Pyroclasm, end of Arc 2

When I woke up, I was still under the effects of whatever I had inhaled. My head felt like there were then jackhammers pounding inside of it, and it sounded like a bomb had just gone off in my head. God damn it Jason, how is it possible that you let people drug you, knock you unconscious, and kidnap you twice in one week? Don’t you learn? And to bring Alexandra along for the ride, too! What kind of person are you?1

I was finally coming to my senses, but it was still pitch-black. I didn’t know if there was something in place to make it dangerous to use my powers. I didn’t want to light up a small fire for light in case they had somehow put a scentless accelerant in the air… and knowing these military types, they probably had. They had nearly every angle covered, and I wasn’t sure if I could get out of it this time.2

I heard a small moan behind me. I turned around, and could barely make out Alexandra’s shape in the darkness. As soon as she had shaken off the original grogginess, she was about to open her mouth to speak, when we heard a voice call through the darkness.3

“Help! Somebody! Is anybody out there?! I can’t see anything!”4

I was still a little groggy, so I wasn’t sure I could trust my ears, but I was certain that I had heard this person’s voice before. It was definitely a male voice, that much I could tell. But just whose it was I had no idea. Guess I had no choice but to answer back.5

“Who’s there? Is anybody else out there?”6

“Jason? Is that you?”7

Holy crap. Whoever’s voice that was, they knew who I was and recognized my voice instantaneously.8

“Yeah, it is. Who is that?”9

“Jason, I can’t believe you don’t recognize that voice.” Alexandra had obviously come to her senses while the voice in the darkness and I were exchanging words. “Are you honestly telling me that you don’t know who that is?”10

“At the moment Alexandra, I don’t really care. My only concern is whether or not there’s any accelerant in the air, because if there is I can’t light up.”11

“Jason, what the hell are you talking about? Why would there be gasoline in the air?”12

“Good point. Close your eyes, it’s about to get pretty bright in here.”13

With that, I started by making the most miniscule ember possible on the top of my finger, and waving my hand around to make sure there wasn’t anything flammable in the air. Satisfied, I extinguished that ember, and instead concentrated on making multiple large spheres of fire on all sides of me. Once I had done this, I spread them out to all the corners of the room, providing a decent amount of light.14

“Jason, what the hell was that?!” Now that it was bright, I could see who the voice was. I was never good at identifying somebody by their voice; I always needed some visual reminder, like a face. I turned towards the voice, and saw –15

“Brian! What the hell are you doing here?!”16

“I don’t know, Jason! How did you and Alexandra get here?”17

“We were drugged and taken here,” Alexandra piped up, “but beyond that we don’t know anything else. What’s with the glass box?”18

Now that she mentioned it, I did notice that Brian was enclosed in said glass box. I couldn’t tell what type of glass it is, and realized why I hadn’t recognized my friend’s voice earlier: it was coming through speakers. There were microphones inside the box that were picking up his words and transmitting them to us. That meant the glass was definitely soundproof, and very thick at that. Guess getting him out of here would be harder than I thought.19

“Don’t worry Brian. We’re gonna get you out of there. Just give us some time to figure out—“20

“I’m sorry to tell you kids that you won’t be able to get your friend out of there, no matter what you do. That glass is tempered, shatterproof, and bulletproof, which means you won’t be able to melt through it fast enough to get to your friend, and since glass is a viscous liquid, freezing it won’t do you any good either. No, you’ll just have to watch as your friend becomes Test Subject 1.”21

The voice came over a loudspeaker, and no sooner had the voice finished talking than the lights in the room came on, a blinding white that reminded me of what a surgeon’s operating room might look like. I got rid of the fire that was previously illuminating the room, and surveyed Brian’s situation. He was strapped to a chair via cuffs on his wrists and ankles with a mask over his face, and had monitoring devices stuck to his head. I got the feeling that they were monitoring his brain waves, and I really didn’t like the sound of the word ‘test subject’. The voice that had come over the intercom was female, I was sure of it.22

“Hey ‘Melissa’, I thought I killed you earlier today. Guess nobody stays dead around here, eh?”23

“Melissa was my twin sister, you wretched pyromaniac! While what I most want to do right now is kill you and watch as your entrails are spilled on the floor, that would defeat the purpose of capturing and observing you and your girlfriend over there.”24

“Hey! I’m not his girlfriend!” Alexandra cried. “Not yet, anyways, so don’t assume!”25

“It doesn’t matter anyways,” Loudspeaker Lady said, “Your friend Brian here is about to be subjected to our first experiment to try and replicate abilities similar to both of yours.”26

“Jason, Alexandra, what the hell is she talking about? Abilities? What the hell is that supposed to mean?!”27

In response, I lit my hands on fire and tried to melt through what looked to be a door in the glass enclosure. At the same time, Alexandra had covered her fists in about an inch of solid ice and begun to bang away at the glass, thinking that she could shatter what a bullet couldn’t get through.28

