“Hey, Harry,” Frank said, walking into another hospital room.

“What’s up?”

“How are you?” Valeria asked, heading in behind Frank.

Harrison was resting in his own hospital bed, and was wrapped in bandages in multiple places. “I think this speaks for itself,” he laughed, pointing at his covered areas, but the action drew a pained expression on his face. “Ow.”

“Yeah, maybe it’s better if you don’t move,” Valeria suggested.

Harrison groaned as he struggled to sit up. “The explosion got me real good. Any news on what kinda weapon it was?”

Valeria shook her head after Harrison did the exact opposite of what she said. “Uh, KCPD did some checking earlier, and apparently it was one of the Skydra’s handheld weapons. Basically a more mobile version of his gauntlet cannon.”

“Wow. And what luck, he loses it, and it lands into the hands of a criminal group. Incredible,” Harrison scoffed. Once again, he deemed that the Skydra was causing trouble, even if it was indirect. “Hey, where’s David?”

“Well, he’s in a coma now,” Frank said solemnly.

Harrison was not too surprised. It was not uncommon for police officers to sustain heavy injuries that led to a coma. “Man, that sucks. Sorry to hear that. The explosion caught him?”

“Yeah, he was too close to the blast,” Valeria said. “Although that was because he was trying to make sure we didn’t get hit by the full force of the explosion.”

“How?”

“He threw his transceiver at the disc, so it got knocked out of the way. But that meant he didn’t get as far away as the rest.”

Harrison nodded. “He put us before himself.”

The door creaked open. A nurse entered the room, wearing a warm smile. She pushed in a cart carrying an assortment of medical supplies. “Sorry for the disturbance, but I’ll need you two to leave for now. Gotta change bandages.”

“Aight, see you later buddy. We’ll check around the other officers and come back for a chat,” Frank said, stretching his hand out to give Harrison a shoulder squeeze before remembering that he was injured.

Harrison watched his two friends walk out of the room, and turned to look at the nurse. She was preparing a syringe, filled with a blue chemical. She hummed a melody with a cheerful expression.

“This’ll only sting a little. It’s to help elevate your blood glucose levels,” she said as she began to rub some anaesthetic onto Harrison’s unbandaged arm. “You’re doing great!”

Despite the anaesthetic, Harrison could still feel the prick of the thin metal needle, even if the nurse was careful not to press too hard. It felt strange for a foreign object to be poking into his body, but apparently a group of doctors were digging out steel shards from his body earlier, while he was still unconscious.

In a moment, it was over. “All done! Just keep resting here and avoid unnecessary movement,” the nurse ordered.

Harrison nodded. It was nice to have a gentle nurse tend to him.

But he yelled out suddenly. His flesh felt like it was being compressed, with his very bones aching. He clutched his arm, even if it hurt his entire body to move. “What’s happening? What have you done?”

The nurse gave the grin of a villain as she took a few steps back. “I was lying. This’ll sting a lot.”

Soon enough, Harrison found himself unable to move, his muscles frozen. All he could manage was a guttural growl as he glared at the nurse.

“Remember me?” she asked, rolling up her sleeve to reveal an intricate pattern of scars. She ran a finger through each scar, feeling their uneven texture in contrast to normal smooth skin.

The sight of those markings took him back many years. She was a serial killer that he managed to arrest when he was still a rookie. It seemed that she somehow escaped prison, and was now here to get her revenge.

“Right. You can’t even respond, because of the poison that’s coursing through your blood. In the next few minutes, your organs will begin to atrophy. I hope you don’t mind that.” She smiled again, revealing her teeth.

Harrison wanted to get up and strangle her, but of course, he couldn’t. However, he mustered every last bit of his strength and managed to turn enough to roll off the bed despite its barrier being in the way.

He grunted loudly as he fell onto the cold floor, barely able to reach out towards the criminal’s shoe.

The convict continued to watch coldy, without a shred of regret or sympathy. “You’re a strong one, hmm? But nothing can save you now. You’re on a trip straight to the grave.”

Harrison stopped moving. He once again felt so weak that his muscles completely stopped responding to his thoughts. He closed his eyes and managed to exhale. He could hear every lub-dub of his heart loud and clear, and his ears felt warm from all the blood rushing through it. Moments later, he felt a chill down his spine and trembled violently. His control over his body returned. Gritting his teeth, he clenched his fist and slammed it on the floor, slowly getting up.

