Kryptonian Heritage – Chapter 2
By MagnusMagneto
Commissioned by Cerebus873
6.) The next day
Bruce Wayne was studying in his living room, book in hand. Normally he would be elsewhere in the manor, but he wanted to be nearby when Kara awoke from her slumber. At around 1 PM, the Kryptonian woke up and stumbled into the living room.
“Morning Kara.” Bruce greeted.
If someone had told Bruce Wayne that the girl in front of him was Supergirl, he’d know because he’s Batman; but any layman would’ve laughed at the prospect. The girl was a hot mess. Her hair was an unkempt mess, her eyes crusted, and she looked mentally shell-shocked. One of the lesser known traits of being super powered was Kara never needed to bother tending to her hair, it was supernaturally perfect – but that was no longer the case.
“Good… morning.” She said, dragging her feet towards him, into the light. For a brief moment she expected the sun’s rays to begin empowering her. A second later she was painfully reminded that wasn’t about to happen. She was stuck without her powers. She glanced down and something caught her attention: “B-b-bruce….” Kara sputtered, physically terrified.
“Yes Kara?” he replied, interestingly enough not taking the time to correct her for referring to him by his real name.
“I… what the… what is this?” she asked, grabbing onto a small collection of flab on her midsection.
“That would be fat.” he responded bluntly before getting up and moving over towards her to get a better look at what she was talking about.
“But… how? Did I gain weight overnight?” Kara pouted, staring dejectedly at the tiny pouch of excess weight.
“Not sure. Let’s take a look.” Bruce reached over and grabbed onto the flab, an assertive move that caught the girl off-guard. He continued to explore her form at his will, poking her fairly soft midsection before moving his hands up to squeeze her arms. “Your arms have also lost their conditioning.”
“I wasn’t like this when I was unpowered on my homeworld… shouldn’t I be stronger than the average woman here from growing up with higher gravity?”
Bruce stroked his chin before coming to a conclusion. “We’d have to run more tests to be entirely sure, but my Ph. D level knowledge of biology, medicine, and physics all lead me to believe that your body actually adapted to your powers. That is to say, it became soft and untrained due to the effects of the yellow sun radiation on your cells.”
“But I was… fit.”
Bruce nodded. “Yes. However, that was due to the telekinetic fields your body was exuding.”
Kara tilted her head, she clearly wasn’t following along with what the billionaire was implying.
Bruce spoke again: “Do you… really not understand how your powers work?”
“Uhh…” Kara felt embarrassed.
Batman chuckled. “Your ability to lift things doesn’t actually come from your muscles. Even if a man or woman the size of Clark or yourself were to possess cells 1000 times more efficient than their baseline, they wouldn’t be as strong as you. It’s beyond the scope of reality for muscles, regardless of makeup, to be that efficient. Instead, you are creating a telekenetic field that you exert on objects by touching them. This is why you can lift a mountain or building overhead without the entire structure crumbling from weight distribution.”
The woman from Krypton’s mouth was half-dropped from this detailed breakdown of her abilities that she herself was unaware of. “How did you…”
“I’m Batman.” he announced with a smug smirk. “It would be pretty foolish for me to NOT understand how you and your cousin function.”
“So… what does this mean for me now?”
“Well, for starters you may want to consider wearing a bra.”
“A what?” Kara asked out loud. “Oh wait… those things that I sometimes see underneath woman’s clothing covering their breasts?”
“Yes.”
“Why would I?-” Kara interrupted herself before glancing down at her chest and audibly gasping. The twin globes of femininity that had stayed perfectly pert since puberty were now drooping downward. Her face turned flush red, and she crossed her arms, placing them beneath her bosom to push it upward. “I… I think I’m going to need new clothing.”
Bruce nodded before speaking again: “To better answer your earlier question, the yellow sun radiation was empowering your entire body. It enlarged your muscle cells slightly while tucking in any body fat, giving you the flawless image you had. Without the telekinetic field coating your body, and without the slightly enlarged muscle cells… well, this is what you’d look like as a regular human woman, as it appears your Kryptonian conditioning from higher gravity has been lost over the years.”
