Counter-Burn.

"She will try it tonight." The watch-captain warned. He slowly walked away, then rode away on his horse. The guard stood vigilant, the Pyromancer had already fooled him once, he wanted a chance to redeem himself. He looked around every corner, checked the sky and the water, he believed he was alone. He was not. If it were not night, her flaming hair would have not been as obvious. She held in her hand a swirling blue sphere.

"You sure this will work?" She thought, her partner was somewhere else communicating telepathically.

"Just do as I told you, make it convincing."

"Well in my defense," She crushed the blue object in her hand and watched her blood swirl with it, it turned into a blue flame. "Dragon's are always authentic." She thought hard and concentrated about her most terrifying experience with a dragon.

"Hey," the guard called out, the young boy from inside the gate looked at him. "Could you bring me my wineskin?" He nodded, he grabbed it from his post and held it through the fence. "Thanks." The guard walked over and saw the boys face. Pure terror rose on his face, the guard looked to see what could only be described as the end of the world rising from the water. Wings larger than the castle they were guarding spread slowly, creating tidal waves as they went. A long neck rose high above the castle and rows of teeth the size of long swords split to unleash hells fire. The guard was speechless.

"Now." Her partner told her, she cast the spell he had taught her and teleported past the gate, then cast the second spell. She felt mist wrap around her body as she assumed someone else's identity. She hated doing that, but she needed that scroll. Hordes of soldiers rushed past her without a blink, who had she become? She passed a mirror and saw for herself. Long blue robes hung off of her, black hair rose from her head and blue runes shone on her skin. She had become what she hated.

"That is not you. Remember." The voice told her. She shook her head as she moved closer to the target. The room was empty now, she checked no runes on the scroll. Cocky. She reached up to grab the scroll and paused. Instinct took over.

"Can you do a sweep of the room? Make sure there's nothing here?" She heard a chuckle on his end.

"Not being impulsive, rare for you."

"This is important ass hole."

"Harsh words," She could feel energy radiating from the room, blue energy. She started to get angry but realized why she was there. She held her tongue. "Nothing big, as long as you don't mind an alarm." She broke the glass with her elbow, a loud alarm rang out. "Guess not, now get over here." She cast the first spell again and within seconds stood outside watching the once very real dragon turn into water and drench the grounds. Not one death. Just some very scarred knights.

"Do you have my end of the deal, Jace?" She turned and Jace's hood still covered his head.

"Of course Chandra." He held out his hand as she watched the vial fill with the liquid she wanted.

"What is this?" She held up the scroll. He smiled and pulled down his hood.

"A favor for a friend, as promised." He handed her the liquid.

"Thanks, I guess." Jace turned around after she thanked him. "So what, we go our separate ways and pretend we still hate each other?" He stopped and turned back to her. She sat now, staring at the bedlam she caused, and couldn't take credit for.

"Yes." She turned back. "I believe that is best, you would lose your reputation as a rule breaker, and I would lose everything. May the fates bring our paths together again."

"You would know." She yelled at him. "Don't pull that, you can look into the future, you can see what will be. I can't, I live in the present, not the future." Fire started to crawl across her skin. "I never should have agreed to this, you used me you bastard." She was fully on fire now. Jace had to play his cards right.

"You would have done the same thing to me if the circumstances gave you the same hand it did me." Chandra stopped and still kept a close glare on him. "You of all people are used to playing with the hand you were dealt, but for someone who is used to dealing the cards holding the hand can be troubling. I had to call in for help, and I knew you were the one who could help me."

"Lies." She yelled again, she grabbed him and teleported them to a distant place. "You could have easily pulled this job off yourself, the reason you wanted me to do it yourself was because you didn't want me flying off the handle and killing people." Jace froze, Chandra was right. Jace looked around and saw they were in an open field, a pure disadvantage for him. She screamed as the flame moved from her body to right above her, she jumped as her phoenix started to take form. Jace tried to cast a spell but she countered it. She took his creature for her own, a dragon beside her rose with him.

"What are you doing?" Jace yelled. "Every things done and over, you can leave and forget this ever happened."

"You just don't get it asshole, you can read my mind but you still haven't found what I'm upset about."

