---

The eruption into the Metro Tower sent stray pieces of debris everywhere. One collided with Barda and sent her to the ground. Her head knocked against it hard. Fuzzy shapes formed in the corner of her eyes before worked through them. The sound of fighting radiated all around her. It was everything. It was all things. Still, she silenced the song into one clear voice. It was the voice she needed to overcome. She blinked numerous times, and then she slid her palms under the beam, molten hot on either end that laid over her. She pushed it up and away from her body. Standing, she surveyed around her. The room was mostly destroyed, and many of the heroes were gone. She didn’t know why. She assumed it was from valiant combat. There hovered a woman, the obvious assailant.

“Oh, idiot child,” she said. Barda considered using her Mega Rod, but they were in a populated area. Its range was far too large and massive that she could be assured there wouldn’t be causalities. In the days of past, she wouldn’t have cared. The Justice League made sure she cared. So, she sighed and jumped up at the woman, readying a punch to the face. It was deflected, easily. Yet, Barda landed, twisted away from the heat vision shot her way and took a different angle. She was able to get her punch in then, landing it directly in Solara’s midsection. The other screamed and pushed Barda away, but she was ready. She vaulted off the nearest surface, whatever that was, and launched herself at Solara again. The process happened again and again, Barda getting the upper hand on one-to-one combat. That was until the Kryptonian blasted her laser vision well into Barda’s chest, she flew back into the ground. Her ears rang and everything hurt.

Yet, Barda knew she had the Mega Rod. She knew it could give a heavy amount of damage. She just needed Solara positioned upwards and away from people. She angled the weapon upwards. “Can someone get her in my range?” she asked, pulling herself up slowly. She wouldn’t be on the offensive again, she needed help.

---

The radiation meter installed inside Negative Man's surrogate body had gone ballistic before the Kryptonian foe had crashed through their roof, causing the irradiated man himself to flinch. As he came back to his senses, the other Leaguers had launched themselves against Solara and made it obvious that she wore the emblem of Superman with the same power that the Man of Steel wielded. However, she clearly did not have the same restraint their once proud founder had. In order to fight her, Negative Man needed to pull out all the stops as well.

The Negative Spirit soon left the android that hosted it. Normally, anyone in prolonged direct contact was in danger of radioactive poisoning but the alien physiology of their enemy could clearly withstand that. Larry, however, deduced that certain parts were still sensitive to light. In fact, super-vision might just play in his favour as he raced his ethereal body towards Solara in an attempt to blind her eyes. His body would coil itself like a snake who had caught its prey on to the Kryptonian, discharging radiation bursts at her eyes which most likely would cause her to blast heat vision to get Negative Man off.

A garbled shriek would be let out by the nuclear ghost as the heat vision intensified. His teammates needed to capitalize on what little distraction he was causing at the moment.

Zatanna was over at Supergirl’s side in an instant. Next second both of them had teleported to the other end of Metro Tower.
The magician set aside her own grievances to tend to the unconscious girl. “ekaw reh pu,” she said.
Gasping for air, Supergirl opened her eyes. Then came the pain and she had to clutch her chest where a world of hurt had been fired at. Nothing but sod decorated her now.

“Easy – easy!” Zatanna calmed her with. “You took a beating, your chest is about 200 degrees right now, but you survived.”

“I feel like my heart is exploding.”

"It’s just the aftereffects. You are going to be alright. Just stay here.”

Supergirl suddenly remembered the imminent danger. “Solara! She-she …”

“You are in no shape to fight. The others will deal with her.”

“And how much of the tower will they rip apart in the process? Please, you can heal me, I know you can. You …” Supergirl paused and looked down at herself. A sodded mess. She used her one hand to wipe away some of the filth. Soon her golden S peaked out beneath the disgrace. It didn’t shine much.

“It lasted. It’s a really good suit you got there.”

As Supergirl looked back up, she saw Zatanna smiling. “It needs to; it has to withstand my clumsiness, remember?”

“Alright, Supergirl … alright. Lay down and try to relax. Htiw lla ym rewop laeh eseht sdnuow.”

