The sun had since descended over Knight City. The sweltering heat of the desert turned into a chilly breeze and the glow of the night city lights were in full show. Distant but growing rumblings of thunder signalled that a storm was imminent.

The second half of their plan hadn't experienced any hiccups thus far as they fled to the Sunset Motel discreetly. Ellis and Jordan were inside their room with Jensson. Kara stood outside, leaning against the door as she nursed the wounds of battle. The energy from her legs had been sapped out as they felt numb. Her back ached with specks of purple bruises from the bullets scattered across it, some of them trailing to her arms. It wasn't just her body that ached. Deep inside her chest, a clamp of misery tightened around her heart. She could do nothing other than stare at her red, blood-stained hands.

Ellis and Jordan were unsure of what to do. They knew they needed to interrogate the currently unconscious Jensson, propped up on a chair, but with Kara around, they weren't sure if it would be possible.

"Think you can contain her?" Ellis asked him.

"Probably," Jordan replied.

"Probably?" Ellis raised an eyebrow.

"She won't get past me," Jordan affirmed more confidently this time, readying himself for Kara to storm back in as soon as Jensson regained consciousness, "Do it."

Ellis put an injection gun to Jensson's neck, this one containing an antidote to the serum they hit him with earlier. It woke him instantly with a fright. His gaze flickered back and forth between his new surroundings and the two of them as he took quick but heavy breaths. He felt relieved for just a second when he realised Kara was not in the room, but that relief didn't last long as the door swung open and she rushed in.

He flinched when it looked as if she was set to burst towards him, but she was stopped in her tracks as Jordan quickly wrapped an arm around her. She still attempted to break free of the grip and push forward, but Jordan was able to keep her at bay, amusing Jensson.

"Still upset, darling?" he asked nonchalantly.

"He was just a kid," Kara snarled in reply, "Just a fucking kid!"

Jensson shrugged his shoulders. "People die every day, most of them unimportant. He was largely insignificant in the bigger picture of this world."

"You fucking bastard!" Kara shouted.

"That's enough, Kara!" Jordan exclaimed as he shoved her back, letting go of his grip but stepping in front of her, "Get it together. You know why we're here."

Reluctantly, Kara took a step back, conceding that their planned conversation with him go ahead. Jordan remained wary of Kara, adjusting his position to be next to her with a watchful eye and a hand ready to pull her back if she couldn't control herself.

"Who are you people and what do you want?" Jensson asked.

"We'll be asking the questions, dipshit," Ellis warned, placing a chair in front of him and sitting down, "How does Soulkiller work?"

"Soulkiller? Why do you want to know?"

As expected, he asked another question. As punishment for not heeding her warning, Ellis slapped him across the face. "What did I just say?" she reminded him.

He rubbed his cheek, attempting to soothe the pain before answering properly this time. "It's straightforward, no? Makes an engram of someone's mind before erasing it from the body, leaving it an empty vessel, a sleeve, for the next construct."

"And then how do you transfer a construct into that body?"

"It's a very complex procedure. I wouldn't be able to put it into layman's terms for you."

"He's lying," Kara barked, prompting Jordan to place an arm in front of her as a precautionary measure.

"You better keep that vile woman away from me," Jensson demanded.

"I can't hold her back forever, so you better start talking," Jordan replied.

With a heavy sigh, Jensson did so. "I wasn't lying. The procedure is multifaceted. Multiple systems and programs all run to initiate Soulkiller and then facilitate the transfer. The body has to be prepped in a cooling chamber before the transfer can begin. If you don't, the brain will be fried, melting away during the procedure."

"How do you choose new bodies for an engram?" Ellis asked.

"It's based on neurophysiological and biological compatibility. The more a new sleeve resembles the old one on a molecular level, the more chance that the transfer will proceed smoothly without side effects. If you try transferring into an incompatible body, it will more than likely fail. If it doesn't, then you will likely die a painful death with your body slowly ceasing function as it begins to attack itself until you are no more."

"Is it possible to do a retransfer?"

"Meaning?"

"Wiping the new construct from a sleeve and then transferring the old one began into it? In other words, giving someone back their own body."