"In my defense you are upset about a lot of things." He jumped out of the way and avoided the dragon. He created a wall of ice over the dragon and froze the mist it was. But the Phoenix burned right through it. He finally went all out and cast sleep. Everything she had fell to sleep, her fire extinguished and sleeping. Chandra hit the ground and stared at him, he took the opportunity and grabbed her mind. He wouldn't hold it for long but he knew he could at least look and erase the memory of what she was angry about. He slipped inside her mind and fell into the fire. He looked, her anger stemmed not from the fire, the job or anything he thought it was. It grew from her heart, her emotions grew and took over her mind. All rational thought slipped out the window as she was angry. He couldn't find a reason for her anger. He got thrown out, as she snapped out of it, she did the same to him. And to his surprise she got in with ease, she burned through his head and put images in his head.

"Please stop, what do you want?" Jace yelled.

"Read your own thoughts for once Jace." She turned and left, not just teleported but planeswalked away. He kept thinking, but he couldn't figure out what she had taken or what she had put in. He still had the scroll and he still had the co-ordinates. But he couldn't find out what she had done to him. He picked himself up off the ground and went directly to his destination. The plane was light, peaceful, rivers ran quietly and the sun was shining.

"Where am I?" Jace checked the co-ordinates he had in his head. "Clever girl." He tried to remember where he was, it was familiar. Creatures shorter than him waded past him. Creatures taller than him pushed him out of the way, no one trusted him. He kept walking until he came upon a small cottage. He knocked on the door and a small older woman answered the door.

"Is Chandra Nalaar here?" The old woman had a shocked look on her face.

"Why yes, please come in." The woman could move surprisingly fast as a large ball of flame was shot directly at Jace's head. He himself only managed to just miss it.

"Chandra damn it what do I need to do? This scroll could save someone else's life."

"So could this liquid, I brought you here as insurance," Blue wires held him down to the ground as she moved him. A young boy was on the table, badly burned and barely breathing. "If this doesn't work I take your life right now, if it does then you get to live but you will never speak to me again."

"Chandra it will work, I swear to you." She laughed loudly.

"Like I would believe you, the master of lies, the cold deceiver, no you are collateral. If you die then I will take the scroll to the man you seek. Though it's been a while since I've seen him."

"That's it." Jace broke the bonds and stood before her. "What do I need to do to get it through your flaming head that I never meant any offense nor did I want to harm you, I'm done. The potion will work, now give me the correct co-ordinates, I'm through playing Chandra."

"You just don't get it Jace."

"Chandra?" The boy asked, barely audible for their ears.

"Yes, honey, I'm here." She extinguished herself and tended to the child. "Here drink this." He slowly drank the liquid.

"Chandra?" He asked.

"Yes?"

"When did you dye your hair?" Her eyes grew wide as she hugged him, his skin started to reform on top of itself. "I can breathe!" He jumped up and down, and hugged her tightly. He also ran to Jace and gave him a hug.

"Now run to your mother, she will be so happy." She was crying and smiling. She touched Jace's head and gave him the co-ordinates. "You lived up to your end of the deal Jace, now leave and never come back." Jace was blind-sided.

"What is going on?"

"When my spark ignited, I was enveloped in flame, for 5 years that boy has been like that because of me. I swore and made an oath that I would help him, and you were the reason that I could. I thank you, but leave now, If I see you again, I won't hesitate to kill you."

"No," Chandra turned again, tears still on her face but now a serious face traded out her smiling. "What did I do?" Chandra screamed again, fire all over her skin, some blue some red.

"You just don't get it," She took her blue hand and withdrew six strings of memories. "Maybe this will help you understand." She severed the strings and threw them at Jace. Jace barely managed to catch them. She crumpled to the floor as she fell asleep. Jace looked at the strings, and analyzed them. Pictures of them training together, her and him. He couldn't understand. He stored the strings in his bag and planeswalked away. The blind eternities were uncomfortable as usual but now they stored what lay in his head. Chaos, he hated it. He reached his destination and soon found him.

"Beleren, why are you here?" Garruk asked, to weak to stand up and fight.

"Take this." He cast the scroll and Garruk stood fully healed, curse gone. He summoned a large creature and it was clean.

"Many thanks Beleren."

"Do you know where Vegeant is? Or Koth?"

"Both, Mirrodin. Why?"

"My reasons." He walked off and planeswalked away. He knew where Mirrodin was and he knew he needed their help. The blind eternities all pointed him the right way as he walked along the lines straight into chaos. Mirrodin was still barren and broken from the remnants of the Phyrexian invasion. He wandered around the plane for a few days, seeing the damage done to the world by these things. Corpses of horrors still lingered. Finally as he came to a small refugee camp where he could see their outlines, Ajani was easily recognizable white fur danced in the sunlight, Koth as well rugged outline like a mountain. They both stood guard as the town rebuilt itself anew.

