Chapter 5: First Blood
The helicopter ride to Boston gave me time to think. Too much time.
I sat in the back of the military transport, wearing tactical gear that felt foreign against my skin. The kevlar vest was heavy, the combat boots uncomfortable, and the earpiece crackled with static every few minutes. I looked like a soldier, but I felt like a teenager playing dress-up.
Agent Reyes sat across from me, briefing me on the target through a secure tablet. Her voice was clinical, detached, as if she were discussing the weather instead of a mission that might end with me dead.
Again.
"Subject designation: Pyro. Real name unknown, estimated age between twenty-five and thirty. Mutant ability: pyrokinesis with apparent immunity to fire damage." She swiped to the next slide, showing surveillance footage of a man in a tattered coat standing in the middle of a blazing street. "He's been active in Boston for three days, targeting what appear to be random civilian locations."
"What's his motivation?" I asked, trying to sound professional.
"Unknown. He doesn't make demands, doesn't leave messages. Just burns everything in sight and moves on." Another swipe revealed crime scene photos that made my stomach clench. "Seventeen dead so far, including three children."
I forced myself to look at the images. Burned bodies, charred buildings, melted cars. The destruction was total, absolute. Whatever this Pyro was, he wasn't just dangerous—he was a monster.
"Local authorities are overwhelmed," Agent Reyes continued. "Fire department can't get close enough to contain the blazes, police bullets just pass through his flame form, and he's shown the ability to ignite combustible materials from a distance."
"What makes you think I can stop him?"
"You survived being burned alive in our obstacle course. Your body adapted to resist fire damage. And if he kills you..." She shrugged. "You'll come back even stronger."
The casual way she discussed my death still bothered me, but I was starting to understand the logic. Pain was temporary. Death was temporary. But the immunity I gained from each experience was permanent.
"There's something else," she said, her voice dropping. "Intelligence suggests this isn't random. We think Pyro is being directed by someone else. Someone who's using him to test response times and capabilities."
"Whose capabilities?"
"Ours. The government's ability to handle mutant threats. This might be the opening move in something bigger."
The helicopter began its descent, and through the window, I could see Boston spread out below us. Even from this height, I could spot the columns of smoke rising from multiple locations across the city. Pyro was still active.
"Remember," Agent Reyes said as we touched down, "your primary objective is to neutralize the threat. Capture if possible, but elimination is authorized if necessary."
I nodded, checking the communicator in my ear one last time. The plan was simple: find Pyro, engage him, and hope my newly acquired fire resistance was enough to survive the encounter.
Simple. Not easy.
The landing zone was a shopping center parking lot that had been evacuated and converted into a temporary command post. Fire trucks, ambulances, and police cars surrounded the area, their emergency lights painting everything in red and blue. The air smelled like smoke and fear.
A police captain approached us as we climbed out of the helicopter, his face grim with exhaustion and stress.
"Agent Reyes? Captain Morrison, Boston PD. We've got him cornered in the financial district, but he's holed up in a office building and we can't get close. The whole block is an inferno."
"Casualties?" Agent Reyes asked.
"None in the past hour, but only because we evacuated everything within a quarter mile. This guy's not just setting fires—he's creating them out of nothing. I've got officers with twenty years of experience who've never seen anything like it."
I looked toward the financial district, where an orange glow painted the night sky. Even from here, I could feel the heat on my face.
"How do we know he's still in there?" I asked.
Captain Morrison glanced at me, clearly wondering who this teenager in tactical gear was supposed to be. "Because every time we try to get close, the fires flare up. He's definitely controlling them, which means he's somewhere nearby."
"Alex will handle it," Agent Reyes said with confidence that I didn't share. "Just make sure your people stay back."
The captain looked like he wanted to argue, but something in Agent Reyes' tone made him nod instead. "Copy that. We'll maintain the perimeter."
As we walked toward the financial district, I could feel the temperature rising with each step. The air shimmered with heat waves, and the asphalt beneath our feet felt soft and sticky.
"Any last-minute advice?" I asked.
"Don't die unless you have to," Agent Reyes replied. "And if you do have to, make sure you learn something from it."
Comforting.
The financial district looked like a war zone. Every building on the block was either on fire or reduced to smoldering ruins. The street itself was a river of flame, fed by broken gas lines and melted vehicles. The heat was so intense that the air itself seemed to burn.
I stopped at the edge of the inferno, my new fire resistance already being tested. The flames licked at my boots and pants, but they didn't catch. My skin felt hot but not burned.
"Pyro!" I shouted over the roar of the flames. "I know you're in there! Come out and talk!"
The response was immediate. A pillar of fire erupted from the center of the street, rising thirty feet into the air before coalescing into a human shape. The flame-man turned toward me, and I could see eyes like burning coals staring out from a face made of living fire.
"Another government lapdog," Pyro said, his voice crackling like a bonfire. "Come to put down the dangerous mutant?"
"Come to stop you from killing innocent people," I replied, taking a step forward into the flames.
