Ember

Ember -2- (Story of an ex-Superhero)

"Good morning Ember," the woman said to the girl with wild red hair and large, dark eyes.

Ember kept her mouth shut with a thin, somber frown. The woman sitting before her, with fashionable rectangular glasses resting on her nose, had an obnoxious peppiness to the way she flipped through a file on her desk. Her long black ponytail swung back and forth like a horse's tail. If Ember wanted to admit it, the woman looked somewhat nicer than the legions of government officials Ember had been sent to before. But Ember, having learned not to trust people at an early age, wouldn't let herself get sent off to yet another foster home because she thought someone appeared nice.

"So you might be wondering why you're here sweetheart," the woman smiled again as if Ember's silence wasn't strange at all.

Ember shrugged; indifferent, not caring.

"You can call me Ms. Violet and we're going to work through your..." she paused, as if she were trying to find what to say without offending Ember, "your problem."

"What's my problem?" Ember finally spoke, a sudden flurry of anger washing over her. Her dark eyes burned.

"Well, your pyromania. You seem to have a problem with other kids your age and you sometimes overreact."

Ember stared at Ms. Violet again, even more angry than she was before. She, in that moment, hated Ms. Violet. She was just the same as the rest of the adults trying to help her with something she couldn't even control. They spoke to her as if her problem were mental retardation, not pyromania, and read straight from the doctors notes, never bothering to ask Ember what she thought was going on with her. They just slapped a label on her forehead and squared her away with medication and legions of foster homes, as if they made any difference. She couldn't help what happened when she got angry. It just happened. One can't fix something that wasn't their fault in the first place.

"I don't have pyromania," Ember spoke, enunciating her words carefully as she glared at Ms. Violet. Her jaw flexed as she tried to control her anger before it got too out of hand. 

"Well, from my records and my observations, you've had a really...hard life and I know you might of heard this before but you need to remain optimistic."

"How can I remain optimistic when you stupid quacks try to fix my 'problems' without even taking a chance to let me explain what is going on?" Ember asked, her voice louder. There was a slight, reddish glow coming off her skin, shimmering like coals in a dying campfire. She was getting really angry now, almost to the point of loosing it. And when Ember looses it, bad things happen. People get hurt.

Something in Ms. Violet's expression softened as Ember finished, as if her words made the woman realize what Ember really needed. Taking in a deep breath, Ms. Violet closed Ember's file on her desk and tossed it into the trash can. She folded her hands in front of her and looked Ember right in the eye. 

"Then tell me Ember, what's going on?"

Ember's body relaxed, this was her chance to tell everyone the truth and someone was asking for it. The angry glow emitting from her skin faded and she opened her mouth to tell her story, already feeling relieved.

"This is what happens to me when I get angry..."

______

Six years later.

Ember sprinted down the street, her bright red converse making hardly a sound as they came down on the pavement. Her mane of hair whipped behind her, a cascade red as she gained speed. It was safe to say that Ember could run fast, much faster than a normal human.

Her eyes zeroed in on the black convertible tearing down the street before her at a speed that, if they hadn't broken a dozen other laws, should've already landed them in jail. But she definitely wasn't chasing the convertible because they were way past the speed limit, it was because they kidnapped some rich girl and it was Ember's job to see she was safely returned.

While running, Ember smirked at the stupidity of the kidnapping plot. Executing a kidnapping in the middle of day and snatching up an heiress in broad daylight in a convertible aren't necessarily the works of intelligent folk. Over the years, Ember learned that the majority of criminals aren't usually above average intelligence. Sometimes, she came across a few with scarily IQ's, but you couldn't call them criminals. The more appropriate name would be "masterminds." She found the reason they're so hard to beat is because they've got everything planned out in almost every possible situation and they've also got an even more complicated backup system. But eventually she learned that once you manage to get past their traps and legions of hitmen, they're pretty easy to land in jail.

The criminals Ember was chasing now landed in the lower-IQ-criminals class, the ones who don't think everything through. Closing in on the convertible, she kicked in more speed to her stride. Ember now was running alongside the car with a clear view of the heiress bound and gagged in the backseat. Almost out of nowhere, one of the criminals popped up, with a sawed shotgun cocked and pointed right at Ember's head. With only a few seconds to react, Ember slammed her body to the ground just as the bullet exploded out of the barrel, and lodged itself in a brick wall several meters away.

Cursing herself for letting the stupid criminals nearly take her head off, Ember pushed herself up from the road, spitting grains of gravel from her teeth, just in time to watch the convertible swerve around the corner. Not letting them get ahead a second longer, Ember broke into a sprint towards a car parked on the side of the street.  With extraordinary momentum, she lunged onto the trunk of the car, crashed up the windshield and leapt off the hood into midair.

She let gravity take her, a placid moment hovering in the air. With her body humming with anticipation, she knew it was time. Close to grazing the pavement, Ember whipped her arms to her sides and her power began to kick into motion.

Fire.

Fire consumed her, becoming a human sized flame that took flight, screaming down the street between the buildings.

Ember is fire. Fire is Ember.

Almost loosing control as she turned the corner, she caught a view the car tearing the through street before narrowly crashing into a skyscraper. The next thing she knew, her momentum propelled her so far forward so that she found herself right in front of the car. Waiting until it drove right beneath her, she let go of her fire and dropped like a rock, landing hard on the hood of the convertible. Her feet made large dents in the metal. 

Because she landed on the hood hard enough, the car flipped forward, gaining enough momentum for the heiress to fly forwards, straight out of the car and into Ember's outstretched arms.

The criminals who were knocked around from the flipping car, were easily locked and set off for prison. It was another wonderful success for Ember.  The crowd that had gathered cheered and the kidnapped girl gave Ember a rather large, grateful hug in front of the cameras. The newscasters interviewed her, asked her what was going through her mind when she heard the heiress of the Manson Enterprises was kidnapped. She signed shirts that had her face printed on them. She posed for pictures. She demonstrated her abilities again, for the public. She smiled. She waved and she loved every minute of it.

It was because Ember had finally found a place, San Marino, that she could do good for. The positive energy of the crowd left very little room for her to be troubled anymore. By the helping hand of Ms. Violet and the members of Bones Incorporated, the company she was signed to and managed her publicity and city duties, she became something truly, extraordinarily great. 

This is what Ember was.

This is what Ember would never be again.