Chapter 34: Corporate Ladder to Hell
I stood in the MetaWorks command hub with a lukewarm coffee in one gauntleted hand, the other idly scrolling through gala footage on the main holoscreen.
The platinum armor still hugged my frame from the patrol earlier, helmet off and sitting on the console beside me like a shiny paperweight. My silver cape had been unclasped and tossed over a chair because even god-tier Viltrumite durability didn’t stop fabric from wrinkling after three hours of flying, fighting, and… well.
A gentlemen doesn’t kiss and tell.
Okay, fine, getting wet. Not like that, get your head out of the gutters. I mean literally wet. You ever wear a blanket over your back that touches the ground when you walk? It catches everything. It’s why I’m always floating. Kind of pointless when it rains, though.
The room itself hummed with the usual low-level chatter of night-shift dispatchers until suddenly every single alarm in the building decided to lose its collective mind at once.
Why can I never just enjoy my ramblings?
Red lights flooded the walls. Klaxons screamed. The main tactical display lit up like a Christmas tree designed by a paranoid conspiracy theorist. Dozens of unidentified aircraft—LexCorp signatures, no question—were already punching through the lower perimeter. Dropships disgorging mercenaries.
Swarms of AI drones knifing between them like angry metallic hornets. And right in the middle of it all, a sleek command shuttle hovering just outside optimal weapons range, broadcasting on an open channel.
Mercy Graves’s voice cut through the speakers, crisp and dripping with more personal venom than I’d ever heard her aim at Superman. “King. You arrogant, silver-caped fraud. Tonight I’m going to peel that shiny armor off you and gift-wrap your spine for Luthor. Soon, you’ll just be like every other washed up Hollywood star. Buried and forgotten.”
Wow. That felt very personal.
I took another sip of coffee. It tasted like regret and burnt beans. Like all coffee. Why did I drink this? And why did Lex send Mercy to lead the charge. Have I pissed off the bald megalomaniac that much?
Superman gets the standard world-domination speeches. I get the ex-girlfriend-from-hell treatment because I keep making his stock price cry? And dropped him from the sky one time? On second thought, maybe he had the right to be a little upset.
Still. My quarterly maintenance budget was already flashing red in my head. Insurance adjusters were going to have a field day with this one.
“Constantine,” I said into the comm, voice calm even as I set the coffee down and sealed my helmet back on. The reflective visor slid into place with a soft pneumatic hiss, HUD blooming to life across my vision. “We’ve got uninvited guests. Wake the kids. Tell Ace no unsupervised telepathy stunts unless they’re funny. And ping Jason—he’s still on for field training hours.”
Of course, I imagined that those hours would have been in the actual field, and not my office building. But that’s what happens when you make plans. Bald guys with big egos and bigger bank accounts invade your home.
I didn’t wait for Constantine’s confirmation. My fingers danced across the command console, overriding safety protocols with the kind of casual disregard that would make any normal CEO faint.
Elevators throughout the lower thirty floors rerouted mid-descent, their shafts transforming into vertical launch tubes. Maintenance drones I’d repurposed last month spun up from their charging bays, now loaded with non-lethal payloads.
The big holographic PR displays that usually ran highlight reels of MetaWorks saves flipped into disorienting strobe patterns—bright enough to scramble drone optics and induce vertigo in unshielded mercs without cooking anyone’s retinas.
The building itself became my first weapon. Forget armed to the teeth. I was seemed to the nails.
External feeds showed the first wave hitting. Drones slammed into redirected elevator cars that shot upward like cannonballs, exploding against reinforced plating in pretty little fireworks. A squad of mercenaries fast-roping onto a loading dock suddenly found the floor beneath them shifting—literally—thanks to emergency bulkhead protocols I’d just triggered.
They tumbled like bowling pins.
Lex really went all-in this time. Robotics, AI, other supervillains probably lurking somewhere in the mix, and Mercy herself playing field commander. He’s more pissed at me than at the guy who keeps throwing him in prison. Philosophy bullshit, my ass. This is pure pettiness.
“King to all MetaWorks assets,” I broadcast, keeping my tone light and almost bored. “We’re under attack. Standard rules: protect civilians first, property damage is billable, try not to make the evening news look too much like a Michael Bay fever dream. H.I.V.E. Five, you’re up. Jason, Ace—on deck. Doom Patrol, if you’re not busy arguing about whose turn it is to be emotionally unavailable, the lobby could use a big angry robot.”
