Chapter Thirteen
Kara flew toward Tony Stark's house, her face burning so hot and fiery blue she was certain she could melt steel with her cheeks alone.
She was going to kill Loki.
No, worse than kill him. She was going to find the most embarrassing, most humiliating prank in the entire history of pranks and unleash it upon him with the full force of her Kryptonian creativity.
Maybe she'd turn him into a frog. Could she do that? She'd have to ask Frigga.
Actually, no. Frigga would ask why, and Kara would have to explain, and that would mean reliving the last ten minutes of her life, no a better idea came to her, she would ask that green guy how he got Loki to be so afraid, then she would do it every day for a week!!!!!
---
It had started so innocently.
Loki had told her about a secret path to Midgard, a special portal that few knew about, that would let her visit Earth whenever she wanted. He'd been so sincere, so brotherly, giving her detailed instructions with that little conspiratorial smile.
"You'll need to dress lightly," he'd said. "The passage can be... messy. You don't want to ruin your Earth clothes."
That had made sense. Kara had seen the Bifrost in action. All that energy, all that light, she could understand wanting to protect her belongings.
So, she'd worn very little. Just enough to be modest by Kryptonian standards, which, she was realizing now, were apparently very different from Earth standards.
"When you reach the archway," Loki had continued, "you'll need to perform a small ritual. It's to placate the guardian spirit. Very important."
"What kind of ritual?"
"Nothing complicated. Just walk sideways, like a crab, you know, with your hands waving in the air. Keep your eyes closed. And as you walk, you need to say: 'All hail the holy Beaver, the greatest Beaver in all the realms.'"
Kara had blinked. "The... Beaver?"
"Ancient Midgardian deity. Very temperamental. But if you pay proper respect, the passage will be smooth and safe."
It had seemed odd. But then, Asgardian magic was odd. Midgardian mythology was odd. Everything about this situation was odd, so why not add a Beaver deity to the mix?
So she'd followed his instructions.
Exactly.
She'd found the archway in the garden he'd described. She'd removed most of her outer layers, by adjusting the gauntlets to have only under garments on. She'd positioned herself in front of the arch.
And then she'd walked sideways, waving her hands in the air, eyes closed, chanting: "All hail the holy Beaver, the greatest Beaver in all the realms! All hail the holy Beaver, the greatest—"
She'd opened her eyes.
And immediately wanted to die.
---
She was standing in the middle of a strange field where men wearing strange armor and crashing into each other.
This was not just any field no it was a football field not just any football game, but the hall of fame game.
A game in the middle of a live televised broadcast, surrounded by what looked like a gladiatorial arena filled with tens of thousands of people, all of whom were now staring at her.
At her, in her booty shorts like underwear and skintight bra that still showed a good amount of cleavage, doing the crab walk, waving her hands, chanting about beavers.
Lights flashed everywhere. Clicking, clicking, clicking, cameras, thousands of them, all pointed directly at her.
Time stopped.
Not metaphorically. Actually stopped.
Kara's brain ground to a halt as her eyes scanned the frozen scene around her. Players mid-tackle. Cheerleaders mid-jump. Spectators mid-cheer, mouths open, faces locked in expressions of shock and confusion.
Even the birds in the sky had stopped moving.
Everything was perfectly, absolutely still.
For exactly one second, Kara thought: *I wish I could reverse time and murder Loki.*
---
Somewhere in the infinite layers of reality, the Time Stone was having a pleasant conversation with its friend.
The Ancient One was a delightful companion, young by cosmic standards, barely a few centuries old, but clever and respectful. She always said hello when she borrowed power. Always asked permission. Always treated the Stone with the proper deference.
The Time Stone appreciated that.
It had taken some effort to talk her out of that unfortunate deal with the Dark Dimension. Dormammu was such a pest, always trying to corrupt things, always offering power in exchange for souls. So tedious.
But the Stone had offered an alternative: every day the Ancient One used its power, it would turn time back on just her body, keep her young, keep her mind healed keep her whole.
That way, they could keep hanging out.
It was a good arrangement.
The Stone was just settling in for a nice discussion about temporal mechanics when it felt something.
Someone was trying to steal time from it.
Not borrow. Not ask. Not even *demand* in the way that cosmic entities sometimes did.
Someone was *pulling*.
*HOW DARE THEY TRY TO—*
The Time Stone paused mid-outrage.
*Holy crap. *
Who was this powerful? The pull was immense, fundamental, affecting time at its deepest levels. The Stone strained against it, trying to maintain control, but whatever was on the other end was pulling *hard*.
Harder than anything the Stone had encountered in millennia.
The Time Stone did the only thing it could: it broke itself into hundreds of thousands of time remnants, each one grabbing onto the fabric of reality, each one pulling back with everything it had.
It still wasn't enough.
The Stone was *losing*.
In a moment of what could only be described as cosmic panic, the Time Stone blew a metaphorical horn through the universe, calling for help from the only being that might be able to assist.
*BIG BROTHER! HELP! *
The Power Stone, lounging in its own little pocket of reality on Morag, felt the call.
It scoffed. Of course, Time needed help. Time was always so *delicate*, so *precise*. Power, on the other hand, was straightforward. Elegant. Perfect.
"I will help," the Power Stone thought magnanimously. "I am, after all, the greatest of, GAHHHHHH!"
The pull hit the Power Stone like a cosmic freight train.
Together, the two Stones strained against whatever force was trying to bend reality itself. Waves of power rippled outward, cascading through dimensions, destroying entire conceptual spaces that happened to be in the way.
In the third dimension down and two to the left, an entire plane of existence simply ceased to be.
In the higher dimensions, beings of pure thought paused their eternal debates to glance toward the disturbance, mildly concerned.
The Stones pulled.
The force pulled back.
Reality groaned.
And then, with one final, desperate tug—
The Stones won.
Time snapped back into place like a rubber band, and everything stabilized.
The Time Stone, exhausted, gave a metaphorical thumbs up.
The Power Stone grumbled something about "never again" and went back to sulking on Morag.
And the Ancient One, who had been meditating peacefully in Kamar-Taj when her Stone suddenly started having what could only be described as a cosmic seizure, gently fanned it with an enchanted fan of cool air.
"There, there," she murmured. "That's better."
The Time Stone thought, with great relief: *Ahh, that feels nice.*
---
Kara blinked.
Time resumed.
The crowd roared confusion mixed with shock mixed with thousands of camera flashes.
She didn't understand what had just happened. One second, she'd been frozen in absolute horror, and the next—
Nope.
No time to think about it.
Kara activated her gauntlets. The suit flowed over her body in an instant, covering her in gleaming silver and blue, and she shot into the air so fast she created a sonic boom that shattered every window in the stadium.
She didn't look back.
She didn't slow down.
She just flew, face burning, heading straight for the one place on Earth where she knew she'd be safe.
Tony Stark's house.
She needed to do science. She needed to talk about other dimensions. She needed to do literally *anything* that would help her forget the last ten minutes of her life.
And then, when she was calm and rational and thinking clearly, she was going to fly back to Asgard and introduce Loki to the concept of revenge.
Kryptonian-style revenge.
He was going to regret ever teaching her how to prank.
Behind her, social media exploded.
#Supergirlwardrobemalfunction was trending within seconds.
Kara didn't know that yet.
She would find out soon enough.
And Loki, watching from his cell through a scrying spell he'd borrowed from Mother, laughed until he couldn't breathe.
Welcome to the family, little sister.
Welcome to the family.