“Coming from you, that means I was a very good boy, doesn’t it?” Macian replied as his arm shifted form, the fingers folding back onto the arm as the kinetic repulsor slid out of the palm until it extended about five centimeters out of it.

Fire Burial put a hand on her hip and raised the other for a gesture to reply – but she closed her eyes for a moment and Macian reacted immediately, slamming his repulsor into the ground at an angle, discharging it. The floor split and burst, a fountain of concrete, wood and carpet that slammed into Fire Burial. It immediately caught fire as she burst into flame, but it served as a distraction none the less.

Macian fired his repulsor off, striking the ceiling above the pyrokinetic supervillain to collapse it on top of her. Before his hand had even been reeled in, Macian turned around and ran back out of the house, Henry following close on his heels.

They turned to the right and ran down the street for two houses before diving into an alley just as the house they’d been in exploded into a pillar of fire shooting upwards.

“Get into this!” Macian said, opening the two doors that led into a basement by snapping the padlock holding them closed. Throwing the doors open, the two boys dove down into the building, Macian slamming the doors closed behind them.

“I can’t see anything,” whispered Henry, feeling around in the dark basement as Macian breathed heavily beside him. “Can you turn on your light?”

It took a minute or so for Macian to finally answer, as he went quiet and recovered from their escape. “No, she might see it through the gaps of the door. I can see in the dark, just take my hand and follow me,” replied Macian in a matching whisper. Henry felt a warm hand grasp his own, pulling him along.

They moved slowly through the cluttered basement, Henry wincing every now and then due to hitting various stuff standing around in the dark, though Macian made sure that he didn’t run into too much of it. Then Henry heard a door being opened and they entered a stairway that led up into the house. Here, it was slightly brighter than before and Henry could actually walk without help, though he kept a tight grip on Macian’s head.

All the while, he was focusing on his hearing, trying to pick up any further explosions to gauge where their enemy might be. But the city seemed to have gone silent again, at least as far as he could tell.

“Do you think she gave up and left?” he asked Macian as the latter opened the unlocked door at the top of the stairs and they entered into the actual house.

“No, but she might be trying to sneak ar-,” Macian started to answer but cut off as the smell of burned flesh hit them.

“Took you long enough to get here, I was getting bored,” said Fire Burial from the right.

They turned around towards her voice. The basement stairs led into the kitchen. Directly to the right of them was a door-less doorway leading into the living room, where Fire Burial lay sprawled over a couch. Four burned corpses were lying in front of the couch, staining the carpet.

The naked young woman was holding one of the corpses up by one arm – the body of what must have been a small dog barely larger than a house cat – and cutting pieces out of it, eating the crisp meat. “On the other hand, it did leave me time enough to make myself some barbecue.” She kicked at the other three corpses – all adults, though age and sex were unrecognisable – and continued on: “Want a bite? It’s all well done.”

Henry heaved at the mental image of eating anything of those corpse and the fact that they actually smelled great pushed him over the edge – he emptied his stomach on the ground, with Macian just barely stepping away in time to avoid being splattered by his vomit.

Fire Burial broke out into laughter as he heaved and heaved. Macian, on the other hand, put his good hand on Henry’s shoulder, squeezing it as he kept his mechanical arm extended and aimed towards the sprawled woman on the couch.

“You are not funny at all,” he said. “And this is just pathetic.” He did not seem to be bothered much by the smell from the corpses.

His left side must have smelled like that when he was burned… The mere thought made him heave again, though nothing came out as his stomach had already been emptied. Then, another thought hit him, just as he was recovering. Did she burn him? She seems like the type to do that…

Just so, his revulsion and fear were replaced by white-hot rage, as he shot forward, charging the untouchable woman with an unrestrained scream.

“What are you doing!” shouted Macian, who did not react in time to stop him, caught off guard.

Fire Burial did not seem to have expected his screaming charge either, but she still threw a stream of fire at him, hitting him dead on – only for the fire to split and flow around him and his small fist to collide with her lower jaw, the dumbfounded villainess not reacting fast enough to turn to fire in time, though she did immediately burst into flame the moment her head bounced back. Once again, the fire did not touch him and this time he noticed a kind of haze around his body, like a distortion in the air, that shielded him.

As she flew back from the couch, reforming in the farthest corner of the room, Henry looked down to see the force-field generator Macian had given him, and which he had clipped to his belt, glowing slightly as the crystal at its center had lit up, emitting a quiet hum along with the light.

His rage still prominent in his mind, extinguishing all fear and hesitation, he charged her again, only for Macian to reach through the force-field and pull him back by the neck of his shirt at the same time as he fired off his hand again, punching through the villainess and bringing down the corner of the house she was standing in down on top of her flame form, burying her once again.

“Move, move, move!” he shouted, punching through the glass door that lead to the small garden behind the house and charging out into it.

Henry shook his head and followed hot on his heels, the two of them reaching the end of the garden and the small gate leading into a back-alley just in time for the house behind them to explode as well, burning wreckage raining down around and on them as they were both protected by hazy, flickering force-fields.

“How the fuck is she tracking us!?” shouted Macian as he ripped the door open and they entered into the alleyway, charging down the narrow pathway at the same time as Fire Burial’s flame form rose from the smoking wreckage. Turning into flesh and blood, she began to drop just as she screamed in rage, throwing a fireball the size of a truck right at them.