(This is specifically based on the Peter David comics run from the late 90s. If you remember that comic run, I hope you'll enjoy this.
That comic, specifically the first seven issues, which are the influence and basis for this had a very strong impact on me when I was younger. I still love it, with amazing, very sexy artwork from Gary Frank.
It's also very 90s, something I've tried to capture without being too cheesy about it.
Let me know if you like it, there may be another part down the line.)
Part 1: Welcome to Leesburg
The radio came alive. The alarm flashing 10:00 as an unfamiliar voice came through the speakers. “Welcome to Leesburg, you’re listening to Cutter’s Way on W-LBG, Signal City Radio. I like my pleasure spiked with pain and music is my aeroplane, here are the Red Hot-“
A figure flailed and knocked the radio to the floor, losing the signal. A burst of white noise replacing the over caffeinated DJ’s voice.
The pain was wrong.
Not sharp, not clean. It felt wrong. Like her body had been taken apart and put back together by someone who didn’t care where things went. Her nerves screamed, muscles convulsed, skin burned up. Her temperature burning hot. She lay back down on the floor of a dark bedroom, naked and shaking. Sweat soaking the dirty carpet beneath her. Shallow breath tearing in and out of her lungs.
She tasted blood.
“What did I do…? What did I do…?” She kept repeating to herself in a whisper. Her voice sounded alien, like it had been dragged out of a throat that didn’t feel like it belonged to her.
The room stank. Old cigarettes, unwashed plates, mildew, cheap air freshener that failed to cover the smell of rot. The apartment itself was a dump, the kind of place where the walls sweat in summer and provided no insulation in the winter. Where every floorboard creaked. Paint peeled off them in long yellowing strips. A bug skittered along the baseboard, unbothered.
A door opened and light knifed in through the darkness. “Hello?” A woman’s voice, shaky. “I-I heard something. Is someone-?”
The figure on the floor jerked violently, scrambling up on instinct. A side table went over now. A lamp shattered.
The intruder flicked on the overhead light.
“LINDA!”
Linda Danvers stood in the centre of the bedroom. She was naked and trembling. Her dark eyes wide with a mix of fear and confusion.
Mattie Harcourt rushed forward, stepping over the shattered lamp. She crushed her friend in a hug before she even seemed to register what she was seeing. Mattie was elated - dark skinned, bob haircut pulled back by a headband, tight dark sweater with a blazer thrown over it. She had been Linda’s friend for years, going back to high school and was now on a successful path as a junior doctor at Leesburg Hospital.
“Oh my God - Linda - you’re alive. You’re alive and… Jesus Christ…” She pulled back fast, face contorting in embarrassment as she realised. “You’re… uh. You’re very naked.”
Mattie grabbed the nearest thing - an old bathrobe that smelled like damp towels - and wrapped it around her, taking her shaking hands. “God, you’re shaking.”
Linda was staring at herself in the mirror. Her body looked wrong. Too perfect. No bruises. No cuts. No cigarette burns.
No pain. The fire, the burning inside her cooled down.
Mattie stared at her like she was a ghost. “You’re soaking wet. Like… soaking. And you’ve been missing for days. Three days, Linda. Jeez… What the hell happened to you?”
Linda opened her mouth. No answer came out.
She stared at her reflection in the cracked mirror above the dresser. Brown hair, damp and tangled. Pale skin. Big eyes that didn’t feel like her own. She looked like Linda Danvers - twenty two year old college screw-up. A survivor of many, many bad decisions.
But she didn’t feel like anyone at all.
Later, they sat at the cramped kitchen table. Their knees almost touching in an apartment not designed to fit two people. Linda now wore a pair of beat-up jeans with holes in the knees and a green shirt so old the logo had faded into nothing. The coffee tasted like burnt water. She scooped another sugar into it.
“So.” Linda began quietly. “I’ve been missing.”
Mattie snorted. “Missing? You vanished. Cops. News vans. Missing person reports. Cult rumours. Your mom’s been losing her mind.” She hesitated. “And your dad… well. You know your dad.” Mattie tried to smile to reassure her friend. Failed.
Linda stared into her cup. Did she know her dad? Her thoughts felt scrambled, like memories thrown into a blender. Faces. Voices. Pain. Light. Blood. Something was burning…
She slid her fingers over her arm, feeling fabric catch on a small hole in her sleeve.
A flash.
A man’s face. Greasy hair. Yellow teeth. A cigarette pressed into her skin, slow and deliberate. She whispered a name. “Buzz…”
Mattie stiffened. Her jaw tightened. “Buzz? You mean that fucking creep? Linda, tell me you haven’t been seeing him again. Shit, I knew he was involved with this somehow! I-I told that detective…”
“I…” Linda swallowed, staring at her coffee. “I… don’t know.”
Mattie left eventually, albeit reluctantly. Promising to call Linda’s parents. When the door finally shut, the apartment fell silent - except for the low volume of the radio, rescued by Mattie. Stone Temple Pilots just about drowned out the distant sound of traffic.
Linda sat on the floor and thought hard.
The memories seemed to come back wrong at first. She remembered talking to her parents, but she was different. Taller. Blonde. Strong. She remembered the word Matrix. And… flying. She remembered wearing red and blue, a symbol on her chest…
She remembered standing in her parent’s sitting room, looking at family pictures, wondering what it was like - to be human. Her father shouting at her, accusing her of being above it all. Some kind of God here to mock those she saw lower than her. She remembered thinking how empty and hollow she felt. Matrix. Not a real person at all.
Then she remembered her dad breaking down, falling to his knees, grabbing her skirt, begging her to find his daughter.
And then she remembered dying.
A shiver went down her back and her heart started to beat out of her chest. Yes. There had been a cult. Circles. Candles. Chanting. Her clothes torn from her body. Hands… Buzz’s hands shoving her down. Being offered up like meat. Hands groping her body inside and out.
She remembered Supergirl crashing through a window, interrupting the ritual like a beautiful, golden god.
And then, her memories mixed up.
There was a… merging.
Not possession. Not resurrection. Some kind of strange assimilation. Two beings collapsing into one another. Matrix flesh and human soul knitting together out of desperation.
Linda put her hand to her head and laughed softly, almost hysterically. “Oh God…” She leant forward and turned on the small TV. And her face filled the screen. Both of them. A deputy spoke solemnly to reporters. “Leesburg PD is still unsure what happened to Supergirl. She was assisting in the search for missing college student Linda Danvers when-”
Linda didn’t wait to hear the next part.
A window blew outward as a blur tore through the room. Glass smashed. In a heartbeat there was suddenly a blur on the screen, ripping the folded costume from the deputy’s hands. In the apartment, the TV kept talking to an empty room.
Above the city, Supergirl hovered in Linda’s clothes, costume clutched tight, heart pounding with two lives’ worth of memory and guilt.
Linda Danvers.
Supergirl.
Not one. Not the other.
Something new.
Later, Supergirl - Linda - floated three feet above the stained carpet, arms wrapped around herself tightly. She wore her costume, her hair was blonde. She had transformed back into Supergirl when she had realised what had happened. The merging. It had been like a switch - from Linda to Supergirl.
She surveyed the apartment. The sagging couch with its split seams and cigarette burns, the overflowing ashtray on the windowsill, the water stain on the ceiling. The place reeked of old smoke and something she couldn’t put her finger on. Something she didn’t want to put her finger on. She sighed. “What a dump…” Then she looked down, underneath her hovering feet.
She’d found the box under the bed.
A cheap cardboard thing, corners crushed, sealed with yellowed tape that tore easily when she touched it. Inside were photographs - dozens of them - spilling out onto the floor like evidence. Her hands shook as she picked one up.
Linda Danvers.
She picked through the early ones first. Freshman year at college. All awkward smiles. Oversized sweaters. Dorky glasses slipping down her nose. Mattie, seemingly her only friend during all this. Her hair pulled back tightly. Clearly the sort of girl that no one remembers when the yearbooks are handed out.
Then the photos shifted.
Dark lipstick. Heavy eyeliner. Fishnets under ripped jeans. Studded chokers. Cigarettes posed deliberately between fingers. A sneer that had been practiced in the mirror. The descent wasn’t subtle at all.
And there he was.
Buzz.
Even frozen in glossy print, he radiated sleaze. Long trench coat, greasy hair, eyes that never quite focused on the camera, or her face. Always touching her. An arm hooked around her neck. Fingers dug into her waist. Treating her like his property. Her body leaned into him in ways that made her stomach knot.
Did I want this? Did I choose him?
She stared at a photo where Linda - the other Linda - hung off Buzz’s arm, smiling maliciously. Eyes wild. “I don’t remember loving you.” She whispered to herself. “And I don’t remember hating you either.”
She found some more polaroids at the bottom of the box and her eyes widening. Linda was in all of them. Naked. On her knees. And she… well there was no nice way to put it….she was sucking cock in the first one. Eyes wide, her brunette hair damp on her face. She couldn’t tell who else was in the photo with her and blushed.
In the next photo, HE was there again - Buzz - helping her to take another man’s cock in her mouth. The dark lighting made it hard to tell but as she flicked through the pictures, she found Linda… herself… in all manner of positions. The dark lighting picking up the cum soaking her face and her body. Strangers cocks surrounding her. Fucked in positions she had never imagined, let alone considered trying. Even when she had been Lex Luthor’s girlfriend.
That thought sent a shiver through her.
The last polaroid showed Linda on all fours. Someone was taking her from behind whilst she was going down on a woman. Even in the low light, and with the low quality of the polaroid, she could see the sweat dripping from her body.
She felt heat rising up in her. “Jeez….” And all the while Buzz was there. Watching.
A sudden metallic clatter at the door made her jerk violently, photos scattering across the floor.
Keys.
Voices.
“Oh God - Linda?” Mattie’s voice, sharp with panic and relief. “She left the door unlocked.”
Another voice - older, rougher. “Jesus, this place is still a dump.”
Dad.
Her heart slammed.
“Oh shit.” Supergirl dropped hard to the floor, cape snapping around her legs. Panic surged through her. She was suddenly very aware of her costume, something she wasn’t ready to share with her friends and family.
No. Not like this.
She blurred, her motion too fast to track, running into her bedroom. The door swinging closed with a bang. She yanked the robe from the bed, dragging it on over herself and over her costume as she staggered into the closet. Not exactly the best of hiding places. She wasn’t exactly Batman.
The door to the closet shut as she heard her name again. “Linda?” Mattie called again. “Linda!?”
Footsteps. Shoes crunching glass. “Goddammit…” Her dad muttered.
Then… The closet door creaked open. Fred Danvers stood there, frozen. Peering through a crack in the closet, he looked graver than Linda remembered. Like the past few days had taken something out of him. He looked like a man worn down around the edges.
“Linda?” Her mom… Sylvia… called out. The closet door was flung open. Their faces broke into a grin.
“Linda!” Fred gasped. “There you are.” Linda pulled the robe tight around her. She had transformed back into the brunette college student they knew as their daughter, but still the Supergirl costume could give the game away.
Before she could react, Fred pulled her into a crushing hug. “Jesus Christ, kiddo. You scared the hell out of us.”
“I - Dad - Mom - wait…” Linda stammered, heart racing.
He pulled back, finally really looking at her. “You okay? You..uh… you look like hell.”
“Fred!” Sylvia admonished.
But Linda laughed weakly. “Yeah. That’s… fair.” Linda slipped past Fred quickly, pulling the robe tighter, suddenly too aware of how close the costume still was beneath it. She guided them toward the door, adrenaline buzzing under her skin. “I’m okay, honestly - A OK.” She said fast. “I swear. I just - I need to change. Shower. Something. Can we… can we do this in an hour?”
Her mom nodded immediately, tears already forming. Fred hesitated, then smiled again. Confused but hopeful. “Ok.. An hour. We’ll be right back.” Mattie ushered them out, giving Linda a confused look clearly wondering what was going on with her.
When the door shut behind them, Linda leaned against it and slid down to the floor, shaking. Photos scattered at her feet. Thank God she’d hidden the really sensitive ones. Two lives. One body. A past that was and wasn’t hers.
Linda locked the front door, noting how flimsy it looked. She leaned her forehead against the cheap wood of the door and breathed until the shaking slowed. Her pulse still thundered like she’d narrowly avoided being caught doing something unforgivable. Which, in a way, she had.
She crossed the apartment to the mirror.
Up close, the thing looked tired. The glass was warped, a Warped tour sticker peeled next to a spiderweb-crack in one corner. She stood in front of it and changed.
The shift rippled through her like heat through metal. She grew - just a little. An inch, maybe two. Her spine lengthened, posture straightening without effort. Brown hair bled into gold, dark roots erased as it spilled down her shoulders in a smooth, impossible fall. Muscle tightened where there had been softness, curves reshaped into something engineered for motion rather than survival.
Supergirl stared back at her.
Not smiling. She lifted a hand. The reflection did the same. Strong? Sure. Invulnerable? Of course. This body knew what it could do. It remembered flight, strength, speed. It remembered being unbreakable. She floated back up, several inches from the ground.
Then she let it go. The power drained like someone had pulled a plug and she changed back.
Linda Danvers blinked at her own reflection. Shorter. Softer. Brown hair again, messy and uneven. A faint scar on her hip she didn’t remember earning. Dark circles under her eyes. Gravity reclaimed her shoulders immediately. Human.
And she floated. Well, not for long. For half a second she hovered above the carpet, body lifting instinctively the way it had a thousand times before.
Then nothing.
Linda dropped like a sack of laundry, hitting the floor with a loud thump, limbs flailing, the robe flying open as she groaned. “Son of a… Ow… Shit.” She lay there, staring at the ceiling stain shaped like a screaming face, catching her breath. Her robe open, costume underneath.
No strength. No invulnerability. No flight.
No powers.
She wiggled her toes. Still hers. “Okay.” She said to the room. “Well, this is new.”
Supergirl had merged with Linda. She had Linda’s memories - at least some of them - but it was Supergirl in control. Mostly. She couldn’t properly explain it. She was Supergirl and she was Linda.
She pushed herself up and started getting dressed. Old jeans, high-waisted, worn thin at the thighs, frayed hems dragging on the floor. She had to jump to pull them up over her hips. A band t-shirt followed, soft from too many washes, the Pearl Jam logo cracked and barely legible.
As she dressed slowly, her thoughts settled, drifting inward. Before, she’d been a thing that bent reality. But this… this felt anchored.
When she was Supergirl, the power was there, real and solid. When she wasn’t… she was just Linda. No bleed-over. No safety net. She stared at her reflection again. “So I’m Linda. And I’m Supergirl.” She murmured, smiling to herself. “Wow…. This is screwed up.”
Something had changed in the merge between the two bodies. She could feel it, like new rules she didn’t remember agreeing to. Boundaries where there hadn’t been any before. Limits.
Linda tugged on her Doc Marten boots, laced them tight and stood there for a long moment, staring at the woman in the mirror. Then she was out of there.
The examination room smelled like antiseptic. Linda sat on the paper covered table in a hospital gown that didn’t quite close in the back, knees drawn up, bare feet cold against linoleum. The lights overhead buzzed faintly. Normally she would’ve sensed everything. Conversations three rooms over. The elevator cable whining. Someone crying quietly down the hall. Super senses would’ve filled the silence, given her something to anchor to. She was finding it difficult to get use to all the quiet.
Her mother sat stiffly in one of the plastic chairs, purse clenched in her lap. Her father leaned against the wall, arms crossed, trying not to look worried and failing at it. Mattie hovered near the door, pretending to read a pamphlet she’d already folded into submission.
Linda swallowed. “So. Just to confirm. We’ve done X-rays, blood work and an MRI. Anything left?” She had met back up with her parents and Mattie and they had practically forced her to the doctor’s office. Reminding her that she had been missing for three days.
The doctor, middle-aged, tired, but still kind in the practiced way, checked her chart. “We’ve ran everything we reasonably could. You’re in excellent health, Linda. Honestly? Better than most people your age.”
Linda snorted. “Figures.”
He frowned slightly. “Pardon?”
“Nothing.” She flashed a winning smile.
Then… Abruptly, the room darkened.
Not the lights. The space.
Something stepped into existence in front of her, swallowing detail as it moved. A figure clad in black, edges indistinct, like it was sketched in charcoal and shadow. A dark man. No face she could see, just the suggestion of one, tilted down toward her. “Linda.”
Her name scraped across her nerves. She recoiled instinctively, scrambling backward on the table until her shoulders hit the wall. Her heart exploded into her throat. Every part of her screamed danger - not physical, not exactly - but something older, deeper. Like prey recognising a predator it had already failed to escape once. “Stay back..” She whispered, voice breaking. “Get away from me.”
“Linda?” Fred snapped. “What’s wrong?”
The figure loomed closer, inspecting her like a broken toy. “…Something’s changed.” It murmured. Not angry. Curious. “No matter. Buzz will find another.”
