[Emissary] Chapter 28 - ARGUS

A thin man of average height was sitting at a desk and going through various reports. Short brown hair, narrow green eyes, and a thin face; at first glance, he gave off the impression of a cunning and dangerous man. 

The landline phone on his desk rang, and he picked it up after two rings. 

“Mr. Williams, the Justice League requests a meeting with you.”

“Tell them I’m busy. If they need to talk to me, they should make an appointment like everyone else.”

Saying that, he put the phone down and went back to reading his subordinates’ reports. But not even half a minute later, the door was opened forcefully, and two green-costumed men and a tall and athletic woman stepped into the office. 

“What’s the meaning of this?” Williams stood up from his chair, bristling at the uninvited guests.

“We need to talk to you. This isn’t a matter that can be postponed,” John Stewart said, glaring at him. 

“Of course not. The Justice League is above any laws and rules. You always do whatever the hell you want.”

Ignoring his jibe, Hal Jordan asked:

“Have you disposed of Doomsday’s corpse? You were supposed to inform us whether you succeeded in doing so or not.”

“The CIA doesn’t answer to the Justice League. You have no jurisdiction over me.”

The woman behind the two men walked to the desk, and with a mere flick of her wrist, the heavy oak piece of furniture was sent flying into the wall at the side of the room. 

“Wonder Woman!” the two green lanterns shouted, but she didn’t listen to them and grabbed the head of the CIA from his neck, lifting him off his feet. 

For the first time since they arrived, confidence disappeared from the thin man’s face. 

“Princess, put him down,” Hal Jordan spoke in a careful voice, trying to placate her. 

“No. I am done playing their games,” Diana said, glaring at the man who was holding onto her wrist with both hands, struggling in her grasp. “Superman was killed by the bioweapon that the government created. Until when are we going to put up with this? Until they kill us all?”

After Superman’s death, with the Justice League in shambles, the CIA’s agents were quick to arrive at the scene and take custody of Doomsday’s corpse. Considering that all the members of the Justice League had been beaten badly and that Superman was dead, there was nobody to stop the CIA from doing whatever they pleased. 

And that was how they got away with it. But now that Superman’s funeral was over, John, Hal, and Diana decided to visit the CIA’s headquarters in person and demand an explanation. 

“I- I’ll show you everything,” the man stuttered in a panicked voice. “Just don’t kill me, please!”

Wonder Woman let go of him, and he collapsed to the floor in a heap, coughing and gasping for air. 

“Stop overreacting and get up. Unless you want to be choked for real this time,” she threatened. 

John and Hal exchanged a worried look. 

“Wonder Woman, that’s enough,” John Stewart said. “We don’t do that to our enemies.”

“Speak for yourself,” Wonder Woman shot back. 

“I’m trying to speak for Superman.”

That line was a low blow, and John knew it too, but it did reach its desired effect. Wonder Woman stepped back from the frightened man on the floor. 

When they opened the door to leave the office with Roger Williams at their front, they were stopped by over 20 CIA agents who had their guns and rifles aimed at them. 

Seeing them, Wonder Woman unsheathed her sword and was just about to lunge at them, but Hal got in front of her and told the CIA operatives:

“You don’t seriously think that’s going to work against us, do you? Put your weapons down. I’m saying it for your own sake. Unless you want to deal with her?” he asked, gesturing with his thumb at his back towards Wonder Woman, who looked rather terrifying compared to her usual self. 

“No need for violence. Put your guns down,” Williams said. “Ron, lead them to section R-64 and show them Doomsday’s corpse.”

He knew that conventional weaponry was useless against the likes of Green Lantern or Wonder Woman. There was no point in escalating the situation any further than that because it would only lead to casualties on their side.

The three superheroes didn’t make a fuss about Williams not leading them there personally, so they followed the subordinate in question. 

One short trip by elevator later, they found themselves six floors underground, staring at an empty cryogenic pod. 

“I knew it! I told you that they would do something like this!” Wonder Woman shouted. 

She threw her lasso around the CIA agent and ordered:

“The Lasso of Truth compels you to speak the truth! Where is Doomsday?”

“I don’t know! Hardly anyone is allowed in this wing of the facility. The creature was here last night when I checked!” under the lasso's coercion, the CIA agent was forced to speak the truth. 

She untied the lasso and took flight, rushing to the elevator. The two Green Lanterns were quick to fly after her, following her out of the facility. 

Wonder Woman headed straight towards Roger Williams’ office, fully intent on beating the truth out of him. However, the head of the CIA was long gone by the time they returned. 

