The air in "The Broken Comet" was a toxic cocktail you could chew on. A dense mixture of sweet-smelling smoke from alien hookahs, the sour odor of spilled cheap liquor, and the silent despair of a hundred species who would rather be anywhere else in the vast, cruel universe. Everything was bathed in the perpetual, reddish glow of Pyrr's dying sun, an oppressive light that made the shadows stretch like smears of dried blood across the sticky, dirty floor. It was a place for endings, not for beginnings.
In the bar's darkest booth, slumped in a cracked synthetic leather seat that stuck uncomfortably to her back, sat Kara Zor-El. To the noisy clientele, she was just another drifting humanoid, a twenty-one-year-old young woman with a worn leather jacket over a thin wool sweater, and blond hair that fell messily over her eyes. Eyes of a blue so deep they seemed to absorb the bar's sickly red light, pools of melancholy that rarely hinted at the spark of what had once been.
She was drinking. Slowly, methodically, emptying a glass of "Pyrr's Nectar"—a local liquor that tasted like rocket fuel and the bitter certainty of bad decisions—and gesturing for another with a lazy hand. She wasn't seeking intoxication, at least not in the usual way. She was seeking numbness. She sought to feel the weight of normal gravity pulling on her bones, the burn of cheap alcohol in her throat, the glorious and humiliating vulnerability of simply being… mortal. Far from the yellow sun that turned her into an impregnable goddess, here, under this crimson light, she could afford the luxury of being broken.
'Twenty-one years old,' she thought with an irony so bitter she could almost taste it. 'Happy birthday. The age when Earth's humans celebrate their entry into adult freedom, into bars, into elections. For me, it's just another cycle around a sun that isn't my own, a reminder of a calendar that had died with her world.' The vision of Krypton, not as a sudden and glorious explosion, but as a home she had watched crumble slowly, day after day, haunted her like a constant shadow. The burden of an unwanted legacy, the expectation of being a symbol when inside she only felt ashes, was an unbearable weight. And here, on Pyrr, she could let it go for a while.
Her gaze, already clouded by the liquor, drifted to the center of the bar. A girl, no more than twelve years old, was approaching a table of bounty hunters with a hunched back and bony shoulders. She wore simple farm girl clothes, woven from rough threads, and held a sheathed sword in her hand, the hilt almost as tall as she was. Her voice, though trembling, was firm, a thread of steel in the middle of the bar's clamor. Kara couldn't hear the exact words, but she recognized the tone. It was the sound of desperation turned into a plea. The bounty hunters, a group of burly reptiles with greenish scales and sharp teeth, laughed and waved her away with a dismissive gesture of their clawed hands. The girl, despite the humiliation, didn't flinch. She simply moved on to the next table.
Kara sighed and finished her drink. She recognized that look. She had seen it on the faces of the refugees from her own world, in the eyes of orphans from war-torn planets. She had seen it in her own reflection in her ship's window, floating in the silence of space. It was the look of someone who had lost everything and was clinging to the only thing left: a purpose, no matter how small or desperate.
'It's not my problem,' she repeated to herself, like a silent mantra. 'It's not my planet. It's not my fight.' Over and over, the words repeated in her mind, trying to anchor her to the indifference she craved.
She got up to go to the bathroom, a journey through a sea of noisy aliens who brushed against her with their strange bodies. As she passed a dark corner, she noticed a figure that didn't fit in. It was a man in a green-toned Japanese outfit and a ridiculous striped fisherman's hat, which barely allowed a glimpse of his eyes. He sat alone, perfectly still amidst the chaos, quietly sipping from a cup of tea, an oasis of calm in the bar's turbulent ocean. Their eyes met for a fleeting instant. The man's gray eyes, hidden in the shadow of the hat, shone with an analytical curiosity that made her feel... strangely exposed. It was as if he were analyzing her not as a person, but as a problem.
"This Pyrr's Nectar," he said, his voice a quiet murmur that somehow cut through the noise of the bar. "A good anesthetic for the wounds of the soul, isn't it? Though it rarely cures the underlying cause."
Kara stopped. The casual precision of the comment unsettled her. She felt a twinge of discomfort, a sense of being read, of her defenses being effortlessly bypassed. She stared at him for a second, trying to decide if he was a drunken philosopher, a psychic, or just a madman. Her mind, clouded by alcohol and exhaustion, couldn't process it. Deciding she didn't have the energy to find out, she continued on her way. As she walked away, the man, with a movement so subtle it went unnoticed, dropped a small, elegant business card onto the empty chair of a nearby table she would have to pass to leave. The card was made of an unusual material, smooth and tough like ceramic. On it, in elegant calligraphy, was a name: "Urahara Kisuke." And below, a single sentence: "For unsolvable problems. Inquire within." It was an anomaly, a mystery that quietly planted itself on the canvas of her night.
