Supergirl: The Meaning of Power
Chapter Two - Fallen Son
“Just who is Karen Starr?
I’m Cat Grant and here at WGBS we have the news.”
“In just four months a small-time model rose to prominence by being seen amidst the city’s high life and glamour. She was spotted inside the circles well tread by the city elites, even former president and Metropolis’s fallen son Lex Luthor. Photographers caught the late business mogul’s long time assistant Ms. Graves dazzling a gala event with statuesque Karen Starr on her hip.”
The broadcast flicks to footage of Mercy at the Metro Gala, in a simple skintight black dress that edges the floor with a massive slit up the right thigh. She’s wearing her hair down in waves. Around her waist is Karen’s toned arm, the golden skin coiled and snakelike teasing her way down Mercy’s pale back.
“Also to note, in the wake of Alexander Luthor’s demise, Mercy Graves has steward LexCorp as its new CEO to rather mixed reception. Slashing the military budget and cutting cost company wide has streamlined LexCorp into a new beast in this brave new era. Notable praise comes with her sizable donation and outreach to the downtrodden Suicide Slums in lesser Metropolis, honoring Luthor’s childhood roots. More on Graves and her impact in the following hours.”
Directly to Mercy’s left is Karen. She dazzles in a stark backless white dress drapes down off her chest, wrapping back into formfitting fashion at her hips only to stop at her thighs—more mini skirt clubwear than gown affair. The Karen Starr style stands in great contrast to her partner. Already near six foot tall, she accentuates her endless legs to all of the onlooking cameras, some picking up that her fingers are deeply hidden in Mercy’s side slit. A snap catches Mercy’s face entirely flush from sensation.
“Our sources providing us the background on the ever-mysterious Starr have noted her history is spotty at best. That research found she’s the only daughter to famed scientist Emil Hamilton, oft unmentioned, and was a college model by many acc—“.
The television turns off. “It’s all moving as it should.” a very different Karen Starr says from inside her holo-lab, decked out in full mad scientist garb. A white smock, buttoned down entirely on her left side that strains against her glorious figure, beneath that a latex-looking black onesie with a naval deep V cut opening. The usual feathered blonde bob cut is entirely slicked back, held in place by goggles resting atop the forehead. Her eyes are rapidly flickering between various super visions as she synthesizes her chemical. “A few media bites here”, she pours a hard-light vial of bubbling green liquid into a yellow slime basin.
“A few ‘dangerous leaks’ there.” Karen bites her lip; thinking back to just how much fun Mercy can be for those leaks—even if she’s merely tolerating Karen for the media. A sinister smile is creeps across the imposter Supergirl’s face. “And of course…giving her the company to puppet. Now we are everywhere.”
She looks through her holographic sphere to the true heavily steeled room around her. The walls have frames newspapers from various outlets reading ‘Billionaire Renaissance Man Lex Luthor Found Dead in Arctic’, ‘Justice League sources Luthor Lost to Time, Mummified Atop World’, and the Daily Planet’s simple ‘Lex Luthor: Dead’. Beyond the memorabilia a digital clock is slotted into the far wall near the only entrance to the room; twenty till noon. Karen’s mixture coagulates into a deep crimson putty.
Cameras strategically placed across the lab ceiling are firmly locked on to the Mad Scientist Power Girl. Inside her holoshell work station, she quickly taps a string of prompts that trigger the outer transparent hard-light to obscure. The space quickly closes around in egg form to and reflects a still-working Karen to the onlooking monitors.
An inner projection rings up for the blonde bombshell, her supposed father Emil Hamilton with his crew cut sandy brown hair and goatee. His projected self looks at her over his thick-rimmed glasses with such exhaustion.
“Just you and me, Dad.”
“Oh dear lord not this again. Mr. Luthor. just tell me if this connection is secure. None of your games today.”
Karen fires back a quick “You wound, Hamilton, doubting my intellect. Obviously the line’s good.” She fluffs her hair back in annoyance.
Hamilton pauses just long enough not to talk through her. “Press hounds me enough about the makeshift bullshit of my ‘glamorous socialite daughter’ as is. I can’t take much more of this farce. Cut me some slack for walking on eggshells.”
He resettles his glasses on his face, and is very nervous with his words; a man choking down his truer and harsher opinion. Karen is still silent and her hands working relentlessly on multiple projects, all different data screens surround Emil at center focus. She’s beyond amused in prodding him; the squirming is a delight.
After an enormous sigh the doctor opens his mouth to continue.
Karen interjects “Mercy isn’t listening. I don’t want her here.” Hamilton closes his mouth.
She continues. “You got the dossiers on the Justice League, yeah? I need progress on designs four, seven, and twelve.”
“Ah…er….the Speed Force is a tricky concept to wrap my head around, Mr. Luthor. But yeah, four is stalling because of that. Inhibiting a supposed force of nature—even if treated as a circuit being broken—I’m just not sure how it’ll fare. The work got so vast I actually delegated the Green Lantern protocol.”
“Just what method did you use to glean this round of data? Your Power Girl persona has not made a public splash as of yet. Please tell me you are staying out of Supergirl’s embedded memory bank. Please.”
“I retired Supergirl, Hamilton. But there have been meetings and rumblings around the super community of Kara Zor-El and her whereabouts, so I give answers to those questions.” She recites. “I’m right here and I’m fine. Taking time off to find myself after the Crisis.”
Karen pushes away the little JLA folder icons and continues. “There is nothing wrong with using these memories as resource. Makes assimilation simpler. Mannerisms. Taste. So much untapped 30th century knowledge. Like, realizing someone has taken their entire privileged livelihood for granted, I reclaimed that. Now I’ve flown next to dinosaurs. Now I’ve been loved by Metropolis.” She wanders off in thought. Her hands still working on the projects as if entirely separate entities.
"...Karen?" The mousy jostling of Dr. Hamilton is almost cute.
“And… here you are, if I fly too far away.” Karen returns slyly.