Kara sniffed deeply, not out of sadness, but because she was picking up a scent – a task that wasn’t immediate without her powers. The scent was… her, but not in a good way. “I need to shower too.” A drop of sweat broke out on her forehead from anxiety, yet another problem she hadn’t needed to deal with in the past few years.
Bruce tried his hardest not to laugh, but he couldn’t help it. “Don’t worry about it Kara. I’m glad that you can understand what it’s like to be a human. Go take a shower. Alfred will prepare some garments to clothe you. After that we can go shopping on my dime.”
The woman formerly known as Supergirl let out a sigh. “Bruce… my body…”
“I warned you that you’d have to go through some displeasure to achieve your goal. Train with me, follow every direction, and soon you won’t be afraid to show off your midriff again.”
“Right.” Kara nodded, her determination rekindled.
–
In the Wayne Manor bathroom assigned to her, Kara Zor-El stared intently at her face in the mirror. Without her empowered vision, she had to peer closely into the looking glass get a good view of herself. She could already see small blemishes and flaws in her face. Kara disrobed and peered at her naked body. Faint bruises from where Darkseid had pummeled her a few days prior were slightly visible. “I thought those healed…” Kara whined to herself with a sigh. Her entire body was slightly flabby, though she was still above average in terms of attractiveness.
The next task for her to deal with was the shower. When she had super powers it was fairly rare that she actually needed to bother with taking them, and when she did, the temperature didn’t matter at all. Hot, cold, lukewarm; either way the water always felt fine. Today however, it had to be just right. The highest setting was extremely painful, and the lower settings were unpleasant. Finally she found a happy medium and soaped herself clean; yet another inconvenience she had forgotten about.
–
After washing and drying herself, Kara found that a new set of clothes were already placed on her bed. She struggled to understand the intricacies of putting on the bra, but eventually managed to figure it out. The rest of her attire consisted of a pair of athletic shorts and a blue tank-top with a familiar red S on it. She rolled her eyes at the shirt and walked out of her room, where her nose was greeted by the delightful scent of eggs and bacon. Her stomach growled and she couldn’t believe how a simple aroma could invoke so much hope and joy.
A few minutes later, Kara was eating a hearty plate of breakfast food prepared by Alfred. Bruce was watching. Feeling somewhat off put from the silence, she decided to strike up some conversation: “So did you make this tank-top Alfred? It has the house of El symbol on it.”
Both Bruce and Alfred chuckled. Bruce spoke up: “Found it at the mall a while ago when I was preparing outfits for girls who needed a change of clothing in the morning after parties. It’s fortunate that you’re close to model-like proportions.”
“This… was in a human store?” Kara asked.
“Of course.”
“This is the symbol of my family!”
“Clothing companies have been profiting off of that logo ever since your cousin showed up and saved the day wearing it. Get used to it kid.”
Kara rolled her eyes and stuffed another forkful into her mouth. “So what’s next? Is this going to be like that movie that’s popular among you humans: Rocky? Am I going to go running and punch things and drink raw eggs?”
Bruce shook his head. “Not quite. Running would be counter productive at this stage, at least until we have a better understanding of how your body functions in this state. Basically our objective here is to put as much muscle onto your frame as possible. Running, while useful for cardiovascular fitness, would require your caloric consumption to be higher, and we aren’t sure just how much you can eat yet.”
Kara vaguely followed along. In reality she was primarily concerned with the food in front of her, as she savored each and every bite.
“Anyways.” Bruce continued, “As soon as you’re ready, as long as you’re feeling healthy, we need to initiate strength training. Every day you’re in this state is a liability, from both your enemies and my allies. Your suspension from the League has provided a reasonable cover story for you to disappear off the grid for a while, but eventually Clark will grow concerned.”
“Strength training… like lifting weights?”
“Precisely.”
Kara nodded and gulped down some orange juice. “Alright, I’m ready!”
Bruce was surprised by her enthusiasm. “You sure?”
“Like you said, every moment we waste is a liability.”
Bruce grinned and led Kara towards the Wayne Manor gym.
7.)