Gizmo’s voice crackled back immediately, high-pitched and gleeful. “Finally! I’ve been dying to test the new counter-drone swarm!”
Jinx followed with her usual edge. “Try not to blow up the good servers this time, tin can.”
I allowed myself half a smirk under the helmet. The team was chaotic, sure, but they were my chaos. I’m such a proud papa.
More alerts popped up. Mercy’s shuttle had deployed heavier ordnance—missiles streaking toward the mid-levels. I fed power from the secondary grid into the holographic arrays and turned the entire eastern face of the building into a massive, shifting mirror field.
The missiles veered, confused, and slammed into each other in a satisfying mid-air detonation that lit up the night sky over downtown.
That’s going to be a hell of a insurance claim. “Act of corporate jealousy” probably isn’t a covered peril.
Kara’s voice cut into my private channel next, blunt and earnest as always, with that slight edge of protective intensity that still made something warm twist in my chest. “Luke, I see the ships. I’m coming in hot. Should I just—”
“Grid first,” I interrupted gently, already pulling up a new tactical overlay. “Use the dispatch conduits on the north face. Surge them when the next wave commits. Less smashing, more creative problem-solving. Think of it as training.”
A short pause. I could picture her frown—earnest, literal, the one that said she was processing my sarcasm as actual instructions. “The conduits. Yes. I will surge them. But if they hurt anyone inside your building, I will crush their machines personally.”
“That’s my girl,” I muttered, too low for the mic, then louder, “Copy. I’m improvising from up here. Stay sharp.”
The command center doors hissed open behind me. Jason stepped through in full Red X gear, mask under one arm, looking equal parts wired and trying-not-to-look-wired. Ace trailed after him like a tiny chaotic shadow, bouncing, already wearing that mischievous grin that usually preceded property damage or spontaneous dance parties.
… my people were either a really bad influence on her, or a really good one.
“Hey Coach,” Jason said, clipping his mask on. “This is the real thing, huh?”
“Welcome to advanced training,” I replied dryly. “Mercy Graves is running point for Lex. We’ve got an army of drones, and mercs at our front door. Rules still apply: non-lethal where possible, creative over brute. Ace, keep the wild cards tactical. No turning the entire mercenary company into a flash mob unless it buys us time.”
Ace saluted with way too much enthusiasm. “They’ll regret wearing those helmets. Brains are squishy.”
I don’t even want to know what that means.
I watched another wave of drones get swatted out of the sky by my repurposed maintenance flock.
The building shook faintly as something heavy breached a lower loading bay. Budget projections danced mockingly in the back of my mind—another few million in repairs, easy. But the team was mobilizing. Kara was already lighting up the sky outside with controlled bursts. Jason and Ace were heading for the elevators I’d just turned into express combat delivery systems.
Lex wants a war in my own house? Fine. We’ll give him one. Just not the one he planned.
I cracked my knuckles inside the gauntlets and pulled up the next layer of tricks. This was going to be a long night, but at least it wouldn’t be boring.
…
Kara tore through the night sky like a comet, the wind whipping at her cape as she locked onto the first cluster of LexCorp drones swarming the MetaWorks atrium. These machines were fast and numerous, but fragile.
She clenched her fists and drove straight into their formation, heat-vision slicing clean, glowing paths through their metal bodies. Sparks and debris rained down in bright orange trails while the destroyed drones spiraled toward the street below. Satisfaction bloomed hot in her chest. This was simple. Direct.
The way she had been taught to fight since she first opened her eyes in Brainiac’s cradle.
More drones pivoted toward her, their weapons charging with high-pitched whines. She didn’t slow down. Another burst of heat-vision carved through two at once, and she followed it with a spinning kick that shattered a third into glittering fragments. The atrium’s massive glass facade reflected the chaos back at her—flashes of red and blue against the dark building.
Somewhere inside, Luke was directing everything with that calm, sarcastic voice of his, and the thought made her fight harder. He trusted her to handle this side of the battle. She would not disappoint him.
His voice crackled over her comms, dry and steady. “Kara, the grid on the north face. Surge the dispatch conduits when the next wave lines up. It’ll fry their circuits without you having to chase every single one.”
She frowned mid-flight, processing his words literally. The grid. The conduits. He always wanted her to be clever instead of strong, and while she was trying—really trying—to learn his way, it still felt unnatural. Why calculate when she could simply hit harder? But he had asked, and she wanted to make him proud.
She altered course, eyes scanning for the glowing access panels he had described during training sessions. There. A faint blue shimmer along the building’s northern exterior where the power lines ran.
