As she approached the power plant, every instinct in Bloodhound's body was telling her that something was wrong. And she hadn't survived the Underground for nearly fifty years by ignoring her instincts.
God, had it really been that long? Most of that time as a hero, some of it…not. The woman she'd been all that time ago wouldn't recognize what she'd become.
A shadow in the dark. A faceless mask. And worst of all, a hero.
She shook her head to clear it. Now wasn't the time for reminiscing about long-gone days, or long-gone people. She had a distress call to answer.
The call in question had come from the power plant less than an hour ago; it had been short and garbled, from the plant's head operator. All the man had said was that they had a fire of some sort, and the men they'd sent to put it out and repair the damage hadn't reported in.
Then, everything had gone quiet. The other heroes had mostly blamed faulty phone lines; those were pretty common down here. And besides, minor industrial mishaps weren't a very glamorous thing for heroes to respond to.
But Bloodhound didn't believe in coincidences, or faulty phone lines. And she couldn't give less of a shit about glory. So here she was, alone. Like she had been for thirty years.
One look at the plant, and she knew she was right to come. That minor fire the plant operator had reported hadn't been extinguished-it had grown. A plume of thick black smoke rose from the center of the lumpy, misshapen building, so large it hung over the whole sky-or what passed for sky down here.
Thank god the plant was geothermal and not nuclear or something-that would have been a nightmare. No, the only worry Bloodhound had was for the workers inside the plant, and maybe for the actual power supply itself. This plant kept the lights on in the entire Underground-if it faltered, the whole city would be plunged into darkness.
Maybe that was why Bloodhound didn't storm inside, but instead slipped in cautiously and stealthily; call her paranoid, but it felt too much like a target for her to be willing to call it an accident. With the Outcasts on the move…
As usual, the thought of the Outcasts filled her with guilt, an emotion she had been fighting for the better part of her life. She knew what they were fighting for-fuck, she agreed with a lot of it. God knew that the damn abovegrounders could have done with a kick in the pants. Perhaps if she was a better person, she would have known what to do when facing them.
But she didn't. She'd made a promise, years ago, to someone who would have known what to do, and by all that was holy she was going to keep it. She was going to keep his city safe for him. And if that meant that she spent her whole life keeping the mutants down, keeping them divided and hopeless and killing each other…then that was what she'd do.
There was a lot of blood on her hands. It came with the territory-but it still haunted her.
The smoke was even thicker and blacker inside the plant, and Bloodhound was thankful for the filters in her mask. She could hear the rattle as she breathed, forcing herself to keep it steady and even.
With every room she checked, she grew more uneasy. There was nobody in the plant, alive or dead. There were signs of a struggle, yes, but only minor ones-tables knocked over, a few drops of blood, a single unnaturally silver hair. Whatever had happened here was definitely an attack, but…where was everyone?
Bloodhound knelt down and took a deep sniff of that silver hair, activating her quirk as she did so.
It was funny, her quirk. You would have thought it only worked for her, but she could let others track the people she identified. She had no idea how it worked, but seeing as it was the only thing that had let her be a hero in the way she had, she'd take it.
Sure enough, the tugging in her gut pointed her deeper into the plant. That couldn't be a good sign.
Bloodhound continued to creep through the smoky, eerie halls of the plant-lit only by emergency lights and filled with the screeching sound of alarms. To a less experienced person, it would have been overwhelming; even with experience, Bloodhound's honed senses were ringing.
She ignored them, though, and soon managed to reach the center of the plant: the generators.
There were six of them thrumming away, each the size of a house. They were immense, practically radiating heat, filling the whole room with the inescapable sound of churning turbines and hissing electricity.
And, Bloodhound realized with a heart-stopping moment of terror, every single one of them was festooned with the unmistakable shapes of plastic explosives.
That little detail instantly made her whirl around. Even though part of her was screaming to get out of there now, her quirk was telling her that the person she was tracking was nearby. And if they were the one who had planted them…
Bloodhound tracked the sensation with practiced ease through the vast room, giving the explosive-covered generators a wide berth, until at last she found-
A soot-blackened chunk of the wall, that had suddenly sprouted taunting eyes and silver hair.
Before Bloodhound could react, her quarry moved, and suddenly the blanket of thick smoke was attacking, collapsing in on itself with impossible speed, choking and heavy and constricting like a blanket.
