Star Harbor Nights

She held up both arms. With an effort that was clearly visible on her face, she forced the scythe blade to soften and melt back towards her hand, forming something between a cudgel and a fist. She took hold of that wrist with her good hand and wrenched it, as if to check the seal, then she settled back into a fighting stance with a pointed look at the samurai's weapon.

"I take your point," the samurai said with a slight bow, sheathing the gleaming blue katana. The shorter blade elongated, becoming a pole with a broad spade-like tip on one end and a semicircular blade on the other. The samurai went through an impressive twirling display, as if testing the weapon's balance. "By your leave, then."

As soon as they were clear of the warehouse, Athena launched herself and her sister up at an angle over the water, screaming towards the stratosphere. The Amazonian power of flight which they'd inherited from their mother could exceed all but the most advanced aircraft in speed... they would break atmosphere in the blink of an eye.

The power of super speed which Minerva held for the time being lengthened that eye-blink considerably, but she wasn't exactly made out of options. The maneuver was the sort of thing she herself would think of, but which Athena never would... or at least, never would so much as admit to considering. Minerva cursed herself for having failed to consider a counter to this tactic.

She wrenched her body back and forth, vibrating rapidly in an attempt to break her sister's hold, but Athena currently possessed all the strength of their heroic father, Might... more than enough to keep her in place. She also possessed his physical invulnerability, which Minerva knew from experience was more than enough to withstand the lightning blasts she possessed from the same source.

Minerva reflected that it had been to all of their good fortune that Minerva had been carrying the electro-eyes while Athena had the invulnerability, because otherwise Allison's tactic of forcing her eyes shut to make the blast backfire wouldn't have worked.

As that thought left her, Minerva was seized by a sudden inspiration. Athena was being controlled from a distance. Though the level of finesse kept improving, there was no indication that the controllers were actually "inside" the victims heads... the stilted nature of communications and the sometimes awkward physical control made it seem more like they were getting an audiovisual relay, not actually experiencing what the captive heroes felt first hand.

With that in mind, Minerva... moving her hand with as much blinding speed as she could muster... reached out and covered her sister's eyes.

Athena's upward momentum stopped instantly, and she released her grip on Minerva... who very nearly continued her skyward journey. Fortunately, she was able to grab a hold of Athena and swing around behind her, getting up on Athena's shoulders and keeping her arm wrapped around her twin's head. The mindless heroine hovered in the air, making a couple of random starts at various angles.

It was working... Athena's handler couldn't feel Minerva's weight on her back, or her hand over Athena's eyes. He or she would only know that the visual feed had cut out, without knowing why.

This kind of brainwave was the sort of thing Athena always managed to pull in the heat of battle. Minerva wondered if the insight had really been hers, or if it had come down the pipeline from the universal wisdom. She decided not to worry about that too deeply right at that moment.

"Uh... hello?" Athena said, in her own voice but in inflections that weren't her own.

Minerva, on her back, said nothing, remaining perfectly still.

"Am I still connected?"

It was an odd question. Connected to what? Athena?

"Fuck this," Athena's mouth said. "I'm logging out."

Immediately, Athena went limp beneath her. Minerva braced herself for the sickening feeling of freefall, but it never came. Though her body was unconscious and unresponsive, Athena remained firmly locked in place as if she had somehow been stapled to the air.

"Oh, lovely," Minerva said.

Out to sea, suspended five miles above the waves, and stuck clinging to the sleeping body of her sister. She tried to imagine what a fall into the water would do from that height with only the energy field protecting her. There was a decent chance she'd survive... but she didn't like to think about what could happen if Athena's flight power somehow switched off completely while she was unconscious.

"Just lovely," she repeated, settling herself in to wait for rescue.

It was an unfamiliar feeling, and an unpleasant one.

"You... it's impossible!" Geppetto shouted to the specter before him.

"No, just wildly improbable," Garrote said. "But then, we live in wildly improbable times."

"But... you learned to control the implants," Geppetto said. "In spite of everything, you learned to control them. That's... astounding."

