After an hour, the pain knocks her right from her feet, and Kara collapses into the dirt. It feels like waves of fire scorch her body as her veins crackle her skin like dry sand in a desert. She pants, hacking harshly, spraying her blood. Her vision swims and she isn't sure if it's from exhaustion or sweat leaking into her eyes as blackness bleeds into the corners.
Kara digs her nails into the mud, letting it build under the beds, and tries to claw forward. Even her thoughts drew out slurred.
Need...to keep...going...
She can hear the ticking of her own bomb like a countdown in her ears. The plants around her seemed to shrink away, almost growing brittle, from the boiling heat that she is radiating. She went limp, not passed out, but failing to move. She felt paralyzed.
And usually, Kara feels hollow and empty, but this time was different. This time the emptiness had a sickening side affect and not from the cancer.
For the first time in a long time, she felt...sad. But the second she thought of it, she pushed it away along with the unruly feeling. She made herself empty again, emotionless.
And so, she channeled the only emotion she allowed herself to feel. Anger.
With the sudden surge of motivation, she crawled, using the leaves and the swelling roots from the ground to pull herself forward.
....
Alex couldn't help but pace anxiously. Superman is off to the skies, searching, and most of the agents had joined the hunt. She's still not found. J'onn who is next her, seems perfectly calm and still.
"Director Henshaw," came a small voice and Alex turned to see one of the younger agents approaching him with a tablet in hand. "We didn't find her, but about ten minutes ago there was an abnormal spike of heat towards the west reaching up to 450° Celsius."
The martian scrunched his face and tells her to wait on his command for any further investigation. Alex waits until she leaves and advances towards J'onn. "What do you think it was?"
He pauses for a long moment, and says, "I don't know."
....
More men come in her direction and Kara searches frantically for a place to hide, but nothing is close. She bears her teeth and desperately tries to rise to her knees, the pain spiking up her body, and she drags her feet up to the ground. The stomping builds more intense.
She starts to limp, barely even a crouch, and struggles at a walk. She grudges through and grips onto a tree, tiny little splinters settling into her palm, and ducks behind the trunk. Her back slips down the tree, as she sits down again, and puts her hand over her mouth as an attempt to conceal her heavy breathing.
They're so close Kara can hear them talking. "Is this the spot?" A gruff voice says.
"Yeah, this is where the boss said." Spoke another.
"Then where the hell is she?" One snapped.
Kara knew this was her chance and held the gun strongly. "Search the perimeter. She's close, no more than a thirty feet radius."
She could hear them disperse and waited patiently. One particular set of boots is closer than the rest and she grew as still as possible. A man came around the side of the trunk and Kara lunged. With a swift and silent movement, she wrapped her arm around her neck and let him fall limply. She sets him down carefully and looked down at the scrubs from the DEO that now barely clung to her shoulders.
Within a few minutes, Kara emerges from behind the branches with the man's gun, and wearing his pair of bulky pants and jacket with a thick vest. Not the snuggest thing in the world, but it will do. She stuffed the pistol she had earlier in the belt around her waist and sucked in a deep breath. Like everything else, she stuffed the pain deep down.
After all, she couldn't afford to be dragged down by a kryptonite cancer now.
Kara prowled through the green, staying low, and breathing evenly. She peaked over the bushes and saw another man about ten feet away. She observed carefully, and ran her hand over the forest ground. Her fingers came across a twig and she wrapped it into her palm and chucked it at him. It landed a few inches away from his feet and he snapped his head in Kara's direction. Kara ducked as she listened to his footsteps come near.
In an instant, she swept her legs gracefully, knocking the agent right under his feet. With little pause, she slammed the butt of the gun into his forehead and he went out cold. Kara searched his pockets quickly and found a suppressor. She set the one in hand aside and took it instead.
At least this way the gunshots won't make any noise. She thought to herself.
Kara knows for sure that there were four men to start with, so if she didn't miscount, there should be two left. She turned, grazing her eyes over the shrouded land of green, and saw a glimpse of a black figure. She aimed, holding her gun sharply, and carefully targeted the victim's head.
