CHAPTER 17

A quick sprint, a leap, the flashing of lights down below, an abrupt landing, and repeat. The sequence, at least, was familiar enough to Alex, even if the scenery wasn't. The cracked, aging stonework and shadowy alleys of Avenbrooke were a far cry from the terraced roofs and tree-flanked streets of Lenox Hills. But despite how much the rooftops changed, the rush of adrenaline as he jumped, the wind in his face and the swelling of his wings, that was always the same.

"You've got to keep up, Hawlucha Man!" Volcarona Mask shouted as she and Aethon flitted past. Her partner's broad wings churned the air, and Hierro swooped to catch the favorable current. "Can't let the bad guys get away!"

"Easy for her to say," Alex grumbled. "She doesn't have to run." Volcarona Mask clung to the back of her partner with a leather harness clipped to her waist. It allowed her to keep her hands free, and she was dexterous enough with the clasp to free herself in an instant to drop down on her foes from the sky, quarterstaff whirling. It offered her the kind of mobility Alex could only dream of, and he would admit to being more than a little jealous. But, he figured, when you had been in the hero business as long as Volcarona Mask (and had access to the entire Forbes fortune), you got to have all the cool stuff you wanted, and have a partner that was effectively a solar deity too.

Blaziken Man and the Dryad had arranged this particular team-up after hearing about an ongoing Sin weapon smuggling operation in Lenox Hills, overseen by Pride. The Dryad had obtained intelligence from one of her sources in the police department that Ambrose Fletch, a notorious Unovan gunrunner, was making a deal with the Sins to supply them with newer and more powerful weapons skimmed from the skirmishes overseas. Jiro and Lakshmi didn't want the Sins getting their hands on that kind of firepower, but they also couldn't play their hands too early, or the deal would just be rescheduled once more weapons were gathered. They needed to take out both the cache and the gunrunner in one fell swoop, and that meant a two pronged operation.

The Dryad and Blaziken Man had offered their assistance to the CCPD's Fifteenth Precinct and attacked the warehouse with the Dryad's Rose and Iron legions in the hope that the notoriously paranoid Fletch would do a runner. That was where Alex and Isabelle came in. They were both the perfect mix of endurance and ambush predators, hunting their quarry from above and waiting until they were exhausted and mistake-prone before dropping and finishing the job.

Alex and Hierro sprinted across the top of a trellised townhouse and soared out over the brightly lit main parkway of Lenox Hills. The Dryad had ensured that the street was lined with stately juvenile oak trees, and a stream ran down the center, looking far clearer than the remaining trickle of the Aven Canal that bisected Alex's home borough.

Fletch's car barreled down the thoroughfare, scattering pedestrians enjoying the warm summer night and ambling between the many fashionable cafes and cocktail bars that marked the commercial heart of Lenox Hills. Isabelle swooped down next to Alex again. "We've got to get him off the main roads!" Alex nodded and angled back towards the rooftops again. It was likely that Fletch had firearms in his car, and if they tried to corner him somewhere with civilians around, they ran the risk of collateral damage.

Aethon dove as Fletch's car approached a turn, and Volcarona Mask hurled down a flash grenade towards the car's driver-side window. There was a brilliant white flash and a loud bang, and the car's driver jerked the wheel the other way, down a narrow side street. Alex headed off the turn as Aethon shot out ahead, dropping down between the buildings and scattering fiery scales on the street. The Volcarona continued to force the car down ever more narrow and winding streets, making the driver go slower to take turns and allowing Alex to remain in pursuit.

When the car tried to turn back towards the theater district, Alex hurled one of the two flashbangs Isabelle had given him to goad the driver into turning into a parking structure. Alex and Hierro shot through one of the narrow openings in the concrete to land on the car's hood as it tried to turn around on the second floor.

