Chapter 16 : Bizarro
April 2016 — National City — Financial District
The woman who wore Kara's face was destroying everything she touched.
I watched from the DEO mobile command as Bizarro—that's what the news was calling her, because National City apparently loved comic book naming conventions—tore through the financial district like a force of nature. Same height as Kara. Same build. Same blonde hair and determined expression.
But wrong. Everything about her was wrong.
Where Kara moved with grace and precision, Bizarro lurched and stumbled. Where Kara's heat vision burned red-hot, Bizarro's eyes unleashed waves of freezing cold. And where Kara fought to protect, this twisted mirror fought because she didn't know how to do anything else.
"She's heading toward the harbor," I reported through comms. "Pattern suggests she's drawn to high-population areas. Maximum disruption."
"I'm on it." Kara's voice crackled through the channel. A red-blue streak crossed the skyline, intercepting Bizarro above the waterfront. The impact shook windows three blocks away.
The fight that followed was brutal—and wrong. Every time Kara landed a blow, her face twisted with something like guilt. She wasn't fighting an enemy. She was fighting herself, or something that wore her image like a stolen coat.
"Winn, I need options." Alex's voice cut through my analysis. "Heat vision isn't working. She's absorbing it."
"Reversed biology." I pulled up the combat footage, running it through pattern recognition algorithms I'd developed over months of late nights. "Her powers are inverted. Heat becomes cold, cold becomes heat. Which means..."
"Standard Kryptonite won't work."
"Worse. It might make her stronger." My mind raced through possibilities. "We need the opposite. Something that affects Kryptonians negatively but would hit her differently because of the inversion."
"Blue Kryptonite?"
"If it exists. And if we can synthesize it fast enough."
On the screen, Bizarro grabbed Kara by the cape and hurled her through a warehouse roof. The building collapsed. Dust and debris mushroomed into the afternoon sky.
Think faster.
"Maxwell Lord," I said suddenly.
"What about him?"
"He created her. His lab has to have data on her biology—what makes her tick, how the inversion works, everything we need to develop a countermeasure." I was already pulling up satellite feeds of Lord Technologies. "If we can access his research—"
"Breaking into a private corporation's systems is illegal."
"So is creating unstable Kryptonian clones." I met Alex's gaze through the video link. "Your call."
She hesitated for exactly half a second.
"Do it."
Lord Technologies — Research Division
Maxwell Lord kept his secrets behind seven layers of encryption.
I cracked the first three from the mobile command, using Lightning Logic to interface directly with his network's security protocols. The fourth required physical access—which meant Alex leading a strike team into the building while Kara kept Bizarro occupied downtown.
"Security station is twenty meters ahead," I guided through Alex's earpiece. "Two guards, standard rotation. They'll swap positions in thirty seconds."
"Copy."
I watched through the building's own cameras as Alex's team moved like ghosts. Silent. Efficient. Professional. The guards never saw them coming.
The fifth encryption layer fell when I bypassed Lord's biometric scanner by feeding it recorded data from his morning coffee run. The sixth crumbled under a brute-force attack that would have taken conventional computers weeks—my brain processed the calculations in minutes, headache building behind my eyes but manageable.
The seventh was different.
"There's a standalone terminal in his private lab," I reported. "Air-gapped from the main network. Whatever's on it, he didn't want anyone accessing remotely."
"Can you guide me to it?"
"Already sending the route."
Alex reached the lab in four minutes. The terminal sat on a desk covered in holographic displays and half-assembled prototypes. I watched through her body camera as she plugged in the extraction device.
"Winn, this is..." Her voice trailed off. "He's been doing this for months. Project Bizarro. He kidnapped coma patients, subjected them to genetic modification, exposed them to Kryptonite radiation. Seven subjects. Six died."
"And the seventh became Bizarro."
"She has a name." Alex's jaw tightened. "Jane Doe #47. That's what he called her in the files. She was a person before he turned her into a weapon."
I filed that information away. It mattered. She mattered.
"Download the biological data. Everything about the inversion process. If we're going to help her, we need to understand what Lord did to her."
"Already copying."
DEO Desert Facility — Laboratory
Synthesizing Blue Kryptonite took six hours.
Alex led the chemistry while I handled the physics—calculating the precise radiation frequencies that would affect Bizarro's inverted biology without killing her. The process was delicate, dangerous, and completely unprecedented.
