The Undoing Of Heroes | ✓

twenty three

Somehow, I saw them, and I reached out - 

The professor's laptop sputtered, the screen blinking furiously. The boy's phone began ringing. A security camera went up in flames, and I lost sight of the fighting couple. 

Shocked, I retracted my hand, but it wasn't a hand more than it was the sense of one. Everything was just senses. Pure, unadulterated senses battered against my conscience, and for a moment the world tilted on its axis, and all the scenes stopped. 

And as they did, my conscience came back in full force, and so did the scenes, overloading me. I hadn't the slightest clue as to what was going on, yet I had developed a bone-deep exhaustion. Warning bells were ringing in my head at falling unconscious in whatever state I had ended up in, so I pulled myself together, reigning in my fleeting thoughts, forcing some energy into me. 

I tried to focus, and gradually, it worked, and the exhaustion dimmed. I focused on watching just one scene, trying not to mess up the tech in it. I saw the professor tabbing out of the essay, choosing to watch a live-streaming speech instead. There was a man behind a podium, but I couldn't hear what he was saying. I just saw his lips moving, as if the screen was right in front of me. 

The feel of the whole laptop was like an object out of reach. I tried to move closer to it, but it didn't work.

I needed to know if this worked, otherwise -

Well, a supervillain killed by her own powers didn't sound like too bad of a first-page header. 

So I sharpened my mind again, and this time I imagined a leash, the same bright blue as the power lines. I imagined it anchoring to the pulsing energy that was the laptop, and I pulled it closer, until I nearly cradled the feel of it. Sound returned to me, and I listened to the speech, listened to the man speaking as realisation dawned. 

I had done that. The mayor had been completely right, completely spot on. I released the control I had of the computer and drifted away, lost in the sensations of the electronic devices in an entire city.  

It overwhelmed me, but if I had gotten here in the first place - I could get out. I refused to be belittled by my own goddamn set of powers. I had lived through too much to be lost now, to waste the life I'd fought so hard to maintain.  

Something like pride kicked in. Something like determination renewed me, and I let myself drift among the sensations awhile. If too much power had brought me here - 

Too much power could bring me back. So I searched for an outlet that would provide me with it, not casting a thought to the mobile devices, or the skyscrapers. No, I needed something far greater. Far stronger. 

Pushing the overwhelming senses away was tiring, and I found myself being overwhelmed once again, the pressure of the gadgets replaced by pain, and I felt as if someone had grabbed me limb by limb and pulled in separate directions. 

My vision of the scenes flickered, and something like a gasp escaped me, the energy knocked out of me. 

No. You don't get to do this. 

And it was in that moment the words reached her. 

"It's odd - I never realized to which extent she could ... could harm."