Hamilton pipes up. “This …isn’t ideal. Not as a some secret examination or really much else. Please, come back in for a physical, it’s imperative.” I need to run more tests on the matrix protoform, see if its inner codex is more than a pipe dream.”
“Pass.”
“Uh huh…you haven’t had Alteration in some time. The last time was particularly troubling with how interlaced you were with Supergirl. The false histories, punching and delusions, a three-day mess. The little slips of God and Rao are one thing but how anyone could confuse your father, Lionel Luthor of all people, with a space man is beyond me.” Hamilton finishes his dire tone with a nervous chuckle.
“We’re done then?” Karen says.
The doctor takes his eyes off the project files and tries to stare into Karen Starr.
“Lex, you’ve gone far too long without removing the matrix, and nearly as much without willingly retracting it. Your body, your real body, needs its time. Remember why you started this.”
She laughs.
Karen’s face peels back and rolls down her neck, all accompanied by distinctly masculine grunts. The visual of Lex’s head on a mismatching female body gives Dr. Hamilton pause.
“I can leave…I can stop any time I want to, Emil.” Lex says through grinding teeth. Beads of sweat bubble on his brow, he hasn’t been without powers—even fractionally—in months. “This is just human ingenuity conquering the frivolous ways those aliens walk above us. I proved it. Brought down and stole fire from gods. Me. This is my reward.” Karen’s features creep up and wrap around Luthor’s face starting from the jawline. Lex smiles as her lips tingle and swell back to a sexy plumpness.
“Yes there are issues” Karen’s voice speaks with Lex’s eyeline. “The hearing. You know. It’s immense. Gets in the way of my mind at points.” She pauses. ”I do miss certain aspects” Lex lightly traces her flat groin. “Compromises must be made. Mercy understands.”
Hamilton watches as Lex succumbs to superpowered bliss as her briefly stagnated Kryptonian abilities jumpstart once the protoplasm seals. The mental speed. Super vision. All of it hits as a wave. Her eyes open, the unearthly shade of blue. Hamilton can't help see how dilated Lex's pupils are when inside the female protoplasm.
“Cravings are all different.” Karen coos, fully restored. “And I feel so much more.”
Karen can see the doctor’s disgust plain as day. “You really don’t get it do you, Hamilton? Imagine being able to see subatomic matter, having no visible spectrum unseen, all combines with years of scientific learning with anecdotes and images thought science fiction. Imagine life as a universal summit of 12th level intellect and now thinking thousands of times faster, the hardware boost is unmatched. Or, perhaps, just being able to push a moon out of orbit." She mugs at Emil. "When I willingly showed you my face, even for the two minutes, was like falling into white noise. Numb. Those two minutes…like an eternity. I can stop, but why would I? I have the power of the universe in my veins.”
“Humanity can’t afford to lose Lex Luthor. Best to remember that.” Hamilton rebuffs in a whisper. She's worked into one of the manic fits.
She laughs sadistically.
“They aren't."
Over the holoscreen Emil Hamilton pinches his heavily furrowed brow.
“Right. Right, fine. Send over the blood samples of both your forms. Meeting’s over.”
As he reaches to end the transmission, the thick-rimmed doctor takes a good long look at his employer, or what’s left of them. Billionaire business tycoon no longer. The president. War criminal. And a mind unlike any other he’s met on this Earth. Swallowed up by this strange woman in a bid for power and life. She speaks with Luthor’s inflection most times, but more and more it steers into a foreign upbeat tone.
“Lex Luthor contains multitudes,” she jabs “accept it.”
End call.
- - - - - - - - - -
In the heart of Metropolis, it’s getting testy. Lines of people wait at the monorail station, their train already three minutes behind schedule. Like most of the city this station is a glittery example of retro-futurism, all the walls are a sleek silver and white. Overhead, the automated voice chimes in once again with “Welcome to the Metropolis Monorail. A Faster, Safer Way to Travel!” to the restless patrons.
- - - - - - - - - -
Back in the lab.
Karen takes a deep breath as she peels back the lower half her forearm. With her high tech gloves she activates a fingertip syringe feature. She widens her index finger and thumb apart to sample both iterations of her blood. The index has a green kryptonite tip and pierces her arm to collect the godly blood. All the while, her thumb samples from the lower arm, the Luthorian blood with a traditional tip. Both samples are immediately digitized onto one of many black box sites Lex established years ago. Zero access in or out unless you’re him.
- - - - - - - - - -
Mere blocks away the prodigal train, regressing to a blur of white steel and blacken fumes, is engulfed in fire. An explosion at the rear of the link cascaded devastation throughout the hull. Seems the bombs have worked flawlessly. Dozens of passengers claw at the windows, crying for help. Families. Children. Folks living their daily lives.
The flaming behemoth is heading for its stop and shows no sign of slowing.
Aboard, a strung out man in a ratty set of street wear peels himself out of his seat. He’s wrapped a heavy scarf around nearly his entire face, a baseball cap blocking the rest. “Oh Metropolis. It’s been too long. Laying low is such a bum-mer.” Like an ice storm in the desert, something is wrong about this guy. He moves kind of like gelatin, wobbling his way to the monorail’s facilities without acknowledging the chaos.
“Can’t wait to get a bite to eat.”
- - - - - - - - - -
The sci-fi work sphere returns to its translucent state as the camera feed is none the wiser.
Noon.
Zeet Zeet Zeet, a near imperceptible alarm whirs from the surrounding physical lab speakers. Mercy sits agitated in her CEO office atop Lexcorp while watching the lab on a small screen—he still hasn’t changed back. She purses her lips.
“Sir?”
Since her inception, Karen Starr has made life a living hell. It’s Luthor, yes, but living on massive uppers and flaunting a body that the media cannot resist. A body that hungers for attention and cannot be satiated, she is a malformed fame monster lusting after power. Mercy flashed to she and Lex before all this madness, before the cancer. It was simpler then, just an upper office flirtation that went too far some nights. Didn’t hurt that besides some fun, her job as Luthor’s second paid astoundingly. And he’s so hands on with the company and his own side endeavors that Mercy’s part was easy.