And then it was gone. The room snapped back into place. Sound rushed in all at once. Voices, footsteps, the hum of fluorescent lights. Linda gasped, sucking air like she’d been underwater.
“Linda?” Her mother was suddenly at her side. “Honey? Are you okay?”
The doctor looked concerned. “You went pale. Dizzy spell?”
Linda’s hands were shaking.
Buzz.
Cinema.
Candles. Dust. A screen torn like a wound.
The memory slammed into her fully formed, sharp as glass.
“I’m fine.” She said too quickly, already sliding off the table. “I just… I need air.”
The doctor nodded, already backing off, giving Fred a knowing look. “Physically, you’re fine. Remarkably so. I’d recommend rest, low stress, and-”
“Sure.” Linda said, grabbing her clothes. “Lots of rest and relaxation. Got it.”
She didn’t look at her parents as she changed. Tossing the hospital gown to the ground. The space between them felt wider than the room. “We’ll talk later.” She said, not meeting their eyes. “I promise.” Then she was rushing out, past a confused Mattie.
Outside, the sky was low and grey, threatening rain on a Spring day. Linda ducked into an alley, heart still pounding, and changed again. Light rippled over her skin. Normalcy vanished and strength surged. Supergirl streaked across the sky, following the pull of that memory. Toward an abandoned cinema on the edge of town and whatever was waiting for her there.
Toward Buzz.
The cinema’s marquee letters hung crooked, spelling nothing now. Posters for long-forgotten movies peeled from the glass, faces flaking away like they’d never existed. Inside, the air was thick with dust, mold and something older. Something that didn’t belong to this world.
Supergirl hovered above the damaged roof, cape snapping in the cold wind. She could feel it. Chalk lines etched into concrete. Blood soaking into carpet. Words whispered too many times to ever stop echoing. The cult hadn’t left. The cult that had taken Linda. That had caused the merging of Linda and Supergirl.
She dropped through the roof in a controlled crash, concrete exploding beneath her boots. “Step away from her.”
The cult followers seemed to turn as one.
Robes - black, red, stitched with symbols that crawled if you stared too long. Candles burned with green-black flames, wax dripping like fat. At the centre of it all knelt a girl who she could tell was college-aged. Wrists bound, in her underwear, mascara streaked with tears. She looked so painfully familiar it made Linda’s chest ache.
Supergirl moved instantly. Chains snapped. A cultist went flying into a wall hard enough to crack brick. Another screamed as she tore the knife from his hand and bent it into useless scrap.
The girl collapsed into Supergirl’s arms, sobbing. “Run.” Supergirl said softly. “Don’t stop.”
The girl didn’t stop to argue.
Then the pain hit. Something slammed into Supergirl’s side - not physical. Symbols burned in the air, carved from sound and intent. Her vision stuttered. Her muscles locked. She cried out as invisible weight crushed down on her, forcing her to one knee.
Magic. She hated magic.
“Different rules, now.” One of the cultists hissed. Another gesture - another word from the cultist and agony flared across her skin, like knives scraping under muscle. She clenched her teeth, refusing to scream, even as the pain increased.
That’s when she saw him.
Buzz sat near the back, smoking a cigarette in the back row of the cinema, untouched by the chaos. No robe. No symbols. Just that familiar trench coat, that same sleazy confidence. Watching. Smiling.
Their eyes met.
Recognition hit like a gut punch - not hers alone, but Linda’s. Memory bleeding through. His hand at her throat choking her, his voice in her ear, telling her she was special because she was empty enough to fill. “You!” She snarled, forcing herself upright.
Buzz spread his hands, pinging his cigarette away. “Relax, Blondie. I’m just a freelancer.”
Rage surged inside her, hot, focused, dangerous. She pushed through the pain and launched herself toward him… and the air tore open around her.
Reality seemed to split like wet paper.
A portal yawned wide, vomiting shadow and heat and a smell like burned churches. From it stepped a man-shaped thing, skin too smooth, eyes too knowing. A demon wearing humanity like a costume. The man in black from the her vision in the hospital. “Enough.” He said, voice layered and wrong. “You are not meant for this plane.”
Supergirl didn’t hesitate, switching gears from Buzz to this… demon. She hit him like a meteor. The force of the impact shattered the ritual circle, blew the last standing cultists off their feet, candles snuffing out in a wave of darkness. Supergirl wrapped her arms around the demon and drove them both backward. Into the portal.
The world inverted. Sound stretched into screams that might have been hers. Then… Nothing but darkness and falling. Supergirl tumbled through a realm of endless black stone and whispering void, the portal snapping shut behind her like a slammed door.
Back on Earth, Buzz laughed softly.
Supergirl hit the ground hard, skidding across black stone that felt warm and slick beneath her palms. “Oooft…” The sky above was a screaming bruise of red and violet, veins of light pulsing. Gravity felt wrong here - thick, dragging at her limbs, making every movement cost something.
The demon stood calmly a few yards away. Up close, the disguise was worse. He was too symmetrical. Skin stretched tight over muscle that moved incorrectly beneath it. Eyes black and reflective, following her with open interest. “Such a change.” He said, circling her slowly. “You were softer before.” Alluding to Linda and Supergirl being the same person.
“Yeah, well now I’m made of steel!” She swung at him.
The punch should’ve shattered bone. Instead, her fist slammed into something like iron wrapped in rubber, the impact jolted up her arm and threw her off balance. He backhanded her across the jaw and sent her tumbling through the air, slamming into a jagged outcropping of stone. Pain exploded behind her eyes. “Ouch…” She groaned.
Magic laced every blow. Burning, invasive and personal. Symbols flared across his skin as he struck again, and this time the pain didn’t stay on the surface. It crawled inward, into muscle, into memory.
She tried to go intangible. A power that she’d always had.
Nothing happened.
Tried to vanish.
Still nothing.
Panic flared as she attempted to shift her shape - Matrix instinct screaming for escape - and hit a dead wall inside herself. “No.” She gasped. “No, no…”
The demon loomed over her, one clawed hand pinning her wrist to the stone. His grip was crushing, possessive. She struggled. “Those tricks are gone.” He murmured. “You are… simpler now.” His gaze lingered in a way that made her skin crawl, made something old and terrified curl up inside Linda’s chest. He leant forward and out slid his demonic tongue. Linda cringed as he licked her soft cheek slowly.
Pressing himself against her, Linda could feel the hard - demonic - erection between his legs, pressing against her thigh. His other clawed hand grabbed the collar of her costume and tugged it down, exposing her cleavage. “I will peel this… costume… from you. You will make a good consort.” He laughed, his tongue now running down her neck.
He tugged the costume down further, grabbing her breast through it, his tongue trailing down her exposed collarbone towards it. She heard the words. “It’s easier if you want it. But I have no problem taking it.” Rage now cut through her fear. She sucked in a breath - deep, instinctive - and frost exploded from her lungs. Ice blasted across the demon’s torso, crawling over his chest and face in jagged white fractures. He recoiled, snarling in surprise.
She dropped to the ground and watched his reaction, just as surprised herself. “Oh. That’s new.” Then, red heat flared behind her eyes. She let it out.
Twin beams of searing light tore into him, punching through flesh, burning away the illusion of his power, revealing what he really was beneath the skin. He screamed. An unholy, layered sound that shook the dimension itself. She didn’t stop. Her next punch landed with weight - real, undeniable force - and this time there was no resistance. The impact folded him backward, ribs cracking like dry wood. She grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled.
With a wet, tearing sound, the demon came apart. Split in two.
He didn’t die - not fully. What was left twitched on the ground, a ruined shell, power leaking out of it like smoke. Linda hovered there, shaking, chest heaving, eyes blazing.
The portal screamed open behind her again, already collapsing. She didn’t hesitate. She rocketed through it - faster than she ever had before - breaking the sound barrier in a flash of red and blue. She slammed back into the cinema, skidding across the concrete and crashing into seats, cape tangling around her legs as the portal snapped shut behind her with a thunderclap.
Silence.
Dust drifted down. The cultists were gone. Buzz was gone.
Supergirl lay there for a long moment, every muscle burning, lungs aching, heart pounding like it might explode out of her body. Then she laughed softly - broken, exhausted, victorious. “Okay then.” She whispered. “New rules.”
Outside, sirens wailed in the distance.
Inside the ruined cinema, Linda Danvers lay alive. Changed, battered and not done yet.
STAR Labs smelled cleaner than the hospital. Linda had flown to Metropolis to see if they could tell her anything about the changes she had been going through.
Linda sat on the edge of an exam table in her Supergirl form. She wore a white medical robe, bare legs swinging slightly, paper crinkling beneath her. The look was uncomfortably familiar. Close to earlier, too close to being studied. Which reminded her of Lex and the time they’d spent together. Another cold shiver ran down her back.
Banks of machines hummed softly around her, lights blinking in patient, judgmental rhythms.
Across from her stood Dr. Kitty Faulkner.
Hair pulled back in a messy knot, lab coat open over a sharp blouse, pushing her glasses up her nose, eyes constantly flicking between Linda and the data scrolling across a nearby screen. She had the posture of someone who refused to be impressed easily and the curiosity of someone who desperately wanted to be. Kitty folded her arms. “So. You want to tell me why your cellular readings look like they got into a bar fight with physics?”
Linda smiled thinly. “Uh.. Rough night?”
Kitty snorted, laughing despite herself.
Linda shifted, suddenly aware of how exposed she felt. “I’m… not going to get into what happened. Or why. But my powers changed. Some have vanished completely. Others showed up.”
Kitty nodded slowly. “That tracks.” She tapped the screen, enlarging a molecular diagram that made Linda’s head hurt just looking at it. “Your molecular framework has stabilised.” Kitty said. “Before, you were… flexible. Mutable. Like a living probability cloud. Now? You’re denser. More ordered.”
“Normal…” Linda muttered.
Kitty shot her a look. “Classic might be the word. You now resemble a standard Kryptonian power profile. Albeit I don’t think you’re quite as powerful as Superman.”
Linda’s stomach tightened. “Kryptonian? Does that mean… the same weaknesses?”
Kitty hesitated. “That’s where it gets fuzzy. We don’t have enough data yet. You don’t respond to solar radiation the same way Superman does. Your power output doesn’t spike under yellow sunlight, I mean if anything, it’s more internally regulated. Like a battery instead of a solar panel.”
Linda absorbed that quietly. She thought of how changing back after the fight at the cinema had felt. How it had cost her something. Like flexing a muscle she didn’t know she had until it started to ache. “…It takes effort now.” Linda said carefully. “Like I’m burning fuel.”
Kitty’s gaze sharpened, impressed despite herself. “That’s actually incredible.”
Linda glanced up. “Incredible how?”
Kitty smiled. Small, genuine. “You’re not just powerful. You’re efficient. Adaptive. Whatever happened to you didn’t weaken you. It just… rewrote you.”
Linda felt heat creep up her neck. “Oh, well. That’s… good? It’s good right?”
Kitty smiled and nodded, then tilted her head, studying her in a way that wasn’t entirely professional anymore. “You know, most people with your kind of power don’t bother asking questions. They just punch things until the answers stop moving.”
Linda laughed softly, brushing her blonde locks from her face. “I tried that. Didn’t love the results.”
Kitty smiled back. There was a beat - a quiet one - charged in that way Linda hadn’t felt in a long time. “…You okay?” Kitty asked, gentler now.
Linda hesitated, then nodded, smiling. “Yeah. I think I am.”
As she headed for the exit, she caught her reflection in the glass - blonde hair, calm eyes, something lighter in her expression.
Was she flirting with Kitty? Just a little. She blinked. “…Huh.” She murmured. “That’s new.”
Outside, night had fallen fast. The flight home to Leesburg would take an hour. Looking up, the sky over the city was already too dark, stars faint and distant. Supergirl lifted into the air, cape trailing behind her, a quiet unease she couldn’t put her finger on settling in her chest.
Darkness was coming.
And whatever she had become would have to face it.
Part 2: The Final Night
Leesburg had never been a holy place, not really. But the abandoned church tried to pretend otherwise. The pews were overturned, splintered wood littering the cracked tile floor. Stained glass windows had been smashed long ago, their saints reduced to jagged mouths that let moonlight pour in at the wrong angles. Candles burned where the altar used to be, their flames guttering unnaturally low.
The sun had gone dark.
Not eclipsed. Wrong. Diminished. As if something vast and hungry had taken a bite out of it. People felt it in their bones, even if they didn’t know why yet.
The sun was dying. This was the Final Night.
Buzz leaned casually against a fallen column, hands in the pockets of his trench coat, watching the cult leader pace. The cult leader, a man in his forties - Father Halloway - was sweating through his robes. His beard was wild now, eyes red-rimmed and frantic. “She destroyed the vessel.” Halloway hissed. “Again. Your demon is gone. The girl escaped. Two girls escaped!”
“Three. If we’re counting Supergirls.” Buzz smiled, his English accent filling the room. “But, that’s what makes it fun. The unpredictability. The chaos.”
Halloway rounded on him. “Fun? I wasn’t paying you to have fun. You said this would work. You said she was ready to be opened, that it would be secret. How the hell did you manage to get the attention of Superman’s sister.” He clenched his fists. “You’ve cost us - cost me - everything.”
“Actually, I don’t believe they’re related.” Buzz straightened and reached into his trench coat and produced a gem. It was small, dark red, like a dark frozen tear. Light bent around it instead of reflecting, colours bleeding into dark. Just holding it made the air feel heavier. “A peace offering.” Buzz said, tossing it lightly from hand to hand. “This little beauty will darken the souls of anyone you touch with it. Strip out the doubts. The guilt. Make believers… clean.”
Halloway stared at it, reverent and terrified. “Where did you get that?”
Buzz’s grin widened. “A gift from Klarion. He sends his regards. And his regrets. Mostly regrets.”
Halloway’s fingers closed around the gem and then his courage swelled dangerously. “You think you can toy with us? You think you’re untouchable? You think this makes us even?”
Buzz sighed.
Halloway raised a hand, chanting. Symbols flaring weakly around his fingers.
The magic hit Buzz like static. Buzz responded with a whispered word that unmade the spell and followed immediately with a right hook that cracked bone and sent Halloway sprawling across the altar steps. Buzz stood over him, eyes cold now, voice calm. “Don’t push me. Your chosen vessels slipped through your fingers and you’ve failed twice already, old chap. Your stock’s getting low around here.” He crouched, leaned in close. “And you don’t actually want to find out what I do to people who actually manage to piss me off.”
Halloway whimpered.
“Now, enjoy my little present. Lots of fun to be had tonight.” Buzz straightened, dusted off his knuckles and turned toward the broken doorway. As he stepped outside, the night felt wrong. “It’s the Last Night, ain’t you heard? Buncha superheroes failed and now we’ve got an ice age incoming. May as well try and have some fun.”
A shout rose nearby. A crowd had gathered down the street. Protestors waving signs, angry and afraid, yelling impotently at the dark sky, as if it might answer back.
And then above them… A streak of red and blue cut across the night.
Supergirl.
Buzz watched her slow, hover and turn toward the crowd.
He smiled to himself, lighting a cigarette. “I know what you are.” Chaos thrived on secrets like that. And Buzz loved chaos.
Supergirl hovered above the intersection, cape barely moving, watching the crowd below her. They were scared. That was the problem. Days had already passed with this darkness. No solution seemed forthcoming.
Handwritten signs bobbed above heads. WHERE IS THE SUN? STOP LYING TO US. WE DESERVE ANSWERS. Voices overlapped into a constant roar. Anger curdled into something feral.
She descended slowly, hands open, boots touching asphalt with deliberate care. “Hey.” She said, projecting calm she didn’t entirely feel. “I know this is frightening. I don’t have all the answers, but hurting each other won’t fix what’s happening.”
A bottle shattered near her feet.
“You don’t know anything!” Someone shouted.
“I know you’re scared.” She replied, her voice wavering just a little bit, turning, meeting eyes one by one. “And I know this isn’t fair. But we get through this by keeping each other safe.”
A man shoved his way to the front of the crowd. Red-faced. Sweating. Eyes glassy with rage and something worse. His voice sneered full of malice. “Oh, listen to her. All dressed up, pretending she cares. Where’s Superman now, huh? Too busy? So he sends his little blonde mascot? His slutty side piece?”
Some laughter rippled. Nervous, ugly.
Supergirl didn’t flinch, the words stung but she tried not to show it. “I’m here. I haven’t abandoned you. That should count for something.”
He stepped closer. “Figures they send you.” He spat. “Smiling. Talking. Pretty little dumb bitch. Thinks she can fix everything just by-” Suddenly he leaned forward and spat full in her face.
The sound was small. The moment was not.
Supergirl froze.
For half a second, the crowd went silent. She lifted a hand slowly and wiped her cheek, staring at the wet smear on her hand. Something in her chest twisted - not rage, not yet - but shame she didn’t recognise as her own. Then hands were on her.
