(PG) Just Getting Started

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Flying through the skies was none other than The Golden Avenger himself Tony Stark aka Iron Man. One of the earth’s mightiest heroes No, the man wasn’t alone but with some brand new weapons that he and scientists of STAR labs have created in his armor. Stark and the scientists have dome some of there homework and found out the weakness to these Doomsday clones. He knew that the armor suits, the ones Tony has isn’t strong enough to take on the clones so they needed some adjusting. Once they were all put in, they did some testing and worked perfectly so this was time to really finish the job and take back the world from the Doomsday Clones. For Tony Stark, failing wasn’t an option but this time he WILL get the job done and avenge the fall heroes

Tony Stark was coming alone on this one but knew he had to get the other surviving heroes to take on the clones. The other heroes were at the underground base of the Avengers... As Iron Man flies across the skies he see’s the city of Metropolis and the Doomsday Clones already starting it’s attack. “JARVIS, give me the rundown on these things” he said as the computer calculates went off in front of Iron Man seeing all the statistics of the Doomsday Clones. “Sir, these clones are very strong but with the updated Armor, you are strong enough against them” said JARVIS. “True…but I am not the only one…those clones don’t know who they are dealing with” Tony told JARVIS as he found a spot to land on in the city.

He saw people running past him before seeing the clones of Doomsday and they turned looking at Tony. Iron Man smirked at them. “Sir, I am detecting someone else coming” ” JARVIS said before looking up at the skies seeing someone familiar.

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Tony's sensors might've picked her up, but she's moving faster than most modern instruments can detect, not an object that small at least. Moving at nearly mach III she races through the city straight at him. A violent contrail of dust and debris kicked up in her wake, cars flipping away by the sheer force of her passing, windows shattering and walls crumbling. She slows down enough that the force of impact wont kill tony on contact to grab him and snatch him away from the scene, but she immediately kicks back up.

Powergirl's strength is titanic in comparison to the Hulk Buster suit. He's sporting about a third of her strength in that goliath of engineering and technological mastery, so for awhile Ironman is simply on for the ride and nothing else.

Some where in the wastes of western Texas where nothing but flat rocks, dry grass and cactus are there for company, she stops. The stop isn't abrupt but it is fairly violent. She hurls Iron Man at the ground and then curls her trajectory up into the sky and doubles back. At first thought it almost looks like she's coming around to slam into him, but she slows her speed significantly, and is completely stopped by the time she gets back around to Iron Man. Of course his suit would've easily allowed him to prevent himself from being thrown against the ground like a rag doll.

"I know you're a raging alcoholic Tony, but you aren't stupid. Unless you hit your damn head while I was away and became a god damn idiot lunatic, are you insane? Metropolis has the highest concentration of those damn things in this entire continent! You wanna go in there and start trouble? Where the hell is your lab, your other suits. I'll wreck them and this one to save you're pretty boy ass from getting kicked across the country and killed."

Power Girl is rigid, cold and down right brutal. Back before the clones took over, before Power Girl died, she was gentle, funny, a bit on the biting sarcastic side, but not entirely uncaring. She had spirit and innocence about her, she was friendly and completely willing to help any one who asked for it.

She lived in New York City, and ran a company called Starrware Labs, where they developed consumer technology on the bleeding edge. Sometimes they sold the patents for what they developed to good human centric companies, other times they donated them to the industry to allow better technology to circulate for free. Either way, it was clear that her company was first in the business of improving the human condition and second in the business of tech and third in the business of making profit. Power Girl herself was Karen Starr, the CEO and made less than some of her employees.

It's entirely likely that Karen Starr and Tony Stark crossed paths on more than one occasion, both as CEO's of their companies and as Power Girl and Iron Man. The home of the Avengers was in New York City and it would be impossible for Power Girl to call that city her home and not run into The Avengers or Spider-man or the Fantastic Four and so on.

The way she is acting now is very alarming how ever. But then again, the entire world thinks Power Girl is dead. She went with a bunch of other heroes into a frontal assault and attacked the clones at ground zero where they started and after killing a dozen or so of them, they finally took her down. She was a bloody mess of lacerations and broken bones, she was missing one of her arms and eyes, fingers and several teeth. Pretty much everybody had counted her among the dead at the end of that defeat. But Spiral found her, and resurrected her as a cyborg. She's better than ever now, but her personality did not survive the resurrection in tact. Then again, everybody is a little bit darker as a result of the end of the world.