Jensson's interest peaked. He leaned forward in the chair, appearing to be thinking hard about the potential outcomes of a procedure that had never been before. "In theory, certain factors depending, yes. Why is this your concern?"

"Remember Cody Reed?" Ellis asked.

Jensson thought for a moment before a wicked smile spread across his face. "Miss Reed, yes. The new sleeve for Sinclair."

"She's my sister. I want to get her back."

"Interesting. And you plan to do this how?"

"Storming the tower. We know Soulkiller is there, just not where exactly. So, where is it?"

Jensson broke out in a laugh of disbelief, shifting his gaze between the three of them as he did so. "I sincerely underestimated just how stupid you three are. I thought coming after me was lunacy, but you surprise me with perhaps the stupidest convictions someone has ever held. Cody's engram was destroyed after the procedure was done."

"It wasn't. She escaped into the Tower's subnet and that means I can retrieve her engram and give her body back to her. Where is Soulkiller?" Ellis repeated.

"In a lab."

"Where's the fucking lab?!" Ellis raised her voice, growing impatient with him.

"Does it really matter if I tell you or not? Perhaps I should, if only just to see you miserably fail and get butchered in your vacuous mission. But no, I think I won't."

Ellis traded the injection gun for one loaded with bullets, putting it to the side of Jensson's head. "How about now?"

"You think the very man who cultivated immortality himself is afraid of death?" Jensson replied with a chuckle, "Kill me today, I see you tomorrow in a new body. Don't bother to threaten me with torture either. I have just activated the pain nullifier in my cyberdeck. I won't feel a thing no matter what you do to me."

"I could jack in and disable it."

"Perhaps. But that would take time, and time is not of the essence. You must hurry if you still plan to go through with your mission. Lord will soon find you. Never mind that, do you know what it's like to live your whole life in a physical body only to then become a digital construct stuck in cyberspace? Your sister is slowly going insane, losing herself to a digital world without substance. Even assuming that you would be able to storm the tower, get Sinclair and make it to the lab… You might find that your sister's construct is no longer a true engram of who she once was."

Kara's thin patience wore out. She had seen and heard enough from him. "This is fucking bullshit! You're going to pay for what you did."

She charged forward only for Jordan to wrap his arms around her once again. "Kara, stop," he pleaded as he pushed her back, "You heard him. There's no point in killing him."

"I don't care if there's no point, he needs to pay."

"No, we might still need him. Kara… no," he said, speaking in a softer voice in an attempt to placate her.

"I've got the blood of a fucking child on my hands because of him!" she snapped. Despite her insistence, Jordan wasn't willing to budge. He wouldn't let her spill Jensson's blood despite the heinous sins he had committed, and that was when she decided she had enough, "You know what? Fuck you. Fuck both of you!" she screamed at Ellis as well, "I'm fucking done."

She shoved Jordan back before turning around and swinging the door open.

"Kara," he attempted to call her back to no avail.

"I'm done," she said once more, before storming out and slamming the door behind her.

Ellis swapped out the serum in the injection gun back to the tranquilizer fluid, putting it to Jensson's neck and putting him to sleep once again. "Let her go, she needs to cool off," she said, pulling out her connection cable from her neural port and plugging it into Jensson's.

"What are you doing?" Jordan asked.

"Seeing if I can pull anything of use off his cyberdeck."

"Let me know if you find something."

"Still no news on that virus?" Ellis asked, hoping for a positive answer while knowing that the chances of one coming back were zero.

Jordan sighed, "Nothing but dead ends. This was our only lead."

As soon as Kara was out the door, she burst into a sprint across the Californian desert. She had no end goal in mind, only that she needed a way to let out the frustration and anger that had been building inside of her. She eventually came to a stop when the city looked to be nothing more than a speck of light in the far distance.

Back in the car, Jordan hadn't been wrong. Clark, Barry, Alex… now, Caleb's name could be added to the list. A galaxy's weight of emotions piled onto her and it became unbearable. Anger, sadness and desolation, emotions she had become all too familiar with but never felt this overpowering. This time, so overpowering that it completely crushed her, forcing her to collapse to her knees. It wasn't the first time in her life that she felt like she was at her wit's end, but this time felt different.

