LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 31.2
With the Fortress help, putting on her armor was fairly easy; the equipment was also fully repaired, with only a slightly different shade indicating places where the metal had to be replaced.
Fully armored, Kara walked into the med bay where Talia and Clayface were being kept. Walking to the middle of the room, Kara ordered the Fortress to grow her a chair, then sat down a few meters away from the pods.
Pulling out her portable computer, she activated her holographic projector and the room around her changed, the floor and walls became steel gray and the crystals around turned into mechanical devices modeled after the look of her own armor.
Kara had actually taken inspiration from Prof. Morrow’s own laboratory for her illusion. With a button, she opened Talia’s pod, deactivating its stasis and allowing the woman to fully wake up.
Only a minute later, Kara noticed Talia’s breathing changing. Still, the villainess didn’t move. “You may drop the act Talia al Ghul, I know you’re awake.”
The woman lifted her head from the pod and looked around herself, fully awake and glancing all around the room. Seeing the small door to her right and the window to her left, Talia’s eyes finally focused back to Kara’s armored form.
“Nice place you have here.” The woman spoke with a seductive tone in her voice, with deliberate slowness; she lifted her legs out of the pod and stepped down on the floor before stretching her arms up.
“You seem surprisingly comfortable for a prisoner.” Kara commented with some amusement.
"I'm feeling surprisingly comfortable for a prisoner." Talia agreed. Testing her limbs, she grimaced as she saw the still missing hand, but recovered quickly. "I expected far more chains and bruises, maybe a little torture and interrogation. Instead, I'm actually feeling better than before."
With the Fortress tech, Kara could have easily cloned the hand and reattached it, but she didn't know if she wanted to waste that kind of effort on a villain. No, Talia could live with only one hand for a while.
“I find torture to be highly distasteful, and wasteful.” Getting up from her chair, Kara made sure the woman noticed how much taller her armor made her. “I have far better ways of obtaining information.”
Despite being utterly outclassed, Talia looked perfectly comfortable with the only sign of Kara’s intimidation working being her slightly accelerated heartbeat.
Talia took that in, tracing a hand through her hair to buy herself some time to think. Eventually, she caught sight of Clayface on the pod at her side. “I see you’ve also kept my… former subordinate.”
“Indeed, he’s a very interesting case; I have some associates that are gonna love studying him.” Kara told her and walked closer, her hands behind her back and her posture straight in a good imitation of how she had seen Darkseid act in the animations. “As for you, well, your connections are far more interesting than your body.”
“I see.” Talia studied Kara’s armor, trying to read her intentions, but being covered entirely in metal and having a voice filter did wonders for hiding it. “Well, despite the damage you caused, I’m sure my father would be willing to agree to a working relationship.”
“I’m afraid you’re mistaken. Your father doesn’t have any capabilities that interest me.” Kara answered in an amused tone.
“If you think you’ve seen the limit of our influence or ability, you truly underestimate the League of Shadows.” Talia answered, maintaining her composure.
With a command, Kara changed the voice filter on her armor, next time she spoke; it was with Ra’s al Ghul’s own voice, taken from a recording on the Justice League’s database.
Kara said a single word with Ra’s voice, smiling when she saw Talia’s eyes widen for a second, before her entire body relaxed and she kept staring forwards, unable to even move.
“You knew every agent of your League of Shadows is programmed with a hypnotic failsafe. Did you think yourself the exception?” Kara stepped away from Talia’s immobile form. “My employee was capable of finding out your particular keyword while going through your mind so, no; I don’t think I’m underestimating your pathetic little League.”
“You see, I only woke you up because I wished to meet you, Ra’s al Ghul’s daughter, and Batman’s former lover.” Kara lifted Talia into a princess carry and laid her back in the pod. “Unfortunately, it seems like you’re disappointingly mundane, what a waste of time.”
Closing the lid over the pod, Kara stared at Talia as the woman started to recover her movements. “At least I was able to reach an agreement with Batman because of you…” With the click of a button, Kara reactivated the stasis pod, causing the woman to fall unconscious again.
Stepping away from the pod, Kara deactivated the holographic display, causing the room to return to normal and revealing Dubbilex waiting at the door.
The Genomorph was sitting on a crystal wheelchair, easily moved with a touchpad or the use of his powers, his chest was still wrapped in bandages, but he was otherwise looking very good.
“Greetings, Miss Zor-El.” Dubbilex’s chair drifted inside the room, moved with minimal effort from his telekinesis. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
“No, I was already done. No sense in letting Talia out for longer than necessary, it would only give her more chances to figure me out.” Kara sat back down on her chair and considered her next step. She’d be handing Talia off to Batman tomorrow.
