The city looked beautiful from up here.
Mike stood on the rooftop of a warehouse near the Carter Bridge, watching light pollution paint the sky in shades of orange and purple. The bridge itself was a marvel of engineering—suspension cables thick as tree trunks, support towers that scraped the sky, a roadway that carried thousands of people across the river every hour.
It was about to become his stage.
He checked his phone for the seventh time in ten minutes. The tracking app—another embarrassingly easy hack into the Justice League's communication network—showed Hawkgirl's position as a moving blue dot. She was three blocks away, patrolling the warehouse district, probably bored out of her mind dealing with the usual Friday night nonsense.
Mike pocketed the phone and adjusted his appearance one final time.
The suit was perfect. Charcoal with subtle pinstripes, tailored to move with him. The gloves were snug, professional, the kind a surgeon might wear if surgeons committed elaborate crimes. His shoes—actual leather oxfords, polished to a mirror shine—probably cost more than his entire wardrobe from his previous life.
The masquerade mask covered the upper half of his face, leaving his mouth visible. The top hat sat at a carefully calculated angle, just tilted enough to suggest confidence without looking ridiculous.
He looked like he should be attending an opera, not orchestrating a crisis.
Perfect.
"Okay," Mike said to himself, his voice steady despite the adrenaline singing through his veins. "Okay. You've got this. You've written this scene a hundred times. Hero arrives. Villain presents challenge. Tension escalates. Hero overcomes."
He paused, grinning slightly.
"Except this time, you're the villain. And she's not going to overcome. Not the way she thinks."
He pulled out a small remote detonator from his jacket pocket. Two buttons. Red and green, because apparently even in high-tech explosives, color-coding remained universal.
Mike had spent three days setting this up. The explosives were military-grade—acquired through channels he'd rather not think too hard about—but modified to be precise rather than catastrophic. Shaped charges that would sever specific cables without causing immediate collapse.
This wasn't about killing anyone.
This was about control. Pressure. Forcing Hawkgirl to think instead of just fight.
He checked the time: 11:47 PM.
Hawkgirl's patrol route would bring her past the bridge in approximately ninety seconds.
"Showtime," Mike whispered.
He pressed both buttons simultaneously.
The explosions were beautiful.
Two controlled detonations, synchronized perfectly, one at each end of the bridge. Not massive fireballs—this wasn't a Michael Bay movie—but sharp, precise *cracks* of force that severed secondary support cables with surgical accuracy.
The bridge shuddered.
Car alarms shrieked. Brake lights flared red as drivers slammed to a stop, the roadway suddenly unstable beneath them. People screamed—the primal, instinctive sound of civilians who'd suddenly realized they were in danger.
But the bridge held.
For now.
Mike teleported from the warehouse rooftop to a support beam halfway across the bridge, the familiar *pop* of displaced air accompanying his arrival. His teleportation was getting smoother, more confident. He barely felt disoriented anymore.
Below him, traffic was locked in place. Cars couldn't move forward or back, blocked by the debris from the explosions and the sudden instability of the roadway. People were getting out of their vehicles, confused and terrified, looking around for the source of the attack.
Mike smiled behind his mask.
"Three... two... one..."
Hawkgirl arrived like an avenging angel.
She came in fast, wings spread wide, mace already drawn. Her silhouette against the city lights was exactly how Mike had imagined it would be—powerful, determined, ready for violence.
She landed on the bridge's central support tower, scanning for threats with the practiced efficiency of someone who'd responded to hundreds of these situations.
Mike watched her search pattern. Methodical. Professional. Looking for terrorists, saboteurs, conventional threats.
She wouldn't find any.
This wasn't destruction.
This was staging.
Hawkgirl's confusion was almost tangible.
She scanned the bridge twice, wings flared, every muscle coiled for combat. But there was no one to fight. The explosions had stopped. There was damage, yes—severed cables, debris, panicked civilians—but no attackers. No follow-up assault.
No logic to it.
That unsettled her more than an obvious threat would have.
Mike savored the moment, then teleported.