Returning to Earth had been a second chance. On the surface, it was just a second chance to kill Lord again and for sure this time, but it was so, so much more than that. Killing Lord wasn't just personal, it could end his grip over her once beloved city and perhaps give… hope. It would give hope to the people that their oppressors could be toppled and that there was always a chance things could change for the better. It was a second chance to right her wrongs, to save lives that she otherwise wouldn't have. She didn't want to admit that outright, having tried to shove these notions deep down and reduce her return to nothing more than a blind lust for vengeance. But she couldn't keep lying to herself and ignore them anymore.

All she could think about was holding that young boy's pulverised head in her hands, leaking blood and brains out as she stared into the white of his lifeless eyes. It was all she could see. The image had been burned into her brain the moment she saw it. That was it, right there… The image of her failure.

She scorned herself for coming back to Earth.

She should have known that nothing good was going to come out of it. At the same time, staying on Sadostia to continue living the way she had for the past 64 years seemed grim. Nothing about her existence made sense to her anymore as an inner conflict tore her apart, forcing her to revisit the question she had been grappling with for decades…

Why the fuck was she still here?

Why hadn't she been granted a heroic death or a chance to grow old with a family and pass peacefully? Why had Rao, out of everyone to have ever lived, chosen her to carry out this fate?

She searched and searched for the answer without ever realising that she was the answer. This was only ever meant to be her fate because she was the only soul capable of carrying its burden. No one else could have taken this path and still been standing here today. She had been broken into a million pieces countless times only to find a way to put herself back together in a way that no one else could have. Anyone else would have imploded, but she was still here with a grip on her sanity. A loose, fading grip, but a grip nonetheless. For all she had done, for as much darkness that had consumed her, there still remained that dim light within her, pushing her forward. She was still a paragon of hope and resilience, scraping and crawling her way through hell seemingly without any purpose other than to just keep moving forward.

It took her a long time to find the strength to get back to her feet, but once she did, she began running again, this time back to the city. She knew where she was going, but she wasn't sure what compelled her to make her way there. Perhaps, she thought, it was because she had spent so much time trying to forget her time on Earth that her mind was forcing her to remind herself why she couldn't, and more importantly shouldn't.

She arrived at the former National City Cemetery. It had long since been filled to capacity and was no longer in use. The pleasant neighbourhood it was once near had gone to shit and the grounds hadn't been maintained in years, but she needed to see them just one more time. She remembered exactly where each of the graves were. Lena Luthor, she visited first. Then Nia Nal. Winn Schott. James Olsen. Cat Grant.

21 miles east of Star City was the next closest stop. She didn't bother to check up on the city. She ran straight to the former Queen Mansion, which had been converted into an orphanage by the time she left Earth. She arrived to see the estate still fairly well-maintained, bringing her just a drop of joy as she realised that it was still operating. At this time of night, nobody was around to stop her from advancing towards the six gravestones out back. She didn't care for the first two, Robert and Moira Queen. The rest of them were what she came for.

Oliver Queen. Thea Queen. William Clayton. Roy Harper.

Then, it was the visit she was dreading. Midvale was next. The run there felt painful and slow. Heavy rain poured down, but she didn't care as she agonisingly took laboured steps towards the grave of the person whom she had loved the most in her entire life.

Alex Danvers was buried next to her mother. Rather, Eliza had been buried next to her daughter, having had to bear the unfortunate pain of losing her child. She watched as a mother in the distance shooed away her child and scurried away at the sight of Kara, unfazed by the rain. One wouldn't have noticed with the rain, but after just a few seconds of being in front of Alex's grave, tears started streaming down her face.

Every memory they had ever had together ran through her mind, from the first moment they met each other until the last time Kara held Alex in her arms. The sibling bickering, the arguments, the laughs shared, the times when they found comfort in each other at their low points… it all came flooding back and Kara struggled to contain herself. A part of her almost regretted coming back to visit Alex, but she wouldn't have felt right in her heart if she left again without doing so. She stood in front of Alex's gravestone for nearly a half hour before she found the courage to move again.

