Chapter 12: Heated Battle

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By the time Rule arrived in front of the mid-rise apartment building, the fire was raging on. Flames were rising up in the night sky like walls of liquid fire, melting through the apartment building’s structure, glowing white and yellow and letting a haze of black acrid smoke in its wake.

The inferno was casting an intense red glow over the entire block as people were clustered around, gathered at the foot of the building. Some were standing there, gaping at the spectacle or filming the entire happening; while others were futilely dumping entire buckets of water into the raging blaze, trying to extinguish the fire.

To no avail.

It would take much more than some gallons of water to put out the flames.

Eyes blazing an ethereal red blaze, Rule stepped out of his scooter and jogged to the front of the building.

Closer, the heat was more pronounced and intense. It seeped into his costume as he came to a stop at the foot of the building in fire. By then, the crowd gathered around had taken notice of his appearance and turned to regard him even as he began taking stock of the situation at hand.

‘17 people caught inside the buildings.’ He analyzed.

Correction, there were 15 living people inside the building. The other two were lying on the ground unresponsive, flames engulfing their bodies. He presumed they were likely dead or would be really soon as they no longer registered to his power as alive.

He wrote them off as unsavable and moved on.

Among the people inside, one of them was who he presumed to be Firefly, located on the fifth floor; the other one was someone fighting him, either a hero or an enemy of his.

Being a crazy arsonist doesn’t endear you to people, who would have thought?

“MY BABY!!!” The scream of anguish of a woman briefly took his attention away from the fire.

A nondescript blonde woman ran at full sprint toward the building. However, before she could try to go inside, she was stopped by a man who hugged her from the side, holding her back.

“LET ME GO!!!” The woman screamed, frantically trying to wriggle herself out of the man's hold.

The man grunted, “Please, stay still! Don’t go in the building!”

Another man quickly came to the help of the first one when the woman began to struggle against the first man’s restraint. Together, the two men managed to subdue and restrain her.

Struggling to free herself from the grip of the two men who were keeping her from rushing ahead… “M-my son! Kevin…- he’s… he’s inside! He’s trapped inside! Ple-please! Please!... My child!!! Let me go!! LET ME GO!” She howled between broken sobs.

“The firefighters are on the way, ma’am! We can’t let you run into the fire, it’s too dangerous!” Yelled the first man.

“Everything is going to be alright,” Shushed the other one, “Please, help is on the way. Stay put. I know it must be painful but there’s nothing more we can do but wait and try our best to prevent the fire from spreading.”

The young mother broke down on the ground and began sobbing loudly.

At this scene, something inside of him snapped.

Rule promptly acted, his attention turning in the direction of the red fire hydrant he knew was standing on the side of the street, just 5 meters or so ahead of the building.

‘I can use this.’

He has never done this before. But what better time than right now was there to do an improv?

With a burst of telekinetic force – {Almighty push} – he cracked open the hydrant pump. Steel, metal, copper and ductile iron gave up under the blast of repulsive force that sent the remnants of the fire hydrants flying through the air.

The loud creak and groan created by the hydrant’s explosion startled the people on the scene as water wildly surged forth, splashing everywhere on the streets and making the crowd turn their attention from the fire to the spectacle.

Next, Rule tried to tightly grasp the water that was wildly gushing around and splashing everywhere on the ground. He tried to compress, direct and control the water with pure telekinesis.

To no avail. A great majority of the water kept thrashing around, gushing out of the ground like a fountain.

But he couldn’t manage to do it, struggling against a force that was far more powerful than his telekinesis alone could handle. And so, Rule gave up on his hold.

‘That won’t do.’

Rapidly, he decided to change track and instead, created a rectangular telekinesis forcefield around the opening he created by removing the fire hydrant. He boxed the water bursting forward into the forcefield, trapping it up.

This time, it held true thanks to his forcefield. The water was still gushing forth, but not thrashing and wildly splashing everywhere like before. Instead, it was shooting up in the air like a geyser.

Next, Rule began constructing a tower, staking a box of rectangular forcefields on top of another one. He repeated this process again and again and again. Each time, he shrunk the forcefield’s area down. From 2 feet (60 cm) at the base to only around 4 inches (10 cm) at the top by the time he deemed it good enough.

It took him less than approximately one minute to do this.

And now, he has his pressurized hose.

Rule exhaled and with a fist gesture, he tightly locked the feeling of his mind maintaining the entire forcefield construct in the back of his head – keeping that pressure in the background in a manner of speaking so that it could be manageable and he’d be able to maintain the construct up subconsciously, even when doing other things simultaneously.

It was going to put a strain on his mind later for sure, and next morning, he’d certainly wake up with a killer headache, no doubt. But in the moment, doing this much was necessary.

He’d manage.

With his index and middle finger close together, Rule held up his hand in the air.

“Everyone!” He yelled, “Get out of the way!!” And roared.

Thankfully, people heeded his warning and began to scatter away from the scene, the two men even helping to pick up the despondent woman from the ground, giving him the space to act.

