2015-03-05 - Transylvanian Train Catch

In the Transylvanian Alps, leaving from Romania toward Slovakia, a mighty train churns through the night. A full moon in the sky (check it, it really is tonight) illuminates the track and the whiteness of the mountain snows.

A night train coursing through the wilds, it holds mostly Romany and various children heading for their families in the north. There is an old man sitting by the window looking out at the night as the world passes by.

As the train travels, it approaches a ravine over which a great wooden trestle allows the tracks to run, and the train approaches with an ominous feeling in the air. Well ominous, as the bomb on the tracks detonates, sending half the trestle into the air and showering the countryside with flaming kindling.

Not only is the train approaching quickly, there may also be some small fires starting in the forest. A child screams at the sudden light, and the brakes slam on, but on a downhill the train will not stop in time.

Somewhere in Budapest, Hungary, Kara is waiting for Hungarian officials after having stopped several terrorists who had tried to storm the capitol building. She sits on a wrecked tank idly, its tracks melted into the asphalt and the turrent part of the tank currently firmly entrenched in the terrorists' second vehicle, an armored humvee, courtesy of being ripped off and thrown by a none-too-pleased Kryptonian teenager.

The terrorists had apparently been using these surplus military vehicles as 'getaway vehicles.' Kara brushes some soot off her shoulder, watching the police put the conscious terrorists into a 'paddywagon' and the unconscious ones in the ambulances as she says to herself, "You'd think they'd use something with less firepower and more horsepower..."

Then she hears the screams of distress of the child and the sounds of trains screeching far off in the distance, and she takes off into the air to neighboring Transylvania. Good - Hungarian authorities always look at her like she's a bigger threat anyway.

Ok, well.. not 'good' that there's a train heading towards a bridge that's out. Kara thinks to herself as she reaches where the train is and the short distance from the bridge that's out.

The train whistle blows, but as the bridge approaches the brakes snap and spin off into the night, making the train completely unable to stop. Without brakes, and with a downhill slope, it seems very likely that this night will end in a fiery wreck at the bottom of the ravine for the souls within. But then, a child inside points into the sky, saying the name of one of their holy saints in Romany.

Kara Zor-El sees the train below, then looks off at the bridge off in the distance. Okay Kara, you've done stuff like this before. Just don't have a repeat of what happened in Peoria with the freight train.

Kara thinks about that when she got in the path of the girl who had twisted her ankle and gotten it stuck in the rails, and Kara flew in, got in the path of the train, and stopped it by just letting it hit into her and... well... stopping it.

And caused a pretty massive derailment - fortunately of just cargo.

Yeah, don't do that again Kara.

Judging the distance though, she realizes she's not going to be able to just slow it down until it stops - not enough space.

"Plan C then...."

Which she's just going to make up as she goes along,

Kara flies past the train to the bridge, and takes a breath, purses her lips, and blows at the flaming bridge ... trying to make sure to just blow out the flames, rather than take out the entire bridge. Kal makes this look so easy.

She then flies down to the metal railing and starts to bend everything back into place as good as she can, realizing that there's still some gaps in the steel railings. "Rao, nothing can be easy huh..." she says to herself, looking back at the rapidly approaching train.

So she uses herself to connect the two broken parts of steel rail together after bending one back into place and using a quick bit of heat vision to spot weld it.

Well... she IS supposed to be the girl of steel, right?

Inside the train as it fast approaches its doom, the conductor pauses to pray to the Virgin. At times such as these, the church is all he has to turn to, and he realizes he needs a miracle. The lights of the train fail to illuminate, but he saw the gap in the trestle and he realizes more than anyone in the train how long they all have to live.

Children inside waken as they get the worry from their parents, who seem to be starting to realize that something is wrong, but one small child and an old man in the window saw a streak of motion toward the front, and two sets of eyes peer to see what is happening ahead.

The full moon lets them see, just enough, and then the train is streaking over Kara's head. And her body, actually, the metal wheels using her as the missing section of track as the multiple cars bypass their intended doom to continue toward the north.

Kara Zor-El tries to keep her head down just enough so the train doesnt skip over hear head, but just glides over it instead. Totally understood what Kal meant when he would say he felt like he lived in a world made of cardboard. She stays stretched out where the missing track section should be, waiting for the train to go over her all the way before she can stop doing this to help make sure the train comes to a complete, slow stop.

Wow... this train is really long actually. Kara thinks to herself as she just continues to look down at the icy gorge below. Wonder who set off that bomb. Kara pauses to just move her hand to make sure the other track stays in place as well.

This probably looks a lot cooler to people who might be watching than to the person doing this, namely me. Kara thinks to herself, since this is now going on almost a whole minute.

Finally, the train passes over her and Kara flies back up, then passes by the train, making a little wave to one of the little children who's faces are pressed against the window. Then she heads up to the engine, and says, in Romanian, < I'm going to get in front to help stop the train, keep your brakes on, I'm going to slow it down until it stops okay?! >

Then she waits for the engineer to comply before she flies in front of the train.

The train successfully cruises past the damaged bridge into the snowy mountains, releasing Kara from her burden. The engineer crosses himself and blesses the figure in his window, calling her a saint as he slowly recognizes that his train is not going to blow up. Then he starts working on the emergency brakes, signalling her that he's doing so by pulling them.

Inside the train, a child waves vigorously even past the time that it can see the flying figure outside the window. Eyes that seem to be almost permanently fixed as wide-eyed and wondering, there's a smile attached. Still waving.

The old man in the train settles, showing no reaction save to nod, his life moving forward to another year. And the train approaches Kara's waiting grasp.

Kara Zor-El flies past the train and gets in front of it, putting her hands up in front of her to brace the impact - for the train, not for her. A few quick calculations in her head and she knows how much she's going to have to move backwards with the train to prevent a derailment or damage to the train or its occupants. The train proceeds to go foward after hitting into the Kryptonian teenage girl, who gradually slows it down with each yard forward it travels, along with the screeching of the brakes. Finally, the train slows to a complete stop and Kara removes her hands from the imprints made in the steel engine made by those hands. She pats them idly and flies back to the engineer.

< Everyone okay? > she asks, again in Romanian, before taking a quick look with X-ray vision at the many cars of the train. She'd do a more thorough lookthrough after talking to the engineer.

The ancient engine will bear the handprints of a teenage girl in the front for ages to come, and stories will be told of how they came to be there. Most will be true, surprisingly.

< I have not checked, but bless you for your help > the man says as he wipes sweat from his brow in the biting cold of the winter winds. < How did you do that? > he asks of the flying girl, the first he's ever met.

Inside the train there are a higher than normal amount of worried parents, anxious and awake children, and very little else to be seen. An old man with a book in his hands, a group of nuns sleeping in seats too small for their trip.

Nothing to see worth killing everyone over. The night is otherwise silent, though there may be a child pressed to a window as if hoping for more. Miracles from the sky, they tend to affect people who see them.

Kara Zor-El shrugs and smiles a little. < I'm Supergirl, it's sort of what I do. You probably should radio ahead so other trains know that the bridge is out. It seems like it was intentionally done. I better head out. Still have lots of other places to go. >

Kara starts to fly off, then stops, and flies over to the children who are watching the window. She says to the parents < Everything's going to be okay now. > She then smiles at one of the children, taps on the window and winks, before flying off.