X-Trasensory

Fifteen Years Later...

Lying on a bed crying to Natalie Imbruglia is hardly the way a thirty-five year old is supposed to spend their time, but that's what my heart wants: it wants to cry. It wants to look back at the past, at the Goddess that was my wife, the life as a Celestial that I was never meant to live, and the loss of my humanity. I've been back on Earth for a month or two, but it still doesn't feel right. This crappy apartment is good. It grounds me, reminds me that I'm mortal, that the power of the Celestials, that ultimate unlimited power deserves to be gone. Humans weren't meant to decide the fate of reality. I knew that all those years ago when my brother, Robert, talked me into marrying the Phoenix entity, but I couldn't say "no" to him. No matter how much he hurt me, no matter how far he delved into my subconscious I never told him "no." Does that make everything that happened my fault?

Why bleeding is breathing?

Why indeed Natalie? Was it just some line from the late nineties grabbing onto our abstract fear of Big Brother watching us, or some personal pain exemplifying her struggle with depression? My life is the moldy window blinds, only touched by light to spread the decay and entropy. Every semi that drives past makes the blinds shake, makes the lights flicker into my cave of solitude. It keeps shaking, long after the semi is gone. I pick my head up and fling the headphones out of my ears. There's a shaking in the distance, and it's coupled with muffled booms. There's a fight. People could be in trouble. I'm wearing a sweater and underwear. I don't have a onsie made of unstable molecules anymore. If I go out there, I'm going to get there naked, but at the same time, someone could need my help.

I throw on sweatpants and run out my front door. I close the door without locking it, if some asshat wants my secondhand TV, they're welcome to take it. I can't just power up without doing damage to the property. It might be 2018, but the President might as well be a Friend of Humanity. No, I have to jump down to the dirt, and launch myself into the air with a controlled super jump. Now that I've cleared the roofs I can burn my clothes. Hovering in place, I watch the ashes of my stagnant mediocrity fall to the ground. There's another explosion. This time I can see the smoke rising.

Keeping my speed down is a weird problem to have. I used to be able to teleport to anywhere in the universe, before that I could travel several times the speed of light, but now my max speed might be somewhere around mach 4. I'm so worried about not creating a sonic boom and destroying every window in a two block radius, that I start flying slower than walking speed. I have to laugh, I can't help it. I used to be a God, and now I can't even fly to the rescue without having an existential crisis. I pour the heat out of my feet and palms, just a little, but it's more than enough to make the buildings blur under me.

More explosions, and the color of the smoke is too black for comfort. There's some mutants fighting in a residential street. It's too dark and chaotic to make out sides, so I turn my attention to the buildings. There are some older houses and barely above code duplexes on fire. I hover above them to look for people in trouble. There's a dog barking on the second floor. I punch a hole through the window and pull a big enough piece of the wall off to get a look inside. The dog's some kind of Jack Terrier mix, and she's afraid of me. I can't blame her, I'm basically a pot bellied fire elemental.

I haven't fought crime, or saved a life in sixteen years, easy. I think that I'll have to consciously power down in rhythm with my forward pulse, but it happens automatically. Charles' training was that good, that thorough, either that or he placed the mental routes so deep that I'm not even aware of them. The dog isn't as afraid of the chubby naked man, but she's not running into my arms. If I had a treat or something she'd probably be licking my face already. I step over some glass, lacerating my foot, and grab the yapping mutt. She quiets once she's in my arms. The pain walking back to the impromptu exit is not fun. I grind my teeth instead of swear, because naked superheroes aren't supposed to swear.