Age of Power 1: Legacy

by Jon Davis

  Then I glanced down and saw a large bottle of Gatorade lying near my feet. It was dented badly, but still unopened. Just the right thing to quench my thirst. Then just as I raised it to my lips, one of the people gawking at the fire made his way to me with worry and controlled fear in his eyes. Brave man, given how hot it was getting.

  He said, “All hell’s breaking loose, kid! And you’re relaxing? Get the hell out of here!”

  Holding up a finger to stop him while I drank, I finished off the bottle, letting it soothe the gritty feeling in my throat. I finished it off and tossed the man the empty bottle.

  I tested my voice. “Ahh, huhn, uh, aah. Do re mi falsies, stiletto!”

  I could never remember that tonal practice line from music class, but the voice worked. With a smile, I nodded to the helpful man and said, “Get everyone as far back as you can. And tell them to cover their ears!”

  Grinning at the guy’s confused look, I jogged around the car, holding in a deep breath. This was going to have to work the first time. I had an idea of what to do, and I was going to do damage. But, the fire itself would burn down this side of the town if I didn’t do something. Pulling on what little I could feel of that buzz in my nerves, I reached out to grab every little thing I could hear.

  Sounds around me deepened from high pitches to deep growls, it was as though everything I heard was stretching out. Slowly, I took what I heard, adding it to the low beat of my heart, the sound of my breathing. All of it joined together, shaping to my thought. Seconds passed, and the sound turned into a thrum of power—demanding release. I gave the raw force its wish, and with a yell at the top of my voice, I gave it direction.

  White noise engulfed me for a split-second as sonic force lashed out at the fire. For one short moment, the fire continued to burn. And then with a quick burst of high heat, it blew apart. Along with that, everything that was left of the building and in the lot in front of me simply shattered and blew away. The sky lit up with the orange and gold flames and then disappeared. Without the fire, the heat simply dissipated into the air.

  As the last bits and pieces of floating ash cooled and died, I whooped with joy at what I’d done. Then someone next to me said, “Wow, dude. I didn’t know you had that in you.”

  “Yeah, no more blowing out candles on the birthday cakes, huh?” I said without thinking.

  My eyes went wide when I realized who had spoken. I turned to see Brand standing there, looking at me with a slight smile. But there was only rage and hate in his eyes.

  He said, “You’re turning out to be pretty dangerous. Die time now!”

  Before I could react, Brand blurred and backed away, then blurred again, running at me. One punch later and I was flying—that was it. Sailing up into the air in a long arc, the world spun around me. Then it ended as I slammed down onto hard asphalt nearly three blocks west. I had ended up on the other side of the bridge. I don’t think I had time to draw a breath.

  It felt like the impact had compressed every bone in my body. That I was still alive and conscious was shocking all by itself. But moving…well, my body told me not to. In fact, everything screamed at me not to make any stupid attempts to move, or breathe, or blink, or…

  No, I had to get up. I didn’t know how I had survived that big of a hit, but I did. It had left its mark, though. I was bleeding from small cuts and scraped skin all over my body. My shoulder injury was now throbbing with sharp agony to every beat of my heart. Lying on the cold road in a heap—that was a good thing, right? Let someone else…damn it…no one else.

  I opened my eyes. I was on my back in the middle of Main Street, and I could see the other side of the bridge. Right in front of me, slushy snow was scattered across the road, deposited by passing cars and my own crash landing. Pushing myself up to my knees, I ignored the spasms threatening to send me back down to the road. I had to. If I failed, the whole town was going to burn. Brand made that clear.

  Images of buildings on fire with people burning as if they were candles lashed through my mind’s eye. And it was exactly what I needed to push myself to my feet. Or rather, to get to my hands and knees. With everything hurting, I didn’t care if I stood up or not. Frankly, I didn’t really care if I fell over unconscious.

  And I might have done precisely that, if not for the screams. I looked up and saw him still near where the gas station had been. But for a moment, I couldn’t tell what he was doing. It hit me when one of the homes across from the station exploded. I could hear him yelling and laughing about it. The asshole was showing off!

