January 31, 2011
Star City
"With that, ladies and gentlemen, our meeting concludes. We will be here with you all next month to continue our talks about the merger. As I said, once Queen Industries joins LexCorp, not only will there be profit, but we will also increase the number of jobs available, especially here at Star City."
All the men and women around the table clapped excitedly, very pleased with how the events and topics in today's meeting went. Well nearly everyone except two people, the Queen siblings, Oliver and Thea Queen. Thea looked exactly like the actress Willa Holland making her look identical to her counterpart in the television show Arrow. She stood at 5'6", had brown long wavy hair, a petite build, and looked quite cute. Oliver on the other hand looked like the actor Harry Goodwin without any facial hair. He looked handsome standing at exactly six feet, had his blonde hair in a crew cut, had sharp blue eyes, and looked fit but was not overly muscular or skinny.
Once all the board members in the room left. It was just Mercy, me, and the two siblings. I slid them the contract and Oliver hesitantly and reluctantly signed it. Thea was glaring daggers at me tears forming in her eyes. She quickly got up and looked at her older brother and screamed, "Look at what you've done! Because of you we lost dad's and mom's company! Don't ever call, text, or even see me ever again! From now on your no longer my brother!".
Oliver just sat there at the end of the table looking down at the contract in front of him accepting the barrage of insults from his sister. His hands were clenched hard grasping his pants. When Thea was done she was just about to leave I stopped her, "Ms. Queen don't leave now I have an offer for you that you might like".
"What do you want now? You already have my family's company, our assets, even our goddamn family home. What more can I even give you?" Thea stated with venom in her voice.
"Look, it may seem like I am stealing this company away from you both, but if it were not for me acquiring this company, it would have gone bankrupt in a few short years and many people would have lost their jobs."
Soon Thea was crying quietly with tears dropping to the floor. I stepped closer to her though and wiped a tear from her face. She stepped back from the sudden touch and blushed. Oliver on the other hand stiffened and stood up to defend his sister if I was to propose a not so gentlemanly proposition. I continued talking and offered, "However, after hearing that riveting speech directed at your brother, it inspired me. Showed me that you deeply cared about this company. So, how would you like to be my CEO of Queen Industries?"
She was speechless looking at me in the eyes, "A..Are you messing with me? You just bought the company and now you want to give it back? Is this some sort of trick to get me into bed if so you're disgusting!"
I laughed loudly "I am not trying to trick you, trust me if I wanted you, you would have already been mine. No, instead I am offering you a second chance. I am not giving the company back, I'm just merely hiring you to run it. I'll even return your family home as a consolation prize"
She blushed from my flagrant declaration that I was sure I could easily bed her if I had desired to, though she shook it off and went back on topic, "What's the catch? I know you're known as a philanthropist and all but this is too good to be true."
"No catch at all Ms. Queen. In fact, you would be doing me a favor for I am going to be far too busy in the near future to run multiple companies. If you let me mentor you, I can foresee you turning into quite the powerful businesswoman."
She kept quiet contemplating the decision. After five minutes of heavy silence she looked up and with full conviction declared, "I'm in, if you're serious about actually teaching me, I'm willing to work for the devil." She raised her hand for a shake.
I shook it and amusingly replied, "Calling your future boss the devil is pretty harsh considering you are the one benefitting from all of this. I'd like to think of myself more of a saint."
"Sorry just never met a bald angel, though I guess it's fitting considering how light reflects off of it!" she jokingly laughed as she soon started sauntering out of the room. She is a cheeky one I'll give her that. I noticed Mercy in the back with displeasure on her face, though it was hard to tell if someone did not know her. She has quite the poker face. It seemed as if she did not like how familiar Ms Queen was being. Guess I'll have to give her some attention later on tonight.
After a few minutes, I then turned to Oliver Queen. He had a hopeful look in his eyes. I am guessing he hoped I would work out a similar deal with him. Though what I said next ruined all assumptions."You on the other hand Mr. Queen, I'm afraid I can not give you the same or similar offer as your sister due to your…history with owning a company and money. None of the other board members would accept it. Instead what I can offer you is an all-expense paid trip for an entire month so that you can clear your mind. You'll need a break from all of this and you'll need to see what you will want to do after you come back. Whatever it is you want to do with your life, if it's reasonable I will assist you".
He stood there dejected with his face crestfallen. I left the room leaving him alone with Mercy in tow, but before I left I decided to give him some advice my father had given me in my past life, "You can't change the past Mr. Queen, but you can do something with your future". With that I left, paving the road for Oliver Queen to become the Green Arrow.
