[crow]

Night had fallen. On the roof of a skyscraper at the edge of the downtown sprawl, a lone figure stood looking out at the city below. Heliopolis was beautiful at night, with everything lit up like a carnival of stars. Seeing it like this, he could almost believe in the image of the city that the politicians were trying to sell. Key word being 'almost'.

Taking a step back, he adjusted his clothes. He'd practised with them, but they still felt strange on him. After he had everything more or less to his liking, he took a mask out of his pocket and fitted it over his eyes. Grinning, he walked up to the edge of the roof again, and took one last look down--- this time not out at the city, but immediately below him, at the rush of cars and pedestrians on the streets.

“Showtime.”

~

Prophet groaned at the sound of his comm going off. He hadn't been asleep, but he had had a long day, and he'd been hoping he'd get the rest of the night off. A vain hope, really. Nightfall tended to bring all the riff-raff out of the woodwork. He wondered if they planned it that way, sending out all the petty criminals during the day to tire out the people of the law, and planning all the big stuff for when they were too exhausted to give chase. Nevertheless, he downed the rest of his coffee--- not that it was helping him wake up any--- and headed out the door, leaving a handful of change on the counter.

The night chill felt like a slap in the face, and he shivered, rubbing at his arms. Instead of putting on a jacket, however, he stripped down as he walked in the direction that the comm had indicated. “I'm at 22nd and King, heading east,” he said, cursing himself for having taken his suit off. He should have known that he'd have to put it on again before the night is out. He had walked about two blocks at a brisk pace when a large vehicle pulled up and opened the wide doors on the side. He jumped in unceremoniously. There was a flurry of activity as aides hurried to help him suit up, with one even taking the time to touch up his makeup before they gave him the okay and dropped him off again. The suit was bulkier than civilian clothes, but most of that was reinforcement. Prophet didn't have the type of power that protected him from bullets, so his clothes had to do that for him. It wasn't as bad as some of the others; Torch's was more like armor than a suit, with all that metal. At least Prophet's had been kept relatively light to allow him to move.

Glancing up to make sure the helicopter crew had marked him properly, Prophet set off in earnest for the scene of the crime.

[crow]

The evening crowd was thinner than the post-work rush, but downtown at any time of day was a nightmare to navigate. Prophet could evade people, but that slowed him down too. Cursing, he cast around for some kind of solution, and saw his chance. He just had to make it to the right spot in time... He quickened his pace and shoved his way through the crowd, incurring a few dirty looks in the process. Many of the people around him had begun to recognize him, and while some were content to continue on their way, others stood around to stare or to look around for the criminal. Naturally, not one of them thought to get out of his way.

Still, he managed to make it, and just in the nick of time. Not two seconds later, Gale spiralled down out of the sky, swerving to avoid colliding with a woman who had abruptly opened her window; Prophet could hear her shrieking just as he jumped and latched onto Gale's waist. Gale yelped, dipping precariously, then stabilizing again as he adjusted to the extra weight of a passenger.

“Proph, what gives? Let go!” he said. Despite his words, however, Gale didn't try to shake Prophet off. The effort wouldn't have done either of them any good, and Prophet trusted that Gale didn't actually want to send him careening down to his death on the pavement below.

“Come on, I need a lift. We're all on the same team, right?” Prophet said. “Plus my ride got totalled this morning. You saw that.”

Gale heaved a sigh. “Yeah, management's going to chew you out like there's no tomorrow.”

“Don't I know it too,” Prophet muttered. And he did. He'd seen it. Listening to the same lecture twice wasn't one of the better features of his power.

“Alright,” Gale said resignedly. “Just this once, though. And warn me next time! I nearly had a heart attack because of you!”

[crow]

With nothing better to do for the moment, Prophet closed his eyes and focused on the crime. A vision came to him, but it wasn't at all what he had expected. The sight of the museum was innocuous enough, since quite a few of the artifacts were pricy, but there was a whole throng of heroes standing around the building. Between them, Prophet could make out the shape of a person, but for some reason that was pretty much all he could make out. Their features were blurred, and their form flickered, sometimes changing its location entirely. The rest of the vision was strangely static, as if it was experiencing some sort of malfunction. Whatever it was, he didn't like it.

