Chapter 27: UNDER FIRE
[National City, Industrial Sector — November 2016, 11:47 PM]
The mission was supposed to be routine.
Surveillance on a suspected Cadmus supply point—observation only, no engagement unless directly threatened. Kara and I were positioned on adjacent rooftops, monitoring an abandoned manufacturing plant that DEO intelligence suggested was being used for weapons storage.
"Anything on infrared?" Kara's voice came through the comm, quiet and professional.
I scanned the building below. My enhanced vision had improved significantly over the past weeks—filtering had become almost automatic, allowing me to shift between visual spectrums without the headaches that had plagued early attempts.
"Six heat signatures. All ground floor, clustered near the loading dock." I adjusted position to get a better angle. "No movement. They might be guards, or they might be workers."
"Weapons signatures?"
"Hard to tell from this distance. The walls have some kind of interference coating."
"Lead-lined." Kara's tone sharpened. "That's new. Cadmus is getting more sophisticated."
The observation continued for another twenty minutes. The heat signatures shifted occasionally—bathroom breaks, position changes, nothing suspicious. Just an ordinary night at an ordinary warehouse doing potentially criminal things.
Then the world exploded.
The blast came from below—not the warehouse we were watching, but the building beneath my position. The rooftop cracked, split, began collapsing inward. I launched myself into the air as concrete and steel crumbled, the TK field instinctively wrapping around me to absorb debris impacts.
"Mon-El!" Kara's voice cut through the chaos.
"I'm okay! What—"
A second explosion. Closer this time. The shockwave caught me mid-flight, sent me tumbling toward a building I'd never seen as a threat. I crashed through a window, rolled across an empty office floor, came up in a defensive crouch.
The manufacturing plant we'd been watching was on fire. Multiple secondary explosions rippled through its structure, sending plumes of smoke and flame into the night sky.
"Kara, status!"
"Civilians." Her voice was strained. "Building collapse, lower floors. I'm getting them out."
"Coming to assist—"
"Negative. There's something else here. Some kind of—"
A third explosion. This one was different—directional, focused, clearly designed rather than accidental. The building Kara was in shuddered visibly.
I flew toward her position. Whatever this was, whatever trap we'd stumbled into, we needed to be together. Combined strength, combined tactics, combined chances of survival.
The scene I found was chaos.
The manufacturing plant had been a false front—below it, an underground complex now exposed by the explosions. Kara was carrying civilians out of the rubble, one under each arm, while the structure continued to collapse around her. Hostile figures moved in the smoke—aliens with advanced weaponry, the kind of tech that suggested serious backing.
I intercepted the first attacker before he could get a clear shot at Kara. Enhanced speed closed the distance; enhanced strength sent him flying into a concrete pillar. His weapon—some kind of energy rifle—clattered across the ground.
"How many?" I shouted over the explosions.
"At least a dozen." Kara deposited her civilians behind a sheltering wall of debris, turned to face the emerging threats. "They knew we were watching. This whole thing was a setup."
A trap. Cadmus, probably, or someone with similar resources. Lure in the DEO's heaviest hitters, collapse the building around them, finish off anyone who survived.
"Fall back?" I suggested.
"Can't. More civilians below. I could hear them before the explosions started." Kara's jaw set. "We have to go down."
Down. Into the collapsing underground complex, toward enemies who'd already proven they could hurt us, looking for people who might already be dead.
"Lead the way."
We descended through shattered concrete and twisted metal. The complex was larger than I'd expected—multiple levels, extending deep beneath the surface. Emergency lighting flickered sporadically, casting everything in bloody red shadows.
The hostiles had retreated to defensive positions, using the terrain to their advantage. Kara engaged them directly while I flanked, using my speed to close distance before they could bring their weapons to bear. The fighting was brutal, efficient, nothing like the controlled sparring of training sessions.
One attacker got a shot off before I reached him. The energy blast caught me in the shoulder—pain lanced through my nervous system, briefly overwhelming the TK field's protection. I stumbled, recovered, finished him with a strike that left him unconscious.
"You okay?" Kara called.
"Fine. Keep moving."
The civilians were three levels down, trapped behind debris that even Kryptonian strength was having trouble moving. The structure groaned around us—support columns failing, ceiling sections threatening to give way. Every second we spent here was borrowed time.
"I can hear them," Kara said, pressing her hands against the rubble pile blocking their path. "Seven heartbeats. Alive, but scared."
"Can you punch through?"
"Not without bringing the ceiling down on all of us." She studied the debris, calculating angles and pressures. "There's Kryptonite in the rebar. Low concentration, but enough to weaken me near the contact points."
Kryptonite-laced building materials. Definitely Cadmus. They'd designed this place specifically to neutralize Kryptonian threats.
"Let me try," I said. "The Kryptonite won't affect me the same way."
I approached the rubble pile, started shifting smaller pieces while assessing the load distribution. The debris was unstable—move the wrong piece and everything would collapse. But there had to be a way through. There was always a way through.
Then I felt it. The metallic tang in the air, the itch in my cells, the warning signal I'd learned to recognize.
