Ren made his way to the balcony of the penthouse, looking at the plants that had been uprooted and knocked down by the wind from helicopter blades, or just people stomping on them as they rushed into position to assault the building. The glass wall leading inside was completely smashed, with the ground all around it covered in a thick layer of shards. The television was still on inside, the screen dark with a small blue box complaining about a missing signal. The shells left from both bullets and spent flashbangs littered the floor, the couch had been overturned, and the coffee table was smashed to pieces.
The place was too clean for having been a chaotic fighting ring just a week prior. Remnants of the fight remained, but there were no chalk outlines for bodies recovered from the scene, no blood splatter, and no remnants of ripped clothing or equipment. Aside from the objects littering the floor and some smashed furniture, there were missing pieces that should indicate that several groups of people had smashed in with flashbangs and guns, and that a fight had happened.
Ren shuffled past the shells on the ground, meandering through the crime scene to see if he could find anything that the authorities might have missed. With a quiet sigh, he knelt down to touch a small spot on the floor where the wooden surface had been slashed by a set of Crimson Caracal's blades. Inside the cut, he could still see a bit of blood soaked into the wood grain. Ren stood back up, looking around for something more.
Looking at the balcony, he saw a figure standing in the empty pool. He weren't alone anymore, and this wasn't Aura or Nightreaver. Although the view was limited because of the edge of the pool, Ren could see a mask that he'd seen before. It shimmered in the light of the moon and surrounding buildings, deflecting light to morph the face that was hiding behind it into an unidentifiable mess. The chin was further covered by a voice modulator. As Ren stepped closer, he saw the pure white clothing shining in the same light, acting as a beacon in the middle of this darkened balcony.
"I thought I took your mask, Rennow."
Ren took a couple of steps further, the broken glass crunching underfoot. As he watched the figure in white staring him down, he saw a flash of bright orange light in the distant horizon. The flash grew in an instant into a large glowing orb of fire, swallowing a large area in the distance before finally parting from the ground and rising up. A trail followed the ball as it rose, forming a stem for the mushroom cloud. Ren watched the cloud reach for the sky, and the windows around him began rattling as the massive boom from the explosion reached him. Instinct took over, and he threw himself back inside.
As he landed and slid over the shards of glass, the balcony was swallowed by a tide of dust rushing along the streets below. It was the perfect frame, as he saw the white figure in the pool blink away and the dust in the air reaching out into the void they left behind. The trail went straight off the railing, then turned towards the source of the explosion.
The noise of the city dulled into a frail silence as the entire population shared a skipped heartbeat.
The moaning of sirens began wailing throughout the city, gaining a hollow urgency in the shifting echoes. Ren moved out onto the balcony, making his way to the edge and glancing down. People were slowly pouring out of buildings in confused masses, traffic moving to avoid emergency vehicles weaving past at great speed. He was illuminated for a brief moment as the spotlight from a helicopter swept over the city, the chopping rotors pulling it towards the fire.
The entire night was converging upon the explosion, and Ren rushed from the roof to see what was happening.
The heat from the blaze could be felt several city blocks before reaching the scene. Ren followed the sirens to a scene of utter devastation in the middle of the transition from small apartment buildings to suburbs. There was a large crater dug into the ground surrounded by rubble, uprooted trees, and wrecked cars.
In the heart of the crater was a hole surrounded by thick walls of broken reinforced concrete. This, the deepest part of the crater, had dug down at least two full stories below the surface. Rough steel bars jutted out where the concrete had been blown off, giving him a line of sight inside this underground construction. Whatever had been on top was now littered around the edges of the massive crater.
Spouts of water and foam rushed out of the thick hoses connected to the fire trucks that had arrived on the scene. The red-and-blue flashing of emergency vehicles lit up the underground ruin as the fire began to dwindle, and a plume of steam continued high into the skies. He watched the trail of steam as it rose higher and higher.
