Gasoline

The wind howled long and with much fury at this elevation yet the distant storm clouds were still over the Endbringer tainted whale roads of the city's bay.

Ray sealed up his costume, quickly setting the clasps of his chest panel in place, and slipped his mask on until it lined up with his eyes and latched against his horns. The suit kept much of the growing chill of the wind from cutting through him as the sweat and heat of the meeting dissipated. He kept his hands on his mask and held his head.

"Don't make a big deal out of it, Dust Devil", she said nonchalantly. She tipped back the hip flask, that served as an armor panel on her belt, to her lips. The electrolytic drink a mix of salty and sweet on her tongue as she watched her illicit patrol partner have his overly emotional moment.

"Sixteen? In a few months?! Christ, Shadow Stalker, I asked you before we-"

"You didn't even wait a full second to go at it, even after I answered your stupid question with a damn joke. Besides, they still see us as teenagers, so it's fun whatever get over it."

"Youth Guard is gonna kill me, and then your folks if they're a fraction as pissed off as you?"

"My 'folks' don't bother to understand me, they're never there when they should be, and the Youth Guard won't give a shit so long as we keep it on the down low until I'm sixteen. You're not going to The Birdcage because I - 'like' you."

Dust Devil released his head from his hands and he looked up at the heroine, "Oh so you like me, now?"

"Well I'm not telling them you're my boyfriend or fuckbuddy or anything like that", Shadow Stalker slipped her mask back on her face and clipped her flask back on her belt. "Nah, I'm seducing you to help me even the score with The Undersiders."

Her tone registered in his head just as sarcastic as it felt truthful, "Hmm well, that I can believe."

"Then you're the biggest, stupidest prick I've ever met to just stick around anyway."

He diffused and materialized with his arms wrapped around her shoulders. His brown, bauta style mask clacked against the side of the white, stern expression of her own. They stood there quietly atop the half destroyed skyscraper in the midst of Brockton Bay's downtown district, near the very heart of the unofficial PRT territory.

"Look, I'm not stupid. I just forget sometimes how absolutely thoroughly shit my life is, so I react like a guy who is a semester away from graduating high school with a C minus, but if you wanna... show me a good time and then point me at your enemies. Why not, they're criminals - they kill, right? Screw em."

Dust Devil's arms dropped from Shadow Stalker's shoulder armor. He touched his thumb against the inner lining of the extended chin of his mask and his lenses flared to life and cast the Ward in crimson light.

"You talk too damn much", she said before charging off the top floor of the condemned building and glided off in her shadow form carried by the churning winds of the coming storm.

~~x

Shadow Stalker landed on the roof of the three story building in silence, she switched out of her Shadow form and tapped her foot impatiently.

"You're getting faster, Dulcinea", Dust Devil sat on the edge of the building she had just visually scanned as empty. His legs dangled out towards the street and he leaned backwards, head pointed at the sky, to speak to her.

"Dulce what?"

"Dulcinea, it's from Don Qui-"

"No, none of that pet name crap, you stop that shit - you had your fun earlier, we're looking for a fight now."

"Well, fine but just saying you are faster now... but it's cool, bite my head off for praise, why don'tcha." Ray diffused into his breaker form and materialised sitting on the edge still but facing Sophia.

Sophia balled her fists up, breathed in deeply, and released the breath from her lungs at the same speed she opened her fists. It was a technique Yamada explained to her on her second or third visit and this was the first time she ever used it.

"It's - called radiational cooling. Sun goes down, heat absorbed by the pavement is released into the air and I can glide longer and farther on air currents til about midnight. Alright?"

Ray snorted, "Who's the nerd now?"

He blinked out of her immediate field of view and reappeared crouched over a dirty skylight. Two stories below them a few meters from dead center of lining up with their view, he watched large bald white guys covered in various tattoos and surrounded by iconography putting them as former followers of the white supremacist organization, Empire Eighty Eight. They seemed to be sparring with one another under the guidance of a hardcore looking blonde woman covered in scars and yelling instructions from just outside the fighting ring.

"Skinheads on the menu tonight?" he asked.

"Monitor Intel said generators were stolen and their GPS tags cut out in this area, plus this gym is the only place with the lights on around here. Anyway, I'm worked up and I need a target that won't snitch to Weld", Sophia switched back to her breaker form silently passing over the skylight and reforming next to Ray in a crouch.

"I hear that, dude's got problems."

"No shit, dumb ass is made of metal and doesn't sleep. But he's a major goody goody trying to impress Piggot, so fuck him."

Ray pitched his voice down and started to sing, "I Am Iron Man, dun dun dun-nun-nun, Iron Man Lives Again."

"You or the Skinheads, pick one now or I will", Sophia pointed her loaded crossbow at the skylight then to Ray's head.

"Okay, okay, you want we both drop down through the ceiling here fists a-blazing or we screw with them like the place is haunted?"

Sophia didn't expect creativity in dealing with the skinheads. Beating the shit out of delusional white trash was usually enough to assuage her aggression but playing with her prey added just a little more thrill on top of delivering the beatings.

"Racists got shit for brains, let's do the haunted thing, then make them swallow their front teeth."

"As you wish, Dulcinea", Ray stood up just to make a show of a deep bow towards Sophia, turned to his dust form, and passed through the skylight.

~~x

Together they weaved through the building causing chaos. First, she sabotaged the generator to the lights causing a metal banging sound and the lights to blink out on occasion. Second, he used his speed to rush around to slam doors, break the occasional window, and steal the ammunition of firearms left by the members of Fenrir's Chosen.

"Shit", Ray said over the comms as stared down into the basement of the gymnasium slash gang training facility.

"What?"

"You haven't started crap up there with the cast of Oz right?"

Shadow Stalker could be heard grunting in frustration, "I just lit the back office on fire to smoke 'em out why?"

He clicked the switch inside his mask and his red lenses lit up brighter, bathing the basement in crimson light. The sound of panicked murmurs and quiet sobs as Ray turned his head and looked over the scene.

"Did that Intel say anything about hostages?"

"Fuck, how many?" she growled at her earpiece.

"Twenty, thirty? Enough that the fire thing is both a problem and really not something ghosts do."

The sound of metal being struck came over his ear piece, "Sprinklers ain't doing shit, get an extinguisher!"

Dust Devil appeared at the bottom of the stairs, held a finger against his mask and shushed the hostages, "I'm with The Protectorate, we're getting you out but you have to be quiet until we deal with the gang, okay?"

He got nods from the few he could make out, he clicked the lights dimmer for his mask and turned to head up the stairs. Dust Devil spotted an extinguisher that hung on the wall next to the stairs, he wrenched it free from the security ring and disappeared.

~~x