Kara is about to pull the trigger when there's a click and she feels the hot barrel of a pistol against the back of her skull. She hesitates and slowly draws her arms apart, setting her gun on the floor, and puts her hands up. She can feel the man's snicker boring through her.
"You are the boss's prized possession? Throwing a fit this whole time for a little girl." He taunts, but is cautious to keep his voice low. He is about to make call over to the other agent, but in one silent move, Kara twists his wrists and pins him on the ground, pushing his own gun against the Adam's apple in his neck.
"If you call over to your guy, Superman will hear you, and imagine how angry your boss will be when she hears that you not only lost your target, but also got taken in by the Man of Steel himself." He croaked and Kara smiled. "Good, we have a deal. So, don't worry, your boss will get me. You're going to take me to her."
He nodded hastily and Kara pulled his gun from his throat and tosses it to the side. She plucked her silencer from the grass and held it steadily. She once again, pointed the chamber at the searching agent.
"Wait!" The man behind her whispered and Kara raised an eyebrow.
"For what?" She snarled.
"Please," he begged and Kara never heard any agent from Cadmus plead or show any vulnerability. "Don't kill him."
She paused, momentarily shocked, and then sighed while drawing her gun down.
Kara motioned a hand for him to stay while she ranged behind a tree. The man couldn't help but notice how her walk is weak, almost a limp, and her skin is deadly pale. He pushed the thought away and when the kryptonian was in position, he called over to the other agent.
"Agent Phillip, over here!" He hollered.
Agent Phillip, Kara presumed was his name (obviously), came towards him. "What is it, Agent Diaz?" He asked and as he was approaching, Kara lunged and jabbed her gun into his nose. He fell backwards, fainting.
Name to a face, She thinks to herself while looking back at Diaz. "Come on," she said and glanced up at the sky. She can barely see the bright blue through the knotted and growing branches. "We don't have much time."
....
Superman, hovering in the sky, watches Kara carefully. When Kara and the man from Cadmus began to talk, Kal had picked it up instantly. He resists the urge to fly down there and stop her, but if what Alex said was true, why not take down two murderers at once?
J'onn had decided to let Alex go and investigate the bizarre flux of temperature after she continued to urge him on letting her. He had caved, but they both knew she didn't want to go out there and explore an alarming rising heat that exceeds a normal fire. They both knew she was just finding an excuse to join the search for her sister.
She had followed the coordinates that J'onn had told her to go and soon Alex wandered through the knotted trees and the maze of wilderness, until a stump caught her foot.
Alex stopped and looked down, but fell short when she found a man, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts and an undershirt, unconscious on the dirt floor. She scrunched her brows and crouched curiously. Next to him, lying on the floor, is a gun. Similar to the ones equipped with the DEO, but with a scope and a larger slot for ammo.
She looked over his face and he was unrecognizable and had had never seen him in the DEO before. He was larger with a short and choppy beard with a slightly uneven haircut. She brushed her fingers over his neck she stiffened when there was no thump, but after a second she could feel the soft pulse. She sighed. Alex was about to radio in before something caught the corner of her eye. Hidden underneath leaves and stuffed behind a tree, a pale and thin blue cloth peaked out.
Alex stood and tugged it from the knot of mud. She pulled it from its cover and her mouth goes dry when she realizes it's Kara's scrubs.
Not far off from where Alex was, Kara herself followed Agent Diaz attentively. Observing every move he made, every shift he formed, noticed how every other step he would glance back at her, and how his fingers twitched at his waist for the presence of a gun that's not there. She made sure to keep the end of her gun close to the small of his back.
"How do you know I'm not leading you into a trap?" He asks, breaking the silence.
Kara hesitated, not sure if she should speak, but confided, "Because either way I have nothing to lose."
