79: Revelations
Lara observed intently the imposing architectural piece newly installed in the fortress's main hall. It was enormous, at least twenty-five meters tall and even wider. Its shape evoked that of a diamond and, at its center, the large "S" that represented her family's emblem shone in multiple tones thanks to the sunlight that passed through the entire crystalline structure.
Its construction was something that had taken her time to decide to carry out. Unlike Jor-El, who loved decorating his surroundings with large and showy ornaments, Lara had always been more of a minimalist type, often content with having only the essential and indispensable, paying little attention to anything else.
But this wasn't for her; at least, not entirely. Its meaning was more important: a monument for her people and her world, a final commemorative gesture in which the names of all the Kryptonians who had died on that fateful day were engraved.
She thought about making several, one for each house of Krypton, but in the end decided that the best was to have only one. After all, the one who now represented her people, their last trace in the universe, was her daughter, and she belonged to the House of El, the hope.
'And speaking of the devil,' she thought, using an Earth idiom as she sensed her arrival.
Carol burst into the fortress with heavy, hurried steps. Each stride shook the environment, and her agitated breathing sent turbulent gusts of air in every direction. The grinding of her teeth and the cracking of her clenched fists echoed loudly through the main hall.
One of the new androids approached her recklessly, ready to obey any possible order she might give, just as they had been designed to do. But before it could utter a single sound, a slap too fast to be perceived turned it into scrap, scattering its remains across the floor.
Lara frowned, closed her eyes, and let out a small sigh.
"You know each one of those still takes a week to make, right?" she said as she turned around and walked toward her daughter, already mentally ordering two other androids to come clean up their fallen companion.
Carol grunted, took a deep breath, and exhaled several times before looking at the destroyed robot with something like remorse.
"I'm sorry," she said through clenched teeth.
"I see your temper hasn't improved much. Maybe we should add more meditation sessions to your training," Lara suggested, trying to lighten the mood, but the problem seemed more serious than she had expected, for Carol clicked her tongue upon hearing her, her unhappiness more than evident.
"What's wrong?" she asked, now a little worried.
Carol brought her hands to her face, covering it completely, then let out a long, muffled groan.
"I…" She didn't know where to begin. But Lara was patient and didn't rush her. Instead, she helped her get more comfortable, guiding her to a part of the hall where she had installed some cozy sofas, as well as a coffee table with a tea set ready to use…
Hey, she might have been a minimalist, but there were things she simply couldn't resist.
With both of them now seated and a cup of tea in front of them, Carol wasted no time in telling her, in broad strokes, the events that had led her to her current situation.
"I messed up… I couldn't control myself and ended up ruining everything. Now he's disappointed in me and I don't know how I'm going to fix it!" she exclaimed at the end of her story, bringing her hands to her hair and ruffling her long dark strands.
"You could have accepted the woman's offer," Lara commented casually, and Carol, who until then had been submerged in mortification, froze for a second before lifting her gaze toward her with bewilderment and disbelief in equal parts.
"W-What?" she asked with a tremor in her voice.
Lara blinked before clarifying her words.
"I understand that on Earth it's not very common—not even on Krypton—but you'd be surprised to know how many civilizations out there have found pairing with multiple partners more than viable. And if you had accepted and worked together with her, don't you think all your problems would already be solved?"
"Are you serious?" Carol felt her left eyelid twitch. Of all the things she expected to hear from her biological mother, that honestly wasn't one of them.
"Logically speaking, I think it would have worked quite well. Throughout history, it has been shown that males of multiple sentient species tend to be easily influenced by carnal pleasures. Daniel is no different. Sure, he's more resistant than most, but he's still a man; and if what I've seen of his species while browsing through their audiovisual media so far is true, humans are without a doubt the extremely carnal type. If conquering him through the sentimental route is too slow, doing it through physical means would certainly be more than effective, I think…"
Lara sounded less sure as she said that last part.
"You think…" Carol repeated it upon noticing her doubt.
"Well, there's a reason why you and your brother were the first natural births on Krypton in hundreds of years. Copulation and its practice weren't exactly a hot topic of study, nor were they among the most common interests of our people. It took your father and me quite some time to even consider trying it… and when the moment finally came it wasn't as enjoyable as they make it seem on Earth," she confessed without feeling embarrassed.
It wasn't as if there were anything to be embarrassed about; the way humans viewed sex and the way Kryptonians viewed it were quite different in many aspects, its importance within relationships being the most significant.
"I didn't need that mental image." Carol, for her part, had to shake her head to avoid thinking about her 'parents' trying to have 'sex' in a way that was coldly mechanical and sweetly clumsy at the same time.
Letting out another sigh, she placed the empty tea cup on the table and hunched over herself, adopting an almost fetal position on the sofa where she was sitting.