But Karen. Mercy kept visualizing the protoplasm matrix swallowing Luthor whole, leaving nothing recognizable behind. A blonde stranger. The one night they had was different. Rougher and more impersonal. Lex refused to let go of the matrix, something about paranoia. It was always something. And yet, he tried a few times to express himself through his Karen form, eventually forcing Little Lex out in hopes of satisfying the three of them. Karen entered Mercy, but the look on her otherworldly face was baffling. “I-I can’t feel it, Mercy.” She pumps harder, as everything recedes back to female. “No. No.”
Their relationship broke. Karen competes with her now, almost mocking the break up. A game.
Mercy shakes herself from the past.
“You have a train to catch, Lex.” She radios in flatly as the silent alarm wanes.
Karen muses at the name. “Wonderful as always, my dear.” she flirts towards the camera “Seems it is time I prepare for my debut”. She takes a moment of silence, stepping outside of her work bubble to think. Suddenly, Karen is hit with a small headache, sifting through the recall on how to use her super speed. Quick images of vibrating hands, races around the world with Flashes, rushing into a room to kiss her boyfriend from the future, saving people from inside a falling building, whirling around to change costumes in a twister, all first-hand from Supergirl’s life. The rush is glorious, a different flavor from even the matrix bonding. Mainline emotions. Always so pure.
Mercy quietly talks into her mic. “Hey, uh, while I have your ear do you have any company suggestions? Numbers have been stable so far…and I miss us working on…you know business.”
“Uhnngh Rao that never gets old.” Karen says with a light spittle, shaking from adrenaline. What about more, a passing thought whispers. That future world. Evolve.
The next kickback staggers her, accompanied by a violent sound of bones breaking. And in a brief moment the mature body of Power Girl oscillates to that of Supergirl. It’s quick but the little rejections are always the most painful.
“Lex?”
Kara Zor-El stands awake in Luthor’s lab, haggard, swimming in now-baggy clothing. “This creepy dungeon place again? Beats being in that vault of his.” She sees the ill-fitting and rather revealing bodysuit Lex was wearing. “And these clothes…yikes.” Supergirl wraps the lab coat tightly closed around the black suit. The actively glowing gadgetry on her gloves give inspiration, trying to use her x-ray vision through the lead-lined lab and press as many buttons on the wrist pad as possible. “There’s always friggin traps. It’s Luthor. So…can’t smash through like last time…"
She whips up a storm with her abilities. “Something will work.”
Nothing does.
“Ughhhh, you dick. What did you do to my st-stomach?” She says as if having indigestion. A hand slithers beneath her skin, and up into her shoulder. Her figure violently buckles mid-stride. “Nghh, So plan for the offshore pharmacy dealings and use the encrypted shadow accounts—No! G-get out of my head, you creep!” Kara’s mind keeps rapidly flashing snippets of heroism and love, her entire familiarity with her gifts. Her photographic recall of the Legion of Superheroes and their wonderful summer spent together in the future. “Get out of my life!”
Supergirl mirrors the same pained migraine position she regained consciousness on. Her body snaps around, arching her spine as she grows an entire headheight . It’s just…She can’t stop thinking about her lost loves and how she may never see them again. Late nights with Brainiac 5 under the swirling twin moons. A deeper love. The image of them on the celestial sands is wrong…not her, but the other her. Power Girl, stealing everything. Every kiss. Every tender moment. I want it all, the voice is an androgynous layering of Luthor and his feminine mask.
Under the lab coat the black latex fills out, bursting largely from her chest and legs. Massive breasts slam outward, the areolas heavily swollen. Her buttocks expand into a phenomenal sight. Kara drools under the ungodly pressure clawing at her skull.
Amidst the changes, she grows and rejects a sizable package of male anatomy between her thighs. The penis is sucked back in with a small slurp. Against the floor, Kara wills herself to remain as whole as possible, pushing back against the physical expansion as much as she can muster. Unfortunately there’s not much of her left.
Kara’s eyes roll back. Her face advances to its sharper adult state, as her entire figure convulses inward. The final maturation firms into place as tight muscles ripple across her athletic physique, Lex is driving again.
She reacclimates to her expected form and regains her spatial awareness following the brief episode. Not much can bring Lex’s new body to sweat, let alone hit her with the pangs of exhaustion, except this. The blonde goddess glistens under the industrial lighting, panting. Her pupils rapidly expand back, coating Lex's mind in a wave of feminine inebriation. The Power Girl once more.
“Okay, maybe a little old.” She’s peppier; a megadose of earnest, spunky super high schooler persona into the base levels of narcissism, jealousy and the never admitted napoleon complex is a hell of a blend. “Thanks for sharing, Kara. You are so right, I didn’t need all the extra appendages.” Her hands readjust the provocative suit, working out wrinkles for the smoothest washboard abs. She looks at her putty creation—now hardened into crystalline red gem. A nasty chuckle escapes her lips. “A waste of time, honestly. I’m perfect as is." She moans in her afterglow.
”The train, Lex.” Mercy says with haste into the mic. Back at her desk, she adds another tally to her page. Fifteen impromptu changes in four months, even for the valuable piloting recall, its against plan.“God damn it.”
She saw Karen flinch at the name yet again. Even sneer. Time to call Hamilton.
Karen lingers in her palpable disdain, her shark eyes locked to the news wall. ‘Lex Luthor: Dead’. That sinister smile again. “After the show, get Hamilton ready for me.” She almost sings the words, despite her lifeless visage.
“Power Suit Omega. Activate.”
