Inferno Juno

I always knew I was not meant for the good of the world. This was quite unfortunate, but there is a purpose for existing evils, and I proudly fulfilled that purpose. I have burned down factories, offices, banks, gas stations, and even courthouses.

Sometimes, I have an agenda regarding where I set fire to, like the night burning of a factory that illegally employs and mistreats children, the corrupt politician's mansion, and private planes or yachts that carry bribe-seeking judges.

And sometimes, I just need to scratch an itch, like lighting up an empty gas station or that one time when I torched "Speed Woman"'s flashy racecar (why does she even need it). But all the time, I was sleek enough to escape all the nosy heroes.

They coined me “Inferno Juno,” and after the courthouse 'extravaganza,' I was inducted into the “Villains Hall of Fame.” Buckley was awfully excited about that.

When I was a toddler, my mother died mysteriously while breastfeeding me. My father came into the room to find his wife slumped over the chair, facing towards the ceiling with empty eyes, and me, still happily enjoying my meal.

He was horrified. But the coroner could not decipher the cause of my mother's death, and my father went on to face his biggest fear, being a single dad. He used all the help he could get from my aunt and grandmother and buried himself in his work.

Often times, he would come home to my aunt crying about how I threw my building blocks at her, or how I tried to stab her with baby utensils. Once, I shoved my rubber duck into her mouth when she was giving me a bath, and that effectively ended my aunt's caring for me.

Then came my grandmother, who had a formidable presence. She did not hesitate to bind my hands or to speak sternly to me when I was throwing a tantrum. She would refuse my snacks if I didn't behave in the afternoons, and she started to decorate the place with crosses and portraits of Jesus. She even made me wear a cross pendant. I hated her. Later, I discovered that she didn't like me or my mom much, either.

When I was five, my grandmother read me the story of “The Little Match Girl”. I thought the story was stupid, but I was instantly intrigued by the idea of matches, or more accurately, of the flames the matches can produce. I became obsessed with searching for every match I could find in the house, striking it, and staring into the fire until it burned my fingers.

This move often angered my grandmother, who would lock me in the dark closet for a considerable time. During those times, I would think of “The Little Match Girl,” of how nice it would be if I had a match for some light to keep me company, the same way it did for her when she was feeling lonely in the cold.

Soon, the tiny flames that a single match produced were not satisfying enough anymore, and it always burned too quickly. Luckily, my father smoked cigarettes, and it wasn't hard to locate his lighters.

Using a lighter was tricky for my small hands at first, but once I got the hang of it, I got to observe the beautiful slither of fire for much longer.

As if it was possible, my grandmother got even angrier when she found this out. She yelled at my father for being a smoker and called me a 'demon child.' She started to lock me in the closet all day except for meals and potty breaks. Sometimes I would have accidents in the closet because she didn't hear me crying for the potty, and that would also resulted in me being punished.

One day, she failed to lock the closet door properly, and I was ecstatic to free myself into the hallway. I approached the coat stand and quickly found another lighter in my dad's jacket pocket. I struck the lighter and enjoyed a moment of peace. Then, I found my grandmother napping on the living room chair. I sat down next to her on the carpet, and as a sudden exciting impulse rose in me, I reached up with the lighter and set her skirt on fire.

The fire spread quickly on her cotton skirt, I was instantly fascinated by its speed and its scent and the way it danced upward; how different the fire moved when it had caught something to burn, when it had found a purpose. My grandmother woke up instantly, of course. She jumped out of the chair and started flapping her arms over the flames. She was screaming and hopping around like a cartoon character, and amid her panic, she turned to see me smiling at her, amused by the sight; From her bulging eyes and the way she lunged at me, I think she could have killed me that day.

But instead, and I guess it was lucky for me, she convinced my father, and they decided to abandon me at the orphanage. Miller's Home for Children was a grim place run by a gloomy Ms. Miller, but it was better than being locked in the closet, and it was where I first met Buckley. 

I was crouching in the corner of the playroom, watching the other kids fuss about the broken toys and trying to talk myself out of feeling frightened. Buckley, wearing glasses too big for his face, approached me and said, “Hey, you wanna play Scrabble?”

“What's that?”

“It's a word game! I'll show you.” He sat down excitedly and set up the board on the floor. “This is the board, and here are the letter tiles. You get seven, and I get seven, and we're supposed to make words out of them on the board.” He stopped to see if I was following. “But not just any place on the board; it has to be connected to another letter already there. Here, I can go first, so you'll know.” He smiled at me. His face was so bright I could feel the warmth radiating onto my skin.

He set down the word, “cat”, onto the center of the board. “C-A-T, that's ten points because I get double for going first.” He wrote down, “Buckley-10”, on the notebook he had. “I'll keep score! Now it's your turn. Oh yeah, what's your name?” He looked at me and smiled again. His warmness washed over me, and I felt something snap inside me, like a dam that got broken by the river, and I instantly started bawling.

Buckley didn't get angry at all at my reaction. Instead, he just sat closer to me so he could put his arm around me and said, “It's okay. I cried a lot when I first got here, too.”

