19

Chapter 19

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Daisy was in just, a lot of pain. She'd had worse, but fuck it felt like she was a bell getting gonged or whatever it was called. The way it rung her head made it harder to ignore than the dull ache of broken bones. She licked the blood off of her upper lip under the mask. Disgusting, but it was ticklish and kind of driving her a bit crazy as she kept an eye out while Kara got to hug her family. Thank fuck, Kara's insane idea for breaking mind control worked.

She had a sick feeling that there wasn't going to be a way out that didn't involve a lot of death. Yeah, Non and his ilk were going to need to be stopped. But if there wasn't a city's worth of hostages, it wasn't going to have to be the same brutal and fast fight it would have had to have been. And shit, Daisy was going to break Non's jaw for the Alex death match stunt. She didn't know Alex, but that didn't change the fact it was a level of fucked up that made her teeth grind.

It was certainly not the parking lot event that Daisy'd been expecting. But watching Kara, Alex, and apparently their mom hugging was good. It was really good. A feeling Daisy was pretty positive she shared with the weak and barely keeping it together alien that was J'onn.

Daisy walked towards J'onn while unzipping the front of her suit jacket. "You're bleeding out there."

"I can hang on as long as I need to." His voice was heavy with pain and exhaustion.

She rolled her eyes under her mask and ripped her tank top off of herself. Sports bra and jacket. Not the best, but it's not like she had compression bandages on her person. Daisy zipped herself back up before neatly tearing her ruined tank top into something like a bandage. "Shirt up, we're stopping the bleeding."

"Very well." He grimaced, pulling his black polo shirt's hem up to under his armpits, showing the ugly wound that was pulsing with red. His expression was suspicious.

Daisy ignored it, pressing some of the fabric against the wound, and ignored his alarm sound as she unbuckled and yanked his belt off. She quickly used it to hold her poor tanktop in place and keep pressure on the wound. "Don't know if you get infections, but that wasn't hygienic so maybe think about antibiotics." She looked up at him to make sure he was actually with it enough to follow what she was saying.

Rewardingly, he was. Pained, yes, but his eyes weren't glassy but instead clear, and evaluating as he let her bandage him. "Thank you, you did not have to help me."

"I know, but army of mind-controlling assholes," She tilted her head, "And you matter to Supergirl. Is there a saying about a friend of my friend? Or the friend of the hot girl I've been bothering for a couple of weeks?"

He let his shirt fall back down. "I think there's more to you being here than that. Supergirl would not tolerate you if you were as dishonorable as that." And that explained so much about how Kara talked about him. The dad vibes were real.

"I'm a lot of things, honorable isn't one of them." She didn't turn her back on him exactly, but she did step back, her attention flicking to the Danvers family reunion.

Kara was facing them. "Guys, this is Quake, she's a friend."

Daisy raised a hand, this was so not going to go well. "Sup."

"Quake, this is Eliza and Alex Danvers." Kara neatly avoided mentioning the elephant in the room that everyone had to know Daisy/Quake knew their names and that Supergirl saw them as family.

Eliza ignored the evaluating near hostile expression on Alex's face and walked forward holding out her hand. "Thank you for protecting my girls."

"You're welcome?" Daisy shook the woman's hand, it was…weird.

////

Cat Grant could accept she'd misjudged the Quake situation. She still despaired for Supergirl's taste in women, but if her Super-assistant wanted to get involved in some torrid lesbian Romeo and Juliet nonsense, far be it for her to say anything. Well, she fully intended to say something. But Kara could do worse than the Hot Topic murder gremlin. It wasn't every day you found someone willing to jump out windows for you or willing to throw down with evil uncles despite internal bleeding. The glory and victory of Kara's Hope plan being proven was softening the blow.

"So, Supergirl's plan is to broadcast a symbol..." The alien with the bloodstained polo said slowly.

She walked to the sound equipment, they weren't putting on a subpar show on her watch. "Of hope."

"Of hope?" He asked, his weight heavily resting on the table by Max.

She really didn't have time to explain all of this again. "With a speech."

"A speech?" Polo Alien asked with rising baffled confusion.

Max was a doll and replied. "Also about hope."

"But how will she cut through Myriad and reach the people?" His genuineness was the only reason she didn't verbally wound him worse than that scratch on his side.

Cat did sigh in some frustration. "Supergirl is my protege, reaching people is what I do. Plus, there is scientific evidence that supports my plan." She looked toward the science part of their quartet that had actually been productive in this whole 'war' thing. "Max."

He obediently explained the plan. "Myriad works by shutting down the connection between the amygdala and the rostral anterior cingulate cortex." He properly poked his head into the room. "The parts of the human brain that give rise to optimism and hope."

