He stepped out of the crumbling shell of the abandoned facility, the shattered concrete and rusted metal giving way to the dead quiet of the empty city fringe. His hoodie hung scorched and torn, his exposed arm cradled against his body—not because of the pain, but the memory.
The burn wasn't just skin-deep. It echoed. A phantom ache crawled down to the marrow, like his nerves still remembered the flames even if the damage was healed.
It was 10 p.m.
Above him, the three moons of Atheris hovered-all white equidistant from each other all massive in size yet so far from our planets atmosphere each in their own orbit. He looked up at them as he walked, slow and deliberate. Home was far. His phone was dead. And the thought of hiking the full way without George's electric augment made his shoulders sag with bitter amusement.
I'd kill for a charger right now, he muttered internally.
He walked for nearly an hour at a leisurely pace, watching the city gradually grow brighter, more alive. At last, he reached the edge of the abandoned district, where the faint pulse of civilization returned—streetlamps flickering, distant sirens howling in the distance.
Then he saw them.
A cluster of police vehicles, fire engines, and medical vans tearing past the next intersection. No hesitation. Instinct took over.
He sprinted.
Ten kilometres vanished in thirty seconds.
He arrived on scene in a blur of heat distortion and displaced air. A residential apartment block roared with fire. The entire facade glowed orange—windows shattered, screams audible even through the chaos.
Knights were already present—some water-based augment users and elemental manipulators, their faces drenched in sweat and effort. He saw a C-rank squad redirecting the fire's trajectory, trying to stall its spread, but something was wrong.
The fire resisted.
It bent unnaturally, like it was alive. Augments that should've worked fizzled mid-cast or spiralled out of control.
Nathaniel didn't wait for orders.
He surged forward, Uratsu flaring across his body in a tight, pulsing field. The resin hardened around his limbs as he activated Springload and dove into the blaze.
Inside, it was hell.
Walls melted. Stairwells collapsed. But his body was tuned for chaos—he moved like a force of nature, bursting through flame, tearing through wreckage, grabbing trapped civilians and moving them out in bursts of speed and power.
Each trip singed his body. Each child he carried out added soot and blood to his already worn clothing. But he didn't stop.
He could feel the fire resisting again—not just elemental in nature, but wilful.
Alive.
And someone—something—was feeding it.
He moved like a phantom through the inferno, the ivory cowl of Horus draped over his shoulders, its segmented, armor-plated wings shielding the small family clutched close to his chest. The child whimpered beneath it, eyes wide—but Nathaniel's gaze remained steady, glowing cyan beneath the soot and smoke.
With his senses flared and energy field humming, he leapt from the crumbling hallway. Five stories collapsed behind him.
He landed in a slide, legs absorbing the impact, barely jostling the family. He set them down gently. The child looked up at him, trembling, and smiled—tentative, searching. Nathaniel hesitated… then smiled back, faint but real.
That was the last of them.
All the civilians he'd sensed in the building were safe.
And so, without a word, he jumped back in.
The onlookers—burned, shaken, wide-eyed—watched him as if he were unreal. Each time he returned from the blaze, he came out with someone new. His clothing torn, bloody. His silver-cyan eyes cut through the smoke like stars. Skin the color of burnished bronze glistened with sweat and soot. He moved like a being forged not in fire—but in sunlight.
Powerful. Enduring. Hope, in the form of a man.
Even the paramedics paused to look. A few healers caught glimpses of him through the smoke—tattered, battered, still walking forward.
Then came the scream.
A Knight flew across the street, crashing through a burning signpost and tumbling in a heap. Another yell followed, this time from the arsonist himself—a gaunt, sinewy man wreathed in crimson flame, laughing with a voice that cracked like charcoal.
His grin was impish. Delighted. Cruel.
Another Knight tried to intercept. The arsonist swept his leg under her and hurled her into a wall, then kicked her body into the blazing husk of a storefront. Screams. Bodies burned beyond recognition.
And then—silence.
The flames wavered. Twitched. Recoiled.
From the smoke, a humanoid silhouette stepped forward—slow, deliberate. Cloaked in a mechanical white cowl, the cape swaying in the oppressive heat, its surface kissed by flame yet untouched by it.
Nathaniel.