"I've learned a lot of things... how to kill an opponent quickly and with breathtaking efficiency... and how to do so slowly, with infinite care and attention to detail. Can you guess which one I'm about to do?"

"Connor," Geppetto said. "Son... don't you see? That's not necessary. You're a success!"

"I honestly wasn't going to come after you," Garrote said. "Once I had got control of my implants, I also had control of my life. I was going to forget about you... until you killed my mother."

"She was nothing," Geppetto said.

"She was my mother!" Garrote screamed. His metal tendril lashed out, whipping around Geppetto's waist and lifting him off the ground.

"Connor, please, take a moment to consider..." Geppetto said, grunting as the tentacle-like line tightened around him. "Consider... what you could be giving up."

"What?" the man named Connor said, with a bitter laugh, pulling his father in close. "What are you offering me? Power? Money? A share in your ill-conceived schemes?"

"All of it," Geppetto gasped. "You could be my heir... my successor."

Garrote flung him away, throwing the older man into the bank of computer displays.

"You always fancied yourself a modern-day Roman emperor," he said. "You should study your history better... the Roman emperors never named their successors until they were certain they were about to die."

"Sir," General Bedlam said, suddenly appearing in the open doorway. "The computers have been..." He took in the situation in a single glance, and fired a shot from the sidearm which was already in his hand. Garrote's reflexes were the quicker, and his tendril lashed the gun out of the general's hands even as he fired... but he still went down when the bullet hit his head, toppling over a table covered with technical files and landing on the floor behind it.

"What the holy hell was that?" Bedlam asked.

"You may recall I mentioned something of a son," Geppetto said coldly.

"Sir, the computer systems are shutting themselves down," the General said. "We have five, maybe ten minutes before we lose our uplink to the remaining subjects."

"We're pulling out, General. Initiate our contingency plans, secure Molly, then meet me at the boat launch."

"The self-destruct sequence?"

"Not just yet," Geppetto said. "Things are getting hot, but we're not cooked just yet. If we lose everyone else but capture Mindfyre... we can start again, and this time do it right. No more distractions, no wild goose chases over some supposed 'twin connection.'"

Geppetto looked at the body of his fallen comrade Drosselmeier as he spoke. If he felt any regret for the elderly scientist's fate, it didn't show.

"Yes, sir," the General said, hastening away to comply.

"And now, my son," Geppetto said, drawing his own weapon and stepping around the upset table, "it's time for a little heart... to..."

But Garrote was not there.

"You men, stand clear," Bedlam bellowed to the detail of two dozen guards outside Molly's room... the only minions who had not been deployed for the hero fight, though they, too, had donned the identity-concealing puppet helmets at the start of the incursion. "Just what the hell is going on here?"

Instead of standing at crisp military attention, they'd formed a ragged semicircle several deep around the reinforced door, their weapons trained on it.

"The... sounds, General Bedlam, sir," one of them said. "Screeching and screaming, like demons from hell. It stopped, just before you came down, but we haven't..."

"I'll give you demons, you coward," Bedlam said, pushing the henchman... who was ironically wearing a devil mask himself... aside, and keying his personal security code into the pad by the door. It slid open, letting out the eerie green light shed by Molly's creations. "It's probably just another one of... her... games... good God in heaven!"

Former three star general Mitchell Bedford, no stranger to front-line fighting or the diverse horrors of war, fell to his knees and heaved out the contents of his guts on the doorframe.

"Agent Three Is Awesome speaking," Willow said into the phone. Its plastic case was in the shape of a cartoon Japanese kitty. "Yeah, it's totally done. No way anybody'll be able to try this plan again. I'm sure... really sure," she added, rolling her eyes at the doubting tone in the voice on the other end.

"Really, really, incredibly, really sure. What? Um, I guess they're all probably still fighting, or something. I don't know," she said, not bothering to stifle an enormous yawn as she looked back down the ridge in the direction of the old naval yard.

