1997-

Shirou Mirota pointed an index finger at a cardboard target. The target blew up. He

worked his way down a line of targets that flipped up when he approached. He paused

when he thought he had blown up the last one.

He felt a little more normal despite his increase in ability. The coating the Institute

had developed seemed to be working as intended. A few minutes of blowing things

up on the target range and he hadn’t sprung a leak yet.

And the sensors hadn’t sounded the alarm. That meant he was safe at his current

expenditure of power. His new biology made it difficult to judge, but he felt like he

had jogged a mile.

He wondered how long he could keep shooting beams of fire before he actually

exceeded a limit. At least inside the Institute, he would know when he was a danger

to others.

If he sprung a leak, an alarm would go off. Then sprayers would drop a chemical

radiation absorber on him. Then all he had to do was wait for a mobile room to take

him back to his quarters.

He might be able to get some sleep if this kept up. It might be nice to dream again.

His new condition had eliminated the desire and need to sleep, food ingestion, and

most normal bodily functions. The lab people suspected that was because of the metal

and energy conduits buried in his body.

It was hard to be hungry when your heart was a nuclear battery guaranteed to run for

another two hundred years.

He briefly wondered what he could do when his battery eventually ran out of power.

Another target popped up in his face. His hand came up. The target blew apart under

the heat wave he generated.

Shirou paused. Then he looked around. Hopefully, no one had noticed the blast.

He needed to work on that. He didn’t want to throw around enough power to cut

through the range. That might hit someone in some other part of the building.

He didn’t want to kill someone on top of everything else he was trying to fix.

A siren went off. He looked around. What was going on? What should he do? Did

something need to be blasted?

“Emergency teams report to launch pads.” Misa sounded panicked over the PA

system. “We have had a major earthquake. Emergency teams report to launch pads.”

Shirou frowned. At one time, he would have been grabbing gear and running to the

pads. The Institute responded to major disasters all over the country, and he would

have been in the middle of the action.

Now he was stuck in the building, hoping that his makeover wouldn’t cause him to

blow up if he was stressed enough.

He walked to the exit. Maybe he could use this as cover so he could get out in the

field again. It might be good to get his hands dirty again after spending so much time

trapped in his room.

All he had to do was get out of the building and fly to the disaster area. He decided

it was a lot easier to think of doing it, then it would be in doing since Security would

want him to stay put.

He thought he could punch through them if he wanted. The problem was he didn’t

want to do anything like that. They would be in the right. His power was largely

untested, and one wrong move could have him spilling radiation on anyone and

anything close to him.

Maybe he could join the crews heading for the helicopters. He would have to be fast

and blend in until they reached the scene.

Shirou decided to take the stairs to the hangar level. He flew up the six levels and

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paused by the door. He put in his code to open the door to get on the floor. The large

doors were sliding open to let the aircraft hover up and then head toward the

emergency.

He noted several people were pointing at him. He had to do something if he wanted

to get free. He looked up at the exit. Then he was gone from the hangar in a blast of

wind.

Shirou smiled. Dr. Yamada would not like his violating the safety guidelines. He

would deal with that when he had to. Now he needed to find out where the disaster

was and see what he could do to help out.

He should have taken the time to find out those facts before taking to the air.

He flew toward the city. The Institute’s grounds were outside the city, but within

sight. He knew there was a news feed running on some of the signs in the shopping

areas. He just had to find one, and see where this earthquake was. Then he could fly

down to see if he could lend a hand.

Shirou found the Sony large screen right where it had sat before his self-exile. He

landed on the sidewalk in front of it and watched as news unfurled in front of him.

Three minutes in, the broadcaster talked about the heavy destruction in Kochi. It was

miles to the southwest of Tokyo, the Institute’s base city.

How fast could he fly?

That was a question he had never really asked himself. How fast could this new form

go in the sky? He looked to the southwest. The Institute and the DF would be on the

way to the area. Could he beat them?

Did he want to?

Shirou smiled. Yes, he did want to beat them to the scene.

He headed into the sky. He willed himself to go faster. He passed the Institute, and

kept going. Helicopters were in the sky ahead of him. He went around them instead

of tearing through their formation. He didn’t want them to crash just because he had

slipped his leash.

He reached Kochi a few seconds later. He hovered over the scene, trying to figure out

where he could start. Several buildings had collapsed around what looked like a

fissure.

He decided the best thing he could do was try to move some of the debris away from

the town. People might have been trapped in the collapses. The faster he could dig

them out, the less other rescuers had to do.

He landed quietly beside a mound of rubble. He wished he had super senses to go

with the rest of the powers the liquid had given him. Too bad a x-ray machine had not

been in the room when he had been forcibly transformed.

He decided that out of the options he had, blasting everything was out. He didn’t want

to cause a collapse on someone waiting for rescue, or blow them up. That left his

strength and physically moving things with his hands, or the gravity control he used

for flight. Gravity seemed the safest to use until an expert showed up to give him a

more efficient way of doing things.

Shirou concentrated. Rubble floated upward. He worked his way around the closest

pile until he had a majority orbiting a central gravity. He found some people at the

bottom of the pit. He smiled when one of them took in a breath.

He moved his wrecked building to a cleared spot and gently put it down. He pulled

the wounded from the excavation with his power before setting them down out of the

way. He headed for the next pile of rock to start excavating there.

People were on the scene, trying to help him. He waved for them to move back. He

didn’t want to lose control over the gravity and hurt them or anyone buried under the

ground.

One wrong move could bury someone under a unknown weight with no way of

digging them back up.

He didn’t need that on his conscience to go with whatever risks he was undertaking

just being there.

The helicopters arrived as he worked his way through another pile. Dr. Yamada

jumped from his vehicle before it could settle on its skids. He held a Gieger counter

in his hand. It barely registered anything in the air.

“What are you doing?” Yamada placed the counter on the ground.

“I am digging up anyone buried that I can.” Shirou moved his turning ring over to

another area and let go. Hopefully, his powers were making a difference.

“How big an effect can you do with your powers?” Yamada glanced at the counter.

Everything was normal according to it.

“I don’t know.” Shirou looked around.

How much could he move at one time? He had never thought how much he could

move at one time. Maybe he could move everything at once.

“Workers are coming in to help us.” Yamada noted the helicopters. “Can you move

all of this rubble to a safe spot as you’ve been doing with the smaller piles?”

“I don’t know.” Shirou held up his hands. “I think you might want to clear the area

while I try.”

Shirou closed his eyes and concentrated. He had never tried to expand his powers

over such a large scale before. He might break himself in the attempt. Dr. Yamada

was right. He had to work better than what he had been doing. He felt energy running

through his body as he tried to clear his head.

He could do this. He could move everything. He was a star. Everything shaped itself

to his bidding. He smiled at the energy activating from his battery heart. He opened

his eyes.

Why was everything so small? He raised a hand and compared it to a nearby building.

He was a giant. He closed his hand. He was a giant, and he still had a job to do. He

just had to be more careful than what he had planned to be.

Could he move everything? Yes, he could.