“Understood,” she replied, voice firm. “I will surge the conduits.”
She accelerated, grabbing the nearest heavy drone by its chassis and using it like a battering ram to smash through three more. Then she spotted the squad of mercenaries fast-roping down toward a shattered atrium balcony.
They wore full tactical gear, rifles already tracking her movement. Protective instinct surged forward. These humans were attacking Luke’s home, his company, his people. That made them a direct threat.
Instead of blasting them outright, she followed Luke’s earlier suggestion and channeled power into the conduits running beneath the balcony level. Electricity arced wildly. But her timing was slightly off—her literal interpretation of “surge” stronger than he probably intended.
The power spike jolted the mercenaries’ descent lines and sent them hurtling sideways at high speed. They slammed as a tangled group straight into the massive decorative fountain in the atrium plaza below, water exploding upward in a chaotic splash. Helmets bobbed to the surface as they flailed and cursed, soaked and disoriented but very much alive.
Kara hovered for a split second, blinking at the sight. That… worked. They were neutralized. Humiliated, certainly, but breathing. A small, awkward smile tugged at her lips. Luke would probably call that creative.
She felt a flush of warmth at the idea of him watching the feed and offering one of his dry compliments later. Maybe even that half-smile he gave when he was secretly pleased.
“Mission accomplished,” she said into the comm, earnest pride coloring her tone. “The mercenaries are contained in the water feature. They will not be shooting anyone soon.”
Luke’s reply came with that familiar sarcastic lilt. “Fountain party. Nice. Just keep them non-lethal, yeah? The city fines are bad enough without adding excessive force paperwork.”
She didn’t fully understand the paperwork part, but the approval in his voice still sent a soft flutter through her chest. Connection. That was what she craved for her entire life—someone who saw her as more than just a weapon. Luke gave her that. Even in the middle of battle, he made her feel seen.
Her eyes tracked higher and locked onto Mercy Graves’s command shuttle hovering arrogantly just beyond the main atrium spire. It was sleek, heavily armored, and firing suppression bursts at the building’s defensive emplacements. Mercy. The woman who had personally taunted Luke with such hatred.
Kara’s jaw tightened. Her fury burned bright and immediate. She wanted to rocket straight at it, tear the cockpit open, and make sure that woman never threatened Luke again.
“I see the shuttle,” she said, already shifting her trajectory. “I am going to intercept it directly. Mercy Graves will not—”
“Wait,” Luke cut in smoothly, reading her intent perfectly even from inside the command center. “Creative intercept, remember? Use the dispatch power surges on the upper north conduits again, but timed with the building’s external lighting array. Bounce the feedback loop back at them. It’ll scramble their systems and force them lower without you needing to play tag with missiles. Trust me on this one.”
Kara hesitated for half a breath, her instinct screaming to charge. But his voice carried that quiet confidence she had grown to rely on. He wasn’t doubting her strength. He was helping her fight smarter.
For him, she would try. She altered course again, eyes narrowing as she calculated the angle. The conduits. The lighting array. Yes. She could see how the energy would arc.
“Very well,” she answered, voice intense. “I will do it your way. But if they fire on you again, I will crush that shuttle with my bare hands.”
A new voice broke into the channel—Jason, clipped and focused. “Heads up, Supergirl. Red X incoming, teleporting in three… two…”
Space folded nearby in a flash of red energy. Jason appeared on a protruding structural beam just below her position, already in motion as he fired a line of his Red X tech toward a cluster of drones harassing the lower levels. Ace clung to his back like a mischievous backpack, her small hands glowing faintly with telepathic effort.
Kara slowed just enough to match their altitude, relief and mild exasperation mixing inside her. “Jason. You should have announced your arrival earlier. I could have accidentally hit you with residual heat-vision.”
Jason adjusted his grip on a grappling line, voice dry even through the modulator. “Noted. Next time I’ll send a postcard. You handling the shuttle?”
“I am following King’s instructions for a creative intercept,” she replied earnestly, already channeling power into the next surge. “He says it will be more efficient than punching it out of the sky.”
Ace giggled from Jason’s back, her telepathic voice brushing lightly against Kara’s mind. “He always says that. Then you punch it anyway when it doesn’t work.”
Kara felt her cheeks warm slightly at the accurate observation. “Only if necessary. Luke prefers clever solutions. I am… learning them.” She released the surge.
