Seeing her regretful expression, Thea tapped on the desk. "Hey, don't poach my people right in front of me. Mercy truly wants a normal life. She won't follow your path."
That wasn't an exaggeration. After spending so much time together, Thea had long since figured out that the secretary was easily satisfied. She just wanted a stable, peaceful life.
She wasn't like Thea, who'd spent her early training days dreaming of punching Darkseid and kicking Highfather. Mercy learned martial arts purely for self-protection, because Luthor was such a magnet for trouble! Without solid combat skills, how could she survive?
"Ahh..." Lady Shiva seemed to recall her own troubles and let out a long sigh.
Seeing they had things to discuss, the secretary calmly changed out of her torn skirt and left with graceful steps.
Watching such an exceptional martial arts prodigy surrounded by mundane paperwork left Lady Shiva, a traditional martial artist through and through, thoroughly depressed.
"So what brings you here?" With the secretary gone, Thea's expression turned serious.
Lady Shiva scratched at her face, seemingly reluctant to speak.
After a long pause, she finally said with some embarrassment, "I have a daughter. Did you know?"
Thea actually did know. She even had files on Shiva's husband, David Cain, one of the world's foremost assassins. She immediately understood why Shiva had come.
She sighed. "Cassandra Cain, right? I know roughly what's going on..."
"Can you cure her?" Lady Shiva asked with a glimmer of hope.
"I can't promise anything without examining the patient, but I'll do everything I can to help." It was rare for Thea to make such a serious commitment.
Lady Shiva felt her sincerity and nodded gently. What had once been a brief intersection in their life paths years ago had now brought her new hope.
Without another word, she headed out. Thea could only follow.
They wove through the streets and soon arrived at a modest house. Lady Shiva pushed open the door. Inside, a black-haired girl of about twelve or thirteen had already sensed the intrusion one second before the door opened. She gripped a dagger in a reverse grip, concealing herself among the clutter, her eyes watching the entrance with sharp vigilance.
This kid's pretty alert, Thea thought silently as she watched the mother and daughter communicate in sign language.
Before long, Lady Shiva indicated they'd finished talking. The usually unflappable woman, who'd face the end of the world with calm indifference, was now visibly tense. Though she stood with her hands behind her back, Thea could hear her knuckles cracking from the pressure.
When Thea stepped forward to examine the girl, Shiva couldn't help but say, "Please."
Thea looked warmly at the young girl. Even after Lady Shiva's explanation, the child maintained a combat-ready stance, her entire body radiating wariness.
"Come here, sweetheart. Let me take a look." She infused her voice with a touch of charm, trying to lower the girl's guard.
Unexpectedly, despite her young age, the child had surprisingly strong willpower. She resisted the enchantment, her eyes full of confusion.
Still, Thea's formidable charisma did help the girl relax somewhat.
Unable to speak, the black-haired child slowly approached.
Her bright eyes never left Thea's face. She watched as the elegant hand moved closer and closer, several times nearly attacking on instinct, only to be stopped by the gentle look in the other woman's eyes. Finally, when that hand settled on top of her head, both of them exhaled at the same time.
How the hell did they raise this kid?! Thea was speechless. With her astronomical charisma, she could barely keep the girl calm. Would an ordinary doctor even survive trying to examine her? They'd probably get stabbed immediately!
Fortunately, they'd cleared the hardest hurdle. With initial contact established, she began channeling magic to examine the girl's condition.
Divine power would be too much for the child to handle, but magic, with its greater versatility and broader applications, was perfect for the situation.
The examination took a full half hour. When Thea finally withdrew her power, she folded her arms and thought carefully.
The black-haired girl named Cassandra Cain didn't have an acquired injury. She had a congenital language disorder. The defect hadn't been obvious in early childhood, which was why Lady Shiva hadn't sought help in the first few years. But as she entered adolescence and her body grew stronger, the original flaw had been amplified, reaching the point where she couldn't speak at all.
She had vocal cords, a trachea, and cartilage—everything was there. But a tiny deficiency in her brain prevented her from effectively processing the signals her vocal apparatus generated, making normal speech impossible.
There's an old saying that many people who can't speak are also deaf—often because of hearing problems. But this girl had perfect hearing, even sharper than average. According to modern science, her condition was caused by genetic deletion.
Having mastered all of Kryptonian genetic knowledge, Thea had few equals in the field of genetics.
Using modern scientific methods, she could make simple additions to the genetic code, then repair the brain damage. After that, the girl's speech function would return to normal.