And suddenly, she’s gone. Speeding out of the room and whipping herself into a small vortex, the Lex Luthorian bombshell mad scientist in her black latex and smock vanishes in the heavy winds and Power Girl—clad in her white bodysuit with a notable boob window in place of any logo or crest, the former Supergirl’s red cape fashioned down to a shortened shoulder accessory, and blue accents in the form of gloves and wedge boots. The changing motion is so fluid and graceful, as if she’s done it for years.
Behind in the vacant vaulted lab resting atop a holographic workstation, the crimson putty hardens into a gem form. Inside, a small glowing red core appears. It’s energy swirls with potential.
- - - - - - - - - -
The covered man makes it inside the restroom and as he sits down he hears a small beeping behind him. A final bomb waiting to flip the monorail off its tracks, nestled behind the toilet.
“Heh. Wow.”
Boom.
The final explosion punches through the entire hull of the train, flipping it off the rails entirely.
“Hm. Well the hole was neat. Still, bombs worked.” Karen relays to Mercy on approach.She shifts into a blur of white and red speeding through the Metropolis Monorail station, to cut straight to the action and circle below the derailed hull. Power Girl catches a few passengers that were sucked out of the train car and places them on a nearby single story pizzeria.
Planting herself below the center of the monorail she catches the flaming transport moments away from it hitting the city street. A quick frost breath knocks out the fires and the remaining people are let off the now stationary hull.
A surprising, albeit calculated, zero lives lost.
The lone casualty was her blue right hand glove.
One of the passengers, a little girl, runs up to the hero.
“Thank you Supergirl!” She says full of excitement, eyes beaming.
Karen corrects “I’m uh..not feeling so super these days.”
The young girl shrivels into shyness with the smallest “oh”.
“Power Girl ” Karen says back warmly with a soft smile. “Please and thank you.”
The news arrives on scene for a few interviews with the people and with this new hero. It’s photo op central. With all this baggage free adulation, Power Girl is thriving. Lex is thriving.
Rustling behind the happy scene the ragged man stumbles into frame, the clothing now burned beyond repair. His gate is improving the closer he gets to the idolized blonde in a cape. “I love this city. Random EMPs. Jail breaks. Re-jail breaks. And flying supermodels. Never know what you’re gonna get.” The coat tears off his body, revealing a purple body with styled silver lines running throughout. He’s a walking humanoid blob the size of a basketball player.
The Parasite.
Power Girl turns as her loving crowd screams at the arrival of the supervillain. “This is a surprise.” Guess I get to flex twice today. Imagine the adrenaline rush.
“Step back, everyone.” She commands.
Cut to Mercy, just irate at her computer. “Doesn’t matter. You said it yourself. The bombs worked. You did your train catch. Real life superhero. You’re very own Power brand. Point proven. Get back here.”
Karen flicks off her earpiece and begins to move the civilians out of range.
- - - - - - - - - -
“Hamilton, you piece of crap. Pick up. Pickuppickuppickup.” Mercy says.
“Yes. Yes. What do you need to know this time?” Dr. Hamilton is so annoyed. Its these two yelling at him all the time.
“Fifteen minutes of footage that he’s getting sloppy on. Clearly altered. Dumbest smart person I’ve ever friggin’ met. What did you two talk about?”
"Whatever happened between you two since this started is…”
“None of you business.” She blasts.
“Hhm Fine. Today was more grandstanding from our lovely leader. I’m stuck decoding Apokaliptian Motherbox code and quantifying the livelihood of Amazonians under random weather conditions.” He fumes. “I did get test results. Lex still has the cancer, but I figured either way he won’t listen to my advice. So. Moving on. I need him in to Alteration ASAP.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“There is less of him by the day. Let me show you.” Hamilton says, readying up a private video.
- - - - - - - - - -
“Hey! Look a raisin on steroids.” Power Girl jokes poorly. She’s cleared the near-crash site city block free from anybody besides her and the Parasite. "I gotta know, who wished for chewed up bubble gum to be a real boy, huh?"
He still shuffles around unpredictably, his body rubbing on walls as if his legs were steering his entire form. A small gurgled voice chokes out of his toothless mouth, “Grrrlll. Tryinnnggg. Eeeett.” His mind blank from the overwhelming sensation of hunger, yet still working to think coherently.
“Ok Rudy, really, enough games.”
Walking backwards, Parasite breaks into the pizza parlor.
Power Girl cocks her head. “Huh.”
Mercy’s video call with Emil Hamilton has taken an odd turn. Video in video. They watch old footage taken without Luthor’s realization: Lex has taken to sleeping in a sensory deprivation tank to aid in quieting all the super abilities and revert to himself behind vaulted doors. Even in his sleep his body fluctuates amidst cold sweats and trembling, from Kara to Karen to Lex, round and round. Different body parts mix and match. Restless and exhausted, Luthor’s maleness is unable to contend with the greater feminine waves or the withdrawal from not having superpowers. No matter what, Karen is the one who wakes up each day, wandering through the mental haze until reaching sunlight in any form. Usually loading up on a single glowing super serum takes place of real sun in the morning, like clockwork.
“Even the high-end solar serum dosing has lost its touch, he’s rejecting it.” Mercy says with a color of worry in her voice. “Why even use it…?”
“Half right. I’d argue what you’re seeing isn’t rejection. That would be far more violent, quite similar to paint peeling… but added rigor mortis. At this stage the dosing has little effect, only negatives if given to his internal cancer-ridden center. This is just the body finding itself; she is the result of its compromise between Lex and Supergirl, all fueled by his desires no doubt. But the wear and tear on its multimorphic nature could be why our glorious benefactor is having issues peeling himself away from it. He’s perpetually exhausted from sleep-changing and addicted to more than one aspect of the feminine form.”
“Have you found a second brain yet?” Mercy says after a long worried pause.
“No luck. No one is biting.”
- - - - - - - - - -
The last man in the surrounding area has been held hostage. Too stubborn to show himself or leave the pizza he ordered. Now, he’s in the clutches of The Parasite.
“Jones. Put that idiot down. Or I’ll put you down.”
