smelltheashes | Looking Down

Kreyu nods in understanding. "Thank you. We will scout the area and return."

She crouches for a moment, muscles tensing, before launching herself skyward with a great leap and snap of membranous wings. We hope there aren't any loose items in the area to get tossed about....

Manny lets out an involuntary squeak of surprise, but manages not to otherwise disgrace himself as they clear the ground. Shephard... he's just gonna watch until they're out of sight, and then he's gonna go throw up. It's a thing.

Kreyu appreciates that.

They glide over the treeline, cruising along at about 85mph. Thankfully, her flight is more akin to that of a hawk than a songbird, so there's not much in the way of jouncing up and down.

"[Are you well?]" she inquires.

"[Jesus, you're fast,]" Manny answers. His hat's long since gone. The vid rig is still strapped to his head but the hat, yeah, he's gonna have to get a new one. "[I'm okay. Reminds me of my uncle Raul's motorcycle rides.]"

"[I can go faster than this, but I do not think it would be wise to waste the energy,]" she says with a chuckle. She drifts left, catching a thermal.

Their destination draws closer moment by moment. "[I will need to hide us from prying eyes soon,]" she explains. "[I am uncertain how it will feel to you, but you won't be harmed.]"

"[Hey, you're the one flying. I'm just here to take pictures and tell you what's trouble and what just looks scary,]" Manny says. "[What kind of hiding are we talking about?]"

She chuckles at his comment about being here to take pictures.

"[We are going to be traveling along the...edge, for lack of a better term, where the physical world meets the spiritual one,]" she explains.

"[That will make it difficult for them to sense our presence, but still allow us to see what's going on below us.]"

"[You know what? I'm going to take your word for it,]" says Manny. "[Let me know when you're about to do it so I can shut my eyes or something.]"

Kreyu rumbles an affirmative.

"[You may wish to close your eyes now,]" she remarks a minute or so later. After that warning, there are words that sound, almost, like French, and the world shifts.

The land below seems ever so slightly unreal, as if muffled and shrouded with a thin layer of gauze. With concentration, though, the world will come back into focus.

"[Holy cow.]"

Manny's only got one eye open, but from the sound of things, that's probably enough.

"[You do this kind of thing often?]"

"[Not often,] she replies. "[It takes large amounts of energy to maintain this state, so I generally use other methods of avoiding notice.]"

"[Gotcha. In that case we should make this quick,]" says Manny. "[I don't have a compass on me I can reach, but Fort Collins was northwest of where you picked me up by a couple of miles. You want to keep an eye out, the Combine have gunships in the air.]"

"[Indeed,]" she agrees, swinging slightly northwest to correct her course. "[I have no desire to do battle tonight, if it can be avoided.]"

It shouldn't be long before they're coming up on Fort Collins...

There was a time when Fort Collins was the fifth-largest city in Colorado. It was a college town then, a candidate for one of the best places in the United States to live. It was a sprawling city that grew out from an army encampment that never had walls. It never needed them.

But that was long ago, before the Combine came and the Citadel tower got teleported in. That was when it was Denver sixty miles to the south, not City 29. What lies ahead on the horizon is buildings, yes, many buildings, and some of them are even in use; but the handful that still stand whole are crusted over now with modifications and agglomerations applied by alien overlords, and the rest... well.

This is not a city where anyone would want to live. That's assuming there's anyone left who does live there, beyond the forces of the enemy.

Kreyu growls in anger at the sight below them.

"[They have made a corpse of this city, and like vultures they hover over its bones.]"

"[More like maggots,]" mutters Manny. "[Vultures are at least beautiful when they fly.]"

Someone spends a lot of time looking up.

"[We should see how much presence they have. Sergeant Shephard and Dr. Freeman are going to need to know where to strike.]"

Kreyu nods. "[I shall descend a bit more, then, and sweep closer to the buildings.]"

She tucks her wings a bit, descending smoothly toward the buildings below.

Most of the city is darkened, as is only fitting for ruins. Most of the Combine's interest in this region lies sixty miles to the south anyway. This is mostly a military outpost, the city having been reworked many times over; here a barracks, there a supply depot, over here-

"[Oh, man. Sergeant Shephard's gonna be pissed,]" says Manny. "[Pretty sure we're going to have to steal at least a couple of those before we leave.]"

'Those' being a cluster of hunter-choppers, skinny black helicopters that look like nothing so much as dragonflies gone over to the Dark Side, clustered around a central hangar. One never knows what kind of surveillance is going to become necessary if the humans start trying to escape, after all.

"[Interesting machines,]" Kreyu remarks. "[Although I can understand his....reluctance to fly in such a manner."]

She's not sure she'd trust her life to something made out of metal, after all. They swing over more depots and other structures, none of which mean much to Kreyu. Hopefully, Manny is getting more information out of this scouting mission than she is.

"[He's afraid of flying,]" Manny explains; he's busy taking pictures and scanning the vid rig over everything in sight. "[He was teaching me to be a pilot so he wouldn't have to do it all the time. Makes him throw up, poor bastard.]"

Hey, Shephard's not his sergeant, he's allowed to say things like that.

"[Okay, that one there,]" Manny says. "[The big one with the red roof. We're going to need to get in closer there. That building's going to be a big objective of ours and I need to get all the exits clear for Sergeant Shephard.]"

"[An unfortunate affliction,]" Kreyu rumbles. She tucks her wings close, bringing them very close to the building indeed, certainly within a story or two of the roof.

Hopefully, this will be close enough for them to get all of the exits.

"[If it means more air time for me I don't mind so much.]"

It's plenty, and then some. Manny's video rig can probably pick up all the conceivable details of the building, given how Ms. Vance programmed it. This is going to be...

... somewhat more complicated than it needs to be; is that one of the hunter-choppers taking off, there?

Kreyu's head snaps around at the sound, and she growls. "[I believe we are going to have trouble in a moment.]"

She rattles off a string of syllables, and a faint layer of...something seems to come into being over her. Better to have what magical protection for them both that she can muster and not need it, than need it and not have it.

"[Have we gotten what we need from this mission?]" she asks, tilting her body to climb steadily in the air.

If worse comes to worse, she wants to have some altitude available to burn.

"Mierda," swears Manny. "[Yeah, we're gonna have trouble. I got all the images I need and then some. Watch out for that thing's forward gun, I've seen them rip a guy in half.]"

Kreyu glances at the chopper warily, trying to gauge its strengths and weaknesses. "[I am uncertain if I will be able to outrun it, but I will try. Can you pretend to be my prey instead of my partner?]" she asks as she banks into a turn with the intent of making their escape.

"[It would be safest if they think me nothing more than a beast, and therefore have no cause to connect me with your people.]"

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