The man lunged, arms locking around her neck from behind, forearm digging in hard. He screamed incoherently, breath hot against her ear. “Make it better! Fix it!”
Suddenly sirens wailed. Police cars skidded to a stop at the edge of the crowd. Officers spilled out, shouting commands. Fred Danvers jumped from his cruiser. He took in the scene in a heartbeat. The mob, the man seemingly choking Supergirl, her standing there - still, restrained, letting it happen. And was that spit dripping down her cheek?
“Get back!” Fred shouted. “Let her go!”
Supergirl didn’t wait. She lifted straight up. The man yelped as the ground vanished beneath his feet, grip loosening in panic. Thirty feet up, she stopped, gently but decisively peeling his arms away. She looked him in the eye. Steely. But no anger, just disappointment.
Then she dropped back down. Controlled and calm - setting him on his feet like a child who’d misbehaved. He stumbled away back into the crowd silently, pale and shaking.
The crowd had learned. They backed up. Voices lowered. Fear replaced bravado. Fred approached her slowly, helmet tucked under his arm. He handed her his handkerchief silently and she wiped the spit from her face. “Thank you.” He said. He didn’t look at her costume, he looked at her. “We’re spread thin tonight. It’s getting bad. Everything… everything’s breaking down.”
His radio crackled.
“Unit Seven, we’ve got a full riot breaking out near the courthouse. Fires. Multiple injuries.”
Fred closed his eyes for a moment. He looked back at Supergirl, urgency cutting through exhaustion. “Please. If you can, keep the peace here. My family are still… Well please, keep my wife and daughter safe. Keep everyone safe.”
Supergirl nodded. “I will. It’s hard… but empathy, love has to win out….” She said.
As Fred ran back to his car, she rose once more into the dying light, watching the frightened faces below her disperse.
As she arrived outside the courthouse, a thought crossed her mind. The riot had stopped being a riot. It was now some kind of purge.
People who should have been arguing over parking tickets and grocery prices were tearing into each other with glassy eyes and blood-slicked hands. It had not taken Halloway long, the gem’s influence crawled through the crowd like a disease, dragging the ugliest thoughts to the surface and letting them breathe.
Supergirl was very quickly everywhere at once.
She caught a man mid-swing, before his crowbar could connect with a stranger’s skull. She bent the crowbar over her knee. As she turned away, she took a bottle to the side of the head that rang, stars bursting behind her eyes. Someone stabbed at her with a broken signpost. She twisted away, but still felt it scrape against her body.
Clark would’ve shrugged it off.
But she wasn’t Clark, wasn’t on his power level, despite appearances. She felt it.
Every blow landed heavier than it should have. She was trying desperately not to hurt anyone, realising that there was some kind of possession in effect. Then one solid punch from a woman half her size snapped her head sideways.
She refused to hit back. She kept her hands open. Grappled instead of punched. Gentle tosses that still sent people flying because she couldn’t afford not to. She pinned some. Froze others in place with breath that crystallised the air. Heat vision flashed - not lethal, never lethal - burning weapons out of hands, cutting through the gem’s glow when she could.
Still they came. Still they screamed. Still they hated.
Finally, breath ragged, she shot upward and landed hard on a rooftop, boots cracking tar. She bent over, hands on knees, chest heaving. She had been none stop for days, she was finding that even Supergirls could get tired. She looked down - had she made any kind of positive impact on the situation? She wasn’t sure as she watched the city burning.
“Bit rough down there, love.”
Her blood went cold.
Buzz stood a few feet away, hands loose at his sides, an ever present cigarette between his fingers, trench coat pristine despite the chaos below. He looked amused. Relaxed. Like this was all just a particularly entertaining evening.
He looked her up and down. “Have to say. The new threads suit you. And the blonde dye job? Inspired.”
She moved faster than thought. In a blink she had him by the collar, fist twisted into his coat, lifting him clean off the roof. All thoughts of empathy, finally replaced by rage. The concrete beneath her feet cracked. “You did this!” Linda snarled. “All of it. The cult. The riot.”
Buzz dangled there, smiling even as her grip tightened, cutting off his breath. “Linda, love.” he said, voice strained but but full of delight. “Don’t you remember?”
She shook him once, violently, brushing off hearing her secret identity, her new secret identity mentioned whilst out as Supergirl. “Remember what?”
“This.” He replied softly. He reached up and tapped two fingers against her temple. The world seemed to collapse.
She was back in her own skin - Linda’s skin - memory overwhelming her, heart pounding with excitement and rage and purpose. She remembered the apartment, the smoke, the half-drunk bottle between them. Buzz pacing, talking fast, ideas spilling out like sparks. “People are already broken.” He’d said. “We just give them permission.”
And she’d laughed. God, she’d laughed.
She remembered agreeing. Expanding on it. Talking about despair like it was an academic exercise, like suffering was raw material. She remembered touching him - angry, desperate, reckless. Her clothes torn away. The floor cold against her back. His mouth bruising her neck, her chest, teeth scraping against her designed to hurt her.
And she remembered wanting it.
Back in on the rooftop, Linda had dropped Buzz and he stood watching her with fascination. She wasn’t just remembering these memories. She was living them.
Back in her memories, she felt Buzz enter her, hard and reckless. She gasped. “Rougher. I want it harder.” He obliged, fucking Linda hard on the cold floor of her apartment. His hand wrapping around her throat and choking her hard. Spitting into her gaping mouth. His cock throbbing and sliding in roughly. Hard and deliberately. The sex was nasty. He slapped her tits through her barely there crop top and she demanded more. More.
He slammed her wrist into the floor, likely leaving marks she’d have proudly worn the next day. Her spare hand dug its nails into her back.
Back to reality on the rooftop, Linda had fallen to her knees, overwhelmed as she remembered the way she’d whispered ideas into his ear while he was inside her, breathless, brilliant, monstrous ideas. She gasped and moaned in a way she had never done before. Buzz was aware of her nipples, hard as bullets poking out from under her costume.
Her eyes closed as she gasped again. She bit down on her lip, in the moment as she glanced up at Buzz watching her, she wanted to pretend it was her body betraying her, that she was a good superheroine who would never do this sort of thing. But it wasn’t true.
The memory of Buzz on top of her. His cock exploding inside her. Linda felt it running up her body, the sensation, a sordid climax here on the dirty roof. Her face blushed. “Mmmmhmm… G-God…” Her hand brushed her sensitive nipple and her knees buckled. She collapsed to her side. Her body shook as a huge climax rocked her. She found herself leaking over her famous red skirt, her legs shaking. She moaned, “Yes…”
Whispered it… but the Girl of Steel felt a very satisfying orgasm rock through her.
Buzz crouched lightly beside her. “See?” he said cheerfully. “This wasn’t me corrupting you. You didn’t need any help at all.” He crouched, voice low and intimate. “This was you, Linda. I just helped you say it out loud. And you enjoyed that didn’t you? Letting yourself go like that?”
She looked up at him, eyes glazed over with a hollow post orgasmic chill and something worse - recognition. He was right. This was the real Linda that Supergirl had inherited. She wasn’t some innocent. On a physical and intellectual level she had loved what had happened.
Buzz pulled out his packet of cigarettes and motioned to offer her one, before thinking twice. “Hmm, I guess not.” Below them, the riot raged on and Buzz watched her for a moment longer than necessary. Then he turned away. “Well, until we meet again, love.”
She barely had time to look up. His boot caught her square in the chest. In the centre of her S shield. He rolled her off the rooftop, down to the hell below them. She went over the edge, the city rushing up to meet her. She hit a parked car, hard enough to accordion the hood, metal screaming as glass exploded around her. Pain tore through her… and then hands were on her.
Too many hands.
People dragged and pulled at her costume, shouting, spitting, clawing and groping. Faces twisted by rage that wasn’t entirely their own. The gem’s influence pulsed through them like a heartbeat.
Linda felt her costume pulled at by the collar, her breasts groped through it. Her cape was ripped off her back. Hands slid under her skirt. “G-get offa me…” She whined as she lashed out blindly - an elbow, a burst of frost, raw strength sending bodies flying. Someone screamed. Someone laughed. She staggered free, vision swimming.
Across the street, a church glowed red. Not warm. Not holy.
Red like warning. Red like blood under skin.
She forced herself toward it. Stumbling. Boots crunching broken glass, breath ragged. The doors were wide open. And inside, the cult waited.
Candles burned low and wrong, their flames bending inward toward the gem held aloft by the leader. Its light pulsed, casting warped shadows across the walls. The air throbbed with chanting, the air full of ugly, hungry words. Linda roared in blinding rage and flew the noise.
She tore through them like a storm. Bones broke. Spells shattered against her fists. Heat vision cut sigils into smoke. Freeze breath shattered altar stone. The cult scattered. Faith collapsing under the weight of her fury.
But the leader stood his ground. Smiling. He had managed to sneak up, get the jump on her. Linda’s rage had made her less aware of her surroundings. As she turned, he raised the gem and pressed it against her chest. “What…?”
Darkness answered. Not possession. Recognition.
Every buried thought. Every cruel impulse. Every moment she’d wanted the world to hurt the way she had. It all surged up, screaming to be let loose. Linda screamed too.
On the rooftop, Buzz watched it all unfold, silhouette framed against the dying sky. “Well.” he murmured, lighting a cigarette. “You’re only human, love.”
Inside the church, Supergirl stood trembling in red light, under the gems influence. Her knees buckling as she was caught between the hero she wanted to be and the darkness she could no longer deny.
Several more nights passed. Though the sun never rose, so many did not notice how much time passed. And Leesburg burned.
Not all at once. Sirens wailed until they choked into silence. Storefronts were shattered. Cars burned in the streets, flames licking at the darkened sky like offerings. People ran from each other, from themselves, from whatever had crawled out of their hearts when the gem whispered yes.
And Supergirl no longer looked like Supergirl.
The costume had been torn apart, deliberately. The top ripped short, exposing her midriff, the shield slashed and crooked. Leather pants clung to her legs, scuffed and split at the seams, boots heavy and brutal. A leather jacket hung off her shoulders, stolen, sleeves rolled up like she was ready to get her hands dirty again.
Her hair streamed wild and blonde behind her. Her smile was wrong.
She dropped into a jewellery store like a missile, laughing as glass rained down around her. Scooped diamonds into her fist and crushed them to powder just to watch the owner scream. She flipped a police cruiser onto its roof because she could. She landed in the middle of a crowd and let them scatter, fear rolling off them in waves she drank in greedily. “Run.” She purred. “That’s right. You’re very good at that.” The casual cruelty seemed to come easy to her.
People untouched by the gem - terrified families and the unlucky - hid wherever they could, whispering prayers to a symbol that no longer seemed to mean safety.
And Linda loved it.
Every cruel thought Linda had ever swallowed down now had teeth. Every moment of weakness twisted into mockery. She taunted, teased, punished. Power flowed through her like heat, intoxicating and effortless. Every perverse desire Linda had cultivated she satisfied over those nights. She barely needed encouragement. She allowed Father Hallowayand his followers to use her however he liked. She had taken great pleasure in going down on him after a hard nights efforts to make Leesburg a worse place.
She had allowed him to film her, stripping off her tight leather pants and jacket. Nothing but a Supergirl crop top he pulled up as she bounced on his cock. She had been his to use, taken from behind on the cold floor of the altar. Hungrily directing him to both holes. The sweet natured Supergirl had been corrupted and made into his whore. And she had begged him to do it. Or at least… this corrupted, influenced version of herself had.
And now she looked for Buzz.
She found him, smoking on top of a rooftop, watching the chaos. She landed behind him, quietly. “Hello darling. I wondered when you might come and find me.” He said without looking around.
“Buzz. I see it now. I see what she… what I saw in you.” Linda said breathlessly, walking towards him. Dumping her leather jacket on the ground.
“That so?” Buzz turned to look at her, ice in his voice. Watched as Linda pulled off her crop top and stood topless in her leather pants. Watched as she went to her knees and started to seductively crawl on her hands and knees towards him. She didn’t need x-ray vision to see his excitement. She wordlessly knelt in front of him, sticking her tongue out, cupping her tits. Buzz stuttered a little as he said. “Love… I don’t think this is really what you want.”
Confusion crossed Linda’s face. Of course it was. Wasn’t it? She hadn’t questioned it until now. “Don’t… don’t you want this?” She asked, almost hurt, leaning back, showing him her perfect body.
“Tricky question.” Buzz deadpanned. “I want it, but… not like this. I want you to want it. Not just because you’re influenced by some stupid bloody stone.”
Linda’s face turned from hurt, to anger. “Bastard! You make me this way and then you reject me!? You fool!” She stood up and looked ready to throw hands. Buzz said a couple of words and for the second time in as many encounters, he sent her hurtling off the building.
Linda crashed into the alley below, amongst the trash. Her leather jacket and top followed her down, helpfully thrown by Buzz. She got up, ready to fly up and.. well.. she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do. Fuck him or fight him. But then she saw it. A uniform. Half-buried under rubble near a patrol car smashed into a storefront down from the alley. Blue fabric soaked dark with blood. A familiar badge. A familiar name.
Danvers.
Her breath caught so hard it hurt. She dropped to her knees without meaning to, fingers hovering just above the stain like touching it would make it real. For the first time since the gem had taken hold, the noise inside her head stuttered.
Dad?
Not an idea. Not a symbol. Linda’s dad. Her dad. “No…” she whispered, the word scraping raw out of her throat. “No, no…” The red haze thinned, just enough to let something through. Fear, sharp and real. Guilt and shame followed close behind, heavy as a fist to the chest. But it was love that won out, overcoming her rage.
She stood slowly.
The cult leader’s voice slithered into her thoughts, commanding, pleased with itself. More. Break more. Burn it down. She clenched her hands until they creaked. “No.” Her voice quivered.
She pulled on her clothes and launched herself back toward the church, fury turning inward now, ripping at the darkness clawing for control. Red light spilled from the doors as she crashed through them, landing hard before the altar.
Halloway smiled, raising the gem again. “You are what you always were.” He said. “Don’t fight it Supergirl. This suits you much better, admit it. Those nights you spent on your knees, with me - you barely resisted, don’t tell me that it’s the gem. The gem just brought out the real you.”
She roared and charged him, not as a goddess, but as a woman tearing herself back out of hell inch by inch. “I decide who I am!” She snarled, tears burning her eyes as she drove her fist forward.
Halloway screamed a word that bent the air. The gem flared red again as he thrust it toward her face. Linda felt it claw for her. Every cruel thought, every indulgence from the past few days surged back, eager and sharp. Her knees buckled. Her vision tunnelled. “N-no…” she gasped, forcing herself upright. “Not again.”
She screamed and unleashed her heat vision. The beams struck the gem dead-on. It didn’t shatter, in fact it melted. The dark crystal sagged, glowing white-hot, fusing instantly to the Halloway’s palm. The smell was awful - burned flesh, burned sin. He howled, dropping to one knee, clawing uselessly at his own hand as the gem sank into him like it had always belonged there. “You - you fucking bitch!”
He answered pain with magic. A sigil detonated in the air between them, slamming into Supergirl like a freight train. She flew backward, smashing into a pew hard enough to splinter it, then skidding across stone.
“Uhh…” She tried to rise. Her hand slipped. Red smeared across the floor. She stared at it.
Blood.
Real blood.
Her breath hitched, panic sharp and sudden. She glanced up and saw her reflection in a window. “I’m…” She swallowed confused. “I’m Linda…”
The light drained out of her.
She was in torn leather with skin that hurt and muscles that ached. No hum of power. No weightlessness. Just gravity and pain and fear. Halloway laughed, staggering to his feet, his ruined hand smoking. “There. Your true face. Your secret. Powerless. Weak. Only human. I can’t wait to let everyone know.” He stepped closer, circling her. “And after what you did out there? After what you enjoyed?” He smiled cruelly. “You don’t even get that whole innocence excuse.”
Linda’s hands shook and her chest burned. She wiped her hand against her S shield, leaving a smear of blood that made her gasp. But then, something hardened behind her eyes. She forced herself up and forced herself to transform back. Light exploded around her and Supergirl hit him like a cannonball.
They went up through the church roof in an explosion of stone and flame, punching into open air as shattered masonry rained down below. She drove him higher, teeth clenched, every muscle screaming with effort. He managed to strike back in midair. A word. A gesture. Reality twisted.
Linda screamed as her power tore away again - then surged back - then vanished. Her body flickered between forms, strength stuttering, costume flashing in and out like a failing signal.
Each shift hurt. Each transformation cost her something. She flailed wildly, barely in control and her fist connected by accident, more than intent, but it was enough.
Halloway went flying. He tumbled, screaming, robes flapping uselessly as he fell back toward the church roof…
Linda watched, collapsing, too tired to change back.
Too tired.
Too slow.
She reached out instinctively… and felt nothing. No strength. No flight. No miracle. She watched him hit the stone hard and disappear in a sickening finality. “Nooo!” She cried out. She hadn’t meant to knock him off the roof.
