Without thinking, Hawk's wings snapped in close to his body. For a brief moment he was not flying, he was merely hanging in midair--and then he was dropping, fast and tight towards the ground. He funneled the air through the crooks of his wings and flung him in an arc back around towards the soldiers crouched by the cars, and when the ground was sickeningly close he threw his wings open to slow himself, swinging his legs forward--

He collided heavily with the soldier who held the grenade--feet first, knees compressing to absorb the shock, easy--flattening him with a thump against the side of a patrol car. His riot helmet broke the window. He lost his grip on the glass grenade, which spun inches from Hawk's nose, filling itself with a bright, angry light.

The other two soldiers had not seen Hawk, had not expected the sudden shock of a human-shaped body dropping into their midst with wings and tail feathers fanned out wide, and they failed to do anything about it as he scrambled up over the top of the police car. The grenade's furious light was getting brighter and hotter, and Hawk wasn't sure what the light was but he knew what grenades did, generally.

He left one soldier slumped and stunned on the ground, and the other two spinning round to watch him wing desperately into the air from the top of the police car, climbing as fast as he could, the light of the grenade bleaching his wingtips from below.