The Crimson Phoenix

A life changing Accident.

“Oh my God, Leo I’m so happy for you…” Tracy cheered, as Leo broke the news through the phone as they were having a video call. She knew how much he loved Dr. Cartel, so him realizing his dreams was good news and she was delighted about it.

“What can I say dude, you did well,” Mason commended, “At least you don’t have to worry about you not being able to complete your project.” Leo nodded and he realized that James hadn’t connected to the call so was wondering where he was.

“Where’s James anyway?” Leo asked Tracy. James was not in the conversation and he couldn’t help but ask.

Tracy rolled her eyes, “He’s in a girl’s house. As you all know how much of a playboy he is.” She said with disdain. Leo laughed out loud. James was actually a like a star to girls and most of them can’t help but fall for him.

“Funny thing is…” Leo speculated to Tracy, “If you weren’t his twin sister, you’d be one of those girls that’ll fall head over heels for him.” Mason began to laugh like all hell broke loose and he fell from his chair. Tracy gave Leo a disdainful look.

“Eww. He’s very ugly, and lazy and totally uncool.” Tracy said disdainfully.

Mason raised a brow. “If James is ugly and you both look alike, doesn’t that mean…” Mason didn’t complete his statement when Tracy gave him a sharp stare which scared him even through the phone. “Sorry sorry. I didn’t say anything.” He quickly denied. Whatever you do, do not call Tracy ‘ugly’. You’ll only wake up in the afterlife if you do.

After heaving a sigh of relief Mason asked, “I heard that you have a new best friend over there…” Leo could notice a glint of jealousy in his voice.

“You jealous?” He asked with a raised brow. He suspected Kelly to have told Mason about Logan when she returned to Sunshine city.

Mason shook his head, “Just watch the kind of friends you keep.” He advised. Leo's eyes twitched.

“Logan is no different from you... except that he doesn’t have your sense of humor.” He said with disdain. Mason gave a look of realization.

“Oh, so you do have a new best friend, and his name is Logan.” He said. Leo face palmed. It was then Leo realized that he was testing him. Little Kate came and jumped on his lap in the parlour.

“Uncle Leo, come play with me…” She said as she was squeezing his cheeks and pulling his ears. She suddenly looked at the Laptop. “Hi aunt Tracy.” She waved.

“Hi there Kate, how are you?” she greeted. They chatted for a while before saying their goodbyes and Leo went to play with Little Kate according to her request.

*************

Leo locked himself up in his room and he started reading the file Dr. Cartel gave him. The contents of the file was based on the scientist’s observations so far. Leo was actually thinking that he would find some clues in the file as regarding the Gene enhancing project but to his dismay, there was no clue. It wasn’t even mentioned.

“I can see THRL did a good job removing the important stuff from here.” He said to himself. He kept on reading it and could actually understand a few things, except from some calculations which gave him a headache. He marked out the places he didn’t understand so he could ask questions the next day.

Knock Knock

He was still reading when he suddenly heard a knock on the door. He jolted up and panicked and tried looking for a suitable place to hide the file.

“Leo are you in there?” Molly asked. He was still fumbling and scattering the books on his bed, trying to hide the file in between them. She could hear the fumbling inside the room and she tried to open the door but she discovered that it was locked.

“Leo what’s going on in here and why is the door locked?” she said with a tone of annoyance.

“In a minute Aunt.” He said as he cleared any evidence and tried to look calm and expressionless. He opened the door and she suddenly barged in.

“What were you doing? Why did you lock the door? Like I told you, no locking of doors in this house.” She said. He could sense that she was angry.

“I’m sorry. I was busy and I didn’t want to be disturbed.” He replied honestly. She walked around the room trying to pick up a ‘scent’ of mischievous acts and then sized him up. Leo was startled as to why his aunt was giving him a strange look. ‘What is she trying to do?’ He thought to himself.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” He asked. She suddenly stopped sizing him up and looked calm again.

"Nothing. I came to tell you to take care of little Kate. I won’t be around and your uncle won’t be back until six. Behave yourself and no more locking of doors.” She said as she turned to leave. “It’s not like you have a girlfriend or something.” Leo heard her mumble. ‘Of course I have a girlfriend and she’s five hours away from here.’ He thought to himself with an annoyed tone.

“Oh um Molly…” He called.

“Yes sweetie.” She turned to look at him with a face totally different from the annoyed aunt face. She called him sweetie most times which made him feel like it was his mum he was talking to. This made Williams, Leo’s uncle, jealous sometimes but he understood.

“I’m already an intern at THRL.” He said. Molly was shocked with her eyes wide opened.

“Wow. You became an intern in a big lab. I’m so happy for you. Your parents would‘ve been so proud.” She said as she played with his face excitedly. They chatted for a while before she left and he saw Kate watching cartoons in the living room. Leo brought the file to the living room and studied it there in order to watch Kate at the same time.

**************

Leo was at the lab, discussing with Dr. Cartel about the lightning absorber. Dr. Cartel was personally helping him with the project. It had been a few weeks and they'd already gotten far with the project. They were currently cross checking it for testing. It was going to rain that day so lightning strikes were expected.

“Once we positively charge the lightning rod, it should attract negative charges from the sky and they’ll create a path for the lightning to pass through.” Dr. Cartel said, trying to be optimistic. Leo doubted if it would work but he still wanted to try it. They set up the machine at the top of the roof and waited for a long time. They were monitoring it from a computer inside the building.

“Charge has been activated and we are ready to receive the negative leader,” Leo said as he was calibrating the machine from the computer, “All we have to do now is wait.” He said as he leaned back on the chair. They waited for about thirty minutes and nothing happened. It was too quiet and only Dr. Cartel and him were on the project. Dr. Cartel didn’t want to involve his other personnel as they had pressing matters at hand.