  People were running away, and Brand let them. But he fired off heat bursts in their direction, laughing and screaming for them to run faster. Wonderful, he’d become our very own homegrown terrorist! It worked to get my adrenaline going, though. I still couldn’t move very well, but, just the same, I got to my feet. Opening my mouth, I took in a breath to scream. It was a fair distance, but his back was to me, and if I focused enough, I knew I could take him down while he was distracted.

  “Brand!” I yelled.

  Brand simply looked in my direction. And I was in trouble. So much for hitting him with a sonic attack, something was wrong. Then I realized that I wasn’t feeling the usual buzz in my nerves and brain. Instead, there was only a vacuum-like feeling, a nothingness where the buzz had been all these weeks.

  Whining, I said, “Nothing? I got nothing? Come on! This is a craptastic time to run out of gas!”

  Brand cocked his head, and then shaking it, he yelled back, “Seriously? I send you flying, and you still think you can take me out? Damn, man! I think I’ll just kill you now and be done with it!”

  He started running. But he didn’t blur. If he had, I would’ve been dead a second ago. No, he was playing with me. Brand was building up speed slowly, letting me know that I was about to be killed.

  Well, good. He was acting like a child showing off. Brand had always been hotheaded, but he usually only went after someone without wasting time on melodrama. Unless…maybe he was wearing out as much as I was? Oh, that would be nice. Then he could beat me to death in slow motion. Yay.

  I had to lead him away from the people around us, though. I moved toward the side of the road—well, I started to. Brand yelled at me. “Stay there, Vaughn! Or run! It doesn’t matter. Either way, I’ll burn you down!”

  He was moving faster. Brand hit the other side of the bridge moving as fast as a car would. I put up my fists. My only chance was to dodge to the side and hit him with a glancing blow as he passed me. But I knew I would have to time it perfectly, and I really didn’t have the chance to think of much else. But as he got faster, I saw something around him, like a shift in the light. He glowed for only a split-second, and then he sped up. The air around him wavered as Brand began to blur. I could see steam or…vapor around him, flying off when he increased speed. Cold air…or the moisture losing heat?

  Friction—that had to be the answer. Just as the energy in my nerves manipulated sonic vibrations into kinetic force, Brand’s energy took heat from the air hitting his body and converted it into speed or heat blasts. The faster he moved the more power he gained. Suddenly what he had done so far made sense. Short of his body’s physical limits, there was no end with how fast he could go.

  And, that was a total waste of comprehension. It was coming down to one thing. He was coming to kill me with a very fast punch. I’d probably go flying again, and this time, I’d be dead. Oh, how I wish this was a movie. That way I’d at least come down on a big air bag. Oh no, all I had here was half melted…snow.

  Snow. I glanced down at the slushy, dirty stuff in the middle of the road. Time was up. Brand was nearly across the bridge. I’d backed up towards the intersection behind me, but he was going far faster than I could manage. I had to act now!

  One…he blurred, I dived down and rolled.

  Two…he was out of sight. I had to guess where he would be.

  Three…I grabbed a handful of snow and threw it.

  Brand screamed in pa
in and shock, slush exploding across his chest. He lost his footing and skidded down the road.

  Good guess. I win the prize! I get to live for a few more moments! Yay! Ow…

  I lay there for a moment, watching him. He twitched and moaned. That was fun. But I’d only hit Brand with snow. And he was already starting to move. He was groggy, but he would shake it off before too long.

  I got back to my feet and stumbled toward him. I hoped he’d be down long enough for me to hit him hard. I wanted him knocked out. No such luck. Before I got more than a couple steps, his eyes flew open as he gasped. Brand growled wordlessly and got back to his feet.

  He glared at me as he said, “That fucking hurt, you son of a bitch!”

  “Aww, I feel for you, asshole. Really…” I muttered. I still couldn’t feel the buzz. I couldn’t wait for it to come back. I had to stop him.

  I said, “Brand, Yasmine is dead! She can’t hurt you anymore! You can get past this! Please, just stop! Whatever she made you into, you can fight it!”

