Alex slammed her hand into the desk as she watched Kara's body slump limply to the ground on her screen in S.T.A.R. Labs. "Kara! Kara!" she yelled frantically into the microphone in front of her.
Felicity shook her head in frustration, typing furiously. "I don't understand," she growled, grinding out every syllable. "City cameras are still working, but our communication's been knocked out. It's like some sort of dead zone just descended on the area. And where the hell is Barry?"
"Who's that woman?" Caitlin asked, unnerved at the sight of the Girl of Steel getting knocked out with a single punch.
"Her codename is Psi," Alex replied brusquely, trying to get what she felt like were obvious details out of the way. "She's got psychic abilities."
"And apparently a superpowerful punch."
"I don't think so," Harry jumped in, playing back the feed right before Kara was knocked out. They watched Psi remove a bulky glove from her hand before walking up to her victim, and Harry magnified the image of Psi's exposed fist. "Are those some sort of…brass knuckles?"
"No," Caitlin replied in shock, pointing to a reading on the screen next to the image. "Those are Kryptonite knuckles. She must have been hiding them under a lead-infused glove."
"We can figure out why she has those later. How do we help Kara if we can't reach her or Barry?"
"I've got backup inbound," Felicity quickly replied, aware of Alex's growing panic for her sister. "Wally and Kendra will get there first. I'm sending him Kara's location before he hits the dead zone."
"And Kendra?"
"She'll patrol the area to see if she can find Barry. Something must have happened for him to be missing this long. Wally can get Kara out of there much faster."
"But will he get there before Psi does anything else to her?" Alex insisted.
"I think that won't be a problem anymore," Harry said. When Alex turned to him, he pointed to her screen, still playing live camera footage, and she saw Psi had disappeared into the crowd, which seemed to be slowly coming to its senses. Those paralyzed with fear were starting to amble about aimlessly, shaken but otherwise healthy. Those deadlocked in vicious brawls and subsequently knocked out by Kara were starting to awaken, rubbing their foreheads in pain but no longer attempting to tear out each other's throats.
"What—where did she go?" Alex demanded. A quick scroll through the various feeds Felicity tapped yielded no sign of the villainous meta. Moments later, a blaze of lightning briefly lit the screen as a new figure appeared at Kara's still form. Alex's heart ached slightly for Kara at seeing, not the familiar dark red form of Barry picking her up, but rather the yellow suit of Kid Flash, but she was grateful all the same when Wally cradled her sister and raced off screen.
"Good, Wally will be here soon," Felicity said.
"In the meantime, we need to figure out what's going on," Caitlin continued. She brought up a new still image from the day's camera footage, a picture showing the man Kara had approached before everything turned sideways. "That man that Kara tried to help—that was Rainbow Raider."
"Rainbow…who?" Alex asked, bewildered.
"Roy G. Bivalow. Codename: Rainbow Raider," Caitlin explained.
"Actually, Cisco said his codename was Prism…" Felicity began, before trailing off at Caitlin's annoyed look.
"Can't I get just one name? I'm not that bad at them!" Caitlin huffed.
"Well…" Felicity started uncertainly, then thought better of it and shut her mouth.
"Yes, Dr. Snow. You are bad at them," Harry interjected, finishing Felicity's unspoken thought. Caitlin shot him a dirty glare.
"Okay, whatever," Alex interjected, annoyed that they had gotten off topic. "So, Rainbow Raider," she began, "he's another metahuman, I assume?"
"Yep. His powers allow him to incite rage into anyone he makes eye contact with. That explains all the fights in the streets."
Alex nodded. "Psi's powers can incite fear. That explains the other half of the crowd."
Just then, a smear of yellow appeared in the main lab as papers blew everywhere, and there was Wally, holding Kara in his arms.
"Kara!" Alex immediately said, rushing to her side.
"I think she's okay," Wally said, uncertain but cautiously reassuring. "She's definitely breathing."
"Get her in the med bay," Caitlin commanded, walking to a cabinet as she did so. As Alex helped Wally carry Kara onto the medical bed in one of the infirmaries connected to the main lab, she double checked Wally's assertion and confirmed that Kara was indeed breathing normally. "Okay," Caitlin continued, coming back with a handful of supplies that she dumped onto a nearby tray table while checking with a sweep of her eyes that Kara was properly situated on the bed. "The rest of you, out."
