Sharon Rogers was currently leading a team consisting of Ava Ayala, Angela del Toro, Kitty Pryde, and Alison Blaire to assault one of the Hand's headquarters. There were other teams operating simultaneously as well. Donna had gone after another base alongside Matt Murdock—better known as Daredevil—and Elektra.
After a considerable amount of convincing from Matt, Elektra had finally agreed to help. Her situation had always been complicated. She didn't particularly enjoy working for the Hand, but betrayal came with consequences. The organization had a habit of hunting down defectors to the ends of the Earth and beyond. Fortunately, Donna had demonstrated enough of her abilities to convince Elektra that survival was no longer an impossible prospect.
Not that it mattered much in the grand scheme of things.
Elektra had provided the locations of several Hand facilities, but Cortana had already known about most of them anyway.
The final team consisted of only Lex and Kara, the newest addition to the group. According to Donna, Kara was absurdly powerful.
Not that Sharon was worried.
With Lex involved, lack of firepower was rarely a concern these days.
Honestly, Sharon still found the rate at which Lex was growing stronger somewhat ridiculous. Just the other day, during training, a clash between him and Donna had produced an actual earthquake. Donna herself was terrifyingly powerful, but that wasn't particularly surprising. Donna had arrived in this world already powerful.
Lex was different.
Sharon had watched him grow.
There had been a time when she genuinely believed she could take him down with sufficient preparation.
Now?
Now the thought felt almost laughable.
That wasn't because she had remained stagnant either. Her own improvements had been absurd by any reasonable standard. She could throw cars across parking lots without much effort and, after amplifying herself, became even stronger.
The problem was that Lex's growth somehow managed to outpace everyone else's.
Against most opponents, Assault Quirk alone made Sharon a nightmare to fight. Against Lex, she could barely land a hit. The Force constantly surrounded him like an invisible fortress, redirecting attacks before they ever reached him.
If Sharon was being honest with herself, she was probably the weakest member among Lex and his summons if raw power was the only thing being measured.
Strangely enough, she didn't mind.
Somebody had to lead.
Somebody had to organize.
If power alone determined leadership, Kara would probably be running every operation already.
Instead, Sharon still found herself dividing teams, assigning targets, and coordinating missions. Granted, most of those decisions were based on the information Cortana provided, making it more of a partnership than anything else, but she still enjoyed it.
It felt normal.
Going on missions with an actual team again felt normal.
Having people around felt normal.
And ever since what happened between her and Lex, Sharon had been feeling surprisingly good.
The mission probably wouldn't take all night either.
Which meant she could head back afterward and spend the rest of the evening with Lex.
Almost immediately her thoughts took another step.
And probably have sex with him.
Sharon groaned.
For perhaps the hundredth time this week.
She had been thinking about sex far too much recently.
It wasn't because she had suddenly become some hormonal teenager. If anything, she'd gone years in the apocalypse without caring much about that sort of thing.
No.
This was entirely Lex's fault.
The man was annoyingly good at it.
Absurdly good.
Unreasonably good.
Good enough that Sharon was beginning to suspect it should count as some sort of superpower.
At this point she had started actively thinking about ways to gain the upper hand, but every attempt ended the same way. Somehow Lex always seemed to know exactly what she was about to do before she did it herself.
Honestly, it was becoming a challenge.
Which naturally led Sharon's brain toward a possible solution.
A second girl.
The moment there were two women involved, Lex would have twice as much work to do and would hopefully start behaving like a normal human being instead of whatever the hell he currently was.
The idea didn't bother her nearly as much as it probably should have.
Then again, Sharon had never been particularly conservative when it came to relationships. Decades of missions, heroes, soldiers, spies, and end-of-the-world scenarios had long since beaten most traditional expectations out of her.
Hell, a threesome wasn't even the most unusual thing she'd participated in.
There had been that foursome years ago after a mission involving Luna, Ami, Pearl, and herself.
Sharon blinked.
Then sighed.
Somehow she was thinking about sex again.
Determined to redirect her thoughts, she glanced toward the rest of the team.
Unfortunately, that wasn't much better.
Ava immediately came into view.
Which reminded Sharon that she'd once hooked up with Ava as well.
Well, not this Ava.
The Ava from her world.
That had been more of a friends-with-benefits arrangement than anything serious.
Still...
Maybe Ava would—
No.
Absolutely not.
Ava was what, nineteen?
Then again, Lex wasn't exactly old either.
Actually...
How old was Lex?
He looked twenty-two. Maybe twenty-three.
But he could shapeshift.
For all Sharon knew, he could be older.
Or younger.
Or neither.
Nope.
Sharon, stop.
You're driving.
That realization finally dragged her thoughts back to the present.
And what a vehicle she was driving.
Since both Lex and Kara could fly, they had naturally traveled to their target that way. Donna's team was handling the closest base to New York and therefore hadn't needed special transportation.
Which left Sharon as the lucky person who got to field-test Brise.
Technically everyone had already taken the vehicle for a spin at least once, with the exception of Kara, but using it during an actual mission was an entirely different experience.
The machine practically purred beneath her control.
She could feel the power hidden inside it.
The weapons systems alone were enough to make the twelve-year-old version of herself cry tears of joy.
In fact, she had briefly considered deploying some of them.
Then she remembered this particular facility doubled as one of the Hand's kidnapping centers.
