Search and Sacrifice

Notes: Hey guys, hope you had a good 4th! Here's the next chapter from the personification of the American Dream herself.

Also, I decided to change the name of the fic to falling or flying. The direction I thought I was going to go with it ended up changing and Luthor's knight doesn't fit as well thematically anymore. Sorry if it was confusing for anyone.

-Kara-

Kara felt disoriented when she touched down with Alex at the DEO and saw that everything around her looked the same at it always did.

The Kryptonian's brain was on high-alert, rescue-mode and everyone else here was on morning-cup-of-coffee, talking-about-last-nights-episode-of-Game-of-Thrones mode.

She felt her chest and stomach tighten painfully. Her sister looked at Kara for a moment, squeezed her hand, then started getting the attention of the agents around her, commanding the group into immediate action.

The adopted Danvers looked at Alex with gratitude as she pulled rank, yelling at someone who had not immediately turned his attention to the new priority mission.

-She really was the best sister, and she is going to be the best mom.- Kara thought fiercely.

This part of things always made her feel helpless but today she felt paralyzed. Kara wasn't the person to type codes into a computer until it spit out answers for her.

She honestly got bored whenever people even explained what they were doing to her, but right now she wished she had developed some kind of skill to do something useful with her brain because there was no one here for her to punch.

Kara's mind raced. -What if this was from the people that had threatened Lena with the picture? Was it Cadmus? What if they hurt her?-

Lena had told Supergirl about what Cadmus had done. The genetic experiments on aliens.

-Why would they need Lena for any of that? Was it because she was a scientist? So, they took her to work out the problems they were having with their viral vectors? No, that doesn't make sense.- She clenched her jaw. Nothing was going to make sense until she had more information.

Kara was still strung bow-tight, but as soon as jackboots started striking the ground in double-time and keystrokes clicked around her, she felt like she could breathe again. She trusted her team. It would just be a few minutes, someone would wave the team over to a monitor zeroed in on a map to Lena's location. -Breathe-

J'onn came in behind her and touched her shoulder. She reflexively pulled back then looked at him apologetically. -I can't be mean to space dad.- Kara thought.

"You appear inordinately concerned for the young Luthor's escape." Kara stiffen. "I see I have struck a sensitive area. That was not my intent."

Kara frowned.

He continued "From what I heard she was found to have stolen kryptonite. For your sake, that is not something that we take lightly here."

She wanted to appreciate him for saying that. Kara knew J'onn felt uncomfortable with her policy of destroying any kryptonite they came across. But she felt an urgent need to defend the Luthor from the reputation of her family.

"Whatever is going on Lena is not part of it. Not like that." He looked confused.

"She's my ma- friend and I trust her." He gazed deeply into Kara's blue eyes and she felt a light touch at the edge of her mind.

She knew what it was like for Martians. In his culture all thoughts were shared and she normally felt honored that he considered her family, not having anything to hide.

This time however, as soon as she felt the touch, her mind reflexively brought to the surface the memories of little moments she had with Lena over the last few months. Looks and smiles and lip bites. Things that Kara couldn't stop herself from thinking about since last night.

-No, no, no. Ew.- Kara thought unable to stop the flood of impossibly embarrassing images from crossing her conscious mind.

"I apologize for intruding." The Martian said, his eyes widening in shock. She felt him rapidly retreat from her mind.

Alex stepped between them and Kara refused to answer the question in her eyes.

J'onn cleared his throat and turned to his second in command. "What do we know?"

No part of her could focus on Alex's words as her sister relayed details of the break-in and break-out surrounding Lena's disappearance.

Space dad finding out she had stamped her v-card with the woman they were currently hunting did nothing to sooth the Kryptonian's nerves. She was, however able to very effectively distract from the mortifying experience by letting her previous anxiety consume her thoughts again.

-There's got to be a reason. Maybe it's because she's a Luthor, but it wouldn't be a good trap for her family.- Lena was constantly talking about how she didn't have the kind of family that would save her. -She does now- Kara thought stubbornly. She was not going to let Lena down. She didn't care what happened. She was going to save her and then sit her down and tell her everything.

She shook her head. -It could be something simple. What if it's just about money? The would send a ransom." She looked at the brick walls surrounding her. "I could squish something and bring it to them in diamonds. – The Kryptonian considered if the carbon structure of the bricks would be right for her to compress. Coal would be better, but it would take a lot.

-Mountains! Mountains would have coal and it would only take me a couple of minutes to break one open and get some.-

Kara startled when Alex placed her hand on her shoulder and her sister's gaze looked deep into her eyes, concern etched across her face. Kara looked down and realized that she had taken a pen and crushed into a tiny ball with her hand, ink now staining her palm.

Alex cupped Kara's cheek and told her it was going to be okay. She told Kara she would be right back and had to make a call and gave her a tight fast hug.