The flash of displaced air behind her was intentional—loud enough to get her attention, dramatic enough to announce his arrival properly.
He materialized on a support beam twenty feet above her, landing lightly despite the absurd height. The teleportation was precise now, controlled. He felt like he was finally getting the hang of this.
In his hands: a megaphone.
Because if you're going to be theatrical, commit to the bit.
Hawkgirl spun, mace raised, ready to crush whatever had just appeared behind her.
Mike bowed.
A full, formal bow. Top hat in one hand, the other swept across his chest like he was greeting royalty at a ball.
"Good evening, Hawkgirl," he said, his voice amplified and slightly distorted through the megaphone. Calm. Articulate. Almost polite. "Thank you for being punctual. I do appreciate professionalism."
Shayera stared at the figure above her.
A man in a suit. A tailored suit. Top hat. Masquerade mask. He looked like he'd wandered off the set of a Victorian drama and decided to commit terrorism as a hobby.
"Who the hell are you?" she demanded, wings spreading wider, ready to launch.
The man straightened from his bow, replacing his top hat with a practiced motion.
"Sophist," he said pleasantly. "And before you try to introduce your mace to my skull—understandable impulse, I don't blame you—please note that this situation is somewhat time-sensitive."
He gestured broadly at the bridge around them.
"I've placed explosives along the main support cables. Eight in total. Two have already detonated, as you noticed. Each remaining explosive is independent, remotely triggered, and will reduce this bridge's structural integrity by approximately twelve percent."
Shayera's grip tightened on her mace. "If you hurt these people—"
"I don't intend to," Sophist interrupted, his tone remaining conversational. "That outcome depends entirely on you. You see, I'm not here to destroy a bridge. I'm here to administer an exam."
"An exam?"
"Yes. Think of this as a professional evaluation." He pulled out a small device—looked like a modified tablet—and tapped it once. "I'm going to ask you questions. Hypothetical scenarios requiring tactical judgment and ethical reasoning. Answer incorrectly, and another cable detonates. Answer correctly, and we proceed to the next question."
He tilted his head, the megaphone making his voice sound almost cheerful.
"No negotiation. No rescue window. No bluffing. Just you, demonstrating whether you're as prepared as you are strong."
Shayera's mind raced. This was insane. Theatrical. But the explosives were real—she'd seen the damage. The bridge was compromised. Civilians were trapped.
She could try to rush him, but he'd already demonstrated teleportation. He'd be gone before she closed the distance.
"You're insane," she said flatly.
"Probably," Sophist agreed. "But I'm insane with explosives and a willingness to have a conversation. So. Shall we begin?"
The first question was simple.
"You're responding to a hostage situation," Sophist said, consulting his tablet like a professor reading from notes. "Three hostages, one gunman. He's nervous, unstable, but hasn't hurt anyone yet. You can disarm him in one second—you're fast enough, strong enough. But there's a thirty percent chance the sudden movement triggers a reflexive shot. Do you take that chance, or do you negotiate?"
Shayera didn't hesitate. "Take him down. Thirty percent is acceptable risk compared to letting an unstable gunman stay armed."
Sophist was quiet for a moment.
Then he pressed a button on his tablet.
An explosion cracked through the night—another support cable severing with brutal precision. The bridge lurched. Civilians screamed. Cars shifted, metal groaning.
"Incorrect," Sophist said calmly. "The hostage statistics suggest negotiation is safer in nervous-gunman scenarios. Rushing creates exactly the panic you're trying to prevent."
Shayera felt anger surge through her. "You son of a—"
"Next question," Sophist interrupted, already reading. "A building is collapsing. You can save twelve people on the ground floor, or four people on the top floor. You don't have time for both. What do you choose?"
The questions continued.
Each one was worse than the last. Not riddles—nothing cute or cryptic. These were real heroic dilemmas, the kind that kept you awake at night.
Split-second tactical decisions.
Ethical trolley problems with no clean answer.
Scenarios where every choice meant someone suffered.
Shayera answered on instinct at first, relying on her training, her centuries of combat experience. But Sophist wasn't testing combat. He was testing judgment. Reasoning under pressure.
