Escaping New York

Dust. What an amazing, yet annoying aspect of life. A single piece of dust can travel for hundreds of miles, it can survive through any circumstance, and for the most part, it all goes unnoticed. But this time it was noticed. One tiny spectacle of dust flew directly into Thomas's eye. This was the annoying part. Struggling to get it out, he glanced at his body… nothing. There were no clothes, aside from his boxers, there was a naked man lying on a deserted sidewalk. And then, as though the dust wasn't bad enough, a crisp newspaper hit his face.

New York City. He was in New York City. The last he could remember was being in Chicago, running from assassins. Now however, there was a worse problem. New York was heavily militarized, no one was allowed in without permission, and Thomas was positive he would not pass a background check to get in. This meant only one thing, he wasn't supposed to be here, and however it was that he got in, he would need to get out before he was shot…or worse.

As he stood up to get his bearing, he immediately fell to the ground, wincing in extreme pain. His left leg had no strength to it, and his chest felt as though it had been stabbed repeatedly for an hour. He tried standing once more, again with the same result. He crawled and scratched his way to a building where he sat, leaning.

It was unfortunate that Dissonance had missed out on the infamous battle if New York. He had never even managed to see the place before it's destruction but that was no fault of his own. At first it was the mortals who had imprisoned him for all manner of experiments, however after they had been dealt with he had been too busy re-acquainting himself with the world and freedom that he had no time to take part in anything external.

Nowadays he liked to wander the area in its silence. It was very peaceful and tranquil for him to pass freely among the destruction of one of mankind's greatest cities; a city that had been turned to ruins in an epic battle. He would walk at a leisurely pace as his cape flowed in the air behind him, but he always listened with his heightened senses to avoid trouble if it came looking for him. He could hear the heartbeats of a few individuals but they were of no immediate threat so he continued undeterred.

Broken bits of concrete and brick would crumble under his feet as he continued his path reflecting on battles he had been part of only recently. He was still nursing a crippled hand and was devising ways to compensate for his lost fingers, taking time from the external world to consider options. Suddenly his attention was taken he heard slight signs of a mans struggle but at the moment could not tell exactly where from. However, he continued to listen; if the man was an unprotected Meta in New York he would definitely require Dissonance's help.

After five minutes of rest, which felt like a lifetime, Thomas got a final wind of encouragement "ok, one more time. I can do this. I think…" Thomas pathetically pumped himself up for the impending failure. He took a deep breath to ease the chest pain as much as possible. Then, with all his weight on his right leg, he stood. There. He did it, he was still standing. Though the pain was excruciatingly dreadful, Standing had never felt so good. Like a cold beer on a hot Saturday. Or a warm cozy fire on a northern Christmas night. It was only about ten seconds of glory before he collapsed once again, now on his back trying to stay conscious. Still mostly naked, Thomas began to crawl and scramble further, building up a collection of scratches, cuts, and bruises as he went, this time to a shaded section of the building, right around the corner. With the sun out of his way, and the bleeding beginning to slow, he sat and listened. While the situation he was in wasn't the greatest. He had to admit, there was a certain calmness about where he was. As though the ruins he was in had never been touched, still in natures intended state. The peace was broken by a set of quiet footprints, getting louder and louder. Thomas all but prayed it wasn't the police or a street gang as he scrounged his body up into as hidden of a position as possible.

He could hear a man struggling and occasionally muttering to himself. It wasn't much but now he could track the man with his radar like senses. He followed the sound to a nearby building where most of the echo seemed to be coming from. There was most sound coming from an opposite side of the building so Dissonance leapt into the air and flew into the decayed building through one of it's many broken windows. He was sure to keep himself concealed within the shadows as he approached the man even closer, hovering just inches away from the floor as to not make a single footstep.

