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Night was falling over the city as Tommy sprinted through the streets. They were nearly empty this late at night, and he could run as fast as he wanted, something he took full advantage of.
At an intersection ahead, he saw a duo of heroes pause at the crosswalk, looking around. He slowed to a walk. Waited until they'd crossed the street and disappeared again. This was his part of town, and he knew the heroes' routes nearly by heart. They had their patrols and he had his. Except that they were following the law, and Tommy… well.
He put a hand up to the bandana he'd tied over his nose and mouth, making sure it was secure. As far as disguises went, his outfit was far from subtle; besides the bandana, he wore a red hoodie over the cheapest body armor he could find and loose black pants, plus a pair of round goggles that made his face look weird. It was certainly a distinctive look, something that might cause trouble if he ever got infamous enough to earn the attention of the heroes, but for now it was great for branding.
His vigilante name (what he'd thought of so far, at least) was Tempest. He hadn't actually told anybody yet. Mostly because he hadn't had the chance; the heroes only halfheartedly patrolled this part of the city, but Tommy had gotten unlucky. The last week had been devoid of any major crimes. Not much for a new vigilante to do.
And tonight, with the heroes patrolling just nearby, his chances of stopping a crime were just as low.
He sighed, coming to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk to plan his next move. He could turn around, maybe. Find an area that didn't already have a hero patrol that night. There were plenty of areas like that, he'd just miscalculated his route for the night and managed to nearly overlap with the patrol he'd just seen.
Then he caught a faint sound. Not the quiet talking of the heroes, barely audible; not the hum of the city at night. It sounded more like a spray can. Like someone was doing graffiti.
Now, Tommy didn't really care if people did graffiti. Sometimes it was pretty cool art. And like- as far as crimes went, some spray paint on a wall was the least of his concerns.
It was a boring night, though.
He followed the sound of the spray can to a nearby alleyway. There were a lot of alleys in the city, like the city planners had gotten together and said "You know what we need? More places to do crime!" Dark, secluded areas, that were scary most of the time but somehow got worse at night.
Tommy had grown up learning to never go into alleys at night.
Of course, being seventeen and a vigilante meant he could ignore that wisdom now. He walked into the alley, keeping a careful eye on the shadowy figure there. They stood, spray can in hand, over an open backpack with more spray cans spilling out the sides. He couldn't quite tell what colors they were; the streetlights didn't reach the shadows of the alley, and the moonlight washed out most of the color.
"Hey," he said, mostly just to announce his presence.
The person didn't seem to hear him. They had a hood pulled up over their head and a mask over the lower half of their face, and when Tommy paused (a safe distance away, because he wasn't an idiot) and leaned to the side to see if he could catch their attention, he saw earbud wires leading to their pocket.
Ah. That would explain it.
Tommy chose not to interrupt their work, and instead stepped back to see if he could get a better look at what they were working on. It took a moment to pick out the design against the bricks.
When his eyes adjusted, he saw that it was a stylized crown, broken in half with jagged lines. The artist was currently adding gems to it; Tommy thought he saw blue, though it could've been a deep green. They moved with a fascinating grace, and Tommy found himself getting completely distracted by the way they added color to the wall, apparently without even thinking about it, humming along to whatever song they were listening to.
Finally, they stepped back, nodded to themself, and took another spray can from their backpack. With a few quick motions, they'd added a roughly eye-shaped symbol to the corner of the piece.
Tommy recognized that symbol.
Pretty much anyone in the city would recognize the symbol, actually. It was the signature of Oracle, an urban legend who'd popped up a few years back and immediately gained the attention of the heroes. His pieces were immensely popular among the general population, but the Hero Commission did not like him. Mostly because Oracle didn't like the heroes, either, and made that fact very clear in his works.
It wasn't like he was a proper vigilante. He never stopped crimes, never really fought people, never did anything other than leave various bits of graffiti around the city. Still, the government talked about Oracle about as much as they talked about any other vigilante, and with the same sort of language. Oracle was a "renegade", an "anarchist" (which was a bad thing, according to them), a sign that society was falling apart at the seams and a warning about what would happen if the heroes didn't exist.
Which was all bullshit, in Tommy's humble opinion.
But it didn't really matter. No one ever saw Oracle. No one even was sure he was real, or that he was only one person, and at the end of the day, the heroes were left with no leads and no reason to actually hunt down the artist. It would be like trying to chase a ghost, but more pointless.
Except that now, Tommy was standing in a random alley, watching in a vague state of shock as Oracle set down his spray can, straightened, and removed his hood slowly as he looked up at his work.
The artist was… different than Tommy had expected. He wasn't sure what he'd expected, really. It certainly wasn't long, messy dyed hair and the vague aura of college student. Oracle - the myth, the legend - just looked like a regular guy. His disguise was worse than Tommy's, somehow, and Tommy was completely certain that if he ever saw this guy as a civilian, he'd immediately know who it was.
Oracle removed one of his earbuds, then turned his head in Tommy's direction.
Tommy froze.
"You're a new vigilante," the artist said, like he knew exactly who Tommy was. He seemed completely unconcerned at Tommy's presence, too, despite how he'd apparently been completely oblivious to his surroundings only moments ago.