The sound of Gale's voice above him brought him out of his trance. “What? Facade, why are you being dispatched? I thought they had Sunny and Radar on the scene!” Prophet winced. Facade had just wrapped up an incident a few miles out from where they were. If Sunny had been sent first, usually the management didn't bother sending anyone else. It all certainly fit with what he had seen in his vision, but the strangeness of that vision worried him. Whatever it was, he had a feeling he wasn't going to like it.

Gale exchanged a few uneasy words with Facade before falling silent. Whether he noticed it or not, Gale had been flying with greater speed since he'd spoken with Facade. Prophet tried not to flinch as the buildings whizzed by, reminding himself that it was a good thing if they could arrive faster. Still, he was thoroughly thankful when Gale finally landed, setting him down more gently than he had any reason to expect.

“Thanks for the lift,” Prophet said, trying to feign nonchalance. If Gale noticed his discomposure, the other hero didn't say anything. Prophet ran off in the direction of the museum. He didn't have time to waste, and Gale knew what he was doing, so there was no sense in dallying any further. A couple of blocks and a few turns later, the front of the building loomed up in front of him. There was some shattered glass, and the civilians had fled the scene, but he could make out neither the criminal nor his fellow heroes.

[crow]

There was no new word from his comm, so they must have still been inside. He pressed a hand to the device. “Hey, Sunny. What's the status?” He was already scrambling up the steps, but he waited at the door, hoping she would answer. She didn't. He pushed the door open and peered inside.

Something--- or rather, someone--- ran past him. Prophet yelped and jumped back as the wall beside him was seared by a blast from inside the museum. Right, that would be Sunny then. There was no use admonishing her about it now, not when they had a criminal to catch. Prophet turned to look at the figure that had ran out of the building: a young man, no older than his mid-twenties at most. Beyond that, Prophet couldn't say. The man was dressed in an outfit not unlike the suits worn by the heroes themselves, though of course no one who was registered as part of the Alliance had a swashbuckler theme. Noticing Prophet's gaze, the man grinned, and even had the audacity to wink at him.

The outfit should have been ridiculous, but sometimes the costumed weirdos had their own powers, and Prophet was still thinking of the strange vision he had had. He walked slowly, deliberately forward. “You're under arrest,” he said. “Come quietly, or we'll resort to using force.”

“A little late for that speech now, isn't it?” the masked man replied. Just as he spoke, another bolt of energy seared the spot where he had just been.

“Damn, missed again,” Sunny said, emerging from where she'd been hiding behind a wall. She fired off another two shots, but neither of them hit their marks. The masked man laughed as he evaded her efforts.

“You can do better than that!” he said. “What, I'm not good enough for a proper light show?” Sunny frowned, but whatever reply she'd been thinking of making was cut off as Gale dropped out of the sky. He reached for the masked man, but his target turned at the last minute and threw a card at him, which exploded in his face. Yelping in alarm, Gale crashed to the ground.

[crow]

“Be careful, some of those are sharp. He's got a smoke bomb too,” Sunny said as she loosed another barrage of energy bolts.

“You could've said something earlier,” Prophet called back. He ran forward, joining the fray, and hoping his allies wouldn't hit him while trying to bring down the criminal. Unlike Sunny and Gale, Prophet didn't have much in the way of ranged attacks, and the Alliance wasn't exactly used to coordinating their movements. The best he could do was try to see where they would be aiming. Keeping track of too many combatants gave him a headache, but the situation left him with little choice.

He reached for his powers, and braced himself for the moment of dizziness that accompanied it. Blurred outlines and half-formed figures danced across his vision, shifting and coalescing. A flash of lights; a gust of wind. He took note of them all, then chose his moment and closed in. The masked man was distracted, and Prophet aimed a jab at the back of his neck.

It didn't connect. Prophet's eyes went wide. It should have--- but it didn't. He tried to catch himself, cursing, and reminded himself that it wasn't a sure thing. There had been peripheral visions of him making a miss. The man had ducked down to avoid a wind that sliced over his head, and now he rolled to the right. Prophet's eyes darted to the side, following him, going further; there was an alley and he could make out the ghost of a figure---

“Gale!” he called, but it was too late.

“Catch me if you can,” the man said, and slipped into the shadows. Prophet cursed under his breath but there was no helping it. He gave chase. The pounding of feet informed him that Sunny was hot on his heels, and somewhere overhead he could catch a streak of greens and blues speeding away.