The driver fumbled a sidearm from his waistband and shot through the windshield, but Alex had already rolled off the hood and drawn his batons. Fletch and two of his men clambered out of the car and summoned their pokemon. Hierro dodged around a Gurdurr's clumsy lunge before sweeping the fighting type's legs out from under it and sending it crashing to the ground. Alex was sure that after sparring with Siegfried, the Gurdurr would prove to be little trouble. When it tried to rise again, Hierro spun around with a double roundhouse kick, sending the Gurdurr flying into two leaping Bisharp. A Druddigon snapped at Alex, and he thrust one of his batons into the dragon type's mouth. When the beast clamped down on it, Alex activated the electric current and left the reptilian pokemon convulsing on the asphalt. Fletch's Sawk vaulted over the car and swung out with a right handed jab.

Alex managed to parry and match the Sawk blow for blow, but quick as a striking Seviper, the Sawk seized Alex's wrist and shifted its weight to throw him against a nearby concrete pillar. Before it could, Volcarona Mask dropped down through the narrow gap between the third floor and the ramp leading up to it, her arms tucked into her sides. She sprang over a parked car and flipped through the air, wrapping her legs around the Sawk's neck. She tightened the pressure, and the Sawk released Alex, scrabbling at its neck to disentangle her lock.

Fletch took a shotgun from the backseat and slotted two shells into it. Alex dashed forward to disarm him, only for the second henchman's Cryogonal to snatch his ankle in an icy chain. He could feel the cold seeping through his suit and settling into the skin of his leg. The ice type hovered behind him, the blue glow of its eyes shining malevolently. Fletch smirked and raised the shotgun, but before he could pull the trigger, Alex hurled his second flashbang at the arms dealer. The man snarled as he was temporarily blinded by the light, and the momentary distraction was all Hierro needed to bound over and kick the Cryogonal into Fletch, trapping him beneath the ice type's bulk and freeing Alex's leg.

By now the Bisharp had rallied, and Fletch's henchmen closed in. Volcarona Mask brought the Sawk down and sprang to Alex's side. She unslung her metal quarterstaff and twisted the middle of the shaft, splitting it into two long batons.

"Batons were kind of my thing," Alex said.

"Jealous that mine are bigger?" she quipped back.

"If you were a guy, I'd think you were compensating."

Isabelle scoffed and turned to stand back to back with Alex. The first henchman swung in, only to catch a backhanded swing of Isabelle's left baton and a kick to the abdomen. She bounded over a car and battered back the Bisharp. She pivoted on her heel and brought her quarterstaff back together, powerful magnets in the shaft securing the two halves. She slid into a crouch and swung the staff around, knocking out the legs of the second henchman. "You Unovan bastards need to learn not to mess around in Volcarona Mask's town."

Fletch had shifted the Cryogonal off, and was scrabbling for his shotgun. Alex kicked it out of his reach and stepped on Fletch's wrist, making the man wince in pain. Fletch reached for the pistol in his waistband, only to receive a jolt from Alex's stun baton. "Can yours do that?" Alex asked Isabelle. When Volcarona Mask said nothing, Alex smirked. "Guess size isn't everything."

Officers from the Fifteenth soon arrived to take Fletch and his men into custody. Isabelle handled the debriefing with the police and rendezvoused with Alex when they drove off. "Looks like Jiro and Lakshmi are still wrapping things up with Pride's cache, but according to the cops it should all be over soon." She stretched and waved Aethon down from the parking structure's roof. "It's probably going to be a quiet night in Lenox Hills with all the police on the streets, but it's early yet. Might as well go on patrol. You in?"

Alex glanced down at Hierro and shrugged. "We don't really know the lay of the land here. It's easier back home when I know where I'm going."

"You can't stay in your borough forever, Hawlucha Man. I'll give you a tour, maybe we beat up some bad guys, and tomorrow night you can go back to cleaning up your home turf."

Alex nodded. "All right. Give me a lift back up to rooftops?"