--------------------------------------------
Meanwhile in the meeting hall…

“Can someone get her in my range?” Barda asked pulling herself up slowly.
And what followed was a whole series of distractions caused by Negative Man, as he coiled around and blinded Solara, forcing her to start completely taring apart the hall with her beams.
Her brutality was only really matched by the madness in her glowing red eyes and the bitterness in her voice: “Don’t worry about me not being able to fight you all. From now on most of you are going to be-“.
An explosion of stone and dust erupted from the wall and interrupted Solara. She was caught completely by surprise as well as by the pelvis.
Supergirl squeezed her bottom like never before and forced her right in front of Big Barda. There, both of them hovered for a second before the tall woman made the homerun of the century with her Mega Rod, hitting Solara right in the stomach.
Only the quickest heroes in there were able to perceive Solara flying upwards before another hole emerged in the ceiling. Pretty much every single item in the hall had been pushed to a corner by the trembling repercussions in the fight.
Though slightly affected also, Supergirl raised her thumb and let everybody see, how she, despite recent events, was okay.
Then she was off. Shot up like a bullet and quickly went supersonic just to break the sound barrier once more. Up in the air, she closed in on the halfway unconscious and still flying Kryptonian, but the second before Supergirl reached her, Solara’s entire being became the incarnation of hate itself. Both fighters collided and rotated around each other like a Fidget spinner, while exchanging physical insults like madwomen. However, in all the madness, Supergirl never forgot the techniques she had acquired. She blocked, averted an incoming attack and did the one thing Solara wasn’t use to: Supergirl got close, and stayed close. Got a firm grip on her opponent and kept the elbow strikes coming. Enough to separate the clouds and send Solara into quick comatoses. Solara hardly blocked anymore, and didn’t seemed to notice where she was being taken.

Supergirl landed back in the hall with little more than a washcloth of a person in her arms.
Solara only really reacted when she saw everyone’s faces, and that’s when Supergirl twisted her hand around and placed a tight arm around her neck. A choking cry of pain escaped Solara and changed into a moan of surprise, when she saw what was flowing freely from her nose. So warm and red, just like the mere mortal's. It went down her chin and made spots on the floor.

“That’s right,” Supergirl confirmed and kept the woman's head pointing downwards, “a half-Kryptonian did that to you. Guess you forgot: We’re not supposed to be able to bleed, remember? Now, don’t move, cause I’m pretty damn sure breaking your neck will be met with controversy.” She then looked back at her friends and the armor disappeared, replaced with a sense of relief. “We should get something to restrain her. Or… if ya’ in secret got that green, glowing safeguard against me, I suggest you get it.”

Metropolis:

---

^{January 20th, 2019 – 12:03 pm | Justice League Headquarters - Metro Tower}

Jimmy Olsen regretted putting on a costume. It wasn’t every day that he felt this way, but right now… that’s how he was feeling. He took a hard hit from a Kryptonian female who used to be a member of the League. In an attempt to put himself between Supergirl and the beast of a woman called Solara he was knocked through several other Leaguers. Had he been a metahuman he might’ve been okay, however he wasn’t either. He faded in and out and saw his teammates take on the rampaging time-lost Kryptonian. Warden struck at her with his vines and tried remaining out of reach. That was until Solara grabbed one of his vines and threw him with it. Negative Man had left his robotic body and attacked her in his radioactive form, however it didn’t serve much more than a diversion with her heat vision once again coming into play. Supergirl went in for the attack and it seemed as if Champion and Lizard were just waiting for their next shot at the powerhouse.

“Hey kid… you gonna be okay?” asked Booster Gold trying to give the rookie hero a hand, “We need to get you out of here before the Tower takes more damage and you get buried in debris…” he continued picking Jimmy up.

“My shield… can’t leave…” Jimmy began to say as Booster grabbed the item given to the young hero by Superman himself.

“Yeah… even I know that’s too much gold to leave laying around. Let’s get you to the med bay area kid…” Booster continued.

After taking a beating from Superman’s daughter Solara finally came to. Breaking free of the Girl of Steel’s grip and throwing the half-breed, it didn’t take long before Champion finally connected with another punch of his own that sent Solara flying out of the Tower downtown towards the Hello Kitty US office building. Large Hello Kitty statues were atop of the building where gargoyles would’ve been on any number of buildings in Gotham. Solara landed at the base of the building, bouncing off of several parked cars before meeting the side of another building across the street. A group of Leaguers followed.

- Ω

With Scarab' chest-plate in hand, namely Lizard felt more comfortable going against Solara without having to worry about being turned into a grilled steak. As such, when Solara was kicked out of their building by Champion she followed down like the others to the ground. Then an idea came into mind to her.

Namely scarab' armor seemed to be more formidable against her heat-vision than the others around her. As they soon got to ground-level, Lizard soon spoke out to the others about her plan. "Yo. Can you get Solara to fire at me?" she stated to them, as they soon enough closed rank and were ready to engage her again.