The Amazon princess punched a huge hole into the outer wall of the office in frustration, but that was not enough to appease even a fraction of the anger she felt inside. 

“Goddamn it,” Hal let out a swear word too. “Did Doomsday resurrect again?” 

“Unless they devised a way to control him, I don’t think that’s the case. This place would have been torn apart,” John answered. 

“They knew we were coming, so they must’ve moved it away last night,” Wonder Woman said. 

By now, the Justice League had gotten a pretty good idea of what the Doomsday bio-weapon was capable of. It had power and durability similar to Superman but none of his morals and restraint. 

Furthermore, Doomsday could adapt to anything that hurt him: 

1. After Emissary wounded him severely with his magic, Doomsday became resistant to it so Zatanna’s and Constantine’s spells had no effect the second time around.

2. After Astrid used her heat vision on Doomsday to kill him by frying his brain, Superman tried doing the same during his battle with Doomsday, but the beast did not even flinch from his heat beams. 

If Doomsday returned, they did not know how they were supposed to stop him, especially when Wonder Woman, Hal, John, and Flash were the only able-bodied members of the Justice League currently. 

“Let’s go. If that beast resurrects again, we can’t stop it with just us three and Flash,” John Stewart said. 

“Are you thinking of what I’m thinking?” Hal asked. 

“Yes. We should do what Superman had planned on doing before he passed away.”


⁂


While the Justice League burst into the CIA’s facility to find Doomsday, things were far more peaceful on Paradise Island. 

Evening came, and with it, Astrid was also brought back by her Amazon friends from her training to Harry’s camp. 

Although Kara did her best to pretend that everything was fine, the little girl did notice that her mother’s smile appeared to be a tad stiff and that her eyes did not exude her usual happiness. But she did not ask what happened. Instead, she started talking up a storm about her day. 

“[...] And then we sparred with swords made from a material called gips. It’s very fragile, so I had to control my strength perfectly when we clashed swords so that I wouldn’t break them. Daphne told me that people normally use gips for casts when they break their arms. Is that true?? Why would they do something like that? You healed your arm in just a day!”

“Harry is cheating, he has magic,” Kara piped in from the side. 

“I don’t want to hear that from a Kryptonian,” Harry shot back. “If your kind wasn’t vulnerable to magic, I’d be tempted to think you’re gods. Though Astrid is my little angel.”

The little girl squawked in surprise and let out a twinkling laughter when Harry picked her up in his arms and twirled her around. 

“You spoil her too much,” Kara muttered while stirring the pot hanging over the campfire. 

They were having beef stew that night. 

“Me? Spoil her? Nooo waaay~"

Power Girl found herself giggling because, at that very moment, Astrid flew up and sat on Harry's shoulders who then started acting like a horse, galloping around the fire.

“You’re kicking up dust and dirt, and it gets into the food! Get out of here!” Kara shouted at them through her giggles. 

They spent the rest of the evening in peace, like a happy family. It was such a warm and beautiful moment that Kara was able to, at least for a short while, put aside her thoughts about Superman’s death and the Justice League’s uncertain future. 

However, once night came and they tucked Astrid in bed, Harry and Power Girl left their tent and went out for a walk. 

Located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, with no cities or human settlements anywhere around, there was no light pollution. The sky was clear, shining with a myriad of bright stars, and only the sound of owls, crickets, and that of the sea waves splashing on the shore could be heard in the silence of the night. 

It was an idyllic scenery, and Kara felt as if her soul was being healed just by looking at it. Walking hand in hand with her lover on the beach and feeling the cool and humid sea breeze blowing in her hair, she felt at peace. 

After a while, he stopped and asked: 

“Are you ready?”

She came closer and wrapped her arms around him. 

“Hold me, Harry. Please.”

She didn’t have to plead. He would never turn down such a request. He embraced her to his chest and ran his hand over her back comfortingly. They stood like that for a long time, hugging each other without saying a word.

Eventually, they parted, and Harry conjured a carpet and placed it on the sand. He cast some protective spells around them to alert him of any would-be guests. At last, they sat down on the carpet in front of each other. 

“I’m asking one last time, are you sure?”

Kara nodded. 

“Yes.”

Her determined voice made him smile. He took her hands in his and squeezed them encouragingly. 

“Alright. I’m going to start now.”

Locking eyes with her, Harry whispered:

“Legilimens.”


