Raymond_of_Clubs
the Yee to your Haw
Hey there! My name is Ray, they/them.
I'm looking for someone who enjoys character-driven plots, family and friendship-related character dynamics, long to very long posts, and the good old fantasy genre.
I have this very specific craving for a very vague idea, which is to create a cast of 3-4 main characters per writer (6-8 total), make them work together - be it for a mercenary guild, the government, or just a very rich and peculiar noble - periodically drop dangerous circumstances on their heads, and watch them bond by the campfire. Something of a classic adventure. Big, dramatic, DnD-esque, centering specifically around the kind of battle-forged companionship where it's one for all and all for one.
We can create the setting together. I'm picturing something medieval fantasy-like, with enough dangerous places and creatures to never bore an adventurer.
This is coming out quite short, so here are a few post samples of mine, to back me up.
That's about it. PM or reply here if interested. Have a great day!
I'm looking for someone who enjoys character-driven plots, family and friendship-related character dynamics, long to very long posts, and the good old fantasy genre.
I have this very specific craving for a very vague idea, which is to create a cast of 3-4 main characters per writer (6-8 total), make them work together - be it for a mercenary guild, the government, or just a very rich and peculiar noble - periodically drop dangerous circumstances on their heads, and watch them bond by the campfire. Something of a classic adventure. Big, dramatic, DnD-esque, centering specifically around the kind of battle-forged companionship where it's one for all and all for one.
We can create the setting together. I'm picturing something medieval fantasy-like, with enough dangerous places and creatures to never bore an adventurer.
This is coming out quite short, so here are a few post samples of mine, to back me up.
The half-buried marble gravestone with a cracked steel plate and unreadable rusted carving belonged to one Annette Denzell, burnt in her own house set ablaze by a candle left too close to the curtain. He’d always said there was much to learn from the dead, yet rarely anyone would suspect a matter this trivial. But after the springful steps of blunt insensitive humor, a deep-cutting string of tragedies followed, as he searched Blackwood archives for the mentions of Annette’s children.
He had to come to the library at night, sneaking past the sleeping warden with caution and focus, careful as to not rustle the old pages or step on a rotten floor piece that would squeak under his light feet. The fate of Annette didn’t concern him, such as it was, noted down mediocre in his book. The children were interesting: the eldest was burned on a cross after being accused of witchcraft, two others stricken by flaming arrows during the siege of the Blackriver Fortress. No mention of the youngest son, but a reference to the Magi Protest – another great fire, if memory served.
The guards changed at midnight, taking turns vandalizing the old wooden desk with apple brandy stains and ink-drawn phalli. The trick was to sneak out through the window as the front door opened, one noise sinking in the overbearing loudness of the other, and not forget the notes. Gods forbid him to ever forget the notes again – last time the blasted shred of paper was almost traced to his dear home, insolently branded “hideout”.
The time was poor for raising the Denzell family tree to the good old sunlight. The bones frost-bound under the cold ground would have a hard time crawling upwards, and the remains were fragile at best. He would have to make a note of it, in case the flaming curse of the Denzells was more than a theory. Now – down the street, in the shadows, by the windows, unheard, unnoticed – to the church, to sooner bury his face into a dusty tome of arcane incantations, mischievous excitement setting his body in motion against the weariness of a long day and a sleepless night.
He slipped inside, noticing the door was ajar, but not minding it. The winds were strong at this time of the year. He only hoped he hadn’t left a window open before heading out. Having to sweep snow off the floor was a duty about as joyless as he could imagine.
He shrugged the white off his shoulders before it melted and made his coat wet. The chill in the air was rejuvenating, and he allowed himself to take down his hood. Underneath it was a mess of a hair, black and cut short by his own clumsy hand, seemingly easy to comb, but hardly so in the grim and unkind reality of modern fashion. At least at home there was no one to impress, no one to comment on the bags under his black eyes or the natural paleness of his skin, no one to nug him but the bird that lived under the roof, and for as little as a handful of nuts and seeds. Duval – that’s what he decided to call the raven – greeted him by pecking his ear lightly.