Diaz mindfully kept aware of the way her tone cracked like sandpaper when she talked and he almost felt pity. He paid attention to how her eyes bury deeper than Earth and the way her voice had layers, each delicately crafted. They both seemed to have studying each other, as if searching for answers. But neither of them said anything of it.
....
Alex stumbled upon another limp, but alive, body buried underneath the leaves. She again searched the man's pockets and her face scrunched when she reached into the pocket on the thigh and pulled out a small syringe with a needle pointing out at the end. Yellow and orange liquid tilted from side to side when she turned it. When she found one more unconscious guy, she found another one. Luckily both of them had their clothes on.
Alex hunted for more bodies, (again, alive) but found no more. She was about to tell J'onn about her findings, but hesitates, her hand hovering over her ear. She knows if she tells, he will send more agents over and what if Kara is close? What if she is the one who did this?
Her stomach churns, what if they were Cadmus agents and one of them has her?
She shakes the thoughts away, but the ache in her chest remained as a constant reminder. Alex pulls away from her coms and brought her attention to the ground. Wary of her step, she eyed the floor, concentrating on the mud that squishes underneath her boots.
....
Kara's walk grew noticeably slowed as the adrenaline wore off and kryptonite made her limbs ache and exhausted. Agent Diaz could tell that her gun was no longer leaving a heated point on his back, but now trailing a few steps behind. He could hear her pant.
The urge to spin around and take her out, bringing her back successfully itched at him, but then he remembered something his boss had given him, and his partners, before leaving. He brushed his fingers over the pocket on his thigh of which it's held, and still felt the small bump of the tube and the small indent of the pointed needle.
"Let's...let's take a break." Kara groaned and leaned against a tree, the gun still following Agent Diaz.
He turned, eyeing the pistol, and put his back against the tree across from her. Before Diaz could see her green and sickly skin, but now green veins bulged, coiling around her neck and face. He froze.
"The boss...she never mentioned you were kryptonian." He said, puzzled and on edge.
Kara looked up at him, raising as eyebrow, studying his posture. Instead of inclined against the bark, he seemed confused and uncomfortable, shifting his weight.
"I'm sure the boss doesn't mention a lot of things." Kara muttered.
....
Alex spotted a new set of tracks, leading in another direction. She observed it carefully and looked up in the way they headed. It was northwest, going to opposite angle from the DEO and this is an area none of the agents have been to yet. Alex then noticed it was not one, but two, set of footprints and her breath hitched in her throat.
They have her.
She began to run, keeping her eyes glued to the imprinted tracks as a route, and had her mind set to her destination.
....
Kara had managed to catch her breath and motioned a hand forward, signalling for Agent Diaz to keep going as she straggled behind. "What do you know about her?" Diaz asked suddenly.
"Well, kryptonian religion doesn't dabble much with demons or the devil, but if I were to believe in one, I would say she is Satan herself." She said bluntly.
"No, I mean like, her name." He corrected.
"No, she had always been uptight about her personal information. Only the most trusted members of her twisted cause knew it."
After a long pause, Diaz said, "What's your name?"
Kara sucked in a deep breath. "Could you stop talking?" She hissed.
He fell silent and abruptly, more voices and footsteps could be heard. "Get down!" Kara whisper-screamed to Diaz and the both fell to the ground, ducking underneath bushes and vines. They grew louder and then faded away. Kara waited for a minute and then peaked over the log, seeing no one.
"All clear."
Diaz stood and Kara struggled to her feet, but made it, and they kept going. She noticed how her forehead was steaming and sweat clung her skin. She wiped it away with the back of her hand and wiped the sweat off her palm and put the pistol back up at Agent Diaz. She noticed him getting farther ahead.
Kara started to walk faster, despite the screaming in her chest and the burning in her calves that made her legs feel like lead. Agent Diaz picked up the cues, harder panting, erratic change of pace from slow to fast and then back to slow, and the occasional groan Kara let escape her lips quietly. She was getting weaker.
Diaz started to casually move quicker, but tried not to make it obvious so to the kryptonian it just seemed as if she was getting slower, and it was working. Kara had fallen for his trick, struggling to stay behind him, and draining herself.
