Natalie

Natalie tossed her head back, sending her dark blonde ponytail sailing over one shoulder. Natalie is 5’8”, hair almost halfway down her back, slender yet curvy, with laughing blue eyes and an easy smile. She’s one of the easiest going of the heroes; was, rather.

Natalie, like her best friend Jak, didn’t get to be anywhere fun on the night everyone got powered up. But where he was sick, she simply had to work late at the hotel she managed.

She should have been off at 11 pm. She should have been at a party with her friends. But one of her coworkers hadn’t shown up for his graveyard shift, and since she was the manager on duty, it was her job to stay until he either came in, or until it was slow enough that she could leave. Which wouldn’t be until roughly 1 in the morning.

11:55 rolled around. Her head was pounding from the inane calls she was receiving, so she put one of her underlings in charge of the phones, left someone else to cover the front desk, and stalked outside to have a cigarette.

By the time she got to the designated employee smoking area she already had a Camel Turkish Royal stuck between her lips and was bringing her Bic up to light it. Flick. Flick. FLICK. No flame.

Irritated beyond description, Natalie threw her cigarette to the ground and tossed her head back to scream.

PAUSE

An angel dropped from the sky, wings flapping slowly, to land right next to Natalie. He stuck his hand into her head, turned on her power switch, having a little difficulty because it seemed to almost get stuck at two distinct intervals, then, job finished, pumped his wings once and shot back into the sky.

PLAY

Natalie vocally vented her frustration to the moonless sky, and the wail was accompanied by a ten-foot-long burst of liquid white fire that shined brighter than the halogen lamps surrounding the hotel.

Startled, her mouth shut of its own accord, cutting off the flame. For a second she just stared, speechless, convinced she had lost her mind and hallucinated the fire.

Long minutes passed while her thoughts ran in circles. She decided at last that a test was in order. Looking down, she saw her discarded smoke lying on the littered gray sidewalk, and an idea struck. Natalie crouched to pick up the cigarette. Standing back up, she held it at arms length, wanting to light the tip, not roast it to ash.

She took a deep breath, pursed her lips, and slowly breathed out, willing the fire to come out. Again the brilliant white flame shot from between her lips, this time a much thinner jet due to her nearly closed mouth, but still enough to not only flash fry the entire cigarette but to light up her hand as well. Had she still been an ordinary mortal, Natalie would have given herself third degree burns and needed immediate medical attention. Now, however, her skin just looked a little blacker, kind of scaly almost. Even as she watched it resumed its normal pinkish hue.

Natalie clapped her hands in glee like a little kid on Christmas morning that just got the toy she asked for.

The urge to smoke forgotten, she threw her head back one more time, breathed in as much oxygen as she could possibly hold (which seemed to be more than before, for some reason; did her lungs get bigger?), and lit up the sky like a dragon.

***

Tell us what you think: How will Natalie use this power? For good or evil?