CHAPTER I — the epitome of stupidity and impulsiveness

HER FIRST THOUGHT IS: HOLY FUCKING SHIT, THAT'S FUCKING HOT. Kiran really wishes it could've been something cool, like I hope Lois got the pictures of the fucking space ship, but it's not. It's the natural thing whenever someone runs into/touches something hot that triggers the response to yank their limb back, which is hot.

Kiran can't pull her limb back. In fact, her whole body is consumed by the heat and she's pretty sure she's going to die. Vaguely, she hopes Asher won't cry too hard at her funeral, hopes Lois, Clark, and Lily can use her as a source after whatever nefarious thing Lex Luthor was planning to do with the fucking spaceship he had in his warehouse.

Kiran's not quite sure how she had even got into the warehouse in the first place. It was way past normal operating hours and Kiran may have been stealthy from a teenagehood of sneaking out to go to way too many parties, but it wasn't like it was as illegal as this. However, she had somehow made it inside, through the doors, and onto a balcony that overlooked a huge lab-like room. There were a whole bunch of machines with screens, blinking lights, and scientists that were dressed anywhere from lab coats to biohazard suits.

Kiran had pulled out her phone, prayed the cracks wouldn't impede the picture quality, and started snapping away, immediately backing up the files to the shared photo album between her, Lois, and Clark. Lily wasn't in it because she would judge the shitty skills put into each picture. Then, distantly, she thought she should have gotten Lily in on the sneaking, only for her photography skills, but shoved the thought aside as she snuck further into the room. Lily and her wouldn't have been able to even make it through the door.

There was also a thought about maybe she should have called and asked Clark if she should be doing this, as they were her impulse control when it came to work things, however, she had been way too distracted getting into the place. Which, she's still thanking whatever gods were out there she hadn't been caught and arrested. She's heard Asher's resigned sigh in her head so prominently that she shivered and thanked the gods another time she didn't have to call Asher to tell him she had been arrested again.

An alarm rang out, confusion filling Kiran as she watched the scientists leave their posts, making their way out of the room, before she noticed the spaceship was faintly glowing just a little bit. Kiran snapped a few more pictures, before she was looking for a way to sneak closer to the ship that wouldn't get her caught or hurt. Being resigned to it, she hopped over the railing of the balcony, glad she went to the gym and worked her legs enough that the impact didn't hurt too badly. As well as the repeated bend your knees, bend your knees she repeated on the two second drop.

Almost immediately, Kiran snapped some more, now closer, pictures of the ship, before pocketing her phone. There was probably sufficient enough evidence to incriminate Luthor with something that he'll probably talk himself out of in a press conference.

The ship was steadily growing brighter. Kiran made her way to the metal platform that was housing the ship, crawling onto it to get a better look at it. This close, she could see the dents and marks that came from when it must have crashed during the invasion that the species had probably tried. It didn't look like the ships that the Justice League had stopped, but it was definitely one of the more recent ones. Kiran thinks she vaguely remembers it from a couple years ago and wonders if she could press her luck to try and get into the computers to see how much data Lex Corp. had about it.

She decides against it, purely because she's not sure how long she has with the alarm and the glowing ship.

There's a dent in the side that looks distinctly like a fist, and the hero fangirl in Kiran pushes her forward to see who it's from. The most-likely candidate is Superman, as he can fly and has super strength, but part of Kiran hopes it's Wonder Woman's imprint. She remembers one of the invasions, watching from the Daily Planet, that Wonder Woman was using the roofs of buildings, her lasso, and other spaceships to leap higher and do damage to the infiltrating ships. It had been badass, despite the fact that Kiran had been mostly trying to find Batman in the group of fighting heroes. She had wanted to tell Asher that she had been able to see him in action in real life, instead of the two of them chatting about any news they had read about him in their biweekly brunch at an old, rundown diner in downtown Metropolis called Mel's.

Kiran approached the ship, which was glowing to the point that it was starting to hurt her eyes, burning its silhouette into her vision, and as if the thing was fragile, pushed her fist gently into the fist shaped dent in the side of it.

Now, Kiran wasn't the smartest cookie in the cookie jar, she would admit. She was easily goaded into things, had very little impulse control, had a very big fear of missing out, so you could talk her into anything. She talked herself into stupid shit all the time. There was one of those expensive, fake lightsabers that she liked to pretend she was Obi-Wan Kenobi fighting Anakin in Revenge of the Sith with and call out, "I have the high ground!" into her empty apartment that proved the point. When she had first gotten the thing, it had made a small dent in her rent payment. It was a saving grace her apartment building was shitty and her landlord probably expected her late payment. It happened more often than not that he had to send a notice to her, even if she did have the day marked in her calendar every month.