"It's said that only Superman can beat Superman. So how about we turn her heat-vision against her and have her grill herself?" she spoke, banging the scarab chest-plate that she utilized as a shield like Guardian. Namely once Solara started blasting her, Lizard would do her best to namely reflect it right back at her. Hopefully at her eyes to disable her permanently. "Also Negative Man. Can you re-arrange your body in such a fashion that you're namely absorbing the solar radiation from her body? Or into some other kind of radiation that isn't pleasant against a Kryptonite' physiology?"

At Lizard's suggestion, Negative Man had begun to selectively absorb all traces of UV radiation. Since he couldn't discern which type of energy came from a yellow, red, blue or even neutron star, the plasma-based hero had to strip away all of it. Randoms blasts of light would discharge from the possessed Solara, including her standard heat-vision. While this was weakening the Kryptonian, this was wrecking Negative Man at the molecular level. The hellfire of absorbing the universe's light burnt his new body, reminding him of his own re-baptismal from man to hero.

After a few agonizing moments which felt like an eternity, the spirit of Negative Man ejected itself from Solara. Visibly weakened but still functional, Larry could only give a thumbs up directed at his teammates. He had done the best that he could and it was up to them to follow it up.

---

“Hope there weren’t any civilians affected”, Kitsune grumbled as she saw how Champion punched Solara and she crashed into the Hello Kitty office building, of all places. Kitsune quickly flew towards the crash site with the others using her umbrella.

When she arrived with the others, she saw smoke coming out of the debris and some civilians run away as they screamed. Others tried to move closer to the crash site to take a picture or video with their phones. Kitsune did a quick soul scan on the crash site and breathed a sigh of relief when she found Solara the only one there.

Kitsune threw her closed umbrella upwards. It opened mid-air and a pink dome around the vicinity was created to make sure no civilians will go near them.

She watched Negative Man absorb all traces of UV radiation from Solara’s body as per Lizard’s suggestion. The sight was both amazing and scary for her at the same time.

After Neg Man was done, Kitsune flexed her fingers and chanted as she moved closer to the now more weakened Kryptonian. “Watashi no tamashī no kazoku ga watashi o michibiku. Watashi no megami Izanami ga watashi o michibiku. Karera wa watashi ga sore o hitsuyō to shita toki ni watashi o tasukemashita.” She paused when she stood in front of the groaning Solara.

“Watashi wa anata o tasukeru tame ni zenryoku o tsukushimasu”, Kitsune finished. Her hands became enclosed with pink energy and she cupped Solara’s face. Instantly, the Kryptonian howled in rage and surprise. If it weren’t for Neg Man, Kitsune might’ve been deep fried from Solara’s heat vision already.

Cherry blossom flowers formed around them as Kitsune focused and dug deep into Solara’s memories and emotions to help her cope up with seeing the loss of everything she knew. The pink energy from her hands slowly encased Solara’s body until she became fully covered with it while she continued to weakly protest and scream. Not long after, the pink energy turned into gold and illuminated the entire area.

Solara stopped protesting and looked at Kitsune with tears forming in her eyes. “You are never truly alone, Solara”, Kitsune said while still holding the Kryptonian’s face. “Do not hold on too much on the dark happenings on your life. Focus on the moments when you are with them when you felt the happiest, when you felt at peace, when you felt loved. You will never be alone for as long as you hold on to those memories and continue to cherish them with all your heart.” After she said that, the gold light died off and the cherry blossoms turned into pink dust.

The Kryptonian resisted until she finally gave in and cried her eyes out while wailing like a child. She called on to her family that she finally remembered thanks to Kitsune’s intervention. Kitsune let go of Solara’s face, looked up at the other Leaguers and saluted weakly. “Good night” was all she said before her hair turned black and she slumped to the ground, snoring.

Metropolis:

---

^{January 20th, 2019 – 12:10 pm | Justice League Headquarters - Metro Tower}

She beat the crap out of his coworkers. Tried to kill his friend's daughter. Made a mess of his beloved kitchen and rec room and most damning of all...

Ruined Lunch.

Yeah, Duncan was feeling pretty damned good after having punched the ancient Kryptonian straight in her genetically perfect freakin' face; standing there, fist still smouldering slightly from the force of atmospheric friction from all the Newtonian Laws he'd both broken and vindicated in that one instant.

"Two hours..." The Champion growled ruefully under his breath, shaking the smoke off his hand and looking more than a little irate "...Two hours I spent making that goddamn pie."

This was immediately followed by a slow deliberate breath in and an exhale of much the same fashion; A coping mechanism that had developed in him in the years since he was just a boy who had a fateful meeting with a big goddamn truck- Realizing early on that losing his temper would be a very bad thing with what he had become.