"I didn't really find it all that interesting to begin with, you know? Ugh, hang on," she said, spitting out a wad of stuffing. "I've got a bit of cotton mouth."

Geppetto grabbed an armful of the most crucial files and raced out of the room, down through the back end of the complex, past the enormous tanks of the Lysenkol cocktail and the various machines they'd used to fabricate their control chips. It was astonishing that such tiny devices required so much equipment to make... but it was all expendable. He had backups of all the plans. If there was one thing that being on the losing side of a world war taught one, it was to always be prepared. To that end, he had an inflatable speedboat with a dozen outboard engines concealed by the mooring at the dock end of the warehouse.

He opened the door, stepped out into the night air, and dropped the heavy bundle of files over the railing down to the waiting boat below.

Or, to where the boat should have been waiting, if the resounding splash was any indication.

"Always have an escape route," Garrote's voice said from somewhere out in the darkness. "You never change, father... and that makes you predictable."

Geppetto screamed in rage and ran back inside.

"Predictable," Garrote's voice said... now definitely inside the warehouse with him, seemingly right beside his ear. Geppetto whirled around, his gun out, but nobody was there. Garrote laughed. "Keep trying. I told you this wasn't going to be over quickly."

"Something's happening towards the back," Dandy said. They'd mopped up most of the masked henchmen... several had actually surrendered. The rest were unconscious, or too injured to keep fighting, most of those at the hands of Lily or Tira.

Lily had stopped midway through menacing a thug at the same time Dandy's ears had perked up. Now, Tira and Grif looked up, too.

"Do you hear laughter?" Tira asked.

"Would we be talking about happy, friendly laughter or scary maniacal laughter?" Beau asked.

Allison reached out with a mind wave. There were two distinct presences... one sharp and focused, the other brittle and twisted. Both were filled with hate. She'd never touched either of them, but she got a distinct impression of identity from the more fractured one.

"It's Geppetto," she said. "Beau, Ford... and Echo... wrap these jokers up fast and call the authorities. Griffin, get Tira clear. Everybody else, with me."

"What?" Tira shrieked. "No way!"

"No arguments," Amy said. "Go."

"How... how are you doing this?" Geppetto demanded, as Garrote's mocking laughter echoed all around him. He heard the swish of the tendril flying through the air, the snap of it cracking against the walls and floor.

"I believe you are familiar with the name Locust Thorn?"

Geppetto's blood ran cold.

"An eccentric martial arts master, living on an island that does not exist," Garrote continued. "He believes that the art form as it applies to the human body and human spirit was exhausted of possibilities centuries ago... so he seeks out other sorts of individuals to train. Mutants. Freaks."

"People like me," Garrote said, stepping into view between two of the Lysenkol tanks. Geppetto fired, but Garrote was already stepping aside with a deceptive ease.

"Careful," his voice said from a distant corner of the room. "Lysenkol is flammable, I do believe, and in that compressed state, a stray bullet's liable to set it all off."

"At least I'd be rid of you," Geppetto growled. "I should have strangled you with the umbilical cord."

"That imagery is strangely poetic, considering what I have in mind..."

Geppetto spun around, firing at a sudden sound in the direction of Garrote's voice. His shot caught Bedlam in the gut as he came out from the side hallway. Geppetto swore... angry at having missed his son, not at having shot his underling.

"Sir..." Bedlam said, slumping to the ground as the security detail drew to a confused halt behind him. "Molly's... been..." He said no more.

"You men," Geppetto said, heedless. "Fan out. Cover every inch of this place. If you see anybody who isn't wearing a mask, shoot them."

"I guess that excludes me," Allison said, flying into view over the top of the row of tanks. Dandy, Lily, and Amy leaped up atop three of the two-meter-tall metal containers behind her.

"You'll find these men's weaponry is loaded with lethal ammunition," Geppetto said, not ruffled any further by her sudden appearance. "As is mine."