⁂


It was Harry’s 7th life, but even after all these centuries, he had never changed his opinion about Severus Snape. Nonetheless, he agreed with him on one thing: the mind was not a book, to be opened at will and examined.

Usually, it was the recent thoughts and memories that appeared at the forefront of one’s mind—'Reading'’ those was easy enough. It was different, however, for the deeply buried thoughts that one did not want to share with others, the nearly forgotten memories, or those that were locked and buried by traumatic events. 

As he dove into her mind, Kara’s inner world appeared to him like a lush and vibrant orchard, and each one of her thoughts appeared in the form of the fruits hanging from the trees’ branches. 

Touching those fruits one by one, Harry could feel her emotions, especially her embarrassment as he viewed their content. It was all the more so when he watched her memory from two days ago and experienced her deep need and her frustration when Astrid interrupted them while they were about to make love.

But he did not linger on those thoughts. He advanced deeper into her inner world, stepping through the opened gates of the orchard. 

The further he walked, the taller the trees became and the more difficult it was to climb them in order to reach their fruits and access the memories they held. 

After what seemed to have been more than ten hours, Harry arrived at an area of the orchard that was locked behind a tall, red brick fence and a sturdy wrought iron gate. At that moment, he knew that he had arrived at his destination. It was the area of the mind that Kara herself could not access. 

The Elder Wand appeared in the hand of his mental projection, and an arc of lightning shot from it towards the gate. Kara cried out in real world, and, considering that he was inside her mind, he could feel her pain too. But that was a necessary step. There was no easy way to access the thoughts and memories that she had unknowingly locked up in order to protect herself from trauma. 

The closed-off portion of the orchard was not like the rest of her mind. It was overrun by weeds, the trees looked like they were dying, and the fruits were all shriveled up. 

However, with every touch of his fingers and with every brush of his magic, the trees were rejuvenated and their fruits renewed. 

It was a slow but steady process, and Harry was not discouraged as he worked earnestly on healing her mind. In doing so, one by one, her memories played in front of his eyes, like a film. 

He saw her life on Krypton. The hyper-advanced alien civilization. He witnessed Kara’s happiness at finding out that she had a cousin and her surprise at being told that he had been conceived naturally. 

Kara’s days on Krypton were monotonous but peaceful and filled with her parents’ love. The only things she had to suffer through were the long and arduous hours of study in robotics and computer science. 

‘So that’s how she got her knowledge in computers. In her eyes, Earth’s technology probably looks like that of stone-age tribes compared to Krypton,’ Harry mused when he recalled that Kara had a company focused on computer science and other sorts of innovative technology. 

That peaceful and uneventful life came to an end all too soon.

Kara’s emotions of fear, anxiety, and despair hit Harry in full force when he watched the memory of Zor-L and Allura-In-Z, her parents, tearfully forcing her to board the rocket that would take her off the planet. Kara’s last memory of Krypton was watching her mother and father crying and Krypton exploding only moments before she left its atmosphere. 

The intensity of the feelings in that memory almost affected Harry too for a brief moment. But he detached himself and moved on to the next tree. It was then that surprises started. 

Kara’s rocket did arrive on Earth... but she did not arrive on the Earth where they were present now. It was a different Earth, with a different Superman and a different Justice League. It was a different dimension. 

From then on, Harry saw how the strange, older Superman and Lois, his wife, took Kara in and treated her just like their daughter. 

Harry watched how Kara slowly moved on from the pain of watching her homeworld die and how her heart healed, how she began to see Earth as her new home. 

Her saw days in high school. He also watched her first teenage love and how it failed when her Kryptonian powers began manifesting themselves, and Kara almost killed her boyfriend during their first time together. 

He had to stifle a laugh at that. 

'The poor boy was lucky to only be hospitalized. She had almost killed me.’

But Harry only skimmed superficially through those memories, skipping over her more embarrassing and most intimate moments. The mere fact that he had opened the locked orchard and rejuvenated the mental trees was going to be enough to offer Kara access to those memories once he came out of her mind. 

Unfortunately, her peaceful days on Earth also came to an abrupt end after the rather embarrassing end of her first relationship. 

Darkseid invaded. 

Although Kara wanted to fight and use her Kryptonian powers for good, to protect the Earth against the alien invaders, Superman did not allow her to do so. 

“Not now, Kara. Darkseid had yet to show up to the frontlines himself. He’s been sending only his New Gods lackeys and Parademons. The Justice League can handle them.”

“But, Kal, Huntress is fighting at the front, and she doesn’t even have superpowers!”

