Anna rested her face on the cool glass of the window. Her breath fogged the glass, as she breathed shallowly upon it. She was tired, very tired. She pulled the shawl tighter around her shoulders.
A gentle rain started to fall on the glass, just past her nose. It was a dark night out there, cold, wet.
Anna wasn't sure what she was looking at. It wasn't the City, wherever this place was. She didn't recognize the streets, the street signs were different. Where was this place?
She looked up, into the falling rain, and saw a flash of bright crimson streaking across the night sky, high above, speeding her way. As the crimson streak grew closer, Anna could see it was a woman up there, flying through the rainy, dark sky.
Anna wiped away the fog on the glass with the side of her hand.
High above, the woman spread her arms, revealing long feathered wings, catching the wind currents. The woman angled herself slightly, soaring above Anna.
"That's the Hawk," Anna heard a man's voice behind her.
Anna just nodded. The Hawk.
Suddenly, the sky exploded with a bright light. Anna could hear the Hawk shriek from high above. She saw the woman begin to tumble down from the night sky, her body limp.
"Looks like he's caught her," the man said again.
Anna pressed her face to the glass, squinting up into the rain. The Hawk spread her wings, catching some wind weakly, slowing but not stopping her fall. She began to spiral down, landing in a crumpled heap of body and wing on the cold street outside of Anna's window.
The Hawk did not get up.
"No," Anna whispered.
A single bobbing white light appeared through the rain, a motorcycle. Heading directly towards where the Hawk lay.
The Hawk struggled to get to her knees.
The motorcycle sped to where the Hawk knelt, her long wings wet across the pavement. The light cut off as the man turned the engine off.
He was a large, heavily muscled man, wearing a motorcycle helmet that obscured his face and a leather jacket.
Two long metal coils snaked from his forearms, twisting around in the air, with cruel metal pincers at the end of each of them. Another metal coil bobbed over his head from under his jacket, jabbing into the night, a sharp and wicked barb at the tip.
The Hawk limped to her feet, facing the man. She said something that Anna couldn't hear.
The man just stood there, his coils twisting, pulsing, grabbing at the night, the clawed ends snapping at nothing.
"He calls himself the Scorpion," the man said from behind Anna. "You probably haven't heard of him, he's not from the City, neither is she. He's a piece of shit, a real asshole, but she's in over her head."
The Hawk let out a piercing shriek, hurting Anna's ears even from behind the window, slicing across Anna's brain with a blinding, white hot burst of pain. Anna covered her ears with her hands tightly, shaking her head as if to throw away the ringing.
But the man didn't seem to care at all. He didn't so much as flinch.
The Hawk turned and leapt into the sky, spreading her wings, flying quickly up into the rain.
But the Scorpion threw out one of the metal coils and caught the Hawk by one of her ankles. She cried out as he jerked her back down to the pavement, hard, with a single powerful pull.
She struggled to get up, letting out another of her ear-splitting shrieks, the metal coil wrapping itself up one leg.
The other metal arm shot out and cracked across the Hawk's face, cutting the shriek off. The coil wrapped around her neck, and the two metal arms began to drag the Hawk towards him roughly across the pavement.
The Hawk pulled uselessly at the coil wrapped around her throat, struggling to free herself as she was dragged helplessly to the man's feet.
She looked up, her eyes wide, as the metal stinger bobbed above the Scorpion's head. Without a word, the stinger sliced down, impaling the Hawk with its sharp barb.
And just that quickly, it was all over. The Hawk went limp, defeated and helpless.
The Scorpion took his motorcycle helmet off, the rain washing across his tattooed face, evil jags of color slashing across his eyes.
The Scorpion used his metal arm to lift the Hawk into the air, suspending her there. She hung limply. The other coil slid itself from around her leg.
"Your sonic shriek worked on me once, bitch," the Scorpion said to his defeated foe. "But this time, I had a helmet that doesn't allow sound in. How stupid do you think I am for that to work twice?"
But she didn't answer. The free metal coil cut the straps away from her glider wings, discarding them to the side, crashing in the street.
"Please, no," Anna whispered, pressing her nose up to the glass of the window.
The Scorpion laughed cruelly. His metal claws began to slice the Hawk's outfit apart, cutting it into slivers, exposing her breasts, her belly, her legs.
"I've wanted this for a long time," the Scorpion whispered in the rain. He wrapped his metal arm around the Hawk's other wrist, suspending the helpless woman high in the air.
He began to pull her towards him. He reached down with his hand, unbuckling his belt, pulling out his erect cock.
"He's going to rape her!" Anna exclaimed.
"Yes, he is," the man behind her said quietly. "You can stop it, though."
Anna turned around.
"How?"
Anna blinked to be able to see in the darkness.
He
was back there, the Detective, sitting on a chair. His head was high above Anna's, long, bobbing on a long neck. His arms were long and slender, hanging limply on the ground at his feet.