Blue-white energy rippled along the building’s skin, feeding into the lighting array. The feedback loop snapped outward in a brilliant cascade that slammed into the command shuttle’s shields. Systems flickered and sparked. The shuttle dipped and veered lower, exactly as Luke had predicted, its weapons momentarily offline.
A fierce, satisfied grin spread across Kara’s face. It had worked. Not as directly as she would have liked, but it had worked. And Luke had guided her through it. That connection, that partnership in the middle of chaos, made the battle feel less lonely.
She still wanted to smash the shuttle personally, but she could admit this way protected more of his people inside the building.
“Surge successful,” she reported, voice carrying quiet warmth beneath the intensity. “The shuttle is descending. I will maintain pressure while staying creative.”
Jason gave her a quick thumbs-up before teleporting again with Ace in tow, the pair vanishing in another red flash to harass another drone squadron. Kara rolled her shoulders, eyes never leaving the damaged shuttle. The night still burned with threats, but she felt sharper now. More in sync.
For Luke, for his strange but loyal team, and for the hope he had given her; she would keep adapting.
Even if part of her still itched to simply fly straight at the problem and hit it until it stopped moving.
…
Jason felt the familiar stomach-twisting lurch of teleportation fade as he materialized in the dimly lit sub-levels, Ace’s small arms locked tight around his neck like a deranged backpack. The air down here already stank of scorched metal and ozone, emergency strobes painting everything in harsh red pulses.
His Red X mask HUD flared to life, tagging threats faster than his eyes could adjust. This wasn’t some clean rooftop skirmish or gala test run. This was Lex throwing everything at the wall, and the wall was currently bleeding sparks and groaning under heavy footsteps.
Ace giggled right next to his ear. “Lots of angry brains down here. They’re thinking about shooting us. Should I make them think about something sillier?”
“Do it,” Jason muttered, already scanning for cover. “But keep it tactical. We’re not here for your personal comedy hour.”
As fun as that would be, Jason was a professional mostly.
Before he could take another step, the corridor ahead exploded outward. Metallo stepped through the breach like a walking nightmare, his Kryptonite core blazing an ugly green that made Jason’s skin crawl even through the armor.
The cyborg’s upgrades were obvious—Lex had gone heavy on the anti-hero countermeasures. Energy beams laced with that glowing radiation lanced out, melting chunks of reinforced concrete and forcing Jason to teleport again in a quick flash of red.
He reappeared on a catwalk above, Ace still clinging securely. “Hey, we’ve got Metallo in sub-level three,” he reported over comms, voice clipped. “Looks like Lex gave him a fresh coat of ’fuck you specifically’ paint. Kryptonite output is off the charts.”
King’s reply came back dry as ever. “Copy that. Creative solutions only. No one dies tonight, including the walking reactor. How’s your plus-one?”
Ace answered for herself by pressing her hands to Jason’s mask. A telepathic ripple shot outward. Half the mercenaries pouring in behind Metallo suddenly froze, eyes wide with pure terror as their minds filled with visions of giant, honking clowns juggling live grenades.
Another cluster dropped their weapons and started doing an involuntary conga line, faces slack with confusion while their bodies moved against their will. One guy actually began singing off-key.
Jason couldn’t help the sharp bark of laughter that escaped. “Ace is on wild-card duty. It’s working. Sort of.”
He dropped from the catwalk, landing in a roll as he slapped a hacking spike into the nearest MetaWorks security turret. The system recognized his override codes instantly—Luke had made sure every Red X signature was whitelisted.
Code scrolled across his HUD while he worked. Instead of lethal rounds, the turret’s barrels began cycling new protocols. Non-lethal foam rounds mixed with kinetic bouncers. Perfect for riot control in tight quarters.
“Jinx, Gizmo, where the hell are you?” he called into the team channel while ducking another green energy blast that turned the wall behind him into glowing slag.
Jinx’s voice crackled back, laced with her usual smug edge. “Already here, Red. These drones are pathetic.” A wave of pink hex energy rippled down the corridor, turning a squad of LexCorp robots into brittle, rusted scrap that collapsed mid-stride.
Gizmo piped up next, sounding like he was having the time of his life. “I’m rigging countermeasures! Give me thirty seconds and I’ll have their own signal jamming them! Mammoth, Terra—clear a path!”
Heavy footsteps thundered as Mammoth charged in like a living battering ram, smashing through a barricade of fallen debris while Terra rode a slab of lifted flooring beside him. She slammed her hands down, rippling the concrete under a group of mercenaries and sending them tumbling into a newly created sinkhole that was just deep enough to trap, not kill.
