Disclaimer: I do not own Sky High or its characters, settings etc, all of which belong to Disney. Original characters and concepts belong to me.

Chapter 2: Hot and Cold

The next morning everyone was getting ready for the day's outing to GeoWorld Theme Park after breakfast. Keith was reading the Saturday morning newspaper and commenting on some of the articles, which no one was listening to. Mr. and Mrs. Williams were trying to engage Aunt Margo in polite conversation, but she was too busy airing her disapproval of Layla's vegetarianism. Meanwhile, Warren and Bradley were having an in-depth discussion on active and passive components of superpowers.

"Thus, basically, it's active when the superhero has to consciously power up, it's passive when it's there all the time or it kicks in on its own, like super-healing," Bradley finished his explanation.

"So, something like invulnerability would be a passive component then, right?" Warren responded, and Layla couldn't help smiling. Warren was paying a lot more attention to this genius-type lecture than he ever did when it was Ethan or Denise.

"Good example. Take the Commander, for instance. His super-strength is an active power, he has to intentionally power up in order to activate it."

Except when he accidentally squashes footballs and snaps pool cues, thought Warren dryly, but he kept a straight face and nodded as if the example was purely theoretical.

Bradley continued, "On the other hand, his invulnerability – which is part and parcel of his super-strength – is passive. It's there all the time, even when he's unconscious."

The pyro was about to reply when his cell phone rang. "Is it Will?" asked Layla as he glanced at the caller ID and nodded before answering his phone and walking outside to have a (relatively) private conversation.

When he was out of earshot, theoretically at least, he asked, "So, what were you guys up to last night when I tried to get hold of you?" He'd left a message on Stronghold's voicemail the night before about Knight-Fire #1.

'Oh, nothing we couldn't handle,' Will replied cheerfully. 'A couple of super-charged bank robbers, but we cleaned them up, no problem.'

"Are you sure?"

'Honestly, Warren, the City is not gonna fall down just because you're not here,' came Kate's voice. Evidently Stronghold was on speakerphone.

Magenta was also there. 'Actually, Kate, I think it's less that Warren's concerned about the City's welfare and more that he'd love an excuse to come home!'

"No comment," replied Warren.

Ethan joined the conference call from where he was at the Metrocity Hospital, and got straight to the point. 'So, about this comic book that Brett Simmonds wrote?'

"Twenty questions," replied Warren, meaning he couldn't exactly speak freely, and there was a collective groan from the others. It always took much longer this way.

Will went first. 'Okay, in your message you said he didn't give away your real name or anything to do with us, right?'

"Right."

'Does the comic reveal the full extent of your powers?' asked Ethan.

"No. Only the first two, which is what he knew about."

'Your appearance?' put in Maj.

"Some features."

'Hair streaks?'

"Not the middle one, which is the most obvious one, so that's fine."

'The tattoos?' asked Kate.

"Yeah. So I'm keeping my jacket on."

Will sounded thoughtful. 'So there isn't really that much which might compromise your secret identity?'

"No. So the obvious question is, what do we need to do about it?"

'If we report this to the NCS, Brett will be hauled in for questioning and probably lose his license,' Ethan pointed out.

'And Amber will lose her partner, which isn't really fair on her,' said Kate.

"No," Warren agreed. "The thing is, they make a good pair; I wouldn't wanna break that up if it's not really necessary. You could say it's the lesser of two evils, I guess."

'Here's what I reckon,' said Will. 'If you see him, give him a good clout upside the head and we'll leave it at that for now.'

Warren smirked. Yeah, he could handle carrying out that instruction, no problem.

Layla managed to finish her breakfast despite Aunt Margo's tirade, and she decided to go outside to join in on Warren's phone call with Will. After that lecture she really felt the need for some friendly conversation.

As she passed the bathroom she spotted Keith listening at a partly open window. She went into the room in time to overhear Warren saying, "The thing is, they make a good pair; I wouldn't wanna break that up if it's not really necessary. You could say it's the lesser of two evils, I guess."

"Didn't your mother tell you it's rude to listen in to other peoples' phone calls?" she said, and Keith jumped away from the window guiltily.

"I'm just protecting my interests," he replied, rather haughtily for someone who had just been caught out. "Tell me, was there ever anything between Warren and Amber?"

