I.

Drifting through the city’s many spires and at last sinking into a horizon of steel, there was a fading wisp of daylight that gave way to dusk; then dusk gave way to night, and so the luminous shape at the plaza's center grew to its brightest, for with the sun submerged, all it had for company were a few lowly stars.

By the light, there paced a shadow of a young woman, perhaps twenty or so, features lit up by the work of her genius. A shadow of the great genius Riza Avarati, the girl thought, and smiled to herself.

She remembered her old wretch of a mentor’s monotonous voice, claiming it impossible to call upon the forces of nature and harness their energy. He fussed about some moral competence theory, as if his morally competent path had ever led him to any sort of greatness. Besides, it didn’t matter, for Riza usually had her way with or without the accord of superiors. So here she stood beside sixteen feet of towering rust and electricity, all raised from “borrowed” scraps, about to prove her mentor wrong; or rather, to prove herself right, for she felt no anger at him. As impudent as the girl was, she understood that not everyone shared her genius.

So Riza counted over the last bit of work in her head: Six more feet of copper wire, three negaters, two high-voltage convergence dispensers, a fourth quantum turbine, and the device should be complete. Then she set to it, her fingers a swift gust of evening breeze over the cold metal, sweeping through a pile of rusted leaves, guiding each piece to the branch where she willed it to belong. It was these moments in which Riza reveled most, feeling like a sculptor, an artist, free from the constraints of her apprenticeship.

In less than a quarter of an hour, the finishing touch on her creation was completed. At first the girl waited for spectators to appear, then, remembering that she chose this plaza for her project’s site specifically because no one ever comes ‘round here to check, Riza decided to be her own audience, just like every other time she wished for one. “Screw it,” she muttered, grasped a dial, and turned it as far as possible.

Wire met wire. A massive current shot through the structure’s core, at which three switches and five levers clicked in rapid succession and an electric sizzle began to take over the space around Riza, who stood surveying a cloud drifting above, at the center of which a crackling pile of sparks took form. From the sparks there grew a focused coil of light, and from the coil there sprang a magnificent branch of unbridled electric force, descending upon the city as if a deity’s scepter from beyond the stars, a beautiful form simultaneously erratic and somehow patterned. Shame on my mentor, the girl thought; such a lightning would easily power an entire district for weeks. The bolt swept across the sky, a majestic streak of pure light sure to impress all eyes who witness it. Riza began to giggle, so great did this feat seem to her; amidst the euphoria, nothing could possibly go wrong. She was summoning lightning, after all!

A heartbeat passed, and night was day. 

II.

There’s a fire somewhere; so much is sure. A scream rose to Riza’s throat.

Her eyelids slid open and she found herself staring straight at the sun. No fire, then. The girl sat up, limbs stiff from the electric blast, and inspected her body. Much of the left arm was burned, bleeding and aching at multiple spots, and a terrible headache stormed within her skull. The device had worked, though, and that’s all that mattered; she just forgot to make something that can store the lightning once it was created, which meant her creation was now the aftermath of an explosion and the great Riza almost died of a lightning strike. Big deal.

And so she smiled in the sun, reliving her feat and painting tales of her future. The politics have been constantly pressuring scholars for progress, discovery after discovery, device after device. Surely Riza’s was the greatest in, say, this decade. Good to be humble, she decided. She would take a nap here for all its goodness, then immediately rush to the Council of Progress’s tower and report her findings to the Scholars’ Council. In no time she would rid from her name the title of apprentice. A genius was on the rise.

“Riza Lynn Avarati, you are officially revoked of your current position of apprentice electrologist and fired from the Scholar’s Council. You may leave the building now.”

It appears that one doesn’t necessarily retain a perfect mental state after being struck by a bolt of lightning that harbored five-thousand watts of pure electricity. Or maybe it’s just her. Either way, Riza found that standing before her labmaster’s desk in a tattered electrologist-trench-coat, unkempt hair standing to the skies with a dozen more scorched streaks than there already was, hauling with her a cart filled with seven-hundred pounds of scrap metal and burnt wire that was never legally borrowed in first place and sputtering about an amazing device that no longer exists, that is never taking her up the Council’s ranks. All it does is make the girl pack a few bags.

Well, they can revoke the legal support from my work and expel me from the Council, but nothing will ever stop me from summoning lightning, Riza decided. It’s the work I was born for.

Her parents brought a genius to the world. The genius won’t let them down.

III.