The unwavering peacefulness of the moment faded away as soon as he noticed a stranger’s figure lying comfortably on one of the pews near the altar – his favorite pew, no less, the one that suited best for stretching his back after a hard day’s work. The first thing that he noticed was that the stranger was taller and if one could say so, bigger than him, which was an unmistakable characteristic of all guardsmen, wardens, and mage-hunters, as well as mostly everyone in Blackwood, if not the entire kingdom. He never got quite used to being short though, despite his age. The world was full of unsettling harsh realities, and the living people were the most unsettling of them all.
His caution faded quickly once he took a closer look at the stranger. One didn’t have to be a master of arcane arts to smell the curse from miles away – the entire church would be reeking for days after the man is gone! Well, if he was planning to be gone anytime soon. If he was, he didn’t look it.
“If you are seeking a place of worship, I’m afraid the church is closed for the winter,” he spoke, the words flowing fast, his voice loud and sharp, strengthened by the echo, “or any other season, for that matter.” He preferred to converse quietly, but subconsciously tried to sound bigger than he was, in case the stranger was playing a dirty trick on him. Some mages were too trustful for their own good – that’s what got them caught.
He approached the stranger in small but confident steps. The night was dark and the candles weren’t lit, so he had to come closer to make out the details of the other man’s face. Well, that pallor was looking less healthy than his own, and he was scaring the local children. “Excuse me, could you, perchance, make some kind of noise, just so I know you’re still among the living?” he commented, any sort of compassion so well concealed it almost passed for cruelty.
He had to come to the library at night, sneaking past the sleeping warden with caution and focus, careful as to not rustle the old pages or step on a rotten floor piece that would squeak under his light feet. The fate of Annette didn’t concern him, such as it was, noted down mediocre in his book. The children were interesting: the eldest was burned on a cross after being accused of witchcraft, two others stricken by flaming arrows during the siege of the Blackriver Fortress. No mention of the youngest son, but a reference to the Magi Protest – another great fire, if memory served.
The guards changed at midnight, taking turns vandalizing the old wooden desk with apple brandy stains and ink-drawn phalli. The trick was to sneak out through the window as the front door opened, one noise sinking in the overbearing loudness of the other, and not forget the notes. Gods forbid him to ever forget the notes again – last time the blasted shred of paper was almost traced to his dear home, insolently branded “hideout”.
The time was poor for raising the Denzell family tree to the good old sunlight. The bones frost-bound under the cold ground would have a hard time crawling upwards, and the remains were fragile at best. He would have to make a note of it, in case the flaming curse of the Denzells was more than a theory. Now – down the street, in the shadows, by the windows, unheard, unnoticed – to the church, to sooner bury his face into a dusty tome of arcane incantations, mischievous excitement setting his body in motion against the weariness of a long day and a sleepless night.
He slipped inside, noticing the door was ajar, but not minding it. The winds were strong at this time of the year. He only hoped he hadn’t left a window open before heading out. Having to sweep snow off the floor was a duty about as joyless as he could imagine.
He shrugged the white off his shoulders before it melted and made his coat wet. The chill in the air was rejuvenating, and he allowed himself to take down his hood. Underneath it was a mess of a hair, black and cut short by his own clumsy hand, seemingly easy to comb, but hardly so in the grim and unkind reality of modern fashion. At least at home there was no one to impress, no one to comment on the bags under his black eyes or the natural paleness of his skin, no one to nug him but the bird that lived under the roof, and for as little as a handful of nuts and seeds. Duval – that’s what he decided to call the raven – greeted him by pecking his ear lightly.
The unwavering peacefulness of the moment faded away as soon as he noticed a stranger’s figure lying comfortably on one of the pews near the altar – his favorite pew, no less, the one that suited best for stretching his back after a hard day’s work. The first thing that he noticed was that the stranger was taller and if one could say so, bigger than him, which was an unmistakable characteristic of all guardsmen, wardens, and mage-hunters, as well as mostly everyone in Blackwood, if not the entire kingdom. He never got quite used to being short though, despite his age. The world was full of unsettling harsh realities, and the living people were the most unsettling of them all.
