Author's Notes: Thanks again to everyone who favorited, followed, and reviewed this story.


It only took about five minutes for a strike team to assemble and another fifteen for the helicopter to take them the factory where the thermal scans showed them the Zarolot was hiding. Since the Zarolot could disappear again at any moment and they didn't have any time to spare, J'onn used the helicopter ride to brief the team on the plan.

"Esposito, Gao, and Fisher will move into position first to set up a perimeter." It wouldn't prevent the Zaralot from escaping, but it was still necessary to ensure no civilians or local police accidentally wandered into their operation. "I'll go in through the front disguised as Supergirl and engage the Zarolot. While I'm keeping it distracted Jackson, Boyle, and Danvers will come in through the rear and engage the trap."

"We managed to rebuild the industrial capacitor that Livewire destroyed," Alex explained. "once activated it will absorb the Zarolot, but it needs to be within eighteen inches of the alien in order to work."

"Your weapons shoot liquid nitrogen which will stun the Zarolot, but only for between five and forty-five seconds depending on how much power it's absorbed." Henshaw continued. "Don't let it touch you. Even at their weakest Zarolots can absorb enough power from a human to stop your heart in seconds and the more power they drain from living creatures the stronger they get."

"What about you, Sir?" Boyle asked. "You're the one who's going to be engaging this thing. Can it hurt you?"

"Sure it can, but not much. One Zarolot is no match for a Green Martian, that's why I'm not going in my true form. If the Zarolot realizes it's outmatched it'll teleport out of there, so it can't know it's a trap until it's too late."

"But won't the Zarolot flee when it sees Supergirl?" Fisher asked.

"According to records salvaged from Fort Rozz, the three Zarolot prisoners are related. Assuming we're correct in our assessment that the one we're after is the female of the group—and granted it's not that easy to tell with this species, that would make the one that was killed by Supergirl her son. We believe she's may be looking to get revenge and that's why she's returned to our world."

"ETA one minute." The helicopter pilot informed him.

"Now I know, no matter your relationship with Supergirl, this is personal for all of us. She might not be a DEO agent, but she fights alongside us every day making the attack on her an attack on all of us. That said do not let anger cloud your instincts, we all want to get this alien, but I don't want to see anyone putting themselves at risk to do so." He turned his attention to Alex as he said that last part.

When the factory came into view J'onn changed into Supergirl and flew out the helicopter while the rest of the agents repelled down their lines. And once Esposito, Gao, and Fisher had the perimeter secure, he ripped the door off its hinges and flew into the building.

He spotted the Zarolot right away and he prepared himself for an attack. He knew he couldn't go on the offense because if he used his powers he'd reveal that he wasn't really Supergirl, so he planned to keep the alien busy by super speeding around the building and dodging attacks until Alex and the others were in position.

Unfortunately the Zarolot did not attack him like planned, instead, it flew into some of the machinery and the equipment sprang to life. In one horrifying instant, J'onn realized that the Zarolot was trying to overload the machinery.

"Fall back!" He yelled over his comms just as sparks started to spurt from the equipment.

A second later there was a large explosion and half the build was engulfed in flames. The force of the explosion slammed J'onn against the wall. He fell to the ground and reverted back to his Martian form.

The impact with the wall did little to hurt him, but fire was one of the few things that could actually hurt him and the nearby blaze severely weaken him.

The Zarolot teleported beside J'onn and touched his head sending pain radiating through him.

"Did you think, Martian, that I'd be fooled like the humans are by your little trick?" It asked in a mechanical sounding voice.

J'onn didn't answer but instead phased through the Zarolot stunning it slightly.

Alex came rushing in flanked by Boyle and Jackson. The three shot at the alien, but it teleported away before the cold liquid could reach it.

The alien reappeared in front Boyle where it stuck its hand through his heart. He let out a short yell before dropping to the ground. While the alien attacked their colleague Alex and Jackson triggered the trap, but it saw what they were doing and disappeared before they could get close enough.

Alex, J'onn, and the Jackson stayed on guard in case it decided to appear near one of them, but after a few seconds, it was clear that the alien had fled.

"The thermal scans are no longer picking up any signs of the Zarolot in your location." Suresh confirmed over the comms system.

Jackson picked up Boyle and thrust him over his shoulders, while Alex helped J'onn and they evacuated the building. Once they were a safe distance from the inferno, Jackson set Boyle down and started to perform CPR.

"It's too late." With his x-ray vision, J'onn could clearly see all the damage the Zarolot had done to Boyle's heart and he knew there was no coming back from that. "He's gone."

Lucy came over the comms. "NCFD has been told about the fire and is on route to your location."

"Esposito, Gao, and Fisher maintain your position and don't let anyone, but the fire department get near the building." J'onn ordered. "We'll send a car to come pick you up. The rest of you get back in the helicopter, we're going back to base."

There was nothing more they could do about the fire, and since they were a covert agency it was better if they weren't there when the firefighters arrived.

...

"Are you sure you're alright?" Alex asked J'onn after the DEO doctors had checked him out.

"I keep telling you, I'm fine." J'onn tried to reassure her, but she could see he was still in pain and she knew the fire couldn't have helped his injuries.

"You don't look fine."

"Alex, relax, it takes more than a Zarolot to get rid of me."

