Broken City (Thistle)

”This is bad.” Ross muttered as he walked through one of the shattered streets of New York City ”You hear the stories about how bad it got hit but….it doesn’t sink in until you’re here. Are you seeing this?”

The voice in his headset seemed a bit shaken as she responded. That chilled him more than anything. Amelia Terrence was the leader of the Operations team that lead his missions back home. She was iron. An English ice queen who always seemed to know what they should do next. Now, there was unmistakable worry in her voice ”Suit cameras are picking things up. I know it’s hard. Just keep moving. With the city being in the state it’s in, the rats will come.” She cleared her throat and he could hear her try to compose herself ”Whether we like it or not, New York City’s a corpse. The rats will come.”

He nodded to himself and stepped over a bit of rubble. The sheer amount of devastation was incredible. Most of it had happened in the Doctor Necrodium attack, but even the ruins of New York City still had fights still going on in them. Flare ups happened almost daily. Super hero’s searched the ruins for survivors and crimes to put down. Villains didn’t stop being villains just because something terrible had happened to the city. They needed him here.

There was no way they didn’t see him coming. The suit he wore was brightly colored, white with gold trim and a huge golden diamond on the chest. The same with the mask he wore. Not to mention the cape. He hated the cape. He’d complained about how vulnerable the cape could make him, only to be reminded again and again that he was supposed to be a symbol. Apparently, that required the cape. Go figure.

The street he’d been walking came to an end. Here, in the middle of the broken city, the vegetation was flourishing. The storefront in front of him had been gutted by plant growth. A glut of vines had broken through the inside of the store and stretched it’s way out through the window. Flowers littered the ground in front of the store. It was beautiful. Alien, but beautiful. It didn’t look right here in the middle of the concrete graveyard. He cocked his head to the side a bit, confused, and put a finger to the controls on the side of his helmet. His infrared scanner swept the area in front of the building. Something….

”Something isn’t right here.” He said grimly ”These didn’t just pop their way out of the ground. This doesn’t just happen. I’m getting some ambient heat signatures. Sort of sweeping patterns. Movement. They don’t match human levels though. It might be that someone was here and they dissipated over time or it might be something else.”

He stepped closer to the building and put his hands up to his mouth, cupping his hands to carry the sound further as he shouted ”Is anyone here? Does anyone need help?”

Now this was a sight. Time to go to work. The Paragon stepped closer to the mystery woman and scanned the room. A single conventional exit. A few windows that, if he was fast enough, he should be able to reach. This was a big threat. Top level.

”Murderer.”

He snarled the word. With more anger than he should of allowed himself. It was important to stay calm in these situations. If you let your emotions go out of control, you screwed up when it came down to the fight. There was little doubt in his mind he was going to get in a fight. He cleared his throat and crossed his arms across his broad chest ”I’m going to give you a chance to surrender. Just one. You killed that cashier. Someone already vulnerable. Someone already desperate.” His eyes narrowed under the mask ”I’m not someone who likes to hurt other people. That’s what separates people like me from people like you.”

Ross looked her up and down, a process he had to admit he enjoyed, and considered his options. She couldn’t of been more than a buck twenty, buck twenty five. A great deal shorter than him. Pretty. Unsullied in fact. No obvious scars or wounds he could make out. By his eye, she wasn’t a fighter. A killer? Sure. But even he’d taken down a few killers who couldn’t hold their own in a fight.

”One. Chance.”