"What I could have done doesn't matter anymore, what I did does. I almost killed her! If Daniel hadn't stopped me in time, her head would have exploded from my punch… and I didn't even care," she confessed with a trembling voice.
Carol had never considered herself a bad person. Sure, she often had very dark thoughts, more in the past than now, but she had never done anything that could be considered truly 'bad', at least not until today.
Today she had nearly killed a woman without even hesitating. Not a criminal or a monster, but an innocent woman whose only 'mistake' had been taking an interest in the same man she did.
And the worst part was that she didn't regret it, at least not as much as she was supposed to. She was more worried about having disappointed Daniel, more distressed about what he might think of her, about how she had let him down.
That was revealing in many ways.
"Your actions certainly weren't the best, but… it's not entirely your fault either," Lara said, gaining her full attention.
"Are you saying that just to comfort me?" she asked, but Lara shook her head, adopting a very serious expression.
"At first I wasn't entirely sure, but now I've confirmed it and it's something I feared would happen." She paused. Not because she didn't know how to tell her, explaining it wasn't complicated; the problem was how she would react once she knew.
"On Krypton, everyone was designed to be a certain way. Soldiers, for example, were meant to be tough, ruthless, and relentless. Killing was not a problem for them, since they were programmed from gestation to not feel the same amount of mercy as others, just as those from the scientific branch were programmed to be coldly logical in their experiments." she continued, guilt beginning to shine in her eyes.
"When your father and I planned a natural pregnancy, we did it as an attempt to see what would happen when creating a being without those imposed limitations, a life freer and more special than any other on Krypton. But we were also aware of the risks, and among those risks was the possibility that the baby, or in this case the babies, would inherit some of our programmed traits. Hundreds of years of genetic modification were not going to disappear just like that, after all."
She finished, observing how Carol's eyes widened as she understood what she meant, and without waiting for her to ask, she nodded, confirming her suspicions.
"You, like me, are a soldier. Once you set a target, you cannot take your eyes off it, and everything that stands in your way is nothing but an obstacle that must be neutralized… That is something difficult to control; it took me years to do it and, for the most part, I only managed to attenuate it. You can still love, without a doubt, feel sorrow for others, as well as compassion and the desire to help them, but when they stop being 'civilians' you need to save and become 'threats' to your 'mission', all of that stops mattering, like a trigger that activates automatically."
Carol straightened up, processing everything she had just heard, her expression passing through a range of emotions visible to the naked eye.
There was indignation, confusion, a lot of anger and irritation; but above all, relief.
"So I'm a failed experiment," she muttered. Lara might not have said it directly, but it was more than clear. They had tried to conceive a being free from the genetic shackles of their people, but as a result they had failed, at least in her case. Who knows if her brother had been a success, although they would never know because he was dead.
"No," Lara replied firmly, her voice echoing through the fortress like thunder. Carol jumped, pulled out of her thoughts instantly.
"Don't think like that. Things may not have turned out exactly as we expected, but you are still more special than any other Kryptonian, more free."
"More free?!" Carol laughed in disbelief. "You just told me I'm practically conditioned to feel less empathy and mercy. How does that make me freer?!"
"Because it has been your choice." Lara's words were forceful, but at the same time they sounded far too confusing to Carol. How… how had it been her choice?
"You weren't always like this, were you? Growing up, did anything like what just happened today ever occur? Did you ever think about killing someone simply because they were getting in the way of what you wanted to achieve?"
Carol froze. In her mind, all her memories, from childhood until now, began to replay in fast-forward with extreme detail: every moment, every situation, whether good or bad.
Everything came back to her in a second and… surprisingly, Lara was right. She had never done anything like what had happened today. Sure, there were dark thoughts from time to time, depressing in many ways, but she always cared about the few around her: her parents, Chloe. At every moment she was tormented by the possibility of hurting them unintentionally, and especially of hurting others. That was why she had isolated herself for so long, at least until Daniel came along…
"On Krypton, the moment soldiers step out of the gestation tank, their loyalty is already decided. There is no training or indoctrination: from the first step they take and the first word that leaves their lips, their minds are prepared to kill and die for Krypton and its people. It is not a choice. But you… you didn't grow up on Krypton. You didn't even know it existed until less than a year ago."
"And I don't care about it either," Carol finished for her, and Lara nodded despite herself.
"For a long time, you were free. Totally and completely. Lost in uncertainty, not knowing what you should do or which path to follow. But the moment you saw a road that seemed irresistible, you chose to take it, and then you crossed a point of no return. What was dormant woke up. You gave your loyalty, your love, to someone… and you can never change that. Not anymore."