"Are you sure there's nothing else we can do?" Wally asked.
"You all need to figure out what's happening," Caitlin replied as she checked the vital signs of her patient and attached electrodes to various areas of her body. "Supergirl and Flash are powerhouses in the League. We need to know what's going on, or the rest of us are going to be in a lot of trouble."
"Copy that," Felicity replied. Without a word, she, Harry and Wally dispersed to other areas of the lab, leaving Caitlin to do what she did best.
"I'm not going anywhere," Alex said stubbornly. A part of her wanted to shove Caitlin out of the way and take charge of Kara's treatment herself, but this was S.T.A.R. Labs, not the DEO, so she didn't have in-depth knowledge of her resources. Plus, while her own scientific résumé was impressive, as a doctor Caitlin was unparalleled in the League, and Kara couldn't be in better hands.
"Never thought you would," Caitlin returned, a wry smile on her face. "Besides, I need your help." Reaching to the tray table, she picked up what looked like a strange pair of binoculars. "Use your fingers to hold Kara's eyelids open."
"What? Why?" Alex asked, confused.
"We have to make sure she's not whammied anymore."
Unsure of what that meant, Alex nevertheless obliged and gently pulled open Kara's eyelids. Caitlin held the binoculars over Kara's eyes and flipped a switch, and suddenly a pulsating pattern of different colored lights flashed onto her sister's face. For a moment, Alex didn't see anything happen, but then suddenly Kara's eyes glowed an angry red, so brightly that Alex nearly lost her grip on her eyelids in surprise. As Caitlin continued to hold the flashing lights over Kara, however, the red subsided back to Kara's familiar, cool blue irises.
Sighing in relief, Caitlin turned off the binoculars. "Okay, you can let go now." Alex did so.
"What just happened?" she asked.
"In normal humans, the rage Rainbow Raider incites wears off, but for some people, like Barry and Kara, their physiologies allow them to resist his power, if only for a while. But, as their bodies try to fight, the rage just builds and builds until—"
"—they explode?" Alex finished.
Caitlin nodded. "Barry's been whammied before, and the last setup we used to cure him was big enough to fill a van. We've miniaturized it since, in case it ever happened again." She put down the binoculars and switched back to traditional doctor mode, continuing her checkup of the Kryptonian. "Kara's response was different from Barry's. Barry steadily got more and more angry, but Kara seemed aware enough to know something was wrong. Kryptonian biology, I guess."
"Yeah well, he was still able to freeze her long enough to get away," Alex pointed out glumly, remembering how tightly she'd clenched her hands as she'd watched Kara's encounter with the meta on her screen back in the lab.
"Don't worry, I'm sure Felicity and the rest will track him down soon," Caitlin reassured her, using a small flashlight to do one final scan of Kara's pupils. Sighing, Caitlin put down the light, saying, "As far as I can tell, she's okay. She's not showing any lasting damage from that Kryptonite punch, but I'm less familiar with Psi's powers. Do you know if they have any long-term effects?"
"Not usually," Alex replied, "but we've never had a case of someone getting hit by two mind-altering meta attacks."
"I see," Caitlin said. Sighing again, she continued, "Unfortunately, there's nothing else I can check on for now. Without doing anything more invasive, I won't know more until she—"
Which is as far as she got, for at that moment Kara sucked in a huge breath and her eyes snapped open. They were glowing.
With no time to even cry out a warning, Alex and Caitlin both dove backwards as blazing energy streamed out of the Girl of Steel's eyes.
…
A little smirk played at the edges of her mouth as she surveyed the pandemonium down below her. Maybe it would have been more appropriate for the ants to fall to their knees in acknowledgement of her power, but in its own way, fear was a perfectly valid expression for accepting that which was beyond them.
The plain, skintight black uniform that hugged her figure as she drifted slowly through the streets took in the firelight of the dancing flames filling buildings and enveloping cars and returned only darkness, only grim respect. It was so satisfyingly freeing, with no billowing cape or gaudy colors weighing her down, unlike the pathetic forms that she passed over.
