Adventure Of A Lifetime

Chapter 3 - Why Must You Be Such An Angry Young Man?

***KARA***

"Hey!" I rocket up after this new Kryptonian as he takes off. "Hey, wait! Come back!"

He stops and looks around once he reaches a high enough altitude to look over the entire city. Now I can catch up to him. "Hey, over here!" I wave at him until he looks at me. "Hey...is everything okay?" I'm not even sure he speaks English, but it can't hurt to try. "I can help you. Let me help. Okay?" I hold out one hand. "My...my name is Kara. Kara Zor-El. What's your name?"

He blinks rapidly, looking too adrenaline-high to talk for a moment. Then he finally catches his breath, calms down, and finds his voice. "Kon-El." His voice isn't like Clark's, to my surprise. It's higher, and a little more crackly. Like he's trying to make sure it doesn't break. He looks a little old for his voice to be breaking, anyway, but I bet even Kryptonian teenage boys can have that problem for years. Barry's told me a real horror story on that same subject. James, too. A different one, that is, but only because it took place a few years before Barry's story, and clear across the country at that.

"Kon-El," I repeat. "Can I call you 'Kon?'"

He stares at me blankly for a while, then nods.

"All right, Kon," I say. "Do you...have you heard of me?"

Kon shakes his head.

"Man of few words, huh?" I look down and see the SWAT team still massing on the ground. How long until they start trying to shoot us down? I hope they don't - I hope they take my presence as a sign that they don't have a clean shot at him. "Look, if you need help getting back to...wherever it is you're from, you've come to the right place. I know people who can-"

"NO!" Kon grabs my wrist in an iron grip, and the look on his face screams "raw fear."

"You don't wanna go home?" I ask. "What's wrong with your home?"

"It's not my home." Kon lets go of me, then hugs himself and looks around all over again. "Could we...could we find someplace to talk? Someplace away from all those..." He looks down at the ground himself. "All those soldiers?"

"They're not..." I stop myself before I can finish that sentence. It's possible that he's been on some other world - maybe even an alternate version of this one. Barry's a firm believer in quantum multiverse theory, and he's got me pretty convinced based on his own experiences. Who knows? Wherever Kon's been before, maybe soldiers dress the way the National City SWAT team does.

"All right," I say. "Follow me." I take off, turning around every so often as I fly to make sure Kon's still heading the right way.

"Where are we going?" he asks.

"To the people I told you about before," I say.

"No! I told you-"

"You can't go home," I say. "I remember. But we're not going to my friends so they can get you home. It's just...it's a safe place. Out of town, away from prying eyes." And speaking of prying eyes...crap. I didn't get those pictures of Maxwell Lord that Cat asked for! Well, I'll have to worry about that later. Kon's much more important than Maxwell Lord will ever be.

I hate using my phone while flying. The wind tends to make so much noise that I have to really shout in order to be heard. And besides, holding a phone to my ear wrecks my aerodynamics. But since it would be rude to drop in on the DEO unannounced (and then complain when they treat us to an instant firing squad), I swallow my reservations and make that call.

"On the job already?" Alex asks after she says hi.

"Who's watching now, Big Sister?" I laugh. "Yeah, I managed to get our new friend to stop trying to lay waste to the city."