When she returned from her brief absence, the scene in the bar had changed. The girl, Ruthye, had made her last, desperate offer to the leader of the reptilian bounty hunters, K'tharr, whose breath smelled of rotting meat and cruelty. She had offered him her father's sword, her only inheritance, as payment. K'tharr, with a cruel smile that showed too many sharp teeth, took the sword and then, with a casual contempt, broke the deal.
"A nice sword," K'tharr sneered, turning it in his hand to admire the gleam of the silver. "Too good for a brat. I'll keep it for you. Now get lost, before I decide your head is worth something too."
"Give it back," Ruthye said, her voice now a thin, trembling thread, but filled with unshakeable fury. She stood in front of the giant, small and defenseless, but with a will as hard as diamond.
"The deal is off," K'tharr laughed, his laughter a growl.
Kara watched it all from a distance, her jaw clenching until her teeth ground. 'Don't get involved,' a part of her mind screamed. 'It's not your war. You can't save everyone. You already tried with Krypton.' But the sight of the helpless girl, with the same look of loss she had seen in the eyes of the Kryptonian refugees, and the bully preying on her... that struck a sensitive chord. A chord that all the alcohol in the galaxy, all the red suns, and all the time that had passed could not numb. The pain of her own helplessness at watching her family die was unleashed.
With a sigh that sounded more like a painful surrender than a decision, she put down her glass and moved forward. Alcohol couldn't drown that out.
She approached K'tharr from behind, her soft leather sandals barely making a sound on the sticky floor. "Hey, scales," she said, her voice a low and dangerous murmur that somehow caught the bounty hunter's attention even over the bar's din. "The girl said to give her sword back."
K'tharr turned slowly, his reptilian face showing a smirk of smugness as he saw the thin, seemingly fragile "human." "Well, looks like the brat has an older sister. Don't get into this, doll. Unless you want to..."
He didn't finish the sentence. Kara's hand, which a moment before had been holding a glass, closed on his wrist with the force of a hydraulic press. She didn't use her Kryptonian strength; her muscles, tense and aching from alcohol and exhaustion, still responded with lethal precision. The sound of bones breaking was like that of dry branches underfoot. K'tharr let out a roar of pain and surprise, his clawed hand instinctively opened, dropping the silver sword to the floor with a resonant clang. Kara wasn't finished. Her other hand closed into a fist. It wasn't a superhuman blow, but one of anatomical precision, aimed at the carotid nerve on the side of his neck. K'tharr's eyes rolled back and he collapsed to the floor like a sack of rocks, unconscious.
The bar fell into a sepulchral silence, broken only by the soft hum of the neon lights. All eyes were on the blond girl who had just taken down one of the sector's toughest thugs with two quick, brutal moves.
Kara ignored the looks. She was breathing heavily, her chest rising and falling, adrenaline and alcohol fighting for control within her system. She knelt, picked the silver sword from the floor, and held it out to the stunned girl.
"I believe this is yours," she said, her voice a little rough from the effort.
Ruthye took the sword, her eyes fixed on Kara with a new and absolute reverence. In that moment, Kara was not a stranger. She was the embodiment of the justice Ruthye had been searching for in the darkest corners of the universe.
Kara ran a hand over her face, feeling a throbbing headache. "Damn it," she muttered to herself, the frustration at her own inability to stay out of it more bitter than the liquor. "I was supposed to stay out of it."
She turned to leave, to return to the darkness of her booth and her drink, determined to escape this new, unwanted responsibility. Krypto, her faithful super-dog, who was patiently waiting for her outside the bar, joined her, wagging his tail and whimpering softly, sensing his master's distress.
"Wait!" the girl's voice cried out behind her.
Kara didn't stop. She walked faster, venturing into Pyrr's twilight landscape, toward the coast where she had hidden her ship, her only escape route. Krypto trotted beside her, his canine eyes fixed on her.
As Kara delved into Pyrr's twilight landscape, believing she had left the girl behind, she didn't notice the small shadow following her. Driven by a determination that defied her age and small size, Ruthye kept a safe distance, her eyes fixed on the blond woman's back. To her, that woman was not a stranger; she was the embodiment of the justice the world had denied her.
The path was hard, the rocky terrain cutting her worn boots, but she did not falter. When Kara reached the shore of a dark and murky sea, Ruthye felt a pang of panic. But seeing the woman get into a small raft and begin to row, her determination solidified. She would not lose her.
She reached the shore, the cold water licking her feet. She saw dark silhouettes moving beneath the surface, creatures with snapping jaws patrolling the shallow waters. Fear, cold and paralyzing, tried to take hold of her. But the image of her father, and the vision of the strong woman who had just defended her, were more powerful.
