At 9:13pm, I made it to Eternity Tower, where the gala was hosted. Thankfully, there were no signs of a villain attack yet, but I was certain any minute now Wesley Simmons would make his move. I hopped to the roof of a nearby building where I could spy on the party, then pulled up a stream of the speeches they were about to make.

  About two minutes later, Mayor Blackwell took the stage, clanging a fork against his champagne flute to get the crowd's attention as he welcomed them to the gala.

  “Good evening ladies and gentlemen of Shadow Brook, and thank you all for coming out tonight for the S.B.- N.H.A. annual fundraising gala. I am happy to report that our heroes have yet again done a fantastic job at keeping our city safe this year. Over the summer, crime rates hit a record low thanks to first, benefactors like you who help keep our public safety programs well funded, and secondly, the hard work of our special guest. So please put your hand together for Arthur Hanson, better known as his hero persona Drako-Knight!” The crowd began to applaud elegantly as Drako-Knight entered stage right in his hero costume of full plate armor. He walked to center stage, greeting the audience with a charismatic wave and smile. He took the mic from the mayor to give his speech.

  “Thank you, thank you, your support means the world to me. I couldn't have ever imagined a rookie like me could make it up here this fast. Only four years ago I was in college to become a lawyer when one day I couldn’t take it anymore and dropped out to follow my real dream of becoming a superhero. My friends and family called me childish, if only they could see me now, and luckily they can because this speech is going on T.V.” He looked straight at the camera and asked, “Proud of me now, Dad? … Ah ha, so thanks to all the motivational support of all my devoted fans and the financial support of all you benefactors in this room, I’ve been able to pick up the slack of some of the city’s old heroes who unfortunately retired recently, and keep Shadow Brook safe and sound. I mean when was the last time we had to deal with a major supervillain atta–”

  Drako-Knight was suddenly interrupted by a loud THUD! of a bird smacking into a window. It got the audience's attention for a second, but they turned back to Drako-Knight when they realized it was probably nothing.

  "Uh, as I was saying," He continued, "I know there have been a couple scary rumors floating around, started by a certain illegal vigilante, but I'd like to reassure you all that they are completely unfounded, and we have everything well under control. I promise the last thing I'd ever do is leave any of our citizens behind."

  At that moment a massive flock of miscellaneous birds crashed through that same window. The room erupted into chaos as they swarmed the crowd, landing on tables and people as they filled the space with a cacophony of caws that imitated one word on repeat: "LIES! LIES! LIES! LIES! LIES! LIES!"

  Drako-Knight angrily turned to one of his "sidekicks". "Crow's Nest!" He snarled.

  "Don't look at me, sir. I got nothing to do with this," Crow's Nest defended.

  "Do something about this!"

  "Oh, right…" Crow's Nest sighed. His eyes glowed a chalky white as he used his title: The Scarecrow, to let out a loud "CAW!" of his own that cleared out all the birds, revealing a cloaked man with a lion masquerade mask hiding in the flock.

  “Drako-Knight, are you ready to put those words of chivalry to the test? The man asked, "This is your only warning: Hand over the files and nobody here has to get hurt."

  "What files? I have no idea what you're talking about," Drako-Knight claimed.

  "Wrong answer." His eyes began to glow green, causing the birds’ eyes to glow back in response. He snaps his fingers and yells, “Return!” The birds instantly flew back in and started pecking and clawing the attendees of the gala. Crow's Nest tried cawing them away again, but it was ineffective.

  "Brave Beard, Crow's Nest, get the civilians to safety!"

  "You don't have to tell me what to do, rookie!" Brave Beard scoffed, as he tried to swat birds away from guests with his long, prehensile beard. Crow's Nest joined him using his scarf made of straw. At that point, the gala was in a full panic. Most people tried to rush to the exit only to find the hallway was blocked off by a pile of giant black mambas with glowing green eyes.

  "Nobody's leaving until I get what I came here for." The masked man threatened. A security guard drew his gun at the man but was swiftly bitten by a mamba and dropped to the ground. "Tell me, "Knight", how many will you let fall to preserve your ego?"

  Drako-Knight gave an exasperated sigh. He jumped across the room right up to him, leaning in close so no one else could hear.

  “Listen up, villain, this is your only warning.” Drako-Knight growled, baring his fangs, his tone completely shifted, almost like he just dropped character, “I see what you're trying to do. But the real question is if I'd be willing to silence you permanently for it. Ready to find out?” Then steps back to shout, “Leave these innocent people out of this! This fight is just between you and me,” in an over dramatic hero voice.

