Out of the Blue (Mr. M & Adonia)

[Mr Master]

There have always been those who had powers and abilities far beyond the run of normal humans, and in this world, moreso than others, that fact is actual. In ancient times they were blessed by the gods: the legends of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, Hercules, the Monkey King, the Animal People, and many others were, in this world, based on actual people. Throughout history, there have been many examples of paranormal individuals; the more extreme-looking ones might have been killed at birth, or burned as demons, or lived their lives in seclusion because of how they looked, but they were still there, nonetheless.

It wasn't until the famous Great War aviator, Jackson Mayfield, a terribly young man who went by the name SkyBoy, used his innovatively-designed biplane to battle a crazed Prussian mad scientist, Herr Docktor Leopold VonZinzer, in a zeppelin over the towers of New York City that metahuman powers came full-force into the public eye. As the primitive movie cameras of the day watched, SkyBoy's plane was shot out from underneath him... and yet he kept flying, soaring in nothing but his flight suit and his bomber jacket, spiraling out of the line of fire from Docktor VonZinzer's holocaust guns, to board the zeppelin and fight the mad scientist as his craft smashed into the bay.

SkyBoy is immortalized in a sculpture that stands at the feet of the Statute of Liberty, punching out the murderous Prussian, but his example had a more lasting effect. The first major demonstration of paranormal abilities was in defense of innocents, and it paved the way for others to allow their abilities to be known. Mostly, it took place in secret, with people donning masks and hiding their metahuman activities from their friends and family. And, inevitably, some began to use their abilities for personal gain at the expense of others, and that is how it started.

Today, metahuman abilities are a known and recognized part of life. They are uncommon; only 2 or 3 people in a million display any sort of paranormal capabilities, and of those, only a few such abilities have any sort of application, but they exist, and are known. Yes, super-criminals ply their trade, mostly keeping hidden until the display of their powers makes them evident, and super-heroes attempt to protect society against the conventional and the paranormal villains alike. But there are also those who employ their metahuman abilities in entirely conventional methodologies: the top diagnostician at Cedar-Sinai has ultravision, and can glance at a patient to instantly get the same information an x-ray, CAT-scan, MRI, and microscopic examination of all possible blood and tissues would give him. The chief doctor at the Mayo Clinic, due to the power of generations of magical breeding, naturally exudes a mystic energy field that can, over time, cause a human body to reject damaged or cancerous tissue and spontaneously regenerate healthy tissue, even re-knitting nerve pathways. The top designer of the newest wave of all-electric automobile engines to come out of Detroit still compensates for her childhood spinal injuries with the robotic legs she built for herself at the age of ten.

This world is largely the same as others, but there are small differences, both good and bad, that have been caused by the sheer proof of metahumanity. It seems the presence of metaphoric gods on Earth does not excuse humans from acting like humans, and when the "gods" arise from simple human stock, with all the flaws and foibles the flesh is heir to, well, "feet of clay" is hardly their worst problem. Still, modern culture being what it is, metahumans, when they are known, are celebrities and international figures. There are entire media channels devoted to investigating and following the 12,000-18,000 metahumans in the world. A properly-marketed personality can make a lot of money as a spokesperson, or lend their influence to charities, or simply become a media personality in their own right; the former vigilante crime-fighter Jemma Jewel now hosts an internationally broadcast morning talk show, and oversees a media empire rivaling Oprah Winfrey's. And she's just one example.

As with so many things, metahumans tend to congregate in cities, and of those, one of the major centers is New York City. Just as with arts and business and politics, NYC is a mecca for those with paranormal powers. The general rules holds true across all spectra of humanity: if you want to make it rich, make it famous, or just make it, you can go to New York. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.

 

[Mr Master]

He dropped down behind the armored car when it slowed down at a stoplight. The subsonic hum of the gravonics providing thrust died away as the suit landed, and he reached under the fender with his right hand and lifted. Carbon nanotube muscles hummed with power as he lifted the rear end of the car several feet off the ground. He also changed his skin display from the sky-blue mottled with white, flying camouflage, to red with yellow highlight flames.

