Author's note: Hey everyone, sorry for leaving you all on a cliffhanger on that last chapter, hopefully this one will make up for it! It's slightly longer as i'm off on my honeymoon with the wifey tomorrow :D so won't be posting for a little while. As always, thank you for all the comments and reviews they really encourage all of us to keep writing x
Alex and Maggie were sitting in the foyer of China Palace waiting for their rather large order. Maggie's arm was slung comfortably around Alex's shoulders and Alex was resting her head on Maggie's chest. They rested in a comfortable silence, watching people coming and going, either to dine in or pick up takeout like themselves. Even though Alex had rung ahead with their order, enough Chinese food for a team which included a Kryptonian was taking a fair while to cook.
The sudden beeping of Alex's phone startled the women from their position and they untangled limbs as Alex swiped to answer the call.
"Agent Danvers."
"Alex!"
"Winn? What's wrong?"
Maggie turned her head towards Alex, concern filling her as she heard the worried tone in her girlfriend's voice, but she waited until Alex finished the call. She finally hung up and turned to face the Detective, her face a little paler than before.
"What is it?" Maggie asked.
"Winn's new system picked up the alien's signature…"
"And…"
"It's heading this way… we need to evacuate the building, more agents are coming to try and contain it, but they won't get here for at least 15 minutes"
"Supergirl?"
"She's on her way"
"Right then." Maggie said and stood up, determined, Alex close behind.
Both women whipped out their respective badges and split, Maggie heading into the main restaurant whilst Alex headed towards the kitchen and the management.
"FBI!"
"NCPD!"
They both called out authoritatively at the same time, a brief smile crossed both their faces and their eyes met across the restaurant chaos, both thinking of how good it felt to work together, before they both got back to the business of the evacuation.
"Can I please have everyone's attention?! We have a situation next door and require everyone to vacate the premises, please make your way calmly to the exit" Maggie pointed to a side entrance that headed away from the main street and after a little grumbling from a few guests, people began moving.
Alex was having a little more trouble getting the staff to move but after threatening the manager with the full force of the FBI upon his establishment they quickly moved out through the back of the kitchen.
Soon the whole place was empty and Alex and Maggie made their way out towards the front of the building. They took positions either side of the entrance and Alex peered out, the small hand gun she had tucked into her jacket now in her hand.
She couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. In fact… there was nothing… nobody walking the streets or in any of the buildings opposite.
"The Director must have called ahead and mobilised the local forces" Alex commented, her experienced eyes scanning the streets and alleys for danger as she spoke.
Alex peeked out again and this time saw a fellow agent in the lee of another building, they nodded at each other, the agent signalling to Alex with a hand movement that everything at their end was clear. Alex responded likewise, wishing that she had thought to grab an ear piece before they'd left the DEO.
"All good?" Maggie asked from the side, a gun also in her hands.
"Yea, it looks like Vasquez was nearby and got the call as well; she's cleared the buildings opposite. No sign of it yet though…"
As Alex spoke, however, they both heard a horrifying screech reverberating down the empty street. Her hands started shaking slightly but she steadied a little after Maggie put a reassuring hand on her hip. Alex hadn't faced the alien (hell she hadn't faced anything more dangerous than a mugger!) since she had been injured. She had been trying to stay in shape throughout her recovery, doing as much as her back (and her overprotective sister) would allow. But she knew she wasn't back at her fighting fit level and the thought of facing the alien again so soon did send a shiver of fear down her spine… but there was no way she would ever admit it.
She steeled herself and took another brief look outside before ducking back in.
"It's there, moving slowly but definitely heading this way." She reported
"We need to get out of here then" Maggie replied "Neither of us are prepared to face him right now, he shrugged off my bullets like they were bugs before. I don't want to see what will happen this time." She looked at Alex "The civilians are out, we need to go Danvers…" Alex took a deep breath and nodded. She went to signal Vasquez that they were retreating and blanched, the other agent was in the direct path of the alien with no way out.
Maggie saw Alex freeze and moved to look at whatever had halted Alex's retreat with her. She saw Vasquez slowly backing around the corner, trying to avoid the alien's line of sight, but the way he was heading it was unavoidable, she would be seen… And if Maggie's past experience with this particular fiend had told her anything, it was that regular humans were incredibly lucky to survive an encounter with the beast. She saw the look change in Alex's eyes from one of fear to blind stubborn headed determination and swore.
"Dammit! Alex stay here!" She pushed the other woman back down behind the dubious protection of the restaurant's walls and dashed outside, Alex's whispered and frantic "Maggie! No!" following her.
Maggie skidded onto the street and ran forwards into the alien's view. "Hey Snowcone! Remember me?!" She jumped around a little, waved her gun and fired off a few shots in its direction. She knew they wouldn't harm it but she wasn't worried about defeating it right now, she just needed to distract it long enough for Vasquez to escape… and pray that Supergirl arrived before she was turned into an icicle instead…
She could see Alex frantically waving at her from inside the restaurant, trying to get her to come back inside but she ignored the agent. She fired at the alien again, this time aiming for the head. Whatever she hit, she managed to get its attention as it turned towards her and roared in annoyance. It took a step towards her, but more importantly… a step away from Vasquez…
"Yea that's right you oversized fro-yo! Over here!" She called out (inwardly berating herself for taunting an apparently unstoppable killing machine…)
But her plan worked, and it started moving towards her and away from Vasquez's building. A few more steps and the agent would be able to sneak around the side and away from danger.
