Interlude: Assassins Aftermath
King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
The winning votes are:
[ ] [Ally] Rebecca Carstairs
[ ] [Ally] Roxanne Sutton
[ ] [Ally] Vicki Vale
[ ] [Assassins] Ask Talia for information about the two assassins
[ ] Keep appraised of information in Gotham but don't go personally looking
Interlude: Assassins Aftermath
Carol Ferris
It was odd no longer being the head of her own company. Ferris aircraft had been owned by three generations of Carol's family but she ultimately had to sell her company to stay afloat. She was more than a little bitter at Hal Jordan for that. Hal had disappeared on Carol 3 years ago and with his disappearance she was no longer able to find people willing to fly the experimental planes besides herself and she couldn't because she had become the company head. The only reason she had agreed to take over for her father was because Hal promised he would have her back. Then he vanished off the face of the earth and left her alone with a company she didn't entirely know how to manage. She hated how Hal had forced her into such a terrible position. Still she was grateful that someone had come and helped her out. While being bought out by a large company wasn't ideal it was still loads better than having her family legacy die out because Hal abandoned her. Furthermore if Ferris Aircraft had to be bought out by a company LexCorp seemed like the ideal one. The head of the company Lex Luthor was personable and intelligent, the company already was involved in selling equipment to the military and they were willing to go in on experimental technologies if they thought the reward was enough. Carol was grateful that Ferris Aircraft would possibly have a chance to flourish and leave its mark on the world despite how others had screwed her over.
In the taxi she could see the devastation the terrorist attack had wrought on Metropolis but LexCorp Tower still stood proudly in the center of all of the destruction virtually unblemished. Carol was glad to see that the attempts on Luthor's life had done nothing to slow the company down and if anything had almost seemed to rally the city around Lex Luthor. Anybody who was so beloved by their community and refused to buckle to outside threats and pressure was someone Carol could respect. She entered the building and was checked over by security. Luthor wasn't taking any chances with another attempt on his life. Carol entered the elevator and headed up into Lex's private offices. She knocked on the door politely and waited to be invited in.
"Come in" She heard a deep baritone voice ring out. It was kind of funny how everyone knew how Lex Luthor looked but the world at large wasn't familiar with the sound of his voice. His office also was not what Carol expected from the man. She expected something more modernist from the Cell Phone king but instead the office was an old style one with a large wooden desk dominating the room and various art pieces tastefully strewn around the room. Lex offered Carol a drink and she accepted, seeing no reason to refuse her new boss something this small. Lex did not partake of any alcohol but poured her an expensive cup of bourbon whiskey. Carol sat down and prepared to discuss business with Lex Luthor.
"I suppose you are wondering why I have purchased Ferris Aircraft and what I want from you in the future" Luthor calmly drawled out. "I figured you'd appreciate me cutting straight to the chase, too often I have seen CEO's obfuscate their intentions behind tons of technical jargon in order to hide things from their workers, Rest assured I am not one of those vultures that only cares about the bottom line."
Carol appreciated the honesty and the tact Luthor presented this with. Part of her biggest fear in selling this company would be that the eventual buyer would be dispassionate and just flat out wouldn't care about Ferris Aircraft beyond trying to use it to make money. Now she was curious as to what Luthor truly wanted from her company.
"I am a visionary" Lex continued on, seemingly unaware of her internal musings. "I want to push humanity past its limits in every sense of the word"
Lex Luthor began to stand up and gesture with his hands as the cadence of his speech increased to a frenetic pace that Carol couldn't help but get swept up by. "I want to change the way we live our lives and perceive the universe. While I have succeeded in revolutionizing our world it isn't enough. I want to take humanity to conquer the cosmos themselves and that is where you come into play"
Carol was flattered but she wasn't sure what Luthor was driving at. Her company was just a relatively small company that manufactured planes. She didn't have the first clue as to how to complete this grand vision Luthor had laid out for her.
"I want to make Ferris Aircraft into Ferris Aerospace" Lex Luthor continued.
Carol was taken aback. Did this mean that Ferris Aircraft would no longer be making planes? She wasn't sure how comfortable she was with that idea. She voiced her concerns to Luthor and he promptly responded.
"Ms. Ferris I have no intention of retooling your company into something else, rather I intend to expand it. You'll keep on doing what you are good at and LexCorp will supply you with materials to aid in your continued success. Your company will then be expanded in a way you couldn't dream of when you had to constantly worry about making enough to stay in business. With LexCorp your company will not only maintain its excellence in the field of aircraft design but I also hope that one day the Ferris company name will be associated with ships that bring people to Mars and beyond."
