As for Doctor Mist, who relied on his body covered with magic arrays to reflect spells, Thea found it fundamentally flawed. Everything has limits. In his case, Doctor Mist's body itself was that limit. Once the incoming energy exceeded the combined capacity of his body and mind, those arrays would collapse—taking his life with them in the process.
In order not to appear overly selective, the Alien Supervision and Management Committee also recruited several idle individuals who had been scared half to death by the turmoil in the magical world.
Regardless of background or intent, all of them were assigned to John Diggle's unit for "re-education."
Time passed slowly. The Star City quartet was locked in a fierce battle with the gangs led by Brick. Batman was busy training the third generation of Robins. As another epicenter of chaos, Metropolis was naturally no exception.
Rubbing her temples, Thea arrived at a court hearing. Dozens of black-clad bodyguards surrounded her tightly, while a massive ring of reporters pressed in from the outside, raising microphones and cameras of every kind.
It had been a month since the headquarters of the Queen–Merlyn Group was completed. Thanks to Thea's immense personal prestige, the company's operations had progressed extremely smoothly.
However, exactly one month later, discordant voices finally emerged.
In truth, this was entirely undeserved trouble. As the hero who saved Metropolis, she had a three-meter-tall bronze statue in the city's central square, commemorating her rescue of tens of millions of citizens. In the original timeline, Superman's statue had been directly "flapped away" by her metaphorical wings.
At first, the statue delighted the young lady immensely. Taking advantage of a moment when no one was watching, she secretly carved a small magic array at its base—a mark of the Moon Goddess. As the deity's sole contemporary chosen, Thea could continuously draw faith through this array and convert it into magical power.
In a city of over ten million people, even diffuse belief added up to a terrifying amount.
Thea enjoyed herself for several carefree days—then misfortune arrived on its own.
Three individuals—no one knew whether they had been injured during the Zod incident or the later dome event—appeared beneath her statue at the same time and took their own lives by gunshot.
The reasons they left behind were absurd beyond belief. In their notes, they claimed that Thea, as the hero of Metropolis, had ignored their suffering and hardship instead of helping them.
If that were all, even the most ignorant onlooker would find it ridiculous. She was neither their parent nor guardian—why should anyone be obligated to save them?
But the three men also exposed the existence of the Alien Supervision and Management Committee during their deaths, listing various figures that portrayed Thea, as chairwoman, as excessively favoring aliens.
To the wider audience, this created the impression that Earthlings were treated harshly, while aliens received generous benefits.
Outside of Metropolis—where people were accustomed to Superman—most of the world still did not believe aliens existed at all. Yet under deliberate instigation, these people joined the chorus of doubt.
Rumors of this caliber did not even qualify as slander. For politicians, receiving no hate mail at all usually meant they were about to be voted out of office.
Still, this particular wave of gossip was deeply disgusting. The statue that collected faith had been tainted by wrongful deaths, and crowds monitored it around the clock. Thea didn't even have an opportunity to purify it.
A toad jumping onto your foot—it won't bite, but it's revolting.
That summed up Thea's mood perfectly.
"Dr. Queen, do you have anything to say regarding the alien issue?"
"Dr. Queen, our readers want to know whether it's true that this Committee spends thirty-five billion dollars of global taxpayer money every year to resettle aliens."
Taking advantage of his large build, Clark Kent, disguised as a human reporter, squeezed in with photographer Jimmy Olsen.
Seeing him raise his microphone as if he wanted to ask something, Thea shot him a fierce glare. What are you pretending for? You came to watch the show? Ask a single question and I might actually lose my patience.
In the original timeline, it had been a man with broken legs climbing onto Superman's statue to spray graffiti. Now, with her, it had escalated directly to suicide—and three people at that.
There was no doubt the situation had been deliberately intensified. The prime suspect targeting her was still Lex Luthor. She had no idea what he was thinking. Wasn't he supposed to be locked in a love–hate struggle with Superman? Picking a fight with her made no sense at all.
Unaware that Thea had taken the blame for him, Superman himself found the situation absurd. Through Kara, Batman, and others, the two had become fairly familiar. Pretending not to know each other in public—and conducting an interview on top of that—felt strange. Clark paused briefly, smiling bitterly as she walked past him.
The hearing itself was purely procedural. Everyone went through the motions amid much noise and bustle. Thea remained silent throughout. There was no need for her to explain anything—Queen Group employed a legal team of over a hundred lawyers, half of whom were present today. Anyone unaware of the situation might have thought this was a lawyers' association meeting.
Verbal sparring and semantic nitpicking—just time-wasting. The lawyers rotated in sequence, dissecting every word. Whenever aliens were mentioned, the answer was simply: no knowledge.
After wasting an entire afternoon on this farce, Thea returned home and ordered all her overt and covert assets to investigate. Domestic financial conglomerates, multinational corporations—even Wayne Enterprises were not spared. She had to know who was behind this.
When all intelligence was compiled, Thea was mildly startled.
"The Cadmus Project?"
The information was delivered by Poison Ivy. Her powers of seduction were unrivaled—no amount of training could counter them. She and Deathstroke had captured and interrogated eleven scientists associated with Luthor's group before finally extracting this name.
"Yes, boss. But that scientist only knew the name—nothing specific," Ivy reported.
"Good work. Suspend further action for now."
After Ivy left, Thea compared the information with her own memories. She knew a little about the Cadmus Project. It was a massive research initiative secretly established by Luthor using his immense wealth.
Cadmus was a hero of ancient Greece, and according to legend, the one who brought the Phoenician alphabet into Greece. Luthor's choice of this name was self-explanatory.
He wanted to be that hero—to bring alien technology or knowledge to Earth?
But technology was not so easily obtained. Who had given him the confidence to launch such a project, one that burned through hundreds of billions?
As someone pursuing the same path, Thea had the greatest authority to judge. Her own advantages bordered on absurd—government funding, massive appropriation of Red Room research results—yet even so, only a handful of projects had seen breakthroughs: exoskeletons, laser weapons, and a few others.
Luthor's ambition, however, was far greater. He sought to lead humanity through self-evolution—to reach, or even surpass, Kryptonian standards. From a human perspective, he was undeniably a hero.
So who was helping him?
A figure suddenly came to Thea's mind—the escaped Kryptonian deputy from Fort Rozz: Non.
That man had vanished without a trace, as if erased from the world.
Could he have joined forces with Luthor?