"Second option: build a brand-new planet. New Krypton. Before Krypton exploded, Brainiac captured an entire city. Roughly a hundred thousand people are still alive inside it—something I only just discovered. We can rescue them and establish a new planet for the Kryptonian people."
"That's Kandor! I know about this... I remember it vividly." Supergirl's eyes went wide.
"Kandor, yes. We actually visited Kandor three hundred and fifty thousand years in the past when we dealt with Rao. Faora, Kara, Clark—you're all my friends. You don't need a unified answer. Make your own decisions. Whatever you choose, I'll support it. Why don't you take a few days to think it over?"
A decision this monumental couldn't be made on the spot. Thea left the three of them to agonize and went home to sleep. Watching the Sandman debacle play out that many times had worn her out.
Faora rarely made this kind of decision on her own. She felt a little lost, craving solitude to think, and flew off without a word to Superman or Supergirl.
Supergirl was in even worse shape—completely dazed, so deep in her own head that she didn't notice Superman calling after her.
Back in her apartment, she changed clothes mechanically, grabbed a throw pillow, sat cross-legged on the bed, and stared blankly at the wall.
Before long, Lena—alerted by Superman—rushed home. She waved a hand in front of Kara's face.
Kara's eyes were unfocused. That scared Lena badly. She grabbed Kara by the shoulders and shook.
"Lena? You're home from work?" It took a long moment before Kara truly came back.
Lena let out a breath, kicked off her heels, and sat down beside her.
Kara nuzzled into Lena's arms like a pet about to be abandoned—small and pitiable.
"What happened? Want to talk about it?"
Kara mumbled her way through the whole story.
Go back to the past, or rebuild Krypton. Selfishly, Lena wanted option two. But she possessed a compassion rare among the Luthor family, and she had always known that Kara missed her old life. Given the choice, Kara would rather return to Krypton and live quietly than play Supergirl on Earth.
At the end of the day, Kara was still a girl who hadn't fully grown up. Returning to her parents, returning to the world she knew—that held more pull than being a superhero ever could.
"Go back," Lena whispered, as if picturing something beautiful. "Go back to your parents. Grow up happy and healthy. Then find yourself a handsome guy, or a pretty girl?" She seemed to be imagining a future for Kara, but the words caught in her throat and she started crying.
She couldn't let go. The two of them had broken through society's prejudice, pushed past family opposition, and fought their way to where they stood now. None of it had been easy.
And just when things had finally stabilized, Thea had to go and stir the pot. Lena was seething at her right now.
"I can't bear to leave you. I don't want to forget you..." Kara murmured, brow furrowed, nestling into Lena's arms. Her first instinct had been to go back, but Lena's love held her in place. That was the hardest part.
"And Alex, and all our friends... but I really do miss home. What should I do, Lena?"
"Are any of the surviving Kryptonians your relatives?" As an outsider looking in, Lena reframed the question from a new angle, not advocating, not objecting.
The tactic worked. Kara's attention shifted. The moment Kandor was taken—she remembered it with painful clarity. For a long time afterward, the image had haunted her nightmares.
The House of El was vast. Kandor certainly held relatives of hers. Friends, too.
She grabbed her phone and called Thea. She needed to know who was inside Kandor.
Thea was mildly exasperated. She wasn't a census bureau; how was she supposed to know who was inside Kandor?
She could perceive every living soul, true, but nobody's soul came with a name tag. Still, she traced the bloodline from its root and confirmed: Kara did have kin in Kandor. Close kin, at that.
Where Kara's heart had been split fifty-fifty, the scales now tipped firmly toward staying in the present and rescuing her family.
Unlike Kara's anguish, Superman had no desire whatsoever to go back.
His wife, his son, his friends, his adoptive mother, his fellow heroes—all of them were here. His birth parents were gone, but the weight of their legacy had never left his chest. Not for a single day.
Protect Earth. Bring humanity hope. That conviction hadn't wavered once. He chose option two.
Then—as if guided by some invisible hand, just as Thea had done—he found himself walking into the Batcave to talk things over with his old friend.
Batman's thought process was nothing if not unique. He always spotted what others missed.
The moment Superman finished explaining, Batman exploded. "What did you say? A hundred thousand Kryptonians?!" He grabbed Superman by the collar—Clark had come in civilian clothes. Batman had spent his entire career struggling to handle one Kryptonian. If a hundred thousand showed up on Earth, could the planet even survive?
"Are you out of your minds? Do you have any idea what a hundred thousand sun-powered Kryptonians could do? What if they decide to enslave Earth? How do we stop them?"
Superman was speechless. He had faith in his people. But in Batman's telling, Kryptonians were practically a marauding horde with a taste for plunder.
"My people wouldn't do that. Krypton has institutions. Laws. Our civilization has the science and technology to develop on its own. We would never enslave intelligent life under any pretext."
"Krypton recycles and reuses energy. There's no need to plunder resources. So your concerns are really unnecessary."
Batman's gut told him this was bad—way beyond anyone's control. But he couldn't exactly exterminate a hundred thousand innocent Kryptonians who hadn't done anything wrong. Both Superman and Thea were acting from a place of justice. Rescuing your own people wasn't evil by any measure.
Early the next morning, before Thea had even gotten out of bed, their knocking woke her up.
If she'd been an ordinary woman, this would've been a hassle. Fortunately, she was anything but.
A single thought, and she stood at the door—radiant, perfectly dressed.
Faora, Kara, Superman—all present and accounted for. They had made up their minds and come straight over.
And then there was one uninvited guest. Dark-faced and thoroughly displeased, looking as though he hadn't slept a wink: Batman. Thea was puzzled. She shot Superman a questioning look: why is he here? Did you bring him?
"Where do you plan to settle these rescued Kryptonians?" Batman asked.
"My idea is to build an entirely new planet. Otherwise it wouldn't really be Krypton, would it? That was my original promise to Faora." All three Kryptonians nodded in unison. Something like a Kryptonian autonomous zone on Earth didn't need a second's thought to dismiss as impractical.