Serendipity

Allison sat waiting patiently on the other side of the partition as the steel door down the narrow hallway on the other side creaked and sprung to life, the rubber threshold rubbing coarsely against the floor as it swung open slowly.

"Inmate 45612....chair 5!"

The guard's voiced crackled over the PA system as the prisoner shuffled past each successive cubicle, settling into chair #5 as instructed, his eyes wide with surprise as he sat down and silently mouthed "Ally?" behind the bulletproof and soundproof partition separating them.

The young woman calmly nodded as she gracefully extended her index finger, pointing to the phone, lifting her eyebrows with a coy look in her eye.

They both picked up the receivers simultaneously almost as if choreographed for months, their movements mirroring each other's as they raised their phones to their respective ears as a recorded voice came on.

"This scheduled visitation is for a maximum of fifteen minutes. Please keep your hands in visible sight at all times. Personal and legal discussions are permitted during this call but detailed discussions of this prison and/or daily prison routines are strictly prohibited and subject to the immediate revocation of this scheduled visit without warning....BEEP"

"Hi, Gary...", the young woman began, leaning forward and placing her elbows on the counter in front of the partition. A sly grin formed over her face as her lips receded like a curtain, revealing her perfectly white smile.

The inmate stared momentarily, almost hypnotized by her smile. "Had she always had teeth that white and straight?" he thought to himself for a brief second before shaking his head to regain his composure. He leaned over his side of the counter as well, his face no more than 6 inches from the partition as he spoke.

"But...how did you....I thought...."

Allison raised her hand to stop him in mid stammer, surprising him as he straightened up in his chair. While the sight of seeing his girlfriend was startling, the fact that she seemed so much more assertive and confident, was clearly of a shock to him. His brow furrowed as his smile quickly disappeared, morphing into an annoyed and inquisitive stare.

Allison put her index finger to her lips and paused deliberately, looking over her shoulder first at the prison guard monitoring the door and then over the partitions at the two guards up in the vistation room control center. She leaned closer to the glass and smiled, her breath fogging up the glass partition as she spoke into the phone.

"Lemme tell you what happened..."



----------------



4 weeks ago....

"What the hell am I doing?!?" the young girl practically sobbed as her hands clenched tightly around the leather steering wheel of the dark blue sedan as the alarms claxxoned in the background.

It seemed crazy to Allison Mendelsohn that six short months before, she had graduated from Penn State, waiting to start her position as a financial analyst at Mercer & Mathers, one of the premier investment banks in the world.

Smart, young, and attractive, Allison's entire future was ahead of her. Unfortunately, so was the date July 2nd -- "Crimson Thursday".

The name was comical, almost stupid in nature, but the financial news outlets, having already coined "Black Monday" previously, figured the name was apropos considering the proverbial blood in the streets after financial markets crashed around the world with reckless abandon. The DJIA plunged 500 points before trading was suspended on that day and then followed up by plummeting over 6000 points over the course of the next 14 days. Investment banks and brokerages fell like houses made of straw and thousands of employees poured into the open job market, hundreds of jobs euphemistically being "proactively furloughed". Allison was fired before even started...

With so much competition on the street and limited experience, Allison found no traction in getting any kind of job in her field. With student loans to pay off and the risk of being evicted from her apartment, Allison begrudgingly took a job as a "personal assistant" from a local ad she found on Craigslist.

Gary Harmony was a charismatic and incredibly handsome inventor/entrepreneur that charmed Allison from the first day they met. While Allison found it strange that he didn't seem to "do anything", she refused to look a gift horse in the mouth with paychecks now coming in regularly. She could have been easily part of the 14% unemployment rate, and she knew it! What could go so wrong?

It wasn't long after that Allison was in over her head, with Gary still pouring the water. It turned out Gary was an ex-military scientist that was just as desperate as most of the people out there!

Looking back on it all, Allison became angry at being so gullible and used. It was so friggin' cliche -- "All you need to do is drive"..."No one will get hurt". Allison felt her hand tremble as she went to shift the car into drive and peel away, leaving Gary and his two friends in there. But as she clutched the shaft and slipped it forward into drive, she saw a red and blue blurry reflection in the windshield materialize quickly before the earth shattering impact.

