Chapter Two:

Burn

I didn't get any stronger until the Beast was dead, which kinda sucked. I'd heard that Cole was in town, along with Zeke and two other Conduits, but I hadn't run into them. One of the Conduits was dead after sacrificing herself so Cole could get the RFI powered-up, but the Beast was dead, and Cole and the other Conduit were miraculously alive.

Wolfe had died several weeks before the Beast reached New Marias. Killed by the Militia, I'd heard. I was sure his death had been avenged, and I was still kinda sour that I hadn't been there to protect the old man.

From what I'd heard, Zeke tweaked the RFI just enough to take massive amounts of a Conduits energy instead of killing all Conduits outright. When he wasn't such a stupid-head, Zeke could be pretty smart. Cole was hailed as a hero throughout New Marias, but people outside the city believed it was the government who beat the Beast. Assholes. They didn't deny, nor confirm what the people thought.

I set up some sandbags outside the apartment I'd gotten. I had a steady job working at a garage fixing cars, so I could pay for it. I swear, look at your taxes and you won't call the politicians "cheap" anymore. Garrett would check in on me every once-in-a-while, but I always proved I was fine. Plus, the apartment structure was surrounded by ten foot high walls and there were no windows facing the backyard, so it was perfect for me. No one came back here.

I tried a few times to activate my power, but I only succeeded in making myself feel stupid. Nothing was working, and I was pissed-off about it.

"Stupid friggin' powers!" I seethed. "Why the hell aren't they working…? They were fine before!" I sighed. "I'll never be able to help Cole with the Ice People if I can't get 'em going!"

I came to a realization then: he still didn't know I was alive. It was near impossible to find him, since New Marias was a big city and he and Zeke had tons of different hang-outs around the city. My parkour was fine; it was just the issue of finding him, and unless I was being mugged when he was in the area or I get some attention with my Conduit powers, I wouldn't be able to tell him that I'm alive.

"I need to figure out how to activate my powers again…" I looked at my right hand, and smiled. "Alec said that my powers were activated by survival last time. Maybe it's the same case?"

Brilliant, eh? Go looking for trouble! I know that there're some remnants of the Militia around, but I don't know where they are… So I'll head to Flood Town and see what those Ice People can do!

When I got to Flood Town, I think I'd almost reconsidered looking for trouble, just because of the fact that I felt I had too many near-death experiences already. Unfortunately, no such luck.

As soon as I stepped foot in Flood Town, Ice People appeared on the roofs and aimed their guns at me. Looks like Cole hasn't completely taken control of this area yet! I ran forward, knowing that if I ran back, I'd be better for target-practice.

"Fire!" they yelled.

Yeah! I wish I friggin' had it! I bolted around, trying my best to dodge bullets by swerving around and taking corners sharply. Whenever there was water, I'd look for a mini island of junk to jump onto so the water wouldn't slow me down.

Great! Just perfect! Where the hell's my fire now that I need it to survive? I skidded to a halt as an Ice Person landed in front of me gracefully. I nearly crashed into him, but as soon as I stopped I backed way off.

I gulped as he raised his gun and pointed it at me. The other Ice People did the same, blocking every escape route I could think of. I took a deep breath, and ducked when I thought it was the best time to do so.
Perfect.

The Ice Person standing in front of me flew forwards, smashing into three of his buddies behind me. Two more went down before I'd even thought to stand up. And out of nowhere, Cole MacGrath and his Conduit friend were standing beside me, their hands raised and holding their powers in their palms (electricity and ice, respectively).

"You okay?" Cole asked absently, focusing on the Ice People.

I nodded, and then realized he was facing away from me. "Yeah. Just caught in another one of my stupid ideas."

"You should be more careful," Cole said, and electrified several different Ice People at once, his blue lightning jumping everywhere.

For some reason, it felt like my palms were heating up. I looked at them and saw silver fire starting up my arms. Silver? But my fire's red! And why is it coming now?

Luckily, besides the colour, nothing had really changed about it. It felt so familiar, and I wanted to jump up and down with joy, but we were kinda in a sticky situation.

Naturally, I upped my flames. They formed the familiar "V" shape on my back and extended to my shoulders, which connected with the flames on my arms. Awesome.

"Hey, Cole," I said, "I got an idea to get rid of these guys quick."

"What'd that be?" he asked.

I grabbed a hold of his left hand in my right. "Just release your electricity, and don't stop."

We both looked at each other, the confusion apparent on his face as soon as he saw me.

"Do it!" I ordered.