"Yeah," Tommy said, when it became clear that Oracle wasn't going to add anything else. "Started last week. How'd you-?"
"You got a name yet?"
Great! An opportunity to make his debut as a vigilante! Except that it wouldn't change anything, because this was Oracle, and he certainly wasn't going to spread the word about a new vigilante. "I'm Tempest," he said anyway.
Oracle hummed, giving him an appraising look. "Interestin'. You seem pretty young to be a vigilante. Speedster, I'm guessin'? The color scheme is a little…" he waved a hand in Tommy's general direction. "Bright. Very red."
"Red's a cool color!"
"Not great for blendin' in, though."
Tommy scoffed, gesturing back at Oracle, who was dressed in pretty much all black. "Says you, bitch. You look like you're about to rob a bank." That earned him a snort of laughter. He took the opportunity to ask, "How'd you guess I'm a speedster?"
Oracle didn't respond for a second, just started gathering the cans of spray paint back into his backpack. Finally, he said, "It's pretty obvious if you know what to look for."
"What does that mean?"
"I dunno. Means you're bad at standin' still, I guess."
Tommy wasn't sure how to respond to that, so he just turned it over in his mind, stepping back absently as Oracle walked past him, apparently about to leave the alley. When the artist got to the entrance, though, he paused. Cursed quietly. And turned back around, returning to the shadow of the alley.
"There's a hero fight nearby," he explained. Tommy looked out into the street, trying to catch either a glimpse of the fight or a snippet of sound, but didn't see anything out of the ordinary.
"How d'you know?"
Oracle shrugged. "I see things other people don't, that's kinda my thing."
"Oh." After a moment, it clicked. "Is that why you're called Oracle?"
"Hm?"
"Because you can, like, see shit. That's what oracles do, right? They tell the future?"
Oracle seemed to consider that for a moment, then shook his head slowly. "It's mostly 'cause of my signature. When I was first startin' out, someone noticed it looked like an eye, and I got the idea for the name from them. My power's not really seein' the future."
"Oh."
"It's more noticin' patterns, puttin' together pieces to a puzzle no one else can see. Which does mean it looks like I can predict the future sometimes. It's how I don't get caught; heroes are predictable, usually, and I just kinda follow the voices' lead for what to paint where."
It seemed like Oracle was rambling, now, talking to fill the silence more than anything else. Something he'd just said caught Tommy's attention, though. "The voices?" He echoed.
"Hold on," Oracle said instead of answering, turning his head to look out at the street. He'd been leaning against the wall, but straightened now, raising one hand to the strap of the backpack slung over his shoulder. "Somethin' feels off."
Tommy glanced towards the street, and once again, didn't see anything out of the ordinary. The air was quiet, though, in a way that the city rarely ever was.
"Shit."
"What?" Tommy hissed, matching Oracle's tone.
"The heroes weren't in a fight, they're here. Waitin' for us."
As much as Oracle seemed like a cool person, Tommy was immediately skeptical. He'd just seen the patrol walk past, not ten minutes ago, and they wouldn't turn back like that. They never did. They'd keep going, far enough into the city's outer limits to say they'd been there, and then they'd loop back towards the city center and the rich peoples' houses they actually bothered protecting.
He walked to the alley's entrance. Oracle didn't stop him as he leaned out, looking both ways for any sign of heroes. There were a few cars parked at various points along the street, but other than that, nothing.
"… you sure?"
He walked further into the street, then glanced back at Oracle, only to notice that the artist's eyes were glowing faintly red. After a beat, Oracle followed him to the sidewalk, then immediately turned to the left and started walking with purpose away from the alley.
Now, Tommy wasn't entirely sure if this guy was crazy. But it did seem like a good idea not to stay in one place for too long. And he was sort of curious what was up with the whole glowing-eyes thing.
"Hey, wait up-"
His voice echoed, louder than he'd meant it to, and a blue glow flickered into existence from somewhere near the intersection they were approaching, a spiderweb of light crisscrossing across the street to form a barrier. Definitely a hero. Palisade, if Tommy had to guess. They had a force field power and were one of the heroes more frequently seen in this part of town.
Oracle had already turned on his heel, pace picking up to a jog. Tommy turned, too, and only remembered that heroes always traveled in pairs when the other side of the block erupted with a wall of flames.
Why the fuck a hero would light a street on fire, he had no idea.
"Should've left sooner," Oracle said casually, as if him and Tommy weren't in imminent danger of getting caught by the heroes. Tommy inwardly cursed his luck. He'd been a vigilante for all of a week, and no one even knew his name yet. "I think we can get out of this, though."
"Well, yeah. Obviously. We just have to get past either the force field or the wall of fire, no big deal," Tommy shot back. He shook his arms out, trying to get rid of the excess energy. "So which way do we go?"
"What?"
Tommy shrugged. "I dunno, you're the Oracle. You're supposed to know shit, remember? Which way do we go to not get caught?"
"… I just told you it doesn't work like that. I can't actually see the future." Oracle paused, eyes glowing briefly red again. "That bein' said, we should go for the force field."