JARVIS will likely alert Tony to what Power Girl is doing next. JARVIS will be able to detect the powerful signals being transmitted from within Power Girl's body. It would be impossible for Tony's suit to not pick up on the fact that Power girl is now 40% synthetic, but the technology working in her body, pumping blood for her heart and thinking for half her brain, is foreign to Tony. It's unlike anything he's ever seen. It's down right science fiction stuff based on his readings. The fact is, Spiral had used some really powerful Magic to take Power Girl into the future to use tech from a distant time to fix her, then brought her back to help fix this world. It's more advanced than anything her Body Shoppe has ever produced, and much more advanced than anything Tony's ever seen.

She's currently hacking into Tony's suit and shutting down it's more lethal systems, she wont power it down incase she needs his help killing any Doomsday Clones that might've followed them here, but she doesn't want him fighting her.

Of Course Iron Man's suit is probably the most technologically advanced thing on this planet behind Mr. Terrific's T-Spheres. So even though Power Girl's Artificial Intelligence Cyber Warfare applications are far advanced of anything available in this time, it's still having a tough time hacking Tony's suit. JARVIS is trying as hard as he can no doubt, but he'd be aware it's a losing battle.

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Just as Tony was about to look up, out of no where he felt someone or something picking him up. “What the!?” Tony asked himself as he look up at someone holding him as they were flying in the sky. “JARVIS, who is it…that’s holding me?” Tony asked JARVIS and he was trying to get away from whomever it is doing this. “Sir, what is holding you is a woman who is very strong but isn’t like the Doomsday clones you were about to face. Just as you were about to attack, she took you away from the battle field” JARVIS told him as Tony started to smile a little bit. “A woman you say huh? Is she a tough blonde?” he asked in a sarcastic tone of his. Tony sometimes loved being the center of attention which is where the ladies loved him. The charm, the cockyness of Tony if what got him here too, not just Stark Industries, or even Iron Man. “Is that a really serious question sir?” JARVIS asked as Tony sighed before he felt himself being dropped but Tony landed safely on ground. As he looked around he could see the surroundings of Texas in the wastes of it. He then saw the one who caught him landed, a woman in a cap and her attire. Tony looked at the woman’s face and gasped a bit.

“Is that….?” he asked and pondered a bit. “Yes….that is Karen Starr. She is also known as Kara Zor-L, who has many aliases sir but she’s most know as Power Girl” JARVIS answered for Tony as he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Suddenly Tony could hear all these strange sounds in his armor suit. “JARIVS, what’s going on now?” he asked. “Sir, Power Girl is trying her best to hack into the armor suit you are wearing” JARVIS told him as Iron Man aka Tony Stark raised his arms. “JARVIS, take off my helmet so Karen can see me please” he instructed JARVIS as Tony’s helmet opened with Tony sighing. Before he could even say anything PG was basically ripping Tony a new one, calling him out on what he was about to do. Tony heard the coldness coming from her voice but Tony still has his arms up. “Ok Karen…it’s me Tony. Maybe you should chillax for sec there and for your information I wasn’t going to do this alone. I have other heroes coming and are on the way. Now am I insane? No I am not, actually it’s being smart. Also I am on no alcohol….I am just one sober man” he explained. “I take it you’ve come to help me then?” Tony asked, getting straight down to business but at the same time it was good to see Karen. At the same time though JARVIS picked up something to tell that Karen was different.

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Karen continues to employ her cyber warfare applications to shut the hulk buster armor down. There's a certain point though, when it becomes her intellect versus tony's, since his conscious is basically interwoven into the suits systems. Good thing part of Powergirl's mind is now a hyper advanced artificial intelligence, this effectively makes her smarter than he is, if you want to get down to number crunching and effective knowledge, of course it's all debatable, a lot of Tony's mind is probably artificially powered these days too.

"If you have swindled other people into accompanying you to slaughter, I demand you contact them by communicator and give them the order to fall back."

Powergirl moves forward like greased lightning and puts her fist through the outer hull of the hulkbuster armor. With the new hole she just punched she lifts Tony up and gets in his face, he can likely smell her breath, it smells...mechanical.