"BAM!"

Like a red and blue missile, Supergirl landed feet first on the hood of Allison' getaway car at over 150 mph. The car rocked violently as Supergirl's steel muscled legs sliced their way through the hood like it was wet tissue paper. Her superpowered legs contacted the engine block, knocking it off its mountings and embedding it into the pavement as her feet followed, sinking into it like metallic jello. Allison screamed in panic as the air bags deployed, the car lurching forward from the momentum amidst the sound of the broken glass and popped tires.

As the cacophony subsided, the young girl gasped for air and tried to regain her senses as she peered forward amidst a sea of radiator steam and dust, the Maid of Might staring directly at her.

"Don't Move!" were the only instructions that were needed as Supergirl reached down with her arms and began peeling her way out from the center of the vehicle. She could have just as easily flew up and out, but the message to Allison was more clear this way: "Don't fuck with me!"

Allison found herself memorized as she watch the beautiful heroine simply extend her hands forward and push as if walking through a subway turnstile. Metal forged in the finest steel factories bent like limp noodles yielding to her vastly superior Kryptonian strength. Metal edges flattened against her sexy, taut thighs as she walked deliberately, taking only a second to turn to Allison and repeat "Stay HERE!"

Allison's eyes began to tear up as she quickly relented that her life, as she knew it, was over! A life filled with so much promise, now reduced to serving the next ten plus years in prison. Allison slumped sideways in the driver's seat and sobbed uncontrollably.

Outside, after emerging from the vehicle, Supergirl took to the sky, hovering 200 feet above the ground, waiting for the would-be robbers to emerge, a confident smile on her face as she wanted to see their expression as they saw their getaway car.

It took about 45 seconds before the two others ran out first, stopping about 10 yards from the car before noticing two things missing -- a driver and the front end. While Allison was in the car -- albeit slumped down and crying -- the missing front end of their car was unmistakable. It looked like it has been taken out with a grenade launcher.

The Maid of Might sailed down to land like a cat in front of the men, hoisting them effortlessly into the air -- one in each hand -- as she looked at them and smiled.

"Yep...totally worth it!" Supergirl said aloud to herself, giggling at their utter disbelief, as she turned her head to see 5 police cars pull up, the officers getting out with their guns drawn.

"I think they can find suitable accommodations for you, unless you...umm....wanna end of like the car over there? So what do you --- Arrrgh!"

Supergirl heard -- and saw -- the shot before anyone. Her incredible vision picked up on the bullet as it was only inches from her left hip, noticing an eerie red glow emanating from its tip -- Red Kryptonite! With inhuman speed and agility, Supergirl swiveled her hips to the right faster than anyone could see. Superspeed does have its advantages, but it also has limitations as well. Sometimes superfast is not fast enough.

As Supergirl pivoted her hips, the Red K tipped bullet struck her hip, only grazing her but causing a noticable flesh wound. Supergirl winced as she dropped the men she was holding and looked down seeing her own blood began to pool up.

Another shot rang out, this time directed at one of the police cruisers as then all hell broke loose, with gunfire erupting from all angles. Seeing Gary as still a threat -- thanks to his Red K weapon -- Supergirl flexed her superpowered legs and shot up in the sky, her body a little woozy from the gunshot wound.

Narrowing the most gorgeous set of blue eyes on the planet, Supergirl zoomed in on Gary's weapon from the sky above and launched a searing blast of heat vision from them. Gary Harmony dropped his rifle instantly as two incandescent beams of scorching heat struck his gun, melting the barrel almost instantly before flying off uncharacteristically.

It wasn't long after that that the scores of police officers moved in and apprehended Gary and his accomplices. All three of them!



-------

"Yeah...I know all about that! I was there!" Gary retorted, his voice getting more impatient. "But they told me you were shot in all the crossfire and were lying in some hospital..."

"Well, not exactly..."

"Huh?"