"For the love of Rao, slow down!" She snarled suddenly, exasperated, and put her hands on her knees. The pain went from nails running through her blood, to having her skin being seared off, and rusty shards of glass circulating throughout her body. "You're going to get us both killed!"
Diaz made a face. "What do you mean, 'get us both killed'?"
"I mean, if I die from this cancer, you're going to either die from a half-a-mile radius explosion, or the agents of the DEO that will track you down." She breathed heavily. "And if neither of those work, I'll come back and haunt you."
Suddenly he remembered what his boss had said right before he left:
"If the target begins to glow brightly and radiate boiling temperatures, inject her with this," She held up the syringe she had given every agent, flowing with vibrant and vivid colors of orange and yellow, "but only if it's an emergency. This is for when you all of your other plans have failed and you have no other choice. She is essential to this project, and if you fail, I will make sure it's your last mistake."
Her cynical and cold voice made him shudder, no matter how much Diaz had supported the cause. He turned to Kara, standing defiantly. The kryptonian raised her gun at him, giving him a confused look. "What the hell are you doing? Keep going!"
He didn't move for another moment before swiftly knocking the pistol out of her hands and twisting her wrist, making her grimace. Diaz forced her around, holding her arm behind her back at a painful angle, and squeezed her other hand against the tree he had dragged her against. Kara grunted, sucking in the air of the tree, and snickered. "Good one, but I have some tricks up my sleeve, too."
She stomped her foot on top of his toes, making him stumble, and spun around on her heels, kicking Agent Diaz in the stomach without missing a beat. Then she literally pulled a blade out from her sleeve, pushing it against his neck.
"Give up yet?"
"Not until you're almost dead."
And he smiled, not moving. He stayed still, on his knees before her with the knife gagging him, and waited patiently. He watched as more sweat began to build at Kara's hairline, watched as standing seemed to exhaust her, and wondered if her skin could grow as dark as the hue of green of the forest around them. Her knees wobbled, and hands trembled, and when she coughed it sounded as if she hasn't had water slip past her lips in days. Blood even started to come up with the hacks of air she wheezed.
But Kara knew she couldn't have him walk, she knew he would take advantage. After all, she's weak and having him move was a risk she was hesitant to take. Then Kara spotted the needle poking out of his pocket, the gleam of the metal catching her eye, and she grinned.
"You're dumber than I thought." She said, sluggishly, and charged the knife into his knee. Diaz screamed, falling to his side, and Kara kneeled.
"Kara!" Came a sudden voice, breaking through the air and the dense wildlife. She looked up, alert, and found Alex sprinting through the leaves. "Please Kara, come back!" She begged.
Kara frowned, looking down at the needle in her palm. Then, without saying anything, she pulled up her sleeve. With unsteady hands, she placed the sharp point of the needle on a vein and pushed it in, injecting the antidote into her blood, with an expression of satisfaction. Alex watched in horror as her swelled crackling lines across her skin faded from green, to orange, to having them sink away all together.
Kara stood, her posture strong, her balance unwavering. Alex gasped, and saw as her once expression that was riddled with agony slip away into a moment of relief and a new sense of calm. The sun brought power to her, the scraping pain inside her was replaced with an iron feeling of invincibility. Kara deeply sucked in the chilled air, letting the soft smell of the honeysuckle rain overwhelm her, like a soft hug wrapping around her body. The cool air brushed against her skin, the clothes that had once clung to her flesh with sweat has a cold breeze flowing between her and the suit. She slowly let out her long drawn breath, clouds forming from her mouth.
And at that instant, Kara snatched Agent Diaz from the floor, whimper in pain with the blade wedged between his bones, and rocketed into the sky. Alex gazed up in the space of the trees and branches where they still swayed violently from Kara, and watched as she dwindled into a speck in the clouds. And within seconds, Superman came zooming after her, and Alex knew only one would walk out of their awaiting battle.