2103:10:17:00:12:02

  I watched over the city like a hawk (or rather, a crow), talons curled over the iron railing of a fire escape, keeping an eye out for any would-be criminal brave enough to walk past. None could escape my sight, not even the smallest details hidden from my immaculately beady black eyes. My tetrachromatic vision was even able to see through invisibility (as long as it was limited to a human’s visible light spectrum), and while my low-light vision was less than stellar, it wasn’t as if human sight was much better.

  Maybe I should turn into a cat? It would help with visibility, but no, I wasn’t sure a cat could jump and land safely from this height. Although, I did read that a cat’s survivability paradoxically increased when falling from greater heights, so I could probably-

  Something for future me to consider. For now, I resumed my vigil as Charm’s black-beaked watcher-in-the-night, its dark-feathered guardian, its-

  I squawked as Crowsong finger-flicked me on the beak. “I can practically hear you monologuing,” she said. “Stop it. Keep your eyes on the prize.”

  After shooting my mentor a beady-eyed glare, I refocused my attention on the so-called ‘prize’: the alleyway below us. While not littered with trash, there were plenty of full trashcans and containers, along with the rare few broken bottles and shards of glass. In other words, the alleyway was a few ruptured trash bags away from being the ideal representation of a criminal’s favored spot for shady deals, shadowy get-togethers and foul plots.

  One of Crowsong’s connections, a rogue augur named Nth-Sight, had told my mentor this place at around current time would be a ‘point of interest’ for us. I’d yet to be introduced to the figure, but my mentor told me she worked with him often and so far, his intel had always proven to be correct. Which made sense. He sold his work to anyone – hero, villain, other rogues and even to unpowered – willing to pay the price, and not delivering would mean no customers.

  Thus, a stake-out. Nth-Sight predicted our target – whoever they may be; Nth-Sight hadn’t been clear on that – would arrive at around a quarter past midnight, with some margin of error.

  We’d arrived well over half an hour before, and closing in on nearly a full one. Which was fine. I understood perfectly well my mentor’s preference to be early rather than late, over- rather than underprepared. But if Nth-Sight’s intel was so reliable, then why not rely on it fully?

  Perhaps something she’d teach me later.

  It wasn’t that it was a problem; it was just something I wasn’t used to. Not the duration itself, but rather this mix of knowing there was something coming and not being able to do anything but wait. My first night out had me looking around for hours only to come up empty, but I’d been able to fly then, been able to enjoy Charm’s nighttime sights. That, and the search had been an active one, not a passive one like this. I would stalk any potential suspects back then, and even though it never bore fruit, it meant I’d had plenty of things to do.

  But not here. Here, we were stuck in the same spot, looking at an unchanging, quiet alley while in a constant state of preparedness. Crowsong had her knives pre-sharpened, and I was already pre-transformed into a crow to swoop down on a moment’s notice, just so we wouldn’t be caught unaware if they arrived early.

  So, yes, I got a bit distracted, and my mentor was right to admonish me. But just because my thought wandered, that didn’t mean I wasn’t-

  “They’re here,” Crowsong said, interrupting my train of thought.

  In the distance, a beam of light slowly grew larger and brighter until a car revealed itself. It turned the corner, slowly heading into the alleyway and growing closer and closer. It looked beat-up and old, its electric engine making an overbearing whirring noise that a better-maintained or newer car wouldn’t. They stopped at the deepest point in the alley, all but right below the fire escape stairs we were on.

  We waited for an occupant to leave the car, but whoever they were, they seemed content to sit tight.

  “Seems they’re waiting for others to show,” Crowsong said. “So, do we wait them out or attack them now?”

  A test disguised as a question, something my mentor did whenever she had the opportunity. Though this one was one of the easier ones. I nodded toward the car, indicating we should attack them.

  “Good,” my mentor said. “The more hands, the more difficult the fight. Better take out who we can while we have the upper hand. Worst case scenario, the reinforcements prove too much and we destroy their contraband before retreating.”

  I trilled in agreement, causing Crowsong to huff in amusement.

  “As to how…” Crowsong trailed off in thought, then nodded to herself. “Can you fly above them and transform into a cat in time to land on the roof?” I nodded in affirmation. “Good. I’ll take out whoever leaves the car first, you take out the other when they come to investigate. If there’s more than two, well, the closest one can deal with them. Understood?” Again, I nodded. Seemed easy enough.