"I WAS in the hospital. It's kind of a blur to me and I'm still hazy but I DO remember getting shot and then everything went dark. When I woke up, the first thing I remember was lying in some hospital bed and the doctors talking about how they couldn't remove the bullet cause it was lodged near my spinal cord. Then they kept saying to each otehr 'She'll never walk again...blah, blah, blah...' but look at me now, I'm a modern medical miracle!" Allison giggled as she sat up in her chair and arched her shoulders so Gary could get another good look at her.

"But, Ally, that doesn't explain how..."

Allison again raised her hand, cutting him off in mid sentence. "I'm getting to that part, silly! Well, over the next few days, I was the talk of the hospital, they couldn't understand how I survived, much less could walk. Anyways, there wasn't alot of celebration cause they carted my cute little ass off to jail within a week to await sentencing."

Alison's tone changed to one of sadness and fear as she leaned into the glass and began tearing up. "Oh my god, Gary....I was so scared! Do you have any idea what that's like to be locked up?!?" Allison's crocodile tears quickly evaporated as she smiled and giggled at him mockingly "Oh! I guess you do!"

Gary's face began to flush red with rage towards Allison as he gripped the phone handset tighter, veins popping in his arm.



Allison, seeing his indignation, simply continued. "Oh, relax...I was just kidding! Anyways, this is the cool part! See, they put me in this tiny little cell at first -- you know the kind -- and I just lay there the first night, listening to everything. It drove me crazy at first, all the sounds at night....people snoring, the water dripping from the faucet. Then I started to wonder why the hell everything was so loud. I figured it was, you know...first night jitters...adrenaline...something like that. I thought that's what it was when I couldn't even sleep the first night. But it wasn't..."

"What the hell are you talking about? Does this have a point?"

"It took another day or so, but that's when I REALLY started started to FEEL it. It was like this buzz inside me, spreading over my body. At first I got a little freaked out, thinking something was wrong with me. But then I started to welcome it. And it felt so good, Gary! Everything about me...my eyesight...my hearing...my reflexes...my speed and strength ...all seemed to become more and more pronounced. I could see every crack, every fissure on my ceiling lying in bed...at night.....IN THE DARK! I could hear the buzzing sound of the lightbulb in the guard house -- over 40 yards away! For kicks, I decided to see if I was stronger and got on the floor and pumped out like 150 pushups without even getting tired! And not the girlly pushups. Real ones! Then I tried one-handed and it was just as easy! I felt incredible, like I was on some drug!

And then it hit me! That's what must have happened. You know, you read about those things on the internet and see them in movies...they perform all these secret experiments on inmates. I mean it looked like they had used me as some kind of human guinea pig for something."

"So what did they give you? And how did you get out?" Gary demanded as he begun to lean in closer as Allison recounted her tale. She smiled and could tell she had his full attention, and it made her feel powerful!

"To answer your first question, I didn't exactly know till I read this morning of your greatest accomplishment! Well, your second greatest accomplishment!"

Gary looked puzzled as he shook his head in bewilderment. "What accomplishments?! Ally, you're not making any sense!"

Allison sighed. "I guess they don't have a newsstand in there, do they?" The young girl gracefully reached down in her purse and pulled a newspaper from her bag and pressed it against the bulletproof glass partition, the headline reading in big bold letters "Supergirl Dead!"

"W-w-what? How?" Gary stammered gleefully, a surprised grin on his face.

Allison folded up the paper before Gary could read the story and began to put it away as she spoke. "Seems like your little Red Kryptonite gun had more of an effect that everyone first believed. It says that eventhough she was only grazed, the Red K got into her bloodstream enough to poison her. And apparently your local CVS doesn't have an over-the-counter anti Red Kryptonite medication..."

Gary snickered at Allison's cruel joke and sat back in his chair, smugly satisfied with himself, almost forgetting that he was still in prison.



Allison calmly folded the paper and stuck it right back in her purse as she turned back to stare at Gary and smiled. "Well, if you think that's cool, check this out...You know how we used to watch those cartoons and TV shows where the hero gets shot at and moves at the last second?"

"Yeah?"

