Aegis (Book Three)

Epilogue

"Alpha, this building might be coming down and I think we'll need help containing the debris," I say and there is some shuffling, and my watch pings. She is getting my exact location. Within a few moments, she is hovering next to me.

"Another random fire?" She asks me and I nod. I have been trying to help the police with the arson investigations but that wasn't exactly my area of expertise and they didn't seem to have any leads.

"Yeah, it looks like the southside is going down first," I say, and she takes off. Dropping to the ground, no one is startled by my presence.

"Hey tattoo man, go help Alpha contain the debris," I say, and Jeremiah takes off.

"He goes by Rune, if your curious," a cheery voice says, and my heart skips a beat.

"And what do you go by?" I ask him carefully and he grins. His mask only covers the area around his eyes and onto his cheeks.

"Spade," he says, and he offers a hand to shake. Of course, he loved playing cards with Mabel.

"I don't think I need to introduce myself," I say amused before taking off to greet the firemen. My favorite police officer steps up, he was the one in charge of the arson cases. He frequently says it's the worst promotion ever and I can't say I disagree.

"I don't get it," he grumbles, and I shrug. It's as if the buildings are spontaneously combusting. There is never really any evidence left behind nor are any of the buildings connected.

"Are those guys with you?" He asks me to gesture towards the other three helping the firemen, they've been doing that a lot and knew the procedure.

"Yes," I say, and I can see the surprise coloring his features. They just don't know that yet.

"Time to get to work," I say with a salute before taking off. I continue to circle the building and let Alpha know which parts are starting to weaken as the fire continues to burn. The water almost seems to have no effect, it never does. These fires are almost supernatural. But we can't seem to link it to pyrokinetic metahuman.

"Aegis," Alpha's voice cuts through sharply.

"Yeah?" I ask confused when suddenly part of the building that looked fine a few moments ago, starts crumbling.

"Shit!" We both scream and Alpha works to keep the debris from crushing anyone, I grab two firefighters out of the way and drop them on top of their truck before zipping back and a search of adrenaline surges through me as I see Mason trying to clear out of the way. I all but smash into him and I hear him grunt as he grabs me tight. And I hit something and pull him close as we crash. My head spins and I feel massive crystals forming but I force us both back to our feet. Holding him to steady myself, in the exposed part of the building I see a figure for a moment. Trying to focus, it almost looks like... No that's probably just me seeing things from the crash.

"Are you okay Aegis?" Alpha asks me through my earpiece, and I stick it back in properly.

"Nothing a walking block of crystal can't handle," I half-heartedly joke as we rejoin the chaos. Eventually, the flames do dim, but not until after half the building has come down. As the smoke lingers heavily in the air, I can sense nothing but exhaustion. Checking my watch, I see it is well past one am.

"Do you still want to do it tonight?" Alpha asks me and we make eye contact from across the mess around us. I've been having second thoughts about the entire situation since the moment it was brought up.