20256/Guest Lecturer: Darcy Lewis

Guest Lecturer: Darcy Lewis
Date of Scene:	16 March 2025
Location:	Metropolis University
Synopsis:	Kara observes a lecture conducted by Darcy Lewis, only to have it be interrupted by a jaded ex-would-be-suitor with... explosive tendencies. Darcy's quick thinking stalls him long enough for the students and Kara to escape, and just before she's able to make good on the 'noble sacrifice' bit, Supergirl crashes in to intervene.
Cast of Characters:	Darcy Lewis, Kara Danvers

---

Darcy Lewis has posed:
Standing at a podium in one of MU's smaller theatres, Darcy did her best imitation of a professor. She did not look the part - it LOOKED as if one of those bag ladies had somehow stolen the speaking floor. A ridiculous, scintillating, technicolored scarf was wrapped around her neck while she practically huddled in what looked like a coat that had probably done a couple rounds in a thrift store.

Shuffling through some notecards - if anyone were able to see them they would quickly realize there were only a few words on each one - Darcy cleared her throat and looked out across her audience. She hated this part of her job, and it was probably obvious. "So, you see... dark matter has a very distinct influence on interstellar communication. But that isn't all: there -are- powers beyond our comprehension folks. Gods, robots, wizards - they're there, and the powers they wield are just as influential as dark matter."

She clapped her hands together, biting her bottom lip as she looked out over the group. "So... if you were worried Reed Richards was going to steal all the glory - don't worry. We're only going to find -more- for you discover. Any questions?" she asked - the anxiety in her eyes flashing in hopes that there -weren't- questions.

Kara Danvers has posed:
To be fair to poor Darcy Lewis, most of the graduate-student and post-doc speakers sort of look like bag ladies. It's sort of part of the whole... melange. The ambience. The vibe, if you will.

In any case, the vibe of the small guest-speaker space is particularly sleepy on this Sunday afternoon. It's not exactly stuffed full of students, either, and the undergraduates that /are/ in attendance look more or less like they're only here to sign a slip and receive some extra credit.

Well... except for one.

At the front of the lecture hall, the lone person sitting in the front row, is Mild Mannered Kara Danvers. Her hair is done up in a messy little bun, face adorned with very light touches of makeup around her eyes and across her lips. She's dressed, like. Gen-Z professional. High waisted, loosely-fitting cream slacks and a tight black turtleneck sweater tucked into them. A large, owlish pair of glasses perch atop her befreckled button nose, making those already big baby blue eyes look just a little extra big. And irritatingly enough, though most others were quite checked out during the lecture, Kara Danvers' attention was... rapt. To the say the least. In fact, she was practically brimming with excitement and anticipation -- so much so, that Darcy herself probably realized, despite hoping for no questions, that there would be at least one. And it would be from that too-enthused girl with the bun, turtle-neck, and press badge. It shouldn't be a surprise, then, that when Darcy asks if there are questions, Kara raises her hand politely. And then, after a brief glance around to see she's the only one, she just clears her throat and barrels on through.

"Hi, um," Kara starts, keeping her hand raised for a few moments until realizing she should probably lower it now that she's speaking.

"It's fairly well understood that 'dark energy' and 'dark matter' are just... words to explain unaccounted for variables and observable phenomenon that we just can't explain. I've always found that a little interesting. That we give things we don't understand names."

Beat. Is there a question, or...?

"Do you think calling them 'Gods' is a bit like calling whatever is causing the universe to expand at an increasingly-rapid pace 'dark energy'? That understanding these... /people/... for what they are might demystify, Dr. Lewis?"

Darcy Lewis has posed:
Questions. Of course there were questions. Pushing her own glasses up the bridge of her nose and straightening up at the podium Darcy regarded the interloper curiously before letting out a nervous laugh and looking around the room. "It's always the ones in the front row, right?" she quipped as she considered the almost question and then the question proper. "Well, that's the thing isn't it? We call it dark matter and we know... very little about it. We know it's a large percentage of the gala- the universe's makeup," she corrected, furrowing her brow.

"And if applying names like 'Gods' somehow solidifies it in the zeitgeist as a thing we -can- quantify and study, then yes I think it -does- help," she replied carefully. "We live in an age of... well, superheroes, and some of them -are- just as mystifying as dark energy is, right? So we... we apply terms to it so we can classify them - create common threads. I wouldn't compare Superman to Thor, or the Batman to Captain America," she continued at length in the most hazardous fashion.

"I believe, that if we can lump -some- things together, it will make it easier for people like us," she continued - gesturing across the crowd in a stiff, almost text-book, public speaking fashion, "To determine our focus and unify our research." She was not good at this.

