Kara adjusted the frequency again, checking the numbers on her screen before closing the casing, watching as several locks snapped in place in order to keep it firmly attached, then she used her own senses to see if there was no undue stress inside the device.
Even with her kryptonian senses, one of her advanced machines would have still been better, but the small piece of Nth metal inside, when subjected to her current project, seemed to disrupt most of her monitoring tech, so her vision and hearing would have to do until she found a way of overcoming the interference.
Stepping out of her experimental chamber, she watched through the crystal window as the replication device touched the Sword of Beowulf. For nearly a full minute, nothing happened, then her re-imagined Amazo scan found the correct waveline of energy, and the Nth metal made the connection.
"Yes!" Kara almost screamed in excitement, watching as her magic storage started to fill.
Taking a breath, she realized she had started to float up from the floor and quickly came back down, but the achievement was still worth celebrating.
Not only did she have a way to refill her magical batteries, but she also made her first step in replicating Amazo's ability to copy powers. It would still be a long time before she could do it in a few seconds and at a distance, but it was working, at least on magical sources.
"Kara Zor-El," Kori's angry voice coming from the intercom interrupted her good mood. "I am most displeased with you!"
Crap, she used her complete name, Kori never used her complete name!
With no idea what she had done wrong, Kara turned off the experiment, ordered one of her Karabots to put everything away, and hurried out of her home laboratory, quickly flying up into the house.
"Ah, you're home early," Kara said, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear and looking up at her girlfriend. Crap, it wasn't even midday, which meant the tamaranean had come back from her time with the Titans much earlier.
"Friend Kara, I recognize this will be arduous. Know that it shall be even more so for me, but I believe it is necessary," Kori nodded, crossing her arms with a very serious voice. "I shall be doing the withholding of the sex."
"What? Why?" Crap, it must be serious if Kori was pulling out the big guns. "Shit, I was supposed to meet with the Titans today, wasn't I?"
"The issue is not uniquely regarding the Titans," Kori said, her body lowering until she was stepping on the ground. "You have also not contacted The Green Lantern as you pledged to The Flash, nor have you called upon friend Danette in several days."
"I… Shit. I'm sorry."
Kori was right, for quite a few days now, Kara had been finding excuses to stay at home, delaying answering messages and, while she still went out for necessary trips, she had been spending more and more time in her laboratory.
Did she really get lost on her experiments so much, or was she purposely avoiding interacting with people outside the absolutely necessary? No, there was no need to try and fool herself, she was perfectly aware that she had been avoiding people.
It was still not to the point she had started making excuses to skip patrol or refused to answer phone calls, but she had been avoiding initiating any interaction.
"Your apology is accepted. However, the ban of the sex remains," Kori nodded, struggling to keep her face angry. "Please, when was the last time you participated in an activity for fun?"
"… Tinkering in my laboratory is fun."
"That does not count."
"I… honestly can't remember," Kara usually made her own fun when patrolling Phoenix, but she didn't think Kori would accept that as an answer.
She really couldn't recall when was the last time she did something purely for fun, she had fun with Kal and Kon, but that had always been a secondary reason while doing or talking about something important.
She was used to this, on Krypton, she didn't think there was anything she ever did without reason. She did amuse herself doing a lot of experimentation or inventing things, but everything had a goal, even meeting with other scions were more for networking than fun.
"Besides, we're leaving on vacation soon. You know I have to get everything in order before we leave, and I wanted to finish a project."
Kori wasn't impressed, shaking her head. "We did not agree to a vacation so you could work harder, or avoid your friends."
"Fine, I'll call Dani."
"That is unnecessary," Kori smiled at her. "I have already contacted her, we shall do the going out this weekend with friends Selina and Troia."
"…Alright then," Kara said with a dumbfounded voice, but she was kinda glad Kori had taken the initiative.
It wasn't ideal, but being dragged around by her extroverted girlfriend was much better than closing herself off, and Kara liked that she cared enough to do it.
"Just so I know, exactly how long is this sex strike going to last?"