Lead. Buried in the debris, probably as another layer of the trap's design. Not enough to incapacitate me immediately, but enough to slow my healing, weaken my focus.
"Mon-El?" Kara noticed my hesitation. "What is it?"
"Lead contamination. In the structural elements." I kept working, ignoring the growing discomfort. "Doesn't matter. We need to get them out."
"If it's affecting you—"
"I said it doesn't matter."
Another support column groaned. The ceiling dropped six inches, then stabilized. Time was running out.
"Wait." Kara moved closer, studying my hands as I worked. "Your field. The protective extension you mentioned during training. Could you project it around me while I push through?"
I'd never tried anything that precise. Extending the TK field to cover objects I was touching was one thing—protecting another person during intense physical activity was something entirely different.
"I don't know if I can maintain it through that much stress."
"You protected Emma Chen during the Kelnarian attack. You protected the family during the fire." Kara's eyes met mine. "You can do this."
"Those were brief contacts. This would be sustained projection while you're actively moving."
"Then sustain it." Her voice carried absolute confidence. "I trust you."
I trust you.
The words hit harder than the energy blast had. Kara Zor-El—the woman I'd lied to, disappointed, spent weeks trying to earn back—was placing her life in my hands without hesitation.
"Okay." I moved to stand beside her, placed my hand on her shoulder. Focused on the warmth in my chest, the field that had always responded to my need to protect. "Okay. I'll hold the field. You pull free when you feel it stabilize around you."
"On three?"
"On three."
She counted. I focused harder than I ever had before, willing the TK field to extend beyond my skin, to wrap around Kara like armor, to protect her from the Kryptonite and the debris and everything that wanted to hurt her.
The field responded.
I felt it flow outward—not just covering her, but integrating with her somehow. Like we were sharing the same protective layer, the same barrier against the world's dangers.
"I feel it," Kara breathed. "Hold it steady."
She pushed into the debris pile. Kryptonite-laced rebar scraped against her skin—but the field absorbed the contact, deflected the radiation before it could affect her. She pushed harder, muscles straining, Kryptonian power channeling through protected limbs.
The debris shifted. Moved. Opened.
Seven terrified faces stared out from behind the rubble—civilians who'd been in the wrong place when everything went wrong. A family, maybe, or coworkers. Didn't matter. What mattered was getting them out.
"Go," Kara ordered. "Follow the path back. Don't stop until you reach the surface."
They ran. I maintained the field around Kara as long as I could, feeling the strain building, the focus starting to fray. The lead contamination wasn't helping—each breath brought more of the toxin into my system, weakening the concentration I needed to sustain the projection.
"Mon-El." Kara's voice was distant. Concerned. "You're shaking."
I was. The field was flickering, my control slipping. "Just need to hold it until they're clear."
"They're clear. Let go."
I couldn't. The field had become something I was clinging to, a connection I didn't want to sever. Kara's safety, wrapped in my power, maintained by my will. If I let go—
"Mon-El." Her hands gripped my shoulders. "Look at me. You did it. They're safe. We're safe. Let go."
I let go.
The field collapsed. So did I, nearly, but Kara caught me before I could hit the ground. The lead contamination rushed through my system—pain, weakness, cellular disruption. My adaptation training helped, but the exposure had been prolonged. Recovery would take time.
"Can you fly?"
"Maybe. Probably." I forced myself upright, pushed through the fog. "Need to get out of here before the rest of this place comes down."
We flew. Not gracefully—my flight was wobbly, affected by the contamination—but Kara stayed close, steadying me when I wavered, guiding us up through the collapsing levels toward fresh air and starlight.
The surface was chaos. DEO response teams arriving, fire crews battling the flames, medical personnel triaging the civilians we'd rescued. Someone grabbed my arm, started checking vitals. I let them work while my body fought off the lead's effects.
Kara stayed nearby. Watching. Waiting.
When the medics finally cleared me—stable, recovering, not in immediate danger—she approached. Dust covered her suit. Small cuts marked her exposed skin, already healing. But her expression was something I'd never seen before.
"Good job, partner."
Partner. Not trainee. Not support. Partner.
I gripped her arm in return, feeling the connection that had formed in the rubble, the trust that had been demonstrated in the worst possible conditions.
"We make a good team," I managed.
"We do." She smiled—tired, relieved, something else beneath the surface. "Same time tomorrow? I think we've earned those potstickers."
"Wouldn't miss it."
She squeezed my arm once, then moved to coordinate with the arriving DEO teams. I watched her go, covered in debris and dust and the evidence of survival.
The mission had been a trap. We'd almost died. The enemy was more sophisticated than we'd realized.
But we'd saved seven lives. Proven we could work together under fire. Discovered capabilities neither of us had known we possessed.
And Kara had called me partner.
Tomorrow would bring debriefings, analysis, preparations for whatever came next. But tonight—tonight I let myself feel the warmth of earned trust, the satisfaction of a job well done, the hope that maybe, finally, I was becoming someone worth trusting.
One pattern at a time.
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