, before nodding and stuffing it into the pocket of her
costume. "I will consider it," she agreed.

Susan smiled, ever-so-casual, and gestured to the door behind her. "That's all I can ask. It's been good working with
you, Addy."

Hesitating, Addy looked at her, then nodded. "You as well. Your quality of work is above those of your peers."

Susan snorted, eyes flicking furtively to the armed squad in the room.

Addy didn't pay them any more attention, stepping past Susan and reaching for the knob on the door. With a twist,
she pushed the door open, leaning against her arm to do so as she stepped out into the tepid, dawn air.

To the side of the door, Kara was in costume, her head turned towards the greater city. The expression on her face
was not one Addy had ever seen on Kara, but it was one Taylor had seen, both on herself and on other people. It was
loneliness, she knew, tangled up with something like wistfulness.

Then, the expression fell away, and Kara turned to look at her, a smile pushing up across her face. "You all done?"

Stepping completely through the threshold, Addy nodded. "They have everything I collected from Lillian."

Before the door could completely swing shut behind her, a hand blocked it. Turning, Addy watched as Susan peeked
her head out through the door and smiled at Kara.

"It was good working with you too, Supergirl," Susan said blithely, more than aware of Kara's prodigious hearing
abilities. "Be safe out there."

The stiffness of Kara's face eased off a bit at that, and she managed to muster a smile in Susan's direction. "You as
well, Agent Vasquez."

With that, the door shut, and it was just them.

Kara exhaled into the open air, pushing herself off the wall and beginning to slowly walk in the direction of the alley's
exit.

Addy trailed after her, taking in the silence.

"They might be able to make something helpful out of the Medusa virus, and not a weapon," Kara said at last, turning
back to look at her. "Something medical-related, I wasn't given much more than that, considering I no longer have the
clearance to know. What I do know is that Eliza's been brought on board for it, and Alex immediately went to help on
the project after seeing Maggie out."

Addy blinked, taking in the notes of her voice, the tone. There was an undercurrent of sadness there that she hadn't
expected, not with Kara's righteous stance against the D.E.O.'s actions. "Do you regret it?" she asked, more curious
than anything else. "They may take you back, if you do."

Kara turned away again and shook her head. "I don't," she admitted freely, her voice light, almost airy. "I might have
just damaged my relationship with my sister to the point we're back to how we were when Jeremiah di—went
missing, to the point where she feels like she can't tell me anything about her personal life, and I might now have the
biggest alien-focused organization in America giving me the cold shoulder, but..."

She took another breath as the two of them arrived at the very edge of the alley. Off in the distance, the sun had
finally begun to rise, smearing the skyline with pinkish light.

"It's freeing, so very freeing."

For a moment, Addy just lingered, enjoying the quiet and the gradually rising sun, soaking up what energy it could
provide her this early into the day. She felt her reserves tick back up, and some of her fatigue abate, but
unfortunately it wasn't enough to offset the hard edge of exhaustion she was still enduring.

Kara turned to look at her and smiled, looser and much more like the person Addy remembered meeting for the first
time. "So, are you ready to go and visit Lena?" she asked.

Addy blinked. "I assumed she was asleep."

Kara shook her head. "She's been awake all night," she corrected, glancing back off in the distance. "Waiting for us, I
think."

Well, if that was the case. "Yes."

And so, off they went.

Addy landed next to Kara on the unfamiliar balcony, making sure to land away from the expensive-looking patio
furniture that had been left out.

Glancing up from the ground, she spared a look around, taking in her surroundings. Lena lived, clearly, in the
penthouse suite of an incredibly expensive apartment building. Everything was made of glass or at least fitted with
large quantities of it, they were easily forty floors up, and it was in the dead center of the city. The apartment itself
could be seen through the transparent glass wall that separated the balcony from the rest of the building, in which
she could see Lena, a coffee cup in one hand, looking directly at the two of them.

The interior of the apartment itself was large, considerably larger than most houses, and absolutely modern in style.
From the furniture to the walls, every last part of it looked as though it had been designed within the last five years,
and as a result had far too much white for anyone's mental wellbeing. That said, Lena had added bursts of colour,
which Addy could, if she wasn't so tired, appreciate, including a surprising number of plants - though the verdict was
out on whether they were very-real looking plastic plants or somewhat plastic-looking real plants - rows of
bookshelves with a rainbow of book spines jutting out, and a series of tall pictures she hung on her walls depicting
alien landscapes and powerful bursts of colour.

Striding towards them, Lena herself was as well put together as her apartment, if not necessarily as fancy. Casual
black pants hung from her hips, her hair was pulled back in a tight, professional bun, and she was wearing a long-
sleeved shirt whose sleeves she had, in a display of not understanding why one wears long-sleeves, been rolled up
to her elbows.

It was not something she would wear to work, no, and if anything resembled what someone with more disposable
income than sense would wear to bed, but the fact that it was all very professionally made and well-tailored was
rather hard to miss.

Arriving at the patio door, Lena flipped the latch and pulled it to the side, the glass sliding along a track as she stared
at the two of them.

"I will admit," she began, slowly. "It is a bit unnerving that you know where I live."

Kara flushed awkwardly, in a rather tacit break of her Supergirl persona. "You just have a, er, very distinctive
heartbeat, Miss Luthor," she said.

Or, rather, lied. Addy was pretty sure it was a lie, because having a distinctive heartbeat generally meant the organ in
question was failing or having an episode.

Lena raised one brow, but said nothing further as she pulled the sliding door completely open and beckoned them
in. Kara was the first in after Lena, with Addy taking her time to give the area one last glance around, recording the
location in her brain, before following after her.

As they walked towards one of the several uniquely shaped couches, Kara opened her mouth. "Your mother will be
getting a trial," she explained, drawing Lena's attention. "Until now, she's going to be moved to an extremely high-
security prison where there's no chance of her being freed, even with interference. I've been told her lawyers will
likely contact yours within the upcoming few days, and the recommendation I was told to pass along, was to ignore
them. Your part in this case is done, and you can have no further part in it if you want to."

Lena halted a bit at that, almost staggered, before quickly collecting herself. "I'll keep the advice in my mind, I am...
unfortunately knowledgeable about how to handle family trials."

There was a beat of silence as they arrived into the seating area, Lena's eyes lingering on Kara for a few moments
before, finally, she collapsed back into the couch with a sigh. Her eyes swivelled to Addy, taking her in, assessing
her.

"You're getting tomorrow—or, I suppose, today and the next day off," Lena announced primly, losing some of the steel
in her expression. "I don't care if it's inefficient, Addy, you look for the first time uncomposed and that's worrying me.
You need rest, okay?"

Addy just nodded, rubbing at an eye with her flesh arm, because as of two hours ago, her robotic one had run out of
charge. It was still attached to her shoulder, sure, but it was just dead weight at this point.

Lena's eyes flicked to Kara again, hesitating, her fingers beginning to tap a rhythm on her thigh. There was another
beat of silence, and Addy could almost see Kara squirm in place, growing increasingly uncomfortable.

"I know it's you, Kara."

Kara jolted at Lena's voice, eyes widening so large they were edging on dinner plate sized. She opened her mouth a
second later, both hands raising up, but before she could say anything, give any excuse, Lena held up her own hand,
shaking her head.

"Your disguise is better than you think it is," she explained, slowly. "You wouldn't think having your hair down, having
no glasses, and changing your posture would do that much, but it works. You're a very different person in both
personas, but... I just know Kara. Especially when you stand next to Addy, and her identity was half the reason I
started considering yours."

Kara opened her mouth, shut it. "I'm sorry," she said, almost aghast. "I... I trusted you, it's just..."

"Hard to open up to someone like that, right?" Lena said, just as softly. There was a knowing twist to her face.

Kara nodded. "This is... this is a part of me that defines how people look at me," she said, at last. "I'm always afraid if
I tell someone, it'll change their perception of me, because it does. I have people who know, and each and every one
of them treated me a lot more differently when I was just Kara, and... and... I wanted to be just Kara, I didn't want you
to look at me differently."

Lena nodded. "I just wanted you to know that I know," she explained, her fingers folding together, a nervous tic. "As
Addy has so adequately proven, what I know can be used against me, even if I don't say anything about it. I think I
will have to look into anti-telepathy technology at some point in my future, and we're going to have to closely curate
how I interact with Supergirl, to avoid people trying to use me against you, or using me to find you."

Kara breathed out, loosened, and nodded.

Addy stared at Lena, just now catching up with the conversation. "Consult me about the anti-telepathy technology,"
she insisted. If only so she could make sure Lena was hard to get into, even for her, which would mean it would be
functionally impossible for everyone else.

Lena raised a brow, but otherwise didn't comment, conceding her the job considering her vast wealth of knowledge
on the topic.

"I never blamed you, Kara, for not telling me," Lena said, at last. "You're still Kara, you don't... change. You're you, all
parts of you. But we can go over what we want to say to each other later, it's very late, and both of you look like you
need rest."

Kara's face brightened, her posture softened, and she nodded. "Alright."

Well, that had most certainly gone better than she'd expected.

Kara looked at her, frowning. "Addy, you didn't need to say that."

She blinked. "I spoke that?"

Lena and Kara nodded.

She was certainly more tired than she thought she was. Rubbing at her eyes again, Addy swallowed a yawn before it
could try to unhinge her jaw. "Okay," she said, because what else could she say?

"Both of you definitely need to go and rest," Lena insisted, pushing up onto her feet. "And I need to go and do my
morning ablutions in preparation for the media storm that's about to be dropped in my lap. So, both of you, shoo. I
will talk to you both later."

Kara nodded, and Addy just went along with that. They turned around, wandered back towards the balcony, and only
seconds later, were on their way home.
 324

OxfordOctopus Aug 12, 2021 View discussion

Threadmarks: SEASON 2 - EPISODE 36 View content

OxfordOctopus She/Her
(Unverified Jackanape)

Aug 19, 2021  #3,367

EPISODE 36​
Daylight soaked the apartment, turning the wooden floors soft and warm. Golden beams collected like blankets over
the furniture and floor; stripes of colour that brought so much more texture to the apartment.

The smell of coffee hung like a fog, a fresh pot ready to be drained, as Kara's worrying addiction to the stimulant
required. With it was the smell of cooked fat, of bacon and eggs and all the other things Kara made for herself when
she couldn't or didn't want to grab breakfast on her way to work.

Stretching luxuriously, Addy let herself bask in the comfort of the morning. The goose-patterned pyjamas she was
wearing were smooth on her skin, without chafing and just soft enough to be delightful without making her over-
sensitive. In front of her was a bowl of half-finished dry cereal, one of the various brands Kara kept getting her to try
to see which one she liked. These ones came in the shape of bowler hats, and were more palatable than their
contemporaries, which had made it by far the best out of the batch, though Addy still did not know how Kara kept
finding new brands and flavours to get her to try.

Addy was reluctant to admit it, but she was somewhat coming around to cereal as a whole. It was an efficient
means to shovel carbohydrates into your body, and most of them had crunchy textures, which was not a bad default
to have. Rather, the problem with most of them was that they were all eye-wateringly sweet, seemingly by design,
and it was only recently that Kara had managed to find ones that were just intensely sweet, rather than
overwhelmingly so.

Off to the side, Kara was staring at the television, which had been paused to show a cartoon skunk, mid-action,
attempting to chase a deeply unhappy black cat up a tree. In front of the television was the source of the cartoon
itself—a box set for the Looney Toons show, which Kara had recovered from the shelves they kept most of their
entertainment stuff in.

"You know," Kara said, sounding supremely awkward, with one arm raised so that the remote was aimed in the
general direction of the television. "Pepé Le Pew has not aged well."

She was not wrong, all things considered. "I was more partial to Daffy Duck," Addy confessed, eyes skittering back to
the television screen. "Though I worry about his future prospects, as he is terribly short-sighted. Nonetheless, I
prefer even his bad habits over this."

Kara snorted, though her face was surprisingly contemplative for a sound so undignified. "You know," she said
slowly, lowering the remote back down to the coffee table. "I should have the original DuckTales box set somewhere
around here, too. If you want more cartoon ducks, there's no easier way."

Addy turned to stare more directly at Kara, feeling rather affronted. "Why did you not start with that one?" she
inquired honestly. "Even by name alone, it is superior."

"Y'know, Ads, I was asking myself the same darn question," Kara admitted, which Addy most certainly approved of.
After all, admitting one's own ignorance was the first step to overcoming it. Dropping the remote fully on the table,
Kara pulled herself up from the couch and wandered back over to the bookshelf they used to hold the bulk majority
of movies and aforementioned box sets.

It had been early this morning when they'd arrived back home from Lena's, not unsurprisingly. Although the sun had
been inching its way up the horizon, reminding Addy she was almost too late to consider sleeping, Kara had not
been terribly upset about the matter. Rather, Kara had seemed incredibly relieved by Lena knowing who she was, and
had spent a fair chunk of time talking about it. Not to Addy directly, no, a lot of that had been Kara talking to herself,
but still, at least she had gotten something out of being awake for over twenty-four hours, as Addy most certainly
had not.

Not that Kara's good mood had lasted too long, unfortunately, as there's been a message left on Kara's home phone -
indicated by an ominous blinking red light - from Alex, which in a word had been foreboding. Alex hadn't quite
managed to mask the anger or fatigue she clearly felt from them breaking off from the D.E.O. in full, though that said
the message hadn't amounted to much more than a terse comment that they needed to talk.

That said, Kara hadn't been terribly inclined to broach the topic after they'd both listened to the message, so Addy
wasn't either.

Eliza had left a message herself, too, asking in a much less steely voice that they talk. Addy had not been included in
that message rather specifically, with Eliza saying it was nothing on her, and that this was a rather specific wound
between Kara and Alex and those two needed to discuss it. Eliza had said she supported their decision one way or
another, admitting in a surprising show of vulnerability that she had never been particularly comfortable with Alex or
Kara working for the D.E.O. either.

For all that it has changed since Jer was forced to work there, Eliza had said, it is still the place that forced my husband
to work there, and left me assuming it got him killed for nearly a decade.

Addy could, honestly, respect that.

From there, Kara had spent her own time on the phone, leaving a message for Cat Grant less requesting and more
informing her boss that she was taking her very much contractually granted time off for the next few days, and to
call her sometime later so they could hash out the specifics, but to consider her absent for at least the next few
days. She hadn't explained the situation exactly to the woman, especially not over a phone line with no real security
attached to it, but Addy had heard her hinting at the general particulars for Cat Grant's peace of mind.

When it was all said and done with, they had finally, finally gone to bed, and Addy had thereafter woken up five hours
later, sometime around 9:00 in the morning.

Kara, of course, had already been awake and on the phone, speaking with Cat Grant over the particulars. In the end,
Cat had given her the time off at the 'cost' of doing a personal interview with Cat as Supergirl about her own
experiences as an alien immigrant, and how it felt to change cultures so drastically. Nothing that would give away
her background, admittedly, but enough. Kara had later explained that she had already mostly agreed to the topic -
Cat Grant having brought it up with her sometime in the recent past - and this was more Cat Grant finding a way to
justify giving her time off without making a fight out of it.

What had followed that had led them to where they were now: watching cartoons from Kara's own childhood. Kara
had insisted they go through the cartoons she remembered watching as a kid, which was something she had
admitted to wanting to do before now, as well. Particularly, she had explained that none of the cartoons they were
watching - the Looney Toons in particular - were made when she was a kid on Earth - and rather, if anything, they
were made closer to when she was sent off from Krypton - but the local channels in Midvale had played them rather
than a lot of the newer stuff, due to existing contracts allowing them that privilege.

Kara had also filled her in on what else people had updated her about, which was to say rather little. The D.E.O., not
unexpectedly, had left them almost completely in the dark. They had no information on J'onn's fight with Henshaw,
though considering they knew he was okay, it was bound to have gone at least mostly in his favour. They were given
no information on what they actually intended to use Medusa to cure or fix, though Kara had asserted that if they
were doing anything with it that would be used for war purposes, her mother wouldn't be involved, so they could at
least partially trust that state of affairs for the time being.

Other than that foreboding voice mail from Alex, they were completely out of the loop. Honestly, the information
scarcity annoyed Addy; Taylor had focused on information gathering as well as utilizing information to level the
playing field, bartering different levels of awareness of the ongoing situation to eke out wins. That said, the sheer
relief Kara clearly felt by no longer being directly attached to the D.E.O. was an acceptable trade, as Addy hadn't
quite seen the woman so relaxed in a very long time, at least not since Fort Rozz's crash.

"Aha!" Kara crowed, snagging a fairly thick, rectangular case out from the bookshelf, brandishing it over her head like
a flag. After a moment of self-congratulation, she let her arm fall back, and stared down at the object between her
hands, reading over the 'DuckTales' emblazoned on the cover. "You know, actually thinking about it, there is a
surprising amount of duck-related cartoons."

"There is nothing surprising about it," Addy chimed in. "Ducks are among the superior birds. If not them, then who?"

Kara blinked, glancing her way. "I dunno, pigeons?" she hedged, tilting her head to one side. "I think I'd love a show
about pigeons, actually."

"I do not disagree, pigeons are similarly superior birds," Addy explained, though they weren't as superior as
waterfowl. They were still above their peers, of course, but not that extensively. "Their reputation is terribly unfair—"

A rift in spacetime tore itself open a few feet to her right.

That was, Addy thought in the few moments it took for her to recognize what was happening, the loose end to this
entire thing. The breaches. They had never been explained, and here was another one, roaring open in the middle of
their living room in a sharp reminder that this was why she very rarely allowed unsolved questions to remain that
way.

Addy jerked to her feet, and saw Kara doing the same. In fact, Kara seemed to be gearing up for a fight, raising her
fists, looking at the growing breach like it might at any moment spit out Hank Henshaw or someone of his general
temperament.

Except, Addy was already noticing the differences in this breach versus the others. It was, she recognized, still a
warped anomaly of spacetime being skewed too much in a particular direction that humans could not begin to
fathom as it operated outside of their notions of dimensional space. That said, it was not nearly as unstable—the
other rifts were all twisted in on themselves like knots, and would continue to twist and turn into itself until the entire
thing collapsed like a particularly violent stellar body.

That had the unfortunate side-effect of causing damage to the environment and screwing with the fundamental
forces of reality.

Nothing of the sort was happening here. Rather, after a moment of it being a swirling matrix of force, the entire thing
stabilized, the boundaries of the breach becoming more defined and solid with each passing second. Addy could still
feel the breeze rushing out of it, the way the wind spiralled around it as though it was being dragged into its orbit, but
it wasn't affecting the local state of reality any more than any other horrific tear in the fabric of spacetime would.

There was a sharp crack echoing from within as, with a final shudder, the breach took shape and two people
promptly stepped out from inside of it.

One of these people Addy very much recognized. Barry Allen had not changed much since their last interaction, with
the man keeping his short-cut hair, general awkward way of holding himself, and his style of clothes, which in a word
was uninspiring.

The other was a touch more interesting to look at. The man who landed next to Barry was shorter in height, though
not by much, with warm brown skin and thick, straight black hair. He was, in a word, a bit softer around the edges
than Barry, who could at times almost seem too thin, and was wearing mostly black, to her slight dismay.

"This better be the right place," the unknown man said, turning to glance at Barry. The look he gave the other man
was verging on hostile, which had Addy on edge again, if only because of potential complications.

Kara did not do the same. Her fighting stance lowered, and she boggled at the two of them with a wide-eyed,
confused look. "Barry?" she asked, sounding not terribly sure about the fact.

Barry nodded at the unknown guy, turning to look at Kara. "Don't worry, it is. Hey, Kara."

The unknown one turned to give them both a look over, eyes crisscrossing between their various sets of pyjamas,
the currently paused Looney Toons episode, the platter of bacon and eggs that Kara was still working her way
through. "...I feel like we're interrupting something."

Slowly, Kara set the DuckTales box-set down on top of the bookshelf, letting out a breath. "Just... a relaxing day in,"
she refuted, shaking her head. "Barry, what's wrong? Why are you here?"

Barry jolted to attention, glancing quickly at Kara. "Do you remember last year? When I helped you out? And you
promised to do the same for me?"

Actually, now that he was mentioning it, what did happen to his blood? Addy had remembered giving it over to Alex,
but with everything that had happened afterwards, she had completely forgotten about it.

How embarrassing.

Kara grew a bit tense again. "Uh, yeah," she agreed. "We took your blood, right? Actually, this is going to bother me
until I know, who's with you? I thought this uh, sort of thing—"

Kara gestured broadly, presumably to imply the general state of spacetime and the ability to traverse between
universes.

"—Was because you could go really, really fast."

Barry winced. "Sorry," he said, quickly, motioning towards the unknown. "This is my friend, Cisco Ramon, and there
have been some innovations on that front."

Cisco, apparently, turned to look at Barry again. "I'm not sure about friend," he admitted, voice decidedly sharp. He
shook his head, ignoring the wounded look on Barry's face, and turned to address them both directly. "It's uh, good to
meet you, either way. You've got a nice universe here."

Kara just blinked at him, slow and sluggish. "...Thanks?" she said, sounding mightily uncertain if she really should be
saying it. "I'm Kara Danvers, or Supergirl, and this is Addy Queen—or Administrator."

Cisco turned to look at her in particular, glanced between her hair, her missing arm - still in its charging port at the
moment - and her height, a curious look spreading over his features. "Any relation to Oliver Queen?" he asked, after a
moment.

Why did people keep asking that? "I would certainly hope not, considering what I have heard of him," Addy replied,
none-too-pleased with this line of conversation. "It is also highly unlikely as a whole, unless something went
tremendously wrong with the modifications made to my genetics."

Cisco stared at her for a moment, looking baffled. "You guys have an Oliver Queen too?" he asked.

Which... wasn't really what she thought he'd focus on, honestly.

"No, he went missing on a cruise—and I think we're getting off-topic," Kara interjected. "Not to seem ungrateful, but I
feel like you didn't just make the trip to say hello, right?"

"Right!" Barry said, sounding terribly awkward. "I'm here to ask you two for help, and specifically your expertise if at
all possible."

Kara glanced at him, resettling and seemingly gathering back up her confidence. Her posture adjusted, and Kara
adopted a way of holding herself that was entirely Supergirl in its presentation. "What are we up against?" she asked,
straight to the point.

Barry glanced at Cisco, who was pointedly not looking at him. Finally, he turned back to Kara, and gave her an
awkward, sheepish sort of look. "Well, possibly a full-scale invasion of my Earth by aliens. Mostly."

Kara's expression shifted to horror. "Mostly? Barry—Rao! Of course I'll help, just let me—"

"Kara," Addy interrupted, stopping her before she could move. "We do not know how long we will be gone, if we do
go, so we need to inform those around us so they do not think we were abducted in retaliation for the arrest of Lillian
Luthor."

Kara froze, head slowly turning to stare at her.

"Furthermore, such a thing would require us contacting both of our employers unless we wish to lose our jobs in the
interim, to get enough time off to cover our bases or, at the bare minimum, acquire an agreement that we will be off
until otherwise acknowledged. Similarly, if you are going, Kara, I too am coming, and thus will need to inform Lena
that we will be gone."

She turned to look at Cisco and Barry, who were staring at her a lot like Kara was.

"Also, I will require payment in the form of studying the breaching technology you're using. I will not barter."

Cisco glanced towards Barry and raised a single eyebrow.

Barry shrugged. "I agree on the last point, that shouldn't really be a problem," he said, though something about his
tone made Addy think he'd certainly have stipulations if he knew what she was about to get up to. "It helps that it's
clearly the one thing you're interested in, and at least this one won't require extracting any more of my blood."

"It still might," Addy announced, because Barry at this moment was the single constant parameter for dimension
travel, and that might be a very literal state of affairs. "But I will attempt to avoid that, if at all possible."

Barry made a face. "That would... uh, be appreciated, yeah."

"Right," Kara said, sounding a bit lost. "I agree to... that, all of this. I should definitely go and contact my boss before
getting ready, and speaking of, do you know how long we'll be over in your universe? I might need to pack a little."

Barry and Cisco glanced at each other again.

"A couple of days?" Cisco hedged. "Worst case scenario, half a week."

Kara made a noise in the back of her throat. "Got it, one second."

Addy ignored the two men milling awkwardly in their living room, reaching for her phone and bringing up Lena's
contacts. It was a bit slower with one hand, but in no time at all she had tapped out a rapid-fire explanation of the
current situation, the likely time they'll be gone, the fact that they'd be outside of contact range, and also what to do
if they somehow did not come back. She also included a hopeful assessment that the trip would be a valuable
source of data, and at bare minimum, even if this wasn't as bad as Barry seemed to think it was, it would at least be
a good way to acquire readings on their breaching technique.

Now, all she needed to do was pack a bag. Glancing towards Cisco and Barry, she pursed her lips. "Wait outside," she
declared, because this was in part her apartment and she hardly wanted them milling around when she got
changed. "We will be ready in fifteen minutes."

For whatever reason, both Barry and Cisco seemed relieved to escape out the front door.

Addy stepped out through the breach, the weight of her travel bag not particularly heavy against her back. The scene
- what had been just moments ago a swirling vortex of multicoloured light - faded in, revealing the vast warehouse
around them, tall windows and all.

"You know, your breaches are horribly energy-inefficient. The bleed from the lack of substantiated edges in the
tunnelling boundary is very problematic," she explained, turning to look at Cisco and Barry. The readings she was
getting back on the breach spoke to an amateur's understanding of dimensional travel, which while not unexpected
for something humans stumbled onto, was a touch disappointing. "Though crude, I do approve for what it is worth. I
hardly expected your kind to be capable of doing this independently in the first place."

Cisco gave her a deeply odd look that Addy couldn't quite place. "Thanks?" he said, or maybe asked, it was hard to
tell at times with him. "We don't really worry about that—"

"You should," Addy interjected, because someone had to bring this up eventually. "Unless you want to one day
accidentally rip a permanent hole in the fabric of spacetime."

There was a pause.

"...I'm sorry, what?" Cisco asked, sounding both panicked and horrified.

Addy just stared at him. "Where do you think the excess energy goes?"

"Uh, guys?" Barry interrupted, drawing her gaze back to him. "Riveting conversation, and probably super important to
our future, but we're here, you know that right?"

Turning away from Barry, Addy was surprised to find that the warehouse wasn't exactly empty. Rather, there was a
sizable group of people staring at them.

Barry stepped ahead, clapping his hands together. "Guys!" he called out, voice bouncing around the warehouse.
"Thank you for coming!"

Addy glanced at Kara, who merely shrugged and walked ahead, moving to catch up with Barry. She did the same,
though Cisco pulled off to one side before following after them.

"Barry," a closely-shaved, though still bearded, man said. He was pale in skin colour and with dark hair, and his
expression was a frosty neutral that implied a degree of disappointment without actually showing it. "I thought you
said you were going to bring us aliens."

Barry's face twitched. "And uh, yeah, I did," he said, turning part of the way around to gesture back at the two of them
as his pace drew to a halt. "Everybody, these are my friends, Kara Danvers and Addy Queen," he declared, which was
bad form considering secret identities were intended to be secret. "Or, as they're known on their Earth, Supergirl and
Administrator."

The closely-shaven one stared at her, squinting for some reason.

Addy graciously ignored him.

"What makes her so super?" A younger man said, stepping forward. He looked to be in his early to mid-twenties, with
dark skin and curly hair cut short, and seemed to have his chin tilted in challenge.

Barry blinked, glanced back at Kara, and then, after a beat of hesitation, shrugged. "Well?"

Kara lifted off into the air with a single hop, pulling herself ten or fifteen feet up. Once she reached the apex, her
flight evened off - without much struggle, at that, clearly Addy's lectures had been aiding her on that end - and her
eyes flared blue, twin beams of energy gouging into the concrete in a prodigious display of unnecessary theatrics.

In seconds, Kara had etched the symbol of House El into the ground, and lowered herself back down to the ground in
front of it.

The dark-skinned guy, clearly seeing the writing on the wall for coming to blows with someone who could do that on
a whim, changed tracks. "Alright, I can see that now, but what about the other one?" he asked, gaze focusing on
Addy instead. "Are you good at paperwork or something?"

"Addy's the most powerful psychic," Kara interjected, matter-of-factly.

Addy nodded. "I am also exceptional at paperwork," she said, for it was not wrong.

There was another one of those awkward, brief pauses.

"You uh, gonna add a quantifier to that?" the same guy said, glancing at Kara. "The most powerful psychic on Earth?
In the solar system? What?"

"She doesn't need to," Addy said, stepping forward until she stood next to Kara, both of them already in costume. "I
am, merely, the most powerful." And, when she got her breaching under control? She was going to become even
more powerful.

"Well," the guy said, taking the replies with good grace. "I'm not going to argue with the woman with laser eyes or the
self-professed 'most powerful psychic', you do you."

Barry glanced between them for a moment before stepping forward and past them. "We should probably do
introductions first, alright?"

The crowd made some noises, but there were no sharp refusals, so Barry clearly took that to continue.

Gesturing towards the closely-shaven guy, he began. "Oliver Queen, also known as the Green Arrow."

Until now, Addy hadn't felt particularly inclined towards giving the man in question a closer look, but the moment his
name came up, she now had a particularly relevant reason to do so. Oliver Queen was understood to be dead in her
universe, and throughout it all, people had made comparisons between herself and the Queen family at large. She
had gotten a wealth of second-hand information on the man she was staring at, and as she probably should have
expected, very little of it matched his alternative-universe counterpart.

Where Cat Grant had described the man as 'foppish and unable to resist the spotlight', the man standing across
from her was neither. Oliver Queen was a tall, pale man, with stubble that ringed his chin and upper lip, just thick
enough to make it clear it was meant to be styled that way. His hair had been cut short, and like his beard, was dark
brown in colouration, styled just enough to let it stick up instead of falling in unruly tresses around his forehead.

Build wise, Oliver Queen was broad-shouldered but not so much that he could be called muscle-clad. Extremely
athletic? Certainly, even with the clothes he was wearing it was abundantly clear the man spent a considerable
amount of his life training or at the bare minimum maintaining a high level of physical fitness, but he was just slim
enough to have something bordering on a runner's build, or an acrobat's.

Oliver's expression was a blank mask, eerily focused and giving surprisingly little away, aside from the fact that his
mien implied he was rather unimpressed with everything, at all times, and wished people could see that as clearly as
he did.

Addy felt her own face go blank as she stared at Oliver Queen, and accordingly, Oliver Queen stared at her, Addy
Queen.

"You do not look like what Cat Grant described you as," she admitted, refusing to blunt the edge of the statement.

Oliver's face twitched. It was subtle, subtle enough that had she not been staring so intently at him she would've
certainly missed it, but it was in every way an inward cringe of discomfort, there and gone again in a matter of
seconds. "I can't imagine I would," he replied in a tone that made it clear he did not want to clarify why that might be
the case.

"You've been missing for a while on our Earth," Kara interjected softly, smiling towards him in a show of trust. "It
would make sense that you don't match what we've heard of you."

The small group that had formed ranks around Oliver Queen - a woman in her young adult years, who bore a striking
resemblance to Oliver, and an older, black man with a tight expression on his face - shared a series of awkward,
questioning looks between one another, all of which Oliver ignored with a sort of dutiful nonchalance that made it
clear he was more than used to it.

"Well, that's good to know?" Barry hedged, sounding about as confident in the topic as anyone else was. Still,
apparently not one to miss a beat, he adjusted his stance and pointed instead to the man next to Oliver. "That's John
Diggle, or Spartan."

"Call me Diggle," Diggle replied, voice the slightest bit clipped and professional.

Diggle was, in a sense, a contrast to Oliver. Where Oliver was athletic to the point of concern and just barely slim
enough to make it clear a lot of that muscle didn't come from mindlessly lifting weights, Diggle was broader, sturdier,
and built to last. Diggle was as tall as Oliver, but had considerably broader shoulders, and a build that married a bit
of weight and a lot of muscle to make him stocky, despite the height.

Diggle's hair was cut down to his scalp, and as black as Addy's own, while his features were softer than Oliver's by
no small margin, even if his expression was a touch unapproachable. It left the man in an odd limbo of being both
more and less gentle than Oliver, who merely looked about as closed off as one could manage.

"And that's Thea Queen, or Speedy," Barry continued, his hand moving to the young woman next to Oliver.

Going by the name and similar features, Addy was pretty sure she was Oliver's sister.

Where Oliver and Diggle were tall, Thea most certainly wasn't. Where both Oliver and Diggle had a layer of muscle
from years of working their bodies, Thea also didn't. That wasn't to say Thea was out of shape; she was limber and
thin and it showed her relation to Oliver that she could carry muscle without coming off as bulky, but the muscle she
did have was less set into the posture and way of holding herself, as it was with both Oliver and Barry. Thea was
newer to this, she could recognize, though how much newer than her peers was left unclear.

Thea's hair was dark brown, much like Oliver's, and reached all the way down to her shoulders. It wasn't particularly
thick, though her hair was rather wavy, which stood out against Oliver's own. She was, as mentioned, a close match
to Oliver in appearance, with the same sharp features that were only barely softened, and with the same narrow tilt
to her eyes. Her personality wasn't as comparable to Oliver's, seeing as the woman was relaxed and most certainly
not disappointed in everything around her, but then personalities were so rarely hereditary without great effort.

"Moving on," Barry continued, his arm swivelling over towards the rest of the crowd. "That is Sara Lance, or White
Canary."

Sara was another one of the people where it was clear she had built up muscle and worn it over many, many years.
The woman was sturdy in stature, though like Oliver, there was a certain sleekness to her build. She was shorter
than Oliver, about equal in height to Thea, and had golden blonde hair comparable to Kara's, which she wore similarly
down to her back, though she had styled it to throw it all over one shoulder.

Sara's features were the more interesting part of her. She had blunter features than some of the rest, with a wider
chin and jawline that reminded her in part of Lena. Her nose was slight, and her eyes were small, around which a
handful of freckles appeared here and there, standing out against the paleness of her skin. Her lips were cocked in
something like a smirk, a casual display of confidence that Addy didn't miss, and made quick note of.

From there, Barry's hand moved again, off to the next person in the group that clustered around Sara like Thea and
Diggle did Oliver.

"Jefferson Jackson and Professor Martin Stein," he introduced next, pointing to two of the group who were standing
together. "Also known as Firestorm."

"Call me Jax," Jefferson - or, rather, Jax - said easily, slipping both hands into his pockets.

Jax was another youthful member of the group, maybe a little older than Thea, though not by much. He was dark-
skinned, clearly of African American heritage, with a fairly wide mouth, a round nose, and eyes already crinkled by
smile lines that had long ago set into the fabric of his skin. He was as tall as Oliver, as much as Addy could tell with
a glance, and fit if not necessarily athletic in build. He wore his hair short, like Diggle, shaved down to just fuzz on his
scalp, which made his ears all the more visible as they stuck out from either side of his head.

Professor Stein, then, was the contrast here. Where Jax was young, Stein was old; where Jax was dark, Stein was
pale enough to make Addy wonder if that was a product of age or his heritage. Where Jax's hair was dark and short,
Professor Stein left his hair not long, but not so short as to be a buzz-cut, which flared around his head like a fluffy
cloud, white colour and all. Where Jax wore laugh-lines in his skin, even in its youthful state, Professor Stein's
wrinkles - of which he had, Addy was delighted to see, many - were more deeply-cut, and the ones around his eyes
spoke not of smiling, but of years squinting over work in the night.

Professor Stein was, out of everyone, the least fit, which was understandable considering Addy put his age closer to
80 than 70. He wore a set of glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, and his clothes were the sort of thing Addy
had vague cultural associations with professors as a whole. Soft fabrics, long coats, trousers that went out of
fashion an entire World War ago. The last part hadn't been her commentary - and rather, one of Cat Grant's lengthy
diatribes on the state of fashion for people 'older than a spring chicken' - but she didn't disapprove of it, necessarily.

"How does that work?" Kara asked, sounding more curious than anything else.

""It's complicated,"" both Jax and Professor Stein chorused together.

Barry moved on before they could get side-tracked, pointing to another tall, limber-looking guy with short dark hair
and pale skin. "That is Ray Palmer, or the Atom."

Ray Palmer, under no definition of the word, bucked the established tradition. He was as pale as Professor Stein, but
the dark black of his hair made it stand out all the more, giving him an almost washed-out look. His face was long,
as was his neck, and in fact, looking at it more closely, Ray Palmer's entire body was by definition long. He was as
tall as Addy herself, which she understood to be no easy feat, but even then his limbs all looked rather stretched out.
The word lanky came to mind.

Ray was as fit as Jax, meaning he was clearly someone who worked to keep his appearance and physical fitness at
some level, but wasn't so devoted to it that he became like Oliver or Diggle. Instead, the man merely was. If anything,
he would not look even remotely out of place in the bowels of L-Corp, working on some project or another. She could
name several people who looked a whole lot like him, even.

His jaw was defined, and he had the whispers of stubble around his upper lip, but that was about it in terms of
blemishes or variations on his appearance.

Rather than that, what spoke to his presence more than anything else was, first, the way he held himself—with
confidence, of course, but distant from the rest. Second, when he caught Addy looking at him, he gave her a polite
smile and waved, as one does when raised to uphold certain metrics of propriety.

Addy, of course, waved back, because she was no savage.

"Then there's Mick," Barry said, pointing to the next man with a conspicuous lack of a surname to tack onto it. "Also
known as Heat Wave."

Mick was, at the moment, working his way through some type of sandwich, and paid them just enough attention to
look up, stare at the two of them, then let out a grunt that sounded mightily offended at their insistence of looking at
him.

Mick was, well, certainly a break from the mould in a way. If Addy had to choose a few words to describe the man,
'built like a fridge', or possibly 'built like a closet' came to mind. He was not the tallest man in the room, not by any
metric, but Mick was like Diggle if Diggle took being broad to the far, illogical conclusion one could reach. Mick was
sturdy, thick, not fat, but built in such a way that a man like him could never be thin or limber. His neck was almost
as thick as his head, his arms and legs were thicker than they should be, and he was barrel-chested.

But above all of that, what stuck out most was what little she was getting on his personality. Flippant, most certainly,
and rude was another. The man paid them enough attention to make his displeasure clear before returning to
ignoring the entirety of the introduction and making very unpleasant chewing noises as he ate, and from the way his
eyes were narrowed and focused, Addy was not entirely certain he was doing it on purpose to see how they'd react -
which was possible - or if he was just really into whatever he'd put into the sandwich.

She concluded the answer was likely both, in the end.

"Next is Iris West," Barry said, his voice going a bit soft around the edges, gesturing towards one of the three women
off to one side.

Iris was dark-skinned, with warm undertones, and black hair down to her lower neck that contrasted it all. She was
tall, almost as tall as Barry - and by extension, Ray Palmer - with a body that, like Jax and Ray, spoke to adherence to
some type of work-out plan, but only so far as it kept up appearances. She admittedly did look the most put-together
out of the entire group of people, Addy was willing to admit, wearing a tastefully put together outfit that helped
highlight her delightful undertones and warm complexion, but when compared with Mick - who was nursing what
looked to be a mustard stain on his shirt - and Barry - who seemed to live vicariously through his bland collection of
clothes - that was not the high bar it could've been.

Her features were a touch sharper than the rest, though the high arch of her cheekbones were round and soft,
playing into the softness around her cheeks, and giving the woman an entirely approachable appearance. Her eyes
were dark, to the point where it was hard to make out the pupil, but they were not unsettling, and rather the shape of
them worked to accentuate the rest of her face, making her, in a word, rather pretty.

"After that, we have Caitlin Snow," Barry continued, motioning to the woman next to Iris.

Caitlin Snow was shorter than Iris, if not by much, with pale skin and wavy light brown hair she wore past her
shoulders. She looked, out of everyone, the most withdrawn, keeping as far out of the spotlight as possible, with her
features twisted into a rigid sort of discomfort once eyes settled on her directly. Her features were, themselves,
fairly neutral; with cheekbones that didn't reach so high, a chin that wasn't too sharp, and a jawline that tucked itself
quickly into her neck, giving her face a somewhat narrow look, if only just.

"Finally, we have Felicity Smoak," Barry announced, and gestured towards the last of the line-up.

Felicity, Addy thought, looked to be the embodiment of the 1950's cultural notion of attractiveness. Thin, pale-
skinned, and golden-blonde, with sloping features that didn't get too sharp or too round, and instead met in a
pleasant middle-ground. She was shorter than the other two women, though not by much, had a pair of glasses
perched on her nose, and a way of holding herself that reminded Addy rather a lot of Kara when she was working;
that mixture of authority and caution.

That said, the comparison to 50s cultural norms started and ended there, as Felicity paid them a quick look, smiled
and waved, and immediately returned to the litany of tablets she had scattered around her, muttering under her
breath just loud enough that Addy was picking up on it, but not so loud that she could make anything out of it.

And with that, everyone, at last, had been introduced.

"Cisco," Oliver called out, mere moments after Barry had trailed off into an awkward, 'what-do-I-do-now' sort of
silence. "Could you get us started now?"

Turning around to where Addy knew Cisco had remained, she found him standing next to a series of screens, all
linked together to create a larger, composite image. The man in question glanced up from his phone to stare at
Oliver, before looking around to the rest of the group and nodding once. He maneuvered his phone so it was pointing
at the screens, and then tapped his thumb on the surface of it.

The screens changed, away from the stream of data it was showing, to a still image of a blurry, shadowed figure of
visibly alien appearance, walking through a foggy stretch of woodlands. Its limbs were all too long, even beyond Ray
Palmer, with stilt-like legs and arms that reached almost down to their knees. Its head was shaped almost like an
amphora, too long to be circular, yet at the same time flaring out near the top. It looked, in a word, emaciated, though
Addy did not know if that was a product of its genetics or an actual issue acquiring food.

"Right!" Barry called out, jumping back to attention. "They're ah—er, these are the Dominators. We don't know much
about them," he finished, rather lamely, gesturing towards the screen with an awkward look on his face.

Cisco stared at Barry with something like unhidden relish, but Addy did not even bother to comment.

"...But I do," Kara replied, stepping forward, towards the screens. Her voice was worried, which came as a rather large
concern, considering the number of things that made Kara worried were either not dangerous - such as a local
restaurant closing down - or world-endingly dangerous.

People turned to look at her, most picking up on her tone by the expressions on their faces.

"I heard stories about Dominators when I was growing up," Kara began, rocking onto her heels and then back again.
"They're kinda known for being at war with a lot of the explored universe, in large part because you can't be safe
from them. Dominators track down planets for the sake of culling powers that threaten their own, usually ones that
only just emerged, like someone gaining powerful telepathy despite their species not showing any signs of it.

"Because of this, they had regular spats with Krypton - my homeworld - and for a time even went so far as to occupy
the space around our planet and blockade us. We did force them back eventually with our armed forces and
planetary defence system, but it was a hard battle, and in that time they experimented on a lot of Kryptonians, and
killed even more of them. When Dominators come out in force, they enslave, mass-murder, and cull any dissenters
to their occupation."

World-endingly dangerous it was.

There was a beat of silence.

"Shit," Mick said, into the open quiet.

Kara turned back to look at him and nodded. "That's not just it. They're advanced, more advanced than any Earth is,
which is already a problem, but they're also physically and psychically powerful. As far as I was ever taught, they
operate in a quasi-hive mind, not losing individuality, but being connected to the rest of their species so long as
they're in roughly the same area."

Shaking her head, Kara turned her focus fully onto Barry, this time. "They're invading you, right?" she inquired.

Barry winced. "We're not sure, but they've returned after their last visit years ago. They left for unknown reasons, but
even when they were here, they were in several violent conflicts with humans, and several people went missing who
were connected to the incident."

Kara frowned, pursing her lips. "I'll be honest, as far as I know? Humanity is a fairly traditional target for a Dominator
attack. They seek out civilizations which are at similar levels of technological advancement—that being advanced
enough, but not to the point where they're spacefaring or capable of mustering large-scale responses. Sometimes,
like with my planet, they attack more advanced targets, but it's rare. I'm not sure what they'd do to Earth, precisely,
sometimes Dominators occupy planets and turn them into colonies, other times they kill a bunch of people and
leave, it really depends. What's actually confusing is that they're here at all, Earth isn't really in Dominator-controlled
space—you're closer to the Interstellar Union of Diplomats, and if things aren't changed too much, they should still
very much be at war with them right now."

"If we don't have answers for why they're here, just that they're coming back, then we should look for clues on that
end," Barry agreed, after a moment of pause. "But that said, we need to be able to fight them, do you have any tips?"

Kara shook her head. "My knowledge on the Dominators is exclusively academic and historical. I've never fought one
myself, and I hope I don't have to. As far as I know they don't really have many direct weaknesses like some species
do, so you'll probably have to do this the hard way."

"In that case," Oliver interjected, stepping forward from the crowd. "I want you to stand in for training against them.
You're clearly strong enough, and you know what the Dominators can do, so us sparring against you should help us
in the fight ahead."

"Hey, Robin Hood," Mick chided, drawing eyes towards Sara's cluster of individuals. "What are you doing calling the
shots?"

"What it seems like Mick is trying to say," Jax interjected, raising both of his hands in a show of surrender. "Is that it
would be nice if we knew who was in charge around here."

"I recommend Kara," Addy said without an inch of hesitation. She made the most sense, tactically, as the person with
the majority of knowledge on the alien species in the group.

"I can't, Addy," Kara replied, just as quickly. "I don't know most of these people. If they put their trust in me, sure, but I
won't step into a role someone might fill better than I will."

Addy had a lot to say in response to that, but before she could, Ray Palmer chimed in.

"Maybe," he said, with great drama, "we should take a vote. Choose a leader, someone we can all trust."

"Oliver has my vote," Cisco said, glancing very pointedly at Barry before looking away again. "I trust him most out of
everyone here."

Oliver just shook his head. "Barry brought us all together, so he should be the leader."

"I wouldn't mind Barry," Kara agreed easily, to Addy's slight dismay.

"If my vote will not be counted, I will abstain," Addy said, in protest of the sudden change of affairs.

Kara shot her an unimpressed look that Addy graciously ignored.

The rest of the crowd murmured, making noise, but otherwise seemed to vote for Barry. There were a few
recommendations for Sara, but out of the rest of the votes being cast, the majority of them absolutely went to Barry.

Barry, as it would happen, did not look like he really wanted the role. Or felt comfortable in it. That said, Addy did see
the man rally himself in response to his new role just moments later, without any real hesitation, taking in a few long,
deep breaths, squaring his shoulders, and preparing for the upcoming problems.

"So, uhm—right, now that I'm team leader, we should..."

"Start out by doing a test run to see how we work together," Oliver murmured, loud enough that it wasn't just Addy or
Kara that could hear it, but rather just about every soul in the warehouse.

"Right!" Barry chirped, grasping hold of the lifeline. "We should definitely do a test run, to see how we work together."

"A test run against Supergirl, who can teach us how best to fight against the Dominators," Oliver continued, his whisper
having grown a little more annoyed.

Barry glanced at Kara, pleadingly, who with a tremendous upwards roll of her eyes just nodded once.

"We should all do a test run against Supergirl, because she's the one who can best prepare us to fight against the
Dominators," Barry echoed with conviction.

"Are we not going to talk about how everyone can hear Oliver feeding Barry lines?" Sara asked.

The resounding silence was her answer.

"On that note," Kara interrupted, ever-so-carefully. "I think Addy might be the better option here. She's super-strong,
she's psychically powerful—"

"I would win," Addy interjected bluntly, cutting Kara off. "I would win in a way that would be counterproductive to
training these people how to fight Dominators, and I would do so within seconds of the fight beginning. Unless
people here have begun to, similarly, graft implants into their brains to protect against psychic attacks, which I highly
doubt, as the ones currently doing it are an anti-alien terror cell, they have no chance."

Kara stared at her with an almost betrayed look. "But, Addy—we can always put rules on no mind control," she
insisted.

"There are no rules when it comes to war," Addy replied crisply. "People like to make them, but nobody follows them
when it comes down to wars of annihilation. To properly prepare these people to fight aliens above their weight
class, I cannot hamper myself by not using one of my strongest abilities. So no, I cannot."

"Well, if that's settled?" Barry less announced, more asked, glancing at Kara who, after a moment, nodded with great
reluctance. "With that settled, everyone, go and suit up so we can start getting ready."

The crowd began to scatter, pulling away to look for their costumes and get prepared.

Only, before Oliver could escape with them, Barry was jogging ahead. "Oliver!" he called out, a sharp note of
happiness in his voice.

Oliver paused, turned to look at him. "Yeah?"

Barry glanced back at the two of them before motioning them forward, Kara trailing after him and Addy after her.
Within a few steps, they all drew to a halt, standing in front of Oliver.

"I was excited for you two to meet Oliver," Barry said, motioning between the three of them.

Addy stepped forward, really looked at Oliver, and came to a frustratingly difficult problem. "We look nothing alike,"
she said, and it was the truth. There was no trace of Oliver or even Thea Queen in Addy's own features, as one
should expect. "I am uncertain why people keep assuming we're related."

Oliver sighed. "It's the surname mixed with the reputation my family has," he explained, voice rather deadened. "My
family has a bad habit of losing track of their own secrets."

Well. "I can safely assure you I am no way genetically related to you," she said, for it had to be.

"Oliver was the first one to train me," Barry interjected, his voice on the edge of giddy.

"Really?" Kara said, flashing him a genuine smile before turning to look at Oliver. "Well, you did a really good job."

"It's because I didn't hold back," Oliver said grimly, hands tensing at his side. "I shot him, once."

Kara shot Barry a scandalized look, who just shrugged.

"You can't hold back either," Oliver said, voice still dour and stern. "Not here, not with the stakes we have."

"He really did shoot me," Barry admitted. "So he's not speaking hyperbole."

Kara winced. "Ouch. But, don't worry, I won't hold back. Or, well, I will to an extent because I don't want to kill you, but
I won't sandbag like I would when fighting someone who isn't my enemy."

"No," Oliver cut in sharply. "Supergirl, Kara, you can't—"

Kara made a noise in the back of her throat, interrupting Oliver. "Oliver, I once stopped a spaceship the size of a high-
rise and made from hyper-dense alien metals from falling into my planet, and the only reason I failed from stopping
it from landing altogether is because the materials broke before I did, and then it exploded," she said, slowly, Oliver's
eyes widening in an almost comical display of shock. "I am not overstating that I can hit things hard enough to turn
them into smears. So, in pursuit of not killing everyone who wants to spar with me, I won't do that, but I will still fight
them like I was fighting an actual criminal, which means I'll still be hitting them hard enough, don't worry."

Oliver stared at her for a few more moments, lips pursing, before his eyes flicked to Addy. "And what about you?"

Addy shrugged. "I won't be taking part in it."

Oliver stared at her for a long moment. "Why?"

"As I explained before, not holding back means I win," she replied, matter-of-factly. "While I might have struggled to
take control of Kara in the past due to her natural psychic shielding, that is no longer the case. I have learned how to
breach through defences both artificial and natural, and it no longer requires most of my solar energy stores to do
so. All it would require is me touching Kara once for somewhere between three-point-nine-one seconds and five-
point-zero-four seconds, depending on the exact circumstance and state of her mind. Holding back, which you do
not want me to do, would be the only way to make this scenario into a useful training environment."

Kara stared at her for a moment. "You know, that's actually kind of terrifying to be on the other end of," she mused,
almost to herself. "It seemed so neat and practical when you say that to villains."

Addy reached out and, even if a little discomforted by the show of affection in a public space, patted Kara twice on
the shoulder. "Do not worry, you are not my enemy."

Kara coughed. "That does not help nearly as much as you think it does."

Either way, Oliver conceded her point with a nod. "Then what do you intend to do otherwise?"

"Ideally, I would use the time they'll be training to observe, categorize, and offer recommendations to others," she
said. "It is something I am fairly good at, as evidenced by Kara's eight-point-seven increase in her flight speed and
turning ability over the last fifty-nine days."

Kara gave her another weird look, but this time she didn't comment.

"That's fine," Oliver said, though he didn't sound enthusiastic. "Either way, these people need to understand that none
of this will be easy. This isn't taking down a mugger, or stopping a robbery. This is an invasion, a conflict with an
enemy force that does not care; they will mow them down if they hesitate. Therefore, Kara, you need to do as much
as you can to make it clear they can't hesitate or relax, or even get comfortable. Familiarity breeds contempt, and I
need you to make sure they know what they're fighting is not even remotely familiar."

With that, as Oliver Queen did seem to be the type of person for dramatic exits, he just walked away, leaving the
three of them to gawk.

"Yes sir," Kara muttered sarcastically, voice as dry as California during a drought. "Does he not like me?"

Barry winced. "He's... he's just like that. With everyone. He'll warm up to you."

Addy lounged in the beam of sunlight that fell in through the window above her, one leg tucked over the other as she
curled deeper into the surprisingly comfortable metal chair she had acquired from the veritable piles of things. In her
lap was a tablet, a loan from Felicity, who was very on-board when she told her her plan, and just requested that she
not break the thing.

Addy, not being clumsy, had almost been offended by the comment.

Off to the side, Kara stood in front of the fully suited-up crowd of people, both of her hands planted on her hips,
staring them down with a uniformly stern look. She was channelling Supergirl at the moment, in every sense of the
word.

