The TV spouted nonsense from its spot in Logi’s living room. The noise was ignored as Logi cooked his food, he had gained enough self-control around the fire that he didn’t need to worry about losing focus around the gas stove's fire.
Logi pulled the noodles out of the boiling water just as the oven dinged, he pulled the pan of meatballs out of the stove without bothering with gloves, the heated metal instantly cooling instantly upon contact with his skin. There were things like that that just made Logis's life easier in minuscule ways. He poured the tomato sauce over the soft noodles before adding the meat. He didn’t need to wait for the food to cool to start eating but he did anyway.
Logi’s house was an exceptionally nice one, it wasn’t a mansion but it was definitely large, even more so for one who lived by his lonesome. His nice house came with a nice view of the city. Logi did something he had not done in a long time, he reflected. It was a good time to get out all of the thoughts that had been crowding his head for a while.
First was something he had been brushing off as just a dream, because, well it was. The dream of the burning forest reflected in his mind's eye, clear now as it had been the morning he woke. The dream forced him to realize something the force behind whatever powers he had was sentient, maybe not sapient, but definitely sentient. When he drew upon the fire emotions not entirely his bubbled to the surface, the dream must have been the fire's way of telling him what to do. There were some insane implications there that Logi didn’t feel like questioning.
The next thing he needed to think about was the fact that the fire within his center. Each time he absorbed fire it grew just a little, but he had noticed recently his stores of flame were bigger than they should have been, significantly bigger, like as in a fourth again as large as they were when last he checked. Even as Logi sat at the table he could feel the heat building in his core, at the perfect center of mass of his being sat an infinitely small ball of pure heat, as he watched the sphere grew no bigger, and yet it seemed to slowly gain more depth and become more concentrated.
It was odd, in order for fire to grow it needed fuel, but from his perspective, there was no fuel, nothing burned, smoldered, or flickered. And yet, the flame grew, from nothing it rose. Logi just grinned, he could figure out the source another day for now he had food to eat. (The food had long since gone cold, but luckily Logi could just heat it up.)
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He was prowling. It was the best descriptor for what he was doing. His face was once again covered by the gas mask, his breath sounding more labored than it was as it echoed in the empty streets. He moved like a tiger with long measured and confident steps.
The few people on the road at this time of night scrambled out of their way as one wanted to do when confronted by a tall man covered head to toe and wearing a gas mask.
Logi Itched it was a subdermal thing, that self-reflection thing he had done two nights ago had gotten him riled up and it was all he could do to suppress the desire to burn. Like the fire in question, it was an all-consuming thing, Logi was almost a passenger in his own body, almost. So he trudged his way to one of the less populated areas of the city, away from the towers of steel that made up the downtown.
The area wasn’t quite the slums, but it was close. As expected he passed symbol of a snake wrapped around a blue orb, he was in gang territory. He was itching for a fight, a rush like when he had killed those two in the ally, he just needed to get someones attention. He walked 5 more minutes enough to get him dead center where he had guessed the gang was, he was basing this assumption on where he had seen the symbol surrounding the area.
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Logi bent down flames curling around his fingers, he molded hand grips in a manhole cover like it was putty. He pulled little chunks off it until they were the size of pebbles and rapidly cooled them down pulling the heat back out of them. He did this until only half the manhole cover remained, leaving him with roughly 60 pebblits of iron.
Logi picked one up put it between his fingers and flicked it into the concrete. The action produced a thunderous crack as the ball exceeded the sound barrier and dented the concrete. He did again and then one more time, he moved so fast it sounded like three rapid-fire gunshots. That should have gotten someone's attention.
He was just hoping the gang members would think someone was causing trouble in their territory but had no idea on whether or not it would work. He seemed to be in luck because someone must have been nearby. Three people rounded the corner at the end of the street. It was comical how stereotypical the three looked, they wore blue and green bandanas and wifebeaters.
It was two men and a woman, the men looked curious and annoyed, and the woman looked pissed, said women was also on the phone. He couldn’t read the screen from this angle but he could tell it was on speaker from the way she held it and how all three nodded at whatever the person on the other was saying.
The woman hung up and turned to Logi, she walked right up to him, straight into his personal space, and didn’t stop until her chest was an in from his. She glared straight up at him a sneer twisting her rugged features.
“The hell you doing here little mr Darth Vader?” she asked condescendingly the sneer on her face practically painting her words. Logi could feel his veins pulsing in excitement a demented smile splitting his face.
“Well isn’t this just said… I expected more than three!” Logi backhanded the woman hard enough to send her to the other side of the street, he had felt the bones in her face break like rock candy before a sledgehammer.
Goon 1 and goon 2 both drew guns from their back pockets training them on him within a heartbeat.
“Ah ah ahh~” Logi tutted. He calmly started walking up the two when goon one decided not to risk it and just shoot him, it felt like a paintball bullet, enough to hurt but not actually deal damage beyond a bruise, Logi hissed in pain before engaged his real speed, even at this new walking pace was still enough to make the Goons look sluggish in comparison, so he just walked up to them and crushed their guns barrels.
The mens eye shot open as from their perspective he appeared in front of them holding their crushed guns. They watched in horror as their guns slowly started to glow red hot and melt in his hands, the viscous liquid metal oozed to the ground in slow motion.
“Well that was rather mean of you wasn’t it?” The smile was obvious within his voice
The two glanced at each other for the barest moment before turning to dash away, goon two made it all of two steps before his legs were swept hard enough for him to break his nose on the concrete, a muffled shout of pain only just escaped his lips before his hair was grabbed near the scalp. His eyes had enough time to widen before his head was slammed into the ground, hard.
Ignoring the man out cold on the ground in front of him, Logi frowned, this was boring. He walked over to the woman slowly stirring, noting the other man running away but not giving chase, and sat down heavily on her back. The woman under him yelped as his weight landed directly on her spine.
“Hey,” he greeted “Do you know why I'm doing this? Attacking you I mean.”
The woman gasped out some curse or the other along the lines of ‘sick bastard’ if significantly more colorful.
“That's not actually that far off, but still wrong. The real reason is that I’m so utterly bored.”
“What?” was the only noise she could wheeze out through her pressured lungs
“It must seem an odd motivation to you, yes? It is, I suppose, it’s like an itch y’know? Like something just under the skin begging to break out, after the whole forest fire fiasco I was trying to fly under the radar. The problem is, I just can’t. It's not something you can explain.”
His only response was a muffled “Fuck you.”
“I suppose I should have expected that. Close your mouth.” That was the only warning she got before he stood and stomped he head into the dirt.
Logi made to walk away before six pairs of blinding lights came swerving around the corner, the cars all quickly surrounded him the only noise being the screeching of tires as they screeched to a halt. A passenger side door was kicked damn near off of Its hinges as a man with green dyed hair jumped out in a decidedly superhuman display of dexterity and strength.
The green-haired man shouted loudly. “The hell are you doing fucking up my guys huh?!”