"Nice catch!" Thea looked the photo over. She wasn't a photographer, so she couldn't judge if it was the original. The only pity was that she had been too concerned about the timeline back then; otherwise, keeping a group photo to show Diana today would have made for a fun trip down memory lane.
Although the man in the photo was Steve Trevor, Thea didn't tear it up like in the TV dramas. It was a memento, after all; tearing it up would be a waste.
She pulled a few more sheets from the file folder. Without exception, they were shots of Diana in the city—front views, side profiles. There were also detailed records of citizens Diana had contacted. Mercy had organized it meticulously: what was said when, the accent used, the weather at the time, the clothes worn—everything was reconstructed in detail.
There were even a few photos that captured Thea. Although she was careful, Diana didn't care. Thea didn't want their dates to feel like thieving operations, so while she covered tracks initially, she eventually just let it be. It wasn't surprising that Luthor's satellites had caught them on camera.
"Miss Secretary, what does this prove?" Thea flipped through them once. During the battle with Parallax, the scene was shrouded in yellow mist. Satellites worldwide only captured blurry figures; no concrete footage existed. This was why Superman was called the first superhero—previous records looked too fake, whereas the Superman-Zod battle was clear, real, and undeniable.
"Your..." Mercy couldn't quite figure out the details between Thea and Diana. Relying on her impression that Thea might be the dominant one, she spoke vaguely, "Your... lady friend hasn't changed her appearance in a hundred years. It's because..."
Thea checked her watch. She had been wasting breath with the secretary for half an hour; she was getting annoyed.
"Even if I heal you, are you sure you can still gain Luthor's trust?" Thea had thought about buying her off as a mole, but only for a second. Luthor would never stop suspecting her.
Mercy's reaction didn't exceed her expectations. Her voice remained calm, but her words carried a trace of bitterness. "Either way, Mr. Luthor will never trust me again."
"Then why come to me... Do you have a screw loose?!"
Thea sometimes felt that whether heroes or villains, everyone in this world had something wrong with their heads! Luthor and the secretary before her looked like shrewd people, yet one thought he was a god, and the other was paranoid to the extreme. Was there no one with a normal brain circuit in this world?
The atmosphere between the two grew tense. Just as Thea was about to kick her out, Mercy finally spoke. "Mr. Luthor trusts no one, whether I ask for help or not."
"I give up... Let's talk business principles. What can you help me with?"
"Help you erase all the footage?" Mercy asked tentatively.
Thea snorted. "Not enough!" Deleting current ones was fine, but what about the future? There were so many satellites in the world; others would definitely capture the two of them. That condition was way too cheap.
"I will work for you on the premise of not betraying Mr. Luthor." Mercy proposed a bargaining chip she thought was rich enough.
Honestly, Thea wasn't too satisfied with this condition either. But after pondering for a moment, she agreed. "When Luthor discards you again, you can come find me. I will take you to see a world you don't understand. Then you will know just how small your world really is."
It was the familiar tone, the familiar flavor—almost the same words used to hustle Faora. However, for a native Earthling, there was no need to visit the Source Wall. If she brought a hundred people to spectate every day, Yuga Khan might jump off the wall in a frenzy just to hack her to death.
What Thea valued wasn't Mercy's strength, but the emotional energy she embodied.
Mercy Graves. Just like her name: Mercy (Compassion).
She possessed a power she wasn't even aware of. That was a problem of perspective. No matter how brilliant Luthor was, it was useless here; he didn't realize what kind of power his assistant possessed.
Just like the Fear of the Yellow Lanterns and the Willpower of the Green Lanterns, Compassion was the emotion required by the Indigo Tribe. They were originally a Lantern tribe secretly established by Abin Sur. Their star sector wasn't known to outsiders until they revealed their true faces in the Blackest Night.
However, Abin Sur's ring recorded the coordinates of this sector. Later, he passed the ring to Hal Jordan. Coincidentally, Thea had also worn that ring. Hal Jordan couldn't tell what this solitary coordinate represented, but Thea knew: it must be the headquarters of the Indigo Tribe.
Mercy was far from truly submitting. Only by experiencing abandonment once more could she shift the object of her compassion. Only then could she truly be used by Thea.
With Deathstroke, Poison Ivy, and the others, Thea was investing in the present. With Mercy, she was investing in the future.
Snap.
Thea snapped her fingers with her left hand. Mercy couldn't withstand the impact on her consciousness and fainted.
Curing her disability wasn't hard. As Luthor predicted, Thea indeed possessed a large number of advanced medical pods.
Using her X-ray vision to check her entire body and confirm there were no tracking devices, Thea opened a portal and took the unconscious Mercy to Metropolis.
Deathstroke had purchased an island in a lake on the outskirts of Metropolis. King Shark, controlled by magic, was stocked in the lake.
With the support of Thea's massive funds and advanced weapons, Deathstroke's subordinates now numbered over a hundred. Each was tactically skilled and strong-willed; pulling them out to assassinate some warlord or general of a small country would take no effort at all.
"Boss? A rare sight... Who is this behind you?"
The one greeting Thea with a smile was Poison Ivy. The ways Thea's subordinates addressed her were chaotic: some said "Chief," some "Boss," and Faora insisted on calling her "General." Thea didn't care; anything was fine.
Thea wrapped Mercy in psychic power. Her wheelchair had too much metal, so Thea dumped it back in Star City.
"This woman. Use the Mark III Medical Pod. After treatment, drug her and send her back to the LexCorp Group." Thea finished speaking and opened a portal directly back to Star City; she hadn't finished her experiments for the day.
"My, my, quite a pretty girl... Tsk tsk..."
Poison Ivy was a biochemistry university student, after all, with a higher education level than Deathstroke's mercenaries. She was in charge of the few unlisted medical pods. Although the current Poison Ivy hadn't done anything earth-shattering, she had made a small name for herself in the mercenary industry.
She executed Thea's orders thoroughly. Controlling plants, she dragged Mercy into a specialized room.
The transformation of her body and personality by plant toxins was happening imperceptibly. She didn't even realize that she was a different person from before. Looking left and right to ensure no one was paying attention, she stripped all of Mercy's clothes off. Even if someone asked, her excuse would be "checking the injuries."
As for whether that was true or not, God only knew...