She has a strong headache, her mouth tastes like metal and her wrists had never hurt that much in her whole life. Her hands are handcuffed behind her back and her feet have been tied tightly together. As Kara tries to focus her vision into the darkness she's engulfed in, she finds herself struggling to break free. After the eighth failed attempt, the superhero resigns herself and decides to try something else instead of slipping into panic mode like her brain is telling her to.
She doesn't know how many hours have passed since she fainted back on the mountain, so she closes her eyes and slowly exhales, trying to steady her heartbeat which is increasing its pace by the minute. When she opens them again, she focuses her gaze on some fixed point and tries her heat vision but, to her dismay, nothing happens.
Kara finally starts to panic, so she whispers calming words to herself although they don't have an effect at all. She's starting to get really scared inasmuch as she has absolutely no clue what's going on. She starts to go over every single possible scenario she thinks may unfold but ultimately discards them all for they make no sense.
When she can't come up with anything else, her brain takes her to her family and friends and she thinks of them as tears start flooding her eyes. Are they safe? Will they know where to look for her? Will Lena realise she's missing? Will she find out about her identity then? Or will the DEO make up some lame lie and tell her Kara's moved cities without so much as a goodbye? Kara feels sick at the idea.
A loud metal noise somewhere near her pulls her out of her thoughts abruptly. Her eyes need time to adjust to the bright light that seeps from behind the now open door thus she can't make out anything else beyond a silhouette approaching her.
"Well, well, well" says the voice "if it isn't the almighty Supergirl." Kara feels her heart skip a couple of beats. She can't yet see his face, but she doesn't need to. She would recognise that voice anywhere. "I was starting to think you wouldn't wake up… It's been 13 hours, you know?"
"Lex." She growls at him in a menace manner.
"Phew" the man pretends to wipe a sweat drop from his forehead "thank God you remember me. For a second I was afraid I was going to have to introduce myself. Now that would've been really awkward, wouldn't it?" He grins at her. Kara doesn't take her eyes off him as he walks back and forth in front of her.
"Why did you kidnap me?" Kara demands.
Lex puts his hand on his chest and gaps dramatically as if Kara has just offended his ancestors. "Kidnap? No, no" he waves her off with his hand while he grabs a chair Kara now sees for the first time "I simply borrowed you, dear."
"Where is the DEO team?"
"It's a little cold in here, don't you think?" He completely ignores her as he takes a seat in front of her and crosses his legs "so much for a hermetically closed room..." He snaps his tongue. "Anyway!" he shifts his attention back to Kara as if he forgot for a moment that she is there "you might be wondering why you're here." Kara mentally calculates the distance and the force she needs to kick that imbecile out of his chair.
"Don't even think about it" Lex seems to know what Kara's thinking and he drops his former glee tone to change it to a sterner one. "Both the room and the handcuffs are infested with Kryptonite. If you so much as rub me off the wrong way, I'll force you to watch while we rip all of your friends apart, Kara." He drags the last word longer than necessary and even though Kara's insides are shuddering she does her best to hide it. "Just like we did to the DEO team." He finishes with a smirk.
"I'm not scared of you." Kara shots back. "But if you so much as touch them-" The blonde's sentence is curt off by Lex's snort.
"I have to admit" he pulls a phone out of his pocket and starts texting as he starts to leave "the little bastard put up quite a fight when my men got a hold of them, but well, fortunately, they managed. And it was all for you."
"What does that mean?!" Fields and another man Kara doesn't recognise come into the room right as Lex's leaves and start dragging Kara out as if she were today's hunt; ready to be fed to the dogs. "Hey, leave me alone! Fields, what did you do to the DEO team? Why did you turn on us?!" Kara's shouts and threatens don't cause even a single reaction out of the men which only makes the blonde's anxiety grow. "I swear if you don't let me go right this second, you're going to regret it!"
She tries to wiggle her way out of their hold but everything is futile, she feels too weak due to the Kryptonite.
"Get ready for the surprise!" The men drop Kara by Lex's feet as the latter gesticulates to what's in front of him. Kara's heart stops once she raises her head and realises what's ahead of her.
"Lena" Kara whispers as she desperately fights the tears and swallows the lump that's formed in her throat. The blonde feels the air being pulled out of her as her eyes run across Lena's body. The brunette is tied up on a wooden chair and her mouth is taped. Unlike Kara at the beginning of her imprisonment, Lena is fully awake and although she doesn't seem to be in any physical pain; her eyes show just how scared she is.
Kara starts yelling what she believes are reassuring words for the brunette but a man comes up from behind her punches her hard. Once Lena realises Supergirl is defenceless to her brother she struggles as hard as she can against the moorage. Kara is frozen on the spot but she jumps into action right as Lena's desperate grunt jolts her. To Lex's amusement, neither of them manage to set themselves free. He snickers loudly, which draws the attention of both women.
