The Rise of Dark Flame

by Damien Benoit-Ledoux

  Dark Flame flew as fast as he could, pushing his limits and testing his flight abilities. Although Quinn was the master of super flight, he hoped he would gain stronger abilities with time.

  Thirty minutes later, Dark Flame flew into Boston Harbor, soared under the Tobin Bridge, and landed where Chappy had parked the car.

  I’ll burn this place to the ground.

  Dark Flame walked to the old, rusty back doors and noted a series of new locks had been installed. He chuckled when he saw them, then reached out with his mind and crushed the metal locks, ripping them off the doors. Then, he yanked the doors from their hinges and let them clatter to the ground.

  Patricia stared at him as he walked toward her reception area through the dimly lit, painted cinderblock hallway that still smelled of dust and mustiness. Above him, a fluorescent light flickered as he approached the office area.

  She didn’t hesitate to raise her hands in surrender and she stared at him, bug-eyed.

  “How is it you can work here and sleep at night?” Dark Flame asked, anger already boiling in his veins and voice.

  “It’s a job honey, I have to pay the bills like everyone else.” She spoke with a heavy South Boston accent.

  “No, working at the grocery store is ‘a job.’” He pointed to the doors behind her. “That’s different. Do you know what goes on behind you?”

  She nodded and glanced at the doors. “Y-yes.”

  “And you’re okay with it?” he asked incredulously?

  She shook her head. “No, but I gots to pay the bills. And you gotta understand honey, once you get in with these people it’s really hard to get out. When I started working here, I thought I was working for a power plant until I accidentally saw what the…uh, company…was doing back there. But then, it was too late and I couldn’t get out. So, I’m stuck.”

  “Not for long.”

  She looked at him with surprise. “What do you mean?”

  “I think you should take the rest of the day off Patricia, and never come back. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to look for a new job tomorrow.”

  “But…”

  “Do you really want to argue with me?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. But there’s something you should know.”

  Dark Flame paused. “What’s that?”

  “When you took out Arnold, the one Radoslav called Big Boss, you pissed off a lot of the higher-ups in the company. The next guy in the food chain, Melvin, is up in the office trying to make sense of the business. You did them a favor by taking Arnold out because he was skimming off the top, if you catch my drift. They’ve picked things up since your last visit, but unfortunately they’ve also rounded up most of the workers by threatening their families.”

  Dark Flame nodded with understanding. “Melvin, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go home, Patricia. Get a job that doesn’t turn people into slaves and don’t ever come back here.”

  The receptionist scrambled to her feet and nodded. “Thank you, whoever you are.” She pulled her coat from the rack and tossed it over her arm. Then, she grabbed her purse and a plant from her desk and hurried down the hallway, her shoes clacking on the tile floor.

  Dark Flame looked at the doors that led into the control room; even they had shiny new locks on them.

  It’s cute they think those locks will keep me out…

  He shook his head, raised his hand, then forced the doors open. They slammed open and startled two workers on the other side in the control room.

  “Hey!” the first worker exclaimed. He had an automatic rifle slung around his shoulder.

  “Hey yourself,” Dark Flame said. He didn’t hesitate to throw the man across the room.

  “Oh shit, it’s you,” the second worker said, reaching for his weapon.

  Dark Flame grabbed that man and threw him across the room as well. Both men lay unconscious or dead on the floor; he didn’t care which. Then, he forced open the next set of doors and stepped into the massive power plant-turned-factory.

  All eyes—guards and workers alike—turned and focused on him, startled by the unusual sight and sound of metal doors ripping from their hinges and crunching into a semi-circle shape.

  “Who the hell are you?” a big burly guard asked, advancing on him.

  “¡El diablo!” a woman shouted from the rear of the factory floor. People around her gasped in panic and fear.

  Dark Flame smirked and looked at the man. “Some people call me Dark Flame, but you can call me your worst nightmare.”

  The man waved his sausage-fingered hand dismissively and swung his gun around. “You’re just a kid, what can you possibly do?”