They say all great figures have humble beginnings. In Riza’s mind, that’s certainly been her case. The girl’s never been told the story of her ancestors, probably because there just weren’t any. Her parents were scavengers, rat-like dwellers of ignored alleys, eternally on the hunt for scraps of food and shelter. Seemed lucky that Riza’s always had a knack for electricity. The moment she first held a piece of metal had been like a revelation, and since then her hands birthed everything from heaters to battery rods, from telecommunicators to weapons of defense, creations each greater than the sum of their parts. She was the turbine that powered her family’s lives, until a day came when she blew it all up.

Riza was seventeen when the blast killed her parents, after which she continued to live on the streets for a while until the Council’s recruiter bumped into her. Working for the council, she didn’t have the freedom of the streets, but there was no need to worry about the next meal either, and ‘High Scholar Avarati’ was quite a name to fight for. Her parents surely would like the sound of it.

As it turned out, perhaps nothing would be as easy as it looks. And so Riza stood facing the streets, seemingly back to where she was five years ago. Where there is a genius, though, there is a way, she thought. A shaft of sunlight descended upon the girl’s face, and a smirk began to surface from beneath its dancing hues.

So, who needs the Scholars’ Council?

Between mountains of scavenged equipment, Riza sat in the crumbling basement of a deserted two-story building. A newly raised, scrappy lightning rod stood through the old roof, filling the dusty cellar with a promising electric hum. The girl felt optimistic at where it was going. Her apparatuses won’t match the Council’s in any form of beauty pageant, but they haven’t collapsed yet, which is all that she needed to ask of them. Let the work begin, say... tomorrow.

A knock resounds at the door. She ignored it.

The knocking ceased, then, like a housefly, inevitably returned. A male voice sounded in its company: “Trust me, Riza; you will not regret my help.”

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Riza turned her gaze toward the door. “How the hell do you know my name?” 

“You’re kinda famous now that your lightning blew up pretty much half a district.” A chuckle.

That made sense; besides, she was curious. Riza stepped to the door and pressed down on the handle. It opened with a creak. There stood a small-built man, slightly older than her, dressed in a tattered jacket that’s hopefully seen better days. His hair was all over the place, with nearly as many streaks of silver in it as hers, and there ran a deep red lichtenberg figure along his chin, probably from an electric accident. By the looks, he’s definitely no stranger to it.

“What help? How’d you even find me? And who are you?” She stared at him.

The fellow extends a hand; Riza considered shaking it, but decided to keep staring. 

“I’m Aloi Norwood.” He smiled briefly. “You’ve got the mind of a genius, Riza, but someone needs to take care that nothing gets blown up. I can do that. On a side note, if you haven’t been aware, that lightning rod you constructed earlier today is three times as potent as the model widely adopted by the Council’s labs. That’s a lot of static electricity. It’d be a shame on my part if I couldn't track it down.”

“You an electrologist then?”

“Lab technician. Four years as an assistant in the High Towers.”

‘High Towers’ is how the top scholars fancy their workplace. “The Council wants me back to keep being their little apprentice? Tell your boss I’m not coming.” Riza motioned to close the door.

Aloi took a step forward: “I’m here to help you with your stuff. I said I’m a lab technician. You work your genius; I’ll ward your back from accidents.”

“I don’t have money to hire a technician.”

“I’m free. You’re onto something, and if we stick together, cash will soon be but a trivial plaything for either and both of us.”

Riza did admit there was a certain correlation between explosions and her working alone. Besides, there doesn’t seem to be any harm in this guy. “Deal.” she shook his hand. “Now let’s get to work.”

IV.

On the weathered roof there stood two silhouettes against moonlit clouds. A lightning rod crackled beside them, spewing sparks of electric light. Sparks of genius, Riza thought. 

She pulled a handle, at which Aloi flicked a switch, and a sizzle began to build around them. A strand of blazing white light travelled up the rod, then it dissipated, its charged particles rushing to meet the sky. The cloud of sparks took shape, then the coiling light, and then the deity’s scepter descended again from beyond the stars.

A heartbeat passed, and night was day. 

Then it was night again. The world was silent for another heartbeat, then the lightning rod resumed its hum with newfound energy.

Riza glanced at Aloi, and before the third heartbeat, two who have been complete strangers but a few sunsets ago were in each other’s arms. If anything that bore semblance to romantic love would ever cross Riza Avarati’s mind, this had to be it; so she thought.

The girl sensed a cramp in her stomach. Before she could get a hold on what had happened, a boot landed in her guts, and she was off the roof, airborne. After a few seconds of panicked flight, Riza felt the pavement. She lay still for a moment, her gaze meeting the stars and clouds playing before them, until a looming shadow blotted everything out. It took her a while to register, then she recognized Aloi towering over her, no longer so small as before. His hand held an electric staff, the round tip of which was pointed at her face. She recognized the model; it was collapsible and easily fit into a pocket, though its shock can just as easily kill a person if applied for long enough.