Exiting the other side towards the street he held himself fairly high in the air. He would have to resolve this all quickly as now he heard more heartbeats, a group of four of five travelling together so it was probably security. Dissonance would not risk losing his peaceful place for nothing. He saw the male scrunched up in a corner all by himself and turned his back to the sun while facing the man.
"Human or Meta?" He proclaimed loudly to the man
If the man was human he wouldn't bother killing him this time. He would just leave to not draw more attention.

"Human or meta?" Thomas hoped to hell this guy wasn't talking to him. He slowly uncurled his body and looked up to see a man hovering above him. He definitely was talking to him.

"Crap," said Thomas as he stretched out his body to ease some pain. "You got me, I'm a meta." Thomas didn't see a point in lying, there was no way an average human could stay conscious through all the scratches and cuts he had on his body. "I, uh… I could use some clothes…" Thomas looked at his mostly naked body, trying as hard as he could to act innocent. "How did you find me anyway? I was pretty hidden, I'm assuming there's some radar sensing in that brain of yours?" In an effort to make friendly conversation with the man, Thomas scrambled for things to say. Nothing. On a normal day he could talk for hours without a break, but the fear and pressure that this guy was going to kill him made him silent. He finally managed to plead innocent in one more speech, "Listen, I don't really have a good story to tell here, to be honest, I have no idea how I got here. But I can tell you that I'm certain I don't want to be here, so if your going to kill me, please make it quick."

The boy was Meta, he was definitely lucky to have been found by Dissonance before anybody else had come along. The city of New York was inhabitable by now, but only if you had registered and were deemed worthy of the place. Some parts had been mostly rebuilt by now and they were occupied, but this was not one of those areas. Security was still present to protect the workmen as they started rebuilding. The boy began making small talk to try and appeal to Dissonance but it was simply a wasted effort.
"This is no time for small-talk, if we don't get you moving quickly this won't end well."
Dissonance could however hear the fear in the boy's voice, it was accompanied by an increasing heartbeat that echoed in his ears.
"Fear not boy. I am not here to kill you," he said whilst descending to ground level to stand next to the boy.
"We are meta-human brothers, you and I. Stick with me and you'll make it out of here. I am Dissonance, master of sound."

Dissonance began to walk further down the street before a solitary police officer decided to act the hero and leapt out into the street in front of him, service pistol held firmly aimed directly at his chest. "Freeze!" The man shouted at the two of them. Dissonance let out a small laugh at the mans attempt at heroism before deciding to end the charade. He flicked his wrist and a solid pulse blasted the officer backward off of his feet, hitting the wall behind him with a loud crunching sound. He might have been dead, he might not... Dissonance didn't care.
"You wanted some clothes?" He said beckoning towards the officer.

Things always had a way of going his way. Thomas was never sure if it was luck, or some sort of psychic manipulation. But everything always turned around, at least for a bit, into his favour. He was sure it was only luck. But either way, he wasn't going to die yet. The man started talking about things in which Thomas couldn't remember even seconds after being said. The only thing that stuck was his name and that he had the power of sound within him, an obvious asset to escaping an enclosed city. "Right, Dissonance. I'm Thomas, and I can burn shit. Well, not with fire, just heat… from my body. It's more of a defence thing." Thomas took note of the unconscious, or possibly dead police officer. "Not my fashion style, but I can't really argue now can I?" Forgetting for a moment that he had limited movement, Thomas stood and immediately collapsed, screaming in pain. "Uh, ya, little problem here," Thomas had to speak in between cries of pain "I have no idea what the hell I did, but this is bad. How am I supposed to get out of this shithole if I can't even stand?" At this point it seems Thomas's string of luck turned around once again as five heavily armed officers, different from the one before, turned the corner and surrounded the two of them. Thomas could not make out what kind of weapons and armour they were using but they sure weren't water guns. He was too busy staring at the guards to even bother to look at what Dissonance was doing, or if he even bothered to stick around and help what seemed to be a lost cause.

