Phoenix left the motel intending to reach Walker's by seven. He didn't get there until eight-thirty. The worse-than-usual traffic should've tipped him off, but he wasn't sure until he found Sofia in the living room, watching the news and holding a mug of coffee so tightly that it shook.

"It's Crime Night," she announced flatly.

Phoenix felt his heart drop. He looked around as if robbers would burst in through the windows, but he knew the crime didn't reach the outskirts.

"Walker called twice," she said. "There's been two shootouts at the docks over shipments. It always starts small like this, and then it escalates into a nightmare. Look." She pointed out the news anchors, droning on about interstate construction. "It'll be three in the morning by the time they catch on."

Two shootouts. Shipments. Eight-thirty in the evening. It might be too early to call it, but Phoenix trusted Nightwalker's judgment. He doubted that word of these events even reached the police yet, let alone the news. Sofia was right: it would be a while until everyone knew, and it would be far too late for the cops to set up patrols to prevent random strikes.

"I should be out there," he said. "Maybe I can help."

Sofia was silent. She was likely thinking the same things he was: he was no superhero, agent, or even that good at physical self-defense. Crime Night was a disjointed mess, so there was nothing specific he could set out to do.

But he had superpowers, and that was defense enough. Offense, even, if it came down to it. He had to try.

"Okay," she said finally. "Good luck."

..............................

Phoenix drove back to the main city, gripping the steering wheel hard enough to turn his fingers white. Crime Night alone didn't scare him; Jethro had survived it before and could survive it again. The problem was Azure. If he was still here—and if Ravager was here with him—they might join in, and that, he was scared about.

He knew he'd get nowhere in the traffic, so he parked along a street and started walking. He was headed for the docks since that's where Walker reported trouble, but a small part of him knew he wouldn't make it that far. It was a destination he chose mainly to have a direction to go in while he stayed on the lookout for anything dangerous; the docks were on the other side of the city, and he wasn't naïve enough to think he could avoid Crime Night for that long of a walk. Something was bound to happen on the way.

Only a few streaks of orange and red remained in the sky from the near-complete sunset. As it got dark, the lights of the city reflected off the puddles leftover from the morning rain. An ambulance drove past Phoenix and was forced to stop; there was no room for it to go around the bumper-to-bumper traffic. The paramedics hopped out and started running instead, and he followed on the sidewalk until they reached their call.

Two cars were smashed in the middle of the road, the front of one and the back of the other crumpled from a violent rear-end. The paramedics pulled out the driver of the car in the back, and Phoenix got as close as he could to see. There was a bullet hole in the windshield and in the driver's head.

The moment the other paramedic pulled out the driver of the car in the front, still alive and alert, a gunshot echoed through the intersection. Everyone screamed and ducked. Phoenix felt people from all sides closing in as they ran in different directions, and he resisted their shoves, trying to stay where he was. There was a new hole in the car door; the bullet had missed. The driver was alright, ducking with the paramedic. Phoenix kept watching, waiting, ready.

The next bullet hit the paramedic's shoulder.

Phoenix traced the angle of the hit and saw a rifle poking out of a third-story window. He yanked the gun forward out of the shooter's grip and flung it down to where no one was standing. The shooter immediately closed the window and turned off the lights, and there were no more shots afterwards. They'd acted solo.

Phoenix looked around cautiously. There had been no swirling blue, not around the hand he used to make the gesture or around the rifle itself. Since he wasn't being stared at, he assumed no one saw him use telekinesis. He was safe, and so was the other driver. He and the dead one were wearing similar expensive-looking suits. Their cars were two colors of the same expensive model. They must've been traveling together, in some business or mafia-related way, and Phoenix stared at the crash, wondering who had targeted them, and for what.

He knew the accident was too recent for this traffic to be the same one he'd gone through to get to Walker's earlier. That traffic was caused by something else—another crime, another place, only he hadn't realized it at the time.

Phoenix took a deep breath and started walking again. He was two blocks past the crash when a familiar voice behind him said, "Hey."

He turned around slowly. Liling stood leaning against a pole, blowing cigarette smoke into the air. He wondered if she knew it was Crime Night.

