Author's Note: The ending of chapter one was crazy, but necessary because it worked so well. This is the ending of that moment and then goes on further. I won't say anymore because this chapter is very interesting.

I hope you enjoy it.


Chapter 2 - The Necklace

"Your sworn enemy?" Lena asked, not sure what Kara was going on about until it hit her. "Wait… You're a Hidden One, aren't you? With what's happened in this city recently, I suspect you are the one I have been hunting too."

Kara slowly nodded her head, and body in a bow, "The one and only. I freed this town from the order that had been causing them pain."

"Wait, how did you even know I would be here?" Lena asked, looking right past her comment about the order.

"The barkeep recognized you as Lena Luthor. He said you and your mother Queen Lillian had been in that bar several times over the years. So I followed you to the church, heard you speak to the nun, then went to speak to Sister Margaret," Kara explained. "Sister Margaret saw me kill Sister Frideswid, and while she advised me she would lie to you, I told her to tell you most of the truth and that she found the note. The note I wrote up for you, and here you are. So my plan worked," She explained further so that they were now both on the same page.

"Didn't want any innocents to get caught in the middle, how nice of you," Lena threw back at Kara, angry that she'd been played for a fool.

"Yes, I didn't want to see what you might do to them," Kara directed back at Lena, taking a few steps in her direction with her sword out.

Lena pulled out her two daggers one in each hand. "You're worried about me? Your people are the ones that kill innocents, not mine."

"Is that what they told you?" Kara asked, shocked at what was coming from Lena's mouth. Of the few members of the order that she'd killed, they only cared about themselves, never about others.

"Told me what?" Lena asked, stepping to the side as Kara did the same opposite her. The both of them walking in a circle waiting for one to take the first step toward the other.

"The hidden ones only kill those that mean to cause harm. The Order, which is your people, use the innocents to further their gain in whatever sick fantasy they have," Kara pointed out the purpose of her being here. "Take Sister Frideswid for example. She claimed she was helping people, when really she was experimenting on them and then killing them. I took a book from her office full of her sick fantasies. You think that kind of person is good?" She asked, honestly wanting to know what kind of person Lena was. Before now, she thought she knew what kind of person Lena was but now… Now she didn't know who she was.

"No, Sister Frideswid was a healer, she helped people," Lena defended what she was told about the woman.

"As I said, that's what they told you. Seems to me like you aren't privy to all of the details of the order you are a part of," Kara pointed out to Lena.

"Then answer me this, why did your people kill my mother and my father?" Lena asked, closing in the circle as they continued walking around it. The part of her that knew she had to kill the hidden one was winning, and she wanted to see her bleed.

"If they were a part of The Order, then that's your answer," Kara answered plainly. "I haven't met anyone from the Order that does anything good."

Lena shook her head, "My mother was not a part of the order. She was innocent, someone you claim would never be harmed by your people." She shouted, anger filling her as she charged at Kara. They connected as Lena's dagger clanged against Kara's sword.

"If she wasn't..." Kara's sword stopped Lena's dagger from hitting her. "A part of the order, then we wouldn't have killed her." She used her sword to push Lena back a couple steps. "The order lied to you."

"Liar!" Lena charged Kara again, this time when her dagger stopped the sword, she swung her right fist, connecting with Kara's left cheek, knocking her to the side. She held onto Kara's sword, throwing it on the ground behind her. "My mother told me a hidden one killed my biological mother."

Kara threw a throwing knife blindly as she stood back up, not sure if it connected with anything. She used her left gauntlet to block a blow from Lena's dagger, "Then she lied to you!" She shouted back, before she used her right hand to shove Lena back, "We protect the innocents."

"Stop lying, or I'll kill you," Lena ran up close, the dagger in her left hand coming dangerously close to Kara's side, as she used her right gauntlet to block Kara's left arm from stopping her. "One wrong move, and this blade is going into your side."

"Do it, and I'll take you down with me," Kara held her left hand up by Lena's shoulder, her hidden blade on full display. "If you stab me, I might live, but you will be dead."