Layla answered cautiously as she wondered where this conversation was going. "Yeah, they dated for a few months in high school, but it wasn't that serious."

A lot of the problem had been that during the months following Homecoming Warren had been working through his issues about Will's father and his own, which meant that he wasn't really ready for a romantic relationship at that point in his life. Much as Amber wanted to help him through that time, it was something he had to do alone and she came to respect that, and they ended up deciding to put things on hold, pretty much indefinitely.

"Yeah well, I don't think he's really over her."

Layla resisted the urge to laugh outright at that suggestion and managed to answer calmly, "Why do you think that?"

"Well, you can't deny what he was just saying about breaking me and Amber up."

"What makes you think that he's talking about you?"

"It's not just that. I kinda overheard them talking last night before she left."

"Making eavesdropping a bit of a habit, aren't you?" Layla forced herself to keep a reasonably neutral expression as she waited to hear how bad the security breach was.

"From what I could gather, it really sounded like he was offering to, you know, have an affair."

She breathed an inward sigh of relief that her cousin didn't overhear anything too incriminating, at least as far as classified information was concerned. Still, it would be an idea to try and get Keith to stop suspecting Warren of anything. "But you didn't actually hear him say anything improper?" she quizzed him.

Keith had the grace to look a bit embarrassed. "Uh no, but I worked it out for myself. I'm not stupid, you know, and I can see what kind of guy he is."

"That's called stereotyping, Keith," Layla replied, narrowing her eyes slightly. She was getting fed up with her extended family and their prejudices. "I suggest you drop the subject."

He looked after her in confusion as she strode out of the bathroom. He could swear that the potted plants on the window sill had just been rustling slightly, but there was definitely no breeze indoors.

After agreeing on a time to meet for lunch, the family split up to go around the theme park. Bradley took it on himself to act as tour guide for Layla and Warren, with his brother and Amber tagging along as he gave vivid descriptions of each of the rides, embellished to freak his brother out, no doubt.

As the name suggested, GeoWorld followed an Earth Sciences theme, with all of the rides based on some sort of geological or geographical feature. There was the Earthquake Motion Simulator, Maelstrom Wave Swinger, Waterfall Log Flume and Plate Tectonics Bumper Cars, among other things.

"I can see why Zach wanted to come here," Layla said to Warren.

"What, so he could spend the day permanently terrified but pretending to be cool to impress Maj?" he replied. "Yeah, that sounds like him."

"Oh and that's one of my favorites, the Volcano of Doom." Bradley continued his guided tour, pointing to a volcano crater with a tower sticking out the top. "You sit in a gondola and it goes up through the crater to the top of the tower, and then it spins around and around until you're dizzy. Then it drops you at ludicrous speed and it stops you only just before you smash into the ground!"

Keith looked rather apprehensive about the whole idea, but Warren had another concern.

"What's with the steam coming out the top of the tower?" he asked.

"Oh, that's part of the whole 'volcano' decoration. They don't usually have so much steam though, it must be a new upgrade. Very cool!"

"Very hot actually," Warren said quietly to Layla.

"How hot?"

"Extremely hot." He gave her a significant look which indicated that he wasn't just guessing, he could sense it.

"So, what's that over there?" she asked her cousin brightly, pointing at the rollercoaster which was in the opposite direction. Everybody turned to look and Warren disappeared into the crowd. It was the oldest trick in the book, but it worked nonetheless.

A few minutes of Bradley's animated description of the Raging River Rapids Rollercoaster later, her cell phone rang. She moved a bit away from the others to answer it.

"Layla, I need you to call Will," Warren said before she could say a word. "Get him and his parents here right now, and you should probably get Amber and Brett to do their thing too."

"Sure. What's going on?"

"This thing's about to live up to its name. I can sense a hell of a lot of heat in here, hotter than anything I can make. I've never been to a real volcano, but I expect this is what lava is all about. And it's rising. It's already part of the way up the inside of this tower."

"Where are you exactly?"

"In the maintenance area below where the people get on the ride, through the 'Staff Only' door at the base of the volcano. But you'd better not come anywhere near here, just tell the others where to go."

Layla didn't respond to that. "Okay, I'll call the Strongholds now," she replied, hung up and called Will using the emergency ring tone.

