Once again Kara woke up in the DEO hospital ward, this time in a lot more discomfort and panic. She opened her eyes and was immediately blinded by the solar lamps above her, the light hitting her sensitive eyes and sending painful sparks through her skull. She took a breath and found her chest constricted, her lungs wheezing and her throat dry as she struggled to swallow what air she could. Moved her limps, her muscles aching and burning with each movement it felt like she was strapped down. She lifted her head and forced her eyes to open, peering through the foggy haze to find she was on an examination table still in costume. She had sensors stuck to her hands and arms, one on her neck and a plastic mask over her mouth. She discovered she wasn't tied down so she lifted her hand sluggishly to grasp the mask on her face.
"no, leave that on!" a female voice ordered, a figure in a white lab coat rushing into her field of view to remove her hand and press the mask to her mouth. Kara made a sound to protest, but the woman pushed her back to the bed making her breath in the vapours from the tank beside her. "This isn't perfect yet, but it's the best version of blue kryptonite I could make" she told her, looking to the monitor over Kara's head. "There's still too much kryptonite in your lungs. I don't think I've ever seen a dose this large in an airborne state. A few decimal points higher and the toxicity could've been lethal."
Kara focused her eyes on the woman, her features slowly coming into view the more she concentrated. She was relieved to see it was Lena hovering over her, her voice sounding far away. "Le…na…" Kara croaked, her voice barely audible.
Lena shushed her, increasing the output of the medication she was giving her. "Don't talk. You're lungs took quite a bit of damage and it's taking a while for your healing factor to repair them. Give it another few hours and you should be okay to sit up. Until then, just lie down and rest."
Kara wanted to comply with her doctor's orders, but she had more questions and concerns. Like what happened to the Blacksmith? Where did Jake go? Was everyone else alright? She remembered J'onn getting shot, was he alive? Were Nia, James and Alex okay? But she couldn't make her voice work, the tightness in her chest constricting her vocal chords. In the end she had no choice but to pass out again on the examination table.
When she woke up again she was able to call out more clearly. "Lena? Alex!" she cried, shooting up on the table getting tangled in the wires attached to her. She ripped them off and pulled the mask off her face, instantly choking on the clean air without the blue kryptonite. She retched and wheezed coughing violently.
Her sister and mother appeared by her side, catching the young woman as she nearly tumbled off the bed. She looked up and looked at her sister, her eyes getting transfixed to the large bruise along the side of her face. "I'm okay" Alex told her, her own expression of worry crossing her face as she asked "how are you feeling?"
"I don't…" she said, her voice catching in her throat as she coughed again. She looked to Eliza asking "how long have I been here?"
"A few hours" the older woman told her. "You were brought in with the others when Alex used her signal watch. Brainy picked you up and brought everyone here."
Kara tried to remember what happened, the attack, fear crossing her face. "Nia, Jimmy…oh no, J'onn!"
"They are all safe" Eliza assured her. "They've been treated. Your friend Dreamer had a little bruising, a couple of grazes, but her injures were superficial. Olsen has a cracked rib, but his suit protected him from the worst. Alex got lucky with a stained wrist" she added, looking at her daughter.
Kara looked down and found her right hand was bandaged. She looked back at them. "And J'onn? He was shot. Is he…"
Alex's expression showed her concern as she and her mother shared a gaze. "He was in surgery" she explained. "They managed to remove the bullets, and his body is healing. But he hasn't woken up yet." She suddenly broke into tears and she looked at her sister, telling her "for a while I was afraid I was going to lose both of you."
"The gas you inhaled had enough kryptonite to knock you out" Eliza told her. "It had reacted to your lungs like an allergen. You couldn't breathe for a while. Lena has able to counter the effects in time, but you wouldn't open your eyes until an hour ago. Oh my darling daughter" she sighed, squeezing her hand tightly. "Nothing terrifies me more than seeing either of you like that."
"I'm sorry" Kara whispered, forgetting she had people who worries for her every time she comes back injured or close to death. She had flashbacks to her fight with reign, the closest to death she'd ever come. But she had to beat her to a plump. This villain barely broke a sweat, disabling her in one move. "What happened?" she asked.
Alex's face hardened. "The Reckoning happened. He flanked us with that contraption and then took the blacksmith from under us" she snarled.
"It wasn't Jake White" Brainy told her, walking into the medical ward with the rest of the crew behind him.
Dreamer came limping in alongside Olsen, one in costume the other not, both making a beeline for Kara's bed to hug her. Kara hugged them back in relief, holding back when James winced clutching his bandaged side. "I'll be fine" he told her when she asked.