Carol glowed inwardly. This was exactly what she wanted for her company. LexCorp wasn't just absorbing smaller companies into itself. Rather it was funding those companies and giving them resources so that they could succeed on their own merits. Ferris Aerospace (and wasn't it strange to think that she had gone from barely making enough to stay in business to having her company grow by leaps and bounds) had a secure future and wouldn't abandon the history that had gotten them to where they were today. Carol thanked Luthor for the opportunity and asked him why he had such faith in this investment not that she wasn't grateful for his belief in her. Luthor had a wistful smile on his face as he responded.
"Are you aware of the now infamous Professor Ivo that Lois Lane denounced as being highly unstable and unable to work properly with others?"
"Yeah I vaguely remember reading about it" Carol responded curious as to where it would go.
"I personally found that he works best when allowed to do things in his own way on his own time. Micromanaging my employees isn't very good for their productivity and I prefer to go with what gets results rather than what gets me the most prestige." Luthor answered "I feel like taking a similar approach with Ferris Aerospace would be ideal. The company is clearly capable of being successful without me getting to heavily involved so me coming in and restructuring things would actually be detrimental to getting results. Sure I will occasionally nudge a project or two further down the line and Ferris Aerospace will be expected to fall in line with some official LexCorp mandate but so long as I can achieve my dream I feel no need to trample over a system that works".
Carol took in his words and believed them. Lex Luthor turned out to be the ideal businessman to buy out Ferris Aircraft. Carol took another sip of the whiskey Lex had provided her with and began to chat with the man. He was clever and insightful and Carol found herself warming up to and respecting the man. Unlike Hal Jordan Lex Luthor had no intention of abandoning her in a time of need. Lex assured her that he was doing his best to take care of the terrorist situation and that she should be safe in California since the assassins had focused almost solely on the Metropolis holdings but if she needed something she could call him and he would do his best to ensure things were taken care of. Lex gave her his contact information and Carol left the meeting feeling like a million bucks.
She couldn't stop grinning throughout the entire flight home. Screw Hal Jordan, Carol Ferris was going to conquer the stars and have her dreams come true. After all she was part of the LexCorp family now and LexCorp looked after its own unlike a certain test pilot who abandoned his fiancé. Things were looking up for Ferris.
Results: Ferris Aerospace created and Carol Ferris is ready and eager to follow your lead as she trusts and believes in you.
Lois Lane
Lois was lost. Metropolis had been attacked on a scale previously unseen in the US since Pearl Harbor. When Luthor had warned Lois about how dangerous getting involved was she hadn't entirely believed him but she had taken his warnings at face value. Now she realized that he was speaking the truth. Whoever this Ra's person was they were willing to go to extreme measures to get what they wanted and thought nothing of sacrificing innocents. On top of the Metropolis attacks there was yet another attack on Lex Luthor at Bruce Wayne's welcome home party where Lex lead the people to safety. Lois still wasn't fond of the man but she could at least respect his bravery and his apparent willingness to put others ahead of himself. With the widescale nature of the attack Lois felt that the people needed to be informed. They were already in danger and not knowing what was going on could only make things worse.
Lois contacted Lex and was rather disappointed. Despite the man being the target of this group he didn't know much about them. Apparently the terrorist group was called the League of Shadows and they were lead by an individual called Ra's al Ghul. They appeared to be an extreme neo-luddite group but Lex didn't know where they came from or why they chose to target him. He did know that they were fanatics and suspected that the group was Arabic in nature due to the language several members had insulted him in and the name of their leader. Lois needed to dig deeper but no matter how hard she looked everything she found was apocryphal at best. There were numerous legends and whispers about the group but the claims that Ra's al Ghul had been around ever since the crusades had been disturbing were the most solidly supported in historical texts although it was likely that this was many individuals passing down the name like a title rather than a single immortal leader. This League of Shadows was clearly an old group but the fact that virtually nothing was found on them made them more disturbing since it was jarring to think that a group that had been around for centuries could remain so well hidden.
Lois was about ready to give up and write up the article when she noticed a confidential list of files had been sent into her at the Daily Planet. The files contained the information of numerous agents of the League of Shadows like David Cain, Lady Shiva, The Seven Men of Death and perhaps most interestingly that businesswoman Miranda Tate was working with them and had ties to them. The files held nothing more than these documents and a single signature belonging to Lex Luthor. Lois smiled. Lex Luthor had come through for her in the end. Lois mailed the information to the government (Lucy had a point when she said that perhaps she should have let others know what was going on in Santa Prisca before publishing her article despite Lois' firm belief that her actions were still morally sound) and rewrote the article. She'd give the government a month to act on the information before she published the article. Despite getting off on the wrong foot with him she was able to work with Lex Luthor when it really counted. They'd probably never be friends but Lois could probably relax some of her suspicions about Luthor since the information he gave her ensured that several prominent members of the League of Shadows would no longer be able to freely move about the country
Results: ??? pretended to be you and sent information outing several prominent League members to Lois Lane. If ??? completes one more action against you they will earn Nemesis status. Lois Lane has sent the information to the government and will publish it in a month. Lois Lane's view of you has significantly improved.