Meaning there were innocent people inside.
With a disappointed sigh, Sharon reluctantly abandoned the idea.
Still...
Once they finished rescuing everyone, she definitely wanted to find an empty field somewhere and see what this bad girl could really do.
Ava and Angela naturally ended up working together. The two White Tigers had years of experience fighting alongside one another and understood each other's movements almost instinctively. That was why Sharon had sent them through the rear entrance while she and Alison created a distraction from the front.
Kitty was technically operating independently as well.
While Sharon had been training both Kitty and Alison whenever possible, neither of them could be considered experienced fighters yet. They were improving, certainly, but not everyone was Lex. Normal people required time to learn.
Fortunately, Kitty's powers made her incredibly difficult to hurt in the first place. As long as she remembered to stay calm, phasing solved most problems.
Alison was another matter entirely.
Alison could fight.
Alison could absolutely destroy most ordinary opponents.
Alison also had a tendency to get distracted, panic, overcommit, or occasionally do all three simultaneously.
Which was why Sharon was keeping an eye on her.
Thankfully, Hand ninjas weren't particularly threatening by Sharon's current standards. There had been a time when she would've treated an entire Hand compound with caution.
Now?
Now she was honestly more worried about Alison accidentally blowing a hole through a wall than she was about the Hand itself.
The operation proceeded almost exactly according to plan.
Kitty phased into the facility ahead of everyone else and immediately started creating chaos from within. Security systems began malfunctioning, lights flickered, alarms activated in random sections of the building, and confused ninjas started running in every direction trying to determine what was happening.
At the same time, Sharon came through the front entrance like a battering ram.
Ninjas flew.
Walls cracked.
Doors stopped being doors.
Meanwhile Alison stood behind her, using the sounds of combat to fuel her powers. Bursts of light and energy flashed through the corridors as she blasted down enemies trying to regroup.
Somewhere deeper inside the facility, Ava and Angela were already moving toward the prisoners.
Sharon allowed herself a small smile.
For once, things were actually going smoothly.
Similar to Sharon's group, Lex and Kara weren't exactly facing any difficulties with their mission.
Well, other than Lex insisting on turning the trip there into a training exercise.
Since obtaining the Darth Vader template, he had become determined to properly learn how to fly using the Force. Not because he needed it—he could already fly perfectly well using Telekinesis—but because he wanted to further digest the template and make the abilities truly his own.
Unfortunately, the Force proved far more difficult to use for flight.
Telekinesis was straightforward. You moved yourself from one place to another.
The Force was... broader.
Less direct.
More connected.
Flying with it felt less like lifting himself and more like convincing the universe that he should be somewhere else.
The result was significantly slower travel.
Not because Lex couldn't process flying. Thanks to Essence of Transcendent Self, handling three-dimensional movement wasn't difficult at all. The problem was control. Every adjustment affected the world around him as well, forcing him to constantly refine how much Force he used and where he used it.
“You know,” Kara complained for what was probably the tenth time, “if you stopped experimenting and just flew normally, we'd probably have already finished the mission and been back home by now.”
Lex glanced at her.
“No way.”
Kara stared.
“No way?”
“Even if I switched to Telekinesis, I'm still nowhere near that fast.”
“Please. At least pretend to have confidence.”
“I'm serious. If you want us back home already, you'd probably have to do the mission yourself.”
“No thank you.” Kara immediately shook her head. “You promised you'd handle everything and only asked me to watch your back. I'm not doing your work for you.”
“Fair.”
“Though...” A mischievous smile appeared on her face as she spread her arms wide. “I wouldn't mind getting you there faster.”
Lex immediately recognized that look.
“What are you planning?”
“Nothing complicated.” Kara grinned. “Come on. Give me a hug. Before you know it, we'll be there.”
Lex narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
“How fast are you exactly?”
Kara blinked.
Then actually seemed to think about it.
“...I don't know.”
“You don't know?”
“Nope.”
“You've never checked?”
“Why would I?”
Lex opened his mouth.
Then closed it again.
Fair point.
“I can probably fly around the Earth in under a minute though.”
Lex paused.
That sounded absurd.
<Approximately 0.2% the speed of light.>
Raphael helpfully supplied.
The moment Raphael finished speaking, Lex immediately abandoned all dignity and flew straight into Kara's arms.
The sudden enthusiasm visibly surprised her.
“Wow. Not even pretending to hesitate?”
“Nope.” Lex wrapped his arms around her. “I absolutely want to know what that feels like.”
Kara laughed.
“At least you're honest.”
A faint field of energy formed around him as she pulled him closer and concentrated.
Then they moved.
The world vanished.
Not because Lex couldn't perceive it, but because everything around him transformed into streaks of color and motion. Mountains, forests, rivers, roads—everything blurred together into an endless stream beneath them. Had Raphael not enhanced his perception, he doubted he would've been able to appreciate any of it.
A few moments later, Kara slowed to a stop above the Hand base.
Lex floated there silently.
Then looked down.
Then looked back at Kara.
“That was amazing.”
Kara looked entirely too pleased with that reaction.
<Estimated speed: 0.34% the speed of light.>
Raphael calmly announced.
Lex immediately decided that mastering Force Flight remained an important goal.
Getting carried by Kara, however, was also a perfectly valid transportation method.