  He shook his head, laughing softly. Something in his voice made me hesitate. He yelled. “You dumbass, what makes you think I want to stop? This is the ultimate high! Let me show you!”

  He and the world blurred as something hit me. Once again, I flew through the air with the greatest of unease. Brand let me go, and I skidded right into the side of a hill. I grayed out for a moment, then slowly came back to see that I was near the river at the bottom of a hill.

  Brand called out from somewhere above me, “Come on up, buddy! Let’s hang out, shoot the breeze! Hey, yeah, let’s go back to being good old bros, like we used to be!”

  I looked and saw him waving at me from the railroad trestle we used to climb all over. I started up the steep hill. Tracking through the slush and mud was incredibly hard to climb. By the time I reached the top, I was muddy, and very wet. I’d slipped a couple times to Brand’s laughter. The bastard was trying to humiliate me. But I got up to the top and climbed over a low-lying wooden fence to walk out onto the train tracks.

  He was still waiting in the middle of the trestle. I was muddy, bloody, and generally in need of a shower. He could have run away and back again at least ten times in the moments it took me to get up there. He wanted this to end. I did, too. Taking a breath, I went out onto the trestle.

  Taking him in, I saw that he didn’t look much better off than I was. The fighting had scored and ripped his suit in various places. He didn’t look all too healthy, either. He was sallow, his face was tight and his cheekbones stuck out. Brand was burning himself up with all this. Psi-energy enhancement or not, he actually had to run to use his power.

  But he was still going, and he was still full of that rage. Worse, his face had this sneer on it that was so unlike his usual cynical smile that seeing it disturbed me deeply. I’d known Brand my whole life, and this was the first time I’d seen such disdain on his face.

  He said, “Dumbass. I bet you’re still thinking you can convince me to give it up, right? Or are you going to try that bullshit with the snowball again? Don’t bother. So come on, dude! Let’s have one last good old trip down memory lane! And then I’m going to melt the eyes in your head and let you live long enough to hear me kill your faggot bud bit by bit! Then I’ll take his sister as my whore!”

  “Damn man, Yasmine seriously pissed in your cereal this morning, didn’t she?” I yelled.

  Brand barked out a laugh. Shaking his head in wonderment, he said, “Oh, man, you are an idiot! That stupid mind-witch didn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to do. She freed me, Vaughn!”

  He raised his hands, turning them over slowly. Waves of heat built up around them as he slowly closed his hands into fists. He looked at them with an expression of what was almost sexual ecstasy on his face. His voice had a dream-like quality to it. “I love this. The power inside me wants to get out, needs to get out, it’s like the rush of cocaine, man. But it comes without any of the nasty side effects!”

  He glared at me. “But Yasmine. She kept trying to dominate me. Dumbass bitch. She had no clue what I could do. All she worried about was those damn Noumenonii. They stood in her way. The very thought that someone else was out there, able to stop her, sent her into full-on panic!”

  I snapped at him. “She was right to worry. Think about it, Brand. We’re paranormally gifted humans, with powers like Alex. He had to have come from somewhere. He did come from somewhere.”

  “Yeah, I already figured that out a long time back—didn’t you? Wow, I thought you were the smart one. Well, you ain’t!” he said with a sneer.

  “That’s ‘aren’t,’ not ‘ain’t,’ you idiot.” I said out of reflex.

  Brand looked startled for a second, then his eyes narrowed and he said, “Screw you. And screw Yasmine! She kept worrying about those damn Noumenonii of hers! When they arrested you, it freaked her out because they suddenly had a live subject to use! God, I told her to forget it! Told her we’d deal with them later. Get an army together, as she originally planned. Then they arrested you and all that was tossed out. Hell, you’re the one who’s stupid, man, getting caught like that!”

  “So how’s this going to end? Do you think we’re going to make up now? You heard me before; there isn’t any way back,” Brand said. “You hearin’ me, man?”

  I nodded, and then said, “Yeah, yeah, I heard you. So what’s this—one last blast from the past, when we used to climb underneath and hang from I-beams?”