"You see, everything started-" The man stops on his tracks as a thought hits him. "Oh, my! Where are my manners?" He chuckles as he walks back to Lena. "First things first" he makes a signal to one of his men who brings a backpack with him and drops it between Lena and Kara. "I believe we haven't properly introduced ourselves."
Kara's eyes open wide and she tries to speak but Lex's voice overlaps hers. "Supergirl, meet my sister Lena". He tells Kara whilst pointing to the brunette. He then turns back slowly to Lena and the CEO stops breathing under the intimidating look of his brother. He then proceeds to take the tape off her mouth. "Sis, I believe you've already met Kara".
They both lock eyes with one another. Kara's weep a hundred apologies while also promising Lena that everything will turn out fine; that she will make sure everything turns out fine. Lena's eyes, on the other hand, are undecipherable. And that terrifies Kara even more than a resentful stare. Lena looks composed and defiant although Kara herself is crumbling on the inside.
Lex chuckles at the little scene unfolding as he grabs the backpack the two men had carried in a couple of minutes ago and empties it. Kara's phone, glasses and some money fall to the floor with a loud thud. Lex bends down and picks the glasses up to examine them. "Hm, these don't look heroic at all. Also, you have terrible taste."
He throws them to where Kara is currently kneeling; head down in defeat and uneven breathing. Lena wants to protest and scream but nothing comes out. Her mouth has gone dry and she can't seem to find her voice.
"Okay, now that that's done, we can go back to me" Lex's claps his hands and puts himself between the girls, effectively blocking their view of each other, but not before Kara can mouth an 'I'm sorry' to the brunette. "As I was saying before this quick pause, I will grace the both of you with the wisdom of my powerful mind."
"What do you mean you can't find her?!" Alex yells, her cell phone clutched tightly on her hand and her anxiety growing stronger by the second. "She was with you!"
"I don't know what happened." Comes J'onn's resigned voice. Once he had managed to stop the haemorrhage by applying some pressure using his belt, he sent an emergency message back to the DEO and as soon as Alex heard the news, she lost it. "All I know for certain is that Kara's missing."
"Fuck!" J'onn thinks he could've heard the woman's scream travel all the way across the Atlantic to Europe without the need of a phone because of how loud she yelled. He does not comment on it, though. "I knew I should've gone with her." She says the last part almost in a whisper; more to herself than to anyone else.
"Alex-"
"I tried" she cuts him off "I called and tried to warn her about Lex escaping from his cell" there's a short pause on the line and the Martian pictures Alex leaning her forehead on her hand, eyes shut close and possibly feeling an incoming headache "but the signal was too weak." She's fighting the tears from falling down but is ultimately struggling to look composed in front of the other workers back at the DEO that are giving her pity looks. "She couldn't hear me."
J'onn walks slowly around the mountain in search of the remaining agents. His phone is glued to his ear but for the moment, all he can hear is Alex's heavy breathing. Still, he doesn't want to hang up just yet. He wishes he could tell her that they'll fix this, that they'll find Kara and get her back home in no time but right now, he can make no such promises. He can only hope.
Not five minutes after, he starts to come across some of his team and part of the German. He apologises to Alex as she is telling him something about an airplane and hangs up as he sees Gomez sitting in defeat with her gaze settled on some distant tree. J'onn jogs to her despite the pain and as he kneels down and looks at her from up-close he realises there's a prominent cut right above her left eyebrow.
"Agent, what happened?" J'onn demands. "Where are the others?" Gomez doesn't say anything. She numbly points ahead of them, to the lying unmoving body of Russo. J'onn calls for him but as he feared, he obtains no answer.
He lets go of the woman's shoulders and runs to the man. He turns him around and still, no response. When he gets a better look on the man's front body he realises why: he is dead. His throat was slashed open.
He feels tears forming on his eyes but just as Alex did minutes prior, he fights them. "What about the Germans?" He turns his head slightly in Gomez's direction. She remains quiet but nods her head towards some bushes near them.
J'onn doesn't run anymore. He knows if someone were to still be alive, they would've called for him already. No, this time he takes a deep breath, given that he's pretty certain of what he'll find, and walks to the spot that he was pointed at. Within the bushes, he finds Schulz and his men dead; they were shot. This time, J'onn crumbles to the ground and allows himself to fully cry; for his fellow agents and for Kara. He doesn't know how to proceed from here. The only thing he is certain of is that he needs to find Kara. Quick.
"After your little friend here" Lex says resentfully throwing Kara a dirty look "sent me to a dirty and small cell 17 months ago, I've been planning this moment in excruciating detail. And I've been waiting for this very day ever since I met the Kryptonian." There's a sparkle in his eyes that makes Lena's stomach clench. "Ah, just like a little child awaits for Christmas Eve, I guess."
"You're insane if you think you'll turn her into your personal weapon." Lena angrily grunts. Lex merely sighs.