"Kinda like when you shot at her, only she didn't quite get out of the way!"

"Obviously!" Gary chortled, content with himself.

"I never used to think of it till now, but they never, ever show where the bullet goes, you know? People just assume 'oh, it missed her!' They never even give it a second thought....

"Ally....what are you saying..."

Allison droned on thinking aloud, not looking in Gary's direction but choosing to stare down at the wooden shelf separating her from the partition tapping her perfectly manicured fingernails lightly on it. "Nope, they never ever think of where that Red Kryptonite bullet is gonna land!"

Gary stared at Allison quizzically as extended her index finger and began to lightly trace it against the wooden desk. He couldn't hear anything thanks to the bulletproof partition but he could swear he was seeing her nail start to scratch into the wooden surface deeper and deeper.

"....that blood-soaked, DNA-carrying, Red Kryptonite bullet..." As she spoke, she furrowed her brow and applied the tiniest amount of pressure as she playfully whistled the Superman theme song "Do...do, do, do, do....do..do.. do....." Gary's eyes widened as big as saucers as Allison's tiny fingernail cut through the solid wooden block like a skill saw, carving out a perfect replica of the Superman shield as she continued to whistle the tune nonchalantly.

"No way!"

"WAY!" Allison sneered as she looked up at Gary with a sinister stare, her sparkling eyes partially covered by her golden blonde hair. "You should see what I did to my jail cell! Not to mention the six guards that tried to stop me!"

"My gun did that! I made you a Superwoman?!?" Gary whispered gleefully into the handset.

Allison hopped to her feet, her mood suddenly changed, her eyes glowing red. "No, Gary....YOU SHOT ME!"

Gary leaned back startled, leaning back too far and falling over in his chair.

As one of the attending guards quickly ran over and grabbed Allison by the shoulder "That's it, Miss, show's over!"

"DO...NOT.....GRAB...ME!!" Allison said, placing one of her hands atop of his and applying direct pressure. The force of a hundred car compactors was transmitted through Allison's tiny hand, as the guand's beefy hand was turned into ground hamburger in milliseconds. Her strength -- her Kryptonian strength -- pulverized his bones beyond repair as he screamed in pain.

As she finally relented and released his hand, she felt two pings on her forehead as she turned to see a guard in the hallway holding his smoking firearm in disbelief. Allison simply smiled and with barely a thought accelerated to Mach 8 in the span of 50 feet. As her body contacted that of the guard, he simply vaporized under her unearthly momentum as she ran through him and then back in front of Gary in barely the blink of an eye.

"Still getting used to the speed thingee!" she quipped as Gary cowered in fear. "Oops, one sec!" Allison spoke as she looked up at the commotion in the control center and stared, twin blinding beams of heat vision sizzling through the air and striking the two guards in the tower, instantly lobotomizing them.

As Allison glanced back at Gary, she picked up her receiver, only to see that she had absent-mindedly ripped it from the wall. Rolling her eyes, she walked up to the bulletproof partition and cocked back her index finger against her thumb and flicked it. Like a superhuman sledgehammer, her index finger shattered the bulletproof partition, sending flying shards of glass everywhere. Gary's face and clothes were cut badly from the shrapnel as he lay helplessly on the floor.

Allison's legs slowly rose from the floor as she hovered 2 feet in mid-air staring down at Gary with her arms folded.

"P-P-Please don't kill me!" the man pleaded as he stared up at his superpowered ex-girlfriend.

"Gary...tsk, tsk...I wouldn't even think of giving you the satisfaction. Besides, with Supergirl's powers, I can make your life a living nightmare anytime I want -- in or out of jail!"

"Ally...please! This isn't like you! You used to be --"

"I USED to be a lot of things! But now it's a new beginning for Ally Mendelsohn. I'm young, hot, and I can juggle a string of locomotives without even trying! And now -- thanks to you -- with Supergirl gone, there is no one to even stand in my way! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm thinking about seeing to the collapse of a certain investment bank -- literally!"




Author's Note: This story was originally written for a short story contest over at SuperwomenMania.com