"Fucking Do it Tony, I'm not playing with you. I will just kill you, hack your plebeian clock work brain for the names and go and save them myself. This isn't a game and you CANT win. I refuse to allow your reckless ambition get people killed!"

That may very well be the first time Karen has -ever- dropped the F bomb, but judging by the way her eyes are starting to spark with little electric blue sparks of lightning and how determined she looks, it's easy to see how serious she is.

But there is more going on here than just pure righteousness. Power girl is deathly afraid of the doomsday clones, they killed her after all. they killed her friends, they killed superman. She has plenty of reason to be hysterically terrified of them.


Additionally, by this point, many of the hulk busters systems are shut down, and Karen is steadily working her way into the Core Iron Man systems.

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Hearing Karen’s demands, Tony feels her punching the outer hill of the armor. Well there’s go more repairs to work on, he said to himself before looking at Karen in the eyes. He saw something out of the ordinary and strange coming from her, which is electric blue sparks coming from her eyes. “Karen….listen to me. I don’t come to you as the enemy but as your friend. I’m not that same person I was….years ago. I’ve changed since the last time we…..met. Please Karen….put me down so we can just…..talk about this….I’ll send my people away if you put me down, please” I said to her, almost begging Karen to do it. Suddenly out of no where, something pulls me off of Karen and flies me over to a different direction away from Karen. Looking up…..it’s War Machine in the same iron, aka James Rhodes, my good friend and colleague.

He puts me down slowly and carefully before I get up and look at him. “Glad to see me partner?” he asked as Tony shakes his head but suddenly he turns to Karen. His gatling guns start coming out of his arms and shoulders. My eyes were wide sigh frustrated before speaking. “James stop!” I told him but he was ignoring me still looking at Karen. “You….who are you?!” he asked her loudly, demanding answers as Tony got in the way. “Rhodes listen to me. Put down your gatlin guns right now, she’s not the enemy!” Tony tells him as James looks confused. “How can we tell she’s not the enemy? She just put a hole through your armor Tony!” James said to Tony and Tony looked back Karen. “She’s Power Girl, Superman’s cousin. She’s on our side” he said and James was shocked. The look on Tony’s face was true, he wasn’t lying at all.

James putted away his gatlin guns. “So what now?” he asked his best friend Tony. “Let me do the talking” he told James the facing Karen he took a deep breath. “Karen, listen to me, were not here to hurt you, we are your friends. If you don’t want us to go after the doomsday clones then we’ll just leave…but lets just talk” he told her. “Please?”

OOC: Posted Tony with WarMachine. PG gave me permission to do this

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Powergirl would've heard War Machine coming from miles and miles away, her various cybernetic sensors would've identified and sized him up before he was even visible to the naked eye. She lets go of Tony when War Machine races past them, not because of some sense of defeat, but because of a doubt in her heart.

She just threatened her friends life. Her friend! A man she used to go to lunch with, talk with, play video games with and work with. Tony freakin stark, a hero, a legend. Sure he's had his moments in the grey, but He's a great man and she just threatened to end his life! The fact is, she's shocked herself just now and she finds herself racing rampantly to think of what to do now, where to go in this exchange.

As Tony and James discuss with one another the course of action, Power Girl just floats there staring at the ground, her hand still out, fingers open, she hasn't moved from the possition she was in when War Machine snatched Iron Man from her. When the two finally address her, She looks over at them with a confused look on her face.

"I'm not worried about either of you hurting me, I'm worried about you kicking the hornets nest that is Metropolis. There are small villages of people living outside of metropolis and they and you will all die if you charge in there trying to prove something."

Power girl flies over to them and lands, then she punches James right in the face. She pulls the majority of her strength though, it'll be jarring, and he'll probably have to take a step back, but his head will still be on his shoulders and he wont be the next state over, and that's what's important right.

"And don't ever treat me like I'm the villain again. I've done more in a day for this world than you have in your entire career, James Rhodes."

Her eyes half lid and she puts her hand to her forehead, the stern conviction that she was speaking with earlier is gone, now it's replaced with doubt and uncertainty. Like she's coasting on the fuel of chaos and she isn't sure if what she's doing, how she's acting is right.

"None of it maters, we've...we've got to stay focused...the point is...people will die if you don't call off your attack. So call it off!!"