Results of the party subvotes
Hey hope everyone enjoyed this set of interludes. Tomorrow will be the turn 6 updates and I hope to get out some of my thoughts on subverting expectations. I now have a lot of character sheets to update. Feel free to speculate and discuss how you want to move forward from here since the butterfly's have begun flapping their wings harder and harder and the rise of superhumans has begun.
[ ] [Ally] Rebecca Carstairs
[ ] [Ally] Roxanne Sutton
[ ] [Ally] Vicki Vale
[ ] [Assassins] Ask Talia for information about the two assassins
[ ] Keep appraised of information in Gotham but don't go personally looking
[X] [Kane] Make Kathrine Kane the head of a special squad of your security forces
Interlude: Assassins Aftermath
Carol Ferris
It was odd no longer being the head of her own company. Ferris aircraft had been owned by three generations of Carol's family but she ultimately had to sell her company to stay afloat. She was more than a little bitter at Hal Jordan for that. Hal had disappeared on Carol 3 years ago and with his disappearance she was no longer able to find people willing to fly the experimental planes besides herself and she couldn't because she had become the company head. The only reason she had agreed to take over for her father was because Hal promised he would have her back. Then he vanished off the face of the earth and left her alone with a company she didn't entirely know how to manage. She hated how Hal had forced her into such a terrible position. Still she was grateful that someone had come and helped her out. While being bought out by a large company wasn't ideal it was still loads better than having her family legacy die out because Hal abandoned her. Furthermore if Ferris Aircraft had to be bought out by a company LexCorp seemed like the ideal one. The head of the company Lex Luthor was personable and intelligent, the company already was involved in selling equipment to the military and they were willing to go in on experimental technologies if they thought the reward was enough. Carol was grateful that Ferris Aircraft would possibly have a chance to flourish and leave its mark on the world despite how others had screwed her over.
In the taxi she could see the devastation the terrorist attack had wrought on Metropolis but LexCorp Tower still stood proudly in the center of all of the destruction virtually unblemished. Carol was glad to see that the attempts on Luthor's life had done nothing to slow the company down and if anything had almost seemed to rally the city around Lex Luthor. Anybody who was so beloved by their community and refused to buckle to outside threats and pressure was someone Carol could respect. She entered the building and was checked over by security. Luthor wasn't taking any chances with another attempt on his life. Carol entered the elevator and headed up into Lex's private offices. She knocked on the door politely and waited to be invited in.
"Come in" She heard a deep baritone voice ring out. It was kind of funny how everyone knew how Lex Luthor looked but the world at large wasn't familiar with the sound of his voice. His office also was not what Carol expected from the man. She expected something more modernist from the Cell Phone king but instead the office was an old style one with a large wooden desk dominating the room and various art pieces tastefully strewn around the room. Lex offered Carol a drink and she accepted, seeing no reason to refuse her new boss something this small. Lex did not partake of any alcohol but poured her an expensive cup of bourbon whiskey. Carol sat down and prepared to discuss business with Lex Luthor.
"I suppose you are wondering why I have purchased Ferris Aircraft and what I want from you in the future" Luthor calmly drawled out. "I figured you'd appreciate me cutting straight to the chase, too often I have seen CEO's obfuscate their intentions behind tons of technical jargon in order to hide things from their workers, Rest assured I am not one of those vultures that only cares about the bottom line."
Carol appreciated the honesty and the tact Luthor presented this with. Part of her biggest fear in selling this company would be that the eventual buyer would be dispassionate and just flat out wouldn't care about Ferris Aircraft beyond trying to use it to make money. Now she was curious as to what Luthor truly wanted from her company.
"I am a visionary" Lex continued on, seemingly unaware of her internal musings. "I want to push humanity past its limits in every sense of the word"
Lex Luthor began to stand up and gesture with his hands as the cadence of his speech increased to a frenetic pace that Carol couldn't help but get swept up by. "I want to change the way we live our lives and perceive the universe. While I have succeeded in revolutionizing our world it isn't enough. I want to take humanity to conquer the cosmos themselves and that is where you come into play"
Carol was flattered but she wasn't sure what Luthor was driving at. Her company was just a relatively small company that manufactured planes. She didn't have the first clue as to how to complete this grand vision Luthor had laid out for her.
