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Reign, she was the centre of every conversation at the DEO these days. It had been over a week since Kara had fought the Wordkiller for the first time and sent her into hiding. Everyone was exhausted and stressed from the constant search for any new and useful information on her. Agents were running on minimal sleep; their eyes weary from staring at monitors for hours on end.
Despite having the Legion of Super-Heroes on their side with all their additional powers and technology, they were no closer to locating the bio-engineered alien. Everyone knew they needed to find her soon, before she made her next move.
It wasn’t until the arrest and imprisonment of Thomas Coville that they finally got their break. Their initial search of his house had revealed nothing, but a visit to the fanatical man in prison yielded far greater results. Kara with the help of J’onn and a little mind reading were able to discover that Coville had a hidden lead safe in his house, a safe that contained artefacts, papers and alien rocks.
Kara had been called to look at the items once they had all been catalogued, but they were unfamiliar to her and gave them no clues. The only thing she recognised where the random pages of the book of Rao, prayers Kara had learned as a child.
Winn, in an attempt to get all the information he could from the artefacts, began scanning the ancient papers with different lights to see if anything would be revealed. Upon using the UV light he discovered the papers were covered in invisible ink. Kara had tried to read them, but they were all written in strange runes, in a language spoken eons before she had was born on Krypton.
Winn then put all the runes into a linguistic program he had been working on, in hopes of making sense of the sentences, but the process was time consuming. Frustrated at the lack of progress, Kara had suggested maybe Mon-el or one of the Legionnaires might be able to decipher the language, perhaps their supercomputers had records of these runes. J’onn nodded in agreement instantly. If that proved true, it would save them a lot of time and energy.
With that in mind, Kara went in search of Mon-el heading toward the Legion ship. When she approached the bridge she found Ayla working. “Hey, I was looking for Mon-el, do you know where he might be?”
“Try his room, he tends to hide out there when he is not on duty. Third door on the left” Ayla responded, waving her hand around, clearly focused on whatever she was doing and not the conversation.
Kara hesitantly made her way down the corridor, hoping to bump into him. She was not entirely comfortable with the idea of seeing Mon-el’s room. It was his personal space and with everything that has happened between them, she was worried that this would be too much for her. Luck was not on her side, however, as she made it all the way to his room uninterrupted and found the door ajar. “Mon-el?” She called out his name, but heard no response. Shuffling closer, Kara peered through the gap, hoping to spot him. She called his name once more and again received no reply.
Kara put her hand on the door, intending to push it open, but faltered. What if he was asleep or worse, getting changed? Why would he leave the door open if either of those were the case? the voice in her head answered. After an internal debate and a little mental pep talk, Kara pushed the door completely aside.
What she found was a neat but empty room. It was clear that it was designed for style, not comfort. The only furniture was a desk on the far wall by the window and a perfectly made bed with a nightstand on either side. From her place by the door, Kara saw the well-worn copies of Romeo and Juliet and Harry Potter on the nightstand closest to her, while the other had photographs on it and what appeared to be a watch, very similar to the one Winn had given Mon-el when he first had landed on earth.
Curiosity got the better of Kara and after glancing behind her to make sure no one was coming, she slipped into the room and made her way towards the furthest table. She bent down to look at the photographs more closely. They were pictures of them taken at various points in their relationship. The framed photo was from one of their trips to the theatre. Mon-el knew that Kara loved musicals, so every time a new show came to town, he would take her to see it as a treat. The other series of photographs that sat propped up against the frame bought a lump to Kara’s throat. She was looking at her own copy of those photo booth pictures only a few weeks ago. They were taken on one of their group nights out. They had been so happy and in love, neither of them believed anything could pull them apart. However, fate was a cruel mistress, as Kara had come to realise.