She's floundering, struggling to stay focused, she's very clearly not in her right mind, but her heart is at least in the right place. She doesn't want people getting hurt, unfortunately, she's clearly willing to do what ever it takes to prevent that...including hurt people. The logic of insanity is sometimes not logic at all though.

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When PG hit James in the face, the Wart Machine felt back a little bit. “Ouch! What was that for!?” he asked her but listened to Power Girl speak and she wasn’t the best mood. She did make a couple of good pointers but all he was doing was protecting his best friend. Tony chuckled a bit before whispering to Rhodes. “You got owned by a woman due” he said as James nudged Tony. “Shut up” he whispered back, almost feeling a bit humiliating but understood where she was coming from on this. Tony looked at Karen and smiled a bit at her. “Look Karen, it’s alright. It was just going to be the two of us. We were going to use the new armor we used and use it as testing. Then we were going to take the clones out of the town to a place where there was no one…but….we won’t do it…for you” he told her as he smiled at her.

“We are?” James asked but Tony sighed and gave James a look and Rhodes quickly nodded his head. “Oh yeah….we won’t fight them today” he said and nodded his head again quickly. Tony chuckled a bit before getting serious and looking back at Karen. “You know since the Doomsday clones attacked, the avengers and others have been underground. Were recruiting some heroes to join us” Iron Man explained her. “Superheroes are still missing out there but people are coming to join us and others” he told Karen. “So.. how have you been…lately?” he asked his friend but knew the answer to that. She probably been through hell the past few days or even years. How she even became what she is now, is a mystery? Tony would always be there for her in a heartbeat no matter what.

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Karen stares at Rhodes while he complains and tony picks on him. The old Karen would've probably giggled, but this one is just annoyed. In fact both of them just piss Karen off, she's annoyed now, standing here, looking at them. They're like some one elses kids that she feels some sense of hallow societal obligation to take care of. If it weren't for implied or assumed judging eyes she'd let them burn themselves alive or get run over by a car or some other horrible thing, but instead she takes care of them, not because she wants to, but because of some third party obligation not her own.

"I'm terrible, I died and was brought back to life, I'm now suffering from disassociate fugue, paranoid delusions with psychotic features and manic depression. So that said, I don't want anything to do with your little club house of super heroes, you tell them that all of you need to stay the hell away from me, and stay away from the clones. they will kill you. I can take you apart tony, your toys are as effective as tin cans against me and it takes fifteen clones to kill me. There are over a hundred in the city you were just about to march on. I won't be there to save you again."

Of course it's all empty, she'll feel guilty about it, right now she's just agitated and angry for no good reason, she wants to hit something, to break something, she's having trouble telling right from wrong and if it weren't for her will power, she'd probably have already killed Tony. Why? Because she can. Which isn't a very good reason at all, but well, Power Girl is insane.

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As she was done talking Tony heard James clearing his voice. “Rhodes just shut up” Tony said to his best friend and now wouldn’t be a good time to bad mouth Karen because if he did, it would be over. “No Tony. I’m going to say this to her. Karen…with all due respect….who are you to tell us what to do?” he said and asked Karen. “All we were trying to do was to take the clones away from metropolis and take them to a deserted island to fight them with THIS new armor” he said pointing to his and to Tony’s and Tony just wished he would shut up about now. “I’m not finished yet” he told Tony and Karen. “Guys like Tony and I aren’t just going to sit back and watch those clones take over the world. We fight as one until the battle is done Karen. Now yes there are plenty of them but Tony and I aren’t the other ones, there are other heroes in this too. If you don’t wanna join our little ‘club’ as you call it, fine, Tony and I understand. No hard feelings” Rhodes told Karen straight to her and not backing down. “Also for your information, I have been fighting on the battle lines in the army….fighting for my country so I’ve been doing a lot in my time for years..with all due respect” he told her.

