A loud, wailing noise alerted everybody in the DEO that Alex Danvers had finally snapped out of her shocked state. The sound was almost inhumane, and for a second, Winn actually recognized it as the primal cry of an animal that had lost its mate.
He closed his eyes, wincing as the crying continued. The medical bay wasn't that far from the command center, but he knew she had to be screaming her lungs out for it to reach him that clear.
And Alex Danvers never lost control in front of other people. But this… This was Maggie.
Alex Danvers' own, special kryptonite.
CADMUS had finally gotten to them. All the things they tried in the past, all the stunts they pulled…
They meant nothing. This meant war. And Winn was well aware.
J'onn had assembled his team, and excused himself to call the president, trying to explain the situation to her, and making sure that the police and firemen backed off of the explosion site. The DEO needed jurisdiction to investigate it. Or something. Winn didn't know how it worked.
He was focused on tracking Supergirl as she was flying towards the disappearing dots on the map, apparently some sort of underground sewer system.
But he couldn't focus with Alex's cries echoing off the walls. He needed to tell J'onn about where Kara went, and hope that he wouldn't get an earful for letting her go in the first place.
Winn jumped up from his desk and ran towards the armory, when he literally bumped into J'onn who was just on his way back.
"Oh! Boss, uh… So… Remember what you said about Supergirl not leaving…?"
J'onn sighed. "I figured she wouldn't listen to me, it's personal for her. I'm deploying the strike team to back her up. We're leaving now, if anything changes about the kryptonite, or CADMUS sends another message I want to know immediately."
"Understood, yes. Good… good luck." Winn watched him go, followed by a group of black-clad agents, all in tactical gear. It was odd not seeing Alex amongst them, like the squad was incomplete.
Winn sighed, and dropped back into his chair, hoping that this nightmare would be over soon.
Kara shattered at least three feet of concrete around her into pieces when she landed, but she couldn't care less. She couldn't see anything around her that was remotely interesting or scientific.
She used her x-ray vision to scan the ground underneath her and much to her surprise, an entire labyrinth of underground halls, corridors and rooms became visible. Some of them were obstructed by lead, so she at least figured they knew she was coming. But it didn't stop her from tracking down the entrance to a fire hydrant, twisting the top off so that a button popped up. She pressed it, and took a deep breath as the some of the concrete underneath her started twisting, and sinking lower. As soon as her head was under street level, the concrete above her shifted back into position, and she was left in the darkness.
The first light she was again was in the form of a few LED lamps, hanging from the wall in the elevator shaft. As it stopped, Kara braced herself for the fight she knew was coming.
The doors opened, and much to Kara's surprise, she only found a handful of eyes staring back at her. But she immediately zoned in on the two on the blonde woman in the center of the room, who actually looked surprised to see Supergirl too.
One of the henchmen sounded the alarm immediately, while another bulky guy shoved Lillian out of Kara's way as the blonde lunged at her.
"No! You're not getting to walk away from this!" Kara grabbed her by the back of her lab coat, and pulled her back into the room. The man towered over her, but she dodged his attacks immediately, and shoved him into the wall. "Lillian, I don't want to hurt anybody!"
"Except for me, isn't that right?!" How the woman still managed to smirk in the face of danger was beyond Kara. But the superhero didn't hesitate to walk towards her threateningly.
"What you did to Maggie. To my sister, to me. What you made me do." Kara hissed through her teeth. "I'm going to make it last, Lillian. For as long as I can, I'm going to enjoy watching you die."
"Wise words from the all-loving, amiable super slave, isn't that right? Well, since you're so eager to follow in your sister's footsteps on my part, I'd love to see you try."
Lillian snapped her fingers, and the entire room went pitch dark. It had to be the same trick she pulled with Alex, only Kara smirked. "I have X-ray vision, Luthor. You should know that."
"Yes, but will you see me?" came the taunting voice. Kara enabled her vision, but her stomach sank as she realized that Lillian was right. She saw over fifty humanoid skeletons running around, crouching and talking to one another. But which one was Lillian?!
She saw everybody's skeletons flee the room and run around. She settled for one that looked like Lillian's stature, but as she tried to speed after her, she bumped right into the wall, causing a big hole in it.
X-ray vision also didn't exactly plan for walls. Great.