His caution faded quickly once he took a closer look at the stranger. One didn’t have to be a master of arcane arts to smell the curse from miles away – the entire church would be reeking for days after the man is gone! Well, if he was planning to be gone anytime soon. If he was, he didn’t look it.
“If you are seeking a place of worship, I’m afraid the church is closed for the winter,” he spoke, the words flowing fast, his voice loud and sharp, strengthened by the echo, “or any other season, for that matter.” He preferred to converse quietly, but subconsciously tried to sound bigger than he was, in case the stranger was playing a dirty trick on him. Some mages were too trustful for their own good – that’s what got them caught.
He approached the stranger in small but confident steps. The night was dark and the candles weren’t lit, so he had to come closer to make out the details of the other man’s face. Well, that pallor was looking less healthy than his own, and he was scaring the local children. “Excuse me, could you, perchance, make some kind of noise, just so I know you’re still among the living?” he commented, any sort of compassion so well concealed it almost passed for cruelty.
The clock blinked 07:15 when Ed hit the pillow and fell asleep immediately, stretched out on the mattress like a starfish, his head completely empty for the first time in the past three days. Three shifts in a row, two nights of non-stop sirens, the smell of smoke fused into his skin so deep he couldn’t get it out with all the soap in the world – it was nice to have his thoughts disappear into the void for once, and he didn’t have any dreams at all, except the annoying buzzing somewhere in the back of his mind, a sneaky harbinger of tomorrow’s splitting headache.
The soft embrace of the endless nothing was most certainly imaginary, but the buzzing, much to his dismay, turned real. It took him a moment to process the sound, then to connect it to the recently installed doorbell of his usually quiet and barely-lived-in apartment, and then another second or two to shift and groan into his pillow. Instead of going through the struggle of putting on a pair of pants and a decent shirt, he wrapped himself in his blanket like an unhatched butterfly, and dragged his ass into the hallway, where the piercing buzzes were even louder, still half-asleep, and also quite sure it was but an inconsiderate neighbor in desperate need of some salt.
“Mister Wilson?” a gentleman in a black costume, with a tie and everything, fifty-something years old by the look of it, extended his hand for a handshake through the half-open door. He was wearing glasses and a mustache, and everything about him looked terribly serious, so serious that Ed suddenly felt completely awake, and also a little bit worried. The inspection wasn’t due until next week, and he couldn’t recall doing anything that would warrant an official visit, but the irrational thought still crossed his mind, because maybe – just maybe – he had accidentally committed war crimes against humanity and just so happened to forget about it.
“How can I help you?” he returned ever so politely, pulling the blanket tighter over his shoulders – God forbid it to fall down and expose his unflattering attire. Police didn’t like him disorganized like that, would probably think he isn’t living a decent life, and, to be fair, based on his look it wouldn’t be a completely groundless assumption.
“Agent Hayes, MCA. May I come in?”
Ed stepped aside begrudgingly. The Mutant Control Agency was always let in, but never welcome.
There were a total of two rooms in Ed’s house, and one of them was a complete mess. The bed wasn’t made, his clothes were thrown haphazardly over the back of a chair, and a stack of coffee mugs was accumulating on the table. He led his guest into the kitchen, which, in turn, was sparkling clean – he rarely ever had the time to use it, even though he really enjoyed cooking. He offered Agent Hayes the good chair and some tea or coffee, which he had in a wide variety of flavors – the latter was declined, but the other man did sit down, bringing forward a folder with some kind of documents, but not letting Ed take a peek.
“I’m here about the rampage,” the agent announced in a dry, emotionless tone.
Ed’s blood ran cold. “The what?”