Barry had been buried in a cemetery within city limits. She was pleased to see Central City resemble something closer to a liveable place. It was a sight for sore eyes after all that was in her face in the past few days was the grim Knight City. Unlike Knight City too, the statue of The Flash had been kept up as well. She experienced a moment of solace as she took it all in, feeling a hint of joy that at least Barry's legacy was intact. With the day having taken a heavy physical and emotional toll on her, she found herself having to drop to a knee in front of Barry's grave.

Her moment of tranquillity was interrupted when she sensed a presence behind her. She turned her head to glance back, spotting a woman with a curious gaze on her. Neither of them could make out the other's facial features well in the poorly lit graveyard, but she slowly started to walk directly towards Kara.

"Hey," the woman called out in a pacifying tone devoid of any danger.

Kara recognised the voice immediately. She quickly rose to her feet, pacing away from Barry's grave.

"Hey, wait," the woman said again, increasing her pace to catch up with Kara.

She wasn't a threat, but Kara knew exactly who she was and didn't want to face her again after all these years.

"You were at my father's grave."

Kara wanted to run, but she couldn't. Not only could Nora West-Allen easily catch up to her, but she didn't want to anymore. She was tired of running. Running away from her problems, from people, from her feelings, from her thoughts, from her struggles… she was tired of it all.

She stopped in place, having to press her fingers into her eyes to stop the tears that were welling. She sensed that Nora was no more than a few feet behind her now and forced herself to turn around and face her. Nora almost lost her grip on the small pack of flowers she had been holding in her left hand.

"Kara?"

Kara nodded, wiping the tears from her cheek with a finger. "Hey, Nora," she meekly replied, unsuccessfully attempting a smile.

Nora West-Allen didn't bother with any more formalities. She simply let the flowers drop to the floor before rushing forward to embrace Kara in a tight hug. When Kara told Nora she was leaving Earth forever, Nora believed her without any doubt. It was difficult having to say goodbye to someone she idolised and had mentored her, but she understood. Unlike Jordan, she had no resentment or contempt. She had long since had to make peace with the probable reality that Kara had somehow died out there in the universe by now, likely having spent her last moments alone.

Nora felt elation upon seeing a woman who had meant so much to her still alive, but painful compassion upon seeing her in this current state – Dishevelled, tearful, blood staining her clothes and hands. Kara sheepishly wrapped her arms around Nora, having forgotten how to reciprocate a genuine embrace with someone she deeply cared for. Kara's coy reciprocation of the embrace made Nora realise this was a hug that she more than needed.

"I thought I'd never see you again," Nora said in disbelief as they separated from the long embrace. She cupped her hands around Kara's cheeks before pulling her in for a hug again, this one a little shorter. "Kara, what's going on?" she asked with concern.

Kara found herself unable to articulate any words, only being able to shrug her shoulders. Seeing that Kara was distraught and battered, Nora set aside any potential further line of questioning.

"Come on," she said, gently wrapping a hand around Kara's arm, "Let's talk somewhere else."

"We'll have two Flash's, please."

Although CC Jitters had long since expanded into a franchise with multiple shops across the country, "The Flash" was still a drink only available to Central City's residents.

"I didn't think they'd still be serving those after all this time," Kara smiled.

"It's been their most popular drink for over a century. They're never going to scrap it," Nora replied.

Some CC Jitters stayed open 24/7 like this one, others operated on regular hours. There was no better place for her to bring Kara than here. She needed the warmth, literally and figuratively, and having guessed that she had just recently been in Knight City, needed to be in a setting that was absent of any form of plight. Nora ran back to her place to grab a clean jacket for Kara, also directing her to the bathroom where she finally washed the blood off her arms. They sat in silence for a few moments, with Nora not pressing Kara to talk and allowing her to open up when she felt comfortable doing so.

"I heard you retired?" Kara eventually asked.

"Yeah, been quite a few years now. As a speedster, one of the most difficult things to do is to take things slow and just enjoy the moment. Retirement forces that, so it took some adjusting but I think I've got the hang of it now."

"Hey, I'm, uh," Kara stuttered through her words, "I'm really sorry about Bart."

