Sweet Ambitions

Anais

A young woman snapped a picture of the sky just as a couple of humming birds flew by. The angle was perfect! She lowered her professional camera, revealing sparkly green eyes. She was dazzled as she saw her picture on the camera screen. "Dad, I got another one!" she called for her father but noticed he'd gone inside the house. "Mom?" she then called but no one answered.

"What do you mean she's been infected?" the young woman began to hear voices from the inside. Super hearing allowed for some interesting eavesdropping sometimes, and when her adoptive parents were secret government scientists, the information was even juicier.

"We're not sure but she might have been affected," went the voice of a man she immediately recognized. It was for that reason that the woman put her full attention to the conversation. "Supergirl's civilian form is usually a kind woman and now she's acting far colder than ever before. We tracked her initial behaviors back to a fight she had. We need your expertise on Kryptonian weaknesses."

The woman's eyes widened in alarm at the important name. Supergirl? She was affected with what? The blonde let her camera hang around her chest and walked into the backdoor of her home.

"I assume you still hold the records from Superman?"

"Well of course we do. What kind of employees would we be if we didn't retain our subjects' records?"

The woman stepped into the cool kitchen and followed the voices of her parents and the man into the living room. "What's going on?" she didn't hesitate to come into the conversation despite her parents' constant reminders she was a subject the DEO was wary about no matter how long it'd been since they'd first found her.

A dark-skinned man immediately laid eyes on her. They were rather cold for the first couple of seconds, something the blonde didn't quite like but was ultimately used to. It was the first impression many employees got from him. "Hello, Hank," she said cautiously. "It's been long since you've visited." She cracked a tiny bit of a smile, and how could she not? He was the man responsible for her rescue when she was a young girl who'd lost her mother.

The man gave a nod, somewhat smiling now. "It is nice to see you again, Anais. How are you?"

Anais glanced at her parents to see their typical uneasiness whenever the DEO was around. It seemed like no matter how many years passed by, the DEO would never be fully welcomed in their home. "I'm...okay. I heard about Supergirl, what's happened to her?" No one answered her. Typical. She sighed, letting her long straight blonde hair swish each time her head turned. "Seriously? I follow Supergirl's actions — I even have collages about her — so I really want to know if she's in trouble—"

"So you can help out," her father finished, settling a hard look on her. "We know how the story ends, Anais. And you know we can't allow you to go anywhere near the DEO and much less Supergirl."

"Supergirl wouldn't act so cold with me like the DEO has," Anais threw that back to Hank Henshaw. "The Department of Extra-Normal Operations should've welcomed the first benign alien just like they did with Supergirl. Did I have to be Kryptonian for that or what?"

"You being a Solista had nothing to do with our case on you, Anais. You are a peculiar case—"

Anais rolled her eyes. She heard the story far too many times already. "Yeah, yeah, what makes me different and a threat is why you keep me away. I thank you for what you did for me when I was a little girl and you know—" she glanced at her parents with all the love in the world, "—how grateful I am to you for taking me in but now I want to know about Supergirl. And good luck getting rid of me. I have the speed and the strength to outmatch you." Her straight white teeth were a pretty sight despite her sour warning of her presence.