It was a dark and stormy night. Really. Weather reports forecasted a 70% chance of thunderstorms in the New Orleans area tonight and through the morning. Luckily, it wasn’t actually raining at the moment, but the atmosphere was heavy and oppressive with the looming storm. Cars speeding down the streets threw up huge fantails of water as they went through puddles.
Dodging the water splashed up by cars as I made my way to my vehicle wasn’t necessary for me. I just created portals on each side of me that the water passed through. That kept me nice and dry...mostly. My feet and ankles, as well as my hair, did get wet because its hard to catch all the water when its moving, you’re moving, and you’re trying to keep the portals moving at the optimum angles to catch the water. Still, mostly dry is good!
I got into my car, a little VW Beetle, that I really loved driving. Ironically, I really have no need of a car. I can go anywhere in the world I want in an instant. Heck, I can even go into other dimensions! Well, theoretically, I can. I haven’t really explored that aspect of my power, yet. But nothing beats the soothing feel of driving on a country road with the top down and the wind streaming through your hair. However, with the weather tonight, the top is up and the A/C is blowing, trying to reduce the humidity the approaching storm is bringing.
Suddenly, time slows down and I feel a tingling along my skin and down my spine. The car suddenly loses power and coasts to a halt, the radio and lights dying simultaneously. The darkness of the night is shattered by a glaring blue-white glow as the air begins to ionize around my from what I assume is an imminent lightning strike. My reaction speed allows me to process this all in a moment and I create a portal to divert the strike harmlessly back into the ground 100 meters away. But it is a moment that I don’t have.
As I form the portals, in the split-second before the portals actually connect, the lightning bolt hits and shatters my precious car. Thinking I was safe from the strike because I was going to divert it, my personal protection were very low. I was in my work clothes, a white blouse and black slacks, with my super-suit on underneath but powered down and offering only basic protection from physical threats like knives and bullets, not energy attacks, like lightning bolts. Pain courses through me as I try to complete the portal and ground out the electricity.
The portals connect and the pain begins to lesson as the electricity stops flowing through my body and bleeds into the ground. But the so does my level of consciousness. I feel myself begin to blacking out and I try to dimension-skip myself to the infirmary on the BADGE Space Station. I feel myself change locations but I cannot tell where I am because I am unable to see. The lightning strike, the sudden brightness, has rendered me blind. The location feels familiar to my remaining senses, having been a frequent occupant of the infirmary after many League Wars and RAIDS. Further speculation on my location will have to wait as unconsciousness reaches up and drags me into dark waters.
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Pain is the first thing I know when I awaken. My nerves are still on fire from that lightning strike. I don’t know how long I have been out, but it must not have been too long, otherwise, the infirmary robots would have put me in a bed, informed the medical staff, and begun basic first aid – including giving me a pain killer and some burn ointment! Since I can still feel I’m on the floor and I’m still hurting, I must have been out for only a few minutes. Opening my eyes, I see nothing. It’s still black as night. Either I’m blind or the lights are out, but if the lights were out, there should be emergency lighting and even lights from equipment. But there is nothing.
I feel around me in the darkness and my hand brushes a table leg. I use that to pull me up into a more-or-less standing position. Risking magnifying the headache I already have, I use my Firey power to create a ball of flame to give some light to see by. The flame glares brightly against the darkness, pushing it away and revealing that I am, in fact, in the Infirmary. Or what used to be an infirmary.
Equipment is shattered and scattered everywhere, glass, bottles, vials, syringes, bandages, and other detritus cover most of the floor. What isn’t covered is the smears of dried blood, as if something was either dragged through a puddle of blood, or was bloody mess when they were dragged away. Either way, this is not the sight I hoped would greet me.
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