Without hesitation, she waded into the water. The cold hit her, stealing her breath. Her father's heavy sword, tied to her back, became an anchor that threatened to drag her to the bottom. The salty, metallic taste of Pyrr's sea filled her mouth. The fear was still there, an icy knot in her stomach, but it was now wrapped in a layer of unwavering faith. Every stroke was an agonizing effort, her muscles burning, but she kept her eyes fixed on the distant silhouette of the raft, a small point of hope in the immensity of the dark sea.
Kara arrived at a hidden cove, exhausted. There, camouflaged among the rocks, was her spaceship, her silver "steed." She was about to go up the ramp with Krypto when she heard a splash behind her. She turned to see the girl emerge from the water, soaked, exhausted, but with her determination intact.
Before she could tell her to go away, the attack came.
Arrows whistled through the air, breaking the twilight silence. One lodged in Kara's shoulder. Another, with a sickly green tip, sank into Krypto's side. The dog let out a heart-wrenching whimper of pain and fell, shaking violently.
Two figures emerged from the shadows of the rocks. One was K'tharr, the bounty hunter, with a broken wrist and a reptilian face full of vengeful fury. The other was a man with a cruel smile and a crossbow in his hand. Krem of the Yellow Hills.
"The bounty hunter told me a brat was asking questions," Krem said, his voice an oily murmur. "And that a blond girl had broken his bones. I figured you'd be coming for your transport."
Rage took over Kara. Not rage for her own wound, which was insignificant compared to her friend's pain. It was pure, primordial fury at seeing Krypto suffer. She tore the arrow from her shoulder, dark blood staining her clothes, and launched into the fight.
The battle was a blur of desperate violence. Without her powers, Kara was vulnerable. She fought with a ferocity born of terror and love for Krypto, taking more wounds, but protecting the girl and her dying dog. It was a brutal dance of blows, dodges, and desperation.
Krem, seeing that the wounded Kryptonian was still too much for them, changed tactics. While K'tharr kept her busy, Krem ran toward the open ramp of Kara's ship.
"Thanks for the new transport!" he shouted with a mocking laugh, as the ramp closed with a hiss.
The ship's engines roared to life with a deafening sound. Kara could only watch, helpless and bleeding, as her only escape route, her only connection to the rest of the universe, ascended into the red sky and disappeared.
She was left alone on the rocky beach, with a terrified girl and her dog on the verge of death, her body betrayed by the red sun. Despair flooded her. She felt completely trapped, completely useless. Krypto's agonizing whimper was a dagger in her heart.
Despair took hold of Kara. With Krem gone and her ship stolen, there was only one priority left: Krypto. With a strength born of pure adrenaline and love, she lifted her wounded dog and carefully placed him in the small raft Ruthye had used to follow her. The girl, stunned and terrified, got in after her.
Kara didn't waste a second. She grabbed the oars and began to row, her body protesting with every movement. The arrow in her shoulder sent waves of throbbing pain, but she ignored it. She rowed tirelessly across the dark sea, her gaze fixed on the distant horizon, where the village healer had his abode. Behind the raft, a thin trail of her own blood mixed with the murky water. She didn't rest. She didn't complain. The journey was a silent agony, a test of endurance driven by the image of Krypto's whimpering eyes. Kara's will, forged in the loss of a world, was unbreakable.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the raft ran aground on a distant shore. With her last strength, Kara carried Krypto to the healer's hut, an elderly alien with wrinkled skin and wise eyes. The moment she knew Krypto was in hands that could help him, her body finally gave out. She fainted from exhaustion and blood loss, collapsing onto the stone floor.
Kara woke up a week later.
The world slowly came back to her, with the smell of medicinal herbs and the sound of a crackling fire. She was in a rustic bed, her wounds bandaged. Ruthye was sitting in a chair beside her, watching over her sleep. The healer approached, his face grim.
"You'll recover," the old man told her. "You and the girl. You are strong." He paused, and the weight of his next words filled the small hut. "But the dog... the poison is a Kar-Telian neurotoxin. Every hunter mixes it differently. I need a sample of the original poison from the arrow that wounded him. Without it, I cannot create the antidote. Your dog is... on the verge of the abyss."
Despair took hold of Kara, cold and absolute. Her power, her legacy, her fists... everything was useless. She sat down next to Krypto, who lay motionless, barely breathing, and felt her world crumbling again. In her helplessness, her hand brushed against something in her jacket pocket. Something she didn't remember putting there.
She took it out. It was the business card, made of a strange material, smooth and tough like ceramic. On it, in elegant calligraphy, was a name: "Urahara Kisuke." And below, a single sentence: "For unsolvable problems. Inquire within."
She looked at the card, then at the empty sky through the window, then at her whimpering dog. She had no idea who this man was, or how he had put that card in her pocket. But in that moment of absolute hopelessness, that strange and enigmatic card was the only thing she had. It was an anomaly. A mystery. Her only option.