Thomas was weakened, practically crippled in his current state. Helping him out of such a tightly guarded area as New York wouldn't be easy. Dissonance wasn't strong enough to carry him out all by himself but maybe if they got to higher ground it would give him enough lift to be able to escape with the man. It was dangerous but he would not give up on the man just yet, he was a Meta and possibly a future ally.
As he turned to say something to Thomas he noticed that suddenly a collection of heavily armed guards had surrounded them and Thomas was now confined to the floor by his injuries.

"Cover your ears," he said to Thomas. Throwing his arms outward an ear piercing burst of sound erupted from him forcing all of the security guards to convulse I pain and grab at their ears. With the stunning element complete he went on the offence, first firing a blast that ripped the guns from two of the guards hands and sent them cascading into a wall, which crumbled on top of them. Hearing the click of a gun Dissonance dived sidewards and narrowly avoided some bullets flinging a hand behind himself and disarming two more of the guards.

Turning back round to face Thomas he noticed a guard reaching for the man, clearly hoping to capture him and use him as a sort of hostage to stop Dissonance. He wasn't sure that he could take the man down without hurting Thomas as well and considering the mans current condition that was not a risk worth taking. Hopefully the other Meta would be able to take care of it on his own as now Dissonance had other things to worry about, he turned back to face the other men who were now moving in for hand to hand combat. It wasn't often he did this but it was probably his best option for the moment. When all this was done they would need to move quickly to the nearest building, soon even Dissonance would not be able to help Thomas.

"Cover your ears? What the hell does that mean?" Thomas wondered as he followed Dissonance's commands, and then he understood, in an instant all of the guards were trembling with pain, Thomas could feel the effects a little, but it was more of a tickle in his ear than anything painful. Dissonance began to take out the guards, and as Thomas watched he felt rather useless, as though he was watching from a television screen. He became so engrossed in the event that Thomas hasn't realized the guard behind was grabbing for him.

The guard slung his arm around Thomas's neck, and began choking him up into the air, "your coming with me." He said in a muffled voice. The armor must have been an inch thick, and by feeling it, Thomas discovered it was a metal, probably titanium, famous for being very strong. Thomas began running out of oxygen, and he started to black out. Finally, his instincts kicked in, he could feel his body heating up. He could smell a certain burning scent and began to feel drips of molten metal hitting his bare feet, and without even realizing, he could breathe freely once again. Free from the guard's grasp he could feel himself collapsing again, he quickly spun around and tackled what was left of the guard before he fell, and within seconds there was nothing but a pool of silver liquid. Thomas looked around for some way to help Dissonance, Thomas noticed a wheel barrel that had probably been in use before mayhem broke loose. He crawled his way over to it and ripped off the wooden handles. They were a little short and quite uncomfortable, but they worked as crutches. Now that he was borderline mobile, Thomas could finally make his way to to a near building, in which the third floor (and presumably higher) had been reduced to rubble.

In the background all Dissonance could hear were the screams of the human as Thomas' powers were clearly taking effect. Given the boy's powers were over heat from his own body he could only imagine the guard would be getting burned alive by whatever retaliation had ensued. The screams got louder and louder as the man's flesh was being seared from his body, a cooked meat aroma started to flood the area. Dissonance wished he could turn around and watch but unfortunately he had other things to be attending to at the current point in time. He had very little hand to hand experience but was not about to let that stop him. One of the guards threw a punch and it caught dissonance directly on the jaw knocking him back a few steps. His reaction times were fairly poor and so he hadn't been able to block the attack at all. As the other guard advanced he decided to make the first hit this time; encasing his fist in a loop of infrasound energy he lunged at the man with a punch. It connected and a pulse of the sound launched with the man until both smashed into a wall, the mans mangled body lodged into a large indent he had created. He was sent skyward with a horrifying crunch, now hanging with most bones broken and various organs ruptured by the attack.

