2004 January 1st Mexico city
Ironwood

It's snowing, it's not supposed to be snowing, I'm sure it snowed at some point in Mexico city but we all know that this isn't natural. The chill runs through the air as we prepare for the attack, we hear a roar, and ice falls from the sky, walls of ice form and the snowy and fuzzy monster launches an all out attack on the city.

Missiles and aircraft attack in unison, Mexico is bringing everything they have into this fight, the world is watching and this, well it's personal. I try to shield people when I can, heal the wounded and try to get closer. It's hard to see so I'm forced to use other senses, other ways of getting through. The Endbringer is making a laughing sound, he's focused on the destruction, on the havok he's causing. He's not paying attention and me? Well I'm sneaking around as much as a 10 foot tall killer robot can.

I jump him. A blade springing forth, I use that trick of dimensons to get through his defenses, and stab right into his core. I hear things smash as giant balls of ice fall to the ground. We were lucky, the enemy got careless, got so enraptured with his own might that he lost focus on his surroundings. Over all this fight lasted around five minutes. I look over at the ice and snow covered city.

"Endbringer down."

There's a sense of relief, celebration and in some cases frustration, this wasn't the long hard slog that a lot of the regulars are used to. There's plenty of damage, of destruction, but the capital will rebuild. I got out to the designated areas and start healing people. I'm pretty sure some of the people brought in are just well connected, not combatants but I ignore it. It's just part of the job.

"16 more to go."

I look up at Eidolon.

"Yeah."

He frowned.

"There was some trouble in the special district."

I looked up.

"What kind of trouble."

"Icy's ok, the kids are ok, but..."

"What... kind... of... trouble."

"Slaughterhouse 9... their stranger Nice Guy... well he helped them get through the defenses, he's dead now."

"Oh... So Icy?"

"She had a lot of defenses installed that were not run past us... we're not going to complain about it considering what happened, especially since they all had kill orders on their heads anyways."

I took a seat and looked at the corpse.

"Any idea what you're going to do with it."

"You're changing the subject E."

"I know..."

I stared at the corpse.

"As cooling element goes, this is more or less as good as it gets, I'm not sure if there's enough raw power though to terraform a world. I'm working with the Phoenix group and we're still doing all the thinking on Mars."

"Venus?"

I shook my head.

"We could cool it down and filter the air, it's about the same size as Earth so the biggest issue would be adding in an air conditioning system, and focusing on creating a stable ecosystem."

"Maybe we should do that instead of Mars."

I shook my head.

"It's a planet sized poverty trap, getting off world would be more difficult then on Earth, even with an air conditioning system it's still going to be hot, there's a lack of things like moons, or other nearby resources, and it's not connected to the World tree line. I would have to build one just for Venus."

"But it's something to think about?"

"Yeah, if the refugee problem gets really bad and we get another kill then we should do it. Mars comes first, but if we need a quick fix now then Venus is a solution."

I got up and dusted myself off.

"Is the plane ready?"

"Yeah. Going home?"

"She needs me to be there."

He patted me on the back.

"You're right just... take care of yourself ok?"

"Yeah."

"And leave some of those Endbringers for me Woody, can't have you stealing all the glory."

I shook my head and chuckled.

"Yeah... yeah I will do that, take care E."