Jason finished the hack. The repurposed turrets spun up with cheerful beeps that felt wildly out of place amid the carnage. Instead of bullets, they began launching bouncy gel projectiles that ricocheted off walls and bodies, herding mercenaries like pinballs into containment corners. One merc went flying backward into a padded bulkhead with a comical boing sound.
This is insane. He went from stealing tires in Gotham to corporate superhero team-building with a telepathic gremlin on his back and a bunch of reformed H.I.V.E. rejects. Luke’s idea of ’mentorship’ is basically throwing someone into the deep end and seeing if they drown in creativity.
Metallo pivoted toward the new threats, his chest reactor flaring brighter. “Pathetic children playing at war,” the cyborg boomed, voice distorted with static. Another wide-arc Kryptonite beam swept the area. Jason teleported again, Ace whooping with delight as the rush hit her.
“Boss,” Jason said into the direct channel while repositioning, “these turrets are doing great work, but Metallo’s core is putting out enough radiation to cook a small elephant. Property damage is climbing. You’re gonna need a new sub-level after this.”
King’s voice carried that signature deadpan sarcasm. “Add it to the list. Corporate team-building exercise, remember? Consider this your performance review. How’s the bouncy turret idea working out?”
“Better than expected,” Jason admitted, watching one turret ping a mercenary across the room like a human pinball. The guy bounced off three walls before landing in a groaning heap. “Ace just made another squad think their guns are turning into snakes. They’re dropping them and screaming. It’s… actually kind of sad.”
Ace leaned closer, whispering loudly enough for the comm to pick it up. “One of them is now convinced he’s a ballerina. Should I make it stop or let him pirouette into the wall?”
Jason snorted despite himself. “Let him dance. Buys us time.”
Terra called out from across the corridor, voice strained with concentration as she raised another section of floor into a makeshift barrier. “Incoming heavy drone wave from the east access! Mammoth, smash the big one!”
Mammoth roared and barreled forward, shoulder-checking a massive drone into scrap while Gizmo zipped around on his little hover platform, welding together a makeshift EMP dish on the fly. Jinx hexed another cluster of turrets that had been turned against them, flipping their allegiance back with a flare of pink energy.
The coordination felt strangely smooth despite the chaos. Jason had spent so long on his alone, just surviving day-to-day that this whole ’teamwork’ thing still felt foreign. But it worked. Luke’s whole stupid subscription-hero model actually worked when the chips were down.
Another Kryptonite blast forced him to teleport Ace and himself behind a reinforced pillar. The radiation made his teeth ache even through the armor. “Ace, hit Metallo with something disorienting. Not lethal. Just enough to make his targeting glitch.”
She concentrated, small hands glowing. Metallo suddenly staggered, clutching at his head as his sensors fed him phantom data—probably visions of dancing clowns or his own body falling apart into spare parts. The cyborg swung wildly, blasting holes in the ceiling instead of the team.
Jason used the opening to hack a second bank of turrets, reprogramming them on the fly to focus kinetic pulses on Metallo’s joints, forcing the big bastard to stumble and kneel without destroying him outright. “That’s it. Keep him off-balance. H.I.V.E., converge on the reactor core but do not crack it. We’re not turning this into a radioactive superfund site.”
Gizmo cheered. “Countermeasures online! Feeding false data into his uplink now!”
The battle settled into a strange rhythm of controlled madness—teleport strikes, hexed machinery, moving terrain, and Ace’s unpredictable psychic pranks turning Lex’s elite assault force into a slapstick routine.
Jason felt the burn in his muscles, the familiar adrenaline that used to come with rage now tempered by something steadier. Purpose. Training. The kind of future Luke kept quietly pushing him toward instead of the pit Gotham tried to bury him in.
He teleported again, landing a precise strike on Metallo’s exposed cabling while the cyborg was busy swatting at imaginary threats. “Boss, sub-levels are stabilizing. Messy, but contained. Your quarterly maintenance budget is officially screwed though.”
King’s reply held a hint of that dry humor Jason was starting to appreciate. “Worth every penny if it keeps my team breathing. Good work, Red. Keep the corporate team-building going. I’ll buy the post-battle pizza.”
Jason allowed himself a small, genuine smirk under the mask as Ace laughed and sent another wave of chaotic distractions rippling outward. For the first time in a long while, the violence felt like it had direction. Like it served something bigger than just survival or revenge.
