From the Tower the silver-and-black armored figure arced south over the city, the thrusters in his boots and the pulse generators in the palms of his hands propelling him along at just over the speed of sound, marking his path across the night sky with a bright white streak of light. The destination was already marked on the HUD inside his helmet, his eyes fixed on the target as he climbed higher.
Inside the suit the man grinned as he reached his insertion point and spoke. "Di, music."
The music that started playing, broadcast outside the suit as he cut the thrusters, was the beginning of 'Welcome to the Jungle' by Guns 'n' Roses, loud enough to be heard even in the warehouse under him he was just beginning to fall towards, as gravity overcame inertia and he began to fall.
Just as the opening of the song reached its climax, the black and silver figure came down through the roof like a bomb, debris and dust raining down around him where he landed in a crouch, creating chaos and confusion inside the building for a few moments as those within tried to see just what the hell had blasted down into the middle of their underground market.
He spoke inside the helmet as he raised himself from the crouched position. "Di, you up?"
Her cool, sultry voice came back to murmur in his ear, immediately as always. "Always, Ed."
It wasn't going to last long, that confusion created by his entrance - already he could see guards and thugs and others of a less than savory nature arming themselves and bringing weapons to bear on his location.
All they would see for those few moments was a cloud of billowing dust, perhaps a shadowy figure with glowing blue-white eyes that stood amongst the rubble, but that was enough of an aiming point for a few of them not left totally frozen and disoriented by this sudden, almost explosive entrance. His HUD lit up, highlighting targets as the music blared out from speakers hidden in his armor, almost completely covering the sound of an upcycling electronic whine not unlike a camera flash charging greatly amplified. The first bursts of automatic gunfire rang out, and he felt the peppering of bullets against the armor as he raised one hand, palm out, and let loose a charged particle blast at the nearest attacker, blasting him off his feet with one of the pulse generators.
The other hand came up in a different direction as he started forward out of the settling dust and dirt, loosing another blast, followed by another, and another, hostile and attacking targets carefully picked out on the HUD, the intelligent targeting system built into the suit's systems showing him where the pulse generators were pointed and flashing as the crosshairs met the targets. Each was fired upon in rapid succession with a thought impulse transmitted from his brain to the suit. The gunfire began pouring in and converging on this target that had dared disturb this illicit gathering of theirs, the weight of the combined fire being felt even through the armor as he took down target after target.
The HUD lit up with a flash at the left side of his vision as Diana noticed something that required his attention. Bringing his gaze to that direction as he waded through the heavy gunfire, he noted several armed figures running towards an enclosure at the far side of the warehouse from him that appeared to contain the 'wares' on sale this night, another figure behind them shouting orders that he couldn't make out with the deafening sounds of battle all around him.
Turning, he started in that direction, and had just taken a step towards them when a pair of impacts in the center of his back hit him like swings from a sledgehammer wielded by a bodybuilder, dropping him to his knees.
Turning to look over his shoulder, he spied two men on an upper catwalk, the optics zooming in and enhancing the detail as his sensors locked in on them and scanned the weapons. Diana couldn't identify the guns by make or model, but judging from the sensor readouts, both of them were wielding what appeared to be a man-portable version of a gauss cannon.
Didn't see that one coming...
He was starting to get to his feet and turning in the direction of the those two aiming their cannons at him when he heard Diana say something in his ear, urgency in her tone. Whatever it was got lost on him as he saw a pair of bright flashes from the direction of the two he'd spied on the catwalk above. At just about the same instant he felt the rounds from their gauss cannons slam into his chest like he'd been kicked by a Clydesdale, and with that pair of breathtaking impacts he was knocked right off his feet and onto his back, skidding along the floor.
That was going to hurt later, he was sure.
He was equally sure that what Diana had to say was important, too, but for the moment there was something more immediate that had his attention. Focusing his gaze on the pair as they charged their weapons again, he saw them swinging their aim in a different direction.
Something else had their attention, seemingly, and he took advantage of the distraction to bring his palms up, the pulse generators charging and firing in rapid succession at the catwalk underneath them. The section of it under them immediately gave way as the charged particle bursts ripped through the catwalk like so much paper, sending it and them crashing to the floor below.
He was moving to get to his feet, a little slower than before, the points of impact from the gauss cannons throbbing painfully in his chest and back. Even with his enhancements and the toughness of the armor, that had dealt out a good deal of hurt, and his eyes scrolled through the damage readouts flashing over his screen. Physical damage had been done to the armor, the chest-mounted pulse generator was offline, some of his sensors and about a quarter of the flywheel energy storage cells were damaged. It could have been worse, really.
But there wasn't time to consider that - there was still business to attend to.
Looking up, he was just in time to hear the gunfire start trailing off as a swarm of bats came in through the roof. He didn't have time to consider how that had happened, though, as some poor fool came charging at him with an axe, raising it over his head to deliver a heavy blow.
It never landed - putting power to the armor's artificial musculature with a thought that sent energy surging through the suit from the storage cells that were still functional, he threw a punch for the man's midsection that sent his would-be assailant hurtling through the air to crash into a wall.
Turning back towards the swarm of bats, he spied what looked like another figure in the midst of them, wearing what looked like an armored suit of its own that was unfamiliar to him. Once again, though, he didn't have time to ponder that, as he heard someone shout over the decreasing sounds of sporadic gunfire.
"Cease fire! CEASE FIRE!"