Bloodhound whirled as the smoke closed in, hungry and hateful. Oddly, she found that she could track it-could predict its movements. She flipped backwards, dodging tendrils of smoke as they lunged for her. But there were just too many; one finally wrapped around her ankle, and summarily slammed her into the thick concrete wall.
Bloodhound collapsed to the ground, coughing painfully; she was pretty sure she had broken a rib. She'd never been that great of a fighter, for a hero; her specializations were tracking, infiltration, one-on-one takedowns, that sort of thing. She'd just walked into a trap she could already tell outgunned her.
The smoke-whatever it was-closed in, black and heavy in the right space. She could imagine it laughing at her.
Instead of attacking, though, the smoke coalesced into the shape of the man controlling it-no, that wasn't right. He emerged from it, like striding through an open door. The knife he held casually in one hand-though it was so long it was more like a short sword-had blood on it.
"Villain," Bloodhound snarled. "What did you do to the workers here?"
The man scowled. "My name," he spat, "Is Kuroiro. And I'm done running from monsters like you."
Bloodhound didn't have time to laugh at that; the man swung his blade towards her throat so fast she barely had time to react.
But react she did; in a flash, Bloodhound was on her feet, ignoring her broken ribs as she slammed her fist into Kuroiro's face. He staggered back, knife passing harmlessly wide of her.
Bloodhound lunged again, keeping the pressure on, but Kuroiro simply vanished before her fist connected again. A heartbeat later, he appeared from the floor again, behind her, knife already stabbing towards her unprotected back-
Only to find that Bloodhound had already turned, anticipating exactly such a move thanks to her tracking quirk; she knew where he was before he even reappeared. She flowed instantly into a roundhouse kick that made solid contact with the side of Kuroiro's head, sending him reeling to the floor.
Unfortunately, his reactions were just as quick; Bloodhound's stomp towards what should have been his throat struck only the soot-darkened concrete as he vanished yet again. This time, he reappeared from the side, rushing her.
Bloodhound whirled easily with the forewarning of her quirk, already winding up another blow, but it was a feint; her kick went through the space where Kuroiro's head had been half a second earlier, but he was now coming from her other side, his knife not in his left hand as it had been, but in his right; he had flowed through the knife like water, switching hands so smoothly it would have been barely noticeable to an observer.
Experience saved Bloodhound; even without enough time to react to her quirk, her instincts had her turning so that the knife meant for her throat only slashed across the outside of her shoulder instead, tearing through the thick cloth of her costume and carving a bloody gouge into the pale skin beneath.
She staggered back, growling from beneath her mask. She half-expected Kuroiro to attack again, but instead, he took a step back, seemingly watching her; he didn't appear tired, but he nevertheless allowed the fight to lull.
"You are an odd one," he said, his voice bizarrely formal and deep.
"Fuck off," Bloodhound spat, hand flying to her bleeding shoulder, checking for damage. It was a deep cut, already bleeding heavily, but ultimately superficial; she lunged again, getting inside Kuroiro's swing, going for the throat. Kuroiro twisted away, letting Bloodhound's attack pass by harmlessly. Then he vanished again.
Bloodhound whirled, expected to be blindsided again, but he wasn't there. She panted hard; she was getting too old for this shit. She could already feel her strength fading.
Out of nowhere, Kuroiro spoke, his voice filling the room. "To answer your earlier question, the workers are unharmed," he said. "My leader…dislikes unnecessary bloodshed, and I saw no reason to kill them. They have been relocated somewhere safe, where they can't cause trouble."
Bloodhound snorted. "How charitable of you," she said darkly. "Let me guess, you're an Outcast?"
Reappearing from the smoke a short distance away, Kuroiro showed no sign of reacting to the sarcasm in her voice. He simply nodded, then replied, "Correct."
Bloodhound growled again. "So I guess you're here to kill me, then," she said.
To her surprise, Kuroiro shrugged. "To be honest, I would prefer not to," he answered. "That is not my mission."
"And what is your mission?" she asked.
Kuroiro smiled, a soft, small thing that promised violence. "Vengeance," he replied.
Then, he disappeared again. A second later, Bloodhound was fighting for her life.
Kuroiro didn't bother with hand-to-hand this time; he was a blur, a whirling knife in the dark, vanishing into the black and reappearing in fractions of a second. He moved like lightning, dancing through the shadows as if he owned them.