As the blaze gave way and revealed the true visage of the destruction at the very centre of the crater, Ren's attention was drawn to the sight of lights on the far side.
A set of three headlights slowed to a crawl and then stopped on the opposite side of the mayhem, hiding behind their bright flare; then the doors opened and shadows stepped out. A sense of dread slowly crawled down Ren's back, sending chills throughout his body. Something was wrong here, and he had the urge to investigate further.
Ren skirted the perimeter which was being established around the site of the explosion. As he went past the street, after street, he saw ambulances and police cars lined up, blocking the way further in, and people in uniforms leading civilians either to the ambulances or away from the scene. He could hear the confusion and shock in the crowd, trying to find something to grasp at in order to make sense of the situation. And someone finally did manage to hook onto something.
"Hey, freak! Get out of here and go back to whatever hole you crawled out from! You don't belong here! haven't you done enough harm? We don't need more of your type!"
The shouting man paused, then looked at Rene with fury in his eyes. Small groups of civilians were being drawn toward his voice as he berated Ren.
"How many poor Americans have you put into the hospital, huh? Who the hell gave you the right to stomp over us on your little crusade?" The shouting continued. A few weaker voices joined him, then increased in strength as the people took their frustration and fear out on Ren. Behind Ren, these people saw a crater that had shattered their homes, and his presence was riling them up. Some of the police standing around were shooting him glances as well, giving him all the necessary clues that he should keep moving.
Without slowing down any more than he had to, he made his way over to the other side of the crater. He could hear the cars humming even from a distance, and as he approached the driver doors of each car opened. Out climbed men in loose-fitting suits, their suit jackets failing to hide shoulder holsters. Behind the cars, there was a concrete box with a bulky steel door on it. It was much like an air-raid shelter or bunker entrance, but smaller.
"Turn around and go back," the man in the suit said, looking directly at Ren with a blank face to try and intimidate him. Behind the cars, Ren could see a dip in the ground leading into some kind of concrete-and-steel doorway.
"There's nothing for you here. Time to go, buddy," the second man said after closing the door of his car. He began moving towards Ren, one of his hands staying close to his waistline.
Both of them looked trained, but nothing in them indicated a government agent. In fact, the SUVs they had arrived in had shiny black surfaces with traces of a logo of some kind having been removed very recently. The black around where the logo had been was very slightly faded, while the black that had been hidden was still fresh and shiny. Ren could make out a few letters and casually tried to shift over to see more. In bits and pieces, he guessed one letter after another, IPMC.
Ren rushed forward thinking of taking them all out by surprise but he was not fast enough. These were clearly experienced people who took cues from his body movement, moving their hands to their weapons as he made up his mind what to do next. There was no taking them by surprise, as was evident by their pistols being halfway out of the holsters by the time he'd acted upon his plan.
The guns clattered to the ground, the men going to grasp their arms together from the pain. Manipulating the temperature of the metal they were holding onto was much too easy. With the men distracted by the sudden pain, Ren walked up and, with a few swift moves, brought both of them to the ground. After making sure they were unconscious, Ren walked past the cars to the bulky steel door of the entrance.
The room behind the large steel doors was dark, unwelcoming, and small. It was nothing but a concrete box with a tiny crevasse opposite the entrance. From there, a steep set of concrete stairs led down at an angle that looked like a sheer drop as one walked to the precipice, with smooth handrails attached to the walls on either side. The cramped downward-leading corridor was only made tighter by the rails.
At the bottom of the stairs was a doorway, shaped and angled in such a way that it was impossible to see into the room beyond the stairs before one got low enough to actually pass through the thing. It appeared as if no door fit in the hole, however, as there were no visible hinges or even a place for hinges on the frame.
Without any other way down, Ren slipped into the crevasse and made his way carefully, hearing the rustling of his shoes against the steps but not much else. Whoever had entered here before he was either extremely quiet or was far enough into the building that he couldn't hear them. For one with such keen senses as himself, it was borderline astounding that they would be able to do so in such a short time.