Fire And Lightning

It’s the third Thursday of the month so we’ve got another bit of story for all of you. This is another excerpt from Junction City. A bit of a prequel story and if you look closely you can identify which character this is a prequel for. I do hope you enjoy this brief glimpse into my super hero setting. Enjoy!

Fire And Lightning

Volt pushed himself through the air, soaring over the Potomac river with azure columns of light pouring out his back. High enough to keep the immense sound of his ion thrusters from disturbing the night but low enough so that he could see people along the shore or roof tops. Many pointed at him in astonishment, a few were probably jeering but more and more were waving so he waved back.

It was exhausting, people like Christian made this look easy, but for Volt, pouring out the power to keep three hundred pounds of titanium steel soaring through the air was like running a marathon. Of course Christian has wings, and isn’t wrapped in the most advanced personal armor developed by a human being.

Still the nightly patrols were making the people of Old Washington more, and more used to his presence and by extension the presence of super beings in general so it was worth the mild exhaustion.

A flash of light drew his attention to the west, it was followed immediately by a blast of ash gray smoke and another, greater blast of light as tongues of flame lapped at the sky. The sound of the explosion hit him next, a deep roar mixed with the sound of crumbling stone and tortured steel. All thoughts of exhaustion were cast aside as he poured toward the scene of the explosion praying it was something he could do something about and fearing it was something he would need to.

“Emergencies,” he ordered the simple A.I. that assisted in running his armor.

The emergency radio band flooded his helmet, the overlapping voices of first responders and dispatchers struggling to make sense of the disaster bouncing around his head. Most of it was a repetition of the same few facts. Responders inbound. Civilians in need of help. Hospitals being told to expect casualties. But one transmission stuck out above all the rest. //Unconfirmed reports of a super human. We may have some super powered pyro!//

Damn, he broke into the E.M.S. frequencies with the titan override protocols. “This is Volt! I am seconds from the scene. Establish a cordon and await my signal that the situation is clear.”

All conversation stopped as though it had collided with a wall.

//Ladder Forty-Seven doesn’t recognize the authority of some devolved—//

“I am a titan,” he snarled. “You will recognize my authority or you will suffer my authority. Clear the air Ladder Forty-Seven.”

The armor flashed a warning as the altimeter screamed toward zero and Volt directed the ion jets beneath him charring the pavement and creating his own circle of rising ash. Volt took a moment to release the mounting anger and shifted his gaze to the nearest responder, a man with a medallion on his breast that said ‘Captain J. Freeman’. The man was barking a near endless stream of orders into a radio. “I assume you’re in charge.”

The man paused to look up at Volt, a sneer tugging at the edge of his lips. “No, I thought you were in charge now.”

Volt made sure to turn off the speakers when he sighed. “Sit-rep.”

The responder aimed the radio at the burning building. “Gas and electricity are off. I got four guys ready to go in and actually help people … when you’re ready.”

“Actually?”

He pointed the radio at Volt’s armored fist. “What are you going to do, punch the fire?”

Volt closed his fist, allowing electricity to run across his knuckles. “You’d be surprised what I can do. You four, follow me. You, keep the radio open, I’ll contact you when I need you to do something.”

Volt marched to the door and whispered into the suite. “You have the radio band H.A.P.I.?”

“Confirmed,” responded the A.I.

The fire went out, like a candle snuffed by the wind.

“What the—”

Great fists of flame punched through the front doors and windows to send burning debris and molten glass hurtling through the air.

Volt slammed his fists together erecting an azure wall of energy to absorb the rain of fiery debris. “Let’s go!”

Four sets of boots followed after him as he charged into the burning building, the sound of tortured wood and horrified screams clawed at the air.

“First floor is clear,” said one of the firemen as they raced to the burning remains of the stairwell.

Volt wondered how they could have known but noticed the thermal imaging goggles. Smart. “Up or down?”

The guy looked down the blazing tunnel and reared back as though struck.

“I assume it’s hot down there, up?”

The guy shook his head then looked up. “Three, maybe four.”

“What is that?” asked one of the other fireman pointing at the wall. “That doesn’t make sense.”

The flames weren’t rippling, not in a normal fashion. They waved back and forth, all the flames pushing and pulling in perfect synchronization like tides drawn by the moon. Yes it does.

Volt took another look at the burning remains of the stairs, the firefighters might be able to ascend but he certainly couldn’t. The stairs down into the basement were far more damaged then the ones going up. “You go up, whatever caused this went down.”

The firefighters charged up the stairs.

The sound of a startled scream warred with that of tearing lumber as the stairs gave way.

Volt slid forward, catching the falling firefighter and using his ion jets to suspend them in the air. “You good?”

“I am now,” they breathed.

Volt ascended, depositing the firefighter on the next level. The four threw Volt a quick salute and continued up the stairs.

Volt went down.

Warning tones climbed in pitch as Volt descended into the conflagration. Fire crawled around the room like snakes, turning the timber to ash and the brick to coal. In the center stood a figure of flame. It reached out a hand and wailed, “get away!”

A tidal wave of fire washed over Volt dragging him backward and sending wisps of steam rising from his armor.

“No,” she shouted. “Sorry! Run! Plea—”

Whatever she intended to say next was lost in a howl of pain and a wash of light.

“Suite compromised,” warned H.A.P.I.

Molten metal bleed from his arms, I can see that.

“Please, I tried. I can’t—”

“It’s O.K. I’m fine. I can help you.”

“How can you?” she ragged, waves of fire rolling about her feet. “No one can!”