Snapped batons and a bow cloven in two, strewn over fragile human bodies clad in white and green.
Pitted, blackened craters dotting the purple armor of a green-skinned alien, a last refugee of the red planet.
A crushed pair of glasses next to the metahuman, a freak science experiment who hopped between dimensions.
She felt thrill after thrill of satisfaction as she passed each and every conquest, eventually settling down on the ground in the middle of three particularly gratifying victories.
A weaker person might mourn the death of her blood, but the sight of the torn cape and charred red boots just made her turn up her nose and look away. All he wanted to do was "fit in" and be one of them, earning their praise by serving them rather than demanding it by ruling them. It made her sick.
It was a relief to finally be rid of the perfectly ordinary human, the one so determined to bring her down under false pleas of protection and sisterhood just to feel better about her own depressing, mortal existence. She was above them. Any measures to hide the unreachable extent of her godhood was pure insult.
The speedster was perhaps the greatest affront of all. Who were these humans, to think they could reach up and assume abilities far beyond their comprehension, far beyond their understanding? True power lay in the forces of nature, like the lightning bolt on his red, lifeless chest, or in the inimitable quality of her cells.
Not deigning to spare the still figures a second look, she stalked past them to a final body that, annoyingly, was still breathing. Bruised, bloodied, and beaten, but undeniably alive. Settling into a crouch, she reached down and grabbed a fistful of long blonde hair, matted with blood and debris though it was, pulling the unworthy garbage up to face her.
Clear blue eyes. Pale skin. Tattered remains of a red cape still on her shoulders. The crest of the house of El emblazoned on her chest, in a shape the puny humans referred to as an "S." Staring down into her own face, she couldn't believe that this weakling was ever a part of her. No matter, however. Infections can be expunged. She drew back her fist to crater her skull.
The weakling spoke, in a quiet, brittle voice. "I'm a part of you."
Kara sneered. "Not for long." Her fist flew forward.
…
It was the hyperventilating that brought Alex back to reality.
Debris and sparks were still raining down from the hole Kara had made in S.T.A.R. Labs' ceiling, but they barely registered as Alex swung her head back to the bed, where Kara had awoken suddenly and now sat bolt upright. One fist was on her chest, while the other had already mangled the safety railing of the bed in its grip. Her eyes still glowing and sparkling in spurts like lights with a bad connection, Kara looked in absolute panic.
"Kara, Kara it's okay, you're okay," Alex began, rushing back and trying to envelop Kara in her arms, but Kara had started rocking back and forth, still fighting to breathe. She tried to pry her sister's hand off the piece of metal that had been the railing, but Kara's grip was far too strong.
"Alex," Kara gasped, "Alex, I—I killed you!"
"No, no Kara, I'm right here, right here," Alex pleaded desperately, completely at a loss as to what was happening. She could hear the rapid beeps from the medical equipment Caitlin had hooked up to Kara that signaled her sister's dangerously high, irregular heartbeat. "You're safe, you're safe," she continued, but Kara only shook her head furiously.
"Alex, I—," Kara gasped again, looking at her sister with wild, flickering eyes. "I can't—I can't breathe—I killed them! I killed everyone!"
"No, Kara, listen to me! It was just a bad dream! A nightmare! You haven't hurt anyone!"
"She's here! She's me!" Kara pleaded desperately, nonsensically, as she shut her eyes and refused to face Alex. Alex tried putting a hand through her hair, against her cheek, anything to comfort her, but she was in complete terror. She could only recall a handful of times when she'd ever seen Kara remotely like this, but she didn't know what to do this time. She didn't know what was making her react this way, what was going through Kara's mind, and Kara wouldn't or couldn't tell her.
Caitlin rushed into Alex's field of view. Putting her hand over Kara's fist, the one pressing against her chest, she said, loudly but calmly. "Kara, look at me."
"Caitlin, be careful," Alex warned, knowing that Kara's grip on herself, including her heat vision, was tenuous.
Without looking Alex's way, Caitlin nodded to signal she had heard but only tightened her hand over Kara's. "Kara. Look at me," she repeated.
Still gasping for air, Kara slowly opened her eyes and looked at Caitlin, her eyelids in a squint as sparkling energy flickered underneath.