Silence followed. Then… Light.
The sun broke through the clouds, flooding the town in gold. Warm. Real. Alive.
Below, screams faded into sobs. People blinked, confused, horrified at what they’d done. The gem’s hold shattered like a bad dream dissolving in daylight. Linda hovered weakly in the air, finally holding her form, chest heaving, tears running down her face. She hadn’t saved everyone. She hadn’t saved him. But the darkness was gone.
She had seen the inside of a hospital more times than she was used to recently. This time the hospital was too bright. Fluorescent lights flattened everything. Linda sat on the edge of the bed in a paper gown that refused to stay tied properly, her right hand wrapped in gauze already blooming red where it shouldn’t have been.
It should have healed, but it hadn’t. Mattie stood in front of her, brow furrowed in concentration as she cleaned the cut. She looked wrecked - hair pulled back too tight, yesterday’s makeup smudged into bruised shadows under her eyes. “You know, for someone who just went through… whatever the hell that was out there, you’re taking this like a champ.”
Linda huffed weakly. “I feel great. Really. Ten out of ten. Would recommend the apocalypse again.”
Mattie snorted despite herself, then sobered. She had worked a seemingly endless shift during the Last Night. “It’s not closing.” She said, tapping the bandage gently. “Don’t worry though, we’ll get you patched up.”
Linda swallowed. “Guess I should count my blessings it wasn’t anything worse.” The image of Father Holloway falling from the rooftop flashed in her mind.
Across the curtain, voices murmured. W-LBG, Signal City Radio played on in the background.
“…sun returned just before dawn…”“…witnesses describe chaos…”“…some residents say Supergirl escalated the violence…”
Linda flinched and looked away, then flinched again in pain as Mattie worked on her. Mattie finished taping the bandage and stepped back. “Your mom just called. Couldn’t get through to you at home. Your dad was hurt during the riots. Stab wound. He’s out of surgery. He’s stable.”
The relief hit Linda so fast it stole her breath. “Oh. Thank God.” She sat there shaking for a second, hands clenched in her lap, staring at the floor. “I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt.” Linda said quietly.
Mattie followed her gaze, misreading it in the way only a friend can. “None of us did.” She said. “People just… lost it. Like something snapped.”
Linda nodded. Something had snapped. She could still hear Buzz’s voice in her head. Still feel the weight of memories clawing their way up. Ideas she’d had and shared, things she’d believed, things she had done, things she’d enjoyed. The truth that Linda Danvers hadn’t just been a victim. She’d been a participant. “I wasn’t a good person.” Linda said suddenly.
Mattie frowned. “What?”
“Before…” Linda clarified. “I mean… before all this.” She let out a small, broken laugh. “I keep thinking if I was better, maybe none of this would’ve happened.”
Mattie leaned against the bed, arms crossed. “Linda, if being flawed disqualified people from surviving disasters, there’d be no one left.”
Linda looked up at her. “Yeah? You really think that?”
“I know that.” Mattie said. “And I know you Linda. I know your heart is full of love and empathy.”
Linda blinked hard, eyes stinging.
Later, she stood alone at the window at the end of the hall. The sun was back - real sunlight, spilling gold across the city like an apology. People moved cautiously below, heads down, carrying shame they didn’t know how to name.
Somewhere out there, people were afraid of Supergirl. She couldn’t blame them. It crossed her mind that before the merging, before Linda and Supergirl became one, she’d never had desires like the last few nights - even when influenced. Was it the case that Linda was influencing her, making her darker? She shook her head, not wanting to pick at that thread.
Her costume was gone. Destroyed during her descent. Left behind with the worst night of her life. She glanced down at the borrowed sweats and hospital socks and shook her head faintly. “All that leather. Definitely a phase.”
Behind her, Mattie laughed at something a nurse said. Down the hall, her father slept, alive. Fragile. Human.
So was she.
Linda took a slow breath and turned back toward them. Whatever she was going to become, whatever she deserved to be, it would start with these people.
Part 3: Back to reality
Spring didn’t end so much as it collapsed. One week there were blossoms on the trees lining Leesburg’s streets, the next the air turned thick and unmoving, heat pressing down like a held breath. By the end of May, summer had arrived. And it seemed angry.
Linda felt every miserable degree of it.
She lay sprawled on the sagging couch in her basement apartment, a box fan rattling uselessly in the corner, dressed in just a vest top and short shorts, sweat slicked along the back of her neck. Her injured hand from the Last Night was still wrapped up. The windows were open, both of them, but the air outside was just as hot, just as heavy. No breeze. No mercy.
And being Linda meant suffering through it.
Her mom sat at the small kitchen table, seemingly unaffected by the heat, paperwork spread out between them. The tone was careful, the way you spoke when you hated what you were saying but couldn’t avoid it. “So, we can’t keep paying the rent for this place.” Sylvia said. “Not with your dad’s hospital bills. The riots, the surgery… it’s all adding up.”
Linda nodded slowly. “I get it.”
“You’ll need to cover it yourself if you want to stay here.” Sylvia continued. “Which means a job. Immediately.”
“Okay.”
“And don’t forget about school.” Her mom slid a folded schedule across the table. “You’re enrolled at Leesburg College. Summer session starts next week. You need to make up the credits for what you missed earlier in the year, whilst you were… um… taking a break.”
Linda unfolded it. Major: Art.
She blinked. “Art?”
Her mom smiled, small but fond. “Yes, well your father wanted you to join the force and I always dreamt you might study English Literature, but well… you were very sure about that.”
Linda wasn’t sure about anything. She hadn’t had a lot of time for painting over the years fighting crime. One time Lex had taken her to an art gallery and she had ended up bored, she’d sat watching him chat up the staff.
Outside, the sun continued to beat down relentlessly. “Sounds great mom. I… I really appreciate you helping me get back up to speed with everything. Guess those three days took it out of me more than I realised.”
“Oh yes, well....” Sylvia very much wanted to move on from talk about Linda’s disappearance. She picked up another piece of paper from the table. “Now don’t forget this. $50 by the end of the week or they’ll cut off your electric. I can’t believe you haven’t been paying your bills…” Exasperation slipped into her voice. Linda sank into the sofa, trying to hide. She bet Clark never had to worry about bills.
Later that day, Supergirl floated high above the town, cape fluttering lazily in the light breeze behind her.
The heat didn’t touch her up here. Didn’t cling to her skin or turn her thoughts sluggish. As Supergirl, she had been able to find a replacement costume - flying over to visit the Kent’s farm where they still had a spare. She hadn’t hung around to answer any of their questions about how she was doing.
Secretly, she’d held onto the leather and the crop top. Maybe for the next apocalypse.
But for now, tried and true. Blue top, red cape, red skirt and boots. She’d been visible lately helping with repairs, lifting debris, guiding people through half-fixed streets. She smiled. She talked. She listened. Slowly, the town warmed to her again. Kids waved. Shop owners nodded. Someone chalked THANK YOU SUPERGIRL on the sidewalk outside the grocery store.
It mattered to her. She waved to the people on the street as she flew overhead. After the Final Night, people were healing.
What unsettled her came later, back in the apartment.
Her mom, very kindly visiting again this time to help clean up, casually mentioned whilst folding laundry. “Oh, I brought a box of your stuff. It was taking up room. Your old diaries and things like that. I thought you might want them.”
That night, unable to sleep in the heat, still in her vest from earlier and a pair of blue pants. She rummaged through the boxes, finding a shoebox taped shut. Diaries. She picked one at random and sat cross-legged on the floor, back against the couch, the fan clicking uselessly nearby. Linda Danvers, then twenty years old and painfully earnest.
The cover was soft. A Tori Amos sticker peeled at the corner. The name Linda Danvers written inside in careful pen. The entries themselves were messy and raw. Pages of frustration, longing, bitterness, bad poetry and worse decisions. She read about feeling invisible. About wanting to be someone. About her parents. And then… about how intoxicating it felt when Buzz noticed her.
At first he was exciting. Then essential. Then justification.
Diary entry: April 14th 1994
I went out with Buzz tonight. I’m proud I didn’t talk myself out of it.
We didn’t call it a date, which I liked. Dates feel like interviews. This was more like… drifting into something. He picked the place… an old bar near the river. I’ve walked past it a hundred times and never gone in. Of course I hadn’t.
He was already there when I arrived, trench coat draped over the back of the chair like he belonged. Smoking even though there’s a sign saying not to. He smiled when he saw me, like he’d expected me to show up. That did something to me. I hate how much that mattered. He listened. Really listened. Not like Mattie does but like he was collecting things I said. Filing them away. I told him about starting college, about feeling stuck, about how everyone here seems to know who they’re supposed to be except me. He didn’t try to fix it. He said. “Why would you want to fit into a place that’s already rotting?”
He’s right.
We walked after. The river was high from all the rain. He talked about people like they were stories waiting to be told properly. About how most of them are already angry, already cruel, they just pretend otherwise because it’s easier. He said pretending is the real lie. That honesty is letting the ugly parts breathe.
I argued with him. A little. Said that was cynical. He smiled like he’d won the argument anyway.
When he touched my arm - just to guide me across the street - I didn’t pull away. I didn’t want to. I wanted him to keep looking at me the way he was, like I wasn’t invisible, like I was interesting because I was unfinished.
I don’t know where this is going. I know I shouldn’t like him. I know Mom and Dad (especially Dad) would hate him. I know there’s something dangerous about the way he talks, like he’s already standing somewhere I can’t see yet.
But for the first time in a long time, I don’t feel small. And that scares me almost as much as the fact that I don’t want it to.
Memories came flooding back, overwhelming Linda as she read it. That day. What she… what Linda had not written down. Her fear that someone - Mattie, her mom, her dad - might find and read about it. She had fucked Buzz. Had thrown caution to the wind, taken him home. Here.
The sensation of the memories hit Linda hard, she found herself reading on in the diary. Her bandaged hand clumsily turning the pages, her other hand had snaked inside her pants, teasing and playing with herself. It was all so… naughty. She was such a good girl, getting up to things with a bad boy who didn’t seem to give a shit about anything. Anything, but her.
“Mmmmph…” Linda groaned, biting her lip, putting the book down now. Sweat dripped from her, from the heat, from the situation. She teased and played with her clit, thinking about those nights. Feeling every sensation that she’d had with Buzz. “Ohh..f-fff…” Another gasp. Suddenly in a flash she transformed into Supergirl, the pleasure continuing and amplifying as she used her super speed to rub her clit, faster and faster. It didn’t cross her mind how unsettling it was for her to submit to her impulses and wants as Supergirl, using her powers not for good, but for her own desires.
She thought of Buzz, how he held her down. How he bit her neck and his rough hands on her breasts. She thought about him fucking her hard. Very quickly she came, hard, her leg flying up and kicking the dying fan in front of her, smashing it against the wall as her body spasmed uncontrollably.
“F-fuu… jeez…” She gasped, wiping sweat from her brow. She stood up. Her legs felt weak, so she floated through to her kitchen to grab a glass of water.
Linda stood over the sink, vest and pants both soaked. She pulled both off, letting them fall to the floor… Shame started to rise up inside her, this was not the first time she’d had a loss of control. Let her short term desires overwhelm her. She quietly admonished herself. “God Linda… Don’t do that again…”
Mattie insisted skateboarding was “easy.”
This was a lie.
Linda stood on the cracked concrete behind the strip mall, board wobbling under her feet, arms windmilling. The sun beat down mercilessly, the June heat turning the asphalt into a slow cooker. “Just push!” Mattie said, already cruising in lazy circles. “Don’t overthink it.”
“Don’t overthink it? Easy for you to say.” Linda pushed.
The board shot forward. Her balance did not follow. She went down hard, skin scraping, breath knocked out of her in a sharp “Ooft!” She lay there for a moment, staring up at the white-hot sky.
“Okay. Well, it takes practice.” Mattie said, peering down at her. “You good?”
“My ribs are filing a formal complaint.” Linda groaned. Everything still hurt from the Final Night. Not injured exactly - just sore in a deep, lived-in way. Like her body remembered being thrown through walls even if the bruises had faded. Her hand was still in the process of healing too.
Mattie helped her up. “You’re tense. You gotta relax.”
Linda laughed weakly. “That’s been suggested to me before.”
She tried again. Slower this time. Wobbly, awkward, but upright. Mattie whooped like she’d just witnessed a miracle. Linda slowly wobbled around in a circle, to the delight of her friend. Later, sticky with sweat and nursing a rapidly growing collection of scrapes, Linda sat on the curb drinking warm Pepsi and wondered if this counted as progress.
The job hunt went worse. Way worse.
The journalist position she had managed to get herself an interview for, ended quickly and politely. “You don’t have enough clips.” The editor said, glancing at her resume like it offended him. “And… some gaps here.” Pointing at the period Linda knew she had been spending all that time with Buzz.
Linda nodded. “Yeah. I was… unavailable.”
He didn’t ask.
After that came the parade of very 90s rejection.
Retail manager: Overqualified. (“Like that’s a bad thing!”) Video store: Not enough availability. (“I can give you nightshifts, but only nightshifts.” Not great for a superhero). Music shop: Do you actually know anything about vinyl? (Supergirl’s music taste was in need of a refresh). Mall clothing store: We’ll call you. (They in fact, did not).
By the time she wandered into Cutter’s Coffee, she was sunburned, cranky, and one rejection away from screaming.
Cutter himself leaned against the counter, tattoos peeking out from rolled sleeves, a backwards baseball cap covering his prematurely bald hear. He looked at her his eyes widening, clearly taken with the sunburnt brunette covered in scratches from skateboarding.
“You need a job?” He asked.
“Yes.” Linda said. “Desperately.”
He grinned. “You know how to make coffee?”
“I can learn.”
“You start tomorrow.”
She blinked. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
She didn’t question it. A huge smile on her face, things were looking up.
The first shift was hell.
Steam. Noise. Orders barked in caffeine shorthand. Her feet screamed by hour four. Someone complained their latte wasn’t edgy enough. “What does that even mean?” Linda shouted exasperated. Her injured hand throbbed and she dropped several coffees.
Cutter flirted shamelessly. Telling her all about his radio show. Linda ignored it all with professional exhaustion.
By the time she dragged herself back to her apartment, it was fully dark and still unbearably hot. “This not having powers thing is getting old.” She sighed. She would have flown home, but Cutter insisted in giving her a ride back in his van. He had taken an extra fifteen minutes as he had enthusiastically explained each one of his tattoos to Linda. Tired as she was, she’d actually found him quite endearing when he chilled out with the flirting, so she indulged him.
The place looked worse at night - peeling paint, flickering light, a smell she refused to identify. She kicked off her shoes and collapsed onto the couch. “No cults.” She muttered to the ceiling. “No demons. No magic. No riots. Nothing to distract me. Figures.”
She almost missed them. Almost.
Restlessness drove her to the closet, where she found canvases wrapped in old sheets. Brought over by her mom. Linda Danvers’ art. Dark, jagged paintings. Bodies twisted into shapes that hurt to look at. Heavy reds and blacks. Obsession made visible. Desire and rage bleeding together. They were… good.
Supergirl had tried sketching once. It had been terrible. No instinct. No edge. Power did not in this case translate to creation.
Still, she dragged out supplies and set up by the open window, sweat dripping down her spine as she tried anyway. Brush to canvas. Again. Again. She tried it as Linda and as Supergirl. Her powerful hands got her nowhere. Nothing came out right.
The battered fan rattled uselessly. She couldn’t afford a new one. The city hummed outside. Her hand ached - not healing, not powerful, just oh so human. Near dawn, she leaned back, staring at the mess she’d made. “Guess I’m still learning.” She said softly, yawning. She nodded off by the window.
Part 4: Rampage
The fight had started ugly and only gotten worse. Supergirl slammed into Rampage on Leesburg’s main bridge, the impact buckling steel and sending cars skidding. Rampage, seven feet of raw muscle, bone spikes tearing through yellow flesh and a red mohawk laughed as she caught Supergirl by the throat with one massive hand. “Gggahhh!” Supergirl gurgled, as the choke tightened around her neck.
“You think you can take me lightly?” Rampage snarled. “Think I’m some pathetic villain you can take down without trying?”
Supergirl drove a fist into her ribs. Felt something crack. Rampage dropped her and stumbled back. Through a gasp for air, Supergirl responded, coughing. “Ok… point taken. I’ll hit harder.” She turned and flew at speed at the giant woman, throwing rights and left, but this time it didn’t slow her down.
Rampage answered by lifting her clean off the bridge with a bearhug suplex. They went over together.
The river rushed up fast - brown, swollen and instantly unforgiving. Rampage twisted in midair and spiked Supergirl headfirst, driving her down like a nail. The impact with the riverbed was bone-shattering. A white flash of pain stole Linda’s breath and scattered her thoughts.
Mud filled her mouth. Water crushed her lungs. Her vision dimmed. As darkness crept in, she heard Rampage’s voice echo through the water, distorted and furious. “BRUCKNER!!!”
