Dietrich slipped on his fireproof jacket, the one that was made for him back in Germany. He wore nothing beneath it, since it would be incinerated the first moment he became fiery.
He was in the locker room of the MCP, Hero Division. Someone had stuffed a flier for UNTIL in his locker – and everyone else’s – and he was debating on going to work for them. Regardless, he needed to work somewhere, because otherwise the Embassy would start calling to find out where he disappeared to. It was bad enough they knew where he worked. If they knew where he lived, then they would also know where Artur would be.
He still couldn’t believe the dumb luck he’d had with the US embassy in Germany and getting the visa to come to the States. Dietrich had said that he wanted to work for some companies or governments in the States, comparing them to Germany. He presented his credentials, and said he would work provided that he could bring his brother. This was the day after the military came for Artur, giving him the ultimatum that within a week he would have to make up his mind to join them now or be arrested as an enemy of the state, and coerced into working for the military.
The embassy told him that since he was a registered mutant, he could be useful to the governments and other companies there, and they quickly moved him and Artur to the top of the list. Dietrich pawned their mother’s silver, rented the house they had lived in all their lives, and was on a plane to Rome a day before the military would come to fetch Artur. After traveling for two days, during which the two men tried to stay incognito as much as possible without looking suspicious, they arrived in New York and then Detroit. Dietrich had sent his resume to the Millennium City Police, and they scheduled an interview two days after their arrival.
Now he was working for them, many long hours, going on alerts and fighting against rivals and other villains. He ran the radio up from his belt under his coat, into his ear so he could hear the crackle of the police scanner. As he turned it on, someone bumped hard into him, hard enough to make him stumble. He turned around.
“Hey,” said the man who bumped into him, “Move your candy ass.”
“Sorry,” Dietrich muttered, and stood aside, fiddling with his wire.
The man was huge, all shoulders and chest on a pair of spindly legs, and, with all things, a lizard tail. He had brown hair and bright green cat’s eyes, and a face that looked like someone had squashed it in a vise vertically. The man looked Dietrich up and down. “Who the fuck’re you?”
“Feuer,” Dietrich said.
“What kinda name is that? Fiya?”
“Fire.”
“Oh, you’re a real flamer, huh?” The man roared with laughter.
“Yes.” Dietrich thought the best thing to do was to get out of here, so he started to turn around to go the other way.
“I challenge you to a duel!”
“I do not duel,” Dietrich said.
“You’ll duel if I tell you to duel!” the man said, and reached for Dietrich’s collar. Dietrich immediately went up in flames at the attack – not red and orange of a normal brightly burning fire, but the blue-white of pure plasma.
The man screeched and pulled his hand away. Then, impossibly, he got bigger. “You hurt me!”
Dietrich’s fire was starting to melt the lockers near him, and he backed away, heading toward the door. The man roared, ripping out a row of lockers and throwing them at Dietrich. He and other men scattered. Dietrich dove out the door, a door too small for the man.
Not quite, as the man forced his way through, leaving a hole as wide as he was. People screamed. Dietrich kept running, melting the linoleum as his feet hit the floor. The scanner was melted as well. The man roared, lumbering his way through the station, and Dietrich dove out the front doors. The man burst through the front doors, throwing them off their hinges. The man was no longer a man now, but a beast with a huge tail that swatted everything around him. A tiny fairy-like creature flew near him and got slammed by the creature, who threw her through the unbreakable glass of a patrol car.
Dietrich was across the street, along with a gang of cops. “Who pissed off Rocky?” one asked.
“He grabbed me,” Dietrich said. “I burned him.”
“Oh, man,” said the cop, “you’d better get into the next county.”
“Here, hide in here–” and another cop threw open a police car door shoving Dietrich into the back seat. “Lay low!”
Rocky’s head swiveled back and forth, as if smelling the air. Then Dietrich saw his gaze pass over the car, and Dietrich ducked. He heard another roar, then a loud THUD as something crashed down. He heard someone say, “Nice shot.” Then a voice said in the window, “Hey, you okay in there?”
Dietrich looked up at the window to see a man with a goatee and a long brimmed hat, in a trench coat and holding a crossbow. “Yes. Now I am.”
They opened the door and the cops let him out. The man said, holding out his hand to help Dietrich up, “Name’s Van Helsing.”
“Feuer,” Dietrich said, knowing that wasn’t the man’s real name, but still he thought to be polite. He looked across the street to see the huge man sprawled out on the front steps of the police station, with cops milling around him not sure how to move him.
“That should put him to sleep for a while.” Van Helsing clapped Dietrich on the shoulder and headed off down the street. Dietrich decided to go to a different police station to get another scanner.