Yes, I'm back. A grain of plot for this story's been floating around in my head for a while now, but I'd been so busy with everything else that I hadn't had time to work on this any. But now I need a new project, so here it is. (Note: this has nothing to do with my Team Dynamo stories.) I know the prologue is short, but for once I've worked on a story before posting it, so I've got about six chapters done. Updates should be pretty frequent if school doesn't get in the way. Enjoy!

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Prologue

It was late evening, and shadows were just appearing around the edges of Metroville. Everything seemed to be normal - except for a tall, wiry man slinking toward the bus stop where several people sat waiting.

Creeping silently toward a middle-aged woman with short blonde hair and a stack of luggage, the man slipped behind her and with nimble fingers grabbed her purse from atop her suitcase and scampered away. By the time she had figured out her purse was missing he was long gone, melting into the shadows as if he'd never been there.

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Several minutes later the man crouched on the roof of a building, dumping out the contents of the purse as he searched for valuables. There was a smirk of satisfaction at escaping without being caught on his face.

Suddenly a voice boomed out of the dark. "You know, you can tell a lot about a woman by the contents of her purse, but maybe that's not what you had in mind."

Jumping up, the man's eyes bugged out in terror as he backed up against a Dumpster. Mr. Incredible, one of the most famous supers in the world! Oh great! I'm so dead.

He pulled out a gun and held it out in front of his body, though even to him the gesture didn't seem threatening. "Hey, look..."

Before he could do anything else a fist shot out of nowhere and gave him an uppercut to the chin, and everything went black.

For a few seconds he stayed knocked out cold, then his brain and ears awoke, but his head hurt too much for him to move or even open his eyes. So he lay there, listening to Mr. Incredible talk to the person who'd punched him out - obviously a woman, judging by her voice.

After a few minutes they began arguing about who was responsible for catching him. The man finally couldn't stand listening to their bickering anymore and staggered up to mumble "Hey, look, the lady got me first" before once again being knocked out by the woman. This time he was unconscious longer.

When he came to for the second time, Mr. Incredible was handcuffing him to the Dumpster. "You stay here. They usually pick up the garbage in an hour."

The thief couldn't believe it. He, Anthony "the Shadow" Rydinger, had been caught! And by Mr. Incredible of all people! I'll never live this down.

Sure enough, about an hour later a garbage man arrived and discovered him. The police came soon after that and took him away, but Anthony Rydinger couldn't think of anything except revenge. Mr. Incredible would pay for locking "the Shadow" up. Oh yes, he would pay. And dearly.

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