The aimless hero felt like a child. There was nowhere for her to put all of the tense energy she had inside. She wanted to just go hit something. Fly as fast as she could in some direction.

She was too on edge to respect privacy or even really to control her senses that had already cycled through the heartbeats in the room subconsciously and had moved on to snippets of conversation, breathing patterns, chair squeaks and mapped the locations of different agents by gait pattern.

In the background, Kara felt her brain hunting for Lena's heartbeat, despite how often she tried to make it stop. Every time she tuned the dial and didn't find anything, Kara felt like crying in frustration.

Instead, she tuned in to Alex's smooth comforting rhythm which always made her feel better, and beyond caring, she picked up on her sister's conversation. "Maggie, I don't need to know who she is. No I don't like talking about her. I just-"

Alex let out and explosive breath. "I need her help. Kara needs her help. I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important. Can you have her just call me, please?"

Kara heard Alex pace in tight circles in her office, heart rate faster than it had been the time the agent had taken down 17 hostiles single-handedly when Kara was kidnapped last year. After two minutes Alex answered another call on the first ring.

"Thank you for calling. Lena Luthor was taken by known terrorist, code name Metallo, three hours ago from National City jail, cell block D. We believe that she was extracted against her will and are working on finding her location to arrange a rescue. We had no additional leads at this time. -I would like to request, -eh unofficially, for your team's involvement and I can promise any support you might need. Yes. Thank you. This means a lot to us."

Alex returned to the operations room scanning for Kara and made her way immediately to her sister's side. Kara thanked her squeezing her shoulder and reassured her about Maggie. They shared a look and Kara felt how lucky she was to have Alex in her life for the million-and-first time since she crashed onto this planet.

Winn signaled them over. He, normally filled with as much excited optimism as Kara, also looked grim. Kara remembered with a pang that tonight was Lena and Winn's semi-regular bros night, and how he'd bragged to Kara for an hour the other day that he'd gotten Lena to give him a closet in one of her guest rooms.

He didn't let his fingers pause from moving over his keyboard as he explained to them what he'd found. "Footage of the parking lot at the jail is digital. It does show the van they used for the getaway." He said pulling up a video with box encircling and magnifying the image of the large man she'd fought earlier that week, that familiar green glow coming from his chest, holding an unconscious Lena.

Winn focused in on her face to ran facial recognition and Kara's heart twinged. "The van left a tire mark here turning out of the lot, we might be able to get something from that with forensics, but it might take a while for the DEO to get someone with enough pull to hand over jurisdiction of their own jail –"

Kara flew off, feeling a knot inside her ease, liberated by having something to do.

Landing on her knee, cracking the pavement slightly, she stalked toward the place Winn had indicated. Seeing the tire track, she used heat vision to trace a wide outline around it, then a careful stream of freeze breath to separate it.

Remembering she had to carry it back, she sped to a nearby hardware store grabbed a large wood panel and left money on the counter. When she came back a few officers were there looking down at the section of pavement she'd cut out. When she used her heat vision to loosen the foundational asphalt, couple of them shot at her.

Kara didn't have the capacity to reassure the citizens that she wasn't a Kryptonian gone crazy today. She yelled she'd bring them cement to fill it later and slid the section onto the wood board for transport.

The impatient hero cringed when she saw someone was recording her on their phone wondered how Snapper would spin this Supergirl story tomorrow.

She flew straight back to the DEO in a matter of seconds and Winn jumped up eyes-wide then directed her to where the forensics team could make the analysis.

It had been two days. Two days of nothing. No news. No tell-tale particulates or unique tread patterns or kryptonite ionization trails to follow from that chunk of cement she'd dug up.

Kara had barely slept. Alex just kept bringing her armloads of food every few hours looking increasingly more worried. All she did was pace and pace until she wore a trail into the concrete. She would mindlessly respond to Supergirl emergencies.

No brawling no banter, she just dropped the bad guys in the jail pen and then went back to pacing.

The Kryptonian felt helpless. All the power in the world and she couldn't find Lena.

She flew away from a robbery she had successfully stopped, mind already forgetting the details of what had happened.

*ssssllllrrcccczzzz*

Then she heard a sound so piercing that she nearly fell out of the sky, desperate to grab onto her ears and hide underneath something. Realizing where it was coming from she took out her earpiece and threw it toward the ground.

Super hearing caught when the piercing bone-numbing sound turned into a cackle and Kara swooped down to catch it, hearing a deep contemptuous feminine voice.

"That get your attention Supergirl? Excellent. Because I'm going to need you to listen very closely to what I have to say for the next couple of minutes. Some rather important lives depend on it."