“Wha… wha… what the hell are you guys doing?! Jason, your hands are on fire!”29

“I know that, Brian. I probably should have told you earlier, but now’s not the time! We have to get you out of here!” I made my little bomb sphere and tried to crack the glass using multiple explosions, but the most I could do was create a few little fractures in the surface of the glass. It would take an immense blast, even bigger than anything I could make while pyroclasmic to get through this.30

“Woops, time’s up kiddos. Time to start the experiment!” No! Not yet! I had to find a way to delay it!31

I gathered my concentration and tried to create a fireball inside of Brian’s container. Unusually, the fireball was so miniscule and it was impossible to keep it going for more than a few seconds. The glass enclosure must have been hermitically sealed with little oxygen inside, preventing my fire from reacting and getting larger. This explains why Brian had a large mask covering his face – it was his only way of getting oxygen. These guys had thought of everything this time… and my friend was about to pay for my recklessness with his life!32

Portions of the metal floor inside the glass box slid open and several machines appeared from the floor. One appeared to be a generator, another a terminal computer, and the other machines looked like monitoring equipment. Two robotic arms appeared from the floor of his containment cell and were fiddling with all the pieces of equipment. Alexandra and I looked on hopelessly, banging against the glass for all the good it would do. 33

The generator powered up. There was a strange humming sound, and the apparatus on the back of Brian’s head was suddenly charged with enormous amounts of electricity. I tried to yell out to Brian, just to try and keep his mind tethered to the here and now, but it was drowned out over the roar of the generator. I was watching the monitoring equipment like a hawk, trying to see what was happening. It wasn’t looking good. Brian’s brain waves were incredibly erratic, and even though I didn’t know how to read an MRI I could tell from his heart rate monitor that he wasn’t doing well.34

Half a minute later, it was all over. Brian’s eyes rolled up in the back of his head, and the heart rate monitor went to a flat line. The loudspeakers around the room crackled as Miss Voice came on.35

“Oh, too bad. I guess his brain wasn’t capable of handling the electrical current that would have been needed to open up the inner pathways of his brain. What a tragedy. At least he allowed us to glean some valuable insight as to our studies.”36

.I was both furious and sad. There was a gaping void in my soul, like somebody had ripped out my heart and put a mechanical pump in its place. I felt hollow, soulless, and there was nothing I could do.37

I had just seen these insane people kill my best friend.38

They weren’t going to get away with this. At that moment, I swore to myself that I would punish them for what they’d done.39

I felt the power surge through me. I closed my eyes and embraced it; I let it flow through my body, through every fiber of my being. I let the pyroclasmic state come on and reveled in the power. But this one was different. This was so much more powerful than anything I had experienced before. I had true anguish and fury pulsing through me, and that was feeding the fire. I let my emotions flood over me, feeding my strength.40

I opened my eyes and let out an inhuman wail that would strike fear into the heart of even the most battle-hardened marine. My cry was punctuated by immense waves of blue fire coming off of my body, engulfing the entire facility. I was continuously releasing fire until the entire building’s framework began to fall apart due to the heat. Suddenly the glass box that surrounded Brian’s corpse shattered into millions of tiny pieces. Brian’s body was being cremated in the process; good, they wouldn’t be able to dissect my best friend and treat him like nothing more than a lab rat. He would be avenged!41

I pulsed out intense waves of fire, and created localized infernos all over the room, destroying everything in Brian’s enclosure. The air inside his enclosure became so hot from what I was doing that the fragments of the broken generator created a large explosion, igniting the rest of the facility. I realized that even though I had an immense wave of power rushing over me, I couldn’t hold it; I was using up too much energy. I decided to let it all go in one, big burst.42

I created two highly condensed spheres of flame around my hands. I threw the two of them out and infused them will all the energy I had left in this state. When the two spheres met, they synthesized, creating an inferno that seemed to rival any forest fire. The building was falling apart. Satisfied, I fell onto my knees, closed my eyes, let the power slip away from me, and breathed hard. The tears began to fall, and I let them come. They were the manifestation of my sadness, that sadness that…43

Oh no! I forgot completely about Alexandra’s being here! I was about to look over at her before I heard a horrific sound, something so terrifying that the only thing I could liken it to was the cry of a banshee.44

I previously had no idea how Alexandra’s emotions affected her powers. Well, I was about to find out. And it was absolutely horrifying.45

When I looked over at Alexandra, her entire body was covered in icicles extending two feet in all directions. The ground around her was covered in what was likely permafrost, and her body was glowing an icy blue. Before I could do anything to stop her, the banshee wail came again. This time, it was punctuated with great power.46

The room around us froze over incredibly fast. Within two seconds, the entire room was covered in ice, and probably everything for at least a hundred yards in every direction. I had no warning as to what would happen next, except for an earthquake-like rumbling from the foundations.47

