Rise of Supergirl Ch. 6 (Marvel/Twilight)

The Girl Who Became a Superhero!

Kara hovered in the sky above Seattle, her cape billowing in the wind.

She had already recorded her introduction for her first video using a camera created from her communicator's liquid geo cache. It operated as a sort-of micro-drone that stuck to her clothes or followed her around, tethered to her communicator directly so it could keep up with her at high speeds.

Kara planned to use the drone to record absolutely everything that she came across during her adventures as Supergirl. Why wouldn't she? She'd be able to control her own press this way. There wasn't any tech on Earth that could stop Kelor from sharing Kara's videos, so that wasn't an issue.

She peered down at the city, her telescopic X-ray vision picking out minute details from kilometers away, through the jungle of concrete and metal.

She could also hear every voice in the city like they were right next to her. If she let go of her control over her senses, she'd likely be able to hear the whole planet at once, if not further beyond. Not that she'd necessarily be able to process that much sensory input. That would be an insane amount of information.

Her abilities required some fine-tuning, that was for certain. She was sure her X-ray vision would be debilitating if she used it for too long and in a place that was too crowded. Her Kryptonian brain was incredibly adaptable, but the information overload would undoubtedly be a lot to take in at first.

She would need to set aside some time for training to help her become more skilled with her powers. Bella should be happy to have a workout partner. They'd make a day of it.

It'll be fun!

As Kara expanded her senses to listen to for any crime in the city, she heard a woman screaming. That didn't take long, though Kara was a little surprised. It wasn't even noon, yet!

Without wasting a second, Kara rocketed through the skies and towards an alley in one of the shadier neighborhoods.

As Kara flew above the alley, she saw a young woman held at knife point by an old homeless man. Kara had less time than she thought to intervene as she saw the man start to lunge for the woman.

Kara flew straight down and landed in between the woman and her assailant. The cheap pocketknife was stopped dead when it impacted Kara's suit.

The man looked down at the knife in disbelief. Kara was perfectly fine, but the knife was slightly bent and chipped, like he'd just tried to stab through tempered steel. "What-?" was all he could get out before Kara slapped him on the arm with the slightest bit of force.

He flew into the alley wall like a sack of bricks. Kara heard multiple bones breaking, both from her strike and the impact afterwards. She was a little pissed that this guy got so close to killing someone on her watch, so she may have used a bit too much force. She needed to perfect her restrain sooner rather than later, before she accidentally killed someone.

It was easy to moderate her strength when everything was calm and peaceful. Situations like this were a bit harder for Kara to manage. She cared way more about the life of the woman behind her, having devoted most of her focus to ensuring she didn't accidentally hurt her.

If a criminal was harmed because Kara was paying more attention to the victim, she'd count that as a minor problem. Could be worse, that's for sure.

Kara examined the man and found he was high off his rocker, so she didn't really care that much about what he would tell people. He was unconscious and would probably die if she left him here, so she decided to do the responsible thing and drop him off outside a hospital.

Kara picked up the broken man. Before she left, she turned to the woman and said, "You won't have to worry about this guy again. I've gotta go, so stay safe! Bye!"

Kara didn't want to spend too much time consoling victims, and this woman hadn't suffered too much. Crime waited for nobody, so Kara moved on as quickly as possible. The faster she moved, the more people she could help. 

After she dropped the criminal off at the hospital with a note describing what he did pinned to his forehead, Kara listened carefully once again for anyone that needed her help.

There wasn't anything too pressing, but as she flew around, she noticed an unkempt man whose backpack was filled to the brim with illegal drugs on one of the street corners. Better than nothing. If it was just weed, she wouldn't have any problems. She wouldn't say no to a little green from time to time.

This guy was packing some of the hard shit, though. Kara wasn't sure what all the different drugs were, but she knew they weren't just the fun kind.