“Oh there you are. I’ve been smelling dinner and wondered where it was coming from. Wasn’t here.” Parasite smiles. He lightly saps his prey and throws the body aside, directing his full attention to the stunning blonde in front of him. Her radiating energy is so wild and uncontrolled, the likes of which he’s never seen. Drove him to delirium for a second there. “The things I will do to you.”
“You disgusting, purple pile of sludge. I should have fired you when I had the chance. Bungling that STAR Labs delivery job was a decent hour of work for me to fix. You are lucky that chemical spill turned you into some Z-List monster and not a street smear. Guess I’m, like, going to rectify that.” She flips her hair in a very posh way.
Parasite walks closer to the hovering Power Girl.
“I like this role playing game, Supergirl.” His hollow purple mouth waters and sprouts random clusters of teeth. “Keep going.” He continues to swell beyond his athletic human build into something garish. “Talk nasty to me.”
The ‘hero’ rolls her eyes.
“Ugh. Like, I’m not going by that anymore. It’s Power Gi—Rudy, step back.”
“This energy. So good.” Parasite lunges at her neck. Power Girl’s super speed far outclasses him, and her fist barrels into Parasite’s chest at point blank range. But, the contact is enough. She doubles back in pain as her hand is seared by his acid touch. All the while, Jones is flung back down the street block but not nearly as far as the heroine intended.
She felt him in her head and sapping her strength. It’s enough to bring Lex down from the high felt from incorporating more of Kara.
And this wound. She can’t feel her fingers. They look wrong.
“What is even happening?” The wound ripples up her to her bicep, tearing flesh.
Parasite smiles, cocking his head. “Mmm. Strange. It’s not just you in there.” He races to her, an instantaneous stampede, powered up and ready for more. This catches Power Girl by surprise; he’s not supposed to be this fast. As Lex, she’s watched plenty of battles between Superman and the monster from her LexCorp penthouse over the years. He’s chump change. He’s nothing.
Parasite holds her fist in one hand and midsection in the other, finding the storage pockets of inactivate super serum kept in the white power suit. “You juicing, baby girl? Hrnn. Gone for a chunk a change and here you’re back as a whole snack. Look at these muscles.” He absorbs nearly all the reserves and bites into her neck. The teeth have rapidly evolved to pierce her Kryptonian skin. He tears off flesh at her collarbone, exposing the human core underneath.
“Get off!” Lex screams, her voice full of fear. "Get off of my body!" Power Girl ignites her eyes in a violent display of heat vision and shreds through the globular villain, crumpling up afterward to favor her ruined righthand side.
- - - - - - - - - -
As Mercy finishes her correspondence with Hamilton, the LexCorp office dims to a faint glow and a warhead warps in, dead center of the room. The metal casing is decorated in a classic era wartime pin up girl with the phrase “From Oolong with Love”. It has a bottle of champagne and letter taped to its metal exterior. “To Luthor, you swine” is written on the letterface in big decorative script.
Mercy sits dumbfounded. She shakes her head annoyed at the people she associates with because of work. “Spoke too soon about dumbest smart guy, Ham. I need to make a call.” She bails on their call.
- - - - - - - - - -
Parasite stands forked in two from the hip. Just as quickly as the attack happened, he reforms himself. His body still processing the overdose of energy and memories he swallowed from Power Girl. His body swells in her presence, to a looming size and bloat of an upright minivan. “Oh wow.” Multiple layers of teeth harden in his mouth, a walking magenta shark. “Heh. Since when is Lex Luthor a lady?” Parasite mocks in a perfect recreation of Power Girl’s voice. “I knew you rich folk were into the kinky stuff. But..uh…faking your death to come back as a superchick is next level wild.” He returns to his baritone Brooklyn accent. “Truth be told. You got real hot, boss. And you know that. I’m a li’l jealous.” The purple behemoth gurgles through his drooling maw. “I’d love ta team up with ya on this…what was it? Were you destroying the supergoofs league or just live out a fantasy where people actually like you? Baby girl just wanna be loved?” He laughs like a drowning animal. “With an ass like that…”
“Enough!” Power Girl rockets into Parasite, full body checking him into several buildings. She stands a bit slower from the added poisoned areas, just exuding rage and labored breath. Her first super battle not going as planned. “Too much emotion. Control.” She whispers to herself. “He’s an imbecile. Jones doesn’t know anything.” The injuries are taking their toll. Bite marks and adjacent areas have started rejecting the hybridization, bubbling off her shoulders and down her arm. It’s a patchwork with how much woman is missing on her right side, having the blistered and bruised trapezius back muscles and immobile forearm of Lex’s human side covered by the red cape. “Keep it together.”
The sun’s rays aren’t enough, maybe for a natural Kryptonian. But not this. She collects herself to check her serum reserves. Maybe they could stop it. The four capsules are down to fractional doses. “With the energized kick this could work. This has to work.”
One deep breath. Focus. Listen for radio waves. “Find the earpiece, you overconfident ass.” Not able to fly, and reduced to a tender hover, Power Girl super jumps into the rubble of a downed building. She is tracking the fight in reverse.
“Ohhhh Lexy. Now I’m gonna crack you open eat that gooey center.” Parasite hovers off the ground he was cratered in and balls up to restructure himself. His gargantuan form begins shifting into a more streamlined humanoid shape. Once a shark-toothed hellhole, Parasite’s mouth caves in. It reabsorbs the swath of teeth shrinks until there sits a stunningly beautiful face underneath. Each arm folds in on themselves as they compress to a tight muscled variants. His legs follow suit, as his butt bubbles out. The compression works throughout his entire body, the chest and waist folding churning and stacking over each other until compressed into a tight feminine body. A purple goopy echo of Power Girl’s body from pure absorbed muscle memory. “One or two day binge and this’ll be permanent. Forever powers, baby. ”
The once-monstrous villain vaults back to ground zero of the battle.