“I can, I can help you control this.”

The fire dimmed, it’s writhing slowing for a moment. Then the waves began to push and pull with greater and greater speed as the girl began hyperventilating.

Volt threw his arms wide projecting a dome of energy about them just before another titanic blast of fire erupted from the girl. He could feel bits of his armor fly apart as molten steel spattered to the floor creating bubbling pools of silver.

“Structural integrity severally compromised,” informed H.A.P.I.

Volt lifted his right arm and saw the bubbling hole that had been blasted through it, he could feel rents all over his armor and the motors in his left arm seizing as he tried to examine the emitters on the back of his fist. Ya think?

“You’re,” began the young girl, drawing his attention back to her.

“Yes,” answered Volt, now he could see the vague outline of her face. Twin pools of white acted as eyes, a slash of dark red flame opened and closed as a mouth and a rippling corona of gold framed her head like hair caught in a terrible wind. “Now, will you trust me?”

Like a flame guttering for just a moment, she nodded.

“Good. H.A.P.I. connect with the captain.”

“Link established but it won’t last long in this inferno.”

“Understood. Captain Freeman, you read?”

//Yeah//

“Is the building clear?”

//Everyone but you an the pyro, everyone alive at least//

The girl shuddered, wrapping the writhing snakes she called arms about herself. The flames in the room trembled and Volt was certain the flames all through the building were doing so as well.

“Captain,” he continued. “Restore power to the building.”

//Are you nuts? That’s--//

“Now, captain, I haven’t time to explain.”

//I will not---//

“Unless you want to loose this city BLOCK you will!”

There was a long moment of silence. //Fine, but whatever happens is on your head titan//

Volt stepped out of his armor, more through his armor, flowing through the rents and holes to stand before the girl a ragging storm of electricity amids a world of flame.

“Wow,” breathed the girl.

Volt suppressed a smile but understood the feeling. There were few super humans like them who could transform into beings of energy. He lifted one hand and poured power into his suite, without him powering it he’d have to rely on the batteries to sustain it for a short while. “H.A.P.I. get the suite out of here.”

“Understood,” responded the A.I. causing the suite to lumber away and make one powerful leap up to the second floor.

Volt returned his attention to the girl. “I can teach you a lot, I can teach you how to control this, but right now I can only teach you how to stop this.” He extended a hand, “do you trust me?”

She reached forward, her fingers hovering inches away before finally touching his palm. It was the lightest touch at first, no doubt she expected to harm him, but when he didn’t pull away she wrapped her fingers around his hand and squeezed. Squeezed as though she had been starved for contact. “Yes.”

Volt understood her apprehension and wonder, like this he couldn’t touch someone without killing them, but at least he’d gained his powers late in life, given the girl’s voice and demeanor she was much younger than he. He closed his fist around her hand, some part of him marveling at the fact they could touch, that there was anything solid to them at all. “This fire, it’s you, it’s all part of you. It feels like so much, like more than you can handle but it’s as much a part of you as your eyes, fingers, or your heart.”

She nodded.

“Now I need you to pull it back, like inhaling, but not with your lungs, with your body, pull it back, like you’re wrapping your arms about yourself and just squeeze.”

“I can’t, I tried but--”

“Trust me.”

She sighed, pulled her hand from his and lifted her arms. Volt watched as her chest rose and fell like a swimmer taking deep lung fulls of air and then her fingers twisted into claws and she brought them down. Volt could see the fire crawling across the room, slithering along floor and ceiling as it poured into the child.

“Good, keep going.”

“It’s so much I don’t know that--”

“It’s all you, every ounce, every spark, every mote of light. You can hold it all, because it is all yours.”

The fire kept pouring in, the girl grew brighter and brighter the orange effigy of her body climbing through the light spectrum to yellow, to blue.

“It’s, it’s so much.”

“You almost have it all, keep pulling.” Volt could see the steel support struts glowing white hot even as the fire left the edges of the room.

“I feel like I’m going to explode.”

“Just hold it together a little longer.”

The fire had become a white sphere of light about the girl and slowly inch by inch the sphere shrank, and shrank until it looked like a star flouting between her hands. “I can’t, I can’t hold this.”

Volt reached out, feeling the melted edges of the buildings almost destroyed electric system and pulled. Electricity leapt through the air and into his body. He drank from Old Washington’s electrical grid filling himself, and filling himself again. “Do you trust me?”

The girl looked up at him, droplets of fire drifting from her eyes. “Yes.”

Volt wrapped her in his arms, cocooning them in a sphere of power. “Then let go.”

“... I …”

“You said you trusted me.”

Her hands fell away and the sphere filled with nuclear white radiance. The explosion was so loud that the sound fractured brick and bent steel. The building, tortured for too long by the flames consuming its foundation collapsed in on itself stone, wood and steel rushing in to fill the gapping hole that was the basement. When it was through Volt stood in a sphere of power, with a little girl whose face was once more flesh and blood. She looked up at him with a mix of wonder and horror.

“I’m...I’m normal again,” she said, looking at her hands as though she had not seen them in years.

Volt collapsed into himself, returning to his own human form and knelt before her. “Hello I’m Volt … William, call me William. I run a school for people like us, who need help controlling their abilities. And I would like you to come back with me.”’

She threw her arms about his neck and squeezed. “Yes, yes thank you. Take me with you.”

Volt lifted the girl into his arms, aimed one hand at the ceiling and blasted a whole through to the sky. “Then let’s go.”