Chapter 29: Chapter 14.2 – interlude 2

In a nearly empty room Lex Luthor stood in front of the images of his fellow conspirator, their true faces were hidden, but he knew them well, he wouldn't get involved with them without first knowing who he was dealing with.

 

Vandal Savage, a man he could respect, to a certain extent, the nominal leader of their little cabal, the immortal thought he was in complete control and Lex allowed him to continue such misunderstanding.

 

Klarion, some kind of manifestation of chaos, a childish and distasteful ally, but also a magical powerhouse nearly without equal and necessary if they wanted to remain beyond discovery.

 

Ocean-Master, an arrogant man the rest of them barely tolerated, his contest of Aquaman's control over the oceans all that guaranteed his place amongst them, his lack of intellect only surpassed by the next member.

 

Queen Bee, in truth Lex could barely tolerated the woman's stupidity, but her complete control over her country was useful and any other puppet they put in her place would probably suffer from the same failings.

 

No, he could accept the woman's ego when he knew she was the one taking the greatest risks, and the one they'd all throw to the wolves in case anything went wrong.

 

Ra’s al Ghul, the ancient assassin, another man Lex could almost consider a peer, a pity their goals didn't really align.

 

Lex stood for progress while the old immortal kept to the past, as if it was somehow better.

 

Finally, The Brain, an impressive scientists, if a little too happy to take shortcuts on his studies, Lex would happily employ the man if given the chance.

 

He was also the only one Lex wouldn't eventually have to deal with.

 

Truth be told Lex highly disliked their little group, Savage was an arrogant and condensing leader who thought he could fool him with some fake rhetoric with no substance.

 

Ra’s, clinging far too much to the past for his liking, they both believed in humanity but Ra’s thinking was far too primitive, too focused on nature and too little on what humanity could achieve.

 

The others weren’t even worth mentioning, to stupid or too chaotic for his comfort.

 

Eventually, he knew he'd have to get rid of them all but, until then, he could use the group to finally eliminate the damn alien.

 

Superman really was terribly annoying.

 

For a second, Lex considered just eliminating his companions now, if some of their true goals were successful they could grow into a real treat, he knew he could do it, even Klarion wasn't beyond his reach.

 

But no, that would be such waste, when they could still be of use. And he did dislike the alien slightly more than he disliked pretending to respect Queen Bee.

 

"So, the League discovered the clone, did they find out anything else?" Vandal asked.

 

"No, the safeties against them worked well enough until I could get the authorities involved." Lex told him dismissively, the legality of the League’s actions was a tool he was an expert at using.

 

"Good, did Wotan escape after the fight?" Was the immortal next question, the sorcerer's escape wasn’t necessary, but it would be good to be able to use him again.

 

"The old mummy is cunning, he managed to slip out in the confusion." Klarion answered while petting his damn cat. "Plus, I lent him a hand."

 

"The planned assassinations were all successful without the League to interference." Ra’s revealed and all of them turned to their last goal for this particular action.

 

"Did the deal with our partner go well?"

 

"Their technology is still being calibrated, but Simon informs me we should have steady trade in a few months." Queen Bee said with a wave of her hand, her imperious voice almost making Lex wince.

 

Another thing Lex didn't like, deals with technologically superior estates never went well for the natives, and he had no doubt he was being handed the equivalent to shiny trinkets from their "partner", but he did need the information such trade allowed him to gather.

 

"Gentleman, out plans are going well and I have managed to contain any information leaks from Cadmus" Lex told them, "I'll send our employees the latest data on blockbuster's effect from Desmond desperate act but, if you'll excuse me, I have work to do."

 

They nodded to him and he stepped away from the monitors, the smile leaving his face.

 

All monitors turned off, not even a minute later Mercy walked into the room with the information about the assault on Fawcett city.

 

The others didn't really care about the city, or the villains responsible, but Lex had been alarmed to find the League had made two arrests and allowed another three to escape.

 

That was five supervillains working together, would their little Injustice League trick still work when someone else had done it first? Would the Bat be able to come up with countermeasures until then?

 

Sitting down, he started reading the report about the location of the final fight, reports of two new flying heroes, one of them capable of using sonic attacks, putting out flames and getting thrown through buildings… how interesting.

 

Relaxing against his chair, Lex tapped his finger against two particular pictures, one of a dead Evil Eye, it's body exploded from a sudden discharge of heat, the second was of a single, thin, scorched line in  piece of rubble, a very familiar scorched line.

 

"Hmm… is there another one of those damn creatures on the planet?"

 

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Far away from there, in a completely different plane, a blonde man sat on a throne of skulls, he wore tight, white clothes and a green cape that billowed out from behind him in a dramatic fashion to fall over his shoulders and down towards his legs.

