The crushing weight was immense, a force my body was never meant to endure. Every cell, starved of the nourishing light of a yellow sun, screamed in protest. But fear was a luxury I couldn’t afford. I lifted my head, a millimeter at a time, and glared at the hologram of the man who called himself the Architect.

“You think this will hold me?” I forced the words out, my voice strained but defiant. “You think a light show and some heavy gravity can stop me? I’m Supergirl. I don’t lose. When I get out of this, and I will get out of this, you are going to pay.”

The Architect’s holographic image smiled, a thin, condescending curve of his lips. “Such fire. Such youthful, misplaced confidence. It’s the primary characteristic of your particular brand of hero. You believe your will is an indomitable force. Allow me to disabuse you of that notion.”

The hologram vanished. For a moment, there was only the hum of the red sun lamps and the groan of the gravity plates. Then, from panels in the ceiling directly above me, two sleek, multi-jointed robotic arms descended. They were matte black, ending in terrifyingly dexterous manipulators that whirred silently as they moved towards my feet.

“What are you doing?” I spat, trying to pull my legs away, a useless gesture that achieved nothing.

“The first step in deconstruction,” the Architect’s voice echoed through the chamber, “is the removal of artifice. Your boots, for instance. They are a symbol of your journey, your heroic stride. Let’s see what lies beneath.”

The robotic arms reached my red boots. They didn’t grab or tear. One arm’s manipulators, with the delicacy of a watchmaker, began to unlace the side of my right boot, pulling the yellow laces free with hypnotic precision. The other held my ankle in place. I felt sickened, my defiance curdling into disgust. This detached, mechanical violation felt colder than any fist.

Slowly, the boot was peeled away from my calf and slid off my foot. The cool, recycled air of the chamber hit my bare skin.

“Ah,” the Architect’s voice purred. “Perfection. Just as the simulations predicted.”

My feet, unlike Diana’s, had never known a moment of hardship. They’d never been calloused by training or scarred by battle. They were, by any definition, perfect. The skin was smooth and unblemished, the arch high and gracefully curved. My toes were straight and neat, the nails pristine. They were the feet of a being who had never had to walk on rough ground, a body untouched by the wear and tear of mortality.

“Such delicate architecture,” the Architect mused as the second boot was removed with the same methodical slowness. “No imperfections. A testament to your alien physiology. So very pretty. An collector’s item.”

“You’re a monster,” I snarled, the words feeling hollow even to me. “I’m going to make you regret this.”

“No, my dear. You are not,” he replied calmly. The robotic arms repositioned. One clamped firmly around my right ankle, pinning it to the floor. The other settled over the top of my bare foot, its metallic fingers wrapping around the flawless arch. “You are going to learn what it means to be powerless.”

The pressure began. It was a slow, grinding force. My defiance faltered, replaced by a spike of pure animal fear. The pressure increased, and the delicate, perfect bones of my foot began to protest. I grit my teeth, refusing to give him the satisfaction.

He increased the pressure again. A sharp, cracking sound, sickeningly loud in the quiet room, echoed from my foot. A scream of pure, unadulterated agony was torn from my throat. It was a sound I had never made before. The pain was blinding, absolute. He was breaking me. Literally. The metal fingers squeezed harder, and the fine bones in my metatarsals ground against each other. My confident threats dissolved into raw, incoherent shrieks of pain.

He held the crushing pressure for a few more seconds before releasing. My foot was a mangle of agony. The robotic arms retracted back into the ceiling. The gravity lessened, but other arms descended, shackling my wrists and ankles in the same cold, black alloy Diana must have known. The Red Sun lamps continued to pour their weakening radiation over me.

I was lifted from the floor and transported out of the chamber, my ruined foot sending waves of nausea and fire through my body with every slight jostle. We moved through sterile corridors, a silent, humiliating procession. My body, once a vessel of near-infinite power, was now just a container for pain. The iconic ‘S’ on my chest felt like a brand of failure. My cape dragged behind me, a useless, pathetic train.

My thoughts were a chaotic storm. He showed me Diana… He broke my foot like a twig… I screamed… He said she funded this… The confident defiance was gone, washed away by a tide of agony and terror. I’m Supergirl. The thought came again, but this time it was not a declaration. It was a question, full of doubt and horror. What is Supergirl without her strength? Without her invulnerability? I was just a girl. A girl with a broken foot, a body poisoned by a red sun, being taken to a cell built from the suffering of a friend.

We arrived at a transparent door. Inside was a simple white room, identical to the one in the feed. And in the cell next to it, I saw her. A dark-haired woman in a tattered remnant of armor, chained to the wall, her face a mask of old scars. Her one remaining eye flickered towards me, holding not recognition or pity, but a terrifying, bottomless emptiness.

The door to my cell slid open. As the robotic arms pushed me inside, the full, crushing weight of my predicament slammed into me. This was real. This was happening. The Architect’s final words from the control room echoed in my mind.

“Welcome home, Kara Zor-El.”