Tracy Chance fought the urge to look down as she gripped the fabric-sheathed alloy beneath her gloved hands, desperate but unwilling to chance fumbling to get them off to wipe the sweat from her palms. 

The wind and rain bit and an unrelenting chill made itself worse over the bay. Every breeze swayed her, making her stomach turn and her chest seize. 

“Fuck,” It’s all she risks saying, focused wholly on the climb as she took another step up the sheer face of the bridge's northern tower, a little more than a third of the way near its peak.

Another errant breeze, this one stronger than the others catches her, using her cape like a mast to temporality pull her feet from the steel and leave her for a moment hanging freely above the bay, the mists rolling off of its freezing waters almost seeming like clawed hands beckoning for her to drop.

“FUCK.” This time through teeth clenched to fight the chatter she felt. 

This was no time for tremors. She was out of practice, that much had been made obvious to her by the difficulty this simple climb had presented, and nervous tremors were the last thing she could afford.

Fucking focus, Tracy. She urged herself, as the swaying came to a stop and she regained her footing.

She counts herself lucky the costume still fits, and that she’d managed to stay relatively close in size over the years though it still feels wrong on her skin - an identity she’d done much to get away from for so long. As she continues her slow scale of the tallest bridge on the East Coast, she wonders how, in a day, her life had brought her back here.  Not the Kingsport Bridge, that she knew. Answers. But back in costume, scaling heights no sane person should subject themselves to when just that morning, it had all been little more than a bad habit she’d considered shaken

. . . 

She had the day off from work. It was Wednesday in Kingsport City. There was no holiday, she’d checked and double-checked, and no weather event to be heard of besides a few incoming thunderstorms. 

All of that was true and yet Tracy Chance had the day off. That was never a good sign. The people in Kingsport were of a hearty sort, and their businessesseemed to reflect that. Most, including the local paper, had stayed open during the infamous Blizzard of ‘14, reporters huddling around their desktops for warmth as they updated the people of Kingsport by the hour.

Yet that morning, with little forewarning they’d all been told not to come into work.

That was when she should have known the day was going to be an eventful one. Though, even she couldn’t have predicted the outcome.

She had tried to ignore it when the email came in that morning while she’d been preparing her breakfast, finding it hard to dismiss her piqued curiosity at the subsequent messages that began rolling in on all the work group chats speculating the reasoning, or the mention of a potential ‘cat-red’ tier event.

 A potential villain attack of some sort seemed the most agreed-upon candidate. 

It made sense in a city like Kingsport, and Tracy had concluded as much herself without much thought. The sudden end of in-person affairs would have been enough to get her gears turning on their own.

But the use of terminology directly from the U.S. Bureau of Enhanced Affairs classification system had truly been the reason for her assertion, and felt every bit like Tracy-bait, calling on her investigative and journalistic instinct to dig deeper. 

Naturally, she couldn’t help but linger on the mystery of it, her conclusion that - given the culprit of whatever possible attack had clearly spooked the authorities into warning businesses to shut their doors - it had most likely come from a known element, someone from whom they would be certain of such a threat and their capabilities or willingness to follow through with it. 

Kingsport was an unpredictable place filled with folk of the same ilk, and they couldn’t shut down the entire city for every would-be conqueror issuing threats.

And there was the mention of a potential ‘catastrophe-red’ tier event which narrowed her suspect list further. That terminology was specific, purposeful, it meant villain, and a dangerous one at that. The UBCA classified capes based on the potential threat they posed; emergency, disaster, catastrophe, calamity, and apocalypse - from least to greatest danger, with a color system ranging from Yellow to Red to indicate likely attack severity.

If this is a ‘cat-red’, there are only a few of the local talent it could be. She thought, her mind pulling apart and comparing the various M.O’s of Kingsport’s greater threats.

Puzzle-Master? No. Whatever this is, they seem to fear mass casualty, not his thing usually. Monster Maker? Doubtful. I can’t see how he’d get ahold of enough test subjects for his poor monstrosities to render this much of a threat. Then there’s him.

There were others, options less likely but possible, however, she knew none fit quite right with the pieces offered in the mental puzzle she’d subconsciously set at.

The Dancer. 

It made sense. Tracy hadn’t been religious in almost nine years, but she was convinced if there was such a thing as the devil, that man fit the bill. He haunted the city like a ghost. They’d breath a temporary exhale of relief that grew shorter with each report of his arrest, only to dwell in the cold terror of his seemingly inevitable returns. And return he would, always with a bang that would make it so that his presence was felt. 

Ever the showman. She thought, glancing outside at the streets which still seemed too busy for the potential threat at hand.

Fuck, she sighs, exasperated by the realization of her old habits momentarily taking root, you’re doing it again.

It was an instinct she had to work hard to deny, for all the places it had led her before. It was the instinct that was the very reason she’d elected to switch to working in the Kingsport Sun’s sports section, shying away from the investigative work she had flourished at despite many a plea from her editors. She’d given the excuse that she needed a break from the trauma of it all, and while there had been some truth about her trauma it hadn’t come from the work.

The reality was the opposite, she found it all too intoxicating. Not the suffering, no that boiled her blood which only served to deepen the desire she felt to answer the questions. She knew the temptation it came with, that proximity to all the murder and suffering - the mystery…

She’d gone almost ten years without falling into it. Ten years without wearing a mask or cape and having regular and violent encounters with the sort of people they make horror movies about but in lingering nightmares. It had been ten years in which she’d been able to live something resembling whatever a normal life in a city as abnormal as hers - fighting hard against those urges that she felt had been programmed into her by someone who should have sought to keep her as far away from it all as possible…

No, she determined to herself over a plate of eggs.