  He jerked his thumb toward the crushed doors behind him. “Really? Did you not just see that?”

  The man glanced at the doors, then looked at Dark Flame again, sizing him up.

  I’m bored and I can tell you’re going to be tedious.

  Dark Flame pulled the hoodie off his head, revealing his glowing orange eyes. A moment later, he reached through the air with his mind, grabbed the larger man, and threw him across the factory floor with enough force to explode the dirty floor-to ceiling window pane the man sailed through, shrieking in terror. Glass shattered and fell to the factory floor.

  The workers screamed with terror around him.

  Dark Flame looked around and saw over two-thirds of the illegal workforce had returned. He recognized some of the men, women, and children from his first visit. A number of new guards on the suspended gangways and ramps aimed their weapons at him. In a loud voice, he addressed them.

  “I have two things to say. First, to the workers on the factory floor. You will never have to come back here again. I suggest you leave, now.” Then he raised his hands and pointed to the guards on the cat walks. “If they told you what I did to the first set of guards, you be wise to lower your weapons and leave right now, too.”

  “Yeah, they told us,” one of the cocky guards yelled from the other side of the factory. “But, they didn’t tell us you were a punk ass kid wearing sissy ballerina tights!”

  Dark Flame sighed.

  He slowly and methodically unzipped his black hoodie, pulled it off, and set it on one of the idle machines. He pulled his phone out of his waistband and set it on top of the hoodie. He advanced and stood in their midst, shirtless, wearing only his purple super pants and sneakers.

  “Then by all means, fire away.”

  He ignited his body and his legs, torso, arms, and head with purple and orange flame. The factory workers screamed with panic and fear. Some of them dropped to the floor while others ran to the exits. The guards above him hesitated, appearing surprised by what they saw.

  Dark Flame took the opportunity to look at the office. Six armed enforcers observed him from behind the shattered office windows. Behind them, three men in business suits watched him with intense curiosity. He pointed up at the office. “One of you three assholes is coming with me.”

  “Take aim!” someone yelled.

  Humans and their guns. He smirked, recalling Magneto’s infamous phrase from the movie X-Men: The Last Stand.

  “Let’s kill this twinkle-toed motherfucker,” someone else shouted.

  Dark Flame jumped up and hovered twenty-feet above the factory floor. The guards took a moment to re-aim their weapons and then gunfire echoed throughout the all-metal and concrete enclosure of the factory.

  He put his hands out and snared the bullets about two feet away from him. Then, he superheated his body and melted the bullets to slag. They dripped to the floor, scorching whatever they touched below him. Some of the molten metal splashed around the floor below him, landing on the rubber conveyor belts and melting through them, while other drippings struck the oily rubber that caught fire.

  The gunfire stopped as the first round of magazines emptied. Stunned, the guards stared at him, their faces conveying shock and disbelief.

  Dark Flame laughed maniacally. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Now it’
s my turn.” He turned his hands into flame throwers and blasted the guards with deadly, searing hot fire. They screamed as their clothing and skin ignited and melted, clawing and patting at the melted skin of their faces in pain and agony.

  Behind him, other guards struggled to reload while others panicked and ran. Dark Flame turned his attention to them and blasted their escape routes with searing fire, melting some of the gangway supports in the process. One of larger structures buckled and collapsed, taking three screaming guards down with it.

  The old, dusty factory building quickly caught fire and the remaining workers below shouted in mixed languages as they hastened to the exits. He extended his hands to his sides and slowly spun, blasting everything around him with hot, incinerating fire, until no guards were left alive.

  Satisfied, he pointed his hands at the largest idle conveyor belt beneath him. It held rows of neatly ordered cardboard baby diaper boxes, each stuffed with packages of drugs and diapers.

  That must be how they get the drugs out, by packing them in innocuous-looking boxes. Not anymore…not from here.