So Kara settled on the next best thing. She scrambled around to find anything useful, and finally found a lab coat one of the scientists must have left behind. She used her heat vision to set fire to the bottom part, and held it up as a makeshift torch.
She still had her eyes on the one skeleton that looked and walked like she recognized Lillian from before, and stumbled forward.
All of a sudden, the familiar feeling of getting weakened by kryptonite settled over her alarmingly quick, and she turned around weakly, trying to get away from it, but that only made it stronger.
She was surrounded.
The only escape route she had was a door behind her. She didn't hesitate to throw it open, and shut it behind her as quickly as possible. She breathed a quick sigh in relief, which was short-lived, as a voice behind her made her jump.
"Good. Now, let's see how good you are when I make it a fair fight."
The light flashed back on, and Kara winced, but her eyes widened when she saw that she was in an empty room, inhabited only by Lillian, standing next to a device in the wall. She pressed a button, and the room glowed green immediately.
CADMUS had been taking a page out of the DEO book, Kara thought weakly, as the nausea set in again. Lillian watched her drop to her knees as she held the dial even further. Supergirl all but collapsed onto the ground, weak and unable to move.
Lillian walked over to her, and sighed, faking sadness. "It could have been so easy, Kara Danvers. Had you just… not tried to save the world."
Kara looked up weakly, wincing against the biting, poisonous feeling inside her. "Ma-Maggie had nothing to do with me."
"Yes, well, sometimes you have to make sacrifices for the things you want in life. Like the way you want my daughter?"
Kara opened her mouth for an angry remark, but Lillian kicked her in the face, causing her to double over in pain. Though the older blonde remained composed, Kara still heard a small growl coming from her. "She could have been great. But like everything else in life, you and those other alien-lovers had to ruin her."
Another kick, this time to her ribs. Kara grunted. "So what… Are you going to do to me, Luthor? Kill me? Dissect me?"
"The last daughter of Krypton. Why, you'd get the five star treatment, my dear. Everything you'd ever dreamt of and more."
Kara chuckled humorlessly. "You're such a coward. Hiding behind your schemes. All I want to do is help people, to make this planet better, and you can't even look me in the eyes and fight me."
"I'm afraid I'm a lover, not a fighter, Supergirl. And your little tactics won't work on me."
A loud bang behind them made Lillian look up, forcing her out of her concentration. "Hmm. It seems like once again, we're out of time. You people keep on making me move, it's no way to run a business."
Lillian walked back to the dial, and twisted it even more. The kryptonite was now almost to full effect, and Kara felt herself slipping away from consciousness. She heard Lillian's heels clicking in her direction, and vaguely saw her face coming closer to hers. "Too bad our kryptonite can't be destroyed, I'd love to wait and see if the explosion kills you before or after you're irradiated."
With a chuckle, Kara heard the door open and close, and knew she was alone. She couldn't move, she could barely think.
A loud shuffle and a series of bangs outside the door made her heart stop. Was that the explosions Lillian was talking about? Was the whole structure about to collapse?
Before she could do anything else, the door flew open again and a load of black-clad agents stormed inside. Kara had never been happier to see a DEO agent that wasn't her sister in her life.
At the back, she saw J'onn walking inside, and running over to her immediately. "Supergirl!"
"J-J'onn.." She managed to mutter weakly. One of the agents ran towards the dial. "Sir, it's kryptonite!" He turned the dial back, and Kara felt herself heal and regenerate almost immediately.
"J'onn, we have to leave, Lillian rigged the place with explosives again! We need to fly them out!"
He nodded, and looked at his team. "Move! Fall back, now! The facility is rigged!"
Instantly, the agents started running back to the elevator. J'onn and Kara shoved all of the agents inside and let it ride up. They shared a look, and then turned to the ceiling.
Just as the entire place started echoing explosions and an immense heatwave came over them, Kara managed to cut a hole in the ceiling, and they shoved through the dirt, upwards, until they finally broke the surface.
The facility exploding caused a sinkhole that sucked the entire street down, and J'onn and Kara got to work in pulling the agents that were desperately clambering away, to safety. When everybody was accounted for and safely back on their way to the DEO, Kara and J'onn flew back to the landing balcony.
Winn looked incredibly relieved to see the both of them unharmed, but Kara turned to J'onn immediately. "I don't get it."
Both men looked at her in confusion, waiting for her to continue.