Lena breathed in heavily from the fight and from the anger coursing through her veins, "Why would my mother tell me your people killed my biological mother if it wasn't true?" She asked, as they stood in place staring at each other eye to eye. Neither paying any attention to the other's weapons.

"I don't know wh-" Kara started to answer when she noticed something new. A necklace that Lena was wearing had fallen out from under her armour. It was a silver chain with the shape of the hidden ones in silver. "Where did you get that?" She demanded, looking right at it.

Lena pushed Kara backward with her right hand, quickly picking up the necklace and putting it back behind her chest piece. "My mother gave it to me not long before she died."

"Your mother gave you that?" Kara questioned, now thoroughly confused about this whole thing now.

"That is what I said," Lena reiterated again where she'd gotten the necklace. "Why are you so focused on the necklace? I want answers!" She shouted.

Kara put away her hidden blade as she reached for the chain around her own neck, pulling it out from under her armour. On the chain was the same symbol that was on Lena's necklace except this one was gold, "I am so focused because I have one too."

Lena's entire demeanor changed from one sentence, "What… If that is the case then your people must have stolen it from her family."

Kara shook her head, "No, this is a tradition among the hidden ones. Depending on your level within the creed, you get one of these. Copper for lower level, silver for trainees, and gold for assassins," She explained the structure of the symbols. "How did-" She was cut off when her hawk up above squawked at the sound of danger ahead.

Lena looked up and then over to where the bird was flying toward. It was a zealot riding over the hill on the path. "You can't be-" She turned around to continue talking to Kara when she realized she was alone. "What the.." She whispered to herself.

She looked around but couldn't see a single trace of the elusive hidden one, except her sword laying in the mud. Which proved just how mysterious their faction was.

The zealot rode up on their horse, clad in strong silver armour, a long sword hanging off it's waist and a shield on their back. They removed their helmet to reveal a woman with long brown hair.

"Reign, what are you doing here?" Lena asked, wanting to know why the zealot was here.

"Le-" She stopped herself and thought for a moment. "What is the name I'm supposed to use in the field?" She asked, wanting to make sure she knew what the name was so she didn't blow Lena's cover.

"It's Kieran," Lena answered.

"Kieran, right. You know I don't like being called Reign, it's Sam, remember?" Sam pointed out to the Luthor.

Lena nodded, "Right, I always forget."

"What are you doing standing in this swamp alone?" Sam asked, wondering why her leader was hanging out in this area for no apparent reason.

For a moment, Lena thought about telling Sam everything, but Kara had said some things that were making her doubt the order now, so she chose another route. "I was following a lead on a hidden one, but it appears to be a dead end. Now why are you here?"

Sam held onto her shiny silver helmet, "I was in the area."

"That's not mysterious at all," Lena said as she sheathed her daggers, but as she did she felt some pain on her left arm. She touched her arm with her right glove, finding blood.

"Lena, were you in a fight?" Sam asked quickly, not realizing she'd used the wrong name.

"Really?" Lena shook her head in annoyance.

Sam dropped her head, "Sorry. Can I help you bandage your arm then?"

Lena held her right hand over her arm to help stop the bleeding, as they walked over to an open field to make a fire. While Sam was setting up a fire, Lena was trying to remember when Kara hit her. The throwing knife… Of course. She thought to herself.

Once the fire was lit, she took off her gauntlets, cloak and chest piece so that her arm could be bandaged. It wasn't a very deep cut by any means but it was enough to be a problem.

"Sam, can I ask you something?" Lena asked, as Sam was cleaning out the wound with a cloth and some water.

"What's up?" Sam asked, as she rang out the bloody cloth.

"Have you ever doubted the Queen?" Lena asked, wanting to know from someone who had spent a lot of time with the Queen. She was Lillian's daughter, yes, but she wasn't often in Jorvik. Sam on the other hand reported to the Queen on a daily basis.