He still had a long way to go, but nights like this made him believe he might actually get there.
…
Cliff Steele barreled through the shattered remains of the main lobby entrance like a freight train with anger issues, metal feet cracking the marble floor with every thunderous step. The entire damn building shook as another explosion rocked the lower levels, but he didn’t slow down.
An entire elevator car ripped free from its shaft behind him, cables whipping like steel snakes as he swung it overhead like a massive improvised club. Jane’s voices chattered inside his head in that familiar chaotic chorus, guiding the trajectory with split-second precision that somehow always worked even when it shouldn’t.
“Leftmore, you idiot—swing wider!” Hammerhead barked.
“No, no, cushion the arc, we’ve got civvies!” Karen countered, softer but insistent.
Cliff growled and adjusted mid-swing, the massive elevator car whistling through the air before smashing into a cluster of LexCorp mercenaries and their heavy assault drones.
The impact sent bodies and scrap flying in a spectacular arc, none of them landing too hard thanks to the way Jane had him feather the blow at the last second. “You all happy now? I’m playing goddamn croquet with an elevator!”
Larry’s Negative Spirit streaked past in a glowing green blur, phasing straight through a squad of mercs who immediately started screaming about ghosts in their heads. The spirit did a quick recon loop around the upper balconies, tagging more hostiles before diving back into a drone formation and shorting out their circuits from the inside.
Larry’s voice echoed faintly through the spirit link, dry and exhausted as always. “Twelve more on the mezzanine. They’ve got some kind of Kryptonite-tipped rounds. Rita’s got the civilians.”
Rita Farr—elasti-woman herself—had already stretched her arms into long, rubbery loops, gently herding a group of terrified night-shift employees and a few gala stragglers toward the reinforced emergency stairwell.
She expanded her body into a massive translucent shield wall, absorbing stray gunfire and debris while cooing reassurances in that old Hollywood starlet voice that somehow still worked on panicked people. “This way, darlings. Keep your heads down. Mama Rita’s got you.”
Cliff felt the familiar mix of irritation and reluctant fondness twist through his mechanical chest. This was their life now—working for a sarcastic billionaire in a platinum suit who paid better than any previous gig and actually gave a damn about collateral. Still weird as hell.
King’s voice piped through the lobby comms, calm and dripping with that signature dry humor. “Nice form on the elevator swing, Cliff. Try not to turn the atrium into abstract art though. We’ve got insurance people who already hate me.”
“Tell the insurance guys to bill Lex,” Cliff shouted back, ripping another chunk of fallen structural beam free and hurling it like a javelin at an incoming dropship.
The beam speared straight through the cockpit plating, forcing the ship to veer wildly and crash-land in the plaza outside instead of through the glass facade.
“And tell your girlfriend she’s doing a hell of a job keeping the sky clear. We’re buying you time down here, not redecorating!”
Jane’s voices erupted again in a flurry of overlapping directions. “Incoming from the east corridor—heavy armor!” “Spin us!” “No, use the car again, bigger arc!” “I want to smash something!”
Cliff obliged, grabbing the dented elevator car once more and spinning like a demented shot-putter. The car flew end-over-end and smashed through a reinforced mercenary breach point, flattening their barricade and sending the survivors scrambling.
A few tried to return fire, but Larry’s Negative Spirit phased through their weapons, turning rifles into useless glowing slag while Rita stretched one giant hand out to scoop up a straggling civilian who had frozen in panic near the fountain.
“Gotcha, sweetheart,” Rita murmured, tucking the woman safely behind her elastic barrier. “Cliff, darling, perhaps a touch less property destruction?”
“Tell that to the guys trying to turn King’s lobby into Swiss cheese,” Cliff grumbled, charging forward again. His heavy fists connected with a drone the size of a small car, crumpling it like tinfoil before he used its remains as a club against three more.
Sparks flew everywhere. The absurdity of it all hit him again—this used to be him screaming at the Chief about existential dread and now he was playing whack-a-mole with evil corporate robots while a multiple personality disorder guided his swings. Life was fucking hilarious sometimes.
Another wave of mercenaries poured in from the breached loading dock, this batch carrying heavier ordnance. Jane’s voices shifted tactics instantly. “Scattershot pattern!” “Protect the squishies first!” Cliff adjusted, using the elevator car more like a rolling pin this time, bowling it across the lobby floor to knock the new arrivals off their feet in a chaotic tangle of limbs and gear.