  Brand snorted. His hair blew in the breeze and, for a moment, he looked like my old friend. That ended when sneered at me. Then he said, “Sure, let’s go with that, man. You’re dead. You know that, right? Once I kill you, it breaks the last ties I have to this stupid-ass town. Yasmine was right! We’re the new gods! We have power unlike anything ever seen before! You think those leftover humans will ever be able to take us down when we come together?”

  I sighed, “Yasmine’s dead. Her nightmare is dead with her. Her friends are dead, or so out of it that the military will just grab them. You’re all alone, Brand.”

  Brand laughed and said, “Wow! You have no idea, do you? Do you really think she got to only the people that you just fought? The bitch went all over the world to every Empowered she knew! What do you think she did to them? Since the attack at the hospital, she had Alan jumping everywhere! Do you seriously think this is over because she’s dead? No way!”

  Oh no, it wasn’t possible. I shook my head in disbelief. I said, “No, she didn’t have that long. She took out Paradoxis, yeah, but to manipulate that many people—no, no way, man.”

  He laughed at me and then said, “Wow, you are so naïve! Yasmine made living time bombs! That’s her legacy! The dark Empowered. Yasmine turned Empowered into the worst that people could be. Just so she could swoop in and play the hero. Now, thanks to Sinclair’s killing shot, they’ll probably kill at the first insult someone throws at them! And not even they will know they’re going to do it until it’s too late.”

  All I could do was stare at Brand. I heard his heartbeat. He was telling the absolute truth. And it fit too perfectly. Yasmine wanted villains so she could play the hero. But I had to worry about that some other time. Brand was my problem now.

  I said, “And that’s what you really want—a world on fire? You want death to come to everything that you ever cared for, like your dad, Karla? And is this how you want to honor Kyle’s memory? All of it will be gone forever, burned away.”

  He blinked and, for a moment, something in him seemed normal. I couldn’t let the chance pass by. “Brand, don’t do this. There’s a way out. There has to be. Please, don’t give in to it, don’t let Yasmine win!”

  Then with his eyes burning with insanity, Brand said, “No. Riverlite burns, man. I’m burning this town down to dead ash!”

  I sighed, “Not if you don’t have anything to stand on…thanks for giving me the chance to rest, by the way.”

  I shattered the trestle.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The
world fell, and I fell with it. Then, everything flared white in my eyes. There was a flash of pain. When it cleared, I was outside the school. I was surrounded by everyone, my parents, Brand’s parents, Brand. Everyone was here, looking up at the sky. I did the same, and I was startled to see Yama coming down. “No…”

  Brand reached out to me, showing a sad smile. “Dude, it’s okay. It’ll be fast. You’ve been daydreaming, but come on, man. We’re all here, at the end.”

  I took a step away from him. “No…this isn’t how it went down.”

  Mom touched my arm, worry on her face. “Honey, it’s alright. We’re all here.”

  No, I shook my head. I moved from mom. This was wrong. Yama was stopped! Then I bumped into someone. “Alex!”

  He stood there, looking at me with a confused look. He took a drag off a cigar and gestured towards the asteroid. “Vaughn, it’ll be fast. The firestorm will kill us faster than we’ll feel it. Just relax, man.”

  “Vaughn, we saw you were daydreaming…it seemed like you were in another world.” Dad said, coming up to me. I looked at him, at the others. I saw Jennings looking at me with a slight sneer…he had his arms around the two girls. Next to him, Chief Sinclair was holding onto Dana…

  “Wait.” I said, turning to Alex. “Why aren’t you stopping Yama, Alex?”

  Blowing out a cloud of smoke, Alex looked at me. “Man, Vaughn, what were you daydreaming? Come on, man, suck it up already! Everyone’s dealt with what’s coming. You have to as well.”

  No, no, no…this is just not right! I couldn’t have imagined all that! Not a chance in hell! No! I ran to Alex, and pushed him away from the crowd. I lowered my voice as I said, “Damn it Alex! I know! I know you’re Noumenonii! Come on! You can stop the asteroid! You did it before!”