Fire Opals Got Nothing On This (TAG)

[Timothy Smith]

Night patrol was always fun. Surge got to zip around and enjoy the night owls looking up and seeing him zip by like a shooting star and feel protected. He liked to think of himself as the "night light" for the city, when he was on night patrol. Anyone afraid of what lurked in the dark could look out and see him glowing in the air and know they would be safe. 

Tonight he'd got the West End for patrol. He swung around most of the usual places, the Cyber Café was looking pretty good since the CDF had rebuilt it after he crashed into it several months back. The Community Center was dark, but he did know that there was supposed to be some event coming up soon there. He couldn't remember what it was. The nightclubs were busy as usual. He passed out several high fives when he went through there. 

A couple of thugs tried to break into the Artist's Studio, but they turned themselves in pretty quickly when he showed up. Quick drop off and he was back to the beat. Next up was the museum.

Which was not supposed to have an open skylight with a rope dangling from it. 

Surge ducked in. Last time he was here, he was with Adara, someone he considered one of his very dear friends now. She helped him actually loosen up and have fun, instead of just working away his problems.

"Excuse me, I understand you may be trying to visit family in the Neanderthal exhibit, but visiting hours are over so I'm going to have to ask you to leave without stopping at the gift shop."

Adara Chase

[Adara Chase]

we'll be raising our hands

shining up to the sky

'cause we got the fire

❧

She tied her hair up in a tight ponytail as she stood on the roof of the museum. It had been far too long since she'd broken into here and tried to steal something. The last time she'd had a run in with that bird vigilante - Spearow-- Wait, no, that was a Pokemon. Sparrow, that was the name!

Needless to say that encounter had left the both of them equally pissed at each other.

She lowered herself expertly into the building through a skylight. The museum's security was admittedly underwhelming in her opinion. She was pretty sure it was lax simply because they were used to some hero swooping in to save the day. Pathetic. She liked a challenge and so far this city was proving to be anything but that.

She was also pointedly ignoring the memory of getting her ass kicked by that wind manipulator. She preferred remembering the part where she kicked his ass.

She was strolling around the museum, her hips swaying as she walked as if to music only she could hear, eyes glancing around to decide which exhibit to take. There were a few she'd been pondering and she didn't think she had the time to grab all of them.

That was when she heard his voice. She glanced over her shoulder, cocking an eyebrow, and sure enough he was in the building now. Her boyfriend.

Not that she'd used that word to describe him officially yet. But that didn't mean they weren't dating. His presence did complicate things, to say the least. She wasn't going to give up - that'd risk getting arrested and he'd find out she was Torch and she wasn't ready for that yet.

"Did you know there are humans whose ancestry includes Neanderthals?" she asked, her voice casual, knowing he liked facts. "Thus implying that Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals, well, got busy together in their caves."

She turned fully to face him and held her hands out to show she wasn't threatened. "If anything, I'd say your face resembles them more than mine."

She happened to like his face, but now wasn't the time for that.

358 ● Timothy Smith ● n/a

[attr="class","cred"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + GS

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[Timothy Smith]

Tim smirked. This cat burglar could sass, he liked that.

“You know, all you’ve done is provide evidence that my joke is plausible. And honestly, I’m going to take that as a compliment. I mean, look at the jawline on those guys! Good stuff, good stuff.”

He drifted down to the floor of the building and took stock of everything around. It all looked undamaged and fine, but if a fight broke out, he’d run himself ragged trying to keep all the artifacts safe. This is why he preferred it when criminals kept things to the Abandoned Warehouse District. Made everything a lot easier.

Although he did wonder why the Collateral Damage Fund kept rebuilding those abandoned warehouses.

“Alright, sweetheart, I take it you know how this goes. We’ve got the easy way and the hard way, you get to pick. Both involve you ending up in lockup eventually, but the hard way involves more physical trauma. If we do the hard way could we take it outside first? I’d hate to wreck great-great-great grandpa Ugg’s best cutting rock in a fight.”