Linda tried to move. Gurgled something that sounded like. “Kitty.”
Her body didn’t answer. Her last thought was about how much stronger her foe had been than her.
The river engulfed her.
Across town, Leesburg reeled, the fight had gone on for an hour before it had reached its seeming conclusion. A blur of red and blue stitched torn streets back together - a different one than the citizens of Leesburg had grown to know. Steel bent straight, fires extinguished, rubble lifted and stacked like it had always belonged there. People stared upward, stunned and grateful, whispering his name like a prayer.
Richard Malvern stood among them, all the cheering people, twenty-two and shaking, clutching his jacket tight around himself.
But for him, the air felt wrong. Heavy.
He staggered, sudden pain lancing through his skull, sharp enough to drop him to one knee. The world tilted. Sound warped.
Then-
A voice. Warm. Familiar. Intimate. “Hi, Dick.” Richard gasped, clutching his head. “I’m Buzz.” The voice said lightly, almost fond. “And we should talk.”
Earlier that day.
Linda’s parents’ house smelled faintly of antiseptic. The curtains were open but the light felt thin, filtered through dust. Fred Danvers sat in his armchair like he’d fused with it, one leg stretched out stiffly, jaw set in a permanent scowl. Fresh out of the hospital and already acting like the world had personally offended him by continuing.
Linda stood near the kitchen counter, flexing her bandaged hand absently. It still throbbed. An itchy, nagging reminder that she wasn’t healed, not really. As powerful as she was as Supergirl - this wouldn’t even count as a flesh wound if she was in her spandex and cape - she was all too human as nice normal Linda.
She was wearing a tight, light-blue shirt, soft cotton stretched just enough to show she’d grown into herself. Very early-90s. Cropped just a little, sleeves rolled, paired with black jeans and boots. She felt good in it.
“Oh!” Sylvia said, brightening as she poured coffee. “I almost forgot - Linda got a job. At Cutter’s Coffee, downtown.”
Linda glanced up, hopeful despite herself.
Fred snorted, not looking up from his paper. “A coffee shop?”
“It’s work.” Sylvia said gently. “And she got it on her own.”
“Slinging lattes for dropouts and slackers?” Fred muttered. “That’s not a career. That’s just killing time.”
Linda’s jaw tightened. She flexed her injured hand again, wincing this time. “It’s money. Which you were pretty clear I need. Plus college is starting back up and I need something flexible.”
Fred ignored her, his eyes flicked to her shirt now instead. “And what’s with the getup? You trying to make some kind of statement?”
“It’s just a shirt, Dad.”
“Looks tight.”
Sylvia shot him a look. “Fred.”
“I’m just saying.” He went on, irritated now, like irritation was the only fuel he ran on. “Job at a coffee shop, dressing like… like that. All this attitude lately. I don’t know what’s gotten into you.”
Linda laughed once, sharp and humourless. “Yeah. Weird. Almost like my life exploded.”
Sylvia jumped in quickly, eager to redirect. “Oh! That reminds me. Linda, I met the nicest young man during all those… riots… you know when the sun… um… disappeared.” She made it sound so normal. “When your father was injured. He gave me a ride to the hospital. Such a gentleman. Polite, well-spoken. He even waited with me.”
Linda froze, instantly not liking where this was going. “Mom.”
“I didn’t get his number, but-”
“Mom.”
“He asked about you,” Sylvia continued, undeterred. “I thought maybe I could run into him again. You could have coffee… or dinner…”
“A blind date?” Linda’s ears burned. “Absolutely not.”
Sylvia laughed. “It wouldn’t be blind. It would be… well… semi-blind.”
“Nope.”
Fred rolled his eyes. “Figures.”
Linda turned to him. “What does that mean?”
He shrugged. “You never bring boys home. You dress like that. You run off all the time. Makes a man wonder.”
Silence in the room. Linda stared at him for a long second, something cold settling behind her eyes. “And, what do you mean by that Dad?”
Fred opened his mouth again. Whatever he was going to say didn’t get the chance.
Linda grabbed her jacket with her good hand. “I’m going out.”
Sylvia sighed. “Linda… please… your dad it’s the medication…”
“No.” Linda said, already heading for the door. “I’m not doing this today.”
As she left, Fred muttered just loud enough. “Maybe she’s batting for the other team.”
“FRED!”
The door shut hard enough to rattle the frame.
The park was greener than she remembered. The calendar turning to June had done that, turned everything vivid and overgrown. Linda sat on a bench beneath a crooked oak, sketchbook balanced on her knee. Her hand protested as soon as she started drawing, stiff and clumsy. She scowled at it, then at the page.
Lines. Shapes. Nothing right.
“Bold choice.” A voice said nearby, a southern tinge to it. “Abstract despair?”
Linda looked up.
The guy standing there was cute in a lowkey, unassuming way. Dark hair, soft eyes, jacket slung over one shoulder like he hadn’t quite committed to wearing it. Early twenties, nervous smile, hands shoved in his pockets like he had no idea what else to do with them. “Sorry.” He started. “I didn’t mean-”
She snorted, laughing warmly. “No, it’s fine. It is in fact, abstract despair.”
He gestured at the sketchbook. “Mind?”
She hesitated, then flipped it toward him. “Be honest.”
He studied it carefully. Too carefully. “Well. It’s…certainly… expressive.”
“That’s polite speak for terrible.”
He winced. “Okay. Yeah. It’s not great.”
They both laughed.
“I’m Linda.” She said.
“Richard.” He replied. “I was hoping you’d say it was a self-portrait and I just didn’t get it.”
“Oh, no.” She said. “If that were me, I’d be very concerned. I’m not quite at the stage of abstract despair. Not quite.” She took the sketchbook back, closing it with a sigh. “Guess I’m out of practice.”
“I’m sure you’ll get there.” Richard replied warmly. They shared a look. One of those quiet, easy ones that sneaks up on you. Nodding at the book he continued. “So, you come here often to torture yourself artistically?”
“Only on days I storm out of my parents’ house.”
“Ah.” He smiled. “Classic.”
They talked. Easily. About nothing and everything. About bad art and worse expectations. About the heat and summer and feeling like you were always one step behind the version of yourself you were supposed to be. When Linda finally stood to leave, her hand aching and her mood lighter than it had any right to be, Richard scratched the back of his neck. “Hey. Um…. So… If you ever want to… you know. Draw something terrible together.”
She grinned. “Yeah. I might.”
He handed her a scrap of paper with his number on it.
She tucked it into her pocket, walking away smiling. She glanced back at him. It had been a while since she’d met a nice boy.
At the same time, in Metropolis. At STAR Labs. Kitty Faulkner sat cross-legged on a rolling chair, lab coat discarded over the back, dark messy hair pulled into a slightly less messy ponytail that said ‘worked through lunch again’. A data pad hovered in her hands, equations scrolling faster than most people could read. Kitty could keep up though. She always could.
Chris Bruckner leaned against the counter nearby, coffee in hand, boots kicked up on a chair she definitely wasn’t supposed to be using. She was all sharp edges and confidence. Short blonde hair, quick smile, the kind of person who made it seem like rules were more like suggestions. “So, rumour is Supergirl’s been visiting here again.”
Kitty brightened immediately. “Oh! Yes, well. Not officially.” She hesitated, then smiled anyway. “But Dr. Hamilton thinks she might be open to a voluntary observation session. Just basic scans. Non-invasive. She’s… fascinating.”
Chris raised an eyebrow. “Kitty, you sound like you’ve got a crush.”
Kitty flushed. “I do not. My interest is purely scientific.”
“You just said fascinating. I can think of a couple of fascinating features about her.”
“She’s a demigoddess who can bend steel.” Kitty said defensively. Then, quieter, more honestly, “And yeah, she’s kind of… cute.”
Chris laughed. “Wow. You’re really saying that out loud?”
Kitty winced. “I probably shouldn’t have.”
“No, no.” Chris waved it off. “Your secret’s safe. Pinky swear.”
Kitty smiled, relieved. She trusted Chris. Everyone did. Chris was good in a crisis, fast on her feet, always knew which strings to pull. Kitty admired that, envied it, maybe. She turned back to her screen, fingers dancing. Then she stopped.
Her smile faded. “That’s… weird.”
Chris tilted her head. “What is?”
“A discrepancy.” Kitty said slowly. “Power draw from the sub-basement vault. Again.”
Chris shrugged. “Could be a logging error.”
“No.” Kitty murmured. “I recalibrated the system myself.” Her fingers moved faster now, pulling up timestamps, access codes. Her brow furrowed. “Something’s been removed. Prototype-level tech.”
Chris took a sip of her coffee. “You sure it wasn’t authorised?”
Kitty’s stomach tightened. “If it were, I’d know.” She froze. An access signature blinked on the screen. Her own. The room felt suddenly too quiet. “That’s… impossible, I didn’t authorise anything.”
Chris leaned in, eyes narrowing at the display. “Huh. Sort of looks like you did.”
Kitty scrolled. Each entry hit harder than the last. Dates. Times. Routes. All traced back to her credentials. Her clearance. Her workstation. “Oh my god.” Kitty whispered. “They’re going to think it was me.”
Chris straightened. “Kitty…”
“I could lose my job.” Kitty said, panic bleeding into her voice now. “I could be arrested. This is classified tech. Military-adjacent…”
Chris set her coffee down carefully. Too carefully. “Okay. Hey. Breathe.”
Kitty looked up at her, desperate. “You believe me, right?”
Chris met her gaze. For just a second, something unreadable flickered there. Then she smiled. “Of course I do.”
Kitty nodded, clinging to that reassurance. She didn’t notice Chris’s hand slip into her jacket pocket. Didn’t see the small device blink once. Green, then gone dark. By the time Kitty looked back at the screen, the truth was already settling in. Someone had stolen from STAR Labs. And they had made very sure the trail led to her.
Now
The car never made it past the overpass. Chris Bruckner was still laughing - nervous, breathless, trying to talk her way through it - when the shadow fell across the road. The asphalt cracked with a sound like a gunshot as something landed in front of the hood.
The car stopped dead.
Rampage straightened slowly, towering, river water and mud streaking down her jagged yellow skin. Bone spikes bristled along her shoulders. Her red mohawk was plastered flat, eyes burning with something far worse than anger.
“Oh shit.” Chris said weakly.
Rampage grabbed the car by the frame and lifted. Metal screamed. The vehicle flipped onto its side like it weighed nothing at all, smashing windows and scattering glass across the road. Rampage tore the driver’s door clean off and reached inside.
Chris shrieked as she was yanked free and thrown across the pavement. She hit hard, skidding, skin bruised, breath punched out of her lungs. Rampage stalked toward her. Chris scrambled back, hands up, eyes wide with terror. “W-wait…no…please…” Rampage stopped. Her head tilted slightly. Chris swallowed, recognition flashing in her eyes. Her voice dropped, shaking. “Kitty…?”
The name hit like a knife. Rampage’s jaw clenched. Her hands curled into fists that cracked concrete. “You knew! You let them think it was me.”
Chris laughed, brittle and desperate. “C’mon. You were always too nice. Too trusting. STAR Labs chews people like you up.”
Rampage roared and raised her arm.
Chris screamed.
A red-and-blue blur slammed into Rampage from the side, the impact detonating the air. Rampage skidded backward, gouging a trench in the street as Superman landed between them, boots cracking the asphalt. “Enough. Kitty. Look at me.”
Rampage’s eyes snapped to him. “Don’t say my name.”
“I know who you are.” Superman said gently. “And I know this isn’t you. Kitty, I know you’ve been set up. I’m here to help. Let’s talk about this.”
Rampage snarled, drawing back her fist
And across town, the river coughed something up.
Supergirl broke the surface in a spray of brown water and pain, dragging herself onto the muddy bank like she’d been spat out by the earth itself. She collapsed on hands and knees, hacking violently, river water pouring out of her mouth.
“Ugh.. gh…gah…” She spat, then groaned. “Okay. Okay. Officially… got my ass kicked.” Her head rang. Her body ached. Her costume clung to her skin, soaked and heavy, cape plastered to her back. She tried to stand, failed, stumbling back to into mud on the riverbank before managing to get up on the second try. She laughed weakly at herself. “Still standing. Just about.”
A couple of passersby had stopped, wide-eyed, stunned to see the city’s heroine in this state. “Hey - are you okay?” One of them asked, already reaching out.
“I’ve… been better.” Supergirl wheezed, brushing her soaked blonde hair out of her face.
Hands helped her up the riverbank. She leaned on them more than she meant to, legs shaking, body protesting every movement. Someone wrapped a jacket around her shoulders without asking. Someone else told her to sit. She shook her head, coughing again. “No… no time. There’s… a big angry lady… and she’s going to kill this other lady.”
“Uh huh.” One of the passers by nodded, nonplussed.
Linda looked up toward the bridge. Her jaw set. “Ok. Round two.” She said hoarsely.
She pointed her arm to the sky, jumped up… and promptly fell in the mud. Pushing herself up from her pratfall, she muttered. “In five minutes. Round two in five minutes.”
Superman didn’t move to strike. He simply stood between Rampage and Chris, long hair blowing in the wind, hands open, cape settling behind him like a held breath. “Kitty, I know this hurts. I know you feel betrayed. But this isn’t the answer.”
Rampage’s lips curled back from her teeth. “You always say that.” She stepped forward, each footfall cracking pavement. “You always think you can talk your way out of things. But talk isn’t the answer!”
Superman held his ground. “You’re not a monster. You’re a scientist. You’re my friend.”
That did it.
Rampage roared and slammed her fist into his chest. The blow launched him like a missile, tearing through a row of parked cars before he vanished over the rooftops, the shockwave shattering windows half a block away.
Chris stared, stunned. Then - inevitably - she smirked. “Wow. He’s pretty sanctimonious, huh?”
Rampage turned back to her. Violent intentions on her mind. And that was when Supergirl dropped out of the sky. She hit hard, boots cracking the street as she landed between them, cape torn, costume still damp and clinging. She didn’t look triumphant. She looked done. “Nope. Absolutely not.” She said hoarsely.
She grabbed Chris by the arm and yanked her back just as Rampage’s hand smashed down where her head had been. Chris yelped, stumbling. “Hey! Watch it!”
Supergirl didn’t even look at her. Her eyes stayed on Rampage. “Kitty. Please. Look at yourself.”
Rampage snarled. “SHE DESERVES THIS!! SHE HURT ME!!”
“I know.” Supergirl replied. “I know she hurt you. I know she used you. I know that feeling when someone takes something precious and discards it, turns it into a weapon.”
Chris scoffed. “Oh my god, are we doing a feelings circle right now?”
Rampage lunged. Supergirl glanced down at Chris as she moved them. “You’re not helping, lady.” She met Rampage, fists up - but she was still hurting, still slow. Rampage’s blow caught her clean, sending her skidding across the street. She rolled, came up coughing, and tried again. “Kitty!”
Rampage backhanded her into a brick wall this time. The impact spiderwebbed masonry. Supergirl slid down, stunned, vision swimming. “You don’t get to preach.” Rampage growled, grabbing her by the cape, Supergirl almost blacking out.
Superman slammed back into the street in a red-and-blue blur, tackling Rampage away from Supergirl just as she raised her arm again. They crashed through a bus stop, glass exploding outward. “Get out of here!” Superman shouted to Supergirl. “She’s too unstable-”
Supergirl pushed herself upright, shaking. “No.”
Chris stared at her. “You’re kidding, right? She’s trying to kill me.”
“I know. And I’m not letting that happen.” Supergirl said, breathless.
Rampage tore free and struck Superman again, sending him tumbling across the intersection. He didn’t rise immediately. Rampage turned back. Supergirl stepped in front of Chris once more.“You’re making a mistake.” Rampage said, voice shaking now, rage cracking into something raw.
“Maybe.” Supergirl said, her voice quivering. She could barely stand. Blood trickled from her lip. “But so were you. Trusting her. Believing the best. That wasn’t weakness.”
Rampage raised her fist.
Supergirl didn’t flinch.
“You don’t have to become what she thinks you are.” Supergirl said, voice breaking. “You don’t have to answer cruelty with more cruelty. I’ve tried that. It doesn’t work.”
Rampage froze.
“You think killing her will make it stop? It won’t. It’ll just be one more thing they took from you.” A tear ran down Supergirl’s cheek. Chris opened her mouth to say something - probably something awful. Supergirl snapped, pointing at her without looking, “Not. Helping.”
Silence fell, thick and trembling. ampage’s fist shook. Her breathing hitched. “She ruined my life.”
“I know. But you’ll rebuild. And she doesn’t get to decide who you are.” Supergirl whispered.
For a long moment, nothing happened. Then Rampage screamed - not in fury, but in grief. Her massive frame buckled. Bone spikes retracted. Yellow skin faded, shrinking, softening.