  Right as he said that, the window to the left of them shattered as I made my entrance.

  “Fear not, citizens! You are saved, because I, Night Hopper, am here!” I announced, parodying his voice.

  "You…" Drako-Knight growled, "Excuse me, the real hero is already here, and it looks like I just caught two birds in one night." He turned his attention away from the villain and charged at me.

  "Whoops, sorry. As much as I want to tango with you tonight, I gotta date with that guy." I chuckled, hopping out of the way and perching on a large chandelier. "And for the record, I think of myself as more of a hare. Because, you know, the hopping thing."

  Drako-Knight seemed confused, "Wait, did you really come here to my gala to stop that villain? Did you think that I needed your help to take down Pigeon-Man over there?!" He laughed.

  "Well, I actually needed to talk to Wesley. But now that he's gone full supervillain, maybe we can stop fighting for one minute to stop the guy who is actively attacking civilians?" I reasoned.

  Drako-Knight considered my offer for a second, but before he could answer, the masked man budded in. “EXCUSE ME! I'm not the Pigeon-man nor Wesley. Call me the Zookeeper!”

  I giggled at how that name was only minimally an improvement over Pigeon-Man, and Drako-Knight rolled his eyes.

  “Fine, whatever. I don’t need to waste time with you now. But after I take out Pigeon-Man, you're next, Train-Wrecker.”

  Drako-Knight cracked his knuckles, activating his title, The Dragon. Sharp claws shot out of his hands and draconic scales sprouted, covering his arms and legs. Zookeeper gave a mad-man smile as he rolled up his left sleeve, revealing a symbol of a lock and key marked on his arm. Drako-Knight lunged at him, going for a slash with his claws. The keys on Zookeeper’s belt flew into his hand. The symbol on his arm glowed yellow as he turned a key in the air, summoning a cage in between him and Drako-Knight, who almost flew into it. I sprung into action, reacting just in time to push Drako-Knight out of the way with a kinetic blast from my gauntlets. I might have pushed too hard because he got sent flying across the room, crashing through the wall. Zookeeper turned some more keys, summoning cages with lions and tigers. The cages swung open, allowing the wild cats to charge at the audience.

  “Halt!” He commanded. At the last second. They stop with a green glow in their eyes. Drako-Knight got up, brushing the rubble off while giving me a death stare.

  “What the hell was that for!? Whose side are you on?” He growled.

  “You should be thanking me for the save. Didn't you see that cage? It's generally not a good idea to jump into one of those.” I explained.

  “Fine, but you didn't have to push me that hard!” He scoffed, “So he has two powers? Must be a tallimark.”

  "A what?" I asked while messing with the settings on my gauntlets.

  “You don't know? Maybe I'll explain if you share everything you know about this guy.” He offered.

  “His real name is Wesley Simmons. He has the Title: The Faunist, which allows him to speak with and control animals. I'm guessing that mark on his arm has something to do with The Warden and he got it from an experiment conducted by a local mafia.” I explained, "But you already knew that, didn't you? So, are you gonna fill me in on tallimarks?"

  “Wow, you must be my first fan.” Zookeeper chimes in, “But you should be less concerned about what I can do and more concerned about what I will do to all these people if I don't get the files.”

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  Drako-Knight ignored Zookeeper and answered me, "Hmm, now why would you think that? You should be careful about jumping to conclusions. Oh, and I don't think I will explain."

  "Whatever, man. I'll find out sooner or later. Now, back to the fight.” I said casually. I looked over at Drako-Knight, “Get ready to sprout those wing muscles, Drako-Boy.”

  "What? Why would I-?"

  I raised my gauntlet at Zookeeper, “Go long!” I launched myself off the ceiling at him. He tried turning a key, but I was too fast, striking him with a blast of kinetic energy that sent him flying across the room and crashing through another window.

  “Damn, you weren’t messing around.” Drako-Knight casually commented as Zookeeper's screams filled the background. I gave him a concern, aren’t you gonna do something, look. “Oh, right…” He quickly realized what I meant.

  Enormous dragon wings grew from the slits in the back of his armor as he dove out the window. Looking down, I saw that he caught Zookeeper just before he was about to splat on the sidewalk. I breathed a sigh of relief and moved on to focusing on the pest problem. I noticed that Brave Beard and Crow's Nest were occupied trying to clear out the snakes while fighting off angry birds.

