“What you are about to witness, sirs, will revolutionise modern warfare.” Jessica boldly stated.

  In-between a row of Military personnel, straight-laced Generals and Majors with their medals gleaming in the sterile white light of the control room, Petrica stood in her white labcoat. She glared at Jessica through the safety glass.

  Patricia was one of the scientists who had worked on this machine however Jessica had made a discovery which progressed the machine's creation to completion overnight. Patricia seethed with jealousy. First the Microscopic Laser Technology, now this. Jessica was hogging all the attention Patricia coveted. She wanted the glory, her name on a golden plaque above everyone else but Jessica had to ruin it.

  A smug look crossed Patrica's face, which she buried in her clipboard to hide.

  She had done something to humiliate Jessica. That bitch. After the final examination of the machine had been carried out by the team, Patricia had deliberately stayed behind. Whilst everyone was off greeting the generals and preparing the Champaign, Patricia had delicately fiddled with the wiring of the machine just enough to ensure the machine would short-circuit and shut down, humiliating the woman who had dared upstage her, who had dared get in the way of her legacy.

  Jessica turned around and flipped a switch on the side of the machine. A whirring sound ensued as its spherical center began to rotate around and around, picking up speed, faster and faster, until a golden, almost gel-like substance began to form.

  “As you can see,” said Jessica, addressing the generals directly from the demonstration room. “The Plasma is being generated within this nexus here, in a moment you will see it shoot out of the barrel, much like a cannon, and hit the targets down there.” She pointed down a makeshift range they had set up, to multiple metal cut-out human figures placed at the end. “The machine can be aimed using this.” She brandished what looked suspiciously like a repurposed Xbox controller and demonstrated how she could smoothly rotate the main body of the machine around its hemispherical base and aim the barrel up, down, left, right.

  A collective grunt of acknowledgement from the generals went up.

  A spark flew from the machine, which went unnoticed by Jessica as she went on to explain the controls. Whilst she was doing this, another spark flew, and another, and the wiring sphere began to slow down. The golden plasma slowly disappeared.

  Stolen story; please report.

  “Jessica,” came a frustrated voice over the loudspeaker. “What's going on?”

  “I-I don't know James, uh, Sir.” She was fiddling with the remote. The generals murmured amongst themselves and shifted around. Patricia looked on in malicious glee. Glee which turned into a frown as the machine started up again. This wasn't meant to happen.

  The sphere began to spin and spin, much faster than it should have, the plasma building and building. Jessica frantically fiddled with the controller, she felt a sense of terror building inside of her. Patricia herself also felt worried, her stomach twisting in a knot.

  Plasma shot out of the barrel, narrowly missing Jessica and she threw herself to the ground. The machine began spazzing - jerking this way and that - shooting beams of hot plasma everywhere. Plasma cut through the safety glass, hitting a man who staggered backwards, screaming in pain as he clutched his chest. The military men scrambled to the door, Patricia following them. One fell to Patricia's left, screaming as scorching hot plasma melted his back.

  Patricia stepped on something which moved under her weight, perhaps it was somebody's leg or arm, causing her to fall flat on her chest. With the adrenaline pumping through her she swiftly pushed herself up to her knees but couldn't help but take a glance behind her back. In a horrifying split-second she saw a golden beam heading straight at her face. She raised both hands in a vain attempt at protecting herself.

  In that same moment, purple lightning ripped a hole in the roof above, shooting haphazardly down to strike her at the exact nanosecond the Plasma hit her hands. The Cosmic Lightning raced from her head, down to her shoulders and through her arms. A multitude of tiny chaotic bits of lightning touched the Plasma, penetrating into it. The Cosmic Lightning fused with the Plasma, morphing it into her hands and integrating it with her body.

  Patricia cried out, the pain in both her hands was excruciating. It felt like the deep core of the bones in her hand were burning. She struggled to crawl out the doorway on her elbows and knees. She kept her painfully pulsating hands up in the air, not daring to touch anything with them.

  Behind her, the Plasma Cannon continued to jerk around and shoot erratically, obliterating large chunks of the brick and concrete walls until the roof caved in, destroying the room and smashing into the machine, turning it into a wreck of metal and electronics.

  Concrete and Iron rods collapsed. Patricia’s foot just barely escaped being trapped under the rubble which tumbled out of the archway and across the floor after her, amidst concrete-dust which filled the room, causing everyone to cough. Patricia was coughing, her stomach heaving in pain and hot tears falling down her face.

  She looked down, her hands had a purple glow within them. Her very bones could be seen under her skin as this purple energy was emanating from them, making her skin appear almost translucent. She glanced around, everyone seemed to be too focused on themselves to have noticed her and her and she quickly stuffed her hands in her pockets.