"And those canisters have got flammable warnings all over them," Allison said, dropping down so they formed a backdrop behind her. Her three allies followed suit, stepping lightly off onto the ground behind her. "Normally, this would be something of an impasse, except..." she continued, stretching out a hand towards the bad guys, "I don't have to move away from the tanks to reach you."

"Stop what you're doing right now, Ms. Powers," Geppetto said. "Or have you forgotten the message that brought you here? The plight of your friend?"

"As a matter of fact, this is the part where I demand you let her go," Allison said. "Your army is defeated. Your heroes are neutralized. We hold the cards now. The only thing you gain by hurting her is one pissed off psychokinetic, and I don't know if you're a fan of horror movies, but that's the last thing you want."

"Is that what you think?" Geppetto asked, a superior smirk on his face. He gestured towards a monitor on the wall. "I believe you can manipulate electronic devices from a distance. Switch that on, and put it on channel 3."

Allison suspected some kind of trap, but didn't know what it could possibly be. Without taking her eyes off the mastermind, she sent a pair of waves at the device. Against her will, her head swiveled around to look at the screen when she caught a glimpse of what was on it.

Samantha Davis, her friend and co-worker, was standing on the tip-toes of her bare feet, at the edge of Crescent Bay's tallest landmark, the Empyrean Building.

"You see, the control process doesn't just work on superheroes. Surrender," Geppetto said. "Just you. I'll even let your friends withdraw. That's a generous enough offer, I think... especially when the alternative makes you responsible for the death of a friend, and then my men kill all of you anyway."

"I have a counter offer," Garrote said, stepping into view from behind a palette of crates. "Release the hostage and I cripple you. Kill her, and your death takes an extra day."

"What the hell is this, special guest week?" Lily asked.

"I'm sorry, I should introduce myself... I'm called Garrote. I've been following Thoth since he left the island, by means of a small tracer. Where is he?"

"Thoth?" Allison repeated. "He went to answer a tsunami alert in..." She trailed off, her gaze falling down to the spot where Thoth had touched her shoulder. There was a tiny dark dot visible against the glistening blue surface of her Nemealion jacket. "Well, that sly bastard. He must have suspected something like this would happen, and made sure a wild card would turn up."

"So now I know who to thank for disrupting my plan so thoroughly," Geppetto said.

"Be fair," Lily said. "I think we've done a bit ourselves."

"Your answer, Ms. Powers," Geppetto said. "I'm not a patient man."

"Nor a very smart one. You see, this end of the building is built out over the water," Amy said, a sly smile on her face. She splayed her feet almost as if she were doing the splits, holding her empty hand out towards the floor. "Do you know what that means? It means I can do..."

A pair of massive suckered tentacles burst up through the floor, twining about her and smothering her mouth, along with the end of her sentence before pulling her down and out of sight.

"Dude, if that's her power, it kind of sucks," Lily said.

"Oh, button it, Lil," Dandy said.

"You button it!"

"I say again, I am not a patient man!" Geppetto said. "And before anybody else thinks to try some ill-conceived heroics, I should point out that the command for Ms. Davis to jump will be given independently of myself, if I'm incapacitated or killed."

"I told you, I'm not going to kill you until I see what you do with the hostage," Garrote said. "Make all the demands of the heroes you want, but I'm not bound by any deal they make. That means you no longer hold the cards."

"Is that what you think?" Geppetto asked with a smile. "My dear friend the general initiated our plans of last resort before he met his unfortunate end. One of them was moving your friend into place. The other... should be going into motion as we speak.

"That's all of them," Ford said, looking around the room. Moving at their top speed, the three of them... Echo cloning power from Beau... had found enough rope, chain, fire hose, and other material to tie up all the masked thugs.

"I could get used to this," Echo said, waving her hand back and forth in front of her face. To anybody not possessing the enhanced reflexes and time perception of the speedsters, it would have looked like a solid wall.

"Hey, any time you want to trade up from that doofus you're banging," Beau said.

"I'm not 'banging' Slam!"

"And you've got a girl, remember?" Ford reminded Beau.

"I meant for you," Beau said. "Geesh, lighten... ack!"

