Ravager flew off into the night, and Phoenix was falling through the sky. He gasped for breath in the thin air high above the Earth, his limbs flailing as the clouds rushed up around him and obscured his vision until he was through. Jethro's lights finally appeared, faraway but growing closer by the millisecond.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a shape approaching fast. Arms wrapped around him, and he nearly decked the person in the head with his elbow, thinking it was Ravager here to finish him off...

It was Tara. She was using her flight power to slow them down, but they were still falling.

"Let me go!" he screamed.

He knew he was too heavy for her to carry, and he also knew that he'd been dropped from too high of a height to be slowed down to a safe speed for a crash-land. If she didn't let him go, she would join him in becoming a human pancake.

He squirmed around to see her better. She had goggles on, but he could tell she was looking right at him. He screamed again for her to let him go, certain she could read his lips even if she couldn't hear, but Tara ignored him and held on even tighter.

He had never been so grateful for and so infuriated with someone at the same time.

The city was coming up fast. Phoenix forced his eyes open even as they watered; Tara had stopped him from spinning and slowed him down enough so that he could actually see more than a blur, and he scanned the ground. They were aimed for the stout apartment buildings on the edge of the city, and he ran with the first idea he had.

This part of Jethro was poor and rundown. There weren't enough reliable laundromats here, and it was summer, so lines and lines of sheets and clothing were hanging over and between the buildings, and Phoenix used his telekinesis to rip every single one of them off their hooks.

Blue swirled around his finger and the innocent laundry as he fashioned it all into a pile on the ground where they were projected to land, and at the same time, he ripped up the tree at the end of the street and shoved it into the ground next to the pile. It was all he had time for.

He and Tara hit the topmost branch of the tree and then hit all the rest on the way down. The branches snapped and scratched and poked and slowed them even more, and finally they landed on the pile, the laundry compressing beneath them.

Phoenix stared at the sky, numb. It might've been one minute that passed or twenty. Tara had let him go after hitting the branches, and he felt the pile shift as she shuffled around from wherever she'd landed on it. The tree started leaning in its makeshift placement, but it didn't fall over. He'd slammed that thing several feet deep into the ground.

He sat up slowly and watched Tara do the same. She took off her goggles with a laugh. "That's not something you experience everyday," she commented.

He stared at her. She leaned back on her palms and took a deep breath, oddly at ease for someone who was almost painted on the road.

"Why did you do that?" he asked quietly. "You could've died."

"Yeah," she admitted, "but if I hadn't done that, you definitely would have died. It was a risk I was willing to take."

She said it so casually, like it was a simple favor; it didn't match the immense surge of gratitude he felt. "Thank you," he whispered, hoping she understood how much he meant it.

Tara smiled and patted the strawberry sheets she was sitting on. "And thank you, for your quick thinking."

Phoenix sighed and laid back on the pile, though it brought guilt as much as it did comfort. He had to make it up to these residents for ruining their clothes and killing their street's tree. Tara apparently came to the same conclusion, because she suddenly waved her hand.

"I'll get the League accountants to pay for damages," she said. "Don't worry. You didn't have any other options." She paused and blinked, seemingly finally realizing what happened. "Why were you falling from the sky in the first place?"

Phoenix cleared his throat; it was sore. "Ravager." He explained only what happened tonight, saying nothing about Ravager that he'd learned from Azure, and then asked, "What are you doing here?"

"Kate told me that you told her that Violet told you that Azure and maybe Ravager were in Jethro, and she asked me to do some reconnaissance. Then Crime Night happened. Speaking of which..." She stood, stretched, and put her goggles back on. "I should get back out there. Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. You go."

Tara took off into the sky. He watched her until he couldn't see her anymore. He was alone, him and the laundry and the poor tree, and he squeezed his eyes shut and stifled a scream.

His first real fight with a supervillain, if it could even be called a fight, almost ended in his death. And it wasn't any random supervillain—it was Ravager. The man who killed his own friend for switching sides and blamed John Anderson for it. The man who then tore apart the Anderson family as revenge. The man who was now tearing apart Jethro.

Phoenix opened his eyes, glaring at nothing. He'd kept his promise to Azure and told no one the truth, and that meant he was alone in his personal anger toward Ravager, and he was alone in seeing the irony in how Ravager just tried to kill the son of the man he hated so much without even knowing it.

Phoenix crawled off the laundry pile and steadied himself against the tree before he started walking, quickly leaving his unfortunate handiwork behind. Even with the solid sidewalk under his feet, he felt like he was still in the air. It wasn't until he made it into the city that his steps truly felt like his own.

A police cruiser sped past him. He checked his phone; it was one in the morning. How many more shootings, fires, and robberies had there been? Did they understand yet that it was Crime Night?

