Supergirl POV

Dry throat, stinging eyes, blurry eyesight, muscles grunting, tendons to snap, head throbbing. Symptoms of an encounter with Krugger.

As always.

The super propped herself up on scraped elbows, raised her bloodshot eyes, and tried to look around.

It was a city, or what has withstood wars, and now her downfall. Looking back, there was the trail of the violent descent, a hole running through three, maybe four buildings; three, for the fourth, collapsed into its purple concrete as soon as the blonde was on her feet, or nearly. Supergirl's suit was something more than torn rags, the cape a scrap of flayed cloth, one foot bare, the other what left of the boot, the breastplate with the burnt crest, and the top separated from the bottom, without the belt that held them together.

It was a shadow of the superhero she was once.

The super tried to jump for a flight, but her exhausted body threw her to the ground, and it would be days, weeks, before she could face the villain again, if there was time. It was her first appearance in months, and what she said stirred the Kryptonian's insides, and it wasn't even the punches and kicks her belly took.

Confused, indecipherable, impossible. Perhaps the last word was the one that best described the demon of the light, without a single day that she not blamed herself for such an adjective. But the super's chest beat ambivalently, having a second guilt to carry on. Or was that the first of them?

Her original sin. Turn her back on her own heart.

"Supergirl!" called a thin voice among the rubble of the city. A girl, six or eight years old, painted in ashes, face brindled with weeping, desperate for help. She approached the hero, pulling her hand. "Glad I found you. We need help, my mother and sister. Please help us!" She cried, pulling her into an old cinema.

But this region should be empty, well, not for lack of attempts the agency tried to allocate and hide the remaining people, but the world was too big, not even her cousin and the whole league were capable, at least they weren't, not even in life.

The aching past dissolved to the sound of puddles and falling water. She was led into one of the cinema's rooms. The ceiling had collapsed, dismantling the upper seats. A crater had opened, and in the center a piece of purple building, like the one that had just collapsed because of her landing.

"Help my sister, she's still alive, and mom is in there, please!" She cried on her knees clutching the hand glued to the blue chest of the redhead teenager with her mouth full of...water? The super looked around, bodies, dozens of them. It wasn't water, it wasn't transparent, it was red, warm, and flowing like a river. "Then can you bring back my daddy? He went along with the Lantern Corps, and he hasn't returned yet."

The Corps war, four years ago, no one survived.

The blonde looked at that horrible scene, the little girl holding the hands of a crushed corpse, and waiting for her to bring two more from the dead, one buried from green heroes, the other from a pile of seats, iron and purple concrete.

"Please Supergirl, save us," she begged, until crimson rose from her eyes, ears, nose and mouth. "Please, I don't want to die too. I'm scared, save me, please..."

The super took that girl in her arms, while the little one choked on her own blood, and begged for her life. Still in the twilight of that little light in her arms, unable to help, unable to save anyone, and sinning in her duty.

***

At dusk, the super heard sonic turbines. Outside the Supercorp agency's dark jet landing.

The engines cut, and the ramp opened. Alex got off the plane and smiled at her sister.

"Come on, she called." The blonde was surprised. She called no one. She would never call for help. It was too dangerous.

"I didn't call anyone."

"Of course not, it was flare that called." The redhead pointed at her sister's chest. Then she noticed the little blink of light. She hadn't triggered it. Was it an accident in one punch? Then her mind flashed, where...

No.

Krugger?

Not in a fucking billion years!

"Let's go blonde." She called Alex giving a whiplash, which threw the super on the ground. "Wow! My bad, you're still not ok," Helped her.

"I'm fine, need nothing," grumbled the super, upon receiving a hug from her sister.

"You need a bath. When was the last time you saw a shower, Kara? Wow, what a smell!"

The blonde walked away, not sure what to say, but she crawled into the jet. Followed by the pilot, who spotted three tombs on the sidewalk and a fourth gravestone before closing the ramp.