"Here."

Jordan placed the wrapped burger in front of Ellis, taking a seat next to her on the dining table of the motel room.

"Not hungry," Ellis blankly replied.

"Unlike me, you actually need to eat to function. Please," he requested, sliding it closer towards her.

Half-heartedly, Ellis opened the wrapper and took a single bite of the burger before putting it back down. She glanced at her watch to check how much time had passed since Kara had stormed out, "Been a couple of hours," she said, "Wonder where she went."

Jordan softly chuckled. "A little earlier today, I would've said she hopped on her ship and ran away again."

"You've been a real asshole to her since she got back," Ellis chastised him, "All that shit you said in the car… she didn't need to hear that."

Jordan sighed. "I know. I don't want to hate her, Ellis. She's my aunt. I couldn't imagine a Thanksgiving or Christmas without her for most of my life. Best gifts I ever got were from her. Some of my best childhood memories are with her… So, with all that said, you can imagine what it felt like when she up and left without even telling me to my face."

"She's had to say goodbye to every person she's ever loved. Have you never thought that maybe she didn't have it in her to do it one more time? That maybe it was better that way for both her and you to not have to go through that?"

"Maybe," Jordan nodded, finally beginning to shed his selfishness, "It was difficult seeing her like that today, but I guess I needed to. It reminded me that she isn't the heartless bitch I painted her out to be."

A gust of wind outside the door interrupted their conversation. Jordan used his x-ray vision to quickly identify Kara but then realised she hadn't returned alone. It only took him another second to make out the other person, immediately rushing to the door.

"Kara, you're back," he said before pausing, "With Nora."

"Been a minute, Jordan," Nora smiled.

"What are you doing here?"

"Here to help. Seems like you guys need it."

Jordan glanced at her hands, immediately making out her ring and shaking his head, "Uh-uh, we're not dragging you into this."

"I've already had this conversation with Kara and I really don't feel like rehashing it," Nora ranted, "I'm helping whether you like it or not, so are you going to let us in or leave us out here?"

Reluctantly, Jordan stepped aside to let them enter. Ellis was elated to see another friendly face in Nora, promptly rising to her feet to embrace her. "It's so good to see you," she beamed.

"You too," Nora reciprocated, "We're going to get her back, I promise."

"We know how to get past the security systems," Kara optimistically jabbered, "We'll use an AI. It'll take control of the systems and disable them."

"Good idea, but it's not like we can just go shopping for one powerful enough and willing to do that for us," Jordan remarked.

"Don't need to, already got her," Kara replied, placing a small portable projector on the floor in the center of the room.

Ellis raised an eyebrow. "Her?"

Nora placed the datashard in one of the projector's slots, instantly booting it up and prompting Gideon's face to manifest in front of them.

"Gideon?" Jordan gawked.

"Hello, Jordan," she replied.

"Hi, I'm-" Ellis awkwardly tried to introduce herself, but Gideon quickly interjected.

"Ellis Reed. Daughter of Zeb and Sofia Reed. Great, great-granddaughter of Oliver Queen."

"Okay, Gideon, Kara says you can shut down the security systems for us. How?" Jordan asked.

"By giving me access to the Lord Tower subnet. The datashard Nora has just needs to be inserted into any access point in the tower, then I could hypothetically assume control of its systems, shutting down security measures as well as facilitating the engram transfer you wish to do."

"Hypothetically?" Jordan questioned.

"There is a slim chance that I would not be able to break through the tower's ICE, but I consider it an unlikely scenario."

"This your idea?" Jordan asked, turning to Nora, who nodded. "You're a fucking godsend."

"It's not just about the security systems or the transfer," Kara chimed in, "Gideon can destroy Lord Tech's subnet."

"Potentially," Gideon quickly added, "I'm still not sure if that's within my capabilities."

"The point is that she could be able to. You know what this means, right?" Kara asked, stepping forward towards Jordan, "We're not just killing Lord and getting Cody back… This is our chance to destroy the very foundations upon which his empire is built. Lord Tech would be left in ruins, it would collapse and its grip over millions of lives would be let loose. This is not just 'sticking it to the corp', it's us putting a fucking knife in its throat."

"As long as it doesn't come at the cost of Cody," Jordan replied.

"Of course," Kara agreed, "We still need to find a way through the initial checkpoint and into the building. But once we're in, we just need to plug that datashard into any data access point and we'll be cruising."

