Protect Your Heroes Part 1

Roger. Longshot airborne, laying down the runway. Clear for takeoff for two miles; evac in effect. Stay middle.



At first, the sound that broke above the cluttered ambiance of Manhattan was soft. It was a dull whine; easily mistakable for some piece of industrial machinery that was commonplace in New York City. As the droning grew louder and louder, however, it soon became apparent that the noise was not an ordinary happening.



SHOCKSPEC, please advise. Current list of on-site combatants: nine. Six suspected friendly: "METTLE", Kore Smith, "ONI-GIRL", "SPIDER-BITE", "SERAPH", "LEGION". Two UNKNOWN. One hostile; UNKNOWN, tentative rating of RED-6. May escalate.



Static for now. LEGION has active YLW-3 and YLW-5 constructs. There's-- a dragon.



Civilians would soon find out that the blaring sound was not, in fact, industrial machinery. They would soon come to realize, with ear-splitting effectiveness, that the noise was some sort of droning horn. To be more precise, a siren, the tone a mixture between a foghorn and blaring synthesizer. As the ground shuddered and the wind picked up, the sound of the siren grew ever-louder, increasing in pitch from the Doppler effect-- until the source of the sound quickly bounded into clarity and passed, cars rocking and vibrating as Scramjet sprinted by, as fast as he could in a civilian-dense area like Manhattan. The gale he picked up behind him was enough to send pieces of trash and debris into a miniature storm, leaving many to duck off of the streets and into cover. Good-- if the incident took off elsewhere, anyone caught in a street might be as good as dead.



One. SPIDER-BITE. Looks critical. I-- be advised, the RED-6 just went airborne with the dragon construct.

Even less time, then. Scramjet pushed himself a bit further-- and to the heroes already at the scene, that same distant droning would begin, reaching the blaring crescendo with barely enough time for most to react. It would be enough, though. The horn was a warning. Better yet, it was distracting to the RED-6, and hopefully shifted attention off of the others when he landed with whatever he held in his grip. Fantastic Smasher wasn't a name that appeared in any databases, but with the force he was throwing around, Rasmus figured it was safe for him to assume that the guy could take a few heavy hits.

At such a high speed, the scene of the incident came to him fast. Incredibly fast. TIC's job was to get him the info and layout of the incident so he could do his job without harming anyone when he came in at the speed of a bullet train; with the bird's eye view overwatch supplied him on his HUD, he had his work cut out for him. Kore, Mettle, and an unknown stood a ways towards Cassidy, Seraph was clear of his route, as was Legion and the other unknown. Oni-Girl was engaged off of his trajectory, as well. As Fantastic Smasher fell to earth, Scramjet changed his stance and and crouched, bending his knees and dipping low before springing off of the ground with enough force to crack his boots into the asphalt. He left the ground some hundreds of meters before the actual group, but he more than made up the distance in a second, his legs kicking him forward with enough force to render him akin to a human bullet.

Now-- hitting Smasher head-on would probably leave him paste. Luckily, that wasn't his intent. Hitting Smasher was the cherry on top; his real focus was Cassidy. As he dove forward, Scramjet threw a haymaker upwards, in the direction of the RED-7; the moment his arm extended, all the built-up air and pressure would exert itself forward, traveling past him in a gale-force wind that would hit the hostile with the force of a freighter, a tug-boat-- whatever. It would be big, and it would hopefully hurt-- but the real intent was to push Fantastic Smasher down the street, altering his trajectory to slam a little off the mark of the main group.

Then, when he hit the ground in a slide from the dive, step two was just pushing his body with air to impact Cassidy directly, arms clapping around the kid and vacuuming Rasmus' arms around him as the two skidded along the street with Scramjet's armor taking the brunt of the roadburn. When they skidded to a stop, a good centimeter of material was taken off his right arm and leg's chassis, but that hardly mattered. He stood, standing the hero up with him.

Scramjet stated jokingly, a little out of breath. Okay, a lot out of breath, but his lungs were probably the best in the country. The momentum of the catch had placed them both a bit further down the street; closer to Seraph and the second unknown, the one who wasn't currently engaged with Mettle and Ms. Smith. He gave a nod to the woman.

He gestured to Spider-Bite's condition.