IR scans painted two men inside. It was time to break silence; the surrounding traffic was already reacting to his presence, so why not make some noise. "You in the truck; you got about fifteen seconds," he said. As he spoke each word into the helmet mic, the suit computer translated it and created it from its own lexicon; no recordable voiceprint was going to come through those helmet speakers, ever. Having given the requisite warning, he lifted his left hand and pointed his dorsal forearm weapons array at the rear lock. "DJ," he said, accessing the onboard music computer. "Gimmie Dirty Deeds, external speakers." As the opening drums and guitar throbbed, he started his sonic cannon on the vibratory frequency of steel, focusing the sound on the lock. Sure, he could have ripped it open, but even with his strength, the inner cage was reinforced enough to make it tough. The cannon made a high-pitched whine that humans could barely hear, giving everyone in a one-block radius a splitting headache, although the suit filtered it out for him, so he could hear the passenger in the armored car yell, "Holy shit, it's that AC-DC guy!"

Steel wasn't doing it, so he ratcheted up the frequency until he started seeing some cracking with the radar scan. The radio scanner was alerting him to a slew of emergency calls on cell phones and police band radios, but nothing was too pressing. Nearby traffic had abandoned their cars, civilians were fleeing his immediate area, although the crowd was gathering about half a block away in each direction in the intersection. He ramped up the volume so they could all hear. His estimate was actually way off; Bon Scott was just starting to sing when the lock finally shattered, so it took more than 30 seconds. Ah, well.

He used both hands to lift the truck onto its nose, then he grabbed the chassis and hoisted it. He crimped his suit's fingers into the steel, shifting from hand to hand, moving his grip down toward the front wheels until he had the whole thing lifted above his head. He paused a moment, to savor the lyric "I lead a life of crime..." and then on the next drumbeat, he swung the whole truck down onto the curb there at the corner, smashing the doors open, sending all the money cases and bags flying across the pavement as Mr. Scott screamed out "Dirty deeds! Done dirt cheap!" Several of the socially rebellious in the crowd cheered his timing. One thing AC-DC was known for was being entertaining; it was an aspect of his criminal persona he quite enjoyed.

He knew what he was looking for. The computer optics read bar codes until he found what he wanted, the Revodyne Industries payroll deposit. That secured, he selected a few others; places likely to handle high denomination bills; might as well make a profit, while he was at it. He scanned each bag for tracers or dye packs, and had to discard a couple for that reason, but he ended up stashing six full bags in his hip storage spaces.

By this point, peripheral sensors were reading cop cars closing, some uniforms in the crowd, trying to push through. He grabbed two bulging bags in each hand, and strode out to the middle of the intersection. His clanking feet would have cracked the asphalt if it weren't for the side-effects of the gravonics negating the majority of the suit's weight. He set up his vectors, calculated the trajectories, and, most importantly, set up his playlist.

As "Rocker" blasted from his suit speakers, he bobbed his head to the beat, and did a little skiffle-y dance before starting to spin. His arms swung out as he spun, and the hum of the gravonics swelled as he rose into the air. When he was spinning at a fast enough rate, he let the bags slip from his hands, each one flying out into the air down the targeted streets, over the heads of the crowd. On his very next spin, a micromissile launched from his shoulder units down each street, detonating each bag and sending a shower of money fluttering down over the crowd. They went nuts, as expected, crowding in for the free money, obstructing the officers of the law. "Power to the people," he chuckled to himself, "And all hail the almighty dollar!"

His distraction complete, he sailed off into the sky, chameleon-ing into a sky-blue mottled with white. AC-DC had pulled off another successful heist, and it was time for him to disappear. He had a whole variety of ways to avoid getting followed, but first he needed to get to the Hudson. It was still great to see New York City from the air, but he couldn't help but be preoccupied as he sailed toward the water; far too much to do this evening, and dispensing with the cash was the least of his problems.

 

[Adonia]

Restlessly, Claudia Reese spent an aimless hour in Central Park during her lunch, not quite seeing the rows and rows of vivid-hued kites fluttering from Sheep Meadow in an exceptionally strong breeze, bright and flamboyant against a backdrop of blue skies and cottony white fluff. She was far too worried about where her life was heading to enjoy the view, or to notice that there was some excitement among a crowd of people nearby.

She had seen it all before. Probably some street band or dance troupe performing for quarters, she thought dismissively. At the moment, she was rather more interested in the newspaper she was reading as she sat on a bench under her favorite oak. Or rather, filled with envy as she read the articles in a special section of one of the city’s dailies. The newspaper, incidentally, that she worked for.

