The first time that Preston donned his superhero persona wasn't even intentional.

He had been walking around late at night for a short walk when he came across what appeared to been a group of drug dealers or the like harassing a young woman. Without even thinking, Preston had rushed in and put a stop to them, his powers making it easy to take them all out.

The woman thanked him endlessly, and promised not to tell anyone about what his powers that she had seen, since he had saved her life.

It was then that Preston realized that his power could be used for good.

He adopted the name Pyrobolt, and from then on, became a crime-fighter.

And he didn't plan on stopping anytime soon.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Preston loves being a superhero. Really, he does.

But right now, he could really use a break. Because in the two months that he has been crime-fighting, he has been shot multiple times, whacked upside the head with several blunt objects, stabbed, thrown from the tops of buildings and out of windows, shanked... repeatedly, and one time, he was even backed over by a car.

So in short, thank god for his healing powers, or he'd be dead. Very, very dead.

Sure, he could quit, but what would be the point of having superpowers if he wasn't going to use them, right? Someone had to stand up for those who can't protect themselves, and it was going to be him.

But now that Rob was over at his place visiting for a few weeks, Preston finally had a chance to relax. No one was going to miss Pyrobolt for a week or two, right?

Though, Preston was going to have to be careful not to show any kind of powers around Rob while he was over, because Preston may have gotten himself on the news by accident (he didn't notice anyone recording him fight), which also may have been seen by Rob who may have asked Preston about it and Preston definitely said something stupid that pointed to his identity, but to be honest, he really didn't mind too much, more mad at his own stupidity over all else.

Because, to be honest, Preston couldn't wait to tell the Pack about his superpowers.

He knew that superhero identities were supposed to be secret and all, but Preston knew that this wasn't something that he could hide from them. He knew that they would be accepting of him, and he trusted them more than anyone else to keep his secret. But he hasn't told them yet, mostly due to the fact that he didn't know how to tell them. He couldn't just call them all up on Skype and be like "Hey guys, I've got superpowers!" That would be... interesting, but Preston decided that it would be best to tell them all in person.

Besides, it was only two months until the Pack had their winter trip together to Canada. That's when he would tell them.

But Rob was a special case. No matter what, he was the one that Preston was going to tell first. There was no one that Preston trusted more than him. He still wasn't sure if he was going to wait to tell him, or just wind up spilling the beans while Rob was staying over at his place.

And speaking of Rob... he had been acting very strange lately. At least, more than usual. The main example of this was the fact that he was only wearing hoodies or long-sleeved shirts whenever Preston saw him, despite the fact that they were in Texas, or that he would occasionally catch a glimpse of Rob gazing at his right wrist with a weird look on his face, but whenever Preston tried to ask him about it, he would just deflect the question. Preston ended up just not asking anymore, though he was dying to know the reason behind his strange behavior.

But Preston didn't really have time to think about it at the moment, since he was currently attempting to make the two of them pancakes for breakfast.

He was flipping the pan in an attempt to bake the pancakes, but it wasn't going to well, the pancakes instead looking like a gooey mess. Frustrated, Preston groaned, dropping the pan with a loud clang onto the stove. Note to self, Preston thought, read the box next time before trying to bake pancakes.

Preston's thoughts were interrupted as his body suddenly froze up, a twitch rocking his body for a moment before it went away as soon as it came. Preston shut his eyes, taking a second to compose himself before taking a deep breath.

Unfortunately, one of the downsides of Preston's powers was that sometimes out of nowhere, he would twitch, usually lasting only for a second or two before it goes away. Preston found that they happen whenever he doesn't use his powers for a prolonged period of time, like a sort of pent-up energy (well, he did have an asteroid in his chest, so he guessed that the energy had to go somewhere). He usually gets twitches every half-hour or so, and they would persist until he used either his flames or lightning for a moment.