Agent Hayes seemed perplexed by the response but collected himself quickly. “I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. It’s all over the news.” Spotting the other man’s confused look, he added, now with a hint of uncertainty: “The Cathedral? The destruction? The deaths-”
“I was nowhere near any blasted Cathedral!” Ed interrupted loudly, his fist landing heavily onto the table, making the agent visibly nervous. “I was at work, at the station – ask the guys, they’ll tell you! It’s near the Westside, we had calls there, and I’ve never even seen a Cathedral! I didn’t know we had one in Toronto!”
“Mister Wilson, the St. Pierre Cathedral isn’t in Toronto. It’s in Geneva.”
Ed blinked, his expression shifting from angry to irritated, to confused, to defensive. “I’m banned from leaving the country. I don’t even have an international passport. You can’t accuse me of something that happened in Switzerland.”
Agent Hayes’ face lit up with finally realizing where the misunderstanding was coming from. “I’m not accusing you; I’m requesting your help. Mister Wilson, do you watch TV?”
They spent the next twenty minutes or so browsing and watching the news reports from the last few hours, showing burning buildings and injured victims, as well as the criminal herself. It took Ed some time to calm down and really believe that the MCA wasn’t here to accuse him or check on his record so far – it wasn’t often that they paid house visits for something other than that. In fact, it literally never happened before. As they watched, Agent Hayes explained the details of the catastrophe – Ed knew about the resistance movement, but never really got involved, and, as they’ve established, didn’t watch a lot of TV. He did offer to help the best he could, and his offer was accepted immediately.
“We’ll take you to Geneva as soon as you’re ready,” Agent Hayes explained, his tone impeccably indifferent, which was kind of driving Ed nuts when he thought about it.
“Do I need to call my boss and tell him I’m sick or something?”
“No,” the agent spotted a smile, which in return caused Ed to grin widely. “The MCA will make the necessary arrangement.”
“Gotcha,” Ed nodded, processing the next steps, “let me just grab a few things, and I’m good to go.”
“What kind of things would those be, Mister Wilson?”
“Ugh… Pants?”
***
Two hours later he was sat in what Agent Hayes called a private jet of the MCA, specifically MCA-2, though the agent didn’t specify of how many. Ed had hoped to see the Atlantic as they flew over it, but the weather was much too cloudy for that, and he didn’t get the chance to take a peek. Between a nosey neighbor lady shouting how glad she is that he’s finally being arrested for his mutant crimes (whatever gave her this impression) and boarding the jet in a hasty manner, this wasn’t too bad of a morning, and the tiredness was gone for the time being. Agent Hayes told him he could ask questions if he had any, so after half an hour or so of staring at the infinitely white clouds underneath like an overexcited child, Ed decided to make use of the offer.
“Will I get arrested?”
“Pardon?” Agent Hayes raised his eyes from the tablet on which he was working, navigating between what Ed recognized as emails and something he didn’t quite understand.
“For violating my international travel ban.”
“It’s been revoked.”
If it wasn’t for the safety belt, Ed would jump to his feet. Instead, it came out as a jerky movement, and he stared at Agent Hayes for a solid minute before finally opening his mouth to voice the question. “When?”
“Just…” the man lightly tapped something on his tablet screen and once again briefly glanced at Wilson over his glasses, “…now.”
Ed blinked in confusion, then scratched his head. “What… what about my passport? I told you I don’t have one.”
“You do.”
“Since when?!”
Agent Hayes checked his pocket watch. It looked unnecessary, seeing how he had an electronic device in his hands. But he was clearly a man of habits, and a very stubborn one, at that. “Since two minutes later,” he concluded.
Ed scratched his head at that, too. He’d have to do a lot of head-scratching once all of this is over, he reasoned. A few minutes passed like that, with him perplexed, and the agent concentrated and his paperwork. Then Ed broke the silence: “What about my pet ban?”
“Pardon?” the other man raised an eyebrow. It’s not that he didn’t hear Ed this time, it’s that he didn’t understand what he meant, exactly.
“My pet ban. Is it revoked as well? Can I get a dog when this is over?”
