Chapter 1: The First Taste
The wind tore at her hair, but Kara Zor-El didn’t feel the cold. Seven hundred feet above the snarled traffic of Metropolis, the air was thin and sharp, a familiar comfort. From this ledge, the city was a circuit board of light and motion, a system she was wired to protect. She adjusted her stance, the red of her cape snapping like a flag in the gathering dusk. Below, a silent alarm tripped at First Metropolis Bank registered as a faint, electronic ping in her hearing—a wrong note in the city’s symphony.
It was the work of a heartbeat.
She was a streak of blue and red, a blur against the glass and steel canyons. The bank’s vault door, a foot of reinforced titanium, was hanging open like a jaw unhinged. Three men inside, armed, stuffing bricks of cash into duffel bags.
They didn’t even hear her land.
“Party’s over,” she said, her voice calm, a force of nature stating a simple fact.
The first one spun, raising a rifle. Kara didn’t move. The bullet flattened against her chest with a dull spang, falling to the polished floor. His eyes widened, the reality of who he was aiming at dawning on him. She plucked the rifle from his hands, twisted the barrel into a pretzel of steel, and dropped it. The clatter was deafening in the sudden silence.
The other two froze, their hands creeping toward the sky.
“Smart,” Kara said, a faint, disappointed smile touching her lips. This was routine. This was easy. It was why she was here. To handle the things no one else could. To be the unbreakable thing in a breakable world.
She gathered them up, a squirming, terrified bundle under one arm, and shot back into the sky. The wind ripped their curses away. She bypassed the police station, delivering them directly to the rooftop helipad where a SWAT team was already mobilizing. She deposited the men gently onto the asphalt.
“They’re all yours,” she told the stunned commander. “Vault’s at First Metro. Tell them to send the bill for the door to Wayne Enterprises.” She offered a quick, genuine smile before pushing off again, a silent promise that she was always watching.
This was the rhythm of her life. The ping, the flight, the resolution. A perfect, closed loop. But as she arced back into the sky, a different signal snagged her attention. Not an alarm. A frequency. A specific, pulsing electronic beat she’d been tracking for weeks, emanating from the skeletal frame of the old Apex Tower, a condemned high-rise on the city’s less-glamorous edge.
Viper.
She altered her course, the playful breeze turning into a cold slap. The Apex Tower was a tombstone, its windows hollowed out, its facade stained by years of neglect. She landed on the roof, her boots crunching on gravel and broken glass. The city’ skyline was a distant, glittering lie from here.
“I know you’re here,” she called out, her voice cutting through the moan of the wind. “Your men are in custody. Your little score is a failure. Again.”
A figure detached itself from the shadows near the rooftop access door. Viper. He moved with a languid, predatory grace, his hands tucked into the pockets of his expensive coat. He wasn’t smiling. He was assessing.
“Kara,” he said, his voice a low, intimate purr that felt like a violation. He never used her hero name. “Always so efficient. So… predictable.”
“You’re running out of men to throw at me,” she said, taking a step forward, her posture rigid. “And banks. Maybe try a lemonade stand next time. The risk profile might be more your speed.”
He chuckled, a dry, hollow sound. “The money was never the point. It was the invitation. You just can’t resist a distress call, can you? It’s in your DNA. The good little soldier.”
He pulled a hand from his pocket. In his palm rested a device, sleek and alien. An inhaler, glowing with a soft, internal neon purple light.
Her body went rigid for a different reason. Kryptonite. But… it was wrong. Her senses didn’t scream in warning. There was no nauseating wave of weakness, no pain. Just a silent, deep-seated dread.
“What is that?” she demanded, her voice losing its cool edge.
“Progress,” Viper said, taking a casual step closer. He held the inhaler up between them, the purple light casting demonic shadows across his sharp features. “See, natural Kryptonite is so… crude. A blunt instrument. This?” He tilted the device, watching the liquid light slosh. “This is precision engineering. All the benefits, none of the messy warning signals. This stuff makes the real thing feel like a tickle, Superbitch.”
The slur landed, but it was the gadget that held her focus. Her mind raced. Artificial? Synthesized? The implications were a bottomless pit.
“You think I’d ever let you near me with that?” she snarled, fists clenching. The concrete under her feet cracked.
“I don’t think you have a choice.”
He moved faster than any human should. It wasn’t a speed she recognized, not like the Flash’s. It was a burst of augmented motion, a product of some other tech he’d stolen or built. He was in front of her, the inhaler aimed not at her mouth, but her face.
She reacted on instinct, her hand flashing up to block it. But he anticipated the move, twisting his wrist. He didn’t press a button. He simply triggered a fine, almost invisible mist that shot directly into her flaring nostrils.
It was cold. Then it was nothing.
Then it was everything.
Her world didn’t go green with pain. It went purple with bliss. A wave of pure, unadulterated euphoria crashed over her senses, drowning the constant hum of the city, the worry, the weight of a world on her shoulders. It was silence. It was peace. It was a feeling of power so absolute it made her previous strength feel like a weakness.
Her knees buckled. She stumbled back, her shoulder hitting the cold, rough edge of the rooftop ledge. The city tilted.
Viper watched, his expression one of cold, clinical satisfaction. “There she is,” he whispered. “There’s the god I found in the rubble.”
Kara’s vision swam. The million lights of Metropolis bled together into a beautiful, meaningless watercolor. She tried to summon the anger, the defiance, but it was gone, washed away on that chemical tide. All that was left was the hollow echo of the wind and the profound, terrifying knowledge that nothing would ever be the same again.
"Get used to that feeling, Supergirl," Viper's voice cut through the haze, cold and sharp. "Soon, you'll be nothing but a common slut, legs open for anyone with the right currency." The words registered as a dull pressure, barely piercing the euphoric fog clouding her mind. Her body went limp, the fight gone out of her. Darkness swarmed at the edges of her vision, pulling her under into unconsciousness.