She turned to Nia, glad to see she was okay. "How's J'onn?" she asked.
"Recovering" she replied optimistically.
"We were worried about you" Lena said, appearing behind Kara checking off notes. Kara smiled squeezing the woman's hand as they shared a relieved moment. "I'd recommend you take a few days off and rest, if I believed you'd take the advice" she remarked.
"What do you mean it wasn't Jake?" Alex asked Brainy, who stood at the foot of Kara's bed giving the blonde a nod. "We saw him. He upgraded his suit but it was him."
"No it wasn't" he explained. "He's been under tight surveillance all day. He hasn't left his hotel room. My teams haven't lost sight of him at all, not even through closed curtains."
"If it wasn't Jake, then who attacked us?" Kara asked, awkwardly rising to a sitting position.
He brought up his tablet and synced it to the large screen on the wall. "Cross-referencing the footage, data and testimonies, we've confirmed your assailant to be Robert DuBois, a mercenary who goes by the name Bloodsport" he replied, bringing up the man's record and likeness on the screen. They all looked at the image of the man and the outfit he wears and confirmed that was the man who attacked them. "Ex British military trained in all forms of combat and firearms, went into the private sector as a gun for hire approximately fifteen years ago. Served time in Belle Reve Prison before being released on parole a couple of years ago."
"Kal told me about him once" Kara remembered, looking at the black man glaring back at her. "He was contracted to kill my cousin before he was put in prison."
"Shot with a kryptonite bullet" Lena nodded. "We all thought my brother hired him to do the job. DuBois never gave up his name though."
"What's he doing here?" Olsen wondered. "Could Henry Irons have hired him?"
"It's possible" Brainy nodded, bringing up some more reports about his activities. "He returned to his criminal practices a few years ago. Reports show he had made modifications to his arsenal, including DNA printed collapsible weaponry more advance than anything we've seen before."
"It was like they came out of another dimension" Nia said with a shudder.
"Just the sort of thing someone like the Blacksmith might outfit him with" Lena nodded.
Alex looked at the screen intently. "So we've got a dangerous, highly trained mercenary playing bodyguard to a man who can make kryptonite and advanced weapons. Why does that sound like a terrifying combination?"
"Because it is" Brainy agreed. "In the hands of a man like DuBois, any weapon Irons makes would be a lethal killing machine. He's got over two hundred confirmed kills on record." He shot a look around the group, contemplatively adding "we were lucky nobody was more seriously injured."
"Why would a hired assassin leave anybody alive to begin with" Eliza asked, feeling the uneasy survivors gaze on her all wondering the same thing.
"It was a warning" Kara said, her voice quiet as it drew everyone's attention. She found everyone look at her and informed them "before he left he told me he had instructions from his client to leave me alive. He said everyone else was fair game. That's when he shot J'onn. It was a warning not to come after them, or else he'll kill you" she said, looking from Olsen to Nia to Alex.
Olsen narrowed his eyes, recalling a similar warning he received yesterday. "His client instructed him not to kill you?" he checked. She nodded.
"Why would Irons be concerned about leave the most powerful superhero chasing him alive?" Lena spontaneously asked.
Nia's eyes widened. "Because he didn't hire him" she realised, mentally kicking herself again. She saw Bloodsport in her vision, but she mistook him for the Reckoning because it was flicking over Jake's image in her dream. "It's like when we talked to Miranda Oakridge, how she wasn't allowed to use anything that could kill Kara!"
Alex blinked, turning to Brainy. "Could Jake have hired the mercenary?"
He considered it with a frown. "Impossible. We've been monitoring his cell activity constantly. He hasn't made any anomalous calls since he arrived. Unless…"
"Unless he's using an unregistered phone" Alex suggested.
Brainy admitted to the possibility, turning on his heel to return to work. "I'll have our satellites double check the cell towers in the area, see if there are any calls I can triangulate to his position. If there is activity, it won't be enough to prove he contracted DuBois, but if we can identify the number we can monitor it for further activity."
"What if it's a burner?" Olsen asked.
"Something tells me he won't be ditching it until he's confirmed the guy is out of the country" Alex said, following Brainy towards the war room.
The acting director turned and abruptly stopped her before she left the ward. "I'm afraid I can't let you further" he said apologetically. She stared at him in bewilderment until he explained "allowing you access to this facility is already threatening the credibility of your suspension. Any further involvement could jeopardise your case. I will keep you abreast of the situation, but I have to insist you leave now. I'm sorry" he said.
