The girl in the armor looked up in the sky with an expression of numb shock, watching as the ship shrank to a glittering star in the sky, then it was simply gone. "We have to go after her," she turned to say to the other girl, her long blue hair swinging behind her. "Tell me how, please," the red head said simply in reply, her school uniform torn and scorched, bearing the scars of the recent battle. The other girl turns, and tears glimmer in her eyes, "But she's in there! We have to save her!" The tears began to fall faster, and she finally broke down, sobbing, "We promised..." The school girl took her friend by the shoulders and gently said, "Even if either of us could get into orbit, we don't have a ship, or any other way to try and chase them. This time, we have to let others handle this." Slap! "I hate you, A-ko!" B-Ko cried out, tears streaking her face. Project A-ko: The New Adventures of Supergirl Part One "You've got to get out of here," A-ko said intensely. B-ko looked over at her disbelievingly. "What?" she asked her softly, and, "Didn't you just hear what I said?" "We just totaled the school and a good sized chunk of the city," A-ko ignored the question as she explained, "and everybody saw me! My secret is blown..." B-ko's eyes were widening a bit as she began to see her point. "But what does that have to do with me?" she asked. "Baka!" A-ko barked out. "Nobody knows for sure who's in that armor your wearing," she said to her angrily, "unless they get close enough to see your face." She turned, and by focusing her vision on the distance she could see the trucks and vans bearing the news crews were already on their way. "Get out of here!" she repeated. B-ko hesitated a moment, then she nodded. Quietly, she said, "This isn't over, A-ko." With that, she activated her flight mode and was gone. "Wish I could do that," A-ko muttered under her breath. She tensed her legs and leapt, bounding across the city to her home. She reached the little house in a few leaps, and found it empty. She had expected it, of course. Once knowledge of her powers got out, theories about her parents couldn't be far behind. A-ko held up one of her metal arm bracelets, and gently tapped a carefully memorized sequence on it. A soft shimmer of light, and she was gone. Only to reappear on the Moon. The massive structure stretched out around her as she looked about in no little awe. "The Watchtower," A-ko murmured. The final headquarters of the Justice League, it had been built as a fortress, a place to watch over the Earth and to protect it from attack from within or outside. Of course, that was before things gradually quieted down in the early twenty-first century. The heroes began to appear less and less, until finally even the originals, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, disappeared. After pulling on a change of clothes from a storage locker, a sweat- pant garbed A-ko took the route she had memorized several years ago, even though she had never been up here herself. A few wrong turns later, and she found herself in the monitor room. 'Dad looks better in the costume,' A-ko found herself thinking, looking over at Superman standing in front of a bank of screens. He turned to her and smiled as he asked, "Any trouble with the trip up here?" "I'm fine," A-ko reassured him. She scowled, seeing the image of the starship leaving the solar system, then disappearing in a flash of light. "Don't worry," her mother reassured her, "we'll catch them." Wonder Woman looked the same as she always had, having shed the false attempts at aging her appearance. 'I wonder how hard it was for them, playing the salaryman and his wife?' A-ko found herself thinking. "I'm going with you," she said simply. "No," Superman said quietly, "I'm sorry, but you're not ready for this." "But Dad, I promised I'd help rescue C-ko..." A-ko started. "I promise you, we'll do all we can to get her back," Wonder Woman said softly. She stepped over to A-ko's side and hugged her gently, "You're not ready, and I won't let you put yourself in grave jeopardy because of your pride." "If it was Artemis or one of the amazons who had been kidnapped," A- ko said to her intensely, "you'd insist on going along." "And if I was wise, I'd listen to my mother telling me not to go," Wonder Woman smiled down at her gently. "Besides which, with both of us gone someone needs to be here to watch over the world," Superman said. A-ko looked a bit startled at that. "I thought you had retired?" she asked. "No, just operated a lot quieter," Wonder Woman smiled. "Which reminds me, I have a gift for you," she said, and pressed a small necklace into her hands. A-ko looked at her oddly, then at the little theater mask dangling on the chain. "What's this?" she asked quietly. "Have you ever wondered why you have red hair when both of us have black?" Superman smiled. "It's thanks to that," he nodded towards the little necklace, "a charm made up by a magician friend of ours." A-ko looked at it a bit dubiously, then she cupped her hands around the little mask. A soft glow, and her hair shifted from red to deep black, flowing straight down her back. "Wow," she murmured, looking at her reflection in a window. Wonder Woman had an odd look on her face. She rummaged through a pile of clothes and passed a pair of glasses to A-ko. "Try these on," she said. A-ko slipped them on, and blinked in surprise. The glasses, plus the straight dark hair made her look almost completely different, like a whole different person. "This could work," A-ko admitted. "Now we just need to establish a new identity for you," Superman smiled. He raised his voice, "Oracle?" In front of them a three dimensional hologram of a red-headed young woman appeared. She sat in a wheelchair, and her glasses gleamed as she cradled a laptop on her knees. "I'm in the Japanese population database, and ready to go," she reported with a smile. She looked over at A-ko, "Do you have a first name you'd prefer?" A-ko was still looking in astonishment at the hologram. The question was repeated, and A-ko blushed redly, "Sorry. Uhm, maybe Laurel?" "Got it," Oracle answered, typing away. She looked up, "Last name?" Superman looked over at Wonder Woman, who nodded. "Kent," he spoke up. "Laurel Kent," Oracle smiled, "not bad." She typed away, "I'm keeping much of your personal statistics the same, and reporting the ID lost. A replacement is being FedExed to your new address now." "New address?" A-ko said blankly as the hologram disappeared. "And who is she?" she asked quietly. "We set up an alternate address in Graviton City under the Kent name," Wonder Woman explained to her with a smile. "Oracle is the artificial intelligence that runs the Watchtower, based on the persona of a former member of the JLA," she smiled. "There's something that we need to ask you," Superman said quietly. He took a deep breath, "I was wondering if you would be willing to become Supergirl." "What?" A-ko squeaked.
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