Kara's tone was more apologetic than compassionate, coming across as if she felt responsible for Bart's death in some way. Nora simply brushed her off with a warm smile. "You don't have to apologise, Kara. We knew the risks of that life. I made it out, he didn't. That's just the way it goes."

"Is that why you retired?"

Nora nodded. "He was my day one partner-in-crime. Or partner-in-justice, I should say. I went on for a little while longer without him, but I just couldn't do it."

They paused their conversation momentarily when the server brought them the drinks. Kara's eyes immediately fixated on the little lightning bolt drawn in the foam of the drink.

"When did you get back?" Nora asked, getting Kara's attention back.

"Just a few days ago," she succinctly replied, "Did you ever get the people who killed Bart?"

"I left that up to Jordan. I've seen how the pursuit of vengeance can poison hearts. I didn't want it to poison mine. And I can see… that poison is running through your veins right now," Nora said with heavy sorrow, "I knew that if you were still alive, it would only be a matter of time before you heard about him and came back. How did you find out?"

"Ellis," Kara replied, "She found me, came asking for my help."

"Help with what?"

"Lord took Cody. He's used her body as a sleeve for someone else's construct. We plan to get her engram back into her own body."

Nora had been stunned into silence. It took her a few seconds to process the revelation before she found the ability to let out a single word. "How?"

"Storming the only place we can do the procedure… Lord Tower."

Nora's eyes flared before she slowly shook her head. "Kara, that's suicide."

"It's our only chance," Kara sighed in desperation, "The blood wasn't mine. We hijacked a convoy today trying to get to the scientist who created the procedure. But the fucker didn't give us anything."

Nora sat in silence for a few moments, looking past her initial disapproval of their plan. She shared a very similar pain to Kara in having lost her sibling, a pain that Ellis was now experiencing as well. It was a pain that could never fully be quelled unless you could bring them back to life. Unlike her and Kara, Ellis had a chance to do just that.

"You guys should have told me about this sooner," Nora said, "You can't be going at it just the two of you."

"It's not just the two of us. We've got Jordan as well. We had a plan, it was right fucking there!" Kara's voice raised, "Get Jensson, figure out how the procedure works, get a virus that could cripple the tower's security systems… But it all fucking failed. We've got nothing. Seems like it was always meant to be a suicide mission."

"The virus would have never worked."

"You think we didn't know that?!" Kara snapped, before swallowing the lump in her throat and apologetically lowering her voice, "Sorry. We knew it was a long shot, but we were just hoping for… something."

Kara felt her eyes becoming watery again, gently wiping at them with a finger before continuing.

"I failed to save a child today. I can't have any more lives on my conscience. I'm not letting Ellis and Jordan into that tower without being sure they'll make it out alive. I should've listened to my gut feeling that this was doomed from the start."

Nora felt tears forming in her own eyes as she listened to Kara's shaky voice and watched her tear droplets fall. She thought she had seen her idol and mentor at the lowest point in her life, right before she left Earth. She prayed that Kara would find a new sense of purpose in the cosmos, perhaps finding a new home and finding a peace that she had long since lost. But it was clear that the universe had not been kind to her. The Kara in front of her now was scarred several times more than the one she had last seen, a broken soul that had been shattered into a million more pieces.

She could only provide comfort by wrapping her hand around Kara's, gently rubbing her bruised knuckles with her thumb. But Nora didn't want to stop there. She began straining her mind to think of possible ways that she could help them. Nothing came to mind initially. It was hard to have hope when the once most hopeful person you knew had lost all of it.

But Nora still tried. She tried and tried, trying to reach the deepest archives of her mind to remember or think of something that could restore some hope. One finally came to mind and while she wasn't sure it would amount to anything, she felt she needed to give it a try.

"Kara… I think you've been looking at it the wrong way. You don't need a virus, you need an AI. A really powerful AI."

Kara squinted her eyes. "An AI? Where could we even get one?"

A small smile crept onto Nora's face. "I know just the place."