Now there was only one guard left who had taken an opportunity and kicked at Dissonance after he had hit the other guard. The kick knocked him backward off of his feet and sprawling to the ground. Capitalising the guard jumped on top of dissonance and started to best his head into the ground. The pain was extreme to the extent that Dissonance sent a pulse from his whole body which flipped the man to the floor metres away. As he stood and walked over to the man, Dissonance brushed the blood away from his face with the back of his glove, leaving a red smear on the white material. The man tried to fight up to his feet but a hand was calmly placed on his head and met with a reaction of fear.
"Oh god, please don't.." The man cried to Dissonance, who with a small smirk and a laugh demonstrated his response. He began channelling incredibly powerful hypersonic waves through the man's body, filling the atmosphere with a loud piercing ringing sound. This was soon drowned out by screams though, like music to Dissonance's ears as the waves began doing extreme damage to the inside of the man. His organs began rupturing as blood poured from his mouth and ears. The screams of pain getting more intense with every single second. The vibrations were enough to turn a large percentage of the man's bones into nothing more than dust, crumbling within him.

Silence now filled the air as the man slumped to a heap on the ground. Dissonance walked calmly over to the building where Thomas was now standing and released a pulse of sound, too high for Thomas to hear but acting as a sort of radar and allowing Dissonance to calculate the structure of the entire building.
"Follow me brother," he said as he began his stride, specks of blood glinting off of his white boots as he walked. He reached a staircase at the end of a room and began to ascend, making his way to the roof. He believed he now had some time so began speaking to the other man.
"So Thomas, with powers such as yours we could be great allies. Everybody in this world has a cause; something to stand for. I suppose I am asking what is yours? What do you believe in?"

Thomas was ever so slightly afraid of this man. While his powers were below what he had seen before, there was a certain uneasiness about him. As though there was no border between right and wrong. He reminded Thomas of Trent, his 'partner in crime'. After mangling the remaining guards in various gut wrenching ways, Dissonance made his way to Thomas. "I'd prefer to be allies with you than enemies, that's for sure." Thomas said jokingly, trying to lighten the mood. "As for what I believe in… mostly money and booze, I don't work on either side of the law, I work I the side that pays me the most, call me greedy, I don't care." Thomas was beginning to realize Dissonance was asking for some sort of partnership. "Uh… look, I'm not saying something can't happen here, you seem like a nice enough guy but, I have a bit of a vendetta to complete, it's going to get personal so you gotta be willing to deal with a lot of shit" Thomas was following Dissonance since he seemed to know what was safe and what wasn't. "So, if your up for some nasty work, let me know and we can get to know each other a little better."

The boy stated that he believed in money and getting paid, it was his purpose for doing things, probably in an attempt to enhance his own lifestyle. It was a selfish lifestyle that Dissonance had very little respect for; an individual with power should strive to use it for something, something a lot more important than money. He had encountered many people, bad and good and, even though a lot were wrong, when they fought for what they believed he still respected them. However, this boy was powerful and had potential so maybe in the future if he required these specific skills he could hire the boy, gaining money would not be a hard task. Then the boy started going on about having personal problems that needed taking care of. Dissonance continued walking ahead of Thomas, kicking bits of rubble out of the way as they continued their ascent through the building.
“I’m afraid I have no time for personal issues, I am fighting a war against man-kind, a crusade to free our kind.”

He realized Thomas probably wasn’t interested in anything he was saying, but maybe in the future he would be looking for a cause and Dissonance was always there to offer one. They continued their walk and reached the second floor stairwell, but were not pleased by what met them. The stairwell was completely blocked off by large metal girders that had broken through walls, making it practically impossible for anybody to get past. Dissonance hadn’t planned on this, in fact he rarely ever had to as it was extremely uncommon for him to have to walk anywhere; typically he would just fly to his destinations at extreme speed, but the extra person on this journey made that option redundant. They had to get through and this would easily be the best way to do that, turning back to Thomas he queried, “Exactly how hot can you make yourself?” hoping that he wouldn’t have to risk blowing a hole in the building so that they could advance.

