The steady drum of the helicopter blades nearly a hundred feet above her drowned out the drone of approaching sirens and the yells of police officers below, but she already knew what they were saying.

"SWAT's ETA five minutes."

She had the radio turned full volume so she could hear it above all the chaos, so she could know their next move.

Always be one step ahead of your opponent.

But right now they couldn't see her. Her make-shift hiding place underneath the air conditioning unit on the roof of her neighbor's house hid her well. The ash gray tiles around her allowed the black that she was covered in to blend in with the shadow of the machine, even with the helicopter's spotlight occasionally shining over it.

Shit. They were checking the roofs.

The small team assigned to that specific task was already two houses down, atop of the roof of the house directly across the street from hers, which was now swarming with every kind of uniform there was. She wouldn't have doubted it if some FBI agents were here by now; someone had mentioned on the radio that they were coming.

She didn't know if their guns were actually armed or if they just had tasers or rubber bullets. But quite frankly, she didn't want to test them to find out.

I have to get off this roof. Now.

With the night vision in her helmet activated, she rolled out from underneath the AC unit, away from the search party, and continued to roll until she reached the edge of the roof. Stopping herself on the ledge with her hands grasping the drain and her feet anchoring herself as much as they could, which took a couple of initially slippery tries, she quickly glanced over the edge. Bushes. But the cops were busy elsewhere, but whether it was on the other side of the house or inside it, she couldn't tell. Taking a breath, she pushed herself off of the two story roof and hit the grass next to the bushes hard before rolling and breaking out into a sprint without a wasted move.

They must not have been far because as soon as she reached the edge of the massive yard, yells sounded across the open space as bullets, rubber or not, sung past her just as she took a running leap to vault myself over the eight-foot wall with my hands and drop down on the other side to land solidly on three points: foot, knee, hand. From what she could see, the area was clear. Police were too busy worrying that she might have been hiding in one of the massive mansions that surrounded hers.

Right, like I would put the very few people that I actually called friends at risk of their high-status reputations being tarnished by helping me.

She could fend for herself.

Taking off at a run through the brush of the Hollywood Hills, she knew she had all of a minute, maybe more or less, until the still circling helicopter was redirected to where she was last seen. While the bushes provided plenty of cover, she couldn't hide long because in less than five minutes, the entire area would be swarming with uniforms. Her goal was to get past the large neighborhood of mansions on the other side of the hill and head for Universal Studios across the freeway. Even without the helpful aid of her alter ego, which was probably being revealed to the world via the nightly news right this minute, she could easily loose them in the large and elaborate lots, some of which might still be crowded with people during late night shoots.

She heard the chopper's blades before her helmet started beeping in warning. Instantly, she dove for cover underneath the bush ahead of her. Even with the spotlight, everything looked like shadows and dirt, and the helicopter quickly continued its search. She wasn't the fastest person in the world, but in order for the following uniforms to keep up, they would not only have to be faster than her, which was fairly easy to do, but they would have to have her agility to allow them to leap tall walls without hesitating, or her endurance, which was keeping her at a steady sprint up and over the hill and allowed her to once more easily clear the seven-foot wall previously separating her from another large backyard.

But she didn't stop, she couldn't stop. Not until she lost them. And even then, she didn't know what to do after that.

---

After clearing the nearest freeway underpass, she easily hopped the wired fence surrounding the Universal Studios lots and took off through the large, empty parking lot. She avoided the few lights scattered about the lot, keeping to the shadows so the couple of cameras that did scan the area wouldn't catch her. Any advantage would do, especially since a movie studio that was both only blocks from where she lived as well as a place she was familiar with was probably on the LAPD's top five places she could be hiding.

Slowing as she approached one of the large hangers, she peered carefully around the corner to find the alley empty. Another short and silent sprint to the next hanger. Reaching one of the few doors, she easily picked the lock before peering inside. The large, warehouse was void of people, but full of costumes, props, camera and lighting equipment. Before slipping fully inside, she pulled out one of the few microphone dots from one of the pockets on her belt. Normally they were for bugging people to listen in on their conversations. But for now, the palm-sized black circle would have to work as an alarm system for now. Peeling off the back cover, she bent to stick the circle at the base of the door. Sure, a circle that size was pretty obvious, but by the time anyone got close enough to notice it, she would have already heard them. All that was left was to turn up the listening volume as high as it could go in her helmet before finally slipping inside the warehouse.

Not wanting to draw any extra attention, instead of flipping on the building lights, she flipped on the xenon lenses in her helmet with the touch of a button, making the space in front of her light up in a bright glow.

The first couch she saw she flopped into.

Resisting the urge to take off the metal helmet that adorned her head, as not only was it her source of light, but it was the only way she could keep track of what was going on outside of the warehouse, she instead removed her left glove so she could use her actual finger tips to probe her shoulder.

When she'd fell from the rooftop, she'd hurt her already injured shoulder again. But pretending that she never had any injuries during her day job was just practice for working through the pain at night. She pressed the tips of her fingers into the front of her shoulder, making the dull ache suddenly scream. She'd injured the rotator cuff a week before; now she just probably reinjured it. Great.

The nearest clothing rack was only a couple of feet away and she grabbed the first thing she saw that was black and was made out of cloth. Ignoring the pain in her shoulder, she used both hands to rip the dress, as it turned out to be, to a proper size before tying it into a sling. Then she simply, and slightly painfully, slipped it onto her shoulder. Until she needed to move again, it was best to let her shoulder get some rest in a sling.

Slipping her glove back on, she leaned back against the couch and listened. Waited.

---

She suddenly shot awake, sitting bolt upright on the sofa. She'd heard something through the fog of her dozing state.

Pat, pat, pat. Shuffle. Static.