He was filthy—scorched, bleeding, arm exposed where the sleeve had long since burned away. White eyes burned under the cowl, rimmed by that eerie glow of blue flame. His walk was slower now, heavy with exhaustion—but it carried the weight of a promise.
He moved with rage.
In the next second, the air cracked.
A sonic ripple blasted through the plaza as Nathaniel blurred, closing the distance in less than a breath. His fist connected. The arsonist's body folded mid-air and slammed into the concrete in an arc of shattered tile and steam.
Before he could recover, Nathaniel landed again—another blow, then another, bones snapping audibly beneath the pressure.
Then he stopped.
Palm outstretched, hovering just above the downed arsonist's face. Uratsu gathered, spiraling into his hand like a cyclone collapsing inward. It ignited. A focused jet of royal-blue flame erupted like a blowtorch, aimed directly at the arsonist's arms.
The scream that followed was inhuman.
The fire didn't just burn. It erased.
The surrounding Knights stood frozen, watching in wide-eyed silence as the flames consumed flesh, screaming in the arsonist's own element—overpowered, overmatched, over.
Nathaniel didn't flinch. He just watched the man writhe, white eyes like judgment itself.
Nathaniel launched skyward.
The segmented wings of Horus' cowl unfurled with a sharp hiss, snapping into place as he rose into the blackened sky above the inferno's heart. Embers whirled beneath him like angry fireflies, the city flickering red below.
He hovered—just for a breath—right over the epicenter of the blaze. Then his arm began to glow.
He channeled it: 30% of the remaining uratsu in his depleted reserves condensed into a single limb, saturating the muscle and bone with surging light. His body trembled under the pressure. Kinetic Muscle pulsed to life, spring-loading with a depth of charge he had never attempted before—not even in training.
His hand arched overhead, splayed wide. Fingers stretched—each traveling at staggered speeds, calculated and brutal. He swung down.
The energy detonated.
Raw uratsu burst from his palm like an uncontrolled shockwave, the air igniting with force. A pillar of invisible pressure slammed downward—so fast it distorted the atmosphere with a sharp whine.
Then: Bernoulli's principle took hold.
The pressure dropped—drastically. The burst of air struck the street below with the force of a divine gale. Civilians and Knights alike were lifted gently into the air, floating nearly three feet off the ground, suspended in momentary calm. Flames roared once—and then snuffed out, vanishing under three rapid pulses of concussive wind.
One. Two. Three.
The fire died.
Nathaniel descended—slow, controlled—his feet guided by precise bursts of residual energy. He landed hard, the steel toes of his boots clacking against scorched asphalt.
The world had gone quiet.
He walked forward through the steaming ruins of the street, each step echoing in the silence. The wind hissed, and ash settled around him like snow.
The arsonist—charred, wheezing, half-conscious—lay where he'd fallen, broken in body and spirit.
Nathaniel reached down and grabbed him by the throat, lifting him easily with one arm. The man's feet dangled, fingers twitching weakly against the iron grip.
For a moment, Nathaniel just looked at him.
Then his eyes burned brighter—pale flames licking the corners of his vision—and he spoke. Low. Controlled. Not loud, but absolute.
"Nathaniel Alderman, Squad Four. ID number 11479540."He exhaled. "Criminal neutralized. Threat level: B-rank."
His voice was steady, almost too calm for someone who had just flattened an entire inferno with his bare hands. The arsonist lay groaning in the cratered pavement behind him, steam still rising from his scorched limbs.
Nathaniel didn't wait for questions. Didn't look back.
He turned and kicked the man toward the nearest police officers. The body slid with a dull thud across the pavement, stopping at their boots.
Before anyone could react, he was gone—darting toward a low rooftop.
One leap.
The warm stone met his boots, and he used the natural elevation like a springboard. Parkour carried him across the city skyline—controlled, quiet, not flashy. Just efficient. His breath was shallow, tired, but his pace never broke. Glowing embers trailed behind him like ghosts.
He reached his apartment twenty minutes past midnight.
The silence was almost deafening. No alarms. No sirens. Just the ticking of the old wall clock and the faint hum of the city beyond his windows.
He didn't bother turning on the lights.
Didn't shower. Didn't undress.
He walked straight into the living room, slumped onto the worn black couch, and crashed.
Face down. Scorched clothes and all. The faint scent of fire, blood, and stone still clung to him.