The streets of the empire state

Sage stepped out of the doors of the tiny apartment complex he lived in. Working as a bellboy was a sucky job but it had it's advantages at least: like the pay that was sufficient for what food he needed and some of the better essentials of living; the free room didn't hurt either. Today though, he wasn't working, he was going to the shopping centerto pick up something nice with the funds he had scraped together.

As he walked along the sidewalk through the crowds pushing to get into the various stores, he thought about what the freakshow might be doing. But it wasn't really the time to be so meloncolly, not when the blinding lights and the billboards were blaring out at him. Nothing was subtle here, everything was over exaggerated and all the shops looked like they would burst from all the customers who crowded into them. Sage stopped by a window and looked inside at all the halloween gear inside.

He was a bit saddened that he couldn't be part of the masses, carefree and worrying only about what the neighborhood kids bought just to out do them. He was on a budget and was determined to get something nice for the freakshow and for himself, mainly some props for them and a new laptop for the freakshow headquarters. Etrius had pitched in and brought an old computer tower while Sam fixed it up and upgraded both the RAM, storage, and graphics card. James had saved up from his job and gotten a large monitor and a new mouse, while the rest of the freakshow also bought assorted other things as well.

Now it was James's turn to contribute, as he stopped outside the computer store, he counted what funds he had and looked inside at everything that was on sale. Come to think of it, there was a two way radio set for just ten bucks, maybe if he had some money left over, hecould spend stuff on that too.

Sage walked down the old, deserted sidewalk with the new computer tucked under his arm. He had gotten one of the good ones, not one of the cheap netbook things that were all the rage nowadays. Suddenly a girl ran out of the alley about half a block down all battered up and with a dog running behind her.

Sage wondered what was happening and wondered what was happening when a large hellhound jumped out and startled him, causing the laptop to slip from his hands and hit the ground. Luckily the thing was armored like a tank and all the crucial stuff was already home; this did not under any circumstances lessen Sage's sudden anger. The sudden noise caused the hellhound to turn and snarl at Sage.

Quick as a flash, a knife came out and the Celestial Bronze blade glistened as it reflected the light from the street behind him. "God! You're gonna pay for that, real bad." yelled Sage as his scowl lent him and heir of anger and sheer pissed offness. The wind began to pick up and the sea breeze blew in, surrounding the son of the master of the four winds, swirling around and forming into massive shimmering wings. The wings unfurled to their glorious 3.5 meters and flapped once, sending their master up to the fourth story of the buildings around them.

With the knife held dagger style, the angel held his position and began calculating the optimal flight pattern to score the most efficient kill.

Sage ascended several meters and readied his knife and held it dagger style, recalculating his trajectory. The Dog thing was getting its butt wooped by the hellhound so it was probably about time to do something about it. He held the knife close to his body and made an upward loop before divebombing at the hellhound. "Banzai!!" he yelled, as he got near the top of the building and came down hard. After reaching a screeching velocity of 30 meters per second, he flipped over and brought his food down as hard as he could on the hound's head. The impact sent a small shockwave through the surrounding air and cracked the hound's skull.

But enough was not enough, oh no. Sage used his inertia to bring the knife right down into the hound's eye, permanently blinding it. The hound collapsed under the impact. "Yeah! Thats what you get!"

Sage looked at the girl out of the corner of his eye as he watched the hellhound, the limp form lay still and appeared to be dead. "Well, only one way to find out." He said as he placed the knife once more on top of the beast's head, then drove his foot down, ramming the knife through the remnants of the skull and into it's brain. The monster disintegrated into nothingness and he used his wings to float gently to the ground. He picked up the knife and then walked over to pick up the computer lying on the ground, examining the scratches on the exterior casing.

"So miss winged thief. Is it just the hound or are there cops too?" Suddenly, a crackle on his two way radio brought his attention to focus on Annie's voice that floated out. "Hey, dude! You are so lucky that i'm looping the feed on this thing."

A security camera swiveled up and down to indicate what was happening.

"Annie, how long is the loop gonna last for?" Asked Sage into the radio, and staring suspiciously at the security camera. "Well, the looped feed should last another half hour until the system restart ... Who's your friend? She's cute."

Sage couldn't help but smile as he flipped the bird at the camera "No, we just met at the party. now i can't really talk."
"jeez, that's rude, i'll see you back at base after ... Marie out."

