This Little Light of Mine, Shine Oh Shine

Chapter 34: Disillusioned

Storm huffs in frustration, they are upset that their last-minute plan didn't work like how they thought it would.

If they were honest with themselves, deep down they would have realized that there is no winning this. I have come too far to back down now. No way are they going home empty-handed. Either Storm brings their head home on a stake to show to their mother's grave or they take their last breath on earth prime.

Sara turns the weapon on, "The weapon is ready!" They all nod in consensus. Sara takes a deep breath and advances toward Storm with the ray gun in hand. It is bulky but not too large for it to be difficult to handle.

"Surrender now!" She pauses, "Or die." Just loud enough to get Storm's attention. The waves attempting to crash over Dreamers' shields and flood the dock have died down a bit, the sun barely peaks through, the wind has become a brisk breeze while Storm is distracted.

Storm seemed overwhelmed with the new voice, they turn to where it was coming from and all the heroes can all tell that Storm is trying to hide their surprised look.

It's been so many years since Storm has heard their mothers voice and it seems so warm and inviting, despite the harsh words said, it makes them feel, nostalgic.

They laugh out, "So the cowardest Supergirl sent you out huh? To what, pressure me into coming in. Hands held high and just, surrender?"

"That would be ideal Storm, but, I know you, you won't go for that."

Storm's eyes grow angry, a huge thunderous cloud hangs overhead, lighting strikes in all directions. "You don't know me! You are not my mother. No matter how much you sound like her, how much you look like her. You are soft. You don't know what it takes to do what we did, you are not her and you will never be!" Storm beams a lightning strike Sara's way.

Just in time, Zari winds her captain out of the way, sending her tumbling into a wooden box that lay all around the dock. Her totem glows a bright red, matching with her internal anger.

Sara gets up with a grunt, "I know I'm not, not truly, but we are the same. We went through the same fucked up tortures, all the abuse, yelling, distance, we are the same in that sense." Sara was about to centre the device but it has been slightly broken from the fall, she tries to reconfigure it back together like how it's supposed to be.

Sara's continued speech seems to be the only thing keeping Storm at bay, for now, it seems that this connection that they deny seems to be the only thing keeping them from going fully nuclear.

"The difference between your mother and I, you and me.... I used all of that built-up locked-away emotion for good. I became a better person, with help from my family."

Storm laughs, "Bull shit. Deep down, you're a killer, murderer, liar. You are just as fucked up as mother and I, maybe more so. No matter how much you think you're running from it, it's who you are. I was just strong enough to embrace it."

Sara smirks at that, she knows the feeling Storm is going through, she has been through it herself in her youth. It's hard to watch Storm go through this internal torture, and thier Sara did nothing to help the child through the hard times, all she did was double down on the pain and redirect it to the world around them. Nobody will understand how much Sara wants to apologize to that child, to her child for not taking care of them.

"It takes more strength to go against your very nature, to go against something you've been programmed to do for most of your life, something that has been conditioned in you without any other source of reference. It's easier to give into those evil impulses. It takes a strong person to admit they were wrong, to come to terms with all of the fucked up shit they've done. It takes a strong individual to invent a new self, someone far away from what they were made to be."