"I wish the same could be said for Boyle."

J'onn put a hand on her shoulder.

"We're going to get this thing for Boyle and for Kara."

When her sister's name was mentioned, Alex frowned. J'onn picked up on this and asked. "Did everything go alright with her checkup?"

"Yeah, Hamilton says she's doing great."

"Then why do you look so worried?"

"Kara and I got into a huge fight right before we found the Zarolot. Cat had asked James to meet with Supergirl, but I was scared she'd agree to it and put herself in danger if someone figured out she's alive and doesn't have her powers, so I told him not to tell Kara about it. But she found out that we kept that from her and now she's furious."

"Kara is still struggling to figure out who she is without her powers. Even though Hamilton says they'll probably come back. the truth is they may not and she knows this. Plus, she's dealing with all of this right after the city, that she normally protects, watched as she was attacked and nearly murdered."

"And I'm not helping by treating her like she's helpless without her powers."

"You almost lost your little sister; it's understandable that you'd be a little overprotective right now and Kara knows this even if she's mad. She'll come around, she can never stay mad at you for too long. And she's had some time to calm down, why don't you call her and try to apologize. "

Alex took J'onn's advice, but her call went to voicemail after two rings, telling Alex that her sister had rejected her call.

"Hey, so I guess you still don't want to talk to me and I don't blame you for being mad at me. I'm sorry I shouldn't have tried to hide things from you.

And I do think you're capable of taking care of yourself, it's not that, but I also know you. You put everybody else before yourself, just like you could have run from that fight the second you realized it was a trap, but you wouldn't risk letting anyone else getting hurt and you nearly died because of your selflessness.

That's why I worry about you so much because while you're looking out for everybody else someone needs to look out for you. And I know sometimes I go too far and I'll try to work on that, assuming you'll talk to me again.

Listen I don't like apologizing to your voicemail. If you get this message tonight, please call me. If you'll let me I'll come over and do this in person. I love you."

...

After Kara ignored her sister's call she saw she had a voicemail and even though she was still mad at her she decided to listen to Alex's message. When she heard the pain and worry in Alex's voice her anger subsided and she pressed Alex's speed dial as soon the message finished, but before the phone could ring on her sister's end she hung up.

Kara thought about what Alex said at the end of the message about wanting to meet. If she called Alex right then, her sister would surely want to come over and talk about their fight and since Kara was not at her apartment, but instead at her Catco office that complicated matters.

Kara didn't want to lie to her sister about where she was and why she couldn't meet right away (mostly because she was a terrible liar and Alex could always tell when she was deceiving her), but if she told Alex that she was at work Kara knew she would ask why she was working so late.

Maybe I should just tell her what I'm doing. Kara thought for half a second before flat out rejecting the idea. Alex would freak if she found out that Kara planned to meet with Cat as Supergirl in the next few minutes. She could already hear her sister listing all the reasons this was a bad idea. And even though Kara did have some doubts about what she was doing, she knew this was something she needed to do and she wasn't in the mood to listen to Alex try to talk her out of it.

She'd briefly considered running her idea by J'onn or even asking him to pose as her for a meeting, but she decided against it. He'd probably agree with Alex. Besides, whenever J'onn impersonated her there was always repercussion. It was better to just meet with Cat herself.

Kara had come up with her solution, earlier at the DEO after Alex had left with Vasquez, She was so angry she'd gone to talk to her mother's AI to try to calm down and that had given her an idea how she could meet with Cat even without her superpowers.

Getting ahold of the hologram communicators had been pretty easy. Her pod was equipped with a pair, she'd just never had an opportunity to use them until now. And since most of the agents were gone chasing the Zarolot and the people left behind were busy providing backup support, it had been pretty easy to take them from her ship without anyone noticing.

While Cat was at Parents' Night at Carter's school, Kara had slipped into her office and hid one of the communicators on her balcony. Even if Cat hadn't come back to the office like she expected she could just use it to contact her boss tomorrow night, but Cat had returned to work just like Kara thought she would.

She knew she'd have to talk to her sister sometime tonight and tell her about the meeting so Alex wasn't blindsided when the story was leading news tomorrow morning. But Kara decided to wait and call her after the meeting that way Alex wouldn't be able to change Kara's mind.

With her decision made Kara positioned the communicator on her desk, finished changing into her Supergirl suit and turned the Kryptonian technology on.

...

Forty miles off the coast of National City, the Zarolot was floating over the ocean recovering from the fight with the Martian when she felt a dramatic surge in energy and knew instantly that alien technology was being used somewhere in the city. The humans did not possess any kind of power source to create such a dramatic surge in energy, except of course for their nuclear bombs, but that clearly was not the cause.

It wasn't that unusual for her to sense alien technology being used, after all, she felt it all the time near the North Pole or in the desert outside of National City where the humans had build a prison for aliens, but she rarely felt it being used so close to the heart of the city.

The Zarolot wondered if this was some kind of a trap set by the humans, but her instincts told her it wasn't. The humans wouldn't want to draw her into such a populated area. No. if they were trying to catch her, they'd look for a place where they'd wouldn't have to worry about civilian casualties.

She decided to investigate and teleported towards the source power. When she did she found the technology was being used in the building belonging to Supergirl's reporter friend and she knew the Kryptonian was probably nearby.