Kara Danvers has posed:
Kara Danvers watches Darcy with a curiosity that can be described as academic. There's a keen attention paid not only to the woman's words, but to the way that she addresses the crowd. The stiff gestures, rehearsed or perhaps imitated from some more charismatic speaker she saw, at one point in her life. But there is no judgement in Kara's curiosity. If anything, there's a look of not-quite sympathy, as if she can somehow empathize with whatever nervousness is spurring that stiff delivery and gesturing.

In fact, Darcy might find Kara's attention to be somewhat grounding. Like a little... tether, or anchor, there in the crowd. Whenever her attention wanders back towards the student, she'll find her smiling, and nodding along. And perhaps it will have her attention wandering back to her more frequently, just to seek that touch point.

"It's an interesting enough thought exercise. We humans do love to categorize, don't we? I suppose it's no different than the work of Linnaeus, all those years ago. We've got to impose some sort of structure and order onto things that are observable -- even if we lack all of the information to do so accurately."

Kara reaches down to slip a pen from the binding of her notebook. An analogue girly, it seems. Perhaps nostalgic for a time of pen and paper, pre computer, though she doesn't look old enough to have ever been alive in a world without computers. She presses the top of the pen to her cheek and gives it a little push. Thoughtful and pensive.

"Nothing wrong with a best guess. Thank you, Dr. Lewis," Kara says, and fades back into quiet.

She lowers her eyes to her notebook and starts to write things down and, when Darcy looks back out to the crowd for more questions, she'll find the rest of those gathered much more amenable to her 'no more questions' aspirations. Half of them stare at their screens and the other sort of slow-blink at her, eyes glazed over, hoping to be released for the afternoon.

Darcy Lewis has posed:
Clearing her throat again and idly shuffling her notecards atop the pdoium, Darcy flashed another awkward smile. "Well - if there's nothing else. Get cracking. Just... don't encroach on my turf, huh? Mental communication across space is my thing right now," she joked mirthlessly. "I have a temporary office here at MU, and you all can probably find my proper office at Culver's if you want to chat sometime - just bring coffee," she remarked with a nod before her eyes darted to find Kara again.

Her brow furrowed behind her glasses as she studied the reporter with more than a little suspicion as the attendees began to clear out - casually flipped her notecards into the wastebin beside the podium before reaching beneath it to grab a thermos of coffee. This was always the worst part: waiting for the auditorium to empty in as polite a fashion as possible.

Something was off about the questioning though, in the familiar way that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up when odd things happened in her life.

Kara Danvers has posed:
"Yeah... I had a question."

The voice comes from the back of the room some time after the students begin to make their way towards those doors, and when the hairs on the back of Darcy Lewis' neck started to stand up. The voice is throaty, deep and a little bassy. There's a certain hint of... ominous menace to it, too. At the back of the room, a young man stands in the way of those double doors, where the students have begun to move towards. They now stand a little unsure, glancing towards one another with uncertainty in their eyes, mixed with a little fear.

"What can humanity do to survive a world filled with Gods and Monsters?" he asks.

There's a slow, eerie red pulse of light that thrums somewhere beneath his clothes, shining through the fabric as he lifts his chin to look directly at Darcy. His eyes are bloodshot, and when that pulse dims back to darkness, a single drop of blood rolls from his right nostril. He doesn't give Darcy a chance to answer -- cutting her off if she even attempts to speak with an answer of his own.

"What we've always done. Change. Adapt."

Another pulse, this one coming with signs of visible pain. He shrinks in towards himself and trembles, letting out a throaty sound of pain as the light in his chest flickers, and the lights within the lecture hall with it.

"Kill..."

The students gasp in shock, fear beginning to take them now. They scramble back down towards Darcy. And Kara Danvers rises to her feet, clutching her press badge and taking a few uncertain steps backwards as she glances to the exit door behind Darcy, as well as the doctor herself.

Darcy Lewis has posed:
Eyes flirting from Kara toward the stranger in the back, the doctor let out a sigh as a hand dipped toward the pocket of her coat. Great - from worse to worst. As the lights flicker from her position on the stage, Darcy tenses and allows her head to list to the side in curiosity. "You have -terrible- timing, bud guy," she quipped in a deadpan fashion. Her eyes darted down toward Kara before nodding for -whatever- reason. "All of you uh, get out of here, scram - call security. This is a regular astrophysics thing."

If nothing else, her recent work has made her vaguely capable. SHIELD did a great job of preparing it's agents. The 'taser' she withdrew from her pocket looked akin to the Noisy Cricket from Men in Black, and as she levelled it at the glowing stranger she did her best attempt to control the situation - with snark. "We kind of gave that up y'know. That's why we have lecture halls instead of gladiatorial pits."