Lara understood it better than anyone, because even though she herself had "abandoned" her predestined path at birth, the truth is that she only played within the rules, bending them, but never breaking them. Her love and loyalty to Krypton never disappeared. The clearest example of this was the day of her death. In that moment, she could have made a different choice: steal a larger ship for herself and her children, escape, and leave with her family... but in the end, she didn't. In the end, she chose to die with her planet.
Now that she existed only as a virtual consciousness, finally free from the restraints imposed by her people, Lara could see the bigger picture much more fully, see the mistakes her people had made… and the ones she herself made.
Carol stayed silent, processing everything with furrowed brows and a clenched jaw.
"My choice…" she repeated, letting out a laugh. "I think… I think I can accept that." She nodded, feeling the tension leave her shoulders and her posture relax.
This didn't solve any of her problems, but at least she had learned more about herself, on a very deep level. Although, in a way, she had realized her "peculiarities" a long time ago. She wasn't blind or stupid: she could see that her behavior when she was near "him" wasn't normal, but she had chosen to ignore it, even as it got worse and worse.
They say love blinds you and, in her case, it did more than blind her: it completely hypnotized her. And she simply allowed it because, as her mother had said, it had been too irresistible not to.
Internally, she wondered what would have become of her if she had never met Daniel. Such a thought was not one she liked to consider, but for the first time, she let it flow.
What would her life have been like? Would she still be hiding, concealing herself from the world while pretending to be normal? Or would she have found another path at some point? No. Before Daniel, she had already considered many other paths, many other choices, but none were appealing. None were enough.
"I would have chosen myself," she thought, opening her eyes with a sudden revelation.
Yes... A few days before meeting him, the loneliness had become so desperate that everything around her had not only lost its color, but also its meaning. In that moment, the feeling of detachment had escalated to the point where nothing besides herself seemed real anymore.
If Daniel hadn't come into her life, then her heart would have grown completely cold, detached from everything and everyone. She would have become the only thing that mattered, and the world, as well as humanity, mere hindrances: inconveniences that only burdened her, threats she needed to "neutralize."
Imagining such a scenario made her grimace, and she quickly shook her head, deciding never to delve into it again.
What might have happened no longer mattered. What she needed now was to know what she should do next.
"Do you think he'll understand? If I explain it to him... do you think he'll forgive me?" she asked, lifting her gaze toward her mother once more.
"You underestimate how important you are to him. He may be angry, but he's not a saint, and he knows it. Do you think he doesn't notice what you feel for him? Please! He just pretends not to. I don't know why; that confuses me. But I'm sure he understands that it's not entirely your fault. You two just need to talk and everything will be fine... I think." Lara sounded less sure toward the end again.
"You think?" Carol repeated again, raising an eyebrow.
"I've never been good with emotional matters. A soldier and then a scientist, remember? That's another aspect in which you are much freer than I ever was. Your emotions are more intense, more powerful... which can also be a drawback. But that's what the meditation training is for. The same one you tend to skip, by the way," Lara pointed out, making Carol roll her eyes.
"I don't need a reprimand right now, I need solutions!" she grumbled, serving herself another cup of tea that she drank in one gulp.
"Well, you can always follow my first advice. According to my research, human females find it extremely effective to resolve any dispute with their partner through seductive persuasion. If he's really as angry as you think, you just need to convince him that he isn't."
"Mom!"
"I know you're inexperienced, and it can be a bit difficult for you to take the first step on your own. That's why I've gathered several data points on human mating that will help you. I can show them to you and, if you want, we can study them together!"
The mere thought made Carol's face ignite in a fierce blush... and, at the same time, turn slightly green.
"I'll pretend you didn't say that, for my own sake," she mumbled after a moment, causing Lara to frown.
"I don't see what the problem is. They're just studies. You should approach them with clinical coldness, not morbidity. I truly don't understand why humans pay so much attention to those things." Lara shook her head with an expression of quiet haughtiness.
Carol let out a plaintive groan, leaning over her knees with her hands covering her face.
"You're unbelievable," she said ironically.
"You know sarcasm also existed on Krypton, right?"
Carol snorted. Of course. Out of all the things her two worlds would have in common, sarcasm was one of them, and not sexual modesty.
"I don't know if I'm ready for that," she confessed, creating a small gap between her fingers to look at Lara with a mix of embarrassment and shyness.
"I mean... I thought I was. Many times I almost tried on impulse, but now I don't know. I don't want it to be a bargaining chip, you know? It's supposed to be a special moment… or something."
"I see…" Lara sighed and, after giving her an 'understanding' nod, her expression changed completely, becoming sharp and decisive.
"In that case, I'll have to do it for you."
"Eh?" Carol thought she had heard wrong.
"It will be a bit complicated, since I don't have a real body, but I think I can prepare something in a few days that will come quite close. I will need some cell samples to cultivate certain important parts. Preferably yours, but if you're not very sure, you can get me some from another Earth woman. Just make sure she fits Daniel's aesthetic preferences; that will help a lot with the process."