He held himself ready to fight, just in case. Sometimes even the nicest criminals fought dirty.

“I’ll even open the front door so you don’t have to climb back out the skylight.”

Adara Chase

[Adara Chase]

we'll be raising our hands

shining up to the sky

'cause we got the fire

❧

"Who said I was trying to discount your joke?" she replied, arching an eyebrow. She'd simply been stating a fact after all. She didn't particularly care if it proved his joke or not. She added, teasingly, "I guess your jawline's alright." She happened to quite like everything about how he looked. But again, she wasn't going to say that. Now was most certainly not the time.

She noticed him look around. He was trying to make sure she hadn't caused any damage yet. Typical hero. But he was her hero. Except he didn't no that.

God, this was getting complicated.

Though she also didn't know why he'd think she wouldn't destroyed any artifacts yet. She needed them in good condition until destroying them became an excellent way to distract him. She was a professional after all.

Her eyes widened slightly behind her mask when he called her sweetheart before she realized he was doing it to be witty and sassy. He didn't know who she was. He probably didn't even know her codename yet.

"It's cold outside," she said in an intentionally fake innocent tone - also ignoring the fact that she was wearing a jacket. "And I can think of much more fun things to do with handcuffs."

Adara lightly laughed when he said he'd open the front door for her. "And they say chivalry is dead. Clearly they've never met you, Surgey." She placed one hand on her hip and looked down at her nails, unimpressed.

"Don't you have better things to do?" she continued, glancing back over at him with an eyebrow cocked questioningly. "I don't know - Perhaps a girlfriend to go on some date with?" Of course his girlfriend was her and she was very much not available for a date right then but he didn't know the former.

304 ● Timothy Smith ● n/a

[attr="class","cred"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + GS

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[Timothy Smith]

Tim really was hoping that this was going to go the easy way eventually. She seemed to not be immediately attacking or ranting about how she was going to escape, she was one of the better criminals he’d busted.

“Ma’am if its too cold for you out there, then we can always do the easy way and get you to a nice heated cell in short order.”

He glided across the ground to the door, keeping his eyes on her. She wasn’t too bad to look at, too bad she was a criminal. He reached back and opened the door and shrugged.

“Chivalry may be dead, but basic human kindness isn’t. C’mon, let’s make this easy for everyone.”

Honestly, he didn’t have anything better to do tonight. He was avoiding going to sleep was what was truthfully happening. There was a part of him that kind of hoped that this encounter got dragged out a little longer, that would give him less time to burn before he could go back into his lab at ARF in the morning tomorrow. Today? He wasn’t sure what time it was. What he did know was that regardless of how much sleep he’d gotten, his wit was as sharp as ever.

Honestly he wished that he had a girlfriend. Maybe someday, something could develop with Adara, but he wasn’t sure if she was interested in that, and he hadn’t found the right time to bring it up yet. If this burglar wasn’t a criminal, he’d be willing to give her a shot, but really meeting someone by foiling their robbery attempt wasn’t the best basis for a relationship.

“Sorry to say, miss, I am single. And if I didn’t have a policy where I don’t date criminals, I’d ask for your number, but it looks like we’re both going to be out of luck. So, easy way? Hard way? I’m going to need a straight answer here so we can start wrapping this up.”

Adara Chase

[Adara Chase]