Rule dropped his hands.

A jet of pressurized water surged forward, shouting through the construct and easily clearing the distance between the street and the apartment before splashing against the flaming building. The water doused the front entrance that had already been partially melted by the fire.

Steams whirled in the air at the contact of water against fire. With another hand gesture - a closed fist this time – he broke open the wall and front entrance. The building’s exterior split open; stones, pieces of vinyl, fiber cements, bricks, wood and stucco giving up against the telekinesis burst of {Almighty push} as the debris crashed against the flooring inside.

Rule let the water splashed around the open surface, dousing out the fire inside, before stepping into the complex himself once the heat was more manageable and the fire around him was more or less put out.

Next on the agenda was evacuating the people stuck inside the building.

Then, he was going to beat the living shit out of this wannabe arsonist.

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He kept hosing down the building as he sprinted through the halls, ripping open the exterior’s walls with an indiscriminate use of {Almighty push} to let the water properly smother the flames inside while making sure to not damage any supporting walls, lest he collapse an entire floor on his and people heads.

With six floors to cover, time was of essence for him. While his get-up was ignifuge to a certain degree, it was not fireproof. The heat and high temperature of the room were going to get to him if he idled around too much or didn’t put out the fire. Especially if he kept moving in parts where the fire was still raging on. Luckily, he didn't run the risk of dying of asphyxia because of the smoke, his helmet ostentatiously being a gasmask with an air filter installed.

A wall Rule blasted open happened to have a person caught in their apartment while the fire has been raging around them. As the person was on the first floor and caught sight of the wall blasting open, the young woman took advantage of the exit made and immediately rushed out of his bathroom with a piece of cloth pressed against her nose, going through her living room. The young woman headed to the small opening he made that led directly outside and rushed past him without needing to be told to get out.

That was one person out.

‘13 to go.’

“There is now a way out of the fire!” Rule yelled, his voice managing to get carried throughout the corridors even in the midst of the raging inferno. Addressing the people who were locked inside their apartment on the first floor, he added. “Get out! Go through the halls! The fire is being put out right now! There’s a way out that’s being made!”

He followed up his message by blasting open another wall, creating an opening for his controlled jet of pressurized water to flood the room and splash him with some much-needed water and cool.

Two other persons in pj, a couple in all likeness, made a mad dash out of the room, coughing and hacking, heading straight for the exit. He directed them toward it, making sure to properly hose down their path.

‘Three out. 11 to go.’

Rule headed up to the second floor. The heat and flames were more intense there. Blisteringly hot. As the staircase leading ŧo the floor was a half-melted mess of steel, looking painfully hot for his armored boot to step on, he took no chance and created a telekinesis platform, mario’ing his way up to the second floor.

Walls burst open and doors splintered in thousands of pieces as he made his way throughout the second floor’s corridor, yelling out for people to get out and that the fire was being extinguished.

Three people rushed out of their apartment’s balconies at his words, passing him by. He remembered the melted staircase on the way and quickly made a makeshift one, picking up some ashen-looking, scorched furniture that survived the fire in the guise of stair footing. It was precarious as hell but it should do the work in a pinch.

‘Another three out. 8 to go now.’

He went through the third floor and guided out another four people. One of them was an elderly lady who would have some trouble hurrying out in normal cases. Luckily for him and her, a man in his mid-twenty who was on the same floor as her, fireman’s lifted her on his shoulder and carried her out.

‘4 to go.’

On the fourth floor, the fire has melted through pretty much everything. The wall, the furniture, amenities and appliances.

He believed it was on this floor that the fire began. The sheer heat and searing temperature emanating here made him feel like he was being cooked alive in his suit.

It was also on this floor that he came across the only fire extinguisher in the whole damn building. Which was simply horrendous for a building this big to have only a single extinguisher. He was pretty sure that this building wasn’t conforming to a lot of fire safety regulations.

Rule tore open another wall from the outside like always – pieces of flaming debris falling onto the floor – and directed the stream of water to the fourth floor. He also used the somewhat still usable fire extinguisher to put out the fire around him.

There were only two people on the fourth floor that he could tell were still alive. Both were on the balcony of their respective apartment and he quickly directed the water hose on their balcony.

After taking the time to stamp out the fire. He yelled for them to get out of their room and head outside, following the path of least resistance he made.

With some effort on their part, they promptly followed along his directives, running out while coughing and wheezing up a storm. The entire floor was still clogged up by smoke, dark haze filling up the space and clinging up to the ceiling.

‘2 to go now. Just 2.’ He was almost there.

Once again, he dashed through the halls, ripping open some walls when he could and dozing water into the blazing inferno around him. He expertly climbed up to the fifth floor.

Just in time to come across an interesting scene.

The culprit of the fire, Firefly, was standing in the middle of the hallway, his back to him. He was decked in a black battlesuit with a winged jet pack strapped on his back like a back pad. The arsonist was pointing his weapon at another person, a woman. And from the hose that connected it to the jetpack on his back, Rule guessed that it was a flamethrower.

