Kara was naturally in an excellent mood after escaping her prison.
Especially after seeing her little cousin looking battered and miserable again from who-knew-what disaster this time.
That only improved her mood further.
The instant she broke free from Starfire and Hawkgirl's pursuit, Kara arrived at the frozen Arctic.
The Fortress of Solitude—formed entirely from self-propagating Kryptonian crystal—stood silently upon the edge of the polar ice shelf far from the North Pole itself.
Kara swept over the fortress from above and reached out to touch one of its towering crystal spires.
At her touch, the solid crystal structure on the upper levels began to writhe and shift like flowing liquid. A portion of it separated itself from the fortress and spread across Kara's body.
The crystal rapidly altered its structure, reconstructing the metallic battle armor that had previously suffered over ninety percent damage.
This was merely the tip of the iceberg of ancient Krypton's former glory:
The Kryptonian crystal technology system known as the Sunstone.
With that single contact, Kara not only obtained the materials necessary to restore her equipment, but also recovered a hidden deep-level positioning key embedded within the system itself.
Locating that clone was no longer difficult for her.
If not for her suddenly appearing cousin interfering at every possible moment, she would've already completed the covert integration of humanity's governments by now.
After that, all she would've needed to do was wait for the Kryptonian fleet—currently thousands of sectors away fighting the Thanagarian Empire and Rann—to arrive and formally take possession of Earth.
In Kara's eyes, nearly everything Kal-El had done amounted to deliberately sabotaging her efforts.
Ending the war between the descendants of the Old Gods and making Earth more difficult to peacefully annex wasn't even the important part.
The truly critical mistake was that, through pure coincidence, he had caused that clone to slip beyond control.
Kryptonians had zero tolerance toward cloning.
At least, Kara certainly did.
Using genetic technology to clone any Kryptonian lifeform was an unforgivable crime in her eyes.
The existence of another clone represented a massive threat to the original.
Especially when the clone herself didn't even know she was a clone.
That alone guaranteed Kara had to destroy the living evidence before the other Kryptonians arrived.
After all, between baseless accusations and a crime backed by undeniable witnesses and physical proof, any sane person would obviously choose to believe the latter.
Now that her full equipment had been restored, Kara once again possessed the ability to cross the void of space and ignore the hostile dangers of the cosmic environment.
In an instant, she broke through Earth's atmosphere and departed the solar system entirely.
"Is the tracking signal still active?"
At that moment, Joey stood beside the Helmet of Fate, looking expectantly toward Cyborg.
Supergirl was still within his visual range for now, but very soon, her figure would disappear into the endless sea of cosmic interference.
"Don't tell me her armor blocked the signal or something."
"No."
Having fully integrated himself into the Watchtower's systems, Cyborg once again found himself amazed by the station's technological sophistication.
Nearly ten entirely different technological systems had been fused together with astonishing compatibility to create this orbital command center.
Humanity would probably need decades just to take the first step toward understanding any single one of these technologies if they were independently revealed.
For example, the Watchtower's tracking systems could currently pinpoint every single redshift trail left behind by that Kryptonian flying faster than light through space.
If they wanted, they could even use the tracker on Kara as a teleportation anchor and instantly deploy an entire strike team directly to her location for a surprise attack.
Joey stared at the trajectory Cyborg projected onto the screen.
He could tell Kara's movements were highly deliberate.
She wasn't wandering aimlessly through space.
The moment Kara finally stopped moving would probably be the exact moment she located the other Kara.
Unlike this near-psychotic version of Kara, Joey himself held no prejudice or disgust toward the blonde clone at all.
The blonde Kara's identity might have been fake, but the moments and experiences she shared with Joey were real.
The millions of lives she saved while traveling across the globe were real too.
Even though she had killed Abin Sur, she truly was the Kryptonian in this universe who came closest to fitting the definition of Superman.
If it had been anyone else locked up and experimented on for twenty years, their first act after escaping probably would've been to purge the entire planet.
Honestly, there was something strangely ironic about it.
In most science fiction stories involving clones, the clone was usually far more evil than the original.
But in this universe, the opposite seemed to be true.
Lost in thought, Joey noticed Kara beginning to slow down.
Cyborg noticed it as well.
"Should I initiate teleportation?"
Within this short span of time, Kara had already crossed nearly ten sectors before finally slowing within a barren star system.
"Do it—"
"Wait."
Batman stepped forward, rummaged through his utility belt for a moment, and handed Joey a small lead-lined box.
"Take this with you... Just in case."
The moment the box opened, the faint green glow radiating from the object inside made even Joey's scalp tingle from exposure.
"You've just been carrying this around on you? High-dose Kryptonite radiation isn't only dangerous to Kryptonians."
Inside was a weapon designed specifically for Kryptonians, a ring embedded with a glowing green gemstone.
A Kryptonite ring.
What Batman had taken out was synthetic Kryptonite with extremely high radiation levels, far purer than natural Kryptonite.
So radioactive that the green light alone was enough to make Joey—whose resistance was already abnormally high and who was currently examining the ring up close—feel physically uncomfortable.
Joey could easily imagine what would happen if he wore this thing and punched Kara in the face with it.
In a certain sense, a ring like this was worth more than any diamond ring on Earth.
Batman solemnly handed Superman a priceless ring, and upon witnessing this scene, Cyborg suddenly developed an incredibly immature thought.
"If Batman dropped to one knee right now… would this count as him proposing to Superman?"
"Hm?" ×2
Both Batman and Superman immediately turned unfriendly stares toward Cyborg at the exact same time.
The two of them had just been discussing the catastrophic battle between Kryptonians that was about to unfold in deep space within the next few minutes.
And Cyborg's brainless comment had derailed the conversation into absolute nonsense.
Only then did Cyborg realize he had accidentally spoken aloud something that absolutely should've stayed inside his head.
Faced with the combined glare of both men, cold sweat instantly poured down his face.
Honestly, even when Captain Atom had destroyed his previous body, Cyborg hadn't felt pressure this intense.
"S-Sorry! My body's still new! My biological brain and electronic brain are still in the debugging phase of synchronization! Sometimes there's… uh… memory leakage!"
"Can't you spend your time online looking at something healthier?"
Joey genuinely had no idea what kind of nonsense Cyborg filled his head with every day.
Dark Multiverse didn't mean that kind of dark fantasy.
Sure, Cyborg had unrestricted freedom to surf the cyber world, but apparently he was a little too free.
Once Joey got back, he fully intended to force Cyborg to permanently wipe every AO3-related file from his electronic database and ban him from ever accessing that site again.
But right now, there were more important things to focus on.
"Before Batman and I impulsively decide to format that section of your memory ourselves, hurry up and start the teleportation process!"