Did he really think she'd just let him whisk her off to some cell? Honestly all she'd done so far was breaking and entering. She hadn't stolen anything yet so she would have thought letting her walk away free would have been on the table. Apparently not. She lightly bit her tongue and made a note to tell her boyfriend he needed to work on his conversation skills when it came to criminals like her - Not that he knew it was her. Though how he didn't recognize her voice, she was both confused by and grateful for. If he ever found out she was Torch, she wanted it to be because she sat him down and told him herself. "I think getting me a warmer coat would be far easier," she replied, "And less of an inconvenience to me." She needed to appear as if she didn't care about his well being at all. He didn't know who she was so if she showed any concern, she risked getting a reputation of being soft. At least in regards to Aegis, that wasn't a reputation she wanted. Was he seriously walking to the door? Adara placed one hand on her hip, looking at him curiously and making no inclination to follow. At the very least he would be making it easier to push him out that very door. However she grimaced when he did in fact open it, knowing that he had just triggered a silent alarm that would alert the police. She had a feeling he knew that as well. "Kindness is overrated," she said, a touch of bitterness to her tone now. She didn't want to deal with the police. Burning a cop car was fun but she'd been hoping to avoid that. "Wouldn't you agree?" Then he made a mistake - quite a big one at that. Her boyfriend - her lovable, idiot boyfriend - told her, who he didn't know was her and was basically like telling another woman, that he was single. Adara's eyes glowed through her mask with embers. Flames licked her fingers. Her face contorted into a grimace again but this one was clearly less annoyance and more downright pissed off. "Excuse me?" she snarled, tone making it clear that he was walking a very thin line. She didn't like the idea that he'd tell another woman he was single even though he was very much dating her. She brought her hands up, forming a large swirling ball of fire between them - twice the size of his head to be specific - and promptly sent it hurling right at him. Single her ass.

... we'll be raising our hands shining up to the sky 'cause we got the fire and we're gonna let it burn ... torch Timothy Smith costume 441 words RIP Tim.

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[Timothy Smith]

There was a moment, where Tim thought it was all going to end nice and easy. He'd triggered the silent alarm that he totally hadn't forgotten about until he saw the infrared sensor go off when he opened the door, the cops were on their way, she had no other way out.

And then she got mad. What had he done? Was it the attempt at flirting? He thought it was just playful banter!

Well, it wasn't going to be the easy way, but it was still going to be easy, he thought. She was hurling a fireball at him. Fire was one of his specialities.

He raised a hand to catch it and absorb it into himself, envisioning the flames licking around his arm as he did so and looking totally badass while completely no-selling her attack.

But as it got closer, that ball of fire felt hotter. And hotter. And hotter. He started to pull the energy into himself, and he could do it, but something was wrong.

"YEEOWCH! AH! AH That's hot! That's... that's really hot. That... that BURNED. That's... that's impossible.."

He looked at the woman with wide eyes, this time scanning her with all his enhanced vision for anything different in the energy composition of her flames, and he found...

Nothing. Heat. Light. That's all that fire was, really. And that's all that she was throwing at him.

Fire that could burn the man who was unable to be burned.

"What. The hell. Where did you get your powers? What you're doing... what your powers are doing... that is impossible. I haven't been burned in five or six years. Not since I got my powers. What are you?"

For the first time tonight, Surge was actually a little afraid.

Adara Chase _

[Adara Chase]

If he hadn't just said he was single, she would have felt bad for burning him. But considering he had said that, she felt zero remorse. After all she wasn't going to kill him - She'd just fry his ass a bit. Nothing wrong with that in her mind. He deserved it. After this, though, she knew she'd have to handle things as Adara but that also meant coming up with some reason for Adara to be as pissed at him as Torch was. Ugh. This was getting complicated. Why was he so surprised that her fire had burned him? Wasn't that what fire was supposed to do? Unless of course you were immune like she was. Was he supposed to be immune? Boyfriend or not, she honestly didn't know everything about his powers. There seemed to be a lot and she figured he'd eventually mention everything at some point. He liked to talk all excitedly about powers. It was cute. Perhaps he'd never been burned with real fire, she thought. Her hands were smoking, flames licked and jumped between her fingers. So he hadn't been burned in a while? That would explain why he'd been so surprised. She had no intention of telling him where she'd gotten her powers from - frankly she wasn't entirely sure and it didn't matter at all to her. What mattered was that she was still very much pissed off. She held her hand up, snapped her fingers, and it went ablaze, her whole hand covered in dancing flames, embers dripping and sizzling onto the floor. "I'm the bitch whose going to burn your ass," she snarled before putting both hands together and sending a stream of flames directly at him. She didn't care if she burned this whole museum down. She was going to make sure he never told another woman he was single, ever again.

