There’s a version of this story where the man with the cape and the thousand-watt smile picks the cat off the branch and hands it to the waiting arms of the little girl. The neighborhood claps. The girl says ‘thank you’ in her characteristically high pitched, cutesy voice. The man with the cape nods; a simple downward tilt of the head that says ‘No need to thank me, this is my job’. But he is thanked nevertheless. It’s tradition.

Nobody asks the obvious question. Why is he wasting his time here when hundreds of thousands of people are dying every single day? Even discounting the ones from old age, famine, disease, planned wars, and outsourced labor, there ought to be at least thousands dying from accidents, natural disasters, homicides, monochrome teens on top of bridges with their mascara running and punk rock blasting in their Airpods. Every. Single. Day.

There is a man with a rainbow cape saving kittens from trees. And there is a man wearing dark camo assisting a coup in a country ending with ‘-stan’ because the Russians might get there first. Both sides of the story are true. The world is big enough for the doublethink.

On occasion it is too small.

It is the year twenty twenty-four. A category 9 telekinetic goes insane. He pulls a mountain out of the ground. It crumbles in his mental grip, turning into so many flaming rocks with no particular aim. The dangerous vectors are intercepted. The heroes mount a counterattack. Except it is too late. Rachminau collapses into a psychic black hole, bathing a thousand miles in the psy equivalent of Hawking radiation. It is the year twenty thirty. To this day hunters spot half-rotten corpses of elk roaming in that mountain range, chewing food that falls out of its maggot-ridden throat, because the poor animals went so mad they forgot they were dead. It is best not to think about the scattered towns that were once there.

It was the year twenty thirty-one. The world had moved forward, and Lyssa Unas’s dress clothes were ruined from the rivers of sweat and humidity soaking into the fabric. The office sprinklers were only making things worse. Then again, they weren’t designed to put out pyrogenetics.

The arsonist wore what was once a hoodie. The arms had been blown out. Twisting gouts of flame danced around his fingers, sheathing his forearms and biceps, spreading out of his shoulders like wings. And for the moment he had stopped incinerating the office to look over his shoulder at the young woman hiding behind an overturned desk.

“What are you doing here?” He asked, and he walked closer. The desk was reduced to ash. Lyssa crawled backward until her back was to the wall, pressing against a wet shirt and a ruined drywall.

“Do you work here?” He asked.

“N-no.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Job interview?”

“You shouldn’t phrase facts like a question. Not a confident look for a potential employee.” He glanced around them. “Not that there’ll be openings left.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“This is an insurance company,” the arsonist said, laughing once. “Put two and two together.” He brought a hand onto his chin. “Well, I suppose you’re as good as any. I’ll tell it to you. Remember twenty twenty-four?”

Lyssa nodded rapidly.

He continued, “I had just paid off the house when one of his meteors landed in my neighborhood. Flattened my neighbor’s house. Set mine on fire. You see, when Taylor & Herald’s said they covered damage from supervillainy, they were very specific. My neighbor was covered. I wasn’t. Because my house hadn’t been directly hit. The notion was that it was ridiculous to expect coverage just because you were ‘in the area’, like if some bastard two blocks away wanted compensation because the impact cracked his window. The premium would go through the roof if they did that for everyone! They had their customers in mind, you see. And everybody’s glad for it so long as they weren’t as unlucky as I was.”

The fire raged. Tiles were falling from the ceiling. The walls were coming apart like black slag. A dark border was beginning to creep in from the edges of Lyssa’s vision. It was getting harder to breathe.

“I lost the wife. She said it wasn’t my fault. Our son was in the house when it burned down, you see. She couldn’t stay with me because it reminded her of that. Maybe I don’t blame her. Maybe it was my fault I stepped out to the bar for an hour with the boys. Everybody on her side of the family thought so. My side didn’t have much to say. But the thing is many a good parent have done worse than that and their kids grew up fine. I knew a friend who has dropped his daughter before. Twice. She’s learning to speak now at age one. One hour! One fucking hour I was gone!”

He marched over to a desk and kicked it. The particle board disintegrated in a crash of embers and ash. Lyssa flinched, squirming deeper into the corner she had tucked herself into.

“I was on my way back too! I had a glass of water, no alcohol. I had been sleeping three to four hours a day taking care of Forrest while my wife worked. I thought I’d cheat for one hour out of one day, just for my sanity. Forrest was in his baby proofed crib. Am I a bad father? Hello? Answer me!”

