Dawn came slowly over the river, painting the wreckage in shades of gray and gold.
The Carter Bridge hung like a broken spine, its central section sagging into the water, support cables severed and dangling like cut tendons. Emergency lighting turned the scene into something almost beautiful—if you could ignore the twisted metal, the shattered concrete, the physical evidence of structural failure.
News helicopters circled overhead like carrion birds, their cameras capturing every angle of the damage. Below, police had established a perimeter, keeping civilians and media at a safe distance while engineers assessed the structural integrity of what remained.
Shayera Hol stood apart from the crowd, wings folded tight against her back.
Her armor showed stress marks—hairline fractures in the Nth metal plating where she'd braced against impossible weight. Her mace hung at her side, forgotten. She watched the last civilians being escorted away by paramedics, watched emergency workers secure the site, watched the sun rise on a disaster that should have been a massacre.
No one died.
She should feel relief. Satisfaction. Something.
Instead, she just replayed the night on an endless loop, watching herself fail every question until it was too late to matter.
A police lieutenant approached her cautiously. "Ma'am? We've cleared the area. You're free to—"
"I'm fine," Shayera said, her voice flat. "Thank you."
The lieutenant nodded and retreated, recognizing the tone of someone who wanted to be left alone.
Shayera stood there for another twenty minutes, watching the bridge. Memorizing the damage. Promising herself she would remember exactly what it felt like to be outmaneuvered.
Then she spread her wings and flew north, toward the rendezvous point Batman had sent to her communicator three hours ago.
The safehouse was one of Batman's—of course it was. The man had contingency locations scattered across every major city like a particularly paranoid dragon hoarding treasure.
This one was a converted warehouse in the industrial district, all exposed brick and reinforced walls. Inside, the League's core members had assembled around a conference table that looked salvaged from a corporate bankruptcy sale.
Batman sat at the head, cowl on, posture perfect. Superman stood near the window, arms crossed, looking concerned in that way he always did when civilians were endangered. Wonder Woman occupied a chair to Batman's right, her presence somehow making the entire room feel more dignified.
Flash was there too, vibrating slightly with barely contained energy. And Green Lantern—John Stewart—stood against the back wall, arms folded, expression unreadable.
They all looked up when Shayera entered.
"Shayera," Superman said gently. "Are you—"
"I'm fine," she said, cutting him off. She took a seat at the opposite end of the table from Batman, setting her mace down with more force than necessary. "Let's get this over with."
Batman's cowl turned toward her. "Walk us through it. From the beginning."
Shayera explained the sequence with clinical precision.
The two initial explosions, synchronized perfectly to lock traffic and create panic. The absence of visible attackers. The arrival of Sophist—she said the name without inflection, like it was just another designation.
The rules he'd established. The questions. The impossible choices.
Her voice remained controlled throughout, detached and professional. But her hands betrayed her. They kept clenching into fists, relaxing, clenching again. The Thanagarian equivalent of a nervous tic she'd thought she'd conquered centuries ago.
"He asked you questions?" Flash said, confused. "Like, trivia?"
"Tactical scenarios," Shayera corrected sharply. "Ethical dilemmas. Hostage situations, resource allocation, acceptable casualty rates." She paused. "Things that don't have clean answers."
"And every wrong answer triggered an explosion," Batman said. Not a question. A confirmation.
"Yes."
Wonder Woman leaned forward slightly. "What kind of questions?"
Shayera pulled out her phone, where she'd recorded everything she could remember. Read them aloud.
*"Three hostages, one gunman. He's unstable. Do you risk the sudden takedown or negotiate?"*
*"Building collapsing. Twelve people on the ground floor, four on the top floor. You can't save both. Who do you choose?"*
*"You have intel on a terrorist cell. Waiting ensures civilian safety but lets them escape. Moving now prevents escape but endangers bystanders. What do you do?"*
The room went quiet.
Superman's expression darkened. "Those aren't villain questions. Those are—"
"Training exercises," Batman finished. "The kind we run in simulations."
"Exactly," Shayera said bitterly. "Except when I got them wrong, people's lives were on the line."
Flash shifted uncomfortably. "But you saved everyone, right? I mean, that's what the news is saying. Bridge collapsed but zero casualties. That's a win."
Shayera's head snapped toward him, and even Flash—who could perceive events at super-speed—flinched at the sudden intensity in her expression.
"That wasn't the win," she said, each word precise and cutting. "That was damage control. The win would have been stopping him before he destroyed the bridge. The win would have been answering his questions correctly. The win would have been not falling into his scenario in the first place."
"Shayera—" Wonder Woman began.
"He outthought me," Shayera continued, her voice rising slightly. "He didn't outfight me. He didn't overpower me. He built a scenario where every option cost something, where every decision exposed weakness, and he did it specifically to prove I wasn't prepared."
She stood abruptly, pacing toward the window. Her wings twitched with agitation.
"I could have ignored him entirely. Evacuated the bridge first, dealt with him second." She counted on her fingers. "I could have moved faster, prioritized differently. I could have destroyed the bridge myself in a controlled way, eliminated his leverage."
"Any of those options risked lives," John said from the back wall.
"All of them risked lives," Shayera snapped. "That was the point. He designed it so that there was no clean solution. No heroic victory. Just choices about what I was willing to lose."
Batman's cowl tilted slightly. "And what did you choose?"