Kara landed on the sidewalk in front of him and grabbed him by the collar of his jacket, lifting him slightly off his feet. "Hello there," she said happily as the dealer struggled to escape her iron grip.

"What the hell!?" he screamed and tried to throw a punch from his awkward position, dangling in the air.

Kara caught his arm at the wrist with her free hand and held him still, pressuring him into silence. Once he realized he couldn't get free, Kara asked, "So, you sell drugs?" To get the man to answer, she put a decent amount of pressure on the man's wrist, causing his bones to creak under the stain.

The dealer gulped in fear and pain, nodding, "Y-Yeah."

Kara's eyes took on a sharp glint. "Do you sell to kids?" she asked, paying special attention to his racing heartbeat. If he did, his punishment would be a lot worse.

Kara knew there was only so much that could be done about the drug trade. Where there was a demand for something, someone would eventually rise to meet the people's desires. She put her foot down when it came to any crazy bastards nonchalantly corrupting kids, though.

"No- No! I don't sell to kids! I swear!" he cried, practically begging her to believe him. He didn't want to end up a statistic, dead on the street. He wasn't sure what the hell was happening, but he sensed the danger he was in. "I do a lot of messed up shit, but I keep kids out of it!"

Kara believed him, for what little his word was worth. "Do any of the others in your gang?" her eyes glowed, daring him to lie to her. Drug dealers were usually part of bigger gangs, right? They had to get the product from somewhere.

"Some of 'em, yeah," he admitted, trembling. "I don't know who, man! Lots of 'em do! We're dealers! Most of us are high off our asses to begin with."

What was she supposed to do with this guy? Kara didn't have that much faith in the American Legal System, especially when it came to non-violent drug offenders. There were far too many people invested in the pharmaceutical industry or the for-profit prison industry for her to truly trust that system.

She decided to let the strung-out guy go with a warning. It wasn't a perfect solution, but superheroes weren't cops. She would focus on protecting people before anything else. Justice and application of the law could be left to people with more free time.

"Fine," Kara sighed. "Tell me everything you know about the drug trade in this city, then I'll let you go."

A minute later, Kara had a rough understanding of the gangs and drug lords in the local area. She wanted to go hunting for drug dealers immediately, but decided some research and caution might be best. Rao only knew who was involved in what awful, shady practices behind the scenes in a country like this.

Things would be so much easier if she could just smash everything. She dropped the dealer on the ground and glared at him. "Get out of here. Count yourself lucky you're getting off with a warning. Don't let me catch you out here doing this shit again. Try for a real job, maybe?" she shooed him away after confiscating his merchandise. Without another word, the dealer booked it, not sparing a single glance back.

She'd bring the bag back and let Charlie deal with the dangerous stuff. There was some weed in there, though, and Kara was deadly curious to know if it had any effect on her. She doubted it, but what harm was there in testing it out?

Worst comes to worst, she could give it to Bella and help her learn how to chill out. Besides, all the coolest superheroes in Marvel and DC did drugs and made poor decisions at parties. Most of them also hooked up with supervillains from time to time, though, so maybe they weren't the best role models.

Kara looked around, seeing a few people peeking at her from behind curtains and around corners. People were wary around these parts, but Kara did cut quite the figure. She'd be surprised if they weren't curious.

Kara decided to give them a bit of a show and flew upwards from the middle of the street, rocketing off to the next emergency. She ditched the backpack on the roof of a building, deciding to come back for it when her patrol was over.

A few moments later, she was flying above an old, abandoned warehouse. Inside, she could hear the barks and whines of dozens of dogs. Scanning the structure with her X-ray vision, she saw a sprawling underground complex.

From what she could tell, this was a dog fighting ring. "Disgusting filth," Kara spat, tearing through the roof of the building and landing near a wall of stacked cages, filled with injured and sick dogs.

"Shit," Kara felt sick. "I'm so sorry, little guys. Give me a sec and I'll have you all out of there." She rushed around the cages at super-speed, breaking the locks and gently lowering the dogs to the ground.