"I want to make Ferris Aircraft into Ferris Aerospace" Lex Luthor continued.
Carol was taken aback. Did this mean that Ferris Aircraft would no longer be making planes? She wasn't sure how comfortable she was with that idea. She voiced her concerns to Luthor and he promptly responded.
"Ms. Ferris I have no intention of retooling your company into something else, rather I intend to expand it. You'll keep on doing what you are good at and LexCorp will supply you with materials to aid in your continued success. Your company will then be expanded in a way you couldn't dream of when you had to constantly worry about making enough to stay in business. With LexCorp your company will not only maintain its excellence in the field of aircraft design but I also hope that one day the Ferris company name will be associated with ships that bring people to Mars and beyond."
Carol glowed inwardly. This was exactly what she wanted for her company. LexCorp wasn't just absorbing smaller companies into itself. Rather it was funding those companies and giving them resources so that they could succeed on their own merits. Ferris Aerospace (and wasn't it strange to think that she had gone from barely making enough to stay in business to having her company grow by leaps and bounds) had a secure future and wouldn't abandon the history that had gotten them to where they were today. Carol thanked Luthor for the opportunity and asked him why he had such faith in this investment not that she wasn't grateful for his belief in her. Luthor had a wistful smile on his face as he responded.
"Are you aware of the now infamous Professor Ivo that Lois Lane denounced as being highly unstable and unable to work properly with others?"
"Yeah I vaguely remember reading about it" Carol responded curious as to where it would go.
"I personally found that he works best when allowed to do things in his own way on his own time. Micromanaging my employees isn't very good for their productivity and I prefer to go with what gets results rather than what gets me the most prestige." Luthor answered "I feel like taking a similar approach with Ferris Aerospace would be ideal. The company is clearly capable of being successful without me getting to heavily involved so me coming in and restructuring things would actually be detrimental to getting results. Sure I will occasionally nudge a project or two further down the line and Ferris Aerospace will be expected to fall in line with some official LexCorp mandate but so long as I can achieve my dream I feel no need to trample over a system that works".
Carol took in his words and believed them. Lex Luthor turned out to be the ideal businessman to buy out Ferris Aircraft. Carol took another sip of the whiskey Lex had provided her with and began to chat with the man. He was clever and insightful and Carol found herself warming up to and respecting the man. Unlike Hal Jordan Lex Luthor had no intention of abandoning her in a time of need. Lex assured her that he was doing his best to take care of the terrorist situation and that she should be safe in California since the assassins had focused almost solely on the Metropolis holdings but if she needed something she could call him and he would do his best to ensure things were taken care of. Lex gave her his contact information and Carol left the meeting feeling like a million bucks.
She couldn't stop grinning throughout the entire flight home. Screw Hal Jordan, Carol Ferris was going to conquer the stars and have her dreams come true. After all she was part of the LexCorp family now and LexCorp looked after its own unlike a certain test pilot who abandoned his fiancé. Things were looking up for Ferris.
Results: Ferris Aerospace created and Carol Ferris is ready and eager to follow your lead as she trusts and believes in you.
Lois Lane
Lois was lost. Metropolis had been attacked on a scale previously unseen in the US since Pearl Harbor. When Luthor had warned Lois about how dangerous getting involved was she hadn't entirely believed him but she had taken his warnings at face value. Now she realized that he was speaking the truth. Whoever this Ra's person was they were willing to go to extreme measures to get what they wanted and thought nothing of sacrificing innocents. On top of the Metropolis attacks there was yet another attack on Lex Luthor at Bruce Wayne's welcome home party where Lex lead the people to safety. Lois still wasn't fond of the man but she could at least respect his bravery and his apparent willingness to put others ahead of himself. With the widescale nature of the attack Lois felt that the people needed to be informed. They were already in danger and not knowing what was going on could only make things worse.
Lois contacted Lex and was rather disappointed. Despite the man being the target of this group he didn't know much about them. Apparently the terrorist group was called the League of Shadows and they were lead by an individual called Ra's al Ghul. They appeared to be an extreme neo-luddite group but Lex didn't know where they came from or why they chose to target him. He did know that they were fanatics and suspected that the group was Arabic in nature due to the language several members had insulted him in and the name of their leader. Lois needed to dig deeper but no matter how hard she looked everything she found was apocryphal at best. There were numerous legends and whispers about the group but the claims that Ra's al Ghul had been around ever since the crusades had been disturbing were the most solidly supported in historical texts although it was likely that this was many individuals passing down the name like a title rather than a single immortal leader. This League of Shadows was clearly an old group but the fact that virtually nothing was found on them made them more disturbing since it was jarring to think that a group that had been around for centuries could remain so well hidden.