"That's it you big ice cube! Over here!" Maggie encouraged, and emptied her revolver into its chest, trying to enrage it enough to come even closer. She took a few steps back, trying to draw it forwards. It took one more step, and then another… and another… and another…
"Shit…" Maggie whispered as she saw it's walking pace start to speed up until it was almost breaking into a run. They hadn't seen the alien move this fast before, but then again she reasoned, it had never had such a space in which to attack them before.
She froze in place for a second before turning around and sprinting down the street and away from Alex and Vasquez, there was no way she would let Alex get hurt again and that thought gave her the extra boost she needed and she skidded around the corner just as a ball of ice shot past. The cold air ruffled her hair but she kept moving; trying to keep a distance between herself and the alien, yet also keep it away from the still heavily occupied parts of the city.
She turned another corner and ran headfirst into a trashcan that had been left out on the sidewalk; she landed in a heap, covered in vegetable peelings and other things she tried hard not to think about. She instantly tried to spring back to her feet but her ankle gave way and she fell to the ground again hard. She could hear the thudding footsteps of the alien getting louder and louder as it caught up, but then a silence…
She turned around and saw it standing a few feet away, just watching her. It lifted its arm and Maggie's mind flashed back to their first encounter where she had stared it down in her protection of Alex as it prepared to destroy her.
"Ah fuck…" She knew it was preparing to fire its strange cold based weapon. She scrabbled backwards looking for a way out, dragging her injured leg; she didn't want to die…
"Hey!" A voice shouted out from behind the alien. Alex's voice! Maggie turned back and saw both Alex and Vasquez firing their weapons and shouting at the alien from opposite sides of the street, trying to distract it.
"Danvers get out of here!" Maggie cried out, waving her arms and hoping that the woman would hear her above all the roaring and gunfire, but Alex ignored her. She glanced at Vasquez who nodded and both agents slowly began to step backwards, alternately firing at the alien from either side. The alien took one final glance back at Maggie collapsed on the ground and obviously decided she wasn't worth it, for it began to step towards Alex, but then paused, looking at Vasquez as if it couldn't make up its mind.
In the moment of its indecision, a red blur flew past and landed between the agents and the alien. Supergirl had finally arrived!
"All of you! Move!" She commanded and for once, nobody argued. Alex and Vasquez ran towards Maggie as Kara sped towards the alien to land a sickening crunch to its jaw with her Kryptonian fist. The two titans continued to brawl as the alien responded with a solid punch to Kara's ribs that sent her flying into a nearby wall, cracking it all the way to the top. She shook the debris from her hair and launched herself back at it without pausing a beat, the two of them slowly started making their way back up the street, trading blows as they went.
Meanwhile, Alex ran unerringly towards Maggie," Are you OK?" she asked, worry on her face as she skidded to her knees beside the Detective, ignoring the sludge on the ground around her.
"Yea I'm fine, twisted my ankle pretty bad but I'll live" Maggie answered, indicating her left foot "thanks for coming for me" she smiled up at Alex, her eyes bright.
"You're an idiot!" Alex responded, trying hard to be angry, but she was just so relieved and instead leaned forward and crushed her lips hard into Maggie's.
Maggie squawked in surprise but didn't push Alex away, her eyes fluttered close and she kissed her back, losing herself in the taste, smell and softness of Agent 'badass' Danvers. They finally separated, smiling at each other, foreheads together before Maggie grinned.
"So do you wanna to give me a hand up then?"
Vasquez chuckled at the pair of them before helping Alex lift Maggie to her feet. They half carried the limping Detective to a nearby bench and sat her down, before taking up defensive positions to await the main force of the DEO.
Supergirl and the alien had moved into the next street, or rather, Supergirl had slammed into the alien with such speed that it had shot through two buildings and into the next street. She raced after it and landed a glancing blow on its chest, to her surprise she heard a faint crack before it retaliated and fired its ice weapon straight into her crest covered front. The energy of the blast sent her crashing through another two walls before coming to a rest, heavily, at a third. She pushed herself back to her feet and took a step forwards only to be engulfed by the masonry of the building behind her crashing down on her head.
It was a few minutes before a battered, blackened, slightly dazed but thankfully uninjured Kara emerged from the rubble, but when she had finally freed herself, the alien was nowhere to be found…
"Director?" Kara spoke into her ear piece, hoping for instructions.
"Supergirl?"
"I've lost him again… Can Winn track the signal?"
Winn's voice came across the coms "Yes, I've got it… it's heading down Fifth Street… wait… no… Sixth… No… the signal… It's… It's just gone!"
As soon as Winn had started speaking, Supergirl had taken off into the air, heading for Fifth.
She arrived quickly, "I'm at Fifth, he's not here… I can't see him anywhere…"
"And he's not exactly hard to miss…" Winn replied sarcastically, annoyed at himself for losing their quarry "Maybe he went underground?" Supergirl heard the tapping of computer keys as Winn desperately searched for the vanishing and deadly ice machine.
"Supergirl?" The Director was back "Do a fly over of the city, see if you can find him. Winn, we need a better way to track this thing"
"OK, I'm on it." Kara answered.
As she flew in a search pattern across the area around the attack, scanning with her x-ray vision, she didn't notice a much smaller figure, limping down Fifth Street before blending in with the crowds…
Kara spent a few more minutes searching before she came across L. Corp tower. She gasped in shock, she hadn't noticed during their battle, but one of the icy blasts had collided with the tower building, crashing straight through 3 floors and out the other side.
Panic set in as she realised Lena's office was on one of those floors…
"Lena!" She sped towards the opening the icy boulder had made in the building and swiftly landed on a concrete floor that had buckled and cracked. Steel beams had crashed through the ceiling to block her way and a fire raged directly in front of her.
She blew the fire out with a brief targeted freeze blast before carefully making her way through the rubble, searching for survivors and praying that Lena would be one of them…