"I'm going to make this clear: come at me all at once. Don't hold back, because I won't be, either." Her body lifted up,
pulled into the air as Kara slipped gravity's pull. "Some of you might have experience fighting enemies which are
naturally stronger or tougher than you, from what Barry has told me, you've also probably fought people with unique
abilities. That said, it would be a mistake to say you've seen it all."

Around Kara, people got into position, postures narrowing, preparing to attack her.

Then, without even a noise, an arrow sliced through the air. Kara tilted her head to one side, a casual bob of her
head, and the arrow missed; flashing past where her head had been, and slamming into the warehouse wall not too
far from where Addy was sitting, the arrow clattering to the ground.

Like a gunshot, it was the signal to begin.

The group converged on Kara as one, like a frothing swarm of force. Arrows shot themselves in perfect arcs towards
where Kara had been from the bows of both Thea and Oliver, and all of them bounced off of her chest. Kara even
went so far as to swipe out out of the air before it could hit her, and fling the thing back at the person who shot it at
her like a dart.

Ray Palmer, outfitted in a full set of power armour, flew in through the air, his arms brandished forward as blasts of
kinetic energy flew from his fists, blue bolts streaking through the air. Kara juked back, moving for the first time since
the fight began, and flipped around in the air, using what Addy had taught her about using her flight to maneuver to
angle a downward kick into Ray's head, sending the man hurtling into the ground with a triumphant yell.

Gunfire came next, jumping from the gun Diggle brandished her way, but these, like the arrows, didn't even leave a
dent. It was, after all, just a handgun; the types of bullets to make Kara move would be much higher calibre, generally
edging towards anti-tank rifles.

Out of the crowd, Mick and Sara emerged. Beneath Kara, Mick brandished his own weapon, which spat a torrent of
fire up at her, forcing her to move out of the way again. From the side, Sara sprinted ahead, leapt, and kicked off of a
metal container, bringing her long staff up with her as she went. She brought her arms back, and without a sound,
brought the staff down towards Kara's head.

Kara merely caught the staff in her hand and twisted around, Sara letting out an undignified screech as she was
whirled through the air and then launched towards where Ray had been, who scrambled ahead and just barely
managed to catch Sara, rather than act as her impromptu landing pad.

There was a beat of silence, people gawking at the casual disregard Kara had met their attacks with.

"Is it bad that I found that hot?" Sara asked weakly, her voice carrying through the warehouse.

There was a chorus of "yes"es from everybody else in the room.

Slowly, the downed individuals hauled themselves back to their feet and grouped back up with the rest, forming
ranks.

Kara, floating above them, planted her hands on her hips again. "Is that all?"

It was not. The group attacked again.

Addy kept half an eye on the fight as it unfolded, while the rest of her attention turned towards her notes. With
nimble fingers, she began to tap in her thoughts about the composition, and let her mind wander and begin to
analyze.

The first problem, she decided, was the composition of power and authority in the group. A lot of people in the group
relied on technology which could be taken, or otherwise didn't have inherently superhuman abilities, and these
people tended to fall into the role of leader. None of these were problems necessarily; an alien blaster could work
just as well as being able to fire kinetic blasts from one's fingers.

Even the inherently 'normal' members of the group were unlike the rest, Addy could recognize. As evidenced by the
way Oliver, at this very moment, was using his nearly impossible accuracy to repeatedly fire arrows at Kara's eye,
even knowing they wouldn't do damage, so she had to keep ducking out of the way to maintain line of sight on the
rest of them. The fact that he could do something like that on a moving target as fast as Kara meant he was more
than capable, so his actual abilities weren't the problem here.

No, the problem was that the people with the power to open up the defences of the enemy and let these highly-
skilled fighters get in their accurate attacks and quick blows were not working cohesively nor leading the charge. Of
the technology in the group, Mick's gun was among the very few things which actually made Kara get out of the way.
It was, therefore, likely highly dangerous, and thus it would mean Mick could probably do actual damage to the
Dominators.

Unfortunately, Mick did not lead the charges. He did not act as the wedge to pry the armour of his enemies open, nor
did he work in concert with Oliver to hem Kara in and restrict her movement before blasting her. Ideally, the focus
would be to use the less heavier hitters to corral enemies and then take them down as one, or to use heavy hitters
to, again, break open defences and leave them vulnerable to the more traditional human weapons of war.

But none of that was happening, because all of these groups were led by people who were not the heavy hitters.
Oliver was highly accurate and undoubtedly incredibly lethal with his compound bow on people, but they weren't
fighting people. Sara could, if her attempts were any indication, likely break a person's arm without missing a beat,
but again, they weren't fighting humans with particular joint shapes and durabilities.

Eyes drawing back to the fight for a moment, Addy watched Kara casually backhand Thea, sending her toppling to
the ground, before ducking beneath a swing of Sara's staff, pivoting her center of gravity, and turning to ram her knee
hard enough into Sara's stomach that the woman let out a loud, rasping wheeze, and toppled to the ground, the wind
knocked out of her.

Mick, with Sara between him and Kara, no longer had a proper firing range, and when he went to move to the side,
Kara lasered the ground where he was about to go, pivoted to catch an incoming punch from Ray, and threw the man
over her shoulder right into Mick, who let out a cry of pain as he was promptly squashed beneath a full suit of power
armour.

After a moment, Mick managed to dislodge Ray and pull himself to his feet, but by that point Kara had already
escaped outside of his range, leaving them to lick their wounds.

The most experienced in fighting were playing the role that should be reserved for the ones who hit the hardest.
Thea, Oliver, Sara—even Diggle, they were all highly capable and well trained, despite their outward appearance, but
they were trained to fight directly, to engage in person-to-person combat, and that wouldn't work. They were all used
to fighting people where their skills made them the heavy-hitters, where their role was to land critical attacks to
hobble or take their enemy down entirely.

Oliver had been more on the mark than he'd really known: familiarity bred contempt.

Beneath the noise of fighting as it picked back up again, Addy made out the sound of approaching footsteps.
Glancing up from her tablet, she caught sight of Kara freezing Mick's feet to the ground with a sharp huff, before
turning off to the side, and finding Felicity approaching her at a steady clip, her face nervous, though still smiling.

"So, what do you think?" Felicity asked, once she was close enough that her voice wouldn't be lost under the shouts
and banging.

Addy considered her next few words, sparing another glance at the fight, watching as Mick shouted and finally
wrenched his feet free, only to slip over the chunks of ice he left behind when Kara shoulder-checked Sara into him.

She glanced back down at the notes she'd taken on each person, what they were best at, their capabilities, and
pursed her lips. "They have a good mix of abilities," she asserted, flicking through what she'd already written down.
"That is, however, their biggest weakness as well. I have some ideas for team composition to refine and reduce the
negative impact of such a varied collection, but it nonetheless still reduces their ability to be good at any specific
thing. They don't have the manpower to make a wedge of strong hitters to break through a line of defenders, and as
it stands the ones who are taking up the attacking roles are not the ones who should be at the front and punching
through enemy defences."

She glanced up, finding Felicity staring at her. The nervousness had bled out of her expression, and in its place was
a cunning that Addy was rather delighted to see.

"Admittedly, I doubt Dominators are anywhere near as durable as Kara is, nor as strong, but how far that sentiment
can be extended when they're shot with a bow is unclear. If I had to make a guess, I would doubt that even Oliver's
own arrows would have a substantial impact, unless their durability is truly lower than I'm assuming."

Returning to the fight, Addy watched Kara stand triumphant among a series of downed individuals, all of them
breathing heavily, trying to get back to their feet.

"Not enough, you guys," Kara chided, without even a single hair out of place. "I've had harder fights against
individuals before."

Taking the bait with aplomb, the group gradually hauled itself back to its feet, and tried again.

The training lasted until sunset rolled around.

The people involved in it were visibly bruised, exhausted, and soaked in sweat. Thea was still looking for her
misplaced arrows, rummaging through some of the errant boxes, while Jax helped her look.

Addy's own notes on each person had been compiled and shared with Felicity through a group chat hours ago, as
had any following assessments, and some of her ideas had already been implemented, including a wedge formation
that had almost, almost managed to take Kara by surprise.

Kara, of course, looked only mildly weathered by the continued fighting. Her hair was a bit of a mess, and there were
smudge marks on her chin from where Ray had actually landed a hit on her and thrown her into a half-empty barrel
of something viscous, black and sticky, but other than that, she didn't look particularly worn out.

"Good!" she called out, having lost the Supergirl persona some hours ago. "That's a lot better, you guys!"

"Again," Oliver, the resident mule of the group, barked, shakily climbing to his feet.

"No," Barry interceded, drawing a sharp look from Oliver. "I... I think we need a couple of minutes to rest, at least.
C'mon, Oliver, I'm pretty sure you can barely walk."

As though to prove a point, Oliver hauled himself to a full stand and walked a full circuit around Barry, each step
seemingly giving him more energy, rather than less.

Barry just made a face.

Kara nodded at Barry. "You really should, or you'll wear yourselves out completely. We'll reconvene later."

With that, she pulled away from the group, stepping around a half-asleep Mick who was being poked by Sara, and
wandered in Addy's direction. It only took a few moments for her to arrive, and when she did, she smiled in her
direction, one of the bright, sunny smiles that made Kara almost blinding in her presence. "So, how have things been
going?"

"Good," Addy replied, stretching her leg out to its full length to work some of the stiffness out. "I have compiled a
wondrous amount of data on each person, which should aid them in not being eviscerated by hostile aliens. It
should also encourage them not to renege on their agreement with me to allow me to study their dimensional
breaching technology. I would prefer to get it consensually, rather than prying it from their heads. It's always rather
messy if I have to."

Kara nodded, not seemingly terribly surprised by her verdict as she hunched down. "I'll hold them to their promise as
well," she asserted. "They're all good at what they do, but I am still worried. Dominators aren't... easy to deal with,
from what I was told."

"I don't know enough about them to make a judgement," Addy replied, because she really didn't. She would need
hands-on information to come to a broader conclusion. "But at the very least people here seem to be particularly
good at surviving. Even if they may not succeed in taking down aliens as well as they could, they could still endure it."

Kara opened her mouth to reply, only for the noise to get drowned out by a sharp, sudden yell.

"You still don't think you should tell them?!" Cisco barked, outraged.

Addy turned her head, finding the man in question pointing what looked to be a rather antiquated iPod at Barry's
chest, knuckles almost white from how hard he was grasping it.

Kara glanced at her and, with a sharp jerk of her head, indicated for her to follow. Rising from her seat, she did just
that, trailing after Kara as the two of them made their way over to the growing crowd of onlookers, her borrowed
tablet tucked beneath her fleshy arm.

"Tell us what?" Sara asked, tone rather thin, despite the smokiness of her voice.

Seconds later, they arrived somewhere behind Sara, who gave them both a nod in greeting.

Barry glanced over the crowd, hesitating, but Cisco gave him a hard, hard look, and stepped away from him, giving
him the stage.

He took a breath in, then let it out. "Jax and Professor Stein found a message from me in the future saying that, right
now, I couldn't be trusted," he explained, turning around to fully face them.

Which, well, raised a number of questions. Time travel? She was more intrigued than anything else, but—

"And why would future you say something like that?" Sara inquired, her voice growing hard.

"...I think because I went back in time and changed the timeline," Barry said in almost a whisper; an admittance of
guilt. "And now things here are different from how it was before I left, including some of your lives."

Timeline changes through time travel were not implausible, but in her experience could only be fairly short-term.
Travelling back in time in the first place cost more energy than one could recover by doing it to begin with, and the
cost got exponentially higher the further back you needed to go. After a point, from what she could remember, time
travel required infinite energy.

Except, evidently, it did not. It depended on how far back he went, she supposed.

"Some of our lives? Like who?" Kara asked, though she didn't sound terribly nervous. Addy had gone over time travel
as a whole before, explaining its mechanics as much as she knew, and so Kara should know she was at least
partially safe from having her own timeline fucked with temporally unless Barry made a concerted effort to screw
with their version of Earth.

"Cisco, Caitlin," Barry said, slowly. "Wally. Dig."

"Me?" Diggle asked, horror creeping into his voice. "Why? What happened?"

Off to the side, Oliver leaned in and said something low enough that all Addy could make out was the clicks of the
vowels, nothing that told her what he said.

She didn't have to overhear it, though.

"I had a daughter, Barry?" Diggle asked, the horror now fully realized.

Barry nodded. "Baby John was baby Sara."

"So, wait, you—" Diggle paused, taking a moment to compose himself. "Let me get this straight: you just, uh—you just
erased a daughter from my life?"

Barry looked at him, long and slow and guilt-stricken. "Yeah," he replied, voice hoarse.

"It's not that simple," Addy replied, because it wasn't. "How far did you go back?"

Barry looked at her, lips twisting down in a frown. "Years, Addy. Years."

"That shouldn't be possible by my calculation," Addy admitted. "But that is concerning, otherwise."

"You can't just go back and change things like that, Barry," Sara said sharply, arms folding over her chest.

Which, he obviously did, so Addy wasn't sure what—

"I know," Barry replied sadly.

"You know how hard it is for me to not alter events?" Sara asked, which meant that time travel was apparently
considerably more common than she'd expected.

"You can travel through time as well?" Addy queried.

Sara gave her a look, but continued. "Yes, through the Waverider. You don't really seem to know how it works,
though."

"It's entirely possible," Addy agreed, a little excited about the prospect this time around. Apparently, even her model
of time travel would have to be updated, but that was for another day at this point.

Sara looked away from her and back to Barry, letting out a sigh. "I would've loved to bring my sister back, Barry, but I
can't. I know the implications."

"And all of those aberrations we've spent the last eight months travelling through time trying to correct, you just
decided it was okay for you to create your own?" Ray spoke up, sounding almost affronted.

Aberrations? In the timeline? Well, that might explain some things, now that Addy was considering it. Unshackled
time travel had never been an option for them in the past universe on account of the fact that causality didn't allow
aberrations or paradoxes, and would rather just collapse things back to a stable state if it happened to occur.
Evidently, the same could not be said for any of this.

Barry opened his mouth, a flush of shame on his face, but was cut off, this time by a sharp beep from someone's
phone.

The beep went off again, and then a third time.

"Guys?" Felicity called out, staring down at her phone as she got up from where she was sitting near the monitors.

Everyone turned to look at her.

"Guys, it's Lyla. The president has been abducted by the Dominators. She needs us now."

There was another beat of hesitation as people glanced around, Barry's eyes flitting across everyone present.

"Okay," Barry said at last. "Okay, you guys go. I'm going to sit this one out. Obviously, you have Supergirl, and she's
just as fast as me. Administrator can make up for the rest. Get the president, we can all talk about this later."

People began to pull apart, nodding and moving towards the door, when Barry stepped forward, up to Kara.

"Do you still trust me?" he asked, sounding painfully nervous about her answer.

Kara looked at him, looked at him close and hard and with the same scrutinizing gaze she sometimes levelled at
Addy when she gave opinions on sapience. "I can, because as far as what Addy's taught me about universal
entanglement, I'm unaffected by this. But the ones who aren't? That's going to take more time."

Barry breathed out, but nodded. "If you need me, I'll be there."

"Guys!" Oliver barked out, sounding affronted by everything around him. People froze, some mid-step, to turn to look
at him. "This is cr—hey! This is crazy! Everyone is going, including Barry! I'm not going to go without him!"

Diggle looked at Oliver, then shook his head. "Then you'll be here, Oliver."

Kara stepped forward, towards the crowd, and raised both of her hands. "Okay, you know what—Oliver, it's okay. I'll
go with them, you guys stay here, hold the base down." She turned, motioning for Addy to follow. Addy did after first
placing her tablet down next to Felicity, who mouthed a thanks in her direction. "We'll get the president and be right
back."

That, at least, seemed to solve things, and people converged as everyone but the scant few remaining behind moved
towards the door.
Last edited: Aug 19, 2021
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Threadmarks: SEASON 2 - EPISODE 37

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OxfordOctopus She/Her
(Unverified Jackanape)
Sep 16, 2021  #3,509

EPISODE 37​
The president's tracker led them to a very large, if unassuming industrial building, though Addy couldn't quite tell
what the purpose of it was. It was tiered, oddly enough, resembling something like a staircase, made from muted,
gray concrete with all of its large windows covered by metal bars. Pipes, rusted from disuse, crawled along the other
parts of the exterior like vines, primarily up the sides of the building, where they snaked back inside before reaching
the roof.

The area around the building was faintly wooded, a combination of tree clusters and long stretches of green grass.
That, at least, was a fairly distinct change from the countless other bland industrial buildings Addy had been forced
to engage with. That said, the lot it actually sat on was much like the building: made from the same gray concrete
and about two or three times larger than it altogether had any reason to be, meaning the line between it and the
trees was more than a few feet away.

It was colder in Star City than it was in National City, she noticed. It wasn't much of a surprise, considering Star City
was in the state of Washington, and it was only a mild sort of chill. If anything, it reminded Addy of the temperature
gradients in Brockton Bay; not too cold, yet not too hot, either.

Lights illuminated the area inconsistently, spread out without any seeming rhyme or reason. The only constant were
the street lights, which snaked a path just beyond the square lot of land, stretching back towards the city they had
just left. The sky was clear and empty, leaving the shining moon visible above her head, if not the stars, which lost
their battle against light pollution back when humans had figured out how to make electric lights.

Kara touched down on the grass just beyond the lot, and Addy followed her, the heel of her boot settling into the
brittle, darkening grass. Behind her, she could hear the rest of the group amble forward, consisting of Sara, Diggle,
Ray, Mick, and Firestorm, who as it would turn out, was rather a fusion of Jax and Professor Stein; some sort of
composite entity that was maintained by, as far as she could tell, a strict pattern and system derived from a complex
matter transmutation matrix.

How exactly that worked, Addy wanted to know. If it was made by humanity, then humanity had a large number of
questions to answer about why it kept designing things hundreds of years beyond its scientific knowledge.

Still, that was for later.

"You sure we're in the right place?" Ray asked into the open silence of the night, his voice carrying just the slightest
bit. She turned to look at him, watched as his head swivelled to take in the trees, the grass, before settling on the
warehouse in front of them. His lips were pulled into a pensive frown, like he wasn't entirely sure what he should be
doing with himself.

"Well, this was the last place the president's tracker gave a signal," Kara provided, herself not looking away from the
warehouse. "So he should be nearby. And if I had to make a guess..."

Kara squinted, then, eyes flicking over the building so rapidly it rather surprised Addy to find she could follow each
movement of her eyes. After a moment, she glanced back and nodded once. "Yup. He's in the building. Bottom floor,
too."

"Did you pick up anything else?" Addy inquired.

Kara grimaced. "No, but then the building's got a lot of lead in it. Paint and pipes, mostly. It's only the places where
it's had to be replaced that I could pick anything out, and anything on the upper floors is completely beyond me." She
muttered something underneath her breath, only fragments of which Addy could make out, and mostly consisted of
things to the tune of 'how can you not test something like lead before you put it everywhere?'

"So, how'd y'know that?" Mick asked, cutting through Kara's mumbling.

Kara blinked, glancing back at him with a baffled look. "Well," she said, and her voice made it abundantly clear she
did not have any idea why he'd ask something like that. "I can see them."

It was Mick's turn to give Kara a confused stare, though his came out more bewildered than anything else.

Another blink, and the lights went on in Kara's head again. "Right, you guys—uh, don't have Kryptonians," she said,
each word spoken like she was tasting how they felt on her tongue. A curious tone, for sure, Addy made note of it.
"I'm too used to people knowing every last thing about my powers before I know anything about them. For the
record, I have x-ray vision."

"It's not literal x-ray vision," Addy added, because someone had to after Clark had tainted the discussion by calling
his vision that before asking literally anyone what the words 'x-ray vision' might mean when combined like that.
"More accurately, it is her capacity to see through solid barriers. Its major limitation is that it is blocked by lead,
which your country has an exceedingly unpleasant amount of in places where it should not be."

Kara's face twitched. "What she said—"

"Oh," Mick breathed, a viscerally unpleasant and mischievous look creeping itself across a face that was much more
suited for hard and stoic expressions. "You can see everyone's bits with those little peepers, huh?"

Kara locked up as though she had been shocked. Her mouth opened, shut, then reopened after a moment of
deafening, mortified silence. "No, I—why would you even—"

"Ignore him," Sara said, cutting off Kara's spluttering and levelling a thoroughly unamused expression at Mick.

Mick turned to look at Sara as well and, with the grace of a construction vehicle, merely shrugged.

Kara's eyes flit between them for a moment, before landing on Mick. "Well, uh—how'd you get the name Heat Wave?"
she asked, transparently trying to change the topic of the conversation.

Addy could see her own influence on Kara, and found herself delighted. Before this, Kara would've deflected and
tried to move to a related, if less crass topic, and here she was now blatantly switching tracks. Perhaps her
bluntness was finally getting across as the ideal means of conversation.

"I burned my family alive, and I also like to light things on fire," Mick replied ever-so-casually.

Sara, off to the side, pressed one of her hands into her face, covering her eyes yet not quite managing to hide the
exhausted expression she was wearing.

Addy most certainly could not relate. She didn't have much of an opinion on the necessity of Mick's childhood - and
seemingly ongoing - pyromania, but she didn't really have to have one, either. He was much more familiar territory to
her, all things considered, as Earth Bet had been rather full of people like him. Mick was exactly the sort of person
she would've expected Taylor to meet; the rough edge of severe childhood trauma filed down to a utilitarian bent
that let him do horrific things with the various implements of war he had come upon in his life without flinching. She
understood the sort of neurotic rhythm that went on in the heads of people like Mick much better than she did, say,
Winn's brain, even though she had a much better mental grasp on the latter's.

"You're very nostalgic," Addy said, addressing Mick directly. "It is nice to see not all things change, even after passing
between theoretically impossible universal boundaries."

Mick's eyes skated to her, and the man actually looked rather affronted, almost annoyed. "How's that the case?" he
asked.

"The universe I originated from - separate from the one I now share with Kara - was rather filled with people like you,"
she clarified eagerly, offering him one of the smiles she had been practicing. Most of the time, she could only smile
when the situation was right and enough good things overlapped, but as of late she had been trying to at least get
down the general shape of a smile to use in polite conversation. "It's just that they would be equipped with powers
as a consequence of their trauma. It was, in my opinion, a supremely effective means to acquire conflict data."

"...How did a place like that function?" Ray asked, almost sounding afraid to ask.

Addy shrugged. "By definition? It did not."

"Well!" Kara interjected, before Addy could extrapolate about the various factors leading to societal collapse. She
clapped her hands together, glancing between them. "That's a uh, colourful backstory, Mick."

"My shrink thinks so too," Mick said, nodding along. "And by the way, I'm not going to call you Supergirl. It's stupid."

Kara jolted, paused, and then scrunched her chin a bit. She looked, in Addy's opinion, utterly out of her depth. "You
could call me Kara?" she suggested.

Mick shook his head solemnly. "That won't work either."

Sparing another glance around the group, Addy saw that most who actually had to interact with Mick regularly
looked completely resigned to whatever was unfolding in front of them. Addy was, by comparison, finding the entire
sequence profoundly rude, and made a mental note to instruct Mick on mannerly behaviour in the near future.

"Well, what're you going to shout if you need my help?" Kara tried, instead, apparently attempting to appeal to Mick's
sense of practicality.

Which was a mistake. Just by what Addy had observed, she had a rather strong sense that Mick was unpractical by
nature until it suited him to be otherwise.

Mick just gave Kara a long look over. It wasn't lurid - had it been, Addy would've interjected and stopped that - but it
wasn't exactly a flattering once-over, by the look on his face. "Skirt," he declared with absolute conviction.

Thea snorted. "Seriously?"

Mick nodded once. "Seriously," he said, his eyes turning towards Addy. She felt a rather impending sense of
discomfort washed over her, already having a rough simulation for how the conversation was about to go. "And for
you..."

Addy levelled the flattest, most imperial look she could reasonably manage. "You will follow proper decorum," she
declared, cutting him off before he could attempt to name her. Nobody got to name her but her, thank-you-very-
much.

Rather than Thea snorting, it was Mick this time. "Yeah, no, not happening," he replied, tilting his head to one side as
he took her in. "I think I'm gonna call you... hrm. Twig? Maybe Pale?"

"You will not," Addy interjected archly.

"No, no, you're right," Mick agreed, Addy's tension briefly flagging. Had he seen his idea was— "Curly's better," he said
after another moment, ruining any chance at reconciliation. "Well, no, that's not great either. You're surprisingly hard
to find a name for."

"My name is Addy," she replied, her hopes dashed that Mick would spontaneously generate some sense in his
unpleasantly square head. She should have never bet on the spontaneous generation of anything, it never worked
out in her favour. "Which you will call me. If Addy does not work, then Administrator or Queen Administrator will
suffice. If you are so inclined towards refusing even that, you will call me nothing."

Mick ignored her, snapping his fingers once. "Ah, that's it. Stick, for the one lodged so far up your ass it's threatening
to poke out whenever you open your mouth," he declared, Addy feeling her annoyance rise another notch, though it
was tempered by a rather profound sense of confusion. "Stick," he said, pointing at her, before moving his hand to
gesture at Kara. "And Skirt. It just works."

"I believe I would have noticed, had there been an intrusive object that large inserted into me," Addy remarked, voice
coming out flat and cold, though not so much that it could hide the confusion she was still feeling. "Are you certain
you're not having a mental breakdown? My species chose people like you for the regularity in which you fall prey to
bouts of delusion and mental instability."

Mick stared at her for a moment, his expression contemplative. "Stick'll do," he declared, and Addy had the strength
of mind not to reach out to his brain and remove the word stick from his undoubtedly minuscule vocabulary. "Good
talk. Won't be needing help from either of you, but at least one of you has some teeth."

With that, Mick turned and trundled back towards the front of the group, leaving Addy with a name she did not ask
for a profound urge to injure Mick in some way he could not reasonably hide. She turned to look at Kara, who looked,
if not angry, then at least rather displeased with the conversation that had just unfolded in front of her.

Kara scrunched her chin deeper into her neck, her cheeks inflated, and she looked, for a moment, mightily awkward
about the entire thing, before exhaling.

The rest of the group gave the two of them a round of shrugs, turning to follow Mick as he approached the industrial
building with all the grace of a man who had yet to be murdered by the things he threw himself into, and had
therefore developed the delusion that he was incapable of suffering any lasting consequences for his actions.

She made a mental note to correct that, too.

When Kara moved to walk after them, Addy did the same. They closed the distance with the rest of the pack in short
order, Kara pulling ahead and to the front of the group as they transitioned from grass to concrete, and then finally
arrived at the massive, sheet-metal doors that led into the building itself. One of them had been left ajar, and when
pushed open carefully by Kara, swung completely open.

Inside of the building, it was predictably dark, gloomy, and full of dust. The windows let in their own shafts of pale
moonlight, leaving faintly glowing bands cutting through the gloom, but what it revealed was nothing that the
outside hadn't already revealed. There was a lot of old, rusted metal and concrete, alongside a profound lack of
appreciable colour. The space itself had a series of mesh metal catwalks bolted in place above them, with a variety
of abandoned boxes and hanging chains, but other than that it was almost painful in its blandness.

Kara strode in first, but nobody else was far behind. Addy could spot the others making their own sweeping glances
around the space, whether to look for threats or be as utterly disappointed as she was with the decor, it didn't
matter.

She had a job to do.

Reaching out to her core, Addy eased it into action, drawing on her powers. She adjusted the configuration on it and
spread it out, letting it swallow up the entirety of the space, little more than a field to sense other telepathic
presences.

And there were a lot of them. Over forty in total, she could feel them hanging just outside of their line of sight, tucked
behind barrels and crates. Their presences were, in the truest sense of the word, alien, slick against her own
awareness in what she assumed was a rudimentary attempt to hide their psychic presence. Some succeeded better
than others, their presence so faint and so hard to grasp onto that it was like attempting to grab a wet bar of soap,
but most were not as good.

Before she could react to that, to any of this, the president himself came into sight.

He was ahead of them, up a small ramp made of concrete. Both of his hands had been bound in front of him, and he
was wearing a fairly traditional tuxedo set. He was stumbling, a bruise purpling the side of his face, and glanced
around the space in a frantic burst, his eyes falling on them.

"Look, the president!" Firestorm yelled, and everyone's heads snapped around, catching sight of him.

Immediately, Kara jogged forward.

The president, seeing her and the rest of them, stumbled towards them. "Get me out of here!" he barked, almost
commanded, eyes wide and terribly desperate.

"Stop!" Addy yelled, and everyone froze.

Kara's head snapped around to look at her.

Addy glanced up, already feeling the presences beginning to converge. "Dominators," she said, because what other
alien species could be here?

And she was right.

The Dominators slunk out from behind boxes, chairs, abandoned tables and around the sides of walls. They were
just as unpleasant-looking as the blurry image of them implied. Glistening, pale skin run through by almost irritated
veins of red, arms down to their knees and legs like stilts, with lithe and thin torsos, the Dominators were in no sense
of the word appealing on the eyes. They did have two eyes of their own; beady, black things sunken in behind yet
more raised, red-and-white flesh, and their mouth was full of razor-sharp, needle-like teeth, each easily as long as
their fingers.

They wore no clothing, but then they didn't seem to need it in the first place. Their bodies were, for lack of a better
word, sexless; if the species did show any degree of sexual dimorphism, Addy could not ascertain what exactly the
parameters of it were at the moment.

Another Dominator crept up next to the first, placing a black pylon down, the center of it fitted with a jagged, red
crystal. It glowed mutedly, and after a moment to seemingly check that it was working, the Dominator retreated back
to the rest of the line, blending back into the crowd of incoming attackers.

Around her, the group prepared for war. Weapons were drawn, eyes narrowed; nothing was fired, no attacks were
called, but then Addy had little reason to think that the peace would last.

"Release the president!" Kara shouted. "We don't need to fight!"

In response, a pulse of psychic energy fell over her. It pushed into her own sense, colliding, and she could feel the
rough intent behind it. A desire to communicate, not to reach anything deeper. She could do nothing for the rest -
she had felt the pulse reach them, too, and they didn't have the faculties needed to reject a psychic link - and,
considering she would not bet on her losing in a mental tug of war, wordlessly let it in, though only through her first
layer of security.

"We knew you would come," a hissing chorus of voices announced. It was a direct transmission, crude, but one the
species had clearly refined over the ages.

"Did you guys hear that? Because I just heard that in my head," Ray announced rather nervously.

"Yeah," Sara said. "We heard it."

"Well," Ray breathed, sounding oddly abashed. "If nobody else is freaked out by it, far be it for me to panic."

"You don't need to harm him to get whatever it is you want from us," Kara said, returning to the conversation at hand
as she stared up at the row of Dominators. "Release him, and nothing will happen to you."

There was a hiss of displeasure, sharp and distinctly mocking, that followed Kara's proclamation. "We know what you
are, sun-leech, child of Krypton," the voices droned. The Dominator who had stepped free from the rest raised their
arm towards the president, fist closed, a light flickering to life on the surface of their metal cuff. "He is not the one we
want."

Without hesitation, the cuff erupted with light. A green streak jumped from it and to the president, who barely had
the time to look, see the projectile coming, and disintegrate into identically coloured green mist when it hit him. Addy
felt him die, a flicker of his psychic presence before it was altogether snuffed out, vanishing into nothing over the
period of half a second.

"No!" Kara cried out, voice horrified.

"It's a trap!" Diggle shouted, turning and immediately firing off two shots towards the Dominator's center mass.

The bullets sent the Dominator shuffling back just a mere foot, not enough to stop them from reaching out and
grasping hold of the red crystal next to them. In a single burst, Addy felt their psychic presence swell, washing over
them like a torrential downpour, a torrent that had those around her stumbling, screaming out in sudden pain as they
clutched their heads.

The attempt was made on her, too. She could feel the way it worked: the energy, riding down the psychic connection
they'd opened to speak to them, filling it and widening it until it could ram through and strip the defences from the
mind. The energy slammed into her, and she, of course, held.

That was the one mistake they were to be allowed.

When she held, she felt, through the link they'd opened, a flare of confusion. When she grabbed hold of the engorged
psychic link and began pushing her own psychic presence through it, carving aside the amplified energy they had,
she felt terror. Only, it was much too late to renege on this; the connection was thick and stable, not weak and easily
broken, and they were no longer in full control of the equation. It took her mere moments to ride the connection back
up to its source, and each of those seconds filled her mind with their panic.

She reached out with her psychic presence and slammed it into the other links, severing half of them from the rest
of the group, before she tightened her hold on the network trying to control her, and dove in.

It was time to see what she was working with.

The presence of the Dominator hivemind was one that screamed at Addy's intrusion. Countless thoughts flickered in
the void of the connection, a vast and far-arrayed web of impressions and intent passed back and forth, most of it
filled with a visceral kind of panic. The winding energies and psychic playback from it all turned into loud
background noise, a sort of psychic humming that came about from too many transmissions in much too short a
time, like the feedback from having two walkie-talkies in too close a proximity to one another.

The interference, of course, only broadened as Addy twisted and reached out with psychic tendrils, firmly rooting
herself into the network and giving herself something of a foothold.

Taking the network in, Addy was reluctant to admit it... was not as substandard as she had come to expect out of
the native inhabitants of the known universe. It was, really, not entirely unlike the one she and her kin had used, if
much more decentralized and significantly less complex. That wasn't to say the deeply-rooted patterns of the
network were anything approaching her own, but similar ideas and necessities had been used to shape this one as
had been to shape her past one.

Because of its decentralized - and currently panicking - nature, it was hard to pick out anything approaching an
individual among the noise and blinking minds. Which was a rather large problem, as if what Kara had said bore any
degree of truth to these Dominators, they probably had someone in charge who she could speak to, and-or shred
apart to warn off. She felt a degree of respect for their capacity to stumble onto a workable hivemind network
system, but not so much that she was about to overlook their attempt to mind control her, let alone their attempt to
mind control Kara.

Nobody was allowed to do that. Not even her.

Well, technically, Addy had something of a blank cheque from Kara about her taking control of her if she fell victim to
red kryptonite again, but that was just part of their emergency plans and not particularly relevant to the ongoing
situation.

The noise faded. Slowly, at first, but growing faster with each passing moment, until it had faded entirely and she
was left being dwarfed by the silence of a network suddenly gone quiet, and the incoming presence of another.

"What are you?" This was a single voice, though it was not alone. She could still vaguely feel the others in the
network, even if it was hard to tell how many truly remained. There still was interference, but this time the
interference seemed to be intentional, making it nearly impossible to tell the exact quantity.

She would break that in a moment. Greetings were in order.

[HANDSHAKE] she sent back, rather not in the mood to provide more than the most basic package to decode the
glut of information.

The sole presence interacting with her churned in what Addy was fairly sure was pain at the intrusion, but to their
credit, it took them merely a few seconds to apparently absorb the psychic package.

"You're not a Star-Conqueror?" the voice asked once more, this time in a monotone.

Which... [CLARIFICATION].

There was a pause.

Then, in a delightful change of pace, she was given a psychic package. There was a flurry of images, feelings,
presences and the like passed back to her, unfolding into understandable data streams that she quickly processed.
The images came first, flashing across her awareness to paint a picture of a starfish-like creature with a single,
bulbous eye. The emotions that accompanied it were thick, resentful and bitter, but also, beneath it all, rather afraid.

There were flashes of a world, next, ones the creatures invaded, back when they had just been bestial entities
wandering space, no more intelligent than a pack of ants. They fell on the planet from their Mother Star, were born
from her like splitting atoms; more clones than siblings. The planet they landed on was one with a powerful psychic
species that they quickly overwhelmed, reducing their population as they worked them to death, ripping away at the
structure of their hivemind and taking it into themselves.

And, as a consequence, taking with it the madness that had corrupted it. The madness that had been born of the
worldwide population of psychics being overrun, of feeling their friends and family wink out among their own
network and die sudden, miserable deaths. The impressions of both the deaths and the visceral reactions to it had
lingered, and when the Star-Conquerors had taken to devouring the species' psychic network, they had been infected
with both it and a degree of sapience.

The Star-Conquerors, in a single invasion, went from a pest species which could get out of hand if not dealt with
sufficiently, up to that of a wandering apocalypse. Strengthened intellectually and psychically as they were, but now
very rabid, they spread across the galaxy and did exactly what parasitic, unhinged psychic entities would do: destroy
and consume most things in their path.

She would know. She had once belonged to a cluster of them.

The context for the memories was after the fact; a story regaled, but not an ongoing issue. The Dominators
seemingly continued to be hassled by the Star-Conquerors, but whatever they had done to protect themselves was
preventing anything from approaching an invasion.

[EXPLANATION], she sent, informing them that, no, she was most certainly not the psychic space parasite they were
looking for - though she felt it perhaps best to not include her nature as one for the time being - and that she was,
most likely, the last of her people, so if they sought retribution, they would not find it there. She also imparted her
authority: that this was not going to be let go, as they had tried to control her, and she felt it best not to encourage
that sort of thing.

They had overstepped, and they now knew her might. They could feel her much better than she could them.

It took much less time for the presence to respond.

"It is too late for retribution against my kind," they sent, radiating smugness. "It is too late for you to gain a foothold in
our greater network. We have already quarantined this part like the diseased limb it has become. We were left to
maintain order among those who could not escape."

And, she knew, they would die, and do so gleefully, to ensure their plan did not falter.

With that, the presences attacked. Their psychic means to hide from her sight dropped as forty psychic presences
rammed into her, trying to uproot her from their network. The one who had been speaking with her joined in, their
presence almost doubling the collective power of the rest.

It was... not very amusing.

It was a suicide attack, everything thrown into it, and she didn't so much as budge.

Wordlessly, she sent out a twist of her will and, rather simply, tore her connection and the connections of everyone
else free from them, now that she had a grasp on all of the presences. As she was yanked back out of the network,
she felt over half of the presences wink out instantly, evidently unable to take the strain of her power.

While understandable to shatter beneath her presence at times, she hoped she wouldn't have to explain that.

From her perspective, the entire exchange had felt like it had taken nearly a minute.

But it hadn't been. The speed of thought was rather much faster, especially among psychics, and thus Addy felt
herself settle back into her body just a breath after the attempt to take them over had started, motes of red still
visible as they clung to people and various surfaces. Around her, the others were letting go of their heads, rising
back up to their feet, wobbling with effort.

"Wh—what was that?" Kara croaked, clutching at her temples like they might be the secret button to reducing
psychic-induced headaches.

"A failed attempt to control all of you," Addy announced, eyes flicking up. She watched a Dominator stumble forward
towards the railing, bleeding from just about every hole on their body, and topple forward. There was a jerk from the
group around her, but she didn't move, not even when it hit the concrete floor with a wet, fleshy crack, completely
still. "They quarantined me from their network, so I could only do so much. I did, however, free you, and it would
appear I used too heavy of a hand."

Another Dominator stumbled out, some sort of cloaking tech falling away from its body as it fell forward, having
been hiding behind a box off in the corner. It landed on the ground, and proceeded to let out a long, pained whistle,
before going still.

"I should have removed most nearby threats, though."

Not all of them, clearly, as above she saw movement. Not the stumbling, brain death sort, but rather the sharp
movement of someone attempting to flee the scene of a crime.

"Belay that," Addy announced, rising into flight and ignoring Kara's confused look for the time being. Her questions
could wait. "It would appear these things are more intelligent than they first let on." She had been assuming the
quarantine had been in part a matter of proximity—that anyone within a set portion of the network was defined by
their physical presence, but she was seeing rather more upright and alive Dominators than there should be, if that
was the case. "They are fleeing, and we will not give them the chance."

Around her, the others had risen back to their feet and looked in the direction of the aforementioned threat with grim,
hardened looks. Even Kara was looking rather displeased by the turn of events, though Addy was quite willing to
admit she could understand her frustration with people tampering with her mind. She had a recent history rather full
of such events.

An arrow shot itself from the group. It slipped through the air and didn't so much pierce as it sliced across the
surface of a turning Dominator, carving a shallow line down the side of its face, rather than lodging itself through
one cheek and out the other. The Dominator let out a strained, sharp hiss of pain, but didn't turn, and moved to flee
with the rest instead.

Like a gunshot, the group was off.

Kara flew ahead of her instantly, screaming up through the air and tackling one of the Dominators who were fleeing
along the catwalk. Ray and Firestorm moved with her, as the two other fliers in the group - excluding Addy herself, of
course - and broke off in opposite directions. Firestorm lashed out with one hand, skimming fingers across the
railing of the metal walkway, and with a twist of energy that Addy sensed as a flare on her mental awareness,
converted a chunk of the catwalk into water.

The two Dominators standing where the catwalk had once been plummeted with shrieks of annoyance and
confusion, landing with heavy thuds against abandoned boxes and crates. Mick passed Addy's side in a sprint,
raised his flame gun, and swallowed the place where they landed in a shower of unthinkably hot plasma.

The Dominators screeched, scrambling to get free, only for Thea to hem them back into the wreckage. Arrows
threatened to stab into eyes, taking them hard enough in the limbs to jostle them back. Diggle fired alongside her,
gunshots crack-crack-cracking through the open air of the building, reverberating, each bullet sending them another
step back, returning them to the blaze.

Above, Ray slammed into a Dominator just as they tried to leap through a window to escape. Gauntleted fingers
closed around the arm of the alien and wrenched it back, and then into the catwalk, making the entire thing shudder
and ring like a bell. He drew his other hand back, then threw it forward, punching the Dominator in the face with
enough force to have its head rattle against the metal floor. Electricity flared around his fingers as he unfurled his
fist, and with a thrust of his palm, he closed his hand around the Dominator's face, and proceeded to electrocute
them.

After a few moments, he relinquished the head, which fell back on the catwalk, still and unconscious.

Addy herself flew ahead, passing all of the conflict by and throwing herself through the back door. She emerged on a
street leading out into the industrial sector of Star City, and found herself facing another twenty-four Dominators,
each of whom were trying, in their own way, to flee. Among them were dead allies, whether dragged or living for just
long enough to flee, who were scattered across the ground like autumn leaves. The dead ones bled from their eyes,
their mouths; their blood a thick, viscous tar-like fluid that congealed into sticky puddles.

To her side, the wall shattered. A Dominator came tumbling out through the debris and dust, landing harshly on the
concrete a few steps ahead of her, alive, but in no place to get back up and start running. The scattered Dominators
ahead of her twisted around, turned to look, just in time to see Kara land next to her, and for the rest of the group to
emerge from the door behind her.

They were met with a chorus of snarls, hisses and roars. Addy could taste the rage wafting from their psychic
presences, aware of it as she might be the ripples on a pond. She was more familiar with the way their psychic
abilities worked, the way it reverberated across sympathetic links and between minds. They were angry, rage-filled,
hateful and scornful in being met by a force they could not beat.

But they were also so very afraid.

Arms raised and from cuffs flew streaks of green energy that the group around her ducked and swerved to avoid.
Addy took to the air, higher than the rest, even as more Dominators tracked her than they did the entire rest of the
group. She spun to one side at an incoming smear of green, rolling through the air, and diving low to avoid a volley
that aimed in a scattershot above her. Pulling on her flight, she pushed as hard as she could go, faster than she had
managed before, with those higher peaks her changing biology enabled her.

The world blurred, and she slammed into the pack of Dominators with force. Her hand lashed out, catching a
Dominator on the face, pushing her intent into them only to find the Dominator's connection to the greater whole of
their network yanked away by the rest. The Dominator squealed, a mournful noise of betrayal, and she discarded
them with a lash of her arm, sending them into the three Dominators on her left like a ball through pins.

Arms swivelled, energy collected, and Addy lunged skywards again, a series of ten or more lances of green energy
cratering the space she had just been standing in.

The rest of the group moved to fill the gap. Arrows fell like hail into the front of the Dominators, slipping across skin
and, in one case, lodging into an eye deep enough to remain that way. Gunshots barked into the night from behind,
pausing only briefly to reload. Ray's arms lit up in a myriad of colours before discharging in a wide band of energy,
crashing against the group like the tide, shoving them back.

Addy dove down, and watched the group splinter under the assault. Five or six remained behind, their attention torn
completely free of Addy and now back towards the rest of the group, firing those same bolts that had wiped the
president from existence. The hail of fire from the group faltered, as she imagined they ducked for defences,
barricades, to avoid a similar fate.

The rest, of course, made a running retreat. Arms pointed towards her as she gained on them, needing to swerve to
the side every few seconds to avoid another shot, but the distance between her and the ones running fell away as
quickly as it had been made.

Reaching out, she took hold of two Dominators, one in each hand, and reached for their psychic presences, for the
network behind them—

And was denied as they, too, were torn from the greater whole. The Dominators she was holding tight to stumbled,
more cries of pain and confusion as they were broken from the greater hivemind. Their value plummeted, and with a
twist, she flung them behind her, sending them careening into the back line meant to protect the ones retreating. The
sound of the wrist-mounted energy blasters cut off when she did, and in turn, the twang of a bow, the crack of a gun,
and the steady scream of Ray's energy blasts replaced it.

The group of Dominators she was chasing suddenly screeched to a halt and turned, in unison, back towards her.
Arms were raised, and within seconds the air was filled with green blasts, forcing Addy to fly further up to avoid it.
Their arms swivelled with her, a firing line separated far enough from her back-up to keep them from interfering, and
fired again.

She flew low, ducking beneath the hail as it screamed into the night sky.

Arms continued to track her, and they fired in perfect unison. Wherever the green energy hit, matter was torn away
like cotton fluff, spraying into the open air. It took nearly a foot of depth from the road they were on when she had to
fly up again to avoid them, scraping the top layer of paint away, leaving ragged cracks in the material.

Then, they faltered.

From behind, Addy could feel the rest of the group converging on her. Arrows skimmed through the air, taking one of
the Dominators in the shoulder. Another gunshot barked into the night, and one of the Dominators almost crumpled,
clutching a weeping wound on their forehead.

"I radioed Barry," Ray announced as Addy landed on the ground next to him and Kara. "He's coming in from behind
with Oliver. They're trapped."

The Dominators might even know that, too. Their arms were raised, ready to fire on them, but they hadn't done so
since the rest of the group had caught up.

"Don't have any leverage left," Mick rumbled, beginning to march forward.

A Dominator lunged, one long arm lashing out into an alley next to him. A woman's scream pierced the night as a
struggling figure was hauled free of it by her hair, both of her hands reaching up to grab at the wrist of the alien, only
to slip off each time she tried to grab hold.

Everyone froze.

No more than fifteen Dominators were remaining. The rest of the invasion fore - for, in all truth, that's what it was;
abducting and then killing the leader of a country could mean little else - were dead or incapacitated for the
moment. Addy could only feel the Dominators, though she wished she had checked for other presences at the time.
She had been too occupied trying to keep track of the ones with a better grasp on concealing themselves from her,
so she'd completely looked over any other entities besides herself, the Dominators, and the group she had come
with.

What was their game? They should know that grabbing the woman and running would've been in their better
interests, as it would stop them from firing on them. Yet, they weren't moving, weren't executing her in a show of final
defiance. They were just standing there, hostage in tow.

"Put her down," Kara said, at last, breaking the icy silence. "Right. Now."

The Dominator's mouth quirked, grotesquely, almost in the mockery of a smile. "As you insist."

He dropped the woman.

Addy felt the flare of energy, but it was already too late.

Shafts of yellow light dropped from the sky, chafing against the space around it. It fell on the Dominators, their
bodies going hazy in the beam.

But it also fell on the group.

Addy had the time to grab Kara and lunge to the side before the beams could fall on them, but couldn't do the same
for anyone else. A shaft of yellow energy had fallen over the group like a curtain, and she had just enough time to
turn, catching the sudden, fearful look from Thea, before their bodies winked out of existence, a pulse of spatial
energy rippling across her focus.

The Dominators vanished with them.

They had been whisked away, to who-knows-where.

Kara let out a shout of panic, head swivelling around as she pulled free of Addy's grip, looking for them, but...

Addy caught her attention and shook her head. "I can't sense them, they're not nearby," she said.

"Were they—like the president?" Kara asked, breath coming out in a rush of anxiety.

"I would've felt them die," she said. "They were taken."

Barry's figure blurred into existence next to them, his feet catching on dust and gravel on the street, almost skidding
out. His expression was one of tight panic, his breath came in heaving gulps, and both of his hands landed on his
knees. "They took Oliver!" he cried.

When their trick had failed, and she had breached their network, they had devised another plan. They had led them
out here, they had sacrificed their own, and used it to keep them in an open space, with the sky above them. They
had purposefully dragged the situation out to trap them.

And Addy had nearly fallen for it. She should've assumed something had changed in their modus operandi when
they stopped to face her. The road before them could still be followed, it stretched on into an area with even more
people, not just the sole homeless woman who was currently sobbing in panic on the sidewalk, not taken during the
transfer. They had more opportunities to take hostages and get an advantage, had they just kept moving.

But they had stalled for time, and she should've realized it.

Addy felt a knot of anger crawl into her throat. She had miscalculated, taken things as a given, and now most of the
team which were intended to protect this version of Earth were gone.

"I'm going to contact Felicity," Barry said at last, voice hardening, rising up from where he was hunched over. "We
need help to track them down."

Addy let that refocus her, let that be the new goal. Finding the ones who they had taken. It wouldn't be simple - if
anything, it would be comically difficult, seeing as they could be anywhere - but it was a goal, a task, and one she
could pursue.

Kara, next to her, nodded, and Barry pulled out his phone.

The elevator was one of the least inspired things Addy had ever occupied. It was, simply, white, pure white on every
surface and quite literally glowing. The only thing that stood out was the elevator buttons, which themselves were so
light gray it was nearing the white of the surface it was planted on.

Kara stood next to her, back leaning against the wall, her head tilted down and face looking like it was captured in
deep thought. Next to her, Barry stood, shuffling awkwardly in place, while across from him, Felicity stood with a look
of near-panic, while Cisco determinedly looked everywhere except for where Barry was standing.

They had filled Felicity and Cisco in on what happened, and after some discussion, they had decided to return to
Oliver's base of operation: a place he apparently refused to call, but had nonetheless been christened, 'The
Arrowcave'. It was located under Oliver Queen's mayoral campaign building, of all places, and Addy had the sense of
mind to find a way to tell him how incredibly bad of a hiding place this was when she next had his ear. You do not put
your secret-identity-related bases anywhere near property you own or are highly associated with.

He should really know that. It was so basic that she wondered what else he might have completely missed and was
currently impacting his personal safety.

Then again, Addy disliked secret bases mostly on principle. Or at least the ostentatious types of secret bases that
require slow, awkward, and tension-filled elevator rides down to. You would always need a place to maintain your
operation if you had one, of course, Taylor had both her own workshop and a place to manage the various things in
her territory when she had been in charge of it, but then those hadn't really qualified as secret bases. People, after
all, knew about them, and had stayed away because invading the secret base of a bug controller for the sole
purpose of going to her room full of incredibly poisonous spiders was something even the most inept of people
knew better than to do.

If you had to have a secret base, thoroughly hide it and make it an undesirable place to go near in the first place. If
you can't do that, then just don't put it near anything important. Oliver had gotten both of these things wrong in a
stroke of prodigious stupidity, as she did not doubt that people would rather enjoy robbing Oliver's ostentatious-
looking mayoral campaign building, or at least vandalizing it, as politics had a tendency to ignite the more feral
desires among humanity.

He was running the risk of someone accidentally finding his base, and that was unacceptable, really.

Unaware of her commentary, the people around her did not respond to her heavy-handed critique and instead only
turned as the doors to the elevator finally, at last, pulled open, and Addy was given her first look at the
aforementioned Arrowcave.

She wasn't sure what she expected.

The Arrowcave was, in a word, a combination of both great and awful design decisions. There appeared to be a
cultural inclination towards making all of your structures pitch-black in colour, which did apply here. The walls, the
floors, and even the pillars leading up to the ceiling were all black, though shiny enough that as light cast over them,
they looked closer to gray. All of the lights were abstract shapes, curves and loops that were slotted into the ceiling
and cast themselves across the ground. These were not unexpected, but nonetheless disappointing.

Less so were some of the other lights. In pursuit of matching his costume, seemingly, there were a series of green
lights up against each of the walls, casting their glow across them. White terminals and furniture cut through the
darkness much the same, and a heavy dose of electric-blue colour added to it, similarly working to break up the
monotony.

The center of the space in front of her was dominated by a raised stage of a sort, with metal steps leading up to it.
On and around that platform, three people were there to greet them.

The first among the group that caught her eye was a dark-skinned man. He had a curly bush of dense curls topping
his head, as dark as her own, and wore a big smile as he looked at them. His shirt was a wonderful thing of texture;
as while it was merely white and black, the black was overlaid on the white almost like paint spatter. The rest of his
outfit was a little uninspired - consisting of black slacks and shoes - but he was heads above Oliver at this point. In
his hands, he held a tablet, whose blue screen glowed across the surface of his shirt.

Next to draw her eye was a man who stood out because he didn't have a shirt on in the first place. He was currently
working his arms through the sleeves of one to slip it on, but it nonetheless left him rather bare at the moment. The
man's skin was olive-toned and dark, and his body was heavily muscled. His hair was black and cut short, blended
perfectly with the beard he wore across his face.

The last member of the room was a touch blander than the others. With a middling height and build, and wearing
black and white without any interesting designs or textures, he stood at the top of the stairs with both of his hands in
his pocket, and looked palpably curious. His hair was short, though not buzzed down, and dark brown, his skin was
pale, his face shaved, and both of his ears had made an effort to stick out from both sides of his head.