He stumbled forward a dozen yards, clutching his shoulder, the flesh of which smoldered and smoked. Echo and Ford both yelled. The mutant once known as "Holly Gram" had appeared in their midst, a phantasm glowing white-hot.

Ford tossed a concussive thunderbolt at him, but it went through him like he wasn't there. The glowing figure advanced on him... Ford zoomed away, but Holly, made of light, was just as fast, even slowed down by a human controller. He passed through Ford's body, leaving him first degree burns over one side of his torso.

Echo darted at Holly's light form. She knew from past experience that it would be enough for her aura to interpenetrate with his for her to grab his power, and then they could interact with each other as if they were both solid, flesh-and-blood beings even when shifted into light.

Unfortunately, his controller seemed to know that too. He zipped and dodged away. She'd never catch him, not when he was unencumbered by mass, momentum, or the need to go around obstacles.

She guessed the odds that the person controlling Holly would be male. She hadn't spotted any women among the masked thugs... she hated playing on stereotypes, but she'd done worse things to win a fight.

"I should guess you'd be going after the men and running away from me," she yelled. "I mean, you seem awfully comfortable handling that body."

Holly's blank face turned halfway into a semblance of an angry sneer, and he flew at her. Echo suppressed her smile until he was almost upon her.

"Hear that?" Geppetto said, of the sound of screaming from the front section of the massive warehouse. "There goes your back up... and once they're finished, I'll once again hold all the cards."

At the sounds of pain, Dandy turned to run back.

"Not so fast, Ms. Binder," Geppetto said. "You can go and attend to the wounded... assuming they survive once Mindfyre has surrendered. Until then, let's all stay right where we are."

"You're a monster," Dandy said, glowering. "I should tell you that I don't have a problem killing monsters."

Garrote took a step towards his father.

"I second that motion," he said.

The white, glowing figure of Holly appeared between the two men.

"You see, I have my own invisible, untouchable killing machine on my side," Geppetto said.

Allison fought to keep her angry, defiant expression fixed in place. Where the controlled heroes had no real mental signature, "Holly" was registering as a living, conscious mind... what's more, it was Echo's.

Do you know the spot on the screen? Allison sent at her.

Biggest building in town, Echo thought back. Don't forget I was here for three months for that stupid show.

On my signal, go.

"I'm only going to offer one last time now, Ms. Powers," Geppetto said. "I suggest you surrender."

What's the signal? Echo queried.

"And I am only going to say this one last time," Allison replied. "I suggest that you surrender."

Suddenly, the floorboards beneath Geppetto erupted in a violent waterspout, hurling him up and backwards. He fell to the floor in a sputtering heap.

That's as good as anything, Allison thought, but the ersatz Holly was already gone.

"Miss me, minha gatinha?" Amphitrite said, riding a column of water up through the hole, trident in hand and a triumphant expression on her face... her flowing green hair picture-perfect, the water flowing off her in big diamond drops.

"You look better," Allison said. It was an understatement... she looked every inch the goddess at the moment. Lily and Dandy, who hadn't yet seen her at her best, both gaped.

"I feel better," she said. "I wasn't just tired... that stupid tentacle thingy's been draining my strength. I blasted it with the trident, though... I don't know if it's dead, but it was nearly ripped in half, and all my power came rushing back."

"That thing blasts, too?" Dandy asked, awed. Lily simply stared as Amy stepped off the column of water, for once completely speechless.

"Seismic waves, concentrated water," Amy said, shrugging. "So, where were we?"

"At the part where you just doomed a woman to die," Geppetto said, getting to his feet.

"Think again," Allison said, pointing to the monitor. They all watched as Sam took a step forward into empty space... then vanished in a blink of light.

"There goes your last card," Garrote said, striding towards him.

"Don't just stand there... protect me! Get them!" Geppetto shouted at his men.

