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

Chapter 6: Wildfire

Excerpt from 'An Overview of the Physiology of the Fire Elemental: An Introduction'

By Dr. Ethan Franklin, PhD

The Fire Elemental has complete control over all fire in their vicinity regardless of the source, which entails possession of all of the fire-based powers, viz:

1. Pyrokinesis – the ability to create fire internally and control it to a limited extent.

2. Pyro-psionics – the ability to control fire created externally to an exceptional extent, also including with the ability to sense the presence of fire.

3. Pyro-absorption – the ability to absorb fire created externally and use this fire in a pyrokinetic manner. This ability has been falsely labeled as an extension of pyro-psionics in super-medical literature to date. This paper aims to prove, inter alia, using current research on the only known fire elemental in existence, that pyro-absorption is a separate power worthy of individual recognition.

4. Pyro-construction – the ability to create and control flame constructs.


He stood on the top of the tall building that used to be their headquarters and looked down on the city as it burned, a pair of fiery phoenixes circling around him.

Arctic Flame had been right.

He'd known it at the time, actually, but he'd tried to bury the feeling under his sense of morality and his affection for his so-called teammates.

But they weren't really on the same team, were they? They were like a small town Little League while he was a Major League star. And Arctic Flame had recognized that. Quite the evil genius, that woman, and quite useful after he'd broken her out of the Ultra-Max.

Or at least, she had been. Before he neutralized her and then burnt her with her own fire and left her in his smoldering wake.

That should have been sufficient warning not to cross him, but those little fools still tried to change him, turn him back to their goody-goody side. But, against the power he wielded, they had no chance.

He roasted the guinea pig, flambéed the human lighthouse and boiled the puddle geek. His former best friend was more difficult, courtesy of his invulnerability, so instead he exploited his weakness for his girlfriend. After all, she was on his to-do list too.

Silly girl, trying to sneak up on him with a flame construct while she directed its course from a safe distance, watching through binoculars. In moments he had her fire creature in his psionic grip, preventing her from letting go her control of it, and there was no distance 'safe' enough. Slowly, agonizingly, he crushed her construct, leaving her mindless.

That pretty much took care of her boyfriend too. Emotional wimp.

As for the 'greatest superheroes on the planet', they who had been responsible for his father's downfall, they couldn't even give him a flesh wound. Eventually, when the two heroes were completely exhausted, he neutralized them and slow-roasted the woman in front of her beloved, once again killing two birds with one stone.

He left the best for last. That trusting little girl who thought she could still find good in him. He took her to the rainforest she loved so much and with twisted glee he watched her sob and beg for mercy as her precious trees were reduced to ashes around her in huge stretches of fiery destruction …


Layla woke up in the middle of the night, alone and cold.

That was definitely odd, considering she was usually snuggled up with her human hot water bottle. They'd only been married for three months, but it was funny how quickly she'd gotten used to the warmth of sharing a bed, especially with someone who had such a high temperature.

Shivering a little, she pulled on her robe and walked through to the living room where Warren was sitting at the table with his head in his hands. A small flame construct was flitting around the room near the ceiling looking like it didn't know what to do, which was more a reflection of Warren's state of mind than any sign of sentience.

Pyro-construction was definitely his favorite of his new powers, and not only because it didn't give him a headache like pyro-psionics tended to. He would often have a fiery phoenix hovering around the room just for the fun of it. The novelty would probably wear off soon enough, but she reckoned he deserved to show off a bit after the struggle he'd had learning to use that new power.

It had come as quite a surprise all round when Warren found that without the desperation and adrenaline involved in his first construct, pyro-construction was actually quite difficult. Layla had reflected privately that it was kind of nice for Kate to be the one to teach Warren something for a change, considering she had always been in the shadow of him and Will.

Layla sat down next to him, not sure what to say considering 'Can't sleep?' seemed a bit obvious.

"Sorry I woke you," he mumbled.

She asked gently, "Bad dream?"

"You have no idea."

"So give me one."

Warren sighed and, without looking at her, replied in a monotone. "Went dark side, killed my friends in the nastiest ways possible, burnt your rainforest to the ground."

