[b]FULLER PARK
6:35 PM[/B]

[CENTER][i][b]FLARE[/b][/i][/center]

Flare had one hand on the ground trying to support her buckling legs and her head down when she saw the strobe of red and blue light up the asphalt below her. [i]Shit, shit, shit,[/i] she thought, snapping her head up to see the squad car slide to a halt yards before them. Seconds ago, the sirens seemed like they were half the city away. She was certain they would’ve had more time. Whenever one of her flare’s lit up the sky it certainly seemed like the cops drove from halfway across the city. She guessed bigger explosions made for quicker responses. Obvious, really.  

She chided herself for even thinking about these things. There were more pressing issues at hand currently, like not spending the rest of her night in jail for starters. Flare kicked it into overdrive and tried to force herself up to her feet so that she could run away like she assumed the others would, but her legs had another idea. They weren’t broken, at least they didn’t hurt enough to seem broken, but they sure as hell were wobbly. She slipped and caught herself from cracking her mask against the ground. 

“Dick,” she quietly muttered underneath her breath, already playing out in her mind how the phone call to Mom from inside a jail cell would go. 

[i]Hey Mom, it’s me. You know how you thought I was so tired during the day because I was out all night drinking and doing drugs? Well, uh, good news...yeah, that’ s not gonna fly.[/i]

“Get the car guy!”

Flare was surprised to hear Arc’s voice and to see that both him and the Toy King had held their ground instead of leaving her in favor of a quick getaway. However, whatever warm and fuzzy feeling that was surfacing inside of her from their sudden camaraderie was quickly replaced with a hot anger as she watched Arc smack one cop in the knee like he was swinging for the fences while the King scrambled the brains of the other one. Flare always had this kind of idea that she was, in a way, working [i]with[/i] the police, not competing against them like some of her kind. Shit like this was why she got chased by cops whenever they saw her. Well, that, and the act of maiming petty crooks, but it was much easier to blame others. 

Still, all things considered, it was a better outcome than going downtown. She swallowed the venomous words that had risen to her tongue and finished pulling herself back off of the ground, although not without letting a pained grunt escape from her lips. Flare rubbed her neck, looked around between the KO’ed cops and the Fuller Park Crater, and decided that she had done enough for the night. Certainly, disposing of a bomb threat warranted some kind of break. She’d slump home after ditching these zeroes, hang up her cowl, and spend the rest of the night in the tub with hopes that she didn’t wake up the next morning with a full body charley horse. 

“Like I was saying,” she said with a huff, picking a bit of garbage off of herself, “let’s get off of the streets.”
 
Flare took two uncertain steps towards an alley and then stopped, although not because she couldn’t walk. She had seen something in the red and blue glow of the flashing lights: the gun. At first she thought about leaving it there. Ideally, the officer would recover and retrieve his firearm. Then again, things were never ideal. Besides, if she had a gun earlier than she never would’ve gotten close to Derby, never would’ve been blown away by some big explosive, never would’ve almost been arrested, and those two cops never would’ve been put down the path to an early desk job.

[i]Screw it,[/i] she thought as she bent down and scooped up the weapon. Flare checked to ensure that the firearm was safe and then slid the gun into the waistband of her jeans. She felt every bit like an asshole for doing so, but the holster on her vest was already occupied. And it wasn’t like she actually planned on firing it anyway, unless some other lunatic throwing pipe bombs showed up on her trip back to her Mom’s apartment. [i]So, like, a fifty-fifty shot.[/i]

“Fuck me, I hate walking,” she said with a drawn out groan, as if the others needed to know how each heavy, joint-straining step towards the alley was more exhausting than the last. The roar of a nearby car engine—[i]a cop? No shit, it’s gonna be a cop[/i]—drove whatever pain there seemingly was there temporarily out of existence, however, as Flare quickly shot a glance at the other two before picking up her pace and hustling for the comforting safety of a dark alley in one of Chicago’s least friendly neighborhoods.