"Ha, when have I not," Sam blurted out loud before she realized what she'd said. "I mean, no, never, I would never doubt the queen."

Lena looked over at her, "I'm not going to report you, I just want to know if you have or not."

"This isn't some secret ploy to weed out the weak or anything?" Sam asked, wanting to make sure she wasn't about to have other zealots hunting her down in the coming weeks.

Lena shook her head, "No. I've learned some interesting information recently, so I'm wondering if I'm not the only one that's noticed things."

"Well, in that case, yes, I have doubted her especially recently," Sam admitted as soon as she was sure she wasn't about to die for betraying the kingdom.

"In what way?" Lena asked, hoping she'd get more of an insight into what was going on.

"There have been a few people recently that she has had me kill, that really weren't much of a problem… If that makes sense. I've killed some farmers, some artists, even a politician. All of which hadn't done anything wrong, that I could see anyways," Sam explained from what she could remember.

"There could be any number of reasons the Queen wanted them killed, what about recently?" Lena asked.

"She's had me following you," Sam admitted.

"Me? Why?" Lena asked, not sure why Sam would be following her.

Sam shrugged, "After you came back from Repton, I reported to the Queen that you had come in close contact with a woman there. Then she had me follow you here. From the way she talked to me, it seems she doesn't trust you."

"The queen doesn't trust a lot of people," Lena said, not thinking anything of it. Her mother had always been suspicious of people. Even her own son at times.

Sam shook her head, "This seemed like something else. I don't know, I'm just the warrior of the order that hunts down bounties. What would I know."

Lena nodded, "Right." She wasn't sure what to believe. Kara had told her some things that confused her, but now Sam was saying things that further confused her.

XXXXXX

Kara stumbled into the Hidden Ones hideout, falling onto the ground just inside the room she'd shared with her sister.

"Oh my god," Alex ran up to her sister. "What happened?"

"Lena Luthor, that's what happened," Kara complained, holding her right side with her left hand. Lena's dagger had sliced into her side when she was shoved backward.

"Lena Luthor, you killed her?" Alex asked, shocked that she wasn't informed of the infamous Luthor being in the city, as she came over with a bandage to wrap up Kara's wound.

Kara shook her head, "No, we did fight though."

"Wow… A member of the order walking away from you after a fight, that is new," Alex couldn't believe what she was hearing. "What happened?"

"I don't know," Kara admitted. "I met her in Repton, and then again here in Lunden, and I didn't think anything of it because she had introduced herself as Kieran. Then I learned the truth, and was going to kill her but…" she dragged off getting lost in her thoughts about the necklace.

"But what?" Alex pushed wanting to know what stopped Kara from killing off a head of the order.

"She had one of our necklaces," Kara said, pulling out her necklace to show. "Hers was silver though. She claimed that it was her mother's."

Alex looked at Kara confused as she tied a knot for the bandage, "Well maybe her mother killed one of us to obtain it."

Kara shook her head, "She said it was her family's. I don't think she meant to tell me that information but she did. I wasn't able to get anymore out of her before a zealot came over the hill. So I got out of there as fast as I could."

"She has one of our necklaces…" Alex stood back up to think about it. "Maybe J'onn has information on this."

Kara stood up from the floor, putting her armour back on, "What are you thinking?"

Alex shrugged, "Honestly, I have no idea, but we need to know where the necklaces came from and whether they could have been connected to people outside of the brotherhood."

XXXXXX

They walked into the main common area of their hideout where J'onn was going over some plans in search of more members of the order. "Kara, great job on securing Lunden."

Kara smiled weakly, "Uh, yeah thanks."

"What is going on?" He asked, sensing something was awry.

"Do you know if anyone would have the necklaces we have, other than those that are among the brotherhood?" Alex asked, skipping over the details.

"It is possible, but unlikely. If the person with it wasn't affiliated with the brotherhood themselves, it could have been a family member possibly, why?" J'onn asked.

"Well, Kara just came back from an encounter with Lena Luthor, and it turns out she has one of our necklaces. A silver one, that she claimed was her mothers, before she was killed," Alex explained.