"I've got good news on that front," Ellis replied, "The digital access tag needed to enter the tower? I managed to pull it from Jensson's cyberdeck. Give me some time to modify it for one of us, we could get through that first checkpoint easily."

"What are we going to do with him?" Kara asked, turning her gaze to Jensson's unconscious body.

"He might still be useful," Jordan firmly replied, affirming that he was to be kept alive, "I made a call to some friends. He's going to be taken to a secure holding facility in BC where he'll spend the rest of his days in a cold, dark cell."

Kara didn't protest. She knew that a quick death was a gift that Jensson didn't deserve. He deserved to die slowly and the thought of him rotting away in a dreary corner for the next few decades, if he could even last that long, was enough to appease her.

"What next?" Nora asked.

"We should stay here for the night," Jordan said, "We head back into the city tomorrow, do some more recon of the tower and then hit it tomorrow night."

More reconnaissance of the tower didn't give them anything other than the exact amount of adversaries stationed outside. 2 large mechs, 10 men, 10 ground drones and 5 aerial drones all on constant alert. The second checkpoint looked to be less heavy on security, but they knew there were at least a hundred more combatants inside along with a variety of turrets.

In concept, the plan was simple. Jordan and Nora would pass by the first checkpoint using the modified access tags. The second checkpoint got a little more tricky, as the biometric scanners wouldn't take very long to identify them both as supers. Once that happened, Jordan would need to hold off the ensuing security forces for just a few seconds as Nora sped over to the reception desk's access point with Gideon's shard in hand, plugging her in and allowing her to take over the system. She could then turn the drones and turrets against their own, help eliminate squadrons and allow Kara to bring Ellis into the tower before it was placed on lockdown to prevent Lord and Sinclair from leaving. Once the engram transfer was complete, Nora would speed Ellis and Cody out of the building to safety while Kara and Jordan then went for Lord.

Even with all the drones and mechs down, the army of cyber-enhanced psychos would be ready to mow them down at every corner. There was the chance that Gideon couldn't assume full control of the tower's systems and security measures such as turrets and meta-dampening fields could still be active, in which case Nora and Ellis would lose their greatest advantages. However, Jordan and Kara, along with her array of alien weaponry, were considered the equalisers in that regard. If they found themselves in trouble, Jordan had two special airhypos loaded with doses of solar energy. If they were compromised, they could take a swig and amplify their abilities for a short while, but they only had two, one each, so they couldn't be wasted at an inopportune time.

They were just a couple of hours away from going through with it. They had already all been assigned their roles and weapons. Now, it was just time to mentally prepare. They were all well aware that this could be their last couple of hours alive. Nora was fidgeting with her ring, only now fully realising the significance of putting that suit on again. Ellis was doing nothing other than scrolling through her entire album of photos of her and Cody. She had thought about this for months. Nothing else mattered to her more than getting her sister back. It seemed a pipe dream all this time, but now, it was tangible. It was within her reach, right there ready to be grasped. This was the moment in which she had to make it all count, and being completely honest with herself, she wasn't sure she could. But she was sure of one thing, and that was that she would be damned if she didn't die trying.

"Where's Kara?" Jordan asked, returning from his last scouting of the tower and immediately noticing that she wasn't with them in the apartment. Ellis gestured with her head to the open window.

For Jordan, all he felt right now was shame and regret. Just a few days ago, he had been given the opportunity to reunite with all that was left of his family and heritage, and he had squandered it. He had chastised Kara, belittling and pushing her away at every turn, displaying a complete lack of empathy and compassion towards her. That all changed just that instant he looked into her eyes after Caleb had been shot. Within them, he saw an immeasurable weight of survivor's guilt crushing her, a soul aching from the loss of more lives than he could imagine. He saw whatever pain and hurt he had felt multiplied by a thousand in her, which then turned back to him and bludgeoned him awake from his hate. He needed to make things right with her, knowing that he might not ever get another chance at doing so after tonight.

He stepped out onto the thin ledge outside the window, glancing towards his right to see Kara sitting on a beam that stretched towards the next building.

