Leah's coat didn't fit.
It was too big in the shoulders and too bright for a courtroom—soft camel wool that would have looked at home on someone walking out of a magazine shoot, not on a sleep-deprived webcomic artist trying not to throw up on the courthouse steps.
"It says 'I'm not guilty, I'm just cold and fashionable,'" Leah had insisted that morning, draping it over Amara's shoulders. "You can't go in there in your sad hoodie. The cameras will eat you alive."
Amara hadn't believed her.
She believed her now.
The courthouse was older than the towers that surrounded it, all stone columns and grand steps. A handful of leafless trees out front did nothing to soften its stern face. What softened it, apparently, was chaos.
Cameras clustered at the base of the stairs, like a flock of shiny, metal birds. Microphones sprouted from fists. Reporters in smart coats and rushed makeup stood in loose clusters, talking rapidly into lenses and phones.
As Amara stepped out of the cab, late morning light hitting her square in the face, the flock turned.
"There she is," someone murmured.
She felt it more than heard it—a subtle shift in attention as heads pivoted, bodies angled, focus snapped toward her. For a second, she considered climbing back into the cab and telling the driver to take her anywhere else, but Patel was already there at the curb, closing his own door, adjusting his tie.
"Deep breath," he said quietly, joining her at the sidewalk. "Don't run. They like that."
"I'm pretty sure I could trip before I run," she said. Her voice sounded too thin in her own ears. "This coat weighs more than my self-esteem."
"It looks good," he said, and for once he wasn't humoring her. "Professional. Human. That's what you need to be today. Not the character they're already writing for you."
They took the stairs together.
The cameras came alive.
Flashes popped—a staccato of white in her vision. Questions flew too, overlapping, a frantic chorus.
"Ms. Reyes! Do you have a statement?"
"Is it true you admitted to using Mr. Valtor as inspiration?"
"Do you regret the comic?"
"Are you and Mr. Valtor personally involved?"
"Was this a smear campaign—?"
"Did WebVerse pay you to provoke a lawsuit for publicity?"
The last one almost made her bark a laugh. As if any platform had ever looked at her and thought weapon instead of content that can be ignored until it explodes by accident.
She kept walking, because stopping felt like drowning. Patel moved slightly in front of her, a shield made of thrift-store suit and steady posture.
"No comment," he said firmly. "We'll speak through filings."
The reporters pressed in as far as the steps allowed, lenses leaning toward her like they were hungry. Amara kept her gaze on the courthouse doors. If she looked at them, she'd trip and roll all the way back down in a slapstick video that would live online forever alongside fancams of her villain.
Two particularly determined microphones broke through the blur.
"Is it true you're claiming a supernatural connection to Mr. Valtor?" a woman's voice asked. "There are rumors online—"
"No comment," Patel repeated. His hand hovered near her elbow, not touching, just ready.
The words supernatural connection lodged in her brain like a splinter.
People on the internet had theories, of course. That she'd made a deal with the devil. That she was his secret ex. That she'd been planted by a rival corporation. That she was a witch. People always had theories.
Hearing them echoed in real air, on real steps, into real cameras, made them feel heavier.
At the top of the stairs, the courthouse doors yawned open—tall, heavy, guarded by two officers and a metal detector. The noise dulled as they stepped inside, like someone had put a glass dome over the chaos.
"You okay?" Patel asked, low.
"Define 'okay'," she said. "I haven't thrown up on your shoes, so that's something."
"That is something," he agreed.
Inside, the halls smelled of old wood, floor polish, and faint stress. People moved in clumps: lawyers with briefcases, families in their best clothes, defendants in whatever they'd had clean. No one stopped her here. No one raised a camera. The circus lived outside; in here, the performance was subtler.
They climbed one flight of stairs, then another. Outside Courtroom 6B, a small crowd had already gathered—more lawyers, a couple of reporters with press badges, an older man in a maintenance uniform leaning on his mop like it was a viewing cane.
Patel checked the list posted by the door.
"Valtor v. Reyes is first on the docket," he said. "No waiting room for you."