It was like fighting a ghost; Bloodhound's quirk was the only thing that kept her alive. She knew where he was coming from, could always pinpoint exactly where he was. She was a whirling blur herself, just barely twisting aside in time to dodge knife blows, ducking under slashes and punches.
But it couldn't last forever; she was wearing down, age and exhaustion creeping up on her. And every time she made a mistake, each time she just barely didn't dodge in time, a new cut was added to her rapidly-growing collection of wounds, bleeding her, slowing her down.
Finally, the end came; Kuroiro reappeared at head-height, knife already flashing towards Bloodhound's face; and she was simply too tired and injured to dodge in time.
The blade slashed across her mask, and Kuroiro punched her across the face immediately afterwards, sending her sprawling to the floor, clutching her face.
Kuroiro landed lightly on his feet, knife still in an easy, familiar grip. When Bloodhound didn't get up again, he slowly stepped forwards, eyes hard, yet oddly cool; he seemed utterly unemotional as he walked towards her-
De-woop!
His expression changed instantly, first to shock, then to earth-shattering, eye-scorching rage as Bloodhound yanked off her mask.
It was a simple thing, made of blood-soaked black cloth and shattered green glass. But on there left temple, there was a small circular object, now shattered by the knife blade that had passed through it; it was all sparking, destroyed electronics and twisted wires.
A disguise projector.
Bloodhound's face-her real face, not the one she wore for the rare occasions other heroes saw her without her mask-was arranged into a shocked expression, though it was a little difficult to recognize, given that her head was that of a dog. She had the floppy ears, long snout, and sleepy eyes of, well, a bloodhound.
She was a mutant. She had always been a mutant.
Kuroiro's face was an oil-sheen black sea of hatred, rent by raging eyes and gritted teeth.
"And here I thought you were just another damned hero," he spat. "But you're something worse. You're a fucking traitor."
With agonized effort, Bloodhound hauled herself onto her side, coughing as her broken ribs and bleeding wounds protested. Blood matted the fur of her face, teeth bared in a dog's snarl. She spat on the ground as Kuroiro approached, bloody knife in his hand.
"Yeah, yeah," she growled. "Heard it all before, kid. Nothing you say can tell me anything I haven't already told myself a thousand times."
Kuroiro scowled. "Why?" he demanded, sounding almost plaintive, hurt and shock creeping into his voice and making it sound younger than it was. "Surely they still hate you. You're still a monster like the rest of us."
Bloodhound sighed. "They do," she admitted quietly. "But I do it anyway."
"What possible reason do you have to betray your own people?" Kuroiro nearly shouted, leveling his knife at her.
Bloodhound's eyes were dark, haunted by pain that would never heal, shadowed by a lifetime's worth of memories; ghosts of happier times, strong hands and a booming laugh and a smile that once put the sun to shame. Gone, now. Gone for decades.
"Love," she said bitterly, a broken half-smile rising on her face. "It's always love, isn't it? It makes goddamn fools out of every single one of us-even traitors."
For half a frozen, fragmentary second, Kuroiro hesitated, seemingly torn between rage and shock and grief. Then, it ended; he lunged, black-painted knife flashing forwards towards Bloodhound's heart. She threw herself into the lunge in return, a wild cry erupting from her chest.
Traitor or not, she'd still fight. Here, now, as she had every day for thirty goddamn years. She wasn't done yet.
There was a brief, frantic struggle. Then a thud, and a gasp.
And then Bloodhound's vision went black.
When it was finally time to go to the Mayor's gala, Izuku arrived in style.
Not in a limo, of course; even if he'd been in that sort of mood, Izuku didn't like limos. He never saw the point, not when he could, well…do what he was doing now.
Which was flying across the city under his own power, wreathed in lightning, and landing perfectly on the red carpet with a swooping, thunderous entrance.
Awed cries and applause sounded from the watching crowds as he stood, ignoring the flash of countless cameras with practiced ease.
Ahead of him, a man in a suit announced "The Number One Hero-and a personal friend of Mayor Takao-Atlas himself!"
Izuku snorted as he brushed past the man, who gave him a stunned look as he held the door open. In fact, quite a few of the people outside the doors looked pretty surprised.
Then again, that was probably because of what Izuku was wearing; he was, after all, in full costume, with his white gauntlets, red-black boots, and long white cape.