"She left me alive. She could have shot a bullet through my eyes, or kidnapped me to their next CADMUS hideout, but she left me there, she knew I wouldn't die."
"Maybe it was a mistake?" Winn offered.
Kara shook her head. "Lillian Luthor doesn't make mistakes. She-…"
The trio were interrupted by the sight of Alex, walking out of the corridor to the medical ward. Her face was red from crying, but her eyes were burning with revenge. This was the Alex Danvers even Kara herself was scared of.
"Are you cleared to be here, agent Danvers?" J'onn asked her. Of course he'd be the only one not almost throwing up in fear.
Alex didn't respond verbally, and Kara noticed how her sister had yet to look at her – of course she knew why – but walked over to them. "What do we know about CADMUS?"
"They're… uh…" Winn swallowed thickly. "They're on the move again. The dust around the… first site seems to have settled, so the kryptonite cloud is almost gone. The kryptonite they moved around had to be some sort of piece of their trap for Kara."
"Where is Lillian." Alex hissed through her teeth, apparently on the fine line between bursting out in tears and shooting everybody who even dared to look at her.
"We don't know." Kara answered truthfully, and Alex finally looked at her for the first time since she'd yelled at her to leave both of them behind. The hatred and confusion in Alex's eyes burned right through Kara's soul.
"Maybe the reason why she left you alive is because she wanted you to chase after her again, but this time lure you in a real trap?" J'onn theorized.
"She said something about-… Oh." Kara gasped, finally comprehending the weight of Lillian's words. "Maggie…"
She vaguely saw Alex clench her fists in anger, but ignored it over the connection she'd just made. "Lillian said that their kryptonite couldn't be destroyed. She said that she wanted to see what would kill me first, the kryptonite overdose or the explosion."
Winn shook his head slowly, indicating that she'd lost him. Kara stepped forward. "They modified the kryptonite so that it was blast proof to get to me in the first explosion! And Maggie… They enhanced her with kryptonite! So…"
"Kara, that's a stretch." J'onn glared at her, and nodded his head in Alex's direction. "Don't do this in front of her."
Kara ignored him completely and turned around. "I have to go see."
"I'm coming with you."
Kara wanted to protest immediately, and apparently wasn't alone in it as she saw both J'onn and Winn step forward, but Alex glared at them immediately. "I need to do this. To… be sure."
Kara nodded, as she and Alex walked over to the balcony. Before she took off, she looked her sister in the eyes. "Alex, whatever we're going to find there… I'm sorry. I shouldn't have… I should have never taken that decision."
Alex's eyes brimmed with tears again, but she didn't respond. Though Kara knew she didn't need to. She took Alex in her arms, and flew her Downtown, to the warehouse.
She gently sat Alex down, and looked at her. "I'll go first. You stay back."
"No. I need to see her."
"Alex, you might not-…"
Alex interrupted her immediately. "Shut up. Just…stop talking."
Kara felt the light nausea at the residue of kryptonite in the air around her, but managed to use her x-ray vision, albeit in a weakened state.
Finally, her eyes settled on a human-looking figure, underneath a few layers of rubble. Not moving, but…
Kara raced towards the spot and started yanking away rubble. Alex realized what she was doing and moved over to join her, barely feeling the stones and debris ripping apart her hands and forearms as she hurried to help Kara pull layer after layer away.
The closer they got, the more Kara felt herself weaken, until she realized that she'd probably used all of her strength on lifting, and felt depleted. However, the weaker she became, the closer they were to Maggie. Kara was sure of it. And she'd gladly take that pain any day.
Finally, after what felt like hours, Alex pulled a last chunk of rubble away, and Maggie's face came into view. Her eyes closed, her complexion pale, and a lot of blood around her.
Alex broke down again. "Baby…" She sobbed loudly as she and Kara tried to pull the rest of the debris away, but there were huge pieces of concrete that Alex was too weak to move, and Maggie's body weakened Kara too much to help.
Instead, Alex settled on leaning down so that her forehead was touching Maggie's, and her fingers traced her girlfriend's cheekbones. "I'm so sorry… I love you Maggie… I'll… I…" Alex broke off her sentence, and wailed her girlfriend's name over and over again.
Kara was sobbing now too, as she had to turn away from the sight, not willing to pull Alex away from Maggie again.
Kara's head snapped back when she heard a sound behind her.
She hadn't imagined it, based off the look on Alex's face.
A weak gasp for air.