12 Years Ago - Just Before The Silent Scream

  “Pinny! Wake up! Now!” Pinn’s mother rushed the door, slamming it open and jolting Pinn to sit up.

  “What? Where’s Pa? What happened?”

  “Excava district just erupted in flames and it’s spreading fast!” She showed Pinn a live reel of Joanna Slattery reporting with Channel 34, plumes of smoke towering behind her.

  Pinn rubbed an eye and activated his Lightcrown simultaneously. With all his training, he could use it indoors without accidental burns.

  “I haven’t tried putting out fires that big. I can try some reducing power, but I don’t know if I have one.”

  “The river’s pretty close by, you might be able to use that. But focus on getting people out of there and then put out the flames before side effects put them in more danger.”

  “Got it.” Pinn opened his window and leaned out before looking down at his pajamas. “Isn’t it embarrassing that I’m going out with sweats and a white shirt?”

  “It’s honorable. You were so fast you didn’t care about how you looked.”

  “I kinda do, though,” Pinn said as he flew out the window, spinning in a corkscrew to boost himself in speed and rocket to the sky.

  The move sliced the shoulders off his shirt and he suddenly had a tank-top. Glancing West, Pinn didn’t even have to Enhance senses to locate the fire, it was so immediately clear. With another corkscrew, a sonic boom announced his launch into the scene, where he gracefully touched down in front of a burning building seconds later. Flinching back, the firefighter firing water closest took quick notice.

  “Lightcrown?”

  “Where can I help?”

  “We evacuated this place, but some rooms were already caved in when we got here. Couldn’t confirm that we got everyone out—”

  Pinn boosted himself up in a powerful but elegant leap, diving into an open window on the third floor. Landing inside, the floor gave out under him, but he remained upright with Flight as the flooring collapsed. Listening intently with Enhanced hearing, Pinn focused with eyes closed. Fires raged and cracked around him, and water smacking into the wall sounded like a waterfall, but he was listening for any acute noises out of place. There was something surreal about smelling such thick smoke, but not having his breathing affected at all.

  Then he heard the faint whimper of someone two floors up. Eyes snapping open, Pinn shot up, punching through two ceilings like a torpedo and landing in a bedroom. A TV exploded behind him from another power, but his focus remained unbroken on the two people ahead of him. A mother covering her child who had passed out from the smoke.

  “You’re safe now,” Pinn assured her immediately. “I’m going to take you out, brace yourself.”

  Her eyes glassy, she barely registered him. Placing two fists together, a round shield formed around them like a bubble sprouting from his knuckles, shining a pale blue. The wood under Pinn imploded in response to the initial power, and Pinn flew forward, grabbing the shield and carrying the two out the building and onto the street below at blurring speed. Breaking through his shield, Pinn pointed two fingers at the mother and son duo, and a thick extraction of smoke escaped from their pores, racing into the air and dissipating.

  Coughing and gasping, the two family members shot up, lucid and free of smoke inhalation. Gazing up at him in awe, Lightcrown turned to the firetrucks.

  “Ask the firefighters for any further assistance. You should be healthy enough to move now. Do you still feel any smoke, pain, or faintness?”

  They continued to stare in awe.

  “Call if you need anything,” Pinn dashed back into the building.

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  Listening closely, he couldn’t hear anything, so he made the risk of flying through every room, knowing the building’s integrity would be at the whims of his powers. Blazing through, Pinn heard glass shatter, doors crack, and floors give out as he checked every room. No humans nor pets remained.

  Then, he gave every neighboring building the same treatment, saving two more trapped families. Twenty buildings burned, and the damage was only spreading. Racing back down to a firetruck, Pinn terrified a firefighter spraying water from a firehose with his sudden appearance.

  “What’s the deal? How do we put this out faster?”

  “There’s only so much water!” the firefighter screamed, exasperated. “Unless you can make it start raining, this is all we got.”

  Pinn stared up at the sky, the flippant remark inspiring him. Reaching two arms out, he attempted to summon clouds into one spot.