Lois was about ready to give up and write up the article when she noticed a confidential list of files had been sent into her at the Daily Planet. The files contained the information of numerous agents of the League of Shadows like David Cain, Lady Shiva, The Seven Men of Death and perhaps most interestingly that businesswoman Miranda Tate was working with them and had ties to them. The files held nothing more than these documents and a single signature belonging to Lex Luthor. Lois smiled. Lex Luthor had come through for her in the end. Lois mailed the information to the government (Lucy had a point when she said that perhaps she should have let others know what was going on in Santa Prisca before publishing her article despite Lois' firm belief that her actions were still morally sound) and rewrote the article. She'd give the government a month to act on the information before she published the article. Despite getting off on the wrong foot with him she was able to work with Lex Luthor when it really counted. They'd probably never be friends but Lois could probably relax some of her suspicions about Luthor since the information he gave her ensured that several prominent members of the League of Shadows would no longer be able to freely move about the country
Results: ??? pretended to be you and sent information outing several prominent League members to Lois Lane. If ??? completes one more action against you they will earn Nemesis status. Lois Lane has sent the information to the government and will publish it in a month. Lois Lane's view of you has significantly improved.
Results of the party subvotes
- Rebecca Carstairs has accepted a job at LexCorp due to having nowhere to go and the public slowly turning against her. She is currently living at LexCorp tower and works as a personal aide to Lex Luthor (he has her doing various odd jobs until she settles in to a position that's a good fit for her.
- Roxanne Sutton has eagerly accepted working at LexCorp. She has expressed a desire to either work dangerous less than legal jobs committing high stakes thefts or work as a test pilot for the numerous experimental craft at Ferris Aerospace. She has moved to Metropolis but is willing to split her time between Metropolis and Coast City
- Vicki Vale has agreed to make a deal with Lex Luthor. She will get an exclusive interview with him in exchange for letting him vet the questions and review the articles before she publishes them. This deal would allow you to control your image more effectively while enabling Vicki to get more prestige by repeatedly securing exclusive interviews with a major public figure
- Katherine Kane is comfortably settling in as the new head of your special force squad although she has grown to dislike Ivo but gets along reasonably well with everyone else
- Talia has come through for you on both of the individuals involved in the attack. The assassin in the monkey mask goes by the alias Silver Monkey. Talia doesn't know his real name but is aware of his history and skills. Silver Monkey was a member of a cult in Yangshuo called the Order of the Monkey Fist. Silver Monkey eventually slaughtered every other member of the order to prevent others from learning the secret of his fighting style and joined the League of Shadows out of pride. Silver Monkey is a skilled martial artist who is capable of scaling walls and ceilings with ease. While he is not fond of the weapon Silver Monkey also carries a collapsible sword he can use in combat. Silver Monkey is prideful and arrogant but has experience and knows when to cut his losses. He has been a member of the League of Shadows for 15 years now and shows very little interest in advancing through the ranks seemingly only remaining in the organization for the prestige. The second assassin who showed up to the party had more details known about him. The man with a stitched mouth was Michael Christian Amar codenamed Murmur. Michael was a serial killer who operated as a surgeon in poor third world countries occasionally killed some of his patients to satisfy his own sick urges. Michaelwas eventually undone by his inability to not talk and eventually accidentally revealed that he had been killing his patients. The League of Shadows decided that Michael might make for a useful deniable asset and broke him out of prison. Michael then stitched his mouth shut to ensure that he would never be able to talk again and reveal himself the way he did previously. Murmur then trained in the Leagues techniques and began to excel at silent killings. Murmur was deemed as unstable by the League and was often sent out to complete jobs in which the League felt comfortable losing their men. Murmur has been with the League for 2 years. Talia was personally disgusted at some of Murmur's more depraved actions. Talia had more than carried her weight on this assignment.
- Your network for information has been set up. So far the Batman appears to be sticking to the shadows and occasionally attacking members of the Falcone mob. You aren't sure what the silence means for you in the long run.
Hey hope everyone enjoyed this set of interludes. Tomorrow will be the turn 6 updates and I hope to get out some of my thoughts on subverting expectations. I now have a lot of character sheets to update. Feel free to speculate and discuss how you want to move forward from here since the butterfly's have begun flapping their wings harder and harder and the rise of superhumans has begun.