Layla managed to stop herself from flinching automatically at the last bit because that would only make him feel worse. "It was just a dream, probably a side effect of Ethan's latest super-Tylenol experiment," she reasoned. Ethan had been working on a cure for Warren's pyro-psionic headaches. "It doesn't mean anything."

"I know." He glanced at her briefly and then looked away again. He seemed to suddenly notice the flickering shadows that his construct was causing, and dispersed the phoenix into a small shower of sparks with a flick of his fingers.

Focusing on his hands on the table, he said quietly, "What scares me is that it's possible."

She answered carefully, "Theoretically, it's possible that any of us could turn evil." He looked up and gave her a disbelieving look. She continued, "Look, Will could become an egomaniac psycho, I could turn into Poison Ivy, Ethan could change into a mad evil genius."

He snorted at those suggestions.

"Well, that's about as likely as you going evil. I mean, you had your chance there with Arctic Flame, and you resisted." He started to respond to that but she cut him off. "And don't think I don't know how much of an ego-trip using your powers can be."

He gave her a searching look. "Do you really?"

"Maybe not to the extent that you do, but I think I have a bit of an idea how you felt." It was her turn to gaze into space as she spoke. "Sometimes, like when I'm in a big park or a forest, and I reach out with my powers and I can feel all of the trees and plants and grass up to the edge of my range. And they're all there waiting for my command; they'd do whatever I asked, even if it was something horrible, and it feels … good, knowing that I can get them to do anything I want."

She looked at him. "Am I close?" Warren stared at her for a long moment and then nodded, and she finally asked the question she'd wanted to for the past three months. "So what stopped you?"

"You, when you said my name. And knowing the others were there too. I just couldn't go through with it."

"That's sweet, Warren, but I don't think we had that much to do with it, apart from maybe interrupting her little monologue." She took his hand and threaded her fingers through his. "I think you did that on your own."

He looked at her intently. "You have far too much faith in me."

Layla smiled sadly. "You have far too little."


Despite Layla's reassurances, it took Warren a long time to fall asleep again. He couldn't help wondering if he wasn't too powerful for his own good, even though he had to admit his new powers had come in handy quite often.

Of course, every superhero went through times when they were faced the temptation to use their powers for their own gain. Still, he never would have thought that Layla of all people would struggle with that in the same way he did. And even though he considered her a bit idealistic at times (usually the times when she was calling him totally cynical), it meant a lot to him that she trusted him so completely.

He could only hope he would be able live up to her faith.


As soon as the fire truck pulled up outside Maxville High, Warren knew this was no ordinary fire. For one thing, your average school lab accident didn't tend to get this far out of control so fast. Perhaps more significantly, the fire felt different somehow, like it was being caused by a pyro. He couldn't explain the feeling; it was just one of those weird things that seemed to be part and parcel of pyro-psionics.

If this situation involved a pyro, even an underage one, it would probably be an idea to deal with it as his alter ego. Over the years he'd become quite talented at separating from the other firefighters on his team, despite the fact that they all practiced the buddy system, in order to use his powers or switch identities. It seemed that all those Plausible Excuses for Absences During Crises Requiring Superhero Intervention essays they'd had to do for high school English turned out to be far more useful than he'd thought at the time. Warren's approach also involved using the persona he'd cultivated at high school – keeping people a bit scared of him generally kept them from asking too many awkward questions.

Warren reached the science lab long before the rest of the firefighters, and he spotted the perpetrator through the windows. There was no doubt whose offspring he was, and he was facing off with a girl who appeared strangely unafraid of the fire…


Nicola Cantrell had always had a sneaky feeling that her lab partner, Dorian Battle, knew far too much about her, and about one thing in particular. He'd kept trying to provoke her ever since she started at this school a month ago, as if he was trying to get some sort of … reaction from her. Then today, in science class, her suspicions were confirmed when he casually rolled up his sleeves to reveal red flame tattoos that looked an awful lot like…

When his hands suddenly burst into flame, her first thoughts of That-is-not-natural were closely followed by her second thoughts of And-you're-one-to-talk. Meanwhile the rest of the class scrambled for cover and some of them made it out of the door before a fireball from Dorian started a blaze that effectively blocked their escape. Nicola tried to help, but she couldn't control it properly and she only made the fire worse.