Alex Danvers, and wasn't it delicious to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Kara Danvers and Supergirl were the same person, stepped in. "Under Myriad, I could see, I could hear, but it was like I was a complete stranger to myself. And then Supergirl said something about believing in me and my family and it was like a switch went off in my brain. I could suddenly feel again. I could feel hope."

Cat did appreciate the heartfelt sincerity of it all, especially since it was proving her right.

"And that's what she's gonna give them once Max can kick start the connections." Alex finished with all the honest vulnerable sincerity the woman was likely capable of.

"If. This equipment is a dinosaur." Max continued to rush, flitting between boxes of equipment. "If I can get her speech on TV and the symbol on computers and phones, I'm even more of a genius than I thought."

Quake spoke up from the system she'd been focusing on for a while. "Hey, we are even more of geniuses than you thought. I'm doing the overriding part to your signal piggybacking, dipshit."

"Fine, we." Max flipped the last switches, before looking up. "Okay, we're ready."

The blond woman—Eliza Danvers, Supergirl's adoptive mother, it almost hurt Cat that she wouldn't be publishing this—walked out of the sound stage, closing the door behind her. "Okay, she's ready too."

Max raised his hand, "In three, two, one…"

And Kara Danvers, in all her Supergirl glory, opened her mouth, and Cat Grant knew to her bones it was going to be good. Stress always did bring out the best in her after all.

"People of National City. This is Supergirl and I hope you can hear me. We have been attacked. Mothers and fathers, friends and neighbors, children, everyone, suddenly stopped by a force of evil as great as this world has ever known." And oh, that was really good. "Your attacker has sought to take your free will, your individuality, your spirit. Everything that makes you who you are." What made it work was Kara herself, her heart on her sleeve and belief pouring from her very bones. "When facing an attack like this, it's easy to feel hopeless. We retreat, we lose our strength, lose our self."

It was better than Cat could have written for her, because it was pure hope and heart distilled in its most genuine form, and that couldn't be scripted. "I know. I lost everything when I was young. When I first landed on this planet, I was sad and alone. But I found out that there is so much to love in this world out there for the taking, and you the people of National City, you helped me. You let me be who I'm meant to be. You gave me back to myself. You made me stronger than I ever thought possible, and I love you for that. Now, in each and every one of you, there is a light, a spirit, that cannot be snuffed out. That won't give up. I need your help again. I need you to hope."

"Hope. That you will remember that you can all be heroes. Hope. That when faced with an enemy determined to destroy your spirit, you will fight back and thrive. Hope. That those who once may have shunned you will, in a moment of crisis, come to your aid. Hope. That you will see again the faces of those you love and perhaps even those you have lost." The desperate hope was practically trembling off of Kara as she pleaded for the people to hope.

And then the phones started to ring. And Cat couldn't help it, she smiled, it was working. Her girl had done it. Cat could admit the tremulous, relief and joy on Kara's face as her sister told her that it was working, touched her.

Cat scrolled through the alerts on her phone, the time stamp of four am was haunting her. There would be no sleep before she went into the office. "Well now that that's over with, we have work to do."

"It's not over." Quake, and almost certainly Daisy Johnson if how she and Kara interacted indicated what Cat thought, said from where she was leaning against the wall.

Max's face was sharp as he looked at her. "The Myriad signal isn't stopping?"

"No, it's getting stronger." And it was hard to tell, with the voice changer, but Cat was nearly sure the woman's voice was tighter, her posture certainly was tenser than it'd been thirty minutes ago when Supergirl had first started her speech.

Max pulled out his phone, "You're saying the signal is being amplified?"

"Yes." There was something wrong with Quake.

Supergirl agreed. She was by Quake's side in a blur, "Your heart rate is spiking!"

"Excuse me, what's going on? How is she able to tell that?" Eliza asked, stepping forward.

Max replied as his eyes scanned his phone, "Not entirely clear, but from what I've seen, her thing isn't super strength like your daughter, it's vibrations." His tongue clucked, "She's right, the signal is being amplified on the LTE networks."

Quake just gave a tight nod, not disagreeing with Max.

A thing that alarmed Cat, because Quake had made it clear she loathed Max and was only playing nice with him because of Supergirl.

Supergirl hissed, "You're bleeding from your eyes!" Supergirl could see through the mask…Cat felt rather like an idiot for not putting that together. Of course, she responded with less discomfort to the honestly deeply unsettling, try-too-hard, mask.

"It's fine, had worse. My bones haven't started cracking," Quake's masked face swung to Max, inane LED smiling face flickering slightly. "We need to shut those satellites down, now."