They turned away from the brightly lit gentrified center of Lenox Hills and the Dryad's curated arboretums. The townhouses grew less stately, the greenery lining the roads less robust, and the foot traffic sparser. When Isabelle and Aethon slowed down, Alex stopped at the edge of a rooftop. "It's quiet here. In Avenbrooke, that means something bad is about to happen, but here that just seems normal. My instincts are getting mixed signals."

Isabelle unclipped from Aethon's back and dropped down to stand next to Alex. She gestured out over the rooftops. "Lakshmi's been keeping the peace here for years. Most criminals have moved out to the fringes of the borough where her reach isn't so wide. Outside the usual noise of the commercial districts, it's always pretty quiet around here. Anyone trying to cause trouble in Lenox Hills knows they have to be quiet about it or they'll draw Lakshmi's grass types down on them."

Alex tried to reckon the image of graceful and compassionate Lakshmi in her multi-hued sarongs with what Isabelle was telling him. "So the arboretums are how the Dryad keeps Lenox Hills safe, right? And the more arboretums there are, the more there's a deterrent to crime."

"Not to mention that with each new arboretum, more of the borough gets cleaned up and reclaimed."

"But what about the people that displaces? Just the average people who used to live there?"

"Lakshmi only creates arboretums on land that's been vacant."

"I mean what happens to the people who can't afford to live here once an arboretum is created? Where do they go?"

Isabelle shrugged. "Elsewhere. Would you rather the Dryad just let the Sins and whoever else have the run of the borough just because some people get priced out?"

"Well, no, but…"

"I try not to concern myself with 'buts'. The way I see it, it's a question of the greater good."

"People being forced from their homes is for the greater good?"

"That's a little hyperbolic, don't you think? But I've done the moral calculus, Hawlucha Man. As far as I'm concerned, it's worth it." Volcarona Mask's voice was hard as flint. "If that's the price the city pays to deter crime, then so be it. With every bastard we take down and put away, the world becomes a better place. If that means some people get displaced and need to move out of Ridgewood, then I'll live with that."

It didn't sound right to Alex, but he wasn't sure he had the right words to argue the point. Isabelle likely had worked out the moral calculus and settled on a solution that salved her conscience, but she was Isabelle Forbes, inheritor of the largest corporation in the hemisphere and the sole beneficiary of her parents' fortune. The consequences of her actions very rarely reached her behind the walls and gates of Forbes Manor.

Before Alex could respond, the night air was split with the sounds of commotion, shattering glass and gunfire. Volcarona Mask twirled her quarterstaff and whistled to Aethon. "Looks like philosophy class is over, Hawlucha Man. That's our cue."

She and Aethon shot off over the rooftops, and Hierro sprinted after them. Alex was just a moment behind as they cut northwest across the rooftops of Ridgewood. The steady report of gunshots got louder as they angled towards a wide thoroughfare. In the glare of the streetlights, Alex saw that a fire hydrant had burst, and a car with a dented front had stopped not far down the street. A police cruiser was blocking off the street, and two officers were trading fire with a handful of Pride's men from behind the cover of the car.

Aethon soared out over the street and unleashed a column of blistering heat, almost instantly turning the water from the burst hydrant into a cloud of searing steam. With a beat of the Volcarona's wings, the steam traveled down the street, sending the gangsters scurrying for cover. Isabelle hurled three flashbangs from Aethon's back as she jumped out of the sky, landing with a somersault and unslinging her staff in one fluid motion. She was on her feet and battering away a lunging Arbok an instant later. The steam from the hydrant and the smoke from her flash grenades sharply cut visibility on the street. Neither side was willing to risk an errant shot as Volcarona Mask stalked across the concrete, unseen by any but those up above. Alex and Hierro soared out over the road, and Hierro dove after Isabelle.

There were flashes in the smoke as Pride's men summoned their pokemon. A Staraptor shot up above the fog and shrieked as it flew at Alex, only to be battered away by Aethon. As the Staraptor reeled, Alex swooped towards it and struck twice with his stun batons, making the avian pokemon crumple and fall to the street.