S.T.A.R. Labs. After all these years, it was still up and running as a research facility in the middle of Central City. Just like Jordan with the Kent Farm, this place was more than just a building or piece of land to Nora. Even though it was no longer the headquarters of a speedster hero, she worked tirelessly to ensure the company continued to make meaningful contributions to various scientific and medical fields. It was a way for her to uphold her father's legacy by continuing to do whatever good she could without a supersuit.

Much of the building had undergone several renovations, mainly to enhance the aesthetic and make it feel more welcoming inside. The metahuman prison in the pipeline had been scrapped, and the only part of the building that remained untouched was a single room. Hidden behind a wall in the west wing of the building, Kara was the only other person on the planet that knew of its existence besides Nora and Jordan. Nora herself hadn't entered the room in a few years, having to take a few moments to remember exactly where on the wall its entrance was.

Inside the Time Vault, a case stood next to the projector, with the lack of light forcing Kara to look closer to see what was contained inside. Three rings, each coloured differently – White, Red, Purple. The systems took a couple of seconds to boot up, eventually lighting up the room in a bright white light while a blue holographic projection of a smiling face appeared in front of Kara and Nora.

"Hey, Gideon," Nora enthusiastically greeted.

"Hello, Nora. Kara Zor-El, it's quite a pleasure to see you again after all these years," the AI warmly replied.

"Good to see you too," Kara nodded.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?" Gideon asked.

"We wanted to know if you would be able to help us with something," Nora began, "It's to do with Lord Tower."

"Lord Tech's Soulkiller program. Do you know what that is?" Kara asked.

"Of course."

"Good. I need to get into the tower to facilitate an engram transfer. The problem is that there's no way in for us besides guns blazing, but if the tower's security systems aren't disabled, me and my friends are going to be killed. We thought we could find a supervirus that could do that for us, but such a thing doesn't exist. Could you possibly help us?"

Gideon froze for a few moments, seeming to ponder whether she was capable of aiding them. "I believe so. If you could give me access to the tower's subnet, I should be able to temporarily assume control of all of its systems."

"Could you find a way for us to do the engram transfer?"

"Once I've taken control of the subnet, I'll have access to all of its data. I'll have access to all of the information on the procedure, and with control of the systems, I will be able to facilitate the transfer myself so long as you have the body ready for the procedure."

Kara felt a wave of relief and thrill radiate through her body, pressing her hands to her face as she revelled in knowing that perhaps she hadn't come this far for nothing, that maybe she hadn't failed just yet.

"How would we give you access to the subnet?" Nora asked.

"I'll copy my program onto a datashard. All you would need to do is insert the shard into any of the tower's access points."

As Kara stood there, her thrill momentarily turned into something more sinister. Her demons reminded her of the exact reason why she had come back and she harkened back to those incensed words that Victor Vektor had uttered to her in his clinic.

"Don't settle for a penny when you could empty the entire vault… Burn that fucking tower to the ground."

"Gideon," she called out, "Could you destroy the subnet after we're done with the transfer?"

"Maybe, but I can't say with absolute certainty. Destroying a subnet of that size might be a step too far for me. I'll only know for sure once I'm within it."

Gideon still seemed a little unsure of herself, but those words were enough for Kara. Burning the tower down physically might not be on the table, but the prospect of potentially destroying the subnet and rendering Lord's empire toothless seemed far more rewarding.

"I need to get this back to Jordan and Ellis," Kara turned and said to Nora.

"I'll quickly grab the datashard and then we'll go together," Nora replied, before surprising Kara by taking a step towards the glass case and taking out her purple ring.

"What are you doing?" Kara asked.

"You guys could use the extra pair of helping hands."

"No. We didn't come to you because we knew you were done with all this."

"There's no better reason to come out of retirement than this."

"Nora, remember what I told you? I can't have any more lives on my conscience."

Nora smiled before placing a hand on Kara's shoulder. "I thought you'd changed so much, but you're still the same old Kara deep down inside, thinking that the responsibility of every life out there is in your hands. Kara, this is my choice. You're my friend, and friends don't let each other walk through hell alone."

"You're so much like your father," Kara marvelled, placing a hand on Nora's cheek. "I don't know what we would have done without you."

"Good thing you'll never have to know."