Alexandra stood up, and pounded her fist into the floor. Spikes of ice, razor-sharp and deadly, were rising out of the ground insanely fast. They were all tracking around me, as if she was still aware of my presence even in her uncontrollable state. The ice was ripping down the walls of the facility, and I heard cries of intense agony in all directions. I presumed that everybody in the facility was in the process of being impaled on her ice spikes, and I knew that if she understood the devastating impacts of her rage, she would likely be so consumed by grief she would never be herself again. I had to break her from this reverie, or the state of California might be plunged into the ice age.48

Alexandra was being consumed by uncontrollable emotions, much like I was when I first entered the state of pyroclasm . The only way to stop her emotional infestation was to melt the ice covering her body. If I had to guess, the blood in her veins was frozen, and the only reason she didn’t have frostbite was because she was fully capable of controlling the effects of frostbite, and able to manipulate it to her own advantage as well as reverse the effects. The only way to stop her from causing more destruction was to immediately melt the ice. It wouldn’t be an easy task; the ice surrounding her body was at least five inches thick. I had to use my fire to shatter the cold. And in my current state, I wouldn’t be able to do it. I had to enter the same state she was in: no control over my abilities, randomly generating fire. And I knew just what to do.49

I went over to the general place where Brian had been strapped in just moments ago. All of the machinery was completely destroyed and lay in fragments on the floor. I started rummaging through the various medicines and drugs that were stashed inside the cabinets that had fallen, but I knew exactly which type of drug I would need: either an amphetamine or epinephrine. I knew that my powers became more intense when I became hyper or I was pumped full of adrenaline. It was just a matter of finding the right bottle…50

Finally! I rummaged up a bottle and read the contents: epinephrine, artificial adrenaline. The contents of the bottle were nearly frozen; I warmed it up, thawed out a syringe and needle, sterilized them, and shot myself up full of adrenaline.51

I felt it immediately. There was a fire burning in my veins; it felt like my entire self was on fire. The pyroclasmic state materialized immediately: the blue glow in the eyes, the eruption in blue-white flames, but this time I couldn’t control it. I was randomly creating fire, and I knew that this would be the only thing that could stop Alexandra.52

I completely released control over my body and let the fire surge outwards. I felt as if my body had exploded; my body was like a napalm bomb, releasing insane amounts of heat and flame to counteract the permafrost that Alexandra was forming. I let the energy out and released it in one giant blast. 53

The energy I had released was collecting in a sphere, hanging directly next to Alexandra. When I deemed that enough energy had been expended, I poured my entire being into the sphere. Everything I was, all my power, was there. I just hoped this worked.54

Finally, the ball of blazing energy had grown so unstable and powerful it was about to collapse inward on itself. Now was the time. This was my last ditch effort, and if it didn’t work, Alexandra would probably cease to exist, encased in the ice she was producing.55

I completely lost control of the stabilizing force that held the energy together. The fireball shivered for a second before exploding outward with a force so powerful that I could hear loud, screeching noises below us. The shockwave must have damaged the building foundation; we had little time before the building would be completely destroyed. I ran over to Alexandra, immersed her in the inferno, and when I saw that her body had stopped glowing and the ice had all melted, I picked her up and ran towards the stairwell. It was taking all of my willpower to keep the fire off Alexandra and me. In her current state, she wouldn’t be able to resist the heat. Her eyes were rolled back in her head; she was unconscious and I was her only hope. I kicked open the stairwell door and started dashing down.56

I ran as fast as I possibly could. The epinephrine was still flowing through my veins, helping my legs move insanely fast. Finally I reached the bottom of the stairwell and pushed open the door. I found myself at the back-entrance of the building; however, I wasn’t out of danger yet. I continued to run until I was at least a mile from the blaze. I turned around to stare at the blazing building. It was hauntingly beautiful, a culmination of all the power that I could possibly muster.57

Brian, you will be remembered. I swear it.58

I gave myself one last task before my strength and energy depleted: build a small shrine to honor Brian. I carried Alexandra over to a small dumpster, opened the lid, and carefully placed her at the bottom. Although this might sound cruel and unusual, it would serve as good protection should anything crazy happen. I went towards a patch of dirt beside some old, vacated buildings and found multiple pieces of jagged metal. I shaped them into that of a stick figure, and with my powers I engraved, according to my best memories, Brian’s face onto the top of the figure. I welded the pieces together, and wrote into the metal:59

Here lies Brian Schwab, friend, son, and lifelong companion. Though his death was tragic and untimely, his true friends will never forget his sacrifice. May you rest in peace, Brian. God speed.60

I planted the makeshift grave into the ground and burned a circle around it in such a manner that no vegetation would ever grow there again. This site would forever be remembered, and I implanted the vision in my memory. We were just outside Los Angeles, and the wreckage in the distance would serve as a reminder.61

With all my energy exhausted, I went over to the dumpster where Alexandra lay, climbed inside, and collapsed on the cold, dirty metal.62