Second Chances: Superman and Lois

Chapter 30

While Lillian and Otis had managed to escape the slaughter of Cadmus by Mercy and Tal-Rho, they'd still managed to take out plenty of other Cadmus agents and now they were standing in front of the only members of the organization that hadn't been killed or escaped during the attack. About 20 men and women were on their knees in front of Tal while Mercy circled them.

"You people are the only ones who weren't smart enough to run when the attack began, but were fortunate enough to survive it. Now you have a choice to make. You can either join your friends in death or you can follow my lead and join Tal-Rho. Trust me, it's so much better." Mercy said, since these were still some of Cadmus's brightest minds who she'd asked Tal to spare on purpose due to their use, along with some of Cadmus's remaining muscle.

"Can you give me powers like you clearly did Mercy?" one of the thugs asked and Tal nodded.

"And so much more, including immunity from my plans." Tal said.

All of the now former Cadmus personnel looked at each other and nodded.

"We're in. How can we help you?" one of the scientists asked.

"For starters, I want access to all of Cadmus's projects to learn if any of them could be of use to my plans." Tal said.

"There's a legal way to go about that. I'll start putting plans in place for your company to acquire Cadmus's public front, Cadmus labs." Mercy said.

"Excellent. I also want access to Lillian Luthor's private files and all prisoners Cadmus is holding." Tal said.

"There aren't any prisoners at this facility. Lex and Lillian believed in keeping their assets separated to avoid losing everything in one shot like this. They're scattered all over the country, maybe even the planet. We'd need access to either Lillian or Lex's private servers to find all the locations and I'm not sure which will be harder to do." Mercy said, knowing all too well how the Luthors operate.

"Well, I wasn't expecting it to be easy. In the meantime, I'll take our new recruits to get assimilated into our organization while you begin working on acquiring Cadmus Labs for me." Tal said, since while his human name was known around the world, he had a reputation for being recluse, since he didn't get out in the public eye, to avoid any Kryptonian refugees recognizing him, his chief concern being Kara Zor-El at this time.

"What about Lillian and my now ex brother? What if they leak your identity to the world?" Mercy asked.

"My suit has an optic scrambler in it that conceals my face on any video feed. They can't catch me on video and I doubt anyone will believe a Luthor besides Lena Luthor." Tal said.

"But should we look for them?" Mercy asked.

"No, right now they're weakened, wounded animals. My agents will keep tabs on them, but we should have some time before they become a threat. We do need to complete our plans before Lex returns to Earth, since I do have concerns about what he'll find in space, though I do have a slight hope that he'll find a world that loves him so much he'll stay there. But it is essential that we find his secret storage facilities." Tal said.

"We'd need Luthor DNA to access them and with Lex offworld and Lena too heavily guarded by Supergirl, that kind of limits our options." Mercy said.

"Does the DNA need to be from a living Luthor?" Tal asked.

"Not sure. Lex never clued me into those details. But I guess desecration is worth a shot." Mercy agreed.

"Good. Get to work on it. And find me those vaults. My plans cannot move forward until their contents are mine." Tal said.

"I'll see what I can find." Mercy promised.

"You've served me well Mercy. Do not start disappointing me now, or it will not be pleasant for you. Remember, what I gave you, I can take away." Tal said as he flew away.

"Of course sir. I don't plan to start failing you now." Mercy said, glad that she could finally drop the hopeless lover act she'd been putting on for the past year and could be her real self again. It would be much easier to find Lex's vaults that way as she got to work.