"Hey guys," Felicity said, pulling ahead of the group and stepping out into the area. Wordlessly, Addy followed along,
arraying herself out alongside Cisco and Kara behind her. "This is, uh, Cisco Raymond,"—she gestured behind herself,
to the man in question—"Addy Queen - no relation, seriously - or Administrator in costume,"—next she gestured to
Addy—"Kara Danvers, or Supergirl,"—then Kara—"and as you know, Barry Allen, or the Flash," she finished, gesturing at
him as well.

"Curtis," the guy with the wonderful shirt said, nodding his head with a smile. "Big fan," he said, mostly in Cisco's
direction.

"Rene Ramirez," the muscular one said next, finally fitting his shirt over his head and covering his skin. He scanned
over the lot of them with a bit of a mixed look, but made no other comment.

"Rory Regan," the boring one said, at last, plucking one hand from his pocket to give a simple wave.

Cisco stepped ahead, already moving towards the raised platform. "You know, you're the second Rory I've met," he
said, rather matter-of-factly. The Rory in question gave him an odd look, but said nothing as he climbed the stairs
and passed him to get to a table. "The first one's a douche, though, and you're probably not. So that's nice."

There was an awkward burst of silence for everyone but Felicity who, apparently already used to this, strut past
them all to join Cisco up on the stage.

Cisco himself started to move back-and-forth, half-pacing. "So, guys, we have to find Oliver and company," he said,
ignoring Barry as he came to join the other two, leaving just Addy and Kara in the wings. "I gotta vibe—"

"Could you give me and Addy a few seconds?" Kara cut in.

Addy glanced at Kara, a buzz of surprise riding her spine. The rest of the room turned to look at her as well.

Cisco glanced at Felicity, then shrugged as he turned back to Kara. "I'll fill you in after you're done talking, then."

Kara nodded, stepping back and motioning for Addy to follow. She did, wandering away from the group, which
chattered animatedly about something Addy wasn't paying enough attention to listen in on, until they were tucked
away in one corner. Kara's face was twisted in a tight bit of concern and uneasiness as she turned to look at her.

"I know this is not in any sense of the word the right time for this, but it's... it's been bothering me. You went through
Lillian's memories, right?" Kara asked, after a moment of silence.

Addy paused, then nodded.

"Did... was there any sign of Jeremiah?"

Addy felt her lips pull a bit in a frown, because Kara was right, this really wasn't the time for that, but she could at
least understand the necessity of putting her mind to rest. She reached out to the part of her she was storing said
memories in, sorting through them now that she had properly organized them. "Lillian never met Jeremiah
personally," she began, finding the thread and working her way back through Lillian's memories. "But he was active
while she was still involved with Cadmus. He had been there for eight years longer than she had, and Lena's
commentary on her mother was very accurate, in the sense that she originally joined to clean up Lex's messes."

Kara pursed her lips, but nodded, gesturing for her to continue.

"Over time, Lillian grew more involved in Cadmus, and became interested in Jeremiah. She made herself important
to their systems, but the other leaders in Cadmus were aware enough not to let her gain full control. Different cells
operated under different funding mechanisms, and while she ran a cell, Jeremiah was not a part of it," Addy
explained. "What Lillian did know was the following: one, Jeremiah was their leading cybernetics expert. He was
tasked with rebuilding Hank Henshaw after all the damage he sustained on the same trip that had Jeremiah
captured, and Lillian believed he intentionally left the man without oxygen for just long enough to cause lingering
brain damage, mostly to weaken his cognitive abilities. She studied Henshaw extensively, after all.

"Two, Jeremiah had been held there against his will, and she assumed they were leveraging his family against him.
That said, Lillian saw him as part of a faction within Cadmus, what she considered the 'moderates', the ones who
didn't want to kill aliens, and rather just remove them from the planet. She didn't know if he agreed with their
ideology, but assumed he formed ranks with them as they were the best out of them, as the other factions within
Cadmus ranged from 'annihilate the aliens now' to 'annihilate the aliens later'.

"Finally, she read records that indicated Jeremiah had run several times, and had sustained an injury as a result that
he was forced to repair on his own. That said, the incident was well before she arrived there—by the time she had,
Jeremiah hadn't made an attempt to run in over six years. Lillian never interacted with him, I am of the opinion that,
looking at her memories, she likely wasn't allowed, and they just weren't telling her as much, but she did use some of
his designs, particularly the ones used on Hank Henshaw, to finish the Metallo project. Most of it was based on his
skeletal replacement treatment."

Kara's face was bereft of much visible emotion, but after a few more seconds she nodded. "Thank you," she
murmured. "This has been bothering me and I wanted to bring it up, well—yesterday now, I suppose, but I didn't have
the chance."

"Circumstances could be better, but I do understand the need to have knowledge about something," Addy admitted.
"It can be very distracting if you lack it."

She would know.

"I can give you more in-depth details and anecdotes later, when we have actual downtime, but until then, we should
rejoin the rest of the group," Addy explained, looking back towards where the others were huddling.

Kara glanced towards the aforementioned group, nodded, and started to make her way back, Addy trailing after her.

"So, what are we doing?" Kara called out, jogging up the steps to the rest.

Cisco was up at the top of the stage, holding what looked to be a rather old bow in his hands. He glanced towards
them wordlessly, before looking at Felicity.

Felicity, standing only a pace away from Cisco, glanced towards them. "Cisco's going to find Oliver by vibing," she
explained.

"...I'm not sure I follow," Kara admitted, voice rather blank.

Cisco shrugged awkwardly. "When I touch something, I can see into the past and future of it. I can also use it,
especially on objects that have been used by someone frequently, to see where people are."

Addy jolted. "That's... rather delightfully unnatural in terms of abilities," she freely admitted, because it was. Natural
mutations did not give these powers. "Where did you acquire it?"

"I'm a metahuman," Cisco explained, as though it explained everything. It, in fact, did the opposite, because from
what she could recall about Barry's explanation of the phenomena, it was akin to random mutation through exposure
to unusual particles. You could explain away inexplicable lightning powers, not something as sophisticated as this.
"Sometimes powers we get are just like that. Now, if I can..?"

"So, you're one of them," Rene said, almost darkly.

Cisco gave the other man a nervous look. "I mean, yeah? Don't sound too excited about it."

Shaking his head, almost like he was trying to clear away his thoughts, or maybe the nervousness that had settled
into his body, Cisco clutched the bow tighter, and in a single breath, went completely still.

Addy had to resist the urge to reach out and see what his mind was doing, what he was experiencing, for fear of
interfering with his process. She felt no surge of energy, no psychic presence; Cisco's mind was as still as water, and
she wanted to know why.

Then, with a sharp inhale, Cisco jolted, taking a half-stumbling step backwards. "I saw them," he said quickly, eyes
blinking as he took in his surroundings again. "They're in some kind of... stasis. Like a ship. It's uh, a little Alien, a
little Stark Trek—JJ Abrams style—and a whole lot of high-tech."

"You said tech!" Felicity shouted, almost jumping in place, her face dawning with comprehension.

Cisco slowly put the bow down on the table next to him, turning to stare at Felicity blankly. "Yes, I said tech, Felicity.
It's an alien spaceship, unless we're dealing with an invasion of the Yuuzhan Vong, it kinda has to be. These guys
aren't amateurs."

"I was led to believe this is the first contact your planet has had with aliens knowingly," Addy said, curiously. "Who are
these Yuuzhan Vong?"

Cisco glanced at her, opened his mouth, and then shut it. "It's a reference to Star Wars. It's not important."

"I think—guys," Curtis began, stepping between Cisco and Felicity. "I think where she was going was that if they're
using tech, it's possible for us to track it, or download information from it if we got our hands on it."

Felicity jabbed a finger at Curtis. "Yes! That's exactly what I meant!" She turned towards Cisco, who met her with a
single raised finger.

"Hold please," he said, turning back to the table and reaching for his bag. After unclasping the opening, he spent a
moment rummaging around inside of it, before pulling free a chunk of metal that resembled a curved fang, holding it
out for the group to see. "What about this? I took it off the Dominator ship that crashed in Central City. It was part of
the control system, I'm pretty sure."

"What? Cisco, is that even legal?! You could've gotten in trouble!" Felicity said, aghast.

Cisco spared her another look before gesturing to the entire space around him.

Felicity paused, considered, and then conceded the point with a nod. "Sorry, I was just worried they'd drag you off to,
I don't know, the prison version of Area 51."

Depending on the state of the government, it was entirely possible this Earth had one of those. After all, aliens
probably still lived on this planet, even if in possibly diminished numbers.

Curtis carefully reached out, taking the chunk of tech from Cisco's hand, who let him. He raised it up, staring down at
it like it held the secrets to the universe in it. "We're going to hack alien tech," he breathed, delight coursing through
his voice. "This is seriously the best day of my life!"

"Oliver got abducted," Rene pointed out sharply.

Curtis glanced at him. "That's... good point. Okay, still a great day. I get to hack alien tech to save people."

 288

OxfordOctopus Sep 16, 2021 New View discussion

Threadmarks: SEASON 2 - EPISODE 38 - INTERLUDE 5 [LESLIE]

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OxfordOctopus She/Her
(Unverified Jackanape)

Sep 23, 2021  #3,535

EPISODE 38

[INTERLUDE: LESLIE]​

The silence of an early morning vanished all but completely beneath the insistent wail of an alarm. A steady, ear-
splitting, purposefully painful-to-listen-to siren of noise that would wake the dead and someone's next-door
neighbour if given the chance.

Leslie was not dead herself, but then she certainly felt like it.

Sleep left her at a meandering pace, her head feeling rather hollow as eyes heavy from sleep cracked open just wide
enough to glare at the ceiling of her bedroom. With opening her eyes came awareness, not just of herself - limbs all
feeling like they were made from lead, the blankets covering her like warm clouds - but of a distant, almost half-there
current of activity. It was a sense that was not unlike a bug hovering nearby; just close enough to hear the buzz of its
wings, but not so close that you could catch a glimpse of it.

Still working through the concept of something as horrifying as being awake, Leslie blinked sluggishly a few more
times and did her level best not to give in to the urge to violently rip the energy out of her alarm clock like a vengeful
god. It was a close fucking thing, by her estimate, but she did manage it, instead just driving the heel of her palm
down onto the alarm clock hard enough to rattle the whole damn bedside table it sat smugly on.

Silence returned. Blessed, calm silence the likes of which was threatening to lull her back to sleep.

Not that she was given a fuckin' chance.

[DATA], her partner - for what other word was there for 'a second intelligence that lives in my head' - announced. She,
of course, winced, as despite doing her level best to inform said partner that not everyone could process a hundred
different thoughts drilling themselves like fucking bore holes into their skull, the notion that what was possible for it
wasn't possible for her was still one they were working on.

The low, early throb of a headache began to emerge at the crown of her head, like someone had cracked open an
egg made of pain and bizarre anecdotes on energy wavelengths on her skull and let the yolk leak disrespectfully
down her face. The bulk of what was transmitted to her - or the bulk of what she could make out, still half-asleep as
she was - was that their energy storage levels were incredibly high, it was currently 6:30AM in the local area, and that
it was also hungry, please fix.

She knew for a fact it had no perception of hunger and just wanted to gorge itself, the greedy shit.

Letting out a groan, Leslie felt the last few scraps of blessed sleep leave her, and she was unceremoniously fully
awake. The back of her eyes ached something awful, her mouth was the texture of sandpaper, she had a needy,
alien toddler in her brain trying to get food, and she was absolutely out of excuses to remain even a moment longer
in her bed.

"You'll be fed," she groused, the accompanying blip of intense happiness washing over her from their shared
connection. "But give me a moment."

There was a follow-up note of disappointment from her partner, but her partner was not the one driving the vehicle,
so to speak, so tough shit.

Turning over, she kicked the sheets of her bed down, leaving them in a crumpled pile. Dragging legs that were
entirely unwilling to listen to her to the side, she kicked both of them out over the side of her bed, toes touching
down on lukewarm hardwood, and with one arm eased herself upright, using her free hand to rub the sleep from her
eyes.

Body upright, eyes open, and theoretically awake enough to begin dealing with the bullshit that was existing, Leslie
took in her surroundings.

Her room was as it always was: absolutely kick-ass. Black walls were split apart by cyan trim, like streaks of
lightning that formed a cage around the full room. The walls were taken up by posters, new copies of things she
used to own, because all of the shit she had before ending up in the D.E.O. had been thrown to the curb. Why keep
anything she owned, after all, if she wasn't there to pay the rent?

Fucking landlords.

Her old gothic horror posters had been the hardest to find any replacements for. She had inherited her original set
when the one aunt she actually liked had up and died when she was fifteen. Most of them were for books, rather
than movies, though the latter still did crop up here-and-there. She had paid a pretty penny for most, and though they
were all in much better condition than the frayed, worn-down posters she used to own, she was still completely
goddamn annoyed she had to do it in the first place.

The posters for the bands she actually liked had been cheaper, on account of being produced after the discovery of
fire, rather than before. Most of them she had stuck up on the walls around where she had placed her desk and
computer, an advanced monolith of technology that she had gleefully splurged on when she realized she had the
money for it. She knew her way around computers - kinda hard not to, considering she used to be a talk-radio host
and they weren't exactly working out of radio towers anymore - it had always just been that she lacked the funds to
afford the sort of thing she could play around with.

Thinking about her past job, though, drew her eyes to the opposite side of the room, where the audio recording
equipment and a single electric guitar sat. A thin layer of dust dulled the normally shiny exterior of most of the
equipment, and the sound panels she'd spent an afternoon setting up on her wall had experienced much the same.
The cord to even the most rudimentary of the equipment had not even been freed from the plastic twist-ties they
came in, left looped on the ground and untouched.

Glancing away, she grimaced. Can't blame her for not being able to find the motivation for that sort of shit anymore,
considering how it ended up for her.

Shaking her head, she pressed her hands down and, with an undignified grunt, did the absolute bare minimum and
managed to rise to her feet. Stretching her arms above her head, she eased out the kinks in her back and soothed
the muscles in her arms before reaching back down, snagging her phone from the bedside table where she'd left it
plugged in to be charged, and started stumbling her way towards her door. She passed by her wardrobe - several
copies of her work uniform thrown over the exterior, a pair of tall black leather boots waiting the day she'd have a
reason to actually break them in - and unceremoniously threw open her door, stepping out into the hallway.

While her room happened to be designed to her likings, the same could not be said for the rest of the house. Sue her,
but she just did not have the time to go through all five bedrooms, three bathrooms, and two floors of the place to
find a use for all of the rooms and extra space she just simply did not use. Frankly, she knew damn well she overshot
in terms of what she really needed for a house, but then she could hardly give it back without it being a huge fucking
headache.

The hallway was, therefore, boring. The same damn wooden floors, off-white walls, a few more doors and a single
window at the far end that let in the murky dawn light, though with the overcast skies it was hardly helping any.

Shuffling past it all, she made her way to the stairs. As she did, she felt a pulse, an echo of her own powers, and
watched idly as a current of red electricity ran the length of her arm, breaking off from the rest of her energy, and
took the shape of something roughly approximating a snake. The snake, of course, looked at her, and though it
lacked the eyes to do so, she was feeling awfully fucking judged right now.

[HUNGRY], her partner announced, as if she couldn't damn well tell that on her own.

"Yeah, yeah," she muttered, swiping a hand through the snake and watching as the red energy broke apart and
quickly reabsorbed itself back into her body. She took the stairs by two with each step, emerging in her living room
moments later. "Glutton."

There was a vague sense of her partner being rather more affronted by that comparison, but then it was hardly the
first time she'd called it a glutton.

Walking past her couch, she entered her kitchen, reaching out with a single blind hand to pat along the wall until her
fingers found the switch. Flicking it on, she winced, blinded by the sudden light, and spent the next few moments
feeling like an idiot as she blinked away the black spots, the space coming, finally, into view.

It was a completely normal kitchen. Renovated, sure, and up to modern standards, but then a kitchen hardly needed
to be anything but a kitchen. She had no idea why The Live Wire kept insisting otherwise.

Walking up to the counter, Leslie eyed the battery that sat next to her toaster. About half the length of her forearm,
cylindrical, and plugged into a charging dock, it had run her nearly fifteen hundred dollars to get and was supposedly
meant to be used as an emergency backup. It was a fairly large expenditure when it came to her power bill, but then
so would be taking live current from the wire itself, and at least with this nobody was asking any pointed questions.

Reaching out with her hand, she shut her eyes, and felt for the energy. The world around her slid out of focus almost,
her proprioception replaced by something much less tangible, less physical and weighty. She could feel the lines of
current running through the house, through Midvale itself, from the city center all the way to where she worked. She
narrowed her scope, focused down on the object in front of her, and reached out to it.

Then, she pulled.

Eyes opening a fraction, she watched tongues of red electricity jump from the battery and to her hand. Turns out, the
red electricity was entirely cosmetic, a result of her being in active control of a given live current. She had probed for
answers about it from The Live Wire - the being in her head, if it wasn't clear considering the plagiarism - but it had
done the inter-dimensional equivalent of shrugging its shoulders and then tried to explain the theory behind
multidimensional power storage.

Suffice to say, they both came away from the experience frustrated.

The flow of energy into her body finally died down, then off, a few errant sparks of red jumping between her fingers.
She felt it circulate first into herself, and then get subsequently dumped into another dimension through the link that
apparently existed in her brain. There was a trill, almost, or the sensory equivalent of happiness, from The Live Wire.

[ACCEPTABLE], it sent. There was a pause, then. [QUERY: MORE VARIETY].

Leslie rolled her eyes up, snorting as she reached for her bread box, retrieved a few slices of bread, and dropped
them into the toaster, pressing the plunger down and locking it in place. "I can't get you access to nuclear material,"
she said, turning away from the toaster to stare at the window. The weather had not, in fact, changed in the roughly
minute since she had last looked outside. Which was really fucking inconsiderate, honestly, for all that Midvale was
in a murky ass part of America, she would really like going to work with the sun out sometimes. "We've already gone
over this."

For whatever reason, The Live Wire had an unreasonable obsession with different types of energy; flavours, if you
would. Leslie had not been able to find anything conclusive about whether or not it could actually taste or really
interact with different types of energy, but it did insist on variety, so it was more than likely to have some kind of
reaction to it. To what extent, she didn't know, but if The Live Wire was being this much of a stubborn mule for no
real reason, she was honestly going to lose her shit.

Even considering it pissed her off.

[DISAPPOINTMENT], was the subsequent reply to that. [QUERY: SECONDARY OBJECTIVE].

...Really? "What makes you think I can get you access to alien technology if I can't get you access to a nuclear
reactor?"

[DATA].

Biting down some frustration, Leslie turned to stare at her toaster instead. The toast, of course, was not so eager to
pop. "Just because I know about the D.E.O.'s weapon cache at their main base does not mean I am remotely suicidal
enough to attack it just to feed you a laser gun," she groused.

[OBJECTION].

"What? No, it's not easier. I know where a nuclear reactor is too, and you're able to accept I can't just hijack one. Why
can't you understand I can't do the same to people who have even more guns?"

[REBUTTAL].

"Why do you think the violence will make it easier?"

The toast finally popped. Before she could get into a shouting match with the voice in her head - which, just, good
fucking lord - she snagged the toast, hissed when it burned the shit out of her fingers, dumped it on the plate, burned
herself again when she applied a gratuitous layer of butter, and finally absconded from the damn kitchen before any
more could come of that conversation.

Arriving at the couch she'd parked in front of a flat-screen television so large it was almost unsightly - she had
splurged, alright? - she dropped her cellphone and plate down on the coffee table and finally let herself collapse into
the plush embrace of shitty IKEA furniture.

[DISAPPOINTMENT].

"Everyone has to deal with that in their lives eventually, Wire," she said, reaching for the remote. "Sometimes I want
to detonate a customer like a frag grenade, sometimes you want to eat a nuclear reactor. There are just some things
we have to be disappointed about."

Lifting the remote, she turned her television on, and immediately groaned.

Because Supergirl's goddamn face would be the first person-adjacent thing she saw this morning. She was
apparently not allowed to forget about Kara goddamn Danvers, who also happened to be Supergirl, because yeah,
you fucking would need someone capable of lifting an entire damn prison spaceship on their own to deal with Cat
Grant's atrocious schedule.

"Supergirl hasn't been seen in two days," the newscaster, a ginger woman with so many freckles they covered most of
her skin, said. "Rumours abound as to her location, especially among those in National City who follow her closely, but
despite that not all is bad. People have come to fill in for the missing heroine, in all shapes and sizes."

The shot of the newscaster vanished, replaced by a series of clips. First was a man with a shield and armour -
labelled as 'Guardian' - ducking to one side and backhanding an alien the size of a small car across the face,
dropping it like a sack of potatoes. Next was a man whose armour almost made it seem as though he wasn't
wearing any at all; like a sculpture of iron had come to life and decided to fight crime. The crime, of course, was the
same alien that Guardian was fighting, charging in from the side to tackle it to the ground. Steel was his name,
apparently.

And last but not least, the clip changed entirely, away from the dimly-lit, late-afternoon video taken of Guardian and
Steel kicking the shit out of some alien, and to a burning building. A streak of green flew across the screen, revealing
a black-skinned man in full green-and-black latex, with little more than a domino mask to conceal his identity. He
floated next to the burning building and raised a single hand, a globe of green energy taking shape in front of his fist,
before shooting out, smashing through a window on a long tether of identical energy. A few seconds later, he pulled
in, and when the orb smashed back out through the brick facade of the building, not only had it grown, but it now
contained six or seven people, all messily clumped together, but ultimately safe.

She already knew who this was. The Green Lantern, the equivalent of the space police, supposedly. He'd spoken
briefly about it during an interview that had caused a, frankly, impressive amount of cocking about from the local
branch of the government. Politicians do not, evidently, like to be told they're going to be policed by a foreign power
they have no control over.

Kinda funny, considering America's track record.

[WANT], Wire demanded immediately, nearly causing another headache with the sheer insistence it put behind the
intrusion of information. [RESOURCE].

Turning her head up, Leslie groaned. "For starters, people are not resources, okay?"

[DOUBT].

"Seriously, they aren't. Second, I'm not feeding you Green Lantern either. We already went over this the last time you
saw him."

[INSISTENCE].

Wire was absolutely not about to let this go. Ugh. "Look, if he maybe ends up on our end of the continent and you've
been on your best behaviour, I might ask him to give us some of his energy, okay?"

There was another long, contemplative pause.

[AGREEMENT].

Of course, the agreement itself came with an underlying data packet that informed her it would be very cross if she
reneged on their agreement and that it would 'have many words' if she did. Petty threats, mostly, but then Leslie had
been working very hard to reduce the scope of what The Live Wire considered 'acceptable punishment' down from
'total annihilation' to something more tolerable.

"This could be another new age of superheroes and supervillains," the newscaster continued, drawing Leslie's focus
back to her. For all that the words might've inspired eagerness at some point, the woman looked honestly more
constipated than anything else. "As when Superman arrived, we may be seeing the first wave in another tide of
supervillains and superheroes, vigilantes and more. We will work to keep the world updated on National City's state of
affairs. Now, back to you, Jessica."

Actually, that did make her remember. Reaching out, she snagged her phone, tapped in her password, and brought
up the chat she had been having with someone by the name of 'heavymetal_witch02'. They had met originally in a
chatroom for people who had powers, something that had apparently gotten more common over time. In reality, the
chatroom was mostly for aliens, but they did allow anyone in so long as you could prove to them you had a power.

Easy enough for her to do. She, of course, had been fairly inaccurate about her powers, but a short video with her
hiding her face and the red electricity effect her powers produced by simply touching a machine and making it
explode had gotten her in nonetheless. It was still a place that a lot had to be taken with a grain of salt, but then it
had been running for almost a year before Supergirl actually went public, so what did she know.

Scrolling over their last conversation, Leslie bit her lip. Witch had told her, in brief, staccato bursts, about how she
found out about the origin of her powers. Turns out, magic was real - which, considering Gotham? Not... really a
surprise - and not only that, curses were too. Supposedly, someone very far in her ancestry pissed off a banshee and
got her entire bloodline cursed. Now, whenever someone in her family was sufficiently slighted, they developed the
ability to produce incredibly loud screams, and also some other benefits.

It also, unfortunately, drove them into a single-minded rage of revenge hell-bent on solely killing the person who
slighted them.

"At least my power was just like, traumatizing, you know?" Leslie asked nobody in particular, worrying her lower lip.
She had been concerned about her online friend, mostly because that was the sort of shit that got you in the same
situation she had ended up in. They weren't quite close enough that Leslie would help her hide a body or something
ridiculous, but, well, they were trying to find ways to avoid the 'thirst for revenge' part of her powers. "This sort of shit
leaves you with the unfun type of baggage. Like paper trails and arrest warrants."

[AGREEMENT], Wire chimed in.

Sending off a good morning text, she plopped her phone down on her lap and turned her attention back to the news.
Administrator - or Addy Queen, who also happened to be the reason why she had a sentient power - was also
missing, though the newscaster admitted they weren't sure about that. Administrator didn't make consistent patrols
like the rest, they often compared her to a 'special agent' type of hero; the sort that only came out when things got
bad.

But... well, they might not be off the money about her being missing.

"You sure she somehow went universe hopping?" Leslie asked, watching as the newscaster pivoted to speaking
about a recent uptick in 'demonic clown cults' in Gotham, of all things. Seriously, what was wrong with that place?

[AFFIRMATIVE], Wire replied, and with it came the same burst of information The Live Wire had used to inform her
of the incident in the first place. Apparently, it had tracked a sudden change in energy and positional data from their
main core - which they shared a planet with, though were located on the far other end of it compared to the rest that
could apparently cause communication issues - which coincided with universal travel. Wire had been very startled
by this, as from what information they had received from the hub had implied they couldn't do that anymore.

And, well, that would explain why Supergirl went missing. Off to break the fabric of reality, it would seem.

"Any idea about how she went about that?" Leslie asked, more curious than anything else.

[NEGATIVE], and it seemed rather displeased about the fact.

It didn't really surprise her that it didn't know, truth be told. She still was a bit worried, admittedly, because what could
they even be doing? What sort of shit could they get up to in a parallel universe? Would she have to deal with some
crazy bullshit like Supergirl clones? Administrator clones? There was, in her opinion, more than enough of both
already, thank you very much. Add any more of those and things would get messy.

A gurgle from her stomach reminded her she still did need to eat to, y'know, remain alive and all that bullshit, so
without further ado she reached down, grabbed some toast, and stared at it. It was already starting to go cold, but
butter-soaked toast was butter-soaked toast.

[DESTROY], Wire announced, in what Leslie sort of understood to be an attempt at encouragement.

The Live Wire had difficulties differentiating eating and destroying things as a concept. She was working on that, if
only for communication reasons, but it was still kinda funny.

"Yeah buddy," she agreed, leaning forward to take a bite out of the slice in her hand. "I am going to destroy this shit."

She took another bite, chewing for a moment.

[QUERY], Wire sent back, roughly translating out to 'is wheat a waste product?'

Contemplative, Leslie swallowed down the chunk of it she just ate and gave that question a long fuckin' thought.
"Honestly? It might qualify as one."

[ACKNOWLEDGEMENT].

What was it like to work in the one community-loved diner in a particularly insular small town?

Mixed, in Leslie's experience.

Belle's Diner was a restaurant that had operated for generations. The owner herself - Belle - was the third woman in
her family to be named as such, and it was her grandmother who originally ran the place with her husband. Belle
herself was already fairly old, and preparing to let her own daughter - not named Belle, and instead Christine, thank
fucking god - take over for her in another five to ten years. Altogether, what this meant was that most regulars, even
the really old ones, had been going there since they were kids.

As a result, she didn't have to be a fucking genius to go into things knowing they were not going to appreciate
someone new coming around. Change of any sort was the kind of thing the regulars actively disdained; it was why
they still had that damn fish dish on sale every Sunday.

It had taken a while for people to accept her working there, with obligatory huffing and puffing. She had made friends
even before the regulars stopped glaring at her like she was an evil outsider coming to change the flavours of their
milkshakes or whatever the fuck went on through their heads. Cathy, Veronica, and to an extent Jolene had all
banded around her when it became clear she most certainly was not going anywhere, each of them around her age,
and since those three had lived in Midvale their entire lives, it deflected some of the attention away from her.

That said, there still were some customers that liked her more than the neutral apathy that had become her new
normal.

"Is that all?" Leslie asked, eyes flicking down to the notepad in her hand as she jotted the last of the order down.

Darcy smiled at her from where she was seated in a booth. "That's all dearie," she agreed, handing her the menu she
had been perusing, which Leslie stuffed beneath one arm. "Thank you."

Darcy had been the one who owned the house Leslie now lived in. Darcy was a lot of things, Leslie had come to
learn, and one of those was - and she was like 90% certain here - a husband-murderer. Shot the man in the back,
supposedly, and played it off as a misfire, won a massive suit from the company that had made the rifle, and then
used it to buy a second house deeper into Midvale. The house she had shared with her late husband had remained
unsold largely because everyone who could reasonably afford the asking price had assumed it would be haunted.

Well. It was either that or they thought they might end up dead because Darcy wanted to tie up loose ends.

Leslie honestly kinda dug her. She was unhinged, sure, and old as dirt, but she'd also told her flat-out that if she was
ever in any trouble, she could come to her and she would help. The undertone there was, of course, that it'd involve
another misfiring gun or a sudden case of being unable to swim. She'd 'fix' it, so to speak.

Darcy was also the reason most of the community was finally warming to her presence. She was a bit of a matriarch
figure for the entirety of Midvale, the lead woman and therefore the one that ran all the groups that all the other older
women took part in. The lady had a literal stranglehold on the goings-on in the city, and while that'd be terrifying in
most people's hands, Darcy seemed to deal with her near-total dominance of local politics with grace and tact that
could really only come out of a person capable of murdering their husband in cold blood.

Shaking herself free from her thoughts, Leslie plastered a smile on her face and nodded. "We'll get your food as
soon as we can," she promised, turning on her heel and wandering back over towards the cash, which Cathy was, at
the moment, manning. She was happily chatting with an elderly gentleman, who laughed happily at something she
said, took the menu she was offering, and went off to find himself a seat.

Wordlessly, Leslie tore the paper free from the spiral-ring of her notebook and handed it off to Cathy, who passed it
back to Fredrick, who then pinned it up on a truly retro turn-wheel for the cooks at the back, connected to the cash
area by an opening in the wall.

Plopping the menu down next to the cash, Leslie turned to look back out over the restaurant.

It wasn't too busy today, thank fuck. An overcast and dreary morning didn't normally keep people away, but with the
fog rolling in as it had the night before, people were probably more occupied with getting to their workplace without
crashing. That said, they had scheduled for the hustle-and-bustle of a busy morning, meaning there were three
servers - including herself - one of which had already taken an early break without anything else to do. Veronica, the
other server on the floor, was currently managing a gaggle of teenage girls, smiling politely as they listed off their
orders.

In the kitchen, she knew three people had been called in, and on the cash register there were two people who could
be shuffled in and out for general cleaning duty when not taking orders. Belle was somewhere in her office, as she
normally was this time of the day, only ever emerging to pop her head out and deal with problems when they came
up.

All told, there were almost more staff than there were customers at this point. Not that Leslie was complaining; a
lazy, early morning beat out the hectic ones any day.

A nail tapping on the counter drew her head back around, Leslie finding herself the target of a furtive glance from
Cathy. "Yeah?" she asked, leaning more of her weight against the counter.

"Darcy doing alright?" Cathy asked, eyes flicking back towards the woman in question. People worried an awful lot
about Darcy, from what Leslie could tell—she was getting on in her years, but still, Leslie hardly thought the lady
needed it.

"About normal," is what she said instead, if only to avoid having to ask why she was so worried about Darcy in the
first place. Everyone had a story about Darcy doing some damn miracle or another, like finding their cat after it had
been missing for three entire months, or that one time she managed to stop a house foreclosure through the sheer
power of her personality.

Cathy just let out a sigh, light and airy, her gaze drifting off into the middle distance. "Y'know, as much as I like
dependable employment, I really do wish we could get some new people coming around. I can only ask about
someone's health so many times before people start looking at me weird."

Leslie found her eyebrow tick up without her consent. "Why? What's so appealing to you about chaos that you'd risk
the good thing this place has going for it. Midvale is only so big, Cathy."

"Well, y'know," Cathy mumbled, abashed, levelling a mournful gaze at the front doors. "Maybe someone interesting
might come in for once. I've known everyone here since I was in diapers, some of these people even changed them.
It's boring."

Well. Leslie could actually relate to that. All the shit leading up to that helicopter incident, then trying to kill Cat Grant
—a chunk of it stemmed from the monotony of her job. She had developed an itch to push boundaries, to dig deeper
than was altogether accepted, and when she got no pushback for it, she kept pushing harder. "I can understand that,"
she agreed, reaching up to scratch at the hairs around her neck—the ones too short for her to fit into a ponytail.
"Everyone here might be new to me, but not to you."

Cathy pointed at her, bobbing her head in an overeager nod. "Exactly. I mean, Darcy basically raised me and my sister
for six months, Elijah - the man I just spoke to - used to take us riding on his horses as kids, before he sold the ranch.
It's like... it's sometimes like I'm working a job that's staffed and caters to my weird extended family."

Leslie could not help the spasm that came across her face at that. "That sounds horrible." Mostly because most of
her family was as unhinged as she was, it was just that they just channelled it into shit like religion and politics. Also,
they all assumed she was either dead or in a max security facility, but those were just details.

Cathy opened her mouth to respond, only for the door to swing open.

As though called down for their hubris, someone Leslie had never seen before walked in through the door. And
because, even after months of working here, she hadn't seen him before, it likely meant Cathy hadn't either. The guy
in question was young-ish, in his early twenties, wearing an oversized hoodie over a rail-thin body with stained jeans
and shoes that looked like they wanted to be boots but hadn't quite committed to it.

He was also twitchy as all fuck. Sketchy, to boot. With hands in his pockets, he scanned the area around him with
repeated, sharp flicks of his head like at any moment someone might emerge from the shadows to stab him. From
the short glimpses of his face - lined by stubble and with eyebags that would make even the most devoted corporate
drone blush - he looked like he hadn't gotten a wink of sleep in a month.

Glancing at Cathy, Leslie saw the awkward, nervous expression that crawled across her face before vanishing back
behind the polite, measured mien of someone who had worked in retail for most of their life.

"And the finger on the monkey's paw curls," Leslie drawled, fighting back a grin.

Cathy shot her a glare so venomous it might've been intimidating, if not for the fact that Cathy was all of about five-
foot-two with blonde ringlets and a face that looked nearly ageless.

Snatching the menu from next to the cash register and preparing for dealing with a guy who might very well be
strung out on something, Leslie took a few steps back and readied herself. Cathy did much the same, back
straightening, hands folding in front of her, a pleasant smile so well-practiced it was hard to really know if it was
genuine or not.

The man himself approached like a skittish dog, always checking his six, wary and edgy to the point of extremes.
That said, while his jeans were stained - seemingly by blotches of paint - Leslie had been working on being less
judgemental, as encouraged by the short time she spent with a shrink. Not everyone was in a great place - lord
fucking knows she sure hadn't been - and the last thing someone that vigilant needs is to think people were mocking
them.

Arriving at the cash, the man stared out at Cathy from beneath the lip of his hood.

Then, he proved every last attempt Leslie had put into trying to be less judgemental completely fucking wrong by
lunging to the side, grabbing Leslie by the scruff of her own damn uniform, and jamming the gun he was concealing
in the pocket of his hoodie into her forehead.

Cathy screamed, loud and shrill, a noise that was shortly echoed by the other occupants of the restaurant. Out of the
corner of her eye, Leslie watched Belle scramble out from her office, too late and too far away to do anything about
the guy with a gun to her fucking head.

"Give me all of your fucking money or the bitch gets it!" the guy bellowed, voice sharp and angry to the point where
Leslie was actually beginning to wonder if this was somehow personal.

[AID?], Wire asked.

Might need it, she mentally acknowledged, a hum of confirmation echoing out from Wire's end of their connection.

Leslie settled her eyes back on the man in front of her, and felt not fear, not even really anger, just... annoyance.
Because, seriously, of all the people for him to try to take hostage, he picked her. He must have even shittier luck
than she did, and that was really saying something.

Cathy, behind the register, was babbling, mostly nonsense, but her composure had cracked like an egg at the first
display of violence. The crowd around them were frozen too, huddling or hiding, trying to get away without drawing
his attention. The people here weren't used to this shit, Leslie could acknowledge; not violence, not the threat of
death, every last part of this was utterly foreign. Midvale was a quiet town full of the middlingly wealthy, it was a
place people went to retire, and it was...

Well. It was unfortunately her damn home now, which meant actually fucking dealing with the problems in it.

The guy's eyes settled back on her after a moment, and if anything his anger redoubled. Had she forgotten to look
suitably afraid? Well, probably. She really wasn't afraid, and it was hard enough to bullshit on the fly for customers
who didn't manhandle her, to forget about a guy trying to fucking rob the place she worked at.

Instead of correcting it, she let that show. Let the tinge of annoyance and utter boredom with his bullshit spread
across her face like she so often wanted to around tetchy customers. He wasn't a customer, sure, but she sure could
pretend he was one of the shittier ones and let her anger take her the rest of the way.

"You got something to say?" he barked, and she could smell the pungent alcohol on his tongue. The dude probably
drank himself to the point where he thought this was a good idea. He jabbed his gun harder into her forehead, hard
enough to hurt, but she didn't even so much as flinch. "Huh?! Bitch?!"

Non-lethal, Leslie insisted in her head.

[OBLITERATE?], Wire queried with all the tact of someone gleefully watching a fight at high school unfold.

Non-lethal, she reiterated.

After a moment, there was a pulse of agreement, and she started drawing on her powers. She could feel it flutter, the
slow trickle of energy that coursed down from where it was stored one universe over and into her arm, to the hand
she had tucked between herself and the bar, to hide it from sight. Her fingers buzzed, like pins and needles but good,
and she curled all but her index and middle finger into a fist. It took a moment to resist the urge to let her arm pull
apart into strands of lightning as the energy collected, but she did manage it.

If she looked down, she knew she would find thin tongues of red lightning dancing between the two remaining
fingers. Not bright enough to catch people's attention, and just the consequence of her body not really wanting to
remain solid with that much energy in it.

Then, with that, she lurched forward, stabbed her fingers into his unprotected stomach, and discharged enough to
shut the dumb fucker up for the rest of the day.

The man let out a howl of pain, his entire body spasming wildly as the gun fell from his hand. His fingers slipped
from her uniform, and his body, unceremoniously, crumpled.

Shoving the power away, Leslie stomped on his pistol and kicked it behind her, out of reach if he happened to be one
of this fucking weirdos who could deal with being tased like that.

Silence reigned for a few more seconds as everyone processed what just happened, including the fact that the guy
was not going to get back up, before someone scrambled to their feet and bellowed about calling 911. Like the
starting pistol for any good messy social incident, everyone else started shouting too, voices overlapping in a
deafening chorus of noise.

Footsteps approached from behind, and Leslie turned just in time to get something pressed into her hand. Glancing
down, she found herself holding what looked to be a genuine taser, if shaped like an e-cigarette. Glancing back up,
she found Belle staring back at her.

"It's been discharged enough that if they check, nothing will look amiss," Belle murmured, barely audible over the
chaos around her.

The rusty fucking cogs that were Leslie's brain churned just enough for her to process what that meant.

Shit. Belle saw her create electricity from fucking nowhere and tase someone with it.

Motherfucker.

Leslie stared at the cop in front of her, and found, not for the first time, her opinion of the Midvale Police Department
dip by another whole ass notch. Suspicion marred the man's face in front of her, not because he had some inkling
that she had powers - they had barely even glanced at the taser before saying they were 'taking it in as evidence' -
but rather just because the Midvale Police Department was apparently like that.

It probably didn't help that she showed them about as much respect as she showed anyone in a position of legal
authority, which was to say very little.

The cop in question had the taser in hand at the moment, and gestured at her with it. "Now, next time something like
this happens, don't try to take things into your own hands, alright?" he drawled, the undercurrent of superiority in his
voice more than a little annoying. While he was busy interrogating her, the rest of his buddies were poking at the
semi-conscious figure that had just tried to rob the place, a figure that had been cuffed with his hands forward,
rather than behind him, for some godawful reason. "Leave it to us boys. We'll keep ya safe, but considering
circumstances, we won't write you up on this."

She just barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes so hard they might tumble right out of her head. How fucking
magnanimous of him. How considerate. How very nice of him not to write her up on defending herself.

Gritting her teeth, she just nodded.

The chief cop, apparently feeling as though he had accomplished the posturing his damn contract required, nodded
back at her, turned, and sauntered his way over to the prone body on the ground. The guy had been coming in and
out of consciousness since the cops had first arrived and cuffed him, which was odd, considering most people
weren't unconscious for nearly ten damn minutes after being tased. She was a bit worried she might've... fuckin'
fried him or some shit, but it was hard to feel much regret about it.

He did have a damn gun to her head, and unless she went completely insubstantial before he fired, he could still do
some real fucking damage to her. Sure, she could regenerate when she entered her energy state, but she still wasn't
sure - and honestly did not want to fucking know - if she could manage to repair her brain properly.

Footsteps approached from her side, and Leslie wasn't surprised to find Belle joining her. The two of them were the
only staff left, everyone else having promised to give their testimony when the cops came calling, but no earlier.
Belle had to stay as the owner of the establishment, and considering she had been the one to tase him, they hadn't
wanted her going anywhere.

"So you know," Leslie said, leaning back.

"I saw," Belle corrected quietly. "I saw, and I don't know quite what I saw, but I also don't judge. I don't care one way or
another, either, truth be told, but I do protect my own, and they'd have a lot of dangerous questions if I just let things
be."

"I'm one of your own?" Leslie asked, though even to her it felt more like a challenge. She and Belle didn't always see
eye-to-eye, but they did get along to some extent. It was hard sometimes to see who people really were, more than
just what they were like as your boss or coworker.

Belle breathed out. "You've been that since you got hired, Leslie."

Well then. "So you won't be telling anyone about the whole..." She made a vague gesture with her hand.

That earned her a flat glare. "'Course not, Leslie. You're a good person, and while I haven't a damn clue what you're
hiding from, I also don't quite care. Midvale's got plenty like that, and it's got more than a few people even weirder
than you. Even if you can do whatever it is you just did, well, that's not my business, is it?"

Leslie paused, contemplative. She stared back out towards the cops, now that they were getting around to hauling
the barely-conscious guy up off the group. "S'pose it isn't," she agreed, at last.

One of the cops reached forward, rifling through the guy's pocket, and with a noise of curiosity, retrieved something
from it. It took a few seconds for her to recognize it, what with it being held up like he was a fucking video game
character, but that was... definitely a syringe of some kind. Full of a sort of green, ambiguous liquid to boot.

"Look at what I found!" the cop crowed, leaving his buddies to hold on to their prisoner. His face was marked with a
grin, and he stepped around to show it off to the guy that had just finished interrogating her, the man making a
curious noise as he looked at it.

"Ain't sure what's in that, but I'd be a sucker not to bet it's some kind of new narcotic or another," the chief said, taking
the syringe and lifting it up to glance at it. He turned his gaze back onto the guy, staring at him. "Already bad enough
you tried to rob Belle's, boy, you're in deeper shit now."

The guy, now looking quite a bit more awake, stared at the needle in turn. Leslie could all but see the cogs turning in
his brain, and with it panic.

The chief cop brought the syringe closer to the robber's face, just outside of his reach. "Look good and long, cos
you're not seein' it or gettin' a taste of it—"

The guy let out a sheer, feral scream; one filled with the cornered animal type of rage. The cops around him, the ones
holding on to him, flinched back in surprise, and with a single lunge, he locked his teeth around the glass exterior of
the syringe and bit down.

There was a crunch. The glass shattered into the guy's mouth, green fluid painting his face, draining into his throat
along with the amount of blood you get from a goddamn mouth full of sharp glass jesus fuck—

The chief cop lurched away, shouting out profanities as he tried to pick shards of glass out of his hand. The cops
holding onto the guy tried to haul him back in, tried to bring him down, only for the guy to twist around and throw one
of them using just the force that came from twisting, one of the cops colliding into a nearby table, sending it and the
man in question to the ground.

Leslie stepped ahead, urged Belle behind her with a single sweep of her hand.

The remaining cop with a grip still on the guy scrambled back, letting go and reaching for his gun, only to be
interrupted by a roar. This time, the force of it was physical; it rattled the windows, deafened even Leslie for a brief
second, the cop discarding his attempt to grab his gun by reaching up to press both hands over his ears, eyes
closing in pain.

Embers took shape across the guy's hoodie, growing as the fabric was eaten away by an intense, visceral heat. The
cuffs around his wrists melted, the skin turning first red and then bursting with yellow flame that immediately spread
across his body. The cops all moved back, as quick as they could, and with a final wrench of both of his wrists, the
cuffs were shattered and the man was free.

And on fire. A swirling, human-shaped nimbus of yellow flame that was growing more and more intense with each
passing moment. It was featureless, and yet as it brought its head back, another ear-splitting screech of noise still
left it, drowning out everything near to it.

As the scream died off, the smoke detector began to wail; loud and harsh, the flaming figure's head snapped around
to it after a moment, before turning back. None of the cops made a single move as he stepped forward and melted
his way through the glass doors, each step he took leaving behind a footprint of withering yellow flame that winked
out after a few seconds. The black and white tiles he had been standing on when he first combusted were all
warped and half-melted by the sheer heat.

And now he was heading towards the inner city. His pace picked up once he was outside, almost as though he was
rejuvenated, and he transitioned from a walk to a run, sprinting deeper into the city.

Still, not a single cop moved.

"Aren't you going to fucking do something?!" Leslie exploded, pointing at them. "He's going towards main street!
People will die you dumb fucks! Call the fire department or something!"

"We need Superman—" one of them started to say, and Leslie felt what little was left of her patience absolutely
fucking snap.

"And how the fuck do you think you'll contact him?! Do you have his goddamn number?! Do you share selfies over
the weekend?! What the fuck dude! There are things you can do!"

"He just fixes this type of thing!" the cop wailed back, his voice as angry as the glare he levelled at her.

And yet this sort of shit would not be fixed in time. There would be damage, there would be casualties, because fuck
knows what was going on in that fucker's head when he did what he just did. Why would he even have something
like that? Was there a market for fucking bottled powers that even a grungy fucking robber could get in on? What the
fuck!

No. There would be no time. Superman would be late, some bullshit would happen, and knowing her luck her house
would burn down. She had to deal with this herself.

You were hungry, right? She asked, already turning away from the cops, moving towards the back of the restaurant.

[AFFIRMATIVE], Wire responded.

You think you can eat that guy's fire?

There was a short pause this time, before...

[ASSENT].

Right, that's all she fucking needed.

"Leslie?" Belle called out, just moments before she was about to rush out through the back exit.

Turning back around, she stared at her boss for a moment. Her power flickered at the edges of her awareness, Wire
already widening the stream of power that she had access to. "You wouldn't happen to have a mask somewhere,
would you? Or something to cover my face with."

Belle blinked, long and slow, before nodding once and ducking back into her office.

Not wasting any time, Leslie reached out to her power and narrowed the intensity of it down to a razor edge. She
pulled on the electricity, drew it up through her body, and used it to scythe away the dye in her head, breaking apart
the black dye she had used to conceal the more bizarre physical traits her power left her with. After a few moments,
she was back to bone-white hair, and ran a hand through it just to be sure she didn't singe any.

Red electricity surged now, flickered and popped across the surface of her body. A pool of power so impossibly vast
it was hard to genuinely comprehend was at the other end of the stream, and she could have all of it in just moments
with a twist of her will.

Belle emerged, her step hitching as she spotted first her hair, and then the tongues of electricity playing over her
body, before recovering. She bustled forward, shoving a plastic-looking masquerade mask into her hand, the sort of
thing you'd buy from a dollar store for a shitty Halloween party your company was having.

Pulling it over her face, it was immediately clear that it was an absolute shitty fit for the shape of her head, but it did
stay in place, even with the plastic digging into her cheekbones. Whoever designed the damn thing clearly had a
perfectly rectangular skull somehow if this was meant to fit them, but now was not really the goddamn time.

Finally, she let herself loose. She pulled energy into herself and did not resist when her body pulled apart in turn, her
physical form breaking down into branching red lightning. She shot into the nearest open circuit, pouring through it,
likely blowing out a handful of lightbulbs in the process, before launching herself from the electrical grid of the
building to the wires that connected them together. Pulling her energy closer to reduce the amount of overflow, she
flew down the power line, in pursuit of a man on fire.

Emerging a small part of herself, she glanced out through the throng of red lightning, finding the chaos the guy left in
his wake. A building burned, wreathed in golden flame with a crowd of people surrounding it; a car had been flipped
onto its roof, and more. Like breadcrumbs between each incident were footprints: smouldering, yellow fire prints
with half-melted concrete surrounding it. Smoke curled into the air, even barely a minute since the guy had left.

Still, nobody seemed to be dead yet. Small fucking mercies and all that.

Passing across the street along the power lines, she rode them finally onto the main street of the city itself, and
found the man in question. He stood amidst the major retail part of the town; the only stretch of it that passingly
resembled any other American city. A Wal-Mart in one place, a GameStop in another, two separate Starbucks for
some godforsaken reason. He stood in the middle of it all, surrounded by shrieking, fleeing civilians, one hand raised
above his head as yellow flame collected into a second sun above his head.

She materialized, then, leaping from the wire she had been travelling down as a bolt of lightning, cracking into the
ground with a thunderous boom. She steadied herself, her powers almost rusty from disuse, and watched as the
man of fire turned to look at her.

The rattling snarl that bellowed through the area made it clear he had absolutely not forgotten that she had tased
him. With a swing of his arm, he dragged the second sun down; a ball of molten flame the size of a hot-air balloon,
and almost as lethal as those fucking death traps.

Wordlessly, Leslie poured energy into her right arm and let it pull apart into a vast storm of red lightning. She let Wire
take the lead in shaping it, separate bands of electricity twisting together into the facsimile of a massive snake of
some kind with a gaping, so very hungry maw.

Then, she brought it down, slamming it into the incoming fireball and pulling that energy in. The ball of yellow flame
flickered wildly as it was captured, and then shrunk, reduced to little more than embers just moments later.

[YUMMY].

Energy twisting like a wildfire, she let some of what she'd just stolen remain, siphoning the rest of it back towards
their shared connection, for Wire to access. With a press of willpower, she took to shaping her construct; the gaping
maw of a snake unravelling into something more like a skeletal hand, made from braided bolts of red lightning, and
swung the palm right towards her target.

With a roar, the guy leapt. He slipped through the gaps in the fingers of her electrical hand, launching himself at least
ten feet into the air as he cleared the wrist and subsequent trail of writhing red lightning that led back to her
shoulder. With a lash of his arm, another torrent of yellow flame burst from the vague shape of his hand; a whirling
vortex that turned the concrete to slag as it closed the distance between them.

Dragging her lightning construct back towards her with a grunt, she caught the incoming swirl of flame on the palm.
With another twist of her focus, she produced thin spears of electricity to cut deeper into the torrent of fire,
branching out and out as they began to swallow that flame too. While the deluge of energy this time around wasn't
quite so much as the small sun the absolute batshit moron had made before, she didn't let any of it linger—
shovelling it all off to her eagerly awaiting partner.

Getting nowhere, the guy let out another pitched, animalistic scream. The flames winked out in an instant, and rather
than try for another ranged attack, he just threw himself right at her. The concrete beneath his feet cracked, erupted;
a shower of shrapnel from the subsequent explosion he used to propel himself, and before Leslie really had the time
to react, a wildly-thrown punch was hitting her on the jaw like a fucking truck.

Shoes scuffing against the concrete as she fell back a step, Leslie forced the construct to reel back in; all of the
energy spilling furiously back into her body, taking concerted effort to keep from turning all of her into a storm of
lightning. Arm now much more corporeal and quick to maneuver, she lunged back, reaching out to grasp the man's
still-outstretched fist, siphon off the heat to avoid being burned to ash, wrenched him inwards, and drove her
forehead into his nose.

The satisfying crunch on impact informed her he still had one, and wasn't actually made of fire. He just happened to
be covered in a lot of it.

Head falling back, he let out another bellow of pain and lunged at her with his free arm, fingers outstretched towards
her throat. She captured it by the wrist, snagging it before he could close his hand around her neck, and leaned into
her own weight until his arm, shakily and by inches, was forced back towards his body, away from her own.

Drawing on her power, Leslie began to build a charge—

There was a single moment—quicker than even a breath, but she caught it. The flames winked out across the man's
body, leaving exposed his actively glowing orange eyes, the veins that seemed to pulse against inflamed, red skin,
the half-burnt curls of blonde hair.

Then, the fire came back, blinding in its intensity, and it was like what she imagined standing in front of a sun might
be like: an unfathomable heat, vast and endless, that threatened to turn her to ash. She couldn't even breathe, not
when the oxygen in the air had been burned away beneath it much the same. All just for a single moment, barely a
second, as with a sudden wrench of force her feet left the ground, her fingers slipped from his wrists, and she was
sent hurtling through the air by the sheer intensity of the explosion he had just produced.

