Title: End in Fire
Summary: Some days are harder than others. Some days it takes everything he has to stop himself from setting it all ablaze.
Fandom: Sky High (movie)
Character: Warren Peace
Pairing: none
WARNING: Superpowers, Super Villains, arson and possibly murder
Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me; I just have way too much imagination. The title loosely came from the Robert Frost poem Fire and Ice, which is shown at the end, and the bits of poetry inside are parts of the poem by Mark Raymond Slaughter called Fire Ferocious, which is also shown in full at the end.
AN: None of this is Betaed; I'm the only one who's edited it so sorry for any mistakes.
End in Fire
Warren knew that one day he wouldn't be able to stop himself. One day the world would burst into flames on his command. Glorious heat and fire surrounding him, eating away until there would be nothing left but ashes. He knew it didn't matter how many friends he made or how much he cared for them. Everything would burn, one day. He knew because he loved his mom more than anything else in the world and still sometimes he woke to a room enveloped in flames. They'd long since resigned themselves to living in the most fireproof building they could find and not getting too attached to their belongings.
So he knew that one day he wouldn't be able to stop himself. Eventually hiking out to the landfill or the nearest dump and setting everything in sight on fire wouldn't be enough to calm the inferno raging beneath his skin, even temporarily. He felt like a water balloon connected to a faucet; even with a small leak he was filling up so fast he was going to burst. But when he did he wouldn't be the one left broken, everyone else would suffer when the fire beneath his skin eventually escaped.
You show no mercy – no regard:
A writhing army uncontrolled.
At least you don't discriminate,
Selecting to exterminate:
All dealt with equal pain untold.
There is a dusty crater somewhere in rural West Virginia that he created a few weeks before his junior year. They were visiting some of his mother's cousins and when the pressure built up Warren knew he had to find an outlet. So far away from a city they didn't have an easy dump or junkyard where he could defuse himself. But after hiking into the woods away from the farmhouse where he could at the very least hope to avoid burning another person he found a small lake. Water puts out fire. Hoping to use the water to cool off quicker than usual he swam out near the middle and relaxed. He let go of the tight bands of control he always had on his power and he allowed the fire to come roaring out.
It was like a magic trick. Within minutes he was standing under a cloud of steam on dry land; the ashes of water plants and charred bones of fish the only evidence that it used to be the bottom of a lake. Only a couple minutes, less than five, of setting the fire free and he'd wiped out an ecosystem. That was the first time he truly understood what it was like to hate his power, his father, himself. Because if a small amount of necessary release caused this much death and destruction how much greater would the damage be when he could no longer hold the rest in check? He didn't want to hear pained screams, he didn't want to watch in relief or pleasure as buildings fell, he didn't want to watch the world crumble under flickering orange lights. But he would. After that he could feel the end creeping closer. With each heartbeat his fire surged and time grew shorter.
In time of drought you run amok –
An open chimney of the land.
Prefer to scorch than suffocate:
In blinding zeal, incinerate
To blackened vista now unmanned.
As a child he never used to sympathize with his father. Becoming a Super Villain and burning down almost a whole city for no real reason wasn't something he ever thought he could forgive, much less understand. But now that he was older, now that the same fire that burned in his father's veins burned in his, he understood why Barron Battle had suddenly started burning things. They had to. Fire wasn't a rational element and it wasn't truly controllable. It wasn't something that was just there like Will's strength. It wasn't something he used or enhanced like Layla's plants. It wasn't even something he just created like Zach's glow or that freeze girl's ice. He was a conduit, the end of a hose; fire raged and fought to get out constantly, all he could do was direct it. Sure he could wield it, he just couldn't control it.
There was no rationality to it. Everyone knows that if you let it fire will burn until there is nothing left to fuel it. As an elemental force of nature fire cannot be expected to understand the concept of leaving something behind to create more fuel. It does not live therefore it cannot understand the need for survival. Fire burns bright, it burns hot, it burns everything it can as fast as it can, and then it dies with the fuel.
Destruction be your only goal
For you to vent your jealous wrath
On gentle life with caring soul
And human victims to console:
As you are none, but psychopath.
Some days he wakes up and knows he'll be late for school. On those days when his head is already pounding as flames surge beneath his skin he barely has time to dress before running as fast as he can for the dump. They live on the edge of the city in a shabby neighborhood where most of the buildings are abandoned. Every once in a while a building flares up as he runs past, those are the worst mornings. He can't stop to put it out, he has to run until he's made it the ten minute dash to the wasteland of trash where he can let the fire go. Those days the whole place was in flames just moments after he made it past the wall and it took a long time for it to calm enough for him to bank the flames and keep it from spreading past those cement walls.
He used to be able to get it back under control in just a half hour or so, in time to catch his regular bus to school. But every single day it grew harder and harder to stop the fire. Now, in his last year at Sky High, he tended to miss all his morning classes and leave the whole place coated in ashes. He knows, because his father used to tell him stories about how his powers grew, that he won't be stopped by just a few punches from the Commander or even his son. His fire is already stronger than the Baron's ever was; luckily his will is stronger too. Some days are harder than others and it takes everything he has to keep from lighting everything up. He knows one day the world will end in fire, and Warren will be left standing in the ashes.
So there it is – you are but flame:
Reacting gases to adorn –
With orange flicks of flailing arms,
You're flaunting your demonic charms!
Now leave us for bereaved to mourn.
So many lives to claim
AN: I've had this written, and a couple others, since the movie first came out on DVD and my friend and I watched it years ago. But I figured I could post something to give anybody who cares proof of life. And I'm feeling like a burn everything day so there. Now those two poems in full.
...*...
Fire and Ice
..*..
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
..*..
- Robert Frost
...*...
Fire Ferocious
..*..
Fire! Fire! Ferocious fire!
You restless wall of flame.
Fire! Fire! Roaring higher!
Your fury to never tame.
..*..
You show no mercy – no regard:
A writhing army uncontrolled.
At least you don't discriminate,
Selecting to exterminate:
All dealt with equal pain untold.
..*..
Fire! Fire! Ferocious fire!
You restless wall of flame.
Fire! Fire! Roaring higher!
Your fury to never tame.
..*..
In time of drought you run amok –
An open chimney of the land.
Prefer to scorch than suffocate:
In blinding zeal, incinerate
To blackened vista now unmanned.
..*..
Fire! Fire! Ferocious fire!
You restless wall of flame.
Fire! Fire! Roaring higher!
Your fury to never tame.
..*..
Destruction be your only goal
For you to vent your jealous wrath
On gentle life with caring soul
And human victims to console:
As you are none, but psychopath.
..*..
Fire! Fire! Ferocious fire!
You restless wall of flame.
Fire! Fire! Roaring higher!
Your fury to never tame.
..*..
So there it is – you are but flame:
Reacting gases to adorn –
With orange flicks of flailing arms,
You're flaunting your demonic charms!
Now leave us for bereaved to mourn.
..*..
Fire! Fire! Ferocious fire!
You restless wall of flame.
Fire! Fire! Roaring higher!
Your fury to never tame.
..*..
So many lives to claim.
..*..
- Mark Raymond Slaughter