Mike struggled to still his body, which shook with anticipation, as he stalked down an empty hallway deep within Urbis Central.
His clothing was different than the blue jumpsuit he had worn before. Pain had given him new ones. His frame was now adorned by a billowy black robe, with a matching cape and hood. Strange red marks, like runes, dotted it's surface everywhere, seemingly at random, and many a gaping hole was shredded in the fabric to reveal parts of his body. Black leather gloves with spikes on the knuckles and long, knee-high boots, matched with a long chain belt that hung at an angle across his hips, wrapped many times around to look like some kind of restraint.
Cheesy, yes. Laughable, maybe. Did Mike care? Hell no. It was fuckin' awesome.
The sound of a hospital cart around the next corner set a wicked grin upon his lips. The cart rounded the corner, and the nurse pushing it instantly screamed, letting go and falling to the floor, clutching her leg. The cart, which held an elderly cancer patient, kept going, drifting to the left and ramming into the wall. The old man shakily sat up, looking around bewilderedly for a moment, before he suddenly let out a cry and began clutching at his neck.
---
Amidst the swaying golden waves, a vast dome of light. The sun descended to earth. Rain burns around it. Blood from the sky. The head of an animal rolls in from the hills, and somewhere nearby, a man screams. The light blinds.
Pain jolted to awareness, his face, the human one, smacking strait into a solid wall of rock. He recoiled, backing away as the goo reformed around him. For a few seconds he remained still, soundless in the utter darkness. It had never happened like that before, while he was still awake. For the first time in a long time, Pain was unnerved.
Then, with a shutter, he returned to himself, a grin once again adorning his ugly head. Glancing upwards, he gazed at not only the rock directly above his head, but at the city far above. Something was going on up there besides the obvious. Something was coming. Somebody who could actually stand up to him. He could feel it in his bones. All the more reason to get the party started.
"Do it now." Pain growled into the radio, before 'putting it away' and continuing on to wherever it was he was going. The message had been made before Reggie teamed up with the Company, which Pain admittedly hadn't expected, so there were a few holes. Still, it would accomplish most of it's purpose.
---
A fleet of advertising blimps wasn't easy to come by, for anyone. Much less ones with gigantic digital screens on the sides. Tanks and fighter jets were in readier supply. Still, Pain had managed to gather a fair number of them; six to be exact, and now they were all circling the city, weaving slowly through the air near all the major hotspots.
Simultaneously, the screens burst to life, displaying gigantic conflagrations of random colors and shapes and spouting chaotic sounds to get everyone's attention. The brilliant lights lit up the evening sky, the noisome blaring echoing across the city. A long string of fireworks shot out from the bottom of the blimps. After one minute and forty-four seconds of this attention gathering, the chaos suddenly stopped. The fireworks ceased, the loudspeakers went quiet, and the colorful static on the screens was replaced by a more familiar, more insidious image.
The Bomber.
The gas-masked, hooded figure sat in a shadowy room, his gloved fingers forming a pyramid in front of his head. His shoulders heaved up and down dramatically, as if he were about to explode with fury. For a full thirty seconds nothing happened. Then, he began.
"Weak. Pathetic and weak. This city, these supers, the Company. You are all weak. I warned you once, but still you won't listen. You still won't do anything about it. Still you succumb to the wild demands and ravings of mad-men. Still you cower in fear. Still you turn upon your brothers."
---
Three Apache helicopters swerved through the glass jungle of uptown, narrowly avoiding the sides of the skyscrapers as they pursued their target, guns blazing.
Ahead of them, performing the same maneuvering act but with far less caution, a gigantic, black, winged beast. It's body morphed and grew, extending and retracting, latching onto the sides of buildings and pulling chunks out of them as it passed. Slowing down, speeding up, looping through the air and swiveling around playfully as it lead the choppers on a wild game of cat and mouse through the city.
---
For five minutes straight the Bomber simply rambled, to make sure that every news station and every pathetic citizen in the city was watching him. Then, he began his real message.
"...but no more. This has gone on for too long! I'm fucking sick of it! It'll end now, with all of you pathetic people dieing in one place." The figure shuttered, as if from excitement, and then leaned forward, and ripped off his mask. Underneath, dark skin, a heavy, sweat-laden brow, wild dreadlocks, and piercing green eyes.
Reggie.
"My name is Reginald Silva, and I am fucking tired of this whole fucking mess!" The man screamed at the screen. "I'm tired of supers, I'm tired of the Company, and I'm tired of Pain!!!" He breathed hard for a moment, his eyes piercing through the gigantic screens at everyone in the city.
"It all ends now. Meet me, all you freaks of this damned city, at Urbis Central. I have a surprise waiting there, for all of you. A big one. You can probably guess what it is, as I'm rather unimaginative when it comes to gift-buying." He laughed for a few moments, then became serious again. "This city is a gigantic crater waiting to happen. You have no choice but to fight. Urbis Central is the new battleground."
And with that, the blimps exploded.
---
Pain swiveled in the air, inverting his flight, and shot straight at the pursuing Apaches, which now numbered seven. Their bullets and missiles struck pointlessly for a few seconds before the aircraft were all punched out of the sky, sent whirling into nearby buildings, where they billowed into magnificent plumes of fire.
Pain dropped to the ground far below and then disappeared, heading for Urbis Central. He was pleased with how the video had come out. World-class prosthetics beat 3D animation any day.
