Kendra ducked under the overturned dumpster and quickly turned around so she could see the entrance to the alley. The stranger ran full tilt into the rubbish cluttered alley on soundless feet. His form suddenly sank to the ground in weariness, and Kendra silently cursed. The man's eyes were a piercing blue, and they saw everything. They moved to the dumpster, and his crouch straightened.
"You might as well come out, Kendra." She closed her eyes for a minute, squeezing them shut and willing herself to wake up. When she didn't, she slowly made her way out from behind the dumpster. She gathered her jacket around her, feeling suddenly scared. The stranger was dressing in black tactical clothing that still smoked from where Kendra had erected a wall of fire in front of him.
The stranger had walked straight through it. She looked at his face, but he wore a black hood and a cloth mask that covered his mouth up to his eyes and the bridge of his nose. The skin around his eyes was blackened from the smoke of the fire, but it seemed that he had another mask on under that one, a steel mask.
His voice was deep and calm, and for a ludicrous moment, Kendra wondered if he were handsome under the mask. She began to glow as the fire inside of her began to grow, begging for a release at the threat. "I don't know who you are, but you don't know what you're getting into." The stranger shook his head.
"Of course I do. Kendra Maclintoch. Pseudonym Kendy. Possessed of Pyrokinetic abilities surpassing any and all previous documented cases. It's why I'm here." Kendra felt the fire spread behind her, and the stranger tilted his head.
"I'm not going back to be a killer or a lab rat to them. I just want to be left alone."
The stranger snorted and looked around. "Naturally, then, you came to Phoenix, for a new start, a rebirth from the ashes. Strange then that you will never become ash, isn't it Kendra? It won't work, on any level." Kendra screwed up her face as a sudden intense terror washed over her and she pushed her hand out, focusing an orbital re-entry level burst of fire at the man. He stood there as the fire enveloped the upper half of his body.
When the burn died, the man's shirt was nothing but a memory. Kendra stared at his body. His skin shone like polished silver, as though he were made of steel. Kendra gave a sob as the man strode forwards, shivering. She cringed as he gave her a quick back hand, and the blackness closed in.
***
When she awoke, she was blindfolded and tied somewhere. She tried tilted her head to the side to see out of the corner of her eye, but it was no use. After a minute, she called out. No one answered. She called out again, and was met by more silence. She began to concentrate, willing the fire to form around her hands and face. As soon as a moderate heat had built up, there was a massive electric shock on her hands, and into her temples.
Kendra cried out in shock and pain, and the heat faded away. As soon as the heat died away, so did the pain. There was the sound of footsteps, then a creak, as though someone were sitting on a wooden chair, or desk. She regained her breath, and stayed stock still.
"It won't respond to speech, as you know, but the second you try to light your fires, you get zapped. For what it's worth, I'm sorry." Kendra's jaw clenched as she fumed, and took a deep breath, trying to centre herself. Across the room, the chair creaked again. The footsteps got closer, and stopped just in front of her.
Kendra got the sense that the man was hesitating, and tilted her head to the side, trying to hear. All she could hear was his steady breath. A hand touched her blindfold. "There's no law that says we can't talk to each other, Kendra. I've been sent to bring you back. Not to kill you. I don't even know you."
She felt an ice cold touch, and her blindfold fell to her chest. The stranger stood in front of her, looking slightly ridiculous in a red and blue flannel shirt and jeans. He would have looked like any other red neck farm hand, if not for the metallic cast of his skin.
She could see now that it wasn't smoothly silver, but was a kind of rough steel edge to it. She realized she was staring when he reached up to touch his skin self-consciously. He turned away from her steady gaze, and Kendra let out a low breath. "So what are you?" The man turned back to the desk on the other side of the sparse room.
"Mythril." Kendra blinked as he sat down. "My name is Mythril. I'm the opposite side to your coin, Kendra. They call us Generation 6.1. The children of Generation 6 patients. Once the psycho-enhancement drugs they seeped into our parents had settled into their DNA, the creation of a child allowed for a greater alignment of uh...well. It allowed for a far more effective generic enhancement, with a combination of advanced mental development, healing, and branching development. So in other words, while our parents where fucked up by it, we're made into super-soldiers by it."
Kendra shook her head. "Don't you see they're just using you?"
Mythril gave a low laugh. "Of course. But it's all I've ever known. And of course, I need them far more than they need me." Kendra didn't speak, she just stared. Mythril looked out the small window to the bustling populace outside. Despite the early hour, there were many people out, running to work, running from work, heading out for any reason whatsoever. "I hate this skin." He looked down at his hands, and rubbed his fingertips together. "It's not the cold. The cold is what I am. I'm the Ying to your Yang, Kendra. The opposite side of your coin."
Kendra frowned, and Mythril smirked. "Don't worry, it took a while for me to get around it to. You developed pyrokenisis, they don't even have a name for mine. Its cold, Kendra; ice. You're always hot, I'm always cold. One of the techs said I had mind-ice. That's what he called it. You light fires with your mind, I freeze things." A sudden gleam flickered in his glacial eyes.
"Only I don't have that lovely self-control that you do. I can't turn it off. It constantly bleeds out from my body, freezing everything I come in contact with. At least it was like that. It was like giving birth." His blue eyes were alight as he spoke, and Kendra wondered if she looked like that when she spoke of her own powers. She cringed in on herself as she realized that she never spoke about her powers.
"I'm in the middle of creating a wonderland of ice sculptures in my room one day, when they flood my room with gas." The light in his eyes died suddenly. "When I woke up, I was...skinned in this. I could touch, and feel. But I look like a fucking Saab. To this day I don't know what's worse." He shook his head, and lurched out of the chair, and knelt in front of her. Kendra didn't say a word, merely watched.
"And I'd been thanked, by the corporation. I was an independent spirit, a brawler and a fighter. Darn good with the knife, actually. So what do you do with someone who is immune to mind altering drugs, and loves a good fight, and can take any amount of punishment you can give him? You give him an addiction, in thanks for being a medical miracle break through."
Kendra lowered her eyes and sighed. Mythril tapped his forearm through the flannel of his shirt. "Adrenaline-enhanced trioxyfluoride. Nothing but pure energy, and addictive as hell. They manufacture it. And if I don't stay, they cut it off, and it's not something I can just kick. This stuff makes heroin look like barley sugar."
"But it maintains the silver skin, and lets me walk the streets." His gaze dropped to his chest, where a black chin cloth sat. Elastic cotton that would cover his mouth and chin, yet allow him to breath. Like a biker's mouth guard. "Well, let's me walk the streets at night, anyway."
Kendra's eyes narrowed for a moment. "So you've never touched another person?" Mythril tilted his head to the side and studied her. "Never?" He reached out and held out his hand to her.
