By FoxFaceStories
A Commission for Xerxes76
Since being transformed from an ordinary man to the powerful (and busty) Meteor Woman, Kara has come to love her new superheroic life. She’s in love with an investigative reporter, she’s closer with her family, she’s doing good in the world, and . . . she’s pregnant! But with all these changes on the horizon, new threats rise up. A shady real estate mogul wishes to tear apart the community she has helped protect, and she must find a way to stop him, all while dealing with an ever-growing belly!
Original Here: Meteor Woman
Post-Story Commission: Meteor Woman: The Stories After
Issue 9: Rescuing Ralph
More enemies launched into the air, visible only thanks to Kara’s superior vision and the flashes of lightning in the air. The rain poured down, the gale so harsh that it was even throwing off her flight path a little.
“What do you mean BRAIN SURGERY!?” Meteor Lass yelled over the violent din.
“She’s got an implant in her brain!” Meteor Woman explained hurriedly. “Something Blackwell did to her. Stops her from even caring about her own son.”
“You must return me to Mr Blackwell immediately,” Hope yelled. “I am his calculator! He has a greater chance of success than you!”
“Not with you out of the equation,” Meteor Woman said.
Another lightning burst, but this time it wasn’t from the sky. Meteor Woman dodged just in time as the enormous dragon villain shot forth a crackling series of forks of power, enough so that Meteor Lass’s hair raised on end as she too just managed to avoid it.
“Whoa!” her sister proclaimed. “What is he thinking? He’ll kill these two!”
“Blackwell wants them both dead rather than in our hands,” Meteor Woman said. “Her son can swap powers around. It’s how he’s been staging all these villain attacks. Now get him to safety and get the Hero Society here now!”
Meteor Lass broke off, pursued by several cybernetic villains who were riding on some kind of flight scooters. They fired red lasers into the air, and Meteor Lass returned with her own fire, but was working to shield the boy. That left Meteor Woman contending with the dragon, not to mention the acid woman again; she flew into the air, but the rain was causing her to struggle.
At least I’ve got that one thing going for me, Kara thought.
But then the acid woman roared, her skin turning to liquid entirely, and soon she was like a spirit of water itself, spreading through the rain and gathering in size and speed.
“C’mon!” the superheroine cried. She decided to go down, still gripping Hope against her. The woman was in some kind of shock, barely believing that Blackwell wanted her dead and yet continuing to spew forth chances of survival.
“Why don’t you use that implant of yours to help me guide a path for safety?” Kara yelled over the storm. Her maternity dress was flapping in the wind, trailing about her legs as she soared through the storm. “Would increase your chances of returning to Blackwell, right?”
The woman stiffened against her, then seemed to relax.
“Lower altitude!” she announced. “Increased chance of evasion. Between the trees. Avoid using laser vision. My geolocation service says there’s a log cabin on the old hike trail thirty miles from here at your two o’clock.”
“Good enough for me!”
Meteor Woman descended, causing Hope to hold tighter, though she didn’t scream - her emotions were still dulled. The dragon roared, following them, but suddenly she was down between the trees, ducking and weaving through the forest beyond the city limits, moving rapidly. Forks of lightning pounded through the canopies, and it left Meteor Woman’s baby to kick and flip about in her stomach.
“I’m sorry, little one!” she whispered beneath the din. “Mama will keep you safe. I promise. Just a little storm. Everything’s alright.”
“Left, now!” Hope announced, and Meteor Woman followed instantly. Bursting through the treeline was the water woman, now a wraith composed of liquid with multiple tendrils and tentacles bursting from her amorphous body.
“You can’t escape!” she roared.
“Weakness to superheat,” Hope said, but Kara was already way ahead of her. She focused her vision upon the centre of the woman’s mass and turned up the head, tracking her movements so the woman couldn’t escape. The liquid supervillain screamed as she literally burst into steam, her human form falling down onto the mudbank, unconscious.
Meteor Woman smirked briefly, one hand around Hope, the other holding her belly protectively. I may not be some supergenius, but even I know that water boils.