"So," she drawled, "Azure told Sharmistha who told Evan and I about who you really work for, Nick, if that's even your name."

Phoenix thought this might happen. His planned escape from the Nameless for when it was time was to simply disappear; it would leave them annoyed, but not angry. Now, even though he didn't technically work for the League like Azure probably told them, they would consider him a mole.

"Are you here for revenge?" he asked.

Her grip tightened on her cigarette. "No," she said flatly. "Luckily for you, Sharmistha cares more about her reputation than your betrayal. She's so embarrassed by her mistake that she's pretending it never happened. Evan and I are banned from speaking of you, let alone getting revenge on you."

"I'm guessing if you had a say, you'd put me on the hit list?"

"If I had a say, I'd kill you right now." She took a drag and sighed out the smoke. "But she's decided to let you go, and I'm nothing if not loyal."

She pushed herself off the pole and stood in front of him with a surprisingly neutral stare. Phoenix met her gaze calmly.

"We're done here, then?" he asked.

Liling didn't answer. She walked past him as if she were leaving, and then she abruptly grabbed his hand and smashed the lit end of her cigarette onto his wrist, burning a circle in his skin. He pulled away from her and reeled back.

"It would be unfair if you got away completely unscathed," she said, smiling. "Consider this a parting gift from the Nameless."

She stomped out the cigarette and left. Phoenix watched her go until she disappeared behind moving cars, and then he looked at his new burn, bright red and blistering. He felt a flare of anger that temporarily overshadowed the pain, but both subsided until all he felt was relief that his stint was over.

He pulled his sleeve to cover it. He had work to do.

....................................

Jack had heard the shots—he just didn't think anything of them. They were several blocks away, based on the sound, and in a direction blocked from his view by buildings. He didn't want to be sidetracked, so ignored them and kept walking.

Elle was currently sneaking around the house of a detective bought out by the Red Tide. Moles were pliable if you got under their skin, and being confronted at home by a stranger who knew about 'missing' evidence was the perfect way to do that. While she handled him, Jack was planning to do the same to a different cop. This guy got regularly drunk at an establishment owned by some questionable people, and Jack had five minutes to get there to catch him leaving at his usual time.

After days of searching, all he and Elle had discovered was that people were circulating rumors of someone dubbed the Shadow Magician. Azure must hate the name—Jack was sure of it, but that was all he was sure of. It was frustrating how difficult it was to find Azure in a city where people were usually so damn good at getting all up in each other's business. Lots of people heard the rumors, but no one seemed to know anything.

They would keep trying. There were plenty of people to talk to, and the next could be the one to point the way.

Jack suddenly felt something tickling his hand. He realized there was red ribbon wrapped around his wrist, and it tightened and pulled, forcing him to turn around. Standing there was a figure in a red-and-black mask, matching her red-and-black clothing. The other end of the ribbon was in her tight grip.

"Hand over all your valuables," she demanded, "or this will get ugly."

It was Ribbon Girl.

Jack blinked. She sounded young, and her voice had wobbled in the middle of her threat. He'd never mugged anyone, but as an expert at threatening people, he thought she was doing a horrible job.

He took a step forward, creating some slack in the ribbon, and twirled his hand around it so he could grab it and pull to make it taut again. "No."

Ribbon Girl scowled. She had to know that if this turned into tug-of-war, she would lose—Jack had about a foot of height on her, and if she was hiding something like super strength, well, she wouldn't have bothered with this trap. He waited to see what would happen.

She held out her free hand. Ribbon materialized out of the thin air above her palm, spiraling tightly as it awaited her command. "This one goes around your neck," she hissed.

Again with the wobbly voice. She wasn't a murderer, he could tell.

Jack lit the ribbon wrapped around his arm on fire, and Ribbon Girl shrieked as the flames traveled down the length toward her. She let go of her end before it reached her—he wouldn't have let it, anyway—and the spiral in her other hand disappeared altogether.

"How old are you?" Jack asked. "Twelve?"

"I'm fifteen!" she exclaimed, eyes still wide with shock.

He shook his head. "Don't ruin your life by being a villain."

