Chapter 5. (Miles)

  The laser feels different to my power compared to light, electricity, and fire. I mean, it should come as no surprise; each energy type I’ve come in contact with has been completely unique in terms of feeling. It wants to be used, to be fired. It is a source of destruction, of motion, of unbridled potency. Fire wants to consume, to devour, but it is also a source of rebirth.

  “Not a chance, Cape,” Ares retorted.

  Panels all over the power armor pop open to reveal black-tipped rockets. Ares lets out an ecstatic roar as all of the rockets launch simultaneously, with the majority headed toward me, but plenty aimed at Ferrol. Before the wolf can do any more damage, I morph the ball I'm holding into hundreds of two-inch needles that snipe every single missile that Ares fires. The explosions go off like dominoes and turn the eerie silence into a Fourth of July fireworks display. Appearing in front of Ares, I retrieve the laser needles and combine them into a saw blade. A good amount of the energy is lost during the transformation, but thinning the blade to a millimeter gives me a saw the size of a manhole cover.

  Before Ares can respond, I slice straight through both legs of his armor. The Cowl's suit slides off at the point of the incisions, falling backwards onto the street. He's like a flipped turtle; completely beholden to gravity's power. He’s so pathetic, and I savor the look on his face as panic and doubt start to creep in. Yes, I want to humiliate you. Ares, still holding onto the sword Ferrol created, slashes at me with the weapon. I control my laser saw, bringing it back around to cut through the incoming attack. But Ferrol chooses this moment to try and be helpful, firing three metallic ballista bolts at Ares. The first knocks the sword away, the second destroys the armor’s wrist, and the third pierces through the mech’s shoulder, impaling it to the road. WHY?

  Without worrying about the ramifications of my actions, I unleash a supercharged bolt of electricity at the Cape. He can't hope to dodge it, and the metal wolf yelps in pain as the golden electricity ravages through his highly conductive body. I reach deep down into the well, bringing a ton of power to the surface. Sparks fly off me in a steady stream as lightning arcs off my body, jumping from cars to streetlights to flagpoles and waste receptacles. They keep jumping until they reach the wolf and then blast toward him, becoming chains of solidified electricity. Manacles of energy wrap around his neck, limbs, body, and snout. Satisfied that he can't make anything worse, I look back at the Olympian.

  “You and your ilk aren't gods. You're delusional criminals with an unearned superiority complex,” I said pointedly.

  “No, you're wrong. We're better than the unpowered. We deserve to reign over them as Gods,” Ares responded emphatically. “Look at yourself, how can you do what you do and not believe we were meant to rule? Why shouldn't they worship and fear us?”

  “Having these abilities does not make us better than anyone else. Having power means wielding it responsibly. Something that you haven't learned. You're a Tinkerer; you're supposed to create wonders, not waste your time destroying things. You should be ashamed of yourself,” I said, continuing to berate him.

  “You think you have the right to lecture me about morality and responsibility? Sounds like you’re the one with a superiority complex. Quit the lecturing, you’re no better than the rest of us. And I’ll destroy whatever the hell I want,” Ares shouted at me.

  Ares starts to chuckle, getting louder and louder until he’s laughing maniacally. Stuck in power armor with the weapons rendered useless and all the limbs disabled, he’s a sitting duck. What gives him so much confidence? I handily beat him and even subdued the Cape that was giving him so much trouble. Everything is exactly under my control. The top of Ares’s suit slides open, hissing and creaking as old gears grind against each other. His full body is exposed, and he's wearing a bronze and maroon suit that looks like a custom motocross uniform. Unbuckling himself from the straps holding him in place, he hops out of the destroyed power armor. He taps at his wrist; it's a smart watch I hadn't noticed.

  “Five minutes out,” he said to his watch.

  A panel on the front of his suit I hadn't seen before pops off, revealing a black handle. He grabs the handle, twisting it to the left before he pulls it out. There’s also a very high chance that Ares has a bomb he plans to detonate. Nobody's warning echoes in my head. I can't risk the chance he's right, so I send my spinning laser saw toward the Cowl, hoping to scare him off. But something blasts me out of the sky from behind, and I lose control of the blade, sending it off course. I crash down through the roof of a sedan. My armor holds strong, but if I get hit in the back a few more times, it'll crack. Who the heck hit me?

  I levitate off the car, floating back into the air as I look for my shooter. It can't be any of the Olympians; none of them are Casters. Coming down the street toward us are Ferrol's teammates. KnickKnack is at the front, charging like a linebacker. His bright red and gold suit shines in the sun, and his hooded cape is billowing behind him as he runs. Next to him is the strongest member of his team, Bloom. Her wooden mask is a gnarled spiral with two eye holes and pointed branch antlers coming out of the top. She wears a cowl of moss covering the rest of her head and neck. She's created greaves, braces, pauldrons, and a chestplate made out of reinforced cactus, with chainmail consisting of root rings and flower stems. There are full-bloomed fresh flowers all over her armor despite the chilly winter we're in. Bloom is a force of nature, the same way Vivienne is.

  Flying above them is Chase, the Traveller/Neutralizer member of their team. Combat boots, fingerless gloves, his bulletproof vest, and balaclava are all gray, with his shirt, pants, and trenchcoat all being a weathered black, which really doesn't scream good guy. A man of few words, he doesn't banter or joke with Cowls. The final member of the party isn't with them, but if I had to guess, he's around here somewhere. He's definitely the one who shot me. Technovore, the machine man, the living weapon, a Tinkerer's worst nightmare, and a one-man arsenal. There are BNA field offices that have less firepower than he does. He's an Alter/Manipulator who can absorb technology and incorporate it into his body, choosing to manifest it whenever he wants. It works on any kind of technology, including Tinkertech. Kai would kill for that power.