"Good," Caitlin nodded, acknowledging the enormous effort it was clearly taking Kara just to face her. "Now look around this room. Tell me five things you see."
"Wh—what?" Kara asked, so distressed that she seemed to be having trouble comprehending the instruction.
"It's real easy," Caitlin told her, in a soothing, reassuring voice. "Can you do that for me? Just tell me five things you see in this room."
"I—I can't—"
"Yes, you can," Caitlin replied quickly, cutting her off gently. "Don't think about anything else. Just five things you see."
"I—," Kara started, bewildered. She took this moment to actually glance at Alex, almost asking silently if she had heard Caitlin correctly, and Alex gave her a small smile and nod to reassure her. Swallowing, still gasping, Kara's head swiveled around the room. In a brittle voice, she began, "Uh, there's—there's that medicine cabinet over there."
"Good," Caitlin encouraged. "Four more."
"And—and there's a flashlight on that table."
"Right. Three more."
As Kara continued to struggle breathing, Alex's instincts screamed for a more direct solution, but she could also tell Kara was fighting desperately to regain control, and she trusted Caitlin to help her get there. "The rolling chair, under the desk." Caitlin nodded, never taking her eyes off her patient. "The—the notepad on the desk. And—and the big computer monitor out in the lab," she stammered, tilting her head in the direction of the clear glass through which they could see the main lab.
"Good, Kara. Now, what are four things you feel?" Caitlin continued.
"I…feel?"
"Yeah, right now. Four things you can physically feel."
Kara's rocking had slowed, and her breathing had become slightly less shallow. Alex also noticed the rhythm of the beeps indicating Kara's heart rate, while still too irregular, was not as frantic as before.
"I feel…the cot that I'm sitting on." Again, Caitlin nodded her encouragement. Hesitantly, Kara turned her head to look at Alex, who noticed that her eyes were flickering more weakly. She nodded as well, and Kara continued. "I feel your arm around my shoulders," she said, looking at Alex. "I feel your hand over mine," she also said, turning to Caitlin. "And…and I feel the metal in my grip," she finished in some surprise, seeming to have noticed for the first time the rail she had twisted with her other hand. Slowly, she let go.
"That's perfect Kara. Now tell me three things you hear." By now, Kara's breathing had slowed even more, her speech no longer coming in between gasps. Just having something else to focus on, something to disengage her from whatever demons filled her mind, was helping Kara to regain her sense of self. Still, she seemed desperate for someone else to lead her, so she continued to oblige Caitlin, more calmly than she had before.
"I hear the beeping of my heart rate monitor," she began, and Alex registered that the rhythm had slowed still further. Kara's head tilted upward. "I hear sparks from the wires in that hole in the roof." She closed her eyes, not out of fear anymore, but apparently to focus her superhearing. "And I can hear birds outside the hole flapping their wings."
"You're doing really well, Kara. Now tell me two things you smell."
Kara hadn't reopened her eyes. "I smell singed metal from the hole. And I smell Alex's shampoo." Her breathing was completely normal now, and the heart rate monitor's rhythm was steady.
"That's good, Kara. Really great job," Caitlin encouraged, smiling slightly. "Last one now. Just focus, and tell me one thing you taste."
"Blood," was Kara's immediate reply. "I bit myself when Psi punched me." With that last comment, Kara opened her eyes. No sparkling, destructive energy, just the same kind eyes Alex had always known. And they were filling with tears.
It was clear Kara remembered everything. She knew what had happened to her in the field, how she'd been overpowered, and how she'd ended up in such a state. Whether she was relieved that she had finally found a place of calm after all that, or embarrassed for how crippled she had been in these past few minutes, Alex wasn't sure, but she quickly pulled her sister into a tight hug, offering her chest as a place where Kara could hide her face as she sobbed. Without loosening her hold, she turned her head to Caitlin. "Thank you," Alex mouthed.
Caitlin nodded. As Alex tightened her arms around a shaking Kara, the doctor bowed her head, closing her eyes a moment as she let out a long breath.