He answered on the first ring. "Hey, what's wrong?"

"Could you get yourself and your folks here ASAP, because Warren senses that this Volcano of Doom ride is about to turn into the real thing."

"A real volcano? Can Warren control that with his pyro-psionics?"

"He can sense it. I suspect he's trying to control it too."

"He's gonna kill himself," Will muttered, half to himself. "Right, be there in a few minutes."

Layla returned to the others to find Amber, Keith and Bradley discussing which ride to go on first.

It seemed that Keith was trying to get his girlfriend to go with him on the River Serenade boat ride. "I see no point in getting scared out of my mind on those thrill rides," he was saying. "Doesn't a peaceful boat trip sound much nicer?"

"Sounds boring," put in Bradley.

"No one asked you," replied his brother.

Amber practically batted her eyelids at him. "But I want to go on one of those exciting ones first, sweetie. Like the Maelstrom."

"Great idea, let's go," said Bradley.

Layla reckoned this was her cue. "Bradley, could you wait till later, please? I really want to go on that one with Amber."

She gave the cryokinetic a subtly pointed look, which she picked up straight away. "Oh yeah, it's a female bonding thing," she agreed with a very sweet smile as Layla linked arms with her in an apparently girly gesture and led her off. When they were a safe distance away, Amber stopped and turned to her with a concerned expression. "What's wrong?"

"There's a problem. Warren says someone's turned the Volcano of Doom into a real volcano."

"What?"

"He reckons there's molten rock feeding up through the center tower and pretty soon it's going to erupt."

Amber looked very worried at her news. "How could he possibly know that?

"Part of his new powers is the ability to sense fire," Layla explained.

"Lava is not the same thing as fire."

"I know, but thankfully his powers aren't that fussy. It seems to work with heat in general. Anyhow, I've called the Strongholds and they should be here in a few minutes, but I think they might appreciate some help from you guys."

"Right, I'll call Brett." Amber took out her cell phone. "Thanks, Layla."

As Layla suspected, Warren was using his pyro-psionics to try to keep the lava from rising up the column. Despite what he'd said to her, he privately suspected the temperature was not actually as high as in a real volcano. Still, the molten rock was definitely hot enough to cause a lot of damage and injury if it erupted.

He looked up at the level above him where the gondola was being loaded up with people, and for a moment he was torn between what he was doing and the urge to go and warn them. But he knew that above all else he had to concentrate on not losing control of the building heat.

Whatever it took.

By the time Amber and Brett had evacuated the citizens from the ride that was about to start and from the surrounding area, Will had arrived. He met the two of them at the base of the volcano and they went through the 'Staff Only' door. Along the way they came across a few technicians and other employees who were obviously trying to figure out what was going on, and Will told them all sternly to evacuate. The last staff member they met was busy arguing with Layla about what exactly Warren was doing, sitting on the floor like that, and whether or not he had the authority to be in a restricted area.

"That's irrelevant," Will stated as he overheard the last bit. "You need to get out of here right now."

The man looked at Brett and Amber, whom he evidently recognized in their superhero costumes, nodded and took off.

As he left, Simmonds said to Will, "You know, you aren't in charge here. This is our turf."

"Can you do what Warren's doing?" Will challenged.

"What is he doing?"

Layla replied, "He's keeping this thing from erupting."

Brett looked quite stunned. "Whoa. I didn't know he could do that."

"Where're your parents?" Layla asked Will.

"They'll come if they can, but there's some wacko busy flooding the Australian Outback with seawater, which will probably keep them busy for quite a while."

Will's cell phone rang with the emergency ring tone. He saw it was Ethan and put him on speakerphone.

'The satellite imagery of ground temperatures in your area confirms Warren's theory. That volcano IS going to explode pretty soon if you don't find the perpetrator because Warren can't hold it back forever.'

"Any idea how long we have?"

'I don't know. I'm a doctor, not a volcanologist.'

Layla asked, "What about the person who's causing this? Any idea who that might be?"

'There's only one known geokinetic with the ability to create and manipulate lava, and that's Magmaniac. He's pretty much a super-thug for hire, generally employed for ambitious schemes only because his price is extremely high.'

"Any known weaknesses, etc?" queried Will.