"Jace, it's been a while." Ajani said as Jace crossed the threshold. "What brings you here?"

"Reasons, I want to learn Red magic, pyromancy particularly. Do you happen to know any here?" They both stood stunned. They whispered among each other. "No." They smiled and knew it was him.

"Our village here has 3 pyromancers and 2 geomancers, however I can teach you as well if you would prefer." Jace looked around, metal everywhere, he never liked it here.

"That will be fine, many thanks Koth." He looked around, no sign of her or anyone she used as a spy. "Where do we start?"

A/N Time skip: Approx. 6 months.

Jace felt slightly off balance as he landed back in Loyrown. In more ways then one. Fire had burned his skin, the once blue runes now tainted with fire. He felt powerful, but weaker than he was before. He morphed himself into a kithkin and began his march toward that cabin. Every step he took fire burned through him as the six strings danced along his fingers. 1 month of swimming through the coldest lakes to allow heat to radiate over his body. He realized that all the emotion pointed to one reason. 2 months walking through volcanoes and moving the rocks they boiled away, he knew what she thought about now. 3 months of sitting in the fires and he knew the fury she had. He knew nothing about her yet was able to feel as she does, he felt excited about the new knowledge but furied about the knowledge itself.

She hates you walk back now.

Jace kept walking into town and to the cabin, he knocked on the door softly. He just had to get the voice right.

Be prepared to die boy, you won't last long.

"Yes?" The same old woman answered?

"Pardon my intrusion madam, but do you know where a Miss Nalaar lives? I believe her first name is Chandra?" The woman gave him specific directions to her new cabin, about a mile outside of town. He smiled, and began another trek.

She didn't know much about love, she was raised on the streets, the closest thing to love she knew was the whores that worked on the street corners. She never had a mother, nor a father, never got to experience first love.

He knew parental love, first born son and heir to the family throne he was treated with respect and revered for his power. He was loved by his parents but soon set off to find his own life earlier than most. But he had never desired love nor a girl to call his own.

She knew a lot about death, she saw it every day no matter where she went. To help her get over it, the guildmasters would make her kill guilty people. Desensitize her to it so to speak, it worked she never even blinked about engulfing someone in flames.

He knew a lot about death, he was a master of it. Decades of killing to get answers had helped him get past the initial shock of death. But he never killed innocents, only soldiers, thugs and criminals. He had morals, though he didn't act like it. He was more worried about his own deeds than anything else.

She knew a lot about life, she lived it every day. She never wasted a day, even when she relaxed she was outside trailblazing or swimming, she was always the one that loved life. Never wanting to waste any of it, and no one could tell her that it wasn't her life to live.

He knew very little about life. He was schooled from a young age, with exceptional intelligence most of his life was squandered inside books and studies. He never had a childhood nor many friends, even now it's not much different. No friends, only alliances.

These two knew nothing in common, only the spark gave them reason to speak to each other. Jace from his years of exploring the secrets of the underworld had his own scars, Chandra had her scars from years of exploring as well, only hers physical and his mental and emotional.

Don't blink, you just might miss it.

"Hello?" He said as he knocked trying to get her attention. She answered with a slight amount of bed head, it looked like she had just dozed off.

"Yes can I help you?" He held his staff in his hands as he entered, she closed the door behind him. "I'm sorry for the mess, I've been busy."

"You are searching for the eye of Ugin, Chandra." Jace said, losing his kithkin form.

"Jace, what the hell happened to you?" She said, watching him reform, the once lithe and small man now was well built, muscled and burned.

"You happened." Fire crawled across her skin as he approached. She was shocked when his did the same, some blue some red. "I think I finally get it Chandra, I didn't ever think of it because I am mostly devoid of emotion besides the ones I hide. This fury, this rage, this passion, this emotion. I think I finally understand now, all these days you have lived with these emotions I finally get it." He pulled the strings out and layed them across her head. She was paralyzed as he did so. The memories slowly absorbed back into her skin.

"What do you want Jace?" she finally asked after getting the memories back. Now covered in blue and red flames, but smaller than the ones she usually had.

"For you to choose, Chandra." Half of his body was covered in mist and blue runes, the other half burned with fire and was armored with magma. "I hate being both. You have to choose, love me, or hate me."