  "Hey everyone, back up. I got an idea!" I shouted. The heroes gave me an untrusting look, but out of options, backed away from the hall. I took off a few gravity grenades from my belt and threw them into the snake hallway. They went off, releasing a wave of yellow light and generating a temporary field of 9Gs of pressure. It only lasted a few seconds, but that's more than enough time to cause the snakes to pass out.

  “It's safe to pass. Hurry, now's your chance to escape!” I instructed. However, the crowd was cautious to take my word for it.

  Crow's Nest bent down to poke at a mamba. "Yeah, they're really out. Everyone move it." He reassured. The crowd quickly scrambled out the door in a panic.

  "Thanks for the help there, Skipper," Brave Beard said, patting me on the back. "However, it is a felony to use a title to interfere in these types of situations without a license, especially while being masked. So we are going to have to arrest you, son." He used his beard to grab my arms and tie them behind my back.

  "Yeah, I knew you would say that, but thanks for being polite about it." I sighed, acting to go along with it."

  Brave Beard smiled and laughed, "I appreciate you not making this difficult. You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you…"

  "Really? Even if I said, "Create a -5G field of 2 meters?" Suddenly the quintessence in my suit shifted to green as Brave Beard, Crow's Nest and I were pulled up to the ceiling. I clapped my hands together to make a mini shock wave that broke my hands free from the beard's grip. "Switch to personal 0G field." The heroes dropped back to the ground while I stayed floating in the air. Just as I was about to hop to the exit, Drako-Knight flew in carrying Zookeeper.

  "Just because you saved me doesn't mean I've forgiven you. This isn't over until I get-" He huffed before getting interrupted.

  “The hostages have escaped. You've lost your leverage. This battle is over.” Drako-Knight boasted, tossing him to the ground.

  Now's my chance, just gotta grab Wesley and make it past Drako-Knight. I launched off the ceiling at full power, but Drako-Knight swooped in and grabbed me.

  "Don't think I forgot about you. You weren't planning on escaping with that villain?"

  "Of course not! I was just on my way to restrain him before gets up." I lied.

  Wesley slowly pushed himself off the ground, panting, "Beast and fowl… Rip the dragon to shreds."

  The lions, tigers, and birds that were frozen on standby sprung back to life, eyes glowing green. They then charged at us. Drako-Knight tried throwing me at them, but they ran/flew right past me and tackled him. Fortunately for him, his armor and thick scales made it hard for the animals to do much damage, but regardless, I'm sure that getting clawed, bitten, and pecked at wasn't pleasant. Drako-Knight used his draconic strength to throw the large cats off of him and started flying around the room to get away from them, still being chased by a flock of annoying fowl. After making a few laps, he set his eyes on Zookeeper, dropping down and grabbing him with his claws. He proceeded to use Zookeeper as a human shield as the animals charged them.

  Right as a tiger was about to pounce, both of them, Zookeeper screamed, "AAH! HALT!" and all the animals froze in place.

  Drako-Knight pinned him to the ground. Zookeeper was about to shout another command, but before he could, I grabbed an abandoned necktie off the ground and used it to gag him. Great, we won the fight, but how am I supposed to interrogate him now?

  "See, I tried to warn you." I said to Drako-Knight, "Anyway, I don't suppose you'd let me ask him a few quick questions before I take off?"

  "We'll have plenty of questions for the both of you once you’re behind bars," He threatened.

  "On second thought, that can wait. I’d love to stay for an autograph, but I’ve got somewhere to be.” I laughed, dashing over to the window.

  "Come on, Night Hopper, we both know there's only one way this is going to end." Drako-Knight sighed, "I would tell you to surrender, but you've made it clear there's no way in hell you'd give up your freedom."

  "Wow, how intuitive. You figured out I don't want to go to jail no matter how nicely you ask."

  "Correct. I bet you're probably thinking that there's only two ways out of this: running or fighting. I have no doubt that I'm both stronger and faster than you, so it doesn't matter to me which one you choose."

  "Okay?" I huffed, "Are you just saying that to flex, or do you have a point you're gonna get to?"

  "Hmp. My point is, what if I gave you another choice? Although everything about your actions is illegal and you often end up doing more harm than good, you'd still rather be on the side of good than evil. So let me offer you a deal." He offered.

  “A deal? I suppose I have no other choice but to hear it.”