Spots of bright light lit up the fog below as Isabelle threw more flash grenades to further disorient her opponents. A deep roar rattled the windows up and down the streets, but Alex couldn't make out anything in the roiling mist save for a few blurry indistinct shapes. He could hear the sounds of grunts, metal hitting flesh, and the more bestial cries of pokemon. Somewhere in the midst of it all was Hierro, but the Hawlucha was keeping silent, and Alex was too far away to hear the skittering of his talons on the concrete. Even the thermal imaging on his suit was useless; the ambient heat of the steam blurred the images too much to give Alex any clear indication of who was who.

Abruptly, Aethon plummeted down towards the street, his wings beating the air and working it into a cyclone. Alex caught the updraft and rode the wind higher as two Golbat and a Honchkrow surged upward. The fog on the street lifted, revealing Isabelle and Hierro locked in combat with Pride's thugs. Aethon laid down cover by spreading fiery scales in the enemies' midst, and Isabelle dragged the ends of her staff through the embers, setting the weapon ablaze. Pride's men fell back as a Golem lumbered forward, but the rock type was soon engaged in a defensive action against a flurry of Hierro's kicks.

Alex swerved and pivoted to dodge the Golbat's gnashing fangs, and managed to strike one of the pair with a well-placed kick. Before it had righted itself, Alex had swung around to bring his batons to bear on its companion and shot down to the reeling poison type. He seized its leg in his left hand and whirled in the air, hurling it at the Honchkrow. The dark type squawked and turned to avoid the Golbat as Alex pulled his wings in close and shot at the ground. When the Honchkrow pursued, Alex angled his body and caught an updraft before spreading his wings wide again, soaring back up past the Honchkrow before looping again and shocking the bird with his batons.

On the ground, Isabelle swatted a Mightyena's muzzle and sent the canine back with a yelp. The police behind her laid down cover fire as Aethon continued to hold the enemy back with fiery dust. A Beartic snarled as it appeared from one of the gangster's pokeballs, and Isabelle separated her quarterstaff to catch its fists as it brought down its claws. The force of the blow nearly sent her to her knees, but she gritted her teeth and pushed back, using the Beartic's natural aversion to fire to press her advantage. Despite her best efforts, the raw strength of the ursine pokemon threatened to win out. Isabelle let a growl build low in her throat before it burst out in a full-throated roar.

"Don't you bastards know who you're dealing with? I'm Volcarona Mask, bitch!"

She ducked out from under the Beatic's arms and bludgeoned it with her batons before slotting them back together and delivering an uppercut to the ice type's jaw. The Beartic staggered backwards, briefly stunned, but it recovered quickly and caught Isabelle with a punch, sending her sprawling to the ground with the wind knocked out of her lungs. The Beartic raised its claws above its head to deliver what would be a crushing and likely fatal blow.

"Hierro!" Alex barked from the sky.

The Hawlucha kicked away his human opponent and sprang into the air, angling towards a Magneton charging an electrical strike. Hierro struck the electric type off its magnetic axis and hurled it towards the Beartic, and the startled Magneton discharged its stored voltage, blasting the ice type with a current of powerful electricity. In the confusion, Hierro bounded over one of the Sins' cars and launched himself into the air for a drop kick on the stunned Beartic.

As Hierro attacked, Isabelle jumped to her feet and shouted a command at Aethon. The Volcarona unleashed a searing blast of hot air that drove all of the enemy pokemon back. Alex alighted on the ground behind their trainers and swept the legs out from beneath two of them and jabbed his left baton into the sternum of the third and turning the stun pulse up to its maximum setting.

The police advanced and handcuffed Pride's incapacitated thugs. "Thanks for the save, bird brain," Isabelle said.

"Ah, it was no problem."

"I'm not talking to you," Isabelle replied with a laugh. She reached down and ruffled Hierro's feathers. "Your partner did all the heavy lifting this time." Hierro cooed appreciatively, and Isabelle sighed. "You mind if we take five, Hawlucha Man? I could use a minute to catch my breath after that."