"I've got good news for both of you. I can cure this completely." She'd been thinking for a while, but only seconds had actually passed. This was the most agonizing moment for patient and family, and deliberately prolonging it served no purpose.
Hearing those words, both Lady Shiva and the young girl let out relieved sighs.
Just as Thea was about to retrieve her medical pod for treatment, she felt the threads of fate trembling faintly once more.
Does this child have a different path available from my perspective?
Thea attempted to interpret the signals fate was sending, contemplating in silence.
With her current intelligence, she quickly made a connection, though she'd need to consult the parties involved first.
When Lady Shiva saw her suddenly pause, she asked urgently, "Is there another problem?"
"It's like this. You're practically like a sister to me, so I won't hide anything from you."
"Cassandra's current condition is easy to treat. Using contemporary medical technology alone, I can restore her speech function in about a week. But there's actually a better option available to both of you now."
"What is it?" Lady Shiva abandoned her aloof master act, asking with barely concealed anxiety.
"How do you two feel about supernatural abilities? Cassandra could actually turn this misfortune into a blessing and gain a fairly powerful ability."
What Thea had thought of was Cassandra from the War of the Gods—the Trojan prophetess. The two shared the same name, and their circumstances were remarkably similar. One had destroyed vocal cords, the other couldn't speak from birth. Now, through Thea, their fates seemed poised to intersect in a strange twist.
Though that demigod was ruined, the talent rooted in her soul hadn't completely disappeared. If Thea extracted the imprint from her soul, it could perfectly compensate for the young girl's genetic deficiency. She wouldn't achieve the original's level of making words into reality, but at the mortal level, combining voice powers with the girl's combat skills would make her formidable indeed.
The only issue was that Lady Shiva somewhat rejected supernatural abilities. She was a pure martial artist who hoped her successor would be the same. This decision wouldn't be easy for them.
As for whether the demigod Cassandra would be willing—that wasn't a consideration. With Thea's standing with Hera, asking for one ruined prisoner was trivial. That Cassandra should count herself lucky just to walk out of Olympus alive.
Knocking her out and extracting from her soul directly wouldn't trouble Lady Shiva or her daughter—they weren't justice-obsessed heroes. Transplanting someone else's ability carried zero moral weight for them.
The decision rested entirely with the mother and daughter.
Time ticked by, but Lady Shiva still couldn't make up her mind. "What kind of ability? Like the powers you showed on TV fighting that monster in Metropolis?"
Thea quickly shook her head. "Of course not. I can't guarantee it'll work a hundred percent. This is a linguistic power."
Seeing their confused expressions, Thea continued explaining. "A few days ago, I defeated an enemy. Her name was also Cassandra."
She paused there. The black-haired girl, hearing someone shared her name, focused her attention immediately. "She was an ancient mythological princess of Troy with the power of voice—using words to confuse others, control them, even kill enemies. Her ability has been destroyed now, but there should be some residue left in her body. What I'm suggesting is transferring those remnants to your daughter."
"Reaching her original heights would be impossible, but providing some combat assistance would definitely work."
Thea explained the entire situation and potential outcomes. Now it was up to them to decide.
Lady Shiva found herself hesitating. Deep down, she actually rejected superpowers. In her view, her daughter's combat talent and battle instincts were extraordinarily strong. If that focus got diverted to supernatural abilities, her dream of raising the world's strongest warrior would probably evaporate.
But parental instinct made her reluctant to refuse this windfall. She wasn't an idiot—nine times out of ten, this opportunity existed purely because of her past connection with Thea. Simply abandoning the supernatural ability and only restoring normal speech seemed... wasteful.
The black-haired girl was still young and had no grand ambitions of becoming the world's greatest martial artist. She just didn't dare make the decision herself, looking at her mother with hope and anticipation.
Seeing her daughter's expression, even Lady Shiva's steel-hard heart softened. Whatever the ability was, they'd take it first. Worst case, she'd just supervise her daughter not to use it and focus purely on martial training instead. She convinced herself with this logic.
"I agree. What do we need to prepare?"
Thea gave her an approving look.
"I'll be right back." With that, she took one step forward and vanished—arriving at Olympus.
The mother and daughter stared at the sky-blue portal in amazement, then began another flurry of sign language...
Thea navigated the familiar paths to find Hera. When the Queen of the Gods heard she wanted to take Cassandra away, she approved without a second thought.