... we'll be raising our hands shining up to the sky 'cause we got the fire and we're gonna let it burn ... torch Timothy Smith costume 311 words I repeat: RIP Tim. u-u

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[Timothy Smith]

This was all wrong. Tim did not know what was going on, and he was so confused.

Especially because she seemed to be suddenly super pissed at him.

“What did I do? Was it the play-flirting? I thought it was playful banter! I’m sorry if I led you on!”

Oh no. Oh that was more fire. He had to keep the museum safe, and he had to get creative about it.

“Ahhhhhhhh shit shit shit shit shit...”

Thinking very quickly, he threw up a barrier of solid light to block the flames. Seeing it spread and lick around the edges, he tried to contain it and try to funnel it away and out the door. Still, it got damn close, and for some reason he was really feeling this heat. He had no idea how or why. Normally, he was immune to being hurt by the energy types that he could control. This was incredibly worrying to him.

He had to come up with something to end this quick. Clearly, fire wasn’t going to work on her, but other forms of energy should be fine, but he still needed to contain her somehow...

Sprinkler system. The museum had to have a sprinkler system. This woman’s flames must not be significant enough to trigger it, but if he could see one of the heads and nail it with a fireball of his own... There.

He put his plan together quickly. Bolt of electricity at her, fireball at the sprinkler head, get the water going, hopefully make it harder for her to shoot the flames around.

Except he wasn’t thinking super clearly. Instead of shooting the fire at the sprinkler and the lightning at the thief, he got it backwards.

Shit! he thought. The lightning bolt would do fine to trigger the sprinkler, but he was pretty sure the fireball was going to do nothing to her.

Adara Chase

[Adara Chase]

She didn't believe his apologies - or rather she was too steamed to even consider whether he meant them or not. She thought he was just trying to avoid more fire being thrown but she wasn't going to let him get his way. "Your flirting needs improvement," she snapped, though she quite liked his flirting but she didn't like when he flirted with someone he didn't know was her. "Trust me you're not good enough to lead anyone on." Again, she quite liked his flirting but that was really beside the point. He managed to block the latest fire she sent at him which only irritated her further. She really wanted to hurt him, to take her anger out on him. She'd care about any injuries he gained later. Besides she wasn't going to kill them. She needed to find a way around his shield, knowing he could block her fire with it. If she could distract him enough, make him a little too busy then he wouldn't be able to bring his shield up in time. Both of her hands became engulfed in flames. She didn't know how long they had until the police got there but frankly she didn't care right now. Her focus was solely on him-- Adara's eyes widened behind her mask when she saw the lightning and the fire. She pulled her hand back to sent a flame to intercept the lightning before it hit the sprinklers - It was obvious where he was aiming because what else was there on the ceiling to aim at? She didn't worry about the fire because she knew she was immune. If anything, she could absorb it. Except she didn't. The fire hit her and a startled cry ripped from her throat as it actually burned. Her costume took up the brunt of it and thankfully the material was fire proof but she felt that burning on her neck and knew she'd been hit there. Now she understood his panic. Her own anxiety flared and her flames reacted to it. One hand cradled her neck where she'd been burned. The ends of her hair were licking with flames. The air around her started to shimmer with heat. Her eyes glowed like flames, bright enough to be seen through her mask. That shouldn't have hurt. That shouldn't have burned. That wasn't supposed to be possible. She looked at him, genuine hurt and fear in her expression and body language. It was then that she noted the water, the steam. It stung the way it always did as water collided with her fire. She tried to calm her breathing but her anxiety had spiked. She needed to distract him - she needed to strike back. She focused all her power in on herself, feeling the heat grow, steam rising as the sprinklers' water sizzled when it touched her. She let it build and build and then with a scream, she released the fire. Flames shot out from all around her - not just at Tim but at the museum itself.

... we'll be raising our hands shining up to the sky 'cause we got the fire and we're gonna let it burn ... torch Timothy Smith costume 506 words n/a

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