Alex had to admire her composure. For someone who had looked death in the eye just a moment ago, she was certainly taking things in stride. "We've covered a lot of ground tonight. A break can't hurt."

Isabelle smiled. "Cool. I saw a bodega like a block away. Let's grab something to drink."

"Oh, I, uh, don't actually have any money on me."

"Dude." Isabelle opened a pouch on her belt and revealed a roll of bills. "Chill. I'm Isabelle Forbes, I can spot you a snack. What do you want?"

"Uh, water for me, lemonade for Hierro?"

"Sounds good." She waved to the police officers. "You boys got this? We have other Feebas to fry tonight."

Isabelle led Alex down the street and into a corner bodega. The bell above the door chimed brightly as they walked inside, and the clerk looked up from behind the register. "No way," he gasped. He leaned over the counter, looked out the storefront windows and gasped again when he saw Aethon placidly hovering in the air. "You're… you're you! I mean, you're Volcarona Mask and Hawlucha Man! From the news!"

Isabelle gave the clerk an airy wave and strode to the glass doors of the refrigerators at the back of the shop. Alex turned to the clerk, shrugged, and followed after her. Isabelle plucked three bottles of lemonade and one water from the racks and handed two of the lemonades to Alex. "First time meeting a fan?" she whispered.

"Pretty much." Whenever he was out in public as Hawlucha Man, things were usually going to hell. He knew that people were starting to take notice of him in Avenbrooke, but to say Hawlucha Man had fans was probably a stretch.

Isabelle plunked her bottles down on the counter and drew out a crisp bill from the roll in her pouch. The clerk punched their total into the register in a daze. "Do you, uh, want a receipt?"

"Nah, it's cool," Isabelle replied. She dumped her loose change into a small dish on the counter and handed Alex his water. As they were about to leave, the clerk cleared his throat.

"If it's not too much trouble…" He reached under his counter and pulled out a polaroid camera. "Can I get a picture?"

Isabelle flung an arm over Alex's shoulder before pulling him in close and fixing her features into a winning smile. Alex tried to give his least awkward grin. The camera flashed, and the picture printed out the front. The clerk waved it in the air to clear the image and laughed. "My boyfriend is never going to believe this. Two superheroes in my shop?"

"Have a good night, dude!" Isabelle said, stepping through the door and making the bell jingle again. "He seemed nice." She scanned the rooftops up and down the street and nodded to a faded billboard atop a tenement house. "Let's sit there."

Alex and Hierro found a fire escape to scramble up, and a few minutes later, they were sitting on the iron catwalk in front of the billboard looking out over the roofs of Ridgewood. Alex and Hierro tapped the plastic necks of their bottles together in a toast and each took a sip. Isabelle held Aethon's lemonade up, and a long, thin proboscis shot from the Volcarona's mouth to drink down the sugary nectar.

Isabelle kicked her heels against the catwalk and took a drink of lemonade. "I just want you to know, I don't think you were wrong before."

"Huh?"

"About the whole greater good thing. I don't think you're wrong. We should be trying to make life better for everyone in the city, and to do it as equitably as possible. But I'm not wrong either, you know? To bake this particular cake, we're going to have to break a few eggs, and that's going to mean people are going to get priced out and have to move around. And that's an acceptable loss as far as I'm concerned. It's still making the city better, and that's the important thing." Isabelle took a sip of lemonade. "It's just that deterrence is half the game here, you know? If the bad guys know the price of being bad is getting a beat down from Volcarona Mask, or Blaziken Man, or Hawlucha Man, or whoever, and if they're properly afraid of us, they're going to do fewer bad things because the price is high enough that they don't want to pay. So if being good at my job means these guys pack up and leave town and make their neighborhoods a better place, then I'm cool with that."

"To be honest, I don't think much past stopping the bad guys."

"That's fair. I've had a few more years to think about this."

Alex nodded. "Five years now, right?"

"Give or take a few months." Isabelle shrugged. "Pretty much since the Sins showed up."