"I may not have thought this through," Kara scratched her head as she looked at the couple dozen dogs that were loitering around, confused. What was she supposed to do with a bunch of dogs?

Ah, she'd let the police deal with it. She made a quick, anonymous call to the SPD and gave them the address.

While she waited for the cops to arrive, Kara decided to clear out the infrastructure beneath the warehouse. There weren't very many people down there, and the few Kara did see she didn't think were worth much of her mercy.

Taking care of some scum would keep her busy for a few minutes, at least.

Kara raced through the disgusting construction underground, knocking out every person she found and leaving them piled up in the warehouse above. She waited until she saw the sirens of the oncoming police, then she took off.

It was becoming rather apparent that aftercare wasn't her forte. If she was a doctor, she'd probably have the worst bedside manner on the planet.

A few minutes later, Kara heard another scream, and rushed off towards an average neighborhood filled with average houses.

What wasn't so ordinary was what was happening in one of the houses. Kara smelled blood and heard the cries of a young woman, accompanied by the jeers of men. Kara gritted her teeth that she was too late to stop at least one murder. The scent of blood in the air was too strong for the person it belonged to have survived.

Kara peered into the house with her X-ray vision, gauging the situation. Three men were lounging around poking at a dead body covered in blood. They were drinking the family's liquor while they watched another two prepare to violate the victim's wife.

Thankfully, Kara got here in time to prevent some of the tragedy, though she clenched her fists at the sight of the corpse.

Before they could do more than rip the woman's skirt, Kara burst through the front door like the damn Kool-Aid man.

Kara snarled in fury as she fully took in the scene in front of her. She flew forward, slamming into the two rapists and pulling them away from their intended target. She grabbed them each by an arm and squeezed, crushing bone with contemptible ease.

"ARGGHH!" one of them screamed while the other straight-up passed out from the pain.

Kara tossed them to the side as she turned to the other three. She grinned when she saw the confusion and fear in their eyes.

Kara decided to take care of them at human speed, so they could see her coming. She had to admit there was something a little addictive about putting the fear of Rao into criminal scum.

"You bitch!" one of the men yelled. He gathered his courage and rushed forwards, picking up a bat off the ground as he went. With a decent battle-cry, he wound up and swung, aiming to bash Kara's skull in.

Kara didn't bother reacting, allowing the bat to impact the side of her head with a crack!

To everyone's shock, except Kara's of course, the bat was the thing that broke in half, shattered, not the delicate looking girl.

"What the-?" the man asked with such confusion Kara swore she briefly saw question marks in his eyes.

Kara casually slapped her attacker, not trying overly hard to control her strength. He took the strike in the ribs, several of them snapping and leaving him gasping for breath as he slammed into a wall and fell to the ground. 

Kara slowly walked up to the remaining two. One of them tried to run, but Kara let out a beam of heat-vision, searing a hole through one of his legs. It wasn't that bad, and he wouldn't bleed out thanks to the wound instantly cauterizing, but it would definitely keep him out of the fight.

The last man was practically cowering in a corner. When Kara reached him, all she did was squeeze down hard on one of his shoulders, reducing the bone, cartilage, and muscle to pulp.

Kara turned back to the woman who was sobbing on the floor, now draped over the corpse of who Kara assumed was her husband. "Are you hurt? Physically? Do you need medical attention?" Kara asked, putting a hand on her shoulder.

There wasn't much Kara could do for the woman to soothe her losses or pain, but she could get help if she was injured, at least. "N-No, they k-killed my Jason," the woman sobbed in agony.

"I'm so, so sorry," Kara said. "I promise they won't get away with it."

She gathered the offenders together and busied herself with what she deemed to be a fitting punishment for them. Whatever the courts decided to do about these guys, if anything, would pale in comparison to Kara's justice.

Once she was done, Kara stood back to admire her handiwork. No matter what happened to these animals in the future, everyone would know their crimes. Kara felt she may have gone a little overboard, but it turns out Kara really hated rape with a passion.