On that Earth, Huntress was Batman and Catwoman’s daughter, and she was also Kara’s best friend. 

But Superman put his hands on her shoulders and spoke in a pleading but firm voice:

“Listen to me, Kara. Darkseid doesn’t know about you or what you’re capable of. He doesn’t know that you’re just as strong as I am. The moment he steps out from the protection of his army and faces us directly, it will be your time to shine.”

“You are the Justice League’s secret weapon. You are our ace in the sleeve.”

However, in the end, the might of the Justice League, the united military of Earth, and even the combined strength of two Kryptonians had not been enough to stop the invaders.

Darkseid and his army won. The Justice League members were killed one by one, and Earth’s population was halved in a matter of months. 

Harry watched through Kara’s eyes how her seniors from the Justice League lost their lives.

He felt her feelings of sorrow and despair firsthand when she attended Huntress’ funeral.

He witnessed how the daily deaths of her friends and acquaintances numbed her and turned her into a vicious fighter, one who no longer held her Kryptonian strength back, one who tore apart the bodies of the Apokaliptian New Gods with her bare hands. 

Alas, in the end, Kara, Superman, and the few remaining members of the resistance were driven into a corner. 

They lost the war. Earth was lost. 

Moments before Darkseid and his troops breached Superman’s Fortress of Solitude, the resistance’s last bastion, Superman used a stolen Mother Box to create a portal. Before Kara could react, Superman covered his face with a mask and released an extremely potent paralyzing gas in the room. 

“No, Kal, what… are… you…”

She couldn’t even finish her words before she fell unconscious.

That memory ended abruptly, but Harry could deduce what had happened by looking at the things that Kara herself had not paid attention to. He saw the rocket that Superman had prepared beforehand and the fact that it was located right in front of the portal.

Just as Darkseid broke through the Fortress of Solitude defences, Superman sent Kara away on a rocket through a boom tube into another dimension, to the world/dimension that Harry and Kara were currently in. 

‘So that’s why she didn’t know what to think about herself once the ‘real’ Supergirl came into the fray…’

His heart went out for her.

It was no wonder that her brain had locked those memories away in an attempt to protect itself. The trauma that Power Girl had gone through would have rendered other people insane or driven them to suicide. 

Kara had watched not just her biological family getting killed, but her second, adoptive family too. She had witnessed the end of not only her homeworld but that of her adoptive planet too. Loss after loss, death after death, despair after despair, Power Girl's life was marked by suffering.

‘And I thought I had it bad…’

At the very least, he had been powerful enough to prevent the ultimate ‘bad ending’ in each one of his previous lives. But Kara’s enemy had been beyond the scope of common sense. Darkseid was a god and not just any god. He was the God of Evil. 

‘But one question remains: what about her memories of Atlantis? Where did those come from?’ Harry wondered because he remembered Kara telling him that she also had flashes of memories from what seemed like a life spent on Atlantis. 

He started searching through the inner orchard carefully for anything that looked out of place. Eventually, he found them: the things that might be normal to see in a real-world orchard but looked out of place in the mental plane were the maggots eating at the trees’ roots and fruits. 

Upon touching one, his suspicions were confirmed. 

‘They’re false memories... Memories that Kara had unknowingly conjured up when she tried to find an explanation for her powers once she thought that she was not a Kryptonian.’

Although he was 100% confident in his hypothesis, Harry still went through each one of those maggot-memories to make sure of their content before erasing them from Kara’s mind. 


⁂


At the same time, on the other side of the planet, in the United States, upon escaping from the Justice League, the Head of the CIA, Roger Williams, rushed straight to the vice president of the United States, who had become the leader of the government after the president’s death a few days ago. 

“The Justice League broke into our headquarters, and that crazy Amazon smashed my desk before nearly choking me to death, in my own office! This can’t go on, Mr President!” the head of the CIA said furiously as he pulled down the collar of his white shirt to show him the finger marks left on his neck. 

“I’m only the vice president, Mr Williams,” he corrected him. “An election will be held within two months to decide the next head of the state.”

“With all due respect, that is entirely beside the point!”

“And what is the point, Mr Williams?” asked the vice president. “What is it that you want me to do? I’m just a temporary leader, nothing more, nothing less.”

The head of the CIA calmed down and rubbed a hand over his face. 

“We can’t let things go on like this. We can’t let the Justice League run amok any longer!" Williams insisted.

“So what do you suggest? Another operation like Project Cadmus?”

