"Let's go see Ray first. His condition suddenly worsened—Gideon can't do anything for him."
The "Hawkgirl" title was gone now; she was simply Kendra again. Lost in thought, she didn't dare touch Thea this time. She just led the group down the corridor toward the med bay.
This didn't make sense. Thea frowned as she walked. She'd already treated Ray Palmer once—he should've been mostly healed. The remaining injuries had been suppressed. They shouldn't have rebounded this quickly.
But when she saw him, even she froze.
The once-cheerful, clean-cut face of the Atom was now wreathed in a black haze. Even strapped to the medical chair, his body convulsed violently, twitching like he was being electrocuted.
Oh, for— Thea immediately understood. When Ray had been struck by Horus's gaze—the "Eye of Horus"—a trace of divinity had clung to him. It had been so faint it could've been blown away by a breeze. If Ray had been left alone, even without magical healing, he would've recovered naturally in a year or two.
But that sliver of divine might had become a thread—a microscopic link.
When Horus borrowed power from his retired father, Osiris, the Underworld's energy had slipped through that very link… straight into Ray Palmer.
Luckily, Thea's earlier treatment had left some light-aligned magic inside him. That light was now clashing with the death energy, keeping it barely contained. Coupled with Gideon's future-tech medical systems, Ray had managed to survive—barely. But at this rate, he had maybe thirty minutes left before total collapse.
Her own magic wasn't enough to win against the power of the Underworld. If Takhisis could be considered a village head among deities, then Thea barely counted as a junior committee member. Trying to wrestle a retired god was pure fantasy.
Still, she had an ace up her sleeve.
Based on her calculations, one drop of god-blood would do it. If she used it to resonate with that trace of Horus's essence still inside him, it would purge the corruption completely—and maybe even awaken some latent divine affinity in Ray.
But Thea Queen wasn't the type to hand out priceless relics for free. Sure, she liked Ray, but not enough to just give him divine blood out of charity.
Negotiating payment would be ideal—but the guy was unconscious. Hard to haggle with someone who couldn't talk. She couldn't just let him die, either. Being a "hero of justice" really was inconvenient sometimes.
After a moment's thought, a simple plan formed in her mind.
"Gideon," she said sharply. "I need your basic access clearance to scan his body. His condition's deteriorating fast."
The ship's AI hesitated for a few seconds before reciting a coded authorization string.
Thea smirked inwardly. They distrusted each other equally—she didn't understand Gideon's full capabilities, and Gideon had no idea how deep Thea's magic went. They'd both pretended not to notice the other's secrets until now.
She wasn't actually planning to fight the AI. What she wanted was the access key. Back in her original timeline, the proto-Gideon had already been built by Eobard Thawne in S.T.A.R. Labs. This emotional, advanced version might be out of her reach—but the newborn version? Easy prey.
Her ultimate goal was never this Gideon. As long as she had system-level access, she could extract large chunks of source code and later hand it to Felicity to reverse-engineer.
Still, she had to make a show of it. Pulling out scanners and tools, she ran them over Ray's body a good ten times. Whether useful or not, it looked professional.
His remaining half-hour of life ticked down another ten minutes while she played doctor.
Then she moved on to phase two—acting. Brow furrowed, she paced around him, muttering under her breath, occasionally shooting a beam of golden light into his chest, observing the reaction, and sighing dramatically.
Her performance scared Kendra half to death. She was just an ordinary woman now, stripped of divine power, and terrified that Ray might die. She stood there wringing her hands, waiting for Thea's "diagnosis."
Soon, the others arrived—Rip, Cold, Heat Wave, Firestorm. Even the so-called villains had come; Ray was just that well-liked.
Thea's peripheral vision swept across the room. Everyone was here. Time to begin.
Sure, she could've just poured the drop of god-blood into him—three seconds and he'd be fine, ten seconds and he'd be doing pushups. But easy miracles cheapened the value of a miracle. Even Buddha made pilgrims travel for years to fetch scriptures; the journey mattered.
No, she would make this an event. Something unforgettable. When Ray woke, surrounded by witnesses, he'd owe her big time.
Thea didn't need his tech suit—but his tech itself? That was a treasure trove.
She pressed her glowing fingertip to his forehead, letting her light energy suppress the creeping blackness.
"Unstrap him—now!" she ordered urgently.
The onlookers scrambled to obey, untying Ray's restraints and laying him flat on the floor.
Rip Hunter looked helplessly frustrated as Thea began drawing glowing runes right there on the med-bay floor. A magic circle, on a time-travel ship. He wanted to protest, but really—what was the point? "Do whatever you need to," he sighed.
This time, the spell would definitely work. She wasn't about to leave gaps for Gideon to exploit. The AI's databanks were vast beyond measure, its computational speed practically incalculable—she wasn't taking chances that it might someday figure out magic.
Thea had chosen a Regeneration Ritual.
It sounded simple, almost generic—but its true form was terrifying. Even a body cut clean in half could slowly restore itself under its effects.
And, she mused, it could be handy for Cold later—assuming he could pay. His freeze gun could stop the Flash in his tracks, its temperature approaching absolute zero. Now that would be worth studying.