Summary:Firefight

This page contains a chapter by chapter summary of Firefight. We hope this summary will make it easier to find specific areas of the book, as well as providing a quick plot refresher for anyone who doesn't want to take the time to reread the entire book.

Prologue

David gives an account of the appearance of Calamity, the new heavenly body that precipitated the advent of the Epics.

He was six years old, eating a popsicle on the balcony of his apartment. David's father is crying in the background, mourning the recent passing of David's mother.

As Calamity rises, David describes its aberrant appearance: too red, too large, too bright. It bathes the city in a corrupted radiance, and panic ensues.

Part One

Chapter 1

David brings the narrative back to the present, thirteen years after the rise of Calamity.

David and the Reckoners are engaged in an operation to take down Sourcefield, a powerful Epic who just moved into Newcago. Sourcefield can fire electrical projectiles and transform herself into electrical energy. While in her energy form, she can use anything she touches as a conduit to travel to another location. This translocation ability works better and allows further movement if the thing she is touching is a better conductor of electricity. This gives her a great advantage in Newcago, since the city has been transmuted into steel.

David manages to dodge a few of Sourcefield's energy blasts, and then arms himself with what he hopes is Sourcefield's weakness: a water balloon full of Kool-Aid. With Tia's warning over his earpiece, he barely avoids Sourcefield as she teleports into the room where he is waiting. He throws the balloon, hitting her in the chest. As expected, the Kool-Aid appears to negate Sourcefield's power.

Unfortunately, she's still protected by her energy field, and David's attempt to shoot her just makes her very angry. Her temporarily suppressed powers roar back to full strength.

Chapter 2

David retreats into a hallway but an explosion flings him into a wall. Prof gets trapped in an energy bubble and Tia orders the mission aborted, but David says that Sourcefield is afraid of the Kool-Aid. David lures Sourcefield into chasing him, then rides a zip-line from a balcony but ends up dropping to the street since Sourcefield blasts the zip-line. They lose track of Sourcefield but David deduces that she went underground.

Chapter 3

Sourcefield chases David, yelling that she doesn't believe that he killed Steelheart. David taunts her into chasing him blindly, while having backup Enforcement officers nearby as a contingency. David heads for their primary trap inside a building, and Sourcefield stops following, so they order some of the officers to chase Sourcefield with balloons to urge her onward. Sourcefield is able to elude the balloons and fight off the officers, but David gets her to chase him again, and he goes to a residential building, and enters one of the apartments and goes into the bathroom, closing the door. Sourcefield enters through the wall, and David triggers the trap, a barrage of Kool-Aid from the ceiling, and showers spraying the beverage throughout the small room. David rips her mask off, revealing a middle-aged woman, and shoots her at point-blank range, killing her.

Chapter 4

David exits the building, and Roy, one of the enforcement officers, along with his Core, bring out Sourcefield's body as onlookers gawk out in the street. David goes to a separate building to meet Prof and Cody. Prof says that he sees a pattern in the three Epics that they have fought recently, and that he thinks he is being targeted by someone familiar with him, and that he has a suspect but he doesn't want to discuss it further. David suggests that Prof try to use his powers but he refuses to since he would then be corrupted. Prof also says that Megan is evil and corrupted, despite what David believes. The mayor and city council show up, and Prof tells David to talk to them.

Chapter 5

Mayor Briggs compliments David on defeating Sourcefield, and offers to have David's rifle replaced, and asks him to walk with her. She presses him for the Reckoner's long term plans, now that they have essentially declared war on the Epics, and David says they have a strategy but declines to elaborate on specifics. Roy hands over some flower petals that were on Sourcefield's body, which come from Babilar, formerly known as New York City, which was also where Mitosis was working, lending credence to Prof's theory about an Epic conspiracy.