But the laser vision had gotten the dragon’s attention, and Meteor Woman only caught him thanks to her heightened hearing and the fact that her hair was rising up from the crackling electricity in the air. She shot up and punched the creature against the jaw, sending its lightning upwards in a great crackling blue display. Thinking quickly, she applied her sonic scream right down his throat, which caused the creature to roar and flap to the side awkwardly. Immediately, Hope’s implant whirred.
“Inner ear malfunction. If you use your-”
“Already on it!”
She dodged his claws and then screamed into the side of his face, causing the dragon to shriek and topple to the side, flailing and falling out of the sky. But its tail grabbed her leg, pulling her down. She wrenched herself free, but it slapped her in the back, sending her upwards. Hope was ripped from her grip, and in the storm Kara panicked.
Fuck! Where is she!?
A heartbeat - there!
She flew rapidly and managed to catch Hope right before she hit the ground far below. The woman had barely panicked, though her eyes were wide. Behind them, the dragon was rising and more enemies were on the way, including what appeared to be a man in a blue costume with a rippling cape. He appeared rather ominous - blackholes whirled about in his hands.
“Chances of success rising,” Hope said.
“How do you - ah!”
Flame Dancer was on the horizon, just as Kara had hoped. She flew up to meet the leader of the Hero Society, who had a number of others with her, including Blue Trident and Lightning Lass.
“You look like shit,” Vicki said.
“I feel it,” Meteor Woman said, grunting. “I’m way too pregnant for this shit.”
“You shouldn’t be doing any of this shit. What were you thinking? No, forget that. What’s going on?”
“Blackwell, he’s behind it all. I need you to hold off or take down his villains. He’s gonna come at me with everything.”
“Why?”
“Because I just stole his two winning pieces.”
***
The cabin was murky and dank, but that didn’t matter when Kara had X-ray vision and supersenses. She placed Hope down, who started to struggle, but she held the woman in place.
“No! Mr Blackwell made me! You can’t take away his proprietary ownership!”
“Goddamn right I can. I’m getting ya back, Hope, just you wait.”
“Your chances of success are minimal!”
“So use that fancy statistical power to guide me, eh?”
The woman seemed to weigh the odds - or the device did. Then, she nodded. The ceiling rattled - the battle raging above between Blackwell’s fake supers and the members of the Hero Society was starting to outweigh the power of the storm itself. Meteor Woman wanted to help, but she’d already put her baby in enough of harm’s way. She just hoped Alex wasn’t hurt.
She’s a tough kid, she thought. And smart. A lot smarter than you, Kara. So why are you doing the brain surgery, ya moron?
But she was running out of time. Hope’s boy Lee was in terrible danger, and so was Hope. And so was Ralph. Meteor Woman took a calm breath, steadied herself, and ignored the warring outside.
“Now tell me what I’m looking for,” she said.
Hope cringed briefly. “I will still serve Mr Blackwell,” she said. “I’m loyal.”
“Of course. Now, what am I looking for?”
“The device is positioned at my temple and extended over the frontal lobe of my cerebellum. The detonator is in a location unknown to me, but it should present as something larger, with a blasting cap. The only thing that could prevent it going off is by eliminating the wires feeding into it. You will need to be quick. Your chances are slim.”
Kara shook her head. “You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
“We studied footage of your fights. We know you.”
But Kara chuckled. “And you had no idea how much I was holding back.”
She called upon the power of the Meteor, and felt it drawn itself into her consciousness.
Help me, please, she whispered to it. Give me all the juice you’ve got.
‘To save a life?’
Of course.
‘Then take it. Know it will not last long, and cannot be given often.’
Kara felt the energy glow within her. It expanded outwards, her silver costume now radiating silver. She took a deep breath, her belly and breasts heaving, and then looked into Hope’s brain. Sure enough, there were circuits and complicated parts of the device, but she focused on the blasting cap. It had four wires. Four wires and less than a second to drill with her laser vision precisely into this woman’s brain and hit them each with no other damage.
Please, please let this work.
She focused her vision one last time, then . . .
Zap!
Zap!
Zap!
Zap!
Each of the wires were instantaneously severed in a microsecond. Kara had never felt so speedy or precise, but at the last second she gripped Hope’s head and turned it. There!
Zap!
“What was that?” Hope asked.
“There was a second, smaller detonator,” Kara said. “That asshole likes his redundancies. I bet he never told you about that second one, right?”