'Let it go, MacAodhan.' The short hero internalized, as he marched back inside to grab his coat, laying amongst what was left of his beloved mahogany table, before throwing it on and charging out the gaping hole he'd left in the wall 'Let it go.'

---

On her knees and crying like a child who lost everything, Solara sat. And in front of her lied Kitsune, unconscious, but clearly alive. The heroic girl had done more than her part, occupying the Kryptonian long enough for others to get outside.
Solara’s shouts of emotional pain quiet all of a sudden. Her tears of ache did not exactly stop, yet lessened. She lowered her hands, wiped her bloody nose and looked down on the girl, who had bested her on a whole new level. Grudge replaced some of the sorrow on the smooth face.

Then a white blur flew past and suddenly Supergirl was holding the sleeping League member. Gently she put her down on the road. Concrete tickled the back of Supergirl’s hands and she almost lowered her guard and became Lara again. It felt good being out in the sun and let it warm her skin once again. It’s generous energy giving her the strength to protect the people she loved so dearly. If only she could share such moments with Solara, and not use its power to defend against her.

Then shouts of fear drew both Kryptonians to look at the Hello Kitty building. Not exactly loud sounds, but neither of them needed such to hear.
“… some kind of sick enhanced individual! A scary mess of a madwoman!” a man said into a phone. Fear cluttered his breathing as Solara eyeballed him.

“You… You don’t even know who I am? You’ve forgotten m-me? After everything I…”
A devilish fury fought with the still present grief and sobbing, and she launched forward. Was then stopped with enough force to crack open the street, had Supergirl not been careful. She swung Solara around and separated the woman's contact with the ground, as she spun her backwards in a controlled throw. A short one, and not exactly meant to hurt, as much as merely put more distance between the civilians and the one threatening them. “Don’t want to fight you,” Supergirl muttered.
Wherever she looked this was the place with most people in it and the spot to stay and defend.
“Get out, everybody!” Supergirl yelled loud enough for even the top floors to notice her. She planted her feet in the pavement, with the sound of steps fleeing the building behind her.
Jimmy approached from the Tower and Supergirl almost allowed herself to smile.

Sometimes being a hero isn’t about punching or moving heavy stuff, sometimes it’s about not moving … not for anything.

---

Traversing big cities was always a pain in the ass for the Champion- Yeah, sure, hypothetically he could just jump to wherever he needed to be, but realistically, well...

He wasn't Supergirl or Shazam. He had momentum to worry about. So, in lieu of crashing through buildings, cars and people like a deranged pinball, the only real option he had was what he was up to right now- Jumping from building to building and cursing vehemently every time he landed just a bit too heavily and broke some brickwork with his foot.

"Aw, fer..." Said vertically-unimpressive Canuck grumbled as his toe ate through the concrete lip at the edge of one of many unfortunate rooftops that would be ruined by the superhuman and his awkward locomotion that day.

Being the strongest man alive kinda sucked sometimes, when every waking moment was a constant, frustrating exercise in restraint.

Pushing that thought from his mind and finally arriving at the place where the Kryptonian had apparently landed (judging by the hot pink dome of light he'd seen earlier), Duncan came to a landing, making a small crater in the paved road and a small line of sheared cement as he came skidding to a stop.

What he found was... not what he expected, to say the least;

Kitsune loudly snoring on the ground.

Solara sobbing uncontrollably.

His teammates gathered around not entirely sure what to do here- not that he'd blame them- It'd been one of those days.

Of course, all of that inaction came to an abrupt halt, as was the norm, when Solara found the strength in all of her grief to stand up and keep swinging. For which she was abruptly thrown on her ass by Supergirl.

'Stupid, stubborn piece of... The Lion ground out internally, as he let out a clearly annoyed breath and his fists clenched... but then unclenched as he took another look.

The aged Kryptonian was not just some insane alien bent on the world's destruction.

She was just... grieving. And lashing out.

A person.

Between the tears running down the weathered Kryptonian's face, the screaming and all the Kryptonian crests before him, on both of the physics-defying women in his vision and painted on the garrish Hello Kitty statues above, something began to click in the back of his head; Something he'd heard a while back-

"...To reach out to those in need and inspire others to do the same. That is life's greatest necessity and its most precious gift."

A long sigh escaped the Champion as he stuffed his hands into his pockets.

"...Goddammit, Clark."

Calmly walking behind the still-prone, shaking Kryptonian and casting a quick glance Supergirl's way, he finally spoke out loud.

"That's enough, Solara. It's over."

