Conduit, Not Monster

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

            I guess I should start off by introducing myself. My name is Cole McGrath and I can do extraordinary feats never thought possible by a human. But, before any of that, I was just your average, ordinary guy dealing with the same crap every day. I got a job as a bike courier in Empire City, New York, after I dropped out of college. It was mainly because I loved pissing off my parents, but that wasn’t all. I felt that it wasn’t for me, and it was all a big mistake to even think about going there. It was a normal day while I was delivering a package. The cops had busted some junkie in his homemade meth lab, protests were buzzing on Main Street for political reform, and there were homeless people performing on the streets in hopes of getting money for booze. I didn’t notice a crack in the road and hit it with my bike. I flew over the handlebars and did a face plant on the concrete. The pain was so bad that I wished I would just pass out right there. Just as I was about to, I was awoken by a group of people. All that I wanted to know was that there were six girls that all looked between 23 and 25 years, and a guy with green hair about 20 years old. I told them I was fine and two of them pulled me off the ground. I then realized that I had lost my package in the crash and desperately started looking for it. It was about 10 feet away from where I landed.

            ‘Damn. That’s gonna come out of my paycheck’, I thought to myself.

            All I wanted to do was to make sure that it was alright, so I opened it up. The package was a metallic sphere that had some sort of blue spark inside of it. I made the mistake of bringing it over to the group to see if they knew what it was. They all shook their heads. Suddenly, I heard a beeping sound coming from the sphere. It started off slow, but suddenly got faster. When I realized what it was, I thought for sure that I was going to die this day. I shouted at the group telling them it was a bomb and they all split. The beeping got even faster. Two of them huddled together, two others sped off, and the last three went off to hide someplace. In a last ditch effort, I set the device down and covered it with my body thinking that it would shield the blast a little. The beeping kept getting faster and faster until it became one continuous sound. You could say that this day was the end of many lives and the start of several others.

            I woke up in the hospital with a jolt. No pun intended because my hands were actually spurting out bolts of lightning. I tried my hardest to get it to stop. Zeke and Trish were right there beside me and kept telling me to calm down. Kinda hard to do that when you got lighting in your hands. When nothing else worked I just thought ‘To hell with it’, took some deep breaths and started to calm down. The lightning finally went away. But, as one problem was solved, another came up. I realized the gravity of what just happened when I saw that Zeke had forgotten to turn off the TV. Downtown Empire City was gone. Completely wiped out; nothing left but a few remains of buildings that once stood proud. Thousands were crushed by falling debris or burned alive in the fires. I pulled out all the wires in me, got up from the hospital bed, and ran outside with some dark thoughts racing through my mind. Zeke and Trish followed me pretty close at first, but started to fall behind when I got up the third flight of stairs. I made it to the fifth-floor rooftop and positioned myself on the very edge. But, just as I was about to jump, they finally caught up.

            Zeke was the first to talk. “C’mon Cole. You don’t have to do this. You survived that explosion! You should be grateful that you’re alive right now brother!”

            Trish joined right in. “He’s right babe. You don’t have to kill yourself to get closure from this whole thing.”

            For the first time in a long time, I actually screamed at Trish. “Then tell me why I was the one who had to survive!! You saw that explosion! Downtown is gone and it's all my fault! How can I possibly live with myself knowing that I’m responsible for that?! How can I live knowing that I'm the only survivor?!”

            “Whoa there brother! You’re not the only one. There are other people that survived!”

            Just like that, my thoughts of suicide were instantly gone and replaced with hope. Slowly, I backed away from the edge and let them take me back into the hospital. The doctors hooked me back up and Zeke went on to explain what happened during the aftermath. A chopper had spotted me at the dead center of the blast radius and they could see that my body was sparking with electricity. So it was the same device that caused the explosion that gave me these powers? He also told me that so far they’ve found seven more survivors. I asked him who they were, but he couldn't remember their names. All he could remember was that one of them was some guy with green hair. I perked up at this. Could it be the same guy that I saw with that group of girls? Could they be the other survivors? Then, a curious thought popped into my mind. Could they all have powers like me? As soon as I’m out of the hospital, I’m gonna find out who they are and where they’re hiding. I need to know if I’m not the only freak in what remains of the city.

            The next two weeks were basically hell. People started to think that I was a terrorist, Trish left without a word, and things were getting ugly. There was a group of thugs that called themselves "Reapers". They took what they wanted and left the weak to fend for themselves. Of course, people were blaming me for everything. There wasn't a day that went by that I wasn't being shot at, either from the Reapers or the people that were still alive. So, I had to do a few things for people around the city to earn back their trust. Those tasks allowed me to experiment with my powers and see what I could do. I could blast bolts out of my hands, knock back anything with a shockwave, throw electric grenades, and even pick up cars with electromagnetism. But, my favorite one was jumping off of buildings and creating a lightning explosion when I landed. That would come in handy someday. Just as things were looking good, a mysterious plague swept the city. No one knew what it was or what caused it, so they started to blame me once again. They called me "The Demon of Empire City". Only those that I helped said I was trustworthy, but half the city still wanted me dead. The entire area was quarantined and no one was allowed in or out of the city. But, none of that concerned me. I was too focused on looking for the other survivors. The first few days of my search turned up empty. I was starting to get worried that they had already made it out of the city before the quarantine. Then, I finally got a lead. Zeke called me with the best news I had ever heard.