"Wait, why?"
"There's definitely a reason, but we don't have time to figure it out."
Tommy eyed the force field warily. It seemed to be a much stronger barrier than the wall of fire might be, especially with his super speed. He could probably run through the flames without getting burned if he tried. But then again, the force field did have some significant gaps. It seemed like stretching the barrier across a street was stretching the hero's power, making it less effective.
"If we get caught, it's your fault."
"We're not gonna get caught."
"I thought you said you couldn't see the future?"
Oracle didn't bother to answer, just turned towards the force field and started jogging towards it at a pretty leisurely pace. Tommy considered his options for a split second: follow the guy without a plan, or try and run through a wall of fire.
Both were very bad options.
But then, Oracle had somehow managed to not get arrested by the heroes in all the time he'd been a semi-public figure, so maybe he knew what he was doing.
Tommy sprinted towards the glowing blue lines, aiming for a spot where the crisscrossing pattern left a gap just about big enough for him to fit through. He hadn't actually faced a hero before; the goal was usually to avoid them, if possible, given that he was new to this whole vigilante thing and - in all honesty - had never been in a real fight before.
First time for everything, though.
The blue lines crackled with something like electricity when he got close. He didn't notice until he was too close to turn back, and just crashed through, one ankle catching on the spiderweb as he half-fell to the other side. Faint buzzing filled his veins, but it didn't feel… bad. More like his speed was on overdrive.
Just on the other side of the building on the corner was, in fact, the hero Palisade. They seemed surprised at his sudden appearance, and the blue lines started to shift, twisting outwards in a way that Tommy would've found really fucking cool if they weren't actively trying to catch him.
It occurred to him (very belatedly) that maybe, just maybe, getting into a one v. one with a trained hero was one of the stupidest ideas he'd ever had.
Then again, being a vigilante in the first place was kind of a stupid idea.
He did have a weapon, at least, a baton he'd picked up from a vaguely shady-looking website. Had he ever used it before? That was beside the point, because in addition to the baton, he also had the element of surprise! And super speed! This couldn't possibly go wrong.
He darted forward while Palisade was still distracted, landing a solid hit on their shoulder. There was a sharp sound; he couldn't tell if it was just the impact or a bone snapping, and he stepped back hurriedly as they collapsed, gripping their shoulder. The blue glowing threads of the force field disintegrated, as well, leaving the way clear.
"OW-"
"Shit, sorry, I didn't mean to hit you that hard-"
"What the hell?!"
"C'mon, kid, we gotta go," Oracle interrupted, passing Tommy at a jog. He'd pulled his hoodie up again, covering up his dyed hair, although Tommy saw some of the pink strands falling across his face.
Tommy looked back at the collapsed hero. They glared back, though it wasn't particularly menacing. "Sorry," he said again, then hurried after Oracle.
They'd gone a few blocks - turning a corner or two to avoid being followed - before Oracle finally spoke.
"You got so lucky."
"What're you talking about?"
"With Palisade," Oracle clarified. "And you fightin' them. You've never been in a fight before, have you?"
Tommy considered denying that, but Oracle already knew he was a new vigilante. "No," he admitted. "But I think I did a pretty good job."
Oracle huffed a laugh. "You literally started apologizin' to them," he returned lightly. "And you haven't used a baton in your life. I'm actually surprised you didn't try for a headshot, that could've gone so much worse."
"Wait, why?"
"You're basically hittin' someone with a metal bar," Oracle explained. "And you've got super speed, which is gonna add a lot of force. If you hit someone in the wrong spot, you could break their bones, which means that hittin' them in the head…" he trailed off with a shrug.
"Oh." In all honesty, Tommy hadn't considered that. He'd just thought a baton seemed like an easy to learn weapon, and one that wasn't as potentially lethal as a knife or a gun, or most other weapons really. Plus, it was pretty simple to get a baton, given that they were far less regulated.
"I'd say it's an understandable mistake, but you really should've done trainin' of some kind before becomin' a vigilante," Oracle continued. "This is serious stuff, kid. You're not just playin' pretend here; you can do real good, or you can do real harm. And that means takin' the responsibility of learnin' how to do things right."
Tommy nodded, the thrill of adrenaline fading out quickly and getting replaced by a sense of guilt. "… yeah. Yeah, no, I know. I just- I want to help people, you know?" Maybe he'd been a little overconfident, thinking he could be a vigilante just like that. Because Oracle was right: this wasn't playing pretend, this was real life, and real life had real consequences. Like getting into fights he wasn't prepared for. Like accidentally breaking someone's bone- or worse.
He'd known that, going in. Of course he'd known that. It just felt more… more real now.
Oracle slowed to a stop, and Tommy slowed as well, unsure if he was supposed to still be following the artist. Oracle didn't say anything for a long moment, just tilted his head as if to consider Tommy. His eyes were glowing again, Tommy realized, though he only saw it for a second.
"You'll make a good vigilante," Oracle said finally, with an air of certainty.
"Really? You know that?"
The artist shrugged. "I mean, I'm not sure. I still can't see the future or anything. But you're willin' to learn from your mistakes, and that's as good a start as any."