At the arcade later that day, Alex and J'onn were walking with Ruby and Myr'nn in between the many buildings to get to the arcade, "Where's the arcade?" Myr'nn asked.
"It's right there, Father," J'onn said, pointing out a building that said 'fun centre'.
"Do you think I'm a fool?" Myr'nn asked, "The arcade is a high form of architecture of Ancient Rome. Archways resting on columns. Where are the shops? The marketplace?"
"This is a different kind of arcade, Dad," J'onn said and Alex smiled.
"Okay, let's go, team, huh?" She said, but when she tried to hold Ruby's shoulders in an encouraging way, the girl shrugged her off, storming up towards the arcade, "Oh...um...well, I'll catch you inside," and she followed after Ruby.
CatCo Worldwide Media
Supergirl zoomed onto James's balcony, quickly walking inside the office to find James holding an ice pack to his head with Iris and Tanya standing nearby, "What happened? Are you okay?" She asked.
"Yeah, yeah," James assured.
"They came for me," Tanya said, nervously facing the hero.
"You'll never believe who the heavy was," Iris said, crossing her arms as James slumped down on the couch.
"Olivia," James added in, and Supergirl eyed them taken back.
"Olivia?" She questioned, "But she was the first one to turn on Coville at the stadium."
"Yeah, you're right," Tanya said and Supergirl looked at her, "She was lost after that. More than the rest, but she kept visiting him in prison."
"You should've called me," Supergirl told James, but Tanya laughed.
"Oh! Guardian had it handled," she said before she caught James and Iris's odd looks, "Don't worry, I'm not gonna start a church or anything."
James cleared his throat awkwardly as Tanya fiddled with her fingers, "About that, um...so, any luck finding the cult?"
"We went back to where you escaped from. They weren't there, but we did find evidence that they were trying to build the bomb you told James, Iris, and Kara Danvers about. But they failed. Um...we think someone might have died there," Supergirl explained before she showed the necklace found at the site to Tanya. Who looked effected seeing it.
She shakingly took the necklace, staring at it with memories watering her eyes, "This was Liza's...she was my friend..."
The three looked at her with frowns when James's cell phone began to chime, so he reached over and grabbed it from the coffee table. When he opened it up, he saw something alarming, which caused Supergirl and Iris to notice his change of demeanor.
"What is it?" Supergirl asked and he slowly looked up at the two, "James..." he tossed the phone to the hero, who easily caught it, before reading what he saw on the phone,
"Give us Tanya and the journal, or the world will see your true face."
Attached to the text message, was a video of security footage from the fight in the under construction parking garage, when Guardian's identity was forcefully revealed as James Olsen.
"They're gonna tell National City I'm Guardian," James said and the two looked up at him, taken, before Supergirl continued to read what the message said.
"You must deliver Tanya and the journal to the corner of Pacific and First at five pm. If you fail to show up, we will go live with this video and reveal James Olsen as Guardian to all of National City."
"I'm so sorry I put you at risk," Tanya said as Supergirl faced James again.
"No, no, it's not your fault," James said.
"If they expose your identity, then you're a vigilante. They could arrest you, and then all of those people that you put in jail, they'd know who you are, they could go after you—"
"Tanya, it is not about that right now. This is about protecting you," James said.
"We have three hours," Supergirl said and they looked at her, "We can find Olivia and her followers before anything happens to James."
The Arcade
Ruby was sitting at a table by herself when Alex walked up to her, "Hey, look, there's no line at Dance Dance Revolution," she said.
"I don't wanna do it," Ruby softly said and Alex sighed before she sat down with her.
"Look...Ruby, I know you miss your mom," she said and Ruby looked at her, "I know you want Iris here, and I know that you're in pain. Please, let me help you."
"You forced me to come here. I told you I didn't want to," Ruby told her.
"I know," Alex softly said, "Sometimes, when we're in pain, it can feel like we're sinking. Like quicksand. And experts in this kind of thing, they say that when we are in pain, the best thing to do is surround ourselves with loved ones who can bring us back to life. So I'm just trying to help you."