Everyone knew the story of the Sins' first salvo against Clarus City. After Marcus Braun had conquered the city's underworld, he turned his attention on the city's elite. The most prominent families of Clarus City had gathered for an annual charity gala at the Crown Royale hotel, and once almost all of the guests had arrived, several explosions ripped through the hotel, killing nearly all of the guests, including Harrison and Madeline Forbes and Marcel and Felicity Harcourt. The city reeled as it tried to reassemble a municipal government and process the loss of the most visible figures of the city's social scene.

In the resultant chaos, Jiro Sasaki created his Blaziken Man armor to fire a return salvo against the Sins that the police seemed unwilling to undertake. In the following months, the Hammer and the Dryad took to the streets, and not long after that, Volcarona Mask had her first appearance. The press had been captivated by the young heroine, perhaps even moreso than Blaziken Man's own explosive debut.

Knowing what he knew now about Isabelle Forbes and her night gig, it helped Alex put a few more pieces in place towards the enigma that was Volcarona Mask. Alex glanced over at Isabelle. "How old were you when you started?"

"I was fifteen when Johannes started training me, right after my parents died. I started going out there and kicking ass a few months later when I was sixteen." Isabelle puffed out her cheeks and sighed. "Let me tell you, dude. This is totally not where I thought I'd be when I was a kid. I mean I'm, you know, twenty one years old, right? All the girls I went to boarding school with all went to like, college or whatever. If I'd been normal, I would be at a nightclub or something right now, or procrastinating on my, I don't know, statistics homework?"

"You can do both of those things at the same time, for the record."

"Yeah, I'll bet."

"So why not give it up? Why not go back to being Isabelle Forbes full-time?"

"At the beginning, I think I was trying to avenge my parents," Isabelle said with a shrug. "Total cliché, right? I think I grew out of that, though. I realized pretty quick that no matter how many bad guys I beat up and threw into Redstone, it wasn't going to bring my mom and dad back. Eddie, you know, the Phantom? That's why he's doing this. He just wants to get back at the people who took his mom and dad from him and left him here to clean up the mess."

"But not you?"

"Not anymore. After a little while, I started framing it in my head as making the city a better place, making sure nobody else has to deal with what I went through. Like, making sure that when the Sins go down, we've done enough good to make sure nobody comes up to take their place. And that kept me going for a while, but mostly I realized I was in it for the rush. I think I'm a little addicted to it now. But it feels good, you know? Flying around, beating up the bad guys, all of that. I like what I do, and I don't know if you noticed, but I'm kind of awesome at it."

"I noticed."

"So what about you, bird brain? What's your skin in this game?"

Alex shrugged and looked out at the twinkling lights of Lenox Hills and Ridgewood, and the soaring glass and crystal spires of midtown across the river. "I just… I just do it because it's the right thing to do. I mean, Hierro and I, we can do these things, and not everyone can." Hierro perked up at the sound of his name and chirped low in his throat. "Right, buddy?" Alex ran his hand through his partner's feathers. "Avenbrooke needed someone to step up and protect it from the Baron and worse. No one else was going to, so I did."

"That simple, huh?"

"Well, yeah. I just that if I could do what I'm doing now, and I didn't, I'd never be able to live with myself. And I know it's dangerous, and I know that people like you and the Phantom and Johannes probably have better reasons for being out here risking everything, but I… this is what I do. This is who I am."

"Dude." Isabelle put a hand on his shoulder. "I get it." She sprang to her feet. "We're fighting the good fight, because that's what superheroes do!" She threw her head back and whooped. "Come on, bird brain, break time's over! I'm fired up now!"

Alex crushed his empty water bottle in his hands and jumped up next to her. "All right, back into the breach."

Volcarona Mask stuck out her fist. "Hell yeah."

"Hell yeah." Hawlucha Man bumped knuckles with her and hauled Hierro to his feet. Volcarona Mask whooped again and swung into the harness on Aethon's back. Together, the four of them flew off once more into the night.