  “I’ll give you a third choice. Join me. If you surrender now and take accountability for your actions, I'll be able to pull some strings to get you a full pardon on the condition you become registered with the N.H.A. You’ll be able to save people just like you do now, no mask required, only you’ll be under my direct supervision. You're free to choose whatever you want, but let me remind you: if you choose option one or two, you'll face a full sentence. Which means getting locked up in our best supervillain prison and never seeing the light of day again. Even if you think you can pull off some trick and miraculously escape from me, every hero in the city will be after you and you will inevitably be caught.”

  “I’ve already made my choice. I’d rather never see the light of day again than work for you! I might not have proof you're working for the mafia yet, but even if you're not, you've been utterly worthless at stopping them. The fact is, every month more and more entailed youths have been going missing! I don't care what laws I'll have to break, I'll stop at nothing to make sure that it never happens again! Meanwhile, you've done nothing but deny it to the public while pocketing their donations. You should be ashamed to call yourself a hero!"

  “What are you on about? Thousands of children are reported missing every year in this country. The fact that a few of them have titles and are in this city is nothing but a statistical probability. Besides, unless we have confirmation there are supervillains or supernatural forces at play, that'd be a job for the police.” He calmly stated.

  "That excuse seems a bit per-rehearsed to me, but whatever. I'll get you proof of supervillains and then I'll get proof to expose you to the public as a fraud!”

  At that, Zookeeper’s eyes widened. Suddenly his keys flew up on their own, turning in the air to summon a small cage, only this time it wasn't an animal that came out. I could barely see what it was before. BAAMMM! The entire room was filled with a blinding light and an ear-splitting noise. He flash banged us. I fell to my knees, clenching my ears. I couldn't see it, but Drako-Knight must have done the same, letting go of Zookeeper. When we finally get our senses back after what felt like an eternity of a nauseating ringing in our heads, we find that Zookeeper is gone.

  “Damn it! You… you let him get away” Drako-Knight accused.

  “Me? You were the one holding him!” Suddenly, the police entered the room from the hallway.

  “You got here just too late, the villain got away, but his accomplice is still here.” He told the cops.

  Oh crap, I still need to talk to Wesley. I nodded, “Ah, right cops, that’s the accomplice right there,” I pointed at a lion, “Now you go arrest him and I’ll, umm… look for the villain.

  I clicked my heels together and leapt out the window. I used my boot thrusters to quickly hop from building to building. Right as I thought I was in the clear, I looked over my shoulder to see Drako-Knight flying after me. I tried to pick up my pace, but he was still gaining on me.

  “You made your choice, now face the consequences!” He shouted.

  He leaned his head back, taking a deep breath in. Orange sparks began to form in his mouth, then he jerked forward and, WHOOSHH! He spit a massive ball of fire at me. I’m floating in mid air so there's no way I can dodge it. I thought it was all over when suddenly it was as if the ball of death started to slow down. There was a slow pounding in my chest as I quickly got an idea. I clapped my hand together right before it got to me, causing my gauntlets to send out a shock wave that split the fireball in half and sent me flying backwards into a building. Drako-Knight was still heading at me and was getting ready to fire another one. I took one of my gravity grenades and boosted off the building right at him. As I got close, I threw it at him.

  “Catch!”

  Reflexively, he caught it and looked at it for a second before it went off in his hand, releasing a field of a 9 times increase in gravity that pulled him out of the sky. He crashed down into the road. When he got up, he found that I’ve disappeared into the night.

  Once I got far away from Drako-Knight, I spent a while searching for any signs of the Zookeeper but came up empty-handed. Damn it, I lost him! Was going there all for nothing? I double-checked that the coast was clear, then sneakily hopped home. I crawled into my room through my window. Man, what a night. I’m exhausted. I took off my Night Hopper suit, then my homecoming suit, and crashed onto my bed. Checking my phone, I saw several missed messages from Melody, Rae, and Riley. They're probably asleep by now. I’ll have to come up with a convincing story in the morning. I laid in bed tossing and turning, trying to go to sleep for who knows how long when I heard a tap on my window. A chill ran down my spine. I cautiously rolled out of bed to see what it was. Slowly, I moved the curtains to see a pigeon with glowing green eyes and a note in its mouth. Shoot! How in the world did he find me! I opened the window and took the note. The pigeon’s eyes stopped glowing, and it flew away.

  The note read, “Meet me tomorrow night at the abandoned warehouse by the docks. Come alone, I want to talk.”