The warehouse smelled like rust and rain, its broken skylights letting in only slivers of dying sunlight. Dust floated through the beams like ash over a battlefield yet to happen. You stood there alone, the blueprint of a plan burned into your mind, waiting for the one person who hated her just as much as you did.

A low growl.

Then claws against concrete.

And then… her.

Cheetah stepped from the shadows, golden eyes gleaming in the dark, her lithe form rippling with predatory grace. She wasn’t wearing the disguise of Barbara Ann Minerva tonight—no lab coat, no glasses. Just teeth, muscle, fury, and the ancient vengeance she wore like a second skin.

“You’re late,” you said without looking.

She circled you like prey. Testing. Weighing.

“You’re bold, I’ll give you that,” she purred, voice velvet over broken glass. “Most people don’t summon Cheetah. They run from her.”

“I’m not most people.”

“Clearly,” she said, flicking her tail with amusement. “You want to bring down Diana.”

“I want to shatter her image. Burn her legacy. Make the world doubt her. And then—only then—we break her.”

Cheetah’s smile widened, though her eyes never softened. “You don’t just want her dead. You want her undone. Interesting.”

“We want the same thing, Barbara.”

“I stopped being Barbara a long time ago,” she said, stepping closer. Her breath smelled like blood and wild earth. “But fine. Let’s talk plans. Impress me.”

You unrolled the map—Themysciran artifacts marked in red, security patterns in the Embassy, Diana’s recent UN travel schedule. “We hit her at three angles. Public, personal, and mystical. I’ve tracked a relic that could sever her from the Lasso’s influence. We leak evidence of ‘questionable’ uses of her power to the press. And then you…”

“I get personal,” Cheetah finished, eyes gleaming. “Oh, I’ll make it personal. She still believes there’s something left of her old friend in me. That hesitation will cost her.”

You nodded. “She sees you as a tragedy. That’s her weakness. She sees me as a shadow. That’s mine. But together…”

“…we become her reckoning,” Cheetah finished. “Poetic.”

She leaned closer, claws tapping the table beside the map. “But tell me something. What’s in this for you? You speak like a man with a vendetta.”

You met her gaze. “She cost me everything. My sister believed in her—followed her into a battle she didn’t survive. Diana called it sacrifice. I call it murder under a prettier name.”

Cheetah tilted her head. “Revenge then. That makes two of us.”

You looked at her, and for a moment, predator and partner stared across the same fire.

“She’ll come at us hard,” you said.

“I want her to,” Cheetah replied. “I want to see the cracks form in that perfect Amazon façade. I want her to scream my name like a curse.”

There was silence then. Not awkward—charged.

You extended a hand. “Alliance?”

Her claws hovered near your wrist for a moment—then retracted. Her hand gripped yours with surprising warmth.

“For now,” she said. “But betray me, and I won’t need Wonder Woman to put you in the ground.”

“Understood,” you replied. “Now let’s show the world that gods bleed.”

She grinned.

And the plan began.