When the radio crackled off, Sage turned to the girl and grinned. "Well as long as that loop is active, that camera is showing an empty street." He walked over to her and bent down a little so he was at eye level and put away the knife without looking. He crossed his arms behind his back and cocked his head. "What's wrong darling? You look like you just saw your grave being dug for ya."

Sage cocked his head in the other direction ans took note when she began muttering something about not natural. "What do you mean by unnatural?" he asked, and straightened up. He slowly unfolded his wings to their full glorious length of 12 feet, the feathers glistened as more and more air was processed to extend and expand them. An excess feather fell off and was caught deftly. "You mean these?" He asked, holding the glittering feather up for the girl to see more clearly.

"C'mon, you've never seen an angel before? Don't worry dear, I haven't seen one either."

Sage smiled and playfully waved the feather around in front of the girl's face, lightly brushing it across her nose at one time. "What am I? Hmm, that is a very good question. You see, I am something called a demigod, but still a very strange one at that." He began explaining and then took the time to look at the dog and flapped his wings a bit to ruffle it's hair. "While most demi-gods look like humans, my power is a rather unique one that actually changes my physical body. And what are you reaching for that knife thing for? I don't bite." He said flicking the feather up and allowing it to drift in the air for a while.

Sage contracted his wings to a length of 3 feet and folded them over his back. To any mortal, the wings would look like a sling style binder, but since it was compressed against his body, it probably wasn't going to show up much at all. As he followed the girl, he held the laptop loosely in his free swinging hand but held it close to his body in any case. "Umm ... Where are we going?"

Sage didn't even bother asking about what was happening, as he put both on and got on the rear seat of the motor bike and reactivated the two way radio.
"Torra! Do you read?"
"Yeah, I read. What is it now."
"Code blue, precious cargo is winged thief. Estimate three squad cars and they sound mean."
"How did you? ... Gawd Sierra, you and your escapades. Alright, CMs between your loco and the eppy are wack. I'm fuzzing up their chatterboxes now, so get moving. Torra out."
Sage put away the radio and tucked the laptop into a carry case which he had fortunately not dropped during the fight. He didn't know if she got the gist of the conversation, secrecy was a number one priority around other demi-gods but the code wasn't a completely foreign language. Although to most other campers it might as well have been.

Occ- LETS GET READY TO RUMBLE!
BIC-

The motorcycle revved to life underneath Zen.
The paint was glistening in the foggy light. She put her helmet on and pushed out of the ally into traffic. She bent low over the handles and barely turned her head to view the five cop cars behind her.
She swore again and whet over the speed limit by at least 50 miles, the motor cycle sage, and her were a blur.
RED LIGHT! She sped through traffic- cutting through the red light.

Sage let off a stream of cussing fit to burn through rebarb as the crazy dame nearly got them killed, dodging through traffic. The radio crackled to life as Annie began relaying information that she was recieving from the cameras she had hacked. "Guys! two more cars heading your way about two kilometers upspin." Sage held on for dear life as his head was whipped around by the minuscule bumps in the road that at this speed, felt like miniature ramps. "Roadblock up ahead, they got a high pressure water cannon. Alleyway approaching in three ... two ... one ... GO LEFT!!"

Sage stepped off the bike and removed the helmet as he sought to regain his balance. It wasn't as if he hadn't suffered worse, the skidder was worse if not by much and that was only used in times of emergency. "Yeah, I'm fine." He said as the world seemed to stop spinning "Nice to meet you Zen, name's Sage . . . I don't really know what's going on right now, but this chick here" he pointed at the radio strapped to his belt. "This chick here is Annie, callsign Torra, she's the one doing something with the cops. I don't know, ask her."

Sage pulled off the jacket as he watched Zen attended to something that seemed important. He noticed the slight wince as the girl moved her arm, definitely a seam fracture from structural stress. "Why was I in the alley? It was a shorter way to my destination." He tapped on the carrying case that the laptop was stowed in before pulling out a small dispenser from which he gave her a very small pill. "I don't think I should be telling you what my destination was but anyway, here's a painkiller I got from my friend, I don't know how but it accelerates the healing process."

Sage smiled at the dog and the girl bending down to greet it. "Nice pet." he said before there was a slight flapping. He looked up and there was his little sparrow with it's combat claws on and holding a rolled up paper in it's mouth which it dropped into Sage's waiting hand. He opened up the paper and read it before letting the sparrow land on his shoulder and snuggle up in his pulled back hood. "gawd, I hate deployment orders."