Jackie runs back to her school, making it just in time to grab her books from her locker and sits down at her desk the moment the bell rings.
"All right, class," says the teacher, "open your textbooks to page 37." I hate trigonometry. Jackie flips through the pages of the book, but when she turns to the page, she finds that the pages have been blackened with some sort of mark spread all across it. What kind of jackass covers the equations? Jackie tries to rub it off, but that seems to spread the dark substance across the page. She touches the blackened parts, and they crumble off of the page as if they were ash. What the hell is going on?
This event is not the only thing that disturbs Jackie. Throughout the rest of her day, odd occurrences take place; the sink steams after she uses it, her locker gets an odd, hand-shaped dent in it, and the steering wheel to her car starts to leak some viscous black liquid.
As Jackie walks into her home, she hugs her father and enters her room. What the hell is going on today? As Jackie lays on her bed and texts her friends, she smells something foul.
"Is something burning?" She looks down and sees that her blanket has caught fire.
"What the hell!?" She quickly jumps up and quickly stomps on the fire, extinguishing it. "Did those faulty outlets finally stop working? There's no way this day can get any worse." Her father knocks on her door.
"Honey! Someone's here to see you!" As she walks out to the front door, she sees a tall man in a black overcoat standing in the doorway.
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"Sir," the man says to Jackie's father, "I'm afraid your daughter is in grave danger. I'm with the Department of Homeland Defense. I'm afraid we'll be needing to take your daughter for a while. For her protection."
"...Uh..." Her parents don't know what to say. Neither does she.
"I see you're pensive about this. Don't worry. We will allow weekly video calls, and provide regular updates as to her status."
"...I'm sorry, why is she in danger? And why all of a sudden do this?" Her father asks. The man sighs and sprays something at all three of them before anyone can react. Jackie instantly loses consciousness.
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Jackie wakes up on a stiff bed in a white room. She look around for a door, but does not see one. "Hello? Hello!? Where am I?" The wall seemingly opens a doorway on itself and the same tall man from before enters the room. This time, however, he is wearing some sort of protective suit. "What the hell? Where am I!?" Jackie jumps out of bed and moves to punch the man. To her surprise, a stream of fire shoots from her arm and hits the man. The weird looking suit, however, protects him from the flames.
"That is why we've taken you," the man says. "Please, put this on." He hands her a suit similar to his own. "Should that happen again, the suit will contain the fire inside of it." Reluctantly, Jackie slips into the slick black suit and follows the man out of the room.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"My name is Hank," says the man, "and like I said, I work with the Department of Homeland Defense. About a week ago, our machines started picking up failures in the weak nuclear force." Hank pauses before noticing Jackie has no idea what he's talking about. "Basically, reality started failing in a few places."
"You guys have machines that scan for that stuff?" Asks Jackie.
"We do, actually. That's not the craziest thing we have, either. Essentially, in a few spots around the United States, reality failed for a split second. It all happened directly where a few isolated people were. We detected one of these pulses on you."
"How did you know I was isolated? How did you know it was me?"
"We have cameras everywhere. Most are too small to even see unless you know what you're looking for... not bathrooms, though, if that's what you're thinking." Jackie breathes a sigh of relief. "So far, we've seen that people affected by this anomaly exhibit extraordinary abilities. We're not sure how the event has altered them, but it has somehow. You, it seems, have gained the ability to produce fire from your body."
"...So I have... superpowers?" Jackie asks. She stops walking.
"I wouldn't call them that. Superpowers implies that something supernatural is in play. We think this phenomenon is purely scientific."
"I'm skeptical of that theory," Jackie says.
"Personally, so am I," Hank replies. After a few more minutes of walking, they end up in a room with a few other people around Jackie's age sitting on couches in a lounge area. "Get acquainted with them," Hank tells Jackie. "They'll be your roommates for a while."
"How long are you going to keep us here?" Asks Jackie.
"Until we can figure out why Shirxon Weapons is trying to take you."
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[10,000 YEARS AGO, LOCATION UNKNOWN]
The man clad in thick steel armor watches in horror as his leader is immolated in a massive blast of light. His master's spear clanks to the ground in front of him. "Fuck! Shit! FUCK!" The man grabs the spear and looks around frantically, the billions of soldiers shouting around him. He catches a glimpse of two streams of dark blue energy hurtling towards a rift in space and time. He chases them down, but a group of soldiers blocks his path to it.
"Trying to escape?" One taunts. The armor-clad man, in a desperate bid to not lose his master, chucks the spear past the encroaching soldiers, sending it right through the rift. He smiles in satisfaction of his completed duty as the soldiers stab him to death.
The rebel runs out of the collapsing tower with his lover and child. "He’s coming!" He shouts. The tall purple machine quickly walks down the hall towards them. His love trips over a collapsing pillar.
"Leave me!" She shouts. "Save the child!" The rebel cries as he is forced to leave the love of his life behind. He runs towards one of the rifts, managing to get the infant in his arms through. Before he enters, the machine cuts off his arms with a chop and knocks him back. Before the machine crushes his head with its foot, he sees his former master’s armor is propelled into the rift by an unseen force, followed by two streaks of dark blue energy.
Finally, the man donning crimson robes cries out as his master is torn asunder by the pillar of light. As the pillar dissipates, he sees his master's armor and spear are flung aside. He suddenly notices a rift has opened high above where the pillar was. That's right! He thinks. The Deity Hammer opens a rift to all planes in the reality it is used in! But if there are no planes, it must go somewhere else! He looks up one last time as two blue streaks of barely-visible light dash through the rift, as well as his master's gauntlet, still propelled by the upwards force of the beam, before it closes abruptly.