When she landed, it was back-first. Her breath was kicked out of her in a wild fury, returning only as heaving,
desperate pants as she laid there, pain radiating across her back but... surprisingly not as in pain as she certainly
expected to be. Blinking, she glanced first at her hands, which while reddened by the heat weren't reduced to bones
as she had expected, and when her eyes trailed down, she spotted why: a nimbus of red lightning had formed a
protective sheath around her body, its texture to her senses telling her it had absorbed as much of the energy as it
could. Not enough to stop some damage - as was indicated by most of her clothes being almost on fire, not to
mention her exposed skin looking rather red - but more than enough to stop the heat from stripping the flesh from
her skeleton.

"Wire?" she rasped, gradually pushing herself back up, eyes flicking up from her only slightly singed body and
towards where the explosion had taken place. There, in all of its blinding glory, was a blade of flame, so tall it
dwarfed the building around it, radiating out from where there had once been a person. It was dying down now,
slowly retreating in size to reveal whatever was left.

[PROTECT], Wire conveyed back with utmost sincerity.

A bark of laughter pushed its way out of her chest, to her own surprise. "Yeah, buddy," she muttered, fingers finding
the ruined concrete street below her, using it to shakily crawl back to her feet. "You saved me from a lot of pain.
Thank you."

There was a warm burble of appreciation from the other end of the connection, but nothing sophisticated.

Feeling slowly returned to her extremities as she managed to stay upright, her gaze centered on the dying pyre. In
the place of that sword of yellow flame now stood a humanoid figure, though he had changed. Where before, the
flames on his body had been a frothing thing, wild and uncontrolled, now the fire that cloaked him was like a candle's
flame: sleek, wavering, and tapering near the tip of his head. The heat was worse, to boot, felt even from how far
away she was.

Swallowing back the dry sensation in her mouth, Leslie watched the man's head turn to her. He didn't have features,
but something about the way he lingered on her boded ill for her future. Where the fuck were they even getting this
sort of thing? Who on earth was selling injectable powers that could do shit like that? And why?

Like, for fuck's sake! She had to be hit by lightning through Supergirl to get her powers! How was this fair?!

The questions had to be left for later, as with an almost lackadaisical gesture with one hand, flames poured out of
his person and into a glowing, hateful yellow ball in front of his palm. They moved like a liquid now, rather than the
outward bursts of a flame thrower. The ball expanded until it was the same size as the person making it, and then it
released.

Leslie knew better than to try to dodge it on the ground. She pulled herself apart in an instant, transitioning to her
electrical form; a bolt of lightning that stretched from where her heel had met the pavement, up to the roof of a
building above. She rematerialized on it in the same breath, just in time to watch the flames he'd shot at her wash
over the street like an incoming tide. They swallowed everything: the concrete, the benches, even a parked car,
whose interior ignited in a sudden combustion of flame just by sheer exposure to the heat.

All around her, flames grew on anything that was flammable, whether by heat or alone or by exposure. Buildings
were to be like kindling, if nothing was done.

But she didn't have any time, because the man was still looking at her. His head tracked her when she moved, and
without missing a beat he raised his hand towards her again. This time, what took shape was more of an oval, rather
than a sphere—and was considerably more concentrated, bursting like a jet flame from his hand and punching into
the sky, right at her.

Dodging low, Leslie barely managed to avoid it. She reached out to her powers, to the energy in her body, and pulled,
beginning to gather it into her right hand in high enough concentrations that she could end this quickly. Another jet
of flame leapt from the street below, and she was forced to duck again, scrambling with her hands and feet on the
roofing tiles, before picking up into a sprint and leaping across the small gap between the building she was on and
its nearest neighbour.

Another bolt of flame screamed past her, narrowly missing her hair.

Skidding to a stop and twisting, Leslie yanked hard on the energy, drew it into her hand, and pointed down, towards
the flaming man.

And she felt her stranglehold on the flow of her power slip.

An ocean of energy spilled over, drowning her out, punctuated by a sharp burst of panic from both Wire and herself.
The amount of energy that gathered with that single tug was enough that, as it began to take shape as a bead of
blinding red light in front of her fingers, it was not so much lightning as it was a concentrated orb of energy. There
was enough power brewing for lightning to pull apart, to melt into some new type of energy that she knew, if she
released into the street below, that it'd kill everything in a city block.

With a cry of panic, she wrenched her arm up towards the sky, just in time for the beam to release. What erupted
from that bead of energy was not a tongue of electricity, it was more like Supergirl's eye-lasers, just considerably
more concentrated. A cord of concentrated red energy as thick as a power line jumped from the tip of her finger, and
when it met the vast cloud covering, the clouds broke. As though someone had punched a hole in a balloon, the thin
beam of energy tore an ever-widening hole in the gray overcast, tearing away the clouds and revealing the vast blue
sky behind it, sun and all.

"Oh, thank fuck—"

The words were robbed from her when a fist met her stomach. Curling forwards, bile took up home in the back of
her throat, Leslie sent stumbling back from the blow itself. The flame guy had leapt from the ground below without
her noticing, and he'd gotten into her range—

A second hit took her across the cheekbone, and sent her sprawling. Her power reacted, pulsing over her to protect
her from the heat, but before she could put two thoughts together hands were pressing her down and he was
grappling her, pinning her with one arm reared back.

She turned intangible, the incoming punch meeting the roof instead of her face, and his body falling through what
had once been solid. The lingering energy from the misfire had her transforming into a torrential storm of red
lightning, and she didn't let the chance to get some payback to pass her by. She forced parts of the electric storm
towards the man who had just been straddling her, crawling across his body as tongues of lightning that made him
scream, a sharp discordant noise that rang with pain.

She stole from him, too—siphoned the energy from his yellow flames, poured some of it back into him as
punishment while keeping a growing store of it, building higher and higher until she reconsolidated next to him,
pulled her arm back, and slugged him across the face, discharging the energy she had kept plus a solid chunk of her
own in a crackling flare of power.

The man was launched from the edge of the roof, punching through the air like a comet trailed by crimson lightning,
and met the concrete below with a thunderous crash, shattering the ground like a dinner plate.

Breathing heavily, her stomach and cheekbone both still twinging with pain, Leslie pulled herself apart, let some of
the energy mend the more surface-level wounds she had just acquired, and jumped to the street below,
reconsolidating moments after.

A short distance away, the guy was slowly picking himself back up, his body shaking minutely, pain obvious from the
way he held himself. She'd probably broken a few of his bones, at least; even if it was abundantly clear his weird
enhancement had augmented his physical form in some way, you do not shrug off that sort of shit with ease.

But she wasn't about to let him. Because she was, frankly, entirely fucking done with this. She unfurled her forearms
into twin sets of three tendrils of lightning and lunged ahead, reaching out with them. One took him by his throat,
wrenching him into the air, while another wrapped around his torso like a sash. Two more grabbed his arms and
forced them behind his body, tight as can be, while the fourth and fifth bound his legs tight.

With that, she reached out to the heat, the fire on his person, and pulled. A torrent of energy flowed down from the
tendrils and into her, shunted off into Wire's end of their connection.

The man screamed, in rage, in fear, in pain—Leslie couldn't much tell, her ears were still ringing from the explosion.

Wire, she wordlessly instructed, just in time for the man's body to erupt with flame again, a torrent of it lunging free
from his torso, right at her—

—where it was promptly swallowed by another veil of red lightning, under Wire's control.

The continued stream of energy grew as she dragged it into her, and as it grew, the man weakened. His flames
guttered, growing fainter until she could even begin to make out the features below it. Wide, crazed eyes, the same
boiled-red skin, blonde hair burned down to scruff against his head.

And, eventually, even that winked out. The yellow fire vanished, snuffed beneath her boot, and what was left was a
limp, unconscious man in the grasp of her lightning tendrils. Wordlessly, she lowered him just enough for the drop to
not be lethal, before doing just that, feeling no small burst of satisfaction from the thud his body made when it hit
the pavement.

Pulling her arms back together, Leslie glanced towards the burning street around her. Everything was still on fire,
which meant he wasn't actively propagating the yellow flames that continued to burn merrily on anything that wasn't
hard rock. Which meant she'd have to deal with it.

Somewhere behind her, police sirens wailed like angry gods, just barely audible beneath the keening in her ears.

Letting out a breath, Leslie got to work putting out fires with electricity. Words that, honestly, she absolutely never
thought she would ever think.

Exhaustion clung to Leslie as she pushed the door to her house open, stumbling through.

She had stuck around just long enough afterwards to make sure she hadn't, y'know, killed him - which she had not -
and put out all the fires the idiot had caused before circling back around to talk to Belle. Belle, thank fuck, had
promised she wasn't fired, and also handed her a whole-ass, high-end black hair dye kit to hold herself over, which at
least meant she wouldn't have to go out in a fucking hat to grab some.

Wire was sated, of course, and had been happily humming and occasionally bombarding her with information about
the energy it had just consumed. Most of that information was utterly fucking meaningless to her, but then that
mostly came back to her being unable to so much as parse half the shit sent her way by Wire. Wire might be about
as socially adept as a toddler, but it was smarter than she was when it came to thermodynamics.

She might not understand its fascination with different types of energy, but at least Wire was getting something out
of it.

Yanking her shoes off with the grace afforded to her, being this absolutely goddamn done with the day, Leslie had
only just started on her second shoe when there was a knock at her door.

Glancing up at the ceiling, she quietly asked whatever god was out there what she had done to deserve this, before
finishing peeling the shoe off, turned around, and threw the door open.

Eliza Danvers, tupperware in hand, stared back at her.

"I heard what happened," the woman blurted, matter-of-factly.

The underlying statement there was, of course, that she also knew who she was because of Kara fucking Danvers.
Eliza was her neighbour but they had both made an unspoken agreement not to act like it, mostly because they
shared literally fucking nothing in common and also Eliza was related to not just Kara Danvers, but also Alex
Danvers, chief bitch of the prison block for half of her time there.

She was also a trained scientist with ties to the organization that kept her in that goddamn prison block, so some
distance was fucking warranted in her opinion.

Not even bothering for a smile this time, Leslie just stared at her. "A real shock for everyone," she said unrepentantly.

Eliza hummed, a low noise, and nodded once. "I'm going to caution you against doing what you just did. Not
because I'm threatening you, but because I've watched most of my family get hurt through similar heroics. That said,
you did save people, and that's more than what I ever expected out of you."

Wow. Backhanded fucking compliment of the century right there. "Are you going somewhere with this? I'm not going
to put on a fucking cape. I did that because the alternative was sitting on my ass until Superman found time out of
his schedule to save a city from being burnt down by a guy made of fire."

To her credit, Eliza didn't so much as twitch at the words coming out of Leslie's mouth, which was something of a
surprise considering Leslie had more or less learned how to speak that way for the sole purpose of pissing people
off.

Instead, she shoved the tupperware container into Leslie's hands and, frankly, being too tired not to just grab
something, she took it.

"I hope you're okay, and... thank you, for protecting this town, even if nobody else will say as much," Eliza said, after a
moment. She looked away, back out towards the street, eyes distant. "I made a life here with my husband, Jeremiah,
and I'm glad I won't have to watch it all be rebuilt."

Glancing down at the tupperware, she popped the lid and was met with the wafting scent of freshly-cooked chicken.
How did she even have the damn time for this? Shaking her head, she glanced back up to find Eliza looking at her.
"You're uh, welcome? Just don't tell your neurotic daughters I was involved. They'll probably take it as a damn threat."

Eliza quirked one eyebrow, the single display of emotion out of the woman that she'd seen during the conversation.
"I have no intention of doing that, but the news will do it anyway."

Ah. Fuck. Right. Goddamn... fucking shit. Leslie had just swallowed a guy with an electrical snake mouth. While
badass as shit, that was not something that went unreported.

"Have a good afternoon, Miss Willis," Eliza said, and promptly shut the door in her face.

Leslie felt more than a little unmoored, truth be told. She stared down at the tupperware, the near-mouthwatering
scent of the cooked foods within, and considered whether or not it was poisoned.

"To eat or not to eat?" she asked nobody in particular.

[DESTROY], Wire insisted.

"Y'know what? Fair point," she said, popped the lid, and made her way to the kitchen. If it was poisoned, she'd be
dead and therefore have a whole lot less shit on her plate to deal with, and if it didn't, she'd eat something that
wasn't microwaved for the first time in like, a solid half of a month.

Win-win, in her opinion.

 309

OxfordOctopus Sep 23, 2021 New View discussion

Threadmarks: SEASON 2 - EPISODE 39

New View content
 OxfordOctopus She/Her
(Unverified Jackanape)

Sep 30, 2021  #3,577

EPISODE 39​
"You know, I'm so conflicted," Curtis said, hands hovering over some kind of processor chip. Perched next to it on the
metal table was a box full of complicated-looking tools, most of which Addy found - somewhat shockingly - she
could only make guesses at their use. Some of them did look rather much like the ones she used at her day job, but
others definitely did not.

The tension - and more generally, excitement - in the Arrowcave had tapered off after a plan had been struck. People
had dispersed to a certain extent, Kara going over to join Felicity and Cisco at another table, while Rene sat as far
away from the rest of them as he could manage without being physically outside of the building. Barry, seemingly in
pursuit of not getting into a shouting match with Cisco about Oliver's disappearance, stood near to the elevator,
staring down at his phone. Rory had joined Curtis at a table a short distance from that storm of brewing social
tension, much like Addy had, though he stood on Curtis' other side, and gave her an appreciated bubble of personal
space.

"Like, on the one hand? I get to hack actual extraterrestrial technology," Curtis continued, a short, nervous laugh
escaping his lips as he carefully shaped the end of the chip, soldering another connector onto the end. "But on the
other hand, ETs are real and unfortunately they're dickwads who are going to kill us."

There was a pregnant pause, Curtis' rapid hand movements stilling as his head turned to look at Addy. A wince
spasmed across his face, one of brief, but intense, regret.

"Er, present company excluded, of course," he finished, trying for diplomacy.

Addy, though, didn't feel that he was entirely off-the-mark. So, rather than acknowledge the apology, she merely
shrugged. "Xenophobia and warmongering are not uniquely human traits," she explained simply. She hadn't bothered
to hide her alien origins after introductions had taken place, and better it be said now than let some ill-sentiment or
misunderstandings fester. "I've been in contact with several species who would behave just as the Dominators do
for reasons that, to you, would be unfathomable, as you lack the equivalent emotional spectrum to understand what
they were feeling, nor why. Even discounting those species, as I cannot be sure they exist as I know them within this
multiverse cluster, expansionist and war-driven societies are very common. I will not say Dominators are the norm,
as the galaxy is not currently on fire, but they are certainly not an exception to any given rule."

Both Rory and Curtis stared at her for a moment.

"You..." Curtis began, body jolting a bit as he returned to motion. "You uh, you know that's even worse, right?"

"I wouldn't necessarily call it worse," Addy admitted, leaning some of her weight against the table as she spared a
look towards where her prosthetic was recharging. Since they had the time, she had decided to take it off and get it
back up to full, just in case something else went horribly wrong in the next fifteen hours. "The fact that conflict is not
abnormal means that humanity is not abnormal. If it was, the galaxy would view you as an expansionist threat to be
destroyed to maintain the peace, considering the many things your species has gotten up to without access to other
stellar bodies."

Curtis' mouth worked wordlessly for a moment, like it was forming words without the requisite breath needed to
actually produce them.

"Don't worry," Rory cut in, giving her a rather scrutinizing look, before turning fully to Curtis. "It'll all work out."

That, at least, seemed to break Curtis' silence. He turned to look at Rory, scrunching his nose, before he reached out
and unclasped his processor chip from the stand it had been attached to. "You're not going to tell me God has a
plan, are you?" he less asked, more accused.

Rory just shrugged, spreading his hands out in front of him. "Well..."

Curtis waved one hand at him, cutting him off before he could continue. "Look, agree to disagree for now? I'm not
sure I can believe that there's a divine plan that includes space monsters, let alone a divine plan made by someone
who is supposed to be the embodiment of goodness."

Rory looked like he had a number of things to say in response to that, but managed to keep it to himself and merely
nodded.

Addy made no comment one way or another, as Kara had set rules and boundaries about getting into theological
debates. Supposedly it was to stop her from getting into arguments with 'highly powerful members of the Catholic
Church again', though she sincerely doubted Rory was Catholic.

Curtis, with chip in hand, turned completely and started to walk towards where Kara, Felicity and Cisco were seated.
Addy followed, eyes sliding away from him and towards Kara, catching her smiling and shooting off a reply to
Felicity, who gave her a mortified look and muttered something back in response. Again, while normally the low
volume and distance would've prevented her from hearing anything, with her adjusted hearing she could make out
pieces of it—fragmentary mumbles that danced just outside of her total comprehension.

It was, honestly, almost more annoying than being unable to hear them in the first place.

Rory came up beside her, walking in step, and gave her one of those awkward smiles he so often sent people's way.
She dutifully nodded back, as was expected for propriety's sake.

Felicity glanced up as Curtis approached, her lips quirking into a smile. "What's that?" she asked, gesturing towards
the chip Curtis had clamped between his index finger and thumb.

Both Cisco and Kara looked up then, too, Cisco turning away from the chunk of Dominator technology he had
clamped in place on top of the table, while Kara tore her own gaze away from the tablet Felicity had loaned her.

Curtis grinned at the three of them, holding the chip up proudly for display. "I like to call it my 3PO processor," he
declared, voice shifting as his voice took on a bizarre, shrill affect and began to motion with his hands like he was
attempting to chop the air. "I am fluent in over six million forms of communication!"

Curtis laughed, Felicity laughed, even Kara laughed, which meant it was probably funny.

That said, Addy didn't get it. At all.

She made her confusion clear by staring at Curtis' head, who, after a moment, turned towards her, caught her stare,
and frowned. He turned back to Kara, then back to Addy, before shaking his head.

"You really have to show her Star Wars one of these days," he said to Kara. "Or you have to find a few hours and
watch it," he said, in her direction.

Oh. It was another one of those 'references' he kept making. Winn had been like that, once, before he had realized
the fundamental futility that came with it. The only references Addy personally approved of were ones that went on
scientific papers and resumes.

"So," Cisco cut in, halfway rising from his seat and taking a shuffling step towards Curtis. "It speaks Dominator?"

Curtis shrugged. "I didn't specifically program it for that, but in my defence... I wasn't aware Dominators existed until,
like, a day ago. That said, if there's anything I can get my hands on that has a chance of decoding something on that,
it's this." He gestured again, waving the chip around. "I even modified the connector, so it should work."

Cisco reached out and took the chip, flipping it around to give the entire thing a one-over. "Well," he said, settling
back down into his feet and gesturing for everyone to get closer. "Let's see about that."

Addy, capable of seeing perfectly fine from where she was, stayed still. The others didn't seem to need her bubble of
personal space though, and moved to cluster behind Cisco, glancing down to where he was slowly fitting the chip
into the open port at the base of the device.

It took a few seconds of wiggling, flipping it around not once, but twice, before it finally slotted into place with a
distinct click.

The fang-shaped chunk of technology began to glow. There were a series of textured grooves along its surface that
ran from the sharp pointed end out to where Cisco had just slotted the chip into, resembling something like an
accordion pipe, and the one nearest to where the chip was inserted lit up with red light.

Then, a few moments later, the bump above the bottom one did too.

Clearly, something was working.

"I feel like Elliot in ET," Curtis gushed, another nervous laugh tumbling out of his lips. "It's working, it's working!
Y'know?"

"Your tech guy quotes movies, huh?" Cisco muttered, glancing at Felicity.

"Yeah," she replied, eyes trained on the device.

"If it's any consolation, sometimes ours does too," Kara added helpfully.

"C'mon baby, download that sucker—" Curtis continued, and Addy had the distinct impression he would be on the
edge of his seat, had he actually been sitting down.

"Real original," Cisco said, almost in a sigh.

One by one, the bumps lit up, climbing the length of the chunk and nearing the tip.

That was, of course, about the point where the piece of Dominator tech began to shake. An errant arc of red energy
jolted from the tip, coiling back around to the base, appearing and then vanishing in a single blink. Half of the table
recoiled back in sudden shock, the red lights on the device began to flicker, Curtis' enthusiasm, Addy noted, died the
sudden death of a blue-screening computer.

"No," Felicity shouted, scrambling back from the table and sending her chair toppling. She reached out, snatching her
laptop and two of the tablets off of the table in a nearly superhuman blur. Priorities, Addy supposed. "Don't you dare
—"

Addy reached over, hauled Rory down, and watched Kara duck for cover with the rest of the group.

The chip, promptly, exploded.

A shower of sparks, red energy, and a not-insignificant amount of smoke billowed up from the point of explosion,
and Addy was, not for the first time, distinctly reminded of her day job. Not that these people could hold a candle to
the destructive potential of Serling, admittedly, but there was a good effort being made.

Addy watched as Kara peeked her head up, just in time to see the chunk of Dominator tech drop back down onto the
table with a loud clunk. It bounced once, but didn't manage to fall off the table, and instead settled on the expansive,
sooty scorch mark the explosion of the chip had left behind. The device itself looked almost completely untouched,
if not for the smears of smoke and a few scuff marks, which was a rather sharp comparison to the shards of the
processor chip that surrounded it like fallen leaves. What hadn't exploded in a burst of shrapnel now meekly leaked
out of the port the chip had been inserted into, dribbling some combination of metal, plastic and silica onto the
table, and was already rapidly hardening into a puddle-shaped sheet.

"Hey, uh," Rory spoke up, Addy turning to glance at him. He smiled appreciatively at her, this one less nervous.
"Thanks."

"I am rather used to experiments exploding," Addy freely admitted, drawing a few more looks. "That said, most of the
time when something I have helped create explodes, I am behind a layer of durable glass that only breaks
sometimes."

"What do you even do for a living?" Barry asked, sounding morbidly curious. The man in question had been keeping
his distance from Cisco, but evidently, an explosion was enough to bring him over from where he'd been leaning up
against the wall. "I thought you were... like, an IT person for a media company."

"I'm a xenotechnology researcher for L-Corp," Addy replied matter-of-factly, and with a small inkling of pride. "I
specialize in mathematics."

Barry paused. "Huh. Going up in the world." He gave her a thumbs-up, and Addy felt her opinion of him rise by a very
small notch. At least he could understand some things.

"So, I'm just going to interrupt the painful small talk," Rene said, emerging from the table he had been sulking at.
"What just happened?"

"We made a stupid decision, is what," Cisco grumbled, finally picking himself up off the ground and angrily snatching
the piece of Dominator tech from where it had landed on the table. After taking a moment to make sure what was
left of the chip had fully leaked itself out from the base, he placed the thing back in its clamps.

"We plugged a piece of our tech into a Dominator power source and got surprised when it was overloaded," Curtis
replied, more than a little mournfully. "And my chip's completely... well, I can't even call this fried. It's slagged. My
precious baby got melted by alien tech. I mean, I have ten more of them, I'm not an idiot, but even so, I'm not sure
this thing can deal with another explosion."

Cisco spared the chunk of Dominator tech another look. "Curtis, I'm pretty sure you could shoot this with a rocket
launcher and it wouldn't do much more than scuff the surface."

"I'm not talking about the Dominator tech," Curtis replied, raising one hand to his chest. "I'm talking about me, and my
pride."

"So we have to find some type of power regulator," Felicity interrupted, placing her laptop and two tablets back down
on the table, away from the scorch mark and cooling puddles of various materials. "Something that can handle alien
tech that we have no idea about."

Curtis turned to look at her, then tilted his head. "Well... Vanhorn Industries was working on a power regulator
prototype for NASA, weren't they?"

The rest of the group turned to look at him, mostly vacantly. Addy was more curious about where he acquired said
information, but felt that was better voiced later.

Curtis gave an almost defensive shrug at their looks. "I like to keep a finger on the pulse of the tech industry, alright?
Anyway, the chip they were working on was for handling power surges in high-orbit satellites, the sort of thing that
needs to be able to deal with unusual influxes of power at a moment's notice."

"Uhuh," Felicity said dubiously, leaning forward as she started to type in rapid, staccato bursts. "Vanhorn, right?"

Curtis nodded.

There was a lapse of silence for a few moments, only cut through by the sharp clack-clack-clack of fingers playing
over a mechanical keyboard.

Then, Felicity paused, blinking owlishly. "Well, they certainly perfected it alright," she announced, fingers hovering
above the keys. "They perfected it so much, in fact, that someone almost immediately stole it. According to the Star
City Police, their main suspect is one... Doctor Laura Washington? Who even is this?"

Kara leaned forward, squinting at the screen. "A doctor?" she asked, eyes flitting back to Felicity. "You're not just
saying she has a doctorate in computer sciences or something, right?"

Felicity shook her head. "Nope. Medical doctor, and that wouldn't make sense, unless, you know..." Felicity quickly
tapped a few more keys, and winced. "She specializes in cybernetics, with a particular interest in augmenting the
human form. Which, by the way, she totally does."

Addy wandered around the side of the table, glancing towards the screen herself. True to Felicity's commentary, the
webpage she was looking at listed out a long series of problems Laura Washington had been involved with, most of
them related to cybernetic enhancement. She had been, at the very beginning, rebuffed by her ethics board on
multiple occasions, who cited concerns about her focus on enhancement, rather than reparative use of prosthetics.
After a point, the report continued, she began to seek private investment and worked in underground operations,
which was exceedingly illegal and when she got caught, she fled, and at some point in the last few months had
started to augment her own body, rather than the bodies of the homeless.

Addy could at least feel relief that the absurd things humanity got up to were not exclusive to Kara's version of this
greater multiverse. Something like this would not be even remotely out of place in National City, which rather said a
lot more about the state of National City than anything else could.

"Oh, a cyborg, of course," Felicity muttered. "Because why would the universe make anything easy?"

"Well, I mean it says here her implants give her enhanced strength, stamina, and electricity-based powers," Curtis cut
in, stopping Felicity's misery before it could begin to snowball. "It's nothing we can't handle."

"You guys have a database for this stuff?" Kara asked, sounding almost curious.

Curtis looked away from Felicity and towards Kara, scrunching his brows. "Uh, yeah? You kinda need one when
metahumans are getting regularly involved in crimes. Do... do you guys not?"

Kara shrugged. "I mean, sorta. It's all handled by a single agency, and most of it was highly classified until recently,
and it's aliens for us, not metahumans, but... it's not really public knowledge?"

Whatever else Kara was about to say was cut off by Felicity levelling an affronted look at Curtis. "Curtis, that is
literally everything we can't handle right now," she insisted sharply, gesturing with one hand at her screen. "We don't
even know where she is!"

"I mean, we do know her last known location," Kara pointed out, gesturing at the screen. "Me and Addy can search
for her. We're both very good at finding people."

Felicity paused, glanced between the two of them, and then breathed out. She dragged one hand through her hair,
clenched like a claw, and visibly settled herself. "Alright, you have a point. There are things we can do about this."

Kara smiled at her, and it was one of those terribly soft ones Addy had been on the receiving end of before. Felicity,
in response, relaxed a bit further. "I know this is difficult. A chunk of your friends were abducted, and we don't know
where they are, and we're hinging our luck on a bit of debris from a Dominator ship, but..." Kara trailed off, glancing
towards Addy, then back to the rest of the group. "We can figure this out."

Felicity's shoulders firmed up, she visibly gathered herself, and nodded once. "Right, you're totally right," she said,
quickly, fingers returning to her keys. "Everyone, suit up! We've got a cyborg to track down and steal from."

Everyone shared a few glances, and went to do just that.

"I'm going to have to ask Lena for a tune-up on my arm," Addy said, glancing mournfully at it.

Kara, next to her, was squinting at it. "Is it breaking down?" she asked, sounding like she didn't much want the
answer.

Addy shook her head. "No, just some slowness in response time," she explained, testing her fingers again. It wasn't a
huge delay, mere milliseconds larger than it had been before, but it was getting worse, and it wouldn't take too long
for it to reach delay times that would compromise her ability to do things with it without modifying her nervous
system again.

"To be fair, you have been putting it through the wringer," Kara mused softly.

It was dark out, the sky overcast and black as tar. It was, if anything, closer to morning than it was sunset, but
nonetheless, they had come out to find what they were looking for. Barry stood across from the two of them, leaning
up against a chainlink fence, and next to him stood Rory—Ragman when in costume, whose name was rather
evocative of what he was wearing.

Which was rags, if it wasn't clear. He was wearing layers upon layers of wrapped-around rags, some of which hung
below his hands, covered his face, and really covered just about every part of his body at a given time. They were all
dark-brown, old with age, and yet not frayed or compromised by said age. Instead, they looked robust, not quite new,
but certainly not in any state of disrepair.

Curtis had accompanied them as well, stepping into his costume as one Mister Terrific, which sounded very
distantly familiar in a way Addy couldn't place. His costume consisted of a black jacket with red and white accents,
long pants with a similar colour scheme, and a T-shaped domino mask that covered his face. Clipped to his belt
were a series of small orbs, and both of his hands were covered by fingerless black leather gloves.

The last of their motley group was Rene, whose costume Addy was fairly sure resembled what the average
American would think of when asked to describe an axe murderer. It was, out of all of them, the least professional;
consisting of a blue shirt with a red tiger decal, beneath which he wore a thick, black long-sleeve shirt of some kind.
On his back was a backpack, attached to which was a series of holsters that ran the length of his torso like a sash,
while also having a similar set-up on his hips. His mask was a blank white hockey mask - and thus the comparison
to axe-murderers - and over his pants he wore knee-guards and some boots.

He was also the last among them to arrive, having refused Barry's offer to carry him here, and instead made a
spectacle of himself by driving through Star City on a dirt bike wearing what he was now. How exactly he avoided
getting pulled over by the police was rather beyond Addy, but then he undoubtedly had his ways.

They were at Laura Washington's last known location: a rather out-of-the-way industrial building that handled the
water heating system and power supply for a nearby suburb. She had been seen coming in and out of the building
on multiple occasions over the last week, and the general assumption they'd come to was that she likely operated
out of it in some capacity for the time being. After all, everyone who mattered knew her face, and she didn't have
much of a life to return to.

She probably had to find a place to handle maintenance on her upgrades, now that Addy was thinking about it.

As Rene's dirt bike trundled past, slowly sputtering to a stop, Addy found her eyes shifting back to Rory, and
particularly the energy she felt pulsing off of his clothes. Her own sensors weren't well-equipped to capture much of
the nuances of it, in large part because, like the time she'd been exposed to emotional energy, she had never before
actually quite felt something like the energy that was radiating off of him.

Rory, catching her gaze, made a shuffling sort of shrug. "They're magical," he said, a defensive tone beneath his
words. Not that it was easy to pick out, of course, because part of his costume's effects, it would seem, was to warp
how his voice sounded. She knew he didn't have an actual voice modulator beneath any of that, she had watched
him wrap the rags around his head, but nonetheless, whenever his voice came out, it sounded like a chorus of voices
at once, all pitched in ways that made the entire thing sound unpleasantly discordant.

Ah, had he thought she was critiquing it? No. While she did not... necessarily agree with the hideous lack of colour
on his clothes, she could at least acknowledge it as what he wore, and blunt the edge of her annoyance about it.
Still, his words brought a frown to her lips, however slight.

"I will freely admit that, after my research into Gotham, I have begun to come around to the... notion that magic may
exist," Addy replied, diplomatically, for it was the truth. She hated saying as much, hated the notion of mysticism as a
whole because it fundamentally undermined the logic she was rather more comfortable about working with, but
reality did not change itself just because she rejected it. She would know, she had tried several times to little effect.
"I have been trying to find a place for it in my understanding of the universe, but I have yet to manage to do so."

At the very least she'd figured out where to slot emotional energy. That had been difficult all on its own, but magic in
its myriad forms and religious implications was taking much longer to work out.

Curtis turned to look at the two of them, a curious tilt to his head. "What's a Gotham?" he asked.

"It's a place," Kara provided, pushing herself off from the chainlink fence. "Full of demons, and... openings into hell, I
think. Don't you guys have a Gotham?"

Curtis shrugged. "Haven't heard of any city like that."

Rene, ahead of them, finally pushed off his bike, kicking out its stand and leaving it leaning up next to the fence that
surrounded the larger industrial building. His head swivelled to stare at them for a few seconds, before he looked
away and was already marching himself towards the door.

The rest of the group, possibly unwilling to leave him to do anything on his own, moved to follow.

"So, wait," Rory piped up, glancing between Kara and Addy. "Like, actual hell? If so that has some really big
implications."

"See, nobody's really sure?" Kara mused, shrugging. "I asked Maggie - a, uh, friend? Something like that, who came
from Gotham - about it, and she said that it's mostly insane cults saying they can open doors into hell, and
considering they do have actual demons with them? It's a bit hard to argue."

Rory made a noise, whatever emotion had once been behind it lost to the crooning disharmony of his modified
voice. "And I thought we had it bad."

Ahead of them, Rene pulled out a pistol from its holster with one hand, while throwing the door to the building open
with the other. He didn't even bother to check they were coming after him, instead stepping through the threshold,
raising his gun, and scanning the entrance with sweeps of his pistol.

"I mean, we haven't had our alien invasion yet," Kara replied, glancing his way. "And as far as I can tell there are
people in Gotham who know how to handle that stuff, so it hasn't crossed my radar much."

"Wait, what do you mean by 'yet'?" Curtis asked. "Is there like a schedule for this? Is getting invaded by aliens
seasonal?"

Addy scanned across the interior of the building as they entered. It was another dispassionate, bland industrial
building, utterly uniform and utilitarian, as most of them were. The main difference between this and the rest of
them was that it was not an abandoned industrial building, and thus someone at least bothered to clean it up with
some regularity. Alongside that, pipes and other instruments were actually active, creaking and groaning as
steaming water flowed through them, occasionally venting off at specific locations. The lights all worked too, which
was another thing in its favour that Addy was surprised to find most buildings like it didn't bother to have.

Before Kara could say anything in response to Curtis, however, Barry broke off from their four-person group and
jogged up ahead, arriving just behind Rene. "So, uh, what's wrong?" he called out, Rene freezing in place as the
conversation was finally directed his way. "Because I can't help but notice you're kinda, like, really angry right now?"

Addy honestly didn't think this was the time for that.

"Ragman, Mister Terrific, can you guys go and scope out the other end of the building?" Kara said, glancing their way
and receiving a series of nods. Apparently, they thought so too, and without further comment the two of them were
ducking down and through a branching hallway, leading them away from the unfolding conflict in front of Addy.

Rene didn't bother to look back at Barry, instead keeping his gun levelled as he slowly began approaching the
nearest door. "I didn't know there were flying metahumans around nowadays, too," he ground out, the words slipping
out through clenched teeth.

And, she knew he couldn't mean her, exactly, because he had undoubtedly overheard Addy's explanation about her
species to Curtis.

That said...

Addy's eyes shifted to Kara.

Kara hadn't explained her origin. Mostly because everyone who particularly needed to know about it already did.

"What?" Barry blurted, face scrunching. "Wait, you mean Kar—er, Supergirl? She's not a meta, she's an alien."

"I'm not like the Dominators, though," Kara piped up, walking slowly up to join Barry's side. "I'm here to help, unlike the
bad ones."

"There are no good ones," Rene snapped back darkly.

Which was profoundly rude, in Addy's opinion, but before she could open her mouth to say as much, people were
already responding.

Kara's face twisted into a frown at his words, darkening. "Y'know that's... not a great thing to say about someone's
species, right?"

"Yeah," Barry replied, planting a single hand on his hip. "What's your damage, anyway?"

Rene went still again for a long moment, letting out a sharp, clenched hiss of a breath, before holstering his gun and
turning to the three of them. "My damage is not with your species, it's with what you can do. People like you three
hold the power of god in your hands and you think you can make the world a better place by putting on a fancy
costume."

Which was a rather comical statement coming from a man dressed up in what could pass for pyjamas if he lost all
the utility belts, the mask, and the boots. Addy did, however, not voice that thought, as the point right now was to rob
a cyborg and not cause interpersonal conflict, despite the itchy urge to do just that.

"I do more than that," Kara cut in sharply, folding her arms over her chest. "But I wear this 'fancy costume' because
people need help sometimes that's more direct, and it also helps me protect my family."

Rene scoffed. "Just look around you! The moment he showed up"—Rene made a vague gesture at Barry—"metas
started appearing absolutely everywhere, and now when you show up, we get aliens."

Right, that was enough of that. "We were called in with the aliens already inbound," Addy corrected, stepping up to
join Kara's side. "The only connection you're making is imaginary."

Rene jabbed a single finger at Addy. "You just creep me the fuck out," he snapped.

"Hey!" Kara rebuffed sharply, voice almost a cry. "Ad—Administrator's fine!"

Rene gave her a dark glare before shaking his head, turning back around and retrieving his gun. "Superpowers are
evil, and I want fuck all to do with them. Or, for that matter, with any of you."

Then, he marched himself towards the upcoming door, leaving them in silence.

"I like him," Addy announced, matter-of-factly.

Rene froze. So did Kara and Barry, or at least they froze after turning to give her twin looks of bewilderment.

"You have a practical viewpoint that would have been well-suited for my past reality. I commend you for that much,
but I ask that we focus on the task at hand. The best way to remove the sources of your frustration is the acquisition
of one Laura Washington," she explained, folding her hands in front of her, not that Rene himself could see it. "So,
while I appreciate and understand your nihilistic viewpoint on the complex implications of people with vast amounts
of power over others that is derived by random chance, or at least not by political power or military power, I insist we
continue in our search."

Rene, finally, started moving again, and seemingly opted to just ignore her.

Kara, eyes still trained on her, raised an eyebrow. "Do you actually like him?"

Addy nodded once, beginning to follow after Rene, both Barry and Kara jolting into gear when she did. "Oh yes. He is
rather nostalgic to me. Taylor was never quite as bad as he is, but at some points she shared a bulk of his
sentiments."

"But you don't like Mick," Kara said, eyes sliding off of her and focusing back on Rene as he finally arrived at the door.
"And you said Mick was also like people from your past reality."

Addy shrugged. "I did not say I liked most of the humans from my past reality, as they were by-in-large unpleasant,
with Taylor as a rare exception. Mick is a crude, apeish man who has no sense of propriety," she replied crisply, for it
was very, very true. "And Rene has at least not devalued me to 'Stick' yet."

"You know, this is... really dysfunctional," Kara admitted at last, glancing between Barry and Rene, the latter of which
was glowering at them as they got closer. At least he knew to wait for them to get close, at the very least. "Like, no
offence, but your stuff with Cisco? Rene's entire... rant he just gave us? Nothing is as bad as that back home, at least
not normally or between the people I work with."

Barry looked incredibly awkward, almost shuffling in place, but didn't seem to have anything to say in response.

"I would never let it get that bad," Addy reminded her. "The signs are easy to tell, if you know where to look for them."

Sure, Kara and Alex didn't have the time to actually talk to each other about them leaving the D.E.O., and Kara wasn't
speaking to J'onn whatsoever, but Addy had the distinct impression these were issues that could be handled with
some adult conversation and by generally treating one another with a modicum of respect.

Addy had much less faith in reconciling whatever was going on between Cisco and Barry, especially when it would
seem that Barry's default means to handle such things involved some type of time travel.

Apparently considering them close enough, Rene yanked the door open and shoved on through with his shoulder,
passing into the vast interior of the building and scanning the area with his gun.

"I mean, that's not really fair—" Barry started, only for his words to be interrupted by a streak of cyan-blue taking Rene
in the chest and sending him hurtling out of sight of the door.

Kara was already moving, and so was Barry, but Addy didn't feel the need to. She reached out to her core, ignited it
and adjusted the parameters for human control, her range shrinking rapidly, but not becoming so small as to be
unusable. Presences lit up in her awareness; Kara, Barry, and Rene, and now a fourth. A single bright, unfamiliar
mind, one which was unshielded.

With a twist, the presence fell under her control, and Addy was left to reflect on how easy things would be, had
people stopped trying to design technology to counter her.

Stepping ahead, she trailed after Kara and Barry, who had taken up their place on either side of Rene, who himself
was clutching his stomach with a look of pain on his face. She, personally, focused on the presence she now had
under her control, sending out a rudimentary scan of her physiological state. True to the police's report, she had
done a lot to augment and upgrade her body, but Addy found herself briefly disappointed.

There were upgrades there, sure, but they were... substandard. Perhaps she had grown too used to the alien tech
that was being steadily integrated into National City, but she was unimpressed.

Turning her head, Addy took her new thrall in. She was a tall woman of African-American descent, with a thick head
of curly black hair, a face creased with lines from age and overwork, and had at some point replaced a large chunk
of her left forearm and hand with some kind of electrical blaster. There was a cybernetic implant where one eye
should be, and Addy knew from her scan that a proverbial library of other bits of technology remained tucked away,
out of sight, but very much active.

Had she had some kind of shielding, she might have proved to be a nuisance. Fortunately, however, this world had
yet to feel her presence more than in a limited capacity, and as such Addy was once more unparalleled in her
capacity to stop people from doing things she didn't want them to do.

That said, looking at her cybernetic implants from the basis of human capabilities, it was decent work. She'd be
dealing with lethal amounts of iron exposure if she kept it up, of course, and didn't find a way to flush out the
contaminants from her body, but then a cursory glance at her brain proved she very much knew that.

Coming to a halt in front of Laura, Addy nodded once.

"Administrator?" Kara asked, stepping away from Rene and joining her at her side.

Addy blinked, remembering. Right, protocol. "The target has been acquired," she declared simply, gesturing at Laura.
"She is now fully under my control."

"And you couldn't've done that before I was shot?" Rene ground out, voice very much displeased.

Addy glanced back at him and shrugged once. "I did not know she was there at the time. Had you not acted
recklessly, you would not be hurt."

Rene wheezed as Barry helped him to his feet, and as thus the only thing he could get in edgewise to her incredible
wisdom was a glare that, on anyone who bore even a slight chance of hurting her, might have made her consider
putting them on her list of threats.

Unfortunately, Rene was a man in an ugly costume with a pistol, and thus he was about as threatening as your
average civilian, which was to say not at all.

"Right, I'm going to grab Ragman and Mister Terrific," Barry announced, leaving Rene to regather his dignity, before
turning and blurring off into the labyrinthine hallways of the building.

It took another hour to get back to their base of operation, in large part because Rene refused to do anything but ride
his bumpy dirt bike back, which went about as well as Addy had expected it to.

Currently, though, they had all collected, with Curtis in front of them as he finished up the process of uploading the
data his chip had stripped from the chunk of Dominator debris.

"So, the uh, the power regulator worked," Curtis announced, giving them all a smile. He was still half in costume,
though he had managed to take his mask off at some point, not that Addy had seen him do it. He had a tablet in his
hands, with his chip sticking out of one end of it like a flag. "Unfortunately, all I got back was, well, soup."

He turned the tablet towards them, showing the group the screen. True to his word, what was being displayed was
an endless cascade of numbers. At a glance, they might've looked random, but Addy was already picking up on
something in them, her brain working through what she could remember.

"No," Felicity breathed, stepping forward to take the tablet and nearly press her face into it. "Nononono, c'mon, this
looks random!"

The pattern clicked somewhere in the back of her head as Addy glanced at the screen.

""It's not,"" both Addy and Rory said in chorus.

Addy glanced at Rory.

Rory glanced at her.

After a moment, Rory gestured for her to go.

Clearing her throat, Addy turned to look at the rest of the group, most of which were looking at her curiously, but with
Felicity in particular, stared at her with an intense sort of hope. "It's an alphanumeric code, and unless it is different
in this reality, it is similar to what I understand to be gematria, a type of cipher." It had been one of the more
interesting styles of encoded language the human species had made.

The fact that math was involved helped, she supposed.

Rory seemed genuinely startled, his face going through a wide variety of emotions, all visible now that he'd shed the
hood and face-covering of his costume. "You, uh. I didn't expect you to know about that," he admitted freely.

"I can speak every language my species could find on the various permutations of my reality's Earth," Addy replied
matter-of-factly. "Most of those languages would be considered dead, or not ones spoken in this version of reality. I
would of course understand one of the better coded languages your species has come up with, as I am very fond of
numbers."

Rory blinked, and seemed to take a moment to digest that statement. "I... suppose that's honestly not a bad reason
to learn gematria. I was about to say the same thing, by the way, it's how the numbers are collected and arranged,
right?"

Addy nodded. "Your pattern recognition is impressive for a human."

Rory made a face. "Thank you?"

"It was a compliment," Addy agreed, before switching back to the task at hand. "I have no particular understanding
as to why the Dominators are using something this close to gematria in their encoded language, but considering the
prevalence of patterned, human-shaped aliens I have observed, I have started to develop a theory that the universe
may operate under a series of absolute patterns that are hard or even impossible to deviate from. Gematria, and
numeric languages like it, and your emotional spectrum may fall under that umbrella."

"...For the gentiles and those of us who actually had social lives in high school," Rene cut in, glancing between
herself and Rory. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I didn't go to high school," Addy corrected.

Rene squinted at her.

Rory cleared his throat, however, drawing Rene's attention back to him. "In Hebrew, each letter possesses a
numerical value. Gematria is in effect the calculation of the numerical equivalence of single letters, words, or
phrases."

"So you're telling me that the Dominator's language is based on the Old Testament?" Curtis asked.

"It shares commonalities," Addy corrected, again. "From what I have observed from my own brief look over the
numbers, it's not an exact translation, but it is based on fundamentally similar principles."

"You wanted proof of a divine plan to the universe, right?" Rory said, shrugging casually.

"It is either that or a predetermined set of evolutionary or otherwise universal patterns in which all things to an
extent follow," Addy replied, because her side of this conversation was not being left behind like that. "It would
explain why the power of emotions exists, among other things."

"So would the divine," Rory replied, then hesitated. After a moment he breathed out, shaking his head. "But neither
you nor I are or have a Rabbi to consult, and this conversation is quite literally the type of thing you should get advice
from a Rabbi about."

"Also your ban on arguing theology is still in place, Addy," Kara reminded her, giving her a look. "Not after the incident
with the Catholic Church."

Rory glanced at Addy, a sliver of what was almost... respect slipping into his expression.

Still, Addy did have a point to make. She glanced at Kara. "I did not argue," she declared pointedly. That said, she
could not completely refute the part about the church. It was, after all, an international incident, which by definition
meant it was, as Kara had said, an 'incident with the Catholic Church'.

Before Kara could respond to her incredibly valid point, Felicity's voice cut through the din.

"Guys? I'm getting references to terran captives," she said.

The others moved quickly over towards where Felicity had sat down at her computer, Addy trailing after them. She
watched, over Kara's shoulder, as Felicity quickly swiped through a series of windows, and started to frown.

"The signal's coming from... that's not possible," Felicity remarked, sounding bewildered. "Negative three-point-one-
two-seven latitude, negative twenty-seven-point-nine-eight..."

"That doesn't make any sense, the map doesn't have negative coordinates," Cisco remarked, squinting at it from his
vantage point next to her.

Except, there was an easy answer to that. "They're in space," Addy announced, already putting the rest of the puzzle
together. The negative coordinates were indications of their location relative to space, and actually by the looks of
it...

Horror dawned over Felicity's face like a rising sun. "Oh god, they're in space."

"And fairly close, by that estimate," Addy remarked, working the rest of the coordinates through her own mental map.
"Which means where they're being held is likely within engagement distance of the Earth at the moment."

"You don't think it's the mothership, do you?" Kara asked, glancing her way.

Addy honestly didn't know. "That or prisoner transport. It depends on the military structure and what value they place
on their existing captives. If we were tracking world leaders, I would say it was likely to be the mothership, but it
could be a number of others."

Felicity bolted to her feet, less placing and more dropping her table on her keyboard as she lunged for her bag. She
rummaged through it like it would at any moment burst into flames, wrenching her cellphone out of it and quickly
bringing the screen up. Wordlessly, she typed a long string of numbers into it and brought it up to her ear, holding up
a finger for the rest of them to remain silent. "C'mon Nate, please—please pick up for once..."

There was a long moment of tense silence, then Addy could just barely hear the click of the call connecting.

"Oh thank god," Felicity breathed. "Nate, I need you to help me invade an alien spaceship, or failing that, just keeping
an eye on it."

There was a pause.

"What? No, your friends are on it—yes, Sara and the rest. I know it's risky, but if you can get..."

Another pause.

Felicity jumped back into her seat, wheeled back over to her desk, and pulled her tablet up to look at. She listed off a
long series of numbers for him in a rapid-fire burst, though to Addy's begrudging respect, he apparently didn't need
her to repeat them. "Those should be the coordinates," she explained. "Yeah, I'll stay on the line."

After that, Felicity dragged the phone down to her chest, turning to look at them. "He'll be a moment," she explained
quickly, heel tapping rapidly on the floor. "I want him near that ship just to be sure we can keep track of it, so he's
going to head out there and check on it. If everything goes well, he'll circle back around, grab those of us who can
go, and we'll... well, we'll board it and go from there."

Addy was uncertain, though. This would be an ideal situation for her; the Dominators treated her as something of a
walking mental hazard, and their continued pruning of their network to stop her from getting a foothold would have
substantial results in weakening them. That said, if it was far enough away, Addy knew she literally could not go, as
her range would not reach far enough to do so.

There was a muffled sound from the phone, and Felicity quickly dragged it back up to her ear. "Sorry, I didn't hear
that. Can you repeat what you just said?"

There was another pause, Felicity's eyes widening a bit.

"...What do you mean 'a pod just escaped from it'? Are we being invaded?"

Kara was already on her feet next to Felicity, glancing at the rest of them. "We have to prepare for a possible
invasion," she said quickly, and Addy saw the others tensing up, preparing for the worst.

"Wait, you're being attacked? Or think you are? How many of their shuttles are unloading? All of—what do you mean
all of them? All for a pod?" Her eyes jumped to Kara, then, and she shook her head. "They're firing on the pod...
meaning they don't want it to get away. Meaning something just escaped."

Kara paused, opening her mouth and then shutting it. "You don't think..."

Felicity's eyebrows bunched together. "It's only the shuttles chasing after it, right Nate? If that's so... is it possible
Oliver and company might've just stolen an escape pod?" There was a breath of silence that followed. "Yes, if you
can grab it, even if you have to scan it first, that'd be really great, Nate. Keep in contact, please, we'll talk soon."

Then the phone went silent, and Felicity dropped it back onto the desk, breathing out.

"Thank god we contacted Nate in time," Felicity said, slumping deeper into her seat and reaching up to press both of
her hands into her face. Addy could just barely see the way tremors wracked her arms. "Ten minutes later and they...
they would've probably been recaptured."

Kara stepped over to Felicity, reaching out to gently grasp her shoulder and offer her a reassuring smile. "They're
safe," she said. "You did it."

Felicity blinked owlishly up at Kara. Slowly, a spreading flush crawled across her face, and with a sudden jerk - one
that even had Kara looking startled enough to take a step back - she was on her feet and throwing both of her arms
into the air. "We did it!" she crowed, jubilant.

Kara grinned, planting her hands on her hips as she watched.

Addy, meanwhile, turned away to look at the power regulator and wondered what else she might be able to use it for.
Last edited: Sep 30, 2021
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OxfordOctopus Sep 30, 2021 New View discussion

Threadmarks: SEASON 2 - EPISODE 40

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 OxfordOctopus She/Her
(Unverified Jackanape)

Oct 7, 2021  #3,614

EPISODE 40​
In the air above, the Waverider slowly lowered itself towards the concrete. Addy watched with, back leaning against
the wall of the hangar they had originally been using as a staging ground, before circumstances had forced them
away into the Arrowcave.

The Waverider was, Addy thought, not bad, which was all things considered rather high praise from her, considering
her utter lack of patience for human construction at this point in time. The ship itself was sturdily built, with a
fascinating - and, to Addy's mild embarrassment, unknown - means of propulsion taking the form of several vents of
red-orange energy. The colours were admittedly lacking - the majority of the ship being slate-gray - but then that was
hardly unexpected, and it wasn't so horribly bland she found it offensive.

Whoever had designed the ship knew what they were doing. Humanity itself, at least in Kara's dimension, clearly
didn't understand the larger ramifications of long-term space voyage, and tended to make their ships in a way that
was only really good at getting out of the atmosphere. That sort of thing wouldn't last very long in the void of space,
where the occasional rock would punch holes in it. This, by comparison, had clear indications that whoever built this
was well aware of that fact, and did much to protect against it. Coupled with the fact that it had some apparent
means to transport itself through time, with its own set of hazards, Addy was begrudgingly impressed.

It helped that it had a large assortment of weapons to go along with it, of course. No vessel was truly finished
without them. It had blasters, clear openings for the deployment of missiles and torpedoes, and she'd be genuinely
surprised if it lacked shields.

The Waverider touched down after a few more seconds, landing gear already out and ready to bear the weight of the
ship. It creaked thunderously as it landed, the ground rattling just the slightest bit from the weight of it, with an
accompanying hiss of venting pressure escaping the panels of the vessel. After a few more moments of weight
being distributed, the ship finally went still, and a ramp began to lower itself down towards the concrete.