The woman looked at him in utter disbelief. She knew she had mixed the chemicals correctly. She developed it years ago, her very own unique poison to take the lives of her victims. It worked like a charm for the thirteen people she used it on before her arrest at the hands of a young Officer Slyde. But today, it was failing spectacularly.

Harrison roared, stretching his limbs. He was standing fine on both legs, feeling not a hint of pain. Even his wounded regions felt no pain in moving and turning, as if they recovered miraculously.

He grabbed the criminal’s collar, lifting her into the air. Despite her flailing and swatting at his face, he maintained his grip.

“Hello again, Eleanor Knight. I don’t know what you did to me, but oh, how the tables have turned,” Harrison said. His hand burst into blue flames, spreading across the convict’s body, eliciting a shriek from her and a gasp from himself.

Both parties completely didn’t expect the turn of events. A night that started horribly seemed to be turning out much better for Harrison by the minute, even if he had no idea what the chemical would bring to him, aside from his current flammability.

He now had the chance to finish off someone who he thought deserved to rot in prison for her crimes. And he decided to take it. He brought forward a fist, sending Knight flying into the window.

He heard the loud thumps of footsteps, and heard the click of the door handle. He sneaked a glance at the room’s window. It was his ticket out of being questioned on what happened. And he might be able to survive the fall. But there was no reason to take the risk.

He put his hands forward, alighting them with a mere thought. It was like moving a muscle, as if he always had it in him. The flames billowed a thick cloak of smoke, concealing him.

“Harry? Are you in there?” Valeria shouted, covering her mouth and nose upon seeing the smoke in the room.

The fire alarm sounded, and sprinklers were set off. The hospital PA system announced something, but Harrison paid no attention to it. A last-minute idea popped up in his head. He blasted the cracked glass window with fire, creating a hole that seemed like someone was thrown out. Then, amidst all the distractions, he made a quick dash out of the room, narrowly avoiding a collision with his friend.

She must have felt him pass by, because she called out his name again. She stepped back into the corridor, spotting someone in a hospital gown fleeing. The person’s hands and head were on fire, and were the sources of the smoke.

She gave chase, but the person shot fire on the floor, forcing her to stop. She gave up, and ran back to the hospital room. There was no Harrison, only a badly burned serial killer and a broken window that seemed big enough for someone to have jumped through it, or thrown out through it.

Frank turned up behind her. “What happened? Where’s Harry?”

“Harry. He’s gone. And there was this person whose hands and head... they were on fire. On blue fire.”

Frank stared at her in bewilderment, his hand on his head. “What?”

“That person was in a hospital gown. But there’s no way that it’s Harry. He has no history of fire powers.”

“Then what if he was thrown out of the window by this fire person?”

They headed over to the window to check. There was no Harrison, nothing. “We’re only on the fifth floor. Maybe he made the jump or something,” Valeria said.

“Or maybe no one was thrown out. Maybe the person kidnapped Harry. Did they look like they were carrying anybody?”

“With all that smoke and fire, honestly, I can’t tell.”

Frank sighed. “I guess all we can do is to keep an eye out for the fire guy, and hope we can find Harry too.”

“And I pray they’re not the same person.”

...

Harrison Slyde sat down on the floor, resting his back on a parapet. He stared at the bright crescent moon that hung in the dark night sky. The sky was clear, but the stars were barely visible due to the bright lights of Karabone City.

Lifting a finger, he ignited a tiny flame on the tip. It glowed a deep blue, radiating heat and casting a faint light around it. It should have burned his finger, but all he could feel was a slight warmth. It was comforting, and enchanting, to watch his own fire dance in the darkness.

He peeled off a bandage from his shin, and examined his skin under the firelight. His wounds had healed, but they left behind scars as a sort of memento of the Aurum Horizons incident.

No science could explain what happened just twenty minutes ago. He had no one to turn to. No one would help him with only the intention of helping him understand his newfound abilities. They would just want to study his powers and attempt to replicate it, or worse, contain him in fear of him unleashing his strength.

He heard the almost-indistinct rumble of a plane in the sky, reminding him of the Skydra, and the vow he made to put the Skydra behind bars for the sake of the little girl as well as to destroy the Cottonmouths. His goal seemed very much within reach now.

“Soon enough, you’ll be avenged. With these powers, and an alter ego, I will not be restricted by police ways. I can work optimally. And the ones who hurt you will finally pay...”