It was admittedly her favorite section. It was packed with articles on known metahumans-- some of whom were celebrities in the city, and others personae non gratae, even feared-- written by the top reporters of the company. It was these reporters’ shoes that Claudia would have given her eye teeth to be in. But as a relatively new, undistinguished and merely competent (at least that’s what her latest evaluation said) reporter, she was doomed to frivolous assignments, like covering the new Cirque du Soleil in town for the entire week.

Greedily, Claudia pored over the latest news, devouring photos of her favorites with their significant others or dates on the red carpet of premieres and charity balls, glancing over the section of newcomers who were recently making a splash, noting who were in town and who were abroad.

AC-DC... now there was a wicked subject matter. A serendipitously snapped photo of him leaving AFTER the crime was a taunting reminder of the darker end of the spectrum. His most recent heist had been written about and blogged to death, and had made lively rounds on talk shows featuring metahuman ‘experts.’ Now if SHE could get an interview with him...

She shook off her daydreams, glanced at her watch, and flipped the page over. It would be time to head back to the office soon.

In the next moment, a gentle breeze riffled the page back.

“Non, non, je n’ai pas fini,” a feminine, lilting voice protested from somewhere above Claudia. “I have not finished. Attendez s'il vous plaIt.”

Startled, Claudia twisted and craned her neck back. Hanging from her knees hooked over a thick branch right above her was a vision covered neck to toe in sleek, light-blue glittery spandex, almost like a second skin hugging the undeniably voluptuous curves underneath, a blue, equally sleek half-head helmet with Hermes wings semi-containing the long, thick dark hair, which, incredibly enough, flowed UP and back from her face just like the blue cape that should have been hanging DOWN from her shoulders. Because of the upside-down perspective, Claudia couldn’t decide if the lower half of the creature’s face that she could see was beautiful or merely pretty. Small white teeth bit into the lower lip in focused concentration.

Claudia recovered her aplomb quickly enough. “You haven’t finished what?” she demanded.

“That article you were reading,” the vision said patiently, her English melodically accented as she pointed at the page opposite where Claudia had been on. “On the ‘Heroes’ Welcome’ page. There. Vous voyez la?” The full coral lips curved widely into an upside-down smile. “C’est moi!”

Claudia looked down at the page in confusion. She had barely glanced at the section on new metahumans... but sure enough, with a small picture and equally small print next to it, was the article in question. Claudia squinted at the title. “You’re--- you’re La Brise?”

“Just Brise will do,” the vision grinned. “I am not in France any more.”

The article went on to say in a couple of short paragraphs that the metahuman had stopped a robbery in progress, dangling the two culprits, their weapons mysteriously jerked away from them, from the bank lobby’s chandelier until the police arrived. Witnesses claimed heavy winds inside the bank during the altercation, resulting in the two criminals being swept up as if by a ‘vortex’ to the lower rungs of the light fixture which hung from the apex of the high ceiling.

“That IS you!” The picture wasn’t very clear either but there was no mistaking the glittery blue spandex and the curves it emphasized, the smiling face framed by wavy dark tresses. She stared at the picture, then up at Brise, her jaw slightly hanging open.

“Bien sur. Of course it is me. You can turn the page now.” Brise held out her arms to the side, and in one graceful move she unhooked her knees from the branch, straightening out her long slender legs just as her body swung back and dropped the ten-foot distance, her feet landing on the grass with the sure-footed lightness of a cat.

It was then that Claudia realized that a small crowd had collected around the tree, people pointing at the caped metahuman female. Brise swung around to smile brightly at Claudia.

“Thank you for sharing your paper with me, Mademoiselle Reese. Should you not be heading back to the office? Lunchtime is nearly over, non?”

Claudia’s jaw dropped even more. “How--- “

A loud boom from the west side disturbed the tranquility of Central Park. Brise whirled around, tilting her head for a moment as if listening to something, then she said hurriedly to Claudia, “I am sorry, but I must go.”

“Wait a minute---”

A sudden, strong current of wind swirled around Brise, sweeping up dried leaves and park debris in its wake, and at the same moment she spread her cape out, she rose swiftly into the air and at an angle towards the west side of the park “Je doit aller!”

“You know who I am! Won’t you talk to me?” Claudia shouted over the keening wind, holding her hair down as the vortex whipped around her. She started running after the metahuman, who was already moving over and past the tree.

“Tomorrow, perhaps,” Brise shouted back. “Be at your bench, same time.”