  I jumped off the stairs and into the air. I positioned myself roughly two meters above the car and after one final beat of my wings, transformed back into my human form. I felt gravity start to drag me down and quickly shifted into my cat form. Not a second later, and my padded paws made impact with the roof of the car.

  I heard two sets of muffled yelps and curses come from within – at least two people, then. The driver-side door of the car opened and a disheveled-looking man stepped out, an angry frown marring his average face. When he turned to look at the roof of the car, that angry frown turned into befuddlement as he gazed upon my majestically feline self.

  I heard the familiar noise of my mentor’s knife-claws scraping against stone, followed immediately after by the dark heroine herself dropping down behind the man.

  Before the man could turn to look, Crowsong had him into a chokehold.

  “Donny!” I heard a woman’s panicked yell coming from within the car, followed by the passenger-side door being thrown open, a set of legs following immediately after. I jumped at the exiting woman and transformed midair, tackling her before she could even get out fully.

  “Motherfu-!”

  We hit the ground, her face first and me cushioned by her back. A brief struggle ensued, but while she had the advantage in expletives, I held the advantage in both position and strength. I grabbed her arms and forced them together behind her back, holding them in place with one hand and a knee. I retrieved the zip-ties from my white, pouch-packed utility belt – a gift from my mentor – and quickly tied her arms together, using another to bind the woman’s legs as well.

  Hearing no other curses besides hers and with nothing coming from Crowsong’s side, I concluded that reinforcements had yet to arrive. So, I turned my captive around and, while trying to spit at me as I did it, stuffed her mouth with a bundle of cloth and tied it behind her head.

  “Everything alright over there?” Crowsong asked from the other side of the car.

  “Yes,” I responded, rising up along with my captive.

  Crowsong looked at the two of us, her own captive equally as bound and gagged. “Good. Throw them in the back and let’s see what they had.”

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  I did as I was told and stood up, went to the rear door of the car and opened it at the same time as Crowsong threw her captive onto the seats. I picked up my wriggling captive and gently put her on top of him. Under angry stares and muffled curses, I closed the door on the pair.

  As soon as I was done, I heard the soft pop-and-hiss of the trunk opening up, followed by Crowsong’s impressed whistle. Naturally, I walked up to see what she found.

  The trunk revealed a treasure trove of contraband. Kilos worth of drugs, both pills and powder, wrapped in plastic and tape; dozens, perhaps even hundreds of cellphones and other consumer-grade electronics; heaps of jewelry in transparent bags, ranging from toe to hand to earrings and everything in between; and even a few firearms with plenty of ammunition. Despite its size, the trunk was filled with tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of illegal goods.

  It was, by far, the biggest individual seizure we’d – or at least I’d – captured yet. And as vigilantes, we would get a fraction’s worth of that in bounty from the police. It might finally give me enough to get the knife-proof undersuit Crowsong had recommended.

  I opened my mouth to ask just that when the trunk slammed closed in front of me. I turned to look at my mentor.

  “Cat form, now,” she said before disappearing from my side. She ran toward the wall and clawed her way up, the telltale sign of metal scraping against brick following in her wake.

  I obeyed without question, transformed and ducked underneath the car. Right on time, as a new set of headlights lit up the spot we’d just stood. It belonged to a car much larger, more expensive and better maintained than the one I was under. It drove into the alley and stopped five or so meters away from the first arrivals.

  The newcomers waited in silence for two minutes, headlights still bright as if it was looking straight at me, when two short bursts of its horn echoed through the alleyway. Again, the car waited a few minutes for some sort of signal from the people we’d taken out, before sounding the horn again, this time longer and more intent.

  Whoever they were, they got impatient not long after. All four doors simultaneously opened and from each, a man stepped out with their weapons already drawn. The four aimed at the car I was under, then began a synchronized march towards it.

  I felt my cat-heart beat furiously in anticipation. This wasn’t the first time we’d taken on people with firearms together – even in my first fight they had them, just not the time to use them – but this looked like a step-up from the usual pistol-carelessly-held-in-one-hand type of criminal. They had theirs out in front, supported by their off hand. And while these men were not fully armored, they were all dressed in a uniform black.

  These were the real henchies.

  I wished I could talk with Crowsong, set up a plan of action. Perhaps we should’ve done so before, planned ahead for reinforcements before they could arrive. But realistically, it wouldn’t have mattered. There was no accounting for everything, especially something like bad luck or poor timing. Or as Crowsong liked to quote, ‘no plan lasts beyond the first encounter’.