And she was failing.
Each wrong answer brought another explosion. Another cable severed. The bridge sagged further with each detonation, structural integrity degrading in real-time.
She tried rushing him twice.
Both times he teleported away effortlessly, reappearing on a different support beam, never breaking his calm, professorial tone.
"Don't rush," he said after her second attempt, sounding almost encouraging. "Strength doesn't fix poor reasoning, Hawkgirl. You're better than this."
That line hit harder than it should have.
Mike watched Hawkgirl's frustration build and felt something complicated twist in his chest.
Guilt. Satisfaction. Concern.
She was adapting—he could see it. The anger was focusing into concentration. She was listening more carefully now, thinking through the scenarios instead of just reacting.
Her answers were improving.
But it was too late.
Too many cables were already gone. The bridge had passed the point of stability. Even if she answered every remaining question perfectly, the structure was compromised beyond immediate salvation.
He'd designed it that way.
This wasn't about winning the game. This was about learning that sometimes, you can't.
"Final question," Mike said, consulting his tablet one last time. "You're in exactly this situation. A villain has forced you into an impossible scenario. The bridge will collapse regardless of your performance. Do you: A) Pursue the villain and prevent future attacks, or B) Abandon the chase to minimize casualties?"
Shayera stared at him, and Mike saw the moment she understood.
"This was never about the questions," she said quietly.
"No," Mike agreed. "It was about what you do when you realize you've already lost."
He removed his top hat, holding it against his chest in a gesture that was almost respectful.
"Lesson one, Hawkgirl: You don't always get to win the game you're given. Sometimes you just get to choose what you lose."
He teleported.
The bridge gave way thirty seconds later.
Not all at once—that would have been catastrophic. But the remaining cables couldn't support the weight distribution. The roadway began to sag, then buckle, support towers groaning under impossible stress.
Shayera made her choice in less than a second.
She dropped the chase.
Flew to the bridge's weakest point, wings spreading wide, and caught the collapsing structure.
The impact drove her down, muscles screaming, Thanagarian physiology pushed to its absolute limit. She wasn't strong enough to stop the collapse entirely—no one was. But she could slow it. Control it. Become the anchor point that gave civilians time to escape.
Her wings dug into concrete and steel. Her arms braced against support beams. She became architecture, forcing her body to be the bridge the structure no longer was.
Below her, emergency services flooded in. Police guided civilians off the roadway. Paramedics set up triage. The evacuation was chaotic but organized.
No one died.
Shayera held the bridge for seven minutes before the last civilian cleared.
Then she let it fall.
She collapsed to one knee on the remaining stable section, wings drooping, every muscle trembling with exhaustion.
No glory. No applause. Just the brutal mathematics of endurance and sacrifice.
She looked back at the damaged bridge, at the space where Sophist had stood.
Nothing.
But his voice lingered in her memory, distorted through that ridiculous megaphone:
*"Strength is easy. Thinking under pressure is the real test."*
Shayera wanted to scream. Wanted to hunt him down and beat that smug, theatrical persona into submission.
But more than that—and this was the part that disturbed her—she wanted to understand what he'd been testing.
And why, despite everything, she felt like she'd learned something.
Across the river, on a rooftop with a perfect view, Mike watched through binoculars.
The mask was still on. The suit was perfect. His breathing was steady despite the adrenaline crash.
He felt thrilled.
Not because he'd won—though technically, he had. Not because he'd hurt her—he'd specifically designed this to avoid real harm.
But because she'd survived.
Because she'd made the right choice at the end.
Because now, she would never forget him.
"Well done," Mike whispered, lowering the binoculars. "You're better than you think you are. We're going to prove it."
He didn't let himself acknowledge the other feeling growing in his chest. The one that went beyond professional admiration. Beyond strategic interest.
The one that whispered this was about more than training.
Mike teleported away before he could examine that thought too closely.
Behind him, emergency lights painted the night red and blue.
Below him, Hawkgirl stood slowly, wings spreading, already scanning for traces of her new enemy.
The game had begun.
And neither of them fully understood what they'd started.