For all her bluster, it was obvious Darcy was nervous - her eyes flickering about again and the slightest quiver in her wrist betraying her unease. "I -mentioned- my office hours didn't I? I just w-want my coffee, alright?"

Kara Danvers has posed:
Kara does her best to look worried, herself. She is, after all, incognito. And there aren't a lot of things more infuriating than being out in the world as Mild Mannered Kara Danvers, and encountering a situation that needs Supergirl. Still, there is something in those eyes that settle on Darcy that betray her. Even if that betrayal is just a tiny thing. Maybe this nosy, nerdy little journalist is just used to this sort of thing.

The snark given to the bad guy is largely just... ignored. It's not that he doesn't hear it over the panicked screams and cries of the students that are sort of frozen helplessly as another one of those flickering flashes of red light emits from somewhere deep within the man's body. Another blood vessel pops, this one within his right eye. A single streak of blood rolls down his cheek like a teardrop when that taser is pointed in his direction.

"Darcy... Darcy, Darcy, Darcy... I thought you were better than this. Do you even recognize me? Or have you forgotten all of the little people, now that you're such a fucking big shot?"

Kara moves as the conversation progresses. She helps to gather up the students and starts to funnel them out through the back door, keeping an eye on the man as she does. He doesn't seem particularly worried about the students leaving, electing instead to keep his bloodshot eyes leveled on Darcy Lewis.

"They can run if they want. It's not gonna matter in a little bit here--HNNNKK!"

He doubles over again and this time, a torrent of molten-hot red energy lashes out of his body. It streaks out towards the walls and impacts them with a force that punches a hole clean through concrete and out into the open sky. And Darcy... just might start beginning to remember him. Or at least... bits and pieces of him, even if she can't quite recall his name. A graduate student, in the same cohort as her. Always talking about... humanity needing to advance, and to evolve. A scared young man, whose fear turned to anger and hate, as it so often does. But she hasn't seen him in nearly half a decade.

As the last of the students funnel out, Kara makes fleeting eye contact with Darcy, shortly before disappearing with them. That look carries some apology and regret -- but it also holds something a touch more potent. A promise, perhaps? 'Hold on', it seems to communicate. Though it's hard to know exactly what a twenty-something reporter girl is going to do about the young man who is beginning to more closely resemble a living bomb than a human.

"You always were a condescending bitch," he murmurs, slowly trying to lift himself back up into a more-proud posture, but another flashing-flicker of energy causes him to drop to one of his knees and cry out in pain.

Darcy Lewis has posed:
The unspoken communication between the two was enough - if a little overwhelming. This was well outside her forte and as that reporter started to help funnel people out of the auditorium her bluster began to fade. Why her? As things began to go pear shaped, she squeezed the trigger on the weapon - it was still a taser, just... SHIELD issue. And it missed. Terribly - the prongs sinking into the wall on the opposite end of the hall. If nothing else the distance covered and it's penetration speaking to what it MIGHT have done. "Frick..." Darcy remarked before also throwing her thermos and scooping up her satchel as she began to run for the wings of the auditorium.

"Listen guy - we were balls deep in finals, I don't even know why -you- thought about asking me out," she snapped - still mic'd up to the auditorium's sound system as she began to seek cover. As a tendril of the energy slammed through a nearby wall she did her best to suppress a scream into more a squeak as she turned a stumble into a slide. "We -are- advancing! Have you seen the tech we've come out with lately?!" she remarked while crawling hand over knee beneath a curtain to try and find a fire exit.

"Or are you still in mom's basement?" she remarked as if to herself before another, "FRICK" came over the speakers. "I mean - I lived with my parents for a bit too - it's totally ok!" she enthused before springing up to her feet and burst through a door - finding herself back in the auditorium hall. Even closer to her assailant. "I -hate- Metropolis..."

Kara Danvers has posed:
Darcy Lewis fires the taser, and there's a gentle turning of the man's head to the side as he seems to track the projectile on its way through the air, past him, and into the wall on the opposite side of the auditorium. When he looks back to her, it's with some mixture of pity, contempt, and anger. Disappointment is added to the mix, when she begins to run, though it's short-lived, as another burst of energy within his body scatters molten-hot projections of plasma out towards the periphery of the room. They impact the walls with a rough, electric-sounding snap, knotting together to form a concentrated burst of energy that rips through the stone.