Alex strode forward, and stared, unimpressed at the woman. "I'm taking your pulse, don't punch me."

"Won't help, 300bpm is in the normal range for me." Quake lifted a shoulder faintly. "Not human."

Supergirl's jaw tensed, and then her head snapped to Max. "How do we get the satellites down?"

"We don't unless the DEO is hiding some kind of weapon that can shoot multiple satellites out of orbit." He gestured sharply, "There's twelve of them and they're not all conveniently orbiting directly above National City."

Quake made a distorted hissing sound. "That explains a lot." She lunged for the dusty wastebasket, ripping the lower half of her mask off, and immediately puking into it.

Cat's nose wrinkled in distaste as she took a step backward. "Should we be taking her to the hospital? And somewhere where her vomit won't be stinking up my building." She eyed the walls that had all shaken ominously the second Quake was distracted.

"That's blood," Alex said from where she'd dropped down in a crouch. She looked up at her sister who was on Quake's other side, one hand on the angst bucket of a woman's back. "Get her to the DEO, she's bleeding internally."

Quake's voice was faintly raspy, and it was her real voice. "That's where the blood is supposed to be."

"I'll see you at the DEO." Supergirl ignored Quake's ridiculous protest as she nodded to her sister. And then scooped Quake up causing the woman to squawk before moving so fast they basically vanished.

Cat sighed, "Well, victory was nice while it lasted. Someone is emptying that waste basket and burning it on their way out." She grabbed her purse, "Come find me if anyone needs a muse to solve this problem as well."

////

Lucy was rubbing one wrist from where she'd been handcuffed. A thing she was grateful for, she felt sick to her stomach at the realization she'd discharged her weapon, with kryptonite ammunition at Kara. She could have killed her. She snapped into mission mode as a blue and red blur that was Supergirl shot by for the medical department.

Lucy took off at a run for the medical wing, the way the air felt electric and heavy suddenly was alarming. She barely kept from the glass door slamming into her face, as she shot in after Supergirl. "Status?"

"Myriad isn't stopped, they're increasing the signal," Supergirl said as she gently set a very unhappy-looking Quake on the medical bed.

Quake batted Supergirl's hands away but did grab one squeezing it. "I'm fine, she's overreacting. But you have to make sure the quarantine isn't taken down." And even though the voice changer there was a bite, it was half order.

Lucy would have been insulted, except, Quake was holding Supergirl's hand and she may have been mind-controlled, but she'd seen them when they'd handled everything in the control room. Which was not more than forty minutes after Lucy had come on shift after leaving game night. She wasn't an idiot. If an experienced soldier told her the situation required the quarantine to remain in place, she wouldn't argue till she saw evidence Johnson was wrong. "What's the sitrep?"

"We broke Myriad's control of the population, but the signal is getting amplified," Supergirl replied, casting a worried look at Quake. "Maxwell Lord should be coming here soon to help. J'onn and Alex helped, I think at least Alex is coming too. But we need a doctor for Quake."

"I'm fine." Quake's sigh sounded uncomfortably like a hiss.

"You threw up blood!" Kara protested, "And you're bleeding from…everything on your face."

Quake shook her head. "You need me, I have your back, yeah? Even if my arms start fracturing the gauntlets will brace it so I can keep going. It's fine."

Lucy blanched at that, Supergirl looked aghast.

"And if your bones start breaking?!" She protested.

Quake shook her head. "Unless I start cracking walls it's fine. If I start cracking walls, shoot me with a tranq. But I'm still fully functional. Now can I get off the bed? We need to stop Myriad."

"If you want to be out in the field you'll let a medic evaluate you." Lucy cut in, and it was an order.

Quake's stupidly disconcerting and unnerving mask looked straight at her, before finally giving a sharp nod. "No needles."

"Dr. Saunders, evaluate the patient, and then Quake, unlock our systems. Supergirl, five minutes." Lucy turned on her heel and headed straight for the control room, grabbed the satellite phone that wasn't looped into the internal systems, and dialed her father's number. She turned down a side hallway, just short of the control room as the phone picked up.

-"Who is this? How did you get this number?!"-

"It's me. General, you have to keep the quarantine intact. Myriad is still active. Anyone you send in will become caught in the field, the threat is ongoing." Lucy desperately wanted to hug her father. But she had a job, and she may love him, but she didn't trust him in this mess.

And like the General he was, he processed that quickly. -"Affirmative, do we know the new goals of the attack?"-

"No, but I'll have an expert here to assist shortly. I'll have you kept in the loop as the situation progresses." Lucy reported, and it was stupid, her father wasn't her direct superior any longer, but old habits.