Cole listened, though I could tell he was hesitant. He released his lightning as I did my fire, and the two powers combined together. A group of Ice People got hit by the combined powers, and shot off in all directions as it hit.

"Hey! You too!" I called to the other Conduit.

She shot some ice shards into our already powerful combination, and the powers sought out the remaining Ice People like heat- (or cold) –seeking missiles. The Ice People hit shot straight into the air, while the ones who didn't ran for it.

I blocked the sun from my view and looked up at the Ice People still in the air. "Huh. Shoulda attatched explosives to 'em. Woulda been nice to see some fireworks."

When I deactivated my flames, I felt a hand on my shoulder. "Joan?"

I looked at Cole, grinning. "You're a really hard guy to find, you know?"

"You're alive…?"

"I should hope so! Unless those Ice People just got their asses kicked by a ghost, which would be super-embarrassing for 'em!"

I really didn't expect Cole to grab me and hug me. I mean, how do you react to someone you care about being alive when you thought they were dead? My head immediately thought of Dana, who had tackled me in a bear-hug when I'd first met her as Joan.

"Hey!" I gasped. "I… can't… breathe… dammit!"

After a few more seconds of suffocation, Cole finally let me go and let me breathe. "I thought you were dead, Joan!"

"So did I." I smiled and rubbed the back of my head. "I mean, you don't really expect to still be breathing when you blow yourself up, right?" I glanced behind him and saw Lucy Kuo staring at me. "Lucy? You're the other Conduit I've been hearing about?"

She nodded. She'd really changed from the last time I'd seen her a few weeks ago; instead of raven-black hair, it had a blue tint to it; her arms looked like ice, and her outfit had definitely changed from the corporate-looking woman to a care-free kinda person.

"Woah! So you've had a Conduit gene, huh?"

"I'm actually more interested in how you have powers, and how Cole knows you," she said, smiling sweetly and crossing her arms.

Woah, hold up a second! Is she doing the whole, "he's-my-guy-so-stay-away-from-him" thing? Is she jealous of me and Cole? I looked at Cole and made a face. Ew!

"What's with the face?" Cole asked.

I shook my head. "Nothin'." I looked back to Lucy. "I never introduced myself earlier, kinda because you took-off before I woke up." I held out my hand. "I'm Joan. Joan MacGrath! Pleased t' meetcha!"

Lucy looked a teeny bit startled, though she was good at hiding it. "MacGrath? Are you Cole's sister or something?" she asked as she shook my hand, which immediately warmed in my burning grasp.

"Nah." I smiled, but Cole looked like he wanted to explain it himself.

He cleared his throat as Lucy and I released each other's hands. "Well, um, Lucy, she's my… uh…" He looked at me, wondering if he should actually explain it all. I nodded, and gave him a look that said, "just-tell-her-or-I-will". "You know about Kessler, right?"

Lucy nodded, giving Cole her full attention (and I mean her full attention).

"Well, Kessler turned out to be me from an alternate timeline or something. He failed in defeating the Beast, and his wife and kids died because of his mistake. So Kessler came back in time and created the Ray Sphere so that I could get my powers and he could mould me into the person he couldn't be." He paused, letting Lucy take in the new information. "During its production, Kessler had another child, and used her to become a Conduit in the same way you were made into one, Lucy. Only she went through it for the entire eighteen years of her life before she finally escaped, but only just as I activated the Ray Sphere."

Lucy looked to me, then to Cole, and back to me. "So… you're…?"

I held up a hand in greeting. "Technically, I'm Cole's kid, since he and Kessler are the same person. But yeah, everyone knows me, or everyone knew me in Empire City, as Kessler's daughter."

"And you went through that for your entire life?" Lucy exclaimed.

I shrugged. "No biggy. It's behind me now, and I'd like it to stay that way."

"Joan," Cole said, "what's with your eyes?"

I shrugged again. "I know they were green before, but maybe it's for the same reason that my fire's silver now. I kinda preferred it as red, but I like the "eerie" kinda tone to this colour."

Cole grinned and clapped me on the back. "Zeke's gonna freak! He hasn't stopped sulking since you blew up that DARPA facility!"

From the look I got from Lucy, I decided that she'd want to hear about that soon. But not today, I thought, smiling and letting Cole lead me around. Now, I wanna just be here with everyone. I wanna forget that I nearly died, and I want things to go back to the way they were, with me, Alec, Cole, and Zeke. Who knows? It'll probably be cool to have Lucy around!

I suddenly grinned. Cool… She's an ice Conduit, and it'd be cool to have her around… hehe.