The spasms would worsen and occur more often if he doesn't tend to them; eventually leading to a full-on paralyzing one like when he had first used his flames (he had learned that the hard way). But it wasn't too much of an issue, as he could just dispel them by letting his flames out for a second, or as he often did accidentally, create a thunderstorm outside (surprisingly, it was the most inconspicuous thing he could do, but he's pretty sure that Rob has started to notice). Any of the three things would usually sate his twitches until they came back again.

Turning his attention back to the pancakes, Preston turned off the stove before stepping out of the kitchen for a moment to make sure that Rob was nowhere nearby, before walking back into the kitchen and rolling up the sleeves of his jacket. Gazing down at the pancakes, Preston concentrated on the warmth in his chest, feeling the heat spread though his body until he felt it burning to the tips of his fingers. He smiled in satisfaction as flames began to light on his hands, and he returned his attention back to the pancakes, trying to concentrate as he tried to figure out how exactly he would bake them.

After mulling it over, Preston took one hand and created a small ball of flame in his palm, before launching it straight at the pancakes. Of course, that hadn't worked out too well, frying the pancakes to a crisp, while Preston jumped back from the bits of batter that went flying across the kitchen.

Preston groaned loudly at the mess. Why did I think that would work...

Figuring that maybe the pancakes were still edible, Preston put what he could salvage of the pancakes back on the stove and turned it on (to hide the evidence of a misused fireball) and called out. "Rob! I made breakfast, so come down and get it before I eat it!"

"I'll be down in a second! Let me freaking sleep!"

Hearing Rob's voice echo through the house, Preston pretended to busy himself with the pancakes, mumbling to himself as he heard his friend come into the kitchen, of course, wearing a hoodie. "Wash your hands first." Preston said subconsciously, pointing to the hallway. He heard Rob sigh, before turning and walking away.

I guess we're going out for breakfast... Preston thought to himself, taking his disaster of a breakfast and dumping it into the garbage. Content, Preston leaned on the counter, his head in his hands as he waited for his friend to finish. He let his gaze trail around the room until they landed on a tiny, clear container sitting on the edge of the counter, among some clutter. When he saw it, he jumped up with a startled expression. It was one of his spare sets of contacts... He must have left it out the last time he got home from being Pyrobolt.

Ever since that fateful night, Preston had to start wearing contacts... not to help him see, but in order to hide his now glowing electric blue eyes. He and Landon had bought a bunch of colored contacts that were the closest to matching the old color of his eyes, and Preston only wore them whenever he recorded or was around people. He had several pairs stashed around the house in case of emergencies. He thought he had collected them all before Rob came over, but apparently he had missed one.

He quickly snatched up the container and hurried to his room, wanting to hide them before Rob got out of the bathroom.

As he walked back though the hallway after haphazardly throwing his contacts onto his bed, Preston noticed that the bathroom door was left cracked open, and he could hear the sink being turned off. Dismissing it, Preston continued on until he noticed a glowing green light reflected in what he could see of the mirror, making him stop in his tracks. Curious and puzzled, Preston silently crept closer to the door, trying to figure out the source of the light, only for his eyes to shoot open wide when he realized where it was coming from.

No way. No way...!

The light was coming from Rob, whose eyes were glowing a starling green color rather than the dark brown that Preston was accustomed to. Rob wasn't looking at his reflection, rather looking down at his wrist. Preston shifted his gaze to look as well, only to see that there was a freaking flower growing out of Rob's wrist, as well as dark brown veins running up his arm. To Preston's amazement (and disbelief), Rob didn't seemed fazed by it, instead inspecting the blue rose with a small smile.

He watched Rob, transfixed, until Rob looked up at the mirror, and Preston quietly shuffled away from the door, afraid of being seen. His mind a whirlwind of thoughts, he let his steps guide him back to the kitchen where he just stood, his eyes still wide.

Did I just see... what I think I saw? He asked himself. But, despite the frantic state his mind was in, the answer was obvious to him.