'He has to be in contact with the lava he's creating, so you'll probably find him somewhere in the basement of the ride. That's about all I can offer you.'

"Well, at least we have somewhere to start. Thanks." Will closed his phone and turned to Layla first. "You need to get out of here."

"No."

He ignored her response and turned to Brett. "You need a good clout for that comic book of yours, but in the meantime, keep an eye on Warren and try not to let him overdo it." Then he said to Amber, "You're with me."

"But my powers can't do much to help you," she said apologetically, "The lava will melt my ice straight away."

"Every little helps. Come on!"

They left and Layla turned her attention back to Warren. He was sitting on the ground, leaning up against the wall with his eyes closed in concentration and his fists clenched as he exerted his pyro-psionic powers on stalling the movement of the lava. What concerned her most was that he was sweating, something pyros didn't do often, and it wasn't because of the rising temperature around the tower. It was obvious that he was taking strain quite badly.

Considering how hard he was concentrating, Layla wasn't sure if he was conscious of his surroundings, but she did know that he wouldn't really want Brett Simmonds around. She looked up at the blond pyro. "I'm not leaving. You might as well go and make yourself useful."

Brett nodded a bit hesitantly and then left. Layla looked back at Warren in concern and placed a gentle hand on his arm, wishing she had more to offer than just moral support.

"You shouldn't be here," Warren murmured through clenched teeth.

"I know," Layla replied simply, giving his arm a light squeeze and he smiled slightly.

"Just do me a favor," he continued in a strained voice. "This time, don't try re-warming, just let it happen. It'll stabilize faster."

"Okay," she answered, worried. She had a horrible feeling she knew what he was talking about.

Will and Amber worked their way around the tower, looking for any sign of Magmaniac. Almost on the other side, they spotted a technician standing with his back to them at an observation window into the tower shaft. Will strode over to him quickly.

"Hey, buddy, you need to evac–" he started to say until the man turned around and blasted him into the side of the volcano with a handful of lava.

It seemed that they had found their villain.

Amber tried to freeze him with her powers, but as she'd predicted, he simply melted any ice she threw at him. Brett came around the corner and hurled a few fireballs at him, but he barely even noticed before turning back to the observation window, which they could now see was broken open so that he could work on his lava flow up the tower.

The two heroes hurried over to where Will was picking himself up, and helped dust him off.

"Relax, I'm fine," he told them. "Just got caught off-guard." Then he noticed Brett. "What are you doing here anyway? I told you to keep an eye on Warren."

Simmonds looked a bit sullen, but he went off obediently anyway.

Will turned his attention to the super villain who was standing with his hands through the broken observation window. From the angle where he was now, Will could see through the window that glowing molten rock was moving slowly up the tower shaft at Magmaniac's command.

He flew over to the villain and tackled him to the ground, but another blast of lava threw him aside. Dodging the flying lavaballs that Magmaniac was now hurling at him constantly, Will flew in again and this time he managed to cuff the villain with a neutralizing bracelet. The man was still quite strong, and although not in the league of Will's super-strength, he continued to fight back. In the end Will had to knock him unconscious to keep him out of trouble.

Amber was watching the lava in the tower. "It's not cooling down by itself," she said. "If Warren lets go his control of it, there could still be enough heat here for it to erupt."

"Can't you do something with your powers now?" asked Will. "I mean, if Magmaniac's not actively adding to the heat, maybe you can cool it down, at least a bit?"

She looked doubtful, but she tried anyway. To her surprise, the tower started to cool down and it became easier and easier to counter-act the heat. With some effort, she began to cover the shaft with ice and they could see through the observation window that the temperature of the rock was going down.

Brett re-appeared at Will's elbow and said, "You go check on Warren. We can take it from here."

As the ice progressively covered the tower, Warren finally relaxed and unclenched his hands. He opened his eyes and shuddered suddenly, whispering one of the worst Chinese expletives he knew.

"Headache?" Layla asked, but she suspected it was a lot more than just pain.

"Worse," he replied quietly, beginning to shiver. "Cold."

When Ethan met them at Metrocity Hospital's level 7b, the floor for super-powered patients and research, he and Layla had a short but intense argument about Warren's earlier request to allow his temperature to drop unhindered. In the end, he reluctantly agreed to it.