Kara, just like Ellis, sat with thoughts of her sister. Unlike Ellis, she didn't have a whole album. Instead, she just had a lone picture. She and Alex sat on the couch of her apartment, their arms around each other with Kara's legs stretched over Alex's and her head resting on her shoulder. Both of them beaming, buoyant, full of life… It felt like a million years ago, and yet also like it was just yesterday. Killing Lord seemed to feel more like revenge for herself than vengeance for her sister. She needed it. She craved the satisfaction of ripping him limb from limb again, and it wasn't what Alex would have wanted her to do. If Alex was here, she would have wanted nothing more than for Ellis to get Cody back, even if it meant sacrificing her own life to do it.

Over the past few days, Kara had seen glimpses of herself in Ellis, mostly her past good but some ever so small flashes of her current bitterness. She had the chance to be the help that she didn't have. If they couldn't get Cody, she could see Ellis going down the same path that she had and she couldn't allow that to happen.

She noticed Jordan just as he was a few feet away, shimmying across the ledge towards her. They shared a glance of eye contact, followed by a placating half-smile.

"Hey," he said as he neared.

"Joining me for a smoke?" Kara asked, taking a drag on her cigarette as she placed the picture back in her pocket.

"Oh, no," Jordan chuckled as he took a seat next to her.

"What's up?" Kara asked.

Jordan took a moment to reach into a pocket of his jacket, pulling out a picture of his own and handing it to her. "Remember this day?"

Kara immediately recognised it as the living room of the Kent farmhouse. A sizeable, overly decorated evergreen conifer served as the backdrop to the group of people smiling in front of it. Kal, Lois, Lucy, James, J'onn, Alex, Eliza and her, standing in the center holding the 6-year-old twins, Jonathan and Jordan, in one arm each.

"Christmas, 2016," Kara remembered.

"Best Christmas I ever had," Jordan reminisced, "Over the past week, I've said a lot of things I shouldn't have. It's pretty obvious that I was never able to deal with you leaving. Only way I did was by trying to hate you for it, but deep down, I don't. Never have. You're the only family I have left. I don't want us to be on bad terms. I'm sorry... about everything."

Kara Zor-El had become accustomed to hiding agony, now so good at it that sometimes she herself didn't even realise that she was hurting. Only now, as Jordan apologised, did she realise how much he had stung her in the past week. However, that made her appreciate his sincere apology all the more. The feeling was mutual. Kara may have thrown her jibes back at him, but there was never a genuine resentment beneath it.

There was a point in time when she could have been a good mother and experienced the joys of being one, but she had never had the opportunity to have children of her own. She did, however, have her nephews, the closest thing possible to her own two baby boys. She remembered the countless drives and flights to see them at every chance she could. She remembered promising to help Kal and Lois protect them from the dangers that were brought upon them by their identities. In a different time, she would have leapt towards Jordan right now and embraced him in a hug so tight that it would have killed a non-Kryptonian, but now, she could only try to express that kind of emotion in the only way she had become used to.

"You're a fucking prick, you know that?" Kara jested with a slight smile, "A whiny, annoying little shit, but I forgive you. I know I should have seen you before I left, but I just didn't have it in me. It felt easier to just turn my back and go. For the record, I didn't love you any less than Jonathan. The reason why it may have seemed like I was there more for him was just because he needed it more. I lived in your father's shadow for a long time, and Jon always lived in yours. He needed someone who understood that feeling, someone who could help him deal with it. And now, you're the one in Kal's shadow. Jordan, you don't have to be what he was. No one could ever fill his boots or live up to his legacy, you don't have to try to just because you're his son."

"Then why do I feel like I need to?"

"Because you're your father's son. He wanted to do the impossible too. And he damn near did sometimes, but even Kryptonians have limits," Kara chuckled.

"Are you really going to leave again after we're done?"

"I said goodbye to this planet a long, long time ago. Coming back has just reminded me why I left in the first place. I wish I could be able to stick around, but I can't. I'm sorry."

"Where will you go?"

Kara pondered her multitude of options, unable to settle on one right now. "I don't know. I'll worry about that after we're done. That's assuming I survive."

"I'm sure you will."

"You don't have to be optimistic for the sake of it. Just say it like it is, even with Gideon and Nora, we might be fucked."

Though he would have liked Kara to be a little more hopeful, he found a strange appreciation for her bluntness. Knowing that she would be gone soon, one way or the other, he knew he needed to make the most of this short third chance with her, so he figured to do it in the way that best suited her.

"Well, then I guess I'll have that cigarette," he replied with a smile. Kara obliged as she handed him a cig and her lighter. She watched as he almost put it to his lips the wrong way around first before correcting his error and setting it alight. He reacted exactly as she guessed he would. The first drag and subsequent inhalation burned his throat with the ashy taste dirtying his mouth, causing him to begin coughing.