Preston knew that he wasn't the only superhuman out there, seeing as how one of his inspirations to become a superhero were the two superhumans who were sighted in Florida. But Rob having powers too?! Preston wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't just seen what he thinks were probably superpowers in the bathroom and that probably explains the hoodie doesn't it...?

More so, the question that Preston was puzzled about was why Rob hadn't told him.

The two were almost as close as friends could get, and Preston had been completely prepared to trust Rob with his biggest secret... but obviously, his trust wasn't reciprocated.

Preston knew that he shouldn't be hurt as much as he was, but he couldn't help it. He tried to tell himself that Rob had every right to keep something that huge as a secret, but Preston just couldn't shake his sadness off.

"Preston?"

Preston jumped at the call of his name, too deep in his own thoughts to notice Rob walking up right behind him. Rob was giving him a confused look, and Preston tried to play it off as if he hadn't been scared.

"Preston...is everything okay?" Rob asked again, growing more concerned.

No, I just found out that one of my best friends had freaking superpowers too, and doesn't trust me enough to tell me. He thought to himself, but what came out of his mouth was "Yeah, sorry, you just scared me, that's all!"

"Oh." Rob said, looking relieved as his usual demeanor returned, as if nothing was wrong.

Because he doesn't know that anything is wrong. Preston told himself. He doesn't know about you, and for all that he knows, you don't know about him.

"Well, should we go grab something to eat? I don't think those pancakes were edible."

I trust you...

"Yeah. Sounds good. Chipotle?"

"Sure. I'll just go fix myself up a bit first."

But...

Why don't you trust me?

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------  

A few hours had passed since Rob and Preston had gotten breakfast, and now the two were lounging around on the couch, Rob flipping through the channels on TV while Preston watched next to him. It was a few hours before they had to start recording, so they just decided to waste time for a bit.

Nothing interesting was on, but Preston's phone was dead, and he was bored, so he let Rob continue on scrolling through the channels.

One Chipotle breakfast and a twitch-induced thunderstorm later, Preston was still inwardly screaming about what he had seen earlier, but he did what he thought to be the wise thing, and he stayed quiet about it, and tried to act natural. There was a reason why Rob wasn't telling anyone about his powers, and Preston realized that it would be best for Rob to come forward about it when he felt ready. Who knows, maybe he was just waiting for the right moment to say something about it, like how Preston was waiting to tell the others about his own powers.

Preston was snapped out of his thoughts by something on the TV catching his eye, and he stopped Rob, saying "Hey, can you go back to the last channel?" Rob nodded and switched it back.

It was a news program that Preston didn't recognize, showing a newscaster talking about a blurry picture on screen next to her. The caption on the screen below read: "Another Superhuman Vigilante Sighted in Canada?"

The picture showed someone perched on what looked like a rooftop, gazing over the streets below. The picture was very blurry, and was obviously zoomed in to show the person of interest. Preston couldn't make out much of the shadowy figure, except for a trench coat and what looked like a scarf flapping in the wind.

That, and his glowing green eyes.

"... picture was taken at the scene, where a group of criminals were seemingly apprehended by the vigilante, the criminals bound in tight vines, with leaves and flower petals littering the alleyway..."

The puzzle pieces started to click together in Preston's head as Rob's face paled. Presto cast a glance at Rob, and upon seeing the look on his face, his thoughts were confirmed. He stifled a chuckle, feeling a sense of déjà vu at the situation.

Well, looks like the whole be-a-superhero thing wasn't exactly an original idea. Better question, why does he look like some kind of rip-off Tuxedo Mask?

Attempting to relieve the heavy tension in the room, Preston told Rob that he could change the channel, doing his best to make his voice sound bored and uninterested. He heard Rob sigh quietly in relief, before beginning to flip through the channels again.

Just you wait... Preston thought, a grim smile on his face, Wait until you find out that you aren't the only one hiding something... Nothing's going to prepare you for that.

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------  

Once night had befallen the city, Pyrobolt sprang into action.

He jumped from building to building, rooftop to rooftop, propelling himself through the air with bursts of flame he scanned the streets below for his target.

