The Long Life of Kara Zor-El

Chapter 46

The most frustrating thing throughout all of this process for Keiran however was that all of her tests that she ran on her sister in the coma, just showed that there was no way to bring Lori out of the coma by 'force', she, and everyone else, just had to wait for it to happen on its own. Eventually it did happen, one evening while Keiran was sitting in Lori's private medical room, working on some projects while she kept a vigil over her sister, it was such a moment of relief, on Keiran's part, but after a few moments of happiness, things got worse. Keiran quickly found that Lori had no idea who she was, or who anyone else was for that matter, suffering from some form of amnesia. Then at the same time it became increasingly obvious to Keiran that Lori had lost her powers too. This became such an infuriating process for Keiran, because all of the tests she ran on her sister showed that she was in good health, with there being no biological change to her since before she was injured, and therefore she should have her powers, and her memories, but she did not. The only thing that Keiran could theorise was that the coma had resulted in amnesia, with some potential damage to Lori's brain, but as Lori is half-Kryptonian, her powers had repaired the brain damage, but left the wires in all the wrong places. This meant that Lori may still have her memories from before, but it would just take time for the wires to all realign themselves back to their original state, for Lori to remember, if it ever happened. Then because of this, Keiran theorised that Lori's lack of powers was directly linked to her amnesia. Keiran believed that because Lori was suffering from amnesia it had essentially locked away her ability for her body to access and use her Kryptonian powers, rendering her essentially powerless. Lori literally remembered no one, which was obviously hard on Kara, Keiran, Oliver, and the rest of Lori's friends and family. However, Lori did seem to form an almost instant connection with her wife Melissa, despite having no memories of her, which gave Kara, Oliver and Keiran some form of comfort. As the months progressed Lori did begin to regain some of her memories, along with some of her powers, proving Keiran's theory to be correct. But currently Lori still hasn't regained all of her powers and memories, and because of that, all of her friends and family have refused to allow Lori to fight, not wanting to risk any further damage to her, much to Lori's frustration.

As the months had passed by the heroes witnessed so many horrors, they saw more and more of the world they loved slowly be destroyed. They watched news coverage of cities being destroyed in a matter of weeks, with the larger ones taking a few months. The biggest worry however was that it was very clear that given Darkseid and his Parademon's power, and their shear numbers, they could easily just wipe out a city almost instantaneously, but they didn't. As the army went through the cities it was clear they were searching for something, or someone, the reason that Darkseid had come to Earth, and that was the only reason they didn't just destroy the cities within a few moments, that, and the fact that they still abducted humans to turn into slaves.

It wasn't until the beginning of 2141 when the heroes, and the rest of the world, witnessed their first human slaves. Just like spectre Oliver explained, the humans had been completely changed and 'enhanced' with technology. None of them were technically Parademons, just as Oliver said, instead them just being used for labour. The group first came across them and witnessed these enhanced humans, going through the rubble of various buildings, searching for something, looking and acting completely mindless. The humans did not look very human anymore though, as they all had parts of their bodies replaced. Some of them had their eyes replaced with red digital ones, others had their arms or legs replaced, then others had large parts of their bodies, like their entire torsos, or head, replaced with robot looking technology. Looking on at these 'humans' just disgusted all the heroes, and it made them even more fearful of what would happen to the humans which they left behind.

The only positive that the heroes had had over the last several months was that they had not witnessed Darkseid again, ever since Kara toppled the buildings on top of him after their fight at National City. None of the heroes were naïve enough to think that Darkseid was dead or recovering from a serious injury however. The theory that most of the heroes agreed with was that Darkseid rarely ever got his hands involved in any of the fighting, seeing it as being beneath him, with his Parademons being more than capable of dealing with things, as he didn't really see anyone on Earth to actually be a threat. The only person that the heroes actually believed Darkseid considered to be a threat, was Kara, and that is why he had appeared in National City on the first day. Since then, due to Kara and the other heroes just participating in quick assaults and rescue missions, they assumed Darkseid just didn't have enough time to come to them and attack Kara once more. Although the heroes also knew that the possibility was that Darkseid simply just didn't care as long as Kara was distracted trying to save humans or defeating some of his Parademons, who he had plenty to use as fodder, as that just meant Kara wasn't focusing her attention on him.