The CIA leader baulked at his direct question. He had not even known that the vice president was aware of Cadmus. After all, it was a top-secret operation that only the former president himself and the director of national intelligence were aware of. 

“I fully understand the current situation. I know that the deaths of the main members of Cadmus were not just an unfortunate coincidence. I dare say that even the president’s death is suspect in the light of recent events, in spite of how natural it may seem.”

When Williams began to get his hopes up, the vice president poured cold water over his expectations:

“But we must also not forget that it was not the Justice League who started it all. It was Cadmus. Moreover, alien or not, they have proven time and again that they are more than willing to put their lives on the line for the sake of humankind, for Earth. Superman just sacrificed his life for the sake of protecting the people of Washington DC from Doomsday, for god’s sake!”

Feeling as though things were getting further away from his grasp, Williams licked his dry, thin lips in a show of nervousness before saying:

“If I may speak, I have a different proposition in mind.”

The vice president studied him intently for a few seconds before finally replying:

“Go on.”

“I’ve had this operation in mind since before Cadmus failed and I was promoted to the leadership position of the CIA. I named this operation “Advanced Research Group Uniting Superhumans”. Or, in short, ARGUS.”

“How would ARGUS be any different from Cadmus?” he asked with a frown. 

Williams replied calmly:

“It won’t be secret. It won’t be an obscure project led by questionable characters, in the shadows. It will be a public organisation under the direct control of the President of the United States. An organisation of metahumans who would obey the laws of the state like any other law enforcement organisation. They would be no different from the police, just with superpowers.”

This proposition made the vice president widen his eyes in surprise. From his earlier words, it could be deduced that he was a supporter of the Justice League and their body of work, but he could not deny the appeal of the ARGUS initiative. 

“In a way, ARGUS will do the same things the Justice League has always done,” Roger Williams continued, his words sweet like honey to the vice president’s ears, telling him exactly what he wanted to hear. “All the current and past members of the Justice League will be offered contracts to join ARGUS. They won’t need to have day jobs to make ends meet anymore. They won’t need to play a double life any longer either. They will be legitimate employees of the government… but they will also be held accountable if they were to break the law or abuse their powers.”

“This does sound extremely tempting. How come nobody had ever thought about it before?”

“We did think about it. We’ve had this idea for years. But, with the Justice League as strong as it was and with Superman’s idealistic view of protecting the entire Earth and not being subordinated to one single nation, this initiative never saw the light of the day. But-”

“-But Superman is dead now,” the vice president completed his words. 

“Precisely,” the head of the CIA confirmed with a nod. “In addition, Power Girl retired from the Justice League and it appears that she had lost her Kryptonian abilities. Batman is suspected to be dead as well, and Martian Manhunter has not been spotted in weeks. The Justice League is at its weakest now. If there was ever a perfect time to make this idea a reality, it is now.”

Eyes shining with excitement, the two men shared a smirk. 

“We could even go one step further,” Williams continued. “Instead of letting the criminal metahumans rot in prison, we could put their powers to better use. The non-crazy ones, those who can be reasoned with.”

“But why would they accept your offer?”

“Working for ARGUS would be counted as community service, reducing their sentence or outright pardoning them of their crimes, depending on their severity. As for the likes of Joker, we could easily execute them. We’ve let lunatics get away with murder for too long by claiming mental illnesses and whatnot.”

“Human rights activists won’t be pleased,” the vice president interjected. 

“What they don’t know won’t hurt them. Not everything has to be done through official means,” Williams said meaningfully. 

Remembering the way that Doctor Moon mysteriously died in a riot on his first day in prison and the way Amanda Waller ‘committed suicide’, the vice president felt chills going down his spine. He understood exactly what the head of the CIA was suggesting. 

However, if this ARGUS initiative turned out well, forget about being a vice president; he would surely win the upcoming presidential elections if he were to participate. Even more than that, he would go down in history as a hero. 

It was an offer too good to refuse.


⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂

AN: the matter of Power Girl's memories was finally explained and solved in this chapter.

DC has done such piss-poor work with how often they changed Power Gir's origins that it can be a mess trying to understand everything about her.

That being said, those of you who are DC comics geeks probably noticed that I took some liberties in interpreting and changing some of her backstory (such as erasing her retconned Atlantean origins entirely).

Just keep in mind that this is fanfiction after all. I am free to add or remove anything since, in the end, that's the point of fanfiction.

⁂

TLDR: Power Girl's powers are back. She's back and ready to kick ass. Hope you enjoyed the chapter. 

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