Kara crouched under her bed trying to find where she had put her Rao be damned sunstone adapter, she just knew she had left it somewhere in her bedroom.

Then she actually remembered who she was and almost cursed. Using only one hand she lifted the bed all the way over her head and finally found the damn thing resting just beside the wall.

“There you are.” She gently kicked the device towards the middle of the room and lowered her bed back into place with a sight.

She really should have thought more about her actions, it would have been so much better to use her cousin’s Fortress of Solitude to get Firebrand back into a working condition.

In fact, she had been halfway towards the building before she realized she didn’t have a justification for how she knew about the android.

Now she had an inert android on her living room and had to make do with the technology she had on hand or in her spaceship, and not all of it was capable of interacting with human technology without help, even mad geniuses’ technology.

Kara grabbed the adapter and took the chance to also grab some discarded clothes lying around her room throwing them into the washing bin. Finally, she started to make her way back towards the android.

From ahead of her she heard the apartment door opening, then a little girl’s scream followed by a shout of “Shazam!”

Kara’s eyes went wide as the large superhero burst through her door, damaging the wall and breaking the wooden frame with a worried look on his face, electricity was still cursing through his muscled form.

“Miss. Zor-El! Are you alright?” his eyes looked all over the room taking in her messy bed, the books spread around the floor and a sunstone crystal floating above a pedestal in the middle of the room with cables spread all around it. “Are you aware there’s a body in your sofa?”

“Hi Billy,” Kara sighed and took the chance to mess up the kid’s hair, “It’s not a body, it’s an Android.”

“Ah, I didn’t know you could build an Android, Cool!” his serious expression melted from his face and he glanced at the damage he had done with a sheepish look, “Sorry about this then, I thought someone had attacked you.”

“Don’t worry about it.” It really was Kara’s own fault for leaving Firebrand just lying there anyways. “Is Kori with you?”

“Yeah, she invited me in after a joint training with Wonder Woman.”

“Great, come on then.” Kara made her way back towards the living room to see Kori looking at Firebrand’s body with a curious gaze, “Hi Kori.”

“Hello friend Kara, please, was this some vile miscreant you had to take down?”

“Nope, this is Dannete Reilly better known as Firebrand,” She told them as she kneeled in front of the Android and laid the adaptor against its back. “I guess you can call her Red Tornado’s older sister.”

The crystal tip of her adaptor pierced right though Firebrand’s false skin and connected to one of the cables inside her body. Quickly, it pressed itself against her form and started sending information directly to Kara’s computer.

“So… you can’t build androids?” Billy asked and Kara could hear the slight tone of disappointment on his voice.

“Billy, I can indeed build an Android,” Kara bragged and started reading the diagnosis from her device. “I’m not skilled enough to create a sentient AI like Firebrand or Red Tornado but I bet I can build a much better body than this one.”

Kara hadn’t completed her studies in Krypton but her home planet had been so advanced she could be considered a genius in both mechanical and electrical engineering, and at least decent in many other fields of study.

Not biology though, she had always hated biology.

“Shazam!” Billy said and turned back into his 10 years old body since there wasn’t anything dangerous “Cool… so, why do you have Red Tornado’s sister in your living room?”

Kara thought about her answer, how much did she want to tell the boy and how much could she get away with hiding?

By Rao, they had already found her with the android in her home; it was kind of too late to hide everything.

From the side, Kori released a gasp and turned her shinning green eyes towards her. “Exultation, Delight, friend Kara, have you rescued The Red Tornado’s sister from some nefarious villain and will attempt to reunite them?”

“I mean, I guess that’s kinda right?” Kara said, she had wanted firebrand as an ally but she wouldn’t keep her from meeting old friends if she wanted to. “I actually wanted Firebrand’s help with something but, giving her a second chance in life was a huge part of why I choose her.”

Kara had always thought Firebrand had gotten a raw deal in the show, sacrificing her life to save a friend only to be awakened several decades later, mind controlled, and forced to sacrifice herself again to stop Red Volcano.

At least Red Torpedo had gotten an entire life of his own before he was controlled by Morrow’s robotic clone and had to sacrifice himself to stop his younger brother.

