I didn't wait.
Didn't pack.
Didn't plan.
I just went.
The photograph burned in my pocket. The image of her—caught, cornered, fire dim in her eyes—kept replaying in my head. I didn't even know her name. But I knew what it felt like to be hunted. I knew what it meant to be alone.
She wasn't going to stay that way.
The man didn't give me an address. Just a location burned into my brain with his words:
"Where the storm ends."
I followed the weather.
Literally.
The clouds above the city had thickened, dark and unnatural. They moved with intention—swirling over one industrial sector near the city's edge. I rode the wind as far as I could, then ran when I had to, vaulting fences and climbing scaffolding until I reached it:
A warehouse.
Dead center in the eye of the storm.
Inside was chaos.
Not just the physical kind—though that too. Machinery crackled, lights flickered, walls hummed with dark energy. But deeper than that, I felt something wrong. Like the air itself recoiled from me.
There were symbols etched everywhere—dark reflections of the ones I'd seen before. Corrupted, twisted.
And in the center: her.
She was suspended between metal arcs, a halo of flame trying to ignite around her—but something was keeping it suppressed.
I stepped forward. "Let her go."
A voice growled from the shadows. "You're early."
Then he stepped into view.
Tall. Built like a shadow. Masked. Armor that shimmered like thunderclouds.
"The Stormbringer," he said mockingly. "Just a child with lightning in his blood."
"And you're just a coward hiding behind wires."
His laugh echoed. "Oh, I'm much more. And you… you're just the first spark."
He raised his hand—and the room exploded with wind.
Not mine.
His.
The wind wrapped around me like chains, slamming me into a wall. My power fought back, but this was different. Stronger. Controlled. It felt… familiar.
"You feel it, don't you?" he said, stepping closer. "The kinship. The pattern. You think you're chosen?"
He ripped off his mask.
And for a moment—just a moment—I saw myself.
Older. Harder. Angrier.
No. Not me.
But close.
"You're—"
"Your future, if you make the wrong choice."
I screamed and let the storm out.
All of it.
The wind inside me surged, ripped through the warehouse like a tidal wave. It shattered the arcs. Shredded the symbols. Freed her.
She fell—and I caught her.
She looked up at me, dazed. "You came back."
"Always," I said.
We ran.
The building crumbled behind us.
And the man—whoever he was—vanished in the smoke.
But something inside me broke that day.
Not fear.
Doubt.
Because for the first time, I wondered if this power was really mine to command—or if I was just riding a storm I couldn't stop.