Kara seared a word across the foreheads of all five of the men with her heat-vision on its lowest power output. It required some delicate adjustments, but Kara thought it would get the message across.

Taking up the entirety of their foreheads was the word, rapist.

Was that legal? Nope. Was it barbaric? Yep. Did Kara care for anybody else's opinions when it came to awful shit like this? Not even a little.

Nobody would ever forget their crimes now, and that was enough to satisfy Kara a little. She wanted to kill them, but her reputation as a hero likely wouldn't survive for long if she became known for viciously murdering her enemies.

Some light maiming of rapists was fine, probably. Everyone with a functioning moral compass hated sexual predators, and anyone who didn't wasn't someone Kara wanted to be around.

Kara could easily tell that in the future, she'd have no problem with harshly punishing any criminals who took things too far. She felt a visceral satisfaction when she crushed those men beneath her feet. She'd need to be cautious not to lose herself in her own power.

Kara wanted to be a hero, but she might not be the cuddly teddy bear that Kal-El would've been. She didn't really have a problem with that. She would just make it clear to everyone where her bottom line lay.

She bid farewell to the young widow. She then dropped the murderers off at the nearest police station's front desk. She left them with a note that had the details of their crimes, along with the phone number and address of their would-be victim so the police could send someone to deal with the aftermath. Before the cops could stop her to question her, Kara was already out the door and flying away.

She wasn't the slightest bit subtle, but she'd like to see anyone stop her from doing whatever the hell she wanted to do. She didn't have time to waste playing around with bureaucrats and representatives of the law.

At the docks, Kara spotted a suspicious group unloading a barge. There were dozens of them, and they didn't look like the average dockworker. Kara scanned them and spotted at least one firearm on each person. The shipping containers were chock full of what looked to be some sort of drugs, not that Kara was an expert.

Kara decided to test herself to see how quickly she could bring the group down, without doing too much damage.

It only took her ten seconds to disarm and incapacitate every enemy. She could've ended the fight in an instant if she didn't care about keeping them alive and preventing collateral damage.

After she was done, Kara called the police and told them where to find the barge filled with drugs, along with the tied-up grunts and lackeys that brought them into the city.

Kara spent the rest of the afternoon and well into the evening dealing with one problem after another. She knew there was crime going on everywhere, every day, but she hadn't realized just how terrible people could be to one another on a daily basis.

Every time she finished saving a damsel or beating up a group of thugs, she'd fly around and find something else requiring her attention within minutes. It felt like it was never-ending, and Kara needed a break, even if she wasn't physically tired.

After Kara returned to her ship, she changed into more casual human clothes that she fabricated, and then she flew to Bella's house.

Without bothering to knock, Kara opened the unlocked front door and strode in like she lived there. "Hey, Bella!" she shouted, knowing Charlie was still on shift and Bella was home alone. "You guys should lock your front door. Anyone could just walk in right off the street!"

"People don't bother locking their doors in a small town like Forks," Bella explained. "If someone wanted to get in, a locked door isn't going to stop them, especially if it's a supernatural threat."

"Fair," Kara shrugged. What was the population of Forks, anyways? Around three thousand, maybe?

"How was your first day in the superhero business?" Bella asked, very interested in hearing about Kara's first day out on the job.

"You'll just have to wait and see, like everyone else," Kara winked playfully. "I'll be releasing videos periodically so the media can't screw me over and blame me for things that aren't my fault just to slightly increase their ratings."

"Awesome. Can't wait," Bella grinned. She was so excited to have a friend like Kara in her life. She felt like the world had color for the first time. Not even her romance with Edward filled her with such innocent awe and longing. It was like she was a child again, seeing the world through fresh eyes.

"Neither can I," Kara murmured, thinking about her hopes and dreams for the future. If she put her mind to it, there wasn't anything she couldn't do.