  He blasted it with super-hot fire and watched the boxes and the belt incinerate into ash. The ceiling above him buckled and creaked at the intense heat that pummeled it from below. A moment later, the ceiling caught fire.

  Sharp pinches caught his back and he winced, groaning in pain as bullets struck his back.

  Wow, these bullets really hurt!

  He spun around to see who was firing at him. The bullets that struck his skin did him no harm; instead they melted and dripped to the floor, scorching whatever they fell on. He glared at the six enforcers in the office who fired at him with some kind of extra loud, military-grade assault rifle. Behind them, the three men in business suits were trying to unlock the back door and escape.

  Baring his teeth in anger, Dark Flame grabbed the six guards and ripped them through the shattered office windows. As they got closer to him, they desperately covered their faces and yelled in agony at the intense heat oppressing their bodies. Dark Flame scorched them with a fiery purple-orange blast of hot flames and dropped their burning corpses to the ground. Then, he willed himself to move forward through the air toward the office.

  One of the suits noted his approach and swore in a language he didn’t understand. The three men turned to face him, their backs pressed against the wall in abject fear. The scorch mark where he had burned Arnold hadn’t been painted over yet. Dark Flame landed in the office doorway and dialed down his flaming body. Behind him, the floor-to-ceiling windows popped and burst as the burning power plant surrendered to the flames that sealed its fate.

  “Which one of you is Melvin?” Dark Flame asked.

  Two of the men stared at each other and pointed at the third, who turned ghostly white.

  Dark Flame smiled. “Thank you.” Then, he grabbed Melvin with his mind and separated him from his friends, moving him through the air to the other side of the office. The man screamed, swatting at the invisible hand that gripped his body.

  There’s something I need to try out first before I deal with you.

  He extinguished his body and walked toward the other two men, who whimpered and trembled with fear at his approach. Quick as lightning, Dark Flame wrapped his fingers around each man’s throat. Summoning a familiar sensation, he watched as blackness leached into each man’s veins, creeping away from his tightening fingers. Their skin turned ashen and the men gasped and struggled for air, slapping and clawing at his arms, desperate to get away from his deadly attack. “You bastards will never fuck with innocent people again,” he growled as anger coursed through his veins. Then, he felt a surge of life and energy pass into his body.

  Keep going, don’t stop this time. Drain them dry.

  The men’s eyes rolled back in their heads and they gasped their final breath, the will to live lost on them. A moment later, their bodies became limp and their muscles and skin, now ghostly white and mottled, shriveled and tightened over their skeletons, their faces resembling dehydrated fruit.

  Dark Flame released them and they collapsed to the floor, dead.

  “Oh my gawd,” Melvin exclaimed, staring at the dead bodies on the floor. Dark Flame turned and stared at the man.

  “Who do you work for?” Dark Flame asked.

  The man shook his head, still stuck in Dark Flame’s invisible grasp. “I can’t answer that.”

  Dark Flame lowered his face and stared at the man, a menacing look on his face. “Oh, you will.”

  “You’ll have to kill me first,” Melvin protested. “You have no idea what these people will do to me if I talk.”

  Dark Flame raised his eyebrow with curiosity. “These people?” he repeated. “You have no idea what my people will do to you,” he retorted, then walked toward the man. “You’re coming with me.”

  He grabbed Melvin by the front of his shirt and tossed him through the broken office windows into the smoke-filled factory. Before the man could fall to his death on the burning floor and die, Dark Flame suspended him in midair. Then, he summoned his fire powers and allowed the flames to surge away from his body, igniting or scorching everything in the office.

  Dark Flame flew out of the office into the main area of the factory and pulled his sweatshirt and phone toward him. He grabbed the screaming man by the shirt front again and then flew up and away from the power plant, his sweatshirt and phone trailing behind him.

  As he flew out, a large section of the ceiling collapsed and fell to the fiery ground below.

  Good, this place will never be used again for human slavery.

  Dark Flame pulled Melvin up to him until they were face-to-face. “Hold on,” he warned the terrified man.

