"Alright, I've got to run or I'll be late. Someone needs to work on this Reign situation now that Supergirl is out of commission. I'll try not to be too long." Alex said, checking her watch.
"Wait, Alex. Take me with you and grow me back!" Kara yelled, but Alex just ignored her.
"Ok, Alex, don't worry about us! Go catch some bad guys." Ruby said, waving goodbye to her temporary guardian. The door slammed, and Alex was gone, leaving Kara and Ruby alone.
"So what should we do first, Supergirl? We could play a game, or watch a movie, or..."
"Ruby, I can't stay this size. You have to help me get back to normal so I can go out and fight." Kara explained.
"I can't do that, Supergirl. Alex said you have to stay tiny for your own safety."
"Look, Ruby, Alex and I have known each other for a long time and are very close, so I understand why she is so worried about my safety. But I think she is letting that cloud her judgment. I need you to help me convince her that she should grow me back."
"But it sounds like this Reign lady already beat you before," Ruby said. "It seems like you'll just lose again."
"Trust me, Ruby, I can handle Reign. She caught me off guard last time, but I'm always training. I've learned from our last fight, and I won't let her get the drop on me again." Kara explained, feeling like she was making headway. She watched Ruby's face as the giant girl considered this, wondering if she had won herself an ally.
"Ok, how about this? If you can complete a challenge from me before Alex gets home, I'll believe you're able to handle whatever Reign throws at you, and I'll help you convince Alex. But if you can't, then you're staying small until Alex beats Reign. Deal?"
"Deal," Kara said. She didn't know what Ruby's contest would be, but it was her best chance at getting someone on her side. If she said no, she still would not have Ruby's help, so there was really no choice at all.
"Ok, great. You and I are going to play tag." Ruby said. "I'm going to set a 20-minute timer, and I'm going to try and catch you. There are no restrictions. I can use anything in this room or any part of my body to help me. If I either pin you down or tag you with one of my hands, I win. If you avoid me until the timer, you win." Ruby pulled out her phone and tapped at it a few times before shoving it towards Kara.
Her phone might as well have been a billboard in downtown National City compared to the tiny alien woman.
"Alright, I understand the rules," Kara said, floating up into the air and away from Ruby. She didn't want to be caught as soon as the game started.
"Ok, then let's get started," Ruby said, placing her phone face up on the table. She pushed start and then immediately pounced, rushing towards her target.
Kara was glad she had left some space between her and Ruby because the giant girl was clearly determined to win.
Kara knew the basics of evasion. You started by putting some distance between you and your target, along with as many obstacles as you could manage. So that's just what she did. For Ruby, the living room was a minefield of furniture and obstacles, which Kara could fly safely above. So she started by simply flying across the couch, knowing Ruby would have to go all the way around the large sofa.
Kara started when she saw Ruby had no intention of going around. She stepped right onto the sofa cushion, then onto the back of the sofa itself, bounding off the back of it and landing with a hard THUMP on Alex's hardwood floor. Kara quickly improvised, flying higher.
Now above Alex's dining room table and out of the teen's reach. Ruby was undeterred. She stepped up onto one of the chairs, then onto the table itself, walking along the table towards her tiny target, bare feet slapping on the table's wooden surface.
"You can't get away from me that easily, Supergirl." Ruby teased.
Since going high wasn't working, Kara went low. She shot down around the table's edge before flying under it. She knew Ruby was above her on the table now, but couldn't see what she was planning.
A hand suddenly snuck under the table, smacking against its underside as it felt around for tiny hiding superheroes. Kara jumped, startled by her close her fingertips had come to catching her. Kara quickly moved to the center of the table, equally far from every edge. She watched Ruby's hand feel around for a minute before it was replaced with Ruby's face, grinning menacingly.
"You can't hide from me, Supergirl," she said, before withdrawing her face above the table. Kara watched as she hopped down off the short end of the table before dropping to her hands and knees and starting to crawl under the table toward her. With chairs pushed in on all sides, the table was like a giant tunnel, with Kara in the middle and a monstrous girl clambering towards her.
Kara nearly forgot the game for a moment, feeling like she was in legitimate danger as Ruby crawled towards her with a single-minded purpose. She had to move.
Kara flew out from under the table, leaving Ruby under it. She knew she had precious seconds where the girl's line of sight was broken, and she needed to use them.