It seemed on this earth, Green Arrow's origin follows closely to the comics where Oliver Queen had wasted the majority of his parent's fortune and was forced to sell his company. Though the company was now in dire straights due to its mishandling, I was mostly buying it all for its contacts and most importantly its weapons research.
Queen Industries was solely invested in weapons manufacturing, much different than both Wayne Enterprises and LexCorp which both invested in different fields, diversifying our company's portfolio. Queen Industries had close ties with the American military so it mainly focused on weapons manufacturing, distribution, and research. This put their weapons development production ten years ahead of my company. Bruce Wayne did not have to worry about this because last year when he took over Wayne Enterprises, he had vowed that they no longer be in weapons manufacturing but instead focus those resources on their other ventures such as transportation and medicine. While the sentiment was very humanitarian and I could understand he wanted to keep weapons out of Gotham especially away from his rogues gallery, this would not help humanity as a whole when the major players in the universe set their sites on Earth.
Yes with my newfound intellect and great insight of both comic and manga weapon ideas, I could probably easily bridge that gap. However, I needed to bridge the gap between me and the powerhouses out there as soon as possible. Also, ideas were just ideas. In the MCU movies, Tony Stark explained how his new suit worked due to nanotech, but how did he create nanotech and how did it work to create his new armor? It was basically just sci-fi mambo jambo that writers threw in so that they would not have to explain how things were made or how they function. So with the requisition of Queen Industries, this helped me be one step closer to completing my little side projects.
As I left the building Mercy came up to me and said, "I will come and get the car ready for you sir."
"Thank you, Mercy, I will wait here with the other guards."
Mercy left with two guards and I was left waiting out front of Queen Industries with my five other men. These people were trained and experienced warriors, all of them being retired special forces and the one leading them being a former delta force member. As I was waiting for Mercy one of my devices that I had created during my spare time sprang into life and a loud *TING* resounded on my forehead. It was a weak force field generator that was constantly on but would only last about ten shots from an M2 Browning. I had created it a month after I arrived on this planet because I knew as a multibillionaire, someone was eventually going to target my life. It seemed this was that eventually.
I was in shock for a few seconds more when another loud *TING* resounded on my forehead once again. I immediately shook off my shock and quickly instructed my bodyguards, "Get down! We are being shot at!"
I swiftly went for cover behind a tree while five of my men were trying to locate who had just attacked me.
"Get Mr. Luthor out of here! Take him inside bef..". *BAM*. The leader of my bodyguard group was trying to instruct the rest of the bodyguards when he was immediately shot on the side of the head directly on his temple when he had risen just a little bit to readjust himself. He crashed to the floor with blood, pieces of his skull, and brain matter spraying all over the floor.
"Fuck!" I cursed adrenaline coursing through my veins. Realization soon hit me that if I had not created the device I would have been dead already. I was shaking realizing that this was not a comic book or a game. That this was real life and I could potentially die permanently.
As we were all hiding behind cover to prevent being shot, a black limo had arrived in front of me. The window rolled down and Mercy instructed, "Get in Lex!"
We all attempted to get in but as the last of my bodyguards was about to enter he too was shot in the head leaving me with only six people left including Mercy. The limo was being pelted by bullets, but thankfully this limo was bulletproof with the durability equivalent to an MRAP. As we drove off to safety, all the voices around me were fading away.
Deadshot POV:
Fuck! I swear I had shot him directly in his head and not just once but twice! Yet he somewhat survived. Worse he escaped. Was he a metahuman? I have met some in my line of work. Mostly as rivals since a majority of them could not find jobs and were forced into this business. If he was, this was going to be much more complicated and Mr. Big Bucks was going to have to pay more for this job.
I initially was partnered up with that juiced-up muscle head who called himself Bane, but why split the reward when I can take it all for myself? Especially since Bane seemed kind of an idiot. From the few times he met him, he had bragged about how he was just as smart as he was strong. However, if the rumors were true about how he could make himself superhumanly strong, but required the repeated use of chemicals, then he was just a roided-up idiot in his eyes.
Though the way things were looking, it seemed I might require Bane's help, well more like use him rather than get his help. The fact that Lex took two .950 JDJ rounds to the dome and did not even flinch had me extremely bothered. If he was a metahuman, what were his powers? Well, I guess if you have a raging bull in hand it is best to at least use it.
I took out my burner phone and made a call. "The target escaped. However, I left a tracking device on his vehicle so I will send you the coordinates. If we are to take him down it has to be by tonight because if he escapes then...". I stopped talking because it seemed like the asshole had hung up on me.