Garrote yanked the two nearest to him off their feet by snaring both their ankles at once. At the same time, he fell sideways and rolled backwards under a wave of bullets fired by four others. The rest aimed their guns uncertainly at the heroes, who still stood framed by the explosive chemical tanks. Lily and Dandy advanced on them. Lily had never fully shifted out of her tigress form... now Dandy drew more deeply on her own power, her natural tawny mane receding as golden fur sprang up and her face took on a leonine shape.

The two cat women advanced on the masked men. Allison deliberately lifted herself several more inches off the ground, pushing a glowing electric charge into her eyes and across her fingertips.

Amphitrite leveled her trident.

Beau and Ford, the brothers Thunderhead and Thunderclap, appeared with a pop flanking the sea goddess... clearly hurt, but still standing, and looking madder than hell.

Almost as a single unit, the puppet men broke and ran.

"Now, father..." Garrote said. Geppetto took aim, but Garrote whipped the gun away from him without blinking. His tendril was around his father's neck in an instant.

"No killing!" Allison cried. "He's alone, unarmed, and helpless. We can bring him to justice now."

"This is justice," Garrote said, stepping closer even as the metal filament looped around again and again.

"Uh... not that this isn't an absolutely riveting family drama or anything," Lily said, "but... why is my Lily-sense tingling?"

She turned, and everybody else followed her gaze... unnoticed by anyone, Cheat Code had apparently come to at some point and dragged himself off the catwalk. He stood now, behind the heroes, leaning against one of the tanks for support, his shredded force field equipment spitting sparking uselessly.

"You... you and your friends," he said, spitting out blood as he spoke. "You don't get to... to just... do that to me." He raised his broken toy gun and jabbed the stump of it against one of the tanks. "Game over," he said, squeezing the trigger.

Allison took a moment to put together the fact that the plastic casing of the gun and the high tech hardware it housed were not one and the same.. and that its trashed outer appearance didn't necessarily mean there wasn't something still working down in its depths. She reached out with her telekinesis and yanked... a moment too late. Her mind was wrapped around it when she felt the gun buckle, felt the energy bursting unfocused out of the cut-off barrel.

Everybody braced for the blast. Allison shifted her focus to containment as the tank blew, launching the battered youth across the room. There was no question of holding the highly compressed liquid in its tanks or stifling the explosion that came. She simply shoved with all her might, trying to force the energy back away from herself and her friends. Her power did not create a physical wall or barrier, but that was what she needed, so she just pushed as hard as she could in a continuous cycle. Electrical energy crackled up and down her body and her extremities, casting an unearthly glow all around her. Her body levitated off the ground, not through any conscious expenditure of effort, but simply as an overflow of the psychokinetic energy which coursed through her.

Time seemed to slow... unfortunately, that meant that she could watch with hideous clarity as the combusting cloud of sickly yellow-green vapor billowed towards her, flame racing outwards from suspended particle to particle in a chain reaction that would inevitably swallow up the other tanks... and everybody in the warehouse who lacked super speed. She knew that, for all her effort, she couldn't hold back the coming blast. For an instant, she almost gave up, ceased her telekinetic onslaught, and let the growing fireball consume her... and in that instant, she found her resolve.

She was... as uncomfortable as the fact might sometimes make her... a pyrokinetic. Heat was nothing more than the energy of molecular motion... flame a chemical reaction sustained by that energy. She did release the pressure she'd been exerting against the cloud, but just long enough to grab hold of the flaming gas and clamp down tight on its rambunctious molecules, forcing them to conform to her will.

She did more than quench the fire... she froze it, sublimating gas into solid. Crystalline droplets of the Lysenkol-laced chemicals fell to the floor like drops of icy green rain. Her mind plowed back through the roaring jet to the source, the jagged hole rent in the tank. The chemicals inside were compressed so tightly, they were very nearly solid already. That didn't exactly make it easy to freeze the volatile substance into a block of ice... just easier.

She blinked as what had been the outer edge of the gas cloud hit her face like wind-blown snow. She hadn't been spending any energy to shield herself personally. She quickly wiped the icy substance away with a mental "hand", before her body heat could melt it, then swept the rest of the icy droplets into a small drift by the back of the now frost-rimed tank with the frozen yellow-green geyser bursting out of its side.