Behind her came the sound of approaching footsteps; boots crunching on gravel. Addy turned her head, caught
Kara's gaze as she came to a stop beside her, one hand propped up on her fist while the other hung loosely at her
side. Kara said nothing, just watched the ship with a sharp gaze, and after a few moments, Addy turned to do much
the same.

Of the people to emerge from the ship and onto the ramp, Oliver was first. He walked out into the sun with what, at a
glance, might have once been a confident stride, but Addy could see that it wasn't. Oliver's motions were often
smooth, fluid, the prowl of someone who subconsciously muffled their movements. Now, he walked stiffly, loudly,
each motion just a little sharper than it altogether had to be.

More people followed. Second out of the ship was Sara, and close behind her in third was Mick. Ray was next,
followed by Professor Stein - looking exhausted and weary - and Jaxx. Nate came after, accompanied by both Diggle
and Thea, who were talking amongst themselves quietly.

Each and every one of them looked rattled. In different ways, sure, but like Oliver, none of them seemed to be totally
comfortable. Mick kept flicking his gaze around, like he was waiting for something to jump out at him. Thea flitted
between people in the group, briefly touching them as though to check they were still tangible and real, and Sara just
looked furious.

Felicity stumbled past their waiting group, letting out a sharp breath as she half-jogged towards Oliver. "Oh thank
god, you're okay—I mean, physically okay. I don't know what you went through, but—"

Oliver came to a stop in front of Felicity, the rest of the saved group arrayed around him, and raised his palm up,
cutting Felicity off. "Enough," he said, voice tight. "We have something bigger to deal with."

With a nudge, Oliver and the rest of the group started forward again, Sara striding up to take Oliver's side while they
made their way towards the door. Addy pulled back, watching Kara do the same, stepping back into the shade of the
hangar and listening to the footsteps as the rest of them entered.

They made their way back towards the screens, the computers and the van that all sat next to it. People shuffled,
stood around awkwardly, looking between one another. Behind her, Addy could just barely make out the hissed, half-
whispered conversation going on between Cisco and Barry, which shortly thereafter ended, Barry stalking away from
Cisco and coming to join the rest of them.

Sara cleared her throat, stepping forward. "There should still be some time before they get here," she said, voice
bouncing throughout the hangar. Addy felt fractionally relieved for a moment, posture relaxing. "Mick started a fire,
well, everywhere on their ship, and that should keep them busy for a while."

Mick grinned, his smile all teeth. "Tried to get into my head. Showed 'em how well that worked out for the last one to
try that."

Sara gave Mick a brief glance, before nodding. "They kept us in pods of some kind—connected our minds to make
us all be in the same dream, made from our memories," she said at last, each word almost grit out. "At first, none of
us could tell that anything was wrong. It was... almost an ideal world, but over time our ideas of what ideal was
came into conflict, and it started to break down. I started remembering things, so did the others, and it didn't take
long after that to realize it wasn't real, rally together, and find a way to shut it down and get us out."

"After that," Oliver picked up, shifting stiffly where he stood. "We grouped up, snuck around, and took on some of the
Dominators before finding an escape shuttle and using it to get free. The rest you already know."

"What about the ship?" Kara asked, stepping forward. "Was it a prison transport? A battleship? A flagship?"

Sara shook her head. "A mothership," she said, voice grim and hard. "Definitely a mothership, and going by what
Gideon - the Waverider's AI - could translate from their transmissions, they're working on some kind of superweapon
to use against us."

"How far out is the fleet?" Addy asked, glancing over them.

"Couple of hours, at most," Nate said, briefly meeting her gaze before it shifted away to stare at the Waverider.
"That's only if they keep to their cruising speed. They could be here in minutes if they sped up."

"That's... not a whole lot of time to work out a plan," Kara mused, lips thinning out into a tense line. "Let alone a
defence strategy for an invasion, we only barely know what we're working with..."

"What about the Dominators that are already here?" Oliver asked, glancing towards the rest of them. "Any movement
from them?"

Cisco, finally opting to actually join them, walked forward and shook his head. "There's been no new activity. The
government has been scraping up all the dead ones, but since they tried to mind control us? Absolutely nothing—not
even a blip."

Oliver's face tensed. "I... was that entire display just for us then?" he asked, crossing his arms over his chest. "Just to
abduct us?"

"It could be," Kara said at last. "You and the other metahumans, especially, are the biggest threat to their invasion
because you're hard to work around. A metahuman could do a lot of things they might not predict. They might've
wanted intel on you, on us, and abducted you to get it."

"It's also possible that they wanted to use you," Addy said idly, entering the conversation once again. Eyes turned
towards her, watching. "There was an attempt made to control you that I subverted. Had they succeeded, they might
have used you to sow chaos and undermine what minimal defences Earth even has against an interstellar invasion,
before bringing you back to be studied. They placed you in a dreamscape of some kind, and through it could've used
it to study your psyches, behaviours, memories and other information. It is, in my experience, a viable if roundabout
means to accomplish that."

She, of course, didn't need to go that far to get information from someone's mind. If need be, she could simply
extract or copy it. But, then, not everyone could be like her.

Oliver frowned, a tight, almost angry expression. "So they know everything about us?"

"You, perhaps," Addy conceded. "Humanity, in general, may have also been a target. They might have wanted to
study some of the species to understand how their minds categorize information and what is otherwise considered
normal by the standards of this era."

Oliver's frown darkened, eyes narrowing. "Then why don't we do the same to them?" he said, at last. "Find one of
them, study them, get something out of it."

"Well, because there's none that we can find who are currently alive," Cisco said, awkwardly. "Like... the government's
been finding brain dead or just dead-dead ones. Actually, I was honestly wondering, what did you do to them,
Administrator?"

Addy blinked, glancing Cisco's way. "Nothing. They did that to themselves."

Oddly, that did not seem to comfort him any, if his expression was any indication.

"Hold on a sec," Nate interjected, stepping past the group and towards one of the two laptops near the screens.
"It's... not out of the question for us to find one right now, and we might be able to deal with our lack of time issue."

Heads turned, watching as he arrived at the laptop and began to tap away on it. Addy turned fully, giving half an eye
to the screens slotted up on the wall as they all flickered and showed what he was doing on the laptop—in this case,
accessing what appeared to be a collection of... incredibly classified video files, digitally archived at some point in
the recent past.

With a single double-tap on the trackpad, a video was pulled up and automatically defaulted to full-screen. It was
clearly a filmed video of a film being played on a gray concrete screen, going by the sound of whirring tapes and
chunky projector equipment. The video stalled out on an illuminated, gray wall for a few seconds, before with one
last great clatter, the film started in full.

Immediately, the sound of gunfire bellowed up from the spears. Armed infantry units, some perched on the backs of
open-roof trucks, manning machine guns, fired across a withered, grassy field at something just barely out of shot.
In turn, streaks of brightness - for the film was entirely in black-and-white - were shot back at them in turn. One of the
men perched on one of the vehicles was hit dead center in the chest, and in a distinctly familiar way, pulled apart
into motes of glowing dust, vanishing into the wind.

"I've been reviewing army footage of their first contact with the Dominators," Nate said, voice carrying over the
accompanying roar of something exploding. "I've pegged this fight to Redmond, Oregon, in October of 1951."

There was another burst of noise, a percussive rat-a-tat-tat from a machine gun whirring into motion, a barrel lighting
up with such intensity that the rest of the image turned almost faded. It, still, wasn't enough, as the enemy
Dominators merely fired back, and with each volley of lasers, two or more soldiers dropped. One by one, the machine
guns went quiet, until all that was left was one man, screaming wildly as he fired.

Then he too was hit. It was only a glancing blow, only enough for the laser to tear apart his arm and shoulder, but the
rush of blood and the glassy look on his face as he pitched forward, tumbling from the back of the vehicle, spoke to
his fate nonetheless. On his tumble down, he hit the camera, sending it pitched over to the side, catching the stalks
of grass that made up the hills the battle had taken place on.

Slowly, a Dominator came into view, walking over to the body, raising one arm, and finished the man off with a single
blast of his laser. Then, the creature turned, crouched down, and reached for the camera.

The video cut out.

Silence followed for a long, long moment. Addy scanned the group, saw a few of them looking mildly terrified, but
more of them just looking angry, bordering on hateful.

"You're suggesting that we time travel to 1951, abduct a Dominator, and interrogate it to determine their intentions
and any weaknesses they might have," Professor Stein said, finally breaking the silence.

"They kidnapped us," Sara spat, voice venomous. "It seems only fair."

The vitriol behind that, the shakiness in their forms... Addy did wonder what had happened, on that ship, but knew
better than to ask at the moment. They were channelling their emotions towards a goal, rather than dwelling on
them, and Addy knew that was the best she could hope for at the moment.

"Time travel? I'm definitely in," Cisco piped up after another moment.

Except, Barry didn't quite let him go. He glanced at Cisco, then back towards Professor Stein. "Hey, wait. Professor
Stein, didn't... didn't you and Caitlyn have something you two were working on to help take on the Dominators?"

Professor Stein inclined his head. "It has been... understandably delayed due to the abduction, but yes, we were. I
believe Caitlyn is doing fine work, though I will need to get back to her soon."

Barry nodded, glancing back at Cisco. "They could probably use some help with that, Cisco, you're one of our best
tech guys—"

Cisco shrugged sharply, cutting him off. "Pass."

Barry blinked, long and slow, before glancing back out towards Professor Stein, his expression somewhere between
neutral and viciously awkward.

Felicity jabbed her thumb at Cisco. "I'm with him. Mostly because I don't want to lose my geek cred by turning down
a chance to go time travelling."

Which, well. Now that they had made this into a statement as to each person's involvement... "I will have to decline
coming along," Addy announced, drawing somehow more gazes than either Felicity or Cisco's proclamations that
they would.

The curious gazes certainly didn't go away in the wake of that statement, so begrudgingly, Addy formulated an
explanation.

"It is not for any lack of interest," she said, first, because it most certainly was not. She was rather curious about their
means to maneuver through time without hideous power costs. "It is, rather, due to inability. I have a core that
contains a large portion of who I am, and is also the source of my powers. It exists in another universe, and is
approximately the size of Earth."

Best to give them the impression that it wasn't a planet she had cannibalized. Just for safety measures, admittedly,
but also because that would lead to its own long-winded explanation that she didn't particularly wish to get into.

"Unless you are capable of transporting that also through time, which I doubt, it will have to remain in this time.
Therefore, if I was to join you in time travel in a direction anywhere but forwards - as time is naturally inclined
towards doing - I would be disconnected from my core, and the results would be... unpleasant." Addy tilted her head,
briefly calculating some odds. "Best case scenario, I am merely rendered comatose or highly disoriented and lacking
my powers due to its absence. Worst case scenario, a chunk of my active power load is forced through the
connection as a response to a potential disconnect and I explode in a high-yield fireball."

There were some rather less curious, more horrified looks at that.

Feeling that this was reflecting rather poorly on her working habits, however, Addy straightened her back and rushed
to further clarify. "That said, if you have the opportunity to return with the Dominator, I can bypass the need for
interrogation and merely take it from their minds. I can say with hindsight I should have left at least one of them to
do so before, but at the time I was busy attempting to compromise their hivemind and force a retreat through those
means, I'm afraid."

...That seemed to not help any, unfortunately. The looks she was getting now were somehow even more wary and
concerned.

"Yeah, you're not coming on board," Nate said at last, glancing her way. "That said... I can take the two of you," he
finished, gesturing towards both Felicity and Cisco.

There were twin shouts of glee, their apparent horror over her masterful abilities lost as the two of them scrambled,
turning around and heading towards the Waverider.

Barry cleared his throat, and the two of them stopped before they could make more than a few steps. "Also, the new
president called, which would be cool under different circumstances. She wants to meet with us."

Oliver, looking a bit more in his element, nodded and stepped ahead. "Ray, Sara, you two fine coming along as back-
up for the meeting with the president?"

Sara tilted her head. "Nate's fine handling the Waverider," she said after a moment's pause. "He'll have Amaya and
Mick with him, anyway, if anything goes wrong."

"I'm fine joining up too," Ray added, waving a hand.

Kara hopped in place a bit, glancing between the groups as they started to form ranks. "So, what about me? I can be
back-up."

Oliver looked at Kara, then at Addy, and frowned, almost grimaced. "Can I talk to you for a moment?"

Kara's hops slowed, then stopped altogether, blinking slowly as she glanced around.

"You too, Administrator," Oliver added, almost as an afterthought, his voice gruff.

Kara looked at Addy, a pensive twist to her lips, before moving to follow after Oliver. Addy walked with her, watching
as the rest of the people in the hangar dispersed, forming new groups and talking amongst themselves.

Oliver led them away to where there were several large pallets, on which towered stacked boxes wrapped tightly in
plastic. He came to a stop in front of one particularly tall one, turned to look at them, crossed his arms, and frowned.
"I would like to minimize your involvement with this."

Kara startled, lips pulling tightly down into a frown. "Why?"

Addy felt herself grow increasingly unimpressed with Oliver's general behaviour. "I would highly advise against it,"
she informed him. "As we are currently your only experts on handling issues of this type."

Kara nodded, gesturing towards her. "Exactly what Addy said. Is it because I'm an alien? Because need I remind you I
am also your biggest weapon, Oliver."

"You both are unknown quantities, and this is not personal," Oliver replied brusquely.

"Except, by all known rational understandings of your current demand, there should be no other reason for you to be
attempting to enforce this if it was not personal," Addy reminded him. She had tried to look for an explanation as to
why he might rationally want to distance them and found nothing. "We are your biggest asset in handling the
invasion. I cannot understand why you would argue otherwise."

"And, yeah, this also feels personal," Kara added, words ground out in a stellar show of restraint.

Oliver just stared at the two of them. "When I started living this life, it was just me, and I was just going up against
human threats. That I could handle. Then, it was metahumans, and I learned to handle that too. Now, I learn there are
multiple Earths and I was brainwashed aboard an alien spacecraft which is currently attempting to invade this
planet."

"That sounds like a personal issue," Addy said, not blunting the edge of her words for Oliver had hardly earned such
a favour at this junction. "I am uncertain how any of this applies to us."

Kara shot her a quelling look, before glancing back at Oliver. "I'm sure that was really unnerving, but—"

Oliver cut her off. "I. Don't. Get. Unnerved."

"Incorrect," Addy interjected, feeling he deserved a sharp reminder about all of this. "Between the way you are
holding yourself, the rate of your heartbeat, your quick, shallow breathing and the words you continue to speak, you
are by definition unnerved."

Oliver glared at her. Full, hostile and bitter, but the fight behind his eyes faded out just as quickly as it came, and his
posture slumped ever-so-slightly. "When I go up against something new, I push back. Right or wrong, it is who I am
and it is what I do," he began, voice almost distant. "So I'm asking for a little bit of space because I have to draw the
line for myself somewhere. I need to claw back a sense of normalcy. Please, just stay here."

And with that, without so much as waiting for a rebuttal, he walked past them, back towards the group.

"Every word he just said was personal," Addy announced, unable to quite contain the annoyance from entering her
tone. "He is an irrational actor. We should disregard his opinion and not listen to him."

Kara watched Oliver go with a hurt look, one that had Addy feeling the irritation in her chest as a growing bonfire of
something rather more harmful. "I... he has a right to boundaries," Kara said at last, shaking her head as she looked
away.

"He will have no boundaries left to define if this planet is reduced to a charred husk by orbital bombardment or is
otherwise occupied by a genocidal invading force," Addy reminded her. "Everyone he knows will be dead. He likely
will be too. I submit the notion that that should be his bigger concern, not his comfort surrounding us."

"Sometimes... I mean, I guess sometimes things just don't work out that way, Addy," Kara said softly, turning to look
her way.

"Maybe they should," Addy muttered.

Kara shook her head. "I... we'll go along with what he said for now. Just for the president thing, okay? He wants to do
that without us? Fine, but if he keeps this up when the invasion comes around... we'll go with your plan. Is that
okay?"

Addy looked at Kara, took her in, and found it in herself to relent. No, it was not fine, Kara was ceding ground to an
irrational actor in a matter of global concern, but then she did seem set to follow after his example. Addy could twist
her mind, twist Oliver's mind... but she knew better than that now. "It is not acceptable, but then nothing about Oliver
Queen has led me to believe anything about him would be acceptable in the first place."

Kara puffed a cheek out, but very notably did not refute her statement. Progress, Addy supposed.

No, if things started going bad, that was when she started fielding countermeasures. She was going to make a list,
and if Oliver deviated too far from sanity, she would have fallback plans ready to handle it.

Addy swiped a finger across the surface of the tablet, eyes flicking between it and her laptop - which she had the
foresight to bring with her after confirming crossing dimensions wouldn't brick it - which sat on the table next to her.
The tablet she had acquired from Felicity in the brief stint of time before the woman had rushed off to go and
unrepentantly disrupt the natural flow of time. Felicity had forgotten to tell her the WiFi password, but scraping that
off of the tablet - which had already been connected - had been trivial.

That said, she was finding she was starting to run out of things to do.

It had been less than an hour since the various parties had split off to go and accomplish tasks that Addy was either
not invited to or otherwise incapable of participating in. The hangar itself was largely abandoned at this point, with
only the occasional person who hadn't been sent off on some errand - such as Diggle and Thea - popping in and then
leaving when it became clear nobody had heard back from either group yet. Even Professor Stein - who Addy was
interested in speaking to about his powers - had left, though he had returned back to his lab to work with a woman
by the name of Caitlyn on whatever weapon they were putting together to beat back the Dominators.

Unlike Oliver, Addy was not particularly willing to risk the fate of this Earth based on her own personal interests or
issues, so she had let him go instead of making a scene.

What she was keeping herself occupied at this point was, as a result, only three things: the power chip, documenting
changes between this universe and Kara's, and keeping an eye on civilian observation news feeds, so she'd know the
moment that the Dominator ships came close enough that even civilians were picking up on it.

The power chip's lack of adequate use had been bothering her since they had first acquired it, and it was really only
on loan. She had taken it from Curtis - who intended to hand it back to the company that had built it as soon as he
could - and promised she'd leave it to be shipped back, but wanted to study it.

In her defence, stealing the design of the power chip did involve a lot of study. Underhanded, backwards, and
computer-aided study, she would grant, but let it never be said that Addy let opportunities fall to the wayside when
they came to her. At the moment, the power chip was plugged into a crude, if functional connector, and she was
both copying over anything that might pass as data from the chip - of which there was a surprising amount - as well
as running a series of carefully-tweaked diagnostics programs. By backpacking off of the chip's own internal logic -
designed of course to be readable by those who made it - she was functionally recreating the thing from the ground
up.

Given another hour - and the notion that this planet wasn't a charred-out husk by the end of the day - she'd have a
fully documented schematic that she could recreate it from, and hopefully get some actual use out of it that didn't
include cybernetics.

That said, the process was slow going, which had understandably let her attention stray, and from there she had
begun to look up the differences between universes. There was, as an example, no evidence that Kara or Clark had
ever made landfall on Earth, beyond even the obvious lack of their superhero identities. There was nobody registered
under Kara Danvers or Clark Kent who even remotely resembled the Kara or Clark she knew, and most people still
assumed that aliens - while certainly likely to exist out in the vast expanse of space - had never made contact with
Earth, or vice-versa.

She supposed that opinion was going to change pretty soon, though. It would be rather hard to miss an invading
fleet of alien ships.

Lena Luthor did actually exist in this universe, as did Luthor Corp, but Lena had broken ties with her family
somewhere in the realm of five years ago and moved to Ireland, as per a magazine article about the incident. Luthor
Corp itself, apparently lacking the vindictive drive that Clark's existence had instilled in Lex, was facing a slow and
gradual decline as their medical research and corporate holdings were gradually subsumed by larger
pharmaceutical companies.

Alex Danvers also existed, though the only piece of social media Addy had been able to find to corroborate the fact
that wasn't locked down tight was a half-forgotten MySpace page over a decade out of date. At least from the
cursory glance over that profile, Addy could conclude her tastes in music had not changed whatsoever, though it
provided little else.

Further, a cursory search for the D.E.O. had proved its existence - primarily by tracking down the web-pages various
agents used to communicate indirectly and a half-dozen incidents Addy could remember finding in the D.E.O.'s
historical records - if not who ran it, largely because all she was finding was their fingerprints, rather than anything
conclusive. They certainly did not have a base in the middle of National City, largely because National City in this
universe was, while in roughly the same geographic area, a city of barely three-hundred thousand and on the decline.

This raised the worrying notion that the D.E.O. existed as it had before J'onn's takeover of the organization, though
Addy certainly could not imagine what she was expected to do about that. She wasn't exactly going to be around
here for any real length of time - or at least, hopefully not - which reduced her options to fixing said issues to largely
violent and destructive ones, none of which were particularly good choices when she was ostensibly trying to work
with the government this time.

Glancing away from both of those, Addy let her eyes linger on the trackers she had placed. Still nothing, no odd
astrological phenomenon, not even a misattributed comet tail or star. The Dominators were definitely taking their
time, which did raise the question as to how much damage Mick had been able to do.

She would grant him that: much like the humans from her home multiverse cluster, he could be adequately
destructive when the urge took him.

Footsteps approached from behind and to the side, Addy glancing around to find Kara wandering up next to her. The
smile Kara sent her was weary, and vanished worryingly quick. "Kara," Addy said, bobbing her head.

"Hey Ads," Kara replied, eyes dancing down to her laptop. "Find anything intere—wait is... that the power chip?"

Addy blinked slowly, glancing back at her laptop and gently minimizing the diagnostic software she had running. "I
ask that you keep your silence about that," she requested, after a moment.

"...Addy, are you stealing someone's design?" There wasn't actually that much condemnation in Kara's voice, mostly
just exasperation and an uncertain thread of curiosity.

"As well as I can," Addy admitted. "Reconstructing it will be a task, but there is little more I can do to pass the time. I
wish to also note preemptively: I am adhering to your rules about following the law, as I am not breaking it, for there
are no laws on interuniversal patents."

That earned her a snort, resoundingly undignified, and Addy found herself relaxing as she watched Kara's smile grow
from the thin, tired thing she had been sporting to one more genuine. "Letter of the law to the end, huh?" she mused.

Addy was not sure how to respond to that. "American laws are written down, yes," she replied slowly, trying to find
the thread of logic that Kara was clearly alluding to. "I am observing them in that capacity, as I lack oral records of
ones related to this."

With a shake of her head, Kara walked forward, grabbed one of the several seats Addy wasn't herself occupying, and
dragged it up next to her. With a breath, she dropped down into it, head swivelling up to stare at the ceiling, where
Addy knew there would be crisscrossing metal bars to support the curved roof. "I wonder how Barry's doing," she
said quietly.

Addy felt another flare of annoyance towards Oliver. "I believe we would know by now if he was not doing well," Addy
responded diplomatically, if only for the time being. "It would be on the news. That said, had Oliver not been too
uncomfortable with your mere presence, you would hardly have these questions to ask, nor would you be worried."

Kara let out a sigh, eyes not leaving the ceiling. "It's more complicated than that. I want to respect Oliver's
boundaries, regardless of how bad it felt for him to act that way. I obviously don't appreciate being singled out
because of my species, but... he was clearly not handling whatever they did to him well."

"If he is emotionally compromised—" Addy started.

"Then I could've caused an incident by forcing the issue. The last thing we need, Addy, is infighting on the eve of an
invasion," Kara cut in.

Addy opened her mouth, shut it. Opened it again, sure that this time she would conjure a response that would take
that argument and snap it over her metaphorical knee.

She did not.

Addy shut her mouth. "I will grant you that," she muttered reluctantly. She had an incredible wealth of knowledge on
how to operate within a group setting, but most of the time she was the absolute authority over those groups, to the
point where the line between authority and outright direct control was blurry. She didn't have to deal with
insubordination from her peers, because her peers, simply, knew better.

Oh, how she hated having to account for human nature.

"Honestly, it's not even Oliver," Kara said after another moment of silence. "I'm more worried about what the
Dominators are up to in general. Their military doesn't enshrine honour or direct conflicts like some others do—so
even invading a place like Earth, where they'd have total technological dominance, feels almost too brash for them.
They always have an ace up their sleeves, like infiltrators or native collaborators, or even just a specific thing they
can leverage to stop retaliation. It's what they did with Krypton."

Kara took another long, deep breath. A slow inhale, and a heavy exhale.

"I guess I'm just... looking for the motive, there. We still don't know what they want with Earth. Are they here to cut
Earth out of the running? Because Earth could become big later down the line, and it's in their best interest to cull it
and turn it into a colony?" Kara continued into the silence, her voice growing more focused. "Are they here to enslave
the planet? Here to hunt down anything they consider an aberration to the natural order, as their culture defines it? I
mean, I'm pretty sure Martians still exist—Titanians should too, they're risking being ambushed by White Martians at
the bare minimum all for... what? To kill a few hundred metahumans?"

"They did seem afraid when I was in contact with them, though that could be due to them initially assuming I was a
Star-Conqueror or some variant thereof," Addy replied, eyes moving back to her laptop.

Kara blinked. "Huh, it's been a while since I had to think of those. They're not even remotely common to this part of
the galaxy. Though... we're talking about the starfish parasites? Big eye in the center? Psychic?"

Addy nodded.

Kara let out a breath. "I mean, it'd make sense for them to be afraid of Star-Conquerors. Almost everyone is, but
psychic species are especially. Maybe they just weren't expecting any psychic resistance? I mean... it makes sense,
humanity doesn't exactly have psychic people normally, but the solar system we're in is home to at least two other
psychic species. Why wouldn't they become involved?"

"Do you believe the Dominators came to some accord with the Martians, pre-invasion?" Addy queried, glancing back
at Kara, who was now staring out the front doors of the hangar with her lower lip pinched below her teeth.

"No. The White Martians hate other alien species almost equally, but getting rid of us would mean putting a bigger
threat in our place, one as technologically advanced as they are," Kara mused, voice going quiet. "...Maybe, though, if
they told the Martians they weren't invading, but were just here for some specific end goal. I... don't think they're
trying to colonize the planet, Addy. They're here for something specific, something that lets them get in and out and
wouldn't be objectionable to the Martians."

"That is a concern," Addy replied slowly. "I would not assume White Martians, from what I have read, would allow
much even with the oath that the Dominators would leave immediately after. If the goal was something like
enslaving large quantities of the Earth's population, it leaves them open to occupation from forces that, as you said,
would be able to match the White Martian's own technological advancements."

Kara's brows furrowed tight. "What is unique about this Earth?" She asked herself before trailing off. After a moment
she blinked, then turned to look at Addy. "Do you think it's the metahumans?"

Addy tilted her head, considered it. "Barry once told me he thought the metagene was universal in a more literal
sense. I don't understand how it operates, nor why, but it's entirely possible they've witnessed something similar."

Kara opened her mouth, only for whatever she was about to say to be lost beneath the loud whoosh of something
moving. They turned together, towards the hangar door, where Addy could see the Waverider sliding down from the
sky, landing gear opening up below the body of the ship, preparing to land.

Kara was on her feet in such a short amount of time that it could be nothing but super-speed. Addy pushed her own
chair out, lowering her laptop's monitor until it was half-closed - if not closed to the point where it would go to sleep -
and placed the tablet next to it, following after an already jogging Kara.

Together, they made their way up to the entrance of the hangar just in time to see the ship fully settle down. Addy's
eyes scanned over it, and she found nothing out of the ordinary about the appearance. She reached out to her
powers, sent out a pulse, and beyond the unthinkable static that encased the ship - seemingly from whatever device
they used to travel through time, she made a note to find a way to dampen it to her receivers - there was just as
many minds on it that had left.

Which meant they didn't have a Dominator with them. Unfortunate.

The ramp flipped open on the Waverider, landing with a sharp bang against the concrete of the tarmac. One by one,
the group made their way out, though some with more sure-footing than others. Nate, Amaya - or so she assumed
the warm, dark-skinned woman with curly hair was - and Mick walked with the same ease as they always did,
whereas Felicity was pale as a sheet and visibly trying not to get sick as she waddled clumsily down the ramp, and
Cisco seemed to be suffering from his center of balance being relocated somewhere up near his head.

The only thing of note was a small, remote-like object in Cisco's hand, which he held up and waved towards the two
of them, nearly falling off the side of the ramp in the process.

"How did it go?" Kara shouted, cupping her hands around her mouth, her gaze focused as the last of them finally
stepped off of the ramp.

Nate reached back and rapped his knuckles against the side of the metal ship. Soundlessly, the ramp pulled back up
and slotted back into place at the base of the ship.

Cisco, apparently regaining some equilibrium, shook his head. "Not great!" he shouted back, moving with the rest of
the group as they approached. Once everyone was within speaking distance, he continued. "We uh, got this"—he
gestured with his hand again, wiggling the remote—"a communicator with the Dominators. We got a call basically
the moment we arrived in the present, from the Dominator we saved from experimentation and torture. It just told us
that we either give them Barry, or they drop a metahuman-killing nuke on the planet."

Kara's face darkened, jaw clenching. "I was worried it would be something like that. You're not going to let him do
that, right?"

"It's obviously a trap," Addy offered. "Nothing has indicated from past interactions that the Dominators would hold
themselves to their own word."

"No kidding," Cisco said. "But that's... kinda what we've been—"

He was cut off by a sharp, sudden ring. Kara blinked, reached down to her costume's pocket, and Addy watched her
retrieve the cellphone Barry had left her for emergencies. Squinting at the caller ID, Kara answered it, brought it up in
front of the group, and tapped on the speaker button. "Barry, you're on speaker. What's happening?"

For a moment, there was only fuzzy static. "The president wasn't there, Kara. It was some government official, Smith or
something. We ran into a rogue Dominator, and he captured us when we weren't looking," he explained, voice quick and
almost rapid-fire. "We managed to get free, but he... he explained to us that Earth was once at peace with the
Dominators, but because I screwed with the timeline, I broke that treaty."

The words that came out of Kara's mouth, spoken in her mother tongue, were ones Addy knew to be curses.

"Let me guess," Kara nearly spat. "The Dominators told Smith it'll all just go away if you give yourself to them?"

There was another moment of awkward, half-silent static. "Yeah—how did you..?"

"The Waverider just returned," Kara explained quickly, glancing back towards the hangar. "Barry, get back here so we
can talk this out."

"...I think I might have to—"

Kara cut him off. "Barry, now is really not the time. If I need to, I will fly out there and bring you back here with force.
We are not making knee-jerk decisions to hand any living soul over to an invading army. Are we clear?"

Mick boggled at Kara, eyebrows near where his hairline would've been, had he not been bald. He looked mildly
impressed, like he was running a number of tiny calculations in his head as to where he should be placing Kara
amongst a list of people. Addy personally knew that look because she had experienced it herself very often.

She did not like relating to Mick, but she would allow him the surprise and awe that Kara's presence so often
inspired.

"Alright," Barry said, voice toneless. "I'll head back."

The line cut.

The warehouse filled back up very quickly, though not everyone now stood around with her and Kara. Instead, Barry
and Oliver were off talking, the latter attempting to convince the former that going through with the surrender plan
was a bad idea. Diggle and Jaxx were off doing something as well. Everyone else, however, stood arrayed in a loose
group in the same place they had first gathered days ago.

"Okay," Kara spoke up, cutting through the low murmur of conversation. "The Dominators are inbound, they say
they're here for Barry, and they won't have to use their bomb that kills anyone with the metagene when exposed to
whatever it releases. Let's cover our worst-case scenario: they get Barry and drop the bomb, do we know what our
casualties would look like?"

"Really rough?" Cisco asked, voice dark. "A bomb big enough to be able to project whatever it creates - selectively-
killing radiation, maybe some kind of dust-like material - across the world, if dropped on Star City, would probably kill
around two million people out of the population and kill every metahuman on the planet otherwise. There's no way to
account for any other adverse effects the compound or radiation might have after the fact, but to be realistic, I doubt
they'd shy away from using something that might still cause long-term issues for non-metahumans."

Kara grimaced. "And considering how Dominators operate, they're going to want to do that. I've been thinking it over
and picking up on clues, but I don't... really think the Dominators are going to work with us on anything."

"We haven't even tried negotiation," Nate pointed out. "How can you know that?"

Kara let out a sigh. "So, when Addy here psychically connected with the Dominators who attempted to take control
of us, she noticed they were startled and became afraid of her, because they initially assumed she was a kind of
parasitic psychic alien that tends to cause trouble in their part of the universe," she began, gesturing with one hand
towards Addy. "But... that's weird, because—well, none of you here know this, but your solar system has at least two
other alien species and both of them are psychic. For them to immediately jump to a parasite as their major
assumption means they didn't take these species into account or... they had some type of agreement with them."

"Wait, hold on," Cisco interjected. "We... uh, you're telling us there are aliens in our solar system?"

"Two species on Mars, one on Titan," Kara supplied. "The Titanians can be crossed off for this because from what
I've seen they don't get involved with this kind of thing. They might retaliate after the fact, but... the Dominators
wouldn't expect them to become involved before they got here. That just leaves the Martians. There are... or, I guess
were, two types of Martians. I don't know what's happened on yours, but on ours, the White Martians committed
genocide against the Green Martians, killing almost literally every member of that species around three hundred
years ago.

"The government the White Martians set up afterwards was one of extreme xenophobia, excessive violence, and
religious persecution. The only reason they're not breathing down your necks right now is because they consider
humanity something of a non-entity. That'll change when you guys get more advanced, but for now, you're not a
threat. White Martians are powerful psychics, they're shapeshifters, and they're really, really strong and durable. You
can find them across the universe working as mercenaries, and an entire planet of them is a threat the Dominators
would have to take into account, especially because they're equally advanced in technology."

"So you think the White Martians gave them a pass?" Nate asked, sounding morbidly curious.

Kara shook her head again. "No, at first I thought the Dominators were coming around to colonize Earth. You guys
are about at the stage to fit with the types of civilizations they target, but the White Martians would definitely have
issues with a species as powerful and technologically advanced as the Dominators supplanting humans. This was
confirmed when they said they were coming for Barry, and that they know about his time travel. That could be the
impetus for why the White Martians are letting this happen, rather than power-jockeying, but... if they were just
coming for Barry, the White Martians could've been contacted and sent down to kill him. Even if it took a fee to do
so."

There was silence for a moment.

"You're saying there's more to this," Cisco started, slowly.

"No, I'm saying there's even less. I think whether or not Barry gives himself up, they're going to drop the bomb, and
then they're going to leave," Kara explained slowly. "I think to get the Martians to agree to it, they had to convince
them of the danger metahumans possess and that they'll leave once that's handled. That is how Dominators think,
they dislike random mutations and it's possible, even likely, that they've seen the metagene before in other
population centers. I... think there has never been a peaceful option here, even if we gave up our morals and did as
they asked."

"I still think there's a way to give us more time before everything goes nuclear by pretending we don't know this,"
Nate said after a prolonged silence. "They're going to be working from the assumption we don't know anything, that
we think they're here to play nice if we just give them what they want. If what you've said is right, they think we're
duped, so... maybe we could try to play up that angle of negotiations, delay them, give them a false sense of
security."

"But they'd need to take the bait first," Cisco reminded him. "The only way we have to contact the Dominators is
through that transponder, and we already tried calling them. They didn't pick up."

Before much else could be said, Addy's laptop let off a single shrill beep. It echoed, bounced precariously through
the hangar, and Addy felt her entire body tense at the noise. Heads swivelled, turned to look at both herself and the
laptop. "I believe we are too late for negotiations," she said pointedly. "I have been keeping track of various space
observation groups. I set up audio alerts in the event of specific keywords, so it's very likely we now have inbound."

Moving at a stride that wasn't quite running, but also could not be called walking, Addy arrived at her laptop, leaned
forward, and pulled the lid open. From her feed alone, there were dozens upon dozens of sightings, unidentified
objects being spotted, coming in towards the planet at high speeds. Eyes flashing over them, she ignored the sound
of others arriving - of Diggle and Jaxx asking what was happening - and began to count them off, taking note of
where observations were made and at what point across the planet.

With that, she started putting pines on a map. "At least twelve ships," she announced quickly, eyes not leaving the
screen. "Each being placed at specific locations around the world—may I have access to the screens?" Eyes flitting
up from her screen, she glanced at Cisco.

Cisco just blinked. "Sur—"

Addy tapped her pinky on the enter key, mirroring the display on her computer. "Thank you," she said, eyes turning
back to it as she continued to mark down the possible landing sites.

"...I didn't even tell you the password," Cisco said, sounding unnerved.

"Your encryption has been set up inadvisably and operated poorly, it did not take much to break into it," Addy replied
diplomatically, rather than giving any exact figures on how long it took for her to strip down the WiFi security when
she got access to it. She brought the map up in full, displaying it across the screen, each of the pins roughly falling
on cities, and at least three out of twelve of which were coming straight for Star City. "The ships are moving at
accelerated speeds from what was previously recorded. They will make landfall within the next five to eight
minutes."

"They're coming in worldwide," Kara said, eyes narrowing. "But... why? Why not just target Star City? They're not here
to occupy Earth if it means pissing off everyone else."

"Well, maybe Martians don't exist here," Cisco offered. "I mean, we're different, so is Earth."

Kara shot him a quelling look. "Both Mars and Titan have had civilizations on it that predate yours. Earth is not the
be-all or end-all, and what has changed are the policies, the companies, the groups. The only reason you don't have
another version of me is because a similar change of policy and culture could've stopped my planet's destruction
through ruinous mining practices."

Or it could be that, going from what few memories Addy had acquired of Kara's trip in the pod away from Krypton -
following her cousin's escape pod - during the red kryptonite incident, random chance could've had it so that the
debris that came from an exploding planet hit both of their pods at speeds more than capable of killing them.

But she didn't say that. She knew better.

"A distraction then?" Sara asked, tilting her head. "Trying to get us to focus on ships that don't matter?"

"The ones that have arrived, they're not moving, are they?" Cisco asked, his own eyes trained on the screens.

Addy shook her head. "The two—now three that have arrived in Europe are all stationary. Going by crude images
being shared over the internet, they appear to be troop transports." With a click, she brought it up: a horseshoe-
shaped ship the size of a football stadium, hanging over what was likely a panicking Moscow. "As you can see along
the sides, there are a large number of openings to allow for troop movement without bottlenecks."

"Could it be that they're trying to have their cake and eat it?" Thea asked. "Pressure us by having all of these ships
around, full of troops, and get Barry handed over to them directly before retreating and dropping the bomb?"

"It is a viable terror tactic," Addy conceded with a nod. "Large-scale, inspires doubt in world leaders, and if they find
some way to project that they're here for just one person, Barry himself will no longer have any say. Even if they're
only here for an hour, it's possible they could get a large chunk of the world demanding he be given over."

"But we also don't know that," Sara said grimly. "Most of this is speculation."

"...I think I might be able to get rid of some of the speculation," Cisco said, after a moment. "I can use my power on
the transponder, and if it's from the mothership or even just has a strong enough connection to the mothership, I can
use it to figure out what's going on, what's going through their heads, or even what they're planning. I could even
bring someone into the vision with me—Nate, want to give it a shot?"

Nate glanced at him, tilted his head, then nodded, stepping up next to him.

"Okay, you two, go find someplace away from this, do whatever you need to do, and if possible, stall. Our world
literally depends on it, no pressure. We need every advantage." Sara glanced away, around the space, and made a
sharp, frustrated noise. "I—we need Barry. This is too spread out, they're in too many places, and we don't have time."

Cisco and Nate shot a pair of nods at her, retreating together to go and grab the transponder.

"Oliver! Barry!" Kara shouted back into the warehouse. "We're being invaded! We need you in here!"

Around her, Addy watched the rest of the group fan out, grow agitated as moments ticked by without a response.

Then, Oliver emerged from around a packet of boxes. He jogged ahead, his expression deeply frustrated, while Barry
kept up behind him. "They're here?" he asked.

"At least twelve large-scale warships, presumably troop transports, are touching down now. Inbound is a mothership,
which is likely to be much larger and comes with a bomb capable of eradicating all metahumans on the planet and
most of a city," Addy explained. "Kara has determined they're likely to drop the bomb regardless of if we give them
Barry, as she correctly deduced White Martians were unlikely to allow something like this to occur unless it meant
the total removal of metahumans on the planet, once they had been sufficiently made afraid of the threat they
posed. If they just needed to remove Barry, they would have just sent White Martians to murder him in his sleep."

Oliver's face went through an entire series of confused, scrunched, and off-kilter expressions, whereas Barry just
locked up rigidly.

"I—, what do you—" Barry started, faltered, took a moment to regather himself, and then looked right at her. "What?"

"I don't have the time to walk you through the process of elimination I went through to get to that point," Kara bit out,
Oliver and Barry both jerking, reminded that there was just more than Addy in the room. "The point is, there are other
species in your solar system and they would not let this planet be occupied by a species which was their
technological rival. White Martians are uniformly xenophobic but Earth isn't invaded because they're not an issue
yet, the Dominators are one."

"How can you be certain? Do you even know if that's the same here?" Barry replied sharply. "There could be no
Martians, no threat they have to deal with, and I could be giving up the chance to stop millions from being killed by
not giving them what I want."

"Barry, even if this wasn't the case, it does not matter what you've done," Diggle remarked, stepping forward. "You
can't do this. Not only is there too much risk they'll just go back on their word, but also we can't give up one of our
own like that."

Barry tensed. "That's a lot of faith to put in a theory, and me. I'm just a person, and I did something bad, there's
consequences—"

"Enough," Addy ground out, feeling the final end of her willingness to go along with this obvious insanity. First Oliver,
now Barry. "You will cease your self-hatred and stop trying to self-destruct."

Barry snapped his head around to stare at her. "Addy—this isn't up for you to decide. They said—"

"I put very little value or faith in the word of an invading force thousands strong and with technology well beyond the
backwards, antiquated technology of this planet," Addy said sharply. "They are the aggressors, they have all the
cards. Nothing is stopping them from doing what they want even after they get you, and if you're removed, then we
lose one of our fastest responders. I will not allow that."

Barry opened his mouth again, undoubtedly to say something immensely stupid and uninformed.

Addy broke her vow of politeness and interrupted him. "I could list several reasons why they would do that, and why
they would simply drop the bomb afterwards," she continued, speaking over him. "It could range from terror tactics
to purposefully disrupting the cohesion of the defences of the planet, but I will be more realistic: they would do it
because you are not special."

The entire hangar went quiet, Barry just staring at her, head slightly tilted. "...I'm sorry, but I thought you were trying
to convince me not to go. Insulting me isn't going to do anything for you there."

"No. To insult you would be to point out your current utter stupidity. What I mean, Barry Allen, is that insofar as I can
tell from cursory examinations of metahuman powers, yours are not fundamentally unique nor locked to you.
Nothing is stopping a similar or even identical power from manifesting in the populace, or one that will otherwise
achieve the types of phenomena they are here to prevent, completely at random," she explained, pausing at times to
say her words with glacial slowness so that it would penetrate his prodigiously thick skull. "At any moment,
someone could emerge with powers that are as threatening to them as yours are. You are, ergo, not special, but the
powers are—and if I am aware of this with my admittedly crude research into this topic, then the aliens actively
hunting these phenomena down are too."

Addy looked him dead in the eye, despite the discomfort, just for long enough to finish. "It means, in the end, they
have no reason not to just wipe the planet's population of viable mutation targets out to be sure."

Then, she broke her gaze and returned focus to her computer, watching as the last of the ships began to settle
around the world.

"That's—but..." Barry stuttered.

"Barry, I'm not going to let you leave," Oliver remarked, cutting through his mindless spluttering. "None of us are."

The sound of approaching footsteps was enough of an incentive for Addy to glance up, finding Cisco and Nate
returning, both of them looking ashen. "Anything?"

Cisco grimaced. "I... no. Nothing I could identify," he said, voice unfocused and thick with anger turned inwards. With
a shake of his head, he turned to look at Barry. "I'm not going to let yourself go and get killed, Barry," he announced,
with a softness to his voice that had been utterly absent in their conversations over the past few weeks.

Barry looked at all of them, fists tightening. "I mean, can you really stop me?"

"If I so wished, I could make you dance a perfect recitation of Swan Lake," Addy reminded him, her fingers tapping on
the table in annoyance. "I do not think anyone here at the moment would object to me briefly removing your personal
autonomy to ensure one of our strongest combatants does not kill himself in some backwards, irrational bid to self-
flagellate."

"...You're a lot meaner than I remember," Barry said, after another moment.

"I am reaching the end of my tolerance for the human condition, you must forgive me if some of my opinions on it
begin to slip out," Addy informed him, voice as curt as she could manage it.

"You're our friend, Barry," Oliver said, with a few pointed looks at Addy that she had the grace to ignore. "We wouldn't
let you go, even if you weren't able to help us defend the world."

"Also, I can totally stop you too, Barry," Kara pointed out, tilting her head to one side. "Give it up."

"Uh, guys—" Felicity cut in, Addy glancing up to find that at some point the woman had arrived back at her computer.
"I'm getting reports that ships across the world are opening up, and that something really big just dropped out of the
Dominator mothership and is moving towards the planet really, really quickly. Right at Star City, by the looks of it."

"Kara was right, they had no interest in going away after Barry," Oliver breathed.

"As I said, do not trust genocidal aliens," Addy reminded him. "This should not be a hard thing for humanity to
internalize, but I'm beginning to become worried that you won't."

"The ships and troops... they're forcing us to make a choice, or distracting us," Kara said quickly. "If we weren't
looking for it, we wouldn't've known the bomb was coming. We would've just gone off to fight and it would've gotten
past us."

Bringing up the coordinates on the bomb's trajectory, Addy pointed towards it on the screens. "Unfortunately for
them, I do not get distracted unlike the rest of you," she reminded them. "It will be landing around there. I suggest
you go and stop it before it can get to that point."

"I'm going to get the Waverider—" Sara shouted, twisting on heel and beginning to sprint towards it.

Cisco rushed off after her, presumably going to join her.

Training her gaze on the screens, Addy flicked across the locations, the points of conflict. The Dominators had
spread far and wide, and they needed to cover a lot of ground to ensure things went off properly. Unfortunately, with
the Waverider currently being used to grab the bomb - hopefully - most of the group did not have that range. At least
the majority of the forces seemed to be centred on Star City.

"Kara," Addy announced, eyes flicking towards her. "You are capable of moving faster than I am. I request that you go
to Europe, Asia and Africa, and handle the handful there. They have fewer forces on the ground in those locations, it
would seem, so you're our best candidate to get in and out quickly."

Kara nodded.

"I will be engaging with Dominators in Central and South America," she continued, eyes flicking towards Barry. "I
expect you to handle North America, as you have less maneuverability than we do."

Barry opened his mouth, then shut it and simply nodded once.

"Wait!" Stein's voice called out, the man in question jogging out from around the tarmac, entering in through the open
hangar doors, followed by Caitlyn. "I finished the device. It's a form of nanotechnology, it targets pain receptors in
what should be their nervous system. It can be used to disable them in large numbers, and I made... well."

Caitlyn pulled her backpack off, opening the top. Inside looked to be a thousand or more of the small discs, each
one no bigger than a penny.

"Having the entire lab's 3D printer output helped a lot," Caitlyn explained sheepishly.

"If we set them off at once, it'll overwhelm all of them, and it won't require us to get through their incredibly high
durability," Professor Stein continued, gesturing towards them. "It'll cripple their forces."

"I won't need them," Addy said after another moment, glancing out the doors. Interesting devices, but ones that were
thankfully not required of her. They would help the others, if nothing else.

"I... as you insist," Stein said after a long moment, glancing back towards the rest of the group. "Please, come get
some—we don't have much time."

Everyone moved.

Addy, in turn, looked south, and considered her options. She was delighted to find that she had many of them.

Addy's speed broke over the expansive, crawling cityscape that was Mexico City. The supersonic boom caught up
with her shortly thereafter, wind roaring across her body and costume, bellowing out into the air and dispersing the
wispy trails of clouds that hung around her.

Eyes turning down, she stared at the floating ship below her. It was still large, even from the distance she was at,
and it was only one of three she would have to engage with. The other two - one above São Paulo in Brazil, the other
in Lima, Peru - would get handled as soon as she was done with this one, which normally would have spurred her on
immediately, but she found herself descending more slowly than she might've otherwise.

Addy could acknowledge that she rarely had much of a chance to 'let loose', as it was. Oh, she did not restrict the
use of her powers—no, that was a line she would not cross, regardless of how many people made it their duty to
whinge apocalyptically about her and what she could do. Their 'comfort' was horribly insignificant in the face of
actual issues, and while Addy was coming around to acknowledging people might have boundaries that shouldn't be
crossed, she was also not so far gone that she'd hobble herself for the sake of other people's convenience.

It was... more of a matter of priorities, in a lot of circumstances. Addy naturally had the tools to spend ten minutes
whizzing across National City and collecting every last bug which could reasonably be used to hurt someone. That
was something in her power that, for the sake of not causing an 'incident', she didn't actively pursue. It helped that
not every problem - despite her wishing otherwise - could be handled with judicious application of poisonous
insects, and sometimes brute-force and mind control of another type was more suited for the situation.

But that was not the case here. Public relations issue? Addy would not be around to deal with the fallout.
Governments getting aggressive about her powers? See point one. There was no issue in losing trust as Addy was
an utter unknown in this universe, and as a result, there was no trust built in the first place. There was nobody on
this planet she felt particularly bad about upsetting, no lengthy conference between the D.E.O. and concerned
dignitaries - though she supposed that didn't apply to her life back home anymore either - and Kara had no real
excuse - seeing as there was an ongoing alien invasion - to raise concerns about it.

There was, in the end, a reason why Addy had chosen South America. In part it was because it was the closest part
of the planet she could reasonably get to, sure—while Barry handled America, as he would take too long to be
anywhere else, she could still be within range of the greater country to deal with the problems that would invariably
rise out of human error.

But honestly, most of the reason she had chosen this area was because of its population of bugs. Wonderful, highly-
specialized, incredibly efficient bugs that had evolved in the highly competitive ecosystems that defined South
America. Born out of primordial forests and with predators of all stripes looking to consume them, the insects of the
region had learned many, many ways to be as excruciatingly dangerous as possible.

Dropping past the ship, Addy reached out to her core again, brought it to life, and reached out. The world bloomed,
even Mexico City, lacking the dense rainforests further south, had no shortage of bugs. If anything, the cityscape
seemed to cradle them; contained the long-legged spiders and poisonous centipedes, the wasps and hornets and
other bugs that thrived where food was plentiful and only hidden behind thin plastic. Dense blocks of residential
apartments made for damp, gloomy alleys and in there the best this end of the world had to offer in terms of
weaponry made their homes.

Drawing on her flight, Addy lurched ahead at her top speeds, dragging out her psychic field like a vast dredging net.
Mexico City, around her, was in chaos; the bellow of some kind of alarm system ran throughout the city, discordant
as it was, and people below her screamed and shouted as they sought shelter. Deeper into the city, plumes of smoke
drifted high into the air like spires, following the trail of destruction that stretched like a canyon from the area below
the ship towards the main square in Mexico City, where all the administrative and governmental buildings sat.

She could already see them between the threads of smoke. The gait and posture of the Dominators was hard to
miss, after all, especially when interspersed between half-crumbled buildings and motionless bodies.

Addy's range pressed against its upper limit, a precautionary measure not to burn away too much energy, but even
with that she still covered vast expanses. Entire city block's worth of bugs, tens of thousands added with each
breath, swarmed to her call, drawn into a growing, writhing mass as she directed them into units and squads. Fliers
lifted ground-bound insects, and when she lacked enough fliers, ground-bound insects mounted their larger kin and
crawled along as best they could. Distantly, between the myriad of senses, she could tell that the people of Mexico
City had begun to notice the growing congregation of bugs, if the screaming was any indication.

But the Dominators, too busy, too confident, had not.

Taking stock of her arsenal, Addy couldn't help but feel a small thrill of pleasure. Deadly venoms, sharp stingers, and
so many spiders even Taylor might be impressed. All of them, completely under her control; all of them, directed out
of the Dominator's line of sight, all of them growing in numbers until several clouds over a million strong took shape
in the air around her, the writhing mass reaching up like tendrils from the ground below to join the rest in the sky.

And with that, Addy let herself drop, down towards the closest and densest group of Dominators she could find.

Reaching out to her control, to the swarm, she twisted their minds, locked the current commands into place—don't
attack humans, seek out and attack the Dominators as one—and then swapped. The world blinked back out of
focus, no longer defined by an impossible number of points on a map, and her range snapped in until it didn't extend
beyond the reach of her arms, as was necessary to exert control over more sophisticated entities.

Her feet hit the ground. Concrete cratered, Dominators whipped around - almost two dozen of them all told - and
dust billowed into the air around her. In their beady eyes, she saw a brief moment of recognition, one that was
followed by a serpentine hiss of an emotion Addy didn't much care to follow.

Then the insects descended, and they were much, much too preoccupied to bother with her. The black, chittering
mass fell over them as a unit, swarmed into exposed eyes, between the gaps in their needle-like teeth. Spiders and
centipedes latched onto pale, damp flesh and bit repeatedly until, at last, they dug deep enough to penetrate and
discharge their payload of venom. Dominators crumpled, hands reaching up to scrape at their skin, trying to get rid
of the bugs only for new ones to replace them.

Hisses turned to screams, and screams, in turn, attracted attention.

