[center][h2]Somewhere in Arizona, north of Phoenix[/h2][/center] The world was strange. She could not make sense of it since she had been born a day ago. It was filled with strange shapes and colours. She liked the black and the blue and the green, which was what most of the landscape was made up of. Vaguely she could see what she knew somehow were trees. And rocks. Those were nice. But as she walked, she moved towards the thing that drove her. It infuriated her by its mere existence. A towering column of light, yellows and whites, spearing up in the distance. She wanted it to stop being, so she moved towards it. Lots of times, there were things that flared orange or red in her vision. Typically, they were brighter when they made noises at her. She would raise her hand and her warmth would go and make them stop, turning them back to blues and blacks. Her warmth was a lovely mix of blue and purple, and she found she could walk between it if she wanted, as if any spot of it was right next to each other. But it took a bit to do, and she wasn't sure about it, so she just walked. She wasn't tired. She knew, somewhere, that was strange, that the orange things would need to lay down after exerting themselves, but she was fine. She was just so [i]angry[/i] she couldn't sleep. She couldn't rest. She had to kill the tower. It was the only thing that mattered. So she walked on. Lots of things flared oranges at her, so she made them stop before they made her more angry. Sometimes they were small. Other times they were bigger than her and made of things that glowed bright green when she made them stop moving. Her whole world was a swirl of colours and lights and noise, most of the noise being her warmth keeping her safe. Somewhere, somewhere deep, she felt like there was more to the world, but the need, the drive, the desire and rage and burning passion to kill the tower drowned whatever part of her that was until it was quiet. Another swarm of red came up over the horizon in front of her. She screamed at it, trying to make it go away, her warmth extending out in front of her in a wash that left green in its wake. More red flared on it's edges, shapes falling away. The sharp edges of what she knew were buildings gave way to the more pleasing crumbled shapes of nature reclaiming them through her warmth. The sharp edges were red sometimes, when she grew close enough to see them. None of them lasted long. She longed to paint the whole world in greens and blues, but first the tower must fall. So she continued, left of where the glowing green ball in the sky had come up, always heading for the line of the tower in her vision. [hr] Schmidt watched in awe as the metahuman continued her path of destruction. They had left the outskirts of Phoenix, ruined and blazing, and somehow their little train of followers had grown rather than shrunk. Some were media hounds, reporting. Others were like the ones that had rescued her, fanatics wrapped up in whatever madness or religious fervour had convinced them to do so. The majority, it seemed, were merely curious or hopeless, following the trail of destruction as though it was some sort of signal for a change they didn't know they needed. Schmidt herself wasn't sure what camp she was in, as the fires ahead reflected off her eyes. She should have radioed in, tried to do something. Her training screamed at her to. But she was captivated by the form ahead of them. Glimpses through heat haze, ash, and flames had let her see what looked to be a girl no more than sixteen, naked except for the destruction around her and the glow of the heat. She seemed to have some sort of path, one that was pushed aside by concentrations of emergency services, though not without massive casualties. She winced as she watched another group of state patrol veer off from a fireball the girl had [i]screamed[/i] at them. More National Guard scattered from in front of her as she did so, having hidden in cover. They were fighting her, Schmidt could tell. She could hear the reports of gunfire all around. But it was scattered and not concentrated, not since last night after the path had avoided the main areas of Phoenix. The suburbs had suffered significantly, but the city itself was spared a trail of destruction through its heart. But every time a gun broke the silence, the FBI agent could see the flare around the girl, where the lead flash-melted in the heat more than twenty yards away. That alone was enough to keep her from trying anything. She had watched a tank shell disintegrate in that heat. So she watched, from atop the RV she had woken up in. They had given her some painkillers, and she knew she needed medical attention, but she was stable, and she told herself that she might be the only person trying to understand what the hell was happening, rather than just watching. Her concentration was broken by something she had almost forgotten about, a streak of light....no, [i]five[/i] of them, in the sky above. That's right, the Earth had been invaded. She shook the sense of being in a movie out of her head and watched, rapt, to see what the response was as the lights swept down towards the burning figure a few miles ahead of her. [hr] More red....no, orange...[i][b]yellow[/b][/i]. Above her. They circled, and she flung her purple and blue warmth with a backhand to ward it off. One erupted into greens, flaring to blue as it fell. The rest came around, and white flares shot at her. The wall of her warmth rose, but some snuck through, and touched the ground near her. She screamed. How dare they do this near her!? A hand shot forward, bright purple spilling from it in a line like a laser, striking one of the yellow shapes and latching onto it. She stepped through it, onto the yellow shape, and while her warmth reached and begin to bubble through it, she lashed it out to strike two more, knocking them from the sky in a fit of rage, stomping her foot through the molten purple, yellow, and green beneath her. She plummeted down back to the ground, only to step through again, landing on one shape careening downward. The last had veered, fleeing from her, and her power could not reach it, so she tumbled with this one she stood on until it erupted into green and blue against the black ground. She rolled several times, then stood. It took her a moment to find the tower again, and then she walked forward again, intent upon her goal. [hr] Schmidt stared as the last of the aliens sped away into the night. The whole episode had taken less than a few seconds. She thought at first the burning girl had been hurt in the crash, but there she was, standing up and marching onward like a golem. This was the first time she thought that she had no idea where her cell phone was after the crash.