Leaving the gaping crowd below her, sparing a brief glance at the running Claudia, Brise glided over the park on a fluid, horizontal chute of air to the west. Amplified by special artifacts in her helmet, her control of gaseous elements ---in this case, atmospheric air-- enabled her to manipulate minute movements of molecules into any speed, direction and strength she desired. She was quite capable of the gentle zephyrs such as the one that had held aloft the kites of hopeful New Yorkers only a few minutes ago, or tornado-like maelstroms, although she had never had cause to use one. It would take all her mental and physical strength, even with the amplification rendered by the helmet, to initiate and sustain one for more than a few minutes, perhaps, theoretically, killing her if she maintained it too long.

It was easy enough to trace the source of the boom. New York City traffic was stressful at the best of times, but something must have happened to explain the back-up of cars and crowds that formed on the corner of 68th and Central Park West. Leaving the green boundaries of the park behind, she followed the trail of stopped cars at a height of 15 floors, surfing left around an office building until the length of 68th Street was visible to her.

She pulled up sharply on a swell of air, on a wave of cresting currents that lifted her up and fluttered her cape and hair as she hovered in a vertical position, and she stared in astonishment at the scene below her.

The broadcasts on police channels streaming in through her helmet had prepared her to find a breached armored truck, but the money fluttering down like parade confetti on the mob below was entirely unexpected. Then her eyes caught sight of it--- of him. He was already on his way toward the water, leaving behind the deep canyon of buildings, the massive ten-foot silhouette of his armor changing from red and yellow flames into its sky-blue camouflage just as her gaze picked him up.

“Ah, tu es un intrepide,” she murmured, large blue eyes narrowing behind the eye-windows of her helmet. “But perhaps a little too bold for your own good, Monsieur Ayzee-Deezee.”

She was already moving after him, her exhilaration pouring out of her fingertips to stir currents around her to peak velocity until she was accelerating like a rocket, a horizontal blue streak of gaudy spandex headed towards a ten-foot mirage of blue sky. C’est trop delicieux! This time she was going to catch the baddest of the bad-- and in front of all these people too!

On the ground, crowds looked up and pointed at the blue streak, craning necks and shading eyes to try to follow her trajectory, but she was going too fast now. In her wake was a wave of air so massive that uncollected money and garbage swirled and eddied down that street, blowing off hats and lifting skirts and flapping unbuttoned jackets. And that tsunami of air, swiftly gathering speed and force as it traveled, was heading straight for AC-DC along with its creator.

 

[Mr Master]

Conventional radar might not have picked up a human-sized biological coming in at such a low altitude, but this suit wasn’t built to deal with conventional opponents. The HUD gave him a radar display with a color-coded altitude read. He locked in directional thrust to the gravonics control and then pivoted around to look behind him, finding the blue smear against the city and zooming in.

It was a cape, of course; that was always a possibility in the City, since so many capes lived there (comparatively speaking), and stopping crooks was their entire raison d’être. He studied her outfit, the Hermes helmet, the flowing hair and cape… all unfamiliar. She was gorgeous, of course; public heroes averaged around 50% egotism, so if you weren’t a model type, you usually kept it vigilante, got into the professional sector, or turned to crime. He knew the usual capes by sight, and this wasn’t one of them, meaning she was either new or visiting.

There was something about that grin, though, as she streaked toward him, as if she was having fun with it as much as he was. Inside his helmet, he grinned back. “Sensors. Full-spectrum analysis of target bogey, constant run. Do not analyze, record for offline sifting.” He didn’t want to tie up the processor power to have the onboard AI crunch the numbers; his supercomputer back at home could handle that much faster. And he most likely wasn’t going to need realtime analysis just to get away from a newbie.

Still, no reason not to be friendly. He reduced velocity, staying on course for the river (ETA about thirty seconds) but slowing down so she could catch up. When she came near, he triggered external speakers and said via the vocoder repeater: “Welcome to New York. I’d advise you leave me alone. Wouldn’t want to hurt a pretty lady.”

With that, he tossed her a cheery wave, started blasting some driving rock music through his external speakers (appropriate for an aerial chase, he thought), and turned, accelerating down next to the Henry Hudson Parkway. He turned uptown, buzzing the cars and trucks that passed on the road, and started pouring on the speed, hoping to get clear of her view for a few seconds so he could dip into one of his various escape routes; perhaps he’d lose her in the green space ahead; he turned his topside color leaf-green camo pattern to help break up his lines once he got over the park. He kept his sensors on her the whole time, though, tracking every move, every word, every expression and electromagnetic wrinkle in her aura.