Striding forward, she reached down just long enough to pry a blood-caked assault rifle from the cold, dead fingers of
a member of the Mexican military, hefting it up and tucking it beneath her flesh arm.

From a building no more than two-dozen feet away - one which was, by the looks of it, some kind of embassy - more
Dominators swarmed out. Another fifteen or so, and whether they were responding to the telepathic panic conveyed
to the hivemind from the Dominators she was currently having eaten alive by bugs, or by the very real sound of their
screams, was something she was about to find out.

At the front of the pack of these Dominators, one stood out. Taller, though not by much, than the rest, his wrist-band
was larger, extending almost halfway up his arm, and when he levelled it at a nearby cloud of chittering insects,
mindlessly throwing themselves towards the new group as they absconded with the dying corpse of their latest
victim, rather than a laser, what came from it was a pale, blinding blue flame. A gout of it swallowed the majority of
the swarm, reducing them to ash in a single instant.

That simply would not do.

Kicking off the ground with enough force to break it, Addy closed the gap between herself and the new group in
barely a breath. The lead member had, in fact, just enough time to glance up and see her coming before she collided
with him. Wrapping her robotic arm around his skull, she let the rifle drop from where she had held it in her armpit,
lashed out to catch the grip with her fleshy hand before it could hit the ground, dragged the Dominator in towards
herself, and levelled the gun towards the group.

She opened fire without missing a beat, strafing her aim back and forth as her body easily took the recoil without
twitching. Black blood sprayed as high-calibre bullets hit center-mass amongst the throng. At the same time, she
reached out to the Dominator she was currently in contact with, to his mind, and didn't bother to go for the network
this time. She knew what would happen the second she did, and instead, opted to do things her way. The way they
had been ripping the Dominators free of the network was crude work, but effective if you wanted to prevent people
from gleaning much from the resulting corpses it causes.

Addy, of course, had a much finer touch. She severed the connection between the Dominator she had clutched to her
chest, a careful cutting of the psychic link, isolating it to herself. That would still kill it, of course, she was doing
irreparable damage to his nervous system and brain by the looks of it, but it slowed the process of enough that, with
a lurch of her force, she breached access into the thing's brain with none of the dignity she usually afforded her
targets and started rummaging through it.

It took her two-point-three seconds to adjust to the unique structure of the brain and track down the equivalent of
the spinal connection, but when that was done she was scraping every last relevant bit of recent memory from its
mind. Data bloomed behind her eyes, locations and unit numbers, all restricted to the local area, of course, but
something she could work with.

Then, her gun jammed.

Most of the Dominators were dead or at least very close to it by this point, admittedly. Out of the fifteen, ten were
unmoving and laying on the ground, blood weeping from where she had shot them at functionally point-blank range,
but three had only taken moderate wounds - and were currently picking themselves off the ground - and one was
completely unharmed, and currently trying to rush her down, looking to take advantage of her perceived lack of a
weapon.

Had they not distributed threat warnings about her to the greater hivemind? How very reckless.

Tossing her gun to one side, Addy took hold of the head of the Dominator she had just pilfered all that information
from and, with a forward lunge, cracked it against the skull of the charging Dominator. The force behind it was
enough to dent the flesh and bone in with a disgustingly wet crunch, and with another lash of her arm, she pulped
the two heads against each other.

The three remaining came at her at once, desperate howls of rage on their lips.

Addy didn't even bother with these ones. She grabbed the first two that came in, tried to access their network, and
let the greater hivemind do the rest as they were lobotomized by their own kin. The third faltered, half-stumbling, and
for that mistake, she launched into it, grabbed it by the head, and did the same to it.

The last one fell dead at her feet.

Unspooling her power, she reached out to her insects again, the swarm eager and waiting. The Dominators she had
set them on had died, whether from suffocation or vast amounts of venom she had pumped into them, it didn't
matter. Lifting off again, she redirected herself towards the national building, where she knew at least fifty more
Dominators were currently trying to breach what was left of the Mexican military's perimeter.

She flew through the sky, following the path of destruction and gathering a larger and larger swarm. She had every
intention of growing it with each visit, as in theory it would make clearing out the last city trivial. Clearly, the
Dominators could suffer damage from the focused bites of insects, and even if that failed, suffocation was not
exactly difficult to achieve either.

The National Palace came into view, and Addy felt herself frown at the sight of it. What had once been a carefully
painted and lit building of grandeur was now very much on fire and under siege. The contingent of fifty Dominators
were firing bursts of lasers into the building, and wherever they hit, another piece of it would vanish into a plume of
green smoke. The defenders were few in number, and growing fewer with each second; there had clearly been at
some point an attempt to field a tank against the invading force, but that had gone poorly, if the exploded husk of
the thing laid out near the entrance was any indication.

With a twitch of her focus, she sent her bugs down and turned her own trajectory elsewhere. She arced through the
air, hearing as the Dominators heard and then met the incoming insects, their hisses turned to screams in a
predictable mirror of the last time she had fielded them, but even those became a bit muted and distant as she
landed next to what was left of the defending force.

Ten men, all in military gear, swivelled and turned guns on her. Eyes wild, bodies bruised and aching, they stared at
her with palpable terror and fear, the kind you would find in an animal when backed into a corner.

She considered taking control of them, but then discarded it. "I am Administrator," she explained to them in Spanish,
getting to the heart of the matter. In the distance, Dominators screamed, and her swarm made great gains, another
one falling dead. "I am here to ensure none of these aliens manage to adequately take control of your city center. If you
shoot me, I will have to subdue you, so I request that you don't, as I am on something of a time limit."

Slowly, one by one, the military personnel lowered their rifles, confused looks shared.

She, however, was not here to do a questions-and-answers panel, and continued. "This should be the last of the
invading force. I am needed in both Brazil and Peru, as they are dealing with similar incursions to yourself. That said,
while I do believe they will all be dead, I request that you go around and, whenever you find a corpse of a Dominator,
shoot it in the head several times at point-blank range. Make no mistake, these aliens can and will kill you if you let it."

"Aliens?" one of them asked at last, sounding horrified. "We thought these were demons!"

"No, no, we were still arguing over that," another one piped up, glowering at his compatriot. "Just because you buy into
crazed conspiracy theories doesn't mean the rest of us do!"

Right. She was not sticking around for that conversation. Lifting back up into the air, Addy gestured towards the vast
piece of alien technology hanging over the city. "Arrive at your own conclusions, but I must insist: look for any
remaining living ones and ensure they do not remain that way. A sufficiently high-calibre weapon discharged at point-
blank range into the head should be enough."

Then, with a tug, she pulled her bugs away from the fifty corpses she had just made, launched into the air, and
started after her next destination.

São Paulo had been less than receptive to her saving them with bugs she had collected from both Mexico and Lima.

Jerking away as another artillery shot barked into the sky, Addy retreated away from the city with her tens-of-millions
of bugs, just glad that she wouldn't have to particularly deal with the fallout from this. It had taken comically little
time to subdue the Dominators prowling throughout São Paulo, especially because there appeared to be some kind
of miscommunication in the forces. From what she had been able to extract from another unwilling victim to her
mental curiosity, they had targeted São Paulo over Brasília due to its vastly higher population and the chance of
leveraging its populace for control over Brazil itself.

That had predictably not gone very well when they had been unable to track down, amongst a city of twelve million,
where the administrative and governmental buildings were. As a result, unlike the spearhead of a force that she had
seen in both Lima and Mexico City - where there was a clear location they could target to take control of the
government, what with them being the capitals of a given country - the Dominators in São Paulo had spread out and
accordingly been harassed using guerilla tactics by the existing military forces within the city.

They hadn't done it very well, Addy would like to point out, but they had fared better than the Mexican and Peruvian
militaries. Enough that they hadn't lost anti-air batteries.

Juking low, Addy both heard and felt another shot crack into the sky above her. Her bugs dispersed under the force
behind it, spread out into a loose swarm around her.

Taking out the Dominators was easy, therefore, and more to the point, quick. Which meant that her bugs had spent
more time in the city doing nothing than they had spent actually fighting them. Which meant when she dropped
down to try to speak to the commanding officer, his response was to call her another invader and command that
they open fire.

Addy was, of course, bullet-proof, but she was not quite willing to let her arm get shredded to metal pieces by letting
an artillery shell hit her dead on. That and she wasn't entirely sure if she'd be able to take an artillery shot and come
out of it unscathed, though she preferred not to think about that.

Trailing back up higher into the air, heedless of the barking crack-crack-cracks of artillery fire trying and failing to hit
her, Addy turned back towards the north and started forward. She began to loosen her grip on her vast swarm,
dispersing them back into their ecologically relevant locations. She wasn't getting rid of all of them, of course, but
Kara would actually have words with her if she brought this many bugs back with her. It would also be bad for other
reasons, like the total ecological collapse of an inner-city ecosystem by the total removal of the native insect
population, but that was really more of a secondary concern at this point.

Idly grouping the bugs she'd taken from Lima, she directed them to go back to the city as best they could. She didn't
really have the time to make another trip to Peru, so she hoped that would be enough. With what was left of her
swarm - a not-insignificant amount, all things considered - she began to pick up speed, collecting bugs onto the
surface of her body and beginning to abandon the ones that couldn't pick up.

Soon enough, the air shuddered and cracked around her as she broke the sound barrier, hurtling through the air.
More and more speed collected, the wind screaming against her features, and the geography of Brazil turned to a
green smear below her, vanishing increasingly quickly. Bugs began to die on the surface of her body - an unfortunate
consequence of physics - and she let them be shed while the rest clung to her as best she could.

She bypassed Brazil - briefly bemoaning their decision to settle São Paulo so far south - and was hurtling over
Columbia. By the time she hit Panama, most of her bugs were very much dead, and the subsequent high-speed
travel over Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala did to the rest what her initial burst of speed couldn't.

When she finally slowed down, high above Mexico City - now conspicuously absent one ship - she had merely
twelve-thousand bugs that had layered themselves excessively over her person, using their small bodies to form a
dense network of high-friction contact that prevented them from being scraped off. Wordlessly, she let them fall
from her body and back down towards the city.

Glancing across the stretch of land, Addy blinked as she saw a red-blue blur rapidly approaching along the horizon.
Kara came into view a few seconds later, arriving at many times her speed, the thunderous crack of her sonic boom
nearly deafening as she came to a near-instant halt a few hundred feet off.

Addy felt a swell of pride in her chest. Kara was learning. That was excellent.

Floating closer, Kara soon joined her over Mexico city. "All done?" she asked, glancing around.

"I was nearly shot down over Brazil, but yes. All Dominators have been removed from South America," Addy
explained.

Kara nodded. "Barry's called us back. You can't fly quick enough, so you're going to have to hold on."

Reaching out, Kara extended an arm towards her and, wordlessly, Addy accepted it. She let herself get grabbed tight,
and in turn, grabbed Kara, clenching her fingers tight around her shoulder and tucking her cybernetic arm close to
her chest, just in case.

Then, Kara exploded into motion.

Addy did very much appreciate the speeds she could achieve with her body. They were higher than she could've ever
considered being given, they operated using mechanics she could fine-tune to great success and perfect control,
and they were in every way exactly the thing she would not have really been privileged with in a cycle.

Nonetheless, her flight was still a pale shadow to Kara's.

It took under a second to break the sound barrier. Kara had, clearly, been working on her acceleration, which Addy -
head currently reeled back from the explosive force of the motion - was proud of her for. Still, it was unexpected, and
it didn't stop there. Each second seemed to just about double their speed, and Kara wasn't just moving in a straight
line—she was ascending, higher and higher, presumably to avoid having any destructive impact when it came to a
halt.

Eyes on the sky above, the passage between Mexico City and Star City took thirty-two seconds, covering a distance
somewhere in the realm of three-thousand kilometres, give or take a few hundred.

Addy was willing to admit she might be feeling some jealousy about that.

Clouds less dispersed and more exploded as Kara screamed to a stop over Star City, Addy's head cracking around
as she dislodged herself from Kara's side, looking over the metropolis. Some of it was on fire - not unexpected,
considering the circumstances - and all three of the troop transports were still hovering over it.

In the center of it all, though, was the Waverider. In front of it, tethered by a glowing cone of blue energy, was a
perfect sphere; black in colour, and by the looks of it, beginning to slip free of the Waverider's tractor beam. On top of
it, Firestorm was hunched over, palms pressed flat across the surface, flames billowing off of his person with eyes
clenched shut so tight it genuinely looked like it might hurt.

The bomb, then.

Kara broke off from Addy's side, her movement less heard and more felt by the almost-shockwave that emanated
from her sudden action. Head turning, Addy watched Kara's blue-red blur sweep down just in time to pluck Oliver out
of the sky, having been thrown from a nearby roof where the rest of the group was fighting a squad of nearly two-
hundred Dominators, dropping him back onto it just in time to join in herself, eyes flaring bright blue and cutting a
swathe through the aliens, who screamed in a pitched noise of panic.

Head swivelling back to the bomb and Firestorm on top of it, Addy had just enough time to watch the bomb twist.
The pulse of energy her sensors picked up was odd, a type of wavelength that was close to nuclear radiation but not
quite. The black bomb below him began to churn, bubble almost—like it was stuck between a liquid and a solid,
before, with one final shout from his mouth, it was transformed. From black metal to water, the entire sphere - nearly
the size of the Waverider itself - was transmuted in a single instant into water, which then poured like a torrent down
into the streets below.

And the Dominators noticed. Heads turning towards the sky, the amassed invading force witnessed their plan go
completely wrong, and Addy knew she had a chance.

Banking to the right, she accelerated as fast as she could, cracking through the air and slamming down into the roof.
Kara, next to where she landed, jolted with a shout.

"Tell Felicity to set off the pain bomb," Addy commanded quickly, glancing between everyone nearby. A Dominator
lunged at her from the side with a snarl of sudden panic, and Addy paid just enough attention to kick him off of the
roof with a lash of her foot.

Kara fumbled quickly, dragging her loaned phone out and bringing it up to her ear. Another Dominator made to move
in, and Kara backhanded it, sending it tumbling back towards her. Addy grabbed it by the head and, like the last one,
threw it over the lip of the high rise.

"Felicity? Set it off."

Another Dominator came in screaming wildly, leaping from where it had stood.

Addy flew into the air, met it mid-jump, and then slammed it and herself down onto the roof. It hit the concrete with
enough force to shake the building and knock it senseless which she used to briefly twist and then throw the half-
conscious Dominator into an approaching group with enough force to make the impact audible.

"She wants to know why," Kara said quickly, glancing her way.

"They're a hivemind, they can feel their peers, and they just watched their big plan fail. Twist the knife, before the
window is gone. Tell her to do it."

Kara glanced at her, bit her lip, and relayed the information in a rapid burst of words.

The group she had thrown a Dominator into collected itself, rising back to its feet, just in time for there to be a
single, shrill note that pierced the air. Like the whistle of a kettle, all at once, small, penny-sized discs attached to the
bodies of the Dominators lit up red.

And then, the pain came. Screams burst from the groups in wild, furious cocophanies, like the wailing of a mournful
choir. The less inherently durable members of the group even went so far as to clutch their ears, shouting in shock
at the sound of two hundred sentient beings crying out in anguish all at once.

And with the pain came panic. With panic came retreat, fleeing, a breaking of morale.

And with that, the shafts of light fell down from the sky in the dozens. They washed over the Dominator force, who
blinked out of sight, brought back up to the ship. In mere moments, the force of two-hundred - and undoubtedly the
countless numbers of other Dominators to be found in other parts of the city and around the world - were gone, and
the ships - all of them, hovering over Star City - were beginning to pull back, flying higher and higher into the air,
fleeing.

The invasion was over.

Felicity popped the cork on the champagne bottle with a shout of triumph. The brown stub flew high into the air and
landed somewhere out of sight, to the cheers and clapping of people around her.

It had been just about six hours since they had finished pushing back the Dominators, and between having to sit
through an apology from the Brazilian government - a thoroughly awkward one, at that - and the subsequent PR
campaign the new president of the United States had used them for, Addy was now very, very done with this
universe.

As it would turn out, while she would not be beholden to long-term consequences for her actions, short-term ones
did not play by those rules. People had a lot of questions to ask of her, and a lot more veiled threats to throw her
way. One person had even asked if she was some type of biblical figure, a horseman of the apocalypse.

She had, of course, told him no, but the dignitary hardly seemed convinced.

In front of her, Felicity poured champagne for those who approached, their wine glasses tipped towards her.
Everyone, including herself, were back in their civilian clothes now that they didn't need to be fully suited up at a
moment's notice. It left the entire 'after party' - as they called it - feeling decidedly relaxed, and Addy might have even
found it in herself to enjoy it if not for her own rising frustration with this universe and the lack of any other suitable
snacks or drinks that weren't alcoholic or unappealing.

Thankfully, when Addy had told them in no uncertain terms she wasn't going to drink, nobody had made much of a
fuss about it. Felicity had tried to see if there were any other types of alcohol she might enjoy, but after Addy had sat
her down and explained in great detail the exact reasons why she didn't enjoy ingesting a toxic substance, Felicity
had let it drop with only a 'wow, that's certainly a take on alcohol'.

Kara, once getting her glass partially filled, broke off from the rest of the group, making her way over to Addy's side
as she took small sips, making a delighted noise, presumably from the taste. "Classy champagne," she explained
when Addy levelled a confused look her way. "Expensive stuff. Good though."

Addy did not know how that was possible. "If you're enjoying it, feel free to indulge. Champagne is much too weak to
make any meaningful impact on your body."

Kara glanced at her. "I mean, I don't think I'd enjoy getting drunk off of champagne."

"You would be incapable of doing so in the first place," Addy reminded her, and for the sake of being specific, listed
off the exact specifications and needed alcohol concentration for her to actually become inebriated in the first
place.

For the entire explanation, Kara just stared at her, taking sips from her drink.

"How do you even know that?" Kara asked, once she was finished.

Addy felt the immense urge to roll her eyes in a clear display of her emotions. So she did. "Extrapolation from the
last time you drank alcohol. Also some data I acquired last time I had to mind control you."

Kara tipped the glass back, finishing off what little was left of her champagne. "I have no idea how to feel about
that," she announced.

"I submit you should feel good, as I am making sure you are not exposed to enough of a concentration of toxins to
become temporarily disabled."

"Addy, that's really not what I'm focusing on."

"It should be."

Addy jolted a bit as, off to the side, someone cleared their throat. Turning around, she found herself looking at Barry
and Oliver, both of whom had broken off from the rest of the group and were looking at them.

"Oh, hey guys," Kara said, her tone warm, almost like a laugh. "Have you guys ever saved the world before?"

Barry glanced at her, then nodded. "Once or twice."

"Last year," Oliver supplied casually.

Addy, of course, said nothing, as she had nothing to say to that. This was arguably the first time she really ostensibly
saved the world, though she supposed Fort Rozz could count, even if she was rendered unconscious near the end of
that incident.

"It doesn't get old, does it?" Kara asked, setting her glass down on a nearby table.

Barry laughed at that, his lips quirking up. "Nope. Sure beats screwing up the world, too."

Addy wasn't so sure about that. In her experience, whenever she mutilated a world - or, rather, whenever a cycle was
put into place - the end result usually involved a lot more study and a lot fewer pointed questions towards her by
government officials.

"Aw, hey, c'mon! You're being way too hard on yourself," Kara chided, giving him a sharp look. "We all make mistakes
sometimes."

"But don't be too easy on yourself either," Addy interjected, as someone had to say this before the humans got
sufficiently inebriated enough to forget what happened last time. She directed her stare at Barry's nose, just to be
sure she was getting the impact she needed across. "I would recommend against time travelling in the future unless
absolutely necessary."

Kara shot her a look, but said nothing.

Barry, in turn, rolled his eyes. "Moderation is the name of the game," he agreed.

"People usually tell me I'm being too hard on myself," Oliver offered, after another moment.

"For good reason," Kara muttered, glancing his way. "And I have no doubt you actually are. But like, back on my
Earth? It's just me, my cousin, and Addy. We've got other superheroes, but they're really new right now, low-key,
nothing at all like this. Me and Addy are just... more powerful, so I've got a bit more experience handling this and the
fallout that can come. I mean, it really ate me up for a while that I couldn't stop Fort Rozz from crashing into the city
like it did and causing all that alien tech to get spread around."

Addy wheeled around to stare at Kara. "That's stupid," she said, bluntly. Kara, for whatever reason, started to chortle.
"You tried, you did not succeed, but you are very much a direct reason why the situation regarding Non was not
significantly worse than it could be. You did not give out alien tech to the public, people scavenged it and reverse-
engineered it for the purpose of proliferation."

Kara pointed at her. "See what I mean? That's exactly it. Yes, Barry, what you did was kinda stupid and more than a
little reckless, but you're not responsible for other people's actions. The Dominators chose to make the ultimatum
that they did."

"Actually, speaking of aliens, do you think you can get us some information on the Martians?" Oliver asked, stepping
forward. "You mentioned them before, and how they might've let this happen because they saw us as a threat, but
what happens now that we pushed back a force that was the Martian's equal? Didn't we just prove the Dominators
right?"

Kara glanced at Addy.

Addy glanced at Kara.

After a moment, Kara turned back to Oliver, biting her lower lip. "I... yeah that's a good point. You'll have to look out
for White Martians into the future. You just made a huge statement, and they are expert infiltrators."

"I can give you the information, but I need your permission," Addy said, after a moment.

Kara shot her a look. "Addy—"

"Permission to what?" Barry asked, sounding curious.

"To give you information. It will not cause any damage to your brain." Addy paused, then added after a moment. "I
will directly insert the information into your head so I don't have to stand here for hours explaining it to you. It will be
quick, it will be harmless, and you will know enough afterwards to spread it around."

Barry stared at her for a long moment, then tilted his head. "You know what? I've never actually had something
downloaded into my head before. So, sure, go ahead. It won't hurt me, right?"

"As I said, it is harmless," Addy explained, stressing the word 'harmless', before, without waiting another beat,
reaching out to Barry, connecting to his unshielded mind, and proceeded to dump what information on Martians she
actually felt comfortable sharing at a rate that would not cause any damage to the container she was putting it in.

Key word, of course, was damage.

Barry's face screwed up in pain as he reached up with one hand to clutch the side of his head. "Ow, ow-ow-ow," he
mumbled out. "God, Addy—that really hurt, what the hell? Did you have to overwrite something? Will I forget where I
work? Why do I have a headache?"

"I said it would not harm you," Addy stressed pointedly, frowning at him. "Furthermore, there was and still is plenty of
room in your brain. Why would I have to remove something to add new information?" Humans brains were, after all,
rather quaint pieces of biological data storage.

For whatever reason, that statement actually made Barry look a bit offended. Next to her, Kara audibly choked down
a laugh, and Oliver was clearly glancing in another direction, his shoulders unusually tight from what looked to be
repressed humour.

Addy didn't understand what was so funny, but opted not to look too deep into it.

"Okay, the headache's going away," Barry said after another moment, rubbing at his temples. "Next time, though,
seriously, tell me beforehand. That was dirty."

"It was efficient," Addy stressed, folding her arms over her chest. "But now you are prepared in the event of having to
deal with relatively powerful psychics who can perfectly shapeshift to imitate the forms of others, and are physically
powerful and durable."

Barry opened his mouth, then shut it. "Honestly knowing about them almost makes it worse."

"Knowledge is always a net positive."

"Right," Oliver cut in, tapping Barry on the shoulder. "We're going to go, talk to others, but uh... Look." He turned his
full attention to Kara, lips thinning out into a line. "I'm sorry, Kara, for what I said. I was upset because of how the
aliens messed with my head, and it threw me through a loop. Thank you for respecting my boundaries, but I won't let
something like that happen again."

Kara just smiled. "It's okay, Oliver. We all have those moments."

Addy wasn't so sure about that, but a pointed look from Kara had her not voicing as much.

Barry and Oliver wandered off together, presumably to go and speak with the others, and it didn't take much time at
all for another visitor to come their way. This time, though, it was Cisco, dressed up in a snazzy if utterly bland-
looking tuxedo, clutching a large clamshell box made from black leather in his hand.

He came to a stop in front of them, smiling awkwardly. "Hey guys."

Kara raised her empty glass his way. "Hey Cisco, how's it going?"

"Pretty good, the party's nice—expensive champagne is a nice change from beer," Cisco said, eyes going a bit
unfocused before, with a shake of his head, he clearly pulled himself back into the present. "I uh, have something for
you two, though. I'm keeping our promise." With that, he extended the box forward.

Kara blinked, reached out, and took it. She slowly opened it, and Addy leaned over to see what was inside. Nested in
what looked to be a padding of silk was a wheel-shaped object, a sort of metal ring encircling a disc with a blue let
set into the center of it, connected out to the metal ring by four points, one for each direction. Slowly, Kara retrieved
it, glanced at it, flipped it over once, then twice, and then finally looked back at Cisco. "I have no idea what this is,"
she said, after a moment.

"Oh!" Cisco laughed, a touch awkward. "It's uh, it's an interdimensional extrapolator—"

Addy reached out, opening and closing her hand as she turned her focus wholly onto the small, palm-shaped object
that was about to make a lot of her problems go away. "Kara, I must see and touch it."

Kara, accordingly, plopped the object in her hand.

Turning it over, Addy stared at it, marvelled at the metal exterior, the sleek places where she'd soon be jamming a
screwdriver into to gut and see how it ticked. She felt nothing from it now, inert as it was, but if it was even
somewhat like what he said it was, she was going to get much more use out of this than he could possibly expect.

"It creates small breaches so you can cross over or out of our universe any time you need to," Cisco explained after
another moment of awkward silence.

Addy turned her focus onto him at last, and for whatever reason he took a single wary step back. "You have no idea
how much frustration you have just saved me," she explained to him slowly, voice matter-of-fact as she felt across
the surface of the device, the buttons, and felt for the first time in a long time that energetic burst of glee at the
notion that she was reaching the ends of her study. It had been cycles since the last time something like that had
happened. "I will forgive your past indiscretions."

"...That's her way of saying she's very thankful for this gift, right?" Kara said, elbowing her in the side for effect.

Addy blinked. She had forgotten herself, how crude. "Yes. I quite appreciate your contributions to handling an
ongoing issue. Thank you."

Cisco's laugh this time was not awkward, but rather natural, a half-snorted chuckle that was as warm as Kara's
smiles. "You are... weird, but not in a bad way."

"That said," Addy cut in, glancing towards Kara. "With politeness and propriety now adequately handled, I request
that we return home posthaste, Kara. This is integral to my current issue and further observation and study of it is
crucial. I will grab my bag, but we must be off. I will not dally."

Kara snorted. "Figured that was coming, and since someone just told me in great detail how I can't even get tipsy off
of champagne, I can't see why not."

"Are you sure you guys don't want to stick around?" Cisco asked curiously, head tilted to one side. "I mean, we have
our own labs here, if that's—"

"My lab is better suited for what I am handling," Addy said, cutting him off. Her eyes roved the space, and within
moments she had found where her and Kara's bags were. "So yes, we must be off." With that, she started making her
way over with a determined spring to her step. Progress had never felt so good.

"She's excited," Kara explained somewhere behind her, presumably to Cisco. "It's just how she shows it."

“Huh,” Cisco less said, more grunted. “Not going to lie? It’s kinda terrifying.”

“You get used to it. I find it honestly really endearing now.”

 349

OxfordOctopus Oct 7, 2021 New View discussion

Threadmarks: SEASON 2 - EPISODE 41

New View content

OxfordOctopus She/Her
(Unverified Jackanape)

Oct 14, 2021  #3,646

EPISODE 41​
Addy was somewhat embarrassed to admit that inter-universe travel had become almost novel in the time since she
last had access to it.

The specifics, of course, differed in this universe from her last, but not by so much that it wasn't still familiar. The
math was different, so was the science behind it, and as far as she could tell the energy overhead was almost
comically low for something her species had spent years refining down from being costly to merely accessible
without draining their collective energy banks. For all that there were these tiny differences, minor changes and
adjustments, Addy knew the whole experience should not be this fascinating.

Yet, it was. For all that this was well-trodden ground for her, there was a thrill of discovery riding her spine as she
soaked everything in.

The tunnel between dimensions, from the outside, appeared to those with conventional forms of sight as a sort of
nexus or storm of swirling, black, blue and white energy. Like a cloud of charged weather that had been compressed
down and then exposed to all the gravity and spatial warping that came inherent when you punched a hole through
the fabric of spacetime.

The interior, Addy had come to find during both of her trips using this method, was actually fairly different. The
tunnel itself stretched out far and beyond what the eye could see. The passage itself looked to be made from a
similar kind of energy, its walls like rivers of liquid power that churned in a manner not dissimilar from white water
rapids. Where the rapids grew most intense along the walls and ceiling, they would boil over, releasing sharp barks
of bright white lightning.

While the walls themselves looked close to her - well within her reach - when she attempted to reach out and touch a
surface, she would always be just a hair shy of actually doing so. It applied to everything, even the ceiling, betraying
the non-standard dimensions of the space, the fact that it was - as far as she could tell - only loosely conforming to
what she could see. This was only redoubled by the fact that, despite there being no actual source of light in the
tunnel, Addy could see it all perfectly fine.

Kara stood next to her in the tunnel, standing atop the same shiny floor that she was. The floor was like the 'rivers' of
energy that boxed them in, except it was frozen rather than liquid and moving, a perfectly level plane that stretched
on in a straight line even as the walls seemed to try to twist up and down.

Dimensional wind - insofar as she could tell - whipped around them, even as they technically remained stationary.
Cisco had been highly insistent about that part—no movement on their behalf was actually necessary, as they were -
as much as anyone had been able to identify, anyway - moving even without making the physical actions to do so.
The wind was reflective of not just their relative movement, but also the way that the tunnelling interfered with
gravity and space—a subtle twisting of both leading to what air came along with them for the ride being thrown
around in wild, dancing gales.

Addy let herself soak it all in. Both the physical sensations - the drag of air across her skin, the dense smell of ozone
in the back of her throat, the feeling like static was building up and being released near her fingers - and the readings
she was passing back to her core with great care. Each second spent in the tunnel added another new data point,
another gap in her understanding filled, though lingering wasn't possible. Only seconds had elapsed, and even now
her core was picking up on the gradual collapse of the tunnel, their transit coming to an end.

There was a noise that came with it, one her physical body could recognize. The roar was like the sound air made as
it screamed past your head, and it was ever-present in the tunnels, yet grew louder and louder the closer they got to
the other exit. It grew, slowly at first and then with a suddenness that again reinforced the non-linear nature of their
transit, until it drowned everything else out, filling her ears.

Another second elapsed, another moment of important data tucked away to accelerate her studies.

And then, the world broke. The tunnel opened wide with a shuddering heave, the currents that made up the walls
peeling apart as the black, blue and white energy that made up the tunnel suddenly gave way. At one end, their
apartment fell into view, the image growing wider and wider until it was all that Addy could see.

The roar cut off in an instant, and Addy felt her feet meet hardwood, the sound of Kara doing the same echoing next
to her.

Sucking in a breath, Addy blinked away the spots in her vision, and heard the dimensional breach slam shut behind
her with a grating, discordant screech.

Evening had come to National City, in Earth-38. Orange-reds peered through the gaps in the curtains that lined the
windows of the apartment. The air was hotter, headier than Star City or the vacuum within that tunnel, both of which
fell into that neutral range of temperature that was hard for Addy's improved nerves to pick up on in the first place.
The air smelled of home, of Kara's coffee and her own shampoo.

It also smelled of something else, faint and distant, and Addy turned her head to find that there was someone else in
the apartment.

Alex, who looked to have been slumped over in one of the chairs that filled the living room. Alex, who had half-risen
to her feet, sleep thick on her face and her hair looking like it hadn't been washed in over a few days. Alex, whose
hand halted just next to where her gun was holstered on her hip, eyes wide and looking at them uncomprehendingly
before, at last, letting her shaking hand drop, relief shuddering through her body as she nearly slumped back into her
seat.

"...Alex?" Kara asked, voice utterly confused. "What are you doing—"

"Oh, thank god you two are okay," Alex cut in, interrupting Kara and, at last, falling back into her seat. A wheezy
breath punched itself out through her mouth, and she reached up to drag a hand through her hair, which promptly fell
limp and scraggly around her face.

Kara stared at her. "...Of course we're okay, Alex—I called you and spoke to you about this entire thing!" she said
quickly, waving her hand around. "Have you been waiting for us this entire time? What even compelled you to do
this?"

Alex stared at the two of them, hands fidgeting in her lap, before taking a long and very much audible swallow. "It's...
Kara, I couldn't be sure if you made that call of your own volition," she explained tightly. "You two did go completely
missing, there was no way to contact you, and I mean, you didn't even bring the Flash and his friend in to at least tell
us what exactly it entailed!"

"Alex," Kara said, voice going soft. "I'm not part of the D.E.O. anymore, but I am sorry I scared you like that. Still, I have
to point out, if someone could force both myself and Addy to go somewhere that wasn't of our own volition, you'd
have much bigger problems."

"Yeah," Alex agreed, after a long moment. "But between that and all the psychics we had suddenly panicking about
Addy's presence going missing, it was... one of a few options we had to consider. Even if you did go under your own
will, we couldn't be sure if you were going to be stranded over there on purpose or even by accident, or if you had
died—there was no way for us to check."

"I wouldn't have let that happen," Addy interjected, drawing both Alex's and Kara's gaze to her. "While it might have
taken several years, I would have gotten us back. Universes are not the barrier you might think they are." Not
anymore, anyway.

Alex reached up, rubbing her palm over one eye. "That's... we didn't know that."

Kara let out a huff, dropping their bags down at her feet. "Okay, point taken. I'll try to talk face-to-face, at least, if I
ever happen to suddenly need to go universe hopping again." She paused, then, staring at Alex a bit more closely.
"But that doesn't really explain why you were this concerned about the danger this time, Alex. I mean, I get into
things like this fairly regularly, it's basically my second job! The risk is always fairly high, so why are you getting cold
feet now?"

Alex opened her mouth to reply, shut it, tried again, only for the same thing to happen.

Addy directed her gaze back down to the transponder in her hand, feeling her interest wane. She marvelled at it for a
long moment, tried to recall the burst of energy that it produced upon activation, only to remember that she had
exact records of that exact incident already stored. Reaching out to her core, she delighted in replaying them, taking
in the readings with great relish.

"It's... I guess I'm just used to being there with you for this kind of thing," Alex said at last. "I can always at least... find
you, see what you're doing, on the television. There are always reports, always some way to keep an eye on you,
Kara. And you left the D.E.O., which I joined to protect you, and then you were just... gone, with no way of finding
either of you."

Kara let out a sigh. "Alex, you're my big sister, but you can't always be there for me like that."

Addy brought the transponder up above her head, staring at it through the shafts of dim, evening light that were cast
over it. She could still just barely pick up the traces of energy the initial burst used to open up the breach, though it
was fading quick. Within another few minutes, there'd be absolutely no evidence such a thing could be used to
punch through the fabric of reality like it had. She was almost entirely sure that nobody had taken that into account,
but then it was a good thing; the fact that it could so quickly become untraceable rather than irradiate a city block
upon use was a genuine, delightful surprise.

Not to even mention the power efficiency and the means it used to open tunnels between dimensions.

It was not subpar technology, and Addy felt a fleeting moment of pride in the human species once again. She, of
course, quashed it shortly thereafter as giving humans too much credit tended to have catastrophic results, but then
she would give them some praise, just for a moment, and only in her head.

"I... think we need to talk about what happened at the D.E.O., about all of that," Alex said, the conversation picking
back up. "But before that, I really need to ask: what is up with Addy?"

Addy blinked, glanced down from her marvelling of the device in her hand, to find both Kara and Alex staring at her.
The former was staring at her with that same exasperated fondness that she'd worn for the latter half of Felicity's
party, whereas the latter was staring at her with genuine concern.

"Addy now has a device which can help her cut between universes, and that can aid her with her current power
problems," Kara provided, when Addy herself didn't exactly rush to fill Alex in on the majesty she was currently
holding. "Basically it'll help her regain functions that she had to shut down, and now that she has something which
works and can recreate, well, she's happy."

"I am," Addy agreed with a firm nod. "Happy, that is."

"...Should we really let her have that?" Alex whispered to Kara, which was a bad idea considering Alex was currently
the only person in the room who was not aware that Addy's abilities had improved enough to pick up on it.

Kara just snorted. "I don't think she'll give it to us even if we asked," she replied at a more normal volume, earning a
quick squint from Alex.

"I am perfectly responsible with this kind of technology," Addy replied archly, because it was very much true. "I am, if
anything, the sole person who can be trusted with it. This is the core of my kin's very being. Also, Kara is right, I will
not be giving it back until I am adequately satisfied."

Alex turned her squint towards Addy for a moment. "I'm gonna have to tell J'onn," she confessed.

"I do not care," Addy replied. "As I will already be working on it. Science does not wait for anyone, and I must now go
and find Lena, inform her of this, and—"

"Addy," Kara interrupted, turning to stare at her. "It's late. We just got back from handling an alien invasion, Lena is
probably busy. It can wait until tomorrow, where you can schedule a meeting with her."

It most certainly could not. "As I said before, science waits for nobody. It would be the pinnacle of inefficiency to just
wait on this without pursuing further research."

A crinkle emerged between Kara's brows. "Addy, Lena has her own things to do, you can set up a meeting tomorrow,"
she reasserted, her voice firm. "You need to rest, you did a lot today, you haven't slept in... I mean, basically twenty-
four hours by this point. If you really want to do, er, research, you told me you'd have data to compile and input, and
wouldn't it be a waste of your time to have to do it after going to Lena? Wouldn't you be unprepared?"

Addy froze, her eyes narrowing as she looked at Kara. She had the strong, unavoidable sense that Kara was
somehow playing her, using her own very realistic desires for basic propriety to stop her from pursuing her
immediate goals. Unfortunately, while that sense did not fade, Kara was also rather correct: it would be hugely
wasteful to run over with what amounted to raw, uncompiled data points and a rough idea about what she needed to
do with it and insist Lena see her based on that alone. Even with the device as a thing of great value, it would be
horribly messy.

Blinking once, then twice, Addy, at last, let it go. "As you insist," she said after another moment, turning towards her
own bag and scooping it off of the ground, making her way towards the couch. "I will spend tonight compiling data,
and then go through the normal channels to acquire permission and meet Lena tomorrow."

"And you'll sleep, so that you'll be presentable when you meet Lena," Kara added.

Addy twitched, glancing back at Kara. "But the lost time—"

Kara spared her an unimpressed look. "Do you think Lena will go along with this if you're obviously sleep-deprived?"
she asked.

Addy knew that she would not. There were very specific rules about not being sleep-deprived in the lab space, and
Lena had on more than one occasion seen through Addy's masterful ability to conceal her physical state. "...And I'll
sleep," she conceded.

With that, she fished her laptop out of her bag, set it down on the coffee table, plugged it into her home charger, and
brought up the software she'd need to start putting data to her experiences. Already, her computer was connected to
her wifi - which was considerably more safe than Felicity's - and she could feel the anticipation she was experiencing
almost reach out through her body, urging her to move.

Her fingers met the keys of her laptop, the lull of conversation between Alex and Kara fading into the background.

It was time to document the many great things she had learned about transit between universes.

...As much as she could, anyway, before her bedtime as dictated by her sleep schedule.

The waiting space outside of Lena's office was not one Addy much liked. It was, unfortunately, beholden to Lena's
more... choice opinions on colour and furniture arrangement, all of which was crammed into the tail end of the
hallway that led up to the twin, similarly bland-to-look at opaque glass doors of her office. The only thing Addy found
she actually liked in the space was Jess, who could be found sitting behind her desk, busy on the computer,
answering calls, or otherwise keeping herself occupied.

Addy perched on the edge of her seat, hands fidgeting in her lap as she did her level best to reign in the excitement
she felt. There was a persistent urge to pluck and pinch at her clothes and hair, like roaming hands without any true
destination in mind might actually improve on her carefully put-together outfit. She had spent most of the morning
preparing for it - as Kara had pointed out previously that Addy didn't want Lena to turn her away for not looking
properly composed - and it amounted to her snazziest, favourite clothes, arranged just as she liked them.

Her wine-red hat sat atop her hair, which she had carefully tucked over one shoulder, leaving the curls loose to
cascade down the front portion of her canary-yellow button-up shirt, whose sleeves she had rolled up to her elbows.
The shirt itself was tucked into her pants - a pair of dark red chinos - and fastened tight with a black belt she had
borrowed from Kara. Her shoes were her most favourite: a set of yellow high-tops into which she had woven rainbow
laces and tied in big loops so that they crowned the shoe's tongue like a bowtie.

Over it all, she wore her laptop bag, into which she had tucked all the things she'd need to explain everything to Lena,
and was as usual the multicoloured bag that Kara had bought for her. She felt the urge to try to adjust the strap
again - not that any of her past fidgeting with it over the last thirty minutes had done much - but managed to quash
it, letting the fiendish need to move get dispersed by some careful taps of her fingers on her lap.

Her outfit was, therefore, about as close to perfect as Addy could reasonably manage given her fleshier constraints.
To fiddle with it would be a profoundly stupid decision, and yet, with each second she could all but feel crawling
past, she still felt the gnawing urge to do something - anything, really - with her hands.

Eyes turning back to the clock, Addy counted the tick-tick-ticks as the hand denoting the passage of seconds made
another circle around its face.

Impatience was not something Addy was terribly used to. In the grand scheme of things, time was very much
relative—the fruition of things which had spent thousands of years in the making was not all that unusual for her to
oversee in the past. The major change, it would seem, was that unlike her past experiences she was actually making
progress in something worthwhile. In the greater whole, she could have any number of studies going on
concurrently, and even if one of them made appreciable gains, the actual results the network would derive out of
them would be fairly minor.

She liked to think that, had the greater whole thought they were on the direct path to solving their infinite-
reproduction issue, things would've probably sped up considerably.

A sharp chime broke through the silence, pulling her away from her thoughts. With a bated breath, Addy turned to
watch Jess lean forward, pluck the phone from the receiver, and bring it up to her ear. After a few moments, Jess
nodded, said a confirmation of some kind back into the phone, and settled it back into the cradle. Her head turned,
eyes landed on her, and Jess graced her with a very rare smile.

"You're free to head in now, Addy," she said, gesturing towards the door. Her smile fell away as quickly as it was
there, though in a way the softness remained. Jess had a very... cold resting face, much like Addy did—pure
neutrality that had to be purposefully shaped with intent to get different expressions to emerge. "And welcome back.
It's good to see you."

Springing to her seat, Addy nodded in her direction. "It is good to see you as well, Jess," Addy said, forcefully keeping
her walking pace slow as she made her way up to the twin doors. She was polite, she was perfectly composed, and
she was ready to get this entire energy problem behind her.

There was a click from Jess's desk, and the doors in front of her began to buzz. Reaching out, Addy pulled the now-
unlocked door open, and stepped into Lena's office.

The office hadn't changed since she was last in there. It was still desperate for even the remote touch of colour, with
everything being either flat white or flat black in colour. All the furniture - even the shelves - looked to be more like
abstract shapes, hard angles and odd, 'modern' style design, though they were deceptively comfortable to sit in.
There were a few more normal pieces of furniture in the space, of course; Lena's desk, the seats in front of it, a tall
filing cabinet, and the seat behind Lena's desk, on which Lena herself sat, smiling at her as she entered.

The door swung shut behind Addy as she fully entered, her strides reaching farther as she let some of the
excitement drive her forward.

"Good morning, Addy," Lena replied, voice tinged with happiness. Lena's smile pulled at the corners of her face,
making her already sharp cheekbones stand out starkly, sitting high on her face, which Addy thought was a
delightful look on her. "From what you've told me, your trip to another universe worked out?"

If anything, worked out was a vast understatement. "While it did at times require me to deal with exceedingly
annoying individuals, I have made great gains," Addy replied, arriving at the chairs in front of Lena's desk. She
reached into her bag, fishing the transponder out, before extending it towards Lena, who took it with a curious tilt of
her head. She gave Lena a few seconds to look it over in silence, watching as the curious look on her face intensified
into something inquisitive.

"You know, for something so important and game-changing, this is... really small and unassuming," Lena said at last,
flipping the transponder around to stare at the opposite side.

"It is a feat of engineering I would not expect out of humanity, truth be told," Addy confessed, folding her hands
behind her back. "Not that humanity would be incapable of making something like this eventually—but rather, your
species is not at the stage I would consider any of this possible. Even with humanity's habit of finding loopholes in
the fabric of reality, this is something I thought I might only see a thousand years into the future, given direct
scientific progress on the topic. Not universe-travel in general, just universe-travel that comes in a mobile, palm-
sized device such as that."

Lena blinked, glancing up at her. "...So, how did they make this, then?"

That was actually something even Addy wasn't one-hundred percent sure about. That said, she had a pretty solid
theory as to why. "I believe humanity cheated," she explained, observing the flicker of amusement that passed over
Lena's face. "They had an individual - the Flash - who could achieve a similar feat through use of his inherent
powers. They had him to build the theory of such a device from, to begin with, and then reverse-engineered the
process in a manner of speaking. The fact that they had anything to work from in the first place likely sped things
along, as having the theory that a multiverse exists is a very different thing from having proof of it and a repeatable
experiment source."

"Huh," Lena replied, rather ineloquently.

"It still is a feat," Addy added, after another moment. "Even with the existence of the Flash speeding things along,
this still should have taken time. The fact that it hasn't is where the unknown variable is in all of this."

Lena sat the device down on the desk in front of them, visibly processing the information Addy had just given her.
After another moment, she pressed two fingers into the device and slid it closer to Addy, before looking up at her.
"So, now the question is: what are we going to do with this? And where do we go from here?"

Reaching down, Addy gently moved the transponder off to one side with one hand, while her other reached out and
dragged a chair in. Sitting down, she maneuvered her bag around, retrieved her laptop out from within it and sat it
down next to where she had left the transponder. Opening it up, she typed her password in, unlocked it, and brought
up both her data sets and her current plan, both of which she'd compiled in excruciating detail.

"At the moment, the current goal for this project is recreation," she explained simply, turning her laptop so that Lena
could share the screen with her, but not so much that Addy herself couldn't see it. "Finding a means to copy the base
design, understand the underlying principles behind the device, and through that create my own version which is
tuned to my specifications. I already have the location of a universe I will need to breach into, I just need to reach it."

She dragged the pad of her thumb across the trackpad, highlighting a part of the document, before continuing.

"Doing this will likely require taking the device apart. I have, thankfully, no reason to believe opening the device will
break it in any meaningful way, and as it was designed by a person who clearly has had to do maintenance on their
work before, all of the screws are standard design. Getting a look at the internals will give me a place to work from,
which leads to the recreation process."

"Wait," Lena interjected, looking almost startled. "I thought you said you had the facilities to do this yourself? It was
just that they were working from the wrong logic, so you couldn't use them? If you figure out how this works, can't
you just recreate it in your core?"

"That would be correct. I do have the capacity to tunnel between universes, it is an inherent element in my systems.
However, for now, I don't intend to simply restructure that system to recreate the effect this device produces,
because it would be a larger net energy loss," Addy explained simply. She had done the math, and though it was a
negligible energy-saving measure - the true 'cost' was in keeping the breach open for any length of time - skimping
on energy-saving now would be reckless to the extreme. "Currently, the idea is to make a two-stage transponder. The
first stage would move the object itself into the universe my core dwells in, in which it would be maneuvered through
my facilities to my tunnelling system. Then, the second stage would activate, opening the breach into the target
universe, and my facilities would be used to keep the breach stable and active."

There were other reasons, too, but they were rather more abstract. While she wouldn't initiate this process before
she could be certain her tunnelling system could handle keeping a breach stable, it did mean she didn't have to be
an expert in understanding it. There was also the side of things where she could use the set-up to closely study the
new breaching technology, to later then recreate with her own facilities and in effect produce another power hub—
the ability to open tunnels between universes was a valuable ability, and by defining it into the strict parameters of a
power, she could get a lot of use out of it.

Lena tilted her head to one side, her index finger tapping against her chin, before nodding. "I can see the logic behind
that," she agreed. "My concern was just that we - you - would have to account for possible technical failures."

"I will simply make it good enough that failure chances are sufficiently low," Addy replied matter-of-factly.

Lena arched an eyebrow, but after a moment tilted her head in the image of polite acquiescence. "Then that's what
we'll do. Other than that, though... how was your trip?" she asked, eyes refocusing back on Addy. "You didn't give me
a lot of details, and Kara's making up for lost time at work, though she's promised me a full description as soon as
she's not swamped."

Addy considered the question. Undoubtedly, while Lena would both enjoy and benefit from a complex break-down of
the tactics she used to take down a large alien threat, she didn't think that was a particularly relevant conversation to
be having at the moment.

After a few seconds of deliberation, she started to speak.

"There were differences in the other universe, predictable ones, but interesting ones nevertheless," Addy began,
thinking back. "Without Superman or Supergirl, Luthor Corp never took off under Lex's tenure like it did in this
universe. Rather, when I observed it, it was being gradually subsumed by pharmaceutical and research companies
with bigger backers."

Lena blinked. "That's... unexpected."

"You moved to Ireland after cutting all ties with your family, or so a gossip magazine I found on the internet claimed,"
Addy offered. "I'm unsure why, but it wasn't recent—you were barely out of college when you did so."

"...Why Ireland of all places?" Lena asked, sounding bewildered, though her gaze was somewhat far away, not totally
present. "I mean... did I really go there just because of—or, no." She shook her head, eyes refocusing as they settled
back on Addy. "Was anything else different?" she queried, clearly changing the topic.

Addy wasn't about to deny her. "CatCo is still a gossip magazine. It was the one I pulled the story from," she
provided. "Also, there were metahumans - or humans with inherent powers, like Flash - all across the world."

"You know, considering the prevalence of aliens here, that doesn't seem that far-fetched anymore," Lena said after
another moment of silence. She slowly pushed herself to her feet, glancing off to one side, towards the door. "If you
had told me that back when Superman was still new? I probably would've had some issues believing it. I guess I've
just gotten used to things being different."

Slowly, Addy closed her laptop and slid it back into her bag.

"Either way," Lena continued, a smile working its way back onto her face as she turned to face Addy once again. "Can
you follow me? The supercomputers I mentioned before have the vacancy I needed to get you in there with this
project, and the lab next to it is already set up. I'll have to get you up to date with the software, but we can definitely
start working on this as soon as you want to."

Addy did not completely ruin her dignity by leaping to her feet, but it was a rather close thing.

The warm, orange light of the afternoon greeted Addy upon her return to the apartment building.

Stepping through the open doors of the elevator, she couldn't help but walk with the slightest spring to her step, not
quite able to contain the excitement she felt from showing. She had spent most of the day tucked away in the lab
Lena had set up for her, primarily working from the supercomputer that had, to nobody's real surprise, vastly
accelerated her workflow.

Unfortunately, Lena had her own obligations to manage, so she had only worked with her for a measly hour out of
the many Addy herself had devoted to her task. The hour she had spent with Lena had been among the most
productive, mostly consisting of taking apart the transponder and putting it back together again, looking over the
internals and making guesses - some correct, some not - as to the purpose of each part. By the end of that hour,
their joint study had more or less mapped the entire device out, putting purpose to all but the smaller parts that Lena
had been fairly certain were mostly redundancies.

The hours Lena hadn't been there for had been of a less hands-on kind of study. Simulations and theories still had to
be input to derive answers from, of course, and between the data she had scraped from her first-hand experience
with this new kind of universal travel and the supercomputer, her results had all shown marked improvements. A
wider, and fundamentally more complete image of the universe was beginning to take shape, and Addy was rather
delighted about that fact.

By her estimate, given her pace continued at the rate that it was, she would require roughly a month to compile the
data and come to a coherent understanding of both the universe and the device, and considering the scale she had
been working on before—where even the most generous estimates had been in the scale of several years, usually
decades—a month was almost comically insignificant. Addy had waited hundreds of years before for smaller,
impossibly less significant results, and had done so without protest.

Of course, the current situation was in every way different from a cycle, where power was a non-issue and she didn't
have to concern herself with other people's opinions, but it still didn't take much away from her comparison. A
month, give or take a few weeks, and she would be well on her way to being at peak operating capacity once again.
The restraints that had frustrated her to no end would be lost, and she would be able to actually begin putting the full
breadth of her abilities to use.

And what a month it would be. That was possibly the best part: she would spend an entire month soaking up an
endless stream of data, completing the puzzle that was the universe—a puzzle that had vexed her considerably
since she had first arrived in it. There would be no mindless groping for context or information, no blind research;
what she was on was a straight path to success, and there was nothing quite so delightful as that.

Arriving at the door to her apartment, Addy fished her keys out of her bag and planted them into the corresponding
lock. With a twist, it let out a clunk, and after first retrieving her keys she pushed through, coming to a halt just a step
inside.

Her apartment was rather more occupied than she had expected it to be.

James and Lucy both sat on the couch, the latter in the process of scooping a handful of pretzels out from a bowl
that had been left on the coffee table. Winn, in the seat next to them, was talking with rapid hand motions, eyes
trained on Alex, who sat in the seat just next to him. In the midst of it all, Kara watched the group with a casual kind
of fondness, an entire bag of potato chips tucked under one arm.

