Chapter Eight:
One thing Kara knew she had to do was be careful with this situation. Vulture, like the rest of the Terrible Trio, was pretty unstable. And he would hurl Lena down to her doom from below.
"You better back up, Supergirl!" Vulture yelled. "I will throw her, I will…."
The Girl of Steel made her way to nab Lena. Vulture saw her attack coming and dodged out of the way, with Lena in his hand. Vulture sent a sonic attack at Kara which rippled through the air. The Girl of Steel's super enhanced hearing had been bombarded by the cries of Vulture.
Lena struggled and managed to unleash a stun gun to stab Vulture in the thigh with. She had complete faith that Kara would catch her when she fell.
From several hundred feet in the air, Lena plummeted from Vulture's losing of her. Supergirl punched Vulture down and flew at Lena. She flew underneath Lena and caught her in her arms when she almost fell down onto the ground in a free fall position.
"Are you okay?" Kara asked.
"Been better, but still breathing," Lena said.
Vulture dove down and pierced the side of Supergirl's shoulder. Kara, screaming in agony, turned around and smacked Vulture in the side of the head with a very vicious backhand punch which sent him flying up into the air. Supergirl took the skies and sent Vulture crashing through the water tower with a blast of heat vision.
The Girl of Steel felt a bout of dizziness coming from her and she almost fell from the sky. Kara had to bend her knees to break more gently as she slid to the ground. The breath had been knocked out of her body as she slumped forward, breathing a fair bit when she pulled the lock of hair away from her hair.
"Kara?" Lena asked.
"I'm fine," Kara said.
"You're bleeding."
Lena gently lifted up Kara's arm and looked at the gash opened up on it. Sure enough she was. Kara staggered a few steps and Lena reached out to catch her friend before she dropped down onto the ground. Lena put her hand on the back of Kara's head and held her up until she could stand.
Fox, like the coward he was, grabbed one of the party guests and threw him right at the hood. The male version, he was pretty sure. Maybe they were brother and sister, maybe they were lovers, maybe they were both, Fox did not care. This entire party was a bust, but at least Vulture grabbed Lena Luthor.
The skilled criminal made his way to the elevator, but it opened up and the second hood attacked him. An arrow had been sent at him. Fox ripped through the stranded ropes which wrapped around him and got all all fours before he pounced at the Green Arrow, as he had been calling the second hood in his eye. She dodged the attack and shot an explosive arrow up towards him.
Fox caught the arrow in his hand and whiplashed it up into the air. The arrow slammed into the top of the sprinkler system and activated it above their heads. The hallway flooded.
Shark rose up from the dead, with a big grin. He smashed open a large fountain near the hallway and further flooded it.
"Play nice kids!"
Shark grabbed both Olivia and Oliver around the waist. They hit the same pressure point attack at the same time to dislodge the Shark. Fighting him in water, even though it was in the middle of the flooded hallway, made him sure he brought them into his element.
Oliver's attempts to tag Fox had been blocked by Shark who hoisted him up. Oliver flew through the air and through a window before he landed in the middle of a large pool in the middle of the complex.
Oliver pulled himself up and Shark dove into the pool. Shark rushed and tried to smash Oliver's chest. Oliver dodged the attack and sent a very violent blow through the water to rattle Shark. Shark hung around and grabbed Oliver by the throat but he slipped out the attack.
"There's no way you're getting through this skin!" Shark yelled. "Don't you get it, when I'm in the water, I'm stronger, and you're dead meat. I wonder how you'll taste!"
Oliver jumped out of the water but Shark grabbed his leg. There was a struggle as Oliver kicked Shark in the head several times before he grabbed his bow.
"MOVE!"
Olivia fired a blast through the water and sent a pulse of electricity to knock Shark back. Shark growled as he rose to his feet and charged Olivia a few seconds later. She dodged the attack and the Green Arrow of Earth 38 sent three arrows to explode into his body.
Suddenly, Shark staggered back, not from the pain of the arrows, but from the pain of the serum wearing off. This allowed Oliver to jump in and rip the armor off of his body when he turned back into a normal, although larger than normal, man. Oliver caught him in the side of the neck with a well-connected pressure point attack.
The two hoods brought Shark to the ground and the loud crack sent him down to the ground. Shark fell to the ground, blood oozing out of his mouth.
Olivia took a sample of his blood. She would be very interested to see where this serum came form and how to counteract it, if it all possible. It had a shelf life, they knew that. Although, whether or not it is dose dependable, they would find out.
The two hoods looked at each other. Dripping wet, their uniforms ravished slightly from battle.
"You okay?" Olivia asked.
"Yeah, I heal very easily," Oliver said. "Although, maybe not if Shark tried to gnaw my leg off."
The pained, shallow breath indicated that getting off the serum allowed Shark to feel every blow Olivia and Oliver. Every arrow, every punch, every kick, every instance of Shark getting electrocuted. He might not survive the night, but Oliver could not help but think.
Kara and Lena returned and noticed the two hoods standing there side by side.
"He's dying," Lena said. "But, we need to keep him alive long enough to get information."
"He didn't seem to be the masterplanner type," Olivia lightly commented.
Oh, be that as it may, Lena still wanted to see what he knew. It would be a lot easier if they had that device that Fox was reported to use, to swipe people's memories. Of course, such power could be exposed.
"You were bleeding," Oliver said.
"Yeah," Kara said. "But, I'm healed now."