She turned away from the photographs, unable to stomach looking at them anymore and walked over to the desk. Here too were pictures of them. One was from when she had taken him to the beach for the first time. The other she recognised as a picture that was taken on Mon-el’s first earth birthday. He was standing in the middle of the photo with a party hat on his head, his arms around Kara. Surrounding them, were their friends and family, Winn, Alex, Maggie, J’onn and Eliza. Kara remembered the day so clearly. Mon-el had been so excited at the idea of a party, and they spent hours sharing memories of past birthdays and customs. Kara had even gotten Winn involved, although after they started talking about bouncy castles, clowns and paintball in Eliza’s backyard, Alex had stopped them. It was a day filled with fun and laughter and free of the burdens that came with working for the DEO. They were better times.
Shaking the memories away, Kara looked that the rest of the desk. Its surface was littered with pieces of papers and a box with her name on it. She lifted the lid slightly and peeked inside at the carefully folded letters with Mon-el’s neat handwriting covering the pages. Her hand hovered over the letters. She knew she’d already gone too far and invaded his personal space, her mind was screaming at her that she should leave, but there was a small voice in the back of her head that told her it was ok because the letters and the box had her name on them. After a moment of hesitation, the voice won and Kara picked up the letter on the top.
Just then, Mon-el reached his room. He stopped at the open doorway, leaning against the door jamb and watched Kara for a little while before he made his presence known. “You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to get a pen and paper in the 31st century.” He laughed as he pushed himself off the wall and walked towards her.
Kara turned around lightning quick, dropping the letter in doing so, realising she had been caught. She opened her mouth about to explain but Mon-el cut her off.
“It’s ok, they’re yours. I wrote them for you”. Mon-el picked up the discarded letter, placed it in the box with the others and handed it to her.
Kara looked down in surprise. “I uhh…really?”
Mon-el simply nodded and shoved his hands in his pockets.
“Thank you” Kara said sincerely.
A pause followed in which neither of them knew what to say. There was so much to discuss, yet neither could find the words. Kara’s eyes fell back on his bedside table. “The pictures, how did you get them?”
Mon-el smiled and walked over to pick up the frame. He looked at it, remembering just how hard it had been to get them printed. “I had my phone with me when- well you know. It broke, but Brainy managed to get the photographs off. It took me a while to persuade him to print them, apparently wanting hard copies isn’t logical, but-“ He laughed and paused to look at her, trying gauge her reaction. Finding his strength, he finished, “I wanted a reminder of home”. Mon-el looked away from Kara and put the photo down, trying to calm his nerves. He picked up his watch in an attempt to give his fidgeting hands something to do.
Kara was overwhelmed. She didn’t quite know what to do with this information. Since Mon-el’s arrival back in the 21st century, she had been telling herself that he had moved on, that he had a better life in the future, but now he was telling her that his home was there with her family, with her. That he had gone out of his way to keep the memory of them alive. It was too much for her to deal with, so she frantically tried to think of a way to change the subject.
Seeing an opportunity, Kara decided to ask him about the watch. “It still works, huh?” she pointed at his wrist.
“It’s had a few upgrades, but I didn’t want to get rid of it. Also it comes in handy when I am not on duty.”
“Don’t let Winn get his hands on it or he will tear it to pieces to see what you’ve done.”
They both laughed at the thought.
“Is there something you wanted?” Mon-el asked suddenly, realising that in all the time he had spent talking with Kara, she hadn’t mentioned why she was in his room.
“Oh right, yeh, uh…I was looking for you. We found out more information about Reign and were wondering if you could maybe help us out and take a look?”
“Sure” They walked out of his room, leaving behind their unspoken questions. They both needed time to process and come to terms with their new dynamic.
Mon-el spent a long time staring at the scans on Winn’s computer in silence. Kara sat by his side, waiting and discretely watching him; the way he scratched his beard and bit his lip absentmindedly in concentration. Some gestures were familiar, while others were new traits that he had picked during their time apart, like the newfound fierceness in his eyes. Each had captured her attention and left her distracted from the task at hand so when Mon-el finally cleared his throat Kara jumped out of her seat a little. She hastily looked over to him, before glancing at J’onn, Alex and Winn hoping they hadn’t notice.
