AN: I like Flames, not as much as some of its readers, but I do like it. That being said I'm now kicking myself for writing it the way I did because I missed an opportunity. A beautiful amazing ridiculous opportunity. And it only just occurred to me the other day. God what I wouldn't give to be able to just write for a living. There just are not enough hours in the day. Hope you all enjoy this. let me know what you think.

Also I'm still looking for people who might adopt some of these ideas. I'm aware of my limits and of the fickleness of muses, but unexplored potential always feels like a crime to me. Like just the fact that the idea exists is all the justification I need to chase it to the end of my attention and imagination. Being incapable of doing so just doesn't sit right.

Everything was frozen in a moment of perfect clarity. Dad's lifeless body tied to a chair not ten feet away, red slowly dripping from the two bullet holes in his chest forming an expanding pool around him. The smell of copper hung sharply in the air from the blood, it mixed with pungent cigarette smoke, and just a hint of sulfur from the gunshots. The man standing in front of me was dressed in khaki slacks and a black button down dress shirt, blond haired with a cigarette half burned down and glowing cherry red where it hung between his lips. But most prominently of all was the pistol being pointed at my chest. Fleetingly I was almost disappointed that Hollywood lied and there wasn't a wisp of smoke from the just fired gun. More than anything though, in that moment I knew down to my bones that in spite of everything… I wanted to live. Even in the face of death, especially in the face of death, I had a will to live.

Something in the back of my mind seemed to click into place. Energy and heat surged just under my skin, racing out from my heart to fill my entire body. My body held it in for a moment but there was too much energy moving too quickly. A heartbeat later it burst free.

The abandoned warehouse, the hitman, Dad. They all disappeared in a maelstrom of orange flame.

{}{}{}{} Max Anders

"What do you mean Victor is dead?" I bit out. "It was supposed to be a simple hit. Take out Hebert and his daughter, cow the rest of the dockworkers into submission. How did two civilians manage to kill a moderately powerful Rain?"

Brad shrugged and went back to cleaning his nails with a knife.

"One of them went active. Sky flames, strong ones too."

"... even then, a fresh active killed Victor?"

"Firestorm, Max. The whole place went up like it was soaked in gasoline."

"Damn… it's been so long since the Bay had any Skies. I'd forgotten just how ridiculous they can be."

"Not since the vigilante's managed to off Lavere." Brad tapped the flat of his blade against his palm. "This is going to get messy, boss. Triad won't like her running around loose. Not with Kenta running the show, well, not if the rumors about why he's so far from China are true. The vigilantes are going to scramble to get her under their thumb. No idea what the snake, or the mercs will do. But if we try to bring the newbie on board sooner or later there's going to be blood between them and Vic's wife. Not sure even a Sky is worth our only Sun with the control for healing."

I closed my eyes and thought carefully about what I knew about each group and Skies in general.

"Your right, and that's assuming the new Sky wouldn't realize Victor was one of ours, possible but unlikely given he was white and didn't dress like one of the snakes men. It's all too likely they're already against us."

"So, hunt em down and kill em?"

"... No." I tapped a finger against the arm of my chair. "Not yet at least."

"Oh?"

"There's been some very quiet studies done over the decades, starting with a Russian Cloud during the cold war. Even an inactive sky can cause a citywide increase in flame activation rates. Something about their flames reaching out for harmony brings them to the surface in others. Like a mating dance drawing out potential partners. An active Sky has a much more pronounced effect. Even a few fresh recruits of middling flame strength would be valuable. The longer she stays alive the more potential recruits she'll set loose on the city. Even if we're competing with the rest for them the chaos alone could be beneficial so long as we are prepared."

Brad made a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat and nodded slightly.

"Besides, they're alone and untrained, it would take years, decades really, for them to become a credible threat to our organization as a whole. We'll simply have to monitor the situation and step in before they grow too powerful. With a little luck they'll find an inoffensive niche to fill and we'll be able to ignore their existence entirely and just reap the benefits of their presence."