Cassandra was imprisoned in the dungeons. Killing her wouldn't be appropriate—she was Zeus's daughter, after all. But not killing her felt like a waste of resources. Hera had been troubled about how to handle her.
Now hearing Thea wanted to take the woman away, she immediately agreed, adding that if Thea wanted Hermes too, she'd throw him in as a buy-one-get-one-free deal.
Thea hastily declined. Hermes had been critically injured by Supergirl, and his semi-undead body could slowly recover in the Underworld. But locked up in the Divine Realm? He'd need ten thousand years to heal!
Seeing the Voice Prophetess again, Thea had to acknowledge her misery. She lay alone in the stone cell, and according to the Amazon guards, she was only lucid about one hour per day. The rest of the time she either slept or went mad.
The violent assault on her psyche hadn't just taken her innate talent—it had stolen most of her sanity.
When Thea entered the cell, the former Trojan princess was curled in a corner like a demon, disheveled hair obscuring her face.
"Revenge... revenge..." Though her throat had regrown—she was a demigod, after all—her voice was ugly, like sawing wood, harsh and grating. It formed a stark contrast to the clear, bell-like tones from before.
"Poor creature..." Thea couldn't help but sigh. Even in her current wretched state, she remained fixated on vengeance. She probably didn't know that her eldest son, on whom she'd pinned all her hopes, had already been forcibly brainwashed.
"I'm taking her." Thea showed Hera's decree to the guards, then knocked Cassandra unconscious with a mental blast and teleported back to Earth.
The round trip took only five minutes. Lady Shiva and her daughter were still signing to each other when Thea stepped through the portal again.
Lady Shiva merely found it miraculous, but the black-haired girl was filled with anticipation. From what this beautiful sister said, she could become someone with superpowers too?
Half-grown kids were at the perfect age to fantasize about supernatural abilities. Compared to the countless hardships of martial training, superpowers were far more appealing to someone her age.
If this were Batman or other justice-obsessed heroes, they'd strongly oppose stripping powers from an enemy to graft onto oneself.
Lady Shiva and her daughter had no such qualms. Between the two of them, they'd killed at least a thousand people. They had zero moral hesitation and calmly waited for their windfall.
At that moment, Thea was communing with divine power, preparing to craft the young girl's new gift.
Under normal circumstances, extracting Cassandra's talent would be impossible. Innate abilities were inseparably bound to the original host.
But in her current ruined state, the residual voice power fragments within her had been spontaneously gathering—an unconscious action by the Voice Prophetess. However, without the crucial missing piece, it was all pointless effort.
Without the participation of rule-based power to complete what she lacked, Cassandra would remain like this for the rest of her life.
Thea had initially planned to extract by force, but after examining the internal situation, she changed her mind.
The voice power remnants had already gathered themselves. There was no need to yank them out violently—that would be too crude. After all, this woman was one of Zeus's countless daughters. It was better to be civilized about it...
In the mental realm invisible to the mother and daughter—where Cassandra's consciousness roiled in chaos—Thea forced a transaction.
She promised to restore Cassandra's health. In exchange, Cassandra would offer the voice power remnants as payment.
A pale red point of light was extracted from Cassandra's body. The mote flickered uncertainly, extremely unstable, as if it might explode at any moment.
Next, Thea touched a finger to Cassandra's forehead, using the wish-force from her Scales of Order to help restore the woman's sanity. Three powerful healing spells followed in quick succession. Finally, on impulse, she infused a large dose of compassion into the mix. Hatred and vengeance—time to let those go.
Having completed the transaction, the pale red light gradually quieted. The fragments knew they were leaving their original host. A trace of sorrow slowly emerged from within them.
Thea beckoned the black-haired girl to approach.
Nobody here was an idiot. Seeing the unknown substance in Thea's hand, the girl naturally understood what it meant. Her small face tensed, teeth biting her lower lip as she quickly walked forward.
"Don't be scared. It'll be over fast. Won't hurt a bit..." Thea soothed the child with nonsense. Truth was, she had no idea if it would hurt—this was her first time doing this. But to ease the girl's anxiety, she put on an air of expertise.
With a casual motion, she slapped the red light sphere into the girl's body, then used magic to facilitate communication between the two entities, employing wish-force to construct a connection channel and slowly graft them together.
Like performing surgery, Thea integrated the body-based remnants into the new host's physical form, and the soul-based remnants into the new soul.
The sudden influx of mental energy knocked the black-haired girl unconscious. Thea gestured to Lady Shiva that everything was proceeding normally, then got to work.