Logi glanced down at the paper as he walked (some high-up policeman had a seizure recently and was currently in a coma) before looking back up to make sure he didn’t trip over a tree root. Yes, he was in a forest, planning his next arson.
Logi grimaced lightly at the thought. Saying it like that made him feel as if he was implying that it was wrong. Logi incinerated the newspaper, shaking his head, the ash floating to the ground lightly. On the other hand, the bag of charcoal on his shoulder was dropped quite heavily, a thud echoing out into the forest from the drop.
After the confrontation Wednesday he had analyzed the way he had used his fire and noticed a couple of oddities, like for instance when he had launched that Fire drill there had been a sharp drop-off in power as the fire went further away. He hadn’t noticed at the time because he thought it a product of drill hitting the stone. But after further experimentation, he had determined that after a certain distance, anything he threw would have a sharp decline in power. The current range he held seemed to be right around a 5-foot radius centered on him.
Luckily he had already found workarounds! He could still control the fire as long as he kept a tether reaching back to him. That was really what Logi was here to test today: what was the limit to his abilities?
Bending down Logi lit his hand ablaze, melting straight through the charcoal’s nylon weave bag and igniting the contents. Pulling back from the bag he mentally grabbed the fire beginning to flicker within the black stones, stretching it like putty away from the charcoal in a steady stream.
The fire coalesced around his skin, pooling between his hands. With an exertion of will Logi separated the ball, small streaks roiling out of the ball and back in, reminiscent of solar flares. A stream broke the surface of the ball, except this one didn’t arch back inwards, not it kept going. A river from a lake as straight as Logi could make it. Then another pushed its way out of the ball making a break in the opposite direction.
The streams were small, a tube roughly an inch in diameter, the ball at this point was the size of Logi’s torso, only just slowing its growth from the charcoal fire as the streams kept going. The growth slowed further as more streamers began to break out of the orb, from two to four, then four to eight, and eight to 16 the streams left, the first stream had just reached a total of 200 meters away before it ground to a halt.
Logi was sweating, and the exertion of will was immense, he had never noticed but he had the tiniest amount of sensation in fire that was connected to him. Add that sensory overload to the sheer focus it took to concentrate on 16 things at once… he was already getting a killer headache and so, as the last streams leveled out at 200 meters away Logi let the rest of the orb flow into the streams.
Tiny trickles rapidly turned to thick ropes of blazing fire. Logi had a brief lapse of concentration and the charcoal vaporized. The sudden surge pushed out into the ropes, growing them further. Birds scrambled to the air at the surge of air moving to fuel the spider web-like extensions of fire. Several bushes caught at the fire suddenly licking at their leaves and branches.
Logi cursed, if he let the fire catch the forest he would never be able to absorb it all so he pulled all the fire connected to the ropes and began to ‘reel’ them back in. Unfortunately, he only managed to reel the fire into 25 meters before a squirrel decided that Logi was too threatening to be allowed in its territory and thus decided the best course of action was to jump on his face while he was intently concentrating on NOT burning down the entire forest.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
The fire that Logi had been slowly absorbing into himself responded to the justifiable, instinctual panic one got when a small rodent was biting your nose (even if it didn’t hurt). Whips of fire a foot in diameter lashed out in a panic, a stray whip managing to vaporize the squirrel. Trees were hosed with massive amounts of fire in a flurry of adrenaline, the area around Logi was looking like an eldritch monstrosity made of fire was attempting to destroy its surroundings.
Logi managed to be calm enough to pull the flaming tentacles back into his core. He looked around at the destruction caused by him. The area looked like a hellscape, the earth was scorched and dry, every plant nearby was in some state of burnt or burning, and Logi loved it. The fuel around him was abundant, the fire would grow well here.
He walked lightly through the clearing he had made siphoning any fire he came across, just enough to keep it going but only barely. He watched as the fire spread among the trees like a virus. Logi only stopped absorbing the fire when the sound of a helicopter snapped him out of his reverie. In a start, he looked up, nearly a mile away three helicopters were flying in the direction of the forest, only his enhanced senses picked up on the sounds before it was too late.
Logi reached into his windbreaker's inside pocket and pulled out the gas mask he had found at the warehouse. As the three helicopters got closer he could see that two of them were emblazoned with the fire department's logo and the third with that of a local news station. Logi slipped behind a tree to avoid the presumably rolling news station camera. He would have to try to avoid being spotted. The gas mask would provide anonymity but it was still more trouble than it was worth.
That line of thought got as far as when the first fire department helicopter dumped water on the fire he had set. Rage pushed all common sense out of his mind at the extinguished blaze. Before anyone had time to process his presence there was a javelin of white hot fire blasting through the air at the speed of a bullet. The helicopter was thrown back in a concussive shockwave that had it coming apart before slamming into the ground with an explosion.
Logi’s enhanced ears could just barely pick up on chatter from the newscaster, He couldn’t make out words but he knew it was about him. Ignoring the voice of the women he turned to the second firefighter aircraft, this time condensing a ball of fire, the white heat tinged with blue at the very center. When he launched the ball he kept a tether attached. The ball moved deceptively slowly and even as the red-colored helicopter tried to fly away from the ball it tracked. As the fire reached ten yards from the aircraft a push of will had the sphere shrink in on itself before erupting.
The shockwave from the explosion knocked the propellers straight off the helicopter, and even the news ‘copter was sent reeling from the wind. As Logi turned to his last target the news vehicle peeled away, tilting forward to a dangerous degree in an attempt to get away from Logi as fast as possible.
The young pyromaniac sighed as he turned and ran into the forest at high speeds, completely ignoring the gazes of the camera crew behind him.
----------------------------------------
“ -completely unprecedented, what even was that? Genuinely, what kind of weapon could even do that? There was no rocket launcher, and besides that was an honest-to-god fireball! Keith, what are your thoughts? You were the one recording the incredible footage.”
“It was terrifying Lakeisha, there isn’t another way to describe it! One minute we were recording the fire and the next there's a blur of orange and white tearing apart that heli-”
The cameraman's lips keep moving as the TV is muted, and the Commissioner turns to a small council of chiefs and other high-ranking police officials. “For the love of god please tell me we have some sort of explanation for this.”
The silence in the room was enough of an answer for the commissioner. He sat down with a sigh putting his head in his hands.
“Sir! Uh, there is one possibility.” That got the commissioner to look up and see a captain with his hand raised hesitantly. “We weren’t sure about it earlier, but it seems likely to be our best bet.”
“Alright, let's hear it then.”
The Commissioner sighed as he was read in on a warehouse explosion, deciding he was going to need a drink after this.