"You're not helping," Ruby said and Alex stared at her taken back, "I hate it here. Just take me home, please."
"NO, DON'T TAKE THEM!"
The two had turned back to find Myr'nn standing in the middle of the building, surrounded by video games with toy guns. He had clung onto his head, wincing and cringing, as he thought something else was going on. He was seeing something that wasn't there.
"No! You will not harm them!"
"Father!"
J'onn had ran up to his confused father, pulling him away from the kids and the toy guns as Alex and Ruby quickly walked through the crowds, catching up to them, "It's alright, Father, it isn't real."
"Who is shooting at us?" Myr'nn asked, shaking as he looked around, a look of terror in his eyes.
"Oh, my God. Myr'nn," Alex muttered.
"Where is your mother?" Myr'nn asked.
"Is he okay?" Ruby asked.
"He's just confused," Alex told her before looking at J'onn and Myr'nn, "Let's get him out of here. Come on," and J'onn began to pull Myr'nn out from the scene before Alex looked at Ruby again, "It's okay."
The DEO
Mon-El, Supergirl, and The Flash stood before a screen with a police report about Olivia on it, "No matches on any traffic cams or ATMs throughout the city," Mon said before turning back to an agent tech, "Hey, let's run it against all open security feeds."
"Olivia was so sweet and innocent when I first met her," Supergirl softly said and The Flash looked at her, "And now she's a cult leader. I can't help but think this is my fault."
"Wait, how?" Flash asked and she looked at him.
"Coville and his followers were going to hurt people in my name, so I cut my hand to prove to them I wasn't a god. And the second she saw my vulnerability, she became disillusioned," Supergirl explained as he listened intently, "I let my mask down for one second, and look what happens."
"You can't be all things to all people," Flash softly told her, "All you can do is be true to yourself."
"Which self?" Supergirl chuckled, "I'm supposed to stand for truth. How am I supposed to be truthful? Really truthful."
"Well...if you tell Lena the truth, you'd be doing it to make yourself feel better, not her. So maybe, in this case, it's uh, not telling her the truth is the right thing. It's a sacrifice you're making to protect her," Flash told her, and unknown to them, Mon-El had been listening in on them, taking his friends speech to his wife to heart.
"Hey, guys," and they all looked up to find that Winn had walked out from the second floor balcony, "We found something."
When The Flash, Supergirl, and Mon-El walked into the lab upstairs, they found Winn and Lena at a counter table, with computers and lab equipment covering it, "I just finished analyzing that residue that you found," Lena said before looking at the three, "What killed the girl wasn't a bomb at all. It was caused by a heavy metal reaction."
"A heavy metal not found on Earth," Winn added before Supergirl saw the element of the metal on the computer.
She gasped upon seeing it, "I...I've seen this before," she said before she crossed the room over to the journal, with everyone following her. She flipped a few of its pages before she spotted the same element on one of the pages, "Here. The Rock of Yuda Kal. He says he sound a statue of her in Addis Ababa made of Kryptonian stone."
"Yuda Kal...isn't that the Kryptonian goddess of life?" Mon asked.
"I don't know anything about a goddess, but this is the exact inverse of what I need to cure Sam," Lena said.
"We were wrong. They weren't using the rock to make a bomb, they're making a new Worldkiller," Supergirl said and The Flash stared at her and the journal taken back.
"Well, if the Rock of Yuda Kal can be used to make a Worldkiller, we could just reverse the process and use it to unmake one. We could turn Reign back into Sam permanently," Lena told them.
"We can cure her," Supergirl muttered.
———
Later on in the day, Supergirl, The Flash, Mon-El, and Lena were facing the screens down by the circular table when Supergirl heard footsteps coming up to them. She turned around to find James, Iris, and Tanya walking up to them, "James...Iris," Supergirl muttered, causing everyone else to turn around and face them, "What happened? Was there another attack at CatCo?"
