Chapter 1: Alone

Ursa flew in disconsolate circles through the night sky over Metropolis. For a superwoman from Krypton she was a depressing sight to behold.

At five-feet-ten she should have cut an imposing figure. With her striking face, athletic figure, and dressed head-to-toe in her preferred black, the expectation would be that she would intimidate even the most secure man. And that's before you considered her formidable superpowers.

The red Kryptonian light that had robbed her — along with her criminal companions General Zod and the silent brutish Non — of their superpowers had proven no more permanent on her than on Kal-El. It had, however, lasted plenty long enough for Zod and Non to be placed back into the Phantom Zone where they would never bother anyone else again. A fitting and well-deserved end to both of them.

Seen as little more than Zod's pawn, which was essentially true, Kal-El didn't have the heart to punish her similarly for perpetuity, and let her go with a stern warning that he wouldn't be so softhearted about any future transgressions on her part. And given how this had been her second strike, the first having landed her in The Phantom Zone to start with, Ursa was willing to take his admonition to heart. She was basically on probation for life, and lucky to have gotten off so easily.

Perhaps Kal-El really believed she'd reformed, which she mostly had since she didn't have that much reforming to do to start with. Or maybe he didn't realize that her powers would return so quickly and fully. Or perhaps he didn't worry about it since he knew how to defeat her easily if the necessity ever arose again.

Whatever the case, he'd left her alone afterwards to find her own way. Unfortunately, finding her own way was a talent Ursa had almost nothing of.

Ursa felt her loneliness deeply. Her entire home world was destroyed, although she didn't miss it that much. That's because her family had been destroyed well before that. She'd been vulnerable, despite her impressive stature and good looks even for a Kyrptonian, and easily seduced into Zod's evil plans when he needed someone like her to play a particular role in his schemes.

Although Zod had been her lover — her only lover — for Zod it had been about power over her more than intimacy, or even sexual pleasure. The only pleasure Zod seemed to feel was in crushing his opponents, which he'd been quite good at until they'd all been captured.

Her time with them in The Phantom Zone, a place that turned wide-awake reality into conscious unreality had only reinforced her own isolation. She'd followed Zod mostly because of not having anyone else to follow, and no plan of her own.

Zod and Non's stunning defeat at their moment of their perceived victory had simply ripped her second family, dysfunctional as it was, away from her. After their re-imprisonment she realized there remained only one male equal to her left on the planet — and he was already taken!

Ursa wanted what any person craves: love, affection, security, and support. And the twenty-six year old superwoman also acknowledged her needs for intimacy, companionship, and respect. She spent her nights looking for all of these. If Kal-El had been able to find happiness here with an un-powered native, she should be able to as well.

Sometimes she just wanted to be held so badly she cried for hours over the emptiness inside her. And if sex would be the fastest route to all that she yearned for, then so be it!

Now a shot in the dimly lit shadows below her, loud enough that one didn't even need her super-hearing to be startled by it, followed by shouts, running footsteps, and labored breathing caught her attention. Ursa broke out of her pattern and spiraled down to investigate.

Ursa had found other lovers in the night, which was the only time she dared go out flying. Men she'd approached discreetly, and flown to her private nest for a night — or week — of lovemaking when they'd accepted her advances before knowing her for what she is. She'd let them go again when they demanded to leave, as each had done so far, using her super-hypnosis to blur their minds to her face and location, but never the pleasure she'd given them. Her search continued.

Unknowingly, all the men she'd been attracted so far had proven to be a mix of Zod's cruel arrogance, and Non's hidden soft side. For yes, despite his brutish manner, intimidating size, and strength even by Kryptonian standards — and even more intimidating silence — Non had shown her a quiet kindness. One she would have liked to explore further, were it not for both their fears of Zod's wrath should he ever find out.

Both of these men in her life had been troubled, although she was too weak and self-conflicted to truly recognize that fact — or recognize that it meant doom for any of her own long-term hopes in the three-way relationship they'd shared. And now, even though she was physically strong and free of them forever, Ursa still searched for the only thing she understood — more troubled men.

The echoes of the shot still bounced confusingly off of the big flat warehouse walls of these otherwise deserted blocks, but Ursa arrowed down unerringly to its source. The night didn't block her own enhanced vision.

One man was down on his knees clutching his shoulder, while two others who seemed to combine the worst aspects of Zod and Non stood near him laughing.

"Did you really think we were going to deal with you," one sneered, while the other nonchalantly held the black automatic pistol that had fired one shot already, and was ready to fire sixteen more the moment the taunting ended.

"Terrell," the large man in dark clothes continued, "Don't you realize that nobody will deal with you now? We're actually doing you a favor by putting you out of our misery."

The wounded man tried to speak. Tried to plead, or deal, or bribe his way out of this situation, but he couldn't get the words out. He was already winded by his long, futile attempt at escape. There seemed nothing left in him to use for a final, desperation, Hail Mary pass.

Ursa, now a black shadow in a black sky, silently hovered a mere thirty feet above taking this all in. It was easy to understand what was happening here.

A man, more than handsome enough to her telescopic vision, had made the wrong kind of enemy. A type of enemy she knew more than well enough from her own sordid past. One that couldn't even deliver a clean kill, but instead got its pleasure out of tormenting its adversaries.

While Ursa could hardly claim the moral high ground any longer in any encounter, she knew scum when she saw it. But that handed her a dilemma.

She'd promised Kal-El both not to tamper further in this world, and to stay discrete at all times. Only that way was she allowed to remain. While it would have been satisfying to burn both thugs to a cinder before they ever knew what hit them, that was neither discrete, nor not tampering. Even to be seen and reported afterwards could become a major problem. So what to do?

Kal-El tampers, she thought to herself. He tampers every day when he takes one side against another in disputes on this world. And he's a hero!

What would he do here?

What can I do here?

Can I take that chance?

The drama below was almost played out. The last curtain about to fall. Their victim too weak to respond to their taunts any longer. That left only the coup de grace, before they moved on to torment some other unlucky soul. It was either act now, or don't act at all.

After a moment of painful consideration, Ursa started flying in tight circles as rapidly as she could. The funnel from the whirlwind she created quickly dropped down, picking up all the trash and other debris in these dirty streets and flinging it at the two attackers, who suddenly became much more concerned with protecting their faces than finishing off their victim.

Ursa dropped down the middle of her carefully aimed mini-tornado, scooped up the man, spiriting him off before the thugs could get the grit out of their eyes to see what had just happened.

As she flew away into the darkness with the moaning man cradled in her arms, she could hear the thugs shouting to each other as they tried to find their victim again. She smiled at their frustrations.

Serves them right!

Ursa's hideaway was an aerie atop a virtually un-climbable rock a few miles outside the city. While there's no such thing as un-climbable to a dedicated rock climber, Ursa had so disrupted the stone surfaces soon after she'd settled in that it was like trying to drive pitons into decomposed granite. Even dedicated climbers aren't that stupid.

Her comfortable house was quite attractive. Low wooden beam ceilings, stone fireplace and floors built with huge boulders, large windows composed of fused diamond panes, and cantilevered balconies overlooking hundreds of feet of sheer drop with no safety railings. None, of course, were needed.

Nestled under tall trees, it was almost impossible to spot from the ground, or the air. Ursa had built it herself, after spying on a famous architect who'd shelved this particular design when the client claimed it was too expensive. He never knew it had actually been built after all.