"It is a most serious punishment," Kori said, biting her lips in thought and almost faltering before she gathered Dexter into her arms for support and steeled herself. "There shall be… a four-day halt in our sex life. It is for your own good."
Kara would be annoyed, but Kori just looked too cute, and this was probably her way of staging an intervention without involving anyone else. Besides, she could survive four days, probably much better than Kori, even.
"What about kisses?" She lifted an eyebrow in question.
"… Kissing is allowed," Kori nodded after some thought. "It is a first offense. But I am still cross with you!"
Fair enough, Kara couldn't deny she deserved to get called out on things, and she did appreciate the help.
"I also contacted The Green Lantern and bade him come over. You are idle tomorrow morning, yes?"
She was planning to continue experimenting, but now that she'd managed to get her device to work on the sword's magic, it was more about testing how stable the connection was and trying to fine-tune things, nothing she couldn't automate.
"I am," Kara closed her eyes, then took a deep breath and decided she wouldn't stay holed up at home anymore, at least not today. "Thanks again. Do I still have time to meet with the Titans?"
An hour later, Kara was facing Kon on the mountain. The Titans were taking turns sparring with each other this morning, and they had invited her to participate as soon as she left the teleporting station.
Circling her little cousin and accelerating her perception, Kara feinted left, then delivered a straight punch to the face.
Kon dodged, moving much faster than she expected, then he grabbed her arm and, in one single movement, pulled her out of balance, delivered a disorienting jab to her face, and executed a perfect throw over his shoulder.
For a moment, Kara felt the world whirling around, but then she recovered, using her flight to stop with her back about ten centimeters above the floor, then she twisted her arm and grabbed her cousin's wrist.
The boy was so satisfied with his apparent success he didn't even resist as she pulled him, swinging his body around in a circle and smashed him face first into the ground before he could recover.
"Heh, maybe in a decade, little cousin," Kara said, getting to her feet and rotating her shoulder… her cousin had grown stronger than she expected. "You're still not considering flight in your battles."
"Ugh, did you have to use full force?"
"You just saw what happens when you don't," Kara shrugged. "If you hadn't let momentum finish that throw I'd never have managed to stop myself."
Pulling him to his feet, Kara accepted a cup of water from Kid Flash and stepped out of the fighting ring, giving way to Aqualad.
Still paying attention to her senses, Kara heard the boy-wonder trying to sneak up on her, but she didn't react until he was standing right behind her.
"Nice save," he said, trying to be as sudden as possible.
"Gah!" Kid Flash almost jumped, sending a glare to his friend. "Do you have to keep doing that?"
"Yes," Robin nodded, then turned to her. "But as I said, nice save, he almost had you there."
"Debatable," Kara snorted… the pipsqueak was right, but she wasn't about to admit that. "What do you want?"
"Why do you think I want anything?" Kara lifted an eyebrow; the boy tended to avoid her as much as possible after all. "Alright, Catwoman was asking about Poison Ivy."
She snorted, but reconfigured some of the nanomachines on her costume into a screen to check on the Villains.
"Interesting," Kara said, leaning forward as she stared at the camera monitoring Poison Ivy's new habitat.
"No," Robin said. "That's not the answer I want to hear, nothing good ever comes from 'interesting'."
"Calm down, it's nothing serious, she's not even on Earth right now."
It had only been a day since Kara had landed the research ship back on the Moon, releasing Ivy into a mile wide protective dome near one of the poles. There were few amenities yet, and only a limited supply of water and soil, but there was an advanced computer which could program sustone.
Indeed, it seems like Ivy was already making use of it, ordering the computer to grow several pieces of advanced equipment.
She had also started some early preparations in order to terraform the land; some of her plants seemed to be removing toxins from the ground, storing them in large fruits while others were trying to adapt to survive the harsh environment.
Small vines were also working to infiltrate the ground, trying to extract more water trapped in lunar regoliths, the layer of loose material atop solid bedrock… With minimal success.
Without running water or wind, the Lunar soil had never suffered erosion, being extremely sharp, enough that even the thinnest root would suffer damage trying to dig through it; there was also the complete lack of organic material to sustain life.
