Best Friends

Lightning cracked across the sky, the loud tumble of thunder followed soon behind.  The rain fell down in hard sheets, soaking the clothes of the two people staring at each other.

Lightning flashed across the sky, lighting up their faces.  One had blood dripping from their nose and mouth, the other had their left eye swollen shut, a large gash across their right cheek.

“Get… Up…”  the one with the broken nose breathed, looking down at the one with the busted eye socket.  The one with the busted socket just grinned, spitting a wad of bloody spit at the other’s face.

“Fuck you,” they murmured, slowly standing up.

Thunder made its way across the sky again.  They stared at each other more, the one with the broke nose crying out and bringing a fist to the other’s face.  The busted eye socket caught the fist, pushing it away.

“How long do we have to keep fighting?” they whispered, hazel eye staring into the other’s green ones.

“Until one of us dies,” the other responded pulling their hand back.

“You were always so over fucking dramatic,” the hazel eyed person grumbled, their wet body suddenly cracking with their own lightning.

“And you were always an asshole!” the green-eyed person responded, their body suddenly smoldering.

“Heh, can’t catch fire if you’re wet, eh?” the hazel eyed person said mid-chuckle, gasping for air when an overly warm fist hit their stomach.

“You lure my friends from safety, sent them to be murdered like they weren’t our friends, families and loved ones and you laugh, in my FUCKIN’ face!?  I will die trying to kill you.”

The rain slowly started to let up 45 minutes into them starting their fist fight again.  The hazel eyed one started to laugh, small bits of sunset peeking through the storm clouds.  Once the rain finally came to a halt, the hazel eyed one, threw a ball of lightning toward the green-eyed one.  Green eyes screamed, falling to the ground, twitching.

“Let’s go, Phoenix, I ain’t got all day,” the hazel eyed one taunted, a small lightning storm in the palm of their hand

Phoenix gasped and coughed, trying to catch their breath, trying to ignore the electrical surge throughout their body.

“Your friends were weak.  They hid their powers to not disrupt and break down the powers in charge.”

“You are the weak one, Lightning Bringer.  You sent them to the people who did this to us in the first place.  You sent them there so you could murder them yourself, you FUCK,” Phoenix screamed, their body bursting into flame.

Lightning Bringer cackled, their own body suddenly covered in raw electricity.

“And they still died like squealing pigs!”

At the same time, they threw their powers at each other, the explosion causing sirens to go off, police and other bystanders surrounding them.

Phoenix saw all the people, people who have watched them grow up, whisper to their children about how wrong Phoenix and Lightning Bringer were, how they were abominations.

“You hear the whispers, don’t you?” Lightning Bringer yelled, the crowd coming to an eerie quiet.  “They find us… Evil, without even knowing us.  Your fire and my electricity could save them, but no.  They’d rather damn us than let us help them.”

Phoenix looked at the crowd; cops on their radios, guns drawn, small children peeking through their parents legs. An old woman Phoenix had sat between the legs of as a child to get their hair braided clutched their shawl tight around her shoulders.  That one stung more than Lightning’s words.

“If you turn that off, they’ll kill you, no hesitation.  Black and have the power of fire at your control?  You were dead the moment you were born,” Lightning Bringer continued, their body crackling still.

Phoenix never felt so naked, so vulnerable in all their life.  Lightning Bringer noticed and smiled sadly.

“You may hate me for what I did to our friends but… I’d die holding onto the truth about what actually happened than tell it to you,” they said, their power slowly leaving, their dark skin showing up.

The crowd gasped at who they saw, the whispers coming back in full force, cell phones capturing video.  Everyone started screaming when the bullets rang out.

Lightning Bringer, expecting to have gotten killed, was still standing.  Phoenix had dived in the way.  They stood still for a moment, their flame dying down, the crowd suddenly riddled with sadness as the one who tried to protect this small block of home from white gang members started dying right before them.  Lightning Bringer started mumbling to no one and everyone.  Phoenix should have been the one to live.  Phoenix was supposed to bring revenge.  Lightning Bringer screamed, their body turning into a blinding light of power.  The crowd started screaming and running away, the cops trying to figure out where Lightning Bringer went through their temporary blindness.

Cop cars were sent flying into officers, lightning strikes from the clear sky struck the helicopter that hovered overhead.

Phoenix’s bullet fulled body suddenly caught fire.