"This shit's terrible," he grunted.

"You can hand it back if you're going to complain," Kara replied.

"No, no, I'll see it through."

No more words needed to be said between them. They traded one last smiling glance before taking comfort in the serendipitous silence that was only ever broken by more coughs from Jordan and then giggles from Kara.

Once they were both done with their cigs, they made their way back into the apartment. Jordan immediately made his way over to a water bottle, while Kara took a seat next to Nora.

"You know you still have time to back out if you want," Kara remarked, a part of her wishing that Nora decided to do so. Instead, Nora shook her head.

"What's the point of having superspeed if you're only going to use it to run away from danger instead of towards it?" Nora replied.

"Some might argue that's the whole point of it."

Nora shook her head with a smile, "Not for a West-Allen."

Kara's vigilance and enhanced senses felt the subtle, steady increase in vibrations before the others. She didn't think much of it initially, chalking it down to another AV passing by close to the building. However, when they reached an intensity greater than what she had ever felt before, it raised suspicion. It got to a point where the others tangibly felt them too until an AV come to a stop outside Ellis' window. Its door flung open instantly before Kara spotted an armed man throw a sticky explosive device towards the window.

"Get down!" Kara screamed, rushing towards Nora to shield her while Jordan did the same for Ellis.

Her quick reaction might have saved their lives as the device blew apart the wall, exploding and flinging shards of metal debris in their direction. The AV hovered closer to the large breach, allowing the eight men inside to step into the wrecked apartment. Before Kara had a chance to react, a collar glided through the air and wrapped around her neck. It tightened in an instant, but that was the least of Kara's concerns. The immediate burn was soon replaced by a terrible piercing into her neck as the collar released powerful electric bursts. Her neck muscles spasmed first before the currents travelled down her back, leaving her writhing in pain on the floor as she found herself unable to tug it off.

Considering the circumstances, Jordan had found himself in quite a lucky position. The next collar had been flung in his direction, but having dived towards Kara's stockpile of weapons, he quickly grabbed one of her pistols and shot it out of the air before it could reach him. His next shots were aimed at the first group of three men that had entered. The plasma blasts burned through their armour, dropping them one by one. He was forced to take a couple of bullets to the chest to shield Ellis, but he soldiered through the hits to drop the rest of the adversaries in front of him. Once they were dealt with, Ellis jumped out from behind him and grabbed the heavy sniper, rushing to the breach to take aim outside. Two more AVs hovered around, but her marksmanship allowed her to shoot out the engines of both and send them hurtling down towards the streets.

Despite being in pain herself, Nora crawled a little closer to Kara. With a vibration of her hand, she cut through the collar, finally allowing Kara relief and giving her back the ability to breathe. Jordan rushed towards them, initially seeking to check on Kara.

"I'm fine," Kara let out in a strained voice before Jordan could say anything. She attempted to get back to her feet, but she could only get to her knees, still needing a few more seconds to regain control of her body.

"It's Lord. He's found us," Jordan trembled.

Nora grimaced as she glanced towards her leg, prompting Jordan to do the same. Kara hadn't been able to shield her from every piece of debris, as a large metal shard had embedded itself above her knee. She let out a cry of agony as she pulled the shard out to let her healing process start, but she knew full well that running was going to be off the table for the next few minutes.

Ellis scouted the streets and airspace around them. Every intersection she could see was blocked off by a platoon, while the airspace was now being flooded with drones. She was able to pick off a few of the closest ones, but they couldn't remain here as sitting ducks any longer.

"They're all over the fucking place," she said in exasperation.

Having regained most of her strength, Kara stumbled back to her feet and began processing the situation they were in. Nora was compromised, unable to run, while Ellis' human body had no chance of standing up to the tech and firepower they were up against. She and Jordan could mount a defence, but they had been taken by surprise and she was weakened, so it was only a matter of time before they would be brought down and subdued. There was only one option in Kara's mind, as had become usual.

"You guys get out of here," she said, "I'll draw their attention, lead them away while you escape."

"Are you out of your mind?" Jordan attempted a protest, but Kara shut him down immediately.

"Lord wants me more than any of you and chances are he wants me alive. All attention will be on me and that'll give you less resistance getting away."