"Yay," she muttered.
He turned to face her fully, expression serious. "Remember what we talked about," he said. "You sit. You listen. If the judge asks you a direct question, you answer briefly and truthfully. No speeches. No jokes about wolves."
"I never joke about wolves," she lied.
He smiled briefly, then sobered. "And whatever happens today, it's not the final decision," he added. "This is about temporary orders, not the whole case."
Temporary orders. Preliminary injunction. Words she'd learned in the past week that felt less temporary than the people saying them.
A clerk opened the courtroom door a few minutes later. "Valtor Group v. Reyes," she called. "Parties, please."
Amara's legs turned to water.
She walked in anyway.
The courtroom was smaller than the dramas on TV made them seem. No balcony, no huge sweeping space. Just pew-like benches, a low bar, counsel tables, a witness stand, the judge's bench elevated at the far end. The air was still, thick.
On the left side of the room, at the plaintiff's table, sat Adrien and two other lawyers, their files spread neatly. Lucian was beside them, in a dark suit that made the wood paneling behind him look cheaper by comparison.
He didn't look over as she entered. He didn't have to. The awareness of him was a pressure in the room, a gravity source.
On the right, Patel led her to the defense table. Their pile of papers was thinner, the edges slightly bent.
Behind them, on the benches, a scattering of people: a few journalists with notepads already out, clacking away on laptops; some curious court regulars who'd wandered in for the show; a couple of faces she recognized from social media avatars, fans who had apparently decided this counted as an event.
Leah sat in the second row, wave already halfway up, eyes bright with worry. When their gazes met, she mouthed, You got this, then pointed at her own eyes and then at Amara, the universal sign for I'm watching.
It helped. A little.
"All rise," the bailiff called.
Everyone stood, the shuffle of feet and rustle of fabric filling the room.
The judge entered from a side door—a woman in her late fifties, hair cropped short, black robe swishing. She looked tired, brisk, and absolutely uninterested in anyone's theatrics.
"Be seated," she said, taking her place. "Calling Valtor Group and Lucian Valtor versus Amara Reyes, docket number…" She rattled off the numbers, then glanced at each table in turn. "Appearances, please."
Adrien stood. "Good morning, Your Honor. Adrien Hale for the plaintiffs, Valtor Group and Mr. Valtor."
Patel rose. "Good morning, Your Honor. Sanjay Patel for the defendant, Ms. Reyes."
The judge's gaze flicked to Amara briefly, assessing, then returned to her notes. "We're here today on plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction," she said. "And related requests for temporary relief. I've read the papers. I'm familiar with the broad strokes. Let's remember that this is not the trial. I am not deciding ultimate liability today. I am deciding whether the plaintiffs have shown enough likelihood of success, and irreparable harm, to justify interim measures. Understood?"
"Understood, Your Honor," both lawyers chorused.
"Good," she said. "Mr. Hale, you may proceed."
Adrien stepped forward slightly, hands resting lightly on the lectern. He looked like he was about to give a keynote, not argue law.
"Thank you, Your Honor," he began. "This case, at its core, is about boundaries—between creative expression and exploitative appropriation. Between fair use and unfair harm. My clients are not opposed to art. They are not attempting to suppress criticism. They are asking the Court to protect Mr. Valtor's right not to have his likeness and persona hijacked and turned into a violent, supernatural caricature for profit."
His voice warmed as he spoke, smoothing over the sharp edges of the words. He'd rehearsed this. Of course he had.
He pressed a button on a small remote. A screen mounted on the courtroom wall flickered to life.
"Let me show you some of what we're dealing with," he said.
On the screen, a split image appeared.
On the left: a panel from Alpha of the Boardroom—Episode 67's infamous splash. The Alpha standing in his burning boardroom, shirt torn, scar stark, ring gleaming, city a smear of light behind him.
On the right: Lucian Valtor at a press conference, mid-speech, standing in front of floor-to-ceiling windows. Scar visible. Ring visible. The angle painfully similar.