  Nothing.

  Turning back to the fire, Pinn tried to think of more ideas. Maybe he could gather dirt from a nearby construction site and dump it on the flames until they went out? There was never a lack of construction zones in Hammerton. But dirt didn’t feel very effective.

  Then his eyes fell on the river, only a few hundred feet from the fires. Launching away in a leap, Pinn dove into it headfirst. Improvising on the spot, Pinn poked his arms out and tried to will the water to shoot at the distant flames. Water spun around his arms, but nothing launched. Then lightning struck him, but he ignored the side-effect.

  Digging into the water, Pinn thought about how large of a splash he could throw. Uncertain, he slammed into the water and a thin jet jumped to the sky allowing a sprinkle to touch down on a building. That idea could have merit if he bashed the river enough to simulate rain. But another power crawled its way to the forefront the longer he remained in the river.

  Crawling out on the bank, Pinn tentatively reached his arms into the water and closed his hands. Gripping onto… something? Pulling up with a massive heave, Pinn raised thousands of gallons of riverbank in his arms. Bafflingly, it both felt like one solid chunk towering over him while simultaneously continuing to flow like a long, circular river. A massive cylinder of flowing water, gripped tightly in his arms. Cautiously, Pinn took two steps toward the flames. The massive bat of water remained intact.

  Leaping back into the blaze, Pinn swept the baton of water through building after building, enveloping the structures in so much water they extinguished immediately. The firefighters watched, staring with slack mouths as he did the rest of the day’s work in seconds. Once satisfied that no embers remained, Pinn javelin tossed the water spear perfectly back into the river hundreds of feet away. The water swelled, but suffered no other effects of the power returning the contents. No side-effects, floods, or overflows. The four story building he stood on, however, collapsed immediately in a vertical fall into flat ground.

  Pinn floated above the destruction in embarrassment, hoping no one would blame him for such a flagrant misjudgement of his power. Instead, the surrounding audience of residents and firefighters cheered loudly for him, hands over head in thunderous applause. Scratching his face under his Lightcrown in embarrassment, Pinn lowered himself to the ground. People rushed to surround him.

  “I didn’t see any bots, where did they go?” Pinn asked.

  “Bots? What bots?”

  “The ones who started the fire?”

  “Oh, that was some kid playing with a lighter and a spray can,” a firefighter explained. “No robots this time.”

  Pinn found that odd. It had been weeks since the last Boli attack, and he couldn’t figure out what delayed the next strike.

  “Thank you, Lightcrown! You saved my life! I just wish I could have gotten my wedding ring out before the building collapsed. Maybe once the rubble is cleared, I can hope to locate it.”

  Pinn felt a power nag at him and he raised a hand up to the ground. “If everyone could take a few steps back, please.”

  They obliged immediately, more out of fear than obedience. Reaching out a hand to the collapsed building, Pinn focused in on the valuables. Racing out like bees on a mission, several dozen pieces of jewelry zipped out of the rubble and landed neatly in Pinn’s hand. The ground under his left foot cracked as they entered his palm. He reapproached the crowd.

  “Any of these your ring?”

  “Yes! Oh my God, thank you! That one there!”

  “And that’s my locket!”

  “You got my family heirloom?”

  Fascinated onlookers each took a piece of memorabilia from him and he smiled bashfully at their endless praise. Most of it didn’t sit firm in his mind, his parent’s affirmations were stuck now and he knew not to think of himself as better than anyone else, but it was nice to be appreciated.

  Flying off, Pinn searched for more odd jobs to complete around the city, whether it be repairing cars from a crash, or helping someone who locked themselves out of their home. On the same day, he even helped stop a police chase by simply rushing forward and grabbing the escaping vehicle on its rear bumper, holding it up for cops to arrive.

  He was available to the whole city at once, and each time, they were so grateful to him. Like he was their beacon of why Hammerton was the best place to live. And even with the thoughts of Boli itching the back of his mind, he couldn’t shake one, unbreaking thought in his head:

  It was good to be Lightcrown.