Kara drove through the morning San Francisco traffic; it hadn’t taken much to convince Linda that she could drive. ‘Start, Turn, Go, Stop. It’s not like it’s a stick shift, I mean I flew a spacecraft halfway across the galaxy,’ had been Kara’s exact words. She easily reached one of the city’s banks, where she could exchange her gold for cash, and was exiting the building when she noticed dark clouds, indicating smoke just to the north of her. Reaching the jeep, Kara quickly made sure the meter had enough money in it before she removed her baseball cap and freed her long blonde hair. After making sure no one was nearby, she streaked off towards the fire.
Kara soon arrived at the site of the fire, a six-story apartment building nearly engulfed in flames. The city’s fire department was already on hand, the firefighters struggling to douse the flames. As Kara around at the growing crowd of onlookers, she noticed a family trapped on their balcony on the top floor. Without further delay, Kara pushed her way through the crowd, as gently as she could, and hopped over the barriers set up by the fire department.
“You can’t come in here,” The head fire official on site called as Kara moved towards the building.
“Don’t worry,” Kara told him.
“Wait… Aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I am,” Kara replied, answering the official’s question with a small smile as she disappeared into the building.
Kara coughed as the smoke surrounded her. She could feel the heat from the nearby flames, but they did little more then make her uncomfortable. The smoke was the real problem. It blocked much of her view and it certainly had an effect on her breathing, if still less of one than a human would feel. Managing to find one of the building’s stairways, Kara started making her way up, counting off the floors as she went. She was nearing the fourth floor when the stairs gave way under her, dropping her into empty space.
Instinctively, Kara covered her face as she fell towards the ground, waiting for the impact that never came. She slowly moved her arms away to realize that she was hovering just feet off the cement floor. “I can float?” She muttered, a smile slowing spreading on her face. “I can float.” The young woman took a few seconds experimenting with her newfound ability and coming to another realization. “I can fly! Sweet!” Kara grinned as she flew around the stairwell before a piece of flaming timber crashed down, just inches in front of her face. “Oh. Right. Fire,” she said before zooming upwards.
She soon reached the top floor, making her way to the apartment where the trapped family, a woman and her two young children, were waiting. Telling them to hold on tightly, Kara stepped off the balcony and softly lowered the group to the ground, to the shock of those present. Over the next half-hour, Kara managed to rescue the remainder of those trapped inside while the firemen concentrated on putting the fire out.
“Thanks for the hand,” the fire chief said, shaking Kara’s hand as the fire was finally extinguished, leaving only a few clouds of smoke still rising from the remains of the building.
“Just happy to help,” Kara replied before she flew off into the sky.
With a huge smile on her face, Kara flew through the streets of San Francisco, ending her trip by flying under the Golden Gate Bridge before she turned to head back to where she was parked. “This is great!” Kara shouted, coughing soon afterwards. “Ack. Bug. Bug. Yuck!”
* * * * * * * *
Calculator growled, pressing a few buttons to make the defensive systems of his base stand down. Behind him, Toyman was chuckling.
“If only you could have seen your face, Mr. Calculator,” he laughed. “You were freaking out when you thought she was coming after us.”
Calculator just growled again as he turned back to his computers.
* * * * * * * *
As she made her way back to the jeep, Kara spotted a young girl looking up at a tree—and the large house cat sitting on a high branch.
“Need a hand?” Kara asked as she dropped down from the sky, carefully picking the feline out from the tree. “There you go,” The blonde said as she handed cat to the girl.
The girl smiled, holding the cat tightly to her chest. “Thanks, Mary Marvel,” She said, beaming as she turned to head back to her house. Kara chuckled slightly in response before once more continuing her trip.
* * * * * * * *
This time, Kara was stopped by a cry for help. As she approached, she saw a man running away from a woman, purse in hand. Kara flew past the woman and down the alley after the man. “Um… excuse me,” Kara said as she moved to fly beside the man. The mugger turned his head to look at Kara, doing a double-take as his jaw dropped. “I don’t think that belongs to you,” Kara told him, nodding to the purse. “Perhaps you should give it ba—” The young woman winced as the mugger ran headfirst into a street lamp, knocking himself out cold.
“And that was when he hit the post,” Kara told the officer a few moments later, the woman confirming her story as the cop cuffed the stunned man and pushed him into the back seat of his patrol car.
“I guess I should thank you then,” the officer replied. “It’s Supergirl… Right?”
Kara nodded at the name given to her by the news. “Indeed it is.”
* * * * * * * *
It was just before supper when Kara returned home from her shopping. Streaky greeted Kara by rubbing against the Kryptonian’s leg as she entered with her bags.
“I’ve got some good news,” Linda told Kara as the girl entered the dining room and placed her bags on the table. “An old friend of mine from collage owns a garage. I gave him a call and got you an interview on Friday.”
“That’s great!” Kara replied with a huge grin before starting to dig through her shopping bags.
“So what’d ya get?” Linda asked.
“Mostly clothes,” Kara answered, pausing to give Streaky a stroke before continuing to search through her bags. “And these.” Kara pulled out a brown wig and a pair of glasses, placing them on her head. “How do I look?”
Linda looked at her for a moment. “Actually, you kind of look like my aunt from back home,” Linda told her.
“Neat.” Kara replied. “Hey! We could be sisters then! I just need a name.” Kara pulled off the wig as she began to think. “Hmm… Kara-el, Karel, Karl… Oooo! Carol! Carol Danvers!”
Linda looked at Kara, eyebrow raised. “Carol Danvers?”
“Yeah!” Kara answered ecstatically. “What do you think?”
“Yeah… We’ll work on that,” Linda replied, trying on Kara’s new glasses. “Besides… whoa. Um… you know there are prescription glasses right?” she asked, placing them back on the table.
Kara nodded. “I basically just need them to read. Apparently, despite all my new powers, I’m still a bit far-sighted.”
“I’ve never seen you wear glasses before,” Linda commented.
“Well I use to have contacts, but they melted during the… heat vision incident.”
“Yes… that,” Linda frowned. “Anyway. You can’t use Carol Danvers as your name if you want to be my sister, since Danvers is my married name.”
“Oh… what did it use to be?” Kara asked.
Linda was about to answer when the front door rang. “I’ll tell you in a moment,” she told Kara before heading to open the door.
Linda froze when she saw who was standing there. It was an older couple. “Now, now dear. Don’t just stand there gawking,” the woman said. “Invite your parents in.”
“Ma… Pa!” Linda said, a number of emotions running through her. “I didn’t know you were coming.”
“Well we phoned but there was no answer. You really do need to get an answering machine or something, it is the twenty-first century after all,” Linda’s father said.
“Who’s there?” Kara asked as she peered around the corner.
“Oh um… Mom, Dad, this is Kara,” Linda said introducing the young woman. “Kara, these are my parents… Martha and Jonathan Kent.”
(The End. For Now.)