Larry zipped through their ranks again, inducing hallucinations and weapon malfunctions while Rita extended her body into a series of bouncy barriers that redirected bullets and bodies alike toward safer corners.
King’s voice cut in again over the comms. “Lobby team, you’re doing great. Jason and the H.I.V.E. kids have sub-levels mostly contained. Kara’s forcing the shuttle lower. Buy us another two minutes and we’ll have the upper levels locked down.”
“Two minutes?” Cliff laughed, a deep metallic sound. “Hell, I’ll give you five. Jane’s in a smashing mood tonight.” He felt the personalities swell with competitive pride inside his head—Hammerhead especially loved the validation.
He grabbed a massive chunk of fallen atrium sculpture (some abstract metal thing that probably cost more than his old body) and used it like a shield, wading straight into the remaining mercs while Larry provided cover by phasing through their armor and messing with their nervous systems.
A stray energy blast clipped his shoulder, scorching paint and leaving a glowing gouge. It stung like hell, but pain was an old friend at this point. “That all you got?” he roared, swinging the sculpture in a wide arc that cleared the immediate area.
Rita caught a tumbling civilian mid-air with an elongated arm and deposited her gently with the others. The woman looked shell-shocked but unharmed.
Larry’s spirit reformed briefly near Cliff’s head, voice tired but amused. “We’re quite the circus tonight, aren’t we?”
“Always have been,” Cliff muttered. “At least this circus has decent health insurance.”
The lobby was a wreck—cracked floors, shattered glass, scorch marks everywhere—but the civilians were safe, funneled toward the exits under Rita’s guidance. The mercenaries were either down, fleeing, or too busy dealing with Larry’s ghostly harassment and Jane’s guided demolition to mount any real threat.
They were buying the time King needed. Cliff could already hear the sounds of battle shifting higher up as Kara and the others pressed the advantage.
He planted his feet and raised the battered elevator car overhead once more like a champion weightlifter, Jane’s voices singing a chaotic battle song in his skull. “Come on then!” he bellowed at the next wave trickling in. “Who else wants to explain to Lex why they got their asses handed to them by a robot, a ghost, and a stretchy movie star?”
Somewhere in the chaos, he caught Rita’s soft laugh and Larry’s faint sigh. Absurd. Ridiculous. Completely insane.
And for once, Cliff Steele wouldn’t have traded it for anything.
…
I finally stepped out onto the rooftop of MetaWorks HQ, the silver cape snapping hard in the night wind as the full chaos of the assault spread out below me like a very expensive fireworks show gone wrong.
The platinum armor felt tighter now, less like a costume and more like a second skin. I had played it smart all night—hacking systems, rerouting power, directing the team like a very sarcastic conductor—but the shuttle hovering stubbornly just off the northeast corner had other ideas. Mercy wasn’t retreating. She wanted this personal.
Time to stop holding back.
I launched upward, the rush of true flight hitting me for the first time that evening. The Viltrumite strength I kept so carefully leashed surged through my limbs as I rocketed straight at the command shuttle. No more clever tricks from a distance. This one needed the direct approach.
My fist connected with the reinforced underbelly plating in a thunderous crack that sent the entire craft spinning wildly. Alarms wailed from inside. Mercy’s voice snarled over the open channel, raw with fury.
“You finally decided to stop hiding behind your toys, King?”
“Something like that,” I replied, already circling for another pass. “Though to be fair my toys were doing way better than yours. Looks like your daddy bought you the cheap stuff.”
Nothing more shameful than the bargain brand.
I grabbed one of the shuttle’s landing struts and pivoted hard, using raw strength to whip the entire vehicle downward toward the rooftop helipad. The metal groaned in protest. Missiles streaked from its side pods. I dodged most, tanked one against my armored shoulder with a grimace, and kept swinging.
The shuttle slammed onto the rooftop hard enough to crater the reinforced concrete, but Mercy was already ejecting countermeasures—smoke, chaff, and a hail of automated turret fire from the craft’s flanks.
The fight turned into a chaotic aerial scrap. I blurred through the smoke, trading blows with the shuttle’s reinforced frame while it tried to regain altitude. Every punch I threw carried controlled power—enough to dent, not destroy outright. I still had to think about the building beneath us and the team still clearing lower levels. Finesse had its place, even when you could bench-press a tank.
Kara arrived like a golden streak, slamming into the shuttle’s side with a direct, no-holds-barred punch that actually lifted the craft off the rooftop for a second. The impact rattled my teeth even from twenty feet away.