She transformed back into Kitty Faulkner who collapsed to her knees, sobbing. Supergirl rushed forward and caught her before she hit the ground, wrapping her arms around her as Kitty cried into her shoulder, shaking and human again. “It’s okay, I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
Across the street, Superman finally pushed himself up, watching quietly. Chris lay on the pavement, stunned, alive and very aware she’d come close to dying.
Later when the adrenaline died down, Chris Bruckner laughed. It was shrill and brittle, the sound of someone still convinced they were untouchable. She brushed dirt from her jacket and looked down at Kitty like this was all beneath her. “You don’t have any guts. You never did. That’s why you let people like me walk all over you.”
Kitty flinched like she’d been struck.
Supergirl didn’t hesitate. She grabbed Chris by the collar and shot straight up. The ground vanished in seconds. Wind tore the scream out of Chris’s throat as the town shrank beneath them, lights blurring, the river turning into a thin dark vein. Supergirl stopped dead a few hundred feet up and held her there, one hand iron-tight, the other hovering just close enough to make the threat obvious. Supergirl spoke calmly. “Speak to her like that again and I let go.”
Chris sobbed. Then cursed. Then broke. Words spilled out in a rush. Names. Shell companies. Offshore accounts. Clients who thought they were invisible. She rattled off bank locations between gasps, begged when she forgot details, promised she would remember more if Supergirl just took them down. Supergirl listened, memorised and finally flew them back to the ground.
She set Chris down hard enough to knock the breath out of her. “Stay put.” She said, scowling at her. “The police will want a word.”
This time, Chris didn’t argue.
Superman watched the cuffs go on from a distance. When it was over, when Kitty had been taken away to clear things up and the street finally started to get back to normal, he walked up beside Supergirl. “You okay?”
She nodded. “I will be.”
He studied her for a moment, something thoughtful and concerned behind his eyes. “Why Leesburg? You could be anywhere. I mean, I can always use another pair of hands in Metropolis.”
She smiled but didn’t answer the question. “Someone has to look after it.”
He nodded, accepting what she gave him. They hugged, a simple thing, and then he was gone, lifting into the night like he always did. Supergirl called after him. “By the way I love the hair!”
Later, much later, Linda stood in her Supergirl form outside a modest hotel downtown, dressed plainly, no cape, hair tied back. A purple sweater and jeans. Kitty stepped out into the warm evening air, a paper cup of tea in her hands. She looked smaller without the fury, exhausted but still sharp eyed. She saw her and walked over, recognising her. “Where’s your costume?”
“It’s still soaking wet from you piledriving me into the Leesburg River.” Linda smiled. “How are you doing, Kitty?”
“Good. Thank you. For earlier I mean.” She smiled warmly. “I… No one really understands what it’s like.” Kitty said after a moment. “Changing. Losing yourself and knowing you could lose it again.”
Linda hesitated. Then she took a breath. “I do.”
Kitty turned, confused.
In the blink of an eye, Linda Danvers stood there instead, heart pounding, hands shaking just a little.
Kitty stared. Then laughed softly. “Oh wow.”
“Look, just don’t tell Clark I showed you this.” Linda responded.
“Clark? Wait... Clark as in Clark Kent and he’s…” Kitty realised what she was saying.
Linda’s heart sank. “Oh shit. You didn’t know?”
“I didn’t know.” Kitty deadpanned.
“Oh shit! Ok, definitely don’t tell Clark. Or anyone!” Kitty laughed at the panic on Linda’s face and promised to keep it all a secret.
They stood there for a moment, two women under flickering streetlights, both tired. “Drink?” Linda asked.
Kitty smiled. “Yeah. I think I could use one.”
They walked off together into the Leesburg night.
Linda woke to sunlight stabbing straight through the cheap blinds and into her skull. Supergirl didn’t get hangovers. Supergirl couldn’t even get drunk. Linda Danvers on the other hand…
She groaned and rolled onto her side, immediately regretting it as the room tilted. Her mouth tasted like warm beer. Her head throbbed in time with the ancient fan kicking in next to the bed. “Never again.” She muttered, which she knew was a lie.
The apartment was quiet. Too quiet. She pushed herself upright, clutching the blanket around her and spotted the note on the kitchen counter, held down by an empty mug.
Linda,I had a great time. Thank you for trusting me.I left early so you could sleep.Try not to punch anyone today.— Kitty
Oh yeah. That.
Linda smiled despite herself. A real one. Slow. Satisfied. A night with Kitty Faulkner, she didn’t see that coming. Her first kiss with a girl. Her first… well… the first time she’d done any of that stuff with a girl. She looked around the room and admired their restraint - neither of them had turned into their super powered alter egos whilst drunk and fooling around. Just Linda and Kitty. She smiled at the memory of Kitty’s tongue teasing her between her legs….
She dragged herself to her feet, wincing, catching her reflection in the cracked mirror. Buck naked. Hair a mess. Eyes tired. Still smiling.
She pulled on a pair of grey sweatpants and her favourite green tartan shirt. She grabbed the phone and dialled home before she could overthink it “Mom?” She said when Sylvia answered. “About that blind date.”
A pause. Then cautious hope. “Yes…?”
“Set it up.” Linda said, grinning as she leaned against the counter. “Hey, why shouldn’t I play the field a little?”
Her mom laughed, genuinely delighted. “Well. That’s a change.”
“Don’t make a big thing of it.” Linda said quickly. “Just coffee or something. Low pressure. And let me know in advance!” They said their goodbyes and Linda hung up, feeling oddly light. Then she checked the clock. “Oh no!”
She swore, scrambling for clothes she could wear outside, nearly tripping over her own boots. Cutter was going to kill her. Or worse. Make her clean the espresso machine. She yanked on yesterday’s jeans, grabbed her jacket, and headed for the door, still smiling despite the pounding in her head.
Late for work. Hungover. Broke. But not feeling too bad at all.
Linda found the number by accident. It slipped out of the pocket of her jeans as she pulled them on, a folded scrap of paper landing near her foot. She froze, then laughed quietly to herself as she picked it up.
Richard. She shook her head, amused. “What the hell.” She murmured. “I’m playing the field.”
Hours later, mid shift at Cutter’s, she finally worked up the nerve. The shop was loud enough to give her cover. Steam hissed. Someone argued with a muffin. Cutter was distracted flirting with a college girl who did not care. Linda ducked into the back, phone in hand, heart beating harder than it had any right to.
It rang.
Once. Twice.
Then the click. “Hi, you’ve reached Richard. I’m probably ignoring something important. Leave a message.”
She smiled despite herself., though she was suddenly aware of her own voice. “Hey… ugh… It’s Linda. From the park. With the truly terrible drawing. Abstract despair?” She paused, biting her lip. “I just wanted to say… I had fun meeting you. And I was thinking maybe we could try meeting again sometime. Somewhere that doesn’t involve public humiliation via art.” A beat. “Call me back if you want. No pressure. Totally casual. I mean. Not totally casual. Just… you know.” She winced, then laughed softly. “Okay. Bye.”
She hung up and leaned her forehead against the wall, smiling like an idiot. Out on the floor, Cutter shouted her name. “Danvers! Your latte is dying!”
“Coming.” She called back, still flushed.
Across town, Richard Malvern sat hunched on the edge of his bed, one hand pressed hard against his stomach. The pain had been coming and going all day. Sharp. Deep. Wrong. Like something twisting just out of reach. A knock sounded at his door. He frowned, stood, and opened it.
A man stood there smiling, relaxed, like he belonged anywhere he decided to be. Trench coat. Easy eyes. A cigarette unlit between his fingers. “Richard.” The man said pleasantly.
Richard swallowed. “Y-yes?”
Buzz glanced at Richard’s hand, still pressed to his abdomen and his smile widened just a little. “I can help with the pain.”
And for reasons Richard would never quite be able to explain later, he stepped aside and let him in.
Part 5: The strange world of Linda Danvers
She had made it months ago and somehow forgotten it existed. Well, the other Linda had made it. It was complicated.
Linda stood in the middle of the apartment staring at the sculpture like it might move if she looked away. It rose from a chipped wooden base on the kitchen table, rough and asymmetrical, a human figure twisted in on itself. The spine bent too sharply. The arms were half formed, one reaching outward, the other folded protectively across the chest. The face was only suggested, hollowed eyes and a mouth that looked caught between screaming and biting its tongue.
It was disturbing in a quiet way. Honest. Ugly.
Linda folded her arms and exhaled. “The world of Linda Danvers is a strange one.” She said aloud to the empty room to no one in particular. Her voice sounded steadier than she felt. “I should know. It’s my world now.”
She was still wearing her Supergirl costume but she had pulled a pink shirt loose and open over the top of it, soft cotton leaving the S shield uncovered, paired with dark jeans and bare feet. She reached out and brushed her fingers along the sculpture’s surface. Clay dust clung to her skin. Then a knock at the door made her jump.
She swore under her breath and straightened, instinct kicking in. Light rippled over her body as she shifted back, blonde fading to brown, power draining away until Linda Danvers stood there instead. Same clothes. Same nerves. Same apartment. She crossed the room quickly and reached the door before she could overthink it.
When she opened it, her heart dropped.
Sylvia stood there with a hopeful smile and Fred beside her, thinner than before, posture stiff like he was still bracing for pain that had not quite let go of him.
“Hi.” Linda said, suddenly very aware that the pink shirt did not fully hide what was underneath. The famous S shield on show. “Uh… I-I can explain….”
Sylvia’s eyes flicked down, then back up, sharp and amused. “Oh. Yes. She’s very popular in the city now, isn’t she? I heard she stopped some giant yellow monster the other day.”
Linda froze.
Fred cleared his throat, then surprised her by smiling. Not tight. Not forced. Just proud in a quiet way. “She’s doing good work. I met her during all that Final Night crap. She’s impressive.”
Something loosened in her chest. “Uh… thanks?” Linda said softly.
Sylvia stepped forward and kissed her cheek, then glanced past her into the apartment. The curtains closed. The disturbing sculpture sat in plain view. She glanced and saw a collection of empty noodle packets. Her smile softened. “You should come over for dinner. Proper food. No blind dates, I promise.”
Linda laughed, relief bubbling out of her still for getting away with her costume slip. “Deal.” She hesitated, then added, trying to sound casual. “Actually… could I bring someone?”
Sylvia’s eyebrows lifted, delighted. Fred looked surprised, then nodded once like he approved of the idea on principle alone. “Of course, we’d love that.”
Linda smiled, already thinking of a voice on an answering machine and a folded scrap of paper in her jeans pocket. “Okay, yeah. I’d like that.”
Linda’s first day of summer session at Leesburg College felt like she had wandered onto the wrong set. She paused outside the arts building, fingers flexing unconsciously now that her injured hand was finally free of its bandages. The skin felt tight and tender, pink where it was still healing. It ached in a dull, irritating way that reminded her she was human.
She had dressed with intent, even if she wasn’t sure what that intent was. High waisted black jeans that hugged instead of sagged. A fitted white tank top under a cropped light blue cardigan that showed just a hint of midriff when she moved. Doc Martens, old and reliable. Her hair was down, brown and loose, refusing to behave in the humidity. Mascara, lip gloss, effort.
Everyone else looked aggressively nineteen.
Baggy jeans. Crop tops. Chain wallets. Tiny sunglasses worn indoors. Someone blasted Soundgarden from a portable speaker. A girl smoked cloves on the steps and talked loudly about zines. A guy with bleached hair practiced kick flips while lecturing his friends about Reservoir Dogs and the hot films coming out of Sundance.
Linda adjusted her bag strap and felt ancient.
The art room smelled like turpentine and chalk dust. Sunlight cut through tall windows. Half finished canvases leaned against the walls. Students settled into seats, already bonded by proximity and youth.
Linda took a chair near the back and laid her portfolio on the table. Inside was a contradiction. Old work from before Buzz, raw and furious, heavy with reds and blacks. Newer sketches done since the Final Night, tentative and searching, like someone relearning how to speak.
“Alright, let’s get started.” The lecturer stepped forward with a stack of papers and a tired coffee. Early thirties. Rolled up sleeves. Paint permanently ground into his hands. Brown hair that fell into his eyes when he leaned. Too relaxed. Too comfortable in the room. “I’m Mark Levin. Welcome to summer studio.”
His eyes moved around the class, lingering here and there. When they reached Linda, they stayed. Not crude. Just attentive.
Introductions were quick. Names. Mediums. A few jokes that landed softly. When Linda said her name, no one reacted. She liked that.
Mark moved from desk to desk as students laid out their work. When he reached Linda, he crouched beside her chair instead of standing over her. “Mind if I look?” She slid the portfolio toward him. Her unbandaged hand hesitated, then relaxed. He flipped through slowly. His expression shifted as he moved from the older pieces to the newer ones. “This is intense. You don’t flinch from uncomfortable things.”
Linda shrugged. “I don’t see the point of lying.”
He smiled. “I want to see you push past what you already know how to do. Experiment. Risk failure.” His fingers rested on the edge of the table a beat too long. “There’s something here though. Real voice.”
“Thanks.” she said, noncommittal.
“Come by office hours sometime. We can talk direction.” As he moved on, Linda felt the familiar prickle of attention she hadn’t asked for and didn’t fully trust.
She glanced sideways.
The girl beside her was watching her with open curiosity. Blonde hair pulled back tight. Oversized sweater despite the heat. Fingers worrying the corner of a sketchbook like it might bite. Something about her tugged at Linda’s chest. A sense of recognition she couldn’t place. The girl spoke softly. “Hi, I’m Alice.”
“Linda.” She replied smiling.
Alice smiled, relieved. “Your work looks… intense.”
“Yours too.” Linda said, gesturing to the sketchbook.
Alice hesitated, then opened it. Twisted figures. Faces half erased. Bodies dissolving into lines. Pain drawn carefully, almost reverently. Linda swallowed. She knew this terrain. She just couldn’t say how.
“It’s good.” Linda said honestly. “Uncomfortable. That’s not a bad thing.”
Alice beamed.
At the front of the room, Mark clapped his hands. “Alright. First assignment.” Groans rippled through the class. “I want a self portrait. No mirrors. No photos. No realism. I want how you see yourself when no one else is looking. Any medium. Any scale. Due next week.”
Linda felt her newly freed hand throb as if in warning. She looked down at her fingers, flexed them slowly, then back at her portfolio. Great, she thought. That should be interesting.
Linda locked the front door of Cutter’s Coffee and flipped the sign to CLOSED, the bell giving one last tired jingle. Cutter leaned against the counter, wiping down the espresso machine with exaggerated care, not really looking at Linda. “So, you see Supergirl around town today?”
Linda stiffened just a fraction. “Maybe.”
“She’s everywhere lately.” He grinned. “God, she’s hot. Like, unfairly hot. You ever notice that?”
Linda snorted despite herself. “I try not to rank public servants by attractiveness.”
“I’m just saying.” He wagged the cloth at her. “If I was getting thrown through buildings by her, I’d at least die happy.”
“Riiight.” Linda slung her backpack over her shoulder and headed for the backdoor exit.
“Oh, in the morning can you use your artistic talents on the new sandwich boards for outside, please.” Cutter asked.
Linda smiled and pointed. “I already did. Night, Cutter.”
Cutter looked down at the boards. A mess of colour and shapes surrounding their lunchtime deal. They needed to be redone. He whispered. “Wait… aren’t you in art school?” Before shaking things off and calling after her. “Ride home?”
“I’m good.”
Outside, the heat had finally broken. The air was still warm but breathable, the sky streaked pink and gold as the sun slid toward the horizon. Linda ducked around the corner, found a phone booth and dialled from memory.
It rang twice.
“Hey.” She said when the machine clicked on, voice already lighter, flirt creeping in without her permission. “It’s Linda. Again.” She leaned against the brick wall, smiling at nothing. “So listen, I was wondering if you might want to come over for dinner tomorrow night.” She paused, then rushed on. “With me. And my parents. Which I realised sounds incredibly lame the second I say it out loud.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “But they’re not scary. Mostly.”
A beat.
Then softer. “Call me back.”
She hung up and immediately winced.
Smooth, Danvers. Real smooth.
Linda glanced down the empty alley, then stepped deeper into shadow. In a blur of light and motion she rose into the air, blue and red replacing cotton and denim. She adjusted the straps of her backpack over her shoulders, the ridiculousness of it making her laugh quietly.
Supergirl, saviour of the city, flying home with her leftover lunch.
Leesburg stretched out beneath her, calm and almost gentle. No sirens. No fires. No screams. Just streets glowing under streetlights and people spilling out of diners and bars, unafraid. A group of teenagers spotted her overhead and waved wildly. Someone shouted thank you. Someone else yelled “We love you!”
She waved back, smiling so hard her cheeks ached.
The quiet felt strange. It also felt earned. When she landed outside her apartment, the hallway light flickered like it always did. A small package sat outside her door, plain brown cardboard, no return address. Her stomach tightened.
Inside was a smaller box and a folded note. The handwriting was neat and familiar.
“The art your mom didn’t want to share.”