The Wayne Manor gym was, as to be expected, essentially the Olympic standard in terms of strength training equipment. Huge weights to challenge every muscle group were present, alongside various machines to fit other functions. Unknown to the average visitor of the manor, there was another, secret gym in the Bat Cave that Bruce used when he wanted to truly push himself. After all, a bench press setup that can go up to 1200 pounds would be awfully suspicious in a playboy billionaire’s gym, even if he did possess an Olympian physique.
Before they started the workout, Bruce had some recordings taken with various machines. To his surprise, Kara’s entire physiology had changed in subtle ways from exposure to the nanobots. As he predicted, she only weighed 116 pounds now, 20 less than the League’s record. He was unsure if their weighing process was faulty, or if that was due to the yellow-sun radiation; either way, it was always fairly ridiculous to him that a girl as small as Kara was listed as 135.
Bruce was still in business casual clothing as he was not participating in today’s training session other than to initially show Kara how to perform each exercise. They had started off with a few compound exercises, namely squats and dead lifts. This was a sobering experience for Kara as she started off with close to what a beginner would.
Typically Bruce would recommend they isolate body parts to work on separate days, but since time was of the essence and he was unsure how exactly Kara’s body would react to training, he opted to have her perform a full body work out.
Kara was underneath a bench press bar with a mere five pounds slapped on each side, equaling 55 pounds in total. She was deep into her final set, and quickly fatigue was setting in.
“Again.” Batman ordered, commanding she perform another repetition of the exercise.
“Again!?” Kara exclaimed pathetically.
“Again.” Batman affirmed emphatically.
Kara lifted the weight once more, her arms and chest quivering and trembling from the effort. Bruce glanced downward and observed that even her core was quaking; her struggle was genuine. Slowly, the bar reached its apex, and Kara looked as if she was ready to rack the barbell up and move to the next exercise.
Bruce spoke again: “One more.”
“I… you can’t be serious. There’s no way.”
“One. More.”
“Bruce!”
“That’s Batman to you.”
“Batman!”
“Kara. One more.”
“Please…”
Bruce sighed before channeling his inner motivator. “Kara. Listen to me. This last repition… This is what will separate you from your cousin. It’s what separates me from 99% of my fellow men. It’s what cuts the wheat from the chaff. It’s the difference between greatness and just good enough. Now, I’ll say it again: One. More.”
Kara closed her eyes and pushed with everything she had, letting out a vicious cry.
“Come on.” Bruce urged again. “I thought you were a SUPER girl.” He mocked.
Fury coursing through her veins, the kryptonian mustered everything she had in her depowered body, and finally hoisted the weight into the air, letting out a loud, feminine groan. Her arms trembled and shook. Bruce had to quickly move in and grab the barbell to re-rack it. Kara was panting profusely and sweating an equal amount. Her face was bright red from effort, and her entire body heaved with her breaths.
“Here.” Bruce said, bringing a water bottle to her mouth. “Drink.” He ordered.
Kara did, sucking down the water greedily.
While she drank, Bruce spoke again: “Now that you’re effectively human, you need to take care of your physical needs. That includes keeping yourself hydrated.” All while saying this he kept the water bottle at the perfect level to continue funneling water into her mouth.
Kara found himself staring into Bruce’s face. Those deep blue eyes of his, that chiseled jaw, and thick dark hair. The way he spoke with confidence and experience. Kara felt herself… swooning. She hadn’t felt this way about a man in years. After all, it was difficult for her to be impressed with someone like Bruce when he possessed an infinitesimal amount of strength compared to her. Only a few men in the league could compare to her cousin, and she wasn’t into incest. But today… she was beginning to truly appreciate why so many of Earth’s women threw themselves at Bruce, and not just for his money.
“Now, time to target your shoulders, triceps, and biceps.” Bruce barked, his voice cutting through her daydream.
Kara let out a sigh. The momentary illusion was shattered. Bruce the romantic was gone, and Batman the trainer had returned.
8.) The next day, Wayne Manor living room
“My body… aches?” Kara explained, her inflection stating it as a question.
“You’ve never been sore before?” Bruce responded, somewhat incredulously.
The blond shook her head. “Never. On my home world there was no need to exercise since the gravity shaped everyone’s bodies into what you’d consider ideal proportions.”