“You know,” Leo said as he wanted to break the silence, “I never really thought this would work. And I also never thought that I’ll be doing this here in Sky city.” Dr. Cartel looked at him.

“Why did you not think you would be doing this at Sky city?” he asked. Leo sighed heavily as old memories began to resurface in his mind.

“l used to live in Sunshine city, but I lost both of my parents and my aunt had to take me in.” He said with a gloomy look. He was still staring at the screen.

“I’m so sorry about that.” hearing that, Dr. Cartel sympathized.

“It’s okay.” He smiled. Suddenly the computer started beeping. Leo looked at the information and he was delighted. “It seems like negative charges in the sky have been detected and are heading down.” He said. It was raining heavily outside, both he and Dr. Cartel decided to look out the window and see the machine.

The machine was on the roof top of another building and they were in the THRL building. They had to use binoculars to view it closely. They saw a spec of light heading down from the sky. It was very fast but they could still see it. They also saw another one moving from the rod to meet up with one of the branches of the spec of light coming from the sky. The moment they touched, they saw lightening hit the rod and it created continuous flashes in their eyes. It was beautiful. Web of electric currents started moving on the rod’s surface at high speed. Leo checked the computer. “It’s working perfectly. The machine is being charged. We did it! We did it!” He was overjoyed. He could see that Dr. Cartel was happy too but he was sweating badly. Leo could see he was nervous but he didn’t know why?

Dong! Dong! Dong!

Suddenly, an alarm started blaring. Leo checked the computer and could see a lot of red lights. “The system is over loading.” He yelled. Dr. Cartel rushed over and checked the computer and he could see that something was affecting the machine... something he put inside.

“Shut it down.” He ordered. Leo was on it and tried to shut it down but it wasn’t responding.

“I can’t,” he replied with a sense of panic in his voice, “All automatic systems are down. We’ll have to do it manually.” They both looked at the machine and could see multiple webs of lightning striking it continuously from the sky, thereby increasing the intensity of electric currents flowing through it. Despite the scene being beautiful, getting close without taking precautions would only lead to death.

“Oh God.” Leo whispered to himself.

“I’m going to shut that thing down.” Dr. Cartel said as he was headed for the door. Leo blocked his path.

“No sir. That’s too dangerous. You could get yourself killed.” he refused. Dr. Cartel was furious.

“If that thing explodes, the top floor might not be able to handle it. Lives will be lost.” He yelled.

“Then let me do it. If something happens to you, you have so much to lose, I don’t. Besides, I’m the one who initiated this idea.”

“I can’t do that. I can’t take the blame for someone else’s death, especially a kid like you.”

Leo held his hands with desperate feelings, “Please, let me do this.” He said. He didn’t want to be responsible for his death but Leo was right about one thing: Dr. Cartel had a lot to lose. If Leo died, well, he'd just get to meet his parents in the afterlife.

He nodded and gave him lots of insulated wears. Leather boots, plastic cap, rubber gloves, basically any insulator. Manually shutting it down was a bit easy. He just had to pull a lever and shut down some buttons. Only problem was it was still being struck by lightning and there was a high risk of electrocution.

Leo rushed into the building and took an elevator to the roof. He already told those in the building to evacuate those in the upper three floors. He got to the roof and he could see bluish webs of lightning converging on the lightning rod on the machine. He felt a bit intimidated by the sight and he couldn’t help but marvel at the view in front of him. Many people had seen this and they all stopped to their tracks to see what was happening.

KRAAKATZZZZT!

Leo snapped out of daze and he swallowed hard before quickly using a thick wooden stick to open the hatch and flipped all the levers he saw, manually shutting the machine down but the lightning still kept striking it.

“What’s the situation up there?” Dr. Cartel asked through the communication device he gave Leo.

“Negative response. It’s not working.” He replied. In the THRL building, the computer was displaying a red alert.

[MANUAL SYSTEM OVERRIDE FAILURE]

[MANUAL SYSTEM OVERRIDE FAILURE]

“Oh God. What have I done?” Dr. Cartel whispered to himself. He was basically helpless. He rushed to the microphone on the desk, “Leo get out of there and get the people in the top floors to safety.” he ordered.

“I’ve already told those on the upper three floors to evacuate the place.” Leo replied as he turned to leave but he could hear a buzzing sound coming from another hatch in the machine. He opened it and was shocked with what he saw. “What the hell.” His eyes were wide opened as a result of shock and he whispered in a low tone. Dr. Cartel kept yelling in the comms in his ears.

“Leo get out of there I repeat, GET OUT OF THERE NOW!” he yelled. Leo completely ignored him as what he saw surprised him greatly. There was large tube inside the hatch. It had an orange liquid inside it and he could see electric currents dancing inside it with great intensity. The currents were getting bigger and bigger and it started to glow brightly. His brain gave him a signal.

RUN!

He turned to run but he was too late.

KRATATATABOOM!

A huge explosion could be seen on the roof above. Many people had already gathered to know what was happening when they saw the continuous lightning striking that rooftop. When they suddenly saw an explosion, many of them stepped back and some called the fire service. From the mushroom cloud of fire and lightning, a ball of fire moving at high speed hit another building and crashed into it.

KABOOM! BOOM… BOOM

Series of other explosions could be seen and a mushroom of fire could be seen on the rooftop. People ran for safety but other than the first two floors at the top, the rest of the building wasn’t affected much. But it would turn worse if the fire service don’t get there on time. The building itself had security measures and they were activated when the place was about to catch fire.

Leo was nowhere to be seen. Dr. Cartel began to mediate on what to do, he didn’t want to believe Leo was dead and he only had to wait and see. He rushed out of the computer room and went to search for Leo, who was consumed by flames and lightning.