-"Understood, have you secured the Martian J'onn J'onzz, I have reports he was seen in the city?"-

Lucy bristled, "He just helped save this whole city. All of us."

-"What he has done subsequent to his crimes is neither here nor there. You must prioritize apprehending him while you have the opportunity."-

She wanted to plead with him. To demand if he understood that his black-and-white thinking was what was breeding the same type of hate and resentment that allowed if not caused the Kryptonians to attack in the first place. But he wasn't here, she was the one in charge of National City right now. "As Director of the DEO it's my call what the priority is inside the city, and I will not be dedicating manpower to chasing a man whose assistance we may need."

-"He's not a man. I am trying to protect you. Allowing a threat to run around to do as it pleases while you're under attack is reckless. I taught you better than that."-

Lucy's jaw tightened, "It's not your call, General."

Lucy ignored the looks her agents were giving Quake as the woman, who had blood dribbling down her neck from where her ears were bleeding, was fixing their computer system for them. Instead, she let the grim reality of what Max was saying as he explained the situation, sink in.

"I've found out that since we ended the Kryptonian mind control, the Myriad wave has been amplified ten-fold and is rising exponentially," Max reported to the assembled agents, two fugitives, Supergirl, and whatever Quake actually was.

Alex frowned, her hands on her hips. "Amplified? To what end? The only one it's affecting is Quake."

"Not so, Emergency rooms all over the city are admitting people complaining about headaches. They're from Myriad, which, by my calculations, will continue to amplify until pop goes the cranium." Max was genuinely terrified. "They couldn't control us, so instead, they're going to kill us."

Lucy spoke up, "Why use Myriad for that, if they wanted to attack Non has an army?"

"An army of criminals, ones sworn to Astra." Quake rolled back from where she'd just hit something that brought all their screens back. "He might not have enough control to drop an army on us. And armies mean fatalities, on both sides. It's a risk."

Alex kept shooting looks at Quake like she wanted to peel the woman open and figure her out. "She's not wrong, and we have the army parked outside the city. They may not be able to kill Kryptonians, but the rest of his followers?"

"The Kryptonians were using Myriad for mind control because the frequency penetrates neural tissue." Max tossed a USB to Quake.

Quake plugged it in and pulled up the readings Max was talking about. And that was a safety risk Lucy was going to have to plug after this. Just, an entire overhaul of digital security after Max and Quake both got their hands on the systems.

"Now, the Kryptonians are increasing the frequency. Exponentially." He gestured to the jumps in the data. "We're talking terahertz jumps. Like using an Uzi on a mosquito."

Alex was frowning at the data, "And we're the mosquito."

"Once the wave reaches its full potential, the electromagnetic energy will create enough pressure to…" Max grimaced.

Kara spoke from where her arms were crossed, grim understanding on her face. "To kill every human on the planet like you said." She shook herself slightly. "I need to tell James and Winn. They could help."

"Let's not get our cape in a bunch." Max cut in.

Quake was definitely glaring under her mask, "Condescend to her again, and I will snap your neck."

"He's right." Lucy cut off that particular spat. "Telling them wouldn't do us any good right now."

Alex's arms tightened slightly where they were crossed, "How long do we have?"

"Eight hours. I usually love a good countdown, but this is bad." Max was an ass, but he was genuinely scared. "This is really bad."

Lucy stepped towards Max, "Think you can find the source so we can shut it down?"

"You're lucky I work well under pressure." He shot a look at Quake, "And if she refrains from snapping my neck, her help could make a difference."

Lucy nodded. "Do it." She looked at her tech agents who she was really going to have to replace. If they survived this she was poaching Winn. "Monitor them."

Vasquez cleared her throat. "Ma'ams, you're needed in the armory."

Notes:

Noticed in the comments last chapter a few people real on the Alex was stupid for coming to National City train. And like...no? I mean yeah, her plan failed, and yeah her and Kara's relationship is an unhealthy mess, but going to National City wasn't a dumb decision. She went in with J'onn, one of the strongest aliens on the planet fully capable of protecting her from mind control. If Indigo hadn't been waiting it probably wouldn't have gone to hell. Which yeah I cut that scene just so I wasn't just regurgitating the episode, but like, she very much came in with a plan. And even if she hadn't, like...Supergirl, Cat Grant, Max Lord, and Quake against an alien attack a decade in the making is terrible odds. That's time for the stupid plans because it's that or the planet is getting conquered. Alex is a high-ranking black ops agent specialized in aliens. That is absolutely the type of situation she's trained and qualified to go help with.