Wingnut heard the screams of several guards as he slowly let one gaurd slide to the floor having been in his chock hold almost long enough to kill him.. The screams intensified for a moment and then suddenly went silent.. So wingnut went searching for the source of such noise.. Hopefully it could explain to him the situation.. Only having come home a short while before to find Newyork in ruins.. Wingnut simply jumped high into the air to land on some buildings to give him a good vantage point.. yet nothing revealed itself to him.. And yet he continued searching, realizing it might have come from one of the buildings.. so he continued to watch hoping something would give itself away..

Following Dissonance's footsteps very carefully to avoid tripping with his crutches, Thomas replied to the man, "Damn, I was hoping you would be interested in ripping a blokes ugly ass face off. I understand though, I hate getting tied up in other's personal issues as well."

After hearing what he had to say about his fight with mankind, Thomas began to see what this man was all about. He had a caring mindset towards his own people. Instead of being a selfish capitalist like himself, Dissonance used his abilities to help out others like him, "That's sweet and all, but how can you fight to help out the assholes who started all this shit? I mean, if we didn't start fighting each other in the first place, our, 'people' wouldn't be in the shit hole that we're in now. To be honest, I find it hard to blame humanity for shunning us, it our own fault we're here." Thomas generally tried to stay away from ranting, especially to strangers, but he let that one slip because he was too tired and exhausted to watch his tongue.

"Listen, I'm not gonna judge your beliefs just as your not judging mine, but if you want to fight mankind a bit, my personal issue involves a high level smuggler who is all human, and has a large army, let me know if your interested."

Upon reaching the second floor, they ran into a barricade and in response to Dissonance's question, Thomas dropped his crutches and scrambled towards the barricade. He began to heat only his hands to keep his new uniform from burning, after roughly half a minute, his hands finally began to melt the steel and concrete that was in their way, he was so tired that Thomas struggled to keep the heat in his hands. Eventually he managed to create a large enough gap for his crippled body to squeeze through, "there's your answer my friend. Now, can you pass me my crutches?"

Dissonance was still listening to the boy speak, even though he doubted there was much left to hear. However, something peaked his interest in what the boy said, not the bit about meta-humans being responsible for how human’s had treated them; that bit was juvenile and laughable. The part catching his interest was the part about his vendetta being with a human smuggler who had “A large army.” This sounded like a very high profile crime ring, which would likely draw a lot of publicity if massacred. Dissonance was not one to go seeking fights that did not concern him, but he was an opportunist and here he saw opportunity to send a message to people of the superiority of his kind.

Dissonance continued to ponder what Thomas had said as he watched the boy go to work on the structure that was blocking their way. It was not a quick ability taking about 30 seconds to charge to an appropriate range, although maybe that was because of the unexplained injuries he had suffered. The metal began to liquefy before his eyes slowly dripping at first before melting entirely to a shiny pool on the ground that again solidified almost instantly. Dissonance picked up the boys improvised crutches and passed them through the gap that he had created, before continuing through himself.
“I want to make it clear; I am not doing what I do for the sake of killing. I kill for a purpose and I will not cause the death of a meta-human, regardless of how much they are in my way,” Dissonance continued to lecture the boy as they reached the roof of the building, which was reasonably large and flat, with very little structural damage and only a few objects strewn about. There was still blood dripping from various cuts and inflictions on Dissonance’s head where he had been the underdog in the fight, small drop marks being left upon his white suit as they fell. On the roof was a solitary security guard that had his handgun aimed directly towards them but trembling with fear. Dissonance turned back towards Thomas with a slight flick of his hand behind him, which caused his cape to catch a breeze and flutter in the air.
“FR-“ The guard attempted to shout something but it was too late as a sonokinetic blast ripped him off of his feet and sent him crashing to the roof of another building. Dissonance continued his conversation as if nothing had even happened.
“That being said, you are a meta-human and although you may not support my cause I would stand with you, should the time come when you need me.”