“I’ll… have to check that,” Agent Hayes avoided the question – he was unaware that law-obedient mutants still had a pet ban, but he wasn’t a part of the department that dealt with such restrictions.
Well, Ed didn’t expect this to go perfectly. But it did make him even more nervous when he decided to finally ask about the little detail that was bothering him since he boarded the jet. Still, he had to bring it up. “What about my powers? Can I use them? I mean, you probably know I’ll have to use them, but it’s not… y’know… going to cost me a death sentence or something like that, is it?”
“No,” the agent answered simply, and Ed couldn’t hold back a relieved sigh. “I’ll familiarize you with the official restrictions.”
And he did. For the next ten minutes or so they discussed the formalities, and what Ed gathered from it was, he was allowed to use almost every power he had at his disposal to help deescalate the situation and, as the agent had nicely put it, to apprehend the villain. He then had Ed sign a paper in which he promised not to sue if he gets killed on the job. Ed tried to argue he had already signed such a paper when he got his job at the Fire Department, but the agent reminded him that MCA functioned separately from the Canadian government. After that, Ed’s head began to hurt a little from all the different papers he was offered to read, and he retreated back to looking through the window. Soon enough, the jet went into a dive down, and he could see the site of the catastrophe.
It was bad enough in the pictures. Looking at the burning buildings and barren streets was heart-wrenching. The pilot was now looking for a safe space to land, but a great fire was raging below the jet, and a terrifying thought crossed Ed’s mind – there could still be people there. Not just around the fire, trying to put it down. Inside. In one of the burning buildings. In any of the burning buildings.
“My kind of job,” he joked, and before the natural silence evolved into an awkward one, added quickly, “can you drop me off right here?”
“We can’t land here,” Agent Hayes replied with his usual unphased indifference.
“I’m not asking you to land! Just drop me.”
The agent frowned, considering the suggestion in his head, then said something to the pilot – something Ed didn’t quite hear. He then instructed Ed where exactly to stand, and how the door is going to open. By that time they had already agreed that since the moment he stepped foot in Geneva, Ed would be on his own. Still, a few polite words of purely professional concern were expressed – that is, Ed was also instructed to be careful and not burn. But then again, what kind of firefighter would he be if he was afraid of a little flame?
***
The energy from the landing poured down in an electric impulse – with his feet on the ground, Ed could potentially consume infinite energy, seeing how the Earth was always an absolute electrical zero. And a little flame it was not. Even rising from the ground level, it was still much taller than him, and much more aggressive. The thick layer of smoke obscured the sights, which was frankly a pity – he’d always hoped to one day admire the pretty picture of a European city with a name as big as this. The smoke was dangerous even to him – it wasn’t the energy of it that was dangerous, but the deadly choking effect it had on humans. Would be nice to have his gear with him, he thought, much too late now.
The flame didn’t hurt. He walked right into it, and it only kind of burned his eyes, but only because it was much too bright. Now, he couldn’t absorb and release energy at the same time, so the trick was to put out as much fire as possible before turning it into a lightning bolt straight to the Earth’s core. And he so, so prayed he wouldn’t burn his pants in the process, that would be a fucking shame. So much for a decent shirt, too – he was practically covered in grime, ash, and dust from the moment he stepped into this hellfire. Not too different from how he looked after a long work shift though.
The key was to not breathe the smoke in, or he could bid farewell to his lungs. That proved tough – two seconds in, and he was already feeling the strain on his muscles. Rusty. That’s what happens when you don’t use your powers in literal years. Ed was always confident he could find a better use for them than just quenching down his every attempt to help humankind. It was nice to have that recognized, at least, even if it happened so late and in such upsetting circumstances.
He spread his arms wide, letting them set on fire along with the rest of his body, absorbing as much of its heat as possible. At first, the change wasn’t even visible, but after thirty seconds or so of persistent effort the flame – all of it at once – turned blue, then nearly white, and then suddenly it was no more, with only ever so rare sparks of red somewhere in the distance – those which spread too far for his powers to reach. He couldn’t absorb the energy of that which didn’t touch him, after all. Thankfully, most of the fire was pretty concentrated in just one area of the city – that he could very well deal with.
