Kara was worried, there had been a sinking feeling in her stomach all day that she just couldn't shake. The summer heatwave had meant that she hadn't been able to wear her uniform under her work clothes all week and she was itching to get out of her summer dress and into her super suit so that Supergirl would be ready to respond to any problems straight away. Kara had managed to ignore the weight in the pit of her stomach long enough to finish up her latest article quickly and despite Snapper's extra grumpy temperament, she had managed to leave CatCo early.

Kara slipped unnoticed down the corridors of the DEO and into the locker room where she quickly changed out of the flimsy summer dress and strappy heels into her super suit. She let out a deep sigh as she let her hair out of the loose bun she had been wearing and slipped her glasses into her bag before stepping back out into the corridor.

The command centre was quiet but brimming with agents. Analysts were sat at every computer tapping away at keyboards, but it wasn't the familiar frantic banging of the keys that usually accompanied chasing a lead. In fact, Kara could have sworn that the young analyst in the far corner had been playing a game on his computer before he had noticed her approaching and quickly clicked to something else.

Winn was leaning back on his chair, twirling a red vine in one hand whilst another hung limply from his mouth, as he lazily scrolled through some data on his screen.

"It's quiet," Kara dropped her bag on Winn's desk, "Where is everyone?" she asked, placing her hands on her hips.

Winn was startled and nearly choked on the candy in his mouth and Kara laughed as he sat up straight and coughed.

"Alex is doing some spur of the moment training with some of the newer agents," Winn told her, still spluttering. "And J'onn is doing some paperwork, something about an audit."

"And what are you doing?" Kara leaned closer to scrutinise the computer screen.

"I am searching through some intelligence data but I haven't found anything of interest so far."

"So, there's nothing I can do?"

Winn shook his head, "Unless you want to give those rookies a real-life alien to practice on."

"But I'm bored," Kara whined.

"Are you finished at CatCo for the day?"

"Yep."

"Then why don't you go out and relax, take in the sun."

"Everyone I know is still at work."

Winn shrugged and offered her a red vine but didn't offer any further advice. Kara took the candy and took a bite, pulling the remainder roughly from her mouth and frowning.

"What am I supposed to do?" she chewed loudly.

"As long as it doesn't involve trying to set Alex up on any more dates, I don't care."

"She told you about that?" Kara scowled and pushed the rest of the red vine into her mouth.

"Yep," Winn nodded and took another piece of candy. "Who do you think bore the brunt of her anger the next day at work?"

"Sorry," Kara apologised sheepishly.

"Why don't you go out and patrol for a bit? If I hear anything that needs Supergirl I'll let you know."

"Like the old days?" Kara smiled brightly.

"Yeah, I guess," Winn shrugged and went back to his computer.

It took a lot of self-control for Kara to walk calmly to the balcony. Once her feet had carried her to the balcony she shot herself high into the sky, using the lingering clouds to shield herself from view. The summer had brought the inevitable increase in visitors to National City and Kara didn't want to be distracted by tourists looking for photo opportunities with a superhero.

It didn't take long for something to catch her attention, a tense but familiar voice in amongst the noise of the city - Detective Maggie Sawyer.

Kara flew towards the voice until she could see the detective. She kept her distance and hovered out of sight as she tried to assess the situation.

"You never look before you leap."

There was smoke everywhere but no signs of any flames. Maggie and her NCPD colleagues had an alien surrounded in the busy parking lot of the mall. The alien was vaguely human looking but covered in scales which seemed to be giving off a purple hue. Citizens were fleeing on foot in every direction creating a scene of chaos. The alien didn't appear to have a weapon but he seemed to be ready to put up a fight.

Kara slowly lowered herself to the ground at the edge of the car park and carefully approached the standoff on foot.

"There's nowhere to go, let's end this now," one of the officers was shouting over the noise.

"That's what you think," the alien whispered dully under its breath, Kara was sure that she was the only one that could hear him.

Only when she reached the wall of officers that were surrounding him, did the alien notice Supergirl. He met her eye and smiled before he bowed his head and his scales began to glow, temporarily distracting everyone. The alien then lunged at the nearest NCPD jacket clad officer.

"Sawyer!"

"Detective!"

"Maggie!"

Everyone shouted variations of Maggie's name at once, but only Supergirl was fast enough to reach her in time.

Kara managed to push Maggie out of the way, only to be dragged into the tight grip of the alien herself. Kara struggled against the strong hand but every movement she made only increased the alien's hold on her until his arm was wrapped completely around her body, restricting her ability to take a breath. As the amount of oxygen in her brain began to diminish she saw the alien grab hold of Maggie again, as soon as his hand made contact with her there was a bright flash of light.

Pain was everywhere. Her ears were ringing with the screams of onlookers and what sounded like thunder. There was a burning pain in her chest and her right leg felt as if it was being ripped in two. The pain slowly turned to a numbness that crept up her leg and overtook her whole body until it reached her head. For a while there was nothing but white noise and darkness.

She couldn't see Maggie but as the white noise began to fade she could faintly hear her heart beating slowly. Kara desperately tried to activate her x-ray vision to locate Maggie only for the whole world to light up again, temporarily blinding her and forcing her to screw her eyes shut against the insult.

Everything became purple behind her eyelids. It felt like she was falling, her body being thrown in all directions at the same time as she passed through every shade of purple imaginable. No matter how far she fell, Maggie was always just out of reach, limp and still, but also falling into the unknown.

She didn't feel herself stop falling, she didn't feel her body hit the ground or notice that she was rolling until she hit something, someone. Breathing became a struggle as she fought to get her eyes to open. Even once she had pried her eyelids apart, she had to blink a couple of times to get rid of the purple fog that hung over everything.

With what felt like all of her strength, Kara managed to sit up, only then did she feel the pain that shouldn't have been possible, gripping her thigh in waves and radiating down her leg. When she looked for the source of her discomfort, she found a small purple ball which was covered in spines, a couple of which were embedded in her leg. She used her cape to protect her hand and pulled it out, holding in a scream of agony. Only once she pulled it out did her ears stop ringing and she could hear the other heartbeat next to her.

Maggie was face down in the dirt of what appeared to be a soccer field. In the rush to check her over Kara dropped the spiky ball into the mud.

"Maggie?" Kara shouted, rolling the detective onto her back.

"Maggie?" she shook Maggie's shoulder as she tried to assess her injuries.

There was a small line of blood from Maggie's nose but Kara couldn't see any other injuries as she scanned down her body with her x-ray vision, until she got to her stomach. Just under her bulletproof vest there was a purple spiky ball, just like the one she had ripped out of her own leg.

"Maggie?" she shook the detective again. When she got no response, she pulled the ball with her cape and then lifted her shirt to check the puncture wound. Kara dropped the purple ball in surprise as she watched the small puncture marks just below Maggie's belly button quickly fade away.

"Maggie?" she called again, hoping that removing the purple thing would have improved her condition.

It hadn't, Maggie was still unrousable.

She tore her eyes away from the detective to search the area, desperate for anyone who could help her. No one was around and she wasn't entirely sure where she was. Nothing familiar stood out in the landscape.

"Maggie?" she tried again as she struggled to listen for the city. "I'm going to take you to the DEO," she told her, just in case Maggie could still hear her.

She knelt down and easily lifted Maggie into her arms, pulling her head into her chest instead of letting it hang limply. Stumbling a little, she stood up and checked the area again before leaping into the air with Maggie.