Jordan really wanted to argue more, but he couldn't waste vital seconds trying to change Kara's mind. He wouldn't have been able to even with a few hours at his disposal, so he resigned to her impromptu plan and lifted Nora to her feet.

"You hold on long enough for me to get back," Jordan growled.

Kara ran over to her stockpile, quickly shoving everything in the bag and exchanging it with Ellis for the heavy sniper. With both Ellis and Nora wrapping an arm around his waist, Jordan burst into flight. They were still far from safe, as a squad of drones quickly shifted course and started to follow them. Kara lifted the sniper, picking off most of them until she ran out of bullets. Without any more ammunition to load, she dropped the sniper to the floor before leaping out of the building herself.

She leapt up towards the roof of the building ahead of her, struggling to make a soft landing as her muscles were still spasming. She couldn't draw every drone away from Jordan, but she knew that most of them would be drawn to her on Lord's command if she made enough of a commotion. She heated her eyes before spinning around to let out her heat vision and set much of the roof on fire. The bright glow of the blaze along with the cloud of smoke emanating from it served its purpose as a call to arms, drawing the attention of two drone squadrons.

Her hunch that Lord wanted her alive was proved true when the circling drones began firing electric plasma blasts, clearly designed to incapacitate and disarm rather than kill. Her reflexes allowed her to dodge the first few that came her way, remaining on the rooftop for a few more seconds until every drone in the vicinity had surrounded her. Now being their sole target, Kara leapt up and over the drones before landing on a neighbouring rooftop.

The chase ensued over the skyline of Midtown, an army of unmanned tech aircrafts pursuing Kara as she hopped from rooftop to rooftop. Now and then, she saw the opportunity to leap at a drone or blast it with her heat vision, allowing her to worry about one less stream of electric blasts coming her way as she led them in the opposite direction of that which Jordan had gone. It was a risky game she was playing, decreasing her rate of movement to a pace slow enough to let the drones stay focused on her. It was a stroke of luck that the drones weren't using homing ammunition, but luck always ran out. The self-adjusting firing algorithms of the drones eventually allowed them to win the chase, as they tracked Kara's now predictable movement patterns and began firing where they expected her to move with greater accuracy.

She was caught between jumps. Two blasts simultaneously crashed into her back as she was mid-air. The force of the blasts knocked her out of the sky, sending her tumbling down as her spatial control was disrupted while the electricity numbed her muscles. If there was ever a time for her to fly again, it would be now. She only had a few seconds before she would crash onto the hard Knight City streets, but that would have been more than enough a century ago. She spun and squirmed in the air, attempting to regain control of an ability that had ironically become alien to her.

It seemed for a moment she might, but just like when she had jumped through the panes at Empathy, Kara failed. Her faculty of flight had become lost to her, and so was everything that it had once represented to her. Having fallen a few hundred feet down, she hurtled down and slammed into the tar road, shattering the ground as she landed face first.

The velocity of the fall had been enough to daze her. She hadn't time to recuperate before another electric blast hit her leg. She possessed just enough wherewithal to slide away from the second one before slicing apart the drone with another stream of heat vision. The army of drones had descended as well and now with a numb leg, Kara could only stumble and fire back with whatever solar energy she could muster in her eyes. But her undivided focus on the drones caused her to forget that Lord had more than a machine army at his disposal.

The next second, she felt a concentrated pulse of energy burst into her neck, dropping her to the floor again. The bullet hit her with enough power to make her feel as if she had gone through freefall and crashed again, only this time it was amplified to another degree. The effort to get back to her feet, though valiant, was unsuccessful as she was subject to another barrage of electric blasts. Even then, with electricity burning through her blood vessels, muscles spasming and head aching, she fought to rise.

A platoon of a dozen men had surrounded her on the floor, each brandishing guns that housed no bullets nor plasma cartridges. They fired in unison, letting out a steady stream of pure, concentrated sound waves that overloaded her sense of hearing. With an already sensitive, enhanced sense of hearing, Kara's ghastly shrieks of pain were only muffled out by the sonic cannons. From the second they hit her, they pierced her eardrums and began pulsating through her brain, making her feel as if her head was going to pop at any second. It felt like she was under the waves for hours before they finally stopped, but by then, the damage had already been done. Feeling as if her brain had melted inside her skull, she lay motionless on the floor, staring blankly into the distance through blurry vision as she found herself unable to will her body to fight.

Now, it was time to meet the Devil.