Her eyes narrowed as she glanced at the digital watch on the inside of her left wrist. It had only been an hour and SWAT had already figured out where she was.

Sure, they don't have this kind of response time when there's something a little more obvious, but when they have the chance to catch a vigilante, all hands on deck!

Slipping off the couch, she moved deeper into the warehouse, tossing the sling aside. Within a minute, if they hadn't already, they'd have the whole building, and in turn the whole lot, surrounded with SWAT members dressed in black and armed with glock pistols, flash bang grenades, and—her favorite—9 mm Heckler & Koch MP5s. It wasn't her first run-in with the LAPD SWAT force, but it was the first time they were actually after her, personally. Normally she just worked around them, or through them if they got in the way. But taking on a whole SWAT team alone? Sure, she was crazy enough to do it, but for once she wasn't sure that she actually could do it. After all, she wasn't Batman.

"Red team. Go."

Even though the command was whispered, the microphone on the bottom of the door caught the command as though the SWAT leader had just whispered it into her ear himself. Taking a breath, she pulled a few items from her belt. Gas pellets, throwing stars. Her grappler gun was also at the ready for easy access.

Nearly a second later, the door she had broken into only an hour before burst open, followed quickly by another door halfway down the warehouse and on the same side. SWAT members emerged through the small rectangle of light, provided from the lamp above the door, one right behind the other. All had goggles over their eyes. Night vision.

Her xenon lenses were already off, turned off when she had no longer needed them before she had dozed off. But with a quick touch of a button hidden discretely along the lower, posterior portion of her helmet, the lenses switched to night vision as well. If she was going to live up to what the Los Angeles Times had begun to call her, she'd better be able to see from the shadows she hid in.

Tossing the gas pellets in front of her, she moved deeper into the warehouse with ease while the smoke screen separated her from the approaching officers. While a couple of SWAT members had to retreat to apply re-breather masks, her helmet did all the work for her.

There had to be a way out.

She had been a girl scout once, giving her the right to recite the motto "be prepared". It was for that reason that she carried everything she could in her belt and in the pockets along her sides and legs, even if it sometimes made it heavier and more awkward than she would prefer. One example was a grenade. Slightly large and usually unnecessary, it was a bulk on her hip. But now was an excellent moment to use it. Moving around all the jumbled props and equipment as quickly and quietly as she could, she neared the opposite wall, halfway between both unopened doors. Give it ten seconds and those doors would not remain unopened.

It only took her five.

The wall exploded, sending a small chunk flying outwards to crash into a couple of SWAT officers that had been moving towards one of the doors. While SWAT waited until the smoke cleared to fire shots, she was already in action, moving through the dust towards the next building, tossing throwing stars with each hand towards the nearest officers. Each one hit their mark: their trigger hands. Practice had made her perfect with both hands.

Shouts emerged around her, followed quickly by gunfire from those who had not been close enough to receive a wounded hand. She grabbed the grappler gun from her belt and fired it at the roof. It caught on the drain that lined the edge. Hitting the retracting button on the side of the barrel, she helped climb the wall with her feet as the plexi-rope pulled her up to the roof. Bullets shattered the concrete around her while several found their mark. Luckily most hit either the Kevlar vest and shorts or the back of her helmet. The shots to her helmet just made her head rock forward as the titanium held with echoing tings. The shots to the Kevlar, however, hurt like hell. The first one that hit in the center of her back made her lose her footing as the wind was knocked from her lungs. But she held on and hurried quicker up the side of the building. She felt two more hit the Kevlar and she experienced one bullet ricochet off the cement in front of her to embed itself into her arm before she reached the roof. The ricochet made her left arm go limp, but her right still held the grappler gun as it finished its climb.

She quickly scrambled onto the roof as another ricochet grazed through the skin of her calf, tearing the black cloth covering it. She stifled a cry as she hauled herself further onto the roof.

If she gave into pain now, it would all be over. Sure, getting arrested was better than getting killed by some punk in the street, but it was not the way she wanted to go out.

Taking a deep breath she pushed herself up with her right arm, making her shoulder cry in pain, as she held her left arm close to her torso and applied weight to her injured left leg. Surprisingly, it was the graze that hurt the most. Her right shoulder had already returned to a dull ache again and her left arm was practically numb. Trying to push all the pain aside, she jogged across the rooftop as she reattached the grappler gun to her hip. By the time she reached the other side, she could already hear the sound of helicopter blades approaching.

That was quick.

She took a running leap across the back alley between the buildings, glad that she knew exactly which alleys were the smallest. Landing with a thud on her right side, she didn't let anything more than a yelp of pain and a grimace slow her as she scrambled to her feet and took off again across the roof. On the other side of this building was the fence that separated Universal Studios from its small theme park, which was conveniently shrouded in trees. She didn't dare to hesitate before leaping.

She landed in a roll, but instead of getting right back up, she was momentarily assaulted by pain again. The world turned red and spun for a moment before she blinked it clear and straight again.

But she couldn't stop.

She heaved herself to her feet and took off into the blurry, red trees—only to be clotheslined just past the first one. She hit the ground hard enough to make her vision blur even with the protection of the helmet. She glanced up to see a shadow move over her. It grasped her right hand and hauled her to her feet. She grimaced as her shoulder throbbed, but she did her best to stay upright as her vision began to clear again. But she didn't wait to throw a kick towards the shadow. That shadow could be as much of a threat as the approaching SWAT teams, if it wasn't already a part of SWAT.

But the shadow caught her foot and twisted, causing her to put excess pressure on my other leg in response. Her injured leg gave way and she collapsed to the ground again. The shadow neared again, but as she threw her right elbow at it, a strong grip caught it and held it. A black hand rose over her elbow before connecting hard just below it. All April Corwin had time for was a strangled cry before everything went black.