#spheercorp

Blinking, Lena's eyes clear a little, and Kara's heart soars when she sees confusion rather than the cold, cruel regard she'd last seen. It had worked. She knows it in her bones.

Kara fumbles to unfasten the buckle on the strap, only to jump when Lena stiffens and pulls away.

"Don't," Lena says, her voice suddenly sharp. Kara looks up, only to find fear looking back. "I don't want to hurt you."

Reaching for Lena's hand again, Kara doesn't let her pull away. "It's okay. The device is inert. It can't control you anymore."

Lena's breath hitches in her chest, her eyes filling with tears. "I hurt you..."

"I'm okay," Kara promises.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry!" Lena begins to cry.

Kara leans down, pressing her forehead to Lena's in comfort. "It's okay. It wasn't your fault. There's nothing to apologize for."

What Kara doesn't give voice to are her own apologies. For not telling her the truth sooner, for letting Lex rewrite the universe, for not pressing harder when Lena banished her from LuthorCorp. She should have tried harder. She shouldn't have let Lena go through this alone.

When Lena's tears finally subside, Kara pulls back to begin unfastening the restraints. Lena lets her this time, taking a moment to look around the unfamiliar room. "Where-- where's Jack?"

Panic jabs suddenly through Kara's chest. "You-- you said he was gone," she stammers. "He left..."

Lena pauses, then slumps in relief. "He did. He left-- that was true. It was the only way I could confront Lex."

Kara breaths a quiet sigh. At least Jack was safe.

"We'll stop him," Kara tells her. "We're going to stop Lex, I promise."

Lena looks at her, unable to keep the hopelessnes from her features. Kara takes her hand again.

"We'll stop him together."

Finally, Lena nods.

"Together."

---

When the confrontation with Lex finally happens, Kara and the rest of the Superfriends face him alone, buying Lena time to finish a lexosuit of her own. Only Kara can go head to head with him-- the rest of them handle the goons on the ground.

Only Kara can keep up with Lex, but the modifications to her suit to protect her from his kryptonite only lasts so long before the device ultimately fails. The Kryptonite saps her strength, making her sluggish even as she struggles to fight through the pain.

When Lex finally grabs her by cape and flings her to the roof of LuthorCorp, Kara struggles to rise again. She can't. Lex steps on her back, pushing her to the cracked rooftop.

"You and your cousin are too late," he says. "Earth already has its hero-- me."

Kara hears his weapon charge, but when the whine terminates in an explosion of sound, the weight suddenly disappears from Kara's back. She looks up to see that Lena has finally joined the fray, hovering in her own mechasuit.

Lena sets down and helps Kara to her feet, her helmet retracting to reveal features dark with concern. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Kara pants, staggering slightly. Lena helps to steady her. They turn to face Lex as he too rises, wiping blood from his chin. He glares at his sister.

"So you did survive," he remarks. "I had wondered what they did with you."

"You failed, Lex," Lena returns, her voice steady. "And you'll fail now."

Lex's features twist into a scowl. "We'll just see about that."

He fires a burst of kryptonite from his blasters, forcing them to duck and cover as he flies off. Lena takes the blast on her shield, but grounds Kara with a hand on her shoulder before the hero to soar after him.

"The others need help," Lena says. "Go."

Kara catches her armored wrist. "Lena..."

"Go." Lena offers a reassuring smile. "I've got this."

Kara wants to protest. She wants to gather Lena up and ferry her down to street level as well. She wants to be the one to take Lex down-- Lena shouldn't have to do it a second time.

But Kara feels her weakness keenly, and knows shes on the verge of a solar flare. She doesn't have the strength to succeed where she knows Lena will.

She nods.

"Be careful."

Lena's faceplate descends with a clank, shielding her face from view before she launches into the air and goes after Lex. Kara returns to her friends, determined to help as many as she can, even as her heart weighs heavy.

Lena is on her own.

---

Lena pulls up her hud, tracing Lex's energy signature through the city. She's so focused that she doesn't notice the trail curling back on itself until something collides with her from behind. Sensors wailing, Lena tumbles out of control, spinning dizzingly for long moments before her reserve thrusters engage to course correct.

Lex doesn't wait for the world to stop spinning. He blasts her with another burst of kryptonite, then fires a rocket that explodes against her shoulder. The armor holds up but Lena's control of the suit slips as she spins out to collide with a building. Punching through the glass windows, the collision proves to be the reprieve she needs.

When Lex comes looking for her, Lena explodes out of the building, wrapping her arms around Lex bodily. He has better control, having piloted the suit multiple times before, but Lena's got the edge in structural integrity. His attempts to grapple his way out of her grip scrapes off her hull-- she returns each blow by searching for the weaknesses in his suit, tugging at punctures and joints even as they climb higher and higher.