 

[Adonia]

Brise’s form was a determined blue arrow aimed at AC-DC...and she was quite happy and capable of keeping up the chase for hours, if needed. That was the thing, of course. If she managed to overtake him, what could she do? She supposed she could create a supermassive whirlpool of air streams to trap him, one short of hurricane-force. She calculated his mass and volume and decided that it was quite doable, and she grinned merrily.

Then her excitement rose when she saw him slow down 30 seconds from the river. “Ah, il est fatigue,” she purred, slowing down too, bracing herself to amass the free air she needed for her maelstrom, the one she fondly called Charybdis.

It was then that he turned and blasted his taunt from his speakers. ”Welcome to New York. I’d advise you leave me alone. Wouldn’t want to hurt a pretty lady.” With a cheeky wave, he was streaking off again even faster than before.

“Merde!” The slowdown and her prep had cost her a few seconds, and she found herself scrambling to restore the airslip she needed to hyperglide. “You think to deter me with threats, Monsieur Ayzee-Deezee?”

Oh, he didn’t know her at all. Flasing a mocking welcome and all but declaring that he could hurt her was the surest way to provoke her to new levels of tenacity. It didn’t matter that he was most likely quite capable of hurting her IF he got hold of her, which she was confident he, or anyone else, could never do.

But having been in Manhattan for only a week, Brise was still not familiar with huge sections of the city. The west side parkway was one of them.

A bit gregarious and drawn to where there was life, she tended to hover over what she considered attention-worthy areas of the city and where crime was certainly not in short supply -- mostly downtown, like Chinatown, Little Italy, Soho, Lower East Side, Greenwich. The complex near Madison Square Garden where the Cirque du Soleil troupe was housed, filled with RVs and live-in buses, was the perfect hub for her moonlighting activities, deep in the heart of a dazzling city that had captured her affection and imagination.

At the moment, she was determined on capturing a certain airborne badass hunk of metal streaking with unbelievable speed down the highway, at a dangerously low altitude that the air and height-loving Brise found almost dizzyingly claustrophobic -- as gravity, her natural enemy and sometimes lover, reached out with delighted arms to drag her down the lower she descended. To command an army of air molecules around her and still maintain her speed, it was necessary to have lots of space under her. She would have kept pace at a higher altitude as she chased her quarry, but the way he kept so low, she would eventually have to descend to his level to overtake him.

It took nearly all of her concentration to negotiate the highway in AC-DC’s wake, swooping around poles here, swerving around crossing cables there, surfing over or under cross-bridges within inches of her skin. She wasn’t quite used to high-speed chases like this. Who was she deluding? She’d never had to chase a high-velocity metal rocket through a city before. Or anything in the air, for that matter. She was not only new to Manhattan, she was new to crime-fighting.

Her grin had faded, a line of pure resolution compressing the curve of her lips together. Straightening as if in a perfect dive, she cleaved the air sleekly as she accelerated to keep up with AC-DC, pushing her body and her powers to close the gap between them inch by inch. In the Cirque, under her public identity, Brise was in her element in the tissue-like ribbons of silk that dangled her from the ceiling, dozens of feet above the floor without a net. But here, over the congested lanes of Henry Hudson Parkway, pure air (relatively speaking) was her element. Indeed, the silk was merely camouflage, for what really held aloft her supple body were the invisible currents that the silk gave shape to, while her graceful curves and the sleek length of her legs seemed to merge fluidly with the silk. And at that moment, her body was fused with air, every molecule of her body resonating with joy because she was at home in air.

 

[Mr Master]

He kept track of her pursuit with the radar, while his HUD also mapped the terrain ahead. His attention as largely focused on not running into anything, but he kept noticing how the bogey blip was stubbornly not going away. The way she spoke, as repeated in his helmet, sounded French – a visitor, but NYC drew people from all over the world. The accent was distinctive, however, and that in itself was an issue. But that was something to be concerned about later.

For now he zoomed around light poles, over and under power lines, and finally, he rolled to the right, into a grove of trees. Wood splintered and leaves thrashed against his helmet as he killed velocity as quickly as his body could handle, stopping in mid-air and staying under the cover of trees, his camouflage working to his advantage as he watched the instruments, watching her zoom close.