“Aloi, what the fuck?”

“Whatever the fuck, it’s midnight; no one will ever find out. Surrender all credits, Riza. Your lightning-thing is now my creation.”

Riza was going to die. Everyone was. She didn’t heed the idea much thought. The idea of losing credit for the work of her genius, though, stoked a seething flame within her that she’d never known before. It was her own, personal lightning, scorching her insides clean until a simple, quiet rage was all that remained.

“No,” she said.

The girl pushed herself off the ground with all the force she had and thrust her fist into Aloi’s jaw. The blow sent him tumbling in surprise, though he swiftly regained composure and struck his weapon at her. Riza’s entire body seized up as it hit her square in her chest. She tried to go for the throat, but Aloi ducked away just in time and ere the girl could dodge, drove the staff into the side of her neck, which cramped so bad she nearly blacked out. This wasn’t working.

Riza was sure some five thousand watts of electricity would crash down on her if she didn’t think of something. Something quick. Worst of all, it wouldn’t have been the first time; she wouldn’t be as lucky.

Hell, the first time.

That stupid plaza can’t be that far away, the girl hoped. Some of the device’s scraps are bound to still be there… Well, that was her best chance. Probably her only chance.

Aloi swung again, at which Riza turned and took off, charting out a course in her mind as she, one by one, recognized the buildings that made the street. It was her nursery, this entire district. Two blocks, a corner to the right, another to the left, and another block. It should be there. Run.

A shock grazed Riza’s shoulder before she made the first corner. She ignored it and kept on running. Another greeted her in the back of her neck. She stopped, cursing under her breath, and turned. Aloi stood impassively, dialing his staff to maximum. She won’t have a lot of time. Can't out-fist him, can't out-run him. Riza was not a fighter, nor a woman of resources. She was a streetwise. A scavenger.

A voice began to echo: “We make use of whatever is at hand, anything and everything around us. Because we have to.” Her mother.

Riza glanced at the ground. It was in terrible shape. Loose, battered pavement tiles. She almost slipped. There’s something, the girl thought, picked up a tile, and hurled it at Aloi. Without looking, she took off again. There was a crash, then an infuriated yell of pain resounded behind her. She did not turn her head.

Riza dug through a pile of metallic remnants. The lightning rod. If she could find an insulator to wrap around it, it could take in the staff’s electric shock without harming her, just like her device absorbed and stored lightning. There’s tree bark. Should do the job. She scraped as much of it as she could from a tree and tied it onto the rod with a band of random metal from the ground, then broke off a semi-intact battery canister and connected it to the metallic structure. Hopefully, it can contain electric energy for at least a limited time. No creation to marvel at, but if the same principle that powered her lightning device functioned in sub-optimal conditions... she prayed.

Aloi emerged around the plaza’s corner just as she finished her makeshift device. “Rat,” he cursed and came barreling at her. Riza held still with the lightning rod in both her hands, concentrating, and as Aloi’s staff came down at her, lifted it to meet the weapon. A massive light flashed as they connected, an enormous electric charge travelling up the rod’s length and into the canister. Aloi stared at the object in her hand, mildly startled, then raised his staff again and swung down at the girl. Ere its electric tip could touch her, she spun the rod around in her hands and smashed the canister at him, shattering it and dispensing the stored energy with a deafening blast. The electricity lit up Aloi’s entire body, then the man jerked and crumbled, falling unconscious. Riza walked up to him, grabbed the staff, and slapped him awake. There was at once no doubt what she would do.

“My creation stays my creation,” the girl hissed. “You might’ve learned your lesson too late.”

“I swear that…” Aloi started.

“Don’t swear.” she charged the electric staff to max. “You said it yourself; it’s midnight; no one will ever find out.” 

With an electric sizzle, Aloi Norwood’s face was set alight; a spasm followed; then, at last, the night.

V.

Riza slumped in her makeshift lab, harkening at the pulse of static electricity that always brought her a sense of assurance. When the sun broke the horizon at dawn, she would present her creation to the Scholar’s Council, at which she’ll be re-accepted into a high position, which meant money and a name to her work, and then, she’ll renovate this place, make it her personal laboratory, and then... There was so much ahead, so much beyond both horizon and sun, so much to live for. This time, she won’t blow anything up.

Life is a lightning, Riza concluded. Never predictable, ever so beautiful. Always ill-behaved, ever so powerful. Much like herself.

Her parents brought a genius to the world. The genius won’t let them down.