J'onn thought for a moment before answering, "The order is known for killing members of our creed, it could easily be that one of them killed us, and took the necklace. However, before it proved to put members in danger, we used to track who had each necklace. The archive was spread out over two hideouts to ensure if one of them was broken into, the entire record wouldn't be discovered."

"Which ones?" Alex asked, hoping that they wouldn't have to travel far to get the information.

"The Temple of Ceres in Glowecestrescire, and the Ledecestre Bureau in Ledecestrescire. It could be in the bureau on the outskirts of Jorvik, but it is more likely that the Luthor's discovered that bureau. Whatever was there was probably destroyed," J'onn explained.

Alex turned to Kara, "Well, I guess we are going on a trip. Not sure if we'll find anything, being that we don't know who we are looking for, but maybe we can find something."

Kara nodded, "I guess so."

"If Lena Luthor's mother is listed in the system, then so would she," J'onn pointed out. "The system was destroyed because it listed families that were connected to the brotherhood. Depending on if it was being updated, it would also say if she was killed, and potentially how."

"Right, well without a name I'm not sure if we will find anything useful," Alex said.

Kara nodded, "It's worth a shot though."

J'onn nodded in agreement. "Report back with whatever you find."

XXXXXX

Lena and Sam were sitting against a couple logs in front of their fire finishing their cooked deer.

"So, are you going to tell me how you got that nice cut on your arm?" Sam finally asked, wanting to know how the elusive Luthor would have been injured.

Lena placed her stick on the ground after finishing her piece of meat, "I would rather not."

"If I lost in battle, I wouldn't want to talk about it either," Sam said, as she drank some water from her cup.

Lena leaned back on the log, looking up into the clear sky, "It's not that. I am not sure if I would have won or lost the battle. It was what transpired in the fight that I don't want to talk about."

"What does that mean?" Sam asked, wanting to know what was going on in Lena's head. "Come on, I won't tell the Queen whatever you tell me now."

Lena pulled her eyes from the stars, and looked at Sam, "I don't think my mother told me the truth about my biological mother."

"In what way? Do you think she's still alive?" Sam questioned, eyes opening wide at the idea of her biological mom still being alive.

"No, I think she's still dead. I mean how she died," Lena clarified what she was saying.

"She was killed at the hands of the Hidden Ones right?" Sam asked, trying to remember if that was in fact what Lena had told her some years ago.

Lena nodded, "Yes…" Her voice sounded very unsure.

Sam looked at her curiously, "Why do you sound like you don't believe that anymore?"

Lena sucked in her bottom lip in thought before answering, "What if I told you that I met someone with a similar necklace to mine?" She asked, pulling out her necklace to show Sam, before dropping it back behind her armour.

"I would say, 'did you ask them where they got it, because I want one too?'," Sam laughed at the implication of what Lena was getting at.

Lena sat up from her spot on the ground, "I am being serious."

Sam stopped laughing, "Fine, I would say that it was a fluke. You have been around for years now, and this is the first time you've come across someone that has the same necklace. So what?"

Lena looked down at the ground, and started pushing around the dirt with her finger, before she answered, "This was also the first time I'd come across a Hidden One too."

Sam's mouth fell open, "You cannot be serious? Well no wonder you got hurt. Hidden Ones are vicious. I myself have come across a couple. One of which has been a real thorn in my side. I'll be minding my business, riding my horse, when all of a sudden an arrow bounces off my helmet. They try to fight me, I get them close to death, and then they run away."

"Looking past all of that, they had this same necklace," Lena pushed past the whole topic of Kara being a hidden one and went straight to the conversation.

"A Hidden One?" Sam questioned.

Lena nodded, "Yes, I don't know what that means."

Sam shrugged, "Could mean nothing for all you know."

"She said that it was connected to their brotherhood. The color of the metal determined the level you were within the brotherhood," Lena explained from what she could remember from the fight. For the most part, all she saw was red during that fight but after that moment, she started to see some light.

