Inside the Fire
A/N: This is what happens when I get bored on a Friday afternoon. I think it's pretty good. Please, please review and give me your opinion.
- Miss Maddie
He was alone, as usual. Alone, but hardly lonesome. Alone was how he preferred it.
He kept to himself, content to let the others go about their lives. Live and let live. It was not that he thought himself above the other students; he simply couldn't be bothered to notice them, as long as they didn't get in his way.
All he wanted was to be left alone with his battered copy of War and Peace – ironic, he knew, but it was his favourite book. He rarely spoke, keeping his head down and his nose out of other people's business.
Speaking only when spoken to, usually a sarcastic retort, he had immediately been labelled a rebel and a loner. Even the teachers all thought he was "troubled." Funny.
What amused him the most was the way they all avoided him. They gave him an extra-wide berth in the halls, and no one dared sit at his table in the cafeteria. They were scared of him.
There were others who caused much more trouble than he did, and yet he was the one at whom the nervous glances were always directed. They thought he couldn't hear their whispered conversations. How wrong they were.
Of course they were all perfectly happy to gape openly at him in the cafeteria, but they always averted their gazes when he turned his dark, penetrating stares on his onlookers. No one would meet his eyes. They thought, or rather, they knew that he was dangerous.
He had never cared what they thought. He had never tried to scare anyone. In retrospect, he supposed the long hair and leather jacket could seem menacing to some, but that was how it had always been. He could not be expected to change now. He could never be anything but himself.
And then there was the fire.
He had always been attracted to fire, even before his powers had manifested themselves. As a child, he had been fascinated by the way he could touch the flames and never burn. Unlike most children, he had never been reprimanded for playing with matches.
The heat was a constant presence inside him. Rather than having to work to bring forth his power, as he knew the others did, it was a constant struggle to suppress it. It was always there, waiting for the blessed release that came when he let the flames ignite on his clenched fists.
Their "Save the Citizen" exercises in school were never enough to satisfy his lust for fire. They thought that when the lengths of his arms ignited, instead of only his hands, that he was exerting himself. They were wrong.
It had only happened once, a long time ago, but he remembered it all too clearly. He was sitting in the living room, gazing blandly at the television, when his mother stormed into the room, yanked the remote from his hands and switched channels. He vividly remembered the look of horror on his mother's face, but he was young, and couldn't comprehend what was happening. When he saw the tears starts to slide down her face, he knew. At that moment, it was not Barron Battle that was fighting desperately against the Commander. That was his father being slammed into the ground and knocked unconscious. That was his father being dragged away by heavily armed authorities. That was his father being crushed and defeated before a cheering crowd.
As Jetstream lifted the battered but beaming Commander in her arms and flew him around in a victory lap, he felt the heat start to bubble inside him. It grew hotter and hotter, far more powerful than anything he had felt before. Clenching his fists in a practiced motion, his hands ignited, but this time the flames were not stopped at his wrists. They travelled up his arms and down the rest of his body, until his entire ten-year-old frame was engulfed in flames.
His mother was screaming, but he could barely hear her.
The flames and the fury consumed him, until he felt nothing but blind, unrelenting rage. Gathering a ball of liquid fire in his hands, he threw it with all the strength he could muster directly at the television, which promptly exploded. Letting the inferno take him over, he threw more and more fireballs at anything and everything he could reach. The flames raged around him, destroying everything in their path. He knew nothing but hatred, fury and the heat of fire.
With a final, almost inhuman scream, he poured everything he had into the fire. It exploded out of him, and he crumpled to the burning floor, losing himself to exhaustion.
The neighbours had thought he was dead.
He had lain unconscious for three days. It was only after he awoke that he learned he had killed his dog in the blaze.
He had long since known that his power was brought on by anger. He never had to work very hard to be angry. Like the flames, it was always inside him, waiting to show itself at a moments notice. Anger was an easy emotion. He didn't even have to think.
The fire came from his father.
He loved his father, even after everything he had done as Barron Battle. He still visited him in prison. It hurt him to see his father so broken, but he still sat beside him as he ranted and raved about his plans for revenge on the Commander. He was content just to sit and listen. Over time, his father's deep-seeded hatred of the Commander had registered in his own mind. How could he not despise the man who had so uncaringly ripped his family apart?
Everyone expected him to follow the path his father had chosen. They all assumed he was going to become a villain. He let them think what they wanted.
He had played both Hero and Villain in his time, and was still not sure which he preferred. As long as he was fighting, using his power, he was content. Whether that meant scorching crowds of innocent bystanders or plucking children from burning buildings, he didn't know, nor did he care.
It could still go either way.