That was essentially unheard of; when heroes were invited to events like this, they dressed just like all the other guests, in suits and dresses, as if to show that they were human under the power and the glamor, that they could cross between their world and the world of fashion and champagne with ease.
Izuku wasn't playing that game. He wasn't going to let this city's upper crust-most of whom would be in this building tonight-forget what he was, or pretend that he was merely another one of them, wealthy and safe from the consequences of the world they had created. He was bringing his world, of violence and blood, to theirs.
He would never let them forget what he was. Atlas, their precious pillar. The strongest man in Japan.
And if his guest showed up, well…that's when things would really get interesting.
He hoped she would. Izuku didn't dare let himself worry about her; she'd made a promise, and he would believe it to the end. She would come back.
Of course, there was another reason Izuku was wearing his costume. Tokoyami's 24-hour deadline would expire any minute now. If he chose to follow through on his threat…Izuku needed to be ready.
He put all those thoughts aside as he stepped into the ballroom, the sound of the paparazzi fading away as the doors closed behind him.
Sure enough, he was fashionably late; the room was already crowded with hundreds of people in fancy attire, filling the high-ceilinged gallery with the hubbub of wealthy people talking about nothing much at all.
Izuku watched them turn to look at him as he passed through; they wore expressions of surprise, even worry, at the sight of the Number One Hero in full costume.
He'd be lying if he didn't enjoy watching them scatter before him like sheep; he towered over even the tallest of them, and the sight of his immense build was enough to clear a path right through the heart of the crowd.
For the quirkless boy who had once been the smallest, weakest, most timid child in his class, growing up in a tiny apartment with his mother, watching the wealthiest, most powerful people in Musutafu make way for him, in no small part out of fear, was a balm for the soul.
In that moment, he felt like a giant, striding through a crowd of ants.
Takao was exactly where Izuku knew he'd be; in the center of it all, surrounded by sycophants and well-wishers. Those pulled back as Izuku came up to them, instinctively responding to the facade of a smile he wore-if these people had any sort of intelligence at all, they knew the stormclouds hiding behind that smile.
Takao still had the greatest poker face Izuku had ever seen; the brief flash of surprise at seeing him in costume was immediately papered over with a beaming smile.
"Atlas!" Takao said loudly, clearly for the benefit of those around them-and the row of cameras lining the edge of the room. "So glad you could make it!"
He extended his hand, and Izuku shook it. The contrast was truly striking-Takao was not a small man, and yet his hand was utterly dwarfed by Izuku's. He tightened his grip just past the point of comfort, mostly for the benefit of watching the corner of Takao's mouth tighten painfully. The cameras flashed rapidly and repeatedly; Izuku knew that the pictures would grace the front of every newspaper tomorrow. Assuming, of course, that Tokoyami didn't burn the city to the ground before tomorrow came.
"Mr. Mayor," he said, just warmly enough to be mistaken for actual respect, and not a drop more. "I'm glad to be here."
When Izuku released his hand, Takao gasped, very quietly. "Excuse me for a moment," he said to the people around him. "I'd like to talk to Atlas here for a moment, if you don't mind."
Takao still had all his charm; in the span of a few seconds, he and Izuku were utterly alone, their words masked by the general noise of the party.
"Now what was that for?" Takao asked, mostly-but not entirely-amused.
Izuku returned the not-quite-grin Takao had given him as he replied, "What are you talking about, Takao? That was a friendly greeting."
"If you say so," Takao said. "One might wonder whether your… unusual attire has something to do with it."
Izuku glanced down at his costume, which was so vibrant and made him appear so much larger than life, he made Takao look like a rumpled child.
"What, this?" he asked with a grin. "This is just a precaution, Takao. After all, I need to be prepared-there is a man threatening to destroy this city tonight, after all. Not that you seem to care."
Takao snorted. "Whatever," he said. "Just don't ruin my party, you hear me? Or these lovely reporters get the scoop of a lifetime."
Izuku managed to keep his smile even, when all he really wanted to do was throw Takao through the enormous glass windows at the far end of the ballroom, looking out over the First Level and the dueling statues of Craton and Faultline.
Instead, he simply grinned and replied, "Why, I would never dream of doing something like that."
Takao's eyes started to narrow suspiciously, an instinct borne out a moment later when Izuku added darkly, "My friends, though…well. That's a different story."