"Then maybe your mother stole it from one of them," Sam said, trying to make Lena see the light. "She was part of the order wasn't she?"

Lena shook her head, "I actually don't know the answer to that one… I was told she wasn't connected to anything, but now I don't know."

Sam shrugged as she laid down, placing her head on the log, "Then maybe you should head back to Jorvik and do some research?"

Lena laid back down on the ground, "Maybe you're right." She said, staring up at the dark sky again, watching the stars until she slowly fell asleep. "I'll head back tomorrow."

XXXXXXX

The next day, Kara and Alex packed up their horses to head out to Ledecestrecire as it was the furthest from where they were. They decided to bring one of their trainees with them, Nia, so that she could get some field experience.

"So, where are we going again?" Nia asked as they rode along a path on horses.

Kara sighed, "We are going to one of the old bureau's in search of information in regards to our necklaces. You know the one around your neck."

"Right…" Nia nodded. "But why are we doing that?" She questioned, not sure why she was there in the first place.

"Kara came across someone with the same necklace and wants to know how they got it," Alex tried to explain as vaguely as humanly possible.

Nia thought about the information for a moment, "But why? If they have one of our necklaces, wouldn't they be a part of the creed?"

"That is what we are trying to figure out. Now if you are going to continue talking, you might as well turn around and go back to Lunden," Alex added to the conversation, getting annoyed that she was talking.

"Okay, I'll be quiet. Sheesh," Nia shushed as she closed her mouth and looked around the field around her.

She could see deer running through the field, birds chirping, and people walking through the fields. It was one of the first times she was outside of Lunden, she wanted to take it all in.

XXXXXX

Sam rode off early the next day in the opposite direction, while Lena purchased a horse from Lunden and was on a road back to Jorvik. If she rode at a normal pace, it would probably take her about three to four days to get to Jorvik, but she was determined to get there within a day or two. This meant she would get very little sleep but she wanted to understand what she saw the day before.

She would still stop from time to time to get whatever information she could on anything that was working against the Luthor Kingdom, but her goal was to get back home. Unless she happened upon a hidden one bureau.

Years ago, her family had discovered the hidden one bureau in Jorvik, and Lena often found herself in the caverns reading the information in hopes to get a lead. Unfortunately, a lot of it was either burned or lost, so she didn't have a lot to go off of. Now if she was able to find another one, that could work in her favour.

She was cutting through the trees weaving around trees, and bushes trying to cut down time when she could hear a voice.

"But why? If they have one of our necklaces wouldn't they be a part of the creed?"

"That is what we are trying to figure out. Now if you are going to continue talking, you might as well turn around and go back to Lunden."

"Guys, stop. Alex, you know Nia needs field training."

Lena recognized that voice. "Kara…" She whispered to herself, as she tried to locate where the voice was coming from. It sounded like it was a little off to the left of her, so she chose to keep her horse at a slow pace in the woods to see if she could hear anything else.

"You think it's okay for her to be talking when there could potentially be a Luthor in the woods right now?" The second voice reasoned.

Lena made a sound of confirmation. She's a smart one, that is for sure.

"I am not saying that it was good for her to be talking. All I am saying is that she can't go back to Lunden. We need to go to Ledecestre to locate the records we need," The voice belonging to Kara stated.

Ledecestre, interesting. Lena thought to herself. So there is a bureau there.

"Kara, did you seriously just say that out loud? You don't know who could be listening." The second voice scolded. It sounded like this one and Kara, might have had some sort of a relationship, friends or leader maybe.

"Fine, I'll stop talking too, we can ride in silence," Kara answered, annoyed.

Ledecestre here I come. With that Lena was off in the woods. She'd been there before, but didn't know there might have been a bureau there. The information the order had received many years ago about different bureaus didn't include one in that town. If she could get there with enough time, she might be able to locate the information before them.

Kara looked to the right at the woods they were riding past when she'd heard a sound. It was probably a bear of some kind.