…
Felicity timidly made her way back to the med bay, hoping to check up on Kara without accidentally setting off any heat vision-fueled destruction. Of course, the hole Kara inadvertently blasted in the ceiling had not gone unnoticed, but it had been clear that Caitlin and Alex were the only ones Kara's senses could handle, so Felicity had kept away. Now, however, she wanted to check to see if things had subsided or if an evacuation of S.T.A.R. Labs was in order.
Walking down the hallway of S.T.A.R. Labs, she saw Alex and Caitlin leaning tiredly on opposite walls, inadvertently looking like guards restricting access to the med bay and the Kryptonian inside. "Is Kara okay?" Felicity asked, striding up to them.
"Yeah, she's okay," Caitlin confirmed, before tilting her head to clarify. "I think. As far as I can tell, she suffered a panic attack."
"Psi has that effect on people," Alex said, "but that was the worst I've ever seen. Kara could barely even talk. It sounded like she had some kind of nightmare before waking up."
"Is the nightmare what triggered her to react that way? Did Psi plan for that to happen?" Felicity asked.
"Maybe, maybe not. I can't say if Kara's mind was more vulnerable, whether her intense reaction to Psi was because Rainbow Raider weakened her mentally first, but a nightmare doesn't necessarily lead to a nocturnal panic attack. Honestly, there isn't always any reason a panic attack hits," Caitlin replied. Sighing, she continued, "There's so much we still don't understand about the brain, human or alien. Add in some metas, and it's all just a mess."
Felicity shook her head, glancing significantly in the direction of the patient Caitlin had just helped. "How do you even prepare for something like that?"
"Kryptonian mental health was not covered in med school," Caitlin admitted wryly. "She fell asleep a little while ago. Where are we in finding Barry?"
"Nothing yet," Felicity reported reluctantly. "Kendra's flyover of the city didn't turn up anything. Iris and Joe are coordinating a section-by-section sweep of the city now."
Caitlin nodded. "Keep me up to date. I'll see what I can do to help in a little while. I just need a break."
"Of course. You've done so much," Felicity assured her. "Although, you should know that something seems to be interfering with our JL frequency. I've lost contact with a bunch of our members. I can't raise Oliver or anyone from the Bunker. No one's answering at the DEO. Leaguers in other cities have gone quiet too."
"Everyone?"
"Not yet. I've still got Kid Flash and Superman doing separate sweeps outside of the city to look for Barry, but Hawkgirl's comm just went down also."
"Let me see what I can do," Alex began, straightening up from the wall. "I'll see if I can get to the DEO."
Felicity raised a hand to stop her, smiling reassuringly. "Don't worry, Alex. Winn's made me familiar with the DEO's systems, so if I make a breakthrough, I'll let you know. Kara's your priority right now."
Alex hesitated, clearly torn between family and duty, but Felicity was confident Kara would outweigh the rest of Alex's concerns. She was right. "Okay," Alex replied, nodding. "Thank you, Felicity."
"Anytime."
Caitlin nodded as well. "Alright. In the meantime, everyone stay alert until we figure out what to do next."
…
Kara didn't want to wake up.
Crying her heart out into Alex's DEO uniform had taken the last bit of strength out of her, and as cathartic as it had been, she was completely worn out afterwards, passing out almost immediately after the tears had stopped. Sleep following something like that was peaceful, dreamless, and she wanted to stay there.
Awareness crept into her mind, however, and as she slowly, hesitantly opened her eyes, her mind began catching up with the situation, prompting the need for an urgent question.
Alex was in a chair next to her, absentmindedly staring at the floor, lost in thought. Kara shifted slightly on the bed as she woke up a bit more, and her sister's head immediately snapped towards the movement. "Kara!" she said, in a relieved voice. "How are you feeling?"
"Where's Barry?"
Alex sighed. "We're not sure. When your comm went down during the mission, his did too. Pretty soon, we lost visual contact."
"What? We need to find him," Kara insisted, starting to get up.
"Hey, hey, hey," Alex replied, rushing over to put her hands on Kara's shoulders. "We will. We're sweeping Central City as we speak, and we've got Leaguers expanding the search."
Kara still wasn't convinced. "How long have I been out?" More specifically, how long has he been missing?
"A few hours," Alex said. Kara was about to reply that a lot could happen in that time, but Alex cut her off before she could start. "Kara, Barry's not helpless. Until we find him—and we will find him—he can take care of himself. You should take it easy."
