I didn’t hesitate, I jumped over Steely and his gun, but I thought I saw him holding some sort of ball. When I landed behind him I turned around and announced my victory: “I win; not like there was any doubt.” Then Steely turned back, with some kind of a mechanical ball in his hands. “What’s that?” I asked.

“We have a lot to talk about.” Steely said.

So we picked up our stuff and Steely set up his black board and drew some stuff on it. I didn’t know what it was at first, but then I figured out what it was. “Isn’t that the Fire Triangle?”

“Yes, and your power is connected to this.”

At first I was lost, but then I thought that it’s the triangle of fire after all.

“You see,” he started explaining again, “between all of this you have a measure of control of heat, which is why you can control other flames and remain immune to them.” That sounded interesting. “Though you can’t create other fuels to just get ignited but you have the force to use your own body and hands as an ignition source and use that to spread fire wherever you want.”

So that’s how it works. A little bittle of geekiness won’t hurt I guess. But he wasn’t over.

“Flame counts as plasma since it’s made out of many different substances, which clarify it’s not an element but a mixture of hot gases, and if you give them enough heat, it reaches the plasma state. They conduct electricity through them and that’s why you could blast the ground with it and jump higher.”

OK, now it was getting complicated so I decided to change the subject.

“So what’s up with the mechanic ball?”

He picked it up from the ground and explained. “By studying how the girls pony up and how you ponied up I came to the conclusion that it’s the time they spread the most magical energy out of themselves. Twilight showed me the blueprint of the device she built to seek magic and store it. But it had problems since it just drained too much and couldn’t hold it in, so I redesigned it and made it function better. Now it will only take a small part of magic that we spread and store it into a crystal.” He twisted the left side of the ball and it opened. There was a glowing crystal inside and it was quite small. “And it doesn’t drain a lot and go crazy. I decided to call it The Collector Orb!”

“Wow!” was all I could say. I was that impressed. Then I realized something. “Wait, now you have a part of my power?”

“Uh, yes. It’s inside of the crystal.”

“Why do you want it?”

“For experiments! Now, do you want to hear how my power works?”

“No, thanks,” I just rushed out of there. If he started talking I was doomed to listen. Besides it was getting late, anyway.

Author's Note

Make sure to check out other chapters too!

Special thanks to my editor Daniel Drazen.