Their suits catch the light as they descend: red and black, grey and seaglass green, mirrored in the panes of skyscraper glass that are still unbroken. Behind them, the sky's reflection shows, too: a roiling mass of clouds the color of blood that turns the afternoon sunlight an eerie shade.
Hurricane's eyes aren't on the reflections, though, or even on the sky above them. The clouds still set an icepick in his stomach and twist, every time he sees them; he can't shake the memory of another ruined city, half a world away from this one. But today, there are more important things to worry about.
He rotates his mag-lev boosters, the way he practiced with Yoshioka in the trial runs – guns it, to put on another burst of speed. Behind him, there's an earth-shattering blast as Nemesis lobs off the grenades she spent last week bragging about, and the sound of shattering glass as more of the windows give.
He hits ground level way before she does – the benefits of stripping off most of the armor for a speed boost – and he comes in hard and fast, slicing through a creature that looks something like a Chinese dragon, if a Chinese dragon were gelatinous and black and had at least three dozen eyes. It falls to the ground writhing, its open wounds spewing black ichor, and Hurricane touches down beside it, slicing through another with his blades.
A third goes down, and a fourth, and overhead he can hear the high-pitched whine that indicates Nemesis is charging up her heavy guns as she covers him.
But for a second, all of that fades into the background: the noise, and the chaos, and the sickly blood-light of those otherworldly clouds.
Below the overhang isn't crouched just the sole woman he spotted from up above, running for cover; it's a sea of fear-pinched faces and eyes turned his way. They're mostly men and women in business attire: salarymen in suits with slicked-back hair and office ladies in crisp businesswear and heels. There's a trio of boys in school uniforms tucked into the back, there, though, and an older woman clutching a toddler who can't be more than two.
He takes a shaky breath in, and says into the comms, "We've got civilians."
( Continue )