A murmur rippled through the benches.
Amara's throat closed. Seeing the panel in this room, under this lighting, transformed it. It was no longer a piece of her soul pinned to pixels. It was Exhibit A.
"And this is not a one-off resemblance, Your Honor," Adrien continued smoothly. He clicked again.
Side-by-side comparatives filled the screen. Her panel of Lucian's silhouette framed against the window; a photo of Lucian at his tower window from a business magazine. Her rooftop scene with his coat flaring in the rain; a paparazzi shot of him leaving his car in a storm, caught mid-stride. Her close-up of his hand with the distinctive ring; a candid of his hand resting on a table in an interview, ring almost identical.
With each click, the room seemed to lean forward.
"Ms. Reyes did not simply write about 'a rich CEO' in the abstract," Adrien said. "She used distinct elements of my client's appearance—his facial structure, his scar, his signature jewelry, even the design of his corporate headquarters—and layered them onto a character depicted as a predatory, violent werewolf."
He flipped to another slide.
A screenshot of one of the meme comparisons, with user commentary blown up.
"THIS IS LITERALLY LUCIAN VALTOR."
"Corporate Wolf IRL vs Canon."
"If he doesn't sue her he's a saint."
"Her own audience understands who this is meant to be," Adrien said. "They tag Mr. Valtor by name. They make edits splicing his real speeches with graphic panels where his fictional counterpart tears out throats and threatens enemies."
He clicked again.
Another screenshot. A fancam video thumbnail with her art and Lucian's face, captioned: "Corporate Wolf in 4K 🐺💼". Under it, a trending hashtag banner: #AlphaOfTheBoardroom #LucianValtor.
"There is nothing subtle about this," Adrien said. "This is not a case of a vague similarity or an incidental likeness. It is deliberate appropriation, amplified by virality."
He shifted tone slightly, more clinical. "Under the relevant statutes and case law, Your Honor, Mr. Valtor has a protectable right of publicity in his name, likeness, and persona. Ms. Reyes is using that without consent, in a commercial context. Furthermore, the way she depicts him—as a supernatural, violent predator upon human beings—can be reasonably interpreted by some readers as implying factual traits. That opens the door to defamation and false light."
He launched into the legal tests then—likelihood of confusion, transformative use, balancing tests. The words hammered against Amara's ears but slid off the surface of her panic.
She stared at her panels on the screen, stripped of their story, stripped of her comments, stripped of the messy love that had gone into them, reduced to evidence of wrongdoing.
Her cheeks burned.
When Adrien started showing snippets of her comments section—fan jokes about Lucian, speculative theories about him being an actual werewolf, memes that said things like "Finally someone said it"—her skin crawled.
"We're not here to litigate jokes," Adrien said. "But jokes can have teeth. Public perception is shaped in spaces like this. My client has already had to field questions about whether he is the 'Corporate Wolf' in these comics. That is not harmless. That is reputational harm in progress."
Her eyes darted briefly to Lucian.
He sat very still. Earlier, he had seemed almost relaxed. Now there was a tightness in the set of his jaw, a contained energy. The photos on the screen framed him as both victim and villain simultaneously, depending on who was looking.
At one point, as Adrien described her work as "crude fantasy dressed in plagiarism," a flashbulb popped at the back of the room—some reporter trying to sneak a shot despite the no-camera rule. The bailiff hissed and moved toward them; the judge shot a glare.
"Cameras off inside the courtroom," she said sharply. "Next person I see with a phone up gets cited. Do I make myself clear?"
A ripple of yes, Your Honor answered.
Adrien wrapped up with the standard language—likelihood of success, irreparable harm, balance of equities, public interest—and sat down.
Patel stood.
He did not have a slideshow.
"Your Honor," he began, voice less polished than Adrien's but solid, "this case may be about boundaries. But it is also about perspective."
He gestured toward the dark screen. "You've just seen a curated set of images designed to maximize resemblance," he said. "Yes, there are similarities between my client's fictional character and Mr. Valtor. There are also millions of dark-haired men in suits with scars. The law does not, and should not, allow every public figure to claim ownership over any depiction of a powerful businessman with a sharp jaw."