“Was that entirely wise? Revealing so many of your capabilities to them?”
“I’m hoping that discovering she too was under hypnotic suggestion will cause her to start rethinking some of her life choices.” Kara told him, taking off her helmet and laying it on top of the desk. “Besides, I didn’t reveal anything they didn’t already know we had. They already know I exist, they already know I’m working against them and they already know I have a team with me which includes the Genomorphs.”
“Still, it was not necessary to reveal that capability. Most of the G-gnomes never revealed the capability to invade a mind so deeply.” Dubbilex pushed his chair towards Talia and Clayface. “More than that, the hypnotic suggestions I found on the surface layer of their mind was already intrusive enough. You know I’m not willing to go deeper without consent.”
“Well, it explains a lot of our knowledge and, if they think they know how we acquired it, they aren’t going to go looking for other reasons.” Pushing herself away from the desk, Kara scratched at her prosthetic eye once again. “Besides, it’s exactly because you’re not willing to go that far that I revealed it. Let them waste their time coming up with countermeasures to a villainous telepath; we were never going to go that far anyway. Also, do you know how terrifying it is to think there’s a telepath working against you and willing to cross some lines?”
“The Light is already freaking out about people working against them. Thinking that there’s someone like Psimon out there working against them will only cause them to make more mistakes. Let them become paranoid.” Smiling a bright smile, Kara walked out of the room and towards a more comfortable location. “Rao, if they don’t think the G-Gnomes are capable of it, they may even think it was Psimon himself who betrayed them! Felix Faust did it, why couldn’t that creepy fucker do it too?”
“Will you be handing off the second prisoner as well?” Dubbilex asked, following behind her.
“No, he’s going to prison.” Kara told him. “Since you found his actual name, the Fortress was able to find three murder charges filed against him in England. I was still thinking about having some of CADMUS scientists try to reverse his condition but, frankly, they have more important things to do than helping him, maybe if he’s found innocent.”
“Miss Zor-El, you do know you’re supposed to be taking a break?” Dubbilex gave her an unamused stare. “You’re certainly forcing me to take one, keeping me here on the Fortress.”
“I will, I just had to deal with Talia and Matthew today.” Kara waved his concern away. “Besides, now that I’m done with that, I think I’m gonna spend the afternoon choosing what part of Luthor’s data I’m gonna release to the public. It should be incredibly relaxing… and amusing. Is he even out of police custody yet?”
“Yes Mistress Kara, Lex Luthor was released yesterday evening while you were accompanying Master Kal.” The AI said while bringing her lunch using one of the androids. “And speaking of Luthors, Miss Lena Luthor finally answered your call; she has agreed to meet you in two weeks.”
“Huh, those Luthor leaks just became even more interesting.” Kara said, a glint in her eyes that caused Dubbilex to give her a wary look. “I thought it was gonna be a long shot but, with those leaks, what do you want to bet I can poach Lena away from LexCorp?”
Kara did spend the evening going through the Luthor data and, by the end of the day, she was only halfway done with it. The vast majority of the data had been easily decoded and separated into neat little folders, but the information on the second raid had been so encrypted even the Fortress was having trouble decoding it.
Kara was hoping for information about The Light or maybe even some recording of their meetings, but she knew Luthor probably kept something like that in independent storage devices and away from any servers.
There was still a chance the Fog had consumed some of those devices and the information was amongst the encrypted data, but that would really depend on how lucky she was.
Still, just the amount of white collar crimes she had already obtained evidence for was impressive, and would give Luthor decades of legal troubles. Plus, there were all the political scandals, those may be even better.
Pushing herself away from the desk, Kara looked at the time and decided to call it a day. The Fortress would start leaking some of the juiciest scandals tomorrow, and Kara planned to enjoy it from her apartment’s sofa, preferably with Dexter on her lap and Kori keeping her company.
Still, the irritating itch on her eye made her remember to have a health check before going home. If she was getting an infection or needed to replace her prosthetic, it was better to know it sooner than later.
Stepping out of the healing pod, Kara put her clothes back on and asked. “Alright, what’s the problem with my eye now?”
“I apologize, Mistress Kara. It seems that some of the Fortress’s information was faulty.” Jor-El’s hologram materialized at her side, his head bowed.
Kara’s breath caught and she stared at the hologram for a few seconds. “What is it?”
“Krypton never experimented extensively with the use of Nth metal, much less under the effects of a yellow sun.” The AI explained, lifting his head and returning to his usual position. “Am I to understand that you have carried at least some of the material with you for nearly a month now?”
“Yes…”
“Well, it seems like my previous diagnosis was wrong. While your leg shows no signs of change, your damaged cells are recovering much faster than predicted, and your missing eye has started to regenerate.”