The words felt hypocritical coming out his mouth, considering he was a Snake. A villain. She didn't know that, though, or she wouldn't be so surprised by his powers. To her, he'd been a lone guy on a run-down street, a mark that was supposed to be easy. Now, he was a superhuman telling her to rethink her choices.

Her eyes narrowed in fury, but she took a step back. Then another. Jack did the same, only to show that he had no interest in going after her, and Ribbon Girl turned on her heel and ran away. He watched her until she was too far to be anything more than a shapeless figure.

As soon as he turned around to continue on his way, he was blinded by the lights of a firetruck. He was on the sidewalk, but he still scrambled away as it roared past him and screeched around the corner. He ran to follow; he had time, his five minutes weren't up yet. When he turned the corner, he saw a building on fire.

But the truck didn't stop. It kept going.

People were running out of the building, and a young officer stood there alone. Dawson, his tag said, and he saw Jack staring at the receding truck.

"There's a fire that way, too, and it's bigger," Dawson said.

"Is there another on the way here?" Jack asked.

Dawson's face twitched. "Soon," he said, but he looked like he was losing it. "Please stand back."

He gently moved Jack aside and attended to the people running out, asking them who was left behind, telling them to stay a safe distance back, telling them that the truck would be here shortly, that the fire station was attacked earlier and the first responders were scrambling.

And Jack finally understood.

Gunshots in the distance. A mediocre supervillain on the prowl. An attack on the station while people suffered.

Crime Night.

How could he have forgotten about that?

A window on the third floor blew out, raining glass on the people below as the fire reached outward. Dawson was yelling into his radio, and the residents were cowering with each other. Others on the street watched, horrified.

Jack couldn't run in there without either being stopped by Dawson or giving him a heart attack thinking he let a civilian charge into the fire. He eyed the buildings instead. They were packed closely, and the same height, too. That could work.

Jack entered the last building on the street and ran all the way up to the access door and burned its hinges off. The night sky, starless in Jethro's light pollution, greeted him as he got onto the roof, sticking to the back and out of view from the street. The burning building was two jumps away.

Jack took a deep breath. He'd been through worse.

He got a running start and leapt over the first space, landing hard enough on the roof to wince, but he kept running and jumped to the target roof. He was concerned the burning building would collapse right under his feet, but it didn't even depress. That was good—the blaze hadn't compromised the structural integrity. Yet.

Jack opened the door and stood aside, letting the smoke billow out before heading in. He heard screaming as he raced down the steps to what he guessed was the middle floor, and he didn't stop to help anyone. The sirens were approaching; firefighters would get the people to safety. He was only here to do his part quickly and get out.

The flames recoiled from him with a simple push, and the heat felt like no more than a tickle. Jack stopped in the middle of the hallway and held out his hands. The fire pulled away from the walls, the doors, the floor, and soon, it was swirling around his fingers. He dragged all the flames in the building toward him, condensing them into two bright spheres above his palms. He brought them together until they merged into one small flame, and then he softly blew it out like a candle.

The fire was gone, but the smoke remained, clouding the air. Jack returned the way he came, climbing the stairs, jumping two roofs away, and exiting out the same building he'd entered through. He glanced down the street and saw firefighters streaming into the no-longer-on-fire building. Officer Dawson finished his conversation with one of them and turned, and Jack immediately went the other way.

It was too late to catch his cop. Jack went to a park instead and sat on the bench. Every minute that passed brought a new faraway noise: sirens, shouting, gunshots, breaking glass, screeching tires. He felt his heart thud each time, but he didn't get up.

He felt a tap on his shoulder, and Elle materialized beside him. She was early—they weren't supposed to meet for another twenty minutes.

"He doesn't know anything," she sighed. "Why do you smell like smoke?"

"Stopped a fire."

She laughed. "Look at us, playing hero. I tripped some guy called Dirt Man on my way here. He'd thrown—guess what—dirt in a cop's eyes."

Jack laughed, too, but the shriek of sirens cut through the air again. They were both silent until it faded, and he could tell she already knew it was Crime Night.

Elle stared at the ground for a minute, lips pressed into a line. "I think we should find the League kid," she said finally. "He's probably still in the city, working for the Nameless. We can ask if he ever passed on what I told him, and if they're coming to help."