A faint chuckle rippled somewhere in the benches.
"My client is a young artist," he went on. "She writes in a genre that thrives on exaggeration—paranormal romance, urban fantasy. Her 'Alpha' is not presented as a real person. He transforms into a wolf, Your Honor. He participates in blood rituals under full moons. He commands pack hierarchies. No reasonable reader actually believes Mr. Valtor does these things in his board meetings."
The judge's mouth twitched, just barely.
"She did not name him," Patel continued. "She did not label the corporation 'Valtor Group'. She chose the name 'Lucian Valt' because she liked the sound. She drew a generic glass tower because that's what modern corporate architecture looks like in every city. Her readers made the connection. The internet did what the internet always does—saw patterns, made memes."
A part of Amara wanted to stand and yell that her tower design wasn't generic, that she'd accidentally drawn his building almost window for window. But if she said that out loud, she'd be nailing her own coffin shut.
"Are there similarities that, in hindsight, are uncomfortable? Yes," Patel said. "She has acknowledged that. She is willing to add disclaimers, adjust designs, correct any impression that this is a direct parody of Mr. Valtor. What she should not be forced to do is surrender her story entirely, assign her characters, or pay punitive damages she cannot even begin to afford for a crime she did not intend."
He turned slightly toward the bench. "On the injunction standard, plaintiffs have not shown irreparable harm," he argued. "Mr. Valtor is a powerful, wealthy CEO. A temporary delay in addressing perceived slights in a niche online comic will not topple his empire. Meanwhile, an injunction that forces Ms. Reyes to take down years of work and stop posting entirely while this case drags on will effectively end her career before it begins. That harm is irreparable."
He hit the points they'd practiced: artistic freedom, chilling effects, David and Goliath. He did not say wolves once, which she appreciated.
The judge listened, expression unreadable.
When he finished, she nodded. "Thank you, Mr. Patel."
Her gaze moved back to Adrien. "Short reply?"
"Briefly, Your Honor," he said, already on his feet. "We are not claiming ownership over all men in suits, or all scarred characters. We are saying that in this particular case, the convergence of elements, plus the explicit audience identification, pushes this beyond coincidence."
He didn't show more slides. He didn't need to. The images were branded into everyone's retinas already.
The judge held up a hand. "I've heard enough argument on the standard," she said. "I do have a few questions."
Her eyes flicked to Amara.
"Ms. Reyes," she said. "Please stand."
Blood roared in Amara's ears. She rose, knees threatening mutiny.
"Have you ever met Mr. Valtor before this lawsuit?" the judge asked.
"No, Your Honor," Amara said. Her voice wobbled but held.
"Before your comic went viral, were you aware of him as a public figure?"
"Not… by name," she said honestly. "I might have seen him in an article or an ad, but I didn't… know who he was. I didn't think, 'I'm going to draw that guy.'"
"You understand why that is a relevant question," the judge said. "Your intent matters for some causes of action."
"I understand," Amara said. "I—" She swallowed. "I make stories about power. About people trapped under it. I stitched together a character from every boardroom villain in media. If some of that overlapped with Mr. Valtor, that's because… he already lives in that world. Not because I hunted him specifically."
A whisper ran through the benches. The judge's gaze remained steady.
"Have you added any disclaimers since this dispute began?" she asked.
"Not yet," Amara said. "My lawyer told me not to change anything while it's pending."
Patel nodded. "That's correct, Your Honor. We didn't want to risk accusations of spoliation."
"Very well," the judge said. "You can sit, Ms. Reyes."
Amara sat, legs trembling.
For a moment, she thought she was done being examined.
Then the judge's gaze slid to the other table.
"Mr. Valtor," she said. "Stand, please."
The room seemed to hold its breath.
Lucian rose, unhurried. Even that simple motion, standing from a chair, seemed grounded, controlled.