  Still, just because we couldn’t communicate doesn’t mean I didn’t have something to fall back on. Over the past month we’d built something like a routine in our approach. I would distract our foes with one mimic form or another – they healed between transformations, something I discovered after my first fight – while Crowsong would swoop in and take down as many as she could. I would engage whoever’s left and either deal with them, or stall until Crowsong could.

  With that in mind, I strutted from underneath the car bearing the usual arrogance of an alley cat. I expected them to ignore me after a quick glance, maybe even scoff at the sight, but instead they all stopped and pointed their guns at me. I froze in real fear – I’d yet to die in mimic form and these people looked like the kind who’d kill a cat.

  One of the criminals kicked a rock towards me and I pretended to startle, dashing right and ducking behind a dumpster. Thankfully, that was enough to convince the criminals, and they marched on.

  I continued with the – slightly modified – second step of my plan. I transformed back into me and then into the man I’d copied near the costume shop. It was a narrow fit behind the dumpster, but I managed it without being squished in place.

  I waited until the time the group would be roughly parallel to me before stepping out from behind the dumpster, yelling, “Hey!”

  They all turned toward me and, after a moment of stunned confusion at seeing a naked man appear from nowhere, opened fire. The alleyway echoed with the sound of gunshots, each of the man rapidly unloading most of their shot at the naked man that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

  I dove back behind cover, all but a few bullets passing me by harmlessly. I shifted back into base form – the blossoming pain vanished instantly – then immediately transformed into a rat to look at the situation from underneath the dumpster.

  From my lower vantage point, I saw Crowsong leap from the wall she’d clung to and dive towards the henchie closest to her. She landed on his back with both feet, immediately withdrew two knives. She threw one into the hand of the man to her immediate right and the other into the hand of the man in front of that one, the both of them crying out in pain and dropping their guns. Simultaneously, she stomped one foot downwards at the hand of the henchie underneath her, disarming him as well.

  Seeing what was coming next, I dashed with my tiny little rat feet towards the last man still armed. The screams of pain alerted him and he turned around, ready to fire on Crowsong, meaning his back was turned. I transformed from a dashing rat into a dashing jester mid-stride, unstrapping the heavy, marotte-like solid steel baton from my belt.

  Before the man could fire, I put my weapon underneath the man’s right arm and pulled. The man’s arm jerked to the side, shots going wide as their blasts made my ears ring painfully.

  I didn’t allow it to distract me and pressed the advantage. I pulled my marotte toward me, pressing it against his neck and trying to choke him out. When he reached up with his free hand to try and break himself out of the hold, I bent backwards with all my weight and strength, lifting the man up into the start of a suplex and allowing myself to drop. Before I fell completely, I transformed into a cat and dashed out of the way of the now free-falling criminal, shifting back into myself but a step away.

  I saw the man hit the ground back first, grunting in pain and beginning to cough as he did. I quickly put one foot right below his wrist and, while balancing on top of it, kicked the gun out of his hand and underneath the dumpster.

  Before I could continue and secure the capture, one of the men wounded by Crowsong charged me, knife in hand. I jumped up and shifted, reappearing as a crow mid-air, furiously beating my wings in an effort to get away from him.

  But I wasn’t quick enough. He jumped and lashed out with his knife, scoring a solid slash across my feathery chest.

  Before the pain could fully hit, I transformed back into myself, again appearing in midair. With an ungraceful, desperate twist of my body, I managed to kick his head while falling down to the floor, sending the man reeling as my body hit thumped on the pavement.

  Rather than scramble upward, I shifted into a cat, used its enhanced agility and smaller form to quickly right myself before turning back, reappearing as my human self and standing upright.

  The man was still reeling from my kick, his body’s left side toward me as he spat blood on the floor. I quickly lashed out with my baton, striking at his knife-wielding hand. The hand cracked under the blow and he released the knife with a cry of pain.

  He bent over and cradled his hand in agony. Since he was open, I hit him on the back of the neck as well, being careful not to hit too hard. Wouldn’t want to cause something irreversible.

  The man swayed on his feet briefly before going down, flopping over and onto the street.

  I turned around to face the man I’d fought first, ready to continue the fight only to find Crowsong already securing him.