“Interesting.” Bruce stroked his chin. “Well, you’re on Earth now. This is a sensation that will last anywhere from 12 to 72 hours, though that can vary. It typically indicates that your body is repairing itself. That is to say, when you lifted weights, your muscles fibers were physically torn up, but now they are reforming to a stronger state.”
“Ooh!” Kara’s eyes lit up. “So it’s working!”
Bruce grinned at her enthusiasm. “It should be, though we still need more time to be certain.”
“Alright! Let’s go lift more weights!”
Bruce shook his head. “Not yet. It’s important to allow your muscles to heal first. Only after they’ve recovered should we tear them apart again. It’s a process we’ll repeat as long as you can continue gaining strength.”
Kara half pouted, but she trusted Bruce. “Well… alright.”
“Anyways, since today is something of an off-day, how about we go shopping? I’ll help you pick out new clothing, and maybe some other stuff as well.”
The blond felt somewhat uneasy about the prospect. “Won’t Clark see us? What about the rest of the League?”
“I’ve got a solution for that.” Bruce produced two small pins from his pocket. “If you put this on, it will emit a frequency that will trick Clark into thinking you’re a random person. From a great distance at least. It creates a frequency field around you that interferes with his X-ray based vision and hearing. Of course, if he were to also be shopping at the same mall, it wouldn’t do us any good. Still, I highly doubt a journalist’s salary will cover where we’re headed.”
Without thinking about the specifics too hard, Kara took the pin and put it on. A few minutes later they were in the back of one of Bruce’s vehicles, being chauffeured by Alfred to a nearby shopping district.
–
Dressed in a long-sleeved designer t-shirt, expensive jeans, and a high-end pair of sunglasses, Kara frankly looked no different than an ordinary 19 year old girl of good breeding. Bruce was decked out in a fashionable outfit of his own, also wearing sunglasses to slightly mask his identity. During the shopping trip, Kara felt sheer unyielding terror. The vast majority of people around her were stronger than her, something she never experienced before while on Earth. Worse yet, her body still ached from the workout, which meant she was even less effective than she normally would’ve been.
Without her superhuman senses, Kara had to actively put in effort to be aware of her surroundings. From every direction, each noise was something that could be potentially fatal for her. The only safety she had was Bruce, to whom she clung like a scared child. Fortunately for her, Bruce was more than accommodating, guiding her by the small of her back, all while a personal shopper filled up a cart with various articles of clothing. At his urging, they accounted for any potential growth Kara might incur, purchasing multiple sizes of every item. In general, Kara found herself embarrassed by some of the more sensual and revealing articles Bruce insisted on picking up, but he assured her that in no-time flat she’d be more than eager to show off with them.
During their trip, something crept into Kara’s mind. “You know, Bruce… aren’t you a little, I dunno, embarrassed to be seen in public with a girl like me?”
“Hmm?” Bruce played dumb, though in reality he knew exactly what Kara would say next. He mentally formulated his response while she said the words close to verbatim.
“I mean, I always see you in the papers with only the most famous and elite fashion models by your side.”
Bruce chuckled. “Believe me Kara, despite being one of the richest men in the world, I can’t afford to care about what people will think of the girl next to me.” He then lowered his voice to a hush that would be inaudible to all but her: “Though, you are correct that Bruce Wayne usually has a certain type of woman around him. Of course, you of all people know that my true tastes are a little different.”
Kara followed along with his cue, also speaking in a tone that would be inaudible to those around them except for Bruce: “You mean the true you prefers super powered girls?”
Bruce shrugged. “Something like that. In truth some of the greatest nights of my life were spent with world class female body builders, but that’s something you’ll never see in the papers.”
Kara mulled his statement over and began to fear that perhaps this shopping trip would be captured by the paparazzi. Then again, she was positive that Bruce had accounted for that and it wouldn’t be a problem. After all, he was Batman. Satisfied, she returned to clinging to him as if he were a life raft in a harsh Ocean.