 

He looked exactly like a typical supervillain, with sharp eyebrows and eyes that shone with green flame.

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Green flames also sprouted to life around him as he scratched at his chin in thought, he did not like the way things were going.

 

Originally, he was supposed to have plenty of time, his target would remain unprepared, his potential untapped, but something has changed.

 

His target was learning much faster than he expected, growing in unexpected ways.

 

The man was still confident he could succeed, and time would make his eventual success better, but there was always a risk his prize would no longer be worth it if he took too long.

 

Innocence was such fragile thing after all, so easily lost.

 

With deliberate consideration, the man willed into existence five candles, five unlit candles.

 

Looking up the man started searching for just the right people to ignite them up.

 

Behind him Satannus and Blaze traded glances, a barely contained eagerness on their faces.

 

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In a hidden base on the surface of Venus, doctor Thaddeus Sivana watched over his old companion, the worm was grievously wounded, part of its body was missing from where its voice box had exploded, and there were burns all over its skin.

 

The single ally Mr. Mind had been able to escape with had also died. Once disabled, the spirits that powered Ibac had fled his body leaving only Stanley behind, and his body was only human.

 

The heat had burned his flesh and Sivana hadn't cared enough to save him, paying far more attention to Mr. Mind himself.

 

"I should have killed the boy." Mr. Mind confessed from his regenerating pod. "I wanted to find a way to drain the other aspects of his power, but I should have just killed him."

 

"My old friend, I confess that, now that I know Captain Marvel is just a kid, I am no longer as interested in him as I used to be." Sivana told the worm while playing with the storage of magical power they had recovered. "Not that I have anything against hurting children mind you but, I just don't find him a worthy challenge anymore."

 

"Thaddeus, I'll have my revenge, I'll destroy both him and that cursed Kryptonian" the worm coughed into the minuscule microphone amplifying its voice. "After I destroy everything they have ever loved!"

 

"I suppose I still need something to test my inventions against" Sivana said and finally managed to settle the box containing part of the stolen power of Zeus inside one of his machines. "And I have never studied a Kryptonian before, would their flesh still be as resistant even when separated from the rest of the body?"

 

Unable to help himself, Mr. Mind's telekinesis rattled the little pod he was in with his anger. “Another one who will feel my wrath.”

 

"Still, we will need to gather the rest of the Society if we want to enter the game my friend" Sivana said as he put on his goggles and started studying the magic. "Vandal is very protective of his little planet, failure that he is, he does posses impressive allies."

 

Bent over the information on his computer Sivana couldn't help but appreciate all the data on the device, despite his failure Mr. Mind hadn't left the place empty handed.

 

Magic really was an interesting source of power, so versatile and yet so potent. He’d have to better study its effects and rules.

 

“Very well old friend, perhaps I have been away from Earth for too long.” He told the worm and approached the healing chamber and smiled down at the worm. “I have already sent out a call for our allies, Both the Justice League and the Light are just so filled with interesting specimen, I can’t wait to get my hands on them heh, heh, heh.”

 

Stepping away from the recovering work Sivana turned towards the square box suspended inside another of his experiments, there were thousands of cables connecting to the device and part of its edges had been greatly damaged but it still worked.

 

Pulling out a controller he started pressing buttons causing the captured father box to release a loud whine before, with a loud explosion, a boom tube formed in front of him.

 

  

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Far away from Earth, in a small corner of the Vega system, one of the myriad of Psion searching vessels finally retrieved the small beacon lodged into the side of an asteroid.

 

Quickly, the man-sized cylindrical device was grabbed by the vessel and brought aboard the larger Psion ship waiting close to the remains of their research station.

 

Quickly, a team of them started working on retrieving the information inside.

 

Months ago this particular ship had received the distress signal from the research vessel, but it had been too far away and arrived far too late to render any aid.

 

It had scoured that particular part of space to gather all the destroyed pieces of the station, but the loss of data had been complete, someone had made sure all their computers were destroyed beyond any ability they had to repair it.

 

Still, the Psions hadn’t completely given up, it was normal procedure to release several dormant devices containing copies of important information in case a Psion vessel was in danger of being destroyed or taken over.

 

If there was one thing Psion’s hated was the destruction of information.

 

With how big the research station had been, there was no way any such device could store all information inside, but it could have valuable data and contain clues about what happened to the vessel.

 

Finding such devices in the emptiness of space was almost impossible until they started broadcasting their signals, years later, but this particular one had gotten stuck on a nearby asteroid, such things weren’t uncommon since the station had probably released thousand such data caches in every direction.

 

With a beep, the beacon received the correct password and started dumping its information all over their computers. it was just what they were searching for.