The card had no number or address. It was a conceptual communicator. As she focused on it with all the strength of her desperation, a calm and nonchalant voice answered, not in her ears, but directly in her mind.
"Urahara's Candy Shop, how can I help you?"
Kara swallowed her pride and her shock. "My... my dog. He's dying. Poisoned."
There was a brief pause. "Kar-Telian neurotoxin, if I'm not mistaken," the voice replied, which already seemed to know everything. "A nasty compound. The cure requires the original strain."
"Can... can you help him?" Kara asked, her voice a broken whisper.
"I can stabilize him," Urahara's voice said. "I can put him in a state of temporary stasis, stopping the poison's advancement. It will buy you time. But for the definitive cure, you yourself will have to get me that sample."
Hope, fragile and terrible, bloomed in Kara's chest. "I'll do whatever it takes."
"I know," the voice said. "I will save your dog. I'll keep him safe in my... 'daycare' until you return. In exchange, of course, you will owe me a favor. A very, very big one."
"I accept," Kara said without hesitation.
A small, silent portal, a clean cut in reality, opened in the air next to Krypto. Soft hands of energy wrapped around the dog and carried him through the portal, which closed as silently as it had appeared. Krypto was safe, for now.
With her friend in a safe but not cured place, Kara's mission became crystal clear. She turned to Ruthye, who had witnessed it all in mute astonishment. She took the girl's sword, her grip was firm, her gaze filled with a new and cold determination.
"Alright, Ruthye," she said, her voice leaving no room for doubt. "I accept your offer. Your sword... for the head of Krem of the Yellow Hills. And that poison sample."
Omake: A Matter of Taste
Scene: "The Broken Comet" - A few minutes after Kara and Ruthye's departure.
The "Broken Comet" bar was still vibrating with the tension of the fight. Customers whispered, looking at K'tharr's unconscious body and the empty spot where the blond girl had been. In his corner, Urahara Kisuke was quietly sipping his tea, as if he had just watched a particularly interesting debate.
The bar door was ripped from its hinges with a crash. The figure silhouetted in the doorway blocked out the red light. It was Lobo.
"WELL, WELL, WELL!" he roared, his voice making the glasses vibrate. "Smells like loser sweat, cheap booze, and trouble. My three favorite smells! Where's the hat-wearing bastard?"
His red eyes scanned the room and landed on the calm figure in the corner. With a predatory grin, he approached, his heavy boots shaking the floor.
"Hat Man!" he said, placing a hand on Urahara's table. "You told me we'd meet on Pyrr. You owe me a job. And, more importantly, you owe me a very, very rare drink."
Urahara didn't flinch. He put down his teacup and smiled. "Ah, Lobo-san. Always so punctual. And so... discreet. I'm afraid there's been a change of plans."
"A change of plans?" Lobo growled, his free hand closing into a fist. "You made me come all the way to this dump for nothing?"
"Not entirely," Urahara said calmly. "The job I had in mind... let's just say the variables have changed in an unexpected way. It's no longer necessary. It's canceled, for now."
He reached into the sleeve of his haori and pulled out a bottle. It was made of a dark glass that absorbed the light, and the liquid inside glowed softly. On the label, it read: "Tears of the Fallen Archangel - Third Circle Vintage."
Lobo's eyes widened. He had heard of that drink. It was a legend.
"However," Urahara continued, sliding the bottle across the table. "A trip is a trip. Consider this compensation for the trouble. A professional courtesy."
Lobo looked at the bottle, then at Urahara, his fury fighting his greed. "So... no job? No carnage? Nothing?"
"Not for now," Urahara confirmed. "But stay available. I have a feeling something much more... 'noisy' will come up for you very soon. I'll contact you."
Lobo weighed his options. He could start a fight with the man in the hat, which seemed dangerously unpredictable, or he could leave with the best liquor in the galaxy without having to work. The choice was obvious.
"You're lucky I'm feeling generous today," Lobo said, grabbing the bottle. "But next time, make sure there's something to smash."
Without another word, he turned and walked out of the bar, leaving a trail of chaos in his wake.
Urahara was left alone. He had avoided revealing his plans, but he had made sure his most chaotic tool was greased and ready to be used.
'Patience,' he thought, pouring himself another cup of tea. 'Every good experiment requires careful preparation.'
A/N
Hello everyone, Mike here. Sorry for the delay in uploading the chapter, I've been really busy this week. I've been editing and translating novels, planning an original universe, reading comics and watching shows and movies to create a coherent universe for this fic, finishing up university, researching programming and artificial intelligence, creating a game for a university project, planning another NSFW indie game to develop, and looking for a job in IT. Sometimes I wish I could do absolutely nothing and just lie in bed, but then I get bored of doing absolutely nothing, so I start doing too many things to avoid thinking about anything and everything at once. Anyway, that's all for this chapter. I'll try to get more chapters of this fic done.