Anyway, testing the size of her fist in the dent of a glowing spaceship to see if it was Superman or Wonder Woman's? Stupid. Impulsive. Kiran wished she could go back in time, rip her fist away, and slap herself silly. However, hindsight is twenty-twenty, and Kiran doesn't like to think about how stupid she can be sometimes.

The metal of the ship is strangely cold, which Kiran realises in that second that, with how brightly it's glowing, shouldn't it be hot, before it pulses so bright it blinds Kiran and then the heat comes. It explodes from the ship, like it was some kind of bomb and Kiran had triggered it, and Kiran's pretty sure she's dead. She has to be. Her nerve endings are streaking with white hot pain that seizes all of her muscles up and even if she's not dead, she wishes she was. She has to be screaming, it hurts, oh fucking god it hurts, and Kiran read somewhere that if you exclaim while being hurt, it actually helps make it feel less painful.

Well, it's not fucking working right now. Or it is, but Kiran can't tell because she feels like her whole body is being set on fire repeatedly or someone's poking her with the lit end of a cigarette everywhere on her body. If she survives this, she's going to be horribly scarred, she can't not be. Though, it feels like her flesh is burning away and there must be the scent of burning flesh now hanging horribly in the air.

Thankfully, Kiran passes out. Or dies. But the world had whited out and she's peacefully unaware of any of her hair singeing off her body as the fire combusts and seems to scorch her nerves. God, she'll take any escape from the blinding pain she had been suffering, and the small salvation of unconsciousness is more than welcome.

Kiran's not dead, she decides, as a moment later she feels her body again. It's not in pain and she twitches a finger to check before opening her eyes. She looks down, expecting to see her naked body, scarred so badly that she can't feel anything. But there she is, in her wide-legged pants with a stupid graphic shirt Perry forgets to reprimand her on under a blazer. There are no visible burns or even wounds on her skin and the relieved laughter bubbles out of her mouth before she can stop it as she pats herself down, finding everything she had in her pockets still there.

The laughter turns into a sob, and she clutches at her hair, pulling it just a little to prove that she's actually alive. Kiran stays there for a minute, relieved sobbing, wondering how the fuck she's alive and not burned, but decides that Lady Luck is on her side today. She wipes her cheeks when she's ready to move, gets up slowly, and that's when she realises.

The warehouse had been scorched, with only rubble and ruin standing around Kiran. The ship is nowhere to be seen, either evaporated or just simply gone, and Kiran stands in the middle of a warehouse crater, only slightly singed and sore. The weird thing she notices, as she looks down at her loafers, is that the blast epicentre isn't where the ship had been, but where Kiran had been lying prone on the ground.

She blinks at the ground, her mind not comprehending what the actual fuck is happening, and then decides to leave it for future Kiran to worry about. Scrambling over the rubble to get away from the middle of the disaster, Kiran notices the flashing lights of all kinds of public servants. Superman is above her, flying around, and there's a part of her that wants to flag him down to get a quote. She thinks Perry would be proud of her for the impulse, but then her knees give out as she makes it to the edge of the rubble and thinks she has other things to worry about.

A firefighter spots her and helps her to the nearest ambulance. Kiran gets checked there, but the same conclusion she had come to was met: she was simply covered in ash and soot but okay. She thanks the paramedic and sluggishly makes her way to where she's pretty sure her apartment is. Her head hurts, so she could be very wrong, but pride has her walking that way anyway.

She gets back to her apartment, miraculously, without any further problems. Kiran decides she's tired and going to call in sick tomorrow as she throws her keys on her apartment's island. She swears when she notices the spiderweb cracks from a new impact place on her phone, knowing that she can't afford a new one. Running a hand down her face, she wishes she had a drink as she makes her way to the bathroom, stripping off the layers of dirty clothes and putting them in her washing machine to turn on after her shower.

In the bathroom, she turns on the water, listens to the pipes as the water heats up, and steps into the tub after the counted time it takes to have hot water. Kiran spends time scrubbing the soot off of her body, until she's red from the rough treatment and the hot water. Oddly, it makes her skin look like it's glowing subtly, shining under the light slightly blocked by her shower curtain.

Kiran narrows her eyes at herself. She actually is fucking glowing!

She trips over the lip of the tub, almost takes the shower curtain down as she falls out of the tub, swearing loudly as she hits her knee on the tile and hears a crack from her wrist as she catches herself before her chin can smack the ground. It takes a bit for her to get her feet under her, her knee throbbing in pain as she stands up straight. Her hair is sticking uncomfortably to her body, water dripping on the tile, but Kiran can't focus on any of the outward stimuli. She's too busy staring at herself in the vanity, a scream escaping her throat. Her body was glowing.

Just like the fucking ship had.

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welp. here is the first chapter, which is very short, but the next chapter picks up basically right after this one and it's going to be pretty gosh darn great, okay? 

bruce won't be showing up for a little bit but kiran does have to learn about her powers, okay?