Whatever it is, unless it’s a Kingsport Comets game, it’s not my responsibility. 

It was true, damn it, she KNEW it was, and yet, Tracy wondered why it felt so much like trying to convince herself of a lie.

She had resolved to stay inside and take advantage of the sudden mid-week weekend, catching up on some television - phone muted against the tempting chimes of work chats filled with reporters all wondering the same thing. If there was going to be some masked asshole attacking the city, then she’d be better off at home with the only other person in Kingsport she wanted to feel responsible for.

‘I got the day off, probably courtesy of some asshole in a costume. Catch up on ‘Castles?’ She sent the text to Jenna at 9:37, and got a response a few minutes later.

‘Same. The school called all the staff an hour ago. Be by in 10 :)’ 

Tracy smiled, content to try and put all thoughts of costumed psychos out of her mind and let it be filled with shlocky fantasy and her girlfriend's warmth.

By 10:32 the two were holed up in Tracy’s apartment, four blankets and a half a season of ‘Conquest of Castles’ deep in their impromptu off days.

By 11: 20, Tracy had grown antsy and felt the familiar need to snack while she watched TV.

“I did the last snack run,” she’d declared with a smirk, poking Jenna in the ribs with her foot until the woman had crossed the length of the couch to engage in a light-hearted wrestling match.

“And what about it?” she grunted, as she fought for wrist control, face scrunching in a familiar look of exertion Tracy had always found both hilarious and adorable. 

She let her win, and Jenn collapsed onto her into a mock choke, raising both arms in triumphant celebration.

“What about it, is that means it's your turn.” their noses met at the ‘your’ and she smirked.

“Fine,” Jenna had eventually relented, rising to toss on her boots and a raincoat. 

“Chee-Z-Dips or Ranch Fries?”, she asked.

“Both,” Tracy responded after a moment of feigned thoughtfulness, prompting an eye roll from the other woman.

“Hey,” Jenna called before she could step through the doorway.

“I love you to the moon and back…”

“And till the end of the galaxy.” Tracy finished, smirking cheekily despite the warmth she felt in her chest.

With a parting kiss blown her way, at 11:32 Jenna left for the local mini-mart.

At 11:43, the first explosive went off. 

The world seemed to devolve into sound and motion, as everything shook. She rolled from the couch and crossed the room without a breath, not even bothering for a jacket as she threw on the first shoes she could find and practically flew out the door. 

‘Jenna’ was all she could think.

. . .

The wind was worse atop the iron skeleton of the Kingsport Bridge, biting even through the materials of her old suit, which fit with all the strain of a form-fitting fabric worn for the first time in years. 

She gripped the edges of her cape, holding it around her to shield against the biting bay breeze, kneeling carefully atop one of the metal ledges, which was no more than two feet across at either side, leading to a sheer drop hundreds of feet onto concrete or frigid waters that would greet with the same force from this height.

The police had sent up a bomb squad once things had calmed down to ensure that Darkstar had de-rigged the explosives on the bridge. Tracy figured they’d likely done a brief sweep for evidence, but given the weather conditions - she’d hoped it was indeed brief, leaving something with which she could begin to answer the questions the horrors of the night had left her with. 

Replay the event in your mind. Compare your environment.

She scanned the steel surface, an almost ‘H'- shaped section of metal offering sheer drops on either side. Her mind recalls the scenes of the final confrontation between her old mentor and The Dancer—the very thought of it made her head spin. The two had been engaged in a precarious battle—almost like a dance, which she hated to admit — moving against one another precariously, only one ever aiming for the killing blow. Rain and the bomb squad had washed away much of the blood, mixing what remained into the rust.

Peering down at the bay below, its frigid waters beating hungrily against the concrete pillars upon which it stood, she could feel a cold pit in her gut. Loss? Perhaps. She had been close to Darkstar, once. While their duo had ended on bad terms, she knew he deserved better than this.

She pictured the fall and sighed. Even Darkstar wouldn’t have survived it, his suit’s ballistic resistance built for guns and hand-to-hand, was unsuitable for such a fall. It all felt..wrong, in a way she was struggling to place.

Another gust caught her cape, and for an instant she felt her heart leap into her throat as her back foot slipped, dangling precariously over the edge. She quickly scrambled to the center, regaining her purchase and fighting to control her breathing and glare forward, trying to ignore the potential plunge.

Something caught her eye, thin and metallic whipping in the wind - hanging from one of the massive cables connecting either side of the bridge. For a moment, she assumed it to be some part of the construction, torn in the chaos, but as she inches forward she can make out a familiar design. It was a grappling blade, not unlike those she carried now, and she recognized its design by the sleek black and white of the point half from which the cable hung uselessly, a black star barely visible at the center from a distance.

Darkstars, she knew, instantly recognizing the tool he had used to traverse about the city. 

A question arose in her mind, one that felt exactly the sort she was searching for as she recalled the video. At no point, had she seen him use one of his grappling blades, except to reach the platform. 

There it is, a piece of the picture that didn’t fit, enough to begin thinking. Raising a blade from its holster, she aims beside the loose cable, pressing down and throwing herself out and into the open air.