All things considered, psionic ability had been the right choice for her mother.
Kerrigan had both the theoretical grounding and practical experience. The Zerg Overmind had passed its knowledge down through successive generations—so each generation could surpass the last—and its methods for unlocking the cognitive potential of sentient minds were genuinely effective. Thea had studied the material, adapted it to human physiology, explained its purpose, and unlocked psionic ability in Moira.
Mirroring, projection, displacement—abilities not meant for combat, just enough to survive a crisis. That was sufficient.
She'd compiled a dedicated manual for it. She and Lois weren't close enough for that level of tailoring, so what she'd handed over was a copy.
At the door, curiosity got the better of her.
"Forgive me for being direct, but activating this ability—even with genuine natural aptitude—is extraordinarily difficult. You really shouldn't have been able to..."
Superman's attention had also shifted to his wife. He hadn't quite followed the situation until Thea walked him through it. Then the full weight of it settled on him: Lois had pushed herself to this extreme out of love for him. Kryptonian records documented cases of abilities awakening under acute emotional distress—but the incidence rate was as rare as a giant panda.
"Lois..." Clark's voice carried everything.
Thea stepped quickly between them. "Romantic declarations after I leave. Can you manage that?"
"Does a car accident count?"
"There was a firefight I walked into while covering a story once."
"And a landslide. I was the only survivor..."
Lois rattled on. Car accidents, bank robbers, a café bombing, an escaped convict taking hostages—she'd personally experienced every variety of near-death scenario metropolitan journalism could produce. Thea couldn't even begin to isolate which incident had been the decisive trigger.
The best one: she'd been struck by lightning.
Third grade. A bolt hit her directly. Her mother had described it afterward: Lois lit up like a candle. Thea's strong suspicion was that this had been the primal activation event.
It's a genuine miracle you've survived this long.
Next time Barry brought up how the lightning had chosen him, Thea could point to Lois as a counterexample. Look—there's another person who got hit by lightning. You're not special, Barry.
Walking back, she turned the thought over. Was Lois's protagonist-grade resilience really that absolute? She'd just finished writing the manual, and Lois had activated right in front of her. Couldn't have timed it more precisely.
Clark and Lois headed home to Metropolis together. Clark was exhausted—body and soul both.
"Are human beings really this greedy? Can it never be enough?" he asked his wife.
"Even gods couldn't manage it—I certainly can't. Rao, Thea—their wisdom exceeds mine by miles. But I believe my Clark is the one who'll bring real hope to everyone. He's the son of Krypton, raised on Earth. My husband. He'll find a way to solve this. He always does."
Lois had grown fully into the deputy editor role, and her gift for inspirational speeches had reached new heights. One full, generously ladled bowl of encouragement—Clark absorbed it until he'd temporarily forgotten what his last name was.
Clark slept through the night and woke the next morning with his usual good intentions fully restored—only for a new problem to find him.
Several helicopters boxed him in mid-air and demanded he accompany them to "assist with an inquiry."
Thea received the news while she was shooting the breeze with a group of bankers. Batman materialized in the doorway and pulled her aside with uncharacteristic urgency.
Today, he'd come to the White House in his Bruce Wayne cover—polished, immaculate, every inch the refined gentleman concealing something considerably more dangerous underneath.
"You came to the White House to find me?"
"Superman's been arrested. Again."
Thea stared at him. "I just pulled him out yesterday. Who doesn't have enough respect for a Death Goddess to be afraid of the coal mines in the afterlife?"
Batman handed her an address.
"The Special Committee on European Territorial Disputes and Reform?" She read it over, then pulled out her laptop to run a search. "A temporary body like this thinks it can subpoena Superman?"
"Their stated pretext is a summons—they want Superman to explain the Fortress of Solitude."
Thea pressed her fingers to her forehead.
The art of targeting the cooperative while leaving the genuinely dangerous untouched had been honed on this planet to a razor's edge. They could go after Luthor. They could go after the Joker. They could check with Arkham whether its residents were in compliance with international law. But no—go after Superman, the one genuinely decent person in the room, harass him without end. One after another they kept cycling through, life without reprieve.
That his convictions hadn't broken after this many rounds was a testament to the sheer stubbornness of Kryptonian character.
"Who's pulling the strings?"
"Checkmate." An organization she knew by name but not by recent report—spoken from Bruce's mouth without drama.
Thea exhaled slowly.
Checkmate. The intelligence cartel assembled from operatives across various nations—growing into something substantial. Shared intelligence, shared influence networks, decades of trained government agents pooled together. People who had spent careers being moved like pieces now wanted to be the ones moving others.
Results without process—that was the intelligence operator's creed. In relative terms, Amanda Waller would have ranked as a moral exemplar in that crowd. The rest? Each with fewer scruples than the last.
Maxwell Lord was among the standouts in that cohort. Someone had spotted him among the White Lantern resurrections, but the League still hadn't obtained solid evidence.
Thea didn't delay. A round of negotiations—she leveraged her standing, and Clark was released again.
His expression when he came out was thunderous. He'd faced Zod without looking like that.
Worried he might take the White House apart, Thea consulted Bruce, and the three of them withdrew to the Batcave to talk.
"This is completely unacceptable. Absolutely unacceptable." Superman orbited the cave in a slow, furious loop. Bruce watched with no expression. Thea accepted two pieces of cake from Alfred.
"I told them the Fortress is my home. Do you know what they said? They said it was a suspected site of weapons of mass destruction. They want to send an international inspection team. Any capability deemed a potential threat to their interests must be surrendered for their management and relocation." He stopped. "On whose authority?!"
Superman looked like a wounded lion and sounded like one. Checkmate had found the one line that couldn't be crossed. The Fortress wasn't a weapon. It was the place where he kept his memories of his parents—his only real home. And now these people wanted their hands on it.
Even Thea was angry listening to it.
She suspected that was precisely the point. Enrage Superman. Provoke an incident. Then exploit the fallout—seize power in the chaos, or arrange for the current administration to hold the bag.
"Clark. Don't let the anger make your decisions." Bruce attempted the reasonable approach.
"I am calm. I'm going back to protect my home. If they dare come—" He didn't finish the sentence. He walked out of the cave and flew north.
The silence that followed ran long.
"Bruce." Thea broke it. "Let Superman rest. I'm going to take a few days off myself. Don't call me for routine matters."
She walked out of the cave.
Earth mattered—but her own development mattered more. She'd been sitting at this half-step for too long. It was time to push through.