BOREAS

KSSHHH!

Ventilation activated as Guise held one of the men who'd littered this fox hole up in the air. His suit hummed, carefully regulating the temperature inside versus the temperature out. The man's eyes bulged even from what little force he was allowing his nitranium suit to exert; just enough to knock him out without the need to give him irrevocable frostbite. 

As soon as his eyes rolled back and he fell limp, the omega carefully set him on the ground. A notification sound inside his high-tech helmet let him know comms were coming through. 

"You don't gotta be so gentle, Boreas." G-Force said. 

Guise brought a hand up to tap his comms on. He ended up using a subtler button near the back of his helmet's jaw line. 

"Yes, I do. I'm in my full nitranium set. One wrong move, and I'll snap his neck."

"So?" G-Force replied, "what's the big deal if a villain or two dies while we're cleaning house?"

Anger bubbled inside him at the blatant disregard for human life. They were both nationally acclaimed heroes with Apex, but it was abundantly clear the pair of them could not be any different. Guise had a sense of morals. G-Force didn't. Teaming up with this guy always put him in a dry mood. 

"Perimeter clear. Not sensing any other movement, and ANNA says there aren't any signs of life aside from the ones we already took out."

"Boo, you whore." 

This guy really was the worst. If Matt were here, he would have—ugh!

Pain flew through his insides again, and without thinking, he grabbed his chest. ANNA, the built in software Apex used to run their mechanized super suits, blared a warning signal about his hormones releasing at dangerous quantities. G-Force got the notification, considering they were partners in this job, so they shared active statuses.

"Whoa, dude. Sorry. Look, I—"

"There's nothing left to do here. Call the cops and get Apex to request payment. I've got somewhere else to be."

"... You sure you don't wanna stop my HQ and go to medical first? It looks like—"

"I'm okay. Really. I'm muting my comms for a bit. Radio silence mode only. I'm gonna head through these ruins and take another look."

"Hold on, you're gonna do what? Shit. Are you still looking for what's-his-face? That mysterious dude of yours that you were spazzing out about three weeks ago—"

Beep. 

The sound of a smooth, sensual female voice calmed Guise's increasingly frayed nerves. "Call ended," ANNA said. 

"Radio silence on. Import known map. Scan and ping my loc every two minutes."

"Understood. Specified parameters loading," a pause, "settings applied successfully. Radio Silence mode is now on."

"Thanks, ANNA."

Kindness to robots. It felt silly, but now that he wasn't worried about someone overhearing, he could talk to himself all he liked. Heavy industrial nitranium boots dug easily into the rubble beneath them. It wasn't incredibly unstable or made of paper mache; it's just Apex was the number one hero agency in Illinois for a reason. And part of that reason was the billions they spent on top-of-line nitranium hero suits. 

So it almost felt as though he was walking on sand whenever he visited these ruins of the levelled city they once called Chicago. Activating his propulsion system and engaging his own momentum, frigid air blasted through his suit and exited specialized sections on his feet. The ground froze under him and the grips of his boots sharpened. 

Creating an ice path for himself, Guise skated through the decimated pen that this small-time villain org once called home. He twisted and dodged broken pillars and caved in walls with practiced, graceful ease, creating ice ramps to cross gaps through the partially collapsed high-rise building. 

"Approaching a steep drop off," ANNA said, "I advise caution."

Yeah. Maybe if Guise wasn't raising hell through this sector whenever he got the chance. But caution could, respectfully, suck it. Boreas increased the speed with which he skated through the building, crouching into a professional speed-skating position just as he saw the building cut off completely. 

Half of it was gone. Probably went down when the kid they knew as Chaotiq had gotten caught up in the war around here. It was decades ago, but Chaotiq was number 4 on the American National ranking of villains for a reason. That guy's ability was as mysterious as it is brutal, and it often left entire swathes of the city flattened in a matter of minutes. 

Reaching dangerous speeds with the help of his ability, Guise threw a hand out and created a massive ice ramp before he tucked his arms behind him and simply launched off the side of the building. 

"ANNA, environmental scan!" 

Another sound in the affirmative as the visor that made up the entire inside of his helmet—essentially a screen showing the views from the cameras mounted all over his body—popped up messages about a scan in progress. Flying through the open air against the graveyard that had once been a business and financial district, Guise took a massive risk and neither moved nor made any efforts to catch himself as he descended. 

Better scans this way—what with the higher elevation and constant flow of movement, although ANNA started yelling at him moments later. 

"Collision course detected—speed over 142 MPH. Damage to the suit pilot is imminent. Please correct—"

His teeth grit painfully as he started feeling the force behind his speed; "can it, ANNA!" 

So annoying. There had to be another villain org nestled in the toppled buildings and miles of abandoned infrastructure somewhere. Whoever took Matt could be under his nose, and he's willing to risk death to get a proper scan if it meant finding him. 

"Scan complete. Compiling data—"

"Manual control mode!"

He was getting dangerously close to a building that was shifted so far sideways; Guise imagined this was what the Leaning Tower of Pisa looked like before it got used as a landing pad for a supe. That thing got crushed into oblivion in a matter of blinks. 

Throwing out his arms and shifting himself into a spin, Guise began creating ice chunks under his feet. Ones that, whilst free falling with him, would slow his moment and ease his descent. All the same, the closer he got to the side of the building, the more ice he threw. Creating a spiralling ramp, the hero used one more blast of ice and snow to bugger up his fall before he activated his propulsion system again. 