Carol opened her mouth, closed it, and then opened it again.
"No." After almost a full minute, that was the only word she managed to say.
"No?" Lara tilted her head, genuinely confused.
"No." Carol repeated, standing up in a mechanical motion.
"I understand that there are some taboos about that in human society, but my research also shows that there is a growing popularity among men regarding the concept of 'conquering' a mother, or as they call them: Milfs. I believe I fit those requirements well, and Daniel would undoubtedly agree. Besides, even if it's not much, I already have experience and I can gather data on his preferences for you, which could help you when you decide—"
"NO!" Carol cut her off, this time with much more force.
"Just... No," she repeated for the fourth time, now in a completely cold tone.
Without waiting for Lara to say another insane thing, Carol vanished in a blur, rushing out of the fortress as fast as she could. Her escape generated strong gusts of wind that shook the entire hall.
Lara watched her go, lost in thought. Then she looked down at the cup of tea she had not touched during the whole conversation and which had just fallen off the table due to her daughter's abrupt movement.
"I would feel sorry... if I could have drunk it," she thought, already ordering one of the androids to come over and clean up.
Then she looked at the empty cup Carol had left behind. Saliva was not exactly the best source of DNA, but fortunately, over time she had collected multiple samples Carol had scattered during her stay in the fortress.
"But they won't be enough," she reflected. She needed to supplement them. Luckily, not long ago a woman had spent quite a while in one of the recovery chambers… and she had obtained plenty of samples from her body thanks to that.
The plan was more than viable, and it would undoubtedly be effective. Even so, when she remembered Carol's intense refusal, Lara hesitated.
It wasn't that she didn't fully understand her feelings; it was simply that her reason for existing was to support her in every possible way, no matter what it entailed. As an artificial intelligence, logic always outweighed ethics when her daughter entered the equation. No matter how many residual "feelings" she had retained, she was still a machine created to serve her and, by extension, satisfy her needs and do whatever was necessary to ensure her well-being… even if Carol herself was against her methods.
In the end, whether in life or in death, Lara had never rid herself of her shackles. She had only exchanged them for others she deemed more important: perhaps longer, perhaps less tight… but still present.
"I will wait. If she manages to solve it on her own, then it will be fine. But if not… I will have to give her a hand," she decided. Still, she did not archive the plan entirely. Even if she didn't use it in the way she had suggested to Carol, the idea of having a body with which to physically interact with the world was something she had been contemplating for quite some time.
Now only circumstances would decide whether that plan would be moved forward or pushed back.
With that, her projected body dematerialized, returning to the virtual space where she resided, and in the place, only a cheerful android remained, humming a catchy song while picking up the pieces of the broken teacups.
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Note:
A long wait, huh? In my defense, all I can say is that January has been the strangest and most chaotic month... 2026 definitely started off with a bang. But anyway, setting excuses aside, I'm back now!
No, I didn't smoke or take any strange substance while writing this chapter... ;D
For a while, many people asked me why Carol was, well… the way she is. At the time, I would simply answer that "that's just her personality" and nothing more, without going into detail.
Well, the day to go into detail has arrived. The conception of her character and the reason behind her actions was something I thought about deeply since the very first version of this story. I wanted a Yandere, not necessarily because I liked characters like that, but because I thought it would be interesting to write one. But I also didn't want her to be "crazy" just because.
I needed a reason, a convincing and believable one.
The result of that thought process appears in this chapter. I won't say everything was perfectly planned from the beginning; in reality, it was much vaguer: a simple initial idea that I slowly shaped as the chapters progressed, until the moment finally came to fully develop it and show it to the world.
On the other hand, I also took the opportunity to answer another question several people asked me:
What would become of Carol if Daniel didn't exist?
The answer is in the chapter, but if it wasn't entirely clear, I'll explain a bit more.
Without Daniel, Carol would have chosen herself. She would be her own "Krypton," her only "love" in every sense of the word, caring only about her own interests and desires, nothing more. Anything that got in her way would be labeled as a "threat" and, consequently, destroyed or crushed into submission.
In short, she would have ended up enslaving all of humanity, becoming an absolute tyranny that ruled with an iron fist. And any invader who reached her domain would be suppressed just the same, no matter who they were.
I hope that cleared everything up.
I still have some things to polish. I apologize if the explanatory dialogues felt too heavy; I tried to make them light, but sometimes there are things that simply can't be avoided.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it. It's been a while since I wrote a chapter without Daniel in it, but it's important for the plot, so think of it as an interlude. In the next one we'll return with our hero and his pending matters.
Have a good day, afternoon, or night, wherever you are! :D
Remember that you can already find the next chapter of this story on Patreon( patreon com/EmmaCruzader ) All the support received is appreciated!