Sam Evans, better known to the citizens of Centropolis as the Blond Chameleon, stooped down to retrieve the bag of popcorn that he had let drop from what, moments ago, had been his talons. As he made his way across the rooftop, he greeted the only person he knew who could have possibly called him. "Hey, Nightbird."

"Hey, Chameleon. Over here." Sam followed the voice to a corner of the rooftop, where he found Nightbird looking at something in the heart of downtown. "How did you know it was me?"

"Well, I don't know too many other people who would hack into the League's messaging system and send me a text 'Meet on top of McKinley Tower ASAP. PS: Bring popcorn.' Figured it had to be you."

"Good guess," Nightbird chuckled. "But I figured this was too good for you to miss."

The Chameleon tried to figure out what Nightbird was looking at, but couldn't figure it out on his own. "You're going to have to help me out here. Not everybody has your freaky 'I can see a license plate ten miles away in pitch darkness' night vision, dude."

Sam isn't sure, but he thinks Nightbird is grinning. It certainly sounds like it when he responds. "Take a look at Legends Plaza."

From this great distance—some sixty floors off the ground—he can see that something is going on at Legends Plaza a mile away. Exactly what is going on, he can't tell. But it looks like either a fight between some super-powered people or a reenactment of a discount bridal sale massacre. Sam's not sure. "Got your binoculars?"

"You bring the popcorn?"

"Right here. I'll trade you."

They exchange, and as Sam dons the glasses, Nightbird pops a few kernels into his mouth. "Ugh. Plain? Really, Chameleon?"

"Hey, dude. Just because we're super-powered doesn't mean we can pretend calories don't exist."

"I'll get you back for that next time."

"Whatever, dude. You'll thank me when you can still fit into that costume in five years." Sam adjusts the binoculars to focus in on Legends Plaza, and damn, are those binoculars cool. High-definition quality a mile away? How is that even real? He's going to have to ask Nightbird who his tech guy is. He'd thought briefly about trying to distract Nightbird and "accidentally" walk off with it, but he realizes that first, it's not exactly superhero behavior to steal something, and second, it'd be really tough to hide when he's leaving.

But getting back to business, Sam finally figures out what's going on, but he can't really believe what his eyes are showing him.

"Is that a . . . Superlady fight?"

"I figured you'd get a kick out of seeing it. You mentioned it was a fantasy of yours once, if I remember correctly."

"You most certainly did! It's awesome," said Sam, not taking his eyes off the unfolding action. Gold Star had just unleashed a "Galaxy Burst" attack on Eastwind, who was distracted by rather successfully parrying a counterattack from the Tigress and her cat-o'-nine-tails. Best fight ever, thought Sam. "But why are they fighting?"

"From what I can tell, somebody left a box containing a note saying it was 'for the toughest diva in Centropolis.' After opening it, they saw it was a new iPhone with solid gold exterior, and they've been going at it ever since."

"How long's that been?"

"About fifteen minutes or so."

"Too bad I missed the first part of it."

"Keep watching. It doesn't look like they're going to stop anytime soon."

Something's been bugging Sam for the last few minutes. Not the fight—that's fully living up to his wildest expectations, and beyond. It isn't until he's about to ask Nightbird if Apple had announced the release date for the 10s when it hits him.

"Why do you keep doing this, Nightbird? You know eventually someone's going to catch on and make your life miserable."

"Doing what?"

"Seriously, Nightbird? Divas fighting over a golden Apple? Can you get any geekier?"

"I thought you'd appreciate a classic."

"Don't get me wrong. I love a good myth reenactment as much as anybody. But I don't want you to get in any trouble because you stole someone's very expensive toy."

"Don't worry, Chameleon. Nobody's going to report it."

That got Sam's attention. "And why not?"

"I got it from Tim Cook. He's an old buddy of mine."

"Strike one."

"I won it at a poker game?"

"Swing and a miss. Strike two."

"Okay. I hacked into the email system of a factory owner who decided to steal wages from his employees, while buying a pretty little thing for his much younger mistress, then intercept the package and forge his signature?"

"That's good for a ground double. But what did you do with the actual phone?"

"I told you. It's down in the plaza."

"You expect me to buy that after all this time? You could fence that phone for six figures or more, and you're telling me you're just giving it away as a prize in a fight among superheroines?"

"Okay, okay. I'm currently auctioning it off among my investors. Top bid is $250,000. You want to top it?" smirked Nightbird. Or at least Sam thought he was smirking.

"Not on my salary, Nightbird. Sorry."

"That's too bad. It'll help the employees a bit—although it's not nearly enough compared to what they've lost."

"Well, you're actually doing something about it, rather than just bemoaning the injustice. That's more than most people ever do. The League probably won't do anything about it, either. 'We're crimefighters, not private investigators.'" That last bit came in a spot-on impression of Captain Colossus, the League's leader.

"That's too bad."

"Yeah, it is. But what can I do about it?"

Nightbird didn't have an answer for that, so they just went back to watching the fight.