"Well, that's boring, but I guess it works for now. Though I'll be surprised if they last more than a few weeks."

"Perhaps. If they have even the general awareness of one used to the rougher parts of town, that and a Sky's vaunted intuition might be enough to keep them alive until they find their feet."

"I'll believe that when I see them alive and thriving." Brad dismissed airily. With a grunt he left his seat to wander off.

{}{}{}{} Kenta

"A Sky?" I gave the pitifully weak Storm my full attention. "You are sure of this?"

"Yes, sir." They answered promptly without raising their head. "I've only met the one Sky when I left the city with you last year but… I could never forget that feeling."

I leaned back fully in my chair. A Sky. In my city. The Flames roiled under and over my skin casting a purple glow on all around me. Not as annoying as most Mists on a personal level, but infinitely more vexing to contend with. Always pushing and questing and testing and never strong enough to bind me. What few Skies I'd met that might come close were inevitably incompatible. Truly coming so far from Triad controlled territory and staking my own claim where no Skies held dominion was the best decision I'd ever made. If the baby Sky decided to try my patience as so many had before I would kill them. But if they could behave...

The pitiful excuse for a Storm was one of the few active Flame members I could lay claim too. And while Lee was skilled, he had never fully recovered from a head injury in our youth, and that left him singularly disadvantaged compared to most Mists. This was an opportunity. A risky, annoying opportunity, but one I might not be able to let pass.

Perhaps…

"Do we know the allegiance of this Sky?"

"No one has claimed them yet."

Not a guarantee, they could just be staying silent. But if they were not aligned with an enemy...

"Tell the men to stay alert for any news of this new Sky. If they wander into our territory… We will send them to the mercenaries. With any luck they will click and the Sky will be out of the city as often as they are in it. If they trespass a second time I will see them dead."

The man simply nodded acknowledging his orders.

"Now, tell me, why has the protection money came up a thousand dollars short this month?"

{}{}{}{} Colin Wallis

I glared down at the work bench, more specifically my heavily modified flame reactive halberd. Making it carry a charge from my Lightning flames was child's play, a metal baton could have done that much. Getting it to multiply the effect of my Flames so I could expand less Flames was significantly more difficult.

"Colin."

"Hannah." I didn't bother looking up from my project.

"The warehouse fire was one of us, someone new."

That was interesting enough to give her my full attention.

"You didn't recognize the Flame signature?"

"Didn't even need to get close enough to check it. They were Sky flames, Colin."

"... Damn it. Do we know who? Are they one of the gangs?"

"No way to tell just yet. We'll have to be on the lookout."

"Damn, ss if things weren't bad enough, already. I'll have to pass word along."

"Do you think they'll send more support?"

"...No. Much as we might not like it this city isn't as important on the national level. But we might be able to recruit more locally soon."

She hummed noncommittal and started to strip her pistol.

A Sky. Damn it all to hell. If one of the gangs got their hands on a Sky… Or worse if this Sky decided to form a new gang. We really would need to be on our guard in the coming weeks. The city might not be as volatile as Chicago, or Vegas, but things were tense enough. A Sky might be enough to start a gang war just by existing.

But if we could draw them into our cause… I took a deep breath and forced my muscles to loosen up. It would be good to recruit a Sky. It would. They wouldn't be ready to join the fight any time soon, they wouldn't be taking over command from me. The leaders would likely pull them out of Brockton Bay and send them elsewhere for training regardless. This was my command. No wet behind the ears Sky would change that.

Now… If we could just convince the Pelhams to come out of retirement to help contain this. Not that it was likely. Their son and niece were still in high school and dependent on their parents after all, their daughter being a college freshman wasn't much better. Though with a Sky lose in the city, and given their parents history… How likely were they to go active? Well, if nothing else that might get me in the door long enough to try convincing them again.

{}{}{}{} Aisha Laborn.

"Come on, Lisa. Can you find them or not?" I glanced around, last thing we needed was some skin head shit heal getting the drop on us. Yeah we had flames, but there were enough Nazi shits who could light up in technicolor that it wasn't a guarantee of safety. No matter how lazy and quiet the dumb shits were most of the time.

