Metropolis looked clean from altitude—polished steel, mirrored rivers, billboards that pretended rain didn’t exist. You hovered above LuthorCorp's roof garden, listening to the faint thrum of containment fields and the sharper thrum of your own patience wearing thin. Lena had invited you—well, “summoned” was closer—to discuss a satellite that didn’t technically belong to her but responded to her voice like a trained hawk.

She stood at the edge in a green suit that matched the cutting shade of her eyes. “You came,” she said, not turning. “I was worried you might be busy lifting a bridge or signing autographs.”

“You could’ve called the Family hotline,” you said, landing lightly on composite decking. “It’s printed on every crisis poster.”

“I prefer not to be on hold while the world burns.” She faced you finally, lips quirked. “Also, your hold music is offensive.”

“The theme slaps,” you said. “What’s the emergency?”

She gestured, and the air flickered into a hard-light display. A swarm of micro-satellites ringed the world, needles in a perfect halo. “Someone piggybacked on a Luthor defense lattice and turned it into a hunter-killer grid. It pings on metahuman bio-signatures, not missiles.”

You folded your arms. “So your toys are stalking my cousins.”

“My toys are attempting to keep foreign militaries from testing railguns over Kansas,” she said, “but yes, a party with access modified the heuristics. I didn’t authorize it.”

“Which party?”

“If I knew, I’d already have ruined them financially.” Her smile was sharp. “I called you because while I detest the cape demographic, I detest sloppy engineering more.”

You stepped closer to the projection. “Give me a window, I’ll punch the high node.”

She caught your sleeve, surprising both of you. “Don’t punch it. It’ll cascade.”

You glanced at her hand until she let go. “Then guide me.”

“Already am.” She flicked her wrist; a path lit through the ring. “You have forty-seven seconds between sweeps to phase that node into shadow. Do you even have phasing?”

“Speed. Precision. Charm,” you said. “Two out of three will do.”

“Try three.” She tapped her earpiece into your comms without asking, her voice sliding into your head like a dare. “Go.”

You launched. The sky thinned; cold needled your face. Lena counted down in your ear like a metronome with sarcasm. “Nine. Eight. If you die, I’m billing your family for the cleanup.”

“Noted,” you said, fingers biting into the first node’s casing. You twisted, bled off its spin, redirected its aim. Across the planet, thirty-six cousins blinked off red. “One down.”

“Thirty-five to go,” she said. “Try not to admire yourself while doing it.”

It took eight minutes and a dozen near-misses. When you dropped back to the roof, shoes scorching a little decorative gravel, Lena handed you a glass of water she pretended she hadn’t been holding.

“Why tell me instead of the press?” you asked.

She shrugged. “Easy. I like winning quietly.”

“You like me winning quietly,” you said.

Her eyes glittered. “I like watching you juggle ethics and optics while I juggle physics and hostile boards. It’s entertaining.”

“You’re my arch-enemy now?” you asked, deadpan.

“‘Personal Luthor’ has a nicer ring.” She stepped close enough that you caught a note of ozone from her lab coat that wasn’t there. “Try to keep up, cape.”

“Try to stop making murder halos,” you said.

“Try to stop being interesting,” she shot back, already walking away. “Neither of us will succeed.”

Your comm pinged with a sealed file. Fail-safe keys. From her. You watched the city’s reflection ripple in the L on the tower. Personal Luthor, then. You’d met worse fates.