She tried to stand protectively between Dorian and her classmates, although there wasn't much she could do apart from making like some sort of human shield. And with the way the fire was spreading and the speed Dorian was creating more, there wasn't much she could do in terms of shielding either.

"Come on," he taunted her. "Show me what you've got."

At that point every flame in the room, even the fire on Dorian's hands, vanished into wisps of smoke. He stared at her, first in disbelief and then with growing interest.

Nicola shook her head slowly. "I didn't do that."

There was a deep voice from the doorway. "I did."

Dorian glared around at the intruder, a young man wearing a black trench coat and sunglasses, with long dark hair that was slicked back into a ponytail. He was leaning against the door frame with his arms folded in an apparently casual pose.

"Knight-Fire." Nicola heard one of the girls whispering from where they were hiding under the steel lab desks.

"I prefer Eagle," whispered another. "He's much more of a proper superhero."

Being new to Maxville, Nicola had never come across either hero, but as far as she was concerned, this Knight-Fire was great. To be able to quench all of that fire in one move … that was simply amazing. She watched in awe as Dorian threw a fireball at the cowering kids, only to have it stop in mid-air abruptly as the hero held up a hand and halted its flight. Still leaning against the door frame, he plucked the fireball out of the air and 'tossed' it up and down in his hand with a condescending expression behind his sunglasses, looking for all the world like he was about to reprimand a kid for hitting a ball through his window.

"Aren't you a little young to be going into the family business already?" he asked. "What do you call yourself? 'Candle Flame'?"

Dorian ignored the insult. "Sooner or later, the Family will have what they need," he snarled. "You can't protect her all the time, even with all your powers."

This seemed to take Knight-Fire a bit by surprise, judging from the way he tilted his head slightly to one side and the confiscated fireball dissipated. Dorian didn't seem to notice because, she suddenly realized, he was looking straight at her.

What on earth was he talking about?

The young pyro paid for his distraction, though. The next thing he knew, there was a strong hand on his shoulder and a thin silvery band snapped around his wrist. He glared up at the hero and flexed his hands the way he had just moments ago when he'd been making fire, but nothing happened so Nicola guessed that the band neutralized his powers somehow.

There was a rush of wind and another hero appeared – apparently his special ability was high speed flight. She glanced at her classmates who were starting to come out from their hiding places, and she assumed from the expressions on the girls' faces that this was the famous Eagle.

The new hero looked at Dorian curiously. "They don't seem to have a problem with child labor, do they?" he quipped.

"I'm not a child!" snapped Dorian.

The two heroes shared a smirk at his petulant response, and then Eagle took hold of him and flew out the door. He almost collided with a pair of firefighters, who looked around the lab, saw that Knight-Fire had the situation under control and then left, probably to check the rest of the building.

When they were gone, the superhero turned his attention to Nicola. For a moment he just stared at her intently as if he was trying to work something out, and then he seemed to realize he had an audience.

"Okay kids, show's over. Everybody out."

The students trooped out reluctantly as the hero pulled out his cell phone. Nicola lingered at the back of the crowd, hoping to overhear something. She still couldn't imagine how she fitted in to all of this.

"Look under Helen St. John," he was saying into his phone as he rubbed his temples with one hand. Evidently his fire talent wasn't as easy and painless as he made out. "Yeah, I know she's officially dead. How about that unofficial private file you're so good at cracking?"

Nicola was almost at the door when his voice stopped her.

"Not you."

She turned and looked at him. He continued, "Close the door."

As she did so, the person on the other end of his phone call apparently said something because he listened with a slight frown and then looked at her. "Your name Nicola Cantrell?"

Her shocked expression evidently answered his question, because he said into his phone, "Hole in one. See if you can find out who else knows that, and more importantly what else they know about her. Thanks, R2, bye."

He walked over to where she was standing nervously and sat with his back to the door and windows on the edge of an uncharred desk.

"You're adopted, right?" he asked.

She nodded mutely in response. This was so freaky, and actually quite scary. What else did he know about her?

He took off his sunglasses – wasn't it against some superhero code to reveal his secret identity? – to look her in the eye.

"Nicola, your real name is Helen Peace St. John, and you're my cousin."