Despite Kara's instinct to protest more, Alex had that look in her eyes whenever she was seriously worried about her, and she had a painfully clear memory, not only of her earlier panic attack, but of how terrified and helpless Alex had looked during the episode. Not wanting to stress out her sister even more, Kara reluctantly allowed Alex to push her back down onto the bed, although unable to resist letting out a sigh of frustration.
"Seriously, how're you feeling?" Alex asked again.
"Like a moron," Kara replied, bitterly. "I've fought Psi before. I can't believe I let her get the drop on me."
"Hey, don't be so hard on yourself. Psychic powers are tricky, Kryptonian or not," Alex reasoned. "Besides, you were technically hit with a one-two mind-altering punch out there."
"Oh yeah. Who was that other guy?" Kara inquired. Alex gave her a quick rundown of Rainbow Raider's powers and what she knew from Caitlin about how his previous encounter with Barry had gone.
"So that's the meta that made Central City afraid of Barry," Kara mused quietly after Alex had finished. "He told me about it years ago, but I never realized…," she trailed off. After a couple moments thinking to herself, she arched an eyebrow and looked at Alex. "What kind of name is 'Rainbow Raider'?"
Alex chuckled quietly. "Caitlin's idea. She's a little sensitive about it."
"She is not good at picking names."
"Amen to that." They lapsed into a comfortable few seconds of silence before Alex spoke again. "In fairness to Caitlin, she was able to help you ground yourself after you woke up."
"Yeah," Kara agreed, though she turned her head away from Alex, still feeling a sense of shame and humiliation at how she had lost control, how her physical senses were convinced she was suffocating. That kind of vulnerability was not something Kara, and especially not Supergirl, enjoyed letting anyone see.
Of course, being her sister, Alex picked up on her emotions. "You want to talk about it?"
Kara didn't reply at first. Unspoken, but understood between the two of them, was Kara's discomfort with the idea that she'd had a panic attack. She'd had them before, when she was young and had just arrived on Earth, and even during her first encounter with Psi, but past occurrences made it no easier for Kara to come to terms with them. She knew there was no reason for her to feel embarrassed, that her friends and family did not and would not think any less of her for them, but the idea of accepting them, particularly as a superhero, was less of a concrete decision and more of a continual, grinding process.
The experience bubbled up old thoughts and feelings of which she was definitely not proud, and her dream just prior to waking had felt so vivid, so real, that she had been convinced, however briefly, that she'd murdered the people she loved and cherished the most. In the end, she knew she wouldn't, or couldn't, keep this a secret from Alex for long anyway, so hesitantly she began to speak.
"It was like I was on red K again," Kara said, quietly. "The smug superiority. The violence. The rage. When Rainbow Raider hit me with his powers, everything came rushing back."
"That wasn't you, Kara. It wasn't you when you were on red K, and it wasn't you now."
"Those feelings didn't come from nowhere, Alex," Kara retorted, turning her head back to face her, willing her to understand with her eyes.
"Just because you thought them, that doesn't mean you'd ever act on them."
Kara sighed. "It gets worse. After Psi hit me with her psychic pulse, it's like all my rage got flipped into fear. I went from feeling the rage to seeing all the devastation I could cause from that rage." She paused a moment before continuing. "Before I woke up, I was having this really vivid dream of all the damage I could do and all the people I could kill. Clark was dead. Barry was dead. You…you were dead. Because of me."
Alex took Kara's hand in both of her own. "It won't happen."
"It has happened! Or, something like it could've happened, if you and J'onn hadn't stopped me the first time!" Kara was on a roll and needed to get everything out. "I was jealous of Clark, for a long time, before I became Supergirl. I was jealous that he could openly use his powers and be greeted by adoring crowds while I just plodded along as Kara Danvers." She sniffed as her eyes watered slightly in shame. "I hated metahumans when they first appeared after the particle accelerator explosion. I hated that they were hurting so many people with their new powers. And…and I hated you, when I first came to Earth. I didn't ask to be stuck with humans."
Alex shook her head. "It was a long time ago, Kara."