Pyro laughed, a sound like wood splitting in a campfire. "Innocent? There's no such thing as innocent humans. They fear us, hunt us, cage us. They deserve what they get."
"The children you killed deserved it?"
"The children of genociders deserve nothing but ash."
He raised his hands, and the flames around us roared higher. The heat was incredible now, hot enough to melt steel, but my adapted body absorbed it without damage. Still, I could feel my clothes beginning to smolder.
"You're not burning," Pyro observed, tilting his head. "Interesting. What kind of freak are you?"
"The kind that gets stronger every time you kill me."
I lunged forward, tackling Pyro around the waist. It was like grabbing a living furnace—the heat was so intense that I felt my skin begin to blister and peel. But I held on, driven by the knowledge that this pain was temporary.
Pyro snarled and erupted into pure flame, the temperature spiking to levels that would have instantly vaporized a normal person. I screamed as the fire consumed me, feeling my flesh char and my bones begin to crack from the heat.
Then everything went white, and I died.
---
I woke up in a crater of melted asphalt, surrounded by cooling flames. The pain was completely gone, replaced by a strange tingling sensation across my entire body. I sat up slowly, expecting to see burned and blistered skin.
Instead, my skin looked normal—better than normal, actually. It had a faint metallic sheen, like it was made of some kind of heat-resistant alloy.
"What the hell?" I muttered, examining my hands.
"Adaptive metallurgy," Agent Reyes' voice crackled through my earpiece. "Your body has developed a biometallic skin layer that can withstand extreme temperatures. Absolutely fascinating."
I looked around for Pyro, but he was nowhere to be seen. The fires in the street had died down to manageable levels, and I could hear sirens approaching as the fire department moved in to contain the remaining blazes.
"Where is he?" I asked.
"Fled when you died. Apparently, watching you adapt and resurrect spooked him. He's moving east toward the harbor."
I stood up, testing my new body. I felt stronger, more durable, and completely immune to heat. The flames that had killed me minutes ago now felt like a warm breeze.
"I'm going after him."
"Alex, wait. You need to understand what just happened. You didn't just survive exposure to temperatures exceeding three thousand degrees—you adapted to them. Your body has fundamentally changed."
"Good. Maybe this time I can actually hurt him."
I started running toward the harbor, my enhanced body carrying me faster than I'd ever moved before. The metallic sheen on my skin reflected the emergency lights as I passed, making me look like some kind of android or cyborg.
I found Pyro at the docks, standing at the end of a pier with his back to the water. He was still in his flame form, but the fire seemed less intense now, more controlled.
"You came back," he said without turning around. "I felt you die. Felt your life force extinguish. But here you are."
"Here I am," I agreed, walking slowly down the pier. "Ready to finish this."
He turned to face me, and I was surprised to see something like fear in his burning eyes. "What are you?"
"I'm what happens when you push a mutant too far."
"No," he shook his head. "You're something else. Something new. I can feel it in your flames—you're not just immune to fire anymore. You're beginning to control it."
As if to prove his point, I felt heat building in my palms. Not the heat of burning, but the heat of creation. I looked down and saw small flames dancing between my fingers.
"Impossible," I whispered.
"Not impossible. Inevitable." Pyro's flame form began to flicker and fade, revealing the man underneath. He was thin, scarred, with eyes that held too much pain and not enough hope. "You're evolving faster than any mutant I've ever seen. Each death, each adaptation, is changing you into something beyond human, beyond mutant."
"That doesn't give you the right to kill innocent people."
"Innocent people?" He laughed bitterly. "Do you know what they did to me? What they're planning to do to all of us? The camps, the experiments, the—"
"I know," I interrupted. "I've seen some of it. But that doesn't make murder okay."
"Then what does make it okay? When they come for you? When they strap you to a table and dissect you to see what makes you tick?" He gestured at the flames still flickering around us. "This is war, kid. And in war, there are no innocent casualties."
I felt the fire in my hands grow stronger, hotter. Part of me wanted to incinerate him where he stood, to end this threat permanently. But another part—the part that was still human—held back.
"Turn yourself in," I said. "Face justice for what you've done."
"Justice?" Pyro laughed again. "From the same people who want to exterminate us? No thanks."
He raised his hands, gathering flame for one final attack. But as he did, I felt something click into place in my mind. The fire wasn't just around us—it was in us. Part of us. And I could control it just as easily as he could.
I reached out with my newfound power and simply... turned it off.
The flames died instantly, leaving Pyro standing there in shock, completely powerless.
"How?" he whispered.
"I adapted," I said simply, then punched him in the face.
He dropped like a stone, unconscious before he hit the dock. The threat was neutralized, the fires were dying out, and seventeen people were still dead.
I should have felt victorious. Instead, I just felt tired.
"Well done," Agent Reyes said through the earpiece. "Clean, efficient, minimal collateral damage. You're a natural at this."
As I stood over Pyro's unconscious form, watching the emergency responders flood the area, I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd just crossed a line I couldn't uncross.
I wasn't just a teenager with strange powers anymore. I was a weapon.
And weapons didn't get to choose their targets.