"There was an attack?" Mon asked, suddenly tensed up.
"Yeah, but we're fine," Iris told him.
"Not another attack," James answered the girl's question, "I'm sorry to bring Tanya here, but I figured with all the threats out there, this is the safest place for her."
"Are you alright?" Lena asked James as Iris noticed Mon-El's intense gaze, but looked away as fast as she looked at him.
"I have decided to hold a press conference to reveal that I'm Guardian," James said and Winn looked at him and Iris surprised, the girl unphased by the announcement. She already knew.
"No, you can't do that," Supergirl said.
"I have to do that. It's my only choice. It's alright four o'clock. In an hour, they're gonna out me anyway. This is the only leverage they have on me, so if I can get out ahead of this, maybe I can cause them to shake up their plan or make a mistake," James told them.
"Dude, this just like that movie Ransom, right?" Winn said and Iris and Mon-El looked back at him, "With the guy, his son gets kidnapped, and instead of paying the ransom, he flips the table. Spoilers. I just..."
"They're just—"
"I'm gonna stop..."
"Please," Iris said.
"Thank you," Mon added.
"If they use this again, someone could die. Or worse," James said, everyone looking back at him, "They can make a Worldkiller. It's what I have to do," and they all stared at him sternly before he walked off, Lena walking after him.
He was walking up the stairs when she had caught up with him, "Jimmy," she said and he looked back at her, "Jimmy, if you're doing this, I'm coming with you. I wanna stand besides you."
"I really appreciate that, but you should continue working. Sam's life depends on it, right?" He said.
"I know this is scary, but maybe it's a good thing, you know, you coming out," Lena said.
"It's a little more complicated than that," James told her.
"Why?" Lena asked, a flash of a confused smile on her.
James sighed before gently pulling her into the conference room, "For one, I'm a black man," he told her, sitting down, while she stared down at him.
"But everyone knows that Guardian's a hero," she said.
"Yeah, but not everyone knows that Guardian is black," James said and Lena blinked, "You know how old I was the first time cops put cuffs on me? Seven. I was seven years old," and Lena stared at him taken back, "My family and I were taking a vacation. We were staying at this nice hotel and, uh, my cousins and I, we decided to go out on the grounds, and play hide-and-go-seek. One minute, I'm trying my damnedest not to be found, and in the next, I'm shielding my eyes from police lights. And these four huge cops, they came and they pulled us out of our hiding places. And the whole time we're saying, Wait, what are you doing? We're staying here. But none of them believed that we were supposed to be there. None of them believed that we belonged. So my oldest cousin must have been about eleven, and I was the smallest. But they slapped cuffs on all of us anyway, and my arms were so little they had to put them around my forearms. And then they marched us into the hotel lobby like a bunch of criminals. And my mom was there. And then they believed us," he laughed bitterly, his eyes filled with the memory, "She kept yelling, get those cuffs off my boys," his voice began to crack, shuddering, as Lena looked down at him with her brows crinkled up in worry, "Those cuffs..."
"James, that's horrible," Lena softly said.
"Yeah...racism is the oldest form of bullying," James practically whispered as a tear dropped down his face.
"I'm so sorry that happened to you," Lena said.
"But when I became Guardian, I put that mask on...it was strangely liberating. But it was the first time in my life that I had the opportunity to be judged on my actions and my heart, not how I look," James explained to her.
"You shouldn't have to wear a mask to be seen as how you really are, Jimmy. Just...it shouldn't be that way," Lena said.
"But it is. And it's like that for every seven-year-old boy or girl who looks like me, but it's not gonna be like that if I have something to do with it," James said.
"You will effect change. You already are," Lena said and James stared up at her in thought, "Are you sure you wanna come out in the open?"
