Lex immediately moved toward the window and looked outside.
Bang.
Another sharp impact struck the glass.
This time, he saw it clearly.
A canary.
For reasons unknown, the bird had slammed itself repeatedly against the reinforced window, its small body bouncing back from the impact yet refusing to stop. Its feathers were disheveled, and its fragile frame pressed against the glass as though trying to break through to the other side.
For a brief moment, it hovered there, face to face with Lex.
He studied it in silence.
Something about the scene pulled at his memory.
Several years ago, inside the Luther Tower, he had stood in his top-floor office on a bright afternoon, a glass of wine in hand, sunlight spilling across the room. Everything had felt orderly, controlled.
Then a shadow passed over him.
At first, he assumed it was a cloud.
But the shadow lingered.
It stretched across the office floor, climbed the walls, and finally covered him entirely, cutting off the sunlight that had bathed him moments before.
Lex had looked up.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling glass, a window cleaner was suspended on a maintenance rig, moving along the building's exterior. He wore a blue safety suit and harness, his movements methodical but distracted, as though his mind was elsewhere.
He looked like someone who did not belong at that height.
Lex remembered watching him for a long time without expression, observing the man's careless technique, the uneven rhythm of his work, the lack of discipline in every motion. It had been obvious he was not trained for the job.
Perhaps a displaced professional.
Perhaps someone running from failure.
Perhaps someone simply trying to survive.
Then the equipment had failed.
The platform gave way without warning.
The man fell.
Only at the last moment did he catch a protruding edge of the structure, his fingers locking onto the building's frame as the safety line snapped uselessly behind him.
He hung there, suspended between life and death, struggling to hold on.
Lex remembered his face.
Not fear alone.
Something more complicated.
Regret.
Relief.
And something like acceptance.
As though part of him had already decided to let go.
Lex had watched without moving.
And now, standing before the struggling canary, the memory returned with unsettling clarity.
The bird's beak struck the glass again.
A thin streak of blood slid downward.
It was weakening.
Outside Metropolis, high above the clouds, another sound tore through the sky.
A fighter jet cut through the air in a violent arc, accelerating toward Adrian.
The strike came without warning.
After surviving the nuclear blast, Adrian's body still burned with residual energy, stronger than before, more volatile, as though the explosion had only refined what he had become.
He had been moving toward Coast City when the jet intercepted him.
Its armored frame blocked his view entirely.
For a brief moment, Adrian narrowed his eyes.
"Batman?"
The thought passed quickly through his mind.
The jet banked hard.
Then it fired.
A missile streaked forward, trailing fire through the sky.
Adrian's gaze sharpened.
Heat Vision erupted instantly, striking the missile mid-flight and detonating it in a violent bloom of light and sound.
The explosion lit the clouds like a false sunrise.
Without hesitation, Adrian accelerated.
The air cracked around him as he surged forward at supersonic speed.
The jet reacted immediately, rolling away and unleashing a barrage of gunfire.
Bullets tore through the air in dense formation.
Adrian raised both hands.
The rounds struck his palms and stopped dead, crushed against his grip as if they had collided with an immovable wall.
His expression did not change.
If bullets could reach him, he would not be standing there at all.
He vanished forward again.
This time, faster.
He struck the jet's tail with devastating force.
The aircraft exploded instantly.
Fire ripped through its structure, consuming metal and fuel as it spiraled downward in a burning descent.
Adrian hovered above the wreckage, watching it fall.
Cold certainty settled in his gaze.
Even if it was Batman, this was the end.
Then a sound pierced the air.
A scream of compressed sonic energy.
A wave of force struck Adrian midair, disrupting his balance and forcing him back a step.
His hand rose instinctively to his head.
The frequency was unnatural.
Not purely sonic.
Something layered within it, almost like a magical distortion embedded inside the vibration itself.
His senses tightened in response.
Above him, Black Canary descended rapidly through the sky.
She had ejected before the jet's destruction.
Not by accident, but by design.
She had known she could not defeat him in a straight fight.
The jet was only a distraction.
A tool to create an opening.
As she fell, she continued her sonic attack without pause, amplifying the frequency into a concentrated assault aimed directly at his nervous system.
She collided with him midair.
Her arms locked around his neck.
The impact disrupted his flight, dragging both of them downward.
She kept the sonic scream active, forcing the attack directly into his ears at close range.
Stopping meant death.
So she did not stop.
The ground rushed up.
At the last moment, Adrian's body twisted with raw force.
Black Canary was thrown aside violently.
She crashed into the earth, rolling through dust and debris as shockwaves rippled outward.
Pain tore through her body, but she forced herself upright.
Blood ran from her lips.
Her breathing was uneven.
Still, her eyes locked onto the dust cloud where he had fallen.
"Did it… work?"
Silence answered her at first.
Then footsteps.
Heavy.
Measured.
Unhurried.
Each step pressed through the dust like a declaration.
Her expression tightened.
Adrian emerged from the haze without a single visible wound.
Unshaken.
Unchanged.
Her breath caught.
He stopped in front of her.
"You look surprised," Adrian said evenly, his voice steady, almost indifferent.