Ryker Petrović

[Ryker]

Dayton, 2044

Everything inside burned.

But not so bad as the outside.

One step. The fire shoved back. Fists clenched. Teeth bared, bones consumed by the blaze.

Another step. He roared at the wall of flame, and it recoiled. Molten lava coursed his veins.

Every muscle strained. His lungs heaved. It was walking through concrete. His legs were iron. Like feet fused to the floor. His face slid free of the skull beneath, roasted over open flames, but the real pain was inside his soul.

And yet .. yet, he felt strong. Stronger than the building. Stronger than the fire. Stronger than the motherfucking nuclear power plant itself.

As he walked, the fires swarmed in an arc around him. He looked up and found the world was orange like walking inside the sun. He passed Steve’s skeletal remains then, and standing over the smoldering body still hissing with heat, he paused in recognition of how he almost shared the same fate. Poor bastard.

But he could only see part of Steve’s remains. Half the world was concealed. One eye was welded shut, the skin above and below fused. The other he closed, and in the darkness, he drank the power roaring its fury inside. It was an unquenchable source, blazing nearly out of control. They would pay. Every last one. In that moment, his one eye opened and outward in every direction he pushed the unbelievable heat into the concrete of the reactor tower until it glowed. Maybe the concrete would melt after all. As the soot and ash floated upward, he saw blue sky behind the torn limbs of the broken dome above. The resulting fireball must have been glorious.

And tense with this incredible power source, he looked around. The interior of the reactor was unrecognizable. Melted equipment slunk like wax. Frayed wiring rained down electrical sparks like yellow waterfalls. And everything was scorched black. The former pool was now an empty pit. The rods that started all this were scattered at the bottom like sticks.

Were they still radioactive? He touched the side of his face carefully. The pads of his fingers found sticky flesh that turned his stomach with so much pain it flashed his head dizzy. It shot lightning down his shoulder, a million needles down all the way to the arm. That’s when he looked at his hand, and sickly witnessed the angry red bellies of his own muscle looking back at him. It was the same state all the way from hairline to fingers, he realized. And he understood. He’d been left there.

Left to burn.

Fists balled, he stalked back the way he came. They wanted a nuclear disaster? They were going to get one. The vault door hissed with heat. The power inside ripped it off the hinges and flung it away. It crashed behind him in an enormous drop that should burst eardrums as he climbed out of the reactor.

The passageway beyond wasn’t empty. He stopped there, pulling himself to his full height, deformed face snarling at the perfectly smooth ones staring back at him. Their expressions were wrenched with horror.

His own shoulders were still smoking.

Out here the lights were flickering. The air was clean except for what wafted from the portal behind him. He glimpsed a security camera in the corner and stared at it so hard he could almost see their Team Leader on the other side watching his emergence from hell. He pointed at it with the burned side of his body. The motion made the melted clothing wrinkle over his body in pain, but he drank it in and more of that power source followed. He pointed at all of them watching as if to say ‘I’m coming for you,’ and he turned back to the horrified engineers.

Fire was a companion now. Part of him as sure as the clothes fused to the body beneath. He spun it. Controlled it. Pushed it. And instantly, everyone caught flames. They ran screaming as loudly as poor Steve, and across bared teeth, Ryker’s lips tugged one direction into half a red smile.

And he followed.

Plan Part Five: Burn all the motherfuckers alive.