Shayera turned back to face the table. "In the end? I chose to let him escape so I could save civilians. Which is exactly what he wanted me to do."
"That's the right choice," Superman said firmly.
"Is it?" Shayera challenged. "Because now he's still out there. Planning his next move. And I guarantee you it's going to be worse than this."
Wonder Woman stood, moving around the table to stand beside Shayera. "You saved lives. You made the choice a hero makes. There's no shame in that."
"There's no victory in it either," Shayera said. "This Sophist—"
She said the name like it was poison. Like just speaking it left a bad taste in her mouth.
Her jaw tightened. Her wings flared slightly, an instinctive, predatory response she couldn't quite suppress.
"He knew me," she said quietly. "Not personally. But tactically. He knew exactly how I'd respond. What questions would slow me down. Where I'd second-guess myself."
Batman was watching her carefully now. "You think he studied you specifically?"
"I know he did." Shayera pulled out her phone again, showing them the image she'd taken of Sophist's calling card, at masquerade mask with her name written in black marker across. Building a profile. He didn't just want to fight Hawkgirl. He wanted to test her. To prove something.
"Prove what?" Flash asked.
Shayera stared at the image of the calling card, at the elegant script that spelled out her name.
"That I'm not as good as I think I am."
The silence that followed was heavy.
John broke it first. "So what do we know about this guy? Sophist. Powers? Background?"
"Teleportation," Shayera said immediately. "Short-range, line-of-sight from what I observed. Precise. He used it defensively, stayed out of engagement range the entire time."
"Tech level?" Batman asked.
"High. The explosives were military-grade, modified for precision. The remote detonation system was sophisticated—individual triggers, no master switch I could locate. The questions themselves..." She hesitated. "They were too well-constructed. This wasn't someone improvising. He had a script. A plan."
"Psychological profile?" Wonder Woman asked gently.
Shayera considered that. "Theatrical. But not egotistical in the traditional sense. He didn't monologue about his superiority or his master plan. He just... taught. Like a professor administering an exam he knew I'd fail."
She realized something as she said it, and her expression darkened further.
"The questions worked," she admitted, the words coming out reluctantly. "They slowed me down. Made me doubt. That doubt almost killed people."
The room went very quiet.
Superman's voice was careful when he spoke. "Shayera, you're one of the most experienced warriors in the League. If he managed to get in your head—"
"Then he's more dangerous than he looks," Batman finished. "This wasn't random chaos. This was precision manipulation. He's not looking for destruction. He's looking for something else."
"Control," Shayera said flatly. "He wants to prove he can control the battlefield. Control the hero. Force us to play his game on his terms."
"Or," Flash said hesitantly, "maybe he's actually trying to train you? Like, in a really messed up way?"
The reaction was immediate.
Shayera's wings flared wide, an instinctive display of aggression. Her hand went to her mace. The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees.
"Say that again," she said quietly.
Flash raised his hands. "I'm just saying! The questions, the scenarios, the way he let you save everyone in the end—it's like he was testing you, not trying to actually hurt anyone."
"He destroyed a bridge," Shayera said, her voice dangerously calm. "He put hundreds of lives at risk. He forced me to choose between catching him and saving civilians. If that's training, then he chose the wrong fucking student."
She was standing at her full height now, wings spread, presence filling the room in a way that made even Superman take a step back.
"This isn't over," she said, her voice carrying absolute certainty. "This isn't a lesson I accept. I will hunt Sophist down. I will find him. And when I do, I'm not stopping him."
"Shayera—" Wonder Woman began.
"I'm ending him."
The meeting continued for another hour, but Shayera barely participated.
Batman assigned surveillance protocols. Superman volunteered to help with bridge reconstruction. John offered to scan for energy signatures that might match Sophist's teleportation tech.
Shayera nodded in the right places, made the appropriate confirmations, and said nothing about the cold fury building in her chest.
When the meeting finally concluded, she was the first one out the door.
Later, alone in her apartment, Shayera stood by the window overlooking the city.
The bridge was visible in the distance, even from here. Emergency lights still flickered around it, a reminder of failure lit up against the night sky.
She held her mace in both hands, feeling its familiar weight. The Nth metal was warm against her palms, responsive to her touch, ready for violence.
The questions echoed in her mind, but they didn't confuse her anymore.
They fueled her.
*Three hostages, one gunman. What do you choose?*
*I choose to find you.*
*Twelve people or four people. Who do you save?*
*Everyone. After I'm done with you.*
*Building collapsing. Terrorist cell escaping. What do you do?*
*I hunt you down. I make you pay. I show you what happens when you make this personal.*
Sophist hadn't just challenged her.
He'd branded himself into her life. Left a mark that wouldn't fade.
And Shayera Hol, who had lived through centuries of warfare, who had died and been reborn more times than she could remember, who had faced gods and monsters and come out standing—
Shayera Hol was going to tear that brand out.
No matter how long it took.
No matter what it cost.
She would find Sophist.
And she would show him exactly why you don't make a predator question itself.
Her reflection in the window showed her expression: cold, focused, absolutely unforgiving.
"Wrong student," she whispered to the distant bridge. "You picked the wrong fucking student."
Outside, the city moved on, indifferent to her rage.
But somewhere out there, Sophist was planning his next move.
And Hawkgirl was planning hers.
The game had only just begun.