Alex looked around the base and sighed. For a moment it felt like she was back at work. "Can I at least see J'onn before I'm escorted off the premises?" she asked. He nodded, but he was forced to assign a security escort. She begrudgingly accepted it as Eliza joined her in checking on the Martian.
Kara climbed off the examination table, with help from Nia as Lena insisted again she get some rest. "What if I promise to take it easy until we get a lead?" Kara asked her as a compromise.
The woman looked at her, knowing that was the best compromise the hero would ever make. "Fine" she said, pulling out a specialised inhaler she made for her. "This is a dispersal unit of the blue kryptonite gas" she explained handing it to her. "If you have any more breathing problems, take two doses. It'll be a while until the last of the green is out of your system. Call me if your condition gets any worse. Or better, just call me before you go racing off to do something reckless" she begged.
"She'll take it easy, we'll make sure of it" Olsen promised. Lena nodded, returning to her work as Kara walked with the pair of them into the main room. "How are you doing?" he asked her.
"Like I breathed in a lungful of kryptonite" she said, trying to make them laugh. They didn't and she sighed. "We had him" she said disappointed.
"We'll get him again" Olsen said. "Bloodsport got the jump on us. We'll be ready next time."
"If there's a next time" Kara said pessimistically. They were so close but he got away. What if he's already out of the country? She thought. She turned back to her friends, examining their injuries with her x-ray vision. Eliza was right, Nia got away lucky while Jimmy suffered a cracked rib and internal bruising. Winn made the suit to last she thought with relief. "How are you two doing?" she asked.
"We're okay" Nia said. "A little embarrassed, but otherwise unharmed."
"Do you want a lift to your apartment?" James asked her.
She shook her head. "I'll make it on my own. You should check in with Kelly. She's probably worried and wondering where you are" she suggested.
Jimmy groaned. "More like preparing her speech about how irresponsible I'm being getting mixed up in battling mercenaries" he said. The girls gave him a look prompting him to realise he never mentioned "she knows I'm Guardian."
"You told here?" Kara said in surprise.
"She figured it out."
"Does she know about us?" Nia asked him.
"No. she never asked, I didn't tell. She knows me help with the DEO, work with Supergirl and everything, but she doesn't know about Kara or Alex for that matter."
"Wow" Kara blinked. She didn't realise that development. What else did I miss because of this thing with Jake, she wondered. "Well, all the more reason to get check in with her" she insisted.
James ground his teeth in thought. "Are you sure?" he asked. She insisted more persistently. "Okay, but promise me you'll take it easy" he insisted in return.
She nodded, shooing him off to call his sister and go home. "I should go and get changed" Nia said, promising she won't be long before jogging to the locker room to change out of her costume.
Kara stood in the war room scanning the screens monitoring the city, looking for any trace of the mercenary or the Blacksmith. It could take them a while. She supposed she could go home and rest. But she felt like she needed to do something before they slipped away again. She walked up to Brainy, who was leaning over a terminal talking to an analyst to access the cell towers in the area. "Is there any way to find out if Henry Irons might get in contact with Jake?" she asked the young man.
He glanced at her before dutifully replying "once we've identified any other cell activity in his vicinity, we may be able to determine that. But it will be tricky, and time consuming" he warned.
"What if Henry has already left the city?" she asked.
"Unlikely. I've been monitoring the borders, air space and ports. Every plane, vehicle and boat that leaves is logged and monitored, even the unregistered unmarked transports. But just in case I've issued a lockdown order in pursuit of cutting off any exits. Once the motion has been signed…" he was interrupted by a ping on his tablet, a satisfied grunt signalling his approval. "As of right now, nobody can leave the city without the authorisation of the FBI."
Kara nodded. It sounded like Brainy had everything under control. He was a natural director. But she couldn't shake the notion Jake might be their key to the fugitives. "Out of interest, where is Jake now?" she asked casually.
Brainy saw through her casual question, but indulged her curiosity with an update anyway. "Still at his hotel. Wait…he's on the move. My team will follow him" he promised. Kara, however, was already on the move towards the exit. He called out to her saying "I think I can predict what you are considering. I can only request you take extreme caution, if not revaluate the action you are about to take."
Kara hated it when Brainy predicted what she was about to do. But she appreciated he didn't try to stop her. "Can you promise me something" she asked him. "Don't tell Alex." He reluctantly nodded, letting her leave the building and fly off into the city.