“I . . . ughh.”
Hope collapsed against her arms, clutching her own head. “What is . . . I feel strange. I feel . .. no, that’s impossible . . . I feel. Meteor Woman, I feel.”
The woman raised her head slowly. There were tears in her eyes. Five little dots had been sizzled into her, but she didn’t seem to care at all. The woman laughed, then cried, then took a sharp intake of breath and hugged, the hero, literally shuddering against her.
“It’s - oh God, it’s so much! It’s so much!”
Another blast from above. A dragon-like roar. Meteor Woman hoped that her friends were winning. They had to be.
“It’s okay,” she said, patting Hope’s back. “It’s okay. You don’t belong to that dickhead anymore. But listen, I need you to focus.”
“So m-much emotion! Oh God, Lee!”
“He’s safe. Meteor Lass has him. He’s safe, at least for now. But none of us will be safe until Blackwell is defeated, understand? You need to tell me where Ralph is. If I can get my husband free, we can fuck that asshole boss of yours up.” The woman wiped her tears, which flowed like waterfalls from her eyes. More rain pelted down from above, mirroring Hope’s distraught nature.
“I - I understand. Please, let me see my son afterwards.”
“Of course. Now where is Ralph?”
Hope told her, and Meteor Woman rocketed straight out the door and into the sky, where the battle raged. There were now over thirty combatants in the sky and more on the ground, and it was chaos incarnate. Flame Dancer was on the frontlines, but Kara streaked past her.
“She’s in the cabin! Get her to safety!”
“Where are you going?”
“To save my damn husband!”
***
The bunker was well hidden, located on the outskirts of the industrial area of the Narrows. Closer to the Metropole. Insultingly close, and yet utterly soundproofed and hidden beneath layers upon layers of subterranean security. Well-hidden. Well-guarded.
It was like tissue paper for the roaring superheroine. She crashed through concrete, buckled steel like it was composed of toothpicks, and sent guards flying as she descended rapidly. At every point she protected her belly, her maternity-style hero costume making her pregnant nature more than a little obvious.
Don’t worry, baby. We’re getting Daddy.
She crashed through the final safe door, one that looked like it belonged in Fort Knox. It crashed down, a guard barely managing to avoid having his foot crushed. Several superpowered minions rose in their respective costumes - one summoning cords of purple energy and the other two empowered with that same cybernetic technology - but Kara was in no mood to dance, and she’d taken them by surprise while they were playing poker.
“Wait, you can’t be h-”
She knocked one unconscious against the ground, then let loose a sonic scream that probably and literally deafened the other two, before kicking all three in a heap across the ground. They were of little concern to her - she had already heard Ralph’s heartbeat in the room. She knew it, appropriate, by heart herself, and it always skipped a beat when he saw her for the first time each day. This time was no different.
Ralph Ralph Ralph Ralph Ralph!
“Kara!” he exclaimed. He was tied to a chair, and was shirtless. He had purple welts and bruises on his upper body. The man had been beaten, and even his glasses were cracked.
Meteor Woman was instantly at his side. “Ralph! God, Ralph! What the hell have they done to you?”
“Is Dinah okay? Please tell me she’s okay.”
“Don’t worry, she’s with Ma. Oh, Ralph! I thought I might have lost you!”
She ripped his bindings apart and pulled him against her, holding him up easily in the air and smothering his lips with her own. The man kissed her back, only to wheeze a little.
“P-pain! Pain! Ow!”
She cringed, instantly setting him back to his feet. “Shit, sorry! Are you okay? Wait, lemme see.”
A quick scan with her X-ray vision showed no internal injuries or broken bones, thankfully. Just exterior bruising.
“Thank fuck,” she breathed. Her baby was doing loops in her uterus, as agitated as she was. She pulled Ralph against her again, so much more softly this time. Tears pooled at the edges of her eyes, blurring her vision.
“Ralph. God, I thought I’d lost you.”
He muffled something incoherent until she realised she was practically suffocating him in her bosom, his face pressed right up in her cleavage thanks to the way she was holding him.
“Oops, sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “After the beatings I’ve endured, some comfortable pillows are a welcome return for me.”
She giggled, still stifling her tears. “Shut up! You’re such a dog, I swear!”