"I never understood why masterminds have the need to explain in such detail their plans; but now that I have you two idiots in front of me, I realise why." Lex starts off cockily. "Besides, I wouldn't want to miss the look on your faces." He puts his hands behind his back and grins.
"Whatever it is you plan on doing" Kara says between clenched teeth "let Lena go. You've already got me."
"I'm not going anywhere without you!" Lena shouts back.
"Please" Lex snorts and dismisses his sister with his hand "enough with all the drama. I'm not letting either of you go."
"Now" he says as he walks to a metal desk where a briefcase is neatly lying. "Where to start…?" He softly sings as he reveals what was hidden inside. "I bet you're wondering why I had to drag you two so far from home in the first place. Well, simple: because Germany was the only place in the whole wide world where I could get this." He tells them as he picks up the gun. "After the Second World War, the victors, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States, took the German arsenals and kept everything they considered useful for themselves. Whatever was dismissed as non-useful was buried in the sea. Many years later, fishmen caught remains of those weapons on their nets and brought them ashore." He explains as he paces along the room while caressing the weapon.
"This one was rescued and tuned many decades ago by a man who called himself 'The Soul-Ripper'." He tells them excitedly. "He spent many years experimenting with chemical components until he finally accomplished his purpose. The power of the gunshot was so strong that it's believed that your soul exited your body before you had even fallen to the ground." He looks mischievously at Kara as his explanation comes to a pause. "He was a madman but I admire him even so".
"Lex, I swear once I get out these restraints I'm gonna launch your ass into space." Lena threatens him.
He doesn't pay any attention to her, instead he points the gun at her head. "Now, now, dear sister. Where are your manners? I thought mother taught you better than that."
"Don't you dare touch her!" Kara yells as she gathers all little strength she has left and tries to stand up. She succeeds, much to Lena's surprise due to the amount of time she's been exposed to Kryptonite, but she's quickly down on her knees again as one of Lex's man smacks her head from behind.
Lex sighs as he lowers the gun. "You kids are so…tiring." He shakes his head and signals the man to bring Kara closer to where he's standing next to Lena. "Have you not understood?! This" he says as he shows them the gun from up-close "it's not your regular weapon. It has something… particular about it. Unique!" he talks about the gun with the same affection a lover would about their partner. "But that's not all there is!" He says excitedly as he breaks off the love-spell that he had chanted on himself. "I managed to upgrade it, just you wait and see what its real power is."
"Lex, I will warn you one last time, stop-" Lex's shuts Kara up by hitting her in the head with the stock.
"Stop it!" Lena feels like crying once she sees blood dripping right above the blonde's eyebrow and down the side of her face. "Lex, stop it!" The older Luthor puts a hand up in front of Lena's face to shush her.
"Next time I'll use the other end of the gun." He says surprisingly calm. Lena opens her mouth to speak again but Lex slaps her hard across the face. "Look at your God, Lena! Look at her!" He screams as he points at Kara bleeding and panting once again kneeled down. "Does she look like an almighty saviour to you?! She's weak!" To prove his point, he kicks her on the stomach and Kara falls flat with a grunt of pain.
"Stop!" Lena is fully crying now and doesn't care to try and hide it. All she wants is for him to release Kara. "Why do you have us here anyway, huh?" She yells back. "We didn't even know you escaped! You could've flown to the other end of the world and be free!"
"Free?" Lex's deep voice calls back. "Do you really think any of us are free or safe with people like her around?!" His tone louder and more threating than before. "They think they're superior to us! Who's to say they won't try and conquer us all one of these days, huh? What makes you believe in them? In her?" He points at Kara and utters the words with such resentment in his voice there may as well have been venom on his tongue.
"Because they're not like you!" Comes Lena's response. "There's good in them."
"Good." Lex snorts. "Should we let a supposedly 'God' reign us when she can't even get on her feet to defend herself?" He kicks Kara again as she tries to stand up once again. Not contented just yet, he punches her in the face.
"I'm not" Kara whispers through swollen lips "I'm not trying to reign. I just want to protect everyone."
"Unfortunately for you, you soon won't be able to." Lex says gripping onto Kara's hair to lock eyes with her. "You see, whoever gets shot by this gun is sent to Perpetua Tenebris, but that's not all there is. They are also erased from the memory of everyone who ever knew that person. The people they met, the objects they possessed, the conversations they had: gone." Lena and Kara's eyes widen in fear. "As if they had never existed."
"Lex, please" Kara implores one more time "let Lena go."
"Don't worry about her." He chuckles. "It's not her who I'm going to use the gun on. Lena's only here because I didn't want her to miss on the fun of watching her best friend bleed."
"Lex, don't." The brunette begs.
"Too late" Lex stands up from his spot smirking. "I'm finally going to get the life I should have always had."
Kara looks at Lena and tries her best to look tough and composed if only for Lena's sake. The brunette is frantically struggling against the rope on her wrists and her intent only intensifies once she sees Lex aiming his gun to Kara's head.
A gunshot echoes the building.