“So, can you read it?” Kara asked when he seemed hesitant to speak.
Mon-El nodded. “Yeh. It’s similar to ancient Daxamite. I had to learn it back when I…” He trailed off, reluctant to remind them of the time he had been the Prince of Daxam.
Kara raised a brow at that news, but carried on so as not to dwell on it. “If they’re similar then it’s got to be from Kyrpton’s great exploratory era or- .”
“ – not long after Daxam became independent.” Mon-El finished. Kara nodded and smiled secretly, pleased they could still finish one another’s sentences.
“So we’re talking a few hundred years right?” Winn asked, so he could begin looking in their Kryptonian archives.
“More like thousands” Kara replied.
“Thousands?” Alex looked at her in surprise. Mon-el turned to look at Alex,
“This script is archaic.”
“But you can translate it?”
“Yes, I’m not sure about some of the words, but-“ Mon-el turned back to the monitor and continued “as far as I can tell is says-“
“They will receive a blasphemous sigil and in its wake, many cowards, killers and vile men will burn. Every eye will look upon the heretic, and they will call it ‘Wordkillers’.
There are three steps leading to the End of Days: First is the mark of the Beast. After that comes the work of the Beast in form of many deaths, and finally come the Reign of the Beast.
The lost gods must fall for a new god to rise and Her rise will come at the fall of the righteous and she will reign.”
Kara instantly remembered her visit with Coville at the prison. He had recited the same words. However, unlike Colville Mon-el carried on.
“…They will awake and unite beneath the standard of Reign. The Power, the Pestilence and the Purity.”
No one spoke for long minute as they pondered this hostile apocalyptic message.
Winn was the first to break the silence. “The Power, the Pestilence and the Purity?” He repeated.
Mon-el looked back at the monitor one more time and nodded in confirmation. “Yes, I’m sure that’s what it says.”
“There are three of them…” Kara deduced loudly. “We need to find the other two before Reign does!” She exclaimed determinedly as she stood up with a pounding heart. Mon-el followed suit with a sharp and serious look on his face.
“Agent Schott –“ J’onn started, but Winn beat him to it.
“On it!” Winn said, rushing back to his chair which had been occupied by Mon-el mere seconds before and started typing profusely.
“I’ll inform the Legion, we can help you find them faster.” Mon-el offered.
“That will be very helpful. Thank you.” The Martian acknowledged.
A fresh urgency spread through the DEO as the director went around commanding agents to start scanning for specific signatures. Alex went off to prepare the SWAT teams and brief them for possible upcoming missions.
Mon-el headed for the exit, intending to talk to his team and Kara, who had been the only one left without an order, decided to follow him.
“Hey, do you mind if I tag along with you?” She asked when they reached the balcony, ready to take off.
“No not at all.” He assured with a gentle nod of his head.
They hit the sky in union, red and blue soaring high in the sky before changing course in the direction of the Legion ship. Neither spoke as the wind that blew in their faces, ruffling their hair and capes.
Flying shoulder to shoulder, Kara tried not to glance at Mon-El too often. Her mind drifted instead towards the pictures she had found in his room and the letters that she couldn’t wait to read the first chance she got. This new person Mon-el had become was a mystery to Kara. He was a changed man. But the old Mon-el was still there and Kara believed no matter how many years separated them, his heart was still the same, that he was still the kind and valiant person he had become before he left. Seeing those photographs, talking to him, Kara found herself hoping that he hadn’t moved on, that he still loved her in some way.
Supergirl and Valor flew towards the sunset in a silence engulfed with unspoken words. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, or the day after that, but one day they would reconnect again in a new and more meaningful way. Because they were still bonded through their shared memories and memories were powerful.