14: War of the Worlds

From her perch atop the tower of the near-wrecked tall building, Sophie watched the others in her team moving through and around Rittenhouse Square.
“Comm check,” team leader Noritaka Ashida said. She got responses from Colossus, Alchemy, Dust, Firestar and Wind Dancer.
“What do you have Dancer?”
“Yeah where are you Soph?” Shakeel called out over the comm.
“Damn it Dust, codenames only.”
“I am on top of the wreckage of St Patrick's Catholic Church.”
“Which one’s that?” Illyana asked quietly, “Every other building in this town is a ye-bat church of some kind.”
“Behind and to your left sister.”
“You can see me Dancer?”
“Oh yes. I can see you all.”
One of theirs out on point, that would be Thomas. To the left and right of her some distance back were two more, and their scout… he had lost sight of Noritaka shortly after they had entered downtown. In the distance in Kensington not only could she see the giant forms of the war machines she could hear them smashing their way through the wreckage of the city. Fires burned and there was little other illumination. As Nori unexpectedly vanished from view the comms died.
.oO(Who knew the Martians were capable of jamming tight beam radio signals), Thomas thought.
Their eye in the sky had been accurate, there were three Tripods advancing from the East, they were dropping black smoke.
Ahead of the team Thomas saw the remnants of a yet another church and he moved forwards. Where the hell was Nori. He had just passed through a patch of red weed. It was very thick and spongy, and a lot thicker than they had seen up to now. Still staring ahead Thomas kept lookout. It was less than a minute later that he saw humanoid shapes rising up out of the red weed and heading towards them.
‘Guys we have incoming,’ Thomas called out.
People in shabby Victorian garb ran, spooked by the sudden emergence they were swamped and dragged under, innocents were being killed by the Martian’s pet weed. He sped that way to try and help, the weed fed on blood and people were the only source of that round here. Illyana had the same idea but was engulfed by a wave of weed and dragged beneath it.
A massive trumpeting tore the air and a three legged war machine reared up, and the team’s heavy hitters instantly moved into action as they had planned. Dust ran shifting into his sand form as he advanced on the machine. He went straight for it, the weak points in any suit of armour were the joints, and that was where he concentrated his attacks. Firestorm unleashed fiery fury from range against the main body of the thing, hopefully blinding the sensors, assuming they had them. Wind Dancer whipped up hurricane force winds that tore wreckage and debris from the ground slamming it into the underside of the monster.
Thomas could see the tracery of red tendrils running through a victim’s skin, they were hard to miss as the cadaver was riddled with the loathsome weed. He vapourised anything that came near him to helium as that structure was simple and easy to keep in mind.
Lightning arced and flashed through the ground ahead of him and Noritaka tore up through the bed of weed. Covered in blood and gore he was furious. “My hair is frigging ruined,” Nori roared.