- - - - - - - - - -
“Life comes at you fast, Ms. Graves.” The weasel-like voice cackles.
“Dr. Sivana. Back on topic. I know you had previous engagements with my old boss. Some of which he clearly has forgotten.” Mercy hims and haws to the very stereotypical mad scientist chatting her up.
“The warhead was an inside joke!” He howls.
“Things here have taken quite a turn. I am sending you data that three people in the world know about, and in return you agree to the deal.” She readies up the video Hamilton had sent her, and the accompanying two physicals done of Karen Starr and Lex Luthor, proper at the start of the change.
“There’s nothing in it for me, girly.” Sivana protests in his elfish tone. “I’m very busy with my own caped problems. Very busy.” He tacks on a Well-I-Never scoff for good measure.
“Lex can’t fix this. Prove you’re better.” She clicks send.
Sivana erupts in gross mad laughter seeing her files. HAW HAH HE HAW
“Envy is one thing. I always assumed the hatred for Kryptonians was a cover for something deeper. Hehe hawhaw but to knowingly stand side-by-side with the Man of Steel after killing his only lineage from his lost legacy AND wearing her face while doing it. What a loon!”
“And ...just creepy.” He says in his high pitched nasally cadence.
Mercy’s amused. She looks at the feed, the bald impish Doctor surrounded by death machines and torture devices. She raises an eyebrow to his pot-judging-kettle jabs. In his over-sized chair staring at footage of Power Girl rescuing a derailed train Sivana slams back a chocolate bar and shouts “His narcissism knows no bounds. Even the gender line!” he cackles at his own joke. Mercy’s previous smile fades to a pursed contempt.
The Doctor ends their talk with a haunting line. “Give me the time and I will restore Luthor. It will be a joy to take this from him.”
- - - - - - - - - -
“At last!” Power Girl holds up the earpiece. She’s looking rough. Parasite having taken another bite from her abdomen during the last scuffle, spreading the infection all the way down her right side as small seams in her flesh rip open. It looks like she was stung by a massive bee in a number of places, boils and lesions all over the exposed human bits. It’s not pretty. Can’t afford to use up energy on heat vision. Her healing factor is working its ass off.
But now she has her ace.
“Mercy energize the back up cells. Now!”
- - - - - - - - - -
Back at the penthouse, watching the brawl, Mercy is flirting with the idea. Maybe not? Here’s one good way to get rid of Karen Starr and on her very first adventure nonetheless. Wouldn’t even need Sivana.
“…Lex.”
She sits in silence, thinking of Hamilton and his little beard. “Technically, that would be rejection. Quite similar to paint peeling… but added rigor mortis. Pain you can’t even imagine.”
Mercy grunts. It’s going have to end much differently than today. Fine.
She clicks the button.
- - - - - - - - - -
Each capsule activates with a glowing intensity. Nothing happens! The power suit is compromised, and the remaining, now-energized capsules won’t disburse. Both women are shocked. “Mercy.” Lex holds a defensive position as she stalls for her Second-in-Command.
“Mercy, do it.”
- - - - - - - - - -
Mercy is rapidly clicking the release trigger.
- - - - - - - - - -
Parasite lands, making a big scene dropping out of the sky into a superhero pose, now a carbon copy of Power Girl but wearing an organic purple jumper. “Blew a little smoke up your weird ass earlier, but I get the appeal. All this might just crammed into one bombshell.” She superspeed grabs Power Girl’s hair without breaking conversation. “Still, I’m no science whiz but your numbers were off. Cause this whole body horror thing doesn’t happen when I throw down with Big Blue himself. He just gets tired. Makes for easy digestion with you though. Hah, I mean look at us Kare-Bear. Twinsies.”
Power Girl freezes Parasite’s feet and hits with an off balance punch, stretching the fight as much as possible.
“Mercy.”
- - - - - - - - - -
Mercy is frantically clicking the release trigger as she listens though the earpiece.
- - - - - - - - - -
Parasite isn’t moved just partially staggered.
“Aww. you got it Baby Girl, I’ll be your friend. I’ll show you love.” Parasite spins and flings her lookalike into the upper deck of a skyscraper. With a quick sonic boom she launches up to track her prey.
"You were right."
- - - - - - - - - -
Green light.
- - - - - - - - - -
The white-hot serum injects, partially into the human and partially into the alien portions of Power Girl. She bucks in midair, as the matrix clings harder to Power Girl’s human center. Everything hurts at least nothing is numb. Her body has taken to slowly growing back over portions of the exposed and crippled Luthor bits; more of an adrenaline shot with the state she’s in. Yet, her vision is fuzzy. Starting to tunnel. It’s now or never. End the fight.
Standing in the now open-concept office building, Power Girl does a quick heel turn and knocks the rapidly approaching Parasite down into the street where the fight began. From the high vantage, she can see the purple clone hit right next to the exploded hull of the monorail. Embedded again in asphalt for the moment.
“Ok.” Power Girl exhales. She jumps down out of the skyscraper to the pavement below. Her vision is barely making out shapes. “Purple is bad. Got it.” She jokes. Her ears are ringing nonstop.
“Hey, Mercy,” Power Girl sighs heavily as she approaches her doppelganger. “You were right. All this...What an ironic exercise in overcompensation when facing uncontrollable odds. Get me out of this body. Fresh air, no headaches, and none of these...urges." She pauses. "I… need to get back to myself.”
“Oh.” Mercy answers sheepishly, now greatly worried about Sivana and his ominous scheme she ordered.
“Schedule us a dinner at 8?” Karen says in an absolutely Luthorian cadence.
Mercy silently smiles on her end.
Parasite is staggered. Directly through the exploded hull of the monorail that rests between them, the two make eye contact. Only one registers. With her one working super hand Power Girl grabs the nose of the monorail like a massive baseball bat and clubs Parasite into the stratosphere. "Suck...on that."
As the dust settles, the lone woman stands not watching her enemy minimize into the distance but look down regretfully assessing her physical toil and decisions.