  “But you’re on fire,” Melvin protested, afraid to grab hold of Dark Flame’s burning arm.

  Dark Flame extinguished himself and with his free hand, he reached for his phone. He texted Radoslav an arrival time and a new set of instructions. In the meantime, Melvin grabbed his arm and hung on for dear life. When he finished texting, he hit send, tucked his phone into the front waistband of his tights, grabbed his sweatshirt, and flew out of Boston Harbor to the open ocean.

  “Whatever they’re paying you, I’ll pay you more,” Melvin pleaded, his voice high-pitched and full of terror.

  “Shut up,” Dark Flame replied.

  “I’m serious; I’ll double it. I’ll give you whatever you want. Money, cars, girls, boys…”

  “I said, shut up.” Dark Flame ascended as high as he could go with the man in his grasp. He didn’t care if anyone on the coastline saw an orange streak flying through the air.

  “Fine; I’ll triple whatever it is, just don’t hurt me.”

  Dark Flame glanced down at him with anger in his glowing eyes. “I said shut up!”

  Then, he let the man go and watched him plummet.

  Melvin screamed, his arms and legs flailing as he fell toward the ocean. Dark Flame looped down and back toward the falling man and grabbed Melvin’s right ankle. Then, he circled back around and resumed his journey north, carrying Melvin upside down by the ankle the rest of the way, the man’s free leg and arms flailing in the air.

  As he approached Portsmouth, Dark Flame noted the unusually dark storm clouds gathering around the seacoast area of New Hampshire and Maine. Lightning and thunder rumbled as the winds between the ground and the thunderheads picked up with surprising fury, battering him around with unexpected ease. Beneath them, the ocean responded in kind with angry, ten-foot waves that buffeted the coast.

  Dark Flame put an arm out to try and cut through the air like Quinn had done, mimicking the Superman pose while hanging onto his unwilling passenger.

  A brilliant flash of lightning passed between the clouds and the ocean waves in front of him, causing Melvin to curse.

  I have no idea if I could survive an actual lightning strike, despite the story we told people about what happened to us back in Rangeley. Doesn’t lightning go for the highest object?

  Suddenl
y afraid, he descended rapidly until he was flying several feet over the heaving ocean. Finally, he set his eyes on the Whaleback Lighthouse, flew around it, and headed inland toward the naval prison.

  Three guards on the ground, standing near one of the front entrances, watched him approach with wide-eyes. The guards seemed skittish, like they weren’t sure if they should aim their weapons at him or allow him to land without interruption.

  Just before he landed, he dropped Melvin to the ground. The man hit the ground with a grunt and rolled through the dust until he stopped, lying flat on his back.

  “Ow,” Melvin moaned.

  Dark Flame landed, his eyes glowing orange. One of the guards approached him.

  “What are you doing with him?”

  Dark Flame glared at the man and shoved the guard thirty feet away with his mind, letting him tumble across the ground until he rolled to a stop in a sitting position, looking insulted and surprised.

  “Ask me another question like that and see what happens,” Dark Flame said.

  The other two guards silently stepped back, unwilling to incur his wrath.

  Dark Flame yanked Melvin off the ground with his mind, set him on his feet, then marched him through the unfinished part of the facility to the interrogation room.

  Melvin remained silent until they arrived at the old, metal and wood door. “I won’t talk,” he whimpered defiantly.

  Dark Flame shrugged. “We’ll see about that.” Then, he knocked on the door. It unlocked, cracked open slowly, and then Radoslav peered through the narrow opening.

  “You!” Melvin exclaimed.

  Dark Flame sensed the man’s defiance and resolve fade away in the face of his new adversary. I thought this would happen.

  “Me,” Radoslav responded, surprised at seeing Melvin.

  “You two know each other, I presume?” Dark Flame asked.

  “He used to work for me,” Melvin responded.

  “Then, since you know what’s about to happen, I’m sure you’re more interested in talking.”