The lightning that followed, against Ed’s best intents, went two ways: down and up. Now, he had enough control of it to not let it sideways, but letting thousands of mega Joules blast in one direction – even straight into the ground – could very well start another fire. The sky was a safer space. At least the planes weren’t flying over Geneva. Agent Hayes mentioned that at some point.
Covered in dirt mixed with sweat, large holes burned through his shirt and, unfortunately, his pants, Ed spotted a large enough broken piece of wall from a nearby collapsed building, and sat down to catch his breath. Rusty. Smaller sparks were still running between his fingers, making a loud noise, though to him it sounded muffled after the much greater and louder electric bold that preceded it.
The soft embrace of the endless nothing was most certainly imaginary, but the buzzing, much to his dismay, turned real. It took him a moment to process the sound, then to connect it to the recently installed doorbell of his usually quiet and barely-lived-in apartment, and then another second or two to shift and groan into his pillow. Instead of going through the struggle of putting on a pair of pants and a decent shirt, he wrapped himself in his blanket like an unhatched butterfly, and dragged his ass into the hallway, where the piercing buzzes were even louder, still half-asleep, and also quite sure it was but an inconsiderate neighbor in desperate need of some salt.
“Mister Wilson?” a gentleman in a black costume, with a tie and everything, fifty-something years old by the look of it, extended his hand for a handshake through the half-open door. He was wearing glasses and a mustache, and everything about him looked terribly serious, so serious that Ed suddenly felt completely awake, and also a little bit worried. The inspection wasn’t due until next week, and he couldn’t recall doing anything that would warrant an official visit, but the irrational thought still crossed his mind, because maybe – just maybe – he had accidentally committed war crimes against humanity and just so happened to forget about it.
“How can I help you?” he returned ever so politely, pulling the blanket tighter over his shoulders – God forbid it to fall down and expose his unflattering attire. Police didn’t like him disorganized like that, would probably think he isn’t living a decent life, and, to be fair, based on his look it wouldn’t be a completely groundless assumption.
“Agent Hayes, MCA. May I come in?”
Ed stepped aside begrudgingly. The Mutant Control Agency was always let in, but never welcome.
There were a total of two rooms in Ed’s house, and one of them was a complete mess. The bed wasn’t made, his clothes were thrown haphazardly over the back of a chair, and a stack of coffee mugs was accumulating on the table. He led his guest into the kitchen, which, in turn, was sparkling clean – he rarely ever had the time to use it, even though he really enjoyed cooking. He offered Agent Hayes the good chair and some tea or coffee, which he had in a wide variety of flavors – the latter was declined, but the other man did sit down, bringing forward a folder with some kind of documents, but not letting Ed take a peek.
“I’m here about the rampage,” the agent announced in a dry, emotionless tone.
Ed’s blood ran cold. “The what?”
Agent Hayes seemed perplexed by the response but collected himself quickly. “I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. It’s all over the news.” Spotting the other man’s confused look, he added, now with a hint of uncertainty: “The Cathedral? The destruction? The deaths-”
“I was nowhere near any blasted Cathedral!” Ed interrupted loudly, his fist landing heavily onto the table, making the agent visibly nervous. “I was at work, at the station – ask the guys, they’ll tell you! It’s near the Westside, we had calls there, and I’ve never even seen a Cathedral! I didn’t know we had one in Toronto!”
“Mister Wilson, the St. Pierre Cathedral isn’t in Toronto. It’s in Geneva.”
Ed blinked, his expression shifting from angry to irritated, to confused, to defensive. “I’m banned from leaving the country. I don’t even have an international passport. You can’t accuse me of something that happened in Switzerland.”
Agent Hayes’ face lit up with finally realizing where the misunderstanding was coming from. “I’m not accusing you; I’m requesting your help. Mister Wilson, do you watch TV?”