9.) Later that night
Kara was dressed in a cute set of pajamas. Her body was still quite sore from the prior day’s exercises. Bruce offered to giver her a massage to relieve tension, explaining that he had undergone extensive training that firmly placed him as a master of the craft. With nothing to lose, Kara agreed. She was quickly overwhelmed by how simultaneously sensual and powerful Bruce’s touch was. He knew precise what areas to target, and how much pressure to apply.
During the session, Bruce noted something peculiar: that Kara’s muscles seemed to be in slightly better conditioning than they were when he last touched them yesterday. This made Kara’s ears perk up with delight as she envisioned her body returning to its former taut form. No, that wasn’t good enough – she needed real muscle, like Wonder Woman. No, like Powergirl. No… even Powergirl wasn’t THAT buff. She needed to be like Big Barda, or possibly even more muscular. She hoped that the added bulk wouldn’t diminish her attractiveness, but reminded herself that she was of Kryptonian heritage. Somewhere between her immaculate bone structure and the inevitable return of yellow-sun radiation, she’d be stunning even with bulging biceps, or perhaps she’d be more beautiful because of them.
Eventually Bruce finished the session and bid Kara goodnight. She spent the next hour trying to continue deciphering the tome of Moby-Dick, though Ishmael’s rants about seemingly nothing were still nearly impossible for her to truly follow along with.
9.5) The next day
A shrill scream from the guest bathroom had both Bruce and Alfred rushing in. Kara was in front of the mirror with a downright horrified expression on her face. “Wh-what is this!?” she screamed pointing to her forehead. Immediately the source of the girl’s distress was apparent: she had a large pimple.
Both Alfred and Bruce broke out into near hysterical laughter, which in turn infuriated Kara. Bruce gave his butler a healthy pat on the back and told him to take care of this.
Alfred was simultaneously kind and snarky in his explanation. He explained to Kara in great detail how she needed to take care of her skin now, washing it regularly, and to not abuse it. Eventually he produced a small vial of cover up and taught her how to apply it on the mark, a temporary stop-gap until she better adjusted to her depowered body.
After the pimple saga was laid to rest, Kara consumed a large breakfast. She noticed that she felt more energetic than the day before, and her soreness had vanished. This was surprising to Bruce as delayed onset muscle soreness typically lasted longer.
10.) Kara’s second weight training session.
“Is that REALLY all you have?” Bruce’s tone was a mix of encouraging, mocking, and demanding. “Nightwing was curling twice that when he was 14 and wearing bright green tights.”
Kara’s thin arm held a 15 pound dumbbell. She had only finished six repetitions with the thing, and Bruce knew she needed to complete a couple more if she was going to achieve her goals.
“Come ON Bruce!” Kara yelled. “Do you REALLY have to be such a dick about this?”
“Yes.” The man responded bluntly. “Now lift that goddamn dumbbell.”
Kara squinted her eyes and kept pulling. It was no use. The weight was an insurmountable task.
Bruce sighed and collected his thoughts. He needed to dig deep. To really bring out the coach in him that turned multiple Robins of both genders into fighting machines. No, he needed to dig even further than that, as Kara didn’t understand what being human really meant. He brought a hand to her elbow, giving her just enough support that she could catch her breath.
He started speaking again: “I want you to look at your bicep Kara.”
Kara did as he said, looking down at the small, formless limb. “Yeah, I get it. I’m pathetic.”
“No.” Bruce quickly barked. “I want you to really look at it. Envision what it’d look like if it was bigger. Think about how every ounce of muscle you build here will correlate into exponentially greater superpowers later. Think about how even back when you are empowered, people took clowns like Wally West more seriously than you. Think about how they’d view you if you were built more like your cousin.”
Kara knew he was right. Even with her powers she was just Kal’s little cousin to them; a dumb teenage girl who solely got by on her heritage – an attribute she didn’t even earn. Suddenly her arm began to rise again as she willed it to lift the weight. Bruce removed his hand to make sure that she was the one doing this, not him. After finally reaching the apex, she brought her arm down.
“Alright. Good. One more.” Bruce ordered.
