"Well, what do we do?" Barry asked his teammates.
"We assess the situation," answered Victor, "so we can form a plan. A real plan this time."
"Alright, I'll start," Slade said, clearly annoyed. "Obviously, this whole thing was a setup. Our bad guy didn't care about Magnus or Project: Platinum. He just wanted the Superior Man."
"Which means that our next move is to get him back, right?" asked Rio.
"First we have to secure Platinum and find Magnus," said Victor.
"She said that protecting him was her directive, right?" noted Barry. "That means he must be close by."
"What about down there?" Rio pointed to the door under the staircase. Unlike when Slade had noticed the door earlier, it was open now.
"Someone must have come out of there and snuck off with Superior Man while we were fighting the robot," Barry guessed.
Victor approached the door. "Kal?" he called. He was answered by a muffled cry, but it didn't sound like Kal. "Doctor Magnus?" Victor tried, shining a bright light into the basement and motioning for his teammates to follow him down.
The cry came again, a little louder this time. Once the team had reached the bottom of the stairs, they saw a man tied to a wall pipe, gagged with a necktie.
"Doctor Magnus!" Victor said with relief, as Barry moved to free the man.
"You're in real bad shape, Doc," said Slade, noting Magnus's many wounds. "We need to get you to Mercy."
"I'm sorry I helped him," Magnus said once Barry had taken the tie out of his mouth.
"You cracked under the pressure," Victor said with calming sincerity. "Happens to the best of us."
"Platinum. Is she okay?"
"Well," said Rio timidly, rocking back and forth on her feet, "we had to melt her face and fry her circuits, but she's still in one piece, so at least we got part of the mission right."
"Did you leave her up there? I have to make sure that-"
"No, what we have to do right now," Slade interrupted him, "is get some answers. What can you tell us about this enemy, Doc?"
"Not much, I guess," Magnus answered. "He was wearing armor the whole time, so I never saw his face. Maybe he's a bounty hunter or something? He kept talking about someone named Kal L., but he never said what the L stood for."
"No, Kal-El is Superior Man's name," said Victor.
"And Superior Man is like, from outer space, right?" noted Rio. "We can't really rule out that bounty hunter angle."
"A bounty hunter from space? So what? Boba Fett kidnapped our teammate?" remarked Barry.
"Magnus, did he at least give you a name?" Victor asked the scientist, who seemed more confused than anyone.
"Yeah, he did actually," Magnus said, composing himself. "He gave it loudly too. Seemed pretty proud of himself."
"Well," said Slade, "What did he call himself?"
Magnus spoke quietly, as though he thought that speaking the name would somehow summon the villain back, "Conquest."
