The battle at the bottom of the sea—or rather, Thea's unilateral abuse—startled quite a few marine creatures. However, the shockwaves from their clash and their sheer speed made those creatures keep their distance.
Kryptonian physical resilience was truly powerful. The passive effect of Thea's armor meant her strength didn't decrease underwater; instead, it increased slightly. Yet, hundreds of tons of force hitting Faora didn't cause any fatal damage.
But little strokes fell great oaks. Coupled with the depth of the ocean, Faora's resistance became weaker and weaker. Finally, after Thea punched her in the abdomen, her consciousness couldn't hold on any longer, and she fainted.
"Huff... huff..." Thea was also tired out. Fighting these Kryptonians with physical attacks was too exhausting. Bodies sculpted by cutting-edge genetic engineering were just absurdly tough. She had practically pinned her down and pummeled her for ten minutes before knocking her out. If this were on land, how long would she have had to fight?
Looking up towards the outside, there were several small islands on the sea surface. Barring any accidents, she had swum from the Gulf of Mexico to the Caribbean Sea. Thea dragged the unconscious Faora out of the water, looked around, and found an uninhabited island to rest for a moment.
Where should I tame this Kryptonian? On Earth? Thea quickly abandoned this idea. Superman would be happy to see his compatriot "turn over a new leaf," but he definitely wouldn't like seeing Thea "brainwash" Faora.
Better go to an alien planet. Thea contacted Grodd remotely. Ostensibly under Sinestro's jurisdiction, the gorilla was currently spreading the fear of the Yellow Lantern Ring on a planet, controlling two groups of aliens to fight each other. Grodd couldn't be happier.
After several consecutive wormholes, Thea dragged Faora to this planet, far away from Krypton (remnants) and Earth.
Instructing Grodd to find a quiet place for her, Thea began to use magic to modify Faora's memories.
Compared to their Man-of-Steel bodies, Kryptonian willpower really wasn't that impressive. Thea slipped into the depths of Faora's mind without much effort—a place no ordinary person could reach, the stronghold of her subconscious and primal instincts.
Except for Superman, who was naturally born, all Kryptonians—including Supergirl—were generated through genetic engineering. Their destiny for a lifetime was decided before birth. Some were soldiers, some were scholars; their genes would be optimized to the extreme in that direction. It could be said that the fate of all Kryptonians was set from birth. Even if someone wanted to resist, they wouldn't engage in other professions because they simply couldn't learn them.
Superman's parents gave him freedom, or rather, gave him the right to choose. Superman could handle any job. Zod's combat power was about the same as his, but Zod couldn't do anything else. His fate was long declared: born in battle, he must also die in battle.
Genes optimized a certain aspect of their traits, but the overall structure was very precise and fragile. Thea searched carefully and finally found what she needed.
Faora's loyalty to General Zod was extremely firm and unshakable. However, upon closer observation, one would discover that the object of this loyalty wasn't entirely General Zod himself. Faora's genetic tuning was a bit special; she was optimized as an Adjutant. She knew a bit of everything, but relatively speaking, she wasn't top-tier in anything. Deep down, she needed someone to serve; without a master to devote herself to, she literally didn't know what to do with her life.
"Talk about lucky," Thea thought. She slowly changed the impression of Zod in Faora's heart. Father, Teacher—these were the labels Thea pasted onto Zod in Faora's mind. And as for the one Faora was meant to swear allegiance to—Thea quietly swapped that slot out for herself. Of course, this process couldn't be too fast. A conservative estimate would be one month before Faora's thinking would shift.
Leaving a mass of Dark Attribute Magic in her brain, which would keep her in a coma for seven days, Thea decided to handle Earth's matters first before continuing the brainwashing.
Instructing Grodd to watch over Faora, Thea returned to Earth alone.
It seemed like a long time, but actually, only twenty minutes had passed. General Zod had been carried away upon his first contact with sunlight, but several of his subordinates remained. In the original timeline, Faora and another tall Kryptonian (Nam-Ek) fought Superman together in a lively battle.
But now, Faora had inexplicably gone missing. Let alone Superman, even her own Kryptonian people didn't know where she had gone. No matter how advanced their communicators were, across half the universe and millions of light-years, they couldn't find her.
To buy time for Zod, the tall Kryptonian guard could only fight Superman alone. Helplessly, there was indeed a large gap in strength, and he was pinned to the ground and hammered by Superman.
Just as the Kryptonians were in despair, the Earthling army acted as pig teammates again, enveloping both Superman and the Kryptonian in their fire. Dense missiles washed over the entire Kansas town. The Kryptonians seized the opportunity to attack the Earthling troops and fled back to their spaceship while Superman was saving people.
Clark didn't chase. He didn't know what to do with his compatriots either. Relying on his behavior of returning good for evil and his rugged, sunny face, he established a connection with the Colonel leading the team and officially launched the title of Superman.
Thea observed this scene from outside the atmosphere. Superman also exchanged a glance with her from dozens of kilometers away, nodding slightly to thank her for saving his mother.
Since nothing major was happening on Earth, Thea looked toward the Kryptonian ship. The Kryptonians had rich combat experience; they used special means to shield all of Earth's satellites. The Department of Defense was currently blind; they couldn't see anything in space. To a certain extent, this facilitated Thea's next plan. She didn't act rashly but gazed intently. This look almost made her laugh out loud.
The few people on the ship didn't know that General Zod's physical cells were undergoing a qualitative change due to sudden exposure to the yellow sun. They thought there was some virus on Earth. They pushed Zod into a medical pod that looked particularly high-tech, busily disinfecting and sterilizing him.
The timing is too good! Thea was just worrying about when to get that Genetic Configuration Map. Combining the Codex in Superman's blood, the scientists on their ship had already restored the Kryptonian genetic configuration program. They were just waiting for Zod to return to normal to terraform Earth and rebuild Krypton.
The gap between 'genetic program restored' and 'ship goes boom' was tiny. Thea had to admit she'd gotten lucky.
Among these Kryptonians, the formidable ones were General Zod and Faora. Few of the others could catch Thea's eye. She opened a portal directly outside the atmosphere, took a step, and had already entered the interior of the ship.
"Who?" A Kryptonian scientist, head bowed while debugging, didn't realize an outsider had entered at all. Without looking up, he asked casually in Kryptonian.
"Ah, I'm just looking around..." Thea tuned her ring's language to the Kryptonian channel and answered with perfect enunciation.
The Kryptonian scientist didn't notice at first, but he quickly realized something was wrong. Kryptonians had a clear division of labor; everyone did things with a strong purpose. How could there be someone "just looking around?"
That tone was way too casual—and the scientist realized it a heartbeat later.