Blaze of Fury

Ryo Imir's snarl ripped through the sudden silence, a lash of pure aggression. "It wasn't us!" Her white eyes, narrowed to slits, blazed at Blazewing. "You must have been careless getting here!"

Blazewing's hands clenched into fists, her knuckles bone-white beneath her gloves. She took a step back, away from Ryo Imir, closer to the assembled Team, her stance shifting, no longer diplomatic, now coiled and ready for a fight.

"There was no way someone could track us here," she insisted, her voice tight, strained with barely suppressed fury. "Trust me. It wasn't you."

Cosine eyed her warily, head tilted, considering. She didn't look like much of a fighter, not in those ordinary clothes, not with that almost hesitant demeanor she'd projected moments ago. Hadn't she explicitly stated she was merely the 'face' of the Qrew, protected by other members? Where were these protectors now?

Miss J'onn shook her bald Martian head slowly, a gesture of distress, her white eyes wide with concern. "The bioship possesses cloaking technology," her gentle voice resonated through the mind-link, laced with a tremor of worry. "It renders us visually and sensorially undetectable for the duration of transit. Tracking via conventional means is impossible."

"Then you might want to consider the idea that you have a spy," Blazewing snapped, her gaze flicking warily from Team member to Team member, assessing, searching, as if she could psychically discern a traitor amongst them. Cosine shifted uncomfortably, the word 'spy' hitting a raw nerve, a known vulnerability within their ranks, an unspoken fear that gnawed at the edges of their unity.

Crimson Pierce, ever quick to anger, mirrored Blazewing's accusation, his sarcastic drawl laced with genuine irritation. "And it couldn't have been one of *yours*?" he retorted, his red hair practically bristling with indignation.

Blazewing's visible features tightened, her jaw clenching, the lower half of her face hardening into an expression of icy fury. Despite the concealing mask, the Team could feel the temperature in the clearing plummet, an emotional frost radiating outwards from the Qrew representative.

Her voice, when she finally spoke, was like ice given voice, cold fire that burned with contained rage. "Don't you ever insinuate that we have betrayed each other." Crimson Pierce's jaw tightened further, his hands clenching into fists at his sides, visibly biting back a sharp retort.

Kai Norr, ever the peacekeeper, the level head in a storm of teenage volatility, stepped forward, his calm Atlantean presence a stark contrast to the simmering rage emanating from Blazewing and the Team's defensive posture. "Little Apex," he interjected smoothly, his voice a low, calming baritone. "Report. What is approaching?"

"It's Torden," Blazewing answered, her voice clipped, sharp, cutting through Little Apex's mental report before it even fully formed. Her certainty brooked no argument.

Ryo Imir's suspicion flared anew, her distrust a palpable thing in the clearing's tense atmosphere. "How do you know?" she demanded, her voice sharp, accusatory.

Blazewing spared her a disdainful glance, her green eyes flashing with contemptuous impatience. "That bird call?" she stated, her tone dripping with sarcasm, as if addressing a particularly slow-witted child. "

It was a warning system. One call, single note, to warn of a general intruder. Three short bursts, followed by a long warble? That's code for Torden. Basic Qrew perimeter protocol."

Little Apex's voice, calm and factual, amplified Blazewing's claim within the mind-link. *"Confirmed. Hostiles approaching. Approximately twenty individual signatures. Surrounded. Preliminary analysis suggests Ben-Ari's operatives. Standard Torden assassin morphology."* The clinical detachment of his report underscored the gravity of the situation.

Kai Norr glanced from Little Apex to Blazewing, his mind already calculating, strategizing, assessing the rapidly deteriorating situation. He made a snap decision, prioritizing Blazewing's safety, underestimating, perhaps fatally, the Qrew representative standing before him.

"Blazewing," he stated, his tone firm, authoritative, brooking no argument. "You should retreat. Return to your protection detail. The Team will manage this threat. We will re-establish contact when the area is secure."

Blazewing turned towards Kai Norr, her masked face conveying affronted disbelief, an almost comical widening of her visible features. "Are you serious?" she scoffed, incredulity lacing her voice. "*You* want *us* to retreat? Commander Norr, with all due respect, if anyone should be 'staying back'…"

Her gaze swept over the assembled Team, a dismissive, almost pitying look. "It's you. I wouldn't want you 'heroes' to get hurt. In a real fight." Crimson Pierce's hand twitched towards his bow, his face flushing a dangerous red, but before he could unleash his undoubtedly sarcastic retort, Blazewing began to change.

The stark white domino mask seemed to dissolve, not physically shattering, but almost melting away, receding into her skin as her facial features underwent a subtle but dramatic metamorphosis. Her pale skin darkened, shifting to a warm, golden tan, her cheekbones sharpening, becoming more pronounced, more predatory.

Cosine, despite the rising adrenaline, found himself momentarily captivated, a detached scientific curiosity overriding his apprehension. He didn't register the precise shift in her eye color, too focused on the overall transformation, until her entire eye, pupil, iris, sclera, was engulfed in a blinding, glowing white sheen, obscuring all human detail, radiating raw power.