“Joy, I always knew you had a most righteous spirit.” Kori’s giant smile made Kara turn her eyes aside and blush from the praise. “Please, do you require any help?”

“Not right now.” Kara took another look at Firebrand’s body and sighed, “Look, can you two keep this quiet, at least for a now? I don’t want too many people finding out about me or what I am doing.”

“I… I don’t know, are you sure you’re alright Miss. Zor-El, you know the League can help you.”

“Aw, are you worried about me Billy? How cute.” Her equipment finished Firebrand’s diagnosis with a flash and sent the information to her tablet. “Don’t worry, Batman and some other people are gonna be helping me so I’m not doing this alone. Also, I told you to call me Kara already Billy.”

 “Yes Miss Kara.”

“Ought I help you with your goal friend Kara?” Kori asked as she tried to read the information in the tablet. “It is avowed I am not a discrete person, but I can restrain myself if needed, and no villain yet knows of my existence, perhaps I could be of help?”

“Thanks Kori, but don’t worry about it.” Kara smiled at her but shook her head. “I know you’re very eager to work with the other sidekicks and learn about Earth. Plus, I actually trust you to protect and help to train my new family.”

“Truly? Has The Superman accepted Superboy as a member of the family then?”

“It’s a work in progress.” Kara said and sighed. “He let me bring the boy to meet his family this weekend at least so, there’s hope. Ah, his name is Kon-El by the way.”

“The Superman is a great hero, yes? He will not turn the boy away, even more so as you have acknowledged your familial relationship with him.”

“I certainly hope so.”

Looking over the information it seemed like Firebrand’s memory was intact inside the Android and Kara wouldn’t need to touch her programming, her supposed death was only a hardware problem.

Kara would need to take the heroine’s body into her spaceship to do the repairs but it was nothing beyond her abilities, or resources.

“Anyways, how goes the training?” Kara asked as she carefully settled Firebrand’s body into a chair and freed the sofa for her own use.

“Giovanni is great.” Billy said as he grabbed a bag of chips and started eating. “I thought he’d just lecture me but he’s actually teaching me spells even without transforming! Then we had a joint exercise with Wonder Woman.”

“Diana is a great teacher! Today we went to The Mall of Shopping and partook of some of humanity ancient customs, the sharing of frozen treats and procurement of varied clothing while sharing stories.”

“She took you shopping, then you had ice cream?” Kara asked incredulously.

“Indeed, Princess Diana said my martial ability was satisfactory and we should work on acquiring social skills!” Kori said while sucking on a straw inside a bottle of mustard. “She also informed me there will be a meeting in two days with the entire team.”

Well, she wasn’t wrong.

Taking in the information Kara nodded, the League was probably ready to give their sidekicks some freedom in two days then.

Kara wondered if they’d still form as a black ops team now that she had interfered, or would they become more like Teen Titans now that they had Kori?

“I’m gonna have to take Firebrand to the ship if I want to repair her.” Kara informed the two of them as she picked up the android once again and put on her blank mask. “Ah right, Kori, do you mind if Kon-El comes to live with us sometime this week?”

“I do not, the apartment is of considerable size and his presence will be greatly appreciated.”

“Right, see you later then.”

.

.

.

“Welcome back mistress Kara.” Said the robotic voice of her ship’s AI as Kara entered the bay.

Kara had been improving her ship’s capabilities a little bit every day since getting access to the Fortress and Kryptonian Tech.

She may not have access to military grade equipment but even civilian tech was an improvement over what the Psions had.

The ship was almost entirely covered in sunstone, with some of the mineral growing outwards from its side like a huge pimple. Kara had high hopes for how this particular project would turn out.

Sunstone was great like that, not only would it grow simply by absorbing sunlight, Kara could also program how it would develop making it take the shape of a second ship attached to the Psion’s vessel.

In a month or two she’d have her own Fortress of Solitude parked on the outer side of the moon.

Only, it wouldn’t have her cousin’s base of information and be mobile. Then she could throw the Psion ship into the sun and be rid of the last of those assholes.

“How goes the experimentation?” Kara asked, she hadn’t actually named the AI, it was far from being sentient and most of its programming was still made by Psions, she didn’t want to get attached.