  “Good showing,” Crowsong said. “Told you quick-shifting’s the way to go.”

  According to Crowsong, the speed of my mimicry was the one great advantage my shifter power held over others, and thus the one we focused on exploring. I’d initially believed that the disorientation coming with rapidly shifting between forms nullified any advantage in speed, but after a lot of shifting in-and-out of the same form – both in training and at home – that disorientation faded until disappearing completely. Quick-shifting had thus quickly become the part of my repertoire Crowsong had me focus on. Unfortunately, every form needed its own training, so for now my quick-switching was limited to cat, rat and crow. Not that I had many other forms – only a sparrow, a pigeon and a possum.

  This was the first time I quick-shifted this much in such a short amount of time while in combat, but the outcome was worth all the very boring and nauseating training I’d put into it. Hopefully, it meant we’d start focusing on beyond just mastering the forms, like which transformation was best under which circumstances. That’d probably be more fun.

  “Go secure that last guy and come over here, would you?” Crowsong said, and I felt an uncomfortable feeling rise up in my stomach. I knew where this was going.

  I tied the man up and, just for good measure, bound the wound in his hand tightly with a piece of cloth before joining Crowsong. She’d dragged the guy over to the side, threw him against the wall and was now hunching over him, waving her knife about in front of his eyes menacingly.

  “-your connections? Magistry? Jannacht?” Crowsong asked. The man spat at her in response, but she caught it with the flat of her blade and slammed into the wall right above to his shoulder, causing the man to whimper in fright. “Or maybe you’re a Dusker or a Deadder? Their territory's not big enough for them anymore, hm?” She jerked her head to the lift, tilting it like a crow would. “Maybe I should just take you straight to Motorgang. They’ll looove to know what you have to tell.”

  Crowsong had mentioned it the first time we’d met, her beating up criminals to figure out their connections, but seeing it was different. There were many things about heroics and heroism, especially vigilantism that were darker than I’d initially thought, and most I’d come to accept and respect. But beating up already defeated villains, let alone regular criminals? I didn’t know if I could, especially since Crowsong admitted the knowledge she gained was often… iffy.

  Thankfully, Crowsong had changed her approached when I spoke my thoughts on it. She even agreed that there were probably better ways, but not one she could do by herself. So, we came up with a different method together. A routine that relied less on physical force and threats.

  Even if I still didn’t get how it worked.

  I crouched down and looked the felon dead in the eye. “Please, just tell her.” I leaned forward until our heads all but touched. “I don’t like what she becomes when people don’t,” I whispered, heart heavy and deeply sincere in my request. The next step was a routine where Crowsong pretended to be fully unhinged, with me desperate to hold her back. It was incredibly awkward, and made me feel like an idiot whenever we did it.

  Thankfully, we didn’t have to do it that often anymore. For some reason, despite my outfit being designed to make people smile – or as I learned, make people laugh and lighten their hearts, it seemed to have the opposite effect on criminals. Perhaps it had something to do with their guilt. Do dark hearts shirk from the light of joy and laughter? Or was the honest request too much for their already heavy conscious to bear?

  The man shivered at my honesty. “J-J-Jannacht! I w-work for the Jannacht, but I’m just an errand boy! I swear! Please!” he cried, tears and snot dripping down his face. Maybe these henchies weren’t as professional as I thought.

  The conversation went smoothly after that.

  Eventually, Crowsong rose up and dusted off her hands, having finished her list of questions. “As expected, another one of the Syndicate’s goons. Magistry’s clowns wouldn’t dress like this, and I doubt any of the other gangs would start pushing now when they never have before. Too bad we only ever catch the mooks.”

  “At least we got their route,” I said. “Maybe it’ll help us roll up a part of their operations.”

  But Crowsong shook her head. “These guys? They never get told the full picture. Hell, he likely got fed some lies to steer us wrong on purpose – we’ve been hitting them hard and often enough for them to try and get one over on us.” She sighed. “Go drag him and the two in the car with the others. I’ll call the police-” she looked at the guy I hit, and the other three she stuck a knife into. Though bandaged, they were starting to look a bit pale… “-and an ambulance, I suppose.” I nodded and did as told, dragging the blubbering man to the rest of his captured companions.

  Six criminals caught, four of whom seem to be connected to the Jannacht Syndicate directly. Add in the guns, the drugs, the electronics and – possibly fake – jewelry…

  Not bad for a weekday.