Jack had hoped they would handle Azure on their own, but Elle was right. This wasn't only about Azure anymore. There was Ravager, whoever else he got on his side, plus Jethro's usual antics; it was too much for the two of them to do on their own. It was time for the people with the same goal to band together.

He nodded. "Let's go."

.......................................

From afar, Phoenix watched a man throw magically conjured dirt in a cop's face, trip, and get arrested right away. Dirt Man was not very bright.

As the hours passed, Phoenix grew accustomed to the noises of Crime Night. The only super-thing he witnessed was Jethro's hydrokinetic hero assisting in putting out fires caused by a car pile-up. Nightwalker was out there somewhere, but he'd yet to see him. He doubted he would.

Phoenix found a cluster of buildings and climbed the fire escape. The metal creaked under his feet as he pulled himself six stories up and onto the roof. There was a birdcage next to a water tank, and its occupants cooed softly as he approached the edge. From here, he could see the rest of the low-rise residences, and not so far away, the high-rises. He didn't know what he wanted to see, but he knew he didn't want to see anything on fire, blown up, or surrounded by mysterious flying figures or helicopters.

The view was normal. It was the same as when he was with Azure. The same as when he watched the city from the trainyard with Evan and Liling. If he crossed his eyes a bit and let the buildings blur together, he could believe this was New York, and he was home.

"Admiring the view?"

Phoenix spun around at the voice. A man stood a few roofs away, also watching the skyline. But while Phoenix's hands had been clenched and his fear over Crime Night was written all over his face, the man had no such features. He was gazing calmly, hands in his pockets, totally relaxed.

Why did he talk to me? Phoenix thought.

He wasn't going to make the mistake of sticking around for a stranger. It worked out for him last time—Walker turned out friendly—but Phoenix refused to ever extend that courtesy again. He ignored the man and walked back to the fire escape.

"Not a fan of small talk?"

Phoenix reached the first step, put his foot on it, and turned an inch—only an inch—to check if the man had lost interest and gone away, but what he saw made him freeze. The man had been three roofs away. Now he was one roof away.

"I only wanted directions," he said, sounding mildly offended. "Excuse me for trying to be friendly first. Which way is the closest train station?"

Phoenix had no idea, and even if he did, he wouldn't tell. There was something wrong here. He lowered his other foot onto the next step, and the man sighed...and flew into the air.

He slowly floated over the gap and onto Phoenix's roof, but just inches before he landed, Phoenix threw up his hand and telekinetically pushed him away. He fell out of the air and stumbled into the birdcage. The birds chirped at the vibration, and the man just stood there, surprised.

Phoenix felt his blood run cold. Did he do the wrong thing? The man acting questionably didn't mean he was a bad guy; he could very well be a lowkey super helping out during Crime Night. Phoenix tightened his grip on the railing, stuck between apologizing for his rash reaction and demanding an explanation as to what the man was doing.

"I wasn't going to participate tonight," the stranger said suddenly, "but you've changed my mind."

He flew at Phoenix and grabbed him. Phoenix was raptured right off the steps and dragged into the air. He screamed until fingers closed around his neck and squeezed, silencing him. He dug his nails into the man's hands, trying to pry them off, but he didn't even flinch and kept flying them up.

"I really did just want directions to the train," he said, yelling to be heard over the whistling air. "It's a shame you chose to react so harshly."

His grip somehow grew tighter. Phoenix commanded the man to stop strangling him, but it didn't work. This was different from his experience with Azure, whose mind hurt to take hold of. This was like hitting a brick wall. The man was powerful and determined, and unlike with Crimson, Phoenix didn't have the time or the energy to chip away at it and take control.

He stopped flying up, and they hovered in the air. Phoenix kicked at his shins, unable to do much else. He couldn't see Jethro's lights underneath and thought his vision was doing dark, and then he realized they were above the clouds. The stranger's face was little more than a silhouette in a sliver of moonlight.

"Congratulations," he said. "I haven't done this in a long time, so consider this an honor: you're the Ravager's first victim!"

He let go, and Phoenix plummeted down.