"I don't think anybody likes to be backed into a corner, especially not me. And I don't know how people are gonna react when they realize that their neighborhood vigilante is black. But there's just too much a stale for me not to," James said and Lena softly smiled before she walked up to him, wiping his tears away. She pressed a kiss on his forehead before leaning her's against his—
"I'm sorry to interrupt," the two turned back to find Tanya standing in the doorway, "Can I talk to you for a second?"
"Yeah, of course," James said before he looked at Lena, "Thank you," and she nodded with a smile before leaving the room.
Tanya stared at him for a moment before finally saying, "You don't have to reveal yourself for me. I'm gonna give myself up. I wanna face them. I wanna fight."
"No, no, Tanya," James said, getting up from his seat, "It is way too dangerous for that."
"No, I need to do this," Tanya said, "For once, I need to take a risk and stand up for what I believe. I need to be myself."
"Well...you're not doing this alone," James said and she nodded.
The Arcade
Alex and J'onn stood by the doors of the arcade, watching Ruby and Myr'nn sit at a table, while the two kicked themselves for the bad day, "This was a bad idea. A very bad idea. I'm sorry," Alex said and J'onn sighed.
"I should've known the stimulation would be too much," J'onn said.
"I am burning those books," Alex said.
"Yeah," J'onn muttered before he spotted the manager of the place, "Oh, right. I've gonna go deal with this guy. Why don't you go get the car?"
"Okay," Alex said before J'onn walked up to his father.
"Uh, stay seated, Dad," he said before walking off and Alex looked at Ruby.
"Ruby, can you please stay with Myr'nn?" She asked and the girl nodded before Alex walked off out of the building.
Right then, a foosball rolled over to Myr'nn, and he picked it up off the ground, staring at it curiously, "What is this?" Myr'nn asked.
"A foosball," Ruby told him.
"Foosball...strange material. Buoyant, light substance," Myr'nn said, examining the small ball in his hand.
"It's made of cork," Ruby said and he looked at her.
"What is cork?" He asked.
"I'm not sure. I think it's from trees," Ruby said.
"We do not have cork trees on on Mars," Myr'nn said.
"Mars?" Ruby questioned, a sudden smile on her, "Wait, you're from Mars?"
"Of course," Myr'nn said.
"Really? Wait, what's it like there?" Ruby asked.
"It was once a place of great nobility. People lived simply, yet with joy. I long for that place," Myr'nn explained.
"What happened?" Ruby asked.
"War," Myr'nn simply put it, "My family was killed. A very long time ago."
"How did you recover? I mean, after that happened," Ruby asked.
"Faith. I believed if my heart remained pure, H'ronmeer would provide for me. It was difficult, but I was strong. Like you," Myr'nn explained.
"H'ronmeer is like a god on Mars?" Ruby asked and Myr'nn chuckled, "Did he come through?"
"He brought me back my son," Myr'nn said before he placed the foosball on the table, "What is the purpose of foosball?"
"I can show you," Ruby said before she picked up the ball, and got up from her seat. Myr'nn followed her over to the foosball table.
When J'onn and Alex got back to where they left Myr'nn and Ruby, they began to panic to find they weren't there. Until they spotted the two at the foosball table, smiles of happy and joy across their faces.
"My little man hit it!"
"You scored a goal."
"I love the foosball."
"Yes! Yes!"
Streets of Central City
Tanya was walking the streets, satchel around her, journal in hand, when Winn's voice came into her ear,
"Don't worry. As soon as you turn yourself over, he will find you."
"Okay."
"Be safe."
"I will," Tanya said, in response to James's voice. She continued on walking down the street when suddenly a man appeared from no where, walking with her.
"You've decided to come back to us," he said.
"I wasn't given a choice," Tanya said before the man softly grabbed her, pushing her into a van.
Inside was Olivia and another man. But as soon as caught the journal in her eyeline, Olivia snatched the journal from Tanya before the girl sat down. She placed her hand on the journal, closing her eyes in relief before the door opened again.
They were surprised to find a geeky dude getting inside, with smiles on him. It was Mike Matthews.