A simple drawing of a bee sat in the corner of the page. “Buzz.”
Linda closed the door slowly behind her, the smile fading as the weight of it all settled in. Linda set the box down on the kitchen table and opened it with shaking hands.
Inside was a sculpture.
It was small, dense, made of welded scrap and darkened metal. A human form, half-abstracted. Limbs bent at wrong angles, the torso split open and reassembled with cruel precision. Nails and wire threaded through the body like veins. The face was smooth and unfinished, no eyes, no mouth, just a suggestion of submission frozen into posture. Linda knew it immediately. Her breath caught. “No…”
The room tilted.
She had made this. Or rather, Linda Danvers had. Months ago. Maybe longer. Back when nights blurred together and consequences felt theoretical. Memories flooded back. The smell hit her first. Whiskey. Cigarette smoke. Buzz’s apartment. Rage Against the Machine too loud, laughter sharper than it should have been. Her hands remembered before her mind did, remembered shaping metal while Buzz watched from the doorway, approving, encouraging. Telling her it was honest. Telling her it was brave.
The memory rushed her.
Drinking until the world softened. Buzz’s arm around her shoulders, his voice warm and persuasive. “You don’t have to pretend with me.” Kisses that tasted like permission. Like absolution. Like erasure.
“No, no…” Linda whispered, backing away from the table.
She transformed on instinct, light flaring around her as she became Supergirl, as if the costume might protect her from the past. It didn’t.
The memories didn’t stop. They fractured instead.
Flashes. Polaroids. The ones she’d found earlier, the ones she’d tried not to think about. Linda posed, offered up, smiling in ways that didn’t quite reach her eyes. Buzz behind the camera. Buzz arranging things. Buzz telling her she was powerful because she chose this.
Faces swam up out of the dark. So many of them. Men. Strangers. Worshippers. Lining up to take their turn with her. Her brunette hair pulled back hard as a stranger’s cock had been rammed into her ass. Her cries of pain and pleasure muted by another cock sliding into her mouth. That whole night, they all had their way with her. Buzz’s gift to them.
And then one face sharpened into focus.
Father Halloway. That perverted bastard.
Linda gasped and dropped to her knees, Supergirl’s strength failing her completely.
“Oh God…” Her hands pressed to the floor as the truth landed, heavy and suffocating. The cult hadn’t just found her. She had walked into it. Worse than that, she had wanted to.
Another memory surfaced, one she’d buried deepest. The abandoned cinema. The night Supergirl had crashed through the wall in a blaze of righteous fury. The way Linda had felt then.
Not relief.
It had been anger.
She remembered screaming, not in fear, but in frustration. Remembered thinking Supergirl was ruining everything. Ruining the surrender. Ruining the way it felt to finally stop choosing, to finally let someone else decide what she was for. Linda shook on the kitchen floor, tears streaking down her face. “I didn’t know, I didn’t want to know.” She whispered.
She thought of Father Halloway on top of her, fucking her hard. Her body already numb from having fucked so many of his followers. She thought of how she had grinned her hips. How he had made cum one more time. How she had smiled for Buzz’s camera.
The sculpture sat on the table, silent and accusing. A reminder of her fall from grace.
Later, she floated above the riverbank, the night cool against her skin. The city lights reflected off the water in broken lines. She held the sculpture in both hands, feeling its weight, its history. She hurled it into the river with all her strength. Metal hit water with a dull, final splash and vanished beneath the surface.
Supergirl hovered there for a long moment, tears slipping free despite her efforts. The river carried the past away inch by inch, but the knowledge remained, heavy in her chest. She wiped her face with the back of her hand, turned toward the city, and flew home.
The darkness hadn’t been a stranger. It had been her.
Dinner was supposed to start at seven. By seven fifteen, Sylvia was still hovering near the window. By seven thirty, Fred had stopped pretending not to notice.
Linda sat on the edge of the couch in her parent’s living room, hands folded tightly in her lap. She had dressed up. A fitted black skirt, simple heels, a soft cream blouse that made her feel more sophisticated than she usually did. Grown up. Someone worth showing up for.
She checked the clock again. Then the door. Then her watch, like time might have changed its mind. Fred snorted from his chair. “Guess that tells you everything you need to know about that boy.”
Linda winced. “Dad.”
“What?” He shrugged. “If he can’t show up for dinner with your parents, what’s that say about his character?”
Sylvia shot him a look. “Fred.”
“I’m just saying.” He leaned back, arms crossed. “Men who don’t show are men who don’t stick.”
Sylvia turned back to Linda, voice gentler. “At least you know now what kind of man that young man is.”
Linda nodded, even though her chest felt tight. “Yeah. Lucky me.” She forced a small smile and stood. “I’m just going to use the bathroom.” The bathroom light buzzed softly. Linda gripped the edge of the sink and stared at herself in the mirror. Her eyes looked brighter than usual, glassy in a way she didn’t like. I’m Supergirl, she thought. I stop monsters. I lift bridges. And here I am trying not to cry because I got stood up.
She took a breath. Then another. Smoothed her hair. Dabbed at her eyes. When she opened the door again, she was smiling like nothing had happened.
Dinner went on anyway. Conversation filled the space where Richard should have been. Sylvia talked about work. Fred complained about traffic. Linda nodded and answered when prompted. She tasted very little of the food.
Afterwards, Sylvia asked about her classes. About the art. “Do you want to show us what you’ve been working on?” She said, genuinely interested in seeing it.
Linda hesitated, then fetched the sketches she had brought. Newer pieces. Less sharp than the old ones. Trying to be something else.
Fred flipped through them slowly. “It’s… good.” He said finally, which sounded like something he felt obligated to say.
Sylvia smiled wider. “You’ve clearly been busy.”
Linda nodded. “Trying.”
There was a pause. Then Sylvia cleared her throat. “So. About that blind date.”
Linda felt the sting again, fresh. She didn’t want to sit with it. “Sure. Like I said before. Why not.”
Sylvia brightened immediately. “Fantastic.”
“Yeah.” Linda shrugged. “Why not.”
Fred nodded, satisfied. Trying to be supportive in his own way. “Smart. Move on from this jerk.”
They were clearing plates when Sylvia added, almost casually, “Oh, and a package arrived for you earlier. It’s on the table. Addressed to Linda.”
Linda froze. Her heart thudded once, hard. She crossed the room slowly and lifted the box. It was damp. The cardboard warped slightly. River damp.
Her fingers trembled as she opened it. Inside, almost inevitably, sat the sculpture. Whole. Cleaned. And now returned.
A folded note rested against it. Just two words, written neatly. “A part of you.” Below it, a small drawing of a bee.
The room felt very far away. Sylvia said something behind her. Linda didn’t hear it.
Richard’s car died two blocks from the Danvers house. Not a dramatic explosion. No smoke. Just a cough from the engine, a judder through the steering wheel and then nothing. He tried the ignition again. Click. Click. Silence. “Come on…” He muttered, tapping the dash like that might help. He checked his watch. Seven thirty five.
He got out and lifted the hood even though he barely knew what he was looking at. Wires. Heat. The smell of oil. He wiped his hands on his jeans, heart sinking. No cellphone. He had meant to replace it weeks ago. Money had gone elsewhere. Rent. Food. Medicine.
Linda’s face kept popping into his head. Her smile when they had met. The way she’d tried to sound casual about asking him out in her message. Dinner with her parents. He actually liked that. It felt real. “I’m such an idiot, great first impression.” He said to no one.
He started walking, hoping for a pay phone, a tow truck, anything. The street was quiet, washed in the orange glow of streetlights. Too quiet. His stomach clenched suddenly. Sharp. Deep. He bent forward with a hiss of breath, hand pressing into his side. “Not now…” He groaned.
“That looks unpleasant.” Came a voice behind him.
Richard startled, spun around. The man stood a few feet away, hands in his coat pockets, posture relaxed. Mid thirties maybe. Nice smile. Too nice. Like he was playing out a private joke.
“Sorry,” Richard said automatically. “Didn’t hear you.”
“No surprise.” The man tilted his head, studying him. “Car trouble?”
Richard laughed weakly. “Yeah. Of all nights.”
“Funny how that happens.” The man stepped closer. “You look like you’re in pain.”
“It’s nothing.” Richard said, though another cramp twisted through him hard enough to make his vision blur. “Just my stomach. Happens sometimes.”
The man’s smile softened. Kind. Understanding. “That kind of pain can ruin an evening.”
Richard swallowed. “Yeah. I’m supposed to be somewhere.”
“I know.”
That made him pause. “Do you?”
The man held out a hand. “Buzz. We… may have met before.”
Richard shook it without thinking. The grip was warm. Steady. Reassuring. “Yes. I… I recognise you. Have we… have we met?”
“I can help with the pain.” Buzz said gently. “And with the car. And with everything else, really.”
Richard hesitated. His head began to throb. Something in his gut tightened again, fear mixing with the ache. “But I don’t even know you… Wait… Do I?”
Buzz chuckled softly. “You do.. And you will.”
Somewhere across town, Linda stared at a box that should have been gone forever. And the night, quietly, began to fold in on itself.
Part 6: Deadly Date
The sky was painfully blue and the temperature was behaving itself. Linda sat on the back steps of her parents’ place, legs stretched out, soaking up the sun like she needed to recharge. She wore cut off blue shorts, a blue crop top and a soft fabric hairband keeping her hair off her face. Comfortable. Casual. Definitely not date ready.
Her mom appeared in the doorway with a glass of iced tea she passed to Linda, and a smile that meant trouble. “So. Your blind date is tonight.”
Linda nearly choked on her first sip. “What?!”
“Tonight.” Her mom repeated, setting the glass down beside her. “Five o’clock.”
“Mom. You said you’d give me notice.” Linda looked back inside the house, it was already four thirty. “I-I look like I’m about to go rollerblading, not out to dinner.”
Sylvia waved a hand. “You look fine. Besides, Mr Aldrin won’t mind. And you’ve cancelled on three separate occasions. Men like him won’t wait around forever!”
Linda groaned, thinking back to the last month. She’d made excuses on a couple of occasions due to her ever present alter ego - a trip to Metropolis and some minor supervillain fun in downtown Leesburg. Though by the third time, she’d just not wanted to face it. “You keep calling him that like he’s an astronaut.”
“It sounds respectable.” Sylvia smiled. “And reliable. He won’t stand you up like that other boy.”
That one landed. Linda swallowed and pushed herself to her feet. “That wasn’t his fault.” Actually she had no idea what had happened there. It seemed like the nice boy Richard had ghosted her. She’d left two awkward messages on his answer machine and heard nothing else from him.
“Of course it wasn’t.” Sylvia said quickly, then paused. “Still. It’s nice to meet someone dependable.” Before Linda could argue, the doorbell rang. Her mom’s eyes lit up. “That’ll be him. So punctual.”
“Now?” Linda spun around. “Now? Jeez mom, why don’t you tell me anything?”
Sylvia just smiled, far too pleased with herself. “Be a dear and get the door.”
Linda muttered under her breath as she crossed the living room, running a hand through her hair and wishing she’d at least put on mascara. She’d faced down Lex Luthor, Mongul, Doomsday. Part of her wishes any of them - all of them - were waiting for her from behind the door. She turned the doorknob.
Her stomach dropped.
Buzz stood on the porch, clean cut and immaculate, hair neatly styled, tailored jacket over a crisp shirt. He looked like he’d stepped out of a catalog for men who wanted to be trusted. His smile was warm. Familiar. Dangerous. “Face it, tigress. You just hit the jackpot.”
For a moment Linda couldn’t breathe. The world narrowed to the echo of his voice in her head. “Son of a -“
Behind her Sylvia called out cheerfully, “Is that Mr Aldrin?”
Buzz’s eyes never left Linda’s. His smile widened just a touch. “That’s me.”
Buzz fit into the house like he had always belonged there. He charmed Sylvia within seconds, accepting her hug with easy warmth and pressing the flan he had brought into her hands like a peace offering. “Thought I’d bring dessert. Seemed rude to show up empty handed.” He turned that smile on Fred next, firm handshake, steady eye contact. “Sir. I’m glad you’re back on your feet. Good to know we have men like you out there protecting us.”
Fred grunted but nodded. “Sylvia says you helped her during all that business in the darkness.”
“Not my first apocalypse, Fred.” Buzz laughed, waving it off. “Anyone would have done the same. Right place, right time.” His eyes flicked to Linda. “We all did our very best during the Final Night, I’m sure.”
Linda stiffened.
Throughout it all he kept up a gentle commentary, teasing without being obvious. “So, you live close to downtown, Linda?” A pause. “Busy nights?” Or later, when Sylvia mentioned how proud she was of Linda getting back on her feet, Buzz added lightly, “You strike me as someone that has a lot going on. More than most. Very interesting. I’d love to find out more about what you do with your spare time.”
Linda smiled tightly. Her hand ached. Her pulse wouldn’t settle. She felt boxed in. If she made a scene her parents would see. If she stayed quiet he would keep pushing.
After the starter, they both excused themselves.
The bathroom door closed behind them with a soft click. “Get out.” Linda said immediately, low and fierce. “Leave. Now.”
Buzz leaned against the sink like he had all the time in the world. “You invite me into your family home and that’s the treatment I get? Leave? You’re not being a very good host.”
“I didn’t invite you. You tricked your way in.”
“Semantics.” He stepped closer and lifted a hand toward her head, fingers hovering where he would touch when he wanted her to remember. “You’ve been trying so hard to forget.”
Before he could make contact she flared into motion. Supergirl filled the bathroom, hand snapping around his wrist and stopping him cold. She squeezed just enough to make the point.
“Touch me again and I break it.” She spat, trying to be quiet so her parents wouldn’t hear.
Buzz hissed softly. Pain flickered across his face but the smile never quite left. “We both know you won’t do that. Too much to explain, love.” He continued to needle her. “Have you ever considered how dark all of this is. You’ve basically stolen this girl’s life, haven’t you? Her family, her friends, her future.”
Linda was dumbstruck. She didn’t answer. Then a knock at the door made her heart jump. “Mr Aldrin?” Sylvia called. “Is everything all right? Have you seen Linda?”
Supergirl stood frozen behind the door as Buzz opened it, for half a breath, then light folded back into skin and bone and breath. Linda again. Human again.
Buzz raised his voice easily. “Oh I’m sure she’s around.” He pushed the door ajar as Sylvia left, then leaned in close enough that only she could hear him. His breath brushed her ear. “Don’t pretend you’re not curious. Don’t you want to pull on this thread?”
Charm. Menace. Something darker underneath.
He left the bathroom first.
Linda stayed where she was, hand pressed to the counter, staring at her reflection. She did not show it. She would never give him that. But somewhere deep inside her, the curiosity stirred.
Dinner was roast chicken, overcooked vegetables and Sylvia’s best plates. The ones that only came out for company. Buzz fit himself neatly into the empty chair like he had been measured for it. He complimented the food. He asked Fred about physical therapy. He laughed at Sylvia’s stories at exactly the right moments. Linda watched it all like a slow magic trick she already knew the ending to.
Sylvia stopped midway through the meal, dabbing her mouth with a napkin. “So, do you attend church, Mr Aldrin?”
Buzz smiled, thoughtful. “I have. On and off. Depends on the century.”
Sylvia laughed. “Oh, you’re funny.”
“Faith changes,” Buzz continued smoothly. “Institutions rise and rot. Belief though, that sticks around. People need something to forgive them for being human.”
Fred nodded. “You’re not wrong there.”
Buzz leaned back slightly. “I’ve always found the idea of fallen angels fascinating. The ones who start out shining and end up… compromised. There’s something honest about the fall. More relatable than perfection.”
Linda’s fork paused halfway to her mouth.
Buzz glanced at her, just for a heartbeat. “Don’t you think, Linda?”
She swallowed. “I think people who romanticise falling usually aren’t the ones hitting the ground.”
Sylvia chuckled. “Oh Linda.”
Buzz’s smile sharpened. “You’re very astute.”
“That’s one word for it.” Linda took a sip of water. “Another might be allergic to nonsense.”
“Funny.” Buzz said lightly. “I was thinking the same thing about cynicism.”
Their eyes locked. Sparks did not crackle. They burned low and steady. “So what do you do, Buzz?” Fred asked. “As I mentioned, Sylvia says you were very helpful during the riots. But what else do you do?”
Buzz waved a hand. “I connect people. I consult. I help people find leverage. Direction. Sometimes they just need permission.”
“So… finance?” Fred responded.
“Permission for what?” Linda asked.
“To be who they are meant to be.”
She smiled thinly. “That sounds like a line you practice in the mirror.”
“Nothing gets past you.” Buzz replied, unfazed and smiling.
Sylvia beamed. “You two have such chemistry.”
Linda almost laughed.
Fred cleared his throat. “He’s got opinions. I like that.”
Buzz inclined his head respectfully. “High praise.”