"Don't rush me. This isn't exactly something I have a lot of practice with." The blonde snarked back. "Though they are making it easier with just how much they are leaking their flames." She closed her eyes at the next corner then decisively turned down a back alley. "You know your brother is going to have a fit about this don't you?"

"What doesn't he throw a fit over? But this is a Sky!"

"Don't get your hopes up, girl. You have any idea how unlikely a Guardian Bond is?"

I waved that off.

"You don't win the lottery if you don't play. And if we don't click? We still might get a Sky in our corner. That would be huge! Like, no more bottom of the barrel snatch and grab shit, we could actually move up in the world!"

The Misty cynic just hummed doubtfully. This, this was the problem with this city. No one had any freaking ambition. Not the big gangs, not the regular people, and not even the people I hung out with. 'Always keep your head down, stay under the radar, forget the big leagues, just focus on staying alive.'

Yeah, staying alive was important, but it didn't do a hell of a lot of good if you weren't really living. Right now, all we were doing was surviving on scraps. That just wasn't good enough for me. I didn't really want to be one of those dicks enabling people like Mom. But I sure as shit didn't want to spend the rest of my life squatting in abandoned warehouses and barely having enough to stay fed and warm.

Sure, this was a long shot, and it wouldn't turn things around overnight even if it did work out perfectly. But looking into it couldn't make things worse, and having a Sky on call? Yeah, that could definitely make things better. It was better than just waiting for things to get better on their own.

Surreptitiously I spiked my flames internally. Brian was stuck on the obvious uses of Hardening, but that was because he was boring. I wanted to be hard to notice, and I'd bend common sense over a table to make it happen. This wasn't a part of town where I could just wander around.

"I wish you wouldn't do that. It's always a pain trying to remember that you're here."

"You want to deal with the headache or you want to deal with a couple pissed off Storms and a Cloud?"

"Fiiine. This is less annoying than running for our lives. But if we don't find this Sky soon, we're going to have to bug out anyway. We're just lucky there only passing through the edge of Empire territory."

"Man, they better not be a skinhead, or I might as well just convince Brian we'd be better off moving."

Lisa chuckled but she didn't sound amused.

"Probably, yeah. Shame all the nearby cities are more likely to just kill outsiders."

"I get it, I get it. Shits fucked all over and we've only got crap options."

"That's the only reason I'm even entertaining this goose chase. Either this falls in our favor or we're going to need a real plan. Not just our next minor score. I'm talking some major haul and then tearing out of here as fast as we can with a real destination in mind."

"... I didn't realize things were that bad." I really hadn't. Sure, we were only just getting by. But we were small enough that the big dogs weren't interested in rooting us out.

"That fucking snake is poking around trying to find us. No one knows what exactly his deal is, but last time he went poking around after a small time flame active, they disappeared. I can think of at least a half dozen reasons for them to disappear like that. I don't like any of them."

I shivered and it had nothing to do with the weather.

"Yeah, point. So, we make this work or we get the hell out of here?"

"Honestly? I'm all for making this work and getting the hell out of here anyway."

"Think you could convince everyone else?"

"... Maybe. Brain's going to be the sticking point. And maybe this Sky if we can win them over. Beyond that? I just don't know what we could actually hit that would bring a big enough pay off. Not without taking a massive risk."

I bit my lip. This wasn't really my thing. Stealing wallets, and some snatch and grab, sure. Figuring out how to pull in enough cash to get six teens out of the city to who knows where? Lisa was right we would need to hit something big for that kind of cash.

"You and Brian will figure something out."

She shot me a cheeky grin, but it seemed just a bit hollow. Then her head swung to the left. I felt it too. A small burst of unfamiliar flames that sent a shiver down my spine. They felt warm and soft and inviting. Like a promise of hot chocolate on a cold day. If that wasn't the Sky we were looking for I was a freaking Cloud. Three quick back streets later we found her leaned against a chain link fence.