Mercy’s voice chimes in to the earpiece. “Lex. The serum isn’t reacting correctly. Parasite’s draining, the lingering toxins, and how hurt you are… it’s only compromised you more. Hamilton thinks even the small dose could induce shock.”
“…Lex?”
The news media pokes their heads above and around the massive debris, judging if the super brawl has ended. All they see is Metropolis’ new super heroine face down cold in the street.
“Heck of a form, Kara. Remind me to invite you to the kid’s Little League games more.” A voice says from above. Superman flies down holding the knocked out Parasite twin with his cape as a makeshift glove. “Haven’t seen the shapeshifting bit from him in some time…” Clark takes a read of the situation. His cousin isn’t moving. The reporters. Seven blocks away the Metropolis Science Police have their van fleet with unique hulls for each of his rogues gallery.
With a blue blur he cages Parasite in MSP custody and zips back to push away the press. Lois Lane now among them. “This looks bad. Bad bad. I gotta go Lois.”
Superman scoops up the limp body of Power Girl and is horrified.
She’s mangled and hunchbacked, worse than he’s ever seen her before.
Without another word he takes flight out of the city, Karen in tow.
Below them, a tiny abandoned communiqué to Mercy.
As the two approach colder climates, Karen seizes back to pseudo-consciousness.
“Hey, you.” Clark says softly. “I didn’t get to say how good it was to see you back in the cape after such a long sabbatical.” His smile is beyond earnest.
“G-Going …where are w-we …go…?” She mumbles. Her eyes are pale. Blind.
“The Fortress. These injuries and the state you’re in…it all too much like when I fought Doomsday and …” He doesn’t want to say die. No. He didn’t die. Barely.
“Well, the regeneration chamber brought me back. You’re going to be fine. I’ve got you.”
“…et h-hands off…me…alien.” She sputters, fading. Her body goes limp once more.
Superman swallows his sadness in seeing her this way. The flight is mostly silent as they reach the Arctic, and the crystalline wonder that is the Fortress of Solitude.
He rushes them inside its walls.
“Kelex” Superman addresses a floating golden robot “Emergency prep the Kryptonian Regeneration Matrix for Kara.”
Inside a room charged with energy and lightning, an orange and red crystal egg lowers into view. The Regeneration chamber.
“A DNA sample, as always, Kal-El.” Kelex recites flatly.
“Ah. Right.” Clark takes one of Power Girl’s hairs and hands it to Kelex for the integration. The egg opens.
“Insert Karrraaaaex ZrrrrrLLLthr” Kelex sputters.
Superman is beyond stressed. This can't be going wrong too. “It’ll fix this. It has to. Kelex?”
The robot twitches and returns to setting up the procedure.
“MMmodulate the support field.”
Clark places her body in the pod, wary to the behavior of his house AI.
As the regeneration door closes, Superman turn to Power Girl and whispers “I cannot lose you Kara. What am I going to do without my Big Cousin to watch my back? Be strong Kara, like I know you are.”
The Man of Steel stands back, pondering the day’s events. how could this have happened. Above him the crystalline chamber lifts back up into the inner energy stream.
She comes to inside the chamber as the first wave of energy hits. Lex tries to peel back Karen’s face with the working left arm but everything is burning. Luthor sees with his own two eyes the predicament he’s in. “No. No!” the yells drowned out by the crashing of lightning and the muffled interior. He tears at the chest, ripping off the breasts that had clung to him for months. The regeneration process begins. Electricity ran throughout his body, healing the Power Girl form. First things first, the energized protoplasm fills battle worn holes and crippling wounds. It feeds itself down Luthor’s throat, the alien intelligence finding a mismatched human genome at the center. His body softens for the greater process at hand. The loose shell of the Karen form half dangling down Luthor’s torso shooting up with a never before seen rigidity as the regeneration energies pull the two forces of it and Lex Luthor together, inadvertently grafting the matrix onto and into Lex’s core.
Karen is as she was prior to the Metropolis battle, Lex as the primary in voice and form ideation. The internal chamber voice reads the truth of this bond: unwittingly building Karen Starr's body from Lex's idol lust and view of past lovers through the protoplasm-turned Kara.
The chamber inoculates her with a sedative.
It’s like being stuck in a nightmare. A mess of memories cycle on repeat as the chamber core is left to sift through the conflicting stories. Like a faucet left to drip, flickering bits of each’s narrative sprinkle into the hastening sequence:
Lex and Lena, born few years apart. Suicide Slums. Abusive dad. Rise to fame with LexCorp. Falling out with Lena. The arrival of the alien. Luthor’s move to military weaponry. President. Fall from grace. And rebuilding again.
Kara Zor-El. Life on Argo City, member of the Kryptonian race. Alura In-Ze and Zor-El, her wonderful parents. Last Daughter of Krypton. The rocket to Earth. Superman and the Kents. Adopted by the Danvers Family. Meeting new sister, Alex. Supergirl. Making the Superfamily and fantastic friends across the galaxy, across time.
Schoolboy Lex with the flaming red hair runs through the wondrously alien Argo City. As he runs, progressively aging into teenage Lara Zor-L, her hair a strawberry blond with shocking green eyes. The transition, a miracle in Kryptonian science. The rocket. Escaping this exploding place. Earth. Her adoption, meeting sister Lena Luthor. Being Karen Alexis Luthor. Raised in wealth and establishing LexCorp together before the fallout of becoming Supergirl. Finding a new father in Dr. Hamilton, changing names. Dating Mercy. Backstabbing the heroes and villains under false identities. Her lovely years with her new Superfamily. Now, moving on in age to become Power Girl.
Yes, it is all coming back to her now.
Each twisted scene play out in an ouroboros of logical falsehood, always Lex Luthor and always Kara Zor-El existing in the same space. Each bolt of energy strengthens the evolutionary synthesis.