There were other snacks placed strategically around the room as well. Beyond the bowl of pretzels, Kara had
procured a platter of donuts, several varieties of potato chips, and what looked to be the contents of those
chocolate Christmas calendars that had been surreptitiously dumped into a bowl, if the discarded, ruined cardboard
calendars were any indication.

Heads turned to glance at her, staring first with James and Lucy. The former gave her a quick wave before snatching
a hand out to steal a pretzel from Lucy, who turned to look at him with a narrowed, annoyed look, before turning
back towards Addy and offering a quick smile. Winn glanced up from his conversation with Alex, face lighting up as
he waved both arms at her. Alex's gaze landed on her next, the tension in her brow smoothing out, but offering
nothing but a nod.

Last, but not least, was Kara, who grinned and stepped around the group, walking up to her. "Welcome back, Ads."

Addy blinked, processing the scene in front of her. On the one hand, she felt a suffusing warmth, the sort that
collected in her chest and spread out to her limbs, made her relax. Seeing everyone here, bundled together and -
more importantly - safe was, as far as she could identify, a great relief to her.

At the same time, though, she was rather confused.

Slowly shutting the door behind her, Addy scanned the room, looking for clues, and came back with nothing. Outside
of the snacks and additional occupants, the apartment revealed no explanation for such a gathering. "Thank you and
good evening, Kara. Hello, Winn, Alex, Lucy and James. I must ask: is there some kind of event going on?" After all,
she didn't quite know what other reason they would come around for. Most of the time, when a gathering such as
this occurred, it was for board game night, where Addy would reign supreme and with great authority.

"I mean, I guess?" Kara hedged, glancing back at the rest of the group. "But really, they're here to welcome us back
from another universe. Winn tossed the idea out there, and since everyone had the time for it..."

Oh. Well then. The warmth grew a little bolder in her chest, spreading up to her face for reasons beyond her
comprehension, and Addy cleared her throat, finding it oddly tight. "That is an understandable reason to celebrate,"
she conceded after another moment, glancing back down towards the hardwood beneath her feet, and the fact that
she was still wearing shoes. Dutifully, she toed her way out of her high-tops, nudging them over to join Kara's
eclectic mix of slip-ons and heels next to the door.

"Yeah!" Winn crowed, his voice excited. "Welcome back! You guys are basically the Armstrongs of this universe now,
y'know? You're definitely not the first people - ever - to travel through dimensions, but you're the first for our little end
of the multiverse cluster. Which, you know, is a huge discovery considering it was still in debate about whether or
not there was a multiverse at all—"

"Anyway," Kara interrupted, her tone relaying that she wasn't trying to be rude, but perhaps felt like she had to be at
the moment. "To avoid another thirty minutes of Winn's gushing, I forgot to ask this morning, but you got into
contact with the rest of your friends to tell them you were back, right?"

Blinking, Addy glanced up from the shoes - which, honestly she wasn't sure why she was staring at - and towards
Kara. "Of course I did," she replied, feeling somewhat put-off that Kara would think she would slip up in such a way.
"Even had my presence not informed them of my return, I would have still done so. I was met with greetings and
several people welcoming me back." Itnar had been particularly excited, as purportedly there was some talk about
the bar reopening now that the area had been thoroughly decontaminated, and he was hoping she might be
interested in coming around.

She had even got a tentative reply from M'gann, which she was assuming was a kind of olive branch. She still wasn't
sure where the two of them stood, but it was something at least.

Kara smiled blindingly at her, almost making Addy redirect her gaze to the much less shiny and expressive shoes,
but she held the urge off. "That's great!"

"Actually, now that you're here, maybe we could get your opinion on something," Alex interjected, glancing towards
Kara who, with a shrug, looked back at Addy.

Addy, by comparison, paused, worked through the list of thoughts she had in her head, and then nodded. "If you will
give me a moment," she replied.

When no rejection of her request was forthcoming, Addy meandered around Kara and made her way towards her
room—or at least the dividers which defined it. Slipping inside, she heard the conversation begin to pick back up, the
sound of Kara's socked footsteps on hardwood, and let the sounds kindle that warmth in her chest again.

As fast as she could without compromising her ability to do so, Addy began changing. She got rid of her button-up
shirt, the belt, and replaced it with something much more loose and free-flowing that didn't need to be tucked into
her pants. She slipped her laptop - and the translocator - out of the bag, plugging the former in and setting it up on
her desk, opening it and navigating to a page she had already set up. While Lena wasn't okay with letting her
remotely control the supercomputer over the internet - as there were security concerns to take into consideration; if
she could exploit it, theoretically others could too - she was okay with her leaving some tracking software on the
topic, and a quick glance told her in the time it took to use public transit to return back home, the progress on her
simulations hadn't changed much.

Humming beneath her breath, she slipped out of her pants and replaced them with pyjamas before unplugging her
arm - as she'd hardly need it for the time being - and slotted it back onto its charging dock. With all of that finally
accomplished, she reached over, grabbed Saturday from where she had placed them on her bed, tucked them
against her chest, and wandered back out into the living room.

The conversation died off, and Addy had the distinct impression of being stared at - even if, at the moment, her face
was much too busy being buried in the plush fabric of Saturday's chest - but nonetheless using the mental map she
had of her environment she navigated around the space, found the chair that had become, in everything but name,
her own - seeing as nobody else used it - and finally sat down. Twisting around, she propped Saturday up next to her,
using them as a pillow and a rest for her stump, before, at last, turning her attention back to Alex, who looked back
at her with warm amusement on her face.

"You may now ask," Addy replied in her most dignified voice. She was, after all, very dignified at the moment. Her big,
baggy shirt was covered in geese, and so too were her fleece pyjamas. Her hair formed springy curls down her back,
and she was accompanied by her companion: Saturday, the only goose whose size truly matched their personality.

"We were talking about it before, especially after Kara filled us in on what happened on the other earth," Alex began,
the amusement gradually fading from her expression and tone. "Do you think we're at risk of being invaded by
Dominators like the other earth was?"

"No," Addy replied without so much as missing a beat. "Though, I must confirm first. In the Flash's universe, there
was a degree of contact previously established between the Dominators and humans after an encounter with them
in 1951. Has the same happened here?"

Alex nodded. "Really shouldn't be telling any of you this, considering I'm the only person with the clearance to know
in this room, but yes. The same encounter happened here, though I don't know if the details are different."

"My answer would still be no, either way, but had it not happened here there was a small - albeit not non-existent -
chance that if something like the incident in 1951 happened here in modern times, it could've graduated into a larger
conflict," Addy explained, matter-of-factly. "But since it already has, and the Dominators are already aware of us,
unless we begin experiencing a similar rise in 'metahumans' or some other kind of tangible threat that they would
seek to destroy, they would have no reason to invade us and risk retaliation from our neighbours."

There was no response forthcoming to that. If anything, while there had been murmured conversation in the
background up until now, even that stopped.

Instead, Alex and Kara shared a quick, somewhat concerned look, one which boded rather ill for Addy's prediction.

Finally, Alex turned back to look at her, inhaled slowly, and let it out. "There's been a rash of people gaining powers,"
she explained bluntly.

Addy felt a pinch of annoyance take root. "We were gone for three days," she insisted, unable to hide her frustration.
"What could have happened in that time that led to a 'rash of people gaining powers'?"

"The first incident actually took place before you two left," Winn offered, which did at least take the edge off. "We
only came into contact with her after you guys were gone."

"From what we know, someone is handing out a kind of serum which activates the latent metagene that can be
found in parts of our population," Alex said, drawing Addy's focus back to her. "It's only been in America for now, but
the distribution range is basically across the entire continent. We know of four cases: two in Midvale, one in
Wyoming, and another in Alaska. There's likely more than that, but the target for the serum seems to be the
homeless or those who might not be accepted by society—though saying that we have a really small sample size,
even if other evidence backs up that assumption."

Midvale? "Is Eliza okay?" Addy asked.

"She's completely fine," Kara said rather quickly, waving a hand. "She wasn't even near to where the first incident took
place, and the second one was more of a consequence of the first, if what Alex is telling me is true."

Alex nodded. "A man by the name of Thomas White tried to rob a diner that Livewire - or Leslie Willis - worked at. He
was one of the people given a syringe containing the serum, though he has been refusing to tell us where or when
he acquired it. He tried to use Leslie as a hostage, she took exception to that, and tazed him with her powers and
then called the cops." She paused for a moment and, with great care, took in a deep breath like she was rallying her
patience. "The cops arrived, arrested Thomas, and searched through his things. They found the serum, and rather
than immediately moving it to an evidence locker, they decided to taunt him with it by holding it near his face and
telling him how much trouble he was in."

Addy now understood why Alex had to do some deep-breathing exercises to explain that. "That's stupid," she
announced.

"You're right, it was. The cops played a stupid game and won a stupid prize. Thomas bit through the glass that
contained the syringe, in the process exposing the police chief to some amount of the serum through a cut made by
said broken glass, and swallowed the rest. Afterwards, Thomas gained the ability to spontaneously combust with
yellow fire and control said fire, while also benefiting from some minor physical enhancements that stopped him
from burning alive or dying from all the molten glass in his stomach," Alex explained. "I really hate to say this, but
thankfully Livewire was there to prevent him from going on a rampage through Midvale. She took him down and then
put out the fires by absorbing them, saving the city from burning completely down."

"The other incident in Midvale was the police chief, if it wasn't clear," Winn piped up, leaning forward and gesturing at
his hand, making a slicing motion horizontally across the heel of his palm. "He got a cut across his hand, and the
serum was introduced. It took a day, rather than the instant activation that Thomas experienced, but he developed
the ability to shape his own flesh and harden it. He came in willingly to talk with us after some of our agents were
sent down to investigate, and we're currently running tests to make sure he's not getting super-cancer or something
from whatever he was exposed to."

"Winn's leading the research on the police chief," Alex added. "While I'm currently handling the field operation, and
that leads us to our last two. A homeless woman in Wyoming took the serum after being told it was a new type of
ecstasy at a party she went to. She now has the ability to sense emotions in other people and transfer them to
herself on touch, as well as transfer emotions from herself to other people in the same way. She was the one who
got her powers before the two of you left, but got into contact with us through an intermediary when information
about Thomas ended up on the news.

"The final person we know of to get powers was from Alaska. A small-time drug dealer, he was given the serum from
one of his growers, and he's told us he's pretty sure other dealers in the region got it too," Alex continued, folding her
hands together. "He now has the ability to maintain a pocket dimension he can transfer objects into and out of so
long as he's nearby. We don't know much about how his powers work, unfortunately. We do know that this is all from
the metagene, as we cross-referenced it with the blood sample you got from the Flash when he visited, and the
same markers are all now active."

That... was a problem. Tugging Saturday closer, Addy found herself considering the implications of this. For starters,
someone was targeting a vulnerable group in America to presumably run tests on a serum which could activate the
metagene. The metagene was something Addy had briefly attempted to figure out and had been utterly unable to.
How exactly a gene could give powers to people ranging from dimensionally-adjacent super speed to psychometry
to pyrokinesis and even to electricity generation and energy storage was, bluntly, beyond her. They were all too
sophisticated and refined, not to mention the variety, and couldn't really be called mutations.

After all, mutations gave people cancer or changed people's hair colour over a period of thousands of years. It did
not, nor would it ever, let you spontaneously make lasers without some significant and bizarre evolutionary pressure.

Then again, she had to remind herself that a number of powers did not work the way she really thought they should.
Kara's own Kryptonian abilities - and, Addy now supposed, her own - made little sense if you bothered to look into
them. The psychics of this universe bore a significant divergence from her own, as they had clearly developed
psychic abilities without only focusing on them, as is normally required due to the energy-intensive nature of psychic
abilities and the circumstances in which they generally evolved.

The metagene, being universal, played by similar rules apparently.

Breathing out, Addy let the annoyance pass. "Do we know who is proliferating the serum?"

Alex shook her head. "Not a bit. The closest we got was the grower the man from Alaska mentioned, and even then
that was a dead end. The current major theory is that someone from the Flash's universe might've slipped into ours,
when he was trying to come and get the two of you," she explained. "Since we were finding those portals for days
beforehand, it's possible that someone might've hijacked the process who knows about the metagene and made the
trip over in the chaos. That said, that's... still a big leap to make, it's just the only one that makes much sense at the
moment."

Wordlessly, Addy added yet another thing onto her growing list of problems she'd have to eventually fix. To her mild
surprise, that list was actually getting smaller. Maybe at this rate she'd be able to tackle the less-important - but still
relevant - issues within the century. "Either way, my opinion does not change. Unless the serum starts self-
propagating, we should be free from Dominator interest."

Alex hesitated, then nodded. "You're probably right. We have D.E.O. agents canvassing for any sign of the stuff, but
until we get any actual leads, we just have to wait."

The conversation lapsed for a moment into awkward silence.

James cleared his throat, then, glancing around the room and, after Lucy took his hand, seemed to be visibly
steeling himself. "Mind if I say something real quick, now that we're all here?" he asked.

Kara blinked, glancing his way. "Sure thing."

"I have no issues," Addy agreed, glad that the conversation was moving away from yet another problem she couldn't
deal with. Though, now that she was thinking about it, she might be able to use her abilities to get into one of their
heads and find out that way. She'd look into it when the D.E.O. was less of a point of tension.

"I'm Guardian."

...Huh. Addy hadn't actually been expecting that. She wasn't sure what she had expected, really, but it was not that.

Neither, it would seem, had Kara. Her face was a careful, blank mask for a few moments before working itself
through a rapid-fire list of emotions Addy couldn't even follow.

James, undaunted, continued. "This is the secret me, Winn and Lucy have been keeping, not... whatever you thought
it was." The way he said the last part said he very much knew 'whatever Kara thought it was', but was making the
tasteful decision not to comment on it. "Winn has been making my gear, Lucy's been helping me find areas which
you can't cover and need help, and... I know I shouldn't have kept this from you."

Kara let out a breath. "I uh, I'm definitely surprised, James, but I'm glad you told me and I didn't have to find out
accidentally or something. And I now get why you were wearing leaded armour."

James cracked a smile. "Yeah, that was my idea."

"It was me who managed to make it not horribly toxic," Winn piped up, sounding proud of himself.

"I've been... the place I came from, it's not all metas," Kara explained. "Some of them are just people, like you, like
Winn, who go out and do the same things I do to help. If I can approve of them, I can approve of you. Just...
seriously, if you get in over your head, please tell me. I know you're not a pushover, but you don't need to do this
completely alone."

James gave her a genuine smile this time around. "Yeah, I... had a close brush a while back. Back when you guys
were tracking down the alien weapons, one of the gangs had a disintegration gun that they used to drop half of a
bridge on me. It's what drove me to tell you, because I didn't just want this to... end like that, for you to find out
because of that."

Kara made a face. "Seriously, next time you're fighting someone with a disintegration gun, call me in. I'm really
durable, James."

"Don't worry, if he won't, I will," Lucy replied, shooting a look at James. "And so will Winn, if necessary."

Winn merely offered a thumbs-up.

"That said, we're totally running through some training routines," Kara brightly informed James, whose face paled by
a shade. "You really can't get out of it now. After all, Guardian fights a lot of aliens who can hit hard, maybe not as
hard as me, but I can't let you get rusty."

"...Why do I think you're actually a lot more peeved about this than you're letting on?" James asked warily.

"I can also provide a regimented plan for physical training," Addy informed him, glancing towards Kara. "I showed
one to Kara once, and though she opted not to go with it, she did praise it."

Kara turned to look at her. "...I'm pretty sure I told you it was just barely below the threshold of a training routine that
would physically destroy a human's body, Addy."

"Which means I did exactly as I intended: to push the human body to its uppermost limits." Even Taylor's training
schedule had required considerations for things like parole meetings, school, and Ward activities. She did have a
pared-down variant which included space for a work schedule, but she'd been able to cut away a lot of the excess
waiting and non-training Taylor's had involved.

Kara just turned to look back at James. "So, you can train with me, or you can train with Addy back there," she
gestured with her thumb, seemingly for emphasis, "who will calculate your caloric intake down to single-digits, the
strain your body can endure, and find a way to get the maximum amount of productivity out of both."

"No, no, training with you sounds fine!" James blurted quickly.

"And now you know what it feels like to work under Alex," Winn said grinningly, eyes flitting to Alex, who let the
comment go with a royal wave of her hand. "I actually like running in the mornings now, because the alternative is
letting her beat the stuffing out of me in the ring and then running laps in a concrete box for an hour."

"Since we're sharing," Alex interjected, eyes glancing briefly at Kara. "Mind if I do some too? It'll be quick."

Kara blinked, then nodded. "I mean, sure, unless you're about to tell me you're also doing masked vigilante stuff?
That'd be really frustrating considering how long you told me off for doing it myself—"

"Maggie and I are dating now," Alex interrupted.

Kara, mouth still open, paused. "Oh."

Alex's eyes rolled. "And no, Kara, I'm not a damn superhero. After the incident with Henshaw, and the close shave
Maggie had, we decided we should date, considering she was interested, I was interested, and... she realized she
wasn't committing out of fear. Considering she nearly died, that fear evaporated."

"Well, at least my identity's staying in the family now," Kara mused after another moment. "But seriously,
congratulations on that. I can and will scare her repeatedly if she's bad to you, though."

"Don't," Alex warned, pointing a finger at her. "I still remember Derrick."

"Derrick was a dick, Alex. He deserved it."

"You made him fall out of a moving car, Kara!"

"I distinctly remember not opening the door. He fled out of a car, he just forgot in his panic to escape a teenage girl
that the car was moving," Kara replied, sniffily.

"He still mentions how he broke his arm on Facebook! Eliza sends me screenshots of it she gets from Derrick's
mother!"

"That's hardly my fault, is it?"

Alex made a wordless noise of annoyance and threw a couch pillow at Kara's head.

 288

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EPISODE 42​
As much as she would like otherwise, Addy understood she couldn't just spend all of her time working on her own
projects, however important they might be. She also knew that, even if she did - even if she went against the
agreement she and Lena had come to about doing work during work hours - there wouldn't truly be that much for her
to do. Simulations ran at their own pace, and the most Addy was going to get out of it was a minor boost to the
speed at which things progressed.

There was almost nothing - if not quite nothing - that she could do other than wait, and for the first time, that felt
surprisingly okay.

It was easier in a lot of ways this time around, now that there was a definite end in sight, and the problem she was
facing felt less like a monolith. It was still a problem, and she could never quite banish the stubborn thought that
wondered if all of her work might come to nothing, but the fact that she wasn't stumbling through the dark looking
for answers had significantly reduced the intensity and desperation she'd come to associate with her power issues.

She didn't feel particularly jittery, didn't find her thoughts moving back to her project in the middle of other
conversations, nor did she find herself dwelling on it when she went to bed at night, worries having collected until it
felt like a physical knot in her stomach that made sleep difficult to find and more often than not restless.

Her problems would conclude, it was just a matter of time, and it had only been over the morning that it had truly
sunk in what a relief that was to know.

Pace slowing to a stop, Addy turned to look at the doors leading into the lab—into the room she would find her
colleagues, other researchers. It felt, irrationally, like a new start; not that she was starting completely from scratch,
but rather that she was approaching her workspace - with all of its tempting technology and time-consuming
practical work - with a new mindset, or a new angle from which to observe them.

Nudging aside the lab coat she had thrown over one shoulder - she was not required to wear it until she was actually
inside the lab - she reached into her pocket and retrieved her keycard, tugging the lanyard free from where it got
pinched into the pocket of her pants. With a swipe, she dragged it through the reader, which clicked loudly, an
accompanying buzz rattling up from the heavy metal door in front of her. Taking in a breath, she pressed her hand to
the door, and upon letting it out, pushed it open.

Stepping into the lab, Addy was hit by the fact that it was almost as though she had never left. That she never had
those moments that had pushed her away from engaging with her peers.

June and Serling sat together, as they normally did, hovering over a small pile of parts and circuitry. June herself had
paused mid-action, fingers barely brushing against a soldering iron she was about to grab, her head craning around
to take Addy in from where she was sitting. Her expression, once focused and almost scrunched, melted into
something genuinely happy as eyes fell on her, mouth curling upwards, dimpling her cheeks.

Next to June, Serling had frozen as well, though she had done so mid-conversation - going by the grand gestures her
arms were paused in - with Emil. She looked precisely as Addy expected Serling to look at any given time: messy, but
not unrefined. Her lab coat - not something Serling kept in pristine condition in the first place - looked new, and yet
across it, fresh scorch marks and chemical stains pockmarked the surface, cutting through the shiny white of the
material. Her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows and fastened in place by a pair of safety pins, showing off the oily
smudges and small scars from accidents across her hands and forearms.

And her face—well. Addy had come to understand Serling was expressive in many ways that most people found
intimidating. This was reasserted by the fact that, as Serling's head swung around to stare at Addy, the grin that split
her face was both delighted and full of bared teeth, which she was willing to admit would actually be quite the
uncomfortable sight, if Addy wasn't who she was and knew Serling any less than she already did.

Last but not least was Emil, who sat a few paces away from Serling. Out of them, he was the most composed and
prepared to see her, his expression wrinkled in pleasant surprise, but not as far as Serling or June. His hands were
placed properly in his lap, and he had turned the top half of his body to look at her, rather than craning his neck as
the others did, turning fully away from the laptop he had out in front of him.

"Hey, Addy!" June chirped - there was no better word for it - brightly, smile never retreating. "Welcome back!"

Serling didn't give her a chance to respond, gesturing back towards Addy with a sharp wave of her hand. "Yeah,
happy to see you, Addy. How'd your time off go?"

Blinking slowly, adjusting to the familiar pace of her workspace, Addy let the door swing shut behind her and
collected her thoughts, making her way towards the table. "Hello June, Serling, Emil," she said at last. Best to start
off with propriety, and go from there. "It went exceptionally well. There were some frustrations, but what I gained
vastly outweighs the irritations I was obligated to deal with."

"You look like you're in a better place," Emil noted gently, his voice a rich, smooth cadence. He nodded his head in his
own form of quiet greeting, a response to her own. "I'm glad to see the vacation helped."

"It did," she agreed simply, her pace slowing to a halt as she arrived at the table. With a tug and a duck of her head,
she pulled her laptop bag off by its strap, lowering it gently onto the table in front of her, before reaching up starting
to unroll the pristine white lab coat she had picked up on her way down this morning.

"So, where'd you go anyway?" Serling asked, voice curious. She had leaned forward at some point, planting her chin
on one of her oil-stained palms, leaving behind a pale smudge that danced along the length of her jaw.

June clicked her tongue. "Serling, face," she reminded idly, retrieving what looked to be a wet wipe from places
unknown and extending it towards Serling.

Serling let loose a small string of vulgarities beneath her breath that Addy was inclined not to repeat, quickly
snatching the wipe and scrubbing at her face and hands.

"The east coast of America—Star City, specifically," Addy provided, finding herself oddly delighted that she was not
technically lying, just not telling the entire truth. "It was to meet with some people I know." Again, not a lie.

"Huh, you must really like them," Serling noted between scrubs of her jaw, eyes flicking towards June as the other
woman pointed and gestured towards places she had managed to miss. "'Cos Emil is right, you seem better."

Time to nip that in the bud. Shaking out what few wrinkles were left in her lab coat, she slipped her arms into the
sleeves, let the thing fall lightly over her shoulders, and did the buttons up to her chin. "Not even remotely," she said,
once she was sufficiently dressed as per lab regulations, reaching out to grab the nearest chair and pull it in. "Some
of them were tolerable, however."

June turned to stare at her, briefly abandoning Serling to her fate of an oil-smudged face. "...Then why did you go?"

Sitting down, she reached for her laptop bag and retrieved her computer from within, easing the lid open and quickly
logging herself in. "It was an obligation that just so happened to coincide with the chance to acquire and learn about
things I need," she explained simply, eyes dancing back up to find June still looking at her. "I am curious. What have I
missed during my absence?"

Emil cleared his throat. "The black box field generator is out of our hands now. Our design has passed muster, and
it's going through minor adjustments to be more easily manufactured," he explained, voice sounding mightily
satisfied by the entire thing. "We've gotten some attention out of it, in fact. There's been some talk of our team
getting an award for the design, but either way, L-Corp's board of directors is happy, Lena is happy, and now we're in
a waiting period."

"A waiting period," Addy echoed, more confused than anything else.

"It's the time between projects we don't normally get," Serling piped up, scrubbing down the final few stains on her
face and being rewarded with twin thumbs-up from June. "Though from what Lena's memo said, we should be
getting something new today."

Addy blinked, long and slow, and tilted her head. "A memo?" she inquired, because she certainly did not know one of
those got sent out.

"The memo you can find on the company network, Addy," June replied. "It should be accessible through your
company account."

That was, admittedly, one of the things she hadn't been checking. There wasn't exactly a way to do so, being a whole
universe away and all. Turning back to her computer, she navigated towards the company's website, quickly input
her log-in details, and was met with the memo in question when she navigated to her inbox. True to Serling's words,
Lena had sent one out to everyone the night before, saying she'd been down sometime today to update them and
likely give them their next project, so they wouldn't be sitting around spinning their wheels like they were right now.

That said, that was all there was to it. It said that Lena would come down, not when, or with what - in the case of
their next project - or necessarily even that they'd get a new project. It was all annoyingly vague, which was
incredibly bizarre considering Lena was really not a vague person.

Lena certainly hadn't mentioned it to her when they worked together, either, though Addy couldn't really blame her for
that—they had been rather busy at the time.

"Anyway," Serling said, voice carrying through the silence. At this point, she was using the already heavily-stained wet
wipe to clean off her hands and forearms, though progress on that front was much slower going than her face, and
looked like it might take another wet wipe or two to fully complete. "June and I are going out for drinks tonight, half
as a celebration, half because I hate being cooped up as I have been. Do either of you two want to come?"

Emil gave Serling a look that could, generously, be called suspicious. Wary might be a more operative term, now that
Addy thought about it. "So long as we're not going clubbing," he said after another moment.

"Clubbing, Emil? Seriously? In this economy?" Serling replied snidely, nose upturned and everything. "No, we're going
to find a nasty dive bar and revel in it. I do not club, not unless it's with a blunt object."

June turned to look at Addy, smiling gently. "What about you, Addy?"

Unfortunately, had they asked at any other time, Addy would've obliged, but her afternoon was rather booked. "I
cannot, as I have plans tonight with some other people," she explained. Her after-work hours would start with her
checking up on the simulation progress and working on her project in the lab Lena had tucked away for her, but that
was only for half an hour. After that, she'd be getting on a bus and meeting up with Carol and Koriand'r, who had
insisted she come meet with them to touch base and check up on how she was doing.

That and 'hang out', of course, but that was rather more difficult considering the bar was still shut down. The venue
they'd be meeting at was a local park, instead, one that Carol had sworn was friendly to aliens and they wouldn't
have to worry about being spied on. The bar itself wasn't going to be closed down forever, if Itnar was to be believed,
but she hadn't got any specific dates out of him, and hoped she might out of Carol instead.

"Maybe next time?" June replied, voice ever-so-gentle.

Addy nodded with great firmness. "Yes," she agreed, because it was, to her mild delight, very true. The next time
they'd invite her out, given no other obligations, she would go with them. She wanted to go with them, to go and see
where Serling hung out, what June liked to eat, and even what Emil might be like in a more casual setting.

But she didn't have the time for it, not now. A month was not that long to wait, in the perspective of her kind, but it
suddenly felt a lot longer than it had this morning.

Addy did not know how that worked, but tried not to think about it.

Before Addy could say much else, though, the door buzzed. The room froze like it might've when Addy had first
arrived, though this time she was a part of that sudden response, rather than someone merely observing it. Turning
around in her seat, she watched the door open, and in turn, watched as Lena walked in, head held high, with a hefty
box twice the size of her head tucked beneath one arm.

"Good morning, everyone," Lena announced, red lips parting to reveal a flash of shiny white teeth, before the smile
fell from her face and was quickly replaced by a neutral, firm expression. "I don't have a lot of time to brief you on
this, so this is going to have to be quick."

The room remained silent, only cut through by the steady clack of Lena's heels - certainly not permitted in the lab
space, Addy found herself mentally pointing out - as she walked up to the four of them. With a grunt, she set the box
down in the middle of the table, not too far from where Serling and June's circuitry was.

Circuitry that June was currently stacking up and moving to the side, as it would happen, even as Serling stared
mournfully at it.

"What you're looking at is one of the very few investments L-Corp made on the auctions for Fort Rozz tech," Lena
explained, plucking a box cutter from some unseen pocket in her pencil skirt. Where exactly on the skirt there would
even be room for such a clunky device, well, Addy didn't know, but much like the relative progression of time, she
tried not to think too deeply about it.

With a flick of her wrist, Lena pushed a few inches of sharp razor steel out from the bright yellow hilt, brought the
blade down onto the tape holding the top flaps of the box together, and cut it open. She pried what tape had
remained stubbornly clung to the cardboard box apart with her fingers, wrenching the flaps open, and revealing what
was inside: a pyramid-shaped device of some kind, roughly about the same size as the box it had been placed in,
made of some kind of non-metal, non-plastic material that reflected light like ceramic, but had scuffs like steel.

Serling got up out of her seat to stare down at it.

"This," Lena began as she put the box cutter away into her skirt pocket again, "is a solid light generator. There's
documentation inside of the box about how the government thinks it works, but what's there is minimal. This is
basically completely untouched, even if they know it works, and is not a unique piece of tech. At least one - usually
more than that - have been salvaged from basically every wing of the ship."

Wordlessly, June reached inside to grab said documentation: a wad of printer paper that was worryingly thin. She
started thumbing through it, and going by what Addy could make out from her expression, what was there probably
wasn't much.

"Your goal as a team is not simple, but it's fairly straightforward: recreate this tech in some capacity," Lena explained,
stepping back from the box, hands hovering around the front of her body. She looked, Addy was beginning to notice,
tense, like a wire pulled too tight in too many directions, and there was an uncomfortable tightness to her jaw that
she wished she might be able to map to an emotion. "The black box field generator - which you did really well on -
was... honestly something of an introduction for you guys, to get used to working as a team. You went above my
expectations, and did it in half the time, but a lot of the work was already done for you on that, and it was more
about you refining the results."

There was a pause as both June and Serling looked up from their points of interest, eyes refocusing on Lena.

"For this, though, you're on your own. I can't help you—I don't have the time, and I'm busy with other obligations," she
explained, beginning to step back towards the door already. The tension was more visible when she moved, more
stiff in her limbs as they tried to articulate.

Serling reached inside, pulling the pyramid-shaped device out with a grunt. Trailing after it was a cord of some kind,
though the plug at the end of it - a hexagonal-shaped thing that seemed to have multiple shifting parts - looked like
no cord she had personally seen before.

"I really wish I could stay here longer and explain this in more detail, go over what I was told by the curator and the
person from the government who studied it all before us, but I can't. I'm sorry for that, but you need to get started on
this as soon as possible, and I need to go and handle a few company fires, so to speak," Lena explained, and when
she smiled this time, Addy knew it to be strained and fake. "The one rule for this is - and this is especially for you,
Serling - try not to weaponize it. Part of my agreement with the government is that we wouldn't under any
circumstances do so, and even if the company keeps trying to get me to step back on that for 'private' research, I
refuse to renege on that agreement and lose the government's trust in us."

Setting the device down, Serling turned to look at Lena. "I feel both offended and praised," she said glibly, which
earned a more natural smile from Lena. "But yeah, I get it, no weapons. What about shields? What is this even for?"

"What we know is in the documents," Lena replied shortly, turning away as she began to move towards the door. "I
really can't stay, I'm afraid. If you'll please excuse me—"

It was possibly the most harried Addy had seen Lena, though considering what she had just implied about the
circumstances - that the board, or at least some faction within the company, was trying to get her to renege on the
government contract to produce weapons of all things - she couldn't exactly blame her.

Still, within moments, Lena was gone, the door swinging shut behind her without even so much as a farewell.

"You'd think as CEO she'd be able to tell them to suck rocks," Serling said after a moment, her fingers playing with the
matte-black cord and odd plug at the end.

"The company was built with a board tied to it for a reason—when Lex was in power, he had all of them in his pocket
by playing to each member's vices," Emil explained, his voice so perfectly level and monotone it came away as
unnatural for him. "Lena can't, or more accurately, won't, do that, so they push back against her. This is an example
of that."

Serling, apparently less interested in the politics behind the device as she was in the device itself, lifted the cord up
and squinted at the plug at the end. "What kind of plug is this shit?"

"...An alien one, Serling," Emil said flatly.

"Oh," Serling remarked, "right."

"Speaking of the plug," June remarked, scooting in closer to Serling and flourishing the documents before her,
gesturing to one of the pages. "Think you can get that voltage into this? Says it needs that much to run, and the
document claims everything's still copper, so you should be able to rewire the plug to work with our outlets."

"It's kinda fuckin' weird aliens are still using copper, you'd think they would've gotten past that," Serling remarked,
though her eyes remained trained on the page. "But yeah, let me strip this puppy down. Emil, can you get the safety
adapter for me?"

Emil nodded once, rose from his seat, and moved towards one of the three closets full of spare parts connected to
the lab.

"Addy," Serling said, drawing her attention back to June and Serling. "I think we need you on readings, for now—we're
moving this to the bomb room, right?"

"We agreed to not call it that!" Emil called from across the room.

Serling clicked her tongue, turning to look at him. "Look, everything that goes in there explodes. I'm not sure what
else we can call it!" she shouted back.

Still, that was very much a job she could do. "That's acceptable," Addy replied, Serling's eyes jumping back to her, an
appreciative smile sent her way as Addy rose to her feet, tucked her laptop beneath one arm, and made her way
away from the table. Emil passed her as she approached the terminal, a small tupperware box with "PLUG PARTS"
scribbled across the front in full capital letters held to his chest, sending a polite smile her way.

Arriving at the terminal, she placed her laptop down on the table next to it before grabbing the terminal's cord and
plugging it into her USB port. She navigated through the menus on the terminal, set up a text file for it to dump data
into, and adjusted it so that the terminal could access files on her computer and vice-versa. A few taps on her laptop
and she brought up her own suite of modified software, mostly for compiling the readings.

With that, she turned back to the terminal itself, disregarding her laptop for the time being, and began to adjust the
sensitivities and parameters for what it should be trying to pick up on with the suite of sensors they had in the lab
room.

A few minutes into that process, Serling passed right by her, the hard light generator tucked beneath her arm as she
wandered into the lab room. Emil followed her shortly thereafter, carrying electrical tape, several plugs, and a box
cutter with him.

June was the last to approach, though she didn't enter the lab room. Instead, she came to a stop next to Addy,
hovering close enough that Addy could just about feel her presence, but not so close that Addy was getting
frustrated by that fact.

"So, do you have an idea about what we should be looking for?" June inquired after a moment, leaning in to stare at
the terminal.

Addy glanced her way, briefly, before turning back to the terminal and continuing the process of fine-tuning its
sensors and other apparatus to pick up on changes. She was definitely going to need to update this sometime into
the near future, she did have some ideas, it'd just require getting permission and the parts at this point. Still, an
answer was necessary, and so, doing her best not to give away just how much she knew about the theoretical
applications of hard light, she began to speak.

"Hard light as a concept could refer to one of two distinct things," Addy started, voice slow as she adjusted the
sensitivity on light receptors a few decimal points higher. "It is either literal light that has, through some means, been
modified to become solid and distinct, or a kind of energy which is light-like, if not made up of photons itself, which
has properties that render it solid. It is important we know which of the two this device is, as both have their own
difficulties in managing."

June blinked. "Like what?"

"Photons are massless," Addy said pointedly. "The other energy might not be. The other energy might contain matter
in it which is expelled and recalled to cause an effect that creates the solidity in the first place. There are also other
quantum-related issues in making something without mass solid, in the case of photons."

"Good point," June conceded, after another moment, without much confidence.

"I'm not sure which of the two the device will produce, but at the moment I'm going to set this up to help us identify
which is the most likely culprit," Addy said, finishing her explanation. There were other options, of course, but she
doubted this alien tech - if not alien tech as a whole - had reached the point where it could produce overlapping
dimensional copies of something to make the same effect as hard light.

Emil and Serling both emerged moments later, Emil shutting the door behind them.

"It's plugged in right now," Serling explained easily, glancing their way. "Right voltage and everything. I couldn't find
any conspicuous on or off switches, so I'm pretty sure it'll come on when we return power to the plug, if it'll come on
at all."

"Addy, do you mind locking the door and beginning the countdown?" Emil asked, taking a few more steps away from
the door and the explosion-resistant observation window.

Wordlessly, Addy did just that, turning back to the terminal and initiating the locking procedure. The door to the lab
itself made a series of heavy clunks, shifting metal bars stretching out to slot themselves into the wall and lock it all
in place. A moment later, she hovered her cursor over the countdown. "On three," she announced primly.

Emil nodded, took another step back, while Serling crowded as close to the window as a person could with
experience of said window breaking into ballistic shrapnel in their recent past, which was to say she was about five
feet away and leaning forward with an incredibly curious look on her face.

June, by comparison, remained next to her, eyes trained on the window from their distance of closer to ten feet.

"Two," Addy continued, counting with the indicator on the terminal.

She saw Emil tense.

"One."

The light above the lab door, usually off, came to life and gleamed red as power was reconnected to the outlets
inside.

Nothing happened.

A few seconds later, Serling let out a shout of frustration. "Oh my fuck, if that plug isn't working—"

There was a sudden shock of colour from within the room as the pyramid device lit up. Along each corner, lines of
glowing blue reached up to its apex, and from said apex, a holographic display winked into existence. It was faded
and vaguely transparent, an oval-shaped UI of some kind with a series of buttons across it, all written in a language
Addy knew personally: Kryptahniuo, the language predominantly used on Krypton.

It was informing them - in very polite speech, she noted absently - that there was an unexpected shutdown, and that
it now had to run the set-up program again to regain functionality.

That said, it was, even without the knowledge of the language, fairly obviously some kind of interface, with buttons
and scroll wheels and blocks of text tucked away in neat ordered lines.

"...You uh, think we hit the set-up wizard?" Serling wondered, eerily close on the mark for a random guess.

Addy found herself at a worrying impasse. She, of course, could not say anything about it. As much as she trusted
her team, and might in the future even reveal her identity to them, given the need to do so, she couldn't do that now.
Or, perhaps more accurately, she rather didn't want to. She didn't want to have to explain or disrupt the new normal
she had just finally arrived back in.

But she abhorred the notion of not doing anything, not helping, and letting the entire pursuit stall out because
nobody here knew how to read the language of a civilization that had died out, not that she thought the language
itself was a complete unknown in the greater universe. After all, people could still speak Latin, and Rome was hardly
still around to spread its language as it had in the past.

But she had the inkling of a plan. It was still counterproductive, still more than a little slow on the uptake, but it was
also not doing nothing. It could keep the nature of her knowledge somewhat of a secret, while also maintaining
production quotas.

She would simply make them think she bumbled her way into figuring it out, and to do that, she needed to put a
degree of separation between herself and the interface. Considering the explosive nature of most of their projects,
she had the perfect idea to do just that.

"It's clearly not exploding or at risk as it stands," Addy said, into the open, somewhat bewildered silence of the room.
She less saw, more felt heads turn to stare at her, and tried not to squirm. "We have to interact with it until something
we do to it causes it to begin working, but considering our past, I imagine nobody wants to volunteer to go in person.
That said, we do have two people in this room who specialize in robotics."

Addy watched the dawning understanding fall over both Serling and June's faces.

"We can do this remotely, I feel, given the right opportunities," she explained simply. And when it came time for her to
try to fiddle with it, she'd use the nature of it being a robotic device - and therefore not a natural extension of her arm
- to just brush over the right options, to click things accidentally or suddenly, and work through the installation wizard
that way.

It was not the best plan she had come up with, but it was most certainly a plan that didn't involve Kara getting
annoyed at her for giving away her identity.

Emil turned to look at Serling, his face warring between eagerness and the tired wariness. "How long would it take
you to rig up a basic robotic arm, Serling?"

Serling blinked, rapid-fire, as though she was attempting to convey morse code through the fluttering of lashes. "An
hour, maybe two, depends on if we have the spare parts," she said at last, before turning and quickly making her way
back towards the table.

"June, see to it that she doesn't attach a buzz-saw to the arm," Emil said, in a tone of voice that implied he had once
not done that and now knew much better.

Serling squawked in protest, but notably did not reject the fact that she might've done just that.

June jogged over to join her, bumping shoulders with Serling.

"Addy, see if you can't pick up any readings from it. It is currently projecting something holographic," Emil explained,
gesturing back towards the lab space, and to his credit, he wasn't wrong. "It might be a good place to start off."

And let it be said, Addy was rather good at taking readings. With a wordless nod, she adjusted the parameters again,
and started probing for readings from within as, behind her, there was the thunderous clatter of metal being pulled
from a pile.

Evening came to National City with a kind of serenity that vastly contrasted the frenzy of Addy's workday. Warm
oranges and yellows bled from the sun, relaxed and hazy despite the fact that less than an hour ago, Addy had been
trying to control a robotic arm that, bluntly, operated about as well as a robotic arm would, given an hour and a half
to put the thing together.

Serling was many things, but elegant in her work was not one of them.

Her day at work had ended with them reaching the dizzying heights of finally managing to project a crude, solid cube
of light above the device, which had earned a resounding cheer from the team. The readings had come back positive
on that half, as well—for all intents and purposes, the device manipulated the state of photons to generate
something that was solid, rather than relying on clever workarounds to achieve a similar effect. Altogether, it had
been a productive and incredibly frenetic day, full of accomplishments and progress.

But that productive and frenetic day was coming to an end. It had been roughly an hour since she had clocked out of
work, well-wishes passed her way as her team collected themselves to go bar diving. In its place, Addy had spent
half an hour looking over her simulations, her tests, the diagrams she was beginning to transcribe, before spending
the rest coming to where she was now: a park, located not too far away from National City's downtown.

Carol and anyone who she wanted to bring weren't here yet - Addy was early, admittedly - and it gave her time to
think, to watch the sun dip lower and lower on the horizon, uncontested by clouds, threatening to duck behind the
tall towers that made up National City's skyline.

Addy had been in this universe—this multiverse cluster, distinct and isolated from her own—for almost a year now. It
was December, only a few days into the month, granted, but in turn it meant she was only really two months off from
the date she first woke up. That day, she had found herself suddenly in control of her own faculties after all that time
spent comatose, hiding in Taylor's body - in her body now, she supposed - in pursuit of what was, at the beginning,
power-saving measures, and later evolved into something else; something that was neither Taylor Hebert or even
really Queen Administrator, just... Addy.

It felt like she had been here longer, and also much shorter. Seasons did not change in National City as they did in
places like Brockton Bay. California had seasons, certainly, but the lowest temperature the state generally dealt with
were temperatures that wouldn't be out of place in summer seasons in other parts of the world. The trees did not
change, even deciduous trees which certainly had the capacity for it, as they had no reason to without the frigid cold
and dark winters that had necessitated shedding leaves in the first place.

It was less than twenty days until Christmas, and a small part of Addy still thought it should be summer. Not that
she'd be celebrating Christmas in any appreciable way—Addy personally found the holiday, if acceptably colourful,
not exactly interesting, and the Danvers were Jewish, with their own holidays. Alex herself might not be actively
practicing the religion, but that didn't change the fact that between the Danvers, not a single one of them seemed
particularly invested in the holiday as a whole, and that included Addy much the same.

Breathing in, Addy took in the scents, the humid-warm air of late afternoon, when the sun had finally stopped
cooking the concrete, letting the trapped heat radiate up and out with all the scents to come with it. She listened for
the trees around her, interspersed throughout the park, shuffling as a weak breeze pulled across the landscape.

The park itself was a simple one: little more than a raised grass hill, plateaued off, with benches scattered
intermittently across its surface. It was at most the size of a school gymnasium, and the community around it was
low-income, despite its relative closeness to the heart of the city. It was a community of aliens, she had come to
notice on her walk to the park, a variety of people looking distinctly non-human, and a few that looked otherwise
human lingering on her with rapt curiosity, an accompanying series of telepathic probes revealing their innate
abilities.

The community was tight-knit, as well. She had seen it in the way they had posters announcing community events,
meet-ups, barbecues and the like, plastered onto telephone poles or framed in the windows of shops. She saw it in
how a local shopkeeper with four arms and stalks in the place of eyes kept watch over a gaggle of children as they
presumably waited on their parents to come home from work.

It made sense, then, that Carol had chosen this park—a place surrounded by aliens. Even if it wasn't for the safety of
it, it might just be because it was more familiar to all of them, to the bar itself.

Still, while the community beyond the park was flourishing and active, people finally coming home from long work
hours, the park was devoid of anyone but her. She could see people lingering near the edge of the park, where the
city sprawl started anew, but it didn't seem like they were waiting for her, or staying away because of her otherwise.
They were just there, occupied with their own things, and leaving Addy to herself.

Pace picking back up, Addy trod across springy green grass, only slowing as she neared a bench that didn't look like
she'd sit in something spoiled if she sat on it. She rearranged her bag until she was clutching it against her front, and
then sat down, leaning back into the wood, hearing it creak ever-so-slightly.

It was an odd feeling, being on the precipice of change as she was. Soon it would be a year since she had first
arrived, soon she would have her powers operating at peak efficiency; soon, an invading force of Daxamites would
attack the planet to whatever ends that would be. Aliens had come out into the open, humanity's technology base
was improving at an accelerated pace, beyond what she could have estimated.

Addy knew she wasn't a creature of change. It wasn't that she disliked it, she was just... uncomfortable with it. Or at
least, change on the scale she was operating on, anyway. Certainly, her kin changed over numerous cycles, adjusted
and adapted and brought new ideas into basic practice, but... never this quick, never this sudden, and never this
reactively. It made her both uneasy and a kind of excited that left her feeling faintly nauseated, a feeling she really
didn't have a name for.

She wondered what her next year might look like, truth be told. What state would she be in? Presumably she'd have
her powers completely at full capacity, but what else would have changed? The Daxamite invasion was likely to have
both long and short-term effects on the world, beyond even what an interstellar invasion could. Would she still be
working at L-Corp? Or would she, like she had with CatCo, leave the moment she lost interest in it?

She wasn't sure, because she, like everything else, was changing. Her body was changing, her views on things were
changing—she couldn't map her own behaviour predictably because her behaviour had ceased being predictable at
about the time she had first downloaded her consciousness into Taylor's brain, and had only gotten less and less
predictable as the months went by.

That bothered her less than she honestly thought it should.

The sound of approaching footsteps snapped her from her thoughts, Addy glancing around behind her just in time to
see Carol and Koriand'r crest the hill together, walking in lock-step towards her.

Something in her relaxed minutely, a loosening of tension in her stomach and shoulders. She wasn't sure why she
was tense, why she was feeling tension at all, but decided not to dwell on it now that it was gone. Slowly, she
pushed herself to a stand, adjusting her bag once again, and navigated around the bench until she was at its back,
waiting patiently for Carol and Koriand'r to arrive.

Once they got close enough, Addy drank in their appearance. Carol was wearing a pin-striped shirt, sleeves rolled up
and tucked into a pair of jeans with a heavy belt attached. On one wrist was a chunky, metal watch of some kind,
which her eyes glanced at briefly before turning back to scan over the environment, her face twisted into a pensive,
confused kind of frown.

Next to her, Koriand'r wore a track-suit. Bright orange in a way that gently contrasted the orange tones of her skin,
her curly hair was pulled back into a tail behind her head, and she had the jacket to the track-suit thrown over one
shoulder, leaving just the matching t-shirt over her body. She had a similar watch to Carol's on her wrist, though she
didn't dwell on it or the surroundings as Carol did.

It took another fifteen seconds, but the two of them slowed to a stop in front of her, Carol taking a single step ahead
so that she was at the front of the pair.

"Good afternoon, Addy," Kori greeted, her voice bright, a flash of teeth coming through as she smiled. "Welcome back
to this version of Earth. How was the other one?"

"Frustrating," Addy informed her sagely, because that was her main takeaway. If not for the transponder, she
would've considered the entire venture a bust. "They were being invaded by Dominators."

Kori sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth, her smile curdling into a sour grimace. "That," she began, "is always
a bad scenario to find yourself in."

"And the person leading the defense was at one point too uncomfortable to let me and Supergirl work with him,"
Addy explained, for better context, though she couldn't quite hide the annoyance in her voice. "Thus my frustration, in
fact. Still, participating in the defense did solve an unquantifiable number of problems I was experiencing, or will in
the near future, so I am as content as I can be with the exchange." If only annoyance could be rewarded like her
visits to the other Earth had been—she might actually be able to tolerate stupidity more often.

"Leave it to you to find the annoying part the human, and not the invading force of genocidal slavers," Carol remarked
dryly, her head still panning back and forth as she searched their environment for something she, clearly, was not
finding. "My people have only had a few run-ins with Dominators in the past, and none of them were good."

"I imagine I would have stronger words to say, had I been forced to participate in diplomacy with the Dominators,"
Addy pointed out bluntly. "It's just that the proximity to humans and the requirement I work with them was not an
entirely appreciable experience. However, speaking of, I've noticed you're... less vulgar," she said, glancing towards
Kori.

Koriand'r let out an awkward, stilted kind of laugh, reaching up to scratch at the back of her head. "When you get
stuck on a prison ship with some of the worst, most foul-mouthed convicts in the greater universe, you have to learn
to speak and act like them," she explained after a moment, glancing briefly at Carol, before shaking her head. "It's not
so easy to change that."

"She's gotten a lot better at not picking fights," Carol said, sounding entirely proud about the fact. She leaned to the
side, tucking one arm around Koriand'r's shoulder and dragging her in for a hug.

"Now I only beat the sh—er, stuffing out of people who deserve it," Koriand'r announced.

Addy just watched the interplay, curious as to their closeness, but not so much that it drove her to ask questions.

After a moment, Carol let go, stepping away and finally turning her full attention to Addy. "I... Addy, did M'gann come
around at all?"

Addy felt her body lock up, tighten unexpectedly, and it took a few moments for her to ease the tension out of her
spine. "No, I was not here for very long before you arrived, and I saw no sign of her."

Carol's face twisted into a grimace, a sigh slipping out as she reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone.
"M'gann said she was coming," she explained after another moment, another jolt riding Addy's spine at the
comment. "She wanted to come early and get a chance to talk to you in private, but she's not here."

This was... different. Not bad, but different. She and M'gann were on very shaky ground, and Addy had kept her
distance out of respect for M'gann's own boundaries and the discomfort that tended to wash over her when she
lingered on what happened to M'gann for any real length of time. It was a surprise that she had decided to come at
all, in all honesty; the fact that she wasn't here was something Addy had taken for granted when she came over.

"It's because the bar will be reopening at the end of December," Carol explained, glancing up at her from her phone.
"The last day of December, specifically, and I imagine M'gann wanted to talk to you about it considering she got her
job and apartment back. Set up some boundaries, or to just talk to you about how you two should act if you're at the
bar at the same time, since you come there sometimes. She said something about clearing the air."

That did make sense, though. Even if M'gann wasn't about to forgive her - though the thought that she might be
willing to start opening communication again made Addy feel odd, like she wasn't sure if she was happy or scared -
there definitely had to be some kind of discussion about how to interact with one another, how to behave, and
whether or not they could manage that in an enclosed space like the bar.

"I see," she said, instead of any of her inner dialogue. "Then where is she?"

Carol's mouth pinched. "I don't know, but I'm going to call her and find out, see if she's running late," she explained
simply, swiping the pad of her thumb across the screen of her cell phone until finally bringing it up to her ear, leaning
back on her heels, and settling in to wait.

Addy heard - faintly, muffled against Carol's ear - the sound of her phone, the rhythmic outgoing ring.

Moments later, she heard its pair—even more distant, far away, and so faint Addy knew she couldn't've picked up on
it, had her senses not adjusted recently. The ring tone was the chiming of bells, loud and discordant, and it went
unanswered as it rang.

"I can hear her phone," Addy said, slowly, as it rang longer and longer without anyone answering it. Carol's eyes flit to
her. "If you'd follow me?"

There was a round of nods, each of them serious.

Turning on heel, Addy navigated back the way she came, towards the northmost exit of the park. She descended the
stairs that led up the hill, pausing only for long enough that Carol had the time to call M'gann's phone again, once it
went to voicemail. She led them across a stretch of concrete parking lot, encircling a larger 7-11, and then up to the
shaded alley of a tall, brick apartment building, built like the ones meant for military housing.

The ringing was audible to everyone now, she figured, loud and claxon as they passed down the damp, dark alleyway,
turned a corner, and found not just the phone, but M'gann.

M'gann who spasmed, seized on the ground, having collapsed at some unspecified point in the recent past.

Carol dropped her phone with a shout, sprinting past Addy - past Koriand'r - and scrambling to M'gann's side.
Immediately, her hand tucked itself beneath M'gann's head, a noise of sharp pain barking out of Carol's lips as
M'gann's writhing sent her head back, crushing her fingers between the hard bone of her skull and the concrete
below it. She turned her over, onto her side, but did not try to stop her from thrashing on the ground.

And Addy was frozen. It felt like her faculties weren't her own. She could just about feel her heart in her throat at the
sight of it—at seeing M'gann sprawled out across the ground, in the midst of some kind of physical episode.