"Awesome," he said, getting inside, "This is, uh, this is for Mike, right?" But as soon as he sat down, he saw Olivia, Tanya, and the other guy, "Oh...sorry. I'm pretty sure this is my Lyft."
"We're kinda in the middle of something, guy," the man said.
"Oh," he muttered before spotting the gun in his hand, "Whoa. Wait, are you...are you guys kidnapping this woman?"
"Just get out," Olivia said.
"That is, okay," Mike slightly laughed bitterly, "That's a highly illegal situation, and I'm gonna have to insist that—" but the guy next to him punched him, and he pretended that hurt him, "Okay...yeah," he sat up straight, his glasses crooked and his hands up.
"I'm not scared of you," Tanya told Olivia.
"I'm very scared of you," Mike said as Olivia looked at Tanya, "So...should we put some music on, or..."
Olivia rolled her eyes before banging her fist into the van, "Let's go," she said and the engine started.
The DEO
As the van began to drive off, the facility suddenly was unable to track Tanya and Mon-El, "Uh, you guys, uh, we cannot track them," Winn said, with Supergirl, The Flash, James, and Lena standing nearby, "The van has some sort of scrambler on it. We lost comms, too."
The group turned around, slightly panicked where they found Iris standing behind at the circular table, but for someone who just found out the man she loved couldn't be tracked, she was collectively calm, "Should've never let Tanya go," James said.
"Wait, wait. If they use the rock, then it will give off an energy signal," Lena said.
"Which we can scan for," Winn said before he walked back to a computer.
"Wouldn't that get us there after they've already made a Worldkiller?" James asked.
"Don't worry, James," Iris said and he looked at her, "There's a reason we sent Mon-El with her. He's smart, tactical. He's a legionnaire. If anyone can find us a signal, it's him."
Unknown Location
In a back room, Mike was placed down in a chair, handcuffs clicked around his wrists, "Owie," he muttered.
"We'll deal with you after the ceremony's done," the man who cuffed him said. He began to leave the room when he heard,
"Just one question," he turned around to find instead of Mike Matthews, but Mon-El in his red and blue suit, standing from his seat, handcuffs on the floor, "Do you by chance know where I can find the Rock of Yuda Kal?"
The man pulled a gun on Mon-El, but he yanked his cape out, it wrapping around the man's fist, before pulling him to Mon-El. He wrapped his arm around his throat and didn't stop until he passed out, "So...no?"
He placed the man in the chair he was in before quickly searching him, "You guys have no cell phones in cults?"
———
What seemed to be in an auditorium, Mon-El walked in, finding such a scene. A large metal cauldron was in the middle of the room, with Tanya on one side, reading out the journal, and Olivia on the other, with ingredients by her,
"Into the flame, one oronc of Sedenach dust."
Olivia grabbed the dust, pouring it into the cauldron, causing the substance inside to glow red. Olivia chuckled a smile to herself.
"The final element is seven lak-mar of..." Tanya spotted Mon-El standing above them, in a balcony seating area. He nodded at her as Olivia stared at Tanya impatiently.
"Of what?"
Mon-El leaped down, hiding himself behind a wall so he wouldn't be exposed yet. He sped over to the ingredients and grabbed some kind of crystal before speeding back to where he was. No one noticed.
"Nitrogen."
Olivia grabbed the bottle of nitrogen, and poured it into the cauldron, causing the substance to turn a bright white. She smiled before placing the bottle back on the table, then looking at the people there to watch the ceremony.
"Before the leaders of Krypton erased her with Rao, with their science, there was a goddess of life, of birth. Yuda Kal. The faithful gathered in her orpheum in tribute, as we are now. And she will give us one final birth," she told them all before turning back to the table of ingredients. There stood an ancient rock container. She opened it and inside was a rock, carved into a goddess. She showed everyone as Mon-El spotted it as well, "Worldkiller."
"There it is," Mon whispered to himself. He then rayed his legion ring over the crystal in his hand, causing it to glow.