But Ivy WAS making progress, it would never work outside, the Moon just didn't have an atmosphere for it, but inside a proper dome, with an artificial atmosphere and radiation protection…
Kara disassembled the screen, then started considering how easily she could expand the dome, and how she could acquire better materials for Doctor Isley to work with.
Honestly? She could probably achieve similar things by buying an island or land from a small developing country, but anything she produced here on Earth would have to deal with political pressure if she grew large enough.
Not that there wouldn't be political pressure if she developed the Moon, but she could easily ignore that, after all, what were they going to do, send a Supervillain or the Justice League after her?
"Supergirl," Robin spoke, reminding her that he was still waiting for an answer.
"Tell your future stepmother not to worry, Doctor Isley is awake and perfectly fine. I'll be getting her some psychological treatment soon."
"I'm sure she'll be glad to hear that, but when are you handing her over?"
"I mean… I'm not?"
The boy wonder sighed, even closing his eyes for a few seconds. "You know it doesn't matter that she's on the Moon and the authorities can't get to her, right? You're still committing a crime in the US by helping her evade capture."
Leaning back, Kara took another drink of water as she thought about the situation. If she was honest, she didn't actually care to follow any laws she didn't personally agree with, and she was powerful enough that most governments would look the other way anyway.
But her cousin did care, and she also had no wish to put him into a complicated position.
"Look, do you really want Isley back in Arkham? Because we both know that's the only location capable of containing her… Well, that or Belle Reve, but she really doesn't belong there."
"… Batman isn't going to like this."
"Fine, if the League as a whole asks me to hand her over, I will, but I am providing help, trying to actually make her abandon crime."
She'd hand her over, alright, but Kara also had no compulsions about using money to influence her case, and she could probably manage to do it legally, too.
Besides, they wouldn't; the League had more important things to deal with, and most would support her attempt to make Isley better; they did it to their own villains often enough.
"Supergirl," Red Tornado called her, the android being the League's contact with the Titans for today. "A moment if you will."
"Sure," getting another glass of water, Kara walked with Tornado to the side.
"This is a personal matter, but I've reviewed the work you did on my sister several times… I wish to ask, how difficult would it be to adapt her design to mine?"
"I mean, I didn't blackbox that part of her design," Kara shrugged. "I thought you were already building an alternative."
Red Tornado seemed surprised, then a little embarrassed as he answered. "I...was, however, there seems to be a problem of compatibility with my software, I had hoped it was something you did to protect your technology."
That was surprising, as far as she knew, there shouldn't be any problems adapting the synthetic skin and sensory equipment, at least not between models from Doctor Morrow.
"I can take a look if you want but, if I had to guess, contrary to your siblings, you were never built to mimic a human, your core programming simply lacks the necessary code to understand the sensations."
"That is unfortunate," he said with a neutral voice, but Kara could sense a much larger disappointment from the android.
"Look, my suggestion is to use whatever body you've built for a month," she said after some consideration. "Your programming is hyper adaptive and capable of change, it may only be a matter of time until it learns to interpret the new data and, if not, I can look into doing it manually."
"Thank you, I believe I shall do that, although the new body makes me slightly uncomfortable."
Turning to the side, Kara heard footsteps coming from inside the mountain. It seems like Kori had finally decided to join the team in the training room.
"Friend Sphere, you are being fatuous," the tamaranean said, arriving from a hallway in the mountain. "She will not dismantle you, I promise."
"Yes," Zatanna said, walking at her side and petting one of the super rabbits. "Kara may be scary, but from all accounts she cares, she wouldn't hurt you."
In the middle of the two girls, the hyper advanced sentient sphere rolled, its eye-like red lens swirling to focus on Kara before it slowed down, trying to put Kori between them.
"Actually, even if I did dismantle her, I guarantee there would be no damage," Kara quickly reassured the interesting piece of advanced technology. "In fact, I think she's still a little out of it, so she'd be better than ever once I finished fixing and reassembling her."
For some reason, Sphere stopped entirely, red 'eye' quickly swirling towards the nearest exit.
"Cut it out," Kon growled, releasing Aqualad from a hold, then pointing at her nanomachines starting to take the shape of various tools behind her. "And dismantle that, you're not touching Sphere."