Knowledge from both her component selves burns into the depths of her mind. The totality of Luthor unincorporated by the fusion is walled up, merely as passive traits, in the subconscious. His scientific acumen, Napoleonic personality, taste for women, torturous methodology. All and more are here. The same is said in a lesser degree for Supergirl. As many of her aspects were given full recall, only portions of the Danvers life and inane love of journalism she sowed under Clark's guidance are here. All the National City teenage years and close emotional bonds with Superman and the greater heroic universe. Now, this reborn woman will simply be familiar with the like, a twinge of disgust always linked with her love.
Lowering down back to the Fortress floor, the process ends. The final crackles of energy flow through the newly amalgamated Kara’s fingertips as they tease her nipples in sexual frustration. It’s as if she’s never had breasts and always had them. Her hands move rabidly in search of climax. She lusts after herself. Gradually fantasizing of a man entering her, a subdominant. She hungers to be noticed and fixates on saving the world. Moronic half-measured boy scouts don't have the balls to do what needs done to end crime. Save mankind from mankind. Her index finger edges round the freshly-minted lips as the focus slinks lower and lower. Use love, hope. Kill them with kindness, her rogue better nature thinks. Two manicured nails slips inside. Or just kill them. She relaxes in the cradle shape of the pos as the fingers reach down to her knuckle over and over. Her moans rattle the chamber as she finishes, both devouring that little loving flame from the previous Kara back into her essence, and satisfying the immediate waking urge.
The crystalline pod door opens at last.
She steps outside the pod entirely nude, glistening. Immediately, the fused goddess is awash a grey trance. The womb of regeneration was so tranquil. Now, her senses are rapidly adapting back to frenetic nature of Earth. So much feedback. Her mind fends off phantom memories of visitations to the Fortress, yet seemingly never having been here before. Everything works on impulse as her feet begin walking the path to the central sanctum; she even moves her hips like Supergirl. And yet, her body no longer has a trace of the former Supergirl’s protoplasmic matrix. It simply IS the perfect hybridization of Supergirl and Lex Luthor as built upon the DNA from the given Power Girl hair. Splitting the distance, twice, in two unique ways. She looks a few years younger, as if back to college age. Her features have altered slightly, now with a tanned olive complexion, dazzling green eyes and strawberry blond hair down to the small of her back. She’s a bit curvier than the original “Karen Starr compromise with Luthor” but everything else is identical to Power Girl's height and measurements.
Her body finally feels like her own, no pangs of surging highs or withdrawn lows. It all coalesces into a new self-love that many parts of her have wanted. Still, she can’t shake that something feels…off. Hollow. Like she’s forgetting a key piece of the personal puzzle.
Behind her small yellow crystals ping an alarm. The rather tiny noise stuns the new Supergirl to the ground. She buries her hands in her ears. Without hesitation Superman rushes in to answer the call. “Kar—Ah.” He zips back to get a nearby brown drape to cover her body with, a little flustered. And for good measure, Clark help her back up. “I set that alert so I’d know when things were settled with your recovery. Sorry, I didn’t think it would effect you so much.” He says quite concerned. "I have to remember there is a bit of a fade in, from the...you get it."
"It will not happen again." the hybrid says. She is acting like a zombie. Just mesmerized by the things she sees with a touch of confusion in her brow. Her mind is cataloging every single edge of this place for perfect photo recall. Each eye separately scans the vast light spectrums, mismatched until unifying back to her emerald iris base.
Clark takes a big breath in and exhales. “Let’s start again: You’re okay!” He follows up with giving her a big bear hug. FWAM. A quick hand to his chest. She forces him back, quick to anger and not wanting to be touched. Another oddity, Superman notes.“You’ve been out for a good couple weeks, Kar…en. Trying to get back to normal and all, I’ve also been meaning to ask, you know we float the whole Kal and Clark thing, do you—“
“I do not care. Karen, Kara. Whatever. All trivial.” She answers robotically, her dead eyes looking at the reconstructed ship in the delightfully organized Fortress display. “You said weeks?” A fraction of an eye twitch. She feels like she has missed a reconnection of sorts. "M...Mer..." she mumbles.
“Not-Dying kind of takes how long it takes.” Superman jovially shrugs. “Did your hair change?”
And with that she floats off, disappearing into the depths of the Fortress away from the eager Superman. In one hallway the archives from Superman's entire history line the walls, all mini monuments of items or preserved Daily Planet newspapers hovering in a stasis display. Midway through the exhibit, her eyes lock on one in particular, a newspaper with the police hauling off a bald man in handcuffs. “Lex Luthor Ousted as President” Her eyes widen. The entire wing has storied battles between Clark and this man. Her boyhood self before the special Kryptonian puberty ...is grown? Or?
The logic breaks her. It’s like a new hand is driving, a distant voice fighting for dominance over her vacant personality. A migraine hits that would level cities. “Good God.” Tear fall down her face. “I…Who...” For a moment, it is Lex who holds up her arm and concentrates.
Now is the part where it recedes and I see another arm. It was always my choice.
There is no other arm.
No way out.
"N-not possible. It can't be over. No. It can't be."
Lex Luthor panics. "I'm ...dead." His hold slips from the mental wheel and the lingering aspects swallowed into the shading of her active mind. Sealed below next to Kara in a new type of harmony. That missing piece slots in to cure the newborn fusion's hollow demeanor out from the kaleidoscopic noise. The woman's eyes darken into their full spectacular teal gleam. She exhales.
It's quiet.
A true melding of everything that was Kara Zor-El and Lex Luthor, and his dalliance as Karen Starr, lives in this new being. This Lara.
She takes one last look at the pocket of the Fortress she finds herself in with all the battles and memorabilia. All this history. How small it all felt. Petty. It is time to be more. With a lightly acidic chuckle, Lara speaks to the empty hall, almost taunting her formers. "Heh. I told you both before, this was inevitable."
"Now, it's totally time to go save the world."
- - - - - - - - - -
End part 3.
