Phoenix Talon patrolled, and thought. He had still seen no sign of the Alley Cats himself. He had come across places where they had been, and the Blood Boards had had a couple of encounters, but the Alley Cats had always retreated without engaging. This raised his little troop's morale, but he was worried.
    He decided to start doing more plain-clothes patrolling, altering his route, spending more time in the shadows. His time in costume lately was spent on the upper levels, looking for Maglev. While doing so, he got a call from Rick.
    "You know the conversation we had a couple days ago about the Maglev thing?" the kid asked.
    "Yeah."
    "Um, you got connections with the police, right?"
    "Yeah."
    "Can you access bank records?" Rick asked seriously.
    "What do you mean?"
    "Greg didn't show up at the last meeting, you remember, said his mom was sick? I checked on that, and his mom hasn't been sick, and the other guys were telling me that he just got a new motorcycle, and I don't know where Greg got the money for a new motorcycle. And I'm wondering whether or not any funds are suddenly showing up in his bank account. All I'm asking for is for you to find out whether or not it's him."
    Phoenix Talon thought for a moment. "For one thing he probably wouldn't put it in his bank account anyway. Meet me tonight at nine o'clock down the street from Greg's house. We'll stake it out, see what he does."
    "Okay. I don't like this, sensei," he added.
    "I don't like it either. Don't tell anybody else. We're just gonna watch, see what happens."
    That night they positioned themselves where they could see Greg's open bedroom window. They heard the sound of a phone, saw him cross the room to pick it up. He hung up a moment later and disappeared. When he came back into sight he was wearing a ski mask. He dropped his board out the window, climbed out, and was off.
    They followed unseen as Greg worked his way into a better-off neighborhood, skated up the side of a building, and brought the board to a hover near a window. He jimmied it open with easy speed and climbed inside.
    "You stay outside, I'll go in," Phoenix Talon directed.
    "Sensei," Rick objected. "I told him that we were going to handle this on our own. Let me get the guys."
    "We'll get the guys, but first we've got to get him. I want to catch him in the act," Talon explained. He climbed through the open window without a whisper of sound, crept up behind the preoccupied Greg, and clapped a hand over his mouth.
    "Reginald, did you hear something in the other room?" someone asked from elsewhere in the apartment.
    Phoenix Talon took his struggling prey outside, along with his board. Rick closed the window.
    "I'm telling you, dear, there's nothing in there...." came faintly.
    Talon removed the ski mask. "Evening, Greg. Whatcha doing?"
    Greg looked from one to the other. "Umm...."
    "You're about to get your ass kicked is what you're doing," Rick said grimly.
    Phoenix Talon started to put out the word about the emergency meeting. Behind him he could hear Greg talking to Rick.
    "Man, don't you get it? Do you know how much money I've made in the last couple of days? All we have to do is we both split, he can't catch up with both us, we're gone, we pull this in another city, do you have any idea—"
    Rick hit him, not too hard. "Shut up."
    They headed for the meeting place, where a confused bevy of Blood Boards were asking each other what was going on.
    "Rick, Greg, how's it going?"
    "Hi guys," Greg said weakly.
    "Shut up," Rick snapped, shoving him.
    "Jeez, man, what's happening...?"
    Eventually Stu showed up. "Sorry, had to find somebody to watch the kids." That was everyone.
    "Gentlemen," Phoenix Talon began grimly. "Gentlemen, I have some very bad news. This evening Rick and I caught Greg engaged in some extracurricular activities."
    "Greg's going to that tech school, right?" someone asked, confused.
    "Greg's been doing some second-story jobs," he corrected. "He's committed a series of jewelry robberies these past couple weeks under the name Maglev and leaving these stupid cards." He tossed out the one he'd found in Greg's pocket. "See, supervillains do stupid things, like leave taunting little notes for people to find them with."
    "Man, that's just as dumb as telling the heroes where they're gonna go," someone noted.
    "Yeah, it is," he agreed meaningfully. "Now we had an agreement, all of us, that this wasn't going to happen any more, and Greg broke that agreement. Does anyone argue with the proposition that Greg should no longer be a Blood Board?"
    "No, sensei!" they chorused. Phoenix Talon glanced at Rick, who was clearly livid. Good. "Okay. Greg, from this moment on you are no longer a Blood Board." He took Greg's board and pulled out a plastique charge. "Stand back, everybody stand back." He set the timer and placed the board to hover about eye level. "Get back."
    Fifty seconds later, the board was no more.
    "Where's your other board? Your old one?" Rick demanded. "Think you're gonna go back and grab that?" He kneed Greg in the kidney.
    "He's no longer one of us," Talon reminded them, not wanting this to get out of hand.
    "Bad enough, man, that you were just gonna be stealing my tech and using it, but now you gotta screw up Dawn's gift to everybody? Bastard," Rick muttered darkly.
    "Guys, I know this is hard," Talon told the assembly seriously. "But unfortunately there's no real other way about it. We gotta turn him in to the police."
    "Can we kick the shit out of him first?" someone piped up.
    "No, his life is gonna get unpleasant enough from here on in."
    "Yeah, man, he's gonna have to take showers."
    He had the funny feeling that they'd never actually figured out what he meant by that. Well, they'd put it together eventually. "Greg, we'll get your colors and your shuriken, 'cause I'm taking you down to the station myself. So, we now have a vacancy. If anyone knows of anyone who'd like to join us, that you can recommend, let me know."
    "Dad?" Dawn came walking out of the woods. "I heard there's a vacancy?"
    "Yeah, do you know anybody?" he asked pointedly.
    "C'mon, sensei, let her in!" somebody called.
    "No. You, shut the fuck up. Meeting's over. Rick, keep an eye on Greg. I'll be right back. Dawn, let's go talk." He hauled her off a ways. "I thought we had this discussion," he snapped.
    "That was when there wasn't an opening," she protested. "There's an opening!"
    "I didn't say you couldn't be in there because there wasn't an opening! You don't get involved in this part of it."
    "Fine," she spat. "Fine."
    "We have a war coming up, and I'm not putting you on the front lines. That's the way it is, and I do know these things a little better than you do, hon," he reminded her. "You may be able to make things outta nothing, but there are some things you gotta learn the hard way."
    "Yeah, I'm finding that out," she muttered bitterly. "I'll be back at the base." She stomped back to her board and swooped off.
    "Son of a bitch," Talon swore. He stalked back over to the group, grabbed Greg, and dragged him down to police headquarters. Personally oversaw the booking, emphasizing that Greg was a former member of the youth organization known as the Blood Boards. They took his fingerprints, shoved him into a holding cell none too gently. He wasn't going to be seeing any other landscape for a good long while.
    Phoenix Talon kicked a garbage can viciously on his way out, and felt no better.
    "Stupid little...." At least he'd probably made an impression on the rest of them.

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