He felt something light on his shoulder and turned around to face nothing. A disembodied voice said, "Will you come with me? I want to talk."

It was Violet.

It was Eleanor.

Phoenix expected to come across them again, but he didn't think it would be this hard. He couldn't even see her, and he already felt a lump forming in his throat.

There were people around, and that was likely why she didn't show herself. He took a deep breath and nodded, and he felt her hand pressing gently on his shoulder to move him along. He followed her toward an alley. Crimson—Jack—was already in there, anxiously tapping his foot. Violet appeared and went and stood next to him, leaving Phoenix at the entrance of the alley. He stayed where he was and watched them.

This was his first time seeing them after learning who they truly were. He found himself studying their features, trying to apply his parents' faces onto theirs, but all he saw was that they were stressed.

Phoenix entered the alley carefully, as he should, as they would expect him to as a sort-of-League-affiliated-person. Violet relaxed a bit, and Crimson stopped tapping his foot.

"Did you warn them?" Violet asked. "About Azure and Ravager?"

"I told Kate Green," Phoenix said, "and I know there's one agent here, but..."

"But you're not sure what the League is doing about it," Crimson finished, "if they're doing anything at all."

Phoenix nodded. Tara was here for reconnaissance, and he trusted Kate, and he knew they would take this seriously after what happened in Prague, but he had no idea what was actually being done. Did the warning even reach Director Diop?

"This is going too far," Crimson said quietly. "We need a strategy."

We. They waited expectantly, and he realized this was a request to work together. "I'll drive us to League HQ," he said. "We can find Director Diop or Kate, anyone, and figure this out." He paused. "There's someone I need to talk to in Jethro first."

"That's fine," Violet said. "Just tell us where to meet up."

This same area in an hour and a half, that was what he told them, and he went back to his car and headed to Walker's. When he turned into the driveway, it was two in the morning. He heard the door clicking unlocked when he raced up the porch steps, supporting his earlier theory that they'd set up their security to recognize him.

"Sofia? Walker?"

There was no response from upstairs or the hallways, so he went straight into the kitchen and took the elevator to the basement. Only Sofia was there. She was still watching the news, on the large screen this time rather than the one upstairs, and drinking what was likely her fifth coffee.

"He isn't back yet?" Phoenix asked.

Sofia shook her head. "He better not be dead," she muttered.

Phoenix started pacing, counting the seconds ticking by. He didn't want to leave without knowing Walker was okay, and he wanted to hear what he had to say, too. If he was going to League HQ to ask for help, he needed all the information he could get.

One of the wall panels suddenly slid up, revealing a tunnel, and Nightwalker walked in. The suit looked similar to what was in the few blurry pictures Phoenix saw online, only it was scraped up now.

"How was it?" Sofia asked.

Walker took off the mask with a tired sigh. "Worse than previous years," he admitted, plopping into a chair, "except, it's not over."

"What do you mean," Phoenix repeated, "it's not over?"

"I caught a handful of people tonight, and some of them talked. They implied this wasn't it. Crime Night is apparently happening again tomorrow." He checked his wrist, where there was a timepiece built into his suit. "I mean, tonight."

"This hasn't happened before," Sofia said uneasily.

"Either they're getting bold, or someone is pulling strings." Walker looked at Phoenix. "I know you said that Snake is here. What about—"

"Ravager's here, too," Phoenix confirmed. "I saw him."

Walker shook his head, pulling off his gloves. Three fingers on his left hand were puffy and purple, but he seemed unfazed. He simply reached into a drawer under the table and took out some splints.

"Razor?" Sofia guessed.

"Do you know what he said when he broke them? Next time, it'll be your neck," Walker scoffed. "And he was being serious. His inability to shut up is starting to bother me more than his crimes."

He was acting lighthearted about it, but Razor was the closest thing to a 'nemesis' that Nightwalker had. A broken neck was a legitimate threat, and Phoenix wasn't happy to hear it. But, they'd been fighting for years now, and it would likely continue for some time.

"I'm going to League HQ," Phoenix said. "To ask for help."

Walker put on the last splint. "Talk to Montgomery, if he's there. He's my handler and knows my identity, so he'll be more inclined to listen to Jethro-related problems."

That wouldn't be Phoenix's only reason to find Montgomery. He also needed to ask, tactfully, why his family's case had been closed the way it had.

"I'll be back by tonight," he assured them, hoping he'd be able to keep that promise.

As the elevator rose, he felt a fresh new wave of worry. Not only did they have to deal with Azure and Ravager, but a second Crime Night, too, and he had to ask Montgomery, who he'd never met, for help and for details on the supposed records of Jack and Eleanor dying in Europe, and this was all going to happen in the next few hours.

For now, he had to fill his car's tank, pick up Crimson and Violet, and have the most awkward drive of his life.