            “Cole! I know this is all of a sudden, but I just got a call from a pair of chicks who said that they survived the explosion like you and that they’re friends of yours. They want you to meet them at Ground Zero ASAP.”

            “‘Ground Zero’? Where did that come from? Another one of your cheesy code names?”

            “Hey don’t look at me brother. For once, I had nothing to do with this. It’s what people started calling what remains of Downtown after the blast took it out.”

            “Alright. I’m on my way…Wait a minute. How did they know your number?”

            “Well, that’s just the thing. They weren’t calling my cell phone. It was kinda like they were calling my mind. And I know that I’m not crazy, so I’d take this if I were you. And if you run into any trouble, I’ll take the blame for it.”

            “Got it. Thanks for having my back Zeke.”

            “No problem brother. The last thing I wanna do is piss you off. Just do me a favor and be careful out there. Both of those chicks sounded sexy over the call, but I’d still be on guard in case they tried anything funny.” And with that, I hung up. I knew that Zeke was just trying to look out for me, but what he didn’t know was that I was always on my guard. Even around him, the man who was supposed to be my best friend.

            When I got to “Ground Zero”, I found that something had changed. The crater was still there, but there wasn’t any debris laying around. No burnt-up cars, no pieces of buildings, nothing. Either a group of people pulled the biggest prank in post-Apocalypse history, or there really was something going on.

            Suddenly a voice popped into my head. “We’ve been waiting for you, Demon. Or should I say Cole McGrath.”

            I felt my skin crawl as I felt like something was playing around inside my head. I started looking for wherever the voice was coming from.

            A different, more mature sounding voice popped into my head next. “Don’t worry darling. We do not wish to fight you if you do not wish to fight us. Look straight ahead.”

            Suddenly, two girls appeared in front of me. I was surprised because they weren’t there before. The first one had her straight hair dyed purple with a pink stripe running down the middle. She was wearing black wedge shoes, long white socks, a light purple skirt, a white dress shirt, a deep purple jacket, and a pair of Oakley glasses. The other wore a silky white dress that hugged her every curve with a cut in the bottom for her legs. She also had white high heels and a brooch in the shape of three diamonds. She had straight curly hair that was a deeper violet color than the first girl.

            The preppy girl introduced herself first. “It’s nice to finally meet you in person Mr. McGrath. I call myself Twilight Sparkle.”

            The sexy dress girl was the next. “I agree. It is indeed very nice to meet you. And you may call me Rarity.”

            “Ok…I know that those aren’t your real names. Why did you give yourselves childish nicknames?”

            The “Twilight Sparkle” girl spoke up. “Because we aren’t who we used to be. After the blast, we were reborn into something else like you Mr. McGrath. We gave ourselves new names to make ourselves stand out and gain a reputation.”

            I was reminded that it was the end of human society as we know it, so you could pretty much do whatever the hell you wanted. I finally spoke up saying, “Two things. First, you can just call me Cole. Second, since you say you survived the explosion, what kind of powers do you have?”

            Twilight Sparkle looked at Rarity and back to me saying, “We were just about to ask you the same thing…Cole. Before we answer your question, show us what you can do.”

            Luckily, there was a large group of Reapers heading straight for us. I proceeded to climb the wreckage that reached about four stories high. I dropped down on the Reapers in the dead center with a lightning explosion. Surprisingly, one of them managed to stand up, whom I proceeded to shoot in the head, or “head shock” as I like to call it. I looked back at the girls and saw that they were already impressed. Then they proceeded to show me their powers. With just a wave of their hands, a couple of cars were picked up by what seemed to be nothing and were flung into the air. I could already do that, but it still took me a good deal of effort. But that wasn’t all. They focused on the ground below them and pushed themselves up. They were actually levitating themselves! It suddenly popped into my head: Telekinesis. If they were trying to make me jealous, then it sure as hell worked.

            Twilight and Rarity followed me to the rooftops that Zeke and I now called home. As soon as Zeke saw Rarity, I could tell that he would have his sights set on her.

            “Well, hello Ms. Lips Legs Breasts and Ass! You got a boyfriend?” he said nonchalantly putting his arm around her. She then proceeded to twist his arm around in a martial arts hold.

            “It is rude for a complete stranger to address a lady like that good sir”, she said coldly. I thought that Zeke kinda deserved it until Rarity picked him up telepathically and dangled him off the edge of the rooftop.

            I quickly rushed to Rarity and tried my hand at reasoning with her. “Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa hold it Rarity! I know you’re pretty pissed right now, but I’m afraid that’s just how Zeke can be sometimes. That doesn’t mean you have to kill him!”

            Twilight put her hand on Rarity's shoulder and must have said something in Rarity's mind because they both had the same look on their faces. Rarity nodded and put Zeke back on the rooftop.

            "Remind to put that chick on my list of people not to piss off", Zeke said to me while trying to catch his breath. I could already tell that things were gonna get pretty weird from now on. And I'm liking it so far!