His plan was she'd overshoot; she was already following him through the obstacle course of the Parkway, so she was clearly as maneuverable as he was. She was also keeping up entirely too well. So now he had to try speed control and observation. If she overshot him, he could make a full-acceleration dart in the other direction, angling toward the water. If not, well, he'd come up with some other tactic. While he had a split second, he checked the data buffers on his sensory system, and was reassured by the flickering status bar. He'd have huge amounts of data to analyze when he got free, but he just had to skip clear of this pesky, albeit attractive, pursuer.

 

[Adonia]

While gravity was the enemy general that Brise loathed, trees were its minions. Especially lots of trees. The woody space was much too crowded for high-velocity hypergliding. Brise made a swift decision and swerved upwards sharply, narrowly avoiding smashing into the leafy wall, gathering her cape snugly around her body to rein in her ascent. She peaked above the sea of green at a good blasting distance, keeping well within the range of the throbbing, amplified waves of rock music.

She didn’t know what the oversize jukebox was doing, but AC-DC’s fondness for AC-DC would cost him dearly. She chuckled softly at his entertaining little quirk. She had chased the Ace, it had been fun, now she had learned a little lesson with her quarry. He and his music rocked the limits of her speed and there were no seconds to waste.

“Monsieur Ace, I like your music tres beacoup, will you not come out and dance with me?” she called out gleefully. “Mais non? Then stay where you are, I shall come down and get you.”

Even as she crested, she was already gathering massive amounts of air around her hands to hurl down in jets of tornado-speed wind on AC-DC. While she was now directly on top, she intended to sling him down to the earth and pin him there long enough to contain him in a subsequent maelstrom, which would need a few seconds to form.

“N’etes pas intimide,” she crooned softly, her voice drowned out by the winds wailing around her as the shearing forces of air molecules at her fingertips strained against her control. “Venez et jouez avec moi…” Whispering the last words, feeling more of her strength drain, she heaved and released her hold on the columns of air, the potential energy of a hurricane vented into two kinetic missiles aimed down on AC-DC and beginning to flatten the verdant roof of trees that hid him.

 

[Mr Master]

He watched her, floating just out of easy sight, surrounded by foliage, as she zoomed up high. She did not overshoot, as he'd hoped, but instead went up, to get a broader perspective. That was smart, which made his job tougher, but he stayed put, and kept up his observation with all his sensors. Including the audio sensors, which gave him her words...

His music? His eyes flashed to the small icon in the corner of his HUD, and he muttered a curse to himself. "DJ, cut the external speakers!" he snarled, even though it was clearly too late by this point. She was doing something, floating up there, calling out to him. Some loose leaves were swirling in atypical patterns... On a quick hunch, he called up the environmental readouts. Barometric pressure changing, wind speed way up, wind direction all over the place... of course, that made perfect sense. That's how she could fly, He couldn't think of any technological or scientific means by which she'd be able to do that, so that meant something out of the normally explainable, a mutant or mystical power of some sort... all this flashed through his brain as he watched some stray leaves swirl and gather in more tightly spiraling courses.

"Oh," he said to himself, as he realized what it was she was about to do, "crap."

As she flung her hands down toward the trees, he threw all the suit's vectors to the side, toward the road, and the river beyond. Behind him, branches smashed and leaves exploded downward, as supervelocity jets of air rocketed down toward where he'd once floated, forceful as a hurricaine in a tightly focused spot. The surrounding winds buffeted him, and knocked him askew; that didn't matter to the vector of the gravonics, but the gusts turned him around. His shoulder smacked into a light post, and he spun around the other way as he flashed west, and the suit shuddered around him as he tore clear through a southbound mattress delivery truck in a shower of metal and wood and springs and cloth (the northbound traffic had gotten snarled when drivers swerved as they'd flashed overhead earlier). He was over the water before he got himself straightened out. Of course, his suit's internal impact compensators (his second-cleverest invention, after the gravionics) protected him from the strikes, but it was still disorienting.

"Screw this," he muttered to himself, and swung around over the Hudson, jetting south. He needed some space, and clearly the hiding wasn't going to work. Although... since she started slinging tornado-force winds at him, perhaps he ought to respond in kind. He wasn't fond of smacking up newbies, but she did throw the first gust.