"Were you aware of Ms. Reyes's work before your legal department flagged it?" the judge asked.
"No," he said. His voice carried clearly, steady. "I confess, Your Honor, that I do not regularly read webcomics."
A small ripple of restrained laughter.
"What was your reaction upon seeing the panels for the first time?" she pressed.
He paused, considering. "Annoyance," he said finally. "Curiosity. A touch of professional respect."
That last word landed oddly in the room.
"Respect?" the judge echoed.
"She is… talented," he said. "She captured certain… essences of the corporate world very well. I did not appreciate being equated with a supernatural predator. But I recognize craft when I see it."
The admission sent another murmur through the benches.
Adrien's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly, as if this wasn't the exact script they'd rehearsed.
"And you are confident," the judge said, "that this association is damaging enough to warrant the relief you seek? You believe people will genuinely think you are like this fictional character?"
Lucian's gaze flicked briefly toward the dark screen, then back.
"People rarely draw a neat line between fiction and reality when it comes to public figures," he said. "Stories stick. They become shorthand. I sit in boardrooms where a single meme can shape negotiations. I cannot allow a viral image of me as a literal monster to become part of that shorthand."
He didn't raise his voice. He didn't have to.
The judge studied him a moment longer, then nodded. "You may sit."
He sat.
As he did, his gaze passed over Amara.
Just passed. A casual sweep of the room.
But when it crossed hers, it caught.
For half a heartbeat, the rest of the courtroom blurred—the judge's robe, the reporters' notebooks, the humming fluorescent lights. His eyes locked on hers, and the air around her seemed to thin.
Gray. Clear, cold gray. Reflection of the courtroom lights in them.
Prey, a traitorous part of her brain supplied. That's what you are here. Not equal. Not opponent. Prey being discussed by predators in suits.
She couldn't look away until he did, breaking the contact as smoothly as if he'd done it a thousand times before.
The judge spoke again, mercifully dragging her attention back.
"I'm going to take a brief recess to review some of these exhibits again," she said. "Then I'll deliver my ruling on the preliminary injunction."
She banged the gavel once. "Court is in recess for twenty minutes."
Everyone exhaled at once.
The bailiff called, "All rise," but Amara barely heard it. She stood on autopilot, knees trembling.
Back on the benches, Leah's hand flicked up in a small wave, eyes wide.
At the plaintiff's table, Adrien leaned in to murmur something to Lucian. Ms. Kwan checked her phone. Douglass flipped through his notes.
No one looked rattled.
On the defense side, Patel exhaled slowly and turned to her.
"How bad?" she asked.
He rubbed his forehead. "Hard to read," he said honestly. "She's clearly not thrilled about the idea of shutting you down completely. But she also doesn't like the strength of the resemblance. My guess? She'll grant some form of temporary relief. Maybe not everything they want. Maybe limit it."
"So… half strangled instead of fully?" she said weakly.
"For now," he said. "Remember, this isn't the final act. It's just the Court deciding who has to hold their breath longer while we fight."
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a reporter scribble something down, whispering to her seatmate. They looked up at Amara, then at Lucian, then back at the front.
Outside these walls, headlines were already forming. Art vs Billionaire.Werewolf Comic on Trial.Courtroom Wolves: CEO vs Creator.
Inside, the circus had paused. No music. No roaring crowd. Just a judge in a back room, weighing law and optics, trying to decide how much story was allowed to breathe while money argued.
Amara sat back down slowly, Leah's coat heavy around her shoulders, legal paperweight in her lap.
She had never felt more exposed.
Her art on screens. Her comments on slides. Her face in reporters' crosshairs. Her name between Plaintiffs and Defendant. Her sense of safety peeled away, layer by layer, in front of strangers and strangers' eyes.
And somewhere behind all of that, watching with a gaze sharp enough to cut, sat the man she had once drawn as nothing more than pixels and fantasy.
Now his stare pinned her like prey in the center of a very real arena.
The circus would be back on in twenty minutes.
She wasn't sure, when the gavel fell again, how much of her story would still be allowed to exist.