by Jester Joker
This must be Hell... everything is on fire, and even at half-off the clothes are overpriced.
One-liners aside, I clearly made a major misjudgement. I know, because I've had way too much time to think about it. When I landed, I stopped and stayed stopped. I could still breathe and think, but it was almost as if I had become stuck in time, a sort of anti-Billy Pilgrim.
While I'm trying to figure out if it's molasses or something more sinister that's holding me in place, I suddenly feel a release of the pressure. After taking a second to gather myself, I take a step forward.
I'm not sure if the sound of the explosion destroyed my eardrums first, or if the inferno blinded me, but either way I resort to my one fallback strategy: reflex. Being stuck before made everything after feel that much faster, and soon I have my eyes squeezed shut, my head down and all my concentration focused on protecting the area immediately surrounding my body. I wonder if this is what the Vertigo Man felt when he worked us over while panic-stricken.
The fact that I feel nothing physically makes me all the more worried about opening my eyes again, for fear that I won't actually be here when I do, but as the seconds stretch into tens of seconds, I realize I can actually feel the flames push away from me, as they swirl about and eventually fade out, one by one. It's when I feel something wet strike my head and back that I finally stand up and open my eyes.
The emergency sprinkler system is activated. Lord knows why they were tolerant of the first explosion but are keen to put this one out. I won't complain. I need a minute to gather my thoughts, and the cold water feels nice on my aching head.
I try to force my training to kick in, but it's not easy when my ears are still ringing. Assess the situation: some motherfucker froze me when I landed, and either the same motherfucker or a different motherfucker blew some shit up, and it fucked up everything. Also, my communicator's shot to hell. They didn't teach me to analyze in profanities, by the way. That's just my own personal touch.
So if I'm fighting somebody who can "stop time," as it were, saw me coming, can cause explosions...? does he think I'm dead? Probably. No way he (or she, or they) could assume I'd survive that blast. The only way anybody'd know the full extent of my power is if they trained me, and I'm fairly certain this isn't some exercise the big guys dreamed up to teach us a valuable lesson or some shit.
If he thinks I'm dead, I could get some sort of drop on him. Maybe sneak through the building's vents and do some spy work? Hm... a little too Die Hard for my tastes, and it would inevitably lead to my using some wretched line that Will would love, like, "Nine million terrorists in the world, and I gotta kill one with feet smaller than my sister." So no vents. If he's capable of stopping me when he can't even see me, then chances are very good that one look at me will keep me planted in my tracks, so I have virtually no margin of error to work with here.
I look up into the water that's still raining down on me and what little fire is still here amongst all the scorched earth. It's very pretty. Suddenly a realization hits me: I was still breathing when I was frozen in time, wasn't I? And I'm sure the sprinklers would have still been flowing nicely had they gone off earlier. I haven't been more sure of anything in my life.
I glance down at the weapon I'm holding as a delicious thought crosses my mind: He can't stop elements.
That's the easy part. The hard part will be figuring out the best way to use this information and put this asshole in a Hell of his own.