"It's... never over... Mutant..." Said woman rasped as she slowly got to her feet, battered, bloodied but still not giving up as she immediately jumped at him with a clumsy, punch-drunk haymaker "NOT FOR ME!"

There was a loud, sonic crash as the blow connected, and had the Canuck not planted his foot firmly in the ground, he would've clearly gone for a good flight eastward through the city.

As it was, he just... stood there, completely unmoving, hands still in his pockets and face unchanged as his eyes bore holes into the Kryptonian's own, even with her fist still planted upon his brow.

For a moment, Solara just stood there in wide-eyed pause, clearly unsettled by that... before a thunderous shriek of raging defiance escaped her again and she began swinging wildly at his mug once more. To which the Champion responded by... still not moving, or really reacting in any percievable way as consecustive blows of thunderous intensity continued to slam into his face.

Maybe it was the cloud cover from being on the East Coast in the middle of January. Maybe it was something else. But the raging Kryptonian's strikes grew steadily weaker and weaker the more she swung until finally she could swing no more, clutching the front of Champion's open jacket in a death-grip as she stood on shaking legs and sucked in as much oxygen as she could.

"So, Kara Zor-El..." Duncan asked, pausing to wipe a trickle of blood now flowing freely from his nose, even in her weakened state, Solara was still a Kryptonian, after all "Did all this bring your planet back yet?"

His response was an inarticulate shriek as Solara reeled back and slammed her fist directly into his gut, with all the rage and intent she could muster but almost none of the strength she had before.

"Shut. Up. Mutant." The Ancient Kryptonian strained to hiss, still holding onto the shorter man's jacket "You know nothing. of my World!"

An indignant growl escaped him at that.

"I know that whether you like it or not, you are fuly half of all that remains of your people. And as you were so goddamn fond of pointing out the only one who remembers them at their greatest." The Lion of Nova Scotia continued without missing a beat, a sliver of curiously calm anger making it's way into his voice "Why don't you take a look around? Use those superior eyes of yours and see how that great, glorious people of yours are going to be remembered."

That gave the alien pause, as her eyes took on a familiar glow and darted around her, X-ray vision revealing what normal eyes would not; people running for their lives, huddled up in rooms together taking shelter, hearts beating swiftly... afraid. So very afraid.

The anger on her face twisted and melted slightly as some unreadable expression wrenched it's way onto it.

The shaking returned.

"That's right... look at it." Duncan continued, unrelenting in his psychological offensive "All the history, all the progress and greatness of the Golden Age of Krypton, and all that will be remembered of it on this world and any other they encounter in the years to come... will be one raging, rampaging monster."

An icy chill ran up the Kryptonian's spine at those words and she tried to jump away from the man as if bitten, only for his hand to snap out of pocket and hold her right where she was, yanking her forward, even, so he could stare directly into her trembling, panicked face.

"Is that what you want?"

His response was a wheeze... then a sniffle... followed by a high-pitched, nasal sound as Solara did everything in her power to ignore the grief that had bubbled just under the surface after Kitsune's efforts.

"N-No... I... I..."

At that, Duncan's other hand made it's way unto her shoulder, and his tone softened.

"Then let us help you."

That did it, as the dam on Solara's grief finally broke and her legs gave out beneath her, only spared from smacking into the cold cement below her as Champion held her upright in something resembling a hug as she openly wailed into his uniform. Breathing a small sigh of relief and shooting Supergirl a grin and a "We good" thumbs-up, even with his nose bloodied and a small shiner forming around his left eye, where half his domino-mask had been sheared off under Solara's punching, The Lion of Nova Scotia then quickly fished his ear-piece out of his pocket and flicked it on.

"Q, it's Champ. Ya still in the Monitor Room?"

The faceless hero gave a curt reply between hisses of pain, "Yeah Champ, still in the Monitor Room... Sorry I couldn't help out with some bots to keep Solara busy, but I guess it all turned out for the best that I didn't."

"Eh, don't sweat it. It's just been one of those days." Champ mused, grunting slightly as Solara clung to him just a bit harder and began sobbing even louder "But while you're there, would you mind firing a wide-band transmission into space? Towards Saturn, if ya can swing it."

Shifting slightly again, he elaborated.

"The Tameranean Defence Force has a comms buoy orbiting around Titan. Just let Commander Koriand'r of the Third Fleet know that her 'Brother-Duncan' needs a favour."

"... Tameranean Defense Force?" Shaking his head with a laugh, Question sighed. "Damn Duncan, you have friends in the weirdest places." The faceless hero sent the message out following Champion's instructions.

With a small snort and chuckle of his own, Duncan agreed;

"Man, you have no idea..."