Preston had picked out the outfit for his alter-ego carefully, trying to be discreet while also wearing something that he felt was representative of him. He was clad in a white hoodie and dark blue jeans (which, Preston winced at how expensive it was to buy fire-retardant fabric), with black boots. His hoodie had a logo in the middle representative of his normal 'fire' hoodie, with the top of the fireball arching into a lightning bolt, colored in shades of bright blue. He had the hood pulled over his head, and he was wearing a red cowl tied around his face, hiding his mouth and the bottom half of his face, as well as face paint over his eyes, one blue and one red (he tried to make them look like flames... it didn't work that well). He had two small hooks on the sides of the cowl that attached to the inside of the hood, keeping it from falling back. He had fingerless red gloves on, and he wasn't wearing his contacts either, his blue eyes glowing brightly in the night.

He was pretty sure that he didn't have to worry about anyone figuring out his identity anytime soon.

He made a sudden stop as he heard what sounded like a gunshot echo through the air, and he spotted what he was searching for in an alley down below. There were a pack of four thugs surrounding a young couple, one of them having made a warning shot with the pistol on his hands, the others armed with bats. Preston narrowed his eyes. Just who he was looking for; they were a group of muggers that had been evading police capture for the past week, ever since one of their muggings resulted in the death of a civilian. Well, looks like it's their lucky day. Preston thought to himself as he jumped off of the rooftop and into the alley way, using a small jet of flame from his hands to slow his descent.

As soon as he touched the floor, all eyes were on him, both from the couple and the thugs.

"I was on vacation you know," Preston shouted, letting the flames spread from his hands up to his shoulders. "I was taking some time off, but you guys really can't go a day without trying to rob someone, can't you?"

While he spoke, he looked at the couple and tilted his head towards the end of the alley leading to the streets, and wordlessly, they ran away, the thugs not noticing as they focused their attention completely on Preston, the one with the gun raising it towards him with a sinister smile on his face.

"You know, you'd think that when criminals saw someone with their arms on fire and obviously a superhero, they would run away in terror, but that hasn't seemed to happen yet-"

Preston's snarky remark was interrupted by the armed thug pulling the trigger on his gun, a bullet slicing through the air and tearing right into Preston's stomach. He stumbled back, clutching his stomach as he felt a sharp jolt of pain, falling to his knees and gasping for breath, his head tilting downwards as he watched blood seep through his fingers.

He heard the thug laugh loudly as the flames began to die out on Preston's arms. "Look at this guys! He's given up!" the thug yelled shrilly, believing that he had won, bending over and leaning towards Preston as he hissed, "This is what you get for getting yourself involved in shit that doesn't involve you, freak."

The other thugs laughed with them, but Preston was smiling as well underneath his bandana. He felt a hot warmth in his stomach as the wound heal, as if it were never there., and he felt his power shifting in his arms as brilliant blue sparks surged across Preston's arms, burning with a whole different kind of strength.

Within a second, Preston yanked his head upwards and jumped to his feet, his right arm flying up and making contact underneath the thug's jaw, sending him flying back with a loud 'crack'. The thug landed on his back, twitching sporadically as the sparks leaping across his face left him paralyzed on the floor. Preston merely shrugged. The thug would be fine in a little bit.

Preston stood back at his full height and looked to the other remaining thugs as he cocked his head to the side. He let the electricity on his left arm replace itself back with the flames from before, and he conjured a fireball in his palm, raising an eyebrow as the thugs fearfully raised his bats towards him.

"So? Who's next?"

(A/N: Wow, that chapter was a pain to write too. But now our story is finally starting to unfold! What events will transpire once the time of the Canada trip arrives? Who knows, because there's, like, three or four chapters before that even happens, but hey, most of the book has to take place somewhere!

Next chapter, we have more of the Prince, go more in-depth about his psychic and telekinetic powers, and follow his perspective as he tries to figure out what exactly is ailing friend from Britain...)