Contributions to society

chapter 1: contributions to society (part 2 of 3)

"That is because, my dear, stupid Kryptonian, that was an anti-alien bar. Don't you ever even do your research? Or is your god-complex so big that you think you can just waltz in to any old location and think that you are safe?"
"Anti-alien bar?" Kara echoed, anger turning into horror and revulsion. Lenny only nodded back at her, grinning gleefully.
"Yeah! Everyone in there despises aliens with a passion! That's why they wouldn't address you, or I. They knew who you were too. Oh! Perhaps they didn't quite make the connection that you were Supergirl, but they knew you were an alien."
"But how?" Kara could only shake her head, the tubes in her mask shaking as she did so.
"It's because I told them, dud!" Lenny cried in disdain. "I am Lex Luthor's righthand man! Of course I would know where to find an anti-alien hub. That bar is one of them. Now, it's unofficial, of course, but that means nothing. That is a spot notorious for anti-alien folks to meet up and discuss. I am amazed you didn't realize that sooner! But no matter. It made my job easier. All I had to do was let the bartender know who you were, what you looked like and when you'd come. Then, once you arrived, every drank you had that night was laced with Red Kryptonite."
"Red Kryptonite!" Kara echoed in horror as she remembered how weak she had felt after her third beer. It hadn't been a normal drunken stupor, it had been the Red Kryptonite, weakening her system.
"Yup!" Lenny smiled. "Once you were full of the stuff, it was easy for me to cart you away. And remember, since the entire bar despised you. Or rather, what you were, I had no trouble in receiving help. I had one of them take your phone and drive it off to an abandoned gas station halfway into the next state! Good luck hoping that someone will be able to track your location now, sweetheart! We intend upon keeping you here for a while. Lex, after all, still has quite a few plans for you."
"Yes, Kara," Lex agreed with his assistant. "I have come to see aliens in a new light, and I believe that there is a great deal that your kind can still offer to humanity. I am a changed man, and I believe that you can still make many great contributions to society, as you already have. I intend upon exploiting that noble trait of yours, and then amplifying it a thousand fold," he grinned mysteriously.
"So what are you going to do now? Try and clone me and hope you'll somehow get away with building a Kryptonian army?" Kara scoffed bravely, trying her best to calm her pounding heart. Lex and Lenny both laughed at this.
"Close, Kara, close," Lex said, speaking in a gentle tone. But then it hardened as he gestured for Lenny to approach her glass tank.
"But not close enough..." and before Kara knew what was happening, Lenny had opened a panel right in the front of the tank. Before too much fluid could escape, he shoved his arm inside. Kara immediately yanked herself backward, but the tank was too small for her to escape his hand.
She then tried the opposite approach and grabbed his hand hard, hoping to break it, or twist it, or even rip it clean off! But there was still Red K residue in her system and although she did manage to break a couple of Lenny's fingers, it was not nearly enough to fend him off. Instead, after swearing up a storm and screaming at her for breaking his fingers, he yanked her arm back out through the little hole in the tank. While one of his hands held her arm out, the other reached into his back pocket, pulling out a golden syringe.
"Golden Kryptonite!" Kara's efforts to escape redoubled, but she still made no progress. Instead, she could only watch in horror as Lenny plunged the needle into her arm. That would remove her powers permanently.
"Saves me a lot of money on Red K and red sun lamps," Lex cackled sadistically as Lenny then shoved Kara's arm back inside her glass tomb, sealing the little panel shut once again. Kara immediately attacked the place where the little opening had once been, but it still was of no use.
"Now, now, Kara, you surely don't want to spend the rest of your life squealing like a piglet, do you? After all, your legacy isn't over! You are still going to make many more wonderful contributions to society, just as you always have. The people of Earth will love you for it." Lex chided softly, but because Kara was thrashing around so violently, she didn't hear him at all. Lenny, however, did, and he laughed sadistically.
"Are we ready, boss?" he asked. Lex nodded once and Lenny gleefully scurried over to a large switch on one of the far walls of the lab. With one last maniacal cackle, he yanked the switch down hard and, suddenly, the entire laboratory came to life. But while the ex-factory took its first breath into a new life, Kara took her last.
Over the next few months, every DEO site in the country went mad trying to find Supergirl. When no results were yielded, every other government agency was called into play and, soon, even international and intergalactic organizations were enlisted, but not a single soul could find a single clue about the whereabouts of the missing Kryptonian. No one on Earth or in space had any idea where Kara had vanished to and it didn't matter how hard anyone tried to look, nothing ever came of it.
"Alex..." James Olsen approached the broken DEO agent with a tender and agonized expression.
"Don't," Alex croaked back, voice full of pain and fury. She would've spoken louder, but after Kara went missing, it was like she had died as well, her own strength vanishing entirely. She couldn't even turn around to look at him as he entered her little office.
"I'm sorry," James replied, then he took a seat opposite of Alex's and simply held her hand. No more words were spoken, but none were needed. Instead, Alex's hand only lay limply in James' as the two old friends silently grieved their beloved Kara Danvers.
Back at CatCo, for the first time ever, someone caught Cat Grant crying. She was silent, and almost motionless, but every once in a while, she would wipe at her eyes, or her shoulders would convulse. That was how Winn Schott knew that she was grieving.
"Ms. Grant?" he asked, voice consoling, even though his own eyes were red and swollen.
"Mr. Schott, you had better have your transcript ready for me this time," Cat replied, voice totally devoid of emotion. But she would not meet his eyes and that was how Winn knew just how deeply her heart was aching. Maybe Cat could lie with face and voice, but her eyes could never lie. Winn opened his mouth to say more, but at the sight of his miserable-looking boss, he felt his own throat close up and he quickly left her office before collapsing in his own, muffling his cries with his hand as he whimpered out Kara's name.
"Please, Supergirl, come back! We need you!... I... need you..." but Kara wasn't going to be coming home any time soon.
J'onn had left Earth entirely, joining a squadron hunting the stars and nearby planets for Supergirl, but he was making about as much progress as anyone down at CatCo or the DEO. He would never admit it, but the loss of one of the two girls he considered a daughter was a blow so devastating to his soul that there were some nights when he genuinely wondered if ending it all wouldn't be the better option.
"I failed her," he murmured softly, sadly. "It should've been me who died instead. God, how I wish it had been..."
The rest of the country wasn't faring too much better. Supergirl had been a national symbol, and icon of hope. For her to have gone so completely missing was a crushing blow to everyone in America. But even so, the people of the world were strong, and they fought hard to keep their heads up just as their superhero would've wanted them to. Every citizen played their part in staying strong and hopeful, for Supergirl's sake. And even various large-scale agencies and companies invested in the mourning and grieving processes, sometimes offering some of their goods and services for free in the name of the hero who had so freely given her own self to them, time and time again.