The tricky part would be trying to deniably cause Toyman to move into the site and retrieve Metallo. Mercy wasn't sure she could pull that off.
Still, she would do the best she could with what she had. Her current plan was to look through the records the city had of what Toyman had previously stolen to create his robotic minions, then covertly leak that information to the criminal underground in order to encourage him to steal from LexCorp. It probably wouldn't work perfectly, Toyman had made it a point not to steal from LexCorp when possible...
Damn. Our reputation for being the one guy in Metropolis that you
really don't want to piss off is, in this particular instance, working against us.
Finding Metallo was a sucker's job but he wasn't going to say no to Mercy Graves to her face. Letting her know that he knew that this was a job given to a disposable operative was only more likely to make her dispose of him early. As such he stayed quiet about the whole situation and simply accepted the job. The important thing he could do was keep Lisa and Sam's involvement in this as circumspect as possible. If worst came to worst and shit came to light Leonard would rather he be the only one to take the hit and that his sister got off scott-free. Sam was simply collateral because if Sam knew about the reality of the situation then he'd tell Lisa.
Never change, Leonard, never change.
Let's try to avoid letting this blow back on him.
The three of them covertly combed through the wreckage of the city searching high and low for whatever they could find, sticking whatever odds and ends they figured were interesting enough for LexCorp to want to keep into a large mirror Sam had somehow magicked into a storage device. Leonard had no idea how the magic worked or how Sam had even learned how to use magic and he had no interest in pursuing that line of inquiry. Sam's stupid probably wasn't contagious, but it was best not to try and delve too deep into it while you could still avoid it.
Oh God my sides.
After a solid hour or so of sifting through wreckage Leonard finally found what he was looking for. Leonard wasn't an expert on supervillains but Mercy's description of Metallo's torso lined up pretty neatly with what he'd found. The skeletal machine began to say something when Leonard casually lobbed a freeze grenade at its head, muffling its ability to speak and obscuring its head. Leonard wasn't even going to leave the off chance that Metallo could talk to Sam and Lisa and inadvertently put them in danger. It was better that the two of them knew as little as possible about what had happened so that he could take the fall if things went wrong. It was best to be careful here.
He got Sam to place Metallo's torso into the mirror with a minimum amount of fuss and then after a little bit more sweeping of the city, gave the order to return back to LexCorp. On a discreet and covert line he informed Mercy of what he'd done and soon had Sam dumping out all of the stuff stored in the mirror in various discrete warehouses, usually the ones further away from the city that were fairly intact. It wasn't perfect but Leonard had done his job and he'd made sure his sister would be safe from any repercussions of this latest scheme LexCorp seemed to be employing. And that was a sucess in his book.
I'm not sure whether this is good or bad, but I'm pretty sure Leonard's actions mean that Metallo himself doesn't know we're quietly trying to make sure he recovers and gets to take another shot at Superman.
The Brain had retained his edge over the years by making himself unique and unmatched. Nobody could do what he did and replicate his results. Encouraging the proliferation of his technology would only diminish the value of what the Brain had. He didn't mind letting Luthor have a single inferior teleporter for Metropolis only but at the same time he was well aware that giving the man the technology was a risk in and of itself as a businessman who dealt in technology would almost certainly try to market and distribute whatever advanced technology he had.
The Brain is probably also aware that we've got some pretty advanced tech of our own, and may have inferred that some of it is reverse-engineered alien tech.
Most of New England had been cleared of alien forces, although they remained present in a few pockets, most notably over Gotham. Of particular interest was that one "Dr. Fate" whom you vaguely recognized from the old JSA files had begun assisting in fighting off the alien threat, though he wasn't coordinating with anyone. It seemed this individual on his own was capable of shifting the fight in your favor and he was treated as being immensely dangerous and not one to antagonize.
Mildred Graves:
"Yeah, not a good idea. I once got brains all over his helmet, but under the circumstances I don't think he felt antagonized."
The meeting then transitioned to a discussion of the rest of the country. The midwest of the United States was in bad shape. Heroes like the Flash and the new "Blue Beetle" and "Booster Gold" came and assisted in the fight against Brainiac but the damage to America's breadbasket was severe enough that there were concerns over potential food shortages with the rest of the country. Pamela was quick to offer a few important suggestions on this front though not much headway would be made now as there were more immediate concerns to be dealt with.
Hm. Incentive for us to dust off some of those old "make a lot of food" Learning options we have in inventory.
So far Brainiac hadn't gained access to any sensitive information or nuclear launch codes but the alien had made a concerted effort to acquire as much data and information as possible during the attack. Notably there was a significant amount of fear that if anything but a completely isolated system was used, then Brainiac would attempt to hijack it as soon as he learned of it.
Brainiac doesn't need nuclear launch codes.
Honestly I'm pretty sure he
has hacked sensitive information, unless he just hasn't bothered and is saving it for last while processing the bounty of
insensitive information. Which I suspect he'd have learned is counterproductive, because when he peels a civilization like an onion they probably tend to destroy classified information while he's wrecking them. So if he wants it, he needs to get it fast.
Aquaman, the King of Atlantis ended up leaving the conversation early, announcing that due to his attempts to aid weaker countries in repelling Brainiac from their shores, other Atlanteans had seen the army spread thin and decided that this was an ideal opportunity to attempt to coup him. As such he couldn't assist the rest of the world powers until the internal matter was dealt with.
Guess he's not the man we can turn to for a plan...
The rest of the world was similarly in shambles as while they'd successfully been repelling most of Brainiac's forces from outright overrunning everything, they'd been unsuccessful in knocking most of his command ships out of the sky. Only Russia, the US, China, the UK and Germany had succeeded in doing so and they were often still dealing with pockets of resistance. Most concerningly of all though was the fact that the ship hovering over Point Nemo was preparing to launch a second wave on the rest of the world and it was unclear whether or not they'd be able to weather it if Brainiac advanced unopposed. As such various world leaders and critical figures met and began to debate what would be the best way to bring the fight to Brainiac and bring him down.
Where's Point Nemo, again?