He cupped her cheek, staring up at her, and wiped away some of her tears. For once, he seemed the strong one. “It’s okay, love. I’m okay. I have you. My Meteor Woman. I knew you would save me.”
“Just - just don’t always count on it! God, why did I let you take that interview? Blackwell must have known something.”
“Oh, he did. He found your listening device on me.”
Kara sagged. “This is all my fault.”
But Ralph simply held her, one hand stroking her gravid stomach, calming her and the baby both. “It’s Blackwell’s fault, nothing more.”
The reminder made Meteor Woman’s eyes glow red. “And he’s going to pay. He’s going down, Ralph. I know it.”
There was a stirring in the corner. One of the goons was getting up. His cybernetic equipment was practically annihilated by Meteor Woman’s sonic scream, and he struggled to his feet, removing his mask. Kara recognised him as a super she’d fought before, albeit with different powers.
“So . . . the secret of Meteor Woman comes out,” the man said with a smirk, wiping away some blood from the corner of his mouth. “She really is an item with Ralph Riley. Which makes you Kara Conway. Ha! Blackwell is gonna love to hear this.”
A chill ran through Kara’s body. In all her fear for Ralph, she hadn’t realised just how compromised her identity had become. Blackwell already knew who she was, but now his henchmen had further proof.
“You might want to hold off on proclaiming that to the world,” Ralph said, standing a little taller now that his strength was returning. “Blackwell is finished, and so are you. Silence is going to be a big motivator for you not to get a bigger sentence.”
“Please,” the man spat. He had a craggy face, one that had seen a lot of combat. “Blackwell plans for everything. I won’t see a day inside a cell.”
To Kara’s surprise, Ralph actually grinned. “You know, maybe you should be thinking with your brains instead of your fists, buddy. You never heard of a secret recording device?”
“We smashed yours,” the villain said. “All the evidence gone.”
“Keeping aside the fact that as soon as I was outside your boss’ Faraday Cage, I had all the recordings transmitted automatically to not one but two safe sites - sites that would release the information in a week if something happened to me - you also missed one.”
This was news to Kara. She scanned her husband with her X-ray vision again, and was shocked to notice something very, very small and quite technologically advanced in his glasses.
Holy fuck, she thought to herself. Even now, he can surprise me.
“You had a recording device put into your glasses!?” she gasped.
Ralph smirked, facing down the ruined villain. “I got some aid from Adamant and a few others in the Hero Society a while back. Always thought they might come in handy. Let’s just say you, mister, have been recorded admitting to far more than you would think for the last few days.”
The man’s smile vanished at the same time Kara’s beamed.
“That’s my sexy hubbie,” she said, before looking directly into the villain’s eyes and letting her own glow red. “Not that you ever heard that. Got it?”
The man sagged back down, the weight of everything hitting him at once.
“Shit. I don’t suppose there’s a chance I can get even more leniency if I flip on Blackwell?”
Ralph and Kara looked at one another. Her husband was still wincing in pain.
These animals. I want them to burn.
But sometimes, being a hero was about making hard choices.
“That depends,” she said, putting her hands on her maternal hips and pushing out her already large pregnant dome. “What can you give us?”
***
Kara wanted to be there for Blackwell’s arrest, and initially she wasn’t. Flame Dancer and the other heroes were victorious in their battle in the storm, though Blackwell’s mercenary forces had, apparently, been no joke. Gaia had nearly been burned to a crisp, but thankfully the nature-themed heroine had regeneration as part of her plant-like superpowers. Meteor Lass was also nursing a couple of broken ribs, which Kara and especially Sally fussed over to no end, but had gotten Lee to safety while his mother Hope was likewise flown away from Blackwell’s clutches. If the villain - a man named Taggart - that Ralph had recorded didn’t have enough on Blackwell, Hope and Lee definitely did.
But as much as Kara truly wanted to wipe that smug smirk off of Blackwell’s face, there are some things that were just far, far more important. The first of which was seeing Ralph to safety. He was quickly seen by the finest physicians the Hero Society had on offer, and Kara literally had to be ejected from the room because she kept fussing just like her mother would. Sally was there, brought in on a pretense to see her younger daughter, and Ralph and Alexis ended up in the same ward.