It took just over half an hour for Warren's temperature to reach 98.6 and stabilize. A few minutes later his tattoos and hair streaks faded, much like the last time.

Soon after that Magenta phoned. Will told her what had happened to Warren and then put her on speakerphone.

'The guys at MIT ran some simulations, based on the satellite photos, to see what would have happened if Warren hadn't done his thing,' she reported to them. 'It wouldn't have been anything like Mount St Helens, but anyone nearby would have been seriously burned. The people on the ride would probably have been killed and from the looks of things, practically everybody in the park would have had some degree of burns. Just so you don't think it was a pointless act of heroism on Warren's part.'

"Thanks, Maj," sighed Layla. "But what was Magmaniac up to in the first place?"

'That's a little more tricky to answer,' Magenta replied. 'Magmaniac's a hired thug, but there's no sign of whoever employed him.'

Ethan agreed. "Yeah, usually there's some huge ransom demand or doomsday announcement just before one of his volcanoes goes off."

"But it didn't go off," Will pointed out. "So maybe they aborted their plans at the last minute."

Denise came into the ward, greeted them and looked over at Warren. "How's he doing?"

"Stable," replied Ethan. "He should be coming around soon. Did you find out any more about the burglary?"

"Attempted burglary," she corrected, and then explained to Will and Layla. "While you people were dealing with your volcano, someone tried to break into the DNA Vault."

'Who'd try a stupid stunt like that?' wondered Magenta who was still on the speakerphone. 'I've heard it's impossible to even get past the first checkpoint.'

"What's the DNA Vault anyway?" asked Will.

Ethan took over the explanation. "One of this hospital's specializations is genetic research of super powers. The Vault contains DNA samples of the most powerful superheroes – and villains – including your parents, Will.

"My parents? Why? What are they researching?"

"They're still trying to identify the gene or group of genes responsible for super powers. That's why inheritance of powers is so unpredictable."

"So who tried to steal DNA samples?" asked Layla, trying to get her mind on something other than worrying about Warren.

"They don't know, the thief got away," replied Denise. "But he or she got pretty far through the Vault's security system. Somehow the person managed to bypass the hand and iris scanners on three security checks. The mainframe logged a different authorized user each time.

'That's quite impressive,' commented Magenta. 'Sounds like some kind of technopath or else one hell of a super-hacker. Anyhow I gotta go, chat later!'

She hung up and the others sat in silence for a few moments.

"It's a horrible thought, but I think it was all a diversion," Ethan spoke up and they all looked at him curiously. "If the volcano had gone off like Maj's tech buddies simulated, this hospital would have been flooded with burn victims. It would have been almost easy for someone with that kind of power to sneak into the Vault while everyone was occupied with a crisis."

Warren woke up just then, which drew them from their speculation.

He looked up at the concerned faces surrounding his bed. "Did it again, didn't I?" were his first words, and Layla nodded sadly in reply. He sighed and gave her a wry half-smile. "Well, I'll try not to be such a pain in the butt this time."

"You failed!"

Magmaniac stared sullenly at the visitor to his holding cell, a middle-aged man in a lab coat, who continued in the same harsh whisper, "I hired you to create a diversion, a huge one. The whole hospital was supposed to be mobilized to care for burn victims, instead no one got hurt at all."

"Hey, that's not fair!" the villain objected, "You never told be about some suped-up pyro who can stop a volcano or the Superman wannabe. You only told me about the ice-chick and the flamethrower."

That stopped the man short. "Wait a minute, what pyro?"

Magmaniac shrugged. "Never saw him – or them – but someone was clamping down on my lava flow, big time. I couldn't even get it up to proper temperature."

"That's unbelievable, the amount of power required to counter-act yours…"

"Yeah, so cut me a little slack, huh, doc."

Another figure entered the cell. "Don't worry, Dad. I know exactly who he is, and his friend too. And I even have a DNA sample for you."

The man took the two small sealed plastic test tubes handed to him, each with a strand of hair in it, and looked at them closely.

The labels on the test tubes had the names of the subjects, under a heading that read Top Secret: Project Prometheus.

A/N: Special thanks to Jeune Chat for her suggestion a while ago which inspired the crisis in this chapter, although this might not be quite the "concealed volcano of DOOM" she had in mind… ;)