"I just…I just feel like there's a part of me that I'll forever have to guard against. That there's a part of me that'll always be a threat to the people I love. The feelings, those are scary enough. With my powers behind them?" Kara shook her head, unwilling to complete that line of thinking. "The last time Psi hit me, my worst fear was seeing Krypton die again. But now? I just have so much more to lose now."
Seemingly unable to come up with a response, Alex leaned over and pulled Kara into a hug. "Kara, I can't imagine what this has been like for you, but I'm going to tell you the same thing I told you after the red K." She paused a moment to squeeze a little tighter. "Hormonal teenager or not, alien or not, you're my sister. I love you, no matter what."
A couple tears spilled out of Kara's eyes, and she couldn't think to do anything other than hold her sister close. She would've stayed like that forever, but a jarring alert sounded off, accompanied by Felicity's urgent voice.
"Everyone, get to the main labs. We've found something."
…
Kara couldn't understand what she was seeing.
Streaks of orange and yellow flared through city streets, up and down buildings, over and under freeway overpasses, the sheer number of city cameras Felicity had tapped into to watch the action making her head dizzy. Occasionally, a red-and-blue smear would try to enter the fray, only to get smacked back out.
"What's going on?" Alex asked, confusion evident on her face.
"We got an urgent message from Wally," Felicity explained tensely, "but when I got his location, this is what I found." She pressed a button, but all anyone could hear in the labs was static interference. "Whatever's happening, Wally can't seem to talk anymore."
"But that's Clark!" Kara exclaimed, pointing at the colorful blur trying once again to force himself into the storm of lightning blazing through the streets. "That's Metropolis! Get him on the line!"
"We've been trying," Caitlin interjected. "Wally's communicator is responding, but he's not talking to us. Clark's communicator isn't responding at all."
"Another signal I lost," Felicity muttered, through gritted teeth.
"I've got to get out there," Kara said, turning partway towards the S.T.A.R. Labs exit. "I've got to help."
Harry stepped in front of her. "Even at your top speed, you wouldn't get to Metropolis in time to make a difference."
"I can't just sit here."
"Wait, look!"
Kara whipped her head around just in time to see Clark finally time his assault correctly, tackling someone in the middle of the electrical storm raging through the streets of Metropolis. Immediately, Wally dropped out of superspeed, falling forward and rolling over and over until he was facedown, his suit battered and torn.
"Wally? Wally, can you hear me?" Caitlin urged into the microphone at the main lab's center console. Two camera feeds enlarged on the screens in the lab, the one on the left focusing on Wally, the other on the right on the mess of debris and dust that was Clark wrestling with whomever he had tackled.
Slowly, they watched Wally reach towards his ear, adjusting his JL communicator so he could speak. Finally, they heard him, weak and out of breath. "Lock it down," he muttered.
"Wally, what're you talking about?" On the right screen, Clark was on his feet, desperately trying to block strikes wreathed in lightning. Her eyes narrowed, Kara strained her own sense of superspeed in her attempt to follow the action. Clark was clearly trying to respond to the barrage with his own enhanced speed, but his opponent was outmatching him at every turn, every streak of light causing him to wince and jerk. Kara's stomach turned to ice as she began getting a vague but alarming picture of what she was really seeing.
On the left screen, Wally pushed up to his hands and knees, head bowed wearily. "We need to lock down S.T.A.R. Labs, the Bunker, the DEO, everywhere."
"We lost contact with them. Wally, what's going on?" Caitlin urged.
On the right screen, flashes of green could also be seen accompanying the lightning through the cloud of debris, Clark struggling to stay on his feet as strikes came from virtually every angle and every direction. His face was a sheen of sweat and pain as his veins glowed sickeningly. Whoever was attacking him had Kryptonite. "No…" Kara whispered.
"It's Barry," Wally croaked. "He's taking out Leaguers!"
With a green-and-yellow-streaked uppercut, Clark's head snapped backwards and his body flew across multiple camera views, and Barry's blank face, the cowl dislodged at some point during the fight, came onto the screen through the dust. With horror, Kara could only watch as Wally slowly got to his feet, clearly beaten past the point of resistance. After one blink, Barry was at his side and Wally was back on the ground, unconscious. After a second blink, Barry, Wally, and Clark all disappeared from the camera feeds.