Turning towards the voice, he saw the man that had been shouting unheard orders, and what he saw made his eyes narrow under the helm of his suit. The men that had been running towards the enclosure were surrounding it now, their weapons trained on the mass of slaves huddled in the middle.
He took two steps that way before he heard the man - who was apparently in charge of this rabble - yell out again. "Stop right there! I don't know who you are, and I don't care! One more step and my men will open fire. I'd hate to waste good merchandise because of your foolishness!"
He repressed the urge to shoot the man right there, even though he really wanted to. Another man referring to people - living, thinking beings - as 'merchandise' was enough to get his hackles up. Instead, he kept the outside communications off and spoke to the AI. "Di, you still dere?"
Her voice came back right away, and he was immediately thankful that the damage done to his suit hadn't cut his communications off as well. "Fortunately, yes. You really need to learn how to duck, Ed."
"Stow it. Ah need ya t'reprogram de missiles in de shoulder launchers, set de warheads fer low yield explosive patterns."
He took another sidelong glance at the other armored figure. That wasn't one of his designs, that was for sure. There were more pressing matters at hand than his curiosity, however.
It was a second or two, as the men still on their feet and not directing their guns at the prisoners started moving towards them, guns trained on his head and that of his unexpected partner in vigilantism, before he heard Diana's voice come back to him. "All right, they're ready."
He made no reply to her as he examined the situation. Eight men, guns trained and steady, who all looked perfectly willing to pull the trigger on their boss's say-so, more or less evenly spread out.
His eyes moved, a single thought preselecting the points of impact on the floor around the men as he looked them over, carefully calculated so as to maximize the impact of the explosions, yet at the same time keeping the hostages safe and ensuring that none of the gunmen would be too seriously injured. Another thought shut down the pulse generators.
Once he had his targeting points set, he turned a glance at the other, one hand moving slightly in his direction a moment, then extending three fingers, which then folded back again, one at a time.
Three...two...one.
As the last finger curled in, a section of the armor at either side of his head suddenly popped up, and from them streaked three rockets apiece. As soon as they impacted they detonated, blasting at least half of them off their feet and throwing concrete and other debris at the rest to keep them off-balance. He didn't even wait for the dust to clear, moving towards left-most of the remaining men surrounding the enclosure as the warhead's explosions did their work.
As he was moving, his sensors picked up a sonic wave emanating from the other, unnamed armored figure, the frequency and power of it recognized as one strategically calculated to disorient by interfering with inner-ear function. Thankfully his armor's own systems dampened the sonic emanations from his new-found collaborator, rendering him unaffected as he took advantage of the disorientation of those surrounding the two.
A second later and he had reached the two at the left-most extreme side of the cage. One of them got a charged particle blast right to the chest, throwing him backwards against the chain-link fencing that held the hostages. The other was picked up by the lapels of his shirt and with a swift turn was tossed bodily across at the other two, bowling them over like toy soldiers. Deciding he'd let the other guy take care of the remainder that had been trying to surround them - there were six or seven in all - he went for the guy that had been giving the orders, who was trying his best to get away even as he struggled against the disorienting effects of that sonic wave.
A quick leap and a burst from the thrusters sent the Ranger flying over the man's head to land in front of him, and a single backhanded swat of one arm sent him flying backwards to crumple on the floor, out cold, just as he heard a blast coming from the direction of the other armored man. Turning, he was just in time to see the remaining attackers knocked away from the other, landing on the floor and writhing in pain from what his sensors registered as an ultrasonic blast of extreme intensity.
"Sonochemistry 101, kiddies. Sound can superheat water..."
Turning where he stood, he looked around at the wreckage and remains of the operation they'd disrupted. All the bad guys were down, and none of them looked to be in any great hurry to get up. Under the helm, he read off the readings scrolling across his HUD. By some miracle, there were no fatalities, among the incapacitated or among the hostages. Turning back to the other figure, the silver-and-black helm inclined in his direction as the computer-filtered voice emanated from the hidden speakers. "Nice work."
"Seems someone up above likes us." The mechanical voice replied before the other armored figure cocked its head to the side, as though listening to something only he could hear.
He turned to look around at the men that had been put down. "Or someone likes them." Turning back to the other hero, he regarded him for a moment. "You got a name?"
"Banshee," was the only reply he got, before slowly lifting from the ground as his palm and boot thrusters revved, launching him into the air in a ghostly scream and out through the hole the Ranger had made on his way in.
He watched as the other figure took off, tilting his head back a moment to follow Banshee's track before taking another look around and speaking under the helm, the external speakers cut off as he spoke to his AI. "Di, alert de Rhy'din Watch. Give 'em de location an' be sure t'tell 'em dey're gonna wanna bring some medics wit' 'em t'tend do de injured."
"Already done, Ed."
He chuckled and shook his head inside the helm. "What would Ah do wit'out ya, Di?"
He could practically hear her smiling smugly as her voice came back to his ears. "I imagine you would do much the same as you do with me. Just not nearly as efficiently."
He chuckled under the helm as he turned to those locked in the enclosure, cutting the external speakers back on and speaking in the computer-filtered voice again, which not only changed his voice to make it unidentifiable, but also filtered out his accent. "Everyone stay put. Help is on the way...you'll be out of there shortly."
And indeed, as he walked over to the hole he'd left in the roof, the sound of sirens drawing closer could already be heard. The thrusters kicked off, and in moments he too was gone.