Kara flew to Alex's window and behind the blinds, dropping to the windowsill for a much-needed rest. Ruby couldn't see her there, so she thought she would be safe. Ruby would surely check under furniture and behind plants before considering opening up the blinds, right? And 20 minutes really wasn't that long to stay hidden for.
Ruby was out from under the table, and Kara could hear her walking around the apartment now, probably looking for her.
What Kara failed to realize though was that with the sun behind her, she was casting an enlarged Supergirl-shaped shadow on the blinds, and Ruby could see that quite easily. She wasn't searching the apartment, she was arming herself.
Suddenly the blinds shot up, and Kara barely dodged something swinging towards her. As it passed by, she recognized it for what it was: a rolled-up magazine off of Alex's coffee table.
"If you're going hide like a fly, you're going to get swatted like one," Ruby said, brandishing her magazine as she turned to Kara's new position.
Kara dodged upward, then to the side, then downward as Ruby came in with three quick swings, temporarily trapped between the teen and the window.
"Why does Alex even have magazines anymore?" Kara muttered, annoyed, as she stopped short to avoid flying directly into the rolled-up magazine's path.
Now, with her path blocked, Kara flew down and under Ruby's arm, thinking she could disorient the giant girl. With Ruby in a sleeveless tank top, Kara was flying right in front of the girl's giant armpit. Kara accidentally let her hair brush against the teen girl's skin, alerting Ruby to her presence.
Reflexively, Ruby dropped her arm, trying to pin Supergirl to her armpit, giggling as she did so.
Kara saw the arch of Ruby's arm collapsing around her and realized she needed to move, fast. She rocketed forward, just feeling Ruby's armpit closing around her boot for a second before she managed to get away. As she flew off, she assumed Ruby's giggling was from the accidental tickling, but in truth, Ruby was laughing at the mental image of peeling a tiny Supergirl off of her sweaty armpit.
"Shit, that was close." Kara breathed, unsettled by just how committed Ruby was to testing her. She couldn't afford to let her get that close again.
She flew behind a potted plant, but Ruby was right behind her, this time swinging her hand towards Kara, fingers splayed to grab her. Relying on instinct, Kara managed to fly right between Ruby's spread fingers, narrowly avoiding being caught.
As she shot across the room, she flew right over the table where Ruby's phone was, so Kara took the opportunity to check on the timer. 11 minutes and 37 seconds remained. She wasn't even halfway done yet!
Ruby had no idea that Kara was starting to feel stressed. She was just getting annoyed that she had evaded her so far. Her competitive mindset had fully kicked in now, and she was thinking of Kara not as a superhero she admired, but as a bug who didn't know when to give up and get squished already.
She decided she needed to change up her strategy a bit, which is when she noticed her sneakers by the door. She began to chase Supergirl in that direction, and the small superhero went for it, not having any idea what the teen was planning.
Kara took a hard right turn when she got to the wall, heading for the other corner of the room as she flew past Alex's door. She was hoping Ruby was getting tired since her chasing seemed to have slowed down a bit.
Ruby smiled as she got right where she wanted to be. She grabbed her sneaker as she ran past it, then turned to watch the miniature superhero's path across the room. When she felt like she had a good estimate of her trajectory, she pulled back her arm and launched the sneaker toward her.
Kara looked over her shoulder to see an enormous sneaker flying towards her, spinning wildly as it flew through the air. She saw where it was headed and sped up a bit, causing the shoe to fall short of actually striking her.
But Ruby had two shoes. And the other had been thrown a bit harder, arcing over Kara's head while she was distracted by the one behind her. She didn't notice the other shoe until it appeared in front of her, it's mouth facing her, causing her to crash directly into the shoe's insole.
"Gotcha," Ruby muttered, grinning.
Kara flailed around inside the shoe as it spun through the air. She rolled down the insole towards the toe, only to stop halfway when the shoe fully flipped, and she landed on the tongue of the shoe. Every surface in the shoe was still moist with lingering foot sweat from Ruby's recent trip outside.
Kara rolled towards the opening, but the shoe flipped too fast, dropping her back onto the insole again, right where Ruby's heel would land.
THUMP
The shoe hit Alex's wall, with the top of the shoe striking the wall causing the shoe to stop its spin in a vertical orientation. Gravity sent a very dizzy Kara falling down into the toe of the shoe before it clattered to the floor, flopping down on its side.
Kara was relieved the world had stopped spinning and clambered to her feet. She saw the opening of the shoe like the mouth of a cave, albeit one that reeked of feet, and knew she needed to get out. Fast!
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