He'd either slowed enough that he'd land safely onto the ice to skate down, or his construct would shatter under the weight of his nitranium suit. Even with counter propulsion. The numbers were shifting too rapidly for him to keep up, so he simply prayed. However, he used his suit's systems to stop his body from spinning just in time. 

"Hrk!"

The first two sections of the spiral ramp he created exploded in flurries of ice and shards under him. But that's why he made it a spiral. The thing was thick enough that, after he'd collided and blasted through a couple of tiers, Guise caught his footing. Off balance to all hell and brute forcing himself to stay upright, he hissed with exertion while he manually got himself stable and skated down the thing properly. 

Seconds later, he launched off his frozen parachute and reactivated the treads in his boots. Sure, it shredded the metal and concrete that was the side of an old American skyscraper, but with some careful maneuvers, he avoided any large windows and came to a stop. Nitranium couldn't stop it from wrenching his limbs all the same. 

With the building effectively gouged behind him where his treads had torn through them to slow down, Guise rammed his clawed hand into the side of the building. Scraps of debris exploded out as he started falling downward instead of sideways with the building, but eventually, his gloves got hooked in enough that he could create an ice platform to catch himself. 

Breathing as though he'd run a marathon without the aid of a super suit, Guise struggled to catch his breath through a laugh. It wasn't as though that was fun, it's just—well. He laughs when he's stressed. Puts on a wide, alluring smile that made everyone flock his way as though everything was fine. And right now, everything is not fine. 

Breathless and clinging to the side of a ruined building with the afternoon sun swiftly melting his ice, Guise had to hurry this up. 

"Status?" 

"Complex substructures and debris detected. Environmental scan compilation is at 24%."

The blond groaned, instinctively lifting a hand to run through his locks. All it did was clunk metallically against his helmet. 

"Hormonal distribution remains imbalanced. Seek medical intervention before—"

"Skip."

"Twenty missed messages from G-Force—"

"Skip!"

"No new correspondence with HQ."

"Why do you always have to interrupt me randomly with the contents of my inbox?" the side of his helmet met with the ruined building as he leaned against it with exasperation. 

"Two missed calls from civilian lines."

Guise stiffened. 

"Sorry?"

"Two missed calls from—"

"Yeah, I got that already. Display name and number," he replied. Glowering at his screen transformed into a wide-eyed stare of alarm as a name he hadn't been expecting to see today wrote itself across his vision. 

Giovanni Schmidt.

"Return call, private line!" 

Had Gio heard something? He wouldn't call him while he was working if he hadn't. His hormones jumped further into the red, but he ignored them. It was just a stress response. He'd been losing his mind since—

The call stopped ringing, and a smooth, deep voice that was made for jazz radio or movies filled him with more relief than he thought possible. 

"Guise?"

"It's me. Sorry I missed your calls."

"Hey, don't worry about it. I'm just glad to hear from you. I'm watching the news right now—they said you and G-Force cleared out that aval distribution den."

"Yeah. There's enough product in there to kill half the supe population in Bastion from the overdoses alone."

Giovanni whistled. 

"Seriously? That's—no, forget it. They said you cleared it, but it looks like G-Force is taking all the credit. He's doing the post interview by himself. I needed to tell you something, so when I didn't see you, and you didn't pick up, I almost got on my motorcycle to come find you myself."

*What? No, seriously, buddy. I'm okay. I just—I'm…"

His brief, stuttering excuses died in his throat when he realized Apex would be furious at him for missing a photo and a press op—for personal reasons. Sheepish eyes scanned the scarred horizon as he added more ice to the platform that was keeping him up. 

"... Hanging out?"

"Do I even wanna know what that means?"

"Probably not. What's up? Did the cops find anything on Matt?"

"... Not exactly."

"Not exactly what?"

"I can't say. Even if we're on a private network."

Guise accidentally smacked his helmet for a second time today. "Please, if you know anything about Matt, just tell me—"

"I said we can't talk about it on the phone, not that we can't talk at all. How fast can you get to Matt's place from the Dead District?"

Oh. 

"Fast. Thirty minutes. No, twenty."

"... How fast can you get to Matty's place without bringing an entire camera crew with you because they saw Apex's golden boy skating through the streets?"

For fuck sakes.

"Give me an hour."

"Don't let anyone see that it's you. Nik says you need to use the roof access."

Guise's heart almost stopped, and he sputtered like he'd just received piping hot tea. 

"Nik? As in McTeer? Our old army doctor?"

"Yeah. Small world, huh?"

"What's he—" no. Guise understood why they couldn't speak over comms anymore. "Never mind. Give me an hour. I need to ditch my suit. Call me if something goes wrong." 

"Right. I'll keep an eye out for you, buddy."

"Be safe. And don't touch anything the cops still have tapped off."

Gio's melodic laughter made him smile to himself. 

"Got it. I'm hanging up now."

"Bye," Guise blurted out with mock offense, just as ANNA cut the line. 

Compilation was at 49%. Loathe as he was to leave before he could check this sector out, Guise knew better than to ignore a summons from the Doc and Giovanni. 

"ANNA, plot route to the nearest APEX mobile drop-off station."

"Calculating… route found. Navigate now?"

"Yes."