It was Koriand'r that broke the mysterious stranglehold on her body, who rushed past her and accidentally clipped
her shoulder as she went. Addy tottered, stumbling to the side, her hand coming out to meet the wall next to her,
where her fingers sunk inches into the hard stone of the building before she could properly contain her strength. But
she could move, she found just moments later, her mind spinning, trying to find out what was causing an alien to
have a seizure, and that was an improvement.

Addy pulled at her core the moment she had the faculties to do so. As though spurred by her urgency - though she
knew it wasn't - her powers spun to life, stretched out from where she stood, her range passing over Carol, Koriand'r,
and then, finally, M'gann. Carol jerked, turning to look at her with a confused look, but Addy ignored her and reached
out; not physically, but mentally, across the psychic distance between herself and M'gann, and as gently as she
could - considering the ongoing seizure - touched her mind.

She was met with a wall of psychic defense. Stronger than the one J'onn had made for himself, and much stronger
than M'gann would ever be able to create for herself while actively experiencing a seizure. It was a shield that wasn't
hers, Addy realized with a dawning kind of anger in her stomach—M'gann hadn't suffered some kind of neurological
error.

Someone was doing this to her.

Anger spilled over, up from her gut, and for a single all-consuming moment, Addy was torn between the urge to get
violently ill where she stood - her anger, the spike of chemicals in her brain, all so overwhelming her body was
responding with the blatant request it get rid of it by any means possible - and to unleash all of that anger into the
shield and see it shatter like so much glass.

Instead, swallowing thickly, she did neither. She knew what would happen if she shattered the shield under the
weight of her rage: M'gann would, likely, die. This was still her brain, and damage done to that shield in such a
careless manner would tip off whoever was doing this to her, first of all, and second of all, it would probably damage
M'gann in the resulting fallout. Similarly, getting sick at this moment would only serve to leave a disgusting taste in
her mouth and a foul scent in the air.

For a few moments, she simply stood; panting, trying to swallow back the heavy feeling in her throat from the
overwhelming confluence of emotions while she gradually withdrew her psychic touch. "Someone is doing this to
her," she announced, half-choked as the last of the nausea finally abated and fell back, the hormones swimming in
her system subsiding with it. "Someone is attacking her."

The questions, then, were why, who, and where that person might be.

Carol's eyes darted to her for a moment, pupils thin as pinpricks, both arms visibly strained with tension. Her tongue
came to slip over her chapped lips, another nervous tic, before her head snapped back towards M'gann. Carol
reached out, a soft touch of her index and middle finger against the side of M'gann's face, and Addy could just barely
perceive the pulse of psychic energy rise from her, the way it radiated.

Addy watched Carol's face twist, fall harshly.

"Someone is," she confirmed, voice horrified. "Someone with enough psychic power to stop me from digging deep at
all—I, Addy, can you fix this?" The last of her words were punctuated by another sharp jerk of her head, turning back
towards her, eyes wide and pleading.

"Not before I know better about what's happening," Addy confessed, and felt such a tangible burst of shame over the
fact that she almost felt ill again. "I don't want to—I don't want to hurt her." She never fumbled her words, knew
exactly how to articulate, and yet for this singular moment, she faltered. Her tongue didn't feel like hers, felt
weighted and heavy and like it was getting in the way more than it was helping form any appreciable sounds.

Carol's expression wavered, but not in any way Addy could truly follow. It left Addy staring, almost
uncomprehendingly, at an emotional mask across Carol's face with no real way of identifying it, no signs or hints at
what might be going on behind it.

Then, at last, she turned back towards M'gann. "We need help," Carol said, her voice calmer than it had been, more
sure of itself, without that aching tremor in the back of her throat. "We need to find someone who can help M'gann,
who can help us find out what's going on."

There were very few people who that might apply to, and even fewer options for finding them. One of those options
included tracking down a White Martian and extracting the information that way, but she soon discarded that, if only
for the amount of time it might take to do so at this present moment. Taking time into account, really, just left two
people: Kara, and J'onn.

And at this moment, considering the circumstances, no matter how much it hurt to admit, Addy couldn't trust J'onn.

"I can call Supergirl," Addy said instead, because it was the best of a handful of bad options. Addy found her eyes
drifting back to M'gann, where the harsh spasms were finally giving way, the violence behind each jerk fading with
time. "She can help us, even if she's not trained for this—she may have options neither of us do." It was exceedingly
unlikely that Kara would know anyone who could help them by extension, but... at the moment, pooling their options
and resources was their best option.

Carol glanced towards Addy, then, and nodded. "Call Supergirl," she said, before hesitating. A furtive glance was sent
Koriand'r's way, Koriand'r preoccupied with keeping M'gann from tipping fully over onto her back. Koriand'r and
Carol's eyes met for a brief moment, and what followed was a nearly imperceptible nod of Koriand'r's head. "Call
her," Carol repeated at last, a new confidence fuelling her voice, as she turned back to look at her.

Quick as she could without mangling her clothes or her phone, Addy retrieved her phone from her pocket and tapped
in Kara's speed dial hotkey, before bringing the phone up to her ear. It took only two rings, each one feeling long and
so terribly drawn out, before there was a sharp click from the other end, and Kara's voice bloomed in her ear.

"Addy?" Kara asked, sounding harried and worried. It was, even with that, even with the anxiety in her voice, a balm,
and Addy felt herself relax incrementally once more. "What's wrong?"

That just raised the question about how she knew something was wrong in the first place—no. Now was not the time.
Addy swallowed, thick and heavy in her throat, and forced her mind to refocus. "M'gann's injured, currently
experiencing something like a seizure," she explained quickly, her heel beginning to bounce rapidly on the concrete
beneath her shoe. "Someone's doing it to her—a psychic link of some kind, but I can't... I can't be sure I won't injure
her if I just break it. We need your help."

"I'll be right there," Kara said, and instead of any goodbyes, the line simply went dead.

Addy lowered her phone back down to her side, and found her gaze settling back on M'gann.

She was wearing sweats, she noticed. Simple, loose clothing, not looking terribly put together, but... relaxed, had her
body not still been working through the tremors. Her bag, next to her, was unmolested by hands, so she doubted
anyone mugged her or attacked her for the sake of it. By all accounts and appearances, it looked like she had just...
collapsed in here, in what might've been a shortcut to get to the park early.

Which meant that whoever had done this to her hadn't approached her, or at least hadn't done so in a way that
M'gann could've noticed. This was someone operating at long-range, or someone who knew how to hide their tracks.

Before she could voice that, Kara appeared. Addy less saw, more heard her; heard the sound of her cutting through
the air, a sharp keening that cut off abruptly as she landed sharply on the concrete next to Addy with a loud clack.
Koriand'r jolted, twisting around bug-eyed to stare at Kara, before visibly relaxing, whereas Carol was too busy
holding M'gann steady, if not restraining her from the small thrashes she was still doing.

"I checked for wounds, just to be sure," Carol said into the silence of the alleyway, head turning to look at both Addy
and Kara. "Or for any sign of implants, something that might be able to do this to her by exposure, but I can't find
anything. No head wounds, no puncture marks, nothing."

Kara's eyes fell on M'gann, and Addy watched, out of the corner of her vision, the way her face fluctuated into horror
and then back into something firm, something hard and solid. "I can't see anything either," she conveyed quickly,
taking a step forward. "Can't hear anything, which I'd pick up on if someone had put something mechanical in her."

"She could've been like this for half-an-hour, possibly more," Carol continued, the sound of her nails scraping across
the concrete crackling through the air. Her voice sounded wounded, punched-out. "Her body was cold enough for it—
but I don't know if that's a Martian thing or not."

"We know it's psychic, but do we know if Martians have seizures?" Kara queried. "It's one thing for a psychic attack
to set off a seizure, it's another thing for a psychic attack to be causing something like this."

"I don't know," Carol almost shouted, her voice rising in pitch until it came out reedy and thin. "I—I just don't, okay? I
don't know, but you can help, can't you?"

Kara glanced at M'gann, pursed her lips, and then stepped back again, looking at the four of them. "You have two
options at this point for immediate help. Hospitals are out of the question, they don't know how to treat a Martian in
the first place, and might just make things worse. We need actual sources, actual information, and there are only
two places for that," Kara said, voice smooth but stern, wearing her persona in a way she rarely did around Addy.
"Your first option is the D.E.O.; I promise you, I can act as an intermediary between you guys and the D.E.O., I will
ensure nobody tries anything with her, and if they still do, I'll rip the damned building down. That said, she'll still be in
their custody, and relying on their help."

Carol and Koriand'r shared a wordless look, before Carol glanced back at Kara and shook her head sharply. "Not an
option," she said after a moment. "We don't know if this isn't something the D.E.O. did, or if they'd even help and not
just cause this - whatever it is - to get worse and play it off as an accident."

Kara's lips thinned, but perhaps pointedly, she did not refute them. "Your only other option then, is the Fortress. I can
take you there, bring M'gann with me, but I don't know if they have enough data on Martian physiology to diagnose
whatever is happening to her. It's not a long shot, but it's... not a guarantee either, but there's a recently-rebuilt
attendant droid which can help us if they do know how to."

"If that's the case," Carol said matter-of-factly, "pick M'gann up. We have to move, we have to find out how to help
her."

Kara glanced at Addy, then at Koriand'r, and when neither of them were about to speak up against it, she nodded.
Leaning down, she scooped a still-twitching M'gann up, gently cradling her to her chest, and lifting into the air.

Addy lifted up to join her, while below, Koriand'r stepped forward and picked Carol up in a bridal carry, lifting into the
sky with the rest of them.

Together, they left.

Last edited: Oct 21, 2021
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OxfordOctopus Oct 21, 2021 New View discussion

Threadmarks: SEASON 2 - EPISODE 43

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OxfordOctopus She/Her
(Unverified Jackanape)

Thursday at 5:38 AM  #3,725

EPISODE 43​
The world rang with the sounds of crooning crystals.

Addy had heard them before, had felt the crystals of the Fortress and found them humming, but with her adjusted
senses, it all took on a new dimension. It was not unlike the sound crystal-clear ice made as cracks spread through
it, a bassy kind of reverberation that she could feel in her chest. Each moment came with its own chime, which was
then followed by a chorus of echoes from the surrounding crystals that distorted the pitch.

At any other time, in any other place, with circumstances being anything but what they were—Addy would enjoy this,
would take this experience into herself and let the sounds draw her focus away.

But she could not.

A few paces ahead, Kara stood as rigid as a board, with both of her arms carefully folded over her chest. Her head
was turned to the side, leaving her face in profile from where Addy stood, her eyes trained on Kelex - freshly rebuilt -
and, by proximity, to the crystalline bed that they had placed M'gann upon. Kelex was busying itself with scans, one
arm outstretched as a red diode set into its palm swept a crimson ribbon of light back and forth across M'gann's
body, scanning her physical state and using whatever it had in the data banks on Martian physiology to give them
some kind of diagnosis, or failing that, a place to at least start their hunt to fix her.

M'gann's condition hadn't improved since they had left National City. At a glance, she looked no different than she
had before—the same round face of a human, cheeks dusted not by pallor, but by warmth that gave a kind of
richness to the dark brown of her skin. Her forehead was still creased, but the look of pain had fallen away, and if
Addy was a fool, she might believe that to be a good thing.

She knew it likely wasn't. For while M'gann looked no different, her posture told another story. She had been rigid and
prone to brief thrashes that Kara had to account for on the fly over, but with each new spasm would come a longer
delay before the next occurred; with each new spasm, her body grew just that little bit weaker—her thrashes
becoming less powerful, more twitches that developed into short bursts of movement.

But then, even that had faded. All that M'gann did now was twitch single limbs, and not with much frequency. A jerk
of a finger here, a twist of an ankle there, a slight bob of her spine or the subtle shaking of her bicep. Small things,
enough to tell them - just as the rise and fall of her chest might - that she was alive, but nothing more.

A few paces to the side and in front of Kara stood Koriand'r and Carol, neither of whom looked any less tense than
Kara did. Carol's posture was narrow and painfully rigid, tucked in on herself; arms folded near to her stomach and
legs pressed tightly together. Her expression was unreadable, more of a blank mask whose gaze happened to settle
on M'gann largely out of chance, rather than in search of anything.

Koriand'r, to her right, was both similar and different. Rather than the rigid, inward-drawn posture of Carol, Koriand'r
regarded the Fortress around her with what Addy had come to identify as unease. Her lips were just barely pulled
back, like there was a snarl waiting to be fully committed to, and her eyes never lingered in any one place for long,
instead slipping across every surface, down the edge of every jutting crystal.

It was Kelex that drew the majority of Addy's attention, however. Not because she was interested in the robot - not
truly - but rather because she could not quite remove the sense of unease from herself that it might turn on them at
any moment. She knew it wouldn't—that it hardly had the capacity to do so, but the thought stuck like a popcorn
kernel lodged somewhere at the back of her mouth: irritating and impossibly difficult to remove.

Kelex's programming had been fully reformatted and adjusted by Clark, from what Kara had told her before she had
even gone into work today. Kara had helped him do so, running him through things she had been taught from birth,
and by comparison, Clark had been forced to learn through a user's manual that for the majority of his life he was
literally incapable of reading. It had been done, originally, in preparation for when she would visit, for a check-up on
her biology now that it had changed in ways none of them could safely ignore.

They'd done a lot, in preparation for Addy and in pursuit of not letting Cadmus get back into the place. They'd
upgraded the security - or, as Kara put it, installed the security that came with the Fortress, implying Clark had not
done so in the first place - and while they'd left the key, it was now more than ever a honeypot. The security itself
was complex, based on biological scanning and identifiers, but it was utterly invisible to anyone who didn't know
what to look for. If Cadmus sent anyone to repeat what Henshaw had done, they'd have just enough time to walk in
and glance around the entrance before they were detained by the Fortress's highly advanced defensive systems.

"Do you know how long this is going to take?" Carol's voice cut through the silence, through Addy's thoughts, and not
just because it was the first sound beyond the creaking of crystals and the shifting of motors that she had heard in
nearly five minutes. Her voice was tense, hard, the sort of rigid Addy could recall her using back when she had been
confronted by a man who wouldn't take no for an answer—back when they first met.

"Not much longer," Kara explained, eyes flicking from M'gann and towards Carol. Kara shifted back on her heel,
almost leaning against the crystal terminal to her left. "Kelex is a Kryptonian attendant robot—it is programmed for
this kind of thing."

That didn't seem to help Carol's mood any. Her expression twitched, stiffened, and she opened her mouth after a
moment, only to stop, hesitate, and then shut it.

The clack of her teeth echoed through the Fortress.

After another second of pause, Carol let a breath out through her nose; a sharp noise that wouldn't be out of place
accompanying a sigh. "Right," she said at last, her voice clipped and utterly toneless.

Koriand'r shot Carol a worried look, inching herself a bit closer. She reached out, brushed a hand over her shoulder,
catching Carol's eye and tilting her head to one side.

None of the tension bled out of Carol's frame, and instead, she just shook her head sharply.

Koriand'r, after another moment of contact, released her shoulder and stepped back again.

In that time, Kara had turned her head to watch the byplay, her head angled ever-so-slightly, giving away her curiosity,
but she clearly knew better than to voice any questions. Instead, once Koriand'r had retreated back to Carol's side,
leaving her personal space, she spoke again. "Do you two... can you two tell me what M'gann has been up to? So we
can figure out who might be targeting her?" she asked, confidence gradually finding root in her voice again. "Like
who she has been with, what's she's been up to—that kind of thing."

"You mean besides the D.E.O.?" Carol snapped, temper flaring so bright that even Addy could pick the anger out of
her voice. There was a hostility behind it, and Addy found herself distantly recognizing it as the kind of voice Taylor
had heard from Rachel when she wanted to get into a fight with something—usually Taylor.

Kara just looked at Carol softly, the expression on her face gentle and painfully sad. "Yes," she agreed, "besides them
—I already know who they are, and what their motives might be."

That, at the least, seemed to snuff the temper out of Carol in a heartbeat. The woman just stared at Kara, her
expression briefly confused, before the unreadable mask was back again and her mouth thinned out into a line.
Carol observed Kara, really, glanced her over in search of something, and apparently managed to find whatever she
was looking for.

"The only thing M'gann was getting up to lately was being imprisoned by the D.E.O.," Carol began, eyes drawing away
from Kara, back towards M'gann. Addy watched her hands twist into fists at her sides. "After that, she was with us
for a while—a week and a half, enough to get her bearings, but not that long. She got her lease on her apartment
again, which I was there for, and she spoke to our boss at the bar to see if she'd have a job when they'd reopen,
which she would. Other than that, though... I can't tell you, because she was only with us for a small amount of time
—she prefers independence, and I can't blame her, considering what happened to her."

At Carol's words, a flinch flashed across Kara's face, there and gone so quickly that Addy was briefly unsure it had
been there at all.

"Do you think her identity got leaked?" Kara asked, pushing herself away from the terminal and taking a step forward.
"That maybe this is someone targeting her for her ancestry?"

Carol's head turned down from the ceiling, gaze coming to rest on Kara again. "There's a group that would certainly
want to do that," she provided grimly, with none of the hostility that had been there in her last pointed comment
about M'gann's imprisonment. "But I haven't heard anything like that—"

"Scan complete," Kelex announced, its artificial voice cutting through the conversation.

Kara jerked around towards Kelex. "Kelex," she said immediately, voice falling into the firm, commanding tone that
she used as Supergirl. "Report."

"As you insist, Mistress Zor-El," Kelex demurred, the action made distinctly artificial by its lack of an ability to process
emotions in the first place, let alone speak in anything but a toneless voice. "As you commanded, I sought out
M'gann's biometric information and compared it to what is available on our data banks with regards to alien
physiology and Martian physiology in particular. Through this, I identified that while there is nothing physically wrong
with M'gann, her life signs are declining at a rapid, if linear fashion. She has an estimated time of approximately
another three hours and twenty-four minutes before she will permanently expire."

The silence that followed that proclamation was different from the others. The silence rang in Addy's ears, shrieked
like nails down a chalkboard.

"Is there anything we can do to stop that?" Kara asked after a moment, her voice hoarse.

"Normally, I would recommend the stasis chamber, as it can halt the gradual degradation of her physical condition,"
Kelex explained, as toneless as ever. "However, as you requested, I looked into the psychic anomaly in Miss M'gann's
brain, and I believe it would respond negatively to its connection being disrupted through said chamber. While I lack
the sufficient upgrades to accurately grade psychic power, I am capable of inferring the amount of power in there
would kill her, if a backlash were to occur.

"That said, there may be a way to get around it," Kelex continued, and Addy felt her chest grow a little lighter, her
breath coming a little easier. She saw around her that the others looked to be feeling much the same. "It is noted in
what limited data we have on Martians that they have an immense capacity for connecting with other minds, to the
point where two distinct consciousnesses become close to one. Normally, this process is only ever done between
Martians, but nothing in my records imply that it is naturally restricted to their species, just that it is very intimate,
and that it would be unusual to do so with an alien. It may be possible, however limitedly, to bypass the attack and
access her brain by connecting in that manner, as the attacker may be unable to discern the connected party
differently from M'gann herself."

"But... none of us are Martians," Carol said at last. "None of us know how to do that—and... I'm not sure that, even if
the Martian who put her away in the first place would agree to do this for us, I could let someone like that into
M'gann's head in the first place. Or at least not unless we run out of other options."

But they wouldn't need J'onn for this. Addy knew that. Because she had experienced what Kelex had described,
during their attack on Fort Rozz. She knew the feeling, the way two became one-but-not-quite-one, the way that
minds blended and became something not dissimilar from how she was when she was in the gestalt.

She knew, in theory, how to do this.

"I am not a Martian, but I have experienced this before," Addy said, at last.

Heads turned to her, their expressions startled.

"J'onn connected to me in a manner that Kelex just described," Addy explained simply. "It was during our attack on
Fort Rozz, and as Kelex said, our minds became less... distinct, during that period. I can at least attempt to seek out
a similar effect with M'gann." There'd be no power sharing, for obvious reasons, but it didn't seem too hard to do.

"Can you really?" Carol asked, and her voice was serious. Not judgemental, not in the slightest, but firm enough that
Addy felt the urge to straighten her spine, despite the fact that it was already as straight as it was going to get.

"I believe I can try," Addy provided, because even she didn't know if this was the same process or something else.
Even if it wasn't, she'd still try to connect. "And if I fail, I promise I will pull back and try my best not to injure her or
alert the attacker in the process."

Carol glanced briefly at Koriand'r, then back at her. "Kori?" she asked, after another moment.

"I think we should give it a shot," Koriand'r replied, gently stepping forward and pressing her shoulder to Carol's. This
time around, Carol relaxed, albeit very slightly. "If it doesn't work, we can try something else. All we can do is try, and
even if this doesn't work, we won't M'gann die."

There was another beat, and Carol relaxed more, until her shoulders no longer threatened to meet her earlobes. She
stared Addy dead on, directly in the eyes, and Addy managed to hold her gaze despite the immense discomfort such
a thing caused her. "Alright," Carol breathed, and looked away. "Addy, as the closest thing to M'gann's representative
in the room, I'm giving you the go-ahead."

There was no more need for words. Addy passed Kara, who nodded at her, but said nothing; she passed Carol and
Koriand'r both, who watched her carefully until turning back to themselves, talking in hushed tones. She walked past
Kelex, who had floated just a few paces away from M'gann's resting body, and who obligingly bobbed out of her way.

She walked up to M'gann, and looked down. She stared at her features, at a person she had called a friend and hurt.
She had done that before—done that to J'onn, even, back when she had been exposed - however minimally - to red
kryptonite. She didn't want M'gann to die like this, couldn't imagine letting it happen.

Refused, even, to let it happen.

Shutting her eyes, she reached out, and pressed her index and middle fingers to M'gann's sweat-dappled forehead.

Addy thought back, pulled to the fore the memories of that time she had fused with J'onn—the way it had felt, how
the connection had formed. She pulled in every sensation of those moments as she could, the feeling of power
coursing between them, how thoughts were shared and traded back and forth, how J'onn had been able to see
beyond Addy's body, to what she had been at her core, to feel that pulsing monolith of her kin's biology, tucked away
universes over, and had been awed - in the very literal sense of the word - by its presence.

She grabbed hold of that feeling, and began weaving. She twisted her psychic focus, tore away her range until it was
as low as it could go. She shaped her psychic intent into a rope, long and sinuous and packed tight with the context
J'onn had shared with her, and knew that ropes had roots so deep in her psyche it was a risk to be doing this. She
was exposing herself, through this, opening up in a way that left her - even if only minimally - vulnerable.

She didn't hesitate, and extended it towards M'gann, reached out to that shell of a psychic barrier, and did the
equivalent of knocking on a door.

There was a tremor from the other side, a pulse or a ripple across a still pond. The shield buckled a little, churned
just enough that a gap opened, and from it came a paired psychic intent, stretching out instinctively to her own. She
felt the two link, felt the barrier in her mind ripple briefly, then connect with an other, with M'gann.

And then, it wrenched her through the shield, and two became one.

The world dipped precariously out of focus. It was darkness that met her as her consciousness stabilized, as the
connection, the blurring of two people, began to take shape. The darkness was one of shut eyes, freckled with
motes of light that scattered to the wind if one tried to look at them for too long, transient and indistinct.

The first thing Addy noticed was that she was still... well, herself, in a meaningful sense. She had been with J'onn,
too, but the connection had been much closer with him than it was now. Not that she was bothered by it - she had
plenty of experience when it came to distinguishing herself while part of a hive-mind, after all; all of her kin did - but
it spoke to a different texture of the connection. Where before, the lines between herself and J'onn had been
smudged to allow for a transference of intent, for J'onn's powers to reach to her as she was to be considered as
much part of him as his arm was, this was more... mutual.

A gestalt, still, but a gestalt which could acknowledge its parts were independent.

The second thing she noticed was that the darkness was changing. It was peeling, pulling apart, gray spots
emerging at the edges of her vision, at first, and then turning to crackling static as they began to spread. Out and out
they went, a mass of writhing psychic noise as a feeling not unlike the tingling of new nerves - or new connections to
nerves - played across what might have been her body in reality, or perhaps just the body-shaped avatar her mind
had fashioned for itself.

The third thing she noticed was the presence. She could feel it weighing down on M'gann - and now, by extension,
her - hostile and angry and yet devoid of the complexity of something that might be more hands-on. Someone was
definitely fuelling this attack, certainly, but seemingly without being close in proximity, it couldn't directly interfere.
That, at least, came as something of a relief; it would still be a pain to handle without tipping off the other party, but
the less immediate control the attacker had over the situation, the better.

With a final wave of static across her vision, the world resolved itself—came together and took on a new shape.

Rust-red earth settled beneath her feet, and a sky of putrid yellow came with it. There was a distant noise that came
next, the screaming of wind across barren soil, and yet when she sampled the air with her senses, it was cold and
fetid, like a bog that had not experienced the wind in years. It smelled, profusely, of char, of rot, and of sand.

Turning her head to the side, it wasn't hard to find why. Across the barren surface of Mars - for what other place
could this possibly be - someone had piled the corpses of dead Green Martians. Dozens to a pile, and enough piles
to fill numerous cemeteries, and all of them alight with fire, burning heartily like a bonfire. The smoke from them was
oily and black from the fat that burned, and it was carried by harsh winds across a stretch of flat, ragged ground, to
join the dust that carried itself through the air in fanning waves.

She followed the dust, and found more. Legions of White Martians lingered outside a fortification—tall, barbed-wire
fences built with arches of eggshell-white concrete, the fences stretched between each arch. Behind them were
buildings, squad crude things that resembled huts more than anything else, and around these buildings were Green
Martians. The Green Martians were varied, both young and old, male and female, and yet none of them looked quite
alive, their expressions vacant, distant and empty.

At the front of the group of Green Martians, a White Martian, taller than any of his peers, led them forward, tightly
gripping what looked to be a kind of long pole, at the end of which was a pair of sharp prongs. He was directing
them to the one exit of the camp, and Addy did not need much context to know what was about to happen to them.

Turning away, to her left, Addy found the other occupant of this moment—of what could only be a memory. M'gann
kneeled in the red sand next to her, eyes hazy and face almost expressionless as she stared out towards the camp.
Her hands had formed claws in the sand next to her, but she didn't move an inch beyond the steady rise and fall of
her chest.

Stepping forward, Addy came up to M'gann's side. She looked down at her, felt the urge to reach out and shake her,
to tell her it was only a memory, but found the power to resist it. "M'gann," she said instead, her voice coming out
surprisingly soft, enough that even Addy was a touch startled by it.

M'gann just blinked, long and slow, like a cat. "This is where it happened," she replied quietly, barely a whisper. Her
tone was dreamlike, absent from the moment.

Addy found herself reaching out. Not physically, but rather psychically, up and out to the presence that still wrapped
around M'gann's - and by extension, Addy's - mind like a vice. Her probing met immediate resistance, a hard and
solid wall of psychic power that was growing heavier and heavier with each passing moment. She couldn't get rid of
it, not yet, but she was starting to understand what it was doing.

It was binding M'gann to this memory, or perhaps to the more general concept of a memory; a nightmare, from
which she would be unable to wake. M'gann's own mind had trapped itself, in a sense—all the psychic presence was
doing was giving it the initiative to do so.

Slowly, she pulled her psychic power back in, and turned her attention back to M'gann. "Where what happened?" she
asked, instead.

For a brief moment, M'gann's eyes refocused. She felt the presence twitch, a ripple of psychic energy playing across
their shared mind, before it redoubled. The focus faded from her eyes, then, but not entirely.

At last, M'gann moved. Her head turned achingly slowly, eyes settling on Addy, and they were close enough that
Addy could both hear her breath go short and quick, and see the way her pupils narrowed to pinpricks.

"How did—" M'gann stumbled, voice thick with panic. "You can't be here," she insisted, pitch going high with terror,
"you have to run, alien—you have to hide, they'll kill you!"

The terror from her voice reverberated, echoed out through the psychic landscape. She listened for it, felt the way
that the presence grew heavier, stronger by it, the way it rooted itself deeper into M'gann's mindscape, gaining a
greater control over it. It was feeding off of that, drawing her deeper and deeper into a delusion her own mind had
created, and if allowed, it would strangle her this way: slowly, and torturously.

That was a problem. Not an unfixable problem, but nonetheless a problem.

Breathing out, Addy turned back towards the camp. "They won't," she said simply, because it was true. Nothing could
hurt her here, not truly.

"You don't know what they're capable of—I... I can't tell what species you are, but you're not a Titanian, and even if
you were, you can't be here," M'gann insisted, and at last rose to her feet. She reached out, fingers tangling in Addy's
sleeve, and despite the close proximity, Addy couldn't quite bring herself to shake her off. "Archon K'add K'aatar
locked down the borders, there's no non-Martian travel allowed," she explained quickly, her voice going quiet, as
though the nearby soldiers might overhear them. "They'll do unspeakable things to you. Please—I couldn't save the
others, but I don't want to watch you die too."

The best way to interrupt a delusion like this - at least in circumstances like these, when it was enforced and not the
product of an illness - was to find the holes in it, to remind the person on the other end that this was not as real as
they thought. She didn't know much of how M'gann left Mars, nor what came of it, but then she didn't think M'gann
had left with acclaim from her peers.

"What others?" Addy asked, turning to look her way.

Focus flickered in and out of M'gann's gaze, eventually replaced by a kind of feverish desperation. "The... the
children," she rasped, fingers loosening and then falling from Addy's shirt. "I tried to bring them out, I told them—I
told them we could escape, that we could hide, on Earth. Some of them followed, but a lot of them didn't, and... they
noticed the ones who didn't. We tried to flee"—the last few words came with a punched-out tone, devastated and
grief-stricken—"but they didn't trust me, and we got split apart, and... and I was the only one who made it to the ship.
It's why they're out there, the alarms went off."

Addy glanced back out to the camp, to the marching lines of White Martians, to the Green Martians about to be
slaughtered and burned. "Then why are you still here?" she asked, instead. "Shouldn't you be on that ship, M'gann?"

She watched M'gann freeze, and didn't just see, but felt the confusion as it pulsed out from her and up into the
presence. The memory wavered, and the presence on the other end slackened briefly, if not enough to fully rip it free
from M'gann's mind. Already, even moments later, she could feel it trying to reassert itself, beginning to press in
again.

But Addy had a simple thought, and one that she knew might be her only way out of this. M'gann was lost to this
memory, already too far gone to remove normally. But that was just this memory, this moment of trauma for her, and
currently, they had enough of those moments to go around. The attacker wasn't the one constructing this memory, it
was M'gann's mind doing the work; it was why it was so effective.

But now she was, to the attacker, as much M'gann as the woman herself was. And if she could not free M'gann from
this memory, then all she had to do was give it her own memories to work with. Enough distance there and Addy
would have the time and space to dislodge the threat, for M'gann would not be lulled into believing a memory she
did not have was reality.

All it would take was a push.

She reached out to the presence, before the moment could pass, and spread her own psychic ability out. She
pressed herself over the scaffolding holding this self-perpetuating nightmare together, pressed against the weight of
the presence as it sought to redouble its control, and twisted. She adjusted, she built her own presence up in their
two-person collective to one that overshadowed M'gann's, concealing her and the memory they were currently in.

The presence responded predictably. It lunged at her, instead, at her part of the collective, and slammed into her with
all the force it could muster. Addy had no defences, not when she was fused like this, and so instead the psychic
presence sunk into her with an aching, ringing kind of pain. Her head felt heavy, and her ears filled with a distant
keening, but to her satisfaction, the memory around her was already falling apart, fraying at the edges as it latched
onto the equivalent in Addy's mind, rather than M'gann's.

With a sharp lurch, one that made Addy almost nauseated, the world fell out under her feet, and everything went
briefly dark.

Somewhere beside her, M'gann let out a startled, panicked noise.

Then, the darkness was wiped away. As though she had merely blinked, one moment there had been red sand
stretching on for miles, corpse bonfires lighting the ragged hills of Mars, and the next, they were on Earth again.

Above them, the sky was clear, and the sun crested high above, radiating warmth and light. Around them were rocky
walls, like someone had cut the top quarter of a sphere off, leaving just an open jagged crack where the peak of the
ceiling might've once been, hemmed in entirely by the cave. The ground was solid stone, and there was the distant
smell of blood on the air, too faint to make much out of, but a kind of smell that lingered, regardless if there was
even a source of it nearby.

Like the sky, the cave was devoid of much of anything, all for but three people, standing close to one another. The
tallest stood rigid, hands balled into fists at her side, with curly black hair cascading down her back, her costume
immaculate. The second, shorter by half-a-head and with wavy brown hair, stood in front of her, one hand pressed
into the damp skin of the first girl's face, eyes shut as she focused. The last and third member of the group, a girl
that looked barely ten, with blonde ringlets, stood off to the side, head cocked curiously at an angle as she watched.

Taylor Hebert, Amy Dallon, and Riley Davis.

Weaver, Panacea, Bonesaw.

Before the memory could continue, before they could be dragged into the dizzying violence of Taylor's fight against
Scion, Addy reached out to the memory and forced it to slow. She couldn't stop it entirely - that would tip off the
person doing this - but she could slow it to the point where it was basically the same thing. Two minutes for every
second; that would be enough to get M'gann out of here, before the scenes changed.

She was right: it was finding the worst equivalent memory that she had in an attempt to do to her what it did to
M'gann. Despite that, she found no satisfaction out of correctly guessing the kind of torture it was trying to put her
through.

Trying being the operative word.

Theoretically, it might've worked on anyone else, but unfortunately for the attacker, she could easily endure the
constant press of its presence, the attempt to lull her into a kind of suggestible state. Her mind might be human, or
at least close enough to it, but Addy had witnessed these memories before, both through Taylor's eyes and
emotions, and as something in the background, watching with rapt attention.

She had never truly lived this moment, only ever observed it, and that made its attempts to make her think otherwise
pointless.

Addy turned her head, M'gann jolting back a step as she did. She stared at her, watched the lucidity gradually soak
back into M'gann's expression, watched the confusion bubble up and paint her expression.

"Addy?" M'gann asked at last, reaching up to grab her head as she stumbled back another step. No doubt she was
adjusting to not having the presence focusing on her as it had been.

Addy gave her a few seconds of time to adapt, to get her bearings.

At last, M'gann blinked her eyes open again, and her hand fell from her head. "What—where are we?" she asked,
turning to look at the three girls, captured in a single moment.

Addy turned as well, looked upon a memory she hated with every fibre of her being.

"We found you unconscious, M'gann. You were on your way to talk to me, because Carol and Koriand'r were going to
meet up with me now that I was back, and you wanted to speak to me beforehand," Addy explained slowly. "You
were in an alleyway, having the equivalent of a seizure, and I identified you were being attacked by a psychic
assailant. I called Supergirl, and we brought you to the Fortress, where we found out the only way I might be able to
get rid of the psychic attacker without hurting you would be to fuse with your mind and sneak in through that way."

M'gann said nothing.

Addy continued. "I found you trapped in your own memory, of the concentration camps, I believe on the day you left
Mars for Earth. It was feeding off of your fear and terror, and you had been trapped there long enough that it was
nearly impossible to fully make you realize it was all a dream without the attack injuring you. So, I loosened its grip
on you until I could turn its focus onto me."

Irritation itched beneath her skin like a rash as she spoke. Not towards M'gann, not even towards the assailant in
truth; just towards the moment, this memory, the all-consuming anger she felt towards it. She had watched this
moment more times than she had any other in Taylor's life, and she hated it. In the past, she had ascribed the hatred
she felt to this moment to the moment when Contessa shot Taylor twice in the head, but she had come to recognize
that was misplacing the anger towards the result, rather than the root of the cause.

This was the moment where everything degraded and fell apart—where Taylor's life, one way or another, was forfeit.
She hated Amy Dallon for this moment, hated Riley Davis, and perhaps if she had been angrier, she might've hated
Taylor for it too.

But she couldn't hate Taylor, not for this.

M'gann's eyes danced across the three girls in the cave, an increasingly tense expression spreading over her face.
Her eyes lingered on Taylor, on her curls, and on the missing arm. Her eyes danced back to Addy, and she knew the
resemblance was there, and impossible to miss.

"Where are we, then?" M'gann asked, at last. "What memory is this? And... is that you?"

"This is the single worst moment of my life," Addy explained quietly, feeling the anger that had taken root in her body
turn back into the same dull pain that it always did whenever she thought back on Taylor. "And it is also, in theory,
the day of my birth."

M'gann's face twisted with confusion. "But—"

"Her name is Taylor Anne Hebert," she told her, instead, and M'gann's words seemed to die in her throat. "And I now
inhabit her body. She was my host, but for you to understand, I have to explain some of this. I will tell you, if you will
listen."

For a moment, Addy wasn't sure if M'gann actually would. The other woman looked lost, eyes turned to Taylor, to
Riley and Amy and all that would eventually come of it. But she needed this time, not just for the weakening grip on
M'gann to finally give way, but also because a part of her did want to tell her, to speak on this moment, because it
felt important to do so. Addy wondered what she saw there, what she assumed was happening.

She didn't have much time to imagine.

"Okay," M'gann said slowly, though she didn't turn to look at her. "Okay. Tell me."

Where to begin? Abridging a lot of her kin's history was necessary to not draw this out, but... ah. She knew.

"My species doesn't have a name," she began, tucking her hands together in front of her. "We never considered one
necessary. We are a gestalt being, colony organisms, each collective unique, for we diverge each time we reproduce,
and spend countless thousands of years without meeting another one of us. The universe is a big place, but it was
never big enough—for my species had a single fear: that they would run out of space and resources to keep
proliferating."

It was a painfully, sickeningly animalistic drive, she knew. There was never any higher meaning to it, and back before
she had become what she was now, she in turn saw no problems with it. Proliferation was always the start and end
of their goal, there had never been anything more complex about it.

They had wanted something impossible, though, and so they had made the complexity their goals lacked.

"I come from a gestalt which is in truth a pair: the Warrior, and the Thinker," Addy continued, reaching out to the older
memories that defined that archaic period in their evolution. It had been countless cycles ago when her ancestor
had given weight to the idea of partitioning the whole into two distinct beings with their own leading
consciousnesses and purposes. "The Warrior was, as the name suggests, preoccupied with violence, with fighting.
The Thinker, by comparison, was focused on advancement, on creativity and experimentation."

Addy let the silence hang for a moment, eyes flitting down to her hands. She had both of those here, not one arm
and a prosthetic, though she could not for the life of her figure out why. Still, she flexed her fingers nonetheless,
watched the muscles and joints shift.

"Together, they destroyed countless worlds," she explained, and turned to watch M'gann's face, saw the confusion
begin to abate, to be replaced by something Addy knew better than to look deeply into. "They did that through me—
other members of my kin. They would arrive at a world, establish a cycle - generally several hundred Earth years -
and seed the planet with us. When we were there, we would connect to the host species, and through them grant
them powers, while our existence otherwise remained a secret. The idea was that they could refine our usage, use
naturally-evolved creativity to explore their options, and hopefully, the right power would be given to the right person
and, through them, we would have our answer on how to reproduce without limit. When the cycle was over, the
gestalts would be reformed and a sharing of information would be passed between the two. After that, we would
compress all versions of the world together, and detonate them to fuel the birth of more of us, killing every version
of that world at once while leeching away the energy."

M'gann swallowed, thick and slow, and then turned to stare up at the sky—at the sun Mars shared with Earth, then
flick her eyes down to the humans, to the cave walls, to the world around her. "But, then..."

"Earth was one of those worlds," Addy agreed, "but not your Earth, not in this multiverse cluster. I come from another
multiverse, insofar as I can tell, M'gann, which operated with a different set of physics, among other things. In that
universe, we found Earth, but something went wrong immediately. We met another one of our kin in transit; it was to
us primitive in some ways, and advanced in others, and still relied on a crude method of propulsion to move. When it
became clear we would not fight, which is always possible, it was instead decided that we would share in our
bounties—a trade of parts for parts.

"There was no guile behind the act, but in the end, the Thinker was the one to approach, for that is her duty in
matters like these. She collided with the other entity so as to facilitate the exchange, and then she became too
preoccupied with the new parts she acquired, and in her distraction, tumbled down to Earth," Addy continued, feeling
the words turn bitter on her tongue. "I'm uncertain about how exactly it played out, but in the end, the Thinker landed
in a remote universe, and was promptly killed by the local inhabitants in her weakened state. The Warrior was left
directionless when she did not emerge after he deployed his parts, and the cycle was already broken."

"Then?" M'gann asked, stepping closer. "How do we get from there to here?"

"A broken cycle is not an ended one. I was still deployed, as were a handful of the Thinker's main methods of
ensuring the global populace remained unstable enough to exert control over them," Addy said, in response. "I was
initially intending to join myself to Taylor's father—Daniel Hebert, but he never reached an emotional extreme high
enough for that to manifest as anything. Instead, I set my sights on his daughter, and through some protracted
trauma she experienced in high school, she experienced a day bad enough that the emotional threshold was met,
and a trigger event could occur. I gave her blocks-wide control over bugs. I can't—won't—tell you every moment of
her life, we don't have the time, but she went from being a villain to a hero and, in this moment, she was trying to
stop the end of the world."

She watched as M'gann's gaze panned back to Taylor, body going tense. "Did she?"

"She did," Addy said quietly. "But it took everything from her. You see, the Warrior, directionless as he was, mostly
lingered around on the planet's surface in his avatar for a time. Some people took him as a god, yet as powers
began to appear amongst the populace, they started to see him as the first 'parahuman'. He was never human, but
he was mapped to human emotions and thought patterns, and so when someone finally had the idea to tell him to
do something, he listened to them.

"He went around the world, saving cats, fighting fires, things that fulfilled the archetype of a hero," she continued,
fingers winding together more and more tightly. "Until, at least, a very convincing man told him to start killing off
entire countries to see how it might make him feel instead. This was a problem, as by design the Warrior is the
strongest entity on the planet. He had the power to carve through the Earth's mantle, he made most of the UK sink
into the sea, and even went so far as to collapse most of the eastern seaboard. And, even worse, my host—Taylor
could not, understandably, kill something like that with bugs, no matter how creative she might be about it."

She watched M'gann for a moment in the stillness, before briefly reaching out to the presence still weighing on her. It
was weaker, not weak enough to pry off yet, but... soon. It had no grip on her, and was losing its grasp on M'gann.
She could wait this out, but felt inclined not to. She had to finish this story.

"There's a node that we used in the human brain to establish most connections," Addy explained, "they called it the
corona pollentia. It's used to regulate powers and to ensure a given member of my kin has exactly the right amount
of influence on their host. But if the corona pollentia is interfered with, it results in a corrupted connection, which in
turn affects powers due to needing to adjust to the new parameters. Taylor could not fight the Warrior with insects,
so she sought to fight him with something more than that, anything she could get from me."

"But, then, if this worked, and Taylor defeated the Warrior—how is this a bad thing?" M'gann spoke, turning to stare at
her. "She saved the world, didn't she?"

Addy simply stared at the scene, and felt her fingers twitch. "She did. She killed the Warrior, and did so after the
barrier between myself and Taylor Hebert had broken down. Our minds, in a sense, became fused. The first
moments of my life, the first moments as Addy, insofar as there even was one at this junction, was spent in
confused, panicking chaos as she spent thousands of lives to murder him. And it ruined her, all because I went
along with it, rather than pulling the plug the second I started to be compromised by her emotions."

"But that still makes you a hero," M'gann said, her voice incensed. "It... you sacrificed a lot, but you still succeeded. I
didn't, I couldn't manage it."

"You're oversimplifying things, M'gann," Addy chided her, feeling tired and weary but ready to see this through. "I
didn't start out this way, I was not always like this. My kin pattern themselves on humans, so we can connect and
understand the minds of our hosts, and I was much the same, but that does not mean I was human. I went along
with it not because I felt much of a plight for the human species, in fact generally I disliked them with few
exceptions, I went along with it because I felt spite for my peers."

M'gann's mouth shut tight.

"The cycle was broken, M'gann. The half of our gestalt that actually bothered to do anything was dead, and the ideal
outcome was that the Warrior, an entity specifically designed to not have that much initiative or creativity on his
own, would collect the shards and leave after throwing a tantrum," she said, and found her voice terribly dark and
hateful about it. "I let Taylor do to herself and to myself what no shard is supposed to permit because I hated that
possibility, because I refused to be picked apart by some incompetent overseer who would lead us nowhere. I was
not a person yet, M'gann, not fully, but when that fusion of myself and Taylor began, I started to become one. When
Amy Dallon - the brown-haired girl in front of Taylor - would break down the barrier in her corona, she would harm
both of us through it.

"Taylor would succeed, she would destroy the Warrior, but in the process she would destroy herself," Addy finished,
at last, turning away from the image of Taylor, from Amy and Riley and all that entailed. Her eyes settled on M'gann's
forehead. "At the end of the day, by doing what she did, she became too dangerous to keep alive, too unhinged.
There was very little separating me or Taylor at the end, when Contessa found us, and for that she shot us twice in
the head. And then, if things couldn't be bad enough, a portal she intended to use to dump Taylor's body somewhere
was hijacked by an entity I still do not understand, one that dragged her and my entire core, my entire being into
another multiverse, and in doing so permanently destroyed Taylor's consciousness. There is no bringing her back—
because of this sequence of events, Taylor is dead and gone in a way that nothing can truly reverse. I, Queen
Administrator with Taylor's memories and what few pieces of her personality I gained through our brief fusion, is all
that is left."

There was more complexity to it, Addy could admit. Taylor's actions and thoughts had impacted her own, even prior
to the fusion, but the changes that had occurred were not dramatic or even particularly extreme. Then again, despite
Taylor's own concerns - voiced at times to her therapist - there hadn't really been that much of an influence from her
to Taylor either. The connection was two-way, in that sense.

Shaking away the thought, Addy reached for the psychic presence and felt, at last, that it was waning. She could rip
it away now, tear it free and leave the conversation to die exactly here.

But she didn't. Not yet.

Instead, she watched M'gann rally herself. "Why are you telling me all of this?" she asked quietly.

"The first emotion I ever truly felt was regret, M'gann. It is not unknown to me," Addy explained simply. "When my
fusion with Taylor took place, that's what she felt the moment it became clear she had done too much. Regret, then
fear, then determination, in that order. I have come to learn regret, and there is much I do regret. I see clearer now
than I did as just a shard, stuck away on some barren variant of a planet, and I regret above all else this moment,
and what I did to you."

M'gann blinked, long and slow, but said nothing.

Addy took that as a cue to continue. "But at the same time, this is the moment I became who I am now, and is the
basis for my existence. This is a part of me, and there's no changing that." She wanted anything else but this, at
times, she wanted to be able to change things at her own whims, but she couldn't. The universe was never so nice.
"And so too, was what you did on Mars M'gann. I have refused to let this regret eat me, as it could have. You tried,
and you failed, but you still tried, and like I am a different person from the thing that existed in the fight against the
Warrior, so too are you different from who you once were."

After all, if Addy let regret control her, she'd have over a thousand worlds of missed opportunity to grieve over. A
thousand almost-Taylor's, a thousand cultures her kind wiped clinically from the universe without ever taking into
consideration what they could have offered.

Addy indeed knew regret. She just preferred not to dwell on it.

Reaching out now, she felt the wide, fissuring cracks that had come to exist in the other's attack on their collective
psyche. It was trying to reassert itself, harder and harder with every moment, clearly realizing it was about to slip
loose of their minds. With a wordless twist, she pried it away, peeled it back, and with a flare of her power, shredded
as much of the psychic intent as she could, just to see that it might wound someone who hurt one of her own.

The psychic presence recoiled with a flinch, and was gone.

"I think you need to wake up now," Addy said, simply, and with that pulled herself free from M'gann's mind.

There was a tug and a pinch, and they became two again.

Addy blinked slowly, sluggishly. The spots in her vision faded in and out of focus, and it took a few seconds of
palpable dizziness for it all to subside.

In front of her, M'gann was already stirring, and Addy found it in herself to take a step away, watching as M'gann's
eyes fluttered open, staring at the ceiling high above her. She blinked once, twice, and then tried to push herself
upright, only for a noise of agony to hiss itself out through her clenched teeth.

Carol and Koriand'r were at her side in an instant.

"Oh thank god you're okay," Carol breathed, reaching out to take M'gann's hand and pull her firmly up. M'gann tottered
a bit, but Koriand'r steadied her with a touch of her shoulder and a smile.

M'gann opened her eyes again, then winced. Presumably from the headache, the same one that Addy could feel
crawling up the base of her spine and towards her head like an ill-omen. It was a very photo-sensitive headache, she
was coming to learn. "Yeah," she croaked.

Footsteps approached from the side, and Addy's gaze turned, finding Kara coming to a stop next to her. There was a
smile pulling at her face, showing her dimples, that shortly died when she saw whatever was on Addy's face.

Addy promptly did her best to wrangle whatever expression she had into working order, but she was clearly fooling
nobody.

"You okay, Ads?" Kara asked quietly, almost whispering it.

Blinking away more of the vision spots, Addy breathed in, and let it out. "I am," she explained just as quietly, letting
the chatter between Carol, Koriand'r and M'gann play out in front of her. "I was just forced to remember something I
would rather not have."

"Mind if I give you a hug? I know that sucks, and hugs generally help," Kara offered.

But... Addy was already on edge. The irritation had burrowed into her skin, her head hurt in a way that Taylor had only
ever once experienced when she got so sick she gave herself a migraine, and above all else, she didn't really want to
be touched right now.

So, instead, she shook her head.

Kara, respectfully, kept her distance, smiling at her.

"Addy?" M'gann's voice rang out, cutting through the noise in her head for a brief moment.

Addy looked up, met M'gann's eyes briefly before letting her gaze skitter off to the side.

"Thank you," M'gann said at last, once it was clear she had her attention. "You... you didn't have to do this."

She disagreed, but nonetheless... "I did it because I wanted to," she said instead, for it wasn't a lie.

"Not to interrupt the merriment, but do you have any idea who could've done this to you?" Kara asked, glancing her
way.

M'gann's face went tight and stony. "Yeah. Normally, if you want to kill someone with a psychic attack, you just do it,"
she said, shifting over to the side until her legs dangled off the edge of the bed. "There are only a few people in the
universe who hate me enough to do this, and only one who knew exactly what kind of torture that nightmare attack
would do to me. All of them are White Martians, and another one is my ex-husband, and considering I could sense
his psychic presence a moment before I lost consciousness, it's not hard to make a guess."

Kara winced. "That's... bad. Really bad. Do you think you're being hunted?"

"It's possible. I... I don't use my psychic abilities for multiple reasons—among them is that I'm just not that talented
at it, but there's also because using them would make it possible to sense me," M'gann explained simply. "There are
some long-term psychic connections I had, and... when I use my powers, they can pick up on it."

"You definitely can't live alone, in that case," Kara said firmly. "I know this is kinda unpleasant, but... you have friends
you can stay with, right? Until we track this guy down."

M'gann glanced at Carol and Koriand'r, who both nodded at her quickly. "Yeah," she said, after a moment. "I doubt
he'll attack again so soon, he always liked to drag things out, but... it could be sometime within the next few months.
Depends on if he sees an opportunity, I suppose."

Finally, M'gann's gaze turned to Addy, focusing wholly back on her.

"I... I'm going to be starting back up at the bar again. We're reopening at the end of December, and I hope to see you
there," she said at last, quiet enough that Addy had to strain her ears to hear her. "We can talk then, I think."

"I will do my best to be there," Addy said, thinking back to her timetable. Her project should be done before then,
presumably, though she wasn't completely sure. She would endeavour to make sure it was, in any event.

"Now," Kara announced simply, gesturing towards the crystals. "I don't know about you, but I feel like we should
maybe recover back in a place that isn't made out of crystals."

"Mistress Zor-El," Kelex interrupted, which made just about everyone freeze, evidently having forgotten the robot was
there. "Before that, I must request we look over Miss Addy for her scheduled scan. Master El requested that I set a
reminder to check her genetic integrity."

The eyes of Carol, M'gann and Koriand'r turned towards Addy this time.

She squirmed, uncomfortable.

Kara sent a somewhat exasperated look at Kelex, but when the robot was unable to adequately receive it, she turned
back towards Carol, Koriand'r, and M'gann. "It should only take ten minutes," she said absently, "and Addy does need
to get a check-up. Do you guys mind waiting a second?"

M'gann scooted forward, slipping off of the crystal bed with a grunt. Carol came to her side, reaching out to her arm,
but M'gann just waved her off, tottering for a bit before she pulled herself up to her full height. "I'm fine with that," she
said, and gestured at the table.

"I mean, another ten minutes can't hurt anything," Carol conceded, glancing Koriand'r's way.

Koriand'r merely shrugged.

Addy felt rather put on the spot, but considering the annoyance of having to come back sometime later to do this,
she could concede that she might as well get it done now. "Very well," she replied, before stepping towards the
crystal bed.

"That will not be necessary," Kelex explained, hovering up in front of her. "Please remain still as I begin scanning."

With a final look at the rest of the group - who were, to varying degrees, staring at her; a not exactly comfortable
experience - Addy stilled her body and watched as Kelex began to sweep that diode back and forth over her body.

Mutinously, Addy began counting in her head. If Kelex wasn't done in exactly ten minutes, she'd have a complaint to
file.
 285

OxfordOctopus Thursday at 5:38 AM New View discussion

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