Her light burnt orange hair, moments ago mundane, unremarkable, erupted, not into flame, but *as* flame, vibrant white fire blossoming outwards, licking at the air, crackling with untamed energy. Long, impossibly red and orange blades of feathers erupted from her arms, tearing through the fabric of her mundane clothing, solidifying into iridescent, hawk-like wings.

White fire, no longer contained to her hair, rippled to life around her wrists and ankles, dancing over the clearing's damp earth without igniting the undergrowth. Her ordinary clothes, the jeans and jacket of a nondescript teenager, shimmered, flowed, reforming, solidifying into a sleek, skin-tight black suit, emblazoned with a stylized orange hawk emblem across her chest.

The metamorphosis was complete.

A smirk, sharp, predatory, utterly confident, curved Blazewing's lips, a silent articulation of everything she had been thinking, every scathing dismissal of the Team's underestimation. Without a word, without a further glance at the stunned heroes below, Blazewing launched herself into the air, not merely jumping, but *erupting* upwards, a figure of incandescent fury, white fire trailing in her wake.

She hovered above the clearing, wings beating powerfully, surveying the tree line, a hawk circling its prey. Cosine, adrenaline now surging, his earlier apprehension replaced by a thrill of anticipation, scanned the perimeter as well, finally understanding Blazewing's dismissive confidence. No matter what she'd said, no matter how much she clearly disdained them, he wasn't about to stand back and let her face an army of Torden assassins alone.

Before Cosine could even pinpoint a single enemy, before any of the Team could fully process the breathtaking display of power that had just unfolded, Blazewing unleashed her fury. A torrent of blinding white fire erupted from her outstretched hands, a focused blast of pure energy incinerating a dense clump of trees at the edge of the clearing, where Cosine now registered, with a jolt, shadowy figures had begun to materialize.

Ben-Ari's assassins. As the assassins, caught completely off guard, scattered, desperately diving for cover, Blazewing, with a subtle flex of her wings, a barely perceptible shift in her aerial posture, mentally *pushed* the searing white fire, redirecting the blast, a wave of pure incineration seeking out their retreating forms with terrifying precision.

The assassins, elite Torden operatives, trained to face metahumans, masters of stealth and combat, were utterly, devastatingly outmatched. They hit the ground hard, not in controlled evasive maneuvers, but collapsing, ragdoll limp, clothes smoking, the air thick with the acrid scent of burnt fabric and ozone.

Bodies lay scattered, unmoving, silent testament to Blazewing's overwhelming power. The clearing fell utterly silent, the only sound the crackling embers of the incinerated trees and the soft beat of Blazewing's fiery wings as she settled back to the ground, landing with a dancer's delicate grace, the white fire around her wrists and ankles now controlled, contained, no longer a raging inferno, but a simmering, contained power.

The Team watched, frozen, wide-eyed, a tableau of stunned awe. Ryo Imir and Crimson Pierce both stood with their bows raised, grips white-knuckled, but neither had yet nocked an arrow, their movements arrested mid-action. Cosine, batarang still spinning between his fingers, felt a surge of conflicting emotions: shock, respect, a dawning sense of… intimidation.

*That* was a Qrew meta. Not some underworld thug, not some power-crazed villain, but something… else. Something formidable. Kai Norr, ever the strategist, remained outwardly impassive, his face unreadable, but Regurei, linked to his leader's mind, sensed a rapid recalculation of tactical parameters, a silent reassessment of the Qrew, and, most significantly, of Blazewing herself.

The air hung thick with the smell of burnt fabric and ozone, the silence amplifying the shift in power dynamics, the unspoken question hanging heavy in the air: who exactly, was allying with whom?

The downed assassins… they seemed almost too easy to defeat. Cosine frowned beneath his mask, scanning the unmoving forms, a prickle of unease now joining the awe and intimidation. Ben-Ari's assassins were supposed to be elite, formidable. Yet Blazewing had dispatched them with… effortless ease.

Too effortless?

Was this some kind of staged demonstration?

An elaborate power play designed to intimidate, to impress? He couldn't shake the feeling that something was off, a subtle discordance beneath the surface of Blazewing's overwhelming display.

Ryo Imir lowered her bow slowly, deliberately, her white eyes never leaving Blazewing, suspicion still a live wire thrumming beneath her stoic facade. Crimson Pierce, jaw clenched tight, arms still raised, mirrored her cautious stance, annoyance warring with a grudging respect in his narrowed gaze.

Miss J'onn floated closer to Cosine, her gentle presence a silent question mark, a shared unease unspoken between them. Kai Norr remained motionless, an impassive statue, but Regurei could feel the subtle shift in his leader's mental state, the gears of his strategic mind already whirring, processing, adapting to this new, volatile dynamic.

Blazewing stood amidst the smoking remains of her attack, wings still flared, white fire licking at the air around her, her posture radiating challenge, expectation, and a lingering, palpable mistrust. The uneasy silence stretched, heavy with unspoken questions, unresolved suspicions, and the undeniable, awe-inspiring reality of Blazewing's power.

The alliance, if it could even be called that anymore, had begun, not with diplomacy, not with trust, but with a blaze of fury, and a chilling, lingering question: what now?