“Come on girly!” The man taunted, spraying fire around him but not at the girl he had pinned, trapped back to a wall without any obvious possibility of escape. “Where did all your cockiness go? Weren’t you going to slug me in the face? And put me in jail?” He mockingly said.

The girl was about to reply but paused, noticing him. Her eyes briefly flicked to his before returning to the man currently leisurely reaching out to his belt to take out a grenade.

“Hmm, let’s see,” Firefly hummed to himself, looking down at the grenade in his hand. “I think I have some idea of what I’m going to do with you.” Even with his mask in the way, Rule could tell the bastard had a slimy smile on his face from his tone.

Firefly raised his hands, idly twirling the grenades between his fingers. The girl’s eyes were firmly fixed on him, warily looking at his hands.

“I forgot to ask; you with the bat?” He lightly asked, “How batgirl doing? Are you her new replacement? Been a while since I last saw the girly.”

The girl said nothing and instead eyed the rifle 2 meters across from her.

“Not going to say anything, huh? I’m fine with putting in the work for two in this conversation,” the arsonist shrugged in a way that could appear to be disarming and casual if he wasn’t idly playing with the pin of a grenade. “I heard that the batgirly died in the same fire as the last robin. I’m really jealous of the Joker now. Guy eclipsing me in my own field and putting me to shame.”

Firefly wasn’t aware of his presence yet. A single use of {Almighty push} on his jetpack, and the cylinder tanks would explode, cooking him alive. It was a little too lethal from the get-go for his tastes though. So instead, he decided to keep this option as a last resort.

His jetpack was fastened to his back, connected by a strap. Same for his flamethrower which was connected by a hose to the cylinder tanks of his jetpack.

Too close and basically skin contact. Not unlike clothes. So swapping his jetpack and flamethrower wasn’t an option.

'Doing it the old way it is.'

“I wonder,” Firefly wilfully said, still monologuing. “What do I need to do to outdo what the crown prince of crime did?” He snapped his finger like he just came to an eureka. “Then, it clicked. The idea just came to me now. Why not burn down to cinder one of the bat’s sidekicks, hum? After all, this should be more thrilling than burning down random buildings.” He let out a low creepy cackle at that. “And why not? Maybe it’d warrant a lil more attention from the ol bat himself. Been a while since I last got him for myself.”

The girl broke into a sprint and pounced, rolling for the rifle on the floor. Firefly tutted, fingers proceeding to remove the pin on the grenade to toss it.

Unfortunately for him, Rule was ready for this and thus, was faster on the update as he swapped the grenade with a flaming piece of wood lying around.

“What the–” Firefly exclaimed, dropping the piece of wood on the floor like it was some hot potato. But before he could further start questioning what happened, he was hit in the face with multiple shots of shock pellets, courtesy of the girl.

Firefly grunted but still managed to stay standing. The armor he was wearing was no joke because he knew from first-hand experience how hard pellet bullets hit.

“Annoying girly,” he grumbled, raised his flamethrower and—

“Oi,” Rule called out, making the arsonist turn around to face him.

The delivery man stepped into view, no longer completely obscured by the smoke and crackling fire, lens blazing an ominous red light and flames licking his shoulders, arms and boots.

“There’s a kid trapped on a balcony on the last floor,” he told the girl, gesturing with his head to the upper floor. “Go save him and get him out of the building. I’m going to open the way and take care of this clown.”

The girl looked at him and then at Firefly before nodding his way, “Be careful,” she warned. “He’s a lunatic and his armor is a fucking pain to deal with.”

“Will be.”

The armored girl carefully edged herself to the side and made a mad dash for the sixth floor. He assisted her, directing the hose up to said floor.

“Who are you? You with the bat too?” Firefly asked, anger brimming in his voice. “And who the fuck you calling a clown? I’m in the wrong dress for that.”

Rule ignored him and instead formed multiple forcefields around his body to protect himself. Not that the forcefields would stop the fire but it was a good protection in case Firefly decided to get close and personal.

Cracking his neck, Rule answered him with. “I’m a delivery guy passing by.”

“Huh?”

He said nothing more and instead, in a dastardly opening move, with a burst of repulsive force, he tore open the wall to his left, bringing several tons of debris on Firefly’s ass. The crazed arsonist let out a cry of surprise as he found himself buried under several kilograms of flaming concrete, stones and wood.

He brought down another section of the wall on top of him for good measure, on the belief that with his armor, he could probably take it.

He was proven right seconds later when a flash of blazing red light ignited the debris, blowing up several pieces of concrete and sending the shards soaring through the air in every direction. Some smashed against the walls while others smashed against the forcefield he eradicated around and in front of himself.

Digging himself out of the debris, mask dented, battlesuit marked with indents, soot and scratches, Firefly scowled at him, lower face exposed.

"Alright, I'm going to-"

A piece of concrete Rule sent hurling through the air smashed against his face, interrupting him.

The fight was on.