Finally, Lena's armored fingers close on something important. When she yanks, Lex's boot thrusters sputter out. In her moment of victory, Lex elbows her in the side of the head. Her grip slips, and he slides out of her grasp.

She expects him to flee-- to retreat to a safe distance and fire another rocket. Instead, he cocks his fist back and lunges towards her. There's a squeal of metal shearing, and then all Lena can feel is a sharp burning in her abdomen.

Lex tugs his arm free with another squeal of metal, withdrawing the blade that's just pierced through Lena's armor. The blade pulses green with kryptonite, but Lena's greatee concern is the oxygen leaking from her suit in the high atmo, and the blood swiftly soaking through her gambeson.

"I always win, Lena," Lex calls, his voice tinny over the comms channel. "You might as well accept it."

"Not this time," Lena grunts out. Her vision threatens to start spinning again, though her readouts confirm she's hovering steadily. She knows she doesn't have long.

"Then you'll die," Lex snarls.

He jets towards her using the pulse thrusters in the palms of his gauntlets. Lena dodges the thrust of his blade, again hooking her arms around his waist. Without hesitation, she engages every rocket she has and aims towards the ground.

Time to finish this.

---

Kara hears the roar of imminent collision mere seconds before it hits. When she looks up, she sees a glimpse of two armored suits interlocked mere moments before both slam into the ground. The earth shakes with the impact, and a cloud of dust rises thick and heavy from the cratered earth of the impact site.

"LENA!"

Kara charges towards the crater, moving against the flow of fleeing citizens. Her strength all but gone, she coughs heavily, pausing at the rim of the crater to peer through the dust. All she can see is a deep shadow at the center of the crater, and she pelts towards it without a second thought.

"Lena!"

The shadow she sees resolves itself to be a mess of fractured pavement. Struggling to move them aside, she catches sight of Lena's armor.

"Lena!"

Sparks fly as Kara desperately heaves the heavy exosuit into her arms, levering Lena out of the pit and onto a slab of broken pavement. The mangled mess of Lex's own lexosuit remains where it is, unmoving.

"Lena, Lena please..." Kara's fingers scrabble under the chin the of the face plate, searching for the release. When she finds it, she presses it twice, prompting the entire suit to disengage. As each panel separates, Kara pulls them apart, flinging them aside until Lena is fully exposed.

Through the dust, Kara sees the stain of blood on Lena's side. Her blood runs cold.

"No..."

"Lena!" A new voice shouts from behind them. Kara hears the scrape of shoes against the rubble as someone climbs down to join them. She doesn't realize it's Jack Spheer until he falls to his knees beside Lena. "Lena!"

"Jack..." Kara blinks at him, stunned to see him. Lena had said he'd left, but the sweat and blood and grime on his face told a different story. He was here, in National City.

"Is she breathing?" Jack asks. Kara is too slow to respond. "Is she breathing!"

"I-I don't know."

Jack leans in close, listening for any sounds of life. When he presses his ear to Lena's chest, he pulls away in relief. "Her heart is beating. She's alive-- Lena! Lena, sweetheart, can you hear me?"

He cups Lena's cheeks with both hands, not quite daring to move her. Beneath Kara's hands, Lena twitches.

"Jack...?" comes the faint murmur. Jack gasps a shuddering sob.

"I'm here," he says, kissing her forehead in blatant relief. "Lena, I'm here..."

"S'posed... t'go away..."

"I couldn't--"

"How touching."

The rubble shifts at the bottom of the crater. Lex staggers into view, eyes bloodshot and glinting with deranged menace.

Kara stands to face him, stepping between him and the others. "It's over, Lex. Even if you win here today, your reputation is ruined. Everyone knows who and what you truly are. Surrender yourself, and I promise you'll get a fair trial."

"It's not over until I say it is!" Lex bellows. His armor is broken and mangled, yet somehow functional enough that he's able to prime his plasma cannon. "If I'm going down, then I'm taking you with--"

Before he can finish, a pulse of bright hot energy sears past Kara's sense to detonate against Lex's chest plate. The explosion that follows blasts Lex off his feet, throwing him back a dozen yards before he skids to a stop with a singed, smoking hole in his chest.

Kara doesn't need to listen for a heartbeat to know that he's dead.

She turns, and finds Lena with her own plasma cannon outstretched, her aim guided by Jack's hands. When the cannon retracts, Jack rips the guantlet off, tangling his fingers with Lena's.

"Nice shot," Kara tells them both. Jack barely glances at her. Kara looks at Lena, meeting her bleary, exhausted gaze. "It's over."

Lena nods. Her eyes close, her relief plain to see. Kara takes her free hand, offering a gentle squeeze. Lena squeezes back.