Well, nothing left than an irritable, stinging feeling over her skin. Things could be far worse than they were before, Kara suspected. She leaned back and casually cupped her chin.
Lena got some people in to take Shark to the lab. One of her guards rushed up the steps, alongside of Sara, the Earth-38 version.
"You give me tonight off, and you almost get abducted?" Sara-38 asked. "I swear, that's just our luck."
"Hey, I had people looking out for me," Lena said. "I believe you can find Vulture across the street. If the serum wore off before he could recover, he's lying in the wreckage."
"We have a problem, Ms. Luthor," one of the guards said. "Fox broke into the vault."
"Oh. Lex's old vault," Lena groaned.
Thankfully, she had mostly everything cleared out. Well, mostly everything did not mean everything, as there were still a few items. Fox must have swiped something on his way out. Which meant, he took a larger dose of serum than his fellow Trio members, or there was more.
"I want to know what makes a Kryptonian bleed."
Oliver's question caused Kara's eyes to snap open and then she shut them in very intense concentration.
"Me too," Kara murmured.
If Vulture was taken out, two thirds of the Terrible Trio had been off of the board. Of course, this left the mastermind, Fox. The most dangerous of the trio by far and the most skilled. Oliver realized that he could have taken a more selfish path had things gone different. Fox was a dark mirror, someone with obvious means and training, and also he had a serum which made him much stronger than the average fighter, much like the Mirakuru did for Oliver.
"Oh, Lex, you were a rotten snake. Prison is too good for you, isn't it?"
Fox sat casually and held the device which he swiped from the underground vault. He managed to scan the information from a former associate of Lex who happened to attend one of his past events. He had distracted everyone quite expertly and managed to outfox the Green Arrow, both of them apparently.
Warren Crawford had been a bit of a restless child. He always detested the parties that his parents dragged him along to as a child, the phoniness, the faux politeness, he learned by now that all of those people wore masks. His older brother, Ian, he worked as a respected scientist, and helped Warren, until he had his associate, Vulture, shoot him in the head once they had the serum that he spent the better part of five years.
Still, Warren trained in every discipline in the world. A genius who created tech which could obtain information even better and more efficiently than the greatest data farming operations on the planet.
But, the rich were fools, and Warren wanted to bring them down to Earth. He would be one hundred percent of the one percent by draining the bank accounts of the richest people on the planet and putting them in his. His old fraternity brothers assisted, disenchanted and board by the so-called good life as well.
A skilled martial artist, Crawford wished he could do more. And thanks to Lex Luthor's device, he would. He would first use the device to lower the mental defenses of everyone and then he would be able to hack into every single person's brain remotely to get their financial information.
All of the money would be safely in his account.
"And Lex, you will be among them," Fox commented. "You think that prison makes you safe from me. You mocked me for being delusional. You told me my ideas won't work. But, you'll be lowly as the commoners you stamped on to get where you are. Your time ends now. The Luthor legacy dies, along with the Queen legacy, the Wayne legacy, The Stagg legacy, the Sionis, and all of the other fools who think they are better than me because they donate their money to charitable causes. Instead, it just shows how hypocritical they are. If they want to empathize with the poor, then they will live among them!"
Fox activated the device and waited.
So far, nothing from Shark. Kara paced back and forth. Olivia returned along with Oliver.
"A scientist named Ian Crawford was found dead in Gotham City," Oliver informed Kara.
"I heard the news, wasn't it over gambling debts to the mob?" Kara asked.
"No," Olivia said. "I did some digging, and I found his brother, was Warren Crawford. He went to Luthorcorp years ago with an idea of a device which could tap into the human mind. Lex pretty much laughed him out of the building and told him that he was delusional to think such a thing was possible."
"But, it was, wasn't it?" Kara asked.
"Yes," Oliver said. "Crawford did create it, and the Fox used it. Warren Crawford and the Fox are one in the same."
"His brother worked with Doctor Kirk Langstrom, who created the Manbat serum," Olivia continued. "And the DNA of Shark matched Clyde Smythe, one of Crawford's old fraternity brothers."
Kara whistled, so Crawford created this device, when Lex mocked him for thinking of it. Suddenly, Kara found herself dropped down to her knees by an attack and Olivia did so as well. Oliver staggered around as a dizzy Lena.
"Lex did...base one of his potential weapons against Superman off of Crawford's technology proposal!" Lena managed. "Thankfully, I know what he's stolen and have been able to enact a counter maneuver."
Lena slipped a pair of earbuds in and it deflected the vertigo effect. She gave them to Kara, Olivia, and Oliver who now could think more clearly.
"I wished I dismantled it now," Lena said.
"Crawford set off the weapon, so we can now track it," Olivia said.
One arrogant slip up would allow them to close in. Lena nodded and punched up the information to track the source of the signal. Crawford had no idea how potentially dangerous and lethal this weapon Lex created was, or if he knew, he did not care.
"I'll send the coordinates to your earbuds when I have it pinned down."
"Crawford has a penthouse just outside of National City," Olivia said.
"Surely, he can't be that arrogant?"
"He's a rich asshole who thinks the law can't touch him," Lena said. "Trust me, he's that arrogant."
The two hoods and Supergirl suited up and prepared to head out. Supergirl would take it from the skies, because Vulture had been unaccounted for. Olivia and Oliver, they would take things from the ground.
The Plot Resumes In the Next Chapter.