"It's not enough. You /know/ it isn't enough, and it's never /been/ enough," he says, about the rapidly-advancing technology. He rises up to his feet and wobbles, just a little bit, but begins to pace towards where Darcy Lewis is crawling about in an attempt to find the fire exit. And when she bursts through the door, and finds herself right in front of him, another two blood vessels pop somewhere within his skull. Blood streaks down his other cheek now, and pours from his other nostril. And all of that hate, and contempt, and anger seems to wash away with something a bit more serene, and peaceful.

"I hate it too," he says, and then the light inside his body begins to swell... and swell... and swell. The doors and windows rattle, and a low sound, like some far off freight train, lifts from the din until it is deafening.

And...

Well. Things slow down, when you're about to die. Moments that last second seem to stretch on for hours. The red glow within his chest becomes blinding. Something in his body ruptures, just as the ceiling of the lecture hall is punched inward. A beam of light seems to reach out from him, towards Darcy -- but is stifled by a blur of red and blue and blonde. A girl has appeared, falling feet-first from the caved-in ceiling. She doesn't land hard -- in fact, she doesn't land at all. Those feet never quite touch the ground, as she cuts that beam off from its lethal trajectory towards Darcy. The girl just seems to... float there, cape fluttering softly in some unfelt breeze.

She does look a bit like a goddess? It's almost unsettling.

Something happens then. A soft murmur of voices. Darcy can't pick them out from that awful sound, but she will be able to see Supergirl lift her arms and pull the man against her in what looks like a hug. And just before the world goes white, she'll see him shakily lift his hands up, to hug her in return.

        ____POP_____

A flash of light. A city-leveling splash of energy, funneled directly into Supergirl's torso. The foundation of Metropolis University trembles, but remains upright, and when sight returns to Darcy, she'll see Supergirl kneeling on the floor next to the unconscious body of the young man Darcy had known from Grad School. Supergirl's breathing is labored, as if she's struggling to breathe, but she still manages to turn to look over her shoulder at Darcy with an expression of worry, concern, and pain.

"Are you okay, Dr. Lewis?" Supergirl asks. Her cheeks are dappled with little flecks of blood, but it's hard to tell if it's her own, or the young man now lying on the floor in front of her knees.

Darcy Lewis has posed:
"Oh good grief..." Darcy murmured as she came face to face with her assailant. She lifted her hands, trying to calm the man out as things began to reach their conclusion. "Just lis-" she started before everything began to... happen. There was a moment - if just for a minute - that she felt like she could track things. Then the blurs began. It was familiar to her, if only just - more important people than her doing their thing, just in their own way.

Lifting her arms to shield herself, however fruitless it may be, she peered through her arms to observe the oncoming rush of death with all the mis-placed curiosity of someone fully aware of just how strange life could be. Supergirl's arrival on the scene was strange - the coalescing energies the man had released making Darcy's hair stand on end as she was blinded for a moment and her attempted words turned to a genuine shriek.

As things began to normalize, the woman's fingers curled about her own hand to drum against her wrist as she began to blink the disorientation from her vision. "Holy cow..." she murmured, turning her hands to look at her own palms - then to Kara, and then to her former peer. "Is... is he ok?" she asked nervously, frozen for a moment. "I mean - i'm fine, but... are -you- ok? What the -heck- was he even doing?" she asked, finally collecting herself and moving to kneel beside her rescuer.

"What did that -feel- like? How did you contain it?!" she asked - then shook her head, turning from Kara to the stranger. "I -knew- something was weird, but... both of you? What do we do with him?" she asked incredulously, before pushing her glasses back up her nose to look at Kara. "Why are you -here?" she suddenly asked, her tone of voice shifting slightly.

Kara Danvers has posed:
There's something resembling relief on Supergirl's face when Darcy begins to speak, though it's mixed with that same bit of grief and pain that had been present just before. Tempered, in a way. "I'm glad," Supergirl says, responding first to Darcy's claim that she's 'fine'. Supergirl relaxes enough to slump a little further forward and catches herself with her left hand that plants on the ground to keep her upright. She doesn't attempt to stand yet, and it's clear that whatever that burst of energy was, it's taken its toll on the Kryptonian.

Darcy does as all academics do, and immediately looses an onslaught of questions that poor Supergirl doesn't seem quite capable of answering. Some of them are owing to her own lack of understanding -- others, she simply hasn't managed to quite catch her breath yet.

"He's okay," she says first, and then exhales a few times, unable to answer the next two questions, though she'll give a gentle nod to assure Darcy that she is, indeed, alright as well.

"I didn't contain it, so... it did not feel great," she says, and then there is the first hint of humor in her voice. She giggles a little, and then clutches her left side, right about her ribcage with a wince.

"Ow..."