“Bruce…”
“Kara. Look at your arm again.” Bruce ordered. She did as he said. “Notice how it’s slightly larger? That’s what we call ‘the pump’. It’s a temporary state of enlarged muscle appearance after working out. Similar to when you would engorge in yellow-sun radiation and become slightly larger. Here however, it’s more important. During this state, your body is actually diverting four times as much oxygen as it normally would to your bicep. It’s creating new passageways in the forms of capillaries to feed developing the muscles. This is THE most vital aspect of the training session. Now, if you want to achieve the best pump you can, to lay the strongest foundation for as much growth as possible, you NEED to do: One. More. Rep.”
With a cry of anguish, Kara performed the task, lifting her arm once again, forcing herself to complete the motion. Finally, she achieved the goal and brought her arm back down before releasing the dumbbell to the ground with a small crash.
–
The next few days passed without much incident. Kara would train her entire body one day, pushed beyond her perceived limits as Bruce demanded she crank out ‘just one more’ repetition, then the next she’d rest – usually receiving the gift of another massage. To her delight (and secretly Bruce’s as well) her strength continued to slowly increase. Her appetite steadily increased as well, but despite this Kara didn’t seem to gain any weight at all – quite the opposite in fact.
–
One week after Kara became depowered
–
“I need to reiterate that this is truly astounding progress.” Bruce said staring at the girl in front of him.
The hot mess of a girl from a week prior was no more. Kara’s body had returned to its former glory, in fact slightly exceeded it. She was proud of the progress and had no qualms with wearing a mere sports bra and work out shorts around the manor. Bruce of course didn’t object. Small, feminine muscles adorned her frame, effortlessly popping out without any need for external stimulation. Her midsection, while formerly lithe and toned, had become even firmer then before, as a faint outline of a four-pack had made its appearance. Other bulges popped up here and there, for instance a small striation had formed between her shoulder and upper arm.
Thanks to some lessons from Alfred, she had learned how to better take care of her skin, hair and nails; so while she wasn’t able to recreate the flawless majesty she possessed while empowered by the yellow-sun radiation, she still looked much more attractive than a mere few days ago.
“Oh come on Bruce, you know better than anyone else I worked my butt off for this!” she exclaimed before
“Seriously Kara. I’m glad your progress is rapid, but in order for you to understand what it’s like to be human, I need you make it abundantly clear this is not the norm.”
“What do you mean?”
“In terms of lean muscle mass, the average male would be pretty fortunate to gain five pounds in an entire month, let alone a week. Women have an even more difficult time. Of course, there are certain chemicals and hormones that can expedite this process, but naturally humans do not gain muscle this quickly. Here you are, having gained 5 pounds of lean muscle in a mere week.”
“Well, I’m not a human!” Kara exclaimed, placing her hands on her hips, causing a pair of cute little triceps to bulge out inadvertently.
“I’m aware.” What Bruce wanted to admit was his desire was for Kara to experience what it was truly like to be a human. “To be honest, the part of me that enjoys schadenfreude is kind of disappointed.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kara asked, raising a brow.
“Just that it might’ve been more… genuine if you had to struggle to gain muscle like most humans do.”
“Hey! Weren’t you the one going on about how I needed to gain muscle ASAP!?”
“That’s true.” Bruce conceded. “And you do look great. Still, you have a lot of work to do if you’re going to surpass Kal.”
Kara nodded. “You got that right! Let’s hit the gym!”
As much as Bruce wanted the Kryptonian to experience the true struggle of improving one’s body, he had to admit that Kara’s enthusiasm was infectious. Besides, he did break her down every workout, so her new strength was earned, even if the process was expedited.
With that, Bruce was the one to follow Kara to the gym. The entire time he wondered just how strong she could become, and how fast it would happen. It was clear that her Kryptonian physiology allowed her to invoke hypertrophy far more quickly and effectively than a human when free from the yellow-sun radiation. How big would she get? Would there be a day that she was comparable to himself and Clark? How effective were the chloroplasts in her cells now? Would they remain as efficient, or perhaps they would weaken? He wondered precisely what would happen when he disabled the nanobots. These questions whirled in his mind, and for the first time in a long while Bruce wasn’t entirely in control of things. He was slowly shaping Kara Zor-El of all people into a goddess; and deep down the prospect thrilled him.
– To be continued!