J'onn observed from the doorway, offering occasional guidance based on his centuries of experience with alien biology. "The crystal matrix is destabilizing," he noted during hour four. "You need to reduce the gamma exposure by twelve percent."
"Already on it." My hands moved automatically, adjusting equipment, monitoring readouts. The migraine from the earlier hack had faded to a dull throb. Manageable.
On the monitors behind us, Kara continued fighting. She'd been at it for hours—hit after hit, blow after blow, never quite able to put Bizarro down. The clone's inverted powers gave her an advantage Kara couldn't counter through strength alone.
"Supergirl, status?"
"Tired." Kara's voice was ragged. "She's... she keeps getting back up. Every time I think she's down, she comes back stronger."
"We're almost done. Just need another hour."
"I don't know if I have another hour."
The desperation in her voice made my hands move faster.
"You do," I said firmly. "You're the strongest person I know, Kara. You've survived worse than this. Just hold the line a little longer."
Silence on the comm. Then, quieter: "Thanks, Winn."
"Thank me when this is over."
National City — Harbor District
The Blue Kryptonite worked.
I'd embedded it in a delivery system modeled after the DEO's standard Kryptonite grenades—modified for the inverted radiation signature, calibrated to affect Bizarro's unique biology. Alex fired the first shot from a rooftop overlooking the harbor.
The crystal shattered against Bizarro's chest. She stumbled, confusion replacing rage on her borrowed face. Her movements slowed. Her inverted powers flickered and died.
"It's working," Alex reported. "She's weakening."
"Don't let up. Sustained exposure is key."
Kara landed beside her fallen mirror. Bizarro looked up with eyes that were somehow less empty than before—more human. More aware.
"You... look like me," Bizarro said. Her voice was rough, damaged, like a recording played back through broken speakers.
"I know." Kara knelt beside her. "I'm sorry this happened to you. But I'm going to help you. We're going to find a way to fix this."
"Fix?" Bizarro's face twisted. "Am... broken?"
"No." Kara's voice cracked. "You're not broken. You're just... different. And different isn't bad. It's just different."
I watched through the body cameras as Kara held Bizarro's hand. The clone's struggles ceased. Her eyes drifted closed.
"She's unconscious," Alex confirmed. "Vitals are stabilizing. The Blue Kryptonite is suppressing her powers without causing damage."
"Get her to the DEO. Medical stasis until we figure out how to help her."
"And Lord?"
I looked at the stolen data on my screen. Seven subjects. Six dead. Months of illegal experimentation on human beings, all in the name of creating a weapon against Supergirl.
"I've forwarded the evidence to the FBI, the FCC, and every major news outlet in the country. By tonight, Maxwell Lord won't be able to buy a newspaper without seeing his face on the front page."
"Good." Alex's voice carried grim satisfaction. "Let's bring her home."
DEO Medical Bay — That Evening
Bizarro floated in the stasis chamber like a dreaming angel.
The medical team had done their best—stabilizing her vitals, monitoring her brain activity, keeping the Blue Kryptonite exposure at precisely the level needed to suppress her powers without causing harm. She looked peaceful now. Almost normal.
Kara stood at the glass, one hand pressed against the surface.
"I keep thinking about what Lord said in his files." Her voice was quiet. "Subject displayed unexpected emotional responses. Subject attempted communication. Subject showed signs of attachment." She closed her eyes. "She wasn't just a weapon. She was trying to be a person."
"She still can be." I moved to stand beside her. "The damage isn't permanent. Her brain is intact, her neural patterns are human—just modified. With time and the right treatment..."
"You really think we can help her?"
"I think we have to try." I looked at the woman in the tank—the woman who'd been used and discarded by a man who saw her as nothing more than a tool. "She didn't choose this. She didn't choose any of it. The least we can do is give her a chance to choose something now."
Kara leaned against my shoulder. The contact was warm, grounding.
"Thank you," she said. "For figuring out the Blue Kryptonite. For the evidence against Lord. For... all of it."
"That's what partners do."
"No." She turned to face me. "That's what you do. You find solutions nobody else can see. You make the impossible possible." Her hand found mine. "I don't know what I'd do without you."
Something more, I thought again. This keeps becoming something more.
"You'll never have to find out," I promised.
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