Legacy to Zero

Interlude - Saviour

Four years prior

Crash

This wasn't supposed to be my mission.

My heart lurched in my chest, and I squeezed my gloves into a fist. The face of my watch opened, displaying red pinpoints that marked each active mission across a three-dimensional map of the city.

As far as I knew, the others had turned it off when the constant reminders of crime and villainy got too annoying.

I had never understood it, especially not when I couldn't pry my eyes away from the burning store in front of me.

Heat flared through the building. Vicious white flames devoured it whole, bursting through open windows and spiralling out onto the exposed planter box. I silenced the incessant cry of my watch and my legs pumped forward, as if forced by something outside of me.

I tasted acid-iron at the base of my throat. The fire raged as I approached, overtaking the door to its hinges. When I placed a finger against the wood, it fell to the floor as if it were nothing but dust.

Ash rocketed into my face; I wrinkled my nose. Lowering my body to the ground, I crawled inside.

Rows of shelves stacked full of boxes and glass teetered above me. I forced my hands through a rack of sweaters—my fingers humming as I made contact with the fabric. Its weave overlapped, densely packed. I could feel it as surely as my heartbeat in my ears.

Don't touch it.

Sweat dripped from my forehead. I wasn't supposed to be here. This should have been Kendra's mission, but I was the one wearing her watch. Found it in her room, judging me from the bottom of her jewelry box.

This should have been Kendra's mission, but she was busy. Where she'd gone was none of my business.

I tried to swallow. My eyes watered and my throat scratched.

Rolling out from underneath the clothes display, I placed my hand against the floorboards and glanced down. Between a half breath, time ticked and ticked. And I stared at my fingers until my eyes unfocused, cleaving my vision into two blurred, transparent halves. The split planks thumped, resounding in my throat.

The hair on my neck prickled as my senses probed around. It wasn't so much that I could see underground. But my fingers grasped between the two pieces of my vision, free-falling through each fold of reality, holding on to the side that wasn't there. Flat edges held the basement floors together. It drummed when I prodded it, shooting me back with the recoil like a gun against my jaw. Beneath, the building foundation cracked and pulsated, a fraying ball of yarn. I squeezed my fingers into my palms as the heat gripped them.

Don't.

Fingers digging into the floor, I squeezed my eyes shut. The afterimage of the foundation screamed at me.

Forcing my vision to the watch, I zoomed in on the alert until the dots became a cluster shining from directly below.

I skirted around a tapestry consumed by bright blue fire, nudging my way through the racks of clothes. Fire spilled from ahead of me, nudging higher and higher and—