A few minutes later, Nightbird whispered quietly next to Sam, "We should probably go. I think we're being watched."

"Where?"

"Up in the sky. Your ten o'clock."

With Nightbird's binoculars, he slowly adjusted his gaze and saw what Nightbird had already spotted—a League member making large, languorous circles in the evening sky. "Good catch. Yeah, we should go. But how are you going to get down?"

"Well, my cape does double as a parachute. Don't worry about me." Nightbird started backing up, clearly looking ready to launch himself off the roof.

"Wait!" burst out Sam. "I've got a better idea. I've been practicing something."

"What are you talk. . . ." squawked Nightbird, but he found himself speechless after watching Sam's transformation. That is so cool!

After landing on the ground and letting Nightbird climb off of his back, Sam turned around to face his passenger, rumbling, "on a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your experience today on Chameleon Airlines?"

"10 out of 10. Would definitely ride again," laughed Nightbird. "But I've got to know . . . was that supposed to be Gwaihir from Lord of the Rings?"

"Finally, somebody who gets it!" exclaimed Sam in delight. "The rest of the League just thought I was some overgrown oriole."

"That's ridiculous. Your friends need to watch more movies."

"That's what I tell them, too. They never listen, though. They just want to watch dumb romantic comedies and musicals and experimental films."

"Ugh, how boring. Maybe we'll have to do our own marathon sometime."

"That would be awesome. But how will we meet up?"

"Well, you can always text me. You have a number now."

"I'd like that. I'd like that a lot. Enjoy the rest of your evening, Nightbird."

"You too, Chameleon. Till next time."

Sam watched Nightbird vanish away into the shadows. "See you soon, I hope," he said to himself, as he turned back toward the League headquarters, his heart lighter than it had been in weeks.

Meanwhile, in Legends Plaza, Rachel Berry, also known as Gold Star, received a signal from her earpiece.

"Gold Star, this is Cloud Dancer."

"Read you, Dancer. Go ahead."

"Surveillance targets no longer in view. Repeat: surveillance targets no longer in view."

"Did you see where they were headed, Dancer?"

"Negative. However, I did see one of the targets riding what appeared to be a large oriole off of the tower."

"Thank you, Dancer. See you back at base," said Rachel, freeing Mike Chang from his duties.

"Glad to be going home. It's a little chilly up here."

"Okay, everybody," announced Rachel. "Play time's over. We can wrap things up and head back to headquarters now."

"What? Huh? But what about the prize for the toughest diva?" whinged Kurt Hummel, better known to all as the Fashionista.

"Boo, that junk's as fake as Milli Vanilli," chimed Miss Sonic.

"Then we've been beating each other up for the last half hour for nothing?" groused Eastwind.

"No, it's for Operation Matchmaker!" enthused Miss Moneybags, as several of the younger ladies shook their heads in exasperation or facepalmed themselves. Nobody really said anything about Miss Moneybags's lack of tact and instincts regarding operation security, but then again, when Miss Moneybags's "superpower" was financing the whole League in Centropolis, who wanted to upset the applecart?

"Matchmaker? Who's getting set up here? There aren't any guys around," observed Kurt, growing more impatient with his misunderstanding of the situation.

"Not us, you fool. A certain shapeshifter we know and the oblivious, visually impaired, morally ambiguous object of his affections," snarled the Tigress.

"Sam and . . . Nightbird? What are you people smoking? There's no way this plan will ever work. After all, . . ." Kurt was cut off by the crack of the Tigress's whip.

"Shut it, Hummel. If the next words out of your mouth are 'Sam is straight,' or anything to that effect, I'll round up all of your precious Alexander McQueen outfits and give it to Lady Dada to turn into plaid button-downs and corduroys."

"You wouldn't dare," exploded Kurt.

"Try me. I'm already going to be sore for days. I don't want to hear another of your ridiculous bi-phobic diatribes right now."

"Hmmph. Just don't come complaining to me when this plan blows up in all of your faces."

"Kurt's right, though," offered Eastwind. "I mean, Nightbird's clearly interested in me more than Sam."

"Oh, honey, we've been through this before," rang in Miss Sonic, eager to shut Eastwind down before she embarrassed herself any further. "Answer me this, Tina: if Nightbird's so into you, then why was it Sam he invited to watch us get our fight on?"

"And before I was so rudely interrupted," said Rachel, trying to get things back on track, "Mike told me that he saw Nightbird riding a bird off the tower tonight!"

"Nightbird riding Sam? Now that's just too easy," scoffed the Tigress.

"But don't you see? That means that step one of our plan is a success, and we can move on to the next phase of the operation. This is so exciting!" said Rachel as she started leading the other League divas back toward headquarters, eagerly discussing possible ways of playing Cupid for Sam and Nightbird. Further back in the pack, Eastwind and the Fashionista exchanged murderous looks, which did not go unnoticed by the Tigress and some of the other younger League members. . . .

To be continued. . . .