They spent the next twenty minutes or so browsing and watching the news reports from the last few hours, showing burning buildings and injured victims, as well as the criminal herself. It took Ed some time to calm down and really believe that the MCA wasn’t here to accuse him or check on his record so far – it wasn’t often that they paid house visits for something other than that. In fact, it literally never happened before. As they watched, Agent Hayes explained the details of the catastrophe – Ed knew about the resistance movement, but never really got involved, and, as they’ve established, didn’t watch a lot of TV. He did offer to help the best he could, and his offer was accepted immediately.
“We’ll take you to Geneva as soon as you’re ready,” Agent Hayes explained, his tone impeccably indifferent, which was kind of driving Ed nuts when he thought about it.
“Do I need to call my boss and tell him I’m sick or something?”
“No,” the agent spotted a smile, which in return caused Ed to grin widely. “The MCA will make the necessary arrangement.”
“Gotcha,” Ed nodded, processing the next steps, “let me just grab a few things, and I’m good to go.”
“What kind of things would those be, Mister Wilson?”
“Ugh… Pants?”
***
Two hours later he was sat in what Agent Hayes called a private jet of the MCA, specifically MCA-2, though the agent didn’t specify of how many. Ed had hoped to see the Atlantic as they flew over it, but the weather was much too cloudy for that, and he didn’t get the chance to take a peek. Between a nosey neighbor lady shouting how glad she is that he’s finally being arrested for his mutant crimes (whatever gave her this impression) and boarding the jet in a hasty manner, this wasn’t too bad of a morning, and the tiredness was gone for the time being. Agent Hayes told him he could ask questions if he had any, so after half an hour or so of staring at the infinitely white clouds underneath like an overexcited child, Ed decided to make use of the offer.
“Will I get arrested?”
“Pardon?” Agent Hayes raised his eyes from the tablet on which he was working, navigating between what Ed recognized as emails and something he didn’t quite understand.
“For violating my international travel ban.”
“It’s been revoked.”
If it wasn’t for the safety belt, Ed would jump to his feet. Instead, it came out as a jerky movement, and he stared at Agent Hayes for a solid minute before finally opening his mouth to voice the question. “When?”
“Just…” the man lightly tapped something on his tablet screen and once again briefly glanced at Wilson over his glasses, “…now.”
Ed blinked in confusion, then scratched his head. “What… what about my passport? I told you I don’t have one.”
“You do.”
“Since when?!”
Agent Hayes checked his pocket watch. It looked unnecessary, seeing how he had an electronic device in his hands. But he was clearly a man of habits, and a very stubborn one, at that. “Since two minutes later,” he concluded.
Ed scratched his head at that, too. He’d have to do a lot of head-scratching once all of this is over, he reasoned. A few minutes passed like that, with him perplexed, and the agent concentrated and his paperwork. Then Ed broke the silence: “What about my pet ban?”
“Pardon?” the other man raised an eyebrow. It’s not that he didn’t hear Ed this time, it’s that he didn’t understand what he meant, exactly.
“My pet ban. Is it revoked as well? Can I get a dog when this is over?”
“I’ll… have to check that,” Agent Hayes avoided the question – he was unaware that law-obedient mutants still had a pet ban, but he wasn’t a part of the department that dealt with such restrictions.
Well, Ed didn’t expect this to go perfectly. But it did make him even more nervous when he decided to finally ask about the little detail that was bothering him since he boarded the jet. Still, he had to bring it up. “What about my powers? Can I use them? I mean, you probably know I’ll have to use them, but it’s not… y’know… going to cost me a death sentence or something like that, is it?”
“No,” the agent answered simply, and Ed couldn’t hold back a relieved sigh. “I’ll familiarize you with the official restrictions.”