Takao blinked. "What the hell are you planning?" he asked. "Whatever it is, it's not going to work, you know."
"That's quite confident of you," Izuku said, his full-toothed smile not quite a happy expression, but more like a shark's. "Especially since my plus-one hasn't arrived yet."
Takao's eyes went wide. "You wouldn't dare," he said. "You're not brave enough to do that."
Izuku chuckled. "You realize I'm a hero, right?" he pointed out. "Being brave is part of the job description."
Takao backed away a step, visibly nervous. Fighting it back, he replied, "You're bluffing, Atlas. Your woman hasn't been seen in days. She's not coming."
Izuku brushed aside the worries he felt that Takao might be right; he trusted Mina. She'd come.
"We'll see, Takao," he taunted. "We'll see."
With that, he turned his back to Takao, and began to walk away. Takao didn't dare shout after him; Izuku had him right where he wanted him.
And that, of course, is when everything went to hell-because the lights went out.
All the lights.
Far beneath the ground-though not so far as they had come from-a silent army emerged from the tunnels and crevices around the First Level of the Underground, a place that loathed and feared them in equal measure.
There were thousands of them, wriggling up from cracks in the rock, ready at last to take what they had always been owed. All that had been stolen from them.
As for their leader, clad in shadow, he stared up at the stony ceiling, and wished it didn't have to go this way.
"If only I could see the sky," Fumikage thought. "Then, maybe, all our problems would seem small."
But he couldn't. They had taken that from him, too. From all his people. Left them to rot beneath the ground, worthless, abandoned, hated.
And now they would take it back.
Fumikage took one last look at the First Level, with its trees and rolling stone buildings and the immense dueling statues at its heart. It was a shame, really; he could readily admit that this place was beautiful. He could have watched the gardens and the flickering, fanciful lights for a lifetime, if he had been allowed to.
If only his people could have been permitted to make their own contributions to this place. How much greater might it have been? How much better would their lives be?
In the end, the questions were pointless, mere distractions that Fumikage could do without. Still, he hesitated a few more seconds, letting himself enjoy the view. From up here, on a tiny divot in a sheer cliff, surrounded by men and women who would follow him to hell and back, he took in the beauty of the Underground, holding back the hate he held for the people who had built it. He could appreciate that-but he shouldn't forget that the dueling titans at the heart of this city were a part of the same conflict he was still fighting, nearly eighty years later.
Closing his eyes, Fumikage sighed, reining in the whispers in the back of his head. He would let Dark Shadow loose soon, but not yet…not yet.
There was a rustle beside him, as Kamakiri stepped up to his side. Loyal to a fault, fanatic in his fury as always. The only man Fumikage had ever met who could trust so totally, and hate with so much fire in the same breath. He only hoped Kamakiri would forgive him if he failed to use that fury well.
Kamakiri looked down over the city with the same flinty, stonelike expression he always wore. "I hate them," he hissed. "Living like kings while we struggle for scraps."
Fumikage nodded idly, though he'd barely heard the words. "Not anymore," he whispered. "Not anymore."
Kamakiri looked up at him, eyes flickering with some strange emotion-a true rarity; he rarely ever showed any sort of human feeling at all. Maybe he was finally beginning to understand what Fumikage had known from the beginning; he was not a tool, or a weapon, but the greatest man Fumikage had ever known.
"What happens next?" Kamakiri asked quietly. "If we win?"
Fumikage met his eyes, then hesitated. "I…I don't know," he admitted softly. There was something almost cleansing about the words, the admission that he wasn't infallible, that he was scared and angry and hurting and about to throw everything he had, everything he was, onto a desperate hope for freedom. Part of him didn't really expect to see whatever came next for the Outcasts.
But he didn't dare think of that, even as Kamakiri raised an arm and put his hand on Fumikage's shoulder.
"Come back to us," he whispered. "You saved us all-we need you. That's the most important thing, my friend. Not vengeance, not blood, not destruction- living."
There were a thousand things Fumikage could have said to that. He could find the words for none of them. Instead, he nodded to Kamakiri, who looked back one last time, then leaped into the darkness, off to complete his own mission.
Once his friend had been swallowed up by the shadows, Fumikage raised a hand to a small, glowing device on the side of his head, where his ears should have been.