I cried on his shoulder for a long time. And then, we played Scrabble all the way to dinner time.

There was a fireplace in the dining room, and it immediately became my favorite spot in the house. Buckley and I would hang around it for as long as Ms. Miller would allow us, which was very long because she wasn't usually paying much attention to us. Those were peaceful days in my life.

We were promptly kicked out of the orphanage when we turned of age. Technically, my birthday is before Buckley's, so he could have stayed for a couple more months, but since we had been inseparable, Ms. Miller decided that we could simply leave together.

Buckley was great with computer and its languages, so he got a job as an IT person working remotely, and we found a basement unit in a loft building to reside in.

A few weeks later, a house down the block from us caught fire. When I told him I had done it, Buckley got very upset. “Why?”

“They were assholes.”

“What do you mean?”

“They disrespected me.”

“What? Again, with this temper! You know, Juno, just because you got angry doesn't necessarily mean the other person disrespected you!”

That was a brand new concept to me. “Don't be so mad. No one died.”

“You are always so hot-headed. Did you know the kids at Ms. Miller's were afraid of you?”

“Because I burned Trudy's sketchbook that one time?” That girl definitely disrespected me.

“And that other time with Harold's blanket? And there were more times, Juno. Jeez, I thought you'd just grow out of it already!”

“Stop yelling at me. I get your point.”

A pause.

“How did you even do it?”

“What do you mean? I sneaked into their house. They've got like, a lot of wood stuff in the house. It really wasn't hard at all.”

“But their house...it's built kind of weird and has strange angles. How did you get in?”

“I climbed.”

“Just...climbed?”

“Yes, and then I climbed back down. What's your point?”

“That's actually pretty impressive, Juno.”

“Thank you!” I was glad to see his expressions ease up, “So...still mad at me?”

He was quiet for a while, then shrugged, “Just...let me pick the target next time, yeah?”

I shrugged, “As you wish.”

“And you really need to, I don't know, learn how to meditate or something. We're not at Ms. Miller's home anymore.”

The first target he chose was a two-story office building that secretly rents its space to child pornographers. Buckley had found that out through one of his many dives into the deep web. Together, we scouted the areas around the building, located the security cameras, and all the possible entry/escape ways. When I looked at the building's exterior, I had a sudden inspiration.

“Buckley,” I said, “I think I want a flame thrower.”

A few weeks later, I arrived alone at night in the condemned office building with my baby flamethrower, which I had built myself through considerable trial and error. It left my hands scarred but my heart proud.  

Something was different with the building that night. There were people in there, filming.

"Buckley," I wore an earpiece so he could be with me the whole time, "They are filming in there!"

"Well, then, you better try to get the kids out first."

"This isn't supposed to be some rescue mission!"

"But it is, now. C'mon, Juno, you can at least try. How many kids?"

"I think only two."

"That's not too hard. Let me see if I can hack into their system and turn off the electricity for a few minutes."

"Yeah, you better," I said under my breath. Then, I swiftly entered the building through a window on the second floor that was not shut. I followed the sound of the kids to the room they were held in and waited around the corner behind a shelf.

"Let me know when you're in position," Buckley said in my ear.

"Already here, buddy."

Suddenly, all the lights turned off, and the building was pitch black. My eyes adjusted quicker than anticipated; all those times spent inside the dark closet helped.

I could hear the pornographers fussing, and they left the room to find the switchbox. I glided into the room while they were leaving and, with my excellent night vision, successfully grabbed the two kids with both arms. They were five, maybe six years old.

"These people are SICK," I complained to Buckley while escaping.

"Make sure you block all the exits," he replied. I never knew there was such a vicious side to Buckley. I kind of like it.

"Wait here," I situated the two kids in a nearby bush.

After making sure the pornographers were still concentrating on the electricity situation, I locked/blocked all the doors on the first floor and climbed back in through the second floor.

I entered the room where their equipment was, doused them with the gas from my flamethrower, and began the part that was most fun for me. I was so happy with the power of my flamethrower as the flames blazed through the set, the cameras, and all the pieces of furniture.

I went out to the hallway and repeated the same action.

Now, the pornographers were all running up to see what caused the commotion, so I ran downstairs and blasted my flames into the lobby.

Just as I was climbing out of the building, I could hear the pornographers screaming, followed by the sounds of sirens.

"Oh crap."

"You're fine. Just get out of there fast!"

"What am I supposed to do about the kids?"

"Leave them. The heroes will save them."

"Good point."

I landed on the ground and instantly started sprinting. When I turned the corner, I ran straight into "Mega Boy," one of the heroes who rushed to the scene. He was 'mega' alright, I was pretty sure my head hit his abdominal area, and I fell back to the ground.

"Who are you?" He demanded with that authoritative voice heroes tend to have. I was so glad I wore a mask and a hoodie that night.

"There are some kids in the bush behind the building!" I yelled and then pushed past him to continue running.

"That was a close one!" Buckley said inside my ear as I was sprinting for my life.

When I finally reached a safe spot, I felt a rush like I'd never felt before. "You know, Buckley. I think this feels really good."

"I feel the same way, Juno."

"Let's start planning our next mission."