The fumes were too much; Lyssa was falling unconscious. Her whole body felt like a blister.

“Why does this always happen to me?” She whispered.

“Wha- Are you crying?”

Lyssa could feel herself slip away. She fought to stay awake. If she fell asleep, she would sleep forever.

“An insurance company… didn’t kill your son,” she said. “Rachminau… did.”

“Well he’s already gone,” he retorted. “They say the Supes ended him. I have to take it out on someone, something, before I end myself.”

“You’re killing me.”

“I am, aren’t I?” He sighed, and took a seat cross-legged in front of her. “I didn’t see you. Thought the whole building would clear before I wound myself up. I can’t carry you out either, takes minutes to shut off my flames. The stairs are fucked too. Do you have a gift?”

“Not… one that matters.” Lyssa could barely hear herself. The fumes, the heat, it was too much.

“Sorry. I’ll do it quickly.” The man raised a hand. A vortex of flame began to build in his palm, as bright as the midday sun.

Time slowed to a crawl. Lyssa relived her life, in all of its holes and travails, as the fire blast grew like a pregnant flower in the man’s grasp, ready to blossom.

How did she get to this point? She had applied for a part time job organizing files. Her father’s last will and testament had left her enough to live for a year. She wanted to work and save for law school. This was supposed to be her first step forward, a chance for a life of her own. She had also applied to Marlowe’s Academy for Gifted Enhanciles with a vague hope; upon acceptance her living expenses would be taken care of, and she would still get to take part in justice. She had applied on a whim. What was she supposed to do with category 1 resilience? For every punch a normal human could take, she could withstand two or three. In fact, her gift was the reason she was taking so long to suffocate.

She remembered a childhood spent snared in the other people’s flows. Parents that found substance and debt more interesting than their daughter. Years endured at a school caught between handsy faculty and peers looking for an outlet for their own troubles. After twenty twenty-four she had to live in a tent for a while. It had not been a good life.

Maybe a poor life was better over with, than perpetuated in the hopes that everything would get better. For one fleeting moment, she felt calm. She was at peace. And then she was angrier than she had ever been in her entire life. Lyssa spectated her hand reach out to snuff the fire blast in the man’s palm. The flames spilled out in beams, filtered through the gaps between their fingers, cutting more holes in the ceiling.

This was her. Lyssa was watching through her eyes. She felt the fire wash over her skin. But it was not her doing the moving, or talking.

“Enough of this!” Her voice, not her words.

“What the hell?” The arsonist exclaimed. “I thought you weren’t gifted!”

“You pathetic moron-” Harsh. Lyssa would not have said that. “-you weren’t the only victim of the Twenty-Four. And yet you come here, fists full of fire, like the world is your antagonist.”

The man raised his other hand and dialed up his flames to their full strength. Lyssa watched as the fire exploded like a tsunami on the sea wall. But it hurt no more than a shower with the valve turned too far red. Her clothes were gone, reduced beyond ashen motes. Instead of pale skin she was covered in scales like molten rock. Orange heat spilled from between the cuticles. Her hands reached out and wrapped around the man’s neck. She saw his eyes widen, his mouth agape. He fought her with everything he had. His fire mingled with hers. But hers was a different kind of flame, solid, tangible, like curved sickles moments after leaving the oven extending from her fingers.

Lyssa screamed in her own mind.

Let him go!

But her grip only tightened. Like a vice. Slowly, steadily, seemingly without end. The man’s arms went limp. His flames ebbed. Lyssa’s only grew stronger. She gripped until he came apart in her hands as blackened chunks. A smile stretched across her face.

And then her control came back, like waking from a lucid nightmare. Her smile vanished, her expression became one of panic. But her body was still covered in magma plate, and her fingers were still on fire. The building was on the verge of collapse.

“Oh god oh god oh god…”

She ran for the stairs, hesitated, then powered through it. If the pyrogenetic’s fire couldn’t hurt her, then neither could what was left over. Still, logic had to fight for space next to emotion. Lyssa rushed down the stairs in a panic, and crashed out onto the alleyway. The sound of crackling flames was replaced with the compressing echoes of sirens. Her body chose that moment to snap back to normality. Her rock skin became smooth again. The fire blades dissipated from her nails, leaving behind charred tips. She stood alone in the transience between buildings, shaking, afraid, and completely naked.