“Luke!” she called out, voice bright with protective fire. “I am here. Should I tear it open now?”
I repositioned beside her mid-air, cape flaring. “Not yet. Redirect the power lines on the east relay tower—feed the feedback into their propulsion systems. It’ll ground them without turning the rooftop into a crater. Which is good. Because we need a roof.”
She tilted her head, that earnest little frown crossing her face even as we both dodged another burst of turret fire. “The power lines. Yes. But punching feels faster.” Still, she listened. She always did.
Kara shot toward the relay tower, grabbed the thick conduits, and literally yanked them free, channeling the surge straight into the shuttle’s engines the way only someone with her strength could. Blue-white arcs of electricity danced across the hull.
I used the distraction to close in again, driving a more surgical strike into the cockpit viewport—cracking it without shattering the whole thing. Our styles clashed beautifully in that moment. She hit like a freight train guided by pure instinct and heart.
I danced around the edges, redirecting momentum, using the building’s own infrastructure as extensions of my fists. When she followed up with another powerful blow to the same spot I had weakened, the shuttle finally gave up and crashed fully onto the rooftop in a screech of tortured metal.
Mercy Graves kicked open the side hatch, combat suit scorched and rifle raised. She looked ready to go down swinging.
I landed lightly in front of her, visor reflecting her furious expression back at her. Kara touched down right beside me, fists still glowing faintly with restrained heat.
“Mercy,” I said calmly, “you led an armed assault on a licensed hero operations center, complete with illegal Kryptonite weapons, mercenary deployment, and Metallo. We have full video, telemetry, and about seventeen different jurisdiction witnesses. You’re done.”
She actually laughed, bitter and sharp. “Luthor will have me out before breakfast. You know how this game works, King.”
“Yeah. Unfortunately, I do.” I twisted her rifle out of her hands with careful strength and snapped the barrel. “But we’ll enjoy the week of peace while it lasts.”
Kara stepped closer, voice low and intense, the kind that promised violence if anyone pushed the wrong button. “If you ever threaten us again, I will not be this gentle. Do you understand?”
Mercy met her eyes for a long second, then looked away. Smart woman.
While the restraints locked on, my HUD picked up a fragmented transmission from the shuttle’s black box—Lex’s encrypted fallback channel. The words sent a cold ripple down my spine. “…even the odds… Kryptonian assets… Morgan’s charm should suffice…”
So that was the real play. Not just a tantrum against my company. Lex was going nuclear, and he was dragging out the big guns to do it. I filed the intercept away as the rest of the team started reporting in—sub-levels secure, lobby contained, drones neutralized. The night was winding down, but the war had just announced its next phase.
I stood at the edge of the rooftop, surveying the smoking MetaWorks HQ spread out beneath us. Fires flickered in a few spots, lights were out on half the floors, and the atrium fountain now doubled as a very confused mercenary holding tank. The building looked like it had gone ten rounds with a pissed-off kaiju, which wasn’t far from the truth.
“King to all channels,” I broadcast, keeping my tone light despite the exhaustion settling into my bones. “Assault contained. Excellent work, everyone. H.I.V.E. Five, Doom Patrol, Titans subcontractors—overtime bonuses are approved, and yes, that includes hazard pay and therapy if you need it. Constantine, bill LexCorp for the damages. Twice.”
Jason’s voice came back first, tired but with a hint of that developing dry humor. “Pizza still on you, boss?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
Kara moved to stand beside me, close enough that our capes brushed. She didn’t say anything at first, just watched the city lights with that intense, earnest expression that always made something tight in my chest loosen. I reached over and gently bumped my armored shoulder against hers.
“Not exactly the quiet night I promised after the gala,” I said.
She shook her head, a small smile breaking through. “I do not mind. We protected your people. We fought well together. That is enough.” Then, softer, almost shy, “You used your real strength tonight. It was… glorious. You should do it more.”
I let out a quiet breath. She had intuited more about me than I had ever planned to show, but somehow it didn’t feel like a threat. Not from her.
The rooftop wind carried the distant sound of approaching emergency responders and GDA sirens. This had been brutal, expensive, and personal. But it was also just the opener. Lex wasn’t done. Kryptonian bullshit was coming. And whatever Morgan le Fay had lent him was going to make the next round even messier.
I stared out over my battered headquarters and allowed myself one tired, sarcastic smile beneath the helmet.
“Guess we’ll need a bigger budget,” I muttered. “Act Three is going to be a hell of a show.”