“Seventy percent of your projects have resulted in failure, another twenty two point thirty three percent have remained inconclusive and two new wavelengths of Kryptonite have been found.”

The computer informed Kara with no emotion on its voice, she’d have to improve that when she finished growing her new ship, the cold and robotic voice gave her the creeps.

“Which experiments were inconclusive?” She asked as she laid the android on top of a metal bed and started gathering the necessary tools to open her up.

“One of the Kryptonite shards is still being subjected to experimentation and the current computers can’t fully monitor the changes on the Nth metal samples.”

Well, seems like she’d have to get better sensors then, could she make something capable of monitoring magic too?

Cutting off Firebrand’s clothes Kara revealed the hole on her chest where Dragon King had shot her, at first look it really was no different from a normal human.

Since she was a Kryptonian, Kara didn’t even need protection equipment, she used a saw to clean the damaged section of organic material revealing the Android’s red painting underneath, then slowly cut her back open and revealed a myriad of damaged cables.

Thankfully, it seemed like the energy source for Firebrand’s flame control wasn’t damaged; only it’s connection to her central circuitry and other essential equipment.

It seemed like Morrow had made it so any large damage to her chest area that pierced her organic coating would almost immediately turn her off. It caused her body to appear dead and prevented anyone from finding out she had been an android.

“Huh, I guess it was better to just recover the android later and then change its face.” Kara muttered while working. “No need to risk revealing he had been able to infiltrate the Justice Society and get their guard up against his next attempt.”

Repairing all the damage was impossible and producing suitable substitutes would take time so Kara made sure to keep Firebrand’s memory and personality safe while taking out her pyrokinetick core for study.

In fact, instead of getting a substitute, she’d study Firebrand and reprogram some sunstone to be compatible to her core design.

Yes, the kryptonian technology would give Firebrand far more energy to work with and actually allow her to regenerate from damage while also making her more resistant.

A pity Kara didn’t have access to kryptium or she’d truly make Firebrand a monster.

Still, with how modular sunstone was, it would be easy to allow Firebrand to change configurations. Kara’s mind was immediately filled with canons and fire jets.

Wait, could she pack enough energy inside Firebrand for her to create a plasma sword? It would be hot enough to explode people like Kara had done with the Evil Eye but Firebrand could keep it as a last resort.

She was so giving the woman a plasma sword.

Three hours later she decided to take a break from working with the sunstone and take a look at the kryptonite variations, she was almost done with the damaged part of Firebrand’s circuitry but, she still wanted to swap everything else before waking her up into a new body.

Making sure to activate her radiation shield Kara looked through the reinforced glass and smiled when she saw the two shards of Kryptonite she had created. It would need testing but…

A smile grew on her face as she got the perfect way of punishing Kal-El for abandoning Kon-El like that. She was pretty sure Kon-El wouldn’t be able to appreciate the prank today but, in a few years, when he developed a little more?

Kara would take photos, so many photos.

Of course she’d have to think about something worse if Kal-El didn’t get his act together after their family meeting but, until then, she could take it easy on him. He was her little cousin after all.

Her phone rang on her pocked causing her to snap back to reality, pulling out the device she saw it was from Batman so, she hurried to answer.

“Speedy will be in Star City tonight, meet us there by 7.”

The Bat actually hung up on her before she could answer causing Kara to huff in annoyance. At least Dubbilex had already informed her, the G-Gnomes would be ready to work on Kon-El and Roy anytime she wished.

Satisfaction filled her, she tried not to think of the genomorphs as her minions, she really did but… it was hard.

“No, bad Kara, they’re sentient beings you’re currently helping escape slavery and fight against their oppressor, and you’re trying to be a hero anyway.” She chided herself as she looked at the time, she’d have to get moving soon if she wanted to make it. “Heroes don’t have minions, they have sidekicks.”

Could Dubbilex be a sidekick? He was certainly young enough for it.

Kara grimaced as she grabbed the respirator and opened the ship’s hangar, as a kryptonian she shouldn’t even need to breathe when under a yellow sun but, her damaged cells still needed oxygen far more often than she liked.

Stepping away from the ship, she started flying back to Earth.