As for why she's here, the Kryptonian just turns her eyes up towards the ceiling and gives her ribcage a gentle pat pat and smooth down, tow here that top turns to skin just above her skirt.

"I guess I knew something was weird too. You were in danger, and... so was he. He still might be," Supergirl says. Finally, she presses herself up onto her feet and, with an almost effortless grace, sees herself lift from the ground once more, feet hovering a handful of inches above the ground as she floats over the unconscious man and towards Darcy.

"I don't know what he did, but I do know the threat seems to have passed, for now. Is there any way you can... track it down? You two seemed to know each other, do you have any idea where he could still be living?"

Something about... a mom's basement?

Darcy Lewis has posed:
Darcy's eyes race up and down Supergirl's uniform for a moment as she begins to steady herself - her nose scrunching up at the Kryptonian's giggle. "So... you're up there then, huh?" she asked, aiming a kick at the man's ribs in frustration and possibly spite as she pulled her cellphone from another pocket. "He's -gonna- be in danger. I can deal with him..." she remarked coldly. "I can't even complain about ex's - just people who want a date," she remarked with a snort of laughter.

Her fingers danced across her phone keypad as she regarded Supergirl carefully. "Guess i'm glad I have someone who knows when i'm in danger. It happens a lot. Did you draw a short straw or something on the 'Guardian Angel' list?" she asked, flashing a grin. "That outfit though. You're..." she paused, licking her lips nervously and biting her bottom lip. "You catch my lecture at all?" she asked as her eyes flashed in amusement.

Stowing her phone, she knelt by the young man and began 'basic' first aid, certainly not drawing blood or the like as she saw to his vitals with her field training. She glanced over her shoulder and offered another smile. "I owe you coffee sometime, if ya want. I can handle him - or, more, my friends can. I dunno if you want to meet them... but... since you're my Guardian Angel or all I guess I can just yell when i'm free and you'll come scoop me up? How about Italy?"

Kara Danvers has posed:
Supergirl doesn't move like a human moves. There's something distinctly alien about her motions -- ethereal and otherworldly, though aided considerably by the fact that gravity doesn't quite seem to apply to her. Her body, her hair, her very soul seems to float just above the ground. An uncharitable interpretation would be that she is 'too good' to touch the ground, though anyone that speaks to her understands that, ironically enough, she's quite 'down to earth' despite not seeming to touch it with her toes often.

"It can feel a bit like that, sometimes," Supergirl says, at the notion of drawing the 'short straw'. Though there's a hint of something in her voice that suggests she's not talking about protecting Darcy, in this case, but rather having been born with the abilities that she has. And all of the responsibility that comes with it.

"My outfit?" she asks, and glances down at herself, suddenly sheepish. Still, she's seen Psylocke's outfit with all the butt-cheek, so she knows hers is far from the most... ah. Unrestricting, we'll say.

She does intervene at the kick to the ribs, though she's gentle about it. A movement of her leg in the way to stop the kick from winding up, and a gentle, reassuring pat on Darcy's shoulder as if to say 'I get it, but no'. But she doesn't intervene when Darcy begins to do some basic first aid, stepping aside with her hands resting on her hips as she observes.

"I trust you to handle him, Doctor Lewis," Supergirl says, turning her own eyes down to look at those peering up over Darcy's shoulder towards her. A smile is offered, and Kara returns it to a smile.

"...You don't owe me anything," she says, and takes a few little steps towards the caved-in roof that she'd burst through. She winces a little and scratches the back of her head, embarrassed any time that she's the cause of structural damage.

"Coffee sounds nice. So does Italy. Though if you mix the two together, I think you get espresso," Supergirl says as she peers up to the pale blue sky above. Now it's her turn to look at Darcy, then to the man, and then back up to Darcy again.

She's quiet for a moment, looking uncertain, for one reason or another. In the end, it seems, she elects to speak.

"I heard it. I hear a lot of things in Metropolis," she says, and lets her hands drift from her hips towards the end of her skirt, which she gives a nervous little tug of before affixing her eyes back up to the sky.

"I've been called a God before. I'm... not sure how much I care for it. Don't really feel much like one," she says, though her own point is somewhat invalidated by the way she effortlessly floats a foot off of the ground. "...Anyway. Be safe, Dr. Lewis. And good job, keeping him contained. You were very brave. I bet you've been brave your whole life."

And with that, Supergirl shoots through the hole she'd made in that ceiling. And some time later, Dr. Lewis will find herself outside, where a Mild Mannered Kara Danvers will be tending to the students in various states of fear and disassociation. Less concerned for the Scoop, it seems, than their personal wellbeing.