By dessert Sylvia was fully won over, asking Buzz about his childhood, his travels, his beliefs. Fred poured him another drink. Linda pushed flan around her plate, jaw tight, watching the man who had ruined her life… Linda’s life… hold court at her parent’s table.
Buzz caught her eye one last time, voice warm as honey. “It’s a pleasure to finally sit down with you like this, Linda.”
She met his smile with one just as sharp. “Don’t get comfortable.”
He did not look offended. He looked delighted.
The evening went on and for the worst thing that could possibly have happened, Linda had to admit it was not as bad as she had feared. Buzz was unbearable, yes. Dangerous, absolutely. But the walls were still standing. Her parents were laughing. No one was bleeding. No one had died. That alone felt like a small reason to celebrate.
And worse than all of that, some part of her found herself drawn to him. Her mom wasn’t wrong. There was chemistry here. She hated that part. She pushed it down hard.
Sylvia stood and gathered plates, pulling Fred with her toward the kitchen. “We’ll just be a minute.” She said brightly.
The moment they were out of earshot, Linda leaned forward. Her voice dropped. “Finish dessert and then you’re out of here.”
Buzz raised his hands in mock surrender. “Fair terms.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.” His eyes softened just a fraction. “I hope you’ll think about what I said. About falling. About choosing.”
“Don’t push your luck.”
He smiled anyway.
Her parents returned, carrying coffee and extra napkins. Buzz finished his flan with deliberate care, setting the spoon down like he was closing a chapter. “Well.” He said, standing, smooth as ever. “It’s been a delight. Thank you for your hospitality..” He took Linda’s hand before she could pull it away and kissed her knuckles. Polite. Old fashioned. Intimate in a way that made her skin crawl. “It’s been an absolute delight. But unfortunately, it’s time to call it a night.”An awkward beat. Linda blushed, despite herself.
Then the world exploded.
The wall behind Buzz detonated in a roar of fire and splintered wood. The table flipped. Plates shattered. Linda was thrown hard across the room, pain screaming through her body. Her previously injured hand lit up white hot. She hit the floor and slid, ears ringing. Sylvia screamed. Fred slammed into the far wall.
Buzz did not move.
Smoke poured in through the ruined wall. From it floated in a figure tall and wrong, skin pale and eyes unfocused. Power rolled off him in waves that made the air feel thick. In each hand he carried a curved scythe, metal humming with something unnatural.
Linda squinted through the haze.
Was that… Richard?
Her stomach dropped.
He hovered slightly above the floor, expression empty, jaw clenched like he was fighting something inside himself. Linda pushed herself up, every muscle protesting, breath coming in sharp bursts. Her hand throbbed uselessly at her side.
Buzz straightened his jacket, calm as ever. He glanced at Linda, almost fond. “This is Tempus.” The figure tilted his head, eyes glowing faintly. “He’s one of those fallen angels I was telling you about.”
Part 7: Fallen Angel
“Ughhh…” Linda dragged herself upright, every muscle screaming in protest. Her hand, damaged all over again. The living room looked like a warzone. One wall was gone. Smoke clung to the ceiling. Furniture lay scattered like toys. Her outfit damaged, one strap ripped on her top, her hair band flung off her. Her parents were down. That fact cut deeper than the pain ripping through her body.
“This is my fault.” Her mind screamed at her. Not Buzz’s. Not Richard’s. Hers. She’d had him in her house. At her table. She’d been flirting. Sparring. Worrying about mascara and secrets and whether her parents would notice anything strange. She should have torn him apart the second she opened the door.
She pushed the thought away and planted her feet.
Buzz stood untouched near the wreckage, hands loosely folded, watching her like a scientist observing a reaction. Tempus hovered beside him, pale and wrong, the twin scythes humming softly as if eager. Buzz tilted his head. “You see, this is what I find fascinating.” His voice carried easily through the smoke. “Fallen angels. I’ve seen them a hundred times. Shining things that crack under pressure.” His eyes never left Linda. “I wonder what it takes to make another one.”
Tempus moved before she could answer.
The scythe came down in a blur of silver. Linda barely managed to twist aside, the blade carving through the floor where her head had been a second earlier. Splinters exploded. She stumbled, heart pounding, pain flashing through her injured hand. “No!” She gasped.
Light flared around her as she transformed into her alter ego. The heat in her eyes ignited, twin beams slamming into Tempus’s chest and hurling him backward through what remained of the wall. The force rattled the house and shook dust from the ceiling.
She turned to Buzz, just in time to see him click his fingers and disappear. “More magic…” She whispered. What was he, some kind of warlock? When the smoke cleared, they were both gone. No Buzz. No Tempus. Just silence, broken glass and the distant sound of sirens starting up somewhere in the city.
Linda let the light drain away. She was human again, shaking, sore, exhausted, terrified. “Mom. Dad.” She dropped to her knees beside them.
Sylvia groaned, eyes fluttering open. Fred stirred, swearing under his breath as he tried to sit up. Linda helped them, hands gentle, voice steady even though her insides were still screaming. “What… what just happened?” Sylvia whispered, looking around at the destroyed room.
Linda swallowed. “There was an explosion. Someone attacked the house. It’s over now.”
Sylvia stared at the broken wall, then at the doorway Buzz had walked through not ten minutes earlier. Her face crumpled with shock and embarrassment. “I can’t believe it.” She shook her head slowly. “I can’t believe I’m that bad a judge of character.”
“I’m going to get help.” Linda said it fast, already pushing herself upright. Her legs shook. “I’ll call an ambulance. I’ll get someone.”
Fred’s hand closed around her wrist. Not hard. Not angry. Just firm enough to stop her. “Linda.” He pulled himself up to a sitting position, face pale and lined with pain but eyes clear. “Don’t.”
She froze. For a split second the words were right there. I’m Supergirl. I can fix this. I can-
He looked at her like he had when she was a kid and came home crying with scraped knees and broken dreams. Not disappointed. Not demanding. Just worried. “You’re shaking.” He said quietly. “You’ve done enough. Let me take care of your mom.”
“She needs a hospital.” Linda said. Her throat tightened. “I can move faster than-”
He shook his head. “No. You stay here. I’ll get Sylvia an ambulance.” He softened then, voice dropping. “I love you. You hear me?”
That did it. Linda swallowed hard, tears in her eyes and nodded. “I love you too.” They hugged. It was awkward with the debris and the pain and her useless hand but it was real. Solid. Human. She clung to him for half a second longer than she meant to.
Then she stepped back. “I’ll be right outside.” She said. “I’ll flag someone down.”
Fred nodded. “Be careful.”
She turned away, before she could say something she could never take back.
Outside the house the air was thick with smoke and heat. Sirens wailed somewhere far off. Linda took two steps down the porch and let out a breath she did not know she was holding.
They’ll be gone, she told herself. Buzz and Tempus. Long gone. I just need a second. Somewhere quiet to change, grab my costume. Somewhere-
The shadow moved. Tempus dropped from above like a falling blade.
“NO!” Linda screamed.
The scythe came down, energy fired from it and the house came apart. Wood exploded. Windows burst outward. The roof buckled inward with a sound like the world snapping in half. Fire bloomed where her living room had been. The force threw Linda backward across the yard. She hit the ground hard, screaming her parents’ names, scrambling to her feet as flames devoured the place she had grown up in. “Mom! Dad!”
There was no answer.
Something inside her broke. She launched into the sky without thinking, light ripping through her skin as she transformed mid-flight. Supergirl burst free, sobbing openly now, tears streaking back across her face as she screamed into the clouds.
Grief turned to rage. Rage turned to action.
From a nearby rooftop Buzz watched the fire burn, watched as Linda rocketed into the air at speed, hands clasped behind his back. Tempus hovered beside him, breathing hard, eyes flickering like a bad signal.
Buzz smiled. “Now we see what she does without her anchors.” He glanced toward the blazing horizon. “Go after the rest. Friends. Lovers.” Tempus vanished in a rush of displaced air. Buzz stayed behind a moment longer, sparking up a cigarette, listening to the sirens and the screams. “Chaos. Glorious chaos.”
Supergirl tore across the sky, the city rushing up beneath her. Leesburg was burning. How had it happened so quickly? Entire blocks were lit by orange flame. Cutter’s coffee shop was a wreck, its front blown out, the sign twisted and smoking. She saw the college next, flames crawling up the side of the arts building, black smoke clawing into the summer sky.
She wiped at her eyes and flew faster.
Mattie.
The hospital. Please let me be in time.
Her tears streamed freely now, grief and fury blurring together as she rocketed forward through heat and ash, the city she had tried so hard to protect coming apart beneath her. And somewhere behind her, Buzz waited to see what would fall next.
The hospital smelled like the familiar antiseptic mixed with smoke. Tempus stalked the corridor like a reaper given flesh, his boots barely touching the floor as the scythes carved through walls, gurneys, anything that moved too slowly. Alarms screamed. Sprinklers spat useless water. Nurses scattered, patients cried out, doors slammed and splintered behind him.
He swung once and a fire extinguisher burst in a cloud of white.
And Mattie ran. Her shoes slipped on the wet tile. She glanced back once, terror hollowing her face, and that was enough. Her foot caught. She went down hard, air punched from her lungs. “No-no-no-no-”
The shadow fell over her. Tempus raised the scythe.
The wall exploded.
Supergirl hit him like a missile, blue and red tearing through concrete and glass. The force hurled Tempus down the corridor, slamming him through a nurse’s station in a rain of debris.
Mattie screamed.
Supergirl was already there, dropping to her knees beside her. The horror of the corridor hitting her. “Get behind me.” Her voice shook, but she made it steady. “Don’t look at anything. Don’t move.”
She turned as Tempus rose from the wreckage, unharmed. Annoyed, at most. Her eyes burned.
Supergirl’s heat vision lanced out.
Tempus crossed the scythes and the beams shattered like light hitting a mirror.
Supergirl stared, stunned, just long enough for him to move.
The scythe came around in a brutal arc.
She didn’t move. She was invulnerable, after all. Yet, pain tore through her side, sharp and blinding. She cried out as she was thrown backward into the wall. Before she could recover, the second blade struck, slicing across the hand that had been injured for weeks as Linda.
She screamed.
Blood splattered the tile.
That shouldn’t happen. Her hand burned like it had been dipped in acid, nerves screaming, strength bleeding out of her along with the red. She sagged in the air, barely hovering, before collapsing to the floor.
Tempus smiled. “There it is.” His voice was calm. Curious. “You feel it, don’t you?”
She clenched her teeth and forced herself back upright. “You don’t get to touch them. Not one person more.”
“Oh, but I will.” He tilted his head. “You’re still so full of her. Linda. All that fear. All that softness.” He drifted closer. “So human. So fragile.”
He lunged again. Supergirl caught the scythes in mid-swing. Metal bit into her palms. She screamed as the blades sliced deeper, blood running freely now. Her arms shook, muscles screaming as she forced them apart, every instinct telling her to let go, to flee.
Tempus leaned in, close enough that she could see her reflection in the dark metal. Small. Shaking. Hurt. “When I’m finished with you,” he said softly, “I’ll kill everyone you’ve ever loved.”
Her breath hitched.
“Mattie.” He glanced past her shoulder. “Kitty.” His eyes returned to hers, gleaming. “Clark.”
Something inside her cracked. She could barely hold him. Her vision blurred. Tears mixed with sweat and blood as she strained against the blades, strength draining by the second. She had never felt this weak. Never felt this exposed.
Supergirl was on her knees there in the ruined corridor, her hands were slick with blood. Her grip faltered. Tempus leaned closer, voice low and patient. “You feel it slipping, don’t you? All that hope. All that pretending.”
Finally, something inside her snapped. “Fine.” The word tore out of her like a wound. She pulled. Metal screamed.
The scythes shattered in her hands, fragments exploding outward like shrapnel. Tempus reeled back, shock flashing across his face for the first time. He didn’t even have time to raise his arms. Supergirl hit him.
Her bloodied fist crashed into his jaw, then again, and again. Each punch carried something different. Fear, rage, shame, grief. Every memory Buzz had twisted. Every choice she’d been robbed of. She drove Tempus into the floor, cracking tile, splintering concrete. She didn’t stop. At this point, she couldn’t. Her eyes were wild now, glowing too bright, tears streaking through soot and blood. A fallen angel in every sense of the word. No restraint. No mercy. Just pain given back with interest.
Tempus groaned beneath her.
And then… he changed.
The glow faded. The power drained away like water through a crack. The pale, wrong thing curled inward, shrinking, softening..
Richard lay there instead. Bruised. Broken. Human. Her fist froze inches from his face. “L-Linda?”
Her breath hitched. “Oh God…” Her voice broke. “No. No no no…”
Behind her, slow applause echoed through the ruined corridor. Buzz stepped out of the smoke like he’d been there all along, surveying the destruction. “Now this, this is an apocalypse.”
She turned on him, shaking, hands still clenched, blood dripping onto the floor. “You did this.”
“Yes.” He smiled. “And you did the rest.”
He circled her, careful not to step too close. “Look around, Linda. Your parents. Your city. Your friends.” He gestured vaguely, as if indicating the world beyond the hospital walls. “You have nothing left to protect.”
She swallowed hard, grief crashing down all at once. All those small, human things she’d let herself want.
Buzz stopped in front of her. His voice softened. “So. Is this what you want?” He nodded toward Richard’s broken body. “My way. Her way.” Then he lifted his chin, eyes gleaming. “Or… your way.” He leaned in, almost tender. “This beautiful, furious thing you’ve become. Linda and Supergirl. No lies. No limits.” He held her gaze. “Tell me.” Buzz said quietly. “What do you choose?”
Supergirl’s shoulders shook.
For a moment, just one, hate felt easy. Clean. Justified. No one would blame her. Not after this. Not after everything had been taken from her the moment she let herself care.
She looked down at Richard.
At the blood on her hands.
At what she had almost become.
And something inside her steadied.
Her voice raw, but certain. She replied. “I choose my way. Love. Even now.”
The words hurt. That’s how she knew they were real.
Buzz’s smile widened, slowly. He spoke gently. “Shame. This could have been fun. But I guess, I always knew you’d say that.”
He snapped his fingers.
The lights went out.
Linda woke slowly, the way you do after crying yourself empty. Her first thought was wrongness. Weight on the mattress beside her. Fabric against her skin that was not cotton. She looked down. She was wearing her Supergirl costume. Red skirt. Blue suit. The S bright against her chest. Her breath caught. She turned her head.
Richard lay beside her, half on his side, blankets kicked down to his waist. His face was pale but peaceful. No scythes. No glow. No blood. Just a guy asleep in her bed with a faint crease between his eyebrows like he worried even in dreams.
“What the hell…” She whispered. Her heart started pounding as she pushed herself upright and scanned the room. Her apartment was intact. No scorch marks. No shattered windows. Morning light spilled in through the blinds.
Normal. Quiet.
Buzz had done something, helped some demon take over Richard’s body or something….
The phone rang. Linda flinched, then lunged for it before it could ring again. “Hello?”
“Linda?” Sylvia’s voice was brisk and annoyed in the way that meant nothing was actually wrong. “Did I wake you? It’s nearly noon.”
Linda’s knees nearly gave out. She sat hard on the edge of the bed. “Mom. Are you okay? Dad?”
There was a pause. “Of course we are. Why wouldn’t we be?”
“The house,” Linda said quickly. “Last night. The explosion.”
“What explosion?” Sylvia sounded genuinely puzzled. “Dinner went fine. Mr Aldrin left after dessert. You looked tired so we didn’t keep you long.”
Linda closed her eyes.
“Linda?” Her mom pressed. “Is everything all right?”
She swallowed. “Yeah. Yeah, I just… had a bad dream.”
Sylvia’s tone softened “Well, maybe get some more rest. And call us later. Your father says hello.”
“I love you.” Linda said before she could stop herself.
Sylvia laughed gently. “We love you too, sweetheart.”
The line went dead. Linda stared at the phone for a long moment, then slowly turned her head. On the kitchen table sat a folded note she knew she had not left there. She crossed the room on unsteady legs, nearly tripping over her cape and opened it.
“Don’t take it personally love, I was wrong about you.” In the corner, a small drawing of a bee.
Linda let the paper slip from her fingers.
Buzz had pushed her to the edge. Had shown her exactly how far she could fall. And when she hadn’t broken, when she had chosen love anyway, he had simply… corrected the story. Reality itself. “Jeez…” She rubbed the back of her head.
A quiet sound behind her made her spin. Richard stirred, brow furrowing as he surfaced from sleep. His eyes blinked open and focused on her, confusion flickering across his face. Linda’s pulse spiked. She moved on instinct, ducking into the bathroom and stripping out of the costume in a blur. She threw on a two day old t-shirt and a robe over her pants. She took one breath to steady herself, then stepped back into the bedroom.
Richard pushed himself up on one elbow, rubbing his eyes. “Hey.” Unsure but gentle.
Linda stood there, heart aching and full all at once. “Hey.”