When did she… Guess she'd have to take a look at her current neural control, it was getting a little too responsive for her liking.
"Fine, you know I'd never do anything without permission, but I swear she wouldn't even notice if I…"
"No," Kon crossed his arms and shook his head, his words leaving no room for discussion.
"Tsk… it's just, she's New God technology! Krypton had some examples of it, but I was never allowed to study them, and she is still damaged, I know I could fix it."
"See, there truly is nothing to fear," Kori patted Sphere's metal shell. "She simply desired to assist in fixing the damage done by Psimon."
Kara nodded, as someone who was still missing a leg… even if a substitute was already being cloned now that her damaged cells were fixed, she wanted to help make Sphere whole.
Being able to study New God tech was just a bonus… Granted, a very nice bonus, but not the goal.
"Why are you here anyway?" Kon asked, approaching the sentient machine and giving it a friendly pat.
"Friend Sphere informs me she has noticed a 'Boom Tube' forming in sensor range; she believes her friends have arrived to rescue her."
Kara vaguely remembered something about that, but she couldn't recall any of the details, probably something from the comics or an unimportant episode of the show…
"I see, are they coming here?" Robin asked.
Kara snorted. "Only if they already knew about the mountain, even New God tech couldn't sense anything here, not anymore."
The mountain's safety features may have been a joke before, but she had a lot of time to change that; there was no way they could sense Sphere's location.
Well, she wasn't about to underestimate New Genesis; they and the Guardians were some of the handful of civilizations more advanced than Krypton, so maybe they could locate her with a focused scan, but not if they were searching the entire world, or even just the country. It would have to be something focused on the city.
Rolling a few feet away from Kori and Zatanna, the New Genesphere shifted with almost no noise, turning into a neat red motorcycle with two turbines behind her.
Kon smiled and started to mount the Sphere. "Guess she's eager to meet with them."
"How about we don't reveal our hideout's location?" Robin asked, shaking his head at Kon. "Supergirl, you still have a teleportation platform large enough for Sphere?"
"Yep, I can take everyone if you want? And good idea, they'd probably sense Sphere the moment she was out of the Mountain, better to teleport away and let it remain hidden."
"Pass," Kid Flash said, starting to stretch now that it was his turn against Aqualad. "Unless you guys think you need the help?"
"Titans," Red Tornado said, interrupting the discussion. "I apologize, but what are the chances Sphere is wrong about who she sensed? The information I have is that Boom Tubes aren't used only by New Genesis."
"There is no doubt," Kori shook her head. "Friend Sphere said she recognized the signature of the Motherbox who created the Boom Tube."
"Understood. And what are the chances the League could establish a conversation with them?"
Sphere released a new string of sound, to which Kori nodded, her ability to learn languages with a touch somehow having worked on the machine. "She said it is improbable. Any envoy from New Genesis would not want to interfere on Earth, Friend Sphere is surprised they are even here."
"I see," Red Tornado said, seeming to think about his next words carefully. "I understand the Titans wish to operate independently as much as possible, but you have agreed to League's supervision, I'd like to at least oversee the meeting."
"I'm going," Kara immediately said. "I don't want to miss the chance to get some scans of New God tech."
More importantly, whenever New Gods were involved, it was always related to Apokolips, and Kara had no intention of being caught by surprise by any of their plots, or to let those she cared about get anywhere close to them without a fuckton of protection.
"I don't think the entire team is needed for this," Aqualad said, causing everyone to look at him. "If they're only here for Sphere, then showing up in force may seem overly aggressive."
"I can send the platform back as soon as we're out of here," Kara said. "You guys can keep watch and, even if they start blocking teleportation when we meet, it won't have too wide a range; you can always appear close by and be there in less than a minute using the Bioship."
"I will also be logging the information on the League's servers," Red Tornado said. "If there are any problems, they'll be warned."
"So, who's going?"
_______________________________________________
If you like this story, think about reading one of my other works or giving me a tip if you have some spare change by supporting me on patr eon.com/CapCaverna or ko -fi.com/capcaverna