Fumikage tapped the communicator once, and said stiffly, "We're in position. You may begin."
A rough, scratchy voice answered back, "You got it, Boss. Triggering the bombs now."
Fumikage waited patiently, his face a perfect mask. Thousands of feet below, so far that he knew the tremors he felt in the ground were mere imagination, Kuroiro gleefully pushed a button, triggering explosives amidst the blood and smoke of his own battle.
Great gouts of flame erupted in the beating heart of the Underground. The geothermal power plant that supported the district whole shattered under the force of the explosions, crumbling like a child's building blocks. Generators that had not faltered in eight decades of operation howled like dying animals as they tore themselves apart, the screech of steel on steel echoing throughout the level. A man made of inky darkness watched the fire with a passionless expression, knowing all he had done was start the battle. Then, he looked down at the unconscious figure slumped at his feet, the one he'd struck with the hilt of his knife rather than the blade, spat disdainfully, and disappeared into the rock without saying a word.
The attack's effect was instantaneous; in a single blow, the Underground went dark. The lights flickered just once, and then were gone. The First Level was blinded, plunged into the abyss in seconds. The only illumination was from tiny, self-sufficient emergency glow patches here and there, which did little more than give the city a faint, ominous red outline. Other than that, there was nothing. Not a single light shone in the jewel of the Underground. The darkness poured in.
Below, people craned their eyes towards the now-vanished lights, eyes wide as they scrambled to reorient themselves. Unbeknownst to them, at the edges of the level, Outcasts slipped from cracks and tunnels, standing on ledges above the disoriented, blinded city. A shadow army, solemn and grim, like their leader.
Fumikage raised a fist, and the man next to him mirrored the action-though he held something in his hand. A flare gun. It fired, and a glowing red light shot into the air above the Underground, followed a moment later by another, and another and another. All along the walls and streets of the Underground, the signal flares burned in the stagnant air, like dying, bleeding stars.
Fumikage closed his eyes, feeling the light fade away, and the monster stirring as the chains weakened. It could sense the weakness, the rot that lay below the surface. It knew the time had come.
"Are you ready, Dark Shadow?" he asked his quirk, his oldest, truest friend. His enemy. The one way he would ever change this damned world.
The answer he got back was an amused snort, friendly in a cold, deadly, hateful sort of way. Dark Shadow replied, "I've always been ready. Let me loose, Fumikage."
At long last, Fumikage smiled. "No holding back," he agreed. "Nothing left."
He opened his eyes, and he and Dark Shadow thought as one: "They will pay."
He stopped keeping the monster chained. He stopped worrying about the future. He stopped caring what would come next; here, now, there was only the simple joy of finally being free. Finally letting himself be what he was always meant to be.
Fumikage took a heavy, thunderous step, grunting as the darkness surged around him, shadows erupting like lava from his flesh. He stepped forwards again, already more densely cloaked in shadow than he had been when he defeated Atlas. His eyes were empty, glowing red, his face swallowed up by Dark Shadow.
Finally, with one last whispered prayer, he threw himself over the edge of the cliff, vanishing into a rapidly-expanding shape in the dark, consumed utterly in a fraction of a second. Behind him, the men and women he had picked up from the gutter, had given a purpose, had turned into an army, charged, filling the air with a blood-curdling cry.
It was nothing next to the sound that filled the air a moment later, though. It was inhuman, unimaginable, loud enough to be heard through the entire city. It was the sound of dark, shadowy flesh surging outwards, of a beast made of night taking shape, a hundred feet high, undefined in the darkness, but vast beyond comprehension, with an avian head and jagged talons and more power than any one man should have ever had.
Fumikage laughed as he fell into the dark. Dark Shadow's embrace wasn't choking, or restrictive; it was an embrace, a loving hug that wrapped around his whole body and made him more. He was not trapped, not barely maintaining control, not out of control; he and his quirk were, finally, in harmony, thinking the same thoughts, fighting the same war. The coin had not landed on one side or the other, but had, impossibly, balanced perfectly on its edge.
He planted a hand as large as a building on a wide boulevard, watching people scream and run below him. Part of him relished the terror; part of him, even now, mourned it.
He ignored the civilians, as did his army; they had a different target. Fumikage began to tear his way through the city, brushing aside buildings as easily as a man might brush away the branches of a tree. All around him, the Underground began to burn.
The Outcasts had come.