Though her words got stuck halfway, what needed to be said still had to be said. Thea cleared her throat.
"Ahem. You and Oliver really aren't suited for each other. Don't glare at me—at least, not right now."
Shado's beautiful brows arched sharply, her expression darkening as she glared at her. If not for the fact that she couldn't beat Thea, she probably would've snapped already. I'm perfect for Oliver! You're his sister—how can you say something like that?
"I know you don't want to hear it, but I'm saying it anyway. Did you notice that big guy with two swords on his back? About six foot three, full beard?" Thea gestured as she spoke. This wasn't a video game—no one instantly knew each other's name on first sight. At the very least, she had to pretend she didn't.
"He's in love with you too. If you choose my brother, Oliver's friendship with him will be over. Have you thought about that?"
Thea enunciated every word slowly. Whether there truly was friendship between Oliver and Slade was debatable, but judging from how things later unfolded, there must have been. Even after Slade killed Moira, Oliver still saw him as a brother—someone driven mad by Mirakuru, but a brother nonetheless.
Of course Shado knew all that. Of course she'd thought about it. But when the choice actually landed in her hands, her mind went blank.
No matter how she turned it over, there was no perfect answer. In the end, only one path remained. She turned her back to Thea, stood silently for half an hour, then finally made up her mind.
"Fine. I'll go with you. When do we leave?"
"My plane's a bit far. I'll bring it here. In the meantime, get your father ready," Thea said, jumping onto her hoverboard. But barely ten meters out, she turned back.
"There's… one more thing. My people have developed a sort of human reanimation experiment. Success rate's only about ten percent. Do you… want to try it?"
Even as she said it, Thea felt a little guilty. Using someone's dead father as a lab test subject—yeah, not her proudest moment.
But Shado wasn't listening to the details. Her mind exploded with a single thought. "You—you mean… my father can come back?"
Honestly, Thea had just blurted it out to strengthen Shado's reason for leaving. Still, she nodded. "It's a biochemical process. Doesn't work on natural deaths. Your father didn't die of natural causes, right?"
Of course not—no one takes a bullet to the head and calls it "natural causes." Shado's tears broke free at once. Even if the chance was one in a hundred, she'd take it.
Oliver was forgotten in an instant—whatever feelings she'd had were gone like smoke. A man, no matter how good, can't compete with my father's life.
Seeing the change in her expression, Thea nodded. "Then get ready. We leave now."
The return trip went smoothly. Back at their base, Thea called Katherine Monroe, explained the situation briefly. That woman was politically sharp—she knew exactly what to say and what not to.
Thea kept the project's background vague, letting Shado assume it was some top-secret U.S. military experiment. The thought made Shado uneasy… but also hopeful. After all, with America's tech, maybe it really could work.
Within hours, a private jet arrived, carrying Shado and her father's cryo-preserved body straight to Gotham. Before they departed, Thea handed her a slip of paper with her contact number and warned, "This project runs deep. Keep your mouth shut when you get there. If you can play deaf and blind, even better."
"Finally out…" Thea muttered, covered in dirt as she crawled out of the ground like a miner.
It had been five days since she'd parted ways with Oliver and seen Shado off.
Well, since my dear brother refuses to leave, I might as well go treasure hunting.
And so she did. In the original timeline, Constantine would come to the island in the fourth year, searching for an artifact known as the Orb of Horus.
But Constantine had a map—and Oliver as his local guide. That's how he found the underground chamber and retrieved the orb smoothly.
Thea had neither. Even asking Oliver was pointless; the island was huge, and without landmarks, who knew where it was buried?
So she resorted to the slow method—sitting cross-legged, meditating, extending her psychic senses to feel for fluctuations in ambient magic.
Luckily, this island was one of the world's magical network nodes, amplifying her perception. Still, it took three whole days before she pinpointed the right location.
Finding the spot didn't mean retrieving the item was easy. Constantine had needed tunnels and maps; Thea had none of that. So she chose the brute-force option—dig.
She pulled out a combat engineer's shovel, equipped her mechanical arm, and got to work.
When it was dirt, she dug. When it was stone, she smashed. Alone on a deserted island, she didn't have to worry about noise complaints. After two days, she'd carved out a shaft three meters wide and fifty meters deep.
Sliding down into the pit, she didn't walk far before spotting it—an ornate golden staff about thirty centimeters long, topped with a faintly glowing red gem. The Orb of Horus, divine artifact of the Egyptian falcon god.
Huh. So that's it? she thought. No cursed illusions, no spectral guardians, no dramatic boss battle—just a lonely relic sitting on an altar, waiting to be claimed like a melon in a field.
She remembered that after taking the orb, some bladed trap would drop from above. But staring at the ceiling, she saw no visible mechanism.
Whatever. Even if there is one, I'll manage.
It was night now—perfect timing.
She sent one of her psychic duplicates forward. Let the clone take the risk.
The moment her double touched the orb—didn't even lift it, just brushed it—
The ground shook violently.
The whole chamber collapsed in an instant.
Her clone barely managed to toss the orb back before being buried under tons of stone.
"Ah, hell—" Thea barely had time to react before the chain collapse reached her.
Good thing she'd come prepared. Her mechanical arm shielded her head, and the Kevlar suit Batman had given her held strong. When the dust settled, she clawed her way up, bruised but alive.
What the hell? It didn't react like this in the show! Is it because I used a clone? Or did I trip something different?
Unable to figure it out, she focused instead on the orb now in her hand.
It was composed of two parts: the gem and the handle. The gem—nearly the size of a child's skull—radiated potent magical energy, fiery and perfectly aligned with her affinity.
As for the engraved symbols along the handle—they were spells, that much she could tell, but written in ancient Egyptian. She scratched her head. Even in this era, you'd be lucky to find ten people who can read this stuff.
Still, an artifact was an artifact. She'd take it back, study it slowly. This was the internet age, after all—what couldn't you look up these days?