“I’ll seriously ruin some buildings if you don’t give them the best care you’ve got!” Kara shouted, still in her maternity hero costume.
The Night Nurse, a hero in her own right, simply sighed. “Meteor Woman, please remove yourself out to the hallway. We are trying to do what you say, but having one of the world’s most powerful superheroes marching around angrily while pregnant is going to give us all conniptions.”
Kara retreated, blushing red, to her mother. She dismissed her hero costume immediately, and sat down beside Sally wearing her maternity pyjamas, which she realised had been what she’d been wearing prior to this final fight.
“Nice style, kiddo,” Sally said, chuckling.
“Hey, I’m meant to be the snarky one, Ma. You’re the wholesome one.”
“Oh, I’d forgotten!” she said with a grin. “Perhaps I’m getting snappy in my old age.”
“You’re not old, Ma.”
“Maybe, but having two superhero girls is certainly aging me! Never thought this would be my future. They tell me Alexis will be okay, and Ralph too.”
“Same,” Kara said. “Still, I want them to do a good job.”
“Still the same old Burt,” Sally whispered. “Always looking out for your loved ones.”
“Kara now, Ma.”
“And I’m grateful for it. This is who you’re meant to be. But how are you, honey?”
“Me?”
Sally nodded. “Yes, you. You’ve been through quite a bit, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you are very pregnant, dear.”
Another red blush bloomed in Kara’s cheeks. Ma always has a way of still putting me in my place, she thought privately.
“I’m okay, Ma. I wasn’t. I was a bit lost, to be honest. But . . . I’m okay now. I think things are going to be alright.”
“Even with Blackwell still out there?”
Kara made a raspberry sound with her lips, frustrated. “The asshole fled. Russia. Non-extradition country. Fucking stereotypical. He must have seen the writing on the wall. Already pumping out info about me being Meteor Woman while cruising on his high-tech fancy-schmancy private jet.”
“Will people believe him?”
Kara shrugged. “Probably. Maybe. I don’t know. Life is about to get more interesting. I might just end up as a public hero. Thankfully, Alex will be protected, ‘cause she changes so much when she transforms. She can just be some anonymous sidekick.”
Sally took her eldest daughter’s hand. “We can handle it together,” she said. “Besides, I don’t mind a bit of celebrity!”
Kara snorted. “Thanks Ma. Look, I haven’t fully absorbed it or whatever. I don’t know, I’m just some working class crim that got turned into a lady hero. What do I know about how these things work? But . . . I got a feeling it’ll turn out alright.”
Sally patted her hand. “Then we’re all going to be okay,” she said. “Because you take care of us, just like I said. And soon you’ll be taking care of this little one.”
Kara hugged her large belly. Her child was asleep, but she almost wanted her to wake and stir again. The feeling was magical at times. “Yeah,” she said. “Who’da thunk it, huh? Me as a ma?”
“I always knew you’d be a great parent,” Sally said. “That’s what matters. And a loving mother makes all the difference in the world.”
Kara sniffed back some tears as she beheld her own mother. “That’s damn right, ma. Ya got it damn right.”
At that very moment, she heard a familiar voice down the halls. An excited voice. A voice filled with tears. She stood, then floated a little, despite her awareness of how ridiculous-looking a flying pregnant woman was. “Hold on, Ma,” she said. “I’ve got to see something.”
She summoned her hero costume again, aware that not everyone here knew her identity. Quickly, the superheroine flew down the hall and dodged a nurse, apologising as she went for scaring her. Kara pulled to a stop at the edge of the next ward hall, and something in her heart melted in the best possible way. Hope was there, scratched and injured, but otherwise okay. She had practically leapt from her bed, and was sobbing in great heaving motions of her shoulders as she held her son Lee, who was likewise tearing up.
“Mom!” he exclaimed. “Mom, it’s you! You’re really back! It’s you this time!”
Hope held her son’s face. “It’s me, Lee. It’s me again. And I promise, I’m never going away again.”
Kara smiled, not remotely daring to intrude as she watched this perfect reunion. She caressed her stomach, and sure enough, there was indeed a sleeping stir within her womb.
Damn, that really is magical, she thought.
To Be Concluded . . .