And he did. For the next ten minutes or so they discussed the formalities, and what Ed gathered from it was, he was allowed to use almost every power he had at his disposal to help deescalate the situation and, as the agent had nicely put it, to apprehend the villain. He then had Ed sign a paper in which he promised not to sue if he gets killed on the job. Ed tried to argue he had already signed such a paper when he got his job at the Fire Department, but the agent reminded him that MCA functioned separately from the Canadian government. After that, Ed’s head began to hurt a little from all the different papers he was offered to read, and he retreated back to looking through the window. Soon enough, the jet went into a dive down, and he could see the site of the catastrophe.
It was bad enough in the pictures. Looking at the burning buildings and barren streets was heart-wrenching. The pilot was now looking for a safe space to land, but a great fire was raging below the jet, and a terrifying thought crossed Ed’s mind – there could still be people there. Not just around the fire, trying to put it down. Inside. In one of the burning buildings. In any of the burning buildings.
“My kind of job,” he joked, and before the natural silence evolved into an awkward one, added quickly, “can you drop me off right here?”
“We can’t land here,” Agent Hayes replied with his usual unphased indifference.
“I’m not asking you to land! Just drop me.”
The agent frowned, considering the suggestion in his head, then said something to the pilot – something Ed didn’t quite hear. He then instructed Ed where exactly to stand, and how the door is going to open. By that time they had already agreed that since the moment he stepped foot in Geneva, Ed would be on his own. Still, a few polite words of purely professional concern were expressed – that is, Ed was also instructed to be careful and not burn. But then again, what kind of firefighter would he be if he was afraid of a little flame?
***
The energy from the landing poured down in an electric impulse – with his feet on the ground, Ed could potentially consume infinite energy, seeing how the Earth was always an absolute electrical zero. And a little flame it was not. Even rising from the ground level, it was still much taller than him, and much more aggressive. The thick layer of smoke obscured the sights, which was frankly a pity – he’d always hoped to one day admire the pretty picture of a European city with a name as big as this. The smoke was dangerous even to him – it wasn’t the energy of it that was dangerous, but the deadly choking effect it had on humans. Would be nice to have his gear with him, he thought, much too late now.
The flame didn’t hurt. He walked right into it, and it only kind of burned his eyes, but only because it was much too bright. Now, he couldn’t absorb and release energy at the same time, so the trick was to put out as much fire as possible before turning it into a lightning bolt straight to the Earth’s core. And he so, so prayed he wouldn’t burn his pants in the process, that would be a fucking shame. So much for a decent shirt, too – he was practically covered in grime, ash, and dust from the moment he stepped into this hellfire. Not too different from how he looked after a long work shift though.
The key was to not breathe the smoke in, or he could bid farewell to his lungs. That proved tough – two seconds in, and he was already feeling the strain on his muscles. Rusty. That’s what happens when you don’t use your powers in literal years. Ed was always confident he could find a better use for them than just quenching down his every attempt to help humankind. It was nice to have that recognized, at least, even if it happened so late and in such upsetting circumstances.
He spread his arms wide, letting them set on fire along with the rest of his body, absorbing as much of its heat as possible. At first, the change wasn’t even visible, but after thirty seconds or so of persistent effort the flame – all of it at once – turned blue, then nearly white, and then suddenly it was no more, with only ever so rare sparks of red somewhere in the distance – those which spread too far for his powers to reach. He couldn’t absorb the energy of that which didn’t touch him, after all. Thankfully, most of the fire was pretty concentrated in just one area of the city – that he could very well deal with.
The lightning that followed, against Ed’s best intents, went two ways: down and up. Now, he had enough control of it to not let it sideways, but letting thousands of mega Joules blast in one direction – even straight into the ground – could very well start another fire. The sky was a safer space. At least the planes weren’t flying over Geneva. Agent Hayes mentioned that at some point.
Covered in dirt mixed with sweat, large holes burned through his shirt and, unfortunately, his pants, Ed spotted a large enough broken piece of wall from a nearby collapsed building, and sat down to catch his breath. Rusty. Smaller sparks were still running between his fingers, making a loud noise, though to him it sounded muffled after the much greater and louder electric bold that preceded it.
That's about it. PM or reply here if interested. Have a great day!
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