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  A beeping noise behind me reminds me of what I was doing before they interrupted me. Ares has pressed the cylinder back into its holster, and now his power armor is shaking violently. That's the source of the beeping. Ares jumps off the top of his suit, landing on the street and making a run for it. You aren't getting away that easily. I summon a spear of light, blunting the tip so I don't accidentally skewer the Cowl. My aim is true, and I hit Ares in the back of his right shoulder, sending him rolling across the street. Bullseye.

  I just have to deal with the bomb, and I can wrap this up. I'm going to need a lot of power to make sure this doesn't go off. All around me is a buffet of energies, and I start drawing everything inside myself. Fires go out as the flames tunnel through the air into me. A rainbow of different lights swirl into me like eastern dragons flying through the sky. Every electronic, every battery, every source of electricity around me is drained dry, the energy flashing toward me like hundreds of lightning strikes. More power than I've ever had fills me, my internal batteries overloaded past my previous highs. But more energy enters my body as I suddenly realize I'm absorbing sunlight for the first time. I feel so powerful, unstoppable.

  My revelry ends as I hear a man yell at someone else to stop him. The beeping is speeding up, so I start channeling electricity through my brain. Time starts to slow, seconds stretching out to minutes. Without knowing what kind of bomb it is, it's better to use more energy than less. Better safe than sorry. Depending on the type of explosive, I might even be able to siphon the energy off it. I've never worked with radiation, but if the laser and the sunlight are any indication, I don't seem to have a limit on what I can use. A giant sphere begins to form above me, a massive amalgamation of the various energies inside me. The plan is to encase the power armor inside this orb, solidifying it after creating several progressively smaller orbs around the bomb.

  In this hyper-focused state, everything else fades to the background. But because of that, I don't react to a much stronger attack colliding with my back. And before I can process that, Chase’s hands are on my pauldrons as he pushes me straight into the ground. My command over the sphere lapses, and it dissipates harmlessly. The distraction causes me to lose control of the electricity, and my senses return to normal just in time for the beeping to stop. My head aches from the backlash of the charge going haywire in my brain.

  “I got him,” Chase yelled back to KnickKnack.

  “Get off me. Ares is going to escape,” I shouted at him.

  “My teammates can handle Ares. But you aren’t going anywhere, Cowl,” Chase said confidently.

  “I’m on your side. The power armor is a BOMB!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

  While lying on my stomach, I see a blur move toward Ares and help pick him up. Hermes! The two Olympians disappear as the speedster rescues his companion from us. At least Nobody was wrong about the bomb. A near imperceptible click is the only warning I get before the power armor explodes, consumed by a flash of light. Ignoring my body’s warning signs and the agony inside my skull, I push even more voltage through my brain. Something wet trickles down my nose and ears, but I don’t stop. Overloaded with energy, my perception grows to superhuman levels. The distortion from the shockwaves refracts the light from the explosion. My mind is racing a million miles a minute. It’s as if everything has stopped. Flooding my frame with electricity, amplifying the nerve signals to my muscles until my body syncs up to the magnified speed of my mind. My arms and legs spasm as I push myself off the ground. Chase falls in slow motion as I rush toward the explosion.

  I reach it almost instantly. Here goes nothing. I reach out to touch the blurry wave of concussive force, trying to manipulate the kinetic energy. It’s difficult, the energy resisting my pull. The feel of it isn’t like the others. Lock in, Miles. Nobody chose me for a reason. He gave me these amazing powers; I cannot betray the trust he’s shown me. Concentrating, at long last, I’m able to get an understanding of kinetic energy. It’s explosive, flowing, and constantly moving. Siphoning it off and into my body is a slow process, but I have to do it to mitigate the damage. From the blinding light, I think I can safely assume that there is a radioactive component to this bomb, but radiation is invisible to the naked eye.

  Think, think, think, darn it. I go through dozens of ideas before I come to a singular conclusion; I am going to have to try to sense the radiation the same way I do with other visible forms of energy. This isn’t an ability I’ve developed, and I’m not even sure if it’s a possibility, but I have to try. Closing my eyes, I think of the feelings the different sources have given me. What would radiation feel like? It’s hotter than fire, more intense than light or electricity, more deadly than lasers, and is an invisible killer like a cancer. My head jerks to the side, fingers twitching, and the rest of my body convulses from all the energy surging inside me. I ignore the pain and stretch my senses to the limits, just trying to get a trace of a taste of radiation. A sickness spreading unseen, corrupting healthy cells, and destroying from within. I haven’t even absorbed a quarter of the kinetic energy when I finally interact with the radiation. The moment I do, I quickly begin draining it.

  Manipulating two new sources of energy is proving to be too taxing. My control of the electricity inside my brain and body is slipping; my focus is being split into three different directions. It hurts, it hurts so much. I can’t sustain this any longer. There’s no way for me to contain the full explosion of the bomb. I’ve failed. My chest burns, and my face is wet with something. If I don’t do anything, Chase will die. He’s fast, but not fast enough to outrun a nuclear bomb. Using the last vestiges of my power, I dash over to the Cape and create a dome around the two of us. I cover us in multiple layers of solidified energy with the radiation I’ve absorbed so far as the outer one. I’m just so exhausted. My consciousness has been fading, darkness encompassing my peripherals. I finish constructing our protection with the last bit of my stamina before I drop to the ground. I’m so sorry, everyone.