CHAPTER TWO: A SHORT TALK

An hour later, Barbara found herself in her room. She took her Batgirl costume out of her duffel bag and laid it on her bed. She surveyed it and noticed the tear in the left arm. She still remembered where the tear had come from.

During the last fight against Scarecrow, he'd injected her with his fear toxin. However, she'd taken the antidote beforehand. In anger, he had started beating her, but he was stopped by the timely arrival of Batman and Robin. In the process, the tear had formed.

That had been two weeks ago. Scarecrow had gone missing, it seemed, as had the Joker and Bane. With all three missing, Batgirl felt something was wrong.

The door opened, and Kara entered. She gave a smile to Barbara. The two had become the best of friends after teaming up and constantly talked to one another on the phone. But now, it seemed they would be able to talk to one another much more frequently.

"Hey," Kara greeted. "How's everything going?"

"Good," Barbara replied. "Of course, Bruce is still quite angry at me for coming here. I think he should be happy I'm trying something new. I know my dad wouldn't be the happiest if he knew what I've been doing for the past five years, but I just wanted to become Batgirl, and now I'm here at this place. I want to be able to be my own kind of person. And plus, my father doesn't check on me too much anymore. He knows I'm a grown woman, and that I can make my own decisions. And we have service even up here in space, it seems, so I can call him." She laughed at the last part.

"I agree with you, Barbara," Kara told her. "I know Bruce will come around soon. You just need to keep hoping that things will turn around. I don't have much experience on this sort of matter, but ah well, I can try to help one of my greatest friends, now can't I?" She looked behind Barbara and saw her costume, as well as the tear. "What happened to your costume?"

"A fight with Scarecrow," Barbara answered. "I was being beaten, but not severely. He'd just caught me off-guard, and one of the claw-like syringes he has on his left hand ripped it. But I'm okay."

"That's good. I know what it feels like to be beaten. You remember Metallo, of course. Before we met you guys—at least, before I met you guys—I had infiltrated Lexcorp. Metallo had been hired by Lex Luthor, and unfortunately, he found me. He beat me until I was bleeding, actually. But he was stopped by Luthor, who wanted me alive."

"That's got to hurt," Barbara said. "How did Clark find you?"

"He's the one who sent me to Lexcorp, but he hadn't known Lex would be there, and he definitely didn't know Metallo would be there. He came and found me being held in a red sun radiation cell. He was able to rip out the source of the red sun radiation and stop it so he could rescue me. After that, we found ourselves cornered by Metallo, but Lois Lane found us and saved us. As you can remember, she gets herself into trouble quite a bit. But she saved us that day, and both Superman and I are in her debt for that."

"What about Lex? How'd you stop him?" Barbara asked.

"He…escaped before we could get to him," Kara said solemnly. "We haven't seen him since."

Barbara thought something sounded similar. She started thinking, and suddenly her eyes widened.

"We need to find Superman," she said. "There is a possibility that I know what could be happening."

Barbara ran out of the room. She turned back to Kara. "Do you know where your cousin is?" she asked.

Kara shrugged. "I'm not sure. He was in the control room, but I don't know if he's there now."

They went down a few halls before finally finding Superman talking to the Flash. When he saw them, a serious expression developed upon his face.

"What is it?" he asked.

"We need to talk to you guys," Kara said. "It has something to do with Lex Luthor."

Superman looked back to the Flash. "I'll resume speaking with you later," he said.

Flash nodded and then smiled at the girls.

As they left, Superman turned to Barbara.

"How do you know something is wrong?" he asked.

"I'm just that sort of a person," Barbara replied. "I've been able to tell when something is wrong and when someone might be in trouble. A lot of this stuff happens to me, and I hate it a lot. But I have a feeling now about Lex Luthor. Kara told me about your last fight with him and Metallo, and when she told me that he'd escaped, I began to wonder."

"What exactly do you mean?" Superman asked.

"What if he went somewhere else that's not in Metropolis? What if he went to some sort of hideout?" Barbara suggested.

Superman's eyes widened. "So you're saying he might have joined with some team to take the Justice League down?" he asked.

"Possibly," Barbara answered. "That's just my guess. If you can, please ask Bruce about it. I wish I could be a little more sure, but it's kind of hard in a time like this, if you know what I mean. I have a lot on my mind right now."

"I understand," Superman told her. He looked over to Supergirl, who seemed to be thinking about something. "Kara, what is it? What's on your mind?"

"Something just feels real weird," she said. "And it all comes back to what Barbara just said. You see, just before I was teleported up here to the Watchtower, this sickening feeling suddenly came over me, and at first I didn't understand it. But now that I think of it, it seems real familiar…and in a bad way."

"What did it feel like?" Barbara asked.

"It felt…like Kryptonite."