It had lasted a matter of seconds, but when it was done, Allison fell to the ground on her hands and knees, exhausted. To her surprise, it was Garrote who reached her first, dropping beside her.

"That was incredible," he said, his amazement as plain in his steel blue eyes as it was in his voice. "Are you alright?"

"I'm not hurt," she said, getting to her feet. "Where's Geppetto?"

"Damn!" Garrote said, looking furiously around the room. "I let go when the tank went... he must have scurried away like the rat he is."

Allison reached out with her mind, but nearly swooned with a sudden feeling of vertigo. It was like she felt all the minds around her at once... she thought she'd been feeling more sensitive since she started wearing the psi-mesh. Her blocking abilities had also grown to compensate... but they were among the first things to go when she over-extended herself.

"We have to destroy all this," Garrote said, looking around at the tanks and equipment.

"It's evidence," Amy countered.

"Do you think it would ever be admitted in court?" Garrote argued. "4B will take it, 'for study'..."

"He's right," Allison said. "They don't need another tool for controlling superhumans. Beau, Ford... how fast can you evacuate the bad guys and the wounded?"

"Pretty fast," Ford said.

"Damn... I wouldn't have deactivated my father's self-destruct mechanism so thoroughly if I'd been thinking clearly," Garrote said. "Though we'd likely all be dead now, if I hadn't."

"Don't worry, I've got this," Allison said. "We just need to get everybody well away."

"Are you sure?" Amy asked. "You look absolutely spent... and I know from spent."

"Please, I just need to start a big enough fire to set off at least one tank," Allison said. "I think I can manage that."

They all retreated to the fence at the edge of the yard... all except Allison, who positioned herself about halfway between there and the big dry dock warehouse.

She was... as uncomfortable as the fact might sometimes make her... a pyrokinetic, and while she could use that ability to snuff out flame, it was far easier for her to create it. She closed her eyes and reached deep within herself, feeling that wild, tingly sensation at her core... below the heat of her life blood, behind the hum of her neurons... the door she normally kept tightly sealed. She might excite the molecules in an opponent's weapon to melt it a little, but that was nothing compared to what she was truly capable of. She was afraid... maybe a little hopeful... that the power wouldn't be there, that she would have forgotten how to use it... but there it was, ready and eager to respond to her call.

It was like riding a bicycle, she thought... a scary, dangerous bicycle that could possibly spiral out of control and kill everybody she ever cared about.

She pushed that thought away. Doubt would not help her here.

She opened her eyes. The icy blue of her irises blazed with light. Her body went rigid, and she rose off the ground, arms spread wide like the corpus on a crucifix. She spun slowly around, the power building within her, rising higher and higher.

Her blood boiled.

Her pulse thumped.

Her mind screamed.

Her spirit exulted.

Then flame, blue-white fire, shot out from her hands and splashed the front of the warehouse. The corrugated metal twisted and melted, then caught fire. Allison floated closer to it, spraying fire from both hands. Her mind seemed to be working on two levels at once... one producing and directing the flame, the other working upon the sheets of flame that sprang up on the building, fanning them into a frenzy. The entire front face of the warehouse was now ablaze, and still she advanced, pushing that wall of flame back with her mind.

Metal, concrete, wood, and plastic were all burning now… she could feel them, each conveying a distinct sensation as it was consumed by the flame that was, in a way, her. It was no longer a question of setting off one tank… the tanks and their volatile contents were all obliterated and swept away by the firestorm.

When the wall of glowing destruction reached the back of the warehouse, leaving behind a blazing, ruined shell, Allison felt the urge to turn her power outwards, to find more for it to consume. She fought that urge, instead reached out to cool the inferno she had created, which had now served its purpose… but once she released her hold on the destructive power, she found herself falling away, as if that had been her hold on the world, too.

She had only been a few yards off the ground, but it seemed to her that she was falling for a very long time.