A lean girl, maybe sixteen with long wavy black hair and eyes that glowed bright orange.

She was powerful. Just being this close to her was enough to drive that point home. Lisa and I weren't weak. In terms of just power we were on the same level of the Empire's better fighters, just with a hell of a lot less experience. This girl though… I'd seen Kenta fight once, at a distance. She wasn't quite that strong, but she wasn't far off from it either. And there was no telling just how much power she'd burned going active and stumbling across the city leaking flames like Mom's sink.

This really might be the opportunity we needed. This girl might just turn everything around for us.

I purged my flames. I didn't need her fighting them to pay attention to me.

"Yo," her head whipped around to stare at us as she forced herself into a shaky as hell fighting stance, "easy, easy. We're not looking for a fight. Though we were looking for you."

She rocked on her feet not lowering her fists and not saying a word. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Lisa open her mouth. I cut her off before she could fuck this up.

"Look I know this whole deal is crazy and you're probably freaking out. Never mind whatever kind of shit show you must have been through to bring your flames out without training. Believe me, we both know just how much that sucks." The girl glanced between us and seemed to hesitate.

"But listen, you think things are bad now? You keep leaking flames like that you're going to be in even more trouble."

"She's right." Lisa cut in. "Anyone close enough with active flames can feel yours right now. If they're as good as me they can even track you while you're letting them off like you are. This is Empire territory. Sooner or later someone will notice. Then their flame active members are going to come looking. No offense, but you don't really look like a fighter. Not yet anyway."

"I…" The girl started then hesitated, her fists came down a little and her stance eased up a bit. "I don't have anywhere to go. I can't, I can't control this." She waved her hands and small licks of flame flickered between her fingers filling the alley with more of the wonderful feeling of Harmony.

Lisa nodded thoughtfully and took a couple slow steps forward.

"That's pretty common for someone who just went active, but we can't afford to wait for you to exhaust yourself. Listen, that fire? It's called Flames of Dying Will. It answers to your willpower. You're confused, you don't have a goal in mind, but your emotions are probably still all over the place from whatever made you go active. The flames are just acting up without a goal, but they answer to your will. You need to want them to calm down. Take a few deep breaths and just," She glanced my way and grinned, "just focus on staying hidden."

I rolled my eyes. Getting the new girl to try my trick should be copyright or something. But if it kept us under the radar… Whatever, I could work with it.

She closed her eyes and almost slipped into a trance.

I nearly missed it. One moment there was an upset Sky standing in front of me and the next it was like she blurred into the background. Like she was a part of the city instead of a person. It wasn't the same as my trick, it might, might, be even better.

"Sky's are bullshit." I muttered to Lisa. Girl just snorted and stepped up to take the Sky's hands in her own.

"Ok that's good. Keep doing that. Now, I know you don't know us, but you can crash with us for now. With any luck we can all help each other out."

The girl's eyes snapped open and stared at Lisa like she could look clear through all her bullshit. Hell, Sky, she might just be able to. Finally, she nodded to herself.

"...Ok. I'm Taylor."

I grinned and slung an arm around Lisa's shoulders.

"Aisha, and this is Lisa. Girl, I'm betting you feel like shit right now but I promise, this is gonna be the start of a beautiful friendship!"

AN: This one is actually really tempting for me. No Endbringers, No Scion, No Cauldron. It's a full on fusion, but given the setting is so far removed from Japan or Italy it isn't immediately relevant, which means the first few story arcs can be dedicated to Taylor finding her feet and some of the major changes made. Then I've worked out a great plot to follow on the setting up stages which leads to Tay getting roped into the larger criminal world which KHR established, comes complete with Reborn shenanigans and lots of fight scenes, assassinations, etc. Also cooking. I don't know why but my muse latched onto the idea of Taylor and company running a restaurant that sets itself apart by imbuing effects into the food through Flames. I know it's weird, but it's amusing me and for now it's the plan I'm liking it because it means avoiding the cycle of knocking off one gang after another. Also, I need a name for this one. Pulling a blank so far.