"You are acquainted of course with my lovely daughter Lena. It has come to my attention that she would rather play hero with space trash than work to ensure her family's legacy. In the interest of humanity, I won't kill her. Wasting Luthor blood, no matter how corrupt, is unacceptable. However, I would be more than happy to outfit her with certain neurological enhancements to assist her in maintaining consistent compliance to the realization of our cause."

"Unless of course she is able to deliver me an alternative solution to my problems in the form of a new Kryptonian test subject. So Supergirl, if you are present at the following coordinates in the next 15 seconds, I will take that as indication that you care about Lena enough to not try and risk her life by contacting your DEO associates."

A location burned into Kara's mind.

The hero's body moved, breaking the sound barrier in nanoseconds, as her mind leafed through plans, discarding every one that might put Lena in more danger. Unsure how Lillian had contacted her through it, she didn't dare use her earpiece for fear that the Luthor matriarch would be able to intercept the transmission. She touched the metal disk in her suit and hoped that it was enough for Alex to find her.

Kara landed with several seconds to spare breathing heavily from a mixture of exertion and anxiety. She scanned the room expecting to find Lena somewhere in a cage.

-Lena!- Her heart thrilled finding her unhurt. She stood staring at the hero expressionless. Kara sped over to her intending to get them both out of there.

Immediately, she felt inhumanly strong arms holding her neck and arms in a headlock. "Now now, Supergirl, make sure not to struggle too aggressively."

That same dark feminine voice said tone dripping with malice. "That one can be temperamental. We're never exactly sure when he'll respond by taking someone's head off." Stilling her struggles, Kara felt the hands slowly ease their grip on her neck and release. She was able to turn and got a look at his face.

She flinched back seeing Kal's deep blue eyes stare back at her. But not. Younger, a teenager maybe. And his face, which was always so serious, burdened with noble responsibility, was now blank of emotion, flat and featureless. Kara gaped unsure what to do.

"Impressive isn't he." "Open." She said and Not-Kal opened his mouth accepting the tablet the woman put into it. "Another failed experiment I'm afraid, but he does have his uses. Thirteen search her for any tracking devices."

Not-Kal narrowed his eyes at her and she felt a sinking feeling when she realized he must be using x-ray vision. -Who was he? What was he? Kryptonian? He looks so much like Kal, but he's so young. He needs help. He needs -someone.- Kara got out a "Wh-" before she was cut off by Lillian Luthor's mocking voice.

"Yes, I'm sure you have many questions. But now is not the time I think."

As she spoke, Not-Kal pulled Kara's earpiece out of her ear and ripped her suit at the shoulder, taking out the tracking chip. She heard both crunch between fingertips before he let them fall to the floor. Then with a careless motion he swiped around the collar of her suit and, to her horror, she saw her mother's El necklace, the one she always wore, skidder across the floor.

"Now" Lillian continued. "Be a good girl and we won't need to resort to any drastic measures. And of course, our dear Lena will be safe." The Luthor matriarch picked up a device attached to a helmet with a thick metallic plate over the eyes.

When Kara looked at her confused, Lillian Luthor provided clinically, "We have observed from previous encounters with your kind, that with sufficient expulsion of energy, the solar power in your Kryptonian cells may be temporarily depleted. For our initial experiments, having invasive access to your physiology will be necessary." Her words were monotone, but Kara saw a glint of fire in her eyes that looked at the Kryptonian with contempt.

"Lena," Lillian said in a warmer tone, "make yourself useful dear," holding out the helmet to her daughter. Lena's face had completely drained of color making her green eyes seem paler. She looked at Kara without expression.

Feeling confused Kara worried frantically that if Lena didn't get out of there soon, her mother would change her mind about freeing her. She mouthed "Lena run," as the young Luthor walked toward Kara with the device and paused standing close enough for Kara to smell her perfume. Right before Kara's vision went black, she saw the slightest tremor of Lena's lip.

Kara wanted desperately to speak to Lena, warn her, protect her, remind Lena of how much she cared. But she didn't dare say something as Kara Danvers or Supergirl in front of Lena's mother. Pretending to goad Lillian, Kara ground out "people are more important than powers." And silently hoped that Lena would understand her message.

Knowing that she would never let Lena down, Kara steeled herself committing to what she was about to do.

Opening her eyes, the Kryptonian screamed as she let loose more raw energy than she had in her life.

Every time the girl from Krypton had solar flared in the past it had been gradual, usually after a long battle, physically and mentally exhausted pushing herself past her own limits for that one last hit. This time she let go of so much power, so quickly, she felt as though she were melting her own eyeballs. It was as if the device pulled the heat vision out of her.

To distract from the pain, her brain started to run through the calculations of the kinetic energy the tiny shield on this device was absorbing, and all the numbers fell out of her head like through a sieve. She couldn't hold onto any thoughts, any words. And then there was just blackness.