“Are you done?” Tony asked. “Yes I am done, I’m gonna be over there briefing the other Avengers to let them know. I’ll be watching you and Karen….just to make sure nothing….bad happens again. Nice seeing you Karen and take care” James told Tony before flashing Karen a smile before walking over to another spot to brief the other avengers. Tony sighed before looking at Karen. “I’m…I’m sorry about that Karen. Rhodey sometimes has too of a big mouth than I do at times” he said as he chuckled a bit before remaining serious. “But listen Karen, listening to what you’ve been through….it sucks. The state at what you’re at right now is hard, though it does take time to adapt. I mean right now I know you’re not in a good mood in this point but deep down inside you’re a good person. You’ve been thought hell but as time goes by you’ll get through it and I will be there for you” he said to her. “And I mean it. I mean you’re not only a good friend and business partner but you’re like a sister to me Karen” he told Power Girl. “You may think I am bluffing but it is true. That’s how I feel and if you ever need anything, you know that I am here for you” he said and meant every word of it because Karen is like the sister Tony never had.

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Hearing rhodes really set her off. It's a good thing Tony came in behind with what he said, because Karen may very well have killed Rhodes after that little speech. What a ridiculous thing to say, 'who are you...' she's god damn Powergirl and currently one the strongest beings in the known universe. She could pretty much tell just about anybody what to do and get away with it.

But then Tony had to show his tender side. It doesnt' come out often and he's usually really bad at it, which right now, he's coming on way to thick. If this were a cheese romance film, that line he just fed Karen would've been the one to sink the ship, as they say.

But it worked, Karen got it. Tears suddenly come to her eyes and she chokes up, she touches her face and looks away from Tony. The electric blue arcs of lightning pulsing around her eyes dies away and she puts one of her blue gloved hands to her eyes and rubs them gently with index and thumb.

"Thank you Tony..."

She starts off with a crack in her voice, she looks back at Tony, she has these tiny little tears trickling her cheeks.

"You don't need to apologize for Rhody he's just looking out for his friend. I'm the one who should apologize, I'm being a real bitch right now, and it's not right. It's not me. Something in my head is broken and it's taking all I got to fight it. I'm not the woman I used to be, almost half of me isn't even alive any more, it's machine, just like you. Except I didn't do it to myself, it was done to me. I died that day the justice league took on the doomsday clones. You remember? I hope I was the only one, but I doubt I was...Spiral found me, i guess barely alive after the battle, and took me into the future. Used some kind of incredibly advanced tech to put me back together and now half my brain is a damn computer. It's really screwing with my emotions, my perception of reality. Not sure if she did it on purpose or not...I'm...I'm back with my wife, Sakkara, Aka Purgatori, not sure if I ever introduced you to her while she was Purgatori, but I'm sure you remember Sakkara. You were at our wedding, I think...Any ways, it's best if you just stay away from me while I'm like this...I don't want to snap and accidentally kill you."

She lifts into the air, tears streaming down her face, she sniffles gently and wraps her arms around herself. This is the worst state she's ever been in, it's easily a thousand times worse than the time the Psycho Pirate destroyed her mind with his illusions.

She uses her abilities to hack Iron man and War Machines suits to shut them down temporarily by rerouting power into dead ends, effectively paralyzing them.

"Don't come after me, Stay away from me, and I beg you, do not attack the clones unless you have every hero and villain on this earth on your side. Good bye."

Her voice sounded grave, wounded, sad, no...depressed. because she is, she's extremely depressed, she's hurting and is very sick and there is no cure. She's insane, and no one can fix it.

She leaves as fast as she came, when she takes off, she kicks up a dust cloud and in an instant she's slicing through the air across the sky at well over Mach III. Shortly after she leaves and is long out of sight and off their sensors, both War Machine and Iron Man's suits will come back online.

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As Karen fly off into the sky Tony wanted to help her friend but maybe it was best for him and the others to stay away. Tony didn't care if others wanted to stay away from her or not, this was Tony's bestie were talking about. The one who's like a sister to him and what happend today very well could of hurted both Tony and Rhodes. Why was Karen acting this way and why did Spiral changed her. Tony would never give up on Karen and will always be there for her wheather she liked it or not.

Once there suits were back up and running, Tony and Rhodes left the scene heading back to the Avengers underground base. Arriving there Rhodes went off to check up on the other heroes as Tony went to his room to take a break and just rest. He though is still thinking about Karen and